---

Ms Armstrong: I did not.

Mr. Gummer: I am sorry. The hon. Lady did not want Cleveland. She was in the other bit of the Labour party--the bit that did not want Cleveland.

Ms Armstrong: The right hon. Gentleman really means my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Ms Mowlam). It is about time that he learnt to distinguish between Opposition Members. Just because we are women, it does not mean that we are all the same.

Mr. Gummer: I am sorry. The hon. Lady jumps to the defence of her hon. Friend, who was on the other side over Cleveland. I know which side the people of Cleveland were on--they were universally against Cleveland. I am pleased to say that one of the most popular measures I have ever taken was to confirm the demise and removal of Cleveland.

I was amazed to discover that the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras dared to stand up and tell me that Labour-controlled Middlesbrough had reduced its council tax. Hon. Members may wonder why. It was because there is no Cleveland any more. Without the incubus of Cleveland, the council has been able to be more sensible. Not sensible enough, however. People would be much better off if the council were Conservative-controlled because they would be paying 50 per cent. less.

Mr. Dobson: Most unusually, I am almost at a loss for words. The Secretary of State says that the abolition of Cleveland has led to a reduction in the council tax in Middlesbrough, which is Labour-controlled. How does he account, therefore, for the increase in council tax in Redcar and Stockton, which are also Labour-controlled and also in Cleveland?

Mr. Gummer: If I lived in any of those places, that is the first question that I would ask. Why is that Labour council even more incompetent than that in Middlesbrough? I would be banging at the council's door for an answer. I hope that the hon. Gentleman would be in the lead, asking the council, "How is it that even the loonies next door can do better than you?" That is what I would be asking.

The hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras went on about the money that Westminster gets for daily visitors. I was interested to hear that because Westminster gets 5 per cent., but Labour-controlled Norwich gets 7 per cent., Labour-controlled Cambridge gets 8 per cent., as does Labour-controlled Great Yarmouth, and the independently controlled--just to be absolutely independent--West Somerset gets 10 per cent. I wonder why the hon. Gentleman did not mention any of those and why they did not come high up his list. I wonder whether he has visited Cambridge recently to say anything about the parking charges. It is noticeably one of the worst councils in Britain and it has the smelliest car parks in Britain. It also has one of the most dangerous car parks in Britain. The fact of the matter is, however, that it raises a lot of money in car parking charges and yet it gets a percentage that is

1 Apr 1996 : Column 74

significantly higher than that received by Westminster. Why did the hon. Gentleman not mention Cambridge? Did he not know about it, or is it because those other councils are Labour-controlled and Westminster happens to be a Conservative-controlled council?

The hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras knows that the system under which we work is fair and honourable. We worked it out with all the local authority organisations. What the hon. Gentleman said about Westminster is totally countered, first, by the fact that it did proportionately better under Labour than it has under the Conservatives and, secondly, by the fact that no one in local government believes him. None of the experts believes him. But, he never listens to experts. That gives me a grave problem because I listened to his speech extremely carefully and I cannot imagine to whom he listened when he wrote it. No Front Bench spokesman could have written such a speech. It was wrong from beginning to end. He has not checked any of his facts and has not been to the councils. Even the charming comments by the hon. Member for North-West Durham will not cover the fact that the speech was unworthy of the Opposition's local government spokesman. Local government deserves better than it gets from him.

I want to remind the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras of one that he did not run--perhaps he did not remember it--this time: the old line that it was not true that Labour councils cost more than Conservative councils because that was true only if like was compared with like. If one compared like with unlike, it could be proved that Labour charged less. To that Mr. Peter Kellner rightly said:

"I dissected Labour's assertion that its councils charged householders £40 less tax. I showed that this figure had nothing to do with the financial prudence of Labour councils, and everything to do with the tendency of Labour voters to live in the less affluent parts of Britain: as a result, homes in Labour areas tended to fall into lower Council Tax bands and this was why average Council Tax was lower. I went on to show that the proper way to judge the figures was to compare like with like--say Band D figures, council by council . . . [Labour's] claim is as misleading as it ever was . . . On this issue, Labour is wrong and Tories are right."

