House of Commons Hansard Debates for 16 Dec 1991

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believes that he is entitled to govern here if he gets a mandate in the United Kingdom, regardless of what happens in Scotland. The United Kingdom mandate is spurious. How can the Labour party say that it has a mandate for the United Kingdom when it does not even put up candidates in Northern Ireland? People who, like me, opposed the poll tax rightly argued that the Government never had a mandate in Scotland. I challenge the hon. Member for Garscadden to face me in debate on this issue. He will be asking the electorate to give him and the Labour party their votes to pursue particular policies. Thereafter there will be little discussion and the hon. Gentleman will not be arguing about the sovereignty of the Scottish people from then on.

The hon. Member for Garscadden had the temerity to sign the claim of right in the Scottish convention. It concerns the exercise of the rights of the Scottish people. I shall give way to him on this if he has the guts to stand up. It seems that he does not like what I am saying much--perhaps my language is a little too industrial for him--but I would be willing to engage in this sort of argument with him in Garscadden.

Mr. Wilson : What about Dunfermline?

Mr. Douglas : Yes, there too. [Interruption.] Why is not the Labour party asking for a by-election in Coventry? I have fought more elections than some Labour Front Benchers have had hot breakfasts and I have already said that losing candidates always take the responsibility.

Mr. Wilson : What about the Co-op?

Mr. Douglas : I did not hear that, but if the hon. Gentleman will get off his backside he can repeat it.

Mr. Wilson : The Co-op has been a good meal ticket for the hon. Gentleman and it is odd that at this stage in his career he should depart from anything and everybody who put him where he is today--and three times throw away a Labour seat. That is a matter between him and his conscience ; but if he has any conscience left, why does he continue to draw his salary under the label of a party he was not elected to serve as a member of?

Mr. Douglas : That is not really worth answering. Any obligations that I have to the Co-operative movement have been honourably discharged, and there are hon. Members here who know that. I have more than repaid my obligations to the Co-op. In any case, that is not part of this discussion.

If we are to have a report, let it examine every aspect, including ability to pay. The council tax does not take that into consideration ; nor do Labour's proposals. My party makes it plain that a tax related to ability to pay must be related to income. The tax in Scotland will raise about £800 million and cost about £80 million to collect--£1 for every £10. There will be no relationship to ability to pay and there will be a register of sorts, although it will not be called that. The tax will involve a costly benefit system for the 100 per cent. discount scheme and there will be searching tests for those who are eligible for 25 per cent. and 50 per cent. discounts. My party has produced figures to show how a local income tax could be put in place in Scotland. I do not have the figures for every region or district with me, but in general terms the proportion of revenue raised by local

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government is about 14 per cent. in Scotland- -to be raised from the equivalent of non-domestic rates either under the poll tax or the council tax. If that is the average over the length and breadth of Scotland, it is reasonable to assume that for some local authorities it will be under 5 per cent. That means that this paraphernalia is necessary to collect £1 in £20. There has been no indication from Labour that it will abandon the Government subvention on that. Labour has not said whether it would try to collect more or less than the Government are trying to collect through local revenues in the non-business sector.

Why has Scotland had to impose so much administration at such great cost? It is because the Government will not face the fact that Scotland could have a local income tax that would be easily and cheaply administered and would avoid all the bureaucracy and cost. I am not arguing the case for England and Wales. Part of our new clause relates to the 20 per cent. rule which the Government have partly abandoned. I plead with them to abandon it completely from 1 April 1992 and to make it retrospective in Scotland.

About 3 million warrants are out and another of our amendments, which I hope will be reached tomorrow, deals with poinding and warrant sales. Such methods for the recovery of small amounts are acts of terror. The hon. Member for Garscadden or the hon. Member for Cathcart should make it clear when winding up that Labour is utterly opposed to Scottish local authorities using this barbaric device. They should dissociate themselves wholly and entirely from it.

Mr. Maxton : I understand that the hon. Gentleman's party chose not to seek membership of the Committee that examined the Bill. It certainly asked us to boycott the Committe. In Committee, I moved an amendment to take the warrant sales procedure out of the Bill. I was supported by the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mrs. Michie) and by my hon. Friends. If the hon. Gentleman had sought a seat on that Committee, I think that he would have got one and would have been able to vote against warrant sales.

Mr. Douglas : It is not the same thing. I apologise if I have not made myself clear. I have asked the hon. Gentleman to make it plain that Labour is opposed to the imposition of warrant sales.

