That this House has considered funding of local authorities on Merseyside.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I begin by thanking Mr Speaker for granting this debate, and I also thank Members from across Merseyside for attending today. I look forward to hearing their contributions.
According to analysis by the National Audit Office on selected main revenue income sources for local authorities, in 2010 Government funding for local authorities in England was just over £34 billion. Over the course of the next decade it decreased steadily, and by 2020 Government funding to local authorities in England was just over £8 billion. The cut of funding from £34 billion to £8 billion is staggering, and goes a long way to explain why we have seen the widespread erosion of public services. It represents a cut of around 76.5%. In other words, local authorities are being expected to continue to provide public services when they are receiving a fraction of the money they used to receive from central Government. No wonder our communities are feeling it.
If we look at Merseyside in the context of those National Audit Office figures, we see that the Government funding cuts that its local authorities have suffered are even higher than the England average. In my own local authority of Wirral, in 2010 the council received just over £266 million in Government funding, but by 2020 that figure was down to just over £40 million—a reduction of around 85%. Colleagues will be only too aware that it is a similar story elsewhere in Merseyside, and I am sure that we will be hearing details of the impact of those cuts.
I ask the Minister to listen closely to the figures that I am about to share. In Knowsley, the same National Audit Office figures show that in 2010 the local authority received more than £243 million in Government funding; that figure was down to just over £35.6 million in 2020—a reduction of around 85.3%. In Liverpool, in 2010 the local authority received more than £560 million from the Government, but by 2020 that figure was down to just over £75 million—a reduction of around 86.6%. In St Helens, in 2010 the local authority received more than £151 million, but in 2020 it received just over £16 million—a reduction of around 89.4%. In Sefton, in 2010 the local authority received more than £203 million, but 2020 saw it receive just over £16.7 million. That is a drop of around 91.8%.
I thank my hon. Friend for raising the issue of Woodchurch leisure centre and swimming pool, and for all her hard work in leading the campaign to keep its doors open. She has made some excellent points in her speech. She will know that, as well as serving many other constituents, the Woodchurch is an invaluable community asset for some of the poorest communities in Birkenhead, including the Prenton and Noctorum estates. Like the Woodchurch estate in my hon. Friend’s constituency, people living in those communities have far worse health outcomes than their peers in more affluent areas of the Wirral. Does my hon. Friend agree that closing this cherished institution would deal a grievous blow to the invaluable work that has gone on in recent years to improve the health of people living in the most left-behind communities that we represent?
I thank my hon. Friend for his excellent contribution. He is absolutely right, and he is right about the health deficit in the area. Woodchurch has a higher percentage of people with long-term health conditions and disabilities than the borough as a whole. He has anticipated the next part of my speech with regard to the surrounding areas, which are so important. It really is important that we save this swimming pool.
The Woodchurch leisure centre and swimming pool are much loved by residents and groups, including Woodchurch swimming club, and as my hon. Friend said, the facilities serve thousands of people across Wirral, including communities in Woodchurch, Upton, and the Beechwood and Noctorum estates.
Leisure centres and swimming pools are vital to the health, wellbeing and relaxation of people in Wirral. The Woodchurch estate has a far higher proportion of people with long-term health issues and disabilities than the borough as a whole. When meeting user groups in the past, I have been struck by how many people use the pool to help with health problems such as joint pain and mental health issues. It cannot be right that this important facility is at risk of closure, but of course, sadly, Government cuts have led us to where we are.
Leisure centres and swimming pools are important, too, for the education of children, who are now required to learn to swim as part of the national curriculum—so, although leisure services are not a statutory requirement, swimming is. Before covid, 14 schools were using Woodchurch pool to teach children to swim—a vital skill for children growing up on a peninsula fringed by beaches. Now, those schools are having to bus children further afield, taking valuable time out of their school day and adding costs to already overstretched schools.
Wirral Council’s proposals also include the potential closure of numerous libraries, including those in Hoylake, Greasby, Pensby, Irby and Woodchurch in my constituency of Wirral West. These are libraries to which young families can take their children to introduce them to books and meet other young families, and which, as children grow older, they can independently visit, browsing and learning in an informal environment. They are places where people who have ideas about entrepreneurial projects that they want to pursue can carry out research, drawing on the expertise of highly qualified librarians who know how to source information on all aspects of human endeavour. They are places where people who do not have internet at home can access it to explore any subject they want and, if necessary, search and apply for jobs. Libraries provide incredibly important community hubs, and they are, of course, very important for tackling social isolation. We know that loneliness was identified as a public health challenge in Wirral prior to the pandemic, and libraries have a vital role to play in addressing that issue.
