'Burned earth' Labour under fire

Communities and Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles rejected claims the 6bn package of cuts announced by the coalition Government this week would cause widespread job losses and insisted the effect on unemployment would be far worse if action were put off.

Days after it emerged that former Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liam Byrne had left his successor a note saying "there's no money left", former Bradford Council leader Mr Pickles claimed when he walked into his new department he found almost his entire budget had already been allocated, barely a month into the financial year.

Department officials have already admitted that 780m of housing projects under the previous government did not actually have the funding to pay for them – which Labour denies – and Mr Pickles has revealed that pressure on finances may now push back plans for referenda on introducing elected mayors in Leeds, Wakefield, Sheffield and Bradford. He said there would be consultation over the summer about the elected mayor plans but indicated it was unlikely all referenda would take place on the same day as had been planned, and warned they would only go ahead if they would not "inadvertently put new burdens" on local authorities.

Asked about this week's cuts, Mr Pickles told regional newspaper reporters in Westminster: "I arrived in the department and they're lovely people, I have to say, but there was this funny smell and I couldn't work out what it was.

"Then I saw the budget, and I realised it was a burnt earth smell. Ninety per cent of the budget had already been committed. All that was required was fires down the corridor to make it for real.

"You've got to understand we're going against the backdrop where real vandalism has been committed to local government finance... The package (of cuts) we produced would have been materially different had it not been for the decision by the outgoing Labour party to have this burnt earth, this Valhalla approach towards financial planning."

Regional development agencies – which the Tories plan to turn into local economic partnerships, with more say for councillors – were also guilty of "putting one or two torches to haystacks", he claimed.

Mr Pickles said if the Government did not make cuts now, with councils facing a 1.2bn raid on their budgets this year, there would be "massive job cuts" in future. His experience as a council leader in the 1980s convinced him the savings could be made without affecting frontline services.

He confirmed council leaders and businesses would determine the fate of Yorkshire Forward, as regional development agencies are replaced by local economic partnerships. He said it was for local leaders to "bring to the table" a plan as to whether they want the new body to cover the whole region or smaller areas such as greater Leeds.

But Labour's Shadow Communities Secretary John Denham said: "Eric Pickles is trying to blame his predecessors for the decisions he has made as Secretary of State. He has failed to protect local services and local government from cuts, and he has agreed to make cuts which will hit many of those communities facing the biggest challenges. It is a shocking start for the new Minister.

"Labour delivered 13 straight years of above-inflation increases in funding for local government."

Shadow Foreign Secretary David Miliband has taken the lead from his brother Ed, MP for Doncaster North, in the race to secure nominations for the Labour leadership, with 51 backers to 46. Shadow Education Secretary Ed Balls, MP for Morley and Outwood, has 24 nominations.