Reigate and Surrey get a raw deal from this Government. We are facing a crisis in our public services and, with this Government, it seems that things can only get worse for the people of Surrey.

On Monday 29th January I arranged a delegation to see Home Office Minister Charles Clarke including other Surrey MPs and the Chief Constable of Surrey Police. The Government's budget settlement for our local constabulary has been outrageous. They have rewarded the police force will the best crime statistics in England with substantial funding cuts, amounting to one quarter since Labour took office. The Minister admitted that John Prescott and the Department of the Environment had skewed the funding formula against the south east and Surrey in particular. Prescott's manipulation has left Surrey as the only police force to suffer a real cut in funding next year, and a substantial one at 2.8%.

It does not stop there. The whole financial strategy of the Government has been to reduce Surrey's share in money for public services. Whitehall's Standard Spending Assessment calculates how much money councils get from central government. Surprise, surprise then that since 1997 Surrey has lost out from this funding formula, leaving our council services over-stretched and under-funded.

For the time being the Additional Cost Adjustment provides some compensation for the lower Standard Spending Assessment sum, by giving money in recognition of the higher cost of services and living in the Home Counties. But now the Government is looking at ways to try to compose a formula to take the Additional Cost Adjustment away from Surrey, and to give the money to "our friends in the north" instead.

Any change in the Additional Cost Adjustment poses a serious problem for Surrey. Attempts have already been made to undermine it, but if a Labour Government is returned to office, the prospect of an overhaul of the system to take this money from us and give to Labour constituencies in the North is only too likely. Then the position on public services in our Borough will get even worse.

We pay more tax, yet receive less per head for public services. The police, education and health service are all penalized. The NHS funding is so distorted against us that East Surrey Hospital is left with the longest in patient waiting times in the country.

Our public services suffer because there is great difficulty in recruiting people in an area of high living costs. This extends to the private sector where Arriva has struggled to recruit bus drivers because of the higher wages that they must offer to run often under-used routes. Nurses have to be recruited from the Philipines because they can't afford to live here. Forty percent of Surrey police do not live in Surrey for the same reason. Schools are struggling to get sufficient candidates to fill teaching vacancies.

There is a crisis in public service provision in Surrey. Yet it is our environment that is to be sacrifices to build yet more houses to reinforce our success in being the economic motor of the whole country. It can't go on like this - we must change our approach to many of the assumptions that have governed us until now.