Poll Tax (Abolition) (Hansard, 4 April 1990)

§ Mr. John Hughes (Coventry, North-East)

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to repeal the Local Government Finance Act 1988; and for connected purposes.

I welcome this opportunity to introduce my Bill to repeal the Local Government Finance Act 1988. There should be no misunderstanding about the poll tax. It was not the creation of any local authority or of my own authority, Coventry city council. The tax demands that the poorest, the young and the old should pay the same amount as a millionaire, a millionairess or the Prime Minister, and was spawned by the Government and by the Prime Minister, who will gain £2,000 a year with the imposition of the poll tax. It is an immoral Government measure which will make the rich richer and the poor poorer, and it will impose untold hardship.

Hon. Members brought these facts to the Government's attention, but our pleas for compassion on behalf of the poor went unheeded. My attempt in July last year to introduce a referendum to prevent the poll tax becoming law was thwarted by the Government. If my poll tax referendum Bill had found its way on to the statute book, there would have been no demonstrations last Saturday and there would have been no violence, which I wholeheartedly condemn. Let there be no ifs or buts about that. The violence, looting and rioting which put at risk thousands of citizens and their families exercising their right to protest, and also the police handling of the affair demand a full parliamentary inquiry, and I call for that.

I condemn violence from any quarter—the violence of a parasitical minority and the violence contained in the many anti-social measures that the Government bring before the House of Commons and steamroller through it. Political thuggery or street thuggery—the product of their violence—is the same. There is no difference between the pain suffered as a result of being physically assaulted and the unbearable pain associated with the long wait for a hip replacement, or the excruciating pain that is suffered when someone is denied treatment for gall stones or kidney stones. The poll tax can be classified only as political thuggery and it will hit my poor constituents hard.

Only four of the Coventry city wards have less deprivation than the country's average. The contrast in the life styles of Coventry's citizens becomes apparent if one flies across the city in the Goodyear airship, as I did. In the south-west of the city—Kenilworth road and the surrounding area where the beneficiaries of the poll tax live—one sees large houses and vast green spaces, undisturbed by factory buildings, and one private swimming pool after another. In stark physical contrast—diametrically worlds apart—are the densely packed housing areas of Foleshill and Wood End, where homes jostle with factories and industrial estates. That is where the poll tax losers live.

In my constituency, every ward has more poverty than the average for the whole country. Foleshill and Wood End head the list. They have the highest unemployment, the greatest overcrowding, the greatest number of pensioners living alone and the greatest number of single-parent families. Moreover, Foleshill has the greatest number of families who have come from the New Commonwealth. Even a visit to the swimming baths puts a severe strain on their meagre incomes. 1217 Two years ago, those impoverished citizens could claim a full rent and rate rebate. They could obtain grants for essential household items. Today, even the poorest must pay 20 per cent. of the poll tax. They shiver through the winter months, unable to heat their homes. Some even die from hypothermia. They cannot afford good food and good clothes. They are forced to go, cap in hand, to loan sharks to borrow money, or they are forced to take out a loan from the usurious Tory Government.

My poor constituents will be unable to pay the poll tax. It would be irresponsible of me to accuse them of being tax dodgers who are forcing an extra tax levy on the rest of Coventry's citizens. The blame for that must rest squarely on the Prime Minister's shoulders. The Prime Minister and her Government are the real tax dodgers in a quite personal sense in that they are the poll tax gainers.

I should be guilty of an even greater degree of irresponsibility if I supported the poll tax and its draconian legal penalties, and I should be culpable of gross irresponsibility if I ignored my constituents' plight. The poll tax is an obscenity. It requires a depraved mind, capable of the most perverted reasoning, to vindicate a tax which exacts the same amount from the poor as from the rich. My constituents are affected by such extremes of wealth and circumstances. That is why I have decided, after a great deal of thought and after carefully examining my conscience, to refuse to pay the poll tax. As an elected representative, I did not take that decision lightly and I do not put pressure on my constituents to follow my example, but if they wish to take part in a non-violent campaign they will have my support.

There comes a time when every elected representative must examine the morality of his or her actions—and the poll tax is the pinnacle of immorality. There is an old socialist saying that it is better to break the law than to break the poor, and I support that. That is why I seek to change this anti-social law and why I bring my repeal Bill before the House. It provides for the use of a referendum as a means of bringing about that change, which has the support of 75 per cent. of the population, as any democratic Government would recognise. That is why local authorities can give the Government a lead on this, especially the 20 which have been poll tax-capped. They could hold their own referendum. They could be given a mandate by their electors.

That is why I call on my own authority, Coventry city council, to be in the vanguard. Coventry city council conducted a citywide referendum on the rates on 27 August 1981. I now call on it to hold a referendum on a far graver issue—the poll tax. With the assistance of Coventry and other local authorities, I hope that we shall be able to wipe the poll tax off the statute book.