Brighton Pavilion MP, Caroline Lucas, together with Brighton & Hove city Councillors Jason Kitcat (council leader) Phélim Mac Cafferty, Lizzie Deane (council deputy leaders) and Councillor Ruth Buckley-Salmon are to visit Downing Street tomorrow, Wednesday December 5, to present a letter on behalf of the people of Brighton & Hove and Brighton Pavilion to the door of No 11, the residence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, The Rt Hon George Osborne MP.
The letter outlines their concerns that the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement and other government statements on welfare and council support, are unfairly singling out the people of Brighton & Hove for government cuts.
Councillor Jason Kitcat said:
“This government and this Chancellor are doing harm to the residents and businesses of Brighton & Hove, singling us out for cuts two or three times more severe than other south east authorities. They’re also threatening the very existence of local government, with forecasts of cuts so deep that there will be no government funding left for local councils after 2020.”
The letter, signed by the above members of the city’s Green leadership, states:
“Unlike most other local authorities, Brighton & Hove has been singled out for the harshest of cuts. Figures … show that Brighton & Hove has been targeted for the deepest cuts per head of population in the whole of the south east of England, cuts that are between two and three times greater than any other council in the region.”
“The people of Brighton & Hove do not deserve the government’s short-sighted, irresponsible and wholly unjust programme of cuts to our city.”
Caroline Lucas MP for Brighton Pavilion, said:
“It is completely unacceptable that the people of Brighton & Hove should have to face such severe government cuts in the name of an austerity programme that is now widely acknowledged to be failing, and that they should be suffering so much more deeply than the rest of the region. We are certainly not all in this together – with Brighton & Hove being hit even harder than our neighbours.”
The MP and Councillors ask the Chancellor to re-appraise the level of cuts being imposed on Brighton & Hove, concluding the letter with:
“We urge you to reconsider the cuts outlined in your Autumn Statement and to think again.”
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