Order. The debate can last until 5.30 pm. I am obliged to call the Front-Bench spokesman for Her Majesty’s Opposition no later than 5.12 pm—the guideline limit is five minutes—and then the Minister, and then there will be three minutes at the end for Margaret Greenwood to sum up the debate. Until then, it is Back-Bench time and there are seven superstars from Merseyside seeking to contribute. There will, I am afraid, have to be a strict four-minute time limit, and then everybody will get in. We will start with the first person on my list, Maria Eagle.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) on her contribution and on obtaining the debate.
My constituency covers two of the local authorities involved on Merseyside—Liverpool City Council and Knowsley borough council. I want to say a little bit about Knowsley. This small authority has been disproportionately hit by the austerity and the brutal cuts that my hon. Friend referred to in her introductory speech. It has lost more than half its funding—that is, over £100 million. Years of austerity cuts have resulted in an average loss of £485 per person, compared with the average countrywide loss of £188 per person, yet Knowsley borough council represents the second most deprived borough in the nation. It was ranked the fifth worst when the Lib Dem-Tory coalition began to impose austerity, and it is now ranked the second worst, so it has not been improving over that period; its situation has worsened. It has the lowest score in the city region for deprivation affecting children, and the second lowest for deprivation affecting older people. More than 10,000 households are in fuel poverty—15% of the total—with many of them living in the Harewood part of my constituency. They are now facing a cost of living crisis as well as having to deal with the austerity cuts that my hon. Friend has set out.
Inflation is at its highest level for 30 years, and energy bills are about to rocket by 54%. Food prices are rising faster than general retail prices. Wages are stagnating and falling in real terms, with tax increases to national insurance and council tax stealth increases to come in April. The cut in universal credit has impacted on many people in Knowsley, with many now having to choose between heating and eating—that is the choice facing them. When they turn to the council, the amount of support that can be given after 12 years of brutal cuts is much lower than it used to be, and it is much harder for the council to provide the kind of support that it used to provide. It is the same in Liverpool, where the capacity for local people to get support from the council has been severely curtailed because of the impact of the cuts over that period.
It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) on securing this important debate. She has painted a vivid picture of the grave situation facing Wirral Council and Merseyside, and of the terrible price that people living in both our constituencies are set to pay for the Government’s abject failure to give local authorities the support they so desperately need in the midst of this historic cost of living crisis. No corner of our borough will be spared the devastating consequences of further cuts to frontline services, but the poorest communities of Birkenhead stand to lose the most of all.
I represent one of the most left-behind constituencies in the country, with the north end of my town ranking in the top 1% for deprivation nationally. Families living there have already borne the brunt of a long and cruel decade of austerity. Youth services have been decimated, benefits have been slashed and the basic support on which so many people rely has been stripped to the bone. Birkenhead is now bracing itself for a renewed onslaught on frontline services, and it is our youngest and most vulnerable who will be hit the hardest of all.
The list of proposed savings currently being considered by the council makes for daunting reading. Eleven libraries are set to close their doors, including in the highly deprived wards of Prenton and Rock Ferry, where they are used by so many people as a means of accessing essential services. Adult and children’s services will be cut, and the Hive youth zone that neighbours my constituency office is to lose £150,000 in cancelled funding—a devasting blow for the many young people it supports. This not levelling up at all; it is punching down.
I look forward to the Minister’s contribution and have no doubt he will want to talk about the levelling-up funds that have been allocated to Birkenhead to support its ambitious regeneration scheme. In a town that has been starved of investment for so many decades, that money is very welcome, but we will not be made to feel grateful for what we have rightly deserved all along. We cannot ignore the fact that this is largely capital spending that will do nothing to cover the day-to-day costs of getting support to those who need it most.
It is, as always, a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Hollobone. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) on securing this important and timely debate. I thank her, and my hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle), for setting out the headline figures for the reduction in grant funding to Knowsley since 2010. They both also referred to levelling up. Since they have put all that information on the record already, I will not go over the same material, but I will concentrate my remarks on levelling-up funding.
