"Use £23 Million Bonanza to restore Care Cuts!" - Lib Dems

12.18.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Thu 25th Oct 2007

Hundreds marched against Labour's harsh cuts to services for older and vulnerable people

Lambeth Council has just won a gigantic £23 million bonanza after the Government has promised that it will not to press for repayments of historic debts.

Liberal Democrats are calling for the Labour-run Council to restore services and lower charges on care for elderly and disabled residents of the borough which now operates one of the harshest regimes in the Capital.

Earlier this year, Labour's Care Cuts were branded a scandal and caused hundred's of pensioners, disabled people and their carers to make an unprecedented march on the Town Hall. Labour Leader, Steve Reed, claimed at the time that lack of Government money had driven him reluctantly to this decision.

This huge and unexpected £23 million windfall from the Government now allows Labour to reverse that decision if it so chooses.

Cllr Rob Banks, Lib Dem Care Spokesperson, said "I am calling on Labour councillors to do the decent thing and remove their grossly unfair tax on the elderly, sick and disabled of Lambeth. They claimed they were forced to do this purely because of a shortage of Government money and now they are rolling in lolly. I cannot think of a higher priority."

Cllr Banks added, "Council Leader, Steve Reed, was crowing this week in his blog, about how he helped an elderly lady get a better deal from the Council's social support system. That this lady was already in a Council-run Sheltered Housing Scheme which hadn't previously addressed her particular needs shows how easily vulnerable people can slip through the net. This extra money could pug many of those yawning gaps."