East Cambs leader Anna Bailey asks: How much more punishment from this Labour government?

Opinion | Anna Bailey, Conservative leader of East Cambridgeshire District Council says the national government is ripping the heart out of local government.

No council leader wants to receive an email like this: “…it would appear that East Cambs will be one of the most highly impacted councils as a consequence of the upcoming Fair Funding Review.”

Impacted - not in a good way.

Since 2015, 15 councils across England have hiked council tax by the legal maximum every single year. Every one of them is Labour-run - and 13 have been Labour-controlled throughout that time. Camden is one example, the home of one Sir Keir Starmer. Birmingham is another - it effectively went bankrupt in 2023, issuing a Section 114 Notice after years of overspending and mismanagement.

Bin crews have refused to collect rubbish, frontline services have been decimated, and council tax was raised by almost 10 per cent in 2024, followed by another 7.5 per cent in 2025.

And they are not alone. Other Labour councils have followed the same downward spiral, combining high tax, heavy borrowing, and catastrophic financial decisions. Croydon issued three Section 114 Notices in as many years.

Now compare all that to East Cambridgeshire.

Here, we’ve frozen our share of council tax bills since 2013 - without cutting services. We’ve kept our finances clean and stable, with zero external borrowing, meaning not one penny of taxpayer cash goes to debt interest.

Our reward? A so-called ‘Fair Funding Review’ that syphons money away from financially responsible councils like ours and redistributes it to those that taxed, borrowed, overspent - and in some cases - collapsed.

We’ve prepared for this. Whether that will be enough remains to be seen.

But this government isn’t content with stopping there.

Now Labour is going to abolish local councils like ours entirely - folding us into massive, debt-ridden “unitary authorities” under the guise of streamlining and empowerment. It’s anything but. Real power is being dragged further away from local people and into the hands of distant, bureaucratic super-councils.

Before the 1974 local government reorganisation, there were 1,430 principal councils in England, with 55,000 councillors representing real communities in real geographies. By 2020, that number had fallen to just 331 councils with 17,500 councillors - many in areas with borders that make no sense to local people. And the current reforms will reduce that number even further.

England already suffers from some of the worst representation ratios in Europe. The average councillor now represents around 3,300 residents, compared to just 130 per councillor in France. This isn’t democracy. It’s dilution.

The government claims economies of scale will save money. But the National Audit Office and independent think tanks like the Centre for Cities have found little consistent evidence that bigger councils are more efficient. In fact, most of the mega-councils are struggling. Among the unitary authorities with 500,000-plus populations, almost all are in financial distress, including, of course, Birmingham.

Democratic health declines as council size increases - electoral turnout drops, public trust in councillors and officers falls, community engagement nosedives.

This Labour government is ripping the “local” out of “local government” And it breaks my heart.