Local Authority Financial Sustainability: NAO Report

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Me...

I have already spoken about the cuts facing the East Riding of Yorkshire Council. My constituency...

I agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend. As I said, I find it bitterly surprising. When we tal...

I was a councillor for 10 years in a local authority in the north of England and I totally agree ...

I am grateful to the hon. Lady. I will be kind to her because she was my son’s German teacher at ...

In my constituency, Peterborough is run by a Conservative council, which has come to me and said,...

I absolutely agree. The Tory-controlled Local Government Association and Tory-controlled County C...

I am delighted my hon. Friend has made that point. We are trying to argue that this matter is not...

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. One of the two local authorities that I represent, T...

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. The situation is similar in my own local authority of Nott...

I will let the Minister speak for herself. We know that local authorities have to provide social ...

Exactly. There are cuts to the local library service, for example. Local libraries have had to re...

Absolutely. Those are the pressures facing our communities. We talk about local services as thoug...

Does my hon. Friend agree that the situation is a clear case of knowing the price of everything a...

It absolutely is, but if it was compounded by Tory mismanagement at local level in Northamptonshi...

We have talked a lot about percentages and money, but I want to mention something a little more i...

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Indeed, it is worse than that because we need to rebuild thes...

The Government talk the good talk on social mobility and say how important that is, but at the mo...

Absolutely. This is about our museums, heritage, and cultural services—the glue that makes our co...

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans—for the first time, I believe. I cong...

But that is not a single penny extra from central Government. All the Minister has done is shift ...

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention and repeat: the money from this Government has i...

That still equates to a 3% reduction from 2010 to 2017. It is a real-terms reduction.

I am always delighted to hear the dexterity of mathematicians in this building. It is £44 billion...

Listening to the figures being presented, I understand the proposition that there has been an inc...

The hon. Lady makes her point very elegantly, but I prefer the dress she is wearing today to ones...

Will the Minister ensure that no council gets less money as a consequence of the new funding form...

Much as I would love to do that, I think the safest thing I can do is refer the hon. Lady to the ...

rose—

Will the Minister give way?

No, I am going to carry on. As I said, alongside the new methodology, the Government are committe...

On that point, if I am not able to make the point that I was going to make previously, I want to ...

Yes, indeed. Forgive me for repeating myself, Mr Evans: 25% will go to the councils that do not h...

The Minister says 25%. Hull City Council currently relies on the Government revenue grant for 81%...

The business rates for the City of London are many, many millions of pounds. The money that is sp...

Of course, this is not just about the councils that are unable to raise enough business rates to ...

I would be devastated if that happened and I cannot imagine why it would happen, with the growing...

At what stage will the Government legislate, as they previously stated they would, to ensure that...

I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman will have to wait for that to happen.

I referred to a b...

Does the Minister agree with us that, actually, a fair funding formula is about the requirements ...

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that kind invitation; I am sure that eventually that will happen. ...

I thank you, Mr Evans, and the Minister. Of course, I too am disappointed at the austerity clearl...