Jack Dromey
Main Page: Jack Dromey (Labour - Birmingham, Erdington)Local Government Finance (England)
Jack Dromey Excerpts(8 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
Birmingham has been hit by the biggest cuts in local government history, with cuts of £90 million next year. The city put a powerful case for a fair deal and transitional funding. How can it be right that Birmingham got not one penny in transitional funding, but Surrey got £12 million and Cheshire East, in the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s constituency, got £3 million? It is simply not fair.
Mr Reed
My hon. Friend makes an important point. Actually, Surrey got more than £12 million. Surrey, which of course is where the Secretary of State just happens to be an MP, gets the most of any council. [Interruption.] The council next door to where the right hon. Gentleman happens to be an MP gets the most, with £24 million. Hampshire gets £19 million, Hertfordshire gets £14 million and the Prime Minister’s campaigning mum—admirable woman that she is—will be very pleased to see that Oxfordshire gets £9 million.
I am not criticising what those councils are getting. They did not deserve the scale of the cuts the Government had lined up for them, but then neither do Middlesbrough, Knowsley, Hull, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Darlington and all the other more deprived areas that have suffered far deeper cuts in the past six years but have been offered absolutely no help whatever.
Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
Respecting that discipline, I shall be brief. Birmingham is a great city—the city of Chamberlain, the birthplace of municipal governance, the birthplace of municipal enterprise, a city with great potential, and a dynamic city—but it is a city of high need. My constituency may be rich in talent, but it is one of the poorest in the country. If someone gets on the train at the new Grand Central station and gets off at Erdington or Gravelly Hill, they are likely to live seven years less than if they continue on the train to Sutton Coldfield.
The city is now suffering the biggest cuts in local government history—£500 million already, another £250 million at the next stages, £90 million this year—and the city is the victim of grotesque unfairness. MPs of all political parties met the Secretary of State and we put a powerful case for fair funding and for transitional funding. We welcomed the fact that ultimately the Government want to move to a new fair funding formula, but what happens in the next three to four years is crucial.
We put a strong case, the Government listened, the Government moved, then they gave Birmingham not one penny, yet they were able to shell out for Wokingham, Surrey, Cheshire East, Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Kent and Worcestershire. It is fundamentally wrong. It cannot be right that areas of high need are treated in that way at a time when the Government say they want to move to a new needs-based formula. It cannot be right.
Let me conclude, so that my hon. Friends the Members for Redcar (Anna Turley) and for St Helens South and Whiston (Marie Rimmer) may speak. The Government should recognise the consequences of their actions. School crossing patrols, which are vital to the safety of kids going to and from school, are at risk. Home-Start in my constituency, which has given outstanding support to parents who are struggling in their lives and struggling to bring up their kids, is at risk. In a city where 100,000 people are in need of social care, many of those people—the elderly, the disabled and the vulnerable—will not now get the care they should be entitled to in a civilised society. What the Government have done is fundamentally wrong: they have ignored need and looked after their own, and that is something that no Government should ever do.
