House of Commons Hansard Debates for 9 Jun 1993

Mr. Mackinlay : The right hon. Gentleman has never been a councillor.

Mr. Straw : He would not have been elected as a councillor. The Secretary of State said that the poll tax was

"by far and away the best alternative to domestic rates." He made a speech of 27 pages--I have every page of it with me, in case anybody doubts it-- which began with the words

"The morality of the community charge".

He claimed in those 27 pages that the poll tax was "morally superior" to the domestic rates. [Interruption.] He obviously believes it. He said :

"The community charge really will put the community in charge." He went on to tell the Conservative party conference on 13 October 1988--Conservative Members were cheering in the aisles at it--that the poll tax was

"the clearest, simplest and fairest local tax ever. We can go out and win with it."

Wiser counsels in the Conservative party knew him to be wrong. The Secretary of State did not devote his florid rhetoric only to the poll tax. He devoted it to any tax based on capital values. In case the Secretary of State has not spotted this, I point out that the new council tax is based solidly on capital values. In his speech to the Conservative Greater London local government conference--that may be an oxymoron these days--on 22 November 1988, the Secretary of State said :

"Rate bills based on the value of a home would be a disaster for London. Capital value rates would be a swingeing tax on home ownership."

What does he say about that now?

The Secretary of State--this comes directly to the point--said in an interview in the Municipal Journal in August 1988 that the new financial arrangements that he was piloting would lead to very much more independence. He then talked about his belief in the Tory view of local control and local power. In case my hon. Friends have missed that, I shall repeat those words.

I sense that the Secretary of State claims not to have changed his mind ; perhaps he still takes that Tory view of

Column 387

local control and local power. The Secretary of State has an extraordinary set of views. He is in favour of the poll tax as the fairest tax of them all and he is against any idea of a council tax or a capital tax, yet he proclaims the importance of independence, local power and local control.

The reality when the Secretary of State made those speeches and the reality even more today is that the Government have removed local control and local power to a point where the major decisions are made not by local councillors but by the central state. As Conservative Woking said in The Independent in January :

"capping has removed the ability of elected councillors to pay for services that local residents want and have voted for."

The capping system is patently undemocratic. It serves no wider economic purpose in the control of public expenditure. If the Minister, who confessed to being confused when he opened the debate, wants to spend his next six months learning the job, I modestly advise him to read the Treasury's White Paper issued in 1988 called, quaintly, "A New Public Expenditure Planning Total". In that White Paper, the case not just against capping but against central Government even collecting the figures for what local authorities spend out of their own resources is set out, page after page. The Prime Minister, when Chief Secretary to the Treasury, was the author of that White Paper. He pointed out that other countries that have more successful economic policies than we have do not have capping. In some federal countries, such as Germany and the United States which are both unquestionably more successful than us, the federal constitutions do not allow central Government to think about the powers that have been taken here.

The Minister might also look at the answer that the Chief Secretary gave me on 11 January 1993. I asked him to assess the effect on jobs and services, on interest rates and on other major macro-economic indicators of various changes in local authority spending. I assumed that that had been done before the Government decided to go down the road to central control. The answer was that the Treasury had not done the work and that it could not give an answer.

The Minister could also look at the results of the report that the London School of Economics local government unit published in the Local Government Chronicle last July. It pointed out that, while capping led to enormous disruption to councils and to local democracy in any one year, over time it had not affected the trend in local government spending because all authorities were forced either by direct Government control or through political pressure to spend at the level of the standard spending assessment.

This year, capping has already led to the cutting of thousands of jobs in local authorities. I remember the then Secretary of State in December claiming that no jobs would be lost as a result of his settlement. It is interesting to note the Minister's silence tonight in the light of the evidence from across the country that thousands of jobs have indeed been lost.

In the three authorities named in the order, there is a very serious situation. Gloucestershire is a relatively low-spending authority. When it was Conservative-controlled, it was a byword for parsimony and it had the worst record of any authority in the country for the provision of nursery schools and classes.

Column 388

Ms Jean Corston (Bristol, East) : Does my hon. Friend agree that it is outrageous that Gloucestershire should be on the list, particularly as the Minister has just told us that the Secretary of State's criterion for deciding whether a county should be on the capping list was that a significant reduction in essential services should be avoided? Gloucestershire has not even got nursery education which we in the adjoining county of Avon have. Which essential services is it being suggested that the people of Gloucestershire should do without? Does my hon. Friend agree that those are the sorts of question that the Minister should be asking?

