Clegg under fire in row over cuts

Sheffield South East MP Clive Betts accused the Deputy Prime Minister – MP for Sheffield Hallam – of peddling a myth that the Lib Dem-led city council has avoided making harsher cuts by being smarter than some Labour authorities who have been accused of indiscriminately slashing services.

In a Commons Budget debate he also claimed Mr Clegg has wrongly claimed the authority – of which Labour is hoping to win control in May’s local election – is only cutting 200 jobs when its own website reveals 731 posts are going to go.

“Sheffield Council is facing up to exactly the same problems as other northern cities are facing,” said Mr Betts, who has also tabled a Commons motion criticising Mr Clegg and the Lib Dem-led authority.

“Unfortunately, it is choosing to delay its cuts until after the local elections, when either that deferral of the cuts will help win the election, as it hopes, or more likely the problem will be passed on to a new, Labour council. It is hiding the reality of the cuts from the people of Sheffield.”

A spokesman for Mr Clegg said the claims were “typical of the scaremongering practised by Labour in Sheffield” and council leader Paul Scriven said it showed Labour would “slash and burn” if they won control of the council.