Community Charge

HC Deb 05 July 1989 vol 156 cc293-4

6. Mr. Canavan

To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many people in Scotland are on poll tax registers; and how many of them have not so far paid at least the first instalment.

Mr. Rifkind

It is estimated that almost 99 per cent. of the adult population have been registered. It will be some while yet before reliable information on payment levels becomes available from local authorities. The current indications are that local authorities are satisfied with the progress so far made in collecting community charges.

Mr. Canavan

Is the Secretary of State seriously telling us that the staff of 10,000 at the Scottish office are insufficient to make a dozen telephone calls to the regional and islands councils to obtain the figures needed for a full and accurate reply to a parliamentary question? Or is there, perhaps, a political reason for his refusal to reveal the whole truth about the number of non-payers? Does he admit that if it became public knowledge that several hundred thousand people in Scotland were refusing to pay the poll tax, more and more people would join the non-payment campaign, which is the only realistic way to defeat the poll tax and stop it being foisted on the people of Scotland by a discredited Government?

Mr. Rifkind

If there is a political reason, I must say that it is a very odd one. I understand that Strathclyde regional councillors have yet to be informed by their own officials of the level of collection in the region. The hon. Gentleman never likes to admit that he is pursuing a lost cause. His views on this have been repudiated by his own party—and, indeed, by the general public, the Scottish Trades Union Congress and a large number of other Scottish organisations—but he can continue to whistle in the dark.

Mr. Nicholas Bennett

Is it not disgraceful that the hon. Member for Falkirk, West (Mr. Canavan) should support a campaign which argues that people should not pay their lawful dues to society when the legislation has been passed by a democratically elected House of Commons? What do Labour Members think would happen if Conservatives took the same attitude when a Labour Government were in power? Is it not also outrageous that well-heeled Opposition Members should refuse to pay their dues to the community whose services they receive?

Mr. Rifkind

It is not unusual for either the hard Left of the Labour party or the SNP to give itself the right to decide which laws it should observe and which it should not.

Mrs. Ray Michie

Is the Secretary of State not disturbed by the increasing use of pinding and warrant sales as a method of collecting poll tax?

Mr. Rifkind

It is very much up to local authorities to decide which procedure they should apply. As the House well knows, major reforms have been made to the warrant sales system, leading to the removal of all the features of that system that were causing concern to both sides of the House. Those who are owed the community charge and have not received it are clearly entitled to use such methods as they think appropriate under the law.