A war of words is growing between Cornwall Council and at least one of Cornwall’s Labour MPs over fairer funding for the Duchy, with the Liberal Democrat leader of the cash-strapped authority telling the MP for St Austell and Newquay to stop “whingeing”.

While that MP, Noah Law, has said in turn that the council’s administration should stop blaming the Labour Government for its poor finances when elements of budgeting at the council are “failing”, with officers “pleading poverty” while “covering up the elephant in the room that is their adult social care expenditure”.

During a discussion last week about this year’s Cornwall Council’s budget – which was deemed “not a good day for Cornwall” by Independent deputy leader Cllr Adam Paynter – another Independent councillor, Mike Thomas, said: “It’s somewhat ironic that Cornwall did so much better under the Conservatives. I find it hard to say that.”

He added: “It’s so sad that Labour is simply not working in Cornwall.” A statement Cornwall’s Labour MPs would no doubt deny following a number of financial boosts announced for the county in recent weeks and months.

The political argument stems from comments made last December when Cornwall’s four Labour MPs announced that they had secured a 27 per cent increase to £932-million by 2028/29 in a long-term Local Government Funding Settlement for Cornwall Council following months of extensive lobbying.

Opposition politicians have said it’s not quite as it appears though – with the settlement being backdated to when the Labour Government was elected and including maximum council tax hikes and the 100 per cent premium council tax on second homes as part of the core funding.

They say the removal of ‘rural remoteness’ from the funding formula has been detrimental to Cornwall.

At last week’s Cornwall Council cabinet meeting when a maximum 4.99 per cent council tax rise was agreed, Cllr Paynter said that his Lib Dem / Independent administration had hoped that when the Labour Government undertook a fair funding review last year it would help Cornwall.

However, he said, that hadn’t happened as more money from the Government’s Recovery Grant had gone to metropolitan councils rather than rural areas.

He said the money promised from the Government actually works out at 5.1 per cent extra for the three years from this current year, but he compared that to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation figure which is 9.4 per cent. “That just shows how Government extra money is nowhere near the increase in inflation,” said Cllr Paynter

The council has to make cuts and savings of over £154-m over the next three years in order to balance the books, with £59m alone this year.

Cornwall’s Labour MPs have pointed out that just last week the Government announced it is paying £70-million towards the council’s special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) deficit, around 90 per cent of the total SEND deficit at the council, as well as a £1.5-million boost for homelessness prevention.

They say that Cornwall was the only place in the country to secure a £30-million Industrial Growth Fund from Treasury and the Government has also committed hundreds of millions to build Cornwall’s new Women’s and Children’s Hospital.

The MPs have said that the new Government Critical Minerals Strategy will also bring millions to revive Cornwall’s mining industry and that Cornwall Council has also been given multi-millions for roads, which should help towards filling potholes.

While welcoming all of that funding, Cornwall Council’s Lib Dem leader Cllr Leigh Frost said at last Friday’s budget meeting: “When that June settlement figure came and we’d finally been recognised, the fairer funding review was working and the Government had kept its promise, it was amazing and we built a budget around that.

“To then have that swept away from under us in October [when ‘rural remoteness’ was removed as a funding factor] was really soul-destroying.

“I don’t understand how you can do a fairer funding review because you want to rebalance the unfairness of the Local Government Financial Settlement and then somehow Cornwall ends up £1.5m worse off than if no fairer funding review would have ever been enacted. That’s ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous.”

He added: “We’ve worked really hard to lobby ministers and all six Cornish MPs have been banging down the door. I can’t fault any one of our MPs for the commitment they’ve given for making a change in this.

“Unfortunately, Government made its choice and its choice wasn’t Cornwall. Yet again the Cornish pound has to go much further than the English pound because that is the crux of it. We are doing more, but doing more with less. That really is a kick in the teeth.”

“It is sad that we are in this position,” added Mebyon Kernow councillor Loveday Jenkin. “The salutary comment I take away is that we’re £1.5m worse off than if there had been no fairer funding review. That’s a missed opportunity on behalf of the Government to redress the issues, particularly in rural areas.

