Local Government Finance

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 5:23 pm on 5 February 2004.

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Photo of Edward Davey Edward Davey Shadow Spokesperson (Office of the Deputy Prime Minister), Liberal Democrat Spokesperson (Office of the Deputy Prime Minister) 5:23, 5 February 2004

I want to make some progress, as many Members want to speak.

Above all, the settlement should have been made without strings. It comes with more strings than an orchestra. On ring-fencing, passporting, targets and inspections, the Government have tried to tie down councils' freedom so much that they have ended up tying themselves in knots. The central problem for this settlement is the tangled relationship between capping and the Whitehall controls—or, more specifically, the disastrous collision between education passporting and capping threats. At the centre of that collision are the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and the Department for Education and Skills.

I genuinely believe that the ODPM would like to give councils more freedom, but it has been told to keep council tax down, so it has offered a generous settlement. Then in charges the DFES, with its demands for all education cash to be passed on. Crash! No freedom.