At yesterday’s Surrey County Council, I used my speech seconding an opposition motion to call for a complete overhaul of how local government is funded.

I urged County Councillors of all parties to vote in favour of the motion that recognised the current funding model was broken and called on the Council to agree to lobby the Government for much needed change.

As well as highlighting some of the idiosyncrasies of the Council Tax system, I quoted various independent sources, confirming that with an estimated £4 billion hole in Council funding for 2024/25, many local authorities were already, or would soon be at crisis point.

I am really pleased that this motion passed with overwhelming cross party support. The gap between the amount of money needed to meet the demand for services and the funding that is available to Councils to deliver them, is growing ever wider.

There are lots of different opinions and ideas as to how we might be able to fix this, but we are really at the point now where something radical has to be done and urgently.

As I said in my speech yesterday, agreeing this motion is a small yet important step to change and getting the fair deal local government and Surrey in particular deserves.