“All of the cuts that we’re going to have to make increase the risk of lack of accessibility for rural areas. The amount of income from central government to local government is really a concern.

“Notwithstanding the 90 per cent for SEND or the other bits and pieces, they are minuscule compared with what we had from Europe in the past. They are also not going towards an increase in services, they’re going towards trying to maintain the level we’re at.”

She told the cabinet she welcomed that they’d managed to get to a balanced budget “but I have extreme concerns that we are still not getting a fair share for our residents”.

Liberal Democrat councillor Rob Nolan, who is the chair of Cornwall Council, said that he heard Noah Law MP on the radio and “he expressed disappointment that Cornwall Council officers and cabinet members had been saying that the Government weren’t giving us enough and he went on to say that, in fact, we’d had more than we’ve ever had from the Government.

“He said we should stop playing politics and get on with our jobs. I hope that we’re not playing politics with something so serious as this, but both these things can’t be right.

“It can’t be right that we’re receiving more than we’ve ever had before or that we’re doing more with less. Which is it, leader?”

Cllr Frost responded: “It’s interesting to make an accusation that we’re the ones playing politics. However, there is a reality.

“Budgets are complex for an organisation the size of Cornwall Council and the reality is, yes, we are getting more money. The problem is it’s not keeping pace with the level of demand that we have to service.

“That’s where he keeps getting confused. We have these petty little arguments which I think are really unhelpful.”

He added: “We didn’t get a Rural Services Grant directly, we got it through a discount in our business rate tariff, which was then cut because they cut the Rural Services Grant. That’s the reality – you can dress it up anyway you want.

“I’ve said the MPs have done a good job lobbying, but when we get stupid things like this I think it’s really unhelpful because we’re all in this together for Cornwall.

“I’ll work with anyone to get what we want for Cornwall and I think perhaps he needs to spend more time working with us than whingeing on the radio maybe.”

However, Mr Law has continued to be critical of what he says are financial failings at Cornwall Council.

He has said that while there are areas where Cornwall Council is making “genuine progress” on turning its finances around, “to simply reach for the ‘blame everything on the Labour Government’ button when some departments are clearly failing is just farcical”.

Mr Law said: “Senior councillors have repeatedly claimed a lack of national Government funding has led to pressures.

“However, in an email to Cornish MPs on January, 9, Cllr Adam Paynter, deputy leader of the council, and Kate Kennally, the council’s CEO, said the authority is £58.8-million worse off than ‘compared to the summer’, referencing draft assumptions from the Government’s consultation on the Local Government Funding Settlement and Fair Funding Review.

“Although the final settlement is lower than consulted, officials have briefed this publicly as a ‘cut’, rather than a different increase than expected.

“This is despite the council’s own figures showing spending power per person will be around 23 per cent higher by 2029 than when the Labour Government took office.”

He reiterated that in December 2025, the Labour Government announced the largest ever Local Government Funding Settlement for Cornwall, with its share from national government expected to rise by £30.5-million a year by the end of the Parliament.

Mr Law also raised serious concerns that officers failed to brief the council’s cabinet on projected £13-million adult social care budgetary pressures. He said the in-year pressures only became clear to members in mid-January, despite information being available from December.

He said the late disclosure – in one of the council’s largest spending areas – undermines claims the position has deteriorated suddenly or unexpectedly.

Mr Law added: “Council officers have claimed to be hard done by in a ‘cut’ to an Excel spreadsheet from last summer when, in reality, Cornwall is getting significant investment from national government. At the same time, they are covering up the elephant in the room that is their adult social care expenditure.

“I do actually feel for elected councillors and the new administration because it is not their fault they are being fed dubious numbers and have inherited a mess.

“This is down to poor forecasting and a failure by unelected officers to properly brief cabinet on the true scale and trajectory of pressures in both adult and children’s social care, leaving little room for flexibility.”

Cornwall Council has not responded to a request for a response to Mr Law’s comments.