Dr. Godman : In the short time that I have been in the House, many of my hon. Friends have established an honourable record for seeking to introduce a more humane form of debt collection. I refer in particular to my hon. Friends the Members for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Mr. McKelvey), for Falkirk, East (Mr. Ewing) and for Falkirk, West (Mr. Canavan). Some of us seek a more humane form of debt collection.

Mr. Douglas : I accept that. It is no accident that two of the hon. Members that the hon. Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman) mentioned were, in the early days, among the leading proponents of a non- payment campaign--I apologise, I have got that wrong. Certainly the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun, who is in his place, will accept what I have said in relation to him. The SNP and Members from other parties introduced a Bill to abolish warrant sales. If the poll tax is dead and, like the hon. Member for Garscadden we should be saying,

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"Rejoice, rejoice, rejoice", the hon. Member for Garscadden or the hon. Member for Cathcart should use their position as Front-Bench spokesmen to make it clear that Labour is opposed to the use of poinding and the threat of warrant sales to impose a tax that is dead. If they cannot do that, they should not use their Front-Bench offices slanderously to attack other parties and accuse them of supporting organisations that seem to promote violence. I do not think that it is worth while asking the hon. Member for Garscadden for an apology, but he should, as a lawyer, reflect clearly and cautiously on what he has said.

Mr. Maxton : Has the hon. Gentleman ever shared a platform at a rally with Tommy Sheridan and members of Militant Tendency ?

Mr. Douglas : Wait a minute, this is really getting in. The answer is, yes, of course. I have shared platforms with many individuals, but I have made my position clear on those platforms. That is exactly what I said at the beginning of my speech. This is a clear case of trying to get guilt by association. The hon. Member for Maryhill has shared a platform with Tommy Sheridan.

5.15 pm

Mrs. Fyfe : I want to put it on the record that I have never done any such thing.

Mr. Douglas : I withdraw any hint or any tendency that I may have had to smear anybody. My memory may be failing me, but I have clear memories of the hon. Member for Maryhill being at rallies at which Mr. Sheridan was at least present. I have clear memories of the hon. Member for Glasgow, Provan (Mr. Wray), who is in his place, being at similar rallies. I have no hesitation in saying--

Mrs. Fyfe : On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I really must put this on the record because of its effect on my credibility. I have gone out of my way to tell people that I refuse to share a platform with that particular gentleman and that if other people cared to do so, that was their affair. I always said that I would not, I think for fairly obvious reasons.

Mr. Douglas rose--

Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. The debate is very wide already. It would be much better to concentrate on the new clauses.

Mr. Douglas : I withdraw any implication and apologise to the hon. Member for Maryhill. That is the least that I can do.

[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Provan is in his place and he can interject if he wishes to do so.

We would welcome any report that examines the process of the poll tax since its imposition in Scotland in 1989, and any report that directed itself especially to the plight of those who could not pay, substantial numbers of whom found themselves in conflict with the law because of their poverty. I have no hesitation in saying that the Scottish National party and I, before I was a member of that party, in standing beside those who could not pay made a major contribution to the downfall of the poll tax in Britain. I would not suggest for a minute that we were entirely responsible for its demise, but we made a

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significant contribution by showing that people could take a local initiative and say, "Enough is enough." If the people of Scotland had taken the advice of the hon. Member for Garscadden and that of the Leader of the Opposition and paid up and obeyed the law and supinely touched the forelock, the poll tax would have had a credibility that no one in the House thought that it ought to have had. That is a credit to the people of Scotland who opposed the tax from its inception by overwhelmingly voting against it, especially in the election of 1987.

Sir Nicholas Fairbairn (Perth and Kinross) : As someone who has spent his life as a conciliator--someone who hates disputes and who cannot bear to see the children falling out--I feel that I should intervene with some quiet words that will enable the prodigal sons of Garscadden--the hon. Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar)--and Garscadden elect to come together in harmony and peace. I am a humble lawyer who has done his best to settle cases rather than fight them to ensure that it was understood that dispute was not a proper way to resolve disputes.

