From the despatch box yesterday, I, as part of the team in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, answered questions from members about the work our ministry has been doing so far to deliver change for our country.
With my role focusing on Local Government and English Devolution, I spoke in the chamber about the challenges local authorities are facing, despite the hard work of officials who work for them, along with plans to take power out of Westminster and give it back to local communities.
The Tories treated local authorities with contempt and hollowed out their budgets for 14 years. However, with multi-year funding settlements, ending the competitive bidding process, and reforming the broken audit system, we will transform local government to both make it best serve the needs of communities and ensure it is fit for the future.
People with skin in the game are best able to make decisions about their own area: we want the right power at the right level so every place can reach its full potential.
As a former local authority leader myself, I know all too well the difficulties of trying to plan ahead with a lack of support from central government and no consistency of policy from Westminster.
This I why now in government, we are working tirelessly to create a new relationship between local and central government so that local authorities can count on the stable support of Westminster along with a greater number of levers for them to enact the change they seek.
If we can get this right, not only will local communities be empowered, but Britain as a whole will be better placed to achieve both economic growth which is higher, sustained and broad-based and also opportunity which is spread far and wide.
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Jim McMahon OBE MP 