The fact is that not only on this but on every issue that he raised, the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras has been wrong.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North (Mr. Jones) will deal at the end of the debate with the matters that have not been covered so far and with matters relating to Wales. Many of us wonder how we can discuss council tax without the Labour party raising anything to do with Wales. Could it be that it is afraid to field the shadow spokesman for Wales who, of course, is not being allowed out at the moment? He is not being allowed to say anything on anything lest he should do what he normally does and say the wrong things on everything.

Mr. Betts: To get back to proper comparisons, will the Secretary of State confirm that when the Government began to compare council tax in different authorities, they used the average value as the fair one? Only when they found that that favoured Labour authorities, which were costing people less, did they change the figures. Will he further confirm that the use of band D is misleading because if two authorities collect the same amount of money from the same number of properties but one has

1 Apr 1996 : Column 75

lower value properties, that council will have a higher band D council tax than a similar authority with more higher value properties? That is a mathematical point. The Secretary of State should learn some maths before he quotes figures.

Mr. Gummer: The hon. Gentleman and I are biased on this so I will quote Peter Kellner, a well-known Labour supporter. He said:

"Gummer is right and Straw is wrong."

He is right. Gummer is right on this and Straw and the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, who follows him with rather less certainty, are wrong.

I thank the right hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) for tabling this motion. Without his kind intervention, we would not have had the opportunity of hearing what amounts to the Labour party's lack of a policy on council tax and council spending. The hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras has shown what we always suspected but now know to be true. He neither understands the system nor knows what he would do if he were ever in a position to do something. He has proved that Labour councils cost more and give less; that Labour puts taxes up and puts services down; that Labour's interest is that of the trade unions who work for councils not of the people who pay for local services; that Labour does not know what it would do but that its only answer on any issue is to yah-boo and to laugh. He would not be sitting in his place if he took local government seriously.

6.44 pm

Mr. Barry Jones (Alyn and Deeside): My hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) made a typically sharp, robust and revealing speech. He put the inhuman algebra of revenue support grant and its formulae into the context of the poorest communities, and he was surely right to do so. His opposite number, however, delivered a tirade: the Secretary of State for the Environment made a typically combative and hectoring speech but forgot to say that his party has held the reins of power for 17 years. He forgot to say that his Government proposed and supported the iniquitous poll tax and other unpleasant legislation that was imposed during the 1980s. He then had the effrontery to accuse my party of effrontery. He raises posturing, wriggling, dodging and whingeing to the status of high parliamentary art and one has to admire his cheerful cynicism and aggressive bombast.

The record of Conservative Administrations on local government is abysmal. Intolerant, repressive and aggressive legislation has robbed Britain's councils of their free status and councils are in danger of becoming the poodles of central Government. The Government, and their predecessors under Mrs. Thatcher, have undermined and all but taken away the independence of our local government, and in so doing they have gone against the grain of Britain's local government history. Legislative attacks on local government hurt our body politic. Her Majesty's Government now dictate and control all but 11 per cent. of council spending. That cannot be right.

Local government is part of Britain's basic democratic foundations. It is currently fashionable to say that the Executive--that is, the Cabinet--is overmighty, that it dominates and dwarfs the House of Commons. That is

1 Apr 1996 : Column 76

often argued in the newspapers and sometimes in the Chamber. Certainly, since 1979 measures have been taken to downgrade local government in Britain and in Wales. Our councillors, who work very hard, feel that they are elected to carry the blame for policies imposed upon them and their local authorities by the Government.

The poll tax was the high point of the attack on local government by Conservative Administrations, but central Government are still throwing their weight about and we are caught short by inadequate central Government funding for our local councils. That is what the debate is about and we are all witness to the real difficulties that our councils face. All paths in this debate lead to the Cabinet room.

Central Government are clearly determined to cut Treasury taxes with the general election in mind. Council tax bills have gone up by around 6.2 per cent. for band D in England, but in Wales they have gone up by an astronomical 18 per cent. People in Wales are aghast and astounded at the severity of the increases, which represent a serious hike in the private domestic budgets of Welsh taxpayers. I must report to the House the resentment and apprehension felt in Wales at those increases. Our councillors are left with the difficult task of explaining the iniquities and machinations of central Government. It is their lot to explain why those increases have been forced on every taxpayer.

Wales is at the top of the league for low wages. That is a great problem. Local government finance policies therefore have serious implications and are a key factor in domestic budgets.

---