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Points of Order
3.31 pm
Several Hon. Members : On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker : It is a private Members' day, but I shall take the point of order from Mr. Marlow first.
Mr. Tony Marlow (Northampton, North) : On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. As you know, my hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Mr. Hamilton) is about to explain to the House, not before time, the workings of the roof tax [Interruption.] One would have thought that that would be of great interest to the whole House, but, unfortunately, the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould), who is the Opposition spokesman on the subject, is not here. We feel that he might want to listen to my hon. Friend's speech. Is there any way in which we can get him back to the Chamber? If not, as the roof tax is, I believe, an Opposition proposal in fundamental form, would it be more appropriate for my hon. Friend to speak from the Opposition Front Bench?
Mr. Speaker : Of course, it may be that the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould) will come back when these points of order come to an end.
Mr. Bob Cryer (Bradford, South) : On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. During Question Time, a Minister at the Department of the Environment made an entirely unwarranted and unjustified attack on the city of Bradford. I said that he was trying to trample on local democracy and intimidate Labour councillors. Is it right that a Minister should be allowed to do that, particularly when Labour councillors, after their sweeping victory at the local elections, are busy clearing up the rotten mess left behind by the Tories?
Mr. Speaker : We often hear things with which we may violently disagree in this Chamber. It was in order.
Mr. Michael Brown (Brigg and Cleethorpes) : On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Further to the point of order of my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) I wonder whether you would rule that it would be in order for my hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Mr. Hamilton) to speak from the Opposition Dispatch Box in the absence of the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould)?
Mr. Speaker : That is a hypothetical matter.
Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) : Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. If my hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould) manages to get back, will you have a word with him to tell him to bring the Chancellor of the Exchequer along as well, so that he can come to the Dispatch Box to try to explain to the House why, in the first four months of this year, we have had a balance of payments deficit of £7 billion? That is the worst we have ever had and, despite all the gloss and the propaganda of the past few days, that balance of payments deficit is getting no better. We want him here.
Mr. Speaker : These are legitimate matters to raise on the Adjournment motion. The deputy Prime Minister, the Leader of the House, will be present to answer them. I cannot answer them.
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Mr. Simon Hughes (Southwark and Bermondsey) : On a point of Order, Mr. Speaker. Can you rule on this matter? There was originally in the list of Environment questions for today Question 7 in my name, which read as follows :
"To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment"
Mr. Speaker : For today?
Mr. Hughes : Not today's Order Paper but in the paper printed on Monday and on previous days. The question was :
"To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement on his Department's responsibilities in respect of the environmental protection of Antarctica."
The question was transferred to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. I understand from inquiry that the decision was made not by the Table Office but by the Department. I further understand that the Department of the Environment accepts that it has responsibilities other than those relating to the United Kingdom. It is a very important matter. Environment Ministers tell us about global warming conferences, follow-up conferences to Brundtland and Bergen, and international discussions. They must have international responsibilities.
Can you inquire whether it is possible in future for Members to table questions to Environment Ministers about international environmental issues, or is it the case in this area, as in so many others, that what we feared is the truth : that they are given no responsibility by the Government, by the Prime Minister or by others for anything outside the remit of the United Kingdom?
Mr. Speaker : Order. It has taken the hon. Member five minutes to make his point.
Mr. Hughes : I should be grateful if, today or later, Mr. Speaker, you would tell us whether we can ask the Department of the Environment questions which relate to anything outside the United Kingdom.
Mr. Speaker : The hon. Gentleman alleged that the Table Office had transferred the question.
Mr. Speaker : I am responsible for the Table Office. The question was not transferred by the Table Office.
Mr. Hughes : That is what I said.
Mr. Speaker : It is a matter for the Department whether questions are transferred. The hon. Gentleman should take it up with the Department. It is not my responsibility.
Mr. David Evans (Welwyn Hatfield) : On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I seek your guidance on free postage and free notepaper in the House. Is it against the rules for a Member to use that privilege to circularise constituents? If it is against the rules, will you please take swift and strong action against the hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen), who persists in abusing that privilege?
Mr. Graham Allen (Nottingham, North) rose--
Mr. Speaker : Order. I think I can protect the hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen). He has seen the error of his ways and has paid for the notepaper and postage that he used.
Mr. Tony Banks (Newham, North-West) : On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You will have heard during Environment questions the young and thrusting new
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Minister for the poll tax making a disgraceful allegation about Bradford, which you have already covered. Did you also hear him say that, in order to find out whether the allegation was true, he had contacted the ex-leader of Bradford city council? Surely the constitutional relationship should have a Minister talking to the elected leader of Bradford city council. Will the Minister, through you, give an assurance that he will contact the elected leader--Mr. Speaker : Order. That sounds like a continuation of Question Time. This is private Members' time. I am bound to take points of order into account in making my selection.
