Today [Thursday 27th February 2025] Councillor George Perfect, Leader of the Opposition of Medway Council, delivered a speech responding to the Labour and Co-Operative Budget for 2025-6:
Thank you, Mr Mayor, and thank you to the Leader for his statement on the Capital and Revenue Budget for 2025 to 2026.
Mr Mayor. I would like to start my response by setting the scene. We have a Labour Prime Minister, three Labour Members of Parliament, a Labour minority led Medway Council, and one of the most senior figures in Labour local government leading this Council. That’s why I was absolutely stunned earlier this month, that the Labour government decided to cruelly snatch away devolution from us at the last minute. A totally incomprehensible decision, meaning we will become a devolution desert, with us surrounded by councils with devolution deals but us without one. And let me remind the Council, Mr Mayor, why this is such a cruel decision. People in Kent and Medway will now lose the opportunity to access additional funding, additional resources, and have its seat at the table of the Council of Nations and Regions. And why? Supposedly because they aren’t satisfied with the population disparity between the two upper tier councils. Utter nonsense.
Why is this relevant to this item, you may ask Mr Mayor. It is relevant because we will lose hundreds of millions of pounds as a result of this decision. Hundreds of millions of pounds taken away by the party opposite whilst they play political games. They cannot play their usual tactic of blaming the Conservatives for this Mr Mayor, this is a mess. A messwhich, was devised in Downing Street, delivered by Marsham Street, but felt hard by our community.
And Mr Mayor, let’s not forget that during the general election, we had swathes of now Labour cabinet members, and the Prime Minister, visiting Medway promising the earth, telling us how much they cared. The people of Medway are under no-illusion Mr Mayor, this Labour Government has let down the people of Medway with this decision, its growth destroying budget, attacking older residents by withdrawing much needed winter fuel allowance and introducing the family farm tax.
But Mr Mayor, I want to particularly focus on one area of the Government’s spending which has really harmed this Council, the additional burden of national insurance contributions(NICs) on this Budget and on local government. Mr Mayor, the Labour government, have decided to add an additional £1.7bn worth of cost to Councils on staff employed directly and through contractors, at a time of incredibly high need and pressure. The compensation provided, for one year, is woefully inadequate, and only provides £515m to Councils, meaning a national pressure of £1.2bn. Locally here in Medway, this means an unfunded gap of £2.7m. That’s just for this Council. It’s going to hit hard our local charities, such as the Chatham Historic Dockyard, our small businesses and medium to large businesses alike. Every single business and charity clobbered by this government.
Mr Mayor, at the Cabinet meeting earlier this month, portfolio holders described their view that this Budget was somehow a journey to financial sustainability. But this budget is the complete opposite. A worsening picture every single year between now and the end of this Parliament; with borrowing to balance the budget growing to £50m by the end of the decade in the revenue budget. That’s a £50m budget gap by the end of this decade. And where are the Government? They are making things worse. Flatlining economic growth. Jobs being slashed at the fastest rate since 2009. And Business confidence collapsing. None of this helpful to this Council.
But irrespective of the claimed journey, next year, the Council will have to borrow a further £18m to fund the Budget, that’s on top of what is looking like over £20m worth of borrowing to fund this current financial year’s budget. It is not sustainable, and it is not feasible. The administration is betting the entire future of the Council on the Spending Review being carried out by the Treasury this year. This is a wholly dangerous and reckless approach and shows that Medway Labour have lost control of the Council with no plan. Given what we have just seen with devolution, we cannot trust this government to deliver a single pound more for Medway. Yet the medium-term financial statement is wholly based on the government increasing Medway’s funding significantly above where it currently is. Madness.
This Budget Mr Mayor contains pitfall after pitfall. It starts with the council tax and the fees and charges. The Prime Minister, supported by Cllr Maple, told the country repeatedlyhe wouldn’t raise council tax when he entered number 10, its up by 5%. But it’s a lot worse than that. The Leader of the Council tried to subvert the process and raise council tax by 10%. The Portfolio Holder for Highways and Enforcement, tells the people of Medway he is on the side of drivers, parking charges are up, by in some cases 46% on a half an hour park. The Leader of the Council told people he cared about cost of living, yet leisure centre charges, are also up. There’s a theme developing with this administration. Every single charge UP, And not just up. Up above inflation on nearly every metric. The party opposite don’t care about families still living with the consequences of the cost-of-livingcrisis triggered by the legacy of the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, or its inflationary impacts, but continue pressing ahead with higher and higher fees, regardless. And their excuse - at the last cabinet meeting, apparently people should just suck it up, because we are lower than others in Kent and have lower parking charges than Canterbury. Delusional.