The hon. Member for Dunfermline, West (Mr. Douglas) left the Labour party on a policy of leaving also his country. He has deserted and left those who elected him. I remind him that guilt by association is a doctrine that is central to the law of Scotland. If he imagines that he will stand for the Scottish National party, having deserted Great Britain, Dunfermline, the Labour party and the platforms on which whoever the fellow that he mentioned stood, and on which the hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mrs. Fyfe) never stood, I remind him that the doctrine of concert is alive in Scotland and is central to its Scottish specialty and authority. If he is to direct accusations at the hon. Member for Garscadden, who is a distinguished laywer, when he is intent on departing in the direction of the SNP, he might learn one minor principle of the law of Scotland. He should bear it in mind before he starts accusing others of guilt by association.

The marvellous fall-out that we have seen this afternoon is a typical example of Scotland in Europe. We love each other so much that we cannot bear not to express our hatred. We have been given a useful example of the nationalists' position.

The hon. Member for Dunfermline, West talked about the warfare of those who would not pay what is called the poll tax--in other words, the community charge. It has always seemed to me sensible that people should pay a standard charge as a licence fee to enjoy local authority services. After all, no one objects to a standard licence fee for a car, whether he has an Austin Seven of 1935 vintage and drives two miles a year, or an even older car of the sort that my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries (Sir H. Monro) drives because he bought them when he was 18, or a Rolls-Royce in which he travels round and round the world every day and night. Equally, no one objects that we all pay the same television fee, whether the individual watches it or never watches it, whether the screen is a mile wide or an inch wide.

I have always said that it would have been much more sensible to introduce a tax to which there was added a licence fee for a television to join the licence fee and insurance for a motor car. Such a tax would amount to about £250 a year.

I have never heard anyone argue that those who cannot afford to pay their poll tax cannot afford to pay their

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television licence fee or for their car licensing. If we assume that they are honest, I have not heard it argued that such people cannot afford to insure their motor cars. Let us be very careful about the "Can't pay, won't pay" approach. Before the hon. Member for Dunfermline, West deserted his electorate, how many people did I speak to in Murray's bar who, when swallowing another beer or another whisky, were asking, "Are you going on the Can't pay, won't pay'?" The veracity and philosophy of the hon. Member are extremely suspect, as are those of the members of his party who say that they are standing for what are called the people of Scotland.

The people of Scotland? Let us talk about the people in Scotland. We know that 80 per cent. of the people of Scotland live in England and that 80 per cent. of the people in Scotland are not Scots, including most of the leaders of the SNP, who are second generation Irish. I am unimpressed by the wonderful plea that is put forward. My family has been in Scotland for only 1,000 years or more, and I can trace it back. I am not particularly impressed when those who desert their constituents, their parties and their principles argue to me and others about what should happen to the people of Scotland when they are talking about those who happen to live in Scotland. I fought the 1974, 1979 and 1983 elections in the knowledge that the Labour party had said that it would bring in a tax of this sort. All of my colleagues fought those elections on the basis that we believed that such a tax would be wrong. I am in the greatest difficulty in understanding why suddenly a tax of this sort should become utterly right.

Let us not forget the argument of the hon. Member for Nowhere--I suppose that that is the right way to describe him now, but I talk about the hon. Member for Dunfermline, West--on ability to pay. The tax that we are discussing will be levied on someone who, perhaps, married in 1920 and is now widowed. The house in which she lives was bought for £500, for example, and it is now worth £200,000. On the basis of a later clause, which I shall try to remove from the Bill, a snooper, on his own say-so, will be allowed to enter properties and look round them without a warrant. Surely that is an extraordinary proposition.

If we are to argue about inability to pay, I hope that the hon. Member for Nowhere will support my amendments in the light of the unfortunate widow, who for no reason of hers--

Mr. Douglas : I think that hon. Members on both sides of the House will use their eyes and will note that if anyone is in suspended animation, it is the hon. and learned Gentleman.

Sir Nicholas Fairbairn : I am sorry. I did not understand the intervention, partly because it included such long words. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will explain it to me afterwards in a moment of suspension and animation.

The system will be based on an assumed income from a capital asset over whose value the original buyer has no control and which he cannot sell, any more than a tortoise can sell his shell, because it is his home. The business of "can't pay" is important.

Complications are introduced when we consider a person who is a district nurse for three hours a day, two days a week. A man may have to return to his temporary residence because of the presumption that, for the

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purposes of the Bill, a "day" remains the same day as when it started. I did not know that we needed a Bill to say that a day is presumed to be the same day as when it started--I always took the view that that was a decent assumption. I assume that even Scotland in Europe will take that line. It may, however, be contrary to the common law of Liechtenstein.

