House of Commons Hansard Debates for 6 Nov 1991

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be going out in March and April 1992. If only the Government had been prepared to accept Labour's help to solve the problem, we could have got rid of the poll tax.

The delay in abolishing the poll tax is due entirely to the Government's unwillingness to co-operate with the Labour party. If they had co-operated, we could have got rid of the poll tax and returned to the rating system straight away. Because the poll tax is still with us, it is becoming increasingly difficult to collect. The debt throughout the country is more than £1.5 billion and continually rising.

Mr. Wilshire : Surely the hon. Gentleman knows why the poll tax is becoming increasingly difficult to collect. It is because Labour Members set such a dreadful example by breaking the law and refusing to pay.

Mr. Steinberg : Do not talk so much drivel. That is absolute drivel and you know that-- [Interruption.]

Madam Deputy Speaker : Order. I hope that the hon. Member will correct what he said.

Mr. Steinberg : I certainly will, Madam Deputy Speaker. I have never known you to speak drivel in your life.

Madam Deputy Speaker : That is because I hardly ever speak.

Mr. Steinberg : The only drivel that ever comes out of the House comes from Conservatives, and we have just heard it again from the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire), who spoke for about half an hour.

If only the Government had listened to us--but they continued to refuse to co-operate with the Labour party. They continue to keep the discredited 20 per cent. contribution rule, which is inflicting dreadful and unnecessary hardship on the poor and is undermining the ability of councils to collect the tax. Would the Government do anything about it ? Would they listen ? No, they never do, because they are so arrogant. As a result, I am pleased to say, they will lose the next general election.

The British people are sick to death of the unfair poll tax. It does not matter where one goes or who one talks to--all one hears is how unfair it is. It will be with us until 1993 at the earliest if the Conservatives win the election. Fortunately, they will not. The British people want a tax that is based on the principle of fairness. They want it based on the ability to pay and the council tax, like the poll tax, will fail those tests.

In 1990, the chairman of the Conservative party said :

"You must know that any fundamental change from the existing system will in fact create many millions of losers. The only way of avoiding this is by pumping in billions of pounds of taxpayers' money from the Exchequer."

That is exactly what the Government did last year. They pumped in £4 billion of taxpayers' money to cushion the poll tax. The poll tax had to be subsidised to such an extent that it is costing the Exchequer billions of pounds in an attempt to take away the pressure that it has caused on the Tory party.

Recently, the former leader of the Tory party apologised for the dreadful mistake that she had made in the broadcasting franchise fiasco. More appropriately, she and the Tories should be apologising to the British people for the catastrophe of lumbering them with the dreadful poll tax and the misery that it has caused so many people.

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Many leading Tories made speeches viciously condemning a property tax. The right hon. Members for Mole Valley (Mr. Baker), for City of London and Westminster, South (Mr. Brooke), for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer), for Wirral, West (Mr. Hunt), for Witney (Mr. Hurd), for Kingston upon Thames (Mr. Lamont) and for Bath (Mr. Patten), the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr. Portillo) and the right hon. and learned Members for Edinburgh, Pentlands (Mr. Rifkind) and for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) all viciously attacked the suggestion of a property tax. Yet now they promote this council tax, which will be just as bad and just as painful as the poll tax. Were those right hon. and hon. Members converted by argument or perhaps by sorrow for what they have done, or by pity for the poll tax payer? No, they were converted simply because they realised that they would lose their seats and lose office at the next general election if they did not do something.

Adopting the council tax is jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. The council tax will be no better than the poll tax. It will be just as unfair as the poll tax and will lose the Tories the general election, just as the poll tax would have done.

7.44 pm

Mr. Martin M. Brandon-Bravo (Nottingham, South) : I was delighted that the Gracious Speech contained provisions for both the major Bills dealing with local authority functions, management and finance. I hope that I will catch your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker, on Second Reading of at least one of those Bills. I am delighted that we can refer broadly in this debate to those Bills.

