The discovery of an £11million ‘windfall’ from council shares in Manchester Airport was just a scare tactic, claimed South Manchester MP John Leech.
Back in November the council published a list of options being considered to make £59million in savings over the next year, but have today revealed the ‘extra money’ means cuts won’t be as deep as originally feared.
The initial proposals for saving £59million warned school crossings, free swimming and community projects could take a huge hit, but these have now been softened with news of the windfall.
Mr Leech said: “There is a pattern of behaviour here. I predicted in November that Labour would exaggerate the cuts to scare people then ‘save frontline services’, just as they have done today.
“They knew they had an airport dividend coming, and have cynically talked about stopping school crossing patrols and free swimming for political effect.”
In November, Mr Leech released a statement claiming ‘Labour are exaggerating the cuts, frightening the people of Manchester and targeting frontline services. There is no need to harm frontline services’.
He suggested a better answer to the deficit in the budget would be to use some of the city’s reserve cash and cut out unnecessary spending ‘like the £130million Town Hall facelift or free iPads for councillors’.
The £11million has come from a dividend paid on Manchester City Council’s share in Manchester Airport.
Sir Richard Leese, leader of Manchester City Council, said: “This is not a good news story – it’s almost £50million of cuts in 2015/16 rather than almost £60million – but the extra money through our stake in the airport has at least allowed us to look again at the budget options we had announced in November.
“The picture has changed and we want to give people the most up-to-date information. We still need to hear their views which will inform some of the difficult decisions we still have to take around the forthcoming budget.”
Liberal Democrat MP Mr Leech responded to Mr Leese’s claims by referencing Ed Miliband’s statement that he wants to ‘weaponise the NHS for politics’.
“He has also admitted that there is no extra money for councils like Manchester, so these cuts are happening whoever wins the general election,” he said.
