Brighton and Hove residents will be as dismayed as I am that at the council budget meeting, every Conservative councillor on Brighton and Hove City Council voted against extra money for the Citizens Advice Bureau, cash to support at-risk children and funding for two new jet washers to clean city streets, even though these Labour proposals would have come at no extra cost to the council tax payer.

The Tories also voted against more money for graffiti removal, improvements to The Level, £300,000 for children's playgrounds and funding to open Hove Library on Sundays. They did vote to cut funding to carers and to drug treatment services, as well as increasing charges for parking, environmental health services, funerals, marriages and civil partnerships, blaming the costs on the Government's bus passes for older people and those with disabilities.

We have pledged to fight these cuts imposed on the city by a minority Tory administration which has one eye on the general election but no ear for the vulnerable and those on lower incomes.