Robert Neill
Main Page: Robert Neill (Conservative - Bromley and Chislehurst)
Mr Pickles
The hon. Lady makes an extraordinary point. Let us be absolutely clear: Liverpool receives the enormous amount of £2,836 per household and its cut is on the average. The hon. Lady has made a point that I have often heard in this Chamber, namely: why are other parts of the country not receiving a bigger cut? Let us put this in context. I have the figures for Liverpool. In terms of the old formula grant—the start-up funding allocation—Liverpool receives £386 million, Manchester £391 million, Birmingham £783 million. Windsor and Maidenhead, however, receives £28 million, Wokingham £31 million and West Oxfordshire £5 million. Essentially, the hon. Lady is asking those authorities, which already contribute to the national pool, to increase their council tax by somewhere in the region of 60%. That does not seem like a sensible thing to do.
Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend, in due course, give the House further details of the efficiency support grant, which is a very welcome element of the statement? Will he confirm that it is a new initiative that, for the first time, will reward authorities that get on and do things, rather than subsidise those who sit back, carry on with the old ways and expect to be bailed out by central Government?
Mr Pickles
My hon. Friend will recall that that grant comes from the working neighbourhoods fund. When he and I were looking at that a couple of years ago, we found that the departing Labour Government had left no money to pay for it. We thought that that was completely unacceptable, so we created a transitional grant to help with the process. I am delighted to say that we are now down to about seven authorities that need such help. We are saying to those authorities, “You can’t expect the rest of local government to pay for you not doing the right thing. Provided that you give an undertaking that you will look towards better corporate government, joint working and getting your base down, we will give you the money next year, but if you haven’t made progress by the end of the year, you won’t get anything the following year.” It is completely unfair for local government to subsidise people who are being inefficient.