Catch up on the latest political news from across Kent with Sofia Akin, joined by Labour leader of Medway Council, Vince Maple, and the Green Party leader of Folkestone and Hythe District Council, Jim Martin.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 Hello and welcome to the Kent Politics Show live on KMTV. I'm Sophia Akin. Now money,
00:27 money, money. Sounds appealing but potentially not for Kent councils and councils across
00:32 the country as over the past few weeks many of them have been looking down the back of
00:36 their sofas trying to find any spare change that will help them fill the millions they
00:40 need to balance the books. Medway was dealing with a more than £12 million budget gap and
00:45 Kent County Council had £49 million to found. But not forgetting all 12 of the county's
00:50 borough and district councillors who also have budgets of their own to set. Well today
00:55 we'll be unpicking all that and more and also looking ahead to a bigger budget. Next week
00:59 the Chancellor Jeremy Hunt will deliver his spring budget. Well joining me today is the
01:04 Labour and Co-operative Leader at Medway Council and the Green Leader of Folkestone and Hyde
01:08 District Council. Thank you to both of you for joining us today. So you both have very
01:13 different budgets that you've had to set in the past few weeks, months, however long you've
01:18 been planning them for. But there are some similarities in the budgets you've been setting.
01:22 So Vince I wanted to start with you. In your budget that was voted on last night, just
01:29 down the road from us actually, one of your decisions was to increase council tax. Now
01:36 you wanted first of all to increase this above the maximum amount. That wasn't okayed by
01:42 the government. So instead there's going to be, for Band D property which is most of,
01:47 on average most of the residents, be an increase of £1.61 a week and that's an extra £6.44
01:55 monthly. For many residents that's a lot to find for a month, those who are parents or
02:01 just those regular residents. So why did you make that decision? Well there's a few bits
02:05 in that and I'm really proud that we've moved the first Labour and Co-operative Majority
02:10 Council budget. It was passed last night and yes we did raise council tax. It's worth saying
02:16 in Medway that actually the majority of our housing falls into Band A and B so it's a
02:21 lesser amount than obviously the increase at Band D from a pound percentage. But actually
02:28 for me it's about saying we've been in a really challenging place with our finances. We knew
02:33 when we got elected in May it would be difficult. We didn't realise quite how difficult until
02:37 we unturned the stones of the finances. So that did mean that we've had to put up council
02:42 tax. It does mean we've had to take some really quite challenging decisions and we may talk
02:47 about some of those this afternoon. But also we've had to reach out to government and we've
02:51 done that as a result of CITFOR coming to see us. So sector experts in local government
02:56 finance, they were really clear. Medway Council's finances were in a grave situation. That's
03:01 a pretty stunning first sentence to any report a council leader is reading. So we wrote to
03:07 government on the basis of the advice and guidance from CITFOR. They gave us two things
03:11 to recommend. We asked for exceptional financial support. It must be really clear that doesn't
03:16 mean additional money, that just means additional flexibility. And that was granted literally
03:21 at the 11th hour yesterday we got the confirmation from government.
03:24 Yeah I wanted to ask you when you found out because it was just before the budget. So
03:27 when did you know that you were going to get that?
03:29 So it was in Parliament, it was confirmed yesterday afternoon. So of course we had a
03:33 working assumption. You've got to prepare for a budget meeting whether it's Folkestone,
03:37 Medway. Every council needs to publish its papers ahead of the council meeting. So our
03:42 assumption was that we would be successful. But until actually Parliament has confirmed
03:47 that which was yesterday.
03:48 One of 19 councils that's been granted this. We spoke to the leader of the opposition at
03:55 Medway to kind of see his thoughts on this now that this money had gone through. So we
03:58 can hear from Adrian Golfin now.
04:02 The whole budget really depended on the government bailout. And that is not sustainable for the
04:08 long term. Yes I firmly believe that we need to go to government and say that you're not
04:16 funding us enough. But in order to do that you've got to be able to honestly say that
04:21 we've left no stone unturned. We've looked at all the savings possible. Now we can't
04:27 meet our basic requirements for our services to local people. And then the government should
04:32 pay that in cash not in the form of giving us yet more borrowing. What worries me is
04:40 that over the term, longer term, we're going to build up debt piling on debt. And we're
04:47 basically taking out now further loans to pay some of the interest on the loans we've
04:51 already got. Everybody knows that is not sustainable for the future.
