Local Government Finance (England)

Mike Wood Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I will turn now to the specifics for the right hon. Gentleman’s constituency. This settlement will see a 7.1% increase in core spending power, and the additional social care grant for next year will be £12.8 million, which is a very significant increase. For the reasons he has just set out, we decided to apply an equalisation to the social care precept, which will ensure that those areas of the country with the lowest tax base will see more funding flow to them, in a redistribution of funding from those areas elsewhere in the country that, as he rightly says, have higher tax bases. We chose to do that at £150 million, which is more than has been done in previous settlements, precisely to answer the point he makes.

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

Local authorities in the top quartile of deprivation are seeing increases averaging £12.3 million next year. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this demonstrates that the Government have listened to the concerns of those local authorities that have been most hard-pressed in recent years?

[Robert Jenrick]

That is absolutely right. My hon. Friend’s own local authority will see a 6.6% increase in its core spending power next year, as a result of this settlement.