Steve Reed – 2020 Comments on IFS Report on Financial Risk for Councils

Below is the text of the comments made by Steve Reed, the Shadow Communities and Local Government Secretary, on 22 June 2020.

The funding that councils have received is nowhere near enough to cover the cost of getting communities through this crisis. Now councils face a massive financial black hole that will hit poorer areas hardest.

By law councils will be forced to make devastating in-year cuts that will see frail older people denied care, libraries and leisure centres shut for good and bins left unemptied.

The Conservatives have broken their promise to fund councils to do whatever’s necessary. Instead of levelling up they are leaving communities without the funding they need to get through the pandemic at their time of greatest need. They should stand by their promises.