Local Government Finance (England) — House of Commons, 2022-02-09
Topic: Mixed Topics
Michael Lee Amesbury (Labour, Centre-left): Every morning, I think. No wonder he stated that he was disappointed that council tax went up by a massive 31% between 2010 and 2021 while the area base grant has been cut, on average, by 37%. Tory Ministers have just piled the pain on to hard-pressed families, who pay more while receiving fewer services that are vital to making life work in our communities The Secretary of State has been waxing lyrical about the core spending power. Does he think that our residents, communities and constituents have missed the fact that inflation is at its highest for 30 years? Taking that into account outs this settlement for what it is: a 2.2% reduction compared with last year. It is a settlement that assumes local authorities will all raise council tax by the maximum amount without needing a referendum, meaning that councils will have to choose whether to raise much-needed funding while being well aware of the real financial pressures on households. The social care precept on top of the social care levy create a double whammy of taxation for residents, while providing insufficient resources for adult social care, according to the Tory leader of Surrey County Council. Indeed, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst raised exactly that point The draft of the settlement also came with another announcement, because the Government have once again kicked local government finance reform—the fairer funding review—into the long grass. It is desperately needed. Council tax as the main source of local authority income, as hon. Members across the House have said, is inherently unfair and regressive. We need that funding review very soon indeed The reform of business rates is another thing that we apparently will not see this year. We desperately need a new system that reflects the modern nature of business, that has some relation with money that goes through the till, that rebalances our high street versus online, and that boosts local economies rather than stifling them. However, we are of course not getting that. Could there be a clearer sign that the Government do not have a real plan The Secretary of State mentioned the announcement earlier this month of the £150 council tax rebate. We would very much like to see the detail of that, because we have had little so far. Indeed, our councils’ financial officers and leaders have had little information. How are councils to be involved in handing out that money? Will it be by cash, cheque or electronic payment? In some areas, such as Manchester, 49% of residents do not pay by direct debit, so there are some real practical difficulties there. Have the Secretary of State or the Minister estimated how much the administration will cost These woefully inadequate short-term fixes will not stop the cost of living crisis. The Government choosing to put taxes up on working people—the Government cannot escape the fact that they are now at a 70-year high—while cutting benefits and utterly failing to tackle rising food and energy bills simply pushes more people into poverty. Of course, the money is spare change compared with the £15 billion that our communities have had taken away over the last 12 years. Finances have gone that could have kept vital services open. Instead, the public now do not have 921 libraries, over 1,000 children’s centres and 368 swimming pools, to name but a few. The public health grant has been cut, but we are not quite out of the covid/omicron crisis at the moment. Real-terms increases are desperately needed We do not have a Secretary of State for Levelling Up; he is quite rapidly becoming the Minister for closing down, boarding up and laying off. The Government have kept our regional towns and cities down and held them back. No wonder this week’s newspapers representing communities across the north used their front pages to plead with the Secretary of State not to leave them behind, after 12 years. They pointed out the fact—this is a damning indictment of the inequality under this Government—that a baby girl born in Salford will, on average, die 10 years earlier than one born in the Secretary of State’s Surrey constituency. I know that he will not be at all proud of that fact, but he really needs to do something about it In conclusion, the sad truth is that the Government have left people and communities behind for over 12 years. We now know that they simply do not have a plan to change; they just have a scorecard with 12 mission statements of failure over the last 12 years. We know that, as a nation, we can do better than this. Any genuine levelling up of our communities will chiefly be delivered by local authorities. They need three-year settlements. The funding needs to be adequate, with long-term resources, devolved freedoms and budgets that reflect the work that local authorities put into their communities—communities that are genuinely powered up to deliver the fair and green future that our constituents and our nation require.