I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) for bringing this extremely important debate to the Chamber. I echo my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Dan Carden) on the lack of representation from Conservative Members. I hope that is symbolic of how they will do at the local elections.
I have seen Durham County Council staff work extremely hard in a punishing fiscal environment. Along with other Members, I have seen the systematic decimation of our local authorities. I put on the record my sincere thanks to every single council worker and every single Labour councillor. They work extremely hard in these terrible circumstances.
Each time there are further cuts, we wonder if it will be the last year. What else could those who oversee budgets possibly do to cut more money because of repeated Government demands? What more could local authority workers possibly do, with the workload that is piled upon them? Durham County Council has seen its funding cut by half since 2011. It has to make savings of
£43.7 million over the next four years, on top of the Government-inflicted cuts of £209 million since 2011-12, with £15.3 million cut this year alone. That is simply unjustifiable. Local governments across the country are at breaking point.
Millions of pounds cut from spreadsheets means very little, in numerical terms. Everyone here knows the figures. What we know, more than all the numbers, is the devastating impact on our communities. It is the stretch and the strain on child protection services and social services. It is the community centres, which are so cherished by local communities, that have closed. It is the reduced library hours or the closing of libraries. It is swimming pool prices increasing as subsidies dwindle, pricing out the poorest people from being able to go to a local swimming pool. It is the reduction of drug and alcohol services. It is the threadbare social care services. It is the thousands of civil servants and council workers who lose their jobs.
The feel of our communities becomes impoverished. The help that people need, and the way in which people can enjoy their communities, has been stripped bare because the Government do not believe in local government. They wish local government to be vessel entities for privatisation, rather than democratically controlled mechanisms for public ownership.
Let us be under no illusion: cutting the millions of pounds from local government was ideologically driven, with little or no care for the devastating impact it would have on our communities. The Government have stripped bare our local government services. We know how convenient it is for the national Government to devolve cuts to local government when they are Labour-run authorities, because the Government can devolve the blame. I would love the upcoming local elections to be a referendum on the way the Government have treated our local communities. The idea that raising council tax rates, which residents quite rightly dread because they feel the strain on their wages, or business rates retention are some kind of miracle remedy for the years of this punishing Government regime is an absolute joke.
I would love the Minister to come to North West Durham and justify that strategy—to say to my constituents’ faces that this is a serious remedy for the millions of pounds stolen from my area and my council. Councils have faced these funding cuts for nearly a decade now, and for what? What has been achieved? The poorest areas have been hit the hardest and, as always, those who rely on public services the most—those who graft so hard and who are so passionate about their communities —are being punished by the Government.
I wonder how the Government will possibly justify this damning record in our local communities. That will be really difficult. I urge the public to demand so much more from their Government. It is only what they deserve.
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