
The Secretary of State suggested that Lewisham should use its resources of nearly £60million. Later in the debate I revealed that the bulk of Lewisham’s resources were earmarked for capital projects and the general reserve – kept for emergencies – was equivalent to only 2.5% (£11million) of the overall budget. It would be irresponsible to spend ‘emergency’ reserves and would do nothing to deal with cuts of up to £70million.