I was rather surprised that the Secretary of State did not make today’s statement, given that a quarter of the Government’s budget is spent by local government. He did the same thing the other day on the fire brigade.
This announcement will not help anybody in Coventry to participate. We need to find another £65 million for the libraries, for instance, and the welfare budget will affect a lot of people from among the worst-off. Equally, we have bed blocking because we cannot get social workers, which affects University hospital Coventry. The settlement is an utter disgrace and it is no good the Minister blaming the previous Labour Government when he and I know that it was the bankers he is apologising for.