Last week, The Guardianpublished the results of its investigation into the local authority areas that have not benefited from levelling-up funding so far. Its conclusions are truly shocking. The article points out that some of the wealthiest areas in England are receiving 10 times—yes, 10 times—more funding than the poorest. How can that possibly be justified?
As I think my hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood pointed out, Knowsley, which is a Labour-controlled local authority, received the shocking amount per head of population of zero—nothing—in the latest round of levelling-up funding, whereas Conservative-controlled Central Bedfordshire received £90 per head. Whereas Knowsley is the third most deprived borough in England, Central Bedfordshire is in the top fifth. How that can be justified defeats me, and I am sure it would defeat many qualified statisticians and researchers.
As Jonathan Webb from IPPR North accurately put it:
“This new analysis from the Guardian demonstrates the gap between the rhetoric and reality of levelling up.”
He went on to say that the way levelling-up funding is allocated is
“unacceptable and will only widen the UK’s existing regional”
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone, and I add my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) on having successfully applied for this important debate. The past 11 years of Conservative rule have seen an unrelenting assault on the budgets of local authorities, but that assault has been worse in some places than in others. Those with the poorest and most vulnerable populations have been hit hardest; those with the biggest issues to deal with have suffered the highest level of funding cuts. That has been a conscious choice made by successive Conservative Governments in full knowledge of the consequences, which is why the phrase “levelling up” rings so hollow on the Wirral and Merseyside.
In my local authority of Wirral, £230 million in direct funding from the Government was cut to just £37 million by 2020, despite the fact that close to a quarter of Wirral’s neighbourhoods rank in the 10% most deprived nationally. We have all seen the explosion in food banks, social supermarkets, and people going hungry and not being able to afford to heat their homes as a consequence of deprivation and soaring levels of poverty.
There has been a staggering 53% real-terms cut in our Government funding since 2010, which equates to £635 per household. In the same period, local authority staffing levels in Wirral have fallen from 7,669 to just 3,713. The adult social care budget has been cut by a quarter since 2010, despite a huge increase in the number of older people and young disabled people who require help simply to live. This means that a huge and growing area of need is going completely unmet, and the life experiences of those who need support have plummeted, putting an unbearable burden on their carers. However, close to two thirds of the budget is taken up by adult and children’s services, leaving very little for anything else.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Hollobone. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) for calling this important debate. It is timely, because the Secretary of State is in Liverpool today, addressing northern leaders at the convention of the north.
Last week, we heard the Government fanfare around the levelling-up White Paper. As one commentator put it,
“the Government is like the arsonist turning up late to the scene of their crime with a fire extinguisher in hand claiming to help put out the fire they started”.
So hollow is the Government’s plan that this year—the year of levelling up—councils are being forced to increase council tax precepts yet again, while at the same time making deep cuts to local services. The degradation of local government finances since 2010 has exacerbated geographical inequalities, held back our regional infrastructure and limited the potential of our people and communities.
In this coming financial year, Liverpool City Council will see a starting revenue gap of an eye-watering £34 million. Inflationary pressures and the increase in national insurance—not to mention the insult of having to increase the pay of central Government commissioners by 50%, which is nothing short of a disgrace—are making the picture even grimmer. All that is on top of half a billion pounds-worth of cuts since 2010.
The picture is the same across the Liverpool city region. Even after the Prime Minister’s non-plan for adult social care, councils across Merseyside are still having to make swingeing cuts in that area and raise the adult social care precept, with a starting position of £12 million of cuts for Liverpool in adult social care alone. All the while, demand for services increases, and the recruitment, retention and workforce crisis rages on in the sector. We cannot go on like this.
I am pleased to serve under your chairmanship once again, Mr Hollobone. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) on securing this much-needed debate.
Merseyside’s wealth is its people. They are warm and generous, with a tremendous sense of humour. Most of all, we are supportive of each other. I am glad to see so many of my Merseyside colleagues here. I have the honour and privilege of representing two local authorities in Merseyside: St Helens, the home of glass and, of course, of my beloved Saints; and Knowsley, the home of the historic towns of Prescot and Whiston.
Knowsley and St Helens have an impressive track record of delivering regeneration. They have both delivered projects to raise the aspirations of our communities and, ultimately, improve life chances. Both areas are full of proud people who want the best for their community, yet both areas have had their budgets eviscerated over the past decade of austerity, which has continued into the ’20s. We hear the budget cut figures so much that their consequences can be lost, but it is right that we hear them, and I am pleased that Members have covered them so adequately today.
