Rosie Cooper
Main Page: Rosie Cooper (Labour - West Lancashire)Department Debates - View all Rosie Cooper's debates with the Cabinet Office
(9 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Deputy Prime Minister
I know that the Minister for Universities, Science and Cities was recently at Alderley Park, and I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s personal contribution to the Alderley Park taskforce. I am pleased that through the local growth deals Cheshire and Greater Manchester secured an allocation from the Government of £20 million towards their joint £4 million LEP life science investment fund. More broadly, we must build on strengths in the health care sector in the north of England. That is why in last week’s Budget £20 million was announced for the “health north” initiative, which will enable better care for patients and promote medical innovation in the north of England.
Rosie Cooper (West Lancashire) (Lab)
T2. Through local growth deals and local enterprise partnerships the Government claim to be giving local communities greater control over spending priorities with one hand, yet they savagely make cuts with the other. That means a real failure to deliver projects in places such as West Lancashire that are on the edges of our cities, and they are missing much of the investment that could be made. In the final stages of this Government, will the Minister acknowledge that that has not been fair to all our communities?
The Deputy Prime Minister
This is the second time the issue has been raised, and it would be so much easier to take seriously the hon. Lady’s concern about savings that have been asked of local government were it not for the fact that the shadow Chancellor has said that hundreds of millions of pounds would be asked of local government in further cuts if the Labour party won the next election. Which is it? Does the Labour party believe that further savings need to be made from local government, or not? Officially it says that those savings will need to be made, even in the next Parliament as we continue to balance the books, yet in this House the hon. Lady and her colleagues somehow think that no savings are required whatsoever. I am afraid savings will continue to be required until we have finished balancing the books and balancing them fairly.