Provisional Local Government Finance Settlement

Debate between Tom Gordon and Jim McMahon

Wednesday 18th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jim McMahon]

That is exactly right. We have approached this year as very much a recovery operation. We could see that councils were in the ditch and needed to be pulled out and taken home, and that is exactly what this one-year settlement will do. However, what they need and deserve is a multi-year settlement that gives long-term security and stability, and for that long-term settlement not to be the continuation of a broken system, but a system that has been rewired and put right. With the fair funding review, the multi-year settlement and the reform agenda, putting prevention at the heart of public services, we will begin to achieve the end to which my hon. Friend rightly points.

[Tom Gordon (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (LD)]

We have heard a lot from colleagues about the delivery of rural services. Harrogate and Knaresborough was one of the areas that saw local government reorganisation, and we are now geographically the largest council in England. So what reassurances will there be on making sure that rural services can be provided? One of the biggest barriers the council faces is being able to deliver home to school transport, the cost of which has gone from £5 million just a few years ago to what is expected to be over £25 million this year.

[Jim McMahon]

I have covered the rural services element before, so I will home in on the home to school transport issue, which I know is a huge issue in many county council areas, where children are carried further away to get to schools. I will be honest and say that some of that is absolutely required, and has always been required, but quite a lot of it is the result of a broken system in which education is not being provided in local communities and parents have been forced to move further out. The plan we have to rebuild education and to invest in schools, some of it funded through impositions on private schools to get that money into the state sector, is about rebuilding local education provision so that parents have the choice and the confidence to go to the state school nearest to their home. That will have an impact on council budgets for home to school transport.