Speeches by Reed.

“Before I begin, I notify the House that the local government finance report has been updated with small corrections on pages 7 and 13. These corrections have been passed on to the House in the proper way ahead of today’s debate. Like you, Madam Deputy Speaker, I am grateful to the Joint Committee on Statutory Instrumen…”

“I thought the hon. Gentleman was going to stand up and apologise to the House for what his Government did in diverting money away from the poorest communities. I am very disappointed that he did not take that opportunity, and I suspect that I am not the only one—perhaps he will take the opportunity later on. I remind h…”

“I will give way one last time.”

“Well, the easy answer to that is that it has not been; it is still there. Above all, this settlement is about fairness, because this Government reject the Tory belief that our poorest communities should be left to sink with less funding and worse public services than other parts of the country. That approach pulled our…”

“I am going to make some progress, I am afraid. There are a few councils facing extremely challenging financial pressures that the previous Government turned into a crisis by ignoring their problems for over a decade. In response to requests from those councils, I am giving them flexibility to increase their council tax…”

“I am afraid the hon. Gentleman has misunderstood how it works. An area does not get diluted. The scheme looks at super-output areas on a very small level so we can ensure that the funding goes to those areas with the highest levels of deprivation. I would be happy to write to him about the process if it would help him …”

“I will take one more intervention and then make progress.”

“I want to make some progress, because I have taken quite a lot of interventions, but I will give way before I conclude. Local government is still under pressure, and we will not bury our heads in the sand or dodge the difficult decisions. The adult social care system is in crisis, and we are facing up to that by transf…”

“I agree with the Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee that council tax cannot be the only means to fix these problems. That is why we have increased the level of funding overall and reconnected it with the deprivation indices that tell us which areas have the greatest need, and should theref…”

“I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. What he is seeing is the realignment of funding with deprivation, and that is as it should be.”

“I thank my hon. Friend for recognising that funding is now following deprivation. He will find the answer to his question in the homelessness strategy, which I will come to. [Interruption.] Madam Deputy Speaker, you are indicating with your wrist that I need to speed up, so I will make some progress. On children’s soci…”

“I have taken an awful lot of interventions, more from the opposite side of the House than from my own side, so with your kindness, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will make a little progress. I thank all who contributed to the provisional settlement consultation. We listened carefully to views expressed by councils and MPs, an…”

“At core, what we are hearing from all parts of the House at the moment is people’s views on the fact that under the previous Government, the alignment between funding and deprivation was broken, and this Government are bringing it back. Because the previous Government did nothing about it for 14 years, funding became e…”

“I have taken an awful lot of interventions so far, and I do not want to leave no time, but I will take one last intervention.”

“I certainly agree that the Lib Dems should share the blame for austerity. I was a council leader while the Lib Dems and Tories were in coalition together. I think they cut our council by a third just over the first one or two years that they were in power. Now they have the chutzpah to stand up and complain that this G…”

“I believe the hon. Lady has had several meetings with my colleague the Minister for Local Government. It is right and very important that we should align funding with need; that is the only way to ensure that funding is fair across the whole country. That is what we promised to do in our manifesto, and that is what we …”

“Let me return to my theme for a moment before I take any more interventions. The right hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) and colleagues across the House will remember that the Tories used to belittle local councillors as part-time volunteers and took away their pension rights to deter people from …”

“The settlement follows a funding formula and takes account of the costs of delivering food waste recycling in the way that the hon. Gentleman described earlier.”

“I remind the hon. Member that his party did the same thing in the same circumstances—I should say his “former party”, because he walked out on it last week. Proposals about what happens in Essex are currently subject to consultation, and he is more than entitled to make his views known.”

“I do agree with the hon. Member. I think it is very important that we get this right, which is why I was careful to listen to representations from councils due to undergo reorganisation to ensure that we do get it right. I want to see those savings made and to see council tax payers’ hard-earned money spent on frontlin…”