My hon. Friend is quite right. In the first place, we could ensure that we address those legacies of ill health and poverty, which create a greater demand for services and mean that fewer people are able to contribute to them. For example, why does Durham council need to spend more on older people than a similarly sized council such as Surrey? It is not because it is profligate, but because it has higher deprivation and ill health, which lead to greater demand for home care services but mean that fewer people are able to finance that care. Fifteen times as many people receive a community service in Durham than in Surrey and two and a half times more receive a home care service. That demonstrates the huge variation in need across the country.
Those levels do not bear any relation to an authority’s ability to generate income. In Surrey, for example, 75% of the properties are in band D or above. Surrey can generate more income from band D council tax than a similarly sized authority, which is a point that was made earlier. Unless those factors are taken into account in any financial settlement, there is a huge risk to services for those in need.
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A similar combination of need and a more difficult local economic situation can be seen in Halton, my neighbouring authority. One in five people in Halton has a limiting long-term illness, yet its ability to benefit from increased economic growth is more limited than that of other authorities for one simple reason: 22.3% of its business property already has an empty rating assessment, and even if it were all brought back into use it would generate little by way of extra income. The same is true of Liverpool and other big cities, where so much spare capacity exists that even if an extra 15,000 jobs were created, they would get no additional business rate income. When the Government insist that councils concentrate on increasing commercial floor space, the problem is that those who have surplus capacity find things increasingly difficult.