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Oral question asked in the House of Commons, by Neil Turner (Labour). It was answered on Thursday, 22 October 2009 on behalf of the North West Regional Grand Committee.

Environmental Policies (Employment)

Question
The Minister will be aware that many local authorities and primary care trusts in the north-west do not receive the level of grant that the Government’s criteria say that they should. That prevents them from giving the support that is needed for companies to retain and create jobs and to help the north-west region out of recession. Will he use his best endeavours between now and the next comprehensive spending review round to ensure that the pace of change in both health and local government funding is such that authorities such as his and mine receive the amount of money that the Government say they should? They will then have the headroom to ensure that the economy improves more rapidly than it otherwise would.
Answer

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question, and I congratulate him on the work that he in particular has done to put this issue into the public domain and into the in-tray of decision makers in Whitehall and Westminster. He makes the important point that although the gap has closed significantly, it has not closed completely. There is the developing national care strategy—it is important that this point is fed into that—as well as the pre-Budget and Budget processes to which he refers. There is also a critical point to consider about age and longevity within our region. I understand that he has written to the Prime Minister about that issue. There are regional discrepancies and significant discrepancies within many of our constituencies. The greatest discrepancies in some areas of Crewe and Nantwich that I visited on Monday are as much as 14 years, within the same area, in life expectancy for males. That is an important point across the region, but, taking the region against the national average, it is important that funding that recognises longevity also recognises prevention, and that we want our constituents to live longer. We have considered the electoral advantages of that, of course, and we decided that the alternative is not advisable. On my hon. Friend’s serious point, money for health and local authority services that can help us to meet our targets on longevity is important. It is also important to recognise that there are extra costs in our constituencies for the very elderly—other things being equal. Closing that gap is an objective of Government policy and is extremely important in the CSR and the revenue support grant settlement.

Secondary information

Type
Oral question
Reference
NWRGC c7-8 
Session
2008-09
Oral question type
Supplementary
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons Grand Committees
Subjects
Employment Environment protection Job creation North West
Link
View this Oral question on www.publications.parliament.uk