Provisional Local Government Finance Settlement
Debate between Jim McMahon and Peter Dowd(5 days, 16 hours ago)
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Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)
I would prefer to see the wise men and women on Labour’s Front Bench than Ebenezer Scrooge and Jacob Marley on the Conservative Front Bench. Does the Minister agree that the statement he has made today is in stark contrast to the legacy left by the Conservative party, which left local government in dire straits?
Jim McMahon
That is the point: the previous Government knew just how bad the situation was, but they put off the tough decisions. For example, how many times in 14 years did the previous Government promise that they would go back to multi-year settlements so that councils knew where they were, but failed to do so? How many times did the previous Government say that they would bring in a fair funding review, but failed to do so? How many times did the previous Government say that they would deal with the audit backlog? They did not just fail to do that; the backlog got worse. If we had not taken action, it would have been 1,000 sets of audited accounts, and that was not due to covid, because those accounts went back to 2015. That failure was systemic, and it was all on the watch on the previous Government. What that meant in practice was £100 billion of public money that they could not account for, so they did not really know the state of the sector, because they completely gave up on monitoring it.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Jim McMahon and Peter Dowd(3 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Jim McMahon
Within the first couple of days of this Government, the Deputy Prime Minister wrote to local authority leaders, inviting them for discussions on devolution agreements. One of the founding principles is, of course, geography that makes sense—and having coterminous boundaries for public services and the rest does make sense. Without going into the specifics of individual conversations that are taking place, I advise the hon. Member to bring that point into the work on the English devolution Bill, which will make sure that all of England has a voice and a role in devolution.
Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)
The Deputy Prime Minister has shown that her footwork at the Dispatch Box is as good as her footwork on the dance floor. At this year’s election, veterans who brought along their veterans’ ID card to prove their identity were turned away. Will the Minister guarantee that this will change?