Covid-19: Funding for Local Authorities

Mick Whitley Excerpts

Tuesday 24th November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali) for securing this debate. I want to begin by paying tribute to Wirral Council for the incredible support it has provided to my constituents during the pandemic. This includes instituting a greatly deserved pay rise for care workers, helping homeless people off the streets and into appropriate accommodation, co-ordinating mutual aid efforts and providing much-needed financial support to residents whose livelihoods have been devastated by the lockdown restrictions.

Despite all the difficulties that council workers have faced themselves, their commitment to the poorest and most vulnerable people in our community has always shone through. As a matter of local pride, I would argue that Wirral Council is exceptional, but I note that its efforts are being replicated nationwide and all hon. Members will have similar stories to share.

After years of being underfunded, marginalised and overlooked, local authorities have risen to meet the challenges of covid-19 admirably. This year has shown what a vital role councils play, not just in the provision of services, but as powerful advocates for those people whose voices are too rarely listened to by central Government.

I commend the resolve shown by the metro Mayors, Steve Rotheram and Andy Burnham, when the Government plunged their regions into a tier 3 lockdown with only cut-price financial support, and I was deeply moved by the testimony of the newly elected leader of Wirral Council, Jeanette Williamson, as she opposed the Government’s callous decision to let children go hungry over the holidays. I was also very glad to work so closely with council leaders from across Merseyside in successfully lobbying for the reopening of gyms and leisure centres before the current lockdown was announced.

But now our councils face an uncertain future. Across the country, the threat of cuts to frontline services and even bankruptcy looms. Expenditures have soared while income in the form of business rates, council tax and parking charges has plummeted. Wirral Council faces a black hole of £60 million in its budget, and it is not alone. Last week, the County Councils Network warned that 60% of its members anticipate having to make a fundamental reduction in frontline services, while just one fifth are confident that they can set a balanced budget next year. At a time of spiralling unemployment and a public health crisis unlike any known in our lifetime, we simply cannot afford further cuts to already overstretched and underfunded frontline services. The human cost would be unthinkable.

In March, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government promised that the Government would support councils in doing whatever it would take to protect their communities. Now it is time to honour that promise. The Government should listen to the Local Government Association and provide a minimum of an additional £8.7 billion in core funding over the next financial year. Councils in areas as diverse as Wirral, Nottingham and Gloucestershire have also called for the cancellation of debt held by the Public Works Loans Board. That would massively increase the spending power of local authorities and allow them to make critically important investments in housing, adult social care and green development.