Local Government Finance

First, the hon. Gentleman is wrong about Newham having the highest formula grant settlement of all local authorities in London; in fact, Barking and Dagenham has. Secondly, I share the concerns of many authorities about how good our population statistics are. They are the best and the latest that we can use, but there are clearly ways in which we can improve them to reflect general migration as well as general population changes. I will come to that subject in a moment, which I hope the hon. Gentleman will welcome.