The amendments all complicate what is an already absurdly complicated Bill. I remember when I was a child. I loathed rice pudding and, when given too much of it, I would say, "That is not fair." Nanny would say, "Life is not fair, laddie." The system would be fair if we charged everyone on the basis that we charge for a pint of beer, a loaf of bread or a television licence- -whether the Duke of Plaza Toro or the Member for Nowhere. I wish that we would do that, and I am sorry that the Bill is doing the opposite.

5.30 pm

Dr. Godman : We have just listened to the hon. and learned Member for Perth and Kinross (Sir N. Fairbairn), who is something of an institution in Scotland. It is not for me to criticise him, because I seek his support on other matters, particularly to preserve a famous historic building which is tottering. I do not say that the hon. and learned Gentleman totters ; he has kindly agreed to support my campaign to preserve that fine building.

I shall not join the attacks on the hon. Member for Dunfermline, West (Mr. Douglas)--or the hon. Member for Nowhere, as he was described by the hon. and learned Member for Perth and Kinross. To be fair to the hon. Gentleman, when I faced the crisis of the collapse of the Scott Lithgow shipyard, he gave me much help.

I wish to ask the Under-Secretary about the position of Scottish and English merchant seamen. Under the poll tax, Scottish merchant seamen have been discriminated against compared with their English colleagues. The evidence demonstrates that English merchant seamen have been able to argue more easily before tribunals the case for removing them from poll tax registers than have their Scottish counterparts. Even when Scottish and English merchant seamen have served on the same ship, Scottish seamen have had to pay the poll tax, whereas English seamen have been given discounts. Will that discrimination continue with the council tax?

My sympathy lies with Scottish merchant seamen who have been discriminated against, but I also have much sympathy for the people on abysmally low incomes who cannot afford to pay the poll tax and who face the indignity of warrant sales. As has been said, poinding is an humiliating experience. The Debtors (Scotland) Act 1987 reduced the harshness of warrant sales, but they are still a squalid form of debt collection. My hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Mr. McKelvey) served on the Standing Committee on the Bill which lessened the hardship caused, but poinding remains a humiliating experience.

People close to me have gone through poinding and tell me that it is distressing when sheriff officers come into their homes. Even with the Debtors (Scotland) Act, it is a miserable affair for those in Scotland who are pursued for debt. Many of my constituents on low incomes listened too eagerly, perhaps naively and certainly unwisely, to the non-payment campaigners and now find themselves in deep trouble because they followed those sleekit

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hypocrites. Those campaigners cannot help them now. In that regard, my constituents are lost and will have to face the intrusion into their homes of sheriff officers. Where do we find the non-payment campaigners? They are not opening their cheque books to help constituents who supported their campaign.

The poll tax and the attendant problems caused for ordinary people feature largely at my surgeries, and I believe that the same happens at the surgeries of most of my hon. Friends and other Scottish Members of Parliament. Constituents raise the subject of the poll tax much more than their problems with the Department of Social Security, and that is important, given that about one third of the people I represent are in direct or indirect receipt of social security payments--a dreadful statistic.

To a considerable extent, the Government's handling of the poll tax in Scotland--which was introduced with the enthusiastic support of the present Secretary of State--has brought about the demise of the Conservative party in Scotland. We are facing the likelihood of a major constitutional crisis in Scotland, chiefly because of the Conservative party's insensitive and uncaring governance of the nation. Scottish Conservative representation in the House of Commons is down to single figures ; following the next election, it will be even lower, no matter what happens to the overall position of the two major parties in the next election.

Even during the Prime Minister's so-called honeymoon period, I have been convinced that the number of Conservative seats will fall below 326. I genuinely believe that the Government will lose the next election. They certainly deserve to do so in Scotland because of their actions. Although the hon. and learned Member for Perth and Kinross and the hon. Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker) have just survived, they too may become Members for Nowhere after the next election.

Sir Nicholas Fairbairn rose --

Dr. Godman : Does the hon. and learned Gentleman want to intervene? It appears not--perhaps he is in a state of suspended animation. Sir Nicholas Fairbairn rose --

Dr. Godman : The hon. and learned Gentleman can now wait for a minute or two.