The decade of austerity was destructive to our communities, yet it is about more than the cuts; it is about the communities and their needs, local authorities’ legal duties to protect and to provide care, and the consequences of the cuts and the vicious cycles they create. The Government have massively reduced central grants to local councils. The idea was for local authorities to become self-sufficient. Councils were expected to raise council tax and retain business rates to cover the cuts. The Government were repeatedly warned about the consequences that that would have. It may work in wealthier parts of the country, but it does not work everywhere.
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Although local authorities have generally kept 50% of business rates revenues raised locally since 2013—and there is a pilot scheme to keep 100% of them in Wirral—that is nowhere near to making up the shortfall created by Conservative Government cuts. For example, Wirral Council received over £110 million less in annual income in 2020 than it did in 2010. Similarly, Knowsley received £116 million less, Liverpool over £209 million less, St Helens over £60 million less, and Sefton over £94 million less. Those staggering and brutal cuts by central Government are really punishing our communities. Political decisions taken by Conservative Governments since 2010 have had the effect of running down and forcing the closure of local public services.
Let us remind ourselves what it is that local authorities deliver. They provide and look after our libraries and leisure centres. They maintain our roads, streets, parks, and our open spaces where people relax, exercise, and walk their dogs and where children play. They license taxis, the sale of alcohol and the movement of animals. They provide support to local businesses and chambers of commerce, stimulating the local economy. They manage planning processes, are responsible for public health, bin collection and waste disposal, free school meals, welfare support and advice, and adult learning. They are responsible for trading standards and ensuring the safety and standards of the products that we buy. They are responsible for social services, safeguarding children and ensuring that vulnerable adults, including people with dementia, are cared for and protected, whether in their own home or a care home.
A decade of cuts to local government has resulted in £8 billion being lost from adult social care budgets, and many vulnerable people have been left without the support that they need. Some 400,000 older and disabled people are on council waiting lists for care, and there are more than 100,000 staff vacancies across the sector. That is a truly damning indictment of this Conservative Government. In short, local authorities, the services they deliver and the public realm they maintain are fundamental to our society and the way we live. If we want our councils to deliver good-quality universal public services, they need to be funded properly.
The Conservative party presents itself as the party of tradition, but it is anything but. The cuts it has imposed on local authorities since 2010 undermine our way of life and our traditions, and are pulling away the foundations of our communities. I am sure that we will hear from colleagues across Merseyside about what these cuts mean to their constituencies.
I want now to talk specifically about Wirral, where, as I outlined earlier, the local authority saw an 85% reduction in Government funding between 2010 and 2020, and received around £110 million less in overall income in 2020 than in 2010. The authority has been told that it must find savings of £20 million in its budget for 2022-23. Not doing so could lead to Government intervention. As a result, the council has been forced to make proposals to meet these financial constraints. The proposals are wide-ranging and, if implemented, would have serious implications for communities in Wirral. The proposals include the permanent closure and demolition of Woodchurch leisure centre and swimming pool.
Further proposals in Wirral include ceasing maintenance in open spaces, including up to 10 to 15 local parks, and halving maintenance in others; the closure of two golf courses; changes to residents’ parking permits, in some cases introducing charges for residents living in areas of deprivation; a reduction in highway maintenance; an end to night-time lighting inspections; the withdrawal of additional street cleansing services in some areas; the closure of public toilets; and a reduced school crossing patrol service. That is not even the full extent of what is being considered. The implications of such measures are extremely serious and Wirral Council, like so many others, is having to make up for prolonged, brutal central Government funding cuts.
Last month, I and other Wirral MPs wrote to the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, calling on him to come forward with emergency funding for Wirral to prevent further reductions in public services. We eagerly await a response to that letter and I repeat that ask to the Secretary of State, via the Minister.
My hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mick Whitley) has been working to secure a meeting between the Wirral MPs and the Secretary of State to discuss the very serious situation facing Wirral. Last week, the Secretary of State said:
“I am looking forward to a meeting. I recognise that there are real issues in the Wirral, which I hope we can work together to resolve.”—[Official Report, 2 February 2022; Vol. 708, c. 336.]
