Last Wednesday, Labour Chancellor Rachel Reeves delivered her much-anticipated budget. The next day (which happened to be Hallowe’en), I joined colleagues on Cornwall Council’s new ‘Budget Scrutiny Committee’ to figure out what the Chancellor’s announcements mean for our community. Sadly, it turns out that instead of the treats we’d hoped for, we found the budget was full of tricks — and the consequences are truly frightening.

Last February, when Cornwall Council set its budget for 2024/25, we could see that we were facing a £67-million black hole for 2025/26. After years of underfunding from the Conservatives, our only hope was that a General Election would give us a new government to save the council from financial disaster. But after winning a huge majority in Parliament, Labour has actually made the situation worse.

Take, for example, the funding for local councils. One of the Chancellor's tricks was to announce overall figures and then present the breakdown as if it were additional funding. For instance, the claim of "£1.3-billion for local government with £600-million for social care and £230-million for homelessness and rough sleeping" sounds like multiple separate pots of money, but in reality, it is just the same £1.3-billion being counted multiple times. This sleight of hand hides the fact that the real increase is far less impressive than it first appears. Cornwall will probably receive around £13-million, a drop in the ocean compared to the £67-million hole we need to fill.

The Chancellor also claimed to be fixing the country's potholes, but Cornwall alone has a repair backlog of £300-million, so £500-million for the whole country is obviously nowhere near enough.

The extra funding for Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) is also woefully inadequate — Cornwall is set to receive about £10-million, but our annual SEND funding gap is more than double that figure.

The consequences for Cornwall Council’s budget are terrifying. Literally anything we do that isn't a legal requirement faces being cut. I led the Liberal Democrats on the budget committee, pointing out line-by-line the harm these cuts would cause. I have said on many occasions that prevention is better than cure, but this Labour budget will force Cornwall Council to cut the very services which help to prevent everything from house fires to school exclusions. The inevitable consequence is real harm to innocent people, and greater costs for the council in future years. But none of Labour's five councillors even turned up to the meeting...

It’s time for Labour to stop playing tricks and start delivering the real investment we need. Because for Cornwall, this budget isn’t just a Hallowe’en scare — it’s a real-life horror story.

Colin Martin

Cornwall councillor for Lostwithiel and Lanreath