Mr. Straw : My hon. Friend has far more knowledge of

Gloucestershire than I have, and of the comparison between Avon, which has been an excellent Labour authority--incidentally, it has not been capped-- and Gloucestershire, which has spent the last few years away from Conservative control attempting to deal with the legacy of appallingly low services that it faces, with no nursery education at all.

The chief executive has written to the Department of the Environment to say that 250 jobs will be lost as a direct result of the proposals, in addition to the 800 jobs which were lost in previous years as a result of capping. Of those 250 jobs, 150 were among teachers--teachers and essential support workers. How will the loss of 150 jobs in Gloucestershire, which the Government are forcing on that county, lead to an increase in educational standards about which we hear the Conservative party parroting day by day ?

Mr. Roger Knapman (Stroud) : Is the hon. Gentleman aware that Avon council is so marvellous that every inhabitant is voting to do away with it and to revert partly to Somerset and partly to

Gloucestershire ?

Mr. Straw : No, I am not aware of that, and nor are the people of Avon, who gave their verdict on the Conservative party in Avon, as across the rest of the south-west, on 7 may.

My hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Mr. Mackinlay), who speaks for the whole community of Essex

Mr. Mackinlay : The south-east.

Mr. Straw : My hon. Friend speaks for the south-east as well. He speaks for my home county, Essex, and will deal in more detail with the position in Harlow and Castle Point.

Like many other local authorities on a low budget, Harlow was not subject to any capping until changes in the legislation in 1990-91. It has provided excellent services. As the hon. Member for Harlow (Mr. Hayes) should be aware, Harlow is a new town with significant social problems. It has the highest level of unemployment in the county, and its manufacturing base has been seriously undermined in the past 14 years. Its council has sought to make a reality out of the new town and to build community services.

The capping order will lead to a reduction in Harlow's budget, even after the adjustment, of about 47 per cent. It is expected to be able to halve its budget in one year. Already, there have been 200 redundancies. As a consequence of the cuts, there will not be an overall cut in public spending of the sort the Minister is seeking. It is likely that £2 million of expenditure that Harlow was

Column 389

previously bearing because of the parsimony of

Conservative-controlled Essex county council will be borne by Essex county council, which, happily, is no longer in the Conservatives' control.

There will be big increases in charges for elderly people's bus passes and sheltered accommodation. As a gentleman from Harlow said to me today, whatever he gains on the swings by way of a cut in his council tax bill, he will lose on the roundabouts because he will pay out of his pocket through direct charges for services that he previously received for nothing. Various leisure and support services are to be cut.

Mr. Jerry Hayes (Harlow) : I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman mentioned roundabouts. It is almost legendary in Harlow that a couple of years ago the Labour-controlled council--which has clear priorities in such matters--spent £28,000 on planting flowers on the roundabout in Harlow. The hon. Gentleman committed a sort of Freudian slip. The council has taken away its grant to the citizens advice bureau, while spending £130,000 on a photocopier. Is that the sort of council and the sort of policies that-- [Interruption.] It is all very well the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) waving me away, but those are the sorts of question to which the people of Harlow need answers.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Geoffrey i Mr. Straw : If that is the best the hon. Gentleman can do, I look forward with great interest to his speech. What is wrong with spending money on flowers--on roundabouts or anywhere else? Why do we need the full panoply of the central state to determine whether local electors should be allowed, out of their own pockets, to spend a few thousand pounds of flowers? I am delighted when Blackburn borough council spends money on flowers. When Lambeth council recently had to cut the money it was spending on flowers, local Conservatives were the first to complain.

The situation in Castle Point was glossed over. It is the only Conservative -controlled authority among the authorities that we are discussing. It has the smallest overall budget--£500,000 means far more to Castle Point than it does to Harlow or Gloucestershire. The cap is to be kept on, but-- hey presto!--Castle Point is being allowed to spend £500,000 of capital receipts not for the purposes that the Chancellor proclaimed in his autumn statement--creating jobs and building houses--but on redundancies. That is the ultimate perversion of economic policy : capital being spent, not to create jobs, but to destroy them.