I appreciate that the Secretary of State’s office has made contact this week, and I understand that it will be in touch again shortly, to find a date after recess. I hope a meeting can be arranged as soon as possible, because time is of the essence.
Tomorrow, Members will have the opportunity to debate the local government finance settlement. This is the fourth one-year settlement in a row for councils, which, according to the Local Government Association,
“continues to hamper financial planning and council financial sustainability.”
Wirral Council feels that it is imperative to have a multi-year settlement from 2023-24, so I would be grateful if the Minister could update us on that issue.
The response from Merseyside to the draft local finance settlement for 2022-23 was very clear. The leader of Knowsley Council said:
“We are continually lobbying the Government for fairer funding and ensuring that those areas that have greater needs are appropriately funded. Yet again, this has been ignored and we are once again having to look at how we can continue to provide the essential services our communities value and need.”
The leader of Sefton Council has said:
“I am afraid that the latest funding settlement shows little evidence of the Government investing strongly in public services…The Government has left us facing a position that remains austere and which will make our Borough’s economic recovery from COVID-19, when it does finally end, even more difficult.”
For Wirral, council funding from central Government does not come close to meeting the needs of the borough, as highlighted by the requirement to make such drastic savings.
The decimation of our local authorities and public services by this Government has to stop. As I have said, the Conservative party likes to present itself as the party of tradition, but when we look at the scale of the cuts it has delivered to local authorities since 2010, it is clear that it is anything but. It is leaving local authorities that want to serve local people struggling to provide even the bare essentials, and forcing the closure of vital community spaces such as libraries and leisure centres.
The Government have a choice. They can either continue down their current path of squeezing local authorities of every resource possible, or they can take another path and invest in people and communities, nurture and grow the potential of everybody, and create and maintain a physical and social environment in which individuals, communities and businesses can thrive, and in which people can have a sense of stability. It really is a simple choice, and it is a political choice.
It is time for the Government to change course. They must face the fact that services delivered by our local authorities, and the public realm that they provide and maintain, are fundamental to the functioning of a civilised society. If we are to thrive, the Government must invest in our communities, provide financial stability and fund the services upon which we all rely.
If the concept of levelling up means anything, surely it means improving the lives of people in places such as Knowsley in order to level them up to the better standards of living in other parts of the country. One might have expected, therefore, that Knowsley would receive some of the Government’s levelling-up funding, but it has not. Despite making bids for the funding that the Government keep saying is available, it has not received any. The council was unsuccessful in its bid for an allocation from the levelling-up fund, and neither has Knowsley benefited from any of the other levelling-up schemes through which the Government have been dispensing largesse.
The Government said that funding would be allocated to level up places such as Knowsley, but Knowsley has not been given any such funding. Instead, it has been given to other places that are perhaps not as high as Knowsley on the indices of multiple deprivation. This is not good enough. I hope the Minister will come up with a better way to make sure that people in Knowsley can get the respect and levelling-up funding that they deserve, because it has not happened so far.
I also imagine that the Minister will want to parrot the findings of the recent Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy report on the state of the council’s finances, with all the talk of making difficult decisions. That report makes no mention, however, of the fact that this was a crisis made in Westminster, not Birkenhead. Since 2010, a staggering £260 million of direct Government funding to Wirral Council has been slashed. That was not inevitable. It was an ideologically motivated attack on the public sector, perpetrated by successive Conservative Chancellors, and it has devastated the lives of thousands of people who I represent.
When the Minister rises to speak in a few moments, I hope he will accept responsibility on behalf of the whole Government for the catastrophe looming over our communities. Today, the Liverpool Echo carries the story of Delilah, a baby girl born in Birkenhead on Christmas Day. Her parents, Suzie-Lei and Nathan, want nothing but the best for their daughter, but the simple truth is that so much of their life will be shaped by what the Government do or do not do in the coming months and years. On behalf of Delilah and the countless young people living in my constituency of Birkenhead, I urge the Minister to make good on the promises of levelling up and give Wirral Council the support it so desperately needs at this difficult time.
disparities. That is the complete reverse of what we are told it is supposed to do.
Despite Knowsley’s being the third poorest borough in England, it received not a penny from the future high streets fund, the community renewal fund or the towns fund. Councillor Graham Morgan, the excellent leader of Knowsley Council, put it in a nutshell when he said:
“Levelling up has been nothing but a slogan so far. The people who work on these schemes can’t find any box which we haven’t ticked, so is there some other reason—a political reason—why Knowsley isn’t getting the support that local people need?”
