Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council

John Healey Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

As I said when the Jay report was released, our whole town was shocked and shamed by its findings. This report is also deeply and comprehensively critical of our council and our police. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) has said, Labour accepts Louise Casey’s findings and the actions the Secretary of State now plans to take. Locally, we will all work with the commissioners to put right in full the flaws set out in this report and to put in place in full the recommendations of the Jay report to help victims and bring perpetrators to justice. The Secretary of State has made a welcome promise to play his part. Will he start by releasing £750,000 of troubled families and transformation award funding withheld from Rotherham that the council and its agencies need to help to put right the problems set out in the Casey report?

[Mr Pickles]

That, clearly, is one of the first things I will look at. If the right hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I really want to address the elephant in the room. He said that Labour would do this. I do not expect anything less. I do not regard this as political at all. I fully understand that we are in a charged political system, but this is about a failure of local government. I could point to lots of Conservative local government where this would never happen. I have to tell the House that I could point to lots of Labour local government where this would not happen. This is almost a complete parody of what local government should look like.