Lancashire County Council

Mark Hendrick Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd February 2017 Westminster Hall

[Mr Mark Hendrick (Preston) (Lab/Co-op)]

First, I congratulate the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (David Morris) on securing the debate. I will make a few brief points and then await the Minister’s response.

The hon. Gentleman rightly referred to the independent PricewaterhouseCoopers report, which made the point that Lancashire County Council is currently underfunded and has been for many years—we do not have the time to go into the figures. Lancashire County Council has the third lowest tax base of any of the shire authorities. The list of grants to which the hon. Gentleman referred showed the top-slicing of local government, which is such that prescriptive packets of funding are now given in addition to the rate support grant. He quoted the rate support grant as being only 14% of the total amount of money received. That is right, but only because the RSG has been reduced such that the Government can be more prescriptive about how other grants are spent.

The adult social care grant is obviously important. Despite the linkage between adult social care and the health service, we have seen a £4.6 billion hole in adult social care funding over the past five years, which needs to be filled. The Minister and myself were in the Chamber just now to hear the Communities and Local Government Committee Secretary talk of increases in adult social care funding. Those increases are welcome, but they will not get anywhere near the £4.6 billion required to fill the hole that has been generated over the past five years.

The hon. Gentleman also mentioned that Lancashire, of which Preston is the centre, received the highest rate support grant of any shire authority. It has, because it is the second largest authority in the country after Birmingham City Council. It is a huge area that spends huge amounts of money, much of which has been taken away from it in recent years. Lancashire also has a much higher proportion of older people and people who cannot pay for their own care than any other shire authority. That ageing population puts particular pressures on social services.

Levying the 2% precept on council tax to pay for adult social care will raise just less than £8 million, but Lancashire County Council needs £14 million annually to keep up with the living wage and cost of living increases. However, levying the 2% precept in Surrey will raise £12 million. Is it not time that the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale does what those Conservative politicians in Surrey did and perhaps asks for a sweetheart deal with the Government that could make Lancashire better funded?

PricewaterhouseCoopers says that, even if Lancashire County Council is in the lowest quartile of spend on every service, it will still have a £94 million gap by 2021— even if the 2% precept is levied every year.

Given the brief word the hon. Gentleman and I had before this debate about it not being party political, I was surprised to hear him mention consistently points made by County Councillor Jennifer Mein, the leader of the council. The county council is supposed to be—

[Albert Owen (in the Chair)]

Order. I am sure the hon. Gentleman is coming to the end of his contribution.

[Mr Hendrick]

Yes. I will be 30 seconds.

The hon. Gentleman talked about funding being Preston-centric. He has not accepted invitations to county hall or Westminster to talk about these issues with other MPs from Lancashire. If he looks at the reports from the LEP, he will see that many of those projects are spread throughout Lancashire and are not focused particularly on Preston.