Clegg faces Yorkshire Lib Dem revolt over cuts

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg is facing resistance from Liberal Democrat council chiefs, including two from Yorkshire, over the pace and scale of the coalition Government’s spending cuts.

An open letter signed by 88 local Lib Dem heads, including 17 town hall leaders, warned that the cuts would damage the economy and hit the most vulnerable.

Signatures on the list included Andrew De Freitas, the leader of North East Lincolnshire Council and Carl Minns, the leader of Hull City Council.

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The following Liberal Democrat group leaders from Yorkshire also put their names to the letter: Jane Parlour of Richmondshire; Brian Jeffries of East Riding of Yorkshire; Paul Coddington of Doncaster and Paul English of Craven.

They accused Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles of “letting down” users of council services and refusing to work with councillors. “These cuts will have an undoubted impact on all frontline council services, including care services to the vulnerable,” they said in the letter, published in The Times.

“Rather than assist the country’s recovery by making savings to the public in a way that can protect local economies and the front line, the cuts are structured in such a way that they will do the opposite.” In the letter the signatories claimed that local government was playing its part in tackling the country’s deficit and advancing the Coalition’s aim of the Big Society.

They accused Mr Pickles of being “unwilling to lead the change that’s so desperately needed”. They continued: “Local government has made efficiency savings of 3% in each of the past eight years - in stark contrast to the runaway spending of central government under the previous administration.

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“We’ve also been planning for further saving since the true state of the economy became apparent six months ago. What has been delivered is a difficult cuts package across all government departments but clearly the most severe is to local government.”

It was also claimed that harsh cuts to the local government settlement in the coming financial year means councils do not have enough time to re-engineer services on a lower-cost base or ease staff cuts without forces redundancies.

Lib Dem Communities Minister Andrew Stunell called on the party not to fall out over “pointless debate”. He said the “woeful” deficit inherited from Labour meant “very tough times” for all public services. “Whilst I fully understand the real challenges councils face I think it will be much better to direct all our energy to solving these problems rather than falling out between ourselves,” he said.