Mr. Nicholas Bennett (Pembroke) : On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Week after week, the hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen) has filled the Order Paper with pages of proposed alterations to the rules. Is it not time he obeyed his own rules before proposing new ones?
Mr. Ron Brown (Edinburgh, Leith) : On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Will you explain to the lot opposite that there is a community charge, and the charge is that the poll tax is unacceptable, north and south of the border? I say that as a so-called Toy Town revolutionary. Toy Town revolutionaries will always challenge Toy Town reactionaries. The arguments and the campaign are, "Don't collect, don't co-operate--fight back."
Mr. Speaker : Order. I cannot answer questions like that. It is time that we all went away for the holiday.
BALLOT FOR NOTICES OF MOTIONS FOR FRIDAY 15 JUNE Members successful in the ballot were :
Mr. Brian Sedgemore
Mr. Michael Latham
Mr. Alan Williams
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BILL PRESENTED
Private Security (Registration)
Mr. Bruce George, supported by Sir Barney Hayhoe, Mr. Michael Mates, Mr. John McFall, Mr. John Home Robertson, Mr. Neil Thorne, Mr. John McWilliam, Mr. John Wilkinson, Mr. John Cartwright, Mr. Menzies Campbell and Mr. Don Dixon, presented a Bill to provide for the establishment of a Private Security Registration Council and to give that Council powers and functions for the regulation of firms offering private security servicess and of persons employed as private security agents ; to require the registration for such firms and persons with the Council ; to impose requirements upon such firms and persons ; to make provision of training of persons employed as private security agents ; to make provision for compensation to be paid in respect of inadequately insured death or injury arising from the activities of such firms and persons ; to define offences and specify penalties ; and for connected purposes : And the same was read the First time ; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 15 June and to be printed. [Bill 148.]
STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &c.
Criminal Damage (Northern Ireland)
Ordered,
That the Criminal Damage (Compensation) (Northern Ireland) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 1990 (S.R. (N.I.), 1990, No. 79) be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.-- [Mr. Garel-Jones.]
European Community Documents
Ordered,
That European Community Document No. 4748/90 relating to glazing, masses and dimensions and tyres of road vehicles be referred to a Standing Committee on European Community Documents.-- [Mr. Garel-Jones.]
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Roof Tax
3.40 pm
Mr. Neil Hamilton (Tatton) : I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to empower local authorities to raise revenue by levying charges on domestic property.
I should first of all like to deny the rumour that has been put around unworthily by some of my hon. Friends that this is an unserious or frivolous occasion, and what I am proposing this afternoon is a spoof tax. I assure you, Mr. Speaker, that this is a serious event. This afternoon I am seeking to advance democratic debate and provide alternatives for the people throughout the country to choose between. Recognising as I do that the Labour party is out of practice in introducing legislation into the House, I thought that I would distil the wisdom of the past 12 years to give it the opportunity, through me, to introduce its flagship local government proposals.
One thing we know is that the Labour party is firmly resolved to abolish the community charge as soon as it assumes office. The hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) has said so on many occasions. Thanks to the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley), we also know that the Labour party is determined to produce an alternative. Before the local government elections in 1988, he said :
"Our local government campaign must not be, and will not be, a series of attacks on the Government. Simply to oppose is the sort of vacuous opposition which the people of this country despise. We must, and we will, offer our alternatives."
Several months later, the right hon. Member for Islwyn (Mr. Kinnock), the Leader of the Opposition, announced :
"We are sophisticating the policy."
I appreciate that sophistication and the right hon. Gentleman are not often found in conjunction. It is certainly true that we have not seen much sophistication since.
The hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould), who mysteriously appears to have vanished from the Chamber, announced in January of this year in the House :
"We are making very good progress with the work that we have undertaken to prepare our alternative We have every confidence that in the coming months we shall reach a conclusion that we shall be able to bring forward with confidence."--[ Official Report, 18 January 1990 ; Vol. 165, c. 438- 39.]
I am delighted to bring that forward with confidence today. The author of Labour party policy today, Mr. Peter Mandelson, the candidate for Hartlepool, announced on Radio Cleveland on 4 April that the next major policy statement by the Labour party would be on 23 or 24 May. He said that that statement would contain the party's fully worked out alternative to the poll tax. As that document is to be published tomorrow, I am giving the Labour party the first possible opportunity to put into legislative form the announcements that are about to be made.
