Local Government Finance

Judith Cummins Excerpts

Wednesday 11th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)]

The final settlement for local government finance does not bring good news for Devon. Research by the Rural Services Network has shown that urban councils will have significantly more Government-funded spending power per head than rural councils.

By 2028-29, urban councils will have seen a 20% increase in Government-funded spending power, compared with an increase of just 2% for rural councils, yet on average, wages in the rural economy are lower than the national average wage. The settlement will place a significantly greater expectation on council tax payers in rural areas to cough up. Let us consider what effects that might have on residents of mid and east Devon by noting what things are already like for people living in one village in east Devon.

Dalwood is a village with a population of about 460. It is half a mile from the main road—an A road—and one of the two access routes to the village has been under water since November. I heard from one resident that the state of the road is so poor that she was charged £1,000 for car repairs as a result of negotiating the pitted, crumbling access road. She makes the point that east Devon residents pay some of the highest rates of council tax in the country. In a league of the highest rates in the country for a band D property, east Devon is rated 305 out of 350, where residents in the 350th local authority are paying the most.

The Government announced last month that they will be making available £7.3 billion for road maintenance over the next four years. When people in Devon hear numbers like that, they wonder whether officials and contractors are going to the cash machine, drawing out the money, mixing it with paste, using it to make papier-mâché and filling the potholes that way. The reality is that the money is not finding its way to Devon.

Devon has the largest road network in the country, at 13,000 km. Last March, the repair backlog for the roads in Devon alone would have required an extra £384 million. The reality is that Devon was able to spend little more than £60 million on road maintenance last year. To take another example, one resident of Sidmouth wrote to me recently to say:

“I for one have paid out for damages to my vehicles in five and a half years the sum of £5,100.”

They continued:

“Here we are living in the UK, an advanced country, with the lanes, A roads and B roads in an appalling state of repair”.

That is the context of the local government settlement as it relates to Devon.

The local government settlement has removed the remoteness uplift from the area cost adjustment. The settlement does this in all the relative needs formulas, with the one exception of adult social care. I am glad that the Government have acknowledged that adult social care costs more when it is delivered in a rural area, but they have shown themselves to be blind to the needs of rural communities by removing the remoteness uplift from other areas of local government, including road maintenance.

Councils in rural areas do not enjoy the same economies of scale as urban areas. The countryside requires more bases from which services can be delivered. It has fewer contractors and less competition. I urge the Government to think again about the remoteness uplift.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call the shadow Minister.