Good council services at risk in West Sussex from Government funding changes

AI image of what a protest could look like

 I was delighted to see the recent findings from the Care Quality Commission (CQC), that West Sussex County’s Adults Services have been officially rated as Good. Care services to adults is the largest service provided by the County Council, affecting literally thousands of lives.

The assessment of the council was earlier this year, and the regulator found strong leadership within adult social care teams and effective support that enables people to live healthier lives. While further improvements to address gaps in service are still needed, the findings are strong evidence that solid progress has been made, and that the council is effective at making a real difference to people’s lives.

This strong progress in Adult Services is the latest in very positive assessments that have been made of different services provided by West Sussex County Council. The second largest service, Children’s Services has also been seeing strong official recognition of improvements. Last month, the inspections of three children’s homes by Ofsted were announced, with two being rated as Good and another one that’s in Crawley, being rated as Outstanding.

Additionally, the West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service has seen significant ongoing progress in its last two official inspections. All eleven of the grading judgements from the last inspection last year were either Good or Adequate. A clear positive trend among all the main services that have external inspections has emerged.

But what about the roads you may say? A significant amount of investment has been ploughed in and it has been very noticeable how much road resurfacing and treatments have been taking place in Crawley over the last couple of years. This continues and from later this month, I’m pleased to see that there will be resurfacing on Hawth Avenue and on the Squareabout.

West Sussex County Council is performing well but has service pressures causing financial strain. Services are at risk of being impacted if the Labour Government doesn’t ensure adequate funding to meet those pressures, and if it diverts millions of pounds away from West Sussex to other parts of the country, under it’s so-called ‘fairer funding’ plans.

Rising government borrowing costs will impact us all - now at 5.72%

The cost of UK government borrowing may feel like a boring subject and not relevant to us as individuals, but one would be wrong on both counts. The finances of any government have a very material impact on all our lives, and the costs to borrow for any government that isn’t living within its means, has a major impact on those finances.   

Over the last few months, UK borrowing costs have risen sharply, increasing the cost of financing government debt to more than £100 billion a year - almost 10% of the annual budget. To put this in perspective, our entire annual defence budget is £62 billion.

Many economists are warning the UK faces a unique strain on its financial position, caused by the government’s tax and spend policies, concurrent with projections that our aging society will place greater demand on public spending. We have also (rightly) pledged to increase defence spending due to global threats.

The interest rate on the UK’s 30-year bond rose last week to 5.62%, which is almost a 27-year high. To also put this in perspective, after the mini-budget during Liz Truss’ very short and disastrous time in office, the 30-year bond yield jumped to 5%, before falling back to about 3.5% after many of the mini-budget measures were reversed. Labour were relentless in the general election campaign, in saying that “the Conservatives crashed the economy” meaning the hike in borrowing costs, and yet now after a year of being in office, Labour are manging to make the days of Liz Truss look positively tame.     

This all puts the country in the same position as last year, dreading the upcoming autumn budget. Between 30 to 50 billion pounds needs to be found in either more taxes, higher borrowing, or reduced spending. The Chancellor has been boxed in by back-bench Labour MPs (including Crawley’s) who won’t allow her to slow down the future growth in the burgeoning welfare bill or reduce spending in any meaningful way. Reducing spending is the best way but Labour won’t do it, leading to us being on the road to ruin.

Horse racing at risk from planned tax hike

 

Horse racing - the UK's second largest spectator sport

Our nation has a love of horse racing, which is the UK’s second-largest spectator sport, attended by almost five million people each year. The horse racing industry, which supports 85,000 jobs, is expressing major concerns over the Labour Government’s plans to increase betting tax from 15% to 21% in the autumn budget, an increase of 40% from the current rate.

The argument for increasing this taxation, is to align betting taxes on horse racing with that of slot machines and online casino games which is already 21%. However, this fails to recognise the key differences between these types of gambling. Unlike online casino games, British horseracing makes an enormous contribution to both employment and our society, and has vastly different rates of gambling related harm. Unlike online casino games, betting on horse racing is not available every few seconds, twenty-four hours a day. 

The British Horse Racing Association commissioned economic research, showing that raising the current 15% tax rate paid by bookmakers on racing to the 21% that online games of chance have, could have a devastating impact on the sport with a £330 million revenue hit to the industry in the first five years, putting 2,752 jobs at risk in the first year alone.

