A TORY MP has blasted his own government for being "unfair" in the way it has allocated cash to Bury Council.

David Sumberg, MP for Bury South, protested in the Commons that Bury Council was losing "massive sums" because of the formula used to calculate how much authorities received.

He said: "It is not fair, it is not just and it cannot go on. "Whoever is in office as Secretary of State for the Environment on this side of the House after the election, I say to them that something will have to be done about it."

Bury and Bolton are both facing massive cuts this year, and last night local government workers packed Bury's Elizabethan Suite to draw up a plan of action to fight cuts in jobs and services.

The Government's council cash settlement for England in the coming year has been backed by the Commons despite protests on all sides of unfairness in the system for distributing grants.

Voting for measures implementing the deal was 311 to 269, Government majority 42.

Environment Secretary John Gummer insisted: "Local authorities do not have to increase council tax bills if they want to maintain or improve services." He warned: "If council tax bills do go up, it will be because Labour and Liberal Democrats councillors choose to put them up.

"If services do get cut, it will be because Labour and Liberal Democrat councillors choose to cut them.

"Nobody is forcing them to increase council tax bills or cut services."

But Shadow Environment Secretary Frank Dobson said: "The more I look at the present system, the more I think it has to be changed root and branch because it's a racket."

He challenged Tories to back the Government's "planned 6pc increase" in council tax, adding: "Most Tory MPs will be voting for their own constituents to pay more and get less and expressing their satisfaction at that arrangement."

Mr Gummer, rejecting councils' pleas for changes in capping limits, said he had "decided to maintain the criteria".

He stressed: "Local government accounts for around a quarter of public spending so the Government clearly needs to keep it in check."

The settlement provides for total standard spending, the amount the Government believes councils need to spend to provide a satisfactory level of service, of £45 billion for the coming year.

Total aggregate external finance, the sum of Government grants and income from the business rate, is put at £35 billion - a below-inflation increase of £530 million or 1.5pc on 1996-97.

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