04:57 So essentially what Adrian is trying to say is that this is pushing the problem, pushing
05:00 the can down the road if you like. So yeah, is this just going to be a problem for you
05:06 down the line?
05:07 Look I agree with Adrian Golfin that I'd much prefer that we'd been given a £14 million
05:12 grant. But the government, his government of his political party didn't do that. They
05:17 could have done that but they chose not to.
05:18 They've given you a decent amount of money though.
05:21 They've given us no extra money. Not one penny more extra money.
05:24 But it's what you asked for.
05:25 They've given us flexibility and that is what we've asked for because that's the current
05:29 rules of the situation and you're right Sophia as you pointed out before that footage, 19
05:35 councils across England of all political persuasions, of all types of council have had to have that
05:41 request go in and be agreed because of the things like the 91% cut we've had in our revenue
05:48 support grant since 2010.
05:49 Let's bring in Jim. Jim, thanks for waiting patiently. You've also had your own budget
05:54 to set. Your deficit was quite a lot smaller than Medway Council's. It's a smaller council
06:01 of course. Medway's a unitary authority. But you also made that decision to raise council
06:05 tax. It's a decision I'm sure no council wants to make but you've made that decision to it
06:13 will be going up, let me just find this figure sorry, it will be those in Folkestone in Bandi
06:17 will have to pay an extra £2 a week.
06:20 It doesn't sound like much but for those families that are struggling that's an extra £8 a
06:24 month, more than £100 a year. Why did you make that decision?
06:28 Well thanks very much Sophia. I think it's worth just saying Vince is a unitary, we're
06:37 a district council. There's a world apart there really. Vince has got a whole load more
06:44 financial pressures in children's social care, adult social care which we don't have to worry
06:51 about. But we do have something that binds us together and that is both of us inherited
06:59 a situation from a previous Conservative administration.
07:03 You knew what you were getting into though when you ran to run the council. You knew
07:09 what the financial situation was like.
07:12 Absolutely right because it needed sorting out. I could have told you three years ago
07:17 that we were going to hit this brick wall. But the previous administration took no notice,
07:24 carried on. I'm not here to criticise others, I'm here to talk about the situation that
07:30 we've currently got. But it does kind of rankle with me when I get criticised by Conservative
07:38 councillors because this situation is of their making.
07:44 Now as you quite rightly said Sophia, we have had to raise council tax. Now this is something
07:52 that we were hugely reluctant to do. I could talk at length about the issues around council
08:00 tax but as the Conservative councillor said, we left no stone unturned. We have had to
08:07 make redundancies in the council. We have cut our costs.
08:13 Two million in staff job cuts have been cut from the council. That's quite a lot of cuts
08:20 to be made and staff now without jobs in this budget.
08:25 Absolutely so. We had 15 voluntary redundancies, people who decided to take the option and
08:32 leave. We then had 22 people or 23 people whose jobs were at risk. We have managed to
08:43 repurpose 18 of those people but there is four stroke five people who were still struggling
08:50 to place. So we are fighting for every job. This has saved us a huge amount of money.
08:59 It has inevitably been a reduction in services but no frontline customer facing services.
09:09 So it has been a huge amount of work.
09:12 I also wanted to just ask you, both councils have decided to make some changes to parking.
09:18 Vince, all of the council's car parks are going to see some change in the parking fees.
09:24 60p extra an hour. That's quite a big sum. Also Jim, there is also going to be increasing
09:30 hours charged for parking. Now people will have to pay from 6pm to 9pm when it was originally
09:37 free at that time. This is surely going to drive out some local economy and impact businesses.
09:42 We will start with you Vince on that one. Why did you make this decision? It's quite
09:46 a lot more. People will be paying 60p an hour.
