Support Unison #10billionbailout campaign

From Leader of the LGA Labour Group, Cllr Nick Forbes  - 

"We’d urge all Labour councillors to get behind Unison’s #10billionbailout campaign, which is calling on the government to fix the current funding shortfall, which is estimated to be £10bn. 

Unison have warned that unless the funding shortfall is fixed, there could be tens of thousands of job losses and catastrophic cuts to local services. 

 If cuts were to be applied equally across all services, it would mean £1.9bn slashed from children’s social care spending, £1.1bn from environmental services and £3.5bn from adult social care –an area already in crisis before the coronavirus outbreak. 

You can read the press release about the campaign here, and you can sign the petition here".

Zoom call with Thangam Debbonaire MP, Shadow Housing Secretary & Labour LG Housing Leads

This morning I took part in a virtual meeting with the new Shadow Housing Secretary, Thangam Debbonaire MP, chaired by Cllr Darren Rodwell (Leader of Barking & Dagenham Council). The Leader of Labour Local Government, Cllr Nick Forbes, also presented to the meeting.

It was a really useful and informative meeting. We have similar but different housing problems and it was good to hear from Thangam what she is doing to hold the government to account as well as how Labour Councils and opposition Groups across the land are tackling the crisis.

I had sent comments in beforehand and made a number of points, including that we must make it clear to the government that they need to give local authorities the resources to deliver on their Covid-19 promises. In particular, if they want to keep rough sleepers off the streets long term and ensure that families in temporary accommodation have suitable permanent self contained accommodation, then we desperately need the extra money to deliver on this.

It was really good to meet our new Shadow Secretary of State, Thangam, who was on top of things and clearly wanted to work with Labour local government. 

A great start and look forward to future meetings (apart from the fact that such virtual meeting photos make us all appear as if we are on some Crimewatch "Most Wanted" list).