Horse racing is worth £4.1 billion to the UK economy, but it’s not just the national economy that risks being impacted, it’s more locally too. Racing at Goodwood brings huge numbers of visitors into West Sussex, which I’ve seen for myself both on trains and on the road. We also have horse racing at Fontwell, Brighton and Plumpton, and not far to the north of us is Epsom racecourse. 

So concerned is the industry that this extra tax will make British horse racing financially unviable, that in an unprecedented move, horse racing will be going on strike on Wednesday 10 September with no race meetings taking place. They are saying that British racing is already in a precarious financial position and this could push it over the edge. They need to be listened to, or we risk losing a valuable social, cultural and economic asset.

One year on - Crawley's young people are paying the price of Labour

AI image to illustrate article  

The previous Conservative Government left office with low unemployment. In stark contrast, it is well-known that every Labour Government there has ever been, has left office with higher unemployment than when they took office. Last week the latest employment statistics were published, which with it being July’s data, meant a year of Labour being in office could be analysed.

Clear trends have emerged that are concerning. Nationally, unemployment has risen for ten months in a row, by 206,000 in total, and the number of people claiming Universal Credit has soared by over a million, to eight million people. There are now almost four million people of working age who are on benefits with no requirement to find work.

While we get the national figures, we don’t tend to get much reporting these days of local unemployment statistics, so I looked them up in the House of Commons Library. Given what’s in there for Crawley, it perhaps comes as no surprise that Crawley’s Labour MP doesn’t proactively share this data

In Crawley we have 3,700 people claiming unemployment related benefits, which is a 5% increase in the number of people from one year previously. Now higher than the national average of 4.7%, the claimant rate in Crawley was 4.8% for July, up from 4.7% in June. Sadly, unemployment in Crawley keeps ticking upwards and while it is very bad news for those directly affected, it is bad news for our town as a whole and our local economy.

According to the House of Commons Library, half of the total increase in Crawley’s rise in unemployment over the last year has come from 18–24-year-olds. We have 590 of 18–24-year-olds in Crawley who are on unemployment benefits, which is a significant increase of 19% more people than a year ago. 

Crawley has historically been a place of low unemployment but now it has crept above the (rising) national average. It's heartbreaking to see young people being shut out of the world of work and the opportunities that ultimately brings. The National Insurance rise in particular has led to recruitment freezes and that disproportionately impacts younger people at the start of their working lives. It needs reversing and if (now we are in this doom loop that Labour created) that isn't possible, then even a halving of it could lead to firms hiring once again and doors being opened for young people.

The Government needs to change course. Labour’s economic policies of ever higher taxes, higher borrowing and higher spending will only continue to damage business, hurt the economy and fuel inflation. Ultimately it is people who are paying the price, and Crawley’s young people are paying a heavier price than most.   

Crawley belongs in West Sussex, not Surrey or London!

A 2022 map showing a potential future Greater London. 49 is Mole Valley. 47 is Reigate & Banstead. Both border London. 48 is Crawley. Moving Crawley into Surrey makes London expansion easier to take Crawley

In two-tier council areas like ours, local authorities are being forced by the Labour Government to merge to become a single-tier councils. An initial joint submission to the government was made by all eight councils in West Sussex, but an additional submission from Crawley Borough Council and Reigate & Banstead was sneaked in at the last minute, claiming a new single-tier council made up of these two councils was the best option.

That’s clearly ridiculous, including that the combined population of Crawley and Reigate is barely half the government’s required minimum population for all new single-tier councils. However, Crawley Labour are pushing joining Surrey hard, including a senior Labour councillor emailing all Crawley borough councillors insisting, “this is the obvious way forward” and “Let’s all get behind this option”.   

What might be the real agenda behind Crawley Labour trying to move Crawley northwards into Surrey? I have my concerns. The London Mayor, Labour’s Sadiq Khan, often makes statements about Gatwick Airport, which is not only outside London, but which has the additional Surrey/West Sussex county border further separating Gatwick from London, giving Crawley a strong second line of defence from being absorbed into Labour-dominated London. 