All too frequently, Conservative Members are wrongly accused of being anti- local authorities. Those accusations are always made by the same people who have all but destroyed public support for the local authority concept because of their blindness to the requirements of good financial management within local authorities. When it goes wrong, they always seek to blame central Government. It is never their fault at local level.

It is very much to the credit of my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for the Environment that they have returned to basics and have not looked at finance in isolation. They are looking at structure and functions at the same time. We will certainly not again make the mistake that was made in the 1970s and 1980s. It is true that the Conservative party got it wrong 20 years ago when the belief in the two- tier system for local authorities was fashionable and won the day. True, it was working in some areas at that time. No doubt, following the local government commission which will be set up under the new Bill, that system will continue, where appropriate--but only where clearly appropriate. I am pleased that we recognised our earlier error. In the 1983 to 1987 Parliament, we removed the metropolitan upper tier. I am delighted that we will continue that process under my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State in the new Parliament which will be formed some time late next spring or in the summer. It goes without saying that a great urban conurbation such as Nottingham cannot and must not have its affairs meddled in by councillors from Mansfield, Worksop and Retford who, although loyal Nottinghamshire people,

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have no community of interest in our great city and who, not surprisingly, want their towns to have as much of the county cake as they can get.

Legislation that will take further the right of the public to know just how their council matches up with others must be right. It must also be right to have proper mechanisms in place to ensure that they get value for money. Only the committed socialists on the Opposition Benches can oppose such a move, in the belief that only local authority organisations should provide services. As my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire) pointed out, it does not follow that an identified public need must be met by a public sector bureaucracy. If services of the right standard giving better value for public money can be provided, the resources saved will be available to meet other public needs. That surely must make sense. The main Bill scraps the poll tax and provides local finance through the establishment of a new council tax. Like many of my colleagues, I plead guilty to the fact that I willingly supported the principle behind the original poll tax Bill. However, I did argue that certain key protections against abuse were not in that Bill. Too many local authorities used the changeover to milk people of money that they did not have through bills that they could not have anticipated and therefore provided for. That naivety will not be repeated in the new Bill.

Given that, at least in the first year of the new council tax, there will still be two-tier authorities in the shires, I hope that the Bill will be as tight as a drum to ensure that the tiered authorities that are not up for election do not use that freedom from the ballot box--as happened in Nottinghamshire with the poll tax--to wreck the council tax in the way that they wrecked the poll tax in its first year. Even if it can be shown that many authorities will have elections at that time, we must not be naive again. We must screw the lid on spending as tightly as possible, so that a true and proper comparison can be made between the old rates system, uprated to match current spending, the poll tax charge, and the new council tax.

Unless anyone should mistake my purpose, I say clearly that, provided that local authorities, at the point of change in April 1993, have the power to spend that which they are spending this year, plus inflation, not one meal on wheels, not one old people's home, not one teacher--in fact not one public provision--need be cut. If that were to happen, let it be clear that that would be typical of the cynical manipulation by Labour councils of the most vulnerable in our society, and nothing to do with the new council tax.

If Labour Members do not think that their party is the most cynical shower alive, I can give them a classic example from my county. There has been a great deal of national publicity about the plans of the Labour-controlled Nottinghamshire authority to close 12 old peoples' homes. One, Rivergreen, in my constituency, is a happy, well-run, well-managed, well-staffed home. It is an integral part of the community of Clifton, which is the second largest estate in England. Our county council always has enough money for the obscure and the daft, but when it comes to providing for its old people's homes, it does not have money. Its answer to the problem is either that it is entitled to more money from central Government,

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regardless of how much its rate support grant for the social services sector has risen, or that it needs the unfettered right to raise further taxes locally.

That brings me back to the earlier part of our debate, from which we now know that the Labour and the Liberal Democrat parties want absolutely no constraints on the ability of a local authority to raise whatever level of tax it decides. I assure the House that money is not the problem for the old people's homes in my constituency. It is the will of the controlling Labour group and its inability to manage financial affairs. Any county council that cannot find elbow room within a £600 million-plus budget to look after its old people's homes should stand aside and let some of my colleagues take over.

