§ 8. Mr. Rostasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will pay an official visit to Derbyshire in order to meet representatives of ratepayers.
§ Mr. CroslandI have no plans to do so.
§ Mr. RostWhat will the Secretary of State do to help the many ratepayers all over the country, and particularly the small traders and shopkeepers in the Sandiacre area of Derbyshire, who are faced with a double rate demand as a direct result of his reduction of the rate support grant? Is not this an example of the unacceptable face of the social contract?
§ Mr. CroslandNo non-domestic ratepayer was affected in any way by my decision, which concerned solely the domestic element in the rate support grant. On the more general question, we had an extraordinarily interesting debate on the whole subject last Thursday which was, in effect, an inquest on four years of bungling mismanagement and extravagance by the Tory Party. At the end 600 or so hon. Members, whether they voted for the motion or for the amendment, were voting to condemn four years of Tory incompetence.
§ Mr. SkinnerIs my right hon. Friend aware not only that we had to suffer the bungling ineptitude of nearly four years of a Tory Government but that in Derbyshire one of the main reasons why the rates went up by as much as 40 per cent. is that for the previous six years we had a Tory county council whose Tory chairman, now deposed by a Labour chairman, is inviting ratepayers throughout the county to see him to form ratepayers' associations to attack the high rates that are the result of the Tory Government's proposals and of his own proposals in the county?
§ Mr. CroslandI am interested to hear what my hon. Friend says and I underline the fact that all over the country on this issue of responsibility for the rates a degree of political hypocrisy has been shown by the Tories such as I have never seen before.