09:49 I think it's a difficult choice that we had to take. Again, when you have got that backdrop
09:53 of that 91% cut in our revenue support grant, then you do have to take challenging choices
09:59 as Jim has, as every council leader across Kent and across England will have to do. And
10:04 again, that's because we have seen year on year austerity cuts since 2010 to local government
10:09 finance. What's it going to do to the local businesses though is what I'm trying to find
10:12 out. So we are going to be working really hard on two aspects if not more. One in particular
10:17 around improving our public transport offer. It's not good enough and actually Jim and
10:21 I sit on the Kent council leaders and we've had a pretty robust conversation with some
10:27 of our public transport providers. We need them to do better. We're not in a position,
10:32 if Folkestone or Medway or any other council in Kent wanted to start its own bus company,
10:37 we're legally not allowed to. So actually some of the tools which councils would have
10:40 had 30 or 40 years ago, we don't have available to us. We're also working on ways to work
10:46 closely with our town centre forums to encourage additional investment and specifically in
10:52 Medway we've got a focus on Gillingham. The previous administration failed to put in a
10:56 future high streets fund bid for Gillingham. That wasn't acceptable. So we've got a task
11:01 force looking at this now, led by Lauren Edwards and Nishar Bhakhan, looking carefully at that
11:05 issue. I'll ask Jim as well, we're about to go to our break but you've also made this
11:08 decision to increase parking Jim. At night time, this is a time when businesses rely
11:13 on getting money in restaurants and bars. Why have you decided to do that?
11:18 Well this is extremely limited Sophia. Geographically we're a very large district but the increase
11:26 in car parking charges only applies to certain parts of Folkestone itself. Now it must be
11:33 said that there's a lot of free on street parking available in Folkestone. So this is
11:42 not going to impinge on people. We've got our break now Jim. Sorry. Budgets are huge
11:49 though. We are going to be continuing talking about the budgets after the break. Thank you
11:52 both. We'll see you after this short break. See you in a few minutes.
11:56 [Music]
12:01 [Break]
12:03 [Music]
12:05 [Music]
12:07 [Music]
12:09 [Music]
12:11 [Music]
12:13 [Music]
12:15 [Music]
12:17 [Music]
12:19 [Music]
12:21 [Music]
12:23 [BLANK_AUDIO]
12:33 [BLANK_AUDIO]
12:43 [BLANK_AUDIO]
12:53 [BLANK_AUDIO]
13:03 [BLANK_AUDIO]
13:13 [BLANK_AUDIO]
13:23 [BLANK_AUDIO]
13:33 [BLANK_AUDIO]
13:43 [BLANK_AUDIO]
13:53 [BLANK_AUDIO]
14:03 [BLANK_AUDIO]
14:13 [BLANK_AUDIO]
14:23 [BLANK_AUDIO]
14:33 [BLANK_AUDIO]
14:43 [BLANK_AUDIO]
14:53 [BLANK_AUDIO]
15:01 [MUSIC]
15:07 Hello and welcome back to the Kent Politics Show live on KMTV.
15:11 Now before the break, we were unpicking Medway Council and Folkestone's
15:15 budgets with the leaders of both councils.
15:17 So we're gonna be continuing that discussion.
15:20 Jim, I'm sorry I had to cut you off, we had to go to our ad break.
15:22 So you were in the middle of discussing about the decision to raise,
15:26 to extend sort of the amount of time people have to pay for
15:29 parking along the seafront.
15:30 So if you wanna pick up where you left off essentially.
15:33 >> Yeah, for sure.
15:34 This is a relatively small issue in terms of it affects
15:39 very few car parks.
15:42 We only have one principal town, that is Folkestone, and
15:46 this largely centers around the principal car parks.
15:51 The one that springs to mind is the one next to the Leescliff Hall.
15:56 So concert goers will have to pay for their parking.
16:02 But other than that, there's plenty of on street parking during
16:07 the evenings in Folkestone.
16:09 You may have to walk a few further steps, but I don't see that this
16:14 will impact restaurants or pubs or any of the night time economy really.
16:21 >> Surely it has to a little bit though.
16:22 Some people will rely on those spaces to go to nearby businesses.
16:26 It's gonna have a slight impact on them, on the local economy.
16:29 >> No, I'd have to disagree.
16:31 I think that the people who park in the car parks in the evening,
16:39 it's really to go to the larger venues.
16:42 And if they want to walk a little further, they can find plenty
16:46 of on street parking.
16:47 So while I get the headline, when you dig down into this,
16:53 it's not really gonna have a big impact.
16:57 Incidentally, Vince will know that currently we're in discussions
17:01 with KCC because they want to charge us, I think it's £100,000,
17:07 Vince, isn't it, for the pleasure of providing their on street
17:11 car parking charges in Folkestone.
17:14 >> KCC aren't here, unfortunately, Jim.
17:17 So I think we might stick with the budget discussion for now.
17:20 And we'll potentially talk to KCC about that another time.
17:23 Some other things within the budget I wanted to talk about.
17:26 Gunn Wharf, Medway Council's offices, has been out of action
17:30 for months now.
