Mr Andrew Snowden

As winter takes its toll, many Members of this House will, like me, be finding their best angry faces and awkwardly pointing at potholes in their constituencies, but this year many residents are getting in touch with me to say that this is the worst they can ever remember them being. In fact, one of the potholes that is sparking quite a few emails to me is a giant one right outside Reform UK’s office in the Fylde constituency, which is becoming a little metaphor for the rocky road that Reform has had since winning control of Lancashire county council. Reform promised to magically save hundreds of millions of pounds, to improve services and to cut council tax, but what have we seen so far? Council tax has gone up, and Reform went millions of pounds over budget within months of taking office and then it tried to settle some of that overspend by consulting on closing care homes, such as Milbanke in Fylde and Grove House in the Chorley constituency. Will the Leader of the House agree to have a Government statement on what support they will provide to these Reform-controlled councils, given that it clearly won control of them with no idea of what it was getting into or a plan of what to do once it did?