Local Government Finance

The hon. Gentleman might enjoy such a reference or he might be rather embarrassed by it, but he will have to wait for a while. All I have heard from the hon. Gentleman is a lot of waffle, preceded by an anecdote about serving meals on wheels in the 1980s. Will he address the central statistical point, which is that in 10 years of Labour Government there has been a real-terms funding increase of almost 40 per cent., whereas in the last term of the Tory Government there was a 7 per cent. real-terms cut? Is that not worth rather more than his anecdotes and waffle?