Illegal budgets would set Labour back

Jeremy Corbyn was absolutely right to discourage illegal budget-setting at the end of last year, shortly after local activists had called on councils to do just that.

Here in Lambeth we have come a long way since the 1980s and the then Labour council’s decision to set an illegal budget. Since then, Lambeth has been paying back money that could and should have gone on public services.

This history means we have long been set on realising our ambitions by drawing on our Labour values. Quite rightly, our party celebrates those who stand up to unfairness and it is tempting to call for grand gestures in the face of savage cuts. But a gesture is all it would be if Labour councillors turned the clock back to illegal budgets. Of course there would be headlines and no doubt plaudits from some within the party, but there would also be champagne corks popping at Conservative headquarters and across the media as the Labour party of 2016 consigned itself to history. We would be fulfilling every accusation that we are a party not to be trusted with the economy.

Instead, we are fair to everyone and ambitious for all. We take every opportunity to campaign against this government’s policies, which harm our residents. That is why we fought against the government’s flawed tax credits reforms, against welfare cuts, and against the failure to tackle the housing crisis. These are the issues that matter to local people every day.

Setting an illegal budget means Whitehall would step in, as the council and the services we care so much about delivering, ground to a halt. An unelected external team with powers to set a legal budget would come in with the very clear priority of saving money, not services. There would be no local accountability and no delivery of our Labour vision. I am proud, for example, of implementing the London Living Wage for council employees and our contractors, and defending our domestic violence services. The government would not care about protecting local services and local people like we do.

As a result of our control, in the last four years we have opened three brand new health and leisure centres. We have over 90 per cent of our primary schools providing healthy breakfasts, and we are committed to investment in our housing stock and building a thousand new homes at council rents.

I believe in pragmatism and partnership and will fight with passion and determination for fairness and opportunity. If Labour has a chance of returning to government, we have to show that we are responsible, can run budgets, provide services and are prepared for the long haul, open to ideas for being more efficient, working differently.

In these tough times, gesture politics are not what we, or those we serve, need. We need councillors committed to Labour’s values whose political maturity and ability to make hard choices will be far more compelling when the electorate comes to consider which government will prioritise and renew our public services.

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Lib Peck is leader of the London borough of Lambeth

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Photo: Reading Tom