In anticipation of this event, I wrote in these terms to the hon. Member for Dagenham on 9 May to announce that I was going to present my Bill today :
"Although I have my own ideas, I would be grateful for your assistance in drafting the details of the Bill The Committee stage of the Bill will be an excellent opportunity for Labour to clarify its thoughts and test some of its ideas.
In view of the importance which you attach to replacing the poll tax as soon as possible with what you see as a fairer alternative, and the opportunity which I offer of a substantial backbench Tory rebellion if we can construct such an
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alternative, I am sure you will agree that this is an opportunity to render a service to the country and derive some kudos for the Labour party at a time whem its electoral fortunes appear to be on the slide. Can we meet as soon as possible to discuss tactics?" I regret to say that difficult as it must be for Conservative Members to understand, this opportunity was refused.As the House well knows, however, the Labour party in Scotland has produced its alternative ; the hon. Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) announced in February that the party intended to return, in effect, to the rating system and that, instead of notional rental values, the tax would be based on the capital value of a house. This would bring advantages for many hard-pressed sections of the community. Time does not allow me to name too many of them so I shall name only one : chartered surveyors. In the flat condition of the property market today they are, of course, desperate for work. In a copy of the Chartered Surveyor Weekly dated 22 February, their eagerness to see a Labour Government introduce this measure is plain for all to see :
"if Labour wins power, the new system could bring an explosion of work through a one-off general revaluation followed by annual sample surveys.
Another aspect which should make professionals salivate is the almost unlimited potential for appeals",
and so on.
Of course, although advantages would undoubtedly accrue to certain members of the community, the great advantage of what is proposed by the Labour party is that no one need be worse off, because if a person is dissatisfied with the liability that he is likely to have on his house, he can always trade down. I believe that the hon. Member for Dagenham has already done that. Recently, in that estimable newspaper the Daily Mail , there was an article about the hon. Gentleman, who recently sold his delightful house in Oxfordshire in order to purchase a small flat near Moreton-in-Marsh.
I wondered why the hon. Gentleman had made this change. First and foremost, an instant's thought will tell the more sagacious Members of the House that Moreton-in-Marsh is represented by our right hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) and we can well understand the eagerness with which the hon. Gentleman desires to become one of his constituents. But as I understand it, the hon. Gentleman's flat is in a very large 18th century country house called Northwick park--[ Hon. Members :-- "Oh."] I can assure hon. Members that there is no ideological inconsistency in that, because the flat is in the former servants' quarters. It will undoubtedly reduce the hon. Gentleman's potential liability. Its third advantage is that it is further from Dagenham. I can well understand why the hon. Gentleman, proposing as he does a roof tax, wants to be as far away from his constituency as possible. As the average price of a house in Dagenham is £65,000, to raise the same revenue as the community charge, the roof tax there will have to be £10.90 per £1,000, so the average roof tax will be £711 compared with a community charge of £278. A single person would be £433 a year worse off than at present and couples would be £155 a year worse off.
Of course there are advantages to the roof tax. My hon. Friend the Member for Eastwood (Mr. Stewart) tells me that in Scotland many blocks of flats have been assigned a negative value by district valuers. One assumes that when the roof tax is introduced it will be perfectly symmetrical.
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That means that people in hereditaments with a positive value will pay something while those who occupy properties that have a negative value will be paid to live there.I hope that what I am about to say, Mr. Speaker, will not alarm you. You live in one of the most desirable of residences, and its capital value is very great. An open market valuation may well add several millions to it. You derive a reasonable salary for carrying out your onerous office, and I do not begrudge a single penny of it. We all hope that you will continue to occupy your residence, just as we all hope that there will not be a Labour Government after the next general election. I hope that we shall not find Mrs. Weatherill putting bed-and-breakfast notices outside your residence to supplement your income so that you can pay the roof tax.
It will be simple to avoid the roof tax in the same way as the window tax was avoided. Just as windows were bricked up, so the roof can be removed and that will considerably reduce the value of the property.
There are reasons why my Bill should be supported by hon. Members on both sides of the House. First, Labour Members should support their party policy by voting for me. Secondly, I should be supported by my hon. Friends who, by voting for the Bill, will show to electors all over the country and especially in London, the south-east and in areas where property values are greater than the average, how much they would lose by the election of a Labour Government. I call upon my right hon. and hon. Friends and Opposition Members to support me in the Lobby.
3.52 pm
Mr. Edward Leigh (Gainsborough and Horncastle) rose
Mr. Speaker : Does the hon. Gentleman wish to oppose the Bill?
I am surprised by my hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Mr. Hamilton). As one would expect, he has presented his Bill with his customary wit and wisdom, but the measure is singularly ill-conceived. If I did not know my hon. Friend better, I would suspect that he had consulted the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould), but surely that could not be the case.
