Local Government Finance — House of Commons, 2019-02-05
Topic: Social Welfare
Andrew John Gwynne (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. Communities that need help and assistance after nine years of Tory austerity should not be offered help and assistance in return for getting the withdrawal agreement through this place; they should get it because it is the right thing to do for those communities. He is right to turn down such offers, as he has done If the statistics that I have mentioned were not bad enough, at a time when the Government should be reinvesting in our most deprived communities, helping them and lifting people out of poverty, they propose to cut even further. What we see in this perverse reverse redistribution is another cut to the revenue support grant of £1.3 billion, taking money away from the poorest communities in England. Yes, the Government have announced £1 billion of additional spending in the Budget, and they re-announced it in the provisional settlement and today. But the reality is that the way they propose to distribute that additional money, which does not offset the loss of revenue support grant in absolute terms anyway, is unfair For example, the Government are changing the way that the pothole money they announced is to be allocated. Tories who represent urban constituencies should be worried about that, because the Government are moving away from the type, width and usage of a road and merely using a simplified formula based on length of road. That is great for a constituency with lots of country lanes that are used by one tractor a day and 16,000 sheep, but try telling the people who live on potholed dual carriageways in urban areas that they are losing funding by the fiddle and sleight of hand that Ministers are adopting Children’s services are the biggest single cost pressure facing our local councils. That was one reason why Northamptonshire County Council—it gives me no pleasure to say that it is a Tory council—was the first council to declare bankruptcy not once but twice in the same year. Not only has that caused misery for families and children, but councils have had to squeeze the place-based services that people think they pay their council tax towards to be able to look after children. That is the right thing for councils to do, but the Secretary of State has to understand that £84 million divided by five divided by 20 councils will not resolve the problems facing children’s services in England. Adult social care has a massive £1.5 billion funding gap next year. Where is the Green Paper? It has been delayed and delayed. That can has been kicked so far down the road that it is probably on the country lane with 16,000 sheep In closing—[Hon. Members: "Hear, hear!"] Those on the Government Benches can cheer as much as they like, but they are cheering cuts to the poorest communities. I suspect that many Conservative Members have now forgotten why they came into politics. The Prime Minister was right when she entered Downing Street—it should be about narrowing health inequalities. It should be about caring for those who cannot care for themselves. It should be about dignity in old age and looking after our children. I want, and we on the Opposition side of the House want, to improve the lives of people in every part of the country. We have not forgotten how important it is to deliver for local communities when and where they need it most Not a day goes by but people claim that politicians are all alike, that we are all the same and that there is no difference between the lot of us. They need to look at this debate today, and by doing so they will see that there is a difference between the Secretary of State’s party and ours. Our party—the Labour party—would never hit the most vulnerable like this, and we have a record to prove it. Politicians are not all the same. Some of us remember why and how we got into politics in the first place. A Labour Government will stand up for local communities. After all, Labour councils are leading the way in standing up for the local services that people rely on. A Labour Government will share power with local areas. We need to make sure that they have a Government who will rebuild this country for the many, and not the few.