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Part of the debate – in the House of Commons am 12:00 am ar 20 Rhagfyr 1973.

Danfonwch hysbysiad imi am ddadleuon fel hyn

Photo of Gerald Kaufman Gerald Kaufman , Manchester Ardwick 12:00, 20 Rhagfyr 1973

I apologise, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was attempting to illustrate vividly the predicament in which my constituency is placed. Obviously, I apologise for having gone out of order. I trust that I shall now return within the rules of order, as I had intended to do all along.

On the finance which is available to it, Manchester City Council is obviously anxious to remedy the poverty which exists in constituencies such as mine. It does it by a huge building programme, though for financial reasons that programme will be cut back very severely next year. After having had an unrivalled building programme in proportion to its size, Manchester is now having to pull back very severely. It is heartrending that this should be so. But even the new estates which are to be completed, including the vast Longsight development in my constituency, will require amenities when completed. It is for the rates to provide those amenities and for the Government to provide their share of that revenue.

We are already falling behind. The youth centre in that new development, which has been forbidden, is one example. But it is not just the new estates, the estates which will turn into the concrete jungles which the Home Secretary so deplored when he came to Manchester, which require money to be spent on them under the provisions of these orders and in succeeding years. The older estates, which are falling into decrepitude, need regeneration.

Only this week I received a letter from the Secretary of the Union Street Tenants' Association in my constituency. A lady there asked for a better outlook. She said: We have no playing fields, no proper shops. Soon the wash-house is closing down, so we will have nowhere to do our washing. These are very elementary things for people to require. Finance is required to provide them. I deeply regret that the prospect ahead does not promise that that kind of finance will be made available.

My hon. Friend the Member for Small Heath, in giving the totally depressing and demoralising list of services which are to be hacked about as a result of the Chancellor's statement, mentioned services for the disabled. We have a particularly proud record in Manchester of help for the disabled. It is probably the best record of any great city in Britain. When the disabled ask me for something to be done, I have higher hopes in approaching our splendid director of social services than I have in approaching any other department of the city council. Whether it is ramps for wheelchairs, special amenities in the home, special taps for arthritics, and so on, or a telephone provided under the Act introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Alfred Morris), all these things are very likely at present to be provided by the magnificent service of Manchester City Council.

I have a great foreboding that as a result of the Chancellor's announcement this kind of service, which is transforming the lives of so many disabled in Manchester, will fall into rack and ruin. It deeply depresses me to think that that may be so.

From where is the money to come for these services? How are even existing programmes to be maintained? Following the Chancellor's announcement on Monday I contacted the chairman of Manchester City's finance committee, Alderman Norman Morris. He described the outcome of what the Chancellor had told the House as "chaos and standstill." He said Practically everything that I can see is going to come to a standstill. Agreed contracts may have to be put off. Regardless of what the Chancellor may have said on Monday, the chairman of Manchester's finance committee very bitterly and regretfully told me that he did not see how unemployment would not result from what the Chancellor had said.

The cuts in public expenditure which the Chancellor announced on Monday, and which he made sound painless, are indeed painless for the rich and the well-off. For the ordinary people, however, and particularly for the poor whose whole life and environment depend so much upon the services provided for them by their local authorities, life will not merely be made difficult; in many cases is will be made almost impossible. What is most regrettable is that the Government are the cause of this situation, but the councils will be blamed for it. The councils have no responsibility for these cuts, they have not been consulted about them in any way whatever, but they will get the blame because they are not providing the services which the people of the cities wish to have.

Yet none of this was necessary. My hon. Friend the Member for Small Heath told us that the cost of the cuts will be £182 million. But £300 million was given away by the Chancellor of the Exchequer earlier this year to people whose incomes were such that they did not require a tax concession. This sum could have been saved nearly twice over by taking back that money. I regard what the Government have done as a monstrous interference with local government.

My hon. Friend the Member for Small Heath, has quoted the quite incredible statement made last night in his winding-up speech by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as reported at c. 1470 of HANSARD—the speech which contained the Chancellor's denunciation of any local authority which deliberately set out, as he put it, to flaunt the national interest". His misuse of the word "flaunt" shows that he is illiterate as well as inhuman. The Chancellor went on to say that deliberate action of the kind which he denounced could well call in question the continuance of the present system of local autonomy over current expenditure."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 19th December 1973; Vol. 866, c. 1470.] That was an appalling threat to be made by any Chancellor, but it was a particularly appalling threat to be made by a Chancellor who was Chairman of the Conservative Party when "A Better Tomorrow" was issued three and a half years ago, which included these words: The independence of local authorities has been seriously eroded by Labour Ministers. On many issues, particularly education and housing, they have deliberately overriden the views of elected councillors. We think it wrong that the balance of power between central and local government should have been distorted and we will redress the balance and increase the independence of local authorities. The Chairman of the Conservative Party who promised to increase the independence of local authorities is now the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who threatens to take away the autonomy of local authorities. I say with deep regret—and I say it with particularly deep regret to the Minister to whom I have to address these words—that the Government have set out deliberately, as is shown by the announcement of the Chancellor on Monday, to create squalor in our great cities. In this aim, unlike most of his other aims, the Chancellor will very likely succeed, but the people of our cities, certainly the people of the city of Manchester, will never forgive him.