‘Chancellor’s budget makes Mansfield’s residents worse off for years to come’

The Conservative cannot keep blaming the war in Ukraine and Covid for the mess we are currently in.

The UK has made the worst recovery from the pre-pandemic levels of economic activity compared to all of our competitors.

The UK has had only 0.4 per cent growth in GDP compared to 2.1 per cent in Europe and 4.2 per cent in the USA.

Crashing the economy a month ago with the disastrous mini-budget did not help, but the cuts in funding to our NHS, roads, education and the 63 per cent reduction in funding to Local Government over the last 10 years has led to wage stagnation and all services being at a breaking point.

The Chancellor’s budget needed to give us some hope, but it has only got us stuck in the “doom loop”.

The only way out of the current economic recession is investment to grow the economy so more people are contributing to the exchequer from well-paid jobs.

The Chancellor is trying to shift the blame to the further cuts in services that are bound to come on local councils who have to balance their budgets by law and cannot borrow like the Government.

The District Council’s Network forecast a further £900 million funding gap – another 17 per cent reduction – as a result of the Chancellor’s budget.

By not funding social care properly as promised after all the issues during Covid, the government are passing the responsibility for delaying the reform of social care onto Local Government, leaving them no choice, but to raise council tax to try to protect these essential services.

At Mansfield, we realise our residents are already at the breaking point with cost of living pressures, so we will only increase our council tax if we are left with no other acceptable choice.

Everyone knows investment in prevention in illness is the way to ease the pressure on our NHS and reduce the devastating effects on our vulnerable communities waiting for hospital appointments.

Even a simple increase in funding to allow councils to prepare homes so patients can leave hospital sooner would reduce bed blocking and hospital queues.

Mansfield Council’s own Assist Scheme has enabled 900 patients to return home quicker, saving the NHS £270,000 by making beds available sooner.

The council submitted a proposal for an investment zone around the Mansfield and Ashfield Regeneration Route development area, having responded rapidly to the Government’s request for proposals.

However, the Government’s response has been “we are going to refocus them at a later date”.

These bids commit time and resources of our officers and represent another lost opportunity for investment in jobs and skills to ‘level up’ and regenerate our local economy.

Labour would have a fairer plan to help working people by taking back control of our energy with a new national company investing in green, sustainable alternatives, which would create new skills, employment and grow the economy.

The Chancellor’s response to this urgent need is yet another delay in investment in energy efficient homes until 2025.

This promise was first made by another Tory Chancellor George Osbourne in 2012 and the government still haven’t brought in the legislation to bring this change about.

One can only conclude “you can’t trust anything this Government says”.

They have broken most of their manifesto pledges and have been responsible for 40 U-turns.

Mansfield Council has been waiting on a decision on the Levelling Up ‘Mansfield Connect Project’.

This £25m scheme would see the former Beales building transformed into a new civic, community, business and educational hub that would regenerate the town centre.

Unfortunately, the announcement on this has also been delayed again.

I agreed Mansfield would commit to the Government’s proposal to Devolution for the East Midlands on the condition we received additional investment and retained our local democracy.

However, I am concerned that, despite assurances from our MP, Coun Ben Bradley, that local democracy would be protected, it was the intervention by the DCN that stopped the government giving all the power to an elected mayor.

It is a cause for concern that government would try to renege on its promise, trying to wipe out the sovereignty of district councils and undermine local democracy, despite all the assurances we were given.

Trusting this Government is a real issue.