Local Government Finance

HC Deb 03 July 1974 vol 876 cc384-5

Mr. Freud

asked the Secretary of State for the Environment when he expects to conclude his considerations of local government finance; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Crosland

As I told the House last Thursday, I am setting up an independent committee of inquiry into local government finance. I shall ask the committee to report as soon as possible and at the latest before the end of 1975. Meanwhile I am reviewing, in consultation with the local authority associations, the basis of the distribution of rate support grant for the 1975–76 grant settlement.

Mr. Freud

Will the right hon. Gentleman now consider consulting his right hon. Friend about making teachers' salaries a charge on central rather than local government?

Mr. Crosland

This matter has been much discussed and argued about for 20 years. Obviously one of the basic issues which the committee of inquiry will have to consider is whether a specific chunk of what is currently local expenditure should or should not be charged to the responsibility of the central Government.

Mr. Ridsdale

In view of the seriousness of the problems facing ratepayers, cannot the right hon. Gentleman bring forward his review? So serious is the situation of many ratepayers that they will not be able to afford to wait until the inquiry's results are published.

Mr. Crosland

I should like the committee to report as soon as is possible and practicable, but we must face the fact that we have been discussing a major reform of local government finance for the last 20 years and more. The hon. Gentleman himself has made many speeches about it, including the proposal to transfer the cost of education to the central Government. The Conservative Government issued a White Paper in 1971 and a consultation paper in 1973. All those things produced negative results. We do not have a consensus on what should be done, and more important even than speed is to get a result from the committee which I hope will satisfy everyone that we have the best system possible.

Mr. Tomlinson

Does not my right hon. Friend agree that if many of the Opposition Members who now clamour for the reform of local government finance had done something about it three or four years ago, we might now have been discussing the report and be nearer being able to do something instead of still being in the talking stage?

Mr. Crosland

I agree. This clamour once again underlines the hypocrisy of the Opposition.

Mr. Churchill

In view of the clearly-expressed will of Parliament in the vote last week for a measure of interim relief for those ratepayers who are faced with massive increases as a result of the Secretary of State's Rate Support Grant Order, what intention has he to bring a proposal before Parliament for implementing the will of the House before we go into recess?

Mr. Crosland

I have referred already to what was, in effect, the inquest we had last week on four years of Tory inactivity on this matter. I repeat what I said at the end of that bizarre debate: that although I can give no commitment I shall examine every proposal made in the debate as seriously and as closely as I can.