The secretive Crawley and Reigate submission repeatedly mentions London, and says “historic county boundaries are now illogical”. It references being “strongly connected to the London economy” and highlights railway links to London and the M25 and M23 motorways. Note that using the M23, the London/Surrey border near Coulsdon is only 12 miles from the Crawley/Surrey border at Junction 9.

Crucially, any new council with Crawley within Surrey will mean Crawley’s new council will border London! With London needing more housing, it’s easy to foresee Sadiq Khan and Crawley Labour then pressing for the London boundary to expand to absorb the new neighbouring council that includes Gatwick. 

One Labour Councillor in Crawley has already been letting his guard slip. At a seminar for Councillors on local government reorganisation held by Crawley Borough Council, when talking about the potential to join with Reigate and Banstead, one senior member of the Labour Cabinet said to everyone "We are all basically Londoners here in Crawley". 

Crawley has always proudly been part of our historic county of West Sussex. Our new single-tier council must remain within West Sussex and not move to Surrey, which feels like the first stage of an underhand two-stage plan to make Crawley and Gatwick part of a new London borough.               

The 2020s - This is Britain's Lost Decade

We are just past halfway through the 2020s and unfortunately it really is starting to look like the 2020s will become regarded as the UK’s Lost Decade. The term was coined in Japan throughout the 1990s when economic growth stalled, although their economic backdrop was deflationary while ours is inflationary.

This week is the fifth anniversary since the Covid Lockdown started. It’s a reminder that the 2020s started in the worst possible way, with the first two years very economically and fiscally damaging. The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 then caused the energy and inflation spike that made everyone worse off.

Rishi Sunak’s government had started to turn things around but unfortunately the recovery in the nation’s fortunes has been totally snuffed out by the actions of the Labour Government.

Business confidence has fallen through the floor and a halving of the UK's official growth forecast to just 1% has been made. Labour mortgaged our futures on economic growth, claiming it was their number one mission, but our economy shrank in January and Labour are failing badly.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation report ahead of the Chancellor’s Spring Statement made for very sobering reading. Their headline statement says that: “While on average all families are forecast to see a fall in living standards this Government, families on the lowest incomes are set to bear the brunt of the pain.”

Their introduction statement really is a grim read: “By April 2025, families will not have recovered from the double hit of the pandemic and cost- of-living crisis, but the latest official forecasts imply there is even worse to come. We estimate that average household disposable incomes after housing costs will remain £400 a year below 2020 levels in April 2025. By April 2030 households will be a further £1,400 worse off on average than they are today, a 3% fall. The past year may in fact prove to be the high point for living standards this parliament.”

When you think this parliament will last until 2029, that last sentence will make alarming reading for many Crawley residents. This is indeed our lost decade.   

Stopping free speech in pubs is ridiculous

Our traditional British pub is under threat. Adding to existing pressures, from April they will have the added costs of increased employers National Insurance rising from 13.8% to 15% and the lowering of the threshold it is paid from £9,100 to £5,000.

Sadly, pubs are closing down every week across our country. The data I’ve seen says that in 2024, an average of just over one pub per day closed down in England and Wales, with the number of pubs falling below 39,000 for the first time. I’ve noticed we have less neighbourhood pubs in Crawley than we used to.

We can’t take our pubs for granted and even if the Labour Government won’t do anything to support them, they could at least try to stop making life more difficult for them. Regrettably, they’ve now done exactly that as their MPs voted last week for a controversial new bill that could see an end to banter in pubs.

A small clause in the Employment Rights Bill could have a devastating effect on the free speech we did take for granted, as bar staff will be forced to police casual conversations and jokes. Clause 18 of the Bill demands “reasonable steps” by staff to prevent harassment of protected characteristics by customers. While of course no one wants any harassment, this could easily mean that anyone in a pub making a joke among friends could be in breach of the law and staff would be responsible for reporting it. I want our police focussing on real crime and not having to spend time processing reports of ‘John down the pub telling a bad joke’,

Now I know the Labour Party are a pretty miserable bunch, but must they really make Crawley pub goers and staff worry about what people say to each other in conversation while unwinding in the pub? If people can’t relax and speak freely in pubs, then they may stay home where Labour haven’t (yet) curtailed free speech. This Clause 18 needs revoking or revising. We don’t need any more reasons why people might not visit their local pub.

