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Mr. Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD): I thank the Minister for his statement and for advance notice of it. I am surprised that as he read it, he did not choke on some of the words he was using.

How can the Minister impose random and heavy cuts on local services for pensioners and children when the independent Audit Commission said that it is the Government's council tax system that is "fundamentally flawed"? How can the Minister pretend to be the friend of local government and local democracy when he is reverting to the old Tory tricks that he used to vote against?

The absurdity of capping can be revealed by looking at any of the councils affected, but let us take Shepway. Will the right hon. Gentleman admit, for the record, that the 29 per cent. rise this year comes after a 10-year average rise of just 3 per cent.? Will he acknowledge that whereas the average band D council tax in England has gone up in the past 10 years by 94 per cent., in Shepway it has risen by only 37.4 per cent.? Will he admit that when the Liberal Democrats took over Shepway council from the Conservatives last May, they inherited a council that had suffered years of poor financial management and was spending more than it was raising, with no financial reserves? Why, then, has the Minister not taken account of local circumstances and given local politicians the chance to do what they were elected for, to put right the Tory mess?

My hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Mr. Sanders) is with a parliamentary delegation meeting His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. My hon. Friend has explained to me that Torbay has the second lowest council tax in Devon, yet is being penalised for a social services overspend from last year's budget set by a Conservative administration. Torbay's rise, whether over the past two or past three years, is still lower than that of Devon or Plymouth, which are not capped. Where is the consistency and fairness in that? Can the right hon. Gentleman explain the principles behind that decision?

Why is the Minister capping Telford and Wrekin when it was deemed an excellent council, and he previously promised "freedoms and flexibilities" to such councils? Ministers are capping councils such as Shepway, Torbay and Telford not because it makes sense for local people, as they will now be hit by Labour cuts, but because capping will get a desperate Government some short-term friendly newspaper headlines.

As for fire and police authorities, the Minister has again gone for the wrong solution. Surely he should make them more accountable to local people, not less. What discussions did he have with the Home Secretary before deciding on cuts to the police?

The Government are spinning today that they are the great white knights riding to the defence of local people. In reality, they are the ignorant classroom bully
 
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attacking the vulnerable. The Government should not be capping council tax. They should be scrapping it altogether.

Mr. Raynsford: There was nothing random about the decisions that we announced to the House today. We have made clear the principles on which we are applying the caps. The people of Shepway will not be terribly impressed by the hon. Gentleman's comments that it is absurd—that was his word—to stop that council imposing a 28.4 per cent. increase in council tax, the highest by any shire district council in the country. The people of Torbay will not think it is absurd for us to take action to save them from the largest increase proposed by any unitary authority in the country.

The Liberal Democrats do not have a good record on this. The average increase in council tax this year is 4.7 per cent. for Labour authorities, 5.4 per cent. for Tory authorities and 6 per cent. for Liberal Democrat authorities. No wonder the Liberal Democrats are trying to defend their high-spending friends. They are clearly a high-tax party. There is no justification for the hon. Gentleman's criticisms.

The hon. Gentleman is not right to claim that the Audit Commission identified the Government's policies as the largest single source of blame for council tax increases. On the contrary—James Strachan, the chair of the Audit Commission, has made it very clear that there is no single source of blame, so speaking in those terms is not helpful. I hope the hon. Gentleman will do his homework more thoroughly in future.

Mr. Gerry Steinberg (City of Durham) (Lab): Is the Minister aware that Durham fire authority has one of the best records in the whole country, but has now been one of the worst-resourced authorities for many years? Is he also aware that, on a number of occasions, my colleagues and I have met Ministers who agree that Durham has a problem, mainly because of pension payments that come from the revenue fund? We now have a situation in which the Government will not adequately fund the service in Durham and will not allow the fire authority to fund itself. If there is an unforeseen problem because of underfunding in Durham, who will take the blame? Who will be responsible—an efficient fire authority that has done its best in difficult circumstances, or Ministers who won't damn well listen?

Mr. Raynsford: The Government are funding fire authorities, including Durham, which received a 3.5 per cent. increase in grant this year. Like other fire authorities, Durham is also benefiting from the substantial investment that the Government are putting into the new dimension programme to equip fire brigades far more effectively to cope with the new dimension of terrorist threats. The fire authority has been put forward for nomination, which means that it will not be required to cut its budget in the current year. We are proposing to nominate the authority, and depending on what evidence it gives to us in the next 21 days—as I have made it clear, we are open to representations from authorities in that period—we will decide how to take things forward.
 
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I assure my hon. Friend that we are committed to enabling all fire authorities to deliver their service effectively, and in a cost-effective way that does not impose unreasonable burdens on council tax payers.

Mr. Tim Collins (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (Con): Does the Minister accept that his decision to cap Cumbria police authority has been greeted with concern and alarm by many in the county, including senior police officers? Is he aware that Cumbria has succeeded in recruiting an extra 87 police officers in the past three years, but that if it had received all those paid for in additional council tax, it would have had another 165 officers? In other words, if we had been reliant on Home Office funding, we would have seen a cut of 78 police officers. A MORI poll showed that 79 per cent. of people in Cumbria support extra council tax to pay for extra police officers, which is also supported by all three main parties in the county. The result of his decision, on a day on which violent crime in Cumbria has been confirmed to have risen by 19 per cent. in the past year, is that there will be fewer police officers than everyone in the county believes to be necessary. Will he meet a cross-party delegation of MPs from the county, plus the police authority, in the next 21 days, so that it can explain to him why he has got this matter badly wrong?

Mr. Raynsford: Of course we will accept representations. I do not know whether it will be possible to arrange for a delegation to see us, but we will certainly accept representations from the Cumbria police authority, as from all affected authorities. The hon. Gentleman's own figures, however, demonstrated the success of the Government's policy. The substantial increase in the number of police officers in Cumbria has been the result of substantial additional investment.

It is proposed that Cumbria's council tax will increase by 15 per cent. this year. At £150, the amount will be 24   per cent. higher than the average for shire police authorities. The authority's budget has increased by 7.3 per cent., which, along with that of West Mercia police authority, is the highest increase for any police authority. Clearly, it behoves all authorities, whether they are police, fire or other authorities, to look at their costs in comparison with those of other authorities and to try to operate in the most cost-effective way. I hope that the authority will do that, but as I said, we will be happy to receive representations from it.

Mr. Eric Martlew (Carlisle) (Lab): The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Collins) failed to tell us that in 1996, the last year of Conservative Government, there were 1,115 police officers in Cumbria, while at the end of this year, there will be 1,231—an increase of 116.

The Minister has fallen into the trap of imposing a universal cap, whereas local people should be able to take the decision. As has been pointed out, a MORI poll says that the vast majority of people in Cumbria were in favour of increasing tax for the police. To some extent, the police authority was misled by indications that, if the increase was less than 15 per cent., it would not be capped. I should be grateful if the Minister agreed to receive an all-party delegation to discuss this matter. I
 
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do not think that what has been announced is particularly drastic for Cumbria police, but it will create a problem for us.

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