Wirral Labour leader Steve Foulkes gives his views after six months of the Lib-Lab pact

Nov 19 2008 by Matt Hurst, Birkenhead News

Steve Foulkes

SIX months ago, Wirral’s local elections threatened to change the peninsula’s political map, as the Lib/Lab pact appeared doomed by Conservative gains.

In a series of interviews, Wirral News asks each party leader how they view progress since the resurrection of the Lib/Lab pact, and the sidelining of Conservative hopes of power.

ON MAY 1, Labour leader Cllr Steve Foulkes remarked “it isn’t the greatest night for Labour politics” but with his party now restored to power, he describes himself as “a man on a mission”.

The current leader of Wirral Council told the News: “It may have been easier to go into opposition because difficult decisions needed to be made.

“But as we’ve seen on a national basis, when the Labour Party has difficult decisions to make, it usually makes the right ones.”

Cllr Foulkes praised the Liberal Democrats’ “brave” move to rejoin forces with his group, and slammed the Conservatives for consistently saying “no” to efficiency savings, despite the threat of steep council tax rises.

He said: “The Conservatives are offering no solution.

“We have to make £9milion of savings over a year and if we are unable to, we would have to increase council tax by 9%.

“I refuse point blank to do that.

“We have to make difficult decisions and all we get from the Conservatives is ‘no’, which doesn’t achieve anything.”

Cllr Foulkes said when he became leader, Wirral had the third highest council tax level nationally, but was now down to 242 out of 250 authorities.

He said: “Let’s carry on delivering for the silent majority of the Wirral public, people who regularly pay their council tax and want to see lower council tax.

“We’ve even introduced a discount for pensioners and will continue with these policies, in the absence of any other administration putting itself forward in a serious fashion.”

He said the Conservatives were using “local government as a way of promoting parliamentary candidates”, adding it is “no coincidence that whenever issues come forward, it’s not the leader of the party who appears, but someone like Leah Fraser”.

Cllr Foulkes added: “I want people to understand the situation we’re in.

“All three parties signed up to an efficiency plan to make efficiencies of £33million over three years.

“I don’t want to pass that on to the council tax payer, so we have to make some difficult decisions.

“We need to become leaner and more efficient, but actually provide better services, maybe fewer, but better.”