Councils accused of 'reckless' spending 'with little concern for consequences' in debate over finances

MPs debated the funding for local authorities today in the Commons as Labour claimed plans will result in a “Conservative council tax bombshell”.

Shadow communities secretary Steve Reed said the Government’s plans to allow councils to raise council tax by five per cent will “clobber hard-pressed families”.

However, Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick said the Conservatives have “reduced council tax in real terms under our watch”.

Contributing to the debate, Wakefield Conservative Imran Ahmad Khan said: “Labour's position on this topic, as with so many others, opens them up to allegations of hypocrisy.”

He said many Labour-run authorities “spend money recklessly and with little concern for the consequences”, and he added: “Appreciate how Labour-controlled Wakefield Council have for decades overseen Wakefield city's deterioration.

“In 2008, the council pushed through plans for a £3m market hall against the wishes of local residents and the city's market traders. This scheme has caused the city real hurt and lost an average of £190,000 pounds per year.

“Although vast, it doesn't even cover the former chief executive's £200,000 a year pay. The council chooses to pay its big wigs eye-watering sums, yet fails to deliver vital services.”

And he said that during the snow last week council gritters were “nowhere to be seen”,

Labour's Matthew Morley, who is Wakefield Council cabinet member for highways, previously said council workers had been out since 4.30am "working hard to keep the district moving".

“This sad story of an inefficient and unresponsive local government is repeated in virtually every Labour-run administration,” Mr Ahmad Khan said.

However Labour MP for Batley and Spen Tracy Brabin said councils in West Yorkshire had “stepped up” during the pandemic where the Government had not.

Ms Brabin, who is standing to be mayor of West Yorkshire, said: “They've made sure food and medicine got to those who were shielding, kept essential services like refuse collection and housing maintenance going, provided laptops to disadvantaged students, worked out flat out to get financial support to as many businesses as possible, and decided not to wait for Government to fund free school meals, taking it in house to feed hungry children across West Yorkshire, but more importantly, [they] used local knowledge to transform the failed and chaotic test and trace project to one actually delivers results.”

But she said this was done against a “background of income cuts” and that “hard-working low-paid families shouldn't be the ones picking up the bill for austerity and the pandemic”.

While Gill Furniss, Labour MP for Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough, said even if she did support the five percent increase in council tax, it would not produce the same results around the country to fill the financial blackhole.

Ms Furniss, a former councillor, said: “This policy flies in the face of the Government's levelling up agenda by benefiting wealthier areas. While the five per cent increase in Sheffield would raise £9m, Surrey County Council would raise £38m with the same increase.”

Mr Reed told the Commons: “What the Chancellor and the Communities Secretary trumpeted as an increase in funding for councils was nothing of the sort because what we got instead of the promised end to austerity was a Conservative council tax bombshell.

“The Government made a choice to clobber hard-pressed families with a five per cent council tax rise after the Government’s mistakes led our country into the worst recession of any major economy.

“Make no mistake, this is a Conservative tax hike, made in Downing Street and imposed on hard-working families after the Government’s mistakes left our country facing the deepest recession of any major economy.”

But responding for the Government, Mr Jenrick said: “Labour in local government today is a catalogue of failure, of dysfunction and of waste.

“In Nottingham, the party opposite blew £38m on a failed energy company, made 230 of its employees redundant over Skype, before rewarding themselves with a backdated pay rise.

“Robin Hood Energy, as they describe it. Well, Robin Hood stole from the rich, but Labour’s Robin Hood just stole from everyone.”

Mr Jenrick added: “Hackney Council planted thousands of trees only for them to die due to neglect. Literally Labour dead wood. Even the Labour local government front bench keeps up this tradition, inexplicably taking two shadow secretaries of state to do the job of one actual one.

“While we have reduced council tax in real terms under our watch, they (Labour) have increased it time and time again.”

The leader of Wakefield Council, Denise Jeffery, said: “We have fought for our residents and frontline services, throughout a decade of Government imposed austerity. The reality is that during this time we have faced budget challenges of around £200m, with huge pressures around adult social care just like every council in this country.

"Wakefield has delivered extraordinary financial efficiencies from every corner of the council and has stretched public money to go further than ever before, to ensure we can keep investing in the district’s future.

“It is incredulous that this Government thinks the answer to proper funding is to make residents pay more. Their complete and utter failure to find a proper sustainable funding solution for adult social care is a disgrace. Even now, when they must know how much the pandemic has affected people’s finances, they are still forcing them to pick up bill. This utter disregard that this Government, and now Wakefield’s MP, has for our residents is where the real hypocrisy lies.

"A national solution is needed to find a sustainable and equitable way to fund local government, with a major urgency around long term funding for adult social care. We continue to lobby for this. We, and the residents in this district, need the support of the Wakefield MP to champion this case to national government, not to work against us."