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Local Government Finance

The only thing I disagree with is that my right hon. Friend's words are too mild, because what the Secretary of State is doing is the result of political malice. It is political malice because the simple reality is that he chose not to exercise the options that were available to him. He chose to make a local government settlement that puts at risk not only money—if it was only money perhaps we would move on—but the resources on which people depend for living their lives. It puts at risk those things that saw crime and disorder diminish in Manchester and that began to give young children in inner-city areas like mine opportunities in life that he would take for granted—the Secretary of State smiles. He is smiling while I talk about children being denied the opportunity to get on in life, because that does not matter to a Conservative Government, or to their Liberal Democrat friends and supporters. It does matter enormously, because they are brutalising our society.