Mr. Bellotti : The example cited by the hon. Gentleman from his constituency is well known to hon. Members because it is repeated in other constituencies. Is the hon. Gentleman aware that in East Sussex, where the Conservatives control the county council, there is exactly the same problem because the Conservatives want to close seven old people's homes? I am sure that he would agree that the real problem is that local authorities across the country cannot spend the necessary money on our elderly people because of the capping regime imposed by central Government.

Hon. Members : Absolute rubbish.

Mr. Brandon-Bravo : As my hon. Friends have said, that is absolute rubbish. What I have said about Nottingham I would also have said about East Sussex had I had the same information. I do not have the slightest doubt that in Nottingham the money is available to do whatever is necessary to keep open those old people's homes, and so remove once and for all the worry of hundreds of residents in those homes.

Mr. Illsley : Where would Nottinghamshire county council find the elbow room to which the hon. Gentleman referred? Is he saying that it has balances that are not accounted for by other services? If so, the Government should be taking another look at the amount of grant that that council receives. If that is not the case, from which services would the hon. Gentleman want to take money to spend on the old people's homes?

Mr. Brandon-Bravo : Labour Members always imagine that some service or other would have to be cut to do what is right. I can tell him that Nottinghamshire county council's balances are more than adequate to deal with those old people's homes, without touching any other departmental budget. The hon. Gentleman should ask anybody in and around Nottingham whether they approve of the famous leaf stem statue, which costs £38,000, the coloured blobs under one of the car parks, which cost £28,000, or the provision of a day centre for the winos who are driving everybody mad, which cost £160,000. The list is endless. The council will always find money for whatever suits it, but when it comes to the elderly--the most vulnerable in our society--they always play ducks and drakes. They want maximum party-political benefit.

Mr. Wilshire : My hon. Friend said that the county council's not looking after the elderly properly was a reflection of the will of Labour councillors. Does he agree

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that it is all about the priorities of Labour councillors? It appears that in Nottingham they put sculpture above the interests of the elderly.

Mr. Brandon-Bravo : My hon. Friend has it in one-- [Interruption.] If a simple answer will do, there is no need to take a paragraph. My hon. Friend had it in a nutshell.

I have not yet had time to study the minutiae of the Bill which, as we now know, runs to 163 pages, but I want to touch briefly on certain parts of it. The great problem with the poll tax was the collection procedures. I am not slow to sing the praises of the city of Nottingham, and there are good grounds for doing so. However, in devising its method of collecting poll tax, in the words of that famous song, "If there was a wrong way to do it, the right way to screw it," nobody did it like Nottingham. My constituents have had to pay an additional £44.75 per adult because of that incompetence, and that is a disgrace. It is made all the more aggravating when people living inside the city know how little it costs the authorities outside the city to do precisely the same job. I hope that the legislation that will come before us next week will ensure that that will not happen again.

Equally, who is liable and what is meant by "occupier" must be beyond doubt in the new Bill. Where, as in many inner-city areas, there is a high turnover of occupancy, I hope that there will be powers to levy the owner in order to ensure that the financial base of local authorities is not undermined.

In order that our desired aim to assist one-person households is not blurred by lack of definition, the phrase in the present legislation "sole or main residence" must be defined beyond doubt. I also plead self-interest --if that is the right term--in supporting the view taken on students. With some 22,000 students moving around within our city, even if one felt that a nominal sum should be paid--here I am looking after the interests of the hon. Member for City of Durham (Mr. Steinberg) whose lovely daughter is now a constituent of mine ; I trust that she will be sensible and know where to put her cross--it is clearly administratively impossible to handle and, given the changes in student support, that small relief will be welcome.

I, hope, too, that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will address the technical problems of billing, particularly carry-over yearly billing, to avoid current confusion with many charge payers, because I regret that separate billing has not increased accountability. If it is already in the Bill, I apologise, but I hope that we will finally resolve the injustice of the tax on empty properties.

