Local Government

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Tuesday 27th November 2018 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Pinnock]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that the planned local government fair funding allocation will provide local authorities with the resources needed to provide sufficient and effective local services.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and Wales Office (Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth) (Con)]

My Lords, I am pleased to say that we are making good progress on the development of a funding formula that aims to provide a simple, transparent and accurate link between local authority relative needs and resources and available funding. The new funding formula will sit alongside the conclusions of the planned spending review, which will settle how much money is available to local authorities.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

I thank the Minister for his response. I hope he is aware—I am sure he is—that the Institute for Fiscal Studies reports that, in the past eight years, real-terms spending on council services has fallen on average by 24% per person and in more deprived communities by up to 35% per person. Simply dividing this shrunken pot in a different way will fail to address the real and serious problem of the underfunding of local services. Will fair funding ensure that the total available is significantly higher than it is now?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, the noble Baroness makes a persuasive point, but as I have just indicated, these are two separate things that are sitting alongside each other. The fair funding formula will be looking at redressing some of the imbalances that exist at the moment in a relative sense, but alongside that of course is the spending review next year, which, hopefully, will be doing some of the things that the noble Baroness and I—and, indeed, many others—would want it to do.