LOCAL TAXATION. (Hansard, 5 April 1905)

§ MR. PURVIS (Peterborough)
said that in bringing before the House the question of the incidence of local taxation, he hardly thought that any fault could be found with the subject as unimportant or inopportune. For some years they had been marking time while the Royal Commission was examining the matter and making up their minds upon it; but for more than four years the Report of that Commission had been in the hands of the public, and there was no reason for marking time any longer, but every reason for going forward. He hoped the Motion he was about to propose would not incur the stigma of being called an abstract Resolution, which was never a favourite with the House, although there was no 571 choice for a private Member but to proceed by way of abstract Resolution. He was not without hope that by the stimulus of public opinion caused by the Report of the Royal Commission, and the Resolutions passed by this House, the Government would not allow the matter to sleep, but give a promise to do something in a practical direction to carry out the object of the Resolution. He might add that on the previous Saturday at the meeting of the Association of Municipal Associations in the Guildhall, the question of the reform of local taxation and of its incidence was brought in directly or indirectly by every representative of those municipal associations.
To return to the Royal Commission; there were several things on which the members differed, but on one thing they were all agreed. That was that no small part of the rates paid by any locality went to meet expenditure in which the locality had no especial interest beyond any other locality in the kingdom; and his Motion was designed to point out that when a locality was ordered to do something for the benefit of the community at large, then the State and not the locality ought to pay for it. For instance, education gave no special benefit to any particular locality, and therefore all orders by the State in regard to education ought to be paid for by the State. Then there was the relief of the poor, and the maintenance of main roads, the cost of which should be shifted from the rates to the Imperial Exchequer. The whole principle of his Resolution was expounded at page 11 of the final Report of the Royal Commission. It had been said that an attempt to distribute the burden which ought to be borne by the Imperial tax-payer and the local ratepayer in proportion to the direct money benefit each received, was like the riddle of the Sphinx. The test that a rate was justifiable was that it would add to the money value of the buildings or land assessed. In short, a rate properly imposed was a profitable investment, and not a burden at all, such as that for defraying the cost of lighting the streets and the removal of house refuse. Then, in regard to the name of Imperial grants, there were some services which were of the first importance to the nation, but which 572 were more likely to be wel carried out by local bodies. In such cases minute investigation was necessary, with a knowledge of personal character; and the best illustration of that was the relief of the poor. His argument was that such an expenditure ought not to be defrayed from the revenue derived from a particular rate, but from the Consolidated Fund. One reason for that was that assigned revenues from particular taxes were not suitable, because no one could foretell the exact amount required, and the local authorities could not frame their local budgets. Another reason was that assigned revenues from a particular district did not always correspond with the needs of that particular district. Where the service was national, by common consent it ought to be paid for by the nation just as much as the expenditure on the Army and the Navy. He hoped the Government would indicate some intention of bringing forward some legislation to carry out the findings of the Local Taxation Commission without any delay. He begged to move.

§ MR. SPEAR (Devonshire, Tavistock)
said he had great pleasure in seconding the Resolution, because he had no hesitation in saying that the allocation of the present burdens was unjust to the local ratepayers. Education, the maintenance of main roads, all sanitary matters, especially vaccination, should be borne more largely by the Imperial Exchequer than at present. Of late years personal property had grown immensely, and it was only just to the ratepayers that a larger share of the burden of local taxation should be put on the shoulders of the owners of personal property. The effect of the present system was to drive away capital from this country, and invest it in the development of other lands. He hoped the Government would undertake a general rearrangement of the local taxation. They had shown their sense of the inequality of that taxation by carrying out one of the recommendations of the Royal Commission in the passage of the Agricultural Rating Act.

§ SIR FREDERICK BANBURY (Camberwell, Peckham)
said they were all agreed with the mover and the seconder of the Resolution that this was a most important subject, and extremely interesting to dwellers in towns as well as those in the rural districts. He quite agreed that agriculture was so burdened with rates in this country that it could not compete with the agricultural industry in other countries where no such burdens existed. He was not sure, however, that the method proposed by the hon. Gentleman for the relief of local taxation would carry out what he desired. He wanted to know how personal property was to be brought in.