Coalition spending axe ‘means £4,000 cuts for every home’
Warning of impact on ‘the most disadvantaged’
Published: 19 November, 2010
by TERRY MESSENGER
HOUSEHOLDS in Islington will lose an average of £4,000 each in government spending cuts, the borough’s Labour finance chief has warned.
Councillor Richard Greening has calculated that reductions in budgets for local and national services will total £335million over four years.
He said: “That means each household faces the loss of £4,000 in funds for police, NHS, council and other services.”
But that also means households will save an average of £4,000 plus in tax they would have paid had there been no cuts, countered Lib Dem finance spokesman Councillor John Gilbert.
Cllr Greening totted up proposed cuts to spending by the council, the NHS, police, fire service and Transport for London affecting Islington over the next four years.
He added planned reductions in welfare benefits to reach his total of £335m.
“These figures show the real impact the Conservative-Lib Dem government’s unfair cuts will have on ordinary people in Islington,” he said.
“To take an average of £4,000 worth of services out of every home in the borough will really hit our community, particularly the most disadvantaged, who rely on those services the most.
“It is vital that we work together to send a strong message to the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats: stop hitting us with your unfair cuts.”
But Cllr Gilbert claimed that a recent leaked Labour Party memo showed that it would have cut by only 0.66 per cent less than the Coalition to rid Britain of its deficit.
He argued that, without spending reductions, households would have had to find £4,000 on average in tax plus extra to pay interest on money borrowed to fund a continuing deficit.
And he said that Cllr Greening’s figures failed to take into account spending increases planned by the Coalition, such as the £140-a-week, flat-rate pension, “pupil premium” for schools and green energy initiatives.
The Labour analysis of spending cuts comes as the party prepares for the publication of the first draft of the borough budget next month.
The party is trying to deflect blame for planned cuts – such as withdrawal of funding for anti-crime initiatives and a day centre for the elderly – onto its opponents.
Labour’s ruling group must slice 7.1 per cent off council annual spending for the next financial year as the first contribution to an eventual 27.4 per cent cut in the borough’s annual budget by 2014 – if Islington is forced to cut at the average national rate imposed on local authorities.
But the ruling Labour group fears Islington may be penalised more harshly than the average.
Islington Labour Party plans to leaflet “every household in the borough with a new, hard-hitting campaign to bring the community together against the unfair cuts”.
Cllr Gilbert commented: “It would be far better to buckle down to the task of spending what money the council has as efficiently and as effectively as possible.”