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Local Government Finance

The Secretary of State may shake his head, but he is very welcome to intervene. He has called the council the apple of his eye, but it is a rotten apple of his misty eye. He needs to have a closer look and clear his vision a little. The next time people hear about Hammersmith and Fulham council they should think not about the white heat of efficient local government, but about those Sure Start buildings that now stand empty, and the community buildings being sold to property developers or used for pet Government schemes such as Toby Young's free school. They should think, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) has said, about the old mate of the chief executive being paid a total of £700,000 over three years to manage an arm's length management organisation at the council. They should think of the six chief officers who are paid more than £150,000 a year and the £250,000 they wasted because they could not be bothered to turn off the lights at the town hall for five years. That is the reality of Tory local government. They do not care when they waste money, and they take pride in cutting services such as the nine Sure Start centres. The second meeting I went to this afternoon was with the heads of those Sure Start organisations, who met here to campaign to keep open one of the Labour Government's great achievements. The Conservatives say they are committed to Sure Start, but the reality of Tory local government on the ground means that those services will be shut down before we can draw breath.