Finally, since all too many non-payers were simply "won't payers", sponging on the rest, I hope that we will provide all the powers necessary to ensure that never again are my constituents expected to pay for the law breakers.

8.1 pm

Mr. Thomas Graham (Renfrew, West and Inverclyde) : Conservative Members' speeches today show that they have not learnt the lesson of their hatred of local government. They continue to work against the democratic interests of the nation whose people do support the concept of local government.

The Secretary of State made one of the worst speeches that I have ever heard from a Minister in the House. I was appalled to hear his jovial, jocular style. Bob Hope must

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have written his script. However, many people are living in abject poverty because of the poll tax. There are many who cannot pay. Watching the Secretary of State today was like watching Jesse James leading a bunch of desperadoes governing the country like a bunch of robbers. The Secretary of State for Scotland, who is now on the Government Front Bench, reminds me of the Sundance Kid and his brigade.

I am appalled that the Government have not learnt the lesson from Scotland. Scottish Members raised in the House the problems faced by Scotland and clearly indentified the terrible damage that the poll tax was doing to the people of Scotland, but the Government continued to blunder on in their merry way. Only after a 10 per cent. drop in their fortunes in the opinion polls did they decide that, with the general election coming up, and the prospect of their being routed, they should do something. They came up with the council tax. The Secretary of State's comments today were so shabby and his speech was so shallow that he did not make me laugh. We have heard some speeches tonight about the poll tax, but I want to read the editorial in the Glasgow Evening Times, so aptly published on 5 November, Guy Fawkes night. It is no wonder that ordinary men and women throughout the country wish that Guy Fawkes had been successful when they consider the punishment that this House has levelled at ordinary men and women in a state of poverty. The hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) shakes his head, but he should come to my constituency and I will introduce him to people who cannot pay the poll tax because they simply do not have the money.

This is not an editorial from a Labour weekly ; it is a reputable Scottish newspaper, as I am sure the Under-Secretary of State will agree. I want to read all of it to make sure that it appears in Hansard. It is entitled "Myth of the tax rebels" and it says : "Over the last decade the Government has done a better job of blowing local authorities to smithereens than Guy Fawkes. That is the real reason Strathclyde finds itself in the midst of the gravest financial crisis in its history--not the can pay, won't pay' Poll Tax rebels.

The truth is the bulk of the £250M shortfall in Poll Tax, a debt mountain that has steadily grown over three years, is owed not by rebels, but by people who haven't a penny to their name.

The middle class revolt has turned to a whimper. Nearly all the collectable money is now in ; only a small number of diehards continue to withhold cash.

That will not stop non-payers being used as convenient scapegoats. In Tory demonology they will always carry the can."

We have seen that tonight.

The article goes on :

"The reality is the Poll Tax represents just 14 per cent. of Strathclyde's budget. The remaining 86 per cent. comes in Government grants.

Under the Conservatives those grants have fallen hugely. Over ten years, Scotland's councils have lost £600 million in grant aid--or £170 for every Poll Tax payer in the land.

Costs

Strathclyde, hit proportionately harder, has been like a man living on starvation rations throughout the eighties. Forced to become more efficient and cost-conscious, it had to devise imaginative measures to keep services going.

And when privatisation of services was introduced many staff lost job security, worked for lower pay and saw their pension rights eroded.

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But any fat the Region may once have had is long gone. The Poll Tax was the last straw.

The Government's refusal to accept needy folk can't pay has left the Region chasing its own tail--trying, at vast cost, to collect money that by and large simply isn't there.

That is why 750 jobs are being shed and a whopping 32 per cent. rise in the Poll Tax is likely next year.

Poll Tax rebels are only bit-players in this crisis. The responsibility lies four-square with the Government and its chronic underfunding of councils."

Alongside that editorial, there is a small paragraph which says : "Government grants for Scottish local authorities have slumped from 67 per cent. to 55 per cent. over the past ten years."

That is one of the most devastating of editorials.

