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Local Government Finance

I shall try to keep my remarks brief. The Secretary of State has set out our position in relation to debt and the public finances. We all know that we have a structural deficit of £109 billion, and we all know how much interest per day is being paid—£120 million. The hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) made an impassioned plea on behalf of his city and said that we had had the discussion about the deficit and we should now move on. But that is the problem: we have had the discussion about the deficit and now we are seeing the consequence of years of overspending. We cannot get away from it. I wish we could. I did not stand for election and get sent to this House to be part of the difficult decisions that we have made. All of us as politicians love to hand out lollipops, kiss babies, cut the ribbon at the fête and do the nice things, but the sad reality is that we also have to take the difficult decisions when the nation is in the most difficult position it has been in for years. Mr Speaker, you will recall that some years ago you sat on Lambeth council when it was under Labour control. At that time, you were a powerful advocate for the Conservative party. After your period in office, I was elected when it was a hung council. You were not able to influence events dramatically in Lambeth as you were in a minority under a majority Labour administration. In a hung situation, things were much more discursive—