Catch up on the latest political news from across Kent with Oliver Leader de Saxe, joined by Medway Council's Alex Paterson (Lab) and Mark Joy (Con).
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NewsTranscript
00:00Hello and welcome to The Kemp Politics Show live on KMTV, the show that gets
00:29Kent's politicians talking. I'm Oliver the Sax and I'm not sure about you, but I'm tired. It's
00:36been a long week here in Medway. Devolution has faced its first delays, a new council budget.
00:43It doesn't make for light reading, to be honest, and no amount of coffee is going to get me over
00:48last night's Medway Park count, where the political who's-whos of campaigners,
00:53councillors and MPs, past and present, gathered in a sports hall for the most fun you can have
00:58there without actually doing any sports. And that's counting ballots. It was quite a shocking
01:03result. Many heads were turned over in Rochester. And it makes sense that all I'm joined by Labour
01:08councillor Alex Patterson, portfolio holder for Community Safety, Highways and Enforcement at
01:13Medway Council, and Conservative councillor Mark Joy, the group lead for Children's Services.
01:19But first, three council seats up for grabs, one in Gillingham South, the other two in Rochester
01:25and Warren Wood. But what actually happened? And why is it turning so many heads? Here's everything
01:31that you need to know from the count. The dust has settled on a difficult night for Labour
01:37here at Medway Park, with their council majority cut to a margin and two new reform UK councillors
01:46seizing historically Labour ward seats. It's hard to believe that in this same room last summer,
01:54former councillors Neshaba Khan, Lauren Edwards and Tris Osborne were all elected to Parliament
02:01on a Labour clean sweep. But in these by-elections, brought about by their decision to step down
02:08to focus on their work in Westminster, partial defeat seemed even harder for the party faithful
02:16to comprehend. As boxes flowed in and votes began to be tallied, Gillingham South gave Labour an
02:24early glimmer of hope. But with reform seizing around 500 votes amidst low turnout in the ward,
02:42it wasn't just relief the newly elected councillor was feeling. It is worrying,
02:49yeah it is worrying, but we'll see. But Rochester and Warren Wood was where the real drama was
02:57taking place. The process that we have followed has been sufficient and actually I've demonstrated
03:03that we've got back to the verified figure in terms of the votes cast. However, in the
03:08circumstances that I am prepared to undertake a what we call a bundle check. But even that
03:15last minute recount couldn't stop the inevitable. Ian Finch, Reform UK, 870.
03:28People are like realising that we need change and they realise that the other two parties can't
03:32deliver it. So we are reform, we are that change that they, we hope, we hope to bring change,
03:40we're going to bring change. And for the other parties, expectation management was the first
03:46priority. Reform won tonight by a handful of votes. There was a handful of votes between us
03:53and them. So from my perspective, look, it is disappointing. I want to win every election I
03:58contest. Of course I do. But I recognise tonight we've been just falling slightly short on that.
04:03The future for Medway politics is now uncertain. Labour may still have a working majority,
04:10but with reform emerging as a new political force in the five towns,
04:16Labour face a long road back to the heights of that now distant general election night.
04:22Oliver Leeds at the Saks for KNTV in Gillingham. A big night here in Medway and I'm joined by Alex
04:30and Mark. Alex, I want to go to you first because given the highs of the general election
04:35last summer and given the fact that you were won a by-election many, many years ago now,
04:40how do we have a situation where a relatively safe Labour ward seat ended up turning turquoise
04:46last night? Well, look Oliver, it's a horrible result. But what I would say is it's only the
04:52second time there's actually been an election on those boundaries. The former seat of Rochester East
05:00is now part of a bigger seat which includes a huge chunk of what was the safely Conservative
05:06Rochester South and Halstead, which I actually fought even more years ago than I care to
05:13think about as what was essentially a paper candidate. So, you know, it's not quite the
05:19surprise that you might think. You mentioned that there's a Conservative element there,
05:24but Rochester East has been Labour consistently since 2003. That's not great for Labour in that
05:34area, is it? Well, look, it's horrible. I am a Rochester East and Warrenwood resident and I'm
05:40afraid that the idea of reform councillors representing me fills me with absolute horror.
05:47I sort of look back on this though. I've got a bit of perspective. I'm a little bit older than you.
05:53In 1993, a BNP councillor was elected in Tower Hamlets and I remember how sickened that made
06:01me feel, living 400 odd miles away. And the next day I went out and joined the anti-Nazi league
06:07and I wanted to do something that could counter that sort of rise of the far right. And I think
06:14that that's what I would say to people who wake up this morning, my neighbours who have woken up
06:19this morning horrified. There was a very low turnout and actually what I would take heart from
06:25is yes, 800 of our neighbours decided to back a party which is essentially selling people a lie
06:33and solutions which are not going to solve anyone's problems and certainly not the ones
06:37that they've identified. But actually, there's 9,000 people and more who didn't vote for them
06:43yesterday and who perhaps will be able to reflect on whether they used their vote wisely for other
06:50progressive parties or whether they voted at all. And I think that's the hope that I would take.