17:31 How many months is it because of the rack discovery?
17:34 >> So we got the initial discovery of it in October.
17:38 It still means that we've got real restrictions on being able
17:41 to use it.
17:42 I had an interview with Oliver this afternoon, and we had to do
17:45 that outside in the rain rather than inside because at the moment
17:49 insurance doesn't cover people that are not employees to come in.
17:52 So that's why the plan that we brought forward yesterday at the
17:55 council meeting, £20 million of borrowing, not a small amount
17:58 of borrowing, but actually there's two particular reasons for that.
18:01 Firstly, it's grade two listed.
18:04 That means there are additional costs to doing anything to that
18:07 building.
18:08 And secondly, we want to make sure that it's fit for purpose for
18:11 the 21st century so that both staff and residents have a council
18:14 headquarters, which is fit for purpose, both in the sense of being
18:18 a good place to be, but also playing our part in tackling the
18:22 climate emergency, doing as much as we can with that particular set
18:27 of refurbishments to lower the carbon footprint of our council
18:32 headquarters.
18:33 >> Since October, you've worked without an office.
18:36 The council hasn't crumbled apart because of not having an office.
18:39 £22 million is a huge amount of money.
18:42 It's more than the money that you requested from government.
18:45 Could you not have considered selling off Gunn Wharf or potentially
18:48 not using it any longer and making back that money and then you
18:52 wouldn't be in debt now to the government?
18:54 >> As Jim said earlier on, we're a unitary authority.
18:57 We're a big authority.
18:58 We carry out every council service that is deliverable.
19:03 It has been a struggle.
19:05 It has impacted on our ability to do things as efficiently as we
19:09 would want.
19:10 Of course, we learned some lessons from the time we had lockdown.
19:14 So actually it's probably been easier now than perhaps it would
19:17 have been, say, five years ago.
19:19 But absolutely, the council is not working as efficiently as it
19:22 could be by not having that space.
19:25 It has meant some real difficulties, practical difficulties as well.
19:29 So it is the right decision.
19:31 What it will do as well is it will free up our ability to move out
19:35 of our other buildings we're currently in.
19:37 So we have some space in Broadside, in the Dockside.
19:41 We have some space in Kingsley House.
19:43 Those are the sorts of things we were talking about before October
19:46 to say actually we want to bring staff back to have a more
19:49 centralised headquarters.
19:51 Of course, that's been paused because we've now got the issue of
19:54 RAC to deal with.
19:55 Okay.
19:56 And that's not an issue that you've had to deal with as far as we
19:59 know, Jim, but an issue kind of unique to Folkestone.
20:03 Within this budget, you decided sort of not to get behind the concept
20:07 of new nuclear at Dungeness, which seems quite counterproductive
20:10 for a green-led council.
20:12 And Dungeness brings in £35 million every year to Folkestone.
20:15 So why did you make that decision?
20:18 Well, I'm not sure where you got that information from.
20:21 It was in the council meeting last night.
20:23 No, I think that was something that the Conservatives or it was an
20:26 Independent said, but it's untrue.
20:29 It's completely untrue.
20:31 I've had meetings with the Minister for Nuclear Power at Dungeness.
20:36 We brought - or we amended a motion for all green energy.
20:43 We support green energy at Dungeness unequivocally.
20:48 And the thing to think about in this, Sophia,
20:51 is that what a small modular reactor will do at Dungeness is that it will
20:57 produce a huge amount of hydrogen.
20:59 Now, that hydrogen will be required by the Port of Dover if the Port of
21:04 Dover is going to decarbonise.
21:06 The ships that cross the channel can't run on batteries.
21:12 They will have to run on hydrogen.
21:14 And a small modular reactor will give us that ability.
21:17 So this is about decarbonising on a very, very large scale.
21:22 OK. I want to move on slightly.
21:24 We've got another budget looming, the spring budget,
21:27 which potentially is out of the hands of local councils,
21:30 but in the hands of Jeremy Hunt.
21:34 And we heard from Tudor Price,
21:36 who's from the Kent and Victor Chamber of Commerce.
21:38 He's lobbying the government on reforming business rates.
21:42 So we can hear from him now.
21:44 What can local authorities do?
21:45 Well, understandably, they're going to want to try and raise revenue
21:48 themselves through car parking increases, through business rates and stuff like that.
21:52 So one of the asks for local authority is to join with us in trying to lobby
21:59 the government to review the business rate approach.
