§ Resolution reported: "That if the rate of duty on any local taxation licence (including any duty charged under Subsection (1) of Section 8 of the Locomotives on Highways Act, 1896) is hereafter increased, there shall be added to the amounts payable to the local taxation account out of the Consolidated Fund such sums (if any) as may be required to bring the amount payable in any year to the local taxation account up to the amount which would have been payable if the proceeds of that duty in that year were taken to be the average proceeds of the duty for three years ending March the thirty-first, nineteen hundred and seven, and if the sum ascertained to have been collected in that year in any county in England in respect 1182 of that duty were taken to be the average sum so ascertained to have been collected for the three years ending March the thirty-first, nineteen hundred and seven."
§ SIR F. BANBURY (City of London),said he did not happen to be present in the House the previous Friday when this Resolution was moved in Committee, without, as far as he could ascertain, any explanation having been given or demanded. As a consequence all they had heard about the matter was the statement which had just been read by the Clerk of the Table, which he felt certain that no one had been able to make head or tail of. He gathered that what the Resolution meant was that under the Finance Bill the Chancellor of the Exchequer had made 1183 alterations in local taxation, and that the Resolution was necessary to carry them out. He did not know whether or not he was right in supposing that; nor did he know whether it was the result of a pledge the right hon. Gentleman had given to the Leader of the Opposition during the discussion on the Budget. However, he would venture to suggest that the House should have a full explanation of what the Resolution meant so that hon. Members might know what they were voting for.
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. Asquith, Fifeshire, E.)said that if the hon. Baronet had read his Parliamentary Papers of last Friday, he would have found the Resolution set out in them. He had had three days in which to study and define it, so that he (Mr. Asquith) failed to see that the hon. Gentleman had any grievance of any sort or kind. The Resolution was in pursuance of a pledge he had given to the Leader of the Opposition, viz., that if licence duties were increased, the Government would take care that local bodies should not suffer, but receive a sum similar to that which they had received on an average for the past three years.