06:55Well, obviously reforms say they are a voice of change and it wasn't a particularly great night
06:59for the Conservative Party either. I believe they only got a total of 1,241 votes across
07:07both seats. Mark, what do you make of this? Are you worried at all by this result?
07:12Well, as you said earlier, both of them seats, the Rochester East has been staunchly Labour.
07:19Gillingham South has been staunchly Labour. We compete, every time we go out we compete.
07:27But our percentage of our vote, even though it was a lower turnout, still stayed. So we didn't
07:34really go any further backwards. Reform came in. There's diehard Labour supporters that when
07:41they're not happy, then they won't come to us. And on the doorstep, we were having Labour
07:47supporters saying they were going to vote to save support reform because not happy with this
07:52administration and not happy with the government, even though it's only been in
07:57just over six months. So it's a clear message that things need to be done differently.
08:03And it's the message that we're aware of. And we're doing stuff differently. And part of our
08:10job is holding the administration to account. And we will continue to do that. And we'll keep
08:15striving forward to the next election when hopefully more Labour councillors are no longer
08:20on this administration. Because are you not worried that this reform says the end of this two-party
08:25political race that they're offering a voice for change? Does this mean that the Conservatives who
08:32were in second place, they're no longer the ones to watch when it comes to elections like this one
08:36at a local level in Kent? Well, it'll all depend really, because at the moment,
08:42they're saying we're going to offer change. But what does change look like?
08:46They've now got, from what I'm hearing, they've got three reform councils in the Medway Council.
08:51They said they're going to stop any increase in the council tax. Well, they're going to get their
08:55first opportunity to try and do that come the end of this month. And people will say, well,
09:03is this the change they want? And two-party politics has not been. If we look at Labour,
09:10just over 100 years ago, it didn't exist. You go before then, it was two-party politics. It
09:15was the Whigs and the Tories. And that was it. And then they become the Conservatives and the
09:19Liberals. And then Labour came in. And we've had other parties. The Greens have come in.
09:23So it's not two-party politics. They're trying to make it out that way. And now they've got to
09:30deliver. So that's the difference on it. Because obviously, it's going to be an interesting
09:35couple of months now with local elections over the border for Kent County Council.
09:41And I do wonder if the results last night reflect something nationally, because the polls at the
09:47moment kind of have it as a three-horse race. Labour on 24 per cent, Reform 25 per cent,
09:52Conservatives 21 per cent, according to YouGov. Electoral calculus, similar story.
09:58What do you make of this? Do you think that the failures of your party on a national level
10:03have led to the situation here? I think that there's certainly
10:08a national element to this. If 800 votes in Rochester, East and Warren Wood is the high
10:15watermark of some sort of reform tide, well, I think we can live with that. But I do think
10:23the Conservative Party have to share some of the responsibility for unleashing this sort of
10:30intemperate strand of right-of-centre and far-right politics. Their leader has indulged in some pretty
10:39nasty rhetoric, and she's not the first in a long line of recent Conservative leaders who have tried
10:46to ride that horse. And I'm afraid it's not worked out well for them. And I think it's actually
10:52taken us to a very dangerous place in our politics. And what I would also say is the people
10:57last night who voted for reform, they didn't vote to privatise the NHS, and that's what Nigel Farage
11:05has committed to doing. Nigel Farage is not here to defend himself, but I want to bring you in
11:09for the break. What do you make of that? Is this the wilderness years for your party?
11:13No, I don't think it's the wilderness years. You're right, Conservatives needed to change,
11:18and that was a clear message that was delivered in July. We've elected a new leader. She's new
11:25into the role, elected towards the end of the year, so she's only been in for three months.
11:29She's coming out with some policies which we're fully supportive of. The big issue is, and the
11:36reason parties like reform and Fordham UKIP came forward, is because the governments are not
11:42listening about... And I think we may have to end on that point. I'm sure we could talk about by-elections
11:47all day long, but we have more to talk about after the break. Stick around for more about the budget.
15:08Welcome back to the Kent Politics Show live on KMTV, the show that gets Kent's politicians
15:13talking. I'm still joined by Labour councillor Alex Patterson, the portfolio holder for community
15:18safety, highways and enforcement at Medway Council, and Conservative councillor Mark Joy,
15:23group lead for children's services also at Medway Council. Now, you know what goes in hand in hand
15:28with sleep deprivation and by-elections? That's right, council budget preparations. Medway Council
15:33faces an £8 million overspend, and once again runs the risk of effective bankruptcy. Well,
15:40our local democracy reporter Gabriel Morris caught up with Vince Maple earlier this afternoon
15:44to discuss cash rather than councillors. We've got financial challenges, that's well documented.