22:02 The current methodology that's used at a local level is outdated.
22:06 It doesn't reflect the way trade and commerce takes place these days.
22:10 It's unfairly biased towards or weighted against retailers.
22:14 And, of course, we know struggling high streets are sort of going to need that support.
22:18 So there needs to be a real decisive review of the way in which business rates are calculated
22:23 so that it's more equitable and that burden is shared across the whole of the business
22:27 community and not just on certain pockets.
22:30 And that's something that councils can join with us to do rather than perhaps just sort of,
22:34 you know, leave that one as being another too hard to handle pile.
22:37 So we're really keen that they're trying to support us on that.
22:40 So Tudor's asking council leaders like yourselves to kind of lobby in,
22:45 lobby him, sorry, join him in his lobby to the government to reform business rates.
22:50 So I wanted to ask you both kind of with your level of authority,
22:54 is this something you've been doing, contacting the chancellor ahead of the budget,
22:58 trying to kind of see if you can get him to do certain things?
23:02 Jim, let's start with you.
23:04 Yeah, I mean, Sophia, if you look at how business rates work, it's a dog's breakfast.
23:10 It really, really is. It needs some serious reform.
23:15 And in fact, we've been working with the local chamber of commerce on exactly that.
23:20 It is unfair that the most strange anomalies pop up when you look at individual businesses
23:27 who are paying, who aren't paying, who are claiming, who are not claiming.
23:31 It is a complete and utter mess.
23:34 And it is something that this government really, really needs to reform.
23:38 Well, they're talking about potentially, you know, making some cuts to certain taxes.
23:43 But the same question to you, Vince.
23:45 I know you've been in touch with members of the government, Michael Gove in particular,
23:51 but have you been in touch with the chancellor about ahead of the budget?
23:54 Well, we have. We wrote on a cross-party basis a unanimous vote on things like the household support fund.
24:00 So, again, a fund which is helping the most vulnerable residents in Medway,
24:04 which the government have only guaranteed till the end of March.
24:07 I hope he listens carefully to that.
24:09 I have a lot of sympathy, actually, for what Tudor said there in his comments.
24:14 Jim's right. Business rates is an outdated method.
24:18 You know, things like Amazon and the such like were just not a player in the game
24:24 when these processes were formed up.
24:26 We want high streets to succeed and therefore you've got to have a level playing field.
24:31 So it does need a fundamental review.
24:33 Of course, we need to do that in a way that protects the revenue that stays within the council community.
24:39 It's an important part of our revenue generation.
24:42 But I want those online businesses to pay their fair share as well.
24:46 And there's got to be an equitable way just because, I don't know, an eBay or Google are based in one particular community,
24:53 those revenues should be shared accordingly across the country
24:57 to make sure we're all getting a fair share of that resource based on need.
25:01 That's really important.
25:02 Well, the last autumn budget, we did see national insurance cuts for 27 million workers.
25:08 That started at the start of this year in January.
25:10 And we also know that the Chancellor's hinted at cutting taxes.
25:14 Income tax would, of course, be a huge one.
25:16 But also, interestingly, this decision to potentially tax vapes,
25:20 and of course, the point of that is to make sure that the younger generations aren't getting into vapes.
25:25 I want to talk to you about this, Jim, because folks in Kent Police recently went on a spree seizing illegal vapes.
25:32 So do you actually agree with this Conservative pledge policy?
25:37 Absolutely. Absolutely. Long overdue.
25:40 And anyone who, you know, tries to make the argument to me that, you know, vaping actually helps people stop smoking,
25:50 I will argue that it actually started an awful lot of young people smoking.
25:55 So this action is long overdue.
26:00 I went just before Christmas, I went on patrol with our local police.
26:07 And we, you know, they took me to lots of places. We saw lots of things and etc, etc.
26:14 But the number of children who are able to buy illegal, these very, very intense vapes is scandalous.
26:24 So, you know, measures are long overdue.
26:27 Vince, do you also agree with the Conservative pledge?
26:31 We have 20 seconds, we have no time, but in a line.
26:34 I mean, I think really clearly I agree. And particularly my deputy leader, Theresa Murray, who leads on us for health,
26:39 has been a really strong voice on this for a number of years.
26:43 So it's good to see government catching up with Theresa Murray.
26:46 The party's all agreeing on something. That's all we've got time for. Thank you both for joining us. See you after the break.
26:51 [MUSIC]