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.”
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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.
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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”.
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Keir Starmer refuses to reveal what he was told about Louise Haigh phone ‘theft’ that led to her resignation
Sir Keir Starmer has refused to reveal the “further information” he was told about Louise Haigh’s phone “theft” conviction which led to her stepping down as transport secretary.
The prime minister was asked by Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch what new information “came to light” about Ms Haigh’s conviction, which is now “spent”, for reporting a phone stolen to police when it was not in 2014.
Sky News revealed last week she admitted to pleading guilty to misleading the police, said it was a “genuine mistake” and had disclosed the incident when she was appointed to the shadow cabinet.
However, she stepped down as transport secretary on Friday after “new information” emerged, Downing Street said.
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Answering Ms Badenoch’s question at Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs), Sir Keir said: “I’m not going to disclose private conversations. Further information came to light. The transport secretary resigns.”
The Tory leader accused Sir Keir of having “knowingly appointed a convicted fraudster to be a transport secretary” and asked: “What was he thinking?”
He said Ms Haigh “was right, when further information came forward, to resign”.
Sir Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch faced off over Louise Haigh at PMQs
But Ms Badenoch accused him of never answering questions and allowing someone convicted of fraud to award pay rises to public sector workers.
“And it looks like he didn’t ask his transport secretary any questions either,” she told the Commons.
“The truth is, he appointed a person convicted of fraud to the cabinet.
“The first thing she did was bung hundreds of millions of pounds in pay rises to her trade union friends. Wasn’t this a fraud on the British people?”
Ms Badenoch was referring to the 15% pay rise Labour gave train drivers shortly after coming to power in July.
They also gave above-inflation pay rises to several other public sector workers, including teachers, most NHS workers and members of the armed forces.
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Ms Haigh has declined to say officially if the prime minister knew about the conviction when he appointed his cabinet in July.
A source told Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby that the story that emerged on Thursday was “inconsistent” with what Sir Keir had been told when Ms Haigh was appointed to his shadow cabinet.
Ms Haigh said the incident arose after she was “mugged while on a night out” in 2013.
She said she reported the incident to the police and gave officers a list of items she believed had been taken – including a work mobile phone.
However, she told Sky News she discovered “some time later” that “the mobile in question had not been taken”.
In the interim, she was issued with another work phone. When she turned on the original work device, it “triggered police attention and I was asked to come in for questioning”, she said.
“My solicitor advised me not to comment during that interview and I regret following that advice,” she added.
“Under the advice of my solicitor I pleaded guilty – despite the fact this was a genuine mistake from which I did not make any gain.
“The magistrates accepted all of these arguments and gave me the lowest possible outcome (a discharge) available.”
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