UK Parliament / Open data

Local Government Finance

Proceeding contribution from Clive Betts (Labour) in the House of Commons on Tuesday, 10 February 2015. It occurred during Debate on Local Government Finance.

I will make a little progress and come back to the hon. Gentleman.

There are major issues. Why are local authorities singled out for bigger cuts? Within local government, why have the deprived communities had the largest cuts? Ministers could make a logical, rational argument. They could say that the authorities with the biggest grant might lose the most grant in cash terms. I might not agree with the argument, but I can see a logic to an argument that says because authorities have so much more money given to them historically, they are likely to lose more when cuts are made. Can Ministers sustain an argument that says authorities historically receiving the most grant, the most needy authorities, should therefore have the biggest percentage cuts? What is the logic for that? It is one thing to argue the biggest amount, in cash terms, should come from authorities with the most cash given to them, but why should they have the biggest percentage cuts? What is the logical argument for that? How can it possibly be right that over the period of this Parliament, between 2010-11 to 2015-16, Sheffield’s spending power—I will use the Minister’s own definitions —has fallen by £230.60 per head and Wokingham’s has fallen by £2.29 per head, only 1% of Sheffield’s fall? How can there be any rational, reasonable justification to explain that cut? How can there be?

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
592 cc686-7 
Session
2014-15
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
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