Local Government Finance

How can this be a settlement for Enfield based on the principles of stability and fairness, when on the one hand the Government give a 4.5 per cent. grant increase, which appears generous compared with the rest of London, but on the other hand they take away £5 million in clawback through the dampening effect? That is the equivalent of the adult social services bill that the Treasury had previously determined was needed. How can the Minister justify that, and how can he look council tax payers squarely in the face and say, as it does on his press release, that we can make a £60 reduction in their council tax bills?