Letter to Chancellor Rachel Reeves from Zoë Garbett, Hackney Green party councillor for Dalston

Zoë Garbett, Hackney Green Party councillor for Dalston, says families and young people need to be put first. Photograph: Will Morgan

Hackney is waiting on the long-anticipated budget with real trepidation.

It has been billed as a budget that will deliver further core funding cuts, while aiming for ‘growth’.

We need a budget based on the principles of good growth – growth that reduces poverty, tackles affordability, the climate emergency, and rebuilds local public services from the ground up.

I am Zoë Garbett, the Hackney Green party councillor for Dalston and member of the London Assembly. Hackney has already seen a real-term funding cut from the government of 40 per cent since 2010.

Hackney faces a £51 million hole in the budget over the next three years. The Institute for Fiscal Studies predicts this deficit will grow, as the Fair Funding Review threatens to cut Hackney’s funding by another 12 per cent.

Councils like Hackney are being asked to deliver more with less every single year, while the cost of living continues to rise.

Hackney is a borough where 64 per cent of children live in an income-deprived household. I have repeatedly raised the voices of people across Hackney who have been so badly impacted by austerity.

A combination of completely unaffordable private-sector rents, food and energy poverty, low wages and the ‘two-child benefit cap’, lack of provision for children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), means parents are deeply struggling.

Nearly 4,000 children are living in temporary accommodation in the borough, there is a chronic lack of council homes. Families are being displaced.

Cuts to youth clubs are impacting Hackney’s young people – there is overwhelming evidence of the value for youth services from keeping young people safe to increasing exam grades.

If the government are serious about breaking the cycle of inequality, this budget must put families and young people first.

Garbett (centre) pictured with Green Party leader Zack Polanski (left) and Dylan Law, candidate for Hackney Downs (right). Photograph: Will Morgan

I began working in local government in 2010, in the aftermath of the first austerity budget and spent over 14 years working in councils and the NHS.

The election of a Labour government in July 2024 brought hope to many that this era of misery was over, and that the scapegoating of those most in need would end.

That hope has been replaced by dismay, as we face more austerity and further real-terms cuts. The country cannot rebuild on the back of further cuts to councils, families, or social safety nets.

This budget must be a turning point.

This budget must listen to our families and deliver the change they need:

• Raise Local Housing Allowance to reflect real rents in 2025.
• Introduce Rent Control powers so people can afford rent and end the billions transferred to private landlords from the government as part of housing support meaning more funding for council housing.
• Properly fund childcare and abolish the two-child benefit cap – it is one of the single biggest drivers of child poverty in Hackney and across the UK.
• Overhaul Council Tax, replacing the outdated 1991 valuations with a fair, progressive system where the wealthiest pay their share, for example, with updated property bandings, a wealth tax and a Land Value Tax.
• Tax wealth properly – from unearned capital gains to windfall profits and tax evasion – so that essential public services can thrive again.
• Deliver real fiscal devolution- give councils the power to raise and retain local revenue, to invest in council housing, affordable childcare, youth services, libraries and the local economy, to support good growth from the ground up.
• Commit to sustainable, fair funding for councils, ending the cycle of managed decline and financial crisis. To build the next generation of council homes and deliver essential services.

Chancellor, look at councils as partners, not dependents. Delivering for Hackney ultimately means delivering for London, and for the country. Invest in Hackney, and we will repay that investment many times over, through thriving communities, safer streets, and opportunity for every child.

Zoë Garbett
Councillor, Dalston ward
Member of the London Assembly