Now Parliament is in recess over the Summer, it’s a good time to step back and review how the first few months of a Labour Government has impacted on our communities and local government.
The announcements that have come from the Government so far have been disappointing. Programmes for local investment are being scrapped, money is being taken away from pensioners, and communities are not being considered as Labour reverts back to its worn-out tradition of top-down targets imposed from Westminster.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, has announced that the hospital building programme put in place by the previous government is being put under review, and that includes plans for a new Royal Berkshire Hospital. This has effectively killed off Government funding for a new local hospital, despite a clear need and money already spent on planning and consultation by the Foundation Trust. And it completely contradicts the promises made by local Labour MPs that their party would deliver a new hospital.
At the same time, Labour have said that they will take away payments to help 10 million pensioners heat their homes in the Winter. The End Fuel Poverty Coalition has warned that this will disproportionately affect older people living in rural areas like those in Wokingham Borough, and has branded the move “particularly cruel”.
Labour’s claim that they need to do this because they’ve discovered a fictitious black hole in the public finances has already been rubbished by the Institute for Fiscal Studies. All the while, we’ve watched as Conservative plans to reduce the numbers of civil servants which had increased to deal with the pandemic have been scrapped.
Having warned that a Labour Government would mean more houses being built across Wokingham Borough, it is again no surprise that they are going ahead with plans to build more and shake up the planning system including allowing building on the Green Belt.
What might be a surprise is that, while leafy areas like Wokingham are going to see centrally imposed targets skyrocket over the next five years, London and other major cities are seeing theirs reduced.
Under the Labour Government London will be expected to build 80,000 homes per year, down from a target of 100,000 under the previous Government.
As a result, many London MPs such as Keir Starmer, David Lammy and Wes Streeting – coincidentally the Prime Minister, Foreign Secretary and Health Secretary – are seeing targets in their area reduced. But it’s not just in London. Labour’s new Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Liz Kendall, is also seeing housing targets in her Leicester constituency reduced.
Responding to criticism of the new targets Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner said “some areas might appear to get a surprising target – well, no method is perfect…”
Residents are not asking for a perfection. They are asking for a system that makes sense. What Labour has delivered instead fails to produce higher targets where the need for new housing is highest, and proposes to take away local decision-making.
The Liberal Democrat administration running Wokingham Borough Council have completely abandoned the field. Despite previously promising lower housing numbers and a change to where new houses will go, they’ve instead rolled over and are meekly stating they will go ahead with the old draft Local Plan – having wasted two years on hand-wringing. We also fear that they will not take the opportunity to change the plan based on feedback obtained in the period up to them gaining control of the Council on the promise of saving the Borough from unsustainable development. Meanwhile, we hear nothing from the Liberal Democrats on what they’re doing to get funding back for a new hospital, or how they intend to support struggling pensioners once the weather turns cold.
As for local Labour MPs and councillors, you can expect nothing, as they throw their full support behind the Government, all while blaming someone else.
Your local Conservatives, however, will continue fighting for our area. We’ll continue making the case for a sensible number of new homes in the right places, and we will bring whatever pressure we can to overturn these poor decisions on a hospital and payments for pensioners. I urge other local parties to put Wokingham Borough first, and join us in our fight.
Pauline Jorgensen is the leader of Wokingham Conservatives
