Local Government Finance Bill

A bit far, perhaps. The Government know exactly what they are doing. As I said on Second Reading, their strategy is quite clear: they want to give freedoms to local councils, push decision making down as far as possible and then, when they have cut grants, as they will with council tax benefit and others, they will say to local people, ““Well, it's your local council that has to decide how and where the cuts come.”” The Government will stand back and say, ““We're sorry, but it's nothing to do with us.”” That is the clever side of it. Part of their strategy is about making sure that they save money and cut it out of the system but that local councils, rather than themselves, get the blame for implementing the cuts.