The Labour leader would not commit to ‘turn the taps on’ and help ailing local councils.
It is “unforgivable” that the Tories did not follow through on their pledge to level up left-behind areas of the UK, Sir Keir Starmer said as he launched Labour’s local election campaign.
However, the Labour leader would not commit to “turn the taps on” and help ailing local councils to fill their funding black holes.
Sir Keir touted his party’s “local growth plan” ahead of the May 2 council and mayoral polls, and suggested he would favour longer-term funding deals for councils if his party was to win power at a general election.
He and his deputy Angela Rayner together launched the party’s campaign document, which includes detail on Labour’s plans for regional devolution.
At the launch in the West Midlands town of Dudley, Sir Keir appeared to praise the sentiment behind the levelling up agenda.
But he added: “My frustration of the past 14 years, but particularly since 2019, is that in saying levelling up, the Government was tapping into something real that people yearned for, but they didn’t have a viable plan. And they didn’t do the hard yards. That’s unforgivable.
“And we intend to turn that around and make sure that we can make that connection real, and change places across the Black Country.”
The Local Government Association, which represents councils across England, has warned they face a £4 billion gap in their budgets over the next two years.
Pressed about whether Labour would seek to plug these shortfalls, Sir Keir said: “There is no playing political games on this, councils of all political stripes are struggling with the lack of funding they have had over a prolonged period and we need to turn that around.”
Sir Keir said there was “scope for different kinds of funding settlements” pointing to longer three-year deals for councils, rather than the current one-year settlements.
But he added: “I can’t pretend that we can turn the taps on, pretend that damage hasn’t been done to the economy, it has. The way out of that is to grow our economy and that takes me back to the plan that we are launching today.”