No system of central Government control over local spending is acceptable in a democracy, but what makes this control all the more outrageous is the fact that it is based on the so-called system of standing spending assessments, which are capricious, incomprehensible, unfair and politically biased. The system makes Westminster, Kensington, Chelsea and Cheltenham more deprived than Hartlepool, Barking, Walsall and Stoke. It makes no allowance for long-term unemployment or for the incidence of ill health.

Column 390

The system has preposterous consequences. It has been damned by the Audit Commission, especially for the way in which the SSAs are now used for purposes for which they were never intended. Today they are used, as the Audit Commission report "Passing the Buck" pointed out, to distribute 80 per cent. of total local authority spending. The system was designed at a time when less than 50 per cent. was distributed in this way. Today, the system is used to exert central control over total local government expenditure, but it was never designed for that purpose.

Ministers admit that the system is flawed. That is why the Minister said that the Government are setting up a review, but the last thing he will do is make it independent. The Government know that if a fair system of SSAs were established, we would end the jobbery inherent in the system which results in local authorities such as Westminster and Wandsworth benefiting unreasonably at the expense of other authorities that need the money.

Mr. David Clelland (Tyne Bridge) : Is my hon. Friend aware that if Labour-controlled Gateshead council had been given the same SSA as Westminster was this year it would have been able to set a zero council tax for the next two years ; or that if Labour-controlled Newcastle city council had been given the same SSA as Wandsworth, far from setting a zero rate, it would have been able to give council tax payers money? Is he confident that the system will be corrected under the so-called review?

Mr. Straw : I am sorry to tell my hon. Friend that I have no such confidence. Wandsworth received, in addition to the usual largesse, £30 million of transitional relief. That amounted to one tenth of the relief for the entire country--enough to plant flowers, not just on every roundabout in Gateshead, but beside every road in the country. The hon. Member for Harlow has not complained about that. Shorn of all its economic mumbo-jumbo, the Conservative case for capping comes down to claims that central Government have--I quote from their consultative document--

"the duty to protect local taxpayers from unacceptably high bills."

In February, the former Secretary of State said :

"we must hold faith with the local taxpayers, for whom capping is an important protection."--[ Official Report, 3 February 1993 ; Vol. 218, c. 342.]

In the debate on 3 February, the hon. Member for Harlow said : "The whole point of the cap is to protect the people in Harlow."--[ Official Report, 3 February 1993 ; Vol. 218, c. 356.]

There is some profound arrogance for the House to digest. What happens if people in Harlow, Gloucestershire or even Castle Point take a different view from the self-appointed guardians of their purses in Whitehall and Westminster? Are people to be allowed a say about whether they want protection, or will they get it whether or not they ask for it?

Mr. Paul Marland (Gloucestershire, West) : We do want it.

Mr. Straw : The hon. Member for Lloyd's says that they do want it. The local elections last month were fought on the issue of which party gave value for money and decent services. There is no better witness to that than the press notice from the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler), who is the chairman of the Conservative party when he is not directing Group 4. He said :

Column 391

"For once, I am happy to agree with Labour. The decisive factor in this campaign should be which party will provide local services at the lowest cost to local people."

We fought the campaign on that issue, and the Conservative party got its answer on 7 May. Across the country Conservative policies and Conservative capping were decisively rejected by voters. In Gloucestershire the Conservative party lost 13 seats. In one night, it went from being the largest party to being the smallest. In Essex, the Conservatives lost 25 seats.

Mr. Marland : No.

Mr. Straw : That is right. We understand the hon. Gentleman's problems and do not want to intrude on his private grief. Obviously, he has so many problems on his mind that he has not bothered to look at the Library brief or read the local paper.

The rout was even more dramatic in Essex where, as I have said, the Conservatives lost 25 seats. Labour went

Column 392

from being the smallest party to becoming the largest. Nowhere was the election more closely fought than in Harlow, thanks to the forensic skills of the hon. Member for Harlow. He fought against the district council's record and in favour of capping. As a result, the Conservatives in Harlow were wiped out. They lost their one remaining seat.

The people in Gloucestershire and Essex have spoken. They do not want the protection of this incompetent and politically corrupt Government. They do not want capping. They want decent services, and they are ready to pay for them. The new Secretary of State is keen on morality in taxation. Perhaps he will remember that the legitimate case for capping was crushed on 7 May. Capping is undemocratic and will lead, as it has already led, to the loss of thousands of jobs. It will harm many innocent people. It is an abuse of power by a contemptible Government, and it must and will be opposed. We shall vote against it.