The new clause calls for an assessment of the levels of services provided by local authorities, and that is very important. In my constituency, services have been reduced--reluctantly--by Strathclyde regional council, and those reductions harm the most fragile and vulnerable groups in our communities. I refer mainly to the elderly and others who will suffer because the provision of the home help service is being reduced instead of increased. What will happen to those who are discharged into the community from psychiatric units and from long-stay mental hospitals when an authority such as Strathclyde, which has a fine social work department, cannot provide the help that such people need? The reductions in services have largely been caused by the failure--an honourable failure--of Strathclyde regional council to collect the poll tax.

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Sir Nicholas Fairbairn : I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman was confused by my reluctance to allow him to give way to me. I thought that he was confused, but that is another matter.

I am one of the most vulnerable in society, but I did not have central water, I had no dustbin collection or sewage provision, no one mends my roads, I do not use the local library and I have no children to educate, so I get nothing. However, thanks to the Government, now I at least have sewage collection, rubbish collection and central water. As one of the more vulnerable members of society, I am very grateful.

Dr. Godman : I am not sure that the hon. and learned Gentleman is one of the most vulnerable in our society, but I suspect that he is one of the most confused in his part of Scotland. His reference to his vulnerability plainly reveals his confused thinking at the moment, but it is not always so confused. The hon. and learned Gentleman has a fine forensic approach to these issues, and I look forward to hearing his speeches later.

The level of services provided by local authorities is a very worrying issue in my constituency because Strathclyde regional council is now so badly placed with regard to finance because of its inability to collect the poll tax from people who sometimes can pay but will not pay, but, much more often, simply cannot pay. I genuinely believe that we are facing a political and constitutional crisis in Scotland, which has been brought about by the insensitive and uncaring Government. If their representatives in this House are reduced to, at best, two or three, that is merely what the Government and their representatives deserve.

Sir Hector Monro (Dumfries) : I did not want to intervene in the socialist split between the Liberal Democrats, the Scottish National party and the Labour party, all of which are confused about how to proceed with the collection of a form of local government tax. The people of Scotland will begin to wonder where the Opposition stand when they hear speeches such as those that we have heard today. We tend to forget that the reason why we are introducing a simplified form of rate collection is that the old rating system was unpopular not only in Scotland, but throughout the United Kingdom. The reason why it was so unpopular is exactly the same reason why the community charge and now the council tax are unpopular--local authorities spend far too much money. Only when we get on top of that issue and make local authorities understand that they are meant to be good housekeepers and not to spend money rashly and unrealistically will we get local government expenditure down to the equivalent levels of 10, 20 or 30 years ago when all elected councillors--many of whom were independent--made a point of thinking about those whom they represented. Their first priority was to keep expenditure down and to provide the best services possible within their budgets.

Budgets are now set at extortionate levels and when, naturally enough, the Government or the local population say, "Steady", local authorities say that there must be dramatic cuts. However, the cuts are in the budget, not in expenditure, and that is what we have difficulty in bringing home to the people of Scotland. All over Scotland we see in local and national newspapers talk of cuts in this and cuts in that, but the cuts are in proposed budget

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expenditure, not in real expenditure which has, of course, increased year in, year out as has the revenue support grant under the present Government.--[ Hon. Members :-- "No."] Yes, it has. 5.45 pm

It is time that the people of Scotland realised that it is elected councillors suggesting budgets that are quite unacceptable which is the cause of the trouble in Scotland today, especially when we bear in mind the substantial progress made with the uniform business rate which, in the long run, will be of tremendous benefit to businesses and in which there can be only an increase related to inflation, as opposed to the substantial increases of a few years ago.

The Minister rightly introduced capping for some local authorities, but I hope that he will bear in mind the low base from which some authorities began in recent years. One can perhaps understand the capping of authorities that are spending £400, £500 or £600 while others are spending £150 but are capped because they started from a fraction of a base level of the higher spending authorities. For small rural district councils it has been difficult even to maintain expenditure at inflation levels, let alone to try to keep within the capping level of about 4.5 per cent.

I hope that when the Minister replies he will take the chance to highlight some of the singularly unpopular proposals from the socialist parties, such as the rating of farm buildings, local income tax and other suggestions which are quite unacceptable in Scotland. The new clause asks for another layer of bureaucracy and for officials to spend months preparing reports and papers when they should be preparing their work for the introduction of the new council tax. Time is not on our side in terms of preparation for April 1993. Any diversion of effort by local authority officials to provide the information required by the Opposition--much of which they could probably research in the Library in an hour if they tried--is quite unnecessary. For those reasons, and because the Opposition have made such a miserable case, I hope that the Minister will reject the new clause.

