Local Government Finance

Mark Pawsey Excerpts

Monday 8th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

Indeed. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his kind words. Not only Dorset County Council but the districts he represents will find the transitional relief and the rural grant important. I have said that we will remove what has been called the negative grant entirely for 2017, 2018 and 2019. By the time we get to the end year of the settlement, 100% business rate retention will come in anyway, so the figures will be influenced by that. My hon. Friend can therefore look forward with confidence to the review, to which his council and, I dare say, he himself will want to contribute.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

The funding of adult social care has been one of the biggest pressures on our local authorities given that we have an increasingly ageing population. I therefore thank the Secretary of State for listening to the concerns of council leaders such as Councillor Izzi Seccombe, of Warwickshire County Council, who has spoken regularly on this matter. I also thank him for making sure that more money is available through the better care fund to attend to the needs of these particularly important residents.

[Greg Clark]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. He is absolutely right: Izzi Seccombe does an excellent job not only in leading Warwickshire County Council but in her national responsibilities in the Local Government Association. She has been very persuasive in making the case for extra funding, recognising the costs of social care. She is one of the most influential and respected council leaders in the country, and my hon. Friend is lucky to have her.