Local Government Funding

Debate between Tom Blenkinsop and Baroness Bray of Coln

Monday 6th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Angie Bray]

I thank my hon. Friend for that contribution. Of course, I agree that it is a great thing to get local authorities back to doing what they do best, which is to work closely with their local residents to ensure that they give them what they need.

As hon. Members have said, many local authorities across the country are considering how they can take out costs in their back rooms by working together to run services. My hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis (James Morris) mentioned Kensington and Chelsea borough council getting together with Westminster city council and Hammersmith and Fulham council to do just that. Those boroughs happen to make up my previous London assembly seat and they are all, I should add, Conservative-run. They are doing what local councils should be doing—making efficiency savings in bureaucracy where possible, rather than hitting front-line services.

My local, Labour-led council, Ealing, has been quick to announce plans for a range of cuts, including cutting day care centres, a child protection officer and more than 50% of park rangers. Enviro-crime officers are also to be cut, from 23 to 12, yet it is happy to find £3 million for new computers at the town hall and, quite disgracefully, it is to continue funding full-time trade union officials to the tune of £250,000 a year.

[Tom Blenkinsop]

Regarding non-statutory duties and youth services, about which we have heard from the hon. Members for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) and for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell), would the hon. Lady like to condemn the Prime Minister, who is funding pilot schemes for big society youth projects in the summer with people who are not qualified in youth training?

[Angie Bray]

I am happy to take that point on board, but I am going to make progress.

The spending decisions that I mentioned are clearly not the priorities in which the people of Ealing are interested, and they really ought to be reconsidered. Unfortunately, I suspect that politics has played a large part in them. They were entirely avoidable, but the council hoped to make the coalition Government take the blame. I expect the public to be a little cleverer than that. They know, as we all do, that we are in a black financial hole because of the previous Labour Government, and my constituents will not be impressed by poor spending decisions that allow day care centres to be closed or park rangers to lose their jobs while full-time trade union officials are kept in cushy jobs in which they do nothing to support the local community. I will oppose the motion.