Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Debate between Jon Trickett and Robert Syms

Monday 21st March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Jon Trickett]

My hon. Friend is right. I shall come to that point shortly.

[Mr Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Jon Trickett]

I shall make a little progress, if I may, as a lot of people want to speak in the debate.

I was talking about the unfair distribution of cuts. The three most affluent areas in the country have had the lowest amount of cuts to their Government support since 2010, yet lo and behold, the same three affluent councils then received an extra £33.5 million from the Secretary of State’s transitional grant. That £33.5 million was 10% of the entire amount of transitional grant that was given to the whole country, just focused on the three most affluent councils.

I will give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) if she wishes. It seems she does not. I evidently made such a devastating point that she is still reflecting on it.

Let me draw a comparison between the three most affluent councils and the most deprived councils in the country. [Interruption.] This is an important point. I hope Government Members are not scoffing. Liverpool, Knowsley, Hackney and Manchester not only had the most severe cuts to their budgets since 2010, but they did not receive a single penny in transitional grant. There is no rational explanation for such a distribution of Government largesse. Perhaps the Secretary of State will consider publishing the criteria by which the civil service distributed that £300 million. We have had no luck so far in finding out how he managed to produce a distribution that favoured the richest councils and penalised the most deprived.