Column 393

Mr. Deputy Speaker : There are 56 minutes remaining for this debate and no fewer than eight hon. Members, including Front-Bench spokesmen, hope to catch my eye. With co-operation on the length of speeches, all hon. Members who wish to speak may be successful. It is up to hon. Members themselves.

11.3 pm

Mr. Jerry Hayes (Harlow) : It is wondrous to follow the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) who is the magician of the Opposition because he never fails when he appears with his top hat to bring out a dead rabbit. What he said sums up very well the position in Harlow. The hon. Gentleman said that at the local elections the people of Harlow were talking about this wicked Government and their capping. He was probably worried about more important matters--such as the crisis over the leadership of his party, the unions and perhaps his re-election to the shadow Cabinet--and overlooked one or two basic issues.

Here are the facts. There was a swing to the Conservatives in Harlow of 2.1 per cent.--probably the only place in the whole country, apart from Buckinghamshire. [Interruption.] We are talking about democracy, but the Opposition do not want to listen to the facts. There was a swing against Labour of 4.3 per cent., which says it all. The people of Harlow will be very grateful-- [Interruption.] Opposition Members are not prepared to listen. What a great shame, especially considering that the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Battle) trained for the priesthood.

The overwhelming majority of people in Harlow will be delighted if we have capping, given that the Labour-controlled council spent £24 million last year. The council blew its reserves because it thought, whimsically, that Labour would win the general election and bail it out. Nothing was left. From where was it all going to come? The people of Harlow. People in band C would have to pay more than £800 and people in band D more than £1,000. I have received hundreds of letters from pensioners on very low incomes just above income support who would have to pay £1,400 a year, and for what? That is what depresses me most of all.

The hon. Member for Blackburn is an Essex man ; he lives just down the road from where I used to live. He knows Essex and the people of Harlow-- [Interruption.] I still live in Essex, 20 minutes up the road from him. If the hon. Member for Leeds, West would pay attention and listen, he might learn something.

The Opposition support what the council did in Harlow. Four years ago, it spent £28,000 on flowers for one roundabout. It was not for the whole of Harlow, but for one roundabout. At the time, the council was saying that it had to close old people's homes and reduce provision for old people. The hon. Member for Blackburn would not answer questions about that, because he was too ashamed. The council closed down the citizens advice bureau, yet it spent £130,000 on a photocopier. [Interruption.]

I am sorry that Opposition Front-Bench Members find it funny. I find it sad, because jobs are going to be lost because of the incompetence of Harlow council. The Labour-controlled council was warned 10 years ago by me and by Tory councillors that it should bring in advisers to

Column 394

see where expenditure could be gradually brought down. The council ignored that advice, not at its peril but at the peril of hundreds of workers in Harlow. I regard that as an utter disgrace.

I have spoken on many occasions in the House about the legendary incompetence of Harlow council and I will not go back to that now. We are debating the spending cap, but the crisis in Harlow is due to the incompetence of the ruling Labour group, whose idea of prudent financial policy was to meet more than half its revenue spending during the past three years from reserves and interest and to carry on spending at four times its standard spending assessment until the money ran out.

The ruling Labour group had no strategy for meeting a 55 per cent. hole in its income this year. It deliberately created the crisis by totally exhausting its reserves last year ; it is now trying to blackmail the Government and national and local taxpayers into picking up the tab for its mistakes. Even if there were no cap for small councils this year, Harlow would be facing the same crisis--a massive 55 per cent. reduction in its income to meet revenue spending and no means of filling it, except by robbing its own citizens, particularly pensioners.

What is the ruling group's attitude to collecting local tax? A recent survey showed that Harlow was the ninth worst council for collecting the community charge and that it has the 352nd worst performance in providing information about the council tax. The council's excuse was, "Perhaps we weren't ready." All credit to Harlow council for considering ways of improving the collection of the poll tax--but it did that on the very day that the last instalment was due, so it was a worthless exercise.

The first person in Harlow to be prosecuted for non-payment of the poll tax was the council's leader, Mr. Richard Howitt, who might be listening to this speech or might read it. I suppose that he has done the most sensible thing

Mr. Marland : Moved to Wandsworth.

Mr. Hayes : No, but he wants to move to Europe. He has put forward his name as a European Parliament candidate ; he is the original Euro- evacuee--not that he will be elected, of course.