Council vote on National Insurance rise exposed Crawley Labour's priorities

National Insurance rise leads to budget cuts at Crawley Borough Council

Last week’s Full Council meeting at Crawley Borough Council was the annual budget meeting, where the council decided it’s priorities for the year ahead. This year was particularly challenging with a budget full of service cuts and hefty price rises presented by the Labour cabinet.

My view as leader of the opposition was to try to salvage as much as we could for Crawley. The backdrop was difficult. The huge demand for housing has caused the council’s temporary accommodation costs to skyrocket. The impact on housing demand appearing to be ignored by the Labour Government, when saying they are likely to approve a second Gatwick runway, that will require many people to move to the area to fill new job vacancies.

Rising inflation since Labour were elected to government also has a negative financial impact, but the main avoidable hit to Crawley Borough’s Council’s budget was the Labour Government’s National Insurance rise that kicks in next month. Shockingly, this has a net negative impact of half a million pounds and many services had to be slashed as a result, as well as some inflation busting rises in charges.

Of concern is the significant £185,000 cut to neighbourhood street services that the Labour majority on the council forced through. My Conservative colleagues and I had tabled an amendment to reduce that cut by 40% but Labour councillors voted it down.

There were two cuts that we were able to limit and I’m grateful to Labour councillors for supporting our requests to stop their original proposal to cease providing grounds maintenance for Crawley’s bowling greens and the croquet lawn at Worth Park. The other one was halving the proposed funding cut for town centre events, recognising how much town centres in general are struggling, including our own one.

While we had tried to halve some increases in charges, Labour voted us down. Sadly, the following rises will happen. Cemetery fees 15%, garden green bins 10%, pest control 10%, and garage rents 7%. Plus, with no explanation yet as to how it will happen, Labour budgeted parking income to increase by nearly £400,000.

I can only imagine the outrage and election leaflets from Labour Councillors in Crawley had we Conservatives been running the Council and had tabled such a budget. That and this budget, tells you everything about the Labour Party in Crawley.

We must continue to back Ukraine

 

Today sees the third anniversary of the illegal Russian invasion of Ukraine. Terrorist state Russia remains an international pariah among civilised nations, but there has been some truly appalling lies and disgusting behaviour coming from the US President and his Administration.

Donald Trump’s attempts to rewrite recent history and his repeated insults of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky are sickening and should be condemned by all politicians who value decency and the truth. Zelensky is a hero, not a dictator, and has been bravely leading Ukraine in an existential battle for survival.

Zelensky is many times the man that the liar Trump will ever be. I suspect Trump’s personal jealously is fuelling this unwarranted criticism, noting he never seems to utter a word of criticism of Putin and keeps parroting the Kremlin line.

Trump’s disinformation must be called out and corrected, and I welcome that senior politicians from all the main political parties are doing so. Sadly, there is one exception, with the Reform Party leadership appearing to put their hero-worship of Trump, before accuracy and what is right for the collective security of Europe.       

Whatever Trump and Elon Musk claim, the cold hard truth is that Russia is the aggressor and is wholly at fault for the war in Ukraine. Russia could end the war tomorrow, by withdrawing back to their borders, but they won’t as Putin now has a trump card, literally, occupying the White House.

The best way to ensure a true and lasting peace and to deter aggressive dictators around the world is for Russia to be defeated and be forced to retreat back to their own borders. Anything short of that is a reward for aggression, which will set a very dangerous precedent for the world.

When we Conservatives were in government, we had Labour opposition backing in supporting Ukraine and we are right to continue that with the roles now reversed. Everyone wants peace, but a temporary one that rewards a near-broken Russia, that allows them to recover and rearm, is a fool’s peace that ultimately puts more of the world at real risk.

A Sussex Mayor will be a positive step

It is expected the government will announce today which areas will see the imposition of directly elected mayors for 2026 as opposed to having them in 2028, for those areas that don’t already have them. 

Previously, many parts of the country have gone down this route voluntarily. Known as devolution, it is devolving some powers down from central government, although mentioned less is that there will also be some powers and responsibilities ‘devolving’ upwards to new mayors, away from the local authorities where they sit now.

Nevertheless, I welcome having consistency across England and the opportunities a combined mayoral authority can create. Those areas already with directly elected mayors have more access to government funding and business investment, than those areas without. Not to be confused with civic town mayors whose role is attending events like summer fates, directly elected mayors take decisions at a strategic level on matters such as economic development, transport and new housing delivery. 