All Members of Parliament hold surgeries, and many have received complaints about the poll tax from constituents who are viciously angry with the Government. Some decided that they would not pay the poll tax, but the people about whom I worry are those such as the elderly lady suffering from a form of senile dementia who came to me because she was being harassed about the poll tax. The Government wanted 20 per cent. of the amount from that woman. For months, we in Scotland begged the Government to give 100 per cent. rebates to people such as that lady.

I received a call from another constituent who was frightened because she had been slapped with not one warrant sale but two, yet she had paid her poll tax. I remember telling the Secretary of State that the poll tax was cumbersome, burdening and complicated ; that it would give a great deal of trouble to local council finance departments ; and that it was inevitable that thousands upon thousands of mistakes would be made. That has proved to be the case. I remember looking at a graph showing the complications of the financing of the community charge. It looked as though someone had spilled a can of spaghetti and had to make some sense of it. The elderly and the unemployed are being hounded by the Government, and there is no end in sight. The tax is continuing into 1993. The Government are still after their pound of flesh. They do not have the sense, decency, or caring to give people a 100 per cent. rebate now, yet they cannot get blood out of a stone.

Ministers are a bunch of desperadoes, and they are carrying on like a bunch of stoneheads. The only way that we will get rid of them is by a general election. The poll tax is an albatross round the Government's neck and the council tax will be another, because the Government will not allow proper debate on it in the House. Instead, they want to steamroller it through with a guillotine, and will not entertain common-sense discussion. Is that what democracy has come to in this country, with the democratically elected Government refusing to listen to the democratically elected Opposition--who will be unable to reveal the flaws in the council tax as we did in the case of the poll tax, and which were soon clear for all to see?

The Secretary of State for Scotland smiles. He knows that the poll tax was a shambles, but he was a diehard and continued to go to the wall with it. That is not true of many Tory Members of Parliament in Scotland, who are desperate to get rid of the poll tax.

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I would welcome anything that would improve the legislation. I hope that a general election will be declared soon, that it will be fair, and that it will serve to bring back a decent system. A Labour Government will offer such a system. It will offer a fair rates policy that gives 100 per cent. rates relief to people whom the present Government have abandoned. They have shown by their tasteless and tactless menace tonight that they are still not prepared to take on board the problems of people who cannot pay their poll tax because they do not have sufficient funds.

The Secretary of State could take the necessary steps to give people a 100 per cent. rebate now and even make it retroactive. [Interruption.] Do not the members of the Government Front Bench think that my remarks are important? Does not the Secretary of State realise that thousands and thousands of people who still cannot pay the poll tax are facing court action and warrant sales? Does the Secretary of State think that that is right? Does he believe that one can get blood out of a stone? It has never been done.

It is time that the Government realised that, took steps to protect people who are suffering as a consequence of their lamentable and disastrous poll tax, and ensured that the council tax reflects more sympathy and caring. I hope that a general election will be held quickly, so that we can show the Government the door.

8.15 pm

Mr. Kenneth Hind (Lancashire, West) : I welcome this opportunity to congratulate the Government on the Gracious Speech and on their proposal to abolish the community charge and to replace it with the council tax. I take the point made by the hon. Member for Renfrew, West and Inverclyde (Mr. Graham), that many people are unable to pay the community charge. I have met many of them at my advice surgery, and I will weep no tears over the demise of a tax that had no progressive element and which sometimes militated against people on low incomes. So the community charge will go.

Mr. Graham : That is a change of heart.

Mr. Hind : Yes, some of us changed our minds, because we could see the effects of the poll tax.

Many right hon. and hon. Members should remember that we started with a tax of only £175 a head. We did not reckon on greedy Labour authorities utilising the change to conceal vast increases in public expenditure that they forced on to thousands of unsuspecting electors in our communities, to try to persuade them to change their allegiance from the Conservative party to Labour. That is what happened, and we now realise that we must take away from such authorities that most unjust tool with which they managed to acquire electoral support that they did not deserve and have unscrupulously used.

