Local Government Finance (England) — House of Commons, 2016-02-10
Topic: Mixed Topics
Liam Dominic Byrne (Labour, Centre-left): I want to make just three points to the Secretary of State. Let me start by saying that, as he knows, he has enjoyed a good reputation among many Labour Members. I am afraid that that reputation has taken a bit of a battering from the settlement he presented this afternoon. It is with some sorrow that I say that I simply cannot square with any sense of fairness an outcome that means that budgets in Buckinghamshire will rise by 11.5% by 2016-17, while budgets in Birmingham will fall by 10% over the same period. Quite frankly, the battering of Birmingham has gone on for far too long. We had looked to this settlement for some sense of salvation I will be grateful for small mercies, and I am grateful that the Secretary of State recognises Birmingham’s case that there is a fairer funding formula to be had. The challenge is that the Secretary of State does not plan to introduce that new settlement until 2016-17. There is nothing to accommodate the shortfalls in 2014-15 or 2015-16. Yet if we were on the funding formula that the Secretary of State acknowledges would be good, an extra £98 million would be flowing into our city right now The Secretary of State has said that that is not realistic because there is a fixed budget: what comes from one authority is what goes to another. We listened to those arguments, yet in the past couple of days, lo and behold, from down the back of the sofa in the Secretary of State’s office comes £150 million of transitional funding, plus £90 million in rural delivery grant, none of which is available for the city of Birmingham. There is no attempt to address the unfairness of past settlements or to tackle our weaker ability to raise a social care precept, no confirmation of flexibility about capital receipts, no clarity on our four-year settlement, and no way of bringing forward any funding in the better care programme for social care. The reduction in our spending power is twice the national average, despite the extra needs in our city In the weeks to come, I hope that the Secretary of State will reflect on not only the knock-on effects on local government, but the danger of knocking over the health service in east Birmingham. As he knows, my constituency is home to Heartlands hospital, which has been put into special measures, has a £54 million deficit and has now been taken over by Queen Elizabeth hospital. There is unprecedented pressure at the front door and A&E, which is exacerbated because the crisis in the social care system means that it is so much harder to get older residents out and into their homes. The delayed discharge rate at Heartlands hospital has increased over the past year by four times the national average. According to the House of Commons Library, public funding shortages are driving that whopping increase. Delays due to public funding shortages have increased by 1,000% in the past year I put it as gently as I can to the Secretary of State: we have a funding crisis in social care that threatens to knock over our national health service. I know that he will say that funding solutions for social care are coming down the track, but the crisis in our health and social care services is not in the years to come, but now. On top of that, Birmingham City Council anticipates that it will have to take another £92 million from social care in the next couple of years. That is not credible or realistic, but intensely dangerous. Birmingham demands new solutions from the Secretary of State, and not for the years to come. Birmingham needs them now.