Budget Statement

Baroness Eaton Excerpts

Monday 4th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Eaton (Con)]

I declare my interest as a vice-president and former chairman of the Local Government Association. It is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie; in the past, it has usually been on matters of local government, where I take my hat off to him for being one of the most informed people on the subject. I have not always agreed with his decisions but I have been impressed by his knowledge.

To help the country to meet the challenges ahead, local government need the funding and fiscal freedoms to get on and deliver the high-quality public services and infrastructure that help our communities to thrive. The Chancellor made announcements in his Budget that will make a positive difference to local areas. Perhaps most importantly, as mentioned by many speakers today, he has recognised that our housing crisis is one of the most pressing issues we face as a country. It is good news that there will be more investment in housing and infrastructure, support for SME builders, and a greater focus on tackling rising homelessness. The Government have shown that they can be ambitious about tackling the country’s problems head-on by committing to building 300,000 homes a year.

However, we must remember that councils must be allowed to play their part if we are to meet these kinds of targets. We heard from the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, about Harold Macmillan building 250,000 to 300,000 homes a year, but he did not mention that 40% of them were built by councils. Back then, local government was trusted to get on with things and to deliver. It is therefore encouraging to see that councils in areas of high affordability pressure will receive additional borrowing powers to deliver much-needed homes for their communities. That is an important first step, but I would like to see the Government be much bolder and give every council in the country greater freedom to borrow to build new homes.

I believe that there are areas where the Government could go much further, especially in child and adult social services. I know that the Chancellor mentioned the local government finance settlement in his Statement to the other place. I would like to put on record some areas that I think the Government should prioritise as Ministers agree funding allocations for councils. Above all else, the Government must find the funds to ease the financial difficulties facing adult social care and children’s services—service areas that other noble Lords have already mentioned. Funding gaps and rising demands are placing hugely increasing pressures on councils. As the Local Government Association has highlighted, almost 60p in every £1 of council tax could have to be spent caring for children and adults by 2020, unless there are changes. It is not just councils saying this. In its report on the country’s economic and fiscal outlook, the Government’s Office for Budget Responsibility wrote:

“Local authorities remain under pressure as demand and costs for both adult and children’s social care rise”.


Such pressures are taking money from other services that keep our communities running, such as cleaning streets, gritting roads and many other services that communities rely on. In order to build desperately needed homes, create jobs, improve health and care support for our most vulnerable and boost economic growth, all councils need greater freedom from national government to take decisions over services in their areas. They also need the long-term resources to meet the demanding financial position in adult and children’s services.

The Budget made some progress, most notably on housing. I welcome that, but I hope that the Government will use the upcoming local government finance settlement to tackle the other issues that I raised today, which were not included in the Budget Statement.