The three upper-tier local authorities of West Sussex County Council, East Sussex County Council, and Brighton and Hove City Council were given only one choice by the government, which was whether they preferred to have a mayoral authority starting in 2026 or 2028. They were right to express a preference for 2026 and to request that Sussex becomes the area that a new mayor should cover. The government requirement is mayors should cover a minimum population of 1.5 million, so with 1.8 million people and the historic links we all have, Sussex as a whole feels the best possible area to match. There will be a public consultation in the spring and I look forward to seeing proposals progress. 

Devolution was in Labour’s election manifesto, but the forcing of local authorities in two-tier areas to merge, was not. This is known as unitarisation and the government are imposing this on Crawley and Sussex at the same time as devolution. There appears to be no flexibility on the three-year timetable, so my view is we need to make the best of it, while staying focused on delivering the best possible local services.  

Business confidence hit hard by Labour

 

It is concerning that there has been a record increase in the number of UK businesses in critical financial distress. The general definition of critical financial distress is if a business has an outstanding county court judgment of more than £5,000 or faces a winding up petition. This record jump was by a shocking 50% from September to December last year, which took the number of UK businesses in this category to 46,583. 

The quarter-on-quarter increase was driven in financial distress was most acute in service industries, including Hotels & Accommodation (+83.6%), Leisure & Cultural Activities (+76.5%), General Retailers (+47.6%) and Food & Drug Retailers (+37.4%).

Below that definition, sits one of significant financial distress. This is when a company cannot generate sufficient revenues or income, making it unable to meet or pay its financial obligations. This is generally due to high fixed costs, a large degree of illiquid assets, or revenues sensitive to economic downturns. Sadly, since Labour came to power last July, we are seeing a growing number of businesses suffering significant financial distress. This number is shockingly high at 654,765, up by over 22,000 from the previous quarter.

While global conditions have been tough ever since the start of this decade when Covid hit, the current downturn and plummeting of both business and consumer confidence is very much the fault of the current Labour Government. Their cabinet has no experience of working in business, and they don’t understand that squeezing the private sector too hard has negative consequences for everyone. Business is not the easy cash cow Labour think it is.

As we enter February, we will only be two months away from the implementation of Labour’s Employers National Insurance hike that will hit business and employment hard. It will also hit the public sector, with it costing Crawley Borough Council over half a million pounds, meaning that major service cuts are being proposed, including to the neighbourhood maintenance teams.

Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves need to urgently change course on their economic policies, because the economic decline they are causing is about to get much worse.  

Time to scrap Labour's shoddy Chagos Islands deal with Mauritius

 

A trait I’ve noticed in the Labour Government since they’ve been in office is not admitting mistakes when they’ve been made. The longer this continues while making an ever-increasing number of mistakes, the more unsustainable this attitude will be, and ultimately the greater the political consequences.

A prime example of this shoddy attitude is how the Labour Government have behaved over the Chagos Islands. They have been acting with incredible naivety when it comes to global security, with their determination to hand over sovereignty to Mauritius, while simultaneously ignoring the concerns of the Chagossian people.

It has been no secret that the Labour Government were trying to get the deal signed and that they wanted to ‘wash their hands’ of the Chagos Islands before the change in US Administration this week. Thankfully it appears they failed in that, but we should never be in a position where we need the Administration of a US President who has a track record of acting on personal whims and grievances, to stop a British Government from making a monumentally bad international decision.

Keir Starmer seems unable to get out of his lefty lawyer mindset, that he had during his career before politics. Not only that, but his clique of fellow lefty lawyers also appears to be having undue influence. It is apparently one of his chums who has been acting on behalf of the Mauritius Government during the negotiations, very much against the interests of our own country. It’s also emerged that the Government’s Attorney General represented a group of asylum seekers who landed on Diego Garcia, against the British Conservative Government in 2023. He lost that case but guess what, now that Starmer is PM, those asylum seekers have been flown thousands of miles to come here to the UK as a ‘special case’.

We will see what happens, but what really needs to happen is the UK Government to tell Mauritius there is no deal, and then seek to address the historical wrongs that a previous Labour Government did, when they forcibly removed Chagossian people from their homeland in the 1960s.