15:51We're working our way through the plan to get to financial sustainability. That's meant some
15:56difficult political decisions, and that includes levels of council tax and some of the fees and
16:00charges that will be going up this year. That's not, again, easy decisions, but everybody in
16:05Medway rightfully deserves their council to have financial sustainability, and that's what we've
16:10building in as we move forward. This year's budget in particular, we're absolutely focusing on those
16:14key core issues, which are not just challenges for us in Medway, but across the country. Adult
16:20social care, children's social care, special educational needs and disabilities, and homelessness
16:25and temporary accommodation. Well, Alex and Mark still join me in the studio. Mark, this is kind of
16:30your area of specialties and children's services, and all of these kind of issues are what's
16:35compounding Medway Council's budget problems, because obviously they say it's taking up around
16:43three quarters of Medway's budget to support the cost of these growing issues surrounding children
16:48and adult social care. What do you make of this? Do you think there needs to be more support for
16:52local councils like Medway? Because it's something we're seeing everywhere, including over the road
16:57at KCC. It's not just a Labour and Medway issue. No, but with the funding over time, it's been
17:06more and more funding pushed onto the councils by government. Vince and the rest of the Labour
17:13group blame the previous government. We've had a change of government. Same old story. There's only
17:18so much that's in the pot. Adult social care used to come under the NHS budget, and that
17:26comes under council services. The money's not come with it. Children's services, since the pandemic,
17:31we've seen increased numbers of children requiring special educational support. Not always
17:40with an EHCP. Some of them require extra, but the funding's not there. The need for specialist
17:46placings in schools, it's not there. The last government approved for a new free school for
17:53special educational needs that was going to be built at Cornwallis. This new government has
17:59suspended that. So we're spending a lot of money sending children outside of Medway to make sure
18:06that we meet our legal obligations of providing them with a suitable education. And it is
18:13unsustainable. The funding's not there to support it. Alex, what do you make of it? Is there a passing
18:17the buck, metaphorically and literally, here? Well, look, let's look at the facts. Over 14 years
18:23under the Conservatives, Medway's revenue support grant was cut by 91%. Compare and contrast that
18:30with a government that's been in Whitehall since July last year, which has already delivered a
18:37better funding settlement for councils like Medway, and in particular, £11 million extra is what that
18:43amounts to. It's only an extra £11 million, it's not putting in that gap. And that's absolutely,
18:49the point you raise is a good one, because while the income from government might increase,
18:55the need increases and the costs increase as time goes on as well. So yes, there's clearly
19:01a 14-year failure to keep pace with the costs, can't be remedied overnight, but I'm really
19:10pleased that it's a step in the right direction. And what we've also had from the Secretary of State
19:14is a commitment to move towards multi-year settlements, because we've been going cap in hand
19:20year in, year out, to various Secretaries of State. The previous Conservative administration
19:27were unable to... Shake your head there, Mark. The previous Conservative administration, in all those
19:32years that they were in charge with a Conservative government, failed to deliver a better deal for
19:37Medway. They presided over that 91% cut in the revenue support grant, which went without a peep
19:43from them. And I think actually, we're now seeing change. The change that we've heard so much about
19:49today is actually happening. So, Mark, what would you make of this? 91% is doing smoke and mirrors,
19:54this Labour administration and this Labour government, continuously smoke and mirrors.
20:01The cost spending of Council has gone up year on year. That 91% included funding from
20:07business rates. That's now done in a different grant. So the grant formulation, yes, 91% has
20:13gone on that. But what it was back when it was 91% more, was completely different to what it is today.
20:19Well, Mark's very brave in saying that now that Alan Jarrett is no longer the leader of the Council.
20:24I didn't hear you say that when Alan Jarrett was citing these figures. These are not my figures.
20:27They're his. Our leader, George Perfect, has made it quite clear that that grant no longer exists.
20:34It's not the same thing. So there's plenty of cash. There's plenty of cash in local government now.
20:37Cost spending has gone up year on year, and this administration... To be fair, that's what
20:41the budget seems to indicate in the briefing earlier today, that that increase in cost of
20:46adult social services and children's social services is increasing year on year. Like,
20:51would the revenue support grant, are you suggesting that that would have covered that increase?
20:56There's clearly, local government finance is built on foundations of sand. It's really important,
21:01and we'll get onto this later, but all this talk about local government reorganisation and
21:06devolution has to be a reset moment for local government, fundamentally, in terms of actually
21:13reflecting the true costs that we bear, the cost of adult social care, the cost of looking after
21:18children, the cost of SEND. It's really important that we do that, and I don't think any Medway
21:23resident would say that that was a waste of money, but it's money that we don't have.