Labour-controlled Harlow council did not send out its council tax bills until after the local elections. In view of the figures that I gave the House, I wonder why. Its bills were the highest in the country and were sent out two months after those of everyone else. Harlow's bills were two and a half times higher than the next highest, five times higher than the average for Labour-controlled district councils, six times higher than the average for all district councils and seven times higher than the average for

Conservative-controlled councils. Harlow had to inflate its bills by nearly 60 per cent. to cover uncollected community charges. Caring, Labour- controlled Harlow council responded to that crisis of its own making--I hope that Labour Members do not laugh at this--by increasing its income by introducing an extra charge of £5 per week on the frail and elderly who live in warden-assisted, sheltered accommodation. Harlow argues that it must maintain spending at four times its standard spending assessment because of the recession, and then expects those paying council tax to be immune from the same recession to meet band C bills nearly 50 per cent. higher than last year, when inflation is

Column 395

running at 1.3 per cent. The council has the audacity to include in its special pleading the statement that the business rate on its own properties increased this year, yet in all its propaganda and meetings with Ministers, there was not one word of consideration about the impact of a 50 per cent. increase in local taxation on local people.

The council persuaded one of its pet trade unions, the National Association of Local Government Officers, to stump up £2,000 for a totally bogus report. It employs a policy unit at a cost of £1 million a year but ignores its special advisers. I refer in particular to the council's treasurer, who warned that the use of reserves at the current rate would exhaust the general reserve by 31 March 1993. The council did a courageous thing--it sacked him. He is gone.

We hear a great deal from Labour about democracy, and from the shadow Secretary of State about letting the people have their say. Recently, Harlow's controlling Labour group tried to gag Conservative and Liberal Democratic councillors by unilaterally removing their voting rights on committees.

Mr. Mackinlay : They are not allowed to do that.

Mr. Hayes : The hon. Gentleman has said something sensible, and I hope that it will be recorded in Harlow. For the sake of Hansard, the hon. Gentleman said that they are not allowed. Of course not, but that is the sort of arrogance we have come to expect. That is precisely what was done-- I have the letters to prove the truth of that, if the hon. Gentleman wants to dispute it. I am delighted that, in a few moments, we shall have the great joy of hearing from the hon. Member for Thurrock (Mr. Mackinlay). Essex holds its breath.

Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman (Lancaster) : Has my hon. Friend noticed the phenomenon that Labour councillors in opposition always believe in open government, whereas Labour councillors in power believe in secrecy?

Mr. Hayes : My hon. Friend is entirely right about the arrogance and corruption of power. There is no excuse for telling councillors in opposition that they do not have the right to vote, but that is precisely what Harlow council has done.

Thurrock has a standard spending assessment of £87.27 per head, while poor old Harlow has a miserly and unfair £103.37 per head. As for revenue support grant, Thurrock receives £28.74 in tax, while hard- done-by Harlow must scrape by with only £45 per head. Perhaps, when he is given his turn, the hon. Member for Thurrock will tell us how on earth his local authority manages to provide services with such amazingly low levels of support, and why Harlow cannot. Harlow council spends £19,000 every year examining its daft proposal for eight mini-town halls. It is called democracy in decentralisation. The council obtains its advice from Dr. Derek Hawes, of the school for advanced urban studies at Bristol university. I have known Dr. Hawes for many years ; for more than 27 years he ran housing splendidly in Harlow. He is a good local government officer, and I suspect that until 10 minutes ago he was advising Harlow council.

I sought Dr. Hawes's advice, because he knows more about the government of Harlow than anyone in it. In a letter to me, he wrote :

"As to Harlow : the first thing is to say that it is perfectly feasible to produce good and efficient local services for a

Column 396

budget of £11.5 millions, if only they would accept that they should do the basics well and cut the extravagances In the medium term they need to dispose of the housing stock in a series of planned disposals to housing associations, perhaps retaining the sheltered service and developing the enabling' and care-in-the-community dimensions. On the assumption that a unitary authority is formed in due course, covering a wider area of West Essex, this would be an important ingredient in developing care services with Health and Social Service agencies."

That says it all. That man effectively ran housing and social services in Harlow for 27 years ; he is an expert in local government, and advises on local government ; he advises Harlow council. He says that what the Government are doing for £11.8 million can be done well for £11.5 million. I commend the motion to the House.

