Local Government Finance Bill

My hon. Friend makes a good point. One of the very deprived local authorities that the Government were determined to help last year was Wokingham in Berkshire, which saw its budget increase by 0.2%, meaning that every person there has had an additional 30p spent on them. We must take need into account. There are services that County Durham and northern cities need. For example, County Durham has a growing population of elderly people, who are high users of services. Added to that, we have the Government's reduction of the public sector and deficit reduction strategy, which are affecting the economic viability of regions such as the north-east of England. More individuals will therefore use local councils' services. More people will certainly become eligible for council tax benefit as unemployment rises. Need has to be an important element in redistributing this money. We are leaving it up to the Secretary of State to decide how the money will be distributed. In the last debate, the Minister failed to define ““significant””. He used the word on several occasions and was pressed by Members on both sides of the Committee to define what it meant, but he could not come up with an answer. We are again being asked in the Bill to trust the Secretary of State. It will not come as a great surprise to hon. Members that I do not trust the Secretary of State. He is a very political individual who is clear in his philosophy: he will help people who support the Conservative party at the expense of northern councils. He does not care whether those councils thrive or not. Although need is not part of the assessment, let us look at some of the figures. In County Durham, 31% of people live in the 20% most deprived areas of the UK, and 22,805 children, or 21.8% of children, live in households that are defined as living in poverty. In Wokingham, it is just 7% of children. Between January 2011 and January 2012, unemployment in the north-east rose by 19%. It now stands at nearly 12% across the region. As I said earlier, as unemployment rises, the demand on local government services increases, just when the ability for councils such as Durham county council to raise finance is being constricted. We are having to second-guess what the Secretary of State will do. It would be helpful to have the regulations and to know exactly how he will distribute the money. It will be interesting to hear in his response whether the Minister puts any flesh on the bones and says how the money will be distributed. I can imagine that there will be fights between different councils. If the Secretary of State says that deprived Wokingham should get a bigger slice of the pie than Knowsley or my constituency, without explaining or justifying it, I can imagine there being legal challenges. I would not put it past this Secretary of State blatantly to reward the councils that support the Government, just as he has already. It was said on Second Reading and in Committee last week that the impression is being given that all councils up and down the country start from the same point on the journey in terms of need. No, they do not. There are big differences between councils up and down this country in their ability to raise domestic rates of council tax. In the north-east, about 50% of properties are in band A. Even the freedom that councils will have to raise additional revenue if they need to will be restricted. In the last week, the Secretary of State has condemned councils for ignoring his generous offer of allowing them to freeze council tax. Again, that is a highly political move. He is very clever in one respect. He says that councils can take the gold for the next two or three years, but there is no guarantee that they will get it in the year before the next general election. No doubt, he will then force councils to stick up council tax or make further reductions in services. Things have been delegated to local councils, but the poisoned pill of a cut comes with them. Looking at the whole Bill, it is clear that the strategy of the Secretary of State is to blame local councils for the decisions, while he stands back and says that it is not his fault. These are highly political moves. If he is guaranteeing that need will be taken into consideration, it would be better to put it in the Bill than to just give us an assurance and say, ““Trust us.”” Given the suggestion of my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North, I might have to suggest to Durham county council that it renames Marx terrace, Engels terrace and Lenin terrace in Stanley in my constituency. Perhaps one could be called Pickles terrace.