Local Government Finance

I did indeed meet the hon. Gentleman and representatives from the offices of my two colleagues who serve as members in his local borough area. I was impressed by the way in which he put the case, and the way in which the leader of the council and its Labour group jointly put their case. The short answer is that his authority benefits from the protection of the floor system. Secondly, his authority will have an interest, as we discussed, in ways in which we can increasingly improve the population and migration statistics at our disposal for making distribution decisions in the future. The third area, which the hon. Gentleman did not mention, but which we discussed in detail, was the concern the council has to continue progress in regenerating some of the areas where a lot still needs to be done, and to continue the programme started by the council when it was Labour led, which continues now that it is controlled by the Liberal Democrats.