“The Chancellor chose to focus on perks for his friends in the City – cutting corporation tax and not continuing the bankers’ bonus tax. He is ambitious for the wealth creation of the richest, but where is his ambition for the rest of us?

“On housing, the shared equity scheme to help 10,000 first-time buyers purchase properties is a start, but without a serious commitment to boosting supply will not solve the problem. Labour have committed to build 25,000 more affordable homes – where is this Government’s ambition for housing?

“With 1 in 5 young people unemployed, providing up to 50,000 new apprenticeships will help, but is nowhere near enough. Labour’s Future Jobs Fund, which this Government abolished, planned to create 150,000 new jobs – where is this Government’s ambition for our young people?

“Local government was thrown a few scraps. There is £100m extra for potholes, which will go towards tackling the effects of decades of underinvestment in our road networks – something Labour Local Government has continually voiced concern over. Local Enterprise Zones will be piloted in certain areas in a new bid to create a strategic framework for growth after the Government scrapped regional development agencies.

“But as we enter year one of a four year 28% cut in funding for local government it is clear the Chancellor does not seriously intend to improve the autonomy and potential of local authorities to deliver for their residents. Where is this Government’s ambition for our communities?”

“Despite bluster that he has protected vulnerable communities, Pickles has still outlined a settlement that is highly variable for individual local authorities, with some facing cuts of 17% in the next year alone. The £85 million transitional grant amounts to less than half a per cent of all grant money, and is a drop in the ocean compared to what is needed to plug the £6.5bn funding shortfall councils are facing this year.

“Pickles had the opportunity to address the unfair frontloading of cuts to local authority budgets and spread them more evenly across the next four years, but he ducked it. This means there is little scope for councils to respond innovatively or reduce costs through advance planning or natural wastage. The way the cuts have been foisted upon councils means many will have no choice but to act swiftly. Services and jobs that could otherwise be saved will have to be cut, and people will soon start to see the effect of this in their neighbourhoods.

“By suggesting that only “lazy” councils will slash frontline services, Pickles has shown that he completely fails to understand the implications of his own policies. It is clear that Pickles cares less about implementing true localism, and more about passing the buck down to local authorities to carry out the Government’s ideological cuts agenda.”

“It is all very well Pickles claiming the measures will give councils “more freedom”, but coming just weeks after the unprecedented 28% cuts to council budgets he is giving with one hand and taking away with another. It is not clear how everyone in our communities will be best served by the combination of the worst cuts to council budgets in modern times, multiple new layers of neighbourhood bureaucracy and a system which encourages the competition of sectional interests.

“This Government seems hell bent on undermining the hard work of elected councillors at every turn. Local councils work at the heart of their area, run by elected members who are best placed to know and respond to their residents.

“Now this relationship is to be turned on its head as the Secretary of State will have the power to initiate mayoral referenda regardless of whether the local community wants it or not. Planning reform measures seem designed specifically to build chaos into the system, with sectional interests allowed to block developments and hold others to ransom. Social housing tenants are being attacked on several fronts, with an end to security of tenure, an increase in rents and the abolition of the Tenant Services Authority.

“When is this Government going to start living up to its localist claims? We who work day in, day out for our communities know that genuine localism, which meets the needs of everyone in a community and not just those that shout the loudest, is best delivered through local councils, working with their residents. The role of central government should support, not undermine this relationship and it is a shame that today Ministers have failed to take the opportunity to strengthen it”.

“The 30% cuts to local government announced today are an attack on our communities, driven by discredited ideology, not fiscal prudence. Local authorities have taken a very unfair hit, as they have already made significant cuts. This is going to have serious knock-on effects for local public services which all our residents, including children, families and the elderly, rely upon.

“It is all very well for the government to devolve power to local government, but if they do not fully devolve budgets at the same time, they simply spread the blame for the deficit without responsibility. There is a sting in the tail of the cuts package that will only fully hit home over the next few months. As individual councils get their settlements by the end of the year, some will lose out more than others and we fear those areas already worse off will be hit harder.

“Today’s proposals expose the Government’s real agenda on housing. With their failure to bring forward any sustainable plan to build the numbers of new affordable homes we need, combined with the unveiling of their future intentions for social tenants, their commitment to the future of housing has been blown apart. The costs of inaction now will lead to longer-term social and economic costs that will be much more expensive to repair further down the line.”

“VAT penalises the poorest because it is a flat rate for everyone – as the Lib Dem Deputy Leader Simon Hughes claimed last week, it is the “most regressive tax”. Hiking it up to 20% not only fails the fairness test, it also fails the economic test by undermining fragile growth. It is interesting to see the Lib Dems, who warned of the ‘Tory VAT Bombshell’ before the election, now nodding in agreement behind the Chancellor as he dropped it on the country.

“On first glance, increasing the income tax threshold looks like a positive step targeted at the less well off. But any good this does to low earners is wiped out by the VAT hike. And the poorest households will see no gain – pensioners, the sick, parents in low-paid part time work and the unemployed – while they will certainly feel the impact of the VAT rise.

“Changing the way benefits are uprated by using Consumer Price Inflation rather than Retail Price Inflation seems like a technical amendment. But over time this will increase inequality by causing those on benefits to fall further behind average earnings.

“As we face 25% cuts to local government services, Local Labour will defend our role delivering vital public services within our communities. We will stand up for the rights of workers across the public services. These are some of the lowest paid workers doing some of the hardest jobs and we need to fight efforts to make them scapegoats for the failures of our banking system.