My hon. Friend is a somewhat unlikely champion of socialism. Only this week, I espied him at a society wedding, wearing spats and carrying a cane with a silver top. I know that the vodka-and-tonic version of the Labour party to which the hon. Member for Dagenham belongs may not mind people wearing spats. Earlier this week, the Leader of the Opposition commented on the need for sartorial elegance by his spokesmen. Will they have to wear spats in the House in future?
Although my hon. Friend the Member for Tatton has presented his Bill in a mischievous tone, I must speak up on this entirely serious issue. I speak not just on behalf of my constituents but on behalf of those of the hon. Member for Dagenham. We have heard that people who occupy houses in Dagenham with an average value of £65,000 may well be as much as £400 worse off. This is therefore a serious issue for all our constituents.
I do not want to see the Bill proceed further, not least because my hon. Friend the Member for Tatton, knowing
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me as he does and as godfather to one of my children, knows that it will hit large families hard. My hon. Friend knows that children need roofs and that large families need large roofs. Only this week, I acquired another member of my family. The Bill is a personal dig at me, and that is another reason for opposing it. It must also be a dig at the hon. Member for Dagenham, who occupies a great mansion in Gloucestershire with sweeping valley roofs and great pitched gables. I understand that his roof tax could be as much as £3,000. Is this a dig at the hon. Member for Dagenham?There are some serious points. I oppose the Bill because I want some answers. I see a Labour spokesman, the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) sitting on the Labour Front Bench. Let him answer a few simple questions. I will give way happily. I hope that he is listening carefully.
Mr. Speaker : Order. I am afraid that the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) cannot answer the hon. Gentleman's questions, as this is a ten-minute Bill.
Mr. Leigh : How unfortunate. The hon. Gentleman can listen. I am sure that when that part-time Geordie and full-time London sophisticate Mr. Mandelson sophisticates the roof tax on Thursday, he will answer my questions. They have not been answered so far. These questions can be put simply. First, how can it be fair to pay a tax based on property when a person's income can remain static while the capital value of his home goes up, with the result that, under the Bill's proposals, the roof tax will rise? Secondly, how can such a system be fair if one has no capital stake in one's home--for instance, when one is a tenant? Again, under the Bill's provisions, liability for roof tax still increases.
It is not surprising that this crab-like tax has crept forward, dodged around and come back. It is impossible to get a property tax like this to be fair. If we were to have a system based on income, there would be other problems. For example, Inland Revenue statistics are based not on a person's whereabouts, but on his job. How does one find out where a person is living and how much of his income should be redistributed around the authorities? Furthermore, London and the south-east have a concentration of high income tax payers. How does one redistribute that? It would make the rate support grant look like an easy game of draughts.
The roof tax is riddled through with inconsistencies and is fundamentally flawed. I am surprised at my hon. Friend the Member for Tatton. In the manner of Opposition spokesmen, he has proposed a policy without a price tag. He has given us no figures. We still have not heard from my hon. Friend or the Labour party whether this will be a tax on individuals or on households. Only the Labour party would produce a tax without saying who would be taxed, and we must be told.
All this is a diversion from what we should be discussing. The problem is not the nature of local government taxation but the fact that local government taxation is too high. People are paying too much. If Wandsworth and Westminster prove one thing, it is that Conservative councillors, in the next year or two, have rigorously to look at all their budgets and get bills down.
The roof tax is a mere smokescreen. It is confused and confusing. It is unexplained and inexplicable. I urge the House to reject the Bill with a substantial majority.
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Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 19 (Motions for leave to bring in Bills and nomination of Select Committees at commencement of public business) :--The House divided : Ayes Nil, Noes 119.
Division No. 223] [3.58 pm
AYES
Tellers for the Ayes :
Mr. Neil Hamilton and
Mr. David Evans.
NOES
Alison, Rt Hon Michael
Arbuthnot, James
Ashby, David
Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy
Aspinwall, Jack
Banks, Robert (Harrogate)
Batiste, Spencer
Beaumont-Dark, Anthony
Beggs, Roy
Beith, A. J.
Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)
Bevan, David Gilroy
Boswell, Tim
Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)
Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard
Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)
Buck, Sir Antony
Burns, Simon
Butcher, John
Butler, Chris
Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)
Carlisle, John, (Luton N)
Cartwright, John
Cash, William
Channon, Rt Hon Paul
Chapman, Sydney
Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)
Colvin, Michael
Conway, Derek
Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)
Coombs, Simon (Swindon)
Cryer, Bob
Currie, Mrs Edwina
Day, Stephen
Devlin, Tim
Dunn, Bob
Evennett, David
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