David Burrowes calls for fairer deal for tax payers

David Burrowes, MP for Enfield Southgate, has taken up the fight for a fairer deal for local tax payers to the floor of the Commons and has directly challenged the Logal governemnt minister John Healey about Enfield's Council Grant.

Controversial Government proposals to allocate fixed funding for local governments for the next three years have been hotly contested due to the Government using a 'floor' and dampener' mechanism to claw back money from Local Authorities like Enfield to pay for shortfalls in other Council's budgets. David Burrowes is concerned that talk of fair deals for councils, ability to plan ahead, and money saving, are not matched by the reality on the ground where Enfield Council will have to increase Council tax to cover the £5million bill for adult social care..

Fed up with further tax increases being packaged as grant benefits, David said: “Enough is enough. The Government is again playing smokes and mirrors with our Council tax bills. On the one hand we have a Government talking of increases on core grants which are necessary for the increased needs in Enfield , yet in the next breath any benefit of this is clawed back through the dampening effect.”

David also pointed out in the debate the significant impact of short term migration on Enfield and the failure of the Governemnt to take account of this in the grant.

David commented: “The problem with the 3 year fixed grants is that it fails to take account of the huge impact of short term migration. We need more accurate population statistics so that the increased pressures on Enfield come to light and we receive the grant we need. ”