Oral Answers to Questions

Luciana Berger Excerpts

Monday 28th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

4. What assessment he has made of the effects of reductions in formula grant funding on local authorities in the most deprived areas.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

5. What assessment he has made of the effects of reductions in formula grant funding on local authorities in the most deprived areas.

[The Minister for Housing and Local Government (Grant Shapps)]

Authorities in the most deprived areas will, thanks to the banded floors, receive a smaller reduction in formula grant than others. We have given greater weight to relative needs in the formula grant, and our new transition grant will make sure that no council has a spending power reduction of more than 8.8%.

[Grant Shapps]

Here is something for Labour Members to take into account: one cannot take money away from authorities that are not getting it in the first place. Of course, the biggest spenders, even if we use percentages in the same region, are going to feel the impact in a different way. Liverpool, for example, still receives £764 a head, whereas my authority, by contrast, receives £229 a head.

[Luciana Berger]

Will the Minister congratulate Liverpool city council, which is making £100 million-worth of efficiency savings? Does he agree with the independent efficiency expert Colm Reilly of PA Consulting who said that, given the huge cuts in Government funding, the council cannot make the scale of savings necessary without affecting front-line services?