Mr Mayor, we are proud of our hard-working officers delivering every day; but unfortunately, this year we cannot support above inflation pay rises using borrowed money. We have been consistent throughout the budget building process, as raised by my Deputy Leader, an inflation matched pay rise for our hard-working officers is justified. This year, the pay rise proposed is nearly double inflation and unaffordable. If the Leader of the Council feels this above inflation rise is necessary, then he should have asked his Deputy Prime Minister and Government to fund Medway Council’s £18m budget gap, through the grant received from government. I have seen no such correspondence. We do though, recognise, this Council needs to go further to support the recruitment of hard to recruit roles. This is why we will be proposing an additional £500,000 to support the recruitment of roles that this Council has traditionally found difficult to fill. This will deliver quality talent and opportunity for our staff.
We understand the pressures in children’s and adult’s social care. Under our leadership, we delivered record increases in funding to children’s services, returning an exceptional service and a Good Ofsted result for this council. We must continue to go further, and as a Group support through the Children and Young People Overview and Scrutiny committee in holding the administration to account on providing a stronger service for our children and young people. But we have concerns about the speed of improvements from Good to Outstanding, and a further £1.6m at a time when there are extreme pressures to the Budget we do not, Mr Mayor, feel is deliverable. This should be delayed until there is clarity within the Spending Review around the Medium-Term Financial Statements of this Council, and solidification of the Good should be the focus for the administration for this year. There is also the matter of local government reorganisation, and the focus on driving to outstanding, at a time when, the service may shortly be merged with another authority does not make sense. At the right time, further funds can be made available for this important service.
Alongside this, there is a lack of ambition within the Council around the success of the Medway Go programme. A programme which has provided outstanding activities for children and young people to enjoy. We believe that there should be further funding for school holiday clubs and an expansion to the programme over the forthcoming financial year. This will deliver for families across the Medway towns.
This though, must be coupled, with a return for free swimming for our children and young people. We’ve been out, listening with our residents, and know how upset they are. We will this evening be proposing a mechanism to return free swimming for children and young people, under the age of 11 years old, after school, during term time, to ensure that this vital opportunity for our children and young people is made available once again. This will fit within the council’s financial spending envelope and ensure that young people can enjoy the opportunities given to previous generations in accessing our leisure centres. This is fundamentally the right thing to do.
Last year, Mr Mayor, we saw the start of the Labour parking hikes, raising the cost for people across Medway to access our car parks. Take my ward, in Rainham, where in this budget it will cost £1.90 to visit Rainham Tesco to pick up a pint of milk, collect your dry-cleaning and collect a coffee. Of course, we all know that people won’t do this. They will instead go to other shops in the area which have free car parks, such as Tesco at Bowaters Roundabout, and Hempstead Valley Shopping Centre. This administration knows nothing about business, the plans to raise these parking charges in car parks that serve our small businesses in town centres isn’t just economically illiterate but is completely and utterly wrong. We will be proposing this evening to reduce parking charges for the first half an hour, in key car parks in towns across Medway, which will mean that people can once again, at a far more reasonable cost, access our town centres and provide a much-needed lifeline to local small businesses.
Medway 2.0 has the potential to be transformational for this Council. But the pace under this administration is not going fast enough. Savings are failing to be realised, and the Council should go further to deliver on the potential of a truly digitally connected Medway. We want to see a review of progress, and a clear and deliverable roadmap to the future finance of this authority. I know how passionate our Shadow Cabinet Member, Habib Tejan, is on this matter.
Mr Mayor. To Summarise, this Budget is a disaster for Medway. Fees and charges UP. Spending UP. Salary rises above inflation. £18m worth of borrowing on the credit card, paid for by future generations. And a Medium-Term Financial Statement with the Cabinet betting that through the spending review Medway’s gap will be closed. This budget is undeliverable, cruel and will fail to deliver for Medway residents. The Conservative Group WILL NOT support it, and I urge all members of the Council to vote against it tonight.Medway deserves better.
Thank you, Mr Mayor.