21:27Alex, I'm glad you brought up devolution. Could we have spoke to Roger Goff, the leader
21:33of Kent County Council, because obviously devolution has faced major delays. Now,
21:37we're not on the priority list. We won't get a mayor or local government reorganisation in Kent
21:42for the foreseeable future, and that means we won't get a financial settlement either. And
21:46here's what he had to say about the issue. Financial challenges which face local government
21:51have not gone away. So either way, we will have to keep addressing that. What is less clear is
21:59what the medium-term outlook is now, because under the devolution priority programme, there
22:04was a clear timeline for taking on both mayoral devolution and also reorganisation of local
22:10government. At the moment, there is a general national direction of travel about reorganisation,
22:16but the timelines are very unclear, and I think we have to look at everything in the light of what
22:22we understand at the moment about this decision. Mark, what do you make of that? Do you think
22:27there's gonna be more uncertainty now about how we're gonna fix issues with budgets like this?
22:32There is gonna be a massive overspend this year, slightly less than last year, but still a huge
22:36number. Well, the thing is, is that we had the opportunity to go for this new model. Whether
22:42people wanted it or not, the financial incentives to be able to deliver for our residents here in
22:48Medway and across Kent was too much of an opportunity to not go forward with. Very disappointed,
22:56as I think Alex and his team, our team, are very disappointed that we weren't selected.
23:02We're the gateway to one of our biggest trading partners in the EU. We're also the gateway to
23:09a lot of the immigration into the UK, and we really do need that support, and the government
23:15should be really looking at supporting Kent, and Medway have been supporting Kent with more
23:21than our fair share of people coming over for asylum, and it's not being spread out across
23:27the country, and it's not fully funded, and our services are taking a hit because of that,
23:34and this was a way to try and get some redress. It wouldn't have done all the redress, but it
23:38would have got us a bit more. It would have been a start in your view, but Alex, you've been
23:42seeing the praise of the government, you've been saying they've been supporting local councils,
23:46giving more money, but this is a situation that your government, the Labour government, have not
23:51put Kent on the priority list, and that means that there won't be a financial settlement for
23:54Kent and Medway in the foreseeable future. That's not to the benefit of local people here, is it?
24:00Well, I'm disappointed, like Mark, and I'll call it as I see it, and if it's a Labour government
24:06or a Conservative government making a decision that I don't agree with, I'll gladly say it.
24:10I don't agree with this decision. What I would say is it's important to separate out the funding
24:16discussion we just had about Medway's budget with what devolution would represent, which is
24:21a drawing down of powers from central government, so it's actually talking about different pots of
24:26cash. But I want my residents to be benefiting from that. As someone who represents a ward that's
24:31right on the boundary with KCC and Tunbridge and Malling, I see the effects of that lack of joined
24:37up thinking. Bus services that stop on the boundary, and actually that's the sort of service
24:42that I think devolution could deliver, and ultimately that's what this is about. It's not
24:47about who's a mayor or who's a unitary or who's a county, it's about what services people have
24:52delivered, and I want the best services for the people of Medway. Mark, where do you stand on
24:57this? Because obviously Kent is such an interconnected county as it is at the moment.
25:02Does this delay worry you about how it's going to impact your residents, your life, how it's
25:08going to impact the local economy here in Medway? The thing is, is that we need to move forward
25:14with the model that we're being offered, and we need to get it done, and we need to be working
25:20with our neighbouring authorities to make sure that we get a good deal for Medway and the surrounding
25:25areas. I've seen on children's services the amount of children that go across borders between Kent
25:31and Medway for schooling, and like I said, my son goes to school in KCC, he's got one bus.
25:39He's got one bus to school and he's got one bus home, which is not sustainable. If he wants to do
25:46after-school clubs, it falls down on the parents. We're quite lucky there's two of us that can get
25:52to support him, but not every parent can do that, and it is not easy, and we need to be thinking
25:57not just for Medway, we need to be thinking county-wide, because we do have these cross-border
26:03things all the way across. You've got things where in Walderslade, you've got three councils,
26:08you've got Medway council, you've got Tombridge and Malden, you've got Maystone council, all north
26:12of the M2. That's not sensible, and it needs to be sorted out, and devolution give us an opportunity
26:22to make sure these boundaries are sensible and suitable, and work for everybody in Medway and
26:27across Kent. Well I think, I saw you nodding there, I think this is a moment of agreement,
26:31we can end the programme on. Thank you both for coming in today, it's been great speaking to you
26:35about all these issues. We'll be back next week with all the news, views and everything else to
26:41do with Kent politics. Go to the Kent Online website as well for even more news and views.
26:46But for now, from me, have a very lovely evening, I'll see you soon.
27:01Bye.