§ 64. Mr. JackTo ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what assessment he has made of the likely impact of the community charge on the revenues from his properties in Lancashire.
§ The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. Kenneth Baker)The community charge will have no effect upon revenue from Duchy property in Lancashire.
§ Mr. JackIs my right hon. Friend aware that Duchy residents are suffering the worst case of pillage since the Viking era in the unnecessarily high community charge that they will have to bear as a result of overspending by the Labour-controlled Lancashire county council? Does my right hon. Friend agree that their position could be helped if the county council adopted the Conservative 13 group's suggestion of a charge £60 less than that proposed by Labour? Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating the Conservative group on its initiative?
§ Mr. BakerI was in Lancashire on Friday and I met many people who were angry with Lancashire county council, whose expenditure has risen by 17½ per cent. —a massive £123 million —with the result that the community charge figure will be very high. If the rating system had continued, the rates in Lancashire would have risen by 32 per cent. this year. I warmly congratulate the Conservative group on Lancashire county council on advancing proposals setting out in detail how they would reduce the community charge by £60 per person in a full year.
§ Dr. CunninghamIs not the fixing of budgets for the education of our children, the care of elderly people, the provision of social services and the meeting of housing needs far too important a matter to be affected by arm-twisting, bullying and intimidation from the chairman of the Conservative party? Whatever happened to the concept of the poll tax bringing more accountability to local government? That idea seem to have gone out of the window now that Ministers and the chairman of the Tory party have been ringing up leaders of authorities to threaten them. Has the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster seen the denunciation by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy of the fictitious figures used by the Prime Minister in the House last week to manipulate public opinion? As he is talking about the effect of high poll tax figures, why does he not deal with the situation in his own county of Surrey?
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. The question is about Lancashire.
§ Dr. CunninghamWhy does not the right hon. Gentleman compare Lancashire with Surrey? Working is 56 per cent. above the Government figure, Fareham 49 per cent., Eastleigh in Hampshire 48 per cent. and Dover in Kent 48 per cent. What is he telling his Tory constituents in Mole Valley?
§ Mr. BakerI can tell the hon. Gentleman the difference between a Conservative-controlled authority and a Labour-controlled authority and I have not been ringing up the obvious Conservative councils. A Conservative authority looks for value for money and tries to find ways to reduce the community charge whereas a Labour authority looks for ways to increase expenditure. I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman has the brass neck to raise these questions. He is the author —the sole author, as I understand it —of the roof tax and local income tax. My constituents in Mole Valley want to know what they would pay under the Cunningham roof tax and local income tax. The hon. Gentleman announced his proposals with a great flourish of trumpets last year, but the shadow Cabinet panicked when it saw them and he was told to say nothing more about them. The Labour party will have to come clean by 3 May about its alternative to the community charge. It would be fundamentally dishonest for the Labour party to campaign without a specific alternative as electors would not know how they would be affected. If by 3 May the electors do not know how they will be affected, the Labour party will have been cynical, dishonest and hypocritical.