Labour can’t ‘turn taps on’ for struggling councils, Sir Keir Starmer warns at local election launch
Sir Keir Starmer has warned that Labour “can’t pretend that we can turn the taps on” to help struggling councils if he wins the next general election.
The Labour leader was speaking in Dudley at the launch of his party’s campaign for the local elections on 2 May, which are taking place against the backdrop of a bleak financial picture for councils across the country.
One in five council bosses have said they think it’s likely or fairly likely they will go bankrupt in the next 15 months, while the Local Government Association, which represents local authorities, has said there is a £4bn funding shortfall over the next two years.
Asked by Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby whether he would “commit that money”, Sir Keir replied: “Councils of all political stripes are struggling with the lack of funding they’ve had over a prolonged period.
“And we need to turn that around – we will do that.”
Politics latest: Starmer asked if he’s a ‘Tory in disguise’
Although he did not promise additional funding, he did suggest funding settlement arrangements could be altered to help councils – suggesting one-year settlements had been detrimental to councils’ budgets.
“I think there is scope for different kinds of funding settlements,” he said.
“Talk to any council leader and they’ll say the one-year settlements are very difficult for us because we can’t spend money effectively and as well as we should.
“So it’s hard because there isn’t enough money. It’s even harder because it’s a one-year settlement. We can change that around with a three-year settlement.”
The shadow hanging over Labour policies is the dire state of public finances
While Sir Keir Starmer’s local election launch contained little new in the way of policy, it was still one of the clearest outlines of what drives the Labour leader as a politician and what would propel him in government.
Put simply – it is about restoring pride in the places people live and injecting a sense of integrity back into the workforces of those areas.
In a theme we’ll likely see returned to throughout the general election campaign, Sir Keir used the language of football to sketch this out – referring to the Potters of Stoke, the Glassboys of Stourbridge and the Hatters of Stockport.
Pride of place linked with the integrity of work given form through the plain-speaking language of football.
None of these identified problems are new.
This is the well of angst that lay behind the Brexit vote. This is the concept of ‘left behind’ communities Theresa May vowed to address. This is the problem to be solved through Boris Johnson’s ‘levelling up’ agenda.
So why should voters believe that this leader will prevail when so many others have failed? On this, there is still a considerable blank space. The answer being given today is devolution.
If local people are given more power over how to spend their money, this argument goes, they will spend it better and waste less.
The shadow hanging over all this is the dire state of the public finances. Or to put it another way, what many places need is cold hard cash.
The fiscal constraints Labour appears to be wrapping around itself means that money is not there though. Squaring that circle will be the central tension within both this local election campaign and the coming race for Downing Street.
He added: “I can’t pretend that we can turn the taps on, pretend the damage hasn’t been done to the economy. It has. The way out of that is to grow our economy.”
At the end of last year, councils told residents they should be prepared for reduced services and tax rises due to increasing cost and demand pressures.
In Birmingham, where the Labour-run local authority declared bankruptcy after being hit with a £760m bill to settle equal pay claims, council tax will rise by 21% over the next two years while £300m in cuts will be brought in over the same period.
Read more:
Labour will not bail out bankrupt councils, Rachel Reeves says
Why are councils going bankrupt?
At the campaign launch, Sir Keir said it was “unforgivable” the Tories did not follow through on their pledge to level up left-behind areas of the UK and said he had hoped to launch “a different election campaign here today” but could not because the “prime minister bottled it”.
The Labour leader said Rishi Sunak wanted “one last drawn-out summer tour with his beloved helicopter” and added: “We need to send him another message, show his party once again that their time is up, the dithering must stop, the date must be set.”
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt claimed Labour’s local election launch was a “smokescreen” and that when it was in office the party “devolved no powers to local authorities”.
Politics
Government rules out airport-style security scanners at train stations following stabbing attack
The transport secretary has ruled out installing airport-style security scanners in stations, following an alleged stabbing attack on a train on Saturday evening.
Speaking to Mornings with Ridge and Frost on Sky News on Monday, Heidi Alexander said the government did not want to make “life impossible for everyone”.
Chris Philp, the Conservative shadow home secretary, has called for “tough and radical action” to tackle knife crime, including rolling out live facial recognition technology in town centres and train stations.
Politics latest: Farage to set out economic policies
The questions around security on public transport comes after 10 people were injured in an alleged mass stabbing attack on a high-speed train on Saturday, and a train staff member – hailed as a hero for confronting the attacker – remains in a critical but stable condition.
A 32-year-old man from Peterborough has been charged with 11 counts of attempted murder following the attack on the Doncaster to London King’s Cross LNER service near Huntingdon, and another at a station on London’s Docklands Light Railway (DLR), early on Saturday morning.
Armed police officers patrolling at St Pancras International station on Monday. Pic: PA
Asked by Mornings presenter Sophy Ridge if airport-style scanners should be installed at railway stations to ensure public safety on trains, the transport secretary replied: “I don’t think airport-style scanners would be the way to go.
“I understand why you asked the question, and I understand why some of your viewers might be wondering about that.
“We have thousands of railway stations across the UK, and those stations have multiple entrances, multiple platforms. So what we can’t do is make life impossible for everyone.
“But we do need to take sensible and proportionate steps to make the public transport network safe.”
She also said there will be increased “visible” police patrols at train stations for “the next few days” to provide reassurance to the travelling public.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Man charged over train stabbings
Ms Alexander went on to say that, while she does not want to minimise the “horrific” attack on Saturday, the trains in the UK are “some of the most safest [sic] forms of public transport anywhere in the world”, saying that for every million journeys, there are 27 crimes committed.
She added: “For me, one crime is one crime too many. So we will, after this, review all of our security measures, because that is the right thing to do.”
But Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp told Mornings with Ridge and Frost that there needs to be more “surge hotspot policing in high crime areas” to tackle knife crime, and the use of “live facial recognition to identify wanted criminals as they wander round, including as they go to train stations, so they can be arrested”.
“We also need more stop and search as well because stop and search takes knives off the streets,” he added.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Philp calls for increased use of stop and search
Last week, the government released new data showing that knife homicides have fallen by 18% in a year, while knife crime overall has dropped by 5% – the first reduction in four years.
The Home Office attributed that to the use of hotspot patrols, knife arches that can detect knives in environments like schools, drones, and plain clothes officers, as well as partnerships with campaigners and charities.
Trump again denied ties to Binance co-founder CZ amid reports that the exchange helped facilitate a $2 billion stablecoin deal linked to his World Liberty Financial platform.
Lawmakers in France’s National Assembly have passed an amendment that would consider larger crypto holdings “unproductive wealth” and subject them to taxation.
-
Sports2 years agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports3 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Sports3 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment1 year agoHere are the best electric bikes you can buy at every price level in October 2024