Kerry McCarthy
Main Page: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
I want to echo what colleagues have said about the need for certainty on funding coming into councils. As the Secretary of State will know, Bristol is facing £104 million of cuts over the next few years. We need to know whether we have to make other cuts. May I press him on a couple of changes that would help us to raise our own finance? One is scrapping the annual rent reduction rule, and the other is allowing us to spend all right-to-buy receipts on new housing, which would free up other money for investment. Will he talk to Bristol City Council about being able to do those two things, which would help us to pay for this work ourselves?
Sajid Javid
In the light of the pressures on local authorities, it would make sense to look carefully at policies that may help them to meet some of the challenges, and that is something we have already started doing.