Mr. William McKelvey (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) : I will try not to stray too far from the new clause, although you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, have said that this is a wide debate. The main point of the new clause is that we want the Government to carry out a proper survey of the effects of the community charge and to study the

"cost, economy, efficiency and effectiveness of financial administration in local government".

The Convention of Scottish Local Authorities has already told Ministers that local administration throughout Scotland is in a desperate position. If Ministers do not address the problem of non-collection of the poll tax, the poll tax for next year and the following year will rise astronomically. Resistance to the payment of the poll tax will probably rise accordingly. The Government must address the problem of the total debt, which is about £357 million of unpaid tax for the previous two years.

Local authorities must be given back some power so that they can decide the practicalities of collecting certain debts and whether the cost involved in trying to collect them is worth while. Despite the figures that the Minister gave, I am convinced, as are many local government finance officers, that it is costing more in some cases to attempt to collect the back payments than it is to forget about them.

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I am not saying that we should simply have an amnesty. The Government would find an amnesty for all those who have not paid unacceptable and I understand the reasons for that. However unfair a tax is and however it discriminates against the poor, we must realise that it is a tax under the law. In any campaign, there is a problem if those with ability to pay pull others into the campaign, especially those who are too poor to pay.

The hon. Member for Dunfermline, West (Mr. Douglas) said that I, among others, was involved in a campaign of non-payment. That is correct. I stand here without shame to say that I believed then that those who could afford to pay but who would not pay bore the responsibility at least to put up some resistance to a tax that had been imposed on us. However, I qualify that comment and the local paper can be produced to show that I did not invite those who would be in difficulties over the payment of the tax to become involved. I did not see it as a form of elitism to say that I put forward the argument that people like me should resist payment for the moment. I stated publicly that I fully understood that I would have to pay not only the tax, but eventually the surcharge. I did not want those who could not afford to pay the tax to be put into the embarrassing situation of having debt collected, not only for the tax that they had not paid, but for the 10 per cent. surcharge. I ultimately paid what I owed and the 10 per cent., although I did so reluctantly because it was a lousy tax. Time has shown us that it is a bad tax. Conservative Members who waxed eloquent about the virtues of the poll tax are disappearing like snow off a dyke. However, they did not disappear when it came to marching through the Lobby, probably asking each other, "What is this tax all about?" The answer was, "It is going to Scotland, old boy, so just go through as the Whips have told you." No one gave any real consideration to that abomination or to the difficulties that it would cause for the poor people in Scotland.

The Opposition and some Conservative Members doubted the wisdom of the tax. Those to whom I am not allowed to refer--they sit in the jury box over there--told the Government that the tax was ill thought out, that it would be difficult to collect and that it would create difficulties for the Government. However, Scottish Ministers embraced the tax eagerly because they saw it as the best thing for Scotland since sliced bread. Even now, some of them argue that the poll tax was fair and good, and they say that they do not understand why its collection went so wrong.

The Government cannot blame those who are not paying for the downfall of the tax because that would defeat the dogma attached to it. I believe that those in Scotland who did not pay played some part in the demise of the tax. When Conservative Members who had trotted so gleefully through the Lobby discovered what the effect of the tax would be on England and on their constituencies, they studied it and understood that any tax that is written down on the back of a fag packet cannot be acceptable to the people.

Mr. Robert Hughes (Aberdeen, North) : I hope that my hon. Friend will not be annoyed if I give a marginally different point of view. It is passing into mythology that the Tories introduced the poll tax in Scotland to punish the Scots. The opposite is the case. The former Prime Minister introduced the poll tax because she honestly thought that

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it would be the saviour of Scottish seats in the 1987 election. It was meant to be beneficial to the Scots. That shows how bad the Government's judgment was and why, when the difficulties were discovered, the English said that they did not want to touch the poll tax with a bargepole.

Mr. McKelvey : My hon. Friend is right. To be fair, the former Prime Minister, the present Prime Minister, Ministers and Conservative Members failed to understand the background of Scotland's history and heritage. They failed to understand that Scots will simply not accept a tax being forced on them--I believe unconstitutionally. We are a Union and I can see no reason why there should be a different form of tax in one part of the Union from that in the others. Ministers would not accept that view and what has become of the community charge is almost history.