“This Budget is an attack on the poorest by stealth. The Tory-Lib Dem Government undermines its own claims to fairness by cutting progressive income tax and freezing the universal Child Benefit, while it increases the regressive VAT and indicates that massive cuts to vital public services loom large. When Cameron’s PR machine whizzes into gear repeating the mantra ‘we’re all in this together’, the social fallout of this Budget will expose a more sober truth – the poor will shoulder a greater burden.”

LGA Labour Group spokesperson Cllr Simon Henig, Leader of Durham County Council, said: “This one decision will cause a triple whammy of knock-on effects for the public. Children and older people lose their free swimming entitlement, the health benefits of more opportunities to get involved in sport will disappear and the 2012 Legacy is undermined.

“It is deeply disappointing that the Tory-Lib Dem Government’s decision to bring a halt to free swimming comes so close to the school summer holidays, when hundreds of thousands of children families would have benefited. By targeting children and older people, this move makes a mockery of Cameron’s claim that ‘we’re all in this together’.”

Responding to the announcements, Sir Jeremy Beecham, Leader of the LGA Labour Group said: “These cuts will be a major blow to people up and down the country who depend on services that are now to be slashed. While the Lib Dem-Tory Coalition sit in their Westminster offices tearing up funding for grants, the harsh reality of these cuts will be all too painfully felt in our communities.

“Victims of Pickles’ axe include initiatives to tackle worklessness in England’s most deprived areas, housing related support to vulnerable people and programmes to boost community cohesion in poor areas. Housing delivery funding has also been cut, undermining the prospects for crucial housing development that the Labour Government worked so hard to support through the recession.

“Cameron’s claim that ‘we are all in this together’ has today been exposed as a sham. By choosing to cut a grant that is targeted at councils in areas with high levels of deprivation, the Lib Dem-Tory Coalition has shown it is all too willing to let the poorest shoulder the greatest burden. The Government has taken the first opportunity to slash funding for services on which vulnerable people depend.

“This ‘new politics’ is unfortunately the same old Tory wolf in sheep’s clothing – only this time the Liberal Democrats are colluding in the shameful enterprise.”

“First they made clear their intention to marginalise councils in relation to education. Then they inflicted the ridiculous requirement on councils, many of whose budgets run into hundreds of millions of pounds, to publish details of all items of expenditure over £500. Now the Coalition Government has forbidden councils to charge for rubbish thrown away rather than recycled, even though recycling rates are far too low.

“You don’t have to agree with charging to realise that this ought to be a matter for local decision, not central government prescription. To be fair, they’re talking about a general power of competence for councils, but that won’t mean much if councils are only free to do what the government wants.”

The real story of what happened in the election shows the BNP gaining votes, even if this didn’t translate into national or local election gains:

* The BNP share of the vote rose once again, as it has done at every General Election.
* The BNP got more votes per candidate then ever before.
* Half a million people across Britain voted BNP.

Local Labour argues that the worst possible response would be to sit back in the belief that we have overcome the high point of the BNP’s popularity. In a radical new report published today, ‘Challenging the BNP’, Labour councillors set out a rigorous strategy for fighting the BNP in every community, equipping activists to continue the battle.

The report sets out that some people in white working class communities feel disconnected from politics and have fears about housing and public services. But the BNP capitalise on these genuine concerns by spreading rumours about who’s to blame and dividing communities to achieve their perverse ideological ambitions. Local Labour is under no illusion about how serious the consequences of this could be.

Commenting on the launch of the report, Cllr David Sparks, Labour’s Leader Elect in Local Government, said: “The ground gained against the BNP in the polls on the 6th May should be celebrated. But it would be a serious mistake to think that we have defeated them for good. The BNP thrive on the complacency of those in power, and embed themselves in communities to spread vile, hate-filled rumours that support their racist ideology.

“We face an ongoing battle to remove their poison from the heart of our communities. Every one of us needs to roll up our sleeves and work hard to build a strong and tolerant society. We need to make a strong case for the politics of solidarity and hope as opposed to the politics of division and defeat that the BNP are so keen to spread.

“Labour’s core purpose has always been to represent people who don’t feel they are being represented. Now we need to make sure Labour is on the side of decent, hardworking people. Our councillors up and down the country will not sit back: we will continue to fight extremism at every step. Politics does not get more important than this.”

He continued, “Councils do not currently ‘control’ schools, they support them, oversee standards and admissions policies and link them to other council services. The Government is clearly determined exclude councils as much as possible from the crucial education agenda, rely on market forces to rule the roost, while retaining ultimate control themselves.

“One-way referendums on council tax and referendums on any issue substantially dilute the principle of representative democracy and accountability through local elections – the Government would not subject itself to this kind of process. Even the superficially attractive proposals around housing and planning in reality are a charter for nimbyism rather than a responsible approach to difficult questions of development, in which few councils can be entirely autonomous.

“Directly elected police commissioners, under whatever name, and directly elected members of NHS bodies will further fragment local governance between people and bodies with competing mandates- a recipe for conflict and confusion.

“Significantly there is no mention of councils’ role in tackling the growing housing crisis, the reduction of re-offending and its enormous cost, or in relation to social care.

“Labour councillors are clear that this is not the kind of agenda for which we entered local government. Many Tory and Lib Dem councillors must share that view. What will they be prepared to say and do to encourage the Coalition to think again and strive to achieve consensus across the local government spectrum?”