Local Government Finance (England) — House of Commons, 2020-02-24
Topic: Government Operations
Kevan David Jones (Labour, Centre-left): The Secretary of State opened the debate by announcing that this is the best local government funding settlement for a decade. That would not take much beating when we consider what has happened over the past 10 years. In the previous debate, on police funding, I referred to the year-zero approach, because it is as though anything that happened before December 2019 was someone else’s fault and had nothing at all to do with this Government; as though they are a new Administration who are coming in to put everything right. But most of the Ministers now on the Front Bench voted for the austerity of the past 10 years, so it is with some chutzpah that they are now trying to convince us that they had nothing to do with it We also now have a key in-word, which we will hear a lot more of. The hon. Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden) mentioned it when he talked about "levelling up". Well, it will take a hell of a lot of levelling up. I will come on to answer his points about Durham County Council in a minute, because he is clearly going to try to play dog-whistle politics, which does not surprise me at all. He welcomes this statement as though it means extra money for the county council. Yes, this settlement is for this year—it is a one-year settlement. I hope that when the council and the police commissioner put up the local government tax, he does not blame Durham County Council. To do that would be to abnegate his responsibilities, as he would be welcoming it in this place, but saying another thing in County Durham. I look forward to him supporting whatever difficult decision the police commissioner and Durham County Council have to make on the local council tax precept. No doubt, he will try to say something different locally This is a one-year settlement. We now have the so-called new fairer funding formula coming in, but we need to remind ourselves about what has gone on previously. Durham County Council has lost 40% of its budget in the past 10 years. That is £232 million. In the early days, when we had Eric Pickles as Secretary of State, this could all be done by cutting back on pot plants and getting rid of chief officers. Well, I am sorry, but I defy anybody who says that we can get 40% efficiencies out of an organisation and still deliver the same services, because we clearly cannot What we have had today is the Secretary of State saying that we will have a fairer funding settlement that respects need. That is not what the Government have been doing over the past 10 years. On every indication, the funding formula is seeing money being moved from areas of deprivation to areas of affluence. The National Audit Office has identified that. While Durham County Council has taken huge cuts, places such as Surrey and Wokingham have had increases in their core spending budget. We get to a ridiculous situation now where, if we look at 2019-20, core spending per dwelling for Durham is £1,727, whereas for Surrey it is £2,004. People might ask what difference it makes. It comes back to what we have heard for the past 10 years, which is not only that austerity is needed, but that, somehow, everywhere in the country is the same in terms of delivering services—whether in Surrey, in an inner-city metropolitan area or in County Durham. The two main drivers that are swallowing up most of the budget of counties such as Durham are adult social care and looked-after children.