I welcome the change to a single bill for each household. A great difficulty with the community charge, which was a point of grievance among many of my constituents, is that people can move on and avoid paying it, with the inevitable result that the rest of the community is called upon to meet the shortfall.

Fortunately, we have altered the system. Due to the change in the taxation balance, national Government will pay 85 per cent. of local government expenditure, with the remaining 15 per cent. left to be levied through the council tax. In future, that will mean that the old high rates will no

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longer be levied on the unsuspecting population, and we will see a continuation of support by central Government of local government. Fortunately, too, Labour has agreed to continue with that policy should it come to power--so let us hear no more complaints about depriving local government of central Government funds because of cuts in rate support grant, revenue support grant, or whatever it is called today. In future, large amounts of taxpayers' money will go to support local government.

The banding system is a move towards progressive taxation, which I welcome. Logically, people live in a particular type of house because it is one that they can afford to purchase or rent and to maintain, so there is a rough and ready relationship between the value of their home and their income. That will be one of the mainstays and pillars of the council tax.

The council tax will avoid the problems of the past. The Bill's tough capping measures will ensure that Labour councils will be unable to pursue the profligate spending that they managed in the past, and that they will be controlled.

I was disappointed to hear the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould) say that Labour would abandon capping. I hope that the public realise the implications of that. If Labour returns to power, we shall have a return to the bad old days : Labour councils will be able to spend, spend, spend. They will be able to milk local taxpayers as they did with the rates, irrespective of the consequences. Their line will be, "Don't worry : we are the money milch cows who will provide the cash for the future."

That is diabolical. I hope that the public understand that, in the event of a Labour Government, they can look forward to being milked by Labour councils that will levy high rates of their new tax--as well as being milked by a national Government through increased rates of income tax.

The hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Bellotti), who is not in the Chamber now, complained about the amount that people had to pay. The Bill, however, will not only abolish the current registration arrangements, but introduce an extensive rebate scheme, allowing rebates of up to 100 per cent. to protect those on low incomes. Many of us will welcome the end of the 20 per cent. charge, principally because it hit the worst-off but also because it probably cost more to collect than was gained in revenue.

Students will benefit : those living in digs or halls of residence will no longer have to pay anything. Student nurses, those on youth training schemes and others will also be helped.

The electorate must realise that, if Labour is successful at the next general election--which is highly unlikely--we shall immediately return to the old rating system. The Leader of the Opposition has complained that that was an unfair tax, but has now managed to stand on his head and support the current proposal. Labour Members quote figures in relation to their proposed fair rating scheme, but they give only averages ; there are no details, sums or projections. Their whole scheme is flawed, because it is based on the assumption that a Labour Government will have to raise £6.3 billion. We all know that this year the Government had to raise £6.8 billion--£500 million more than that. Obviously, if the calculation is made on the basis of averages, Labour's proposed tax will appear to be less than the community charge this year, or the projections for the council tax.

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Labour's system is far too complex. It would be impossible to operate. The public will see immediately that Labour has no idea what it is going to do--but perhaps that is Labour's chosen method : perhaps the idea is to introduce a tax that is completely incomprehensible.

It is preposterous for the Opposition to claim that they can introduce such a tax and then complain about the Government's introducing a new tax in 1993. Opposition Members have said that the council tax is too complex and difficult to be rushed through in time for 1 April 1993. They say that there will be too many difficulties with the software, and that local government officials will not be able to work it out properly. Yet, if an election took place next week, in the unlikely event of a Labour victory, Labour would try to introduce its system on 1 April 1992.

That is a joke. Labour cannot, on the one hand, criticise us for giving our system careful consideration and waiting until 1 April 1993 and, on the other hand, announce that they will bring in a scheme in 1992 with no system to back it up.

Our system is clear, fair and progressive. The system that we are being offered as an alternative is unclear ; it is nonsense ; and it will not work. I have no doubt that, when the time comes and we push our tax through, it will be seen to be fairer than the Labour alternative. It will provide massive rebates for those who are worse off ; and it will be welcomed by the majority of the public, who will realise that it is far fairer than the community charge, that it is progressive and that it will work.

Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman : Everyone who lives in Lancashire will be very glad that the council tax will retain capping, which Labour's alternative would not. That will provide a fallback for the unfortunate citizens of Lancashire, who have a very extravagant Labour council.

Mr. Hind : My hon. Friend has made an important point. The first community charge bill that dropped through my letter box, and those of thousands of my constituents, was for £376, £346 of which was to be spent by the Labour-controlled county council : that was stated on the bill. Residents had to wait four years to elect their council after receiving that bill. That, if anything, reveals the main reasons for the failure of the community charge system. It was deliberately smashed by people who used it cynically for their own electoral purposes.

I wish that system well. Goodbye ; good night ; we shall see nothing like it again. We must ensure that the new system will not be used as a political tool. The hon. Member for Clackmannan (Mr. O'Neill) may smile ; he is probably one of those who encouraged the cynical use of the community charge and never had a good word to say for it. I have not often heard him condemn his hon. Friends who did not pay it.

Ours will be a good tax--and, more important, it will work. 8.26 pm

Mr. Peter L. Pike (Burnley) : I know that the hon. Member for Lancashire, West (Mr. Hind) will recognise--being, like me, a Lancashire Member--that only one local authority in Lancashire has been consistently Labour-controlled since the local government reorganisation. I refer to Burnley, whose council I led before I came to the House. Both last year and this, Burnley's poll tax was the lowest in the country.

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Mr. Hind : Look at the subsidies.

Mr. Pike : The point is that, with good continuous Labour control, we have been able to provide good services and good local administration.

The current Parliament was elected in 1987, and it will soon have run its term. The Government have already scrapped legislation introduced by previous Conservative Governments, but it is extremely unusual, if not unique, for them to provide, in the Queen's Speech, for the abolition of what was claimed to be the flagship of their opening programme.

One or two Conservative Members have admitted today that they now recognise that they got it wrong in 1987-88. I served on the Committee that dealt with the poll tax legislation. We spent some 200 hours, in Committee and on the Floor of the House, spelling out the fact that the tax was unfair, unworkable and extremely expensive to administer. Every failing that we pointed out has since proved to exist : those failings have emerged every year since its implementation.

The Government have spent billions of pounds on trying to make their tax work--and, of course, it was introduced in Scotland the year before the general election. If a local authority misused the billions of pounds that the Government have misused for that purpose, it would be taken to the district auditors. Many of its councillors would be surcharged, disqualified and probably made bankrupt. We could have built many schools, sheltered housing schemes and sports centres with those millions of pounds. The meals-on-wheels service and many other services would not have had to be cut. However, that money was squandered. It is outrageous.

The Government claimed in 1987-88 that they had a mandate for their legislation. It is strange, therefore, that in this Queen's Speech the Government say that they intend to introduce a new Local Government Finance Bill to abolish what they did in 1987-88. They claim that they have a mandate for doing that, too, but they cannot have it both ways. My hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Mr. Steinberg) said that the legislation is only a shell and that regulations will be needed to implement it. He is right. When this legislation is pushed through, we shall face exactly the same as happened with the poll tax. The Chamber was packed when there were seven orders before the House, with an hour and a half in which to debate them. There were about 46 pages dealing with deductions from wages and benefits and with prison sentences.

This Session is time-limited because of the general election, so the Bill will have to be guillotined, thus curtailing debate and proper consideration of the proposals. Four years ago, the Government said that the poll tax would solve the local government finance problem. They were wrong, so why should we believe that they have got it right on this occasion ? Eighty per cent. of my constituents lost out. They live in what was formerly a low rateable value area. People who paid rates amounting to only £200 on a house now have to pay £1, 200 in poll tax. The same applies in Pendle, Rossendale and Darwen and Hyndburn.

The Conservatives will lose those seats at the next election. Labour Members of Parliament will be elected to represent those constituencies. Ministers told those people in 1987-88 that the Government had got it right, but now,

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