Local Government Finance (Hansard, 17 December 1986)

§ 5. Mr. Allan Roberts
asked the Secretary of State for the Environment when he next proposes to meet the Consultative Council on Local Government Finance to discuss local government finance and the 1987–88 rate support grant settlement.

§ The Minister for Local Government (Dr. Rhodes Boyson)
The Secretary of State and I have no proposals to meet the Consultative Council on Local Government Finance to discuss further the 1987–88 rate support grant settlement.

§ Mr. Roberts
Will the Minister admit that the Secretary of State and his predecessors have been breaking the law since 1980, because of political interference in the drafting of that legislation, which was urged by Tory local authority associations to enable those authorities to increase rents and to make profits on housing revenue accounts that could be deducted from their total expenditure so that they could obtain extra grant? Was not 1190 that political interference with the legislation, which has made the Government behave illegally for the past seven years, a scandal?

§ Dr. Boyson
The simple answer is no. Obviously, amendments will be made shortly to the 1980 Act. However, that legislation was introduced at the request of the local authorities—

§ Mr. Roberts
Tory local authorities—

§ Dr. Boyson
In 1980, presumably at least one local authority was labour-controlled, even if one needed a magnifying glass to find it. The hon. Gentleman's reaction shows the danger that arises when a Government become over-reasonable in dealing with people.

§ Mr. Holt
When my hon. Friend holds his discussions, will he take up the question of rent arrears from council tenants, as the figures are now astronomical? In Middlesbrough, in my rate-capped constituency, £1 million of arrears is an utter disgrace.

§ Dr. Boyson
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. If there were a league table, I think that Brent would be even higher, since about 60 per cent. of council house rents and rates are not collected each year. I share my hon. Friend's view, and I am aware that the councils that shout loudest for more money would not need it if they collected the rents and rates due to them.

§ Mr. Simon Hughes
In the light of yesterday's farcical statement on local government finance, can the Minister say how he will deal with rate-capped authorities? As the Government have now taken responsibility for determining the finances—there was one sentence in yesterday's statement—may we at least have a guarantee that authorities will be considered separately and that each authority's finances will be given due and proper consideration?

§ Dr. Boyson
I do not think that yesterday's statement was farcical—[Interruption.] A Government of a different hue would not have acted on the information, and that would have been farcical. I understand the hon. Gentleman's concern about rate-capped authorities. However, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said yesterday that the rate-capped authorities would know what their spending limit was, as that would appear on the face of the Bill. We have been seeing people regularly before making up our minds. Indeed, we shall continue to do so until this Friday. There is a longer queue of people wanting to see us than would be found in any dentist's surgery, but in this case they want to take extractions instead of giving them. However, the figures will be on the face of the Bill.

Mr. John Mark Taylor
Does my hon. Friend believe that the rating environment would be considerably improved if local authorities confined themselves to their statutory responsibilities, desisted from social engineering, and got rid of unnecessary landholdings?

§ Dr. Boyson
I have not heard a better or shorter speech in the House today. If Opposition Members adopted that as a new year resolution, the world would be a better place next year.

§ Mr. Madden
How can the Minister be surprised that his Department is besieged by people wanting to see him, when he and his ministerial colleagues keep doing daft 1191 thinks and keep robbing ratepayers of money? I assure him that his Department's reputation does not ride high in Bradford, which has suffered the second biggest cut in rate support grant of any metropolitan district in the country. Recently we had to take the Department to court, as we again challenged the rate support grant figures.
Will the Minister give an undertaking that there will be an urgent review of the rate support grant settlement for Bradford, especially given yesterday's lamentable statement, which clearly shows that yet again his Department has broken the law more often than any Department in living memory?

§ Dr. Boyson
I shall try to remember at least some of the points made by the hon. Gentleman in his speech. He said that more money was needed for Bradford. Bradford football club should get more money, because it is in a higher division. I should like to mention to the hon. Gentleman, in fairness to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and myself, that long before the events of yesterday unfolded themselves in the House people were beating a path to see my right hon. Friend and myself, which is a recognition of our reasonableness in dealing with people and the attractiveness of our conversation.

§ Mr. Watts
As it has proved necessary to find legislative time to plug a few loopholes in the 1980 legislation, will my hon. Friend consider whether it might make better sense to make use of that time to scrap the present unsatisfactory and unfair system and introduce a fairer and simpler system such as that set out in the Government's Green Paper? May I assure my hon. Friend that such an approach would be extremely welcome in my county of Berkshire, and, I suspect, in many other areas?

§ Dr. Boyson
I welcome my hon. Friend's comments. I know that throughout the country thousands, indeed millions of people are awaiting the introduction of what we proposed in the Green Paper. Most people want legislation immediately, but they will have to wait a little longer. We have promised that legislation, at the latest, in the first Session of the next Parliament. [HON. MEMBERS: "Now."] Hon. Members may say, "Now", but they must wait. One cannot have all the goodies at once. Father Christmas does not go everywhere in one day.

§ Dr. Cunningham
Why is it that we have just the understudy in today's matinee performance of this Whitehall pantomime? The Minister is now forced to admit that he knew of this fiasco in October. Why has the Secretary of State for the Environment gone through the charade of issuing two more consultation documents on rate support grant without being frank and candid with the House and with the local authority associations about the desperate situation in which he finds himself? Would it not have saved weeks of time, and would it not have eliminated several months of delay, if the Secretary of State had began immediately, as soon as he found out the problem, to discuss solutions with the local authority associations—all of them? Why was the right hon. Gentleman not able to do that? Surely that would be not only the quickest and best way, but the most honest way of resolving the problem?

§ Dr. Boyson
We are running three plays simultaneously. We have a recycling Bill, a local government Bill—the goodies are coming all the time—and now we have this Bill, so we need a heavier cast. One cannot run all three 1192 plays with the same cast. Let me answer the hon. Gentleman's question. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made it clear yesterday that, if he had come to the House at the end of October when the information came into his hands and said, "We have a problem. We do not know what to do about it," Opposition Members would have been the first to object. Instead, my right hon. Friend had to take careful legal advice, having once been slightly misled by taking the advice of the local authority associations. It would have been a disappointment to hon. Members if we had not taken legal advice before we came to the House.