11.17 pm

Mr. Andrew Mackinlay (Thurrock) : We must not only consider the three councils that are the primary subject of the order ; as my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) pointed out, every local authority is affected by it, because if the House rejected it tonight, authorities up and down the country would be liberated and allowed, in subsequent years, to fix the budgets they considered appropriate to promote and protect their communities. Therefore, a great deal is at stake.

Among the local authorities that are not included in the order, but are nevertheless affected by the capping regime, is my own council, Thurrock-- referred to earlier by the hon. Member for Harlow (Mr. Hayes). It has struggled and is suffering ; it had to make painful decisions in order to achieve a budget below the capping limit. I commend the political courage and judgment of Councillor Jimmy Aberdein and Thurrock's controlling group- -and, indeed, the many Labour-controlled councils up and down the country that have had to make similar painful, heart-breaking decisions to come within the capping limit.

The Minister has said that he is prepared to look again at the formula by which standard spending assessments are arrived at. It is my council's view that it has been denied, because of the existing Government formula, something like £3.5 million. The formula is an absurd, unfair and crude mechanism which has been adopted by the Government in order to arrive at the standard spending assessments, with all their discrimination in favour of some of the councils controlled by their friends and to the disadvantage of many other councils, including areas which are poor, such as my own area of Thurrock in Essex.

Before I move away from Thurrock, I want to point out that my council covers a relatively poor area. Its people, are being deprived of the benefits which would have accrued from their council's innovation and enterprise in conceiving such developments as Lakeside, had the Government not altered the rating system. Thurrock ratepayers would have been advantaged by many millions of pounds had the system not been tampered with. It is a great loss to a poor area when its people cannot benefit from the enterprise and initiative shown by the Labour-controlled Thurrock council. They have been robbed.

The hon. Member for Harlow (Mr. Hayes) referred to my council and tried to compare it with his own, but it is like trying to compare an apple with an orange. One of the things that he should recognise after representing Harlow for so many years is that Harlow is quite different from some other areas because it is a new town. The broad

Column 397

thrust of the grounds for the appeal which the Minister spurned and which was submitted by Harlow council on behalf of Harlow people was that new towns have special problems.

There was also an unspoken but implied contract between Governments, both Conservative and Labour, which created, supported and sustained new towns with the people they sought to attract to live in them. There was a commitment that residents would be able to enjoy pleasant and healthy surroundings, attractive places in which to bring up their children and in which to retire. Such a quality of life was part of the deal in encouraging those people to come and spend their lives in the new towns. It is that contract, that concordat, that the Government are ratting on tonight by the order which will cap Harlow.

Mr. Rooker : My hon. Friend reminds me of one of my visits to Harlow a couple of years before the general election, when I was dealing with community care for the Opposition. Harlow council had put in place one of the finest day care centres that I saw in the whole of the country. Yet Harlow was not a social services authority. It had been forced to provide it because Essex county council did not wish to do so. It is one shining example of what Harlow did for its residents above and beyond its statutory duty, to meet a need that was not provided for by the then Tory-controlled county council.

Mr. Mackinlay : I am grateful to my hon. Friend, because he makes a point that needs to be reiterated tonight. Harlow's Labour council was using what limited powers it had to supplement the deficient services provided from Chelmsford by the Conservative-controlled Essex county council. I hope that in future that will be remedied, but the Conservative Essex county council was denying important and essential services to people in Harlow and in other parts of the county, including my own borough of Thurrock.

Mr. Hayes : If that were true, why is it that Harlow Labour party did not send a deputation to Essex county council to ask for those services until December 1992?

Mr. Mackinlay : I do not know where the hon. Member has been, but the Labour party throughout the county of Essex has been protesting about the acute deficiencies of the county council's services and the fact that it has been spending way below even this mean Government's assessment of an appropriate level of spending. Those Conservative county councillors have been found out and discredited. The Conservatives who hitherto controlled Essex county council have been rejected by the electorate.

I am deeply concerned about the high level of unemployment in Essex. It will be aggravated by the capping of Harlow and Castle Point, where many of my constituents work. The level of unemployment in Harlow is at an unprecedented level, and it will be made worse by the hon. Member for Harlow going into the Lobby tonight to support the Government's capping of his local authority. He will be faced with the charge that his performance tonight resulted in additional unemployment in his constituency and throughout the county of Essex. New towns are unique. They were designed to be attractive. An important feature of new towns is their open

Next Section

Home Page