The matter will not be allowed to rest. The poll tax has not been abolished, although many people in Scotland imagine that it has. The collection of the poll tax and the pursuit of people who are too poor to pay still goes ahead. I have never accepted the collection of debt by warrant sales, especially for domestic debt. Many of us fought hard and long to abolish poinding altogether. It may be acceptable for a council that is done by a big business man, because the only way in which it can get back its money may be to get its hands on his business. What is obnoxious to me and to many other Labour Members is a form of debt collection that aims to humiliate the person from whom the debt is being collected. Such a form of debt collection is inhuman and should be resisted. As soon as possible, especially for Scotland, we should consider closely the matter of poinding and we should dispose of it as a means of collecting domestic debt. It is a disgrace and should never be pursued.

I do not agree with members of councils, whether SNP or Labour-led, which with relish set officers on to the collection of the poll tax. They are misled. However, once the debt is handed over to the sheriff officers for collection, they will use warrant sales to collect the debt. They will then be resisted, as has been shown.

Mr. Douglas : Surely the hon. Gentleman is not suggesting that such a course of events is acceptable? There is some control over the sheriff officers and the messengers at arms. It is not a perfect control, because they are not properly controlled through the court system, but there is control. The creditor has a responsibility to acknowledge that the debt that is being pursued will not be gathered under the poinding schedule. We are in a queer trait, indeed, if local authorities--Labour controlled or otherwise--do not say, "This is nonsense. Halt the process there."

6 pm

Mr. McKelvey : Local authorities cannot take that decision. Once the matter is in the hands of the sheriff officer, the officer determines how the debt is collected. Local councils can say to sheriff officers, "We do not want you to pursue the matter through warrant sales," but the sheriff officers are contracted to do a job and can say, "If we can collect the debt only by means of a warrant sale, that is what we will do." The authorities cannot control the means by which sheriff officers collect the debt as long as

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it is collected legally. I do not like the practice--we must fight against it and change it--but, unfortunately, for the time being at least, sheriff officers have the legal right to use poinding. We must examine that difficulty ourselves. It is no good shoving the blame on to a local authority and saying that debt collection should not be pursued through warrant sales because, ultimately, they are forced to undertake poindings. Such proceedings ought to be resisted locally and they are resisted locally.

What about those who have the ability to pay but who are still not paying? They are responsible for a large part of the £537 million worth of debt that directly affects local authorities' ability to provide services. When we realised that there was a threat of that happening, I and many others to whom I spoke who had previously resisted payment said, "There is one thing that we will not do : we will not jeopardise services or jobs in our community by our campaign of resistance and non-payment." When we realised that that threat existed, we withdrew.

The Scottish National party, on the other hand, pursued the issue and encouraged people not to pay, saying that it was leading a campaign of universal non-payment. When members of the SNP realised that the difficulties in which local authorities were placed would reflect badly on them, they washed their hands of the matter. As I said at the time, I have some local experience of resistance to paying rent, which I gleaned during rent campaigns. I vividly recall carrying a banner saying, "We will not pay the increase in rent in the Dundee district." At the other end of the banner was someone who I knew had paid his rent. I asked, "Why did you pay your rent, Jimmy?" He replied, "It was not me, Willy, it was my wife." The domestic pressure on many households is such that some womenfolk who knew that, ultimately, they would be left to pay the rent said, "It is all right having a non-payment campaign but when it fails, as it will fail"--and it did fail--"who will pay the rent? Who will be lumbered with the debt?"

Hundreds of people in Scotland who were either too poor to pay or who were duped into taking part in the non-payment campaign as a way of destroying the tax now find themselves having to pay not only the debt but the surcharge. That is grossly unfair.

I have two constituency cases about which I shall happily tell the Minister --indeed, I have probably written to him about them already. The first concerns an old lady in a private nursing home who does not even receive her pocket money because it is taken from her as part of her rent. She has no visible means of support, except that she is being looked after by that private nursing home. Yet that old lady is still being pursued by sheriff officers for non-payment of the 20 per cent. that she should have paid last year. Does it make economic sense, and is it humane, to pursue elderly and frail people to collect the 20 per cent? What is it costing? I do not believe that the cost of pursuing those too poor to pay is less than the sums in respect of which they are being pursued.

