David Simmonds

My hon. Friend draws attention to another significant issue facing local authorities: the level of uncertainty. Money has been promised, then withdrawn. Budgets have been allocated, then reduced. In that context, I am sure that her constituents will be as concerned as I am that so much of this money is simply built into massive tax rises across the country. I will turn briefly to business rates. We know, including from the question that the hon. Member for Stourbridge (Cat Eccles) asked at Prime Minister’s questions, the pressure being felt acutely on our high streets, especially in hospitality and retail. A business owner in my constituency told me yesterday that across his food franchise, the business rates rise alone is an additional £100,000 a year. That is a lot of entry level jobs at risk. It means price rises for consumers, fuelling inflation. The rise is a barrier to investments in our high streets, and that situation is replicated across the country. Let us not forget that under the previous Government—this is one of the things of which we are most proud—an average of 800 new jobs were created every single day we were in office. Let us never cease to remind those on the Government Benches that unemployment has risen in every single month of this Labour Government. They are a Government who clearly do not respect our local colleagues. They refer to leaders as mere community convenors. They seek to reduce our councillors’ level of discretion. They create uncertainty through a lack of clarity on reorganisation, on special educational needs and disabilities deficits and on whether mayoral elections are going ahead. That comes at a time when thousands of voters are being denied a say by this Government through the cancelling of elections. That situation is caused solely by the Secretary of State’s abject failure to deliver the Government’s devolution plans to the proposed timetable. It is one thing to cancel elections in a council that is about to be abolished, so that voters can instead choose its replacement. It is very much another thing to defer elections indefinitely while we wait for the Secretary of State to get his act together. Our councils and our communities deserve a better settlement than this. I will conclude with some points that I hope the Minister will address in the summing up. One of the most striking things about this settlement is that the Secretary of State has come to the Chamber and said that the key priority for this Government is addressing poverty and deprivation. Poverty and deprivation do not feature in this local government funding settlement. They are not part of this formula that the Secretary of State is asking us to agree. What is striking is the things that he says are important. He talked about vulnerable children in education, but it is cash flat, same as last year. Virtual schools are cash flat. The revenue support grant for local authorities is cash flat. Personal advisers to care leavers are cash flat. Money for supporting local authorities with social care, which was specifically described as a priority, is cash flat. Buy one, get one free campaigns intended to reduce obesity in the public health environment have a 50% reduction. Even Awaab’s law, which was championed at the Dispatch Box just a short time ago by the Minister for Housing and Planning sees a cut of £26,000 from its paltry beginnings. Perhaps the Secretary of State will reflect that what he is announcing is essentially a massive shift of funding away from the statutory duties and obligations that this Parliament has placed on our local authorities to those favoured political areas that the Government see as their priorities for the future.