During the height of the pandemic, while the Tory government was partying, handing out lucrative PPE contracts to their chums and bypassing local public health professionals to spend £37bn outsourcing test and trace, local authorities were there, working with their local community groups to provide support for residents in the form of food parcels, help with shopping, and caring phone calls to check on the physical and mental health of the most vulnerable. Now, yet again, they are bearing the brunt of Tory cuts, providing a shield not to protect their services but to protect the government from being blamed for the dire state of local services (Budget plans risk ‘second lost decade’ of living standards, Jeremy Hunt told, 4 March).
In the sixth richest country in the world, we have a right to expect not just the bread of bin collections, but the roses of libraries and orchestras. And not just cultural roses. I am involved in providing children’s school holiday food and activities, and a warm space and free lunch for older residents, in our local community centre, nourishing minds as well as bodies. Both services are funded by the local authority, neither are luxuries, and both have uncertain futures. Cuts such as those to the household support fund will have a devastating effect on the poorest in our society.