The answer to Graham’s question, sadly, is yes—it is a political reason.
I will conclude with three questions. First, how can the Minister justify this politically skewed allocation of levelling-up funds? Secondly, can he give me a firm assurance that when the education investment areas are announced, Knowsley will be among them? Thirdly, will he agree to meet me and Knowsley Council to discuss the need for the regeneration of Huyton town centre?
Despite the Government’s vainglorious boasts, the 2022-23 local government finance settlement is actually a 2.2% decrease on the last financial year when adjusted for inflation, and that adjustment will get even worse as inflation soars. National Government funding for Wirral has decreased by 37.3% in real terms since 2015-16, leaving the difference to be made up by huge increases in council tax, which the Government assume in their figures. More Government sleight of hand means that they are assuming that all local authorities will put up council taxes by the full amount they can without having to hold a referendum. This transfer of funding from national to local taxes has left local residents paying far more in council tax for far fewer services because of the huge cuts to their budgets allocated by the national Government.
In the aftermath of the covid pandemic, which closed council services and destroyed revenue-raising opportunities, Wirral has been ordered by Ministers to make £27 million of cuts to its 2022-23 budget, under the threat of further national Government intervention. That will mean the decimation of services, increased charges for the use of what local facilities remain, and a mass sell-off of local authority buildings. It means that, at the diktat of national Government, residents in Wallasey will continue being asked to pay more in council tax for lower levels of services. The Government have taken far more from our local area than is fair and have forced huge increases in council tax, which is still failing to keep up with the rising demand. That is not a fair or sustainable solution, and I look to the Minister to give us some relief in his response.
Such is the arrogance across Whitehall that shuffling deckchairs is the modus operandi, with no real plan for municipal revival and no plan to restore local government to the pinnacle of achievement. Most insulting of all, there is no acknowledgment that the decisions of the past decade have contributed to the growing divide between the north and more affluent parts of the country. It is not rocket science why communities in places such as Merseyside, which have some of the highest levels of deprivation in the country and have been subject to some of the most brutal cuts, have become dirtier and less safe, have lower life expectancy, suffer from increasing food bank usage, and see widening education attainment gaps.
Forgive me for thinking that that has been a deliberate political ploy to re-engineer politics across the north of England, which lets Labour councils, as local establishments, shoulder the blame and burden for austerity and higher taxation, while the Conservative Government come along at the eleventh hour to save the day. Pay more, get less —no wonder our residents are fed up. It may benefit the Conservative party, but it is bad governance, and it is our communities that pay the price. The perverse nature of the centralised British state means that we now have Treasury announcements on filling potholes. Guess what? Local councils used to just fill potholes without the need for a Whitehall press release.
The Government cannot and will not level up this country while our councils are scraping around year after year to produce balanced budgets against a backdrop of sustained cuts. Across our city region, we simply cannot take any more. I hope the Minister has some real ideas for how that is going to be addressed.
Knowsley and St Helens are second and 22nd respectively on the 2019 list of most deprived local authorities. Less well-off areas do not raise as much council tax or business rates as wealthier ones. The consequences have caused even greater hardship for communities that still have not recovered from the massive loss of manufacturing jobs. Areas that have been left behind are being pushed further adrift. It is a vicious cycle that is hard to escape. The wealthier areas that generate more income stay ahead, while areas such as mine are not given the investment to catch up. I am not sure how that complies with the so-called levelling-up agenda. Forcing local authorities to bid for scraps that are a fraction of the budgets that they have had cut is not good enough.
The regional imbalances that we have are quite simply a stain on our country. We are more geographically unequal than any other rich country. How is it that Germany, a country that was divided in two for the majority of my life, the eastern part of which was under the yoke of communism for decades, is today a more equal country? It is an embarrassment that requires a serious plan to fix.
St Helens, Knowsley and other areas in need are not asking for a handout; we are asking for fairness. We want to become more self-sufficient, like the wealthier parts of our country. The Government must help us to achieve that by supporting local authorities with fair funding. That means funding based on needs—for care in particular. Deprivation needs to be included in funding distribution formulas. Our country’s regional imbalances can no longer be ignored; they need to be addressed now, before they become irreversible. I call on the Government to get down to addressing the needs of the people of this country.