My second constituency case concerns someone in receipt of benefit from the Department of Social Security. The sheriff officers have asked the DSS to stop part of the payment and pay his poll tax. The Department has replied that, because that person is paying so much in loan repayments, he is now under subsistence level and cannot pay the poll tax.

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Why must we pursue poor people such as those for non-payment of the 20 per cent? Would it not be better to return to local authorities the discretion that they enjoy in other areas and say to them, "By all means, pursue those who can pay and will not pay. Home in on them. But, in cases of genuine poverty and difficulty, involving the elderly, the frail and the poor, you can write off the debt as uncollectable."

The trouble is that political dogma is being allowed to overrule economic sense, and that that dogma says that everyone must pay the tax. That was the basis on which the tax was introduced : everyone had to be accountable. It is arrant nonsense to say that pensions and benefits have been uprated to allow for the payment of the poll tax ; people simply do not believe it. Is it not nonsense to say to someone, "I will give you £1.50 so that you can pay the £1.50 that I propose to tax you"? Why could not the sum have been paid directly? Because that would have defeated the object and negated the dogma, which said, "We want you not merely to pay the tax but to know why you are paying it."

Mr. Barry Porter (Wirral, South) : I have some sympathy with the second part of the hon. Gentleman's argument, which concerns the pursuit of those who cannot pay. Equally, I sympathise with the argument that people who can pay ought to pay. But I have been trying to follow his argument that every tax should be related to people's ability to pay it. Is the hon. Gentleman arguing, on behalf of the Labour party, that VAT and Customs and Excise duties should be abolished and replaced by a tax related to income, wealth or something of that nature? I have worked out on the back of a cigarette packet--and this bears no relation to my ability to pay, which is nil at the moment--that, if we followed that argument, we should have a standard rate of income tax of between 45p and 50p in the pound. That would be nonsense. We have indirect taxation--as we should have indirect taxation --and there should be taxes on spending as well as on income.

Mr. McKelvey : I am sure that the hon. Member for Wirral, South (Mr. Porter) would not disagree that, in collecting taxes, we must take into account people's ability to pay. Whisky is extremely heavily taxed. The Government get a heavy whack for every bottle consumed. It is one thing for a person to decide whether he wants to consume a bottle of whisky. It is quite another when every person is taxed simply because he happens to be a body. The head tax was done away with centuries ago and should not be acceptable. If the hon. Gentleman is saying that he continues to find the poll tax acceptable and would still vote for it, he is at least being honest enough to say so, but other Conservative Members have put their heads down and said, "We never believed that it was a decent tax in the first place."

The matter has yet to be resolved. The Government are in difficulties because local authorities have enormous debts. In England, those debts are only now beginning to accumulate, but in Scotland they are all too familiar. We must give local government some respite and enable it to deal with this growing and extremely difficult problem. It is no good arguing that, year after year, the Government have dished out money to local authorities. Nobody will believe that that is the case. Housing revenue, for example, has virtually disappeared and, in Scotland, the result has been that we have thousands more homeless people than

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we have ever had. Many young people were turfed out of their houses by their parents, who said, "We are not going to pay your poll tax for you. You are not earning, so out you go." Some 24 per cent. of homeless people wandering the streets of London come from Scottish backgrounds and Scottish homes--a fact which we find totally unacceptable.

I found it obnoxious to listen to the Secretary of State for the Environment yesterday referring to the wonderful uplift that has been given to London. I accept that it is nice to see the House of Commons in its new coat. However, perhaps we should have spent the money that we have spent on this building providing clothes for those hapless souls who sleep in cardboard boxes. Perhaps we should have some form of taxation so that we can clothe all our people adequately. There is no point in trying to defend this immoral tax. Elderly people in Scotland, England and Wales will die in their thousands because they do not have the money to heat their homes. We should not rely on the instant cold weather payments that are triggered after seven days of below freezing temperatures. Had local authorities not been in so much debt as a result of the non-collected poll tax, they might have been able to concentrate on services and ensure that homes are adequately insulated. If they were adequately insulated, the cold weather might not have such drastic effects and cause the deaths of elderly and frail people.

Ministers are reluctant to feel ashamed about the application of the poll tax. They must consider the fact that the tax was applied in Scotland one year in advance and that was against the constitution. We should consider the plight of Scottish authorities and try to solve their problems, because those problems will be mirrored in English authorities in the next few years. The problem will not go away. It is growing and we should consider all the effects as outlined in the new clause.

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