Labour, once again, tries to blame the state of the borough on “austerity”, when in fact they have held the purse strings for thirteen years and have amassed record reserves.
The council has enough resources to provide good services, yet Labour does not manage them effectively.
Transcript below;
Thank you. Have some brief comments to make, Mr. Mayor. Thank you very much. The first thing is about the speeches that have been really directed at the Government more than anything else, and using austerity as a fig leaf really to cover up the 13 years of inactivity of the Labour cabinet here. And I know that socialists have long memories.
I know that from experience. I once doorknocked a chap who was in his nineties who said he'd never vote Tory because of what Winston Churchill did to the miners in the great strike of 1926. So there's no changing some folks mind. You're always going to have that other opinion and I'm sure you talk among yourselves a lot. First of all, I'll just reiterate some comments I made earlier, which is that most of this budget is agreed.
The vast majority of this budget is agreed. We need to take a mature look at it and we welcome some of the investment that the Labour administration has put in genuinely. A lot of it is down to the fact that you have a little bit more money because the Government sent you a bit more than you were expecting.
But I don't expect you to be thankful for that. So we've got two choices. We've got some elections coming up, and the electorate have two choices that are either going to have a Labour-led administration or a Conservative-led administration. That's what it boils down to and that's what these budget meetings are all about, setting out policy.
So let's think about the three big things where we disagree. Let's just boil it down. The first is the use of reserves. Labour clinging to reserves like a drowning man clings to a life raft and they go on about our reckless it is to spend reserves and all this. But reserves are there to be used. Reserves are there to smooth over the bumps and lumps in the medium term financials, reserves are there for your rainy day.
And the Deputy Leader, the Council herself said, "You will never live through a greater crisis than the one we've got now". And yet we still sat on £147 million of reserves if we're never going to get a greater crisis, I really don't see why we've got them there. People need that money spending.
People need that spending on services now, especially the children we've mentioned. The second disagreement is to do with efficiencies. Now, Labour this year have found £1.2 million of unidentified efficiencies in year one. That's great. I'm glad you've done that. We pushed that for that every year and every year Labour say we can't find any more efficiencies.
No, no efficiencies there. So you're finding unidentified efficiencies. That's great. That's £1.2 million. That's less than half a percent of the total budget. That's not a big deal. By most standards, that can be found year on year. We think there are more efficiencies to find and you don't. So there's another difference. Now, the third difference is to do with this affordability.
And various members from all parties have opined about the cost of living and we've all got concerns which are very deeply held and sincerely held. And I share those, too. Now, we can apportion the blame for the cost of living however you like. You'll take your own view on that. But the only way we can make any difference to people's purses is by actually doing something for them.
And the only way we can do that is by keeping the council tax down. So Labour want to put it up. We think we can keep the council tax down. And that's not rocket science. It leads me to think really about how these budgets are conceived, because it seems to me that what Labour members do is decide how much you can possibly get out with people push it up by the maximum amount and then work backwards from there as to how you can spend it.
And they mention of the councils and Conservative councils having to raise council tax going 2.99% and you know, they'll have the reasons for doing that. I don't criticise them for it. A lot of those are in the same situation as we are. We don't have to do that. We shouldn't do. Why always take the maximum? Is it in the DNA?
I don't think so. I think it's because they like to label it as a Government tax and put it up to the maximum and blame somebody else for it. So people have got a simple choice when it gets to the election. You can have Conservative-led administration, where we'll get our sleeves rolled up. We'll provide the best services we can within the resources available.
Or you can have the Labour administration. Same old. Same old. You get what you're given and they'll wine on for years and years about how badly treated they are. So there's a choice there. It's a very simple one. Let's leave it to the electors.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
