§ 11. Mr. SalmondTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is his Department's most recent estimate of the average level of council tax per household; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. HowardWe have made no predictions of the level of council taxes and have no intention of doing so. The council tax is a local tax and bills will be set locally.
§ Mr. SalmondDoes that change of approach follow the remarkable success of the forecasting team at the Secretary of State's Department when estimating the poll tax? Can the Secretary of State explain why all the speculation about the introduction of the council tax has centred on how much money he might get out of the Treasury to cushion the blow of the incidence of the tax in the south of England? Does no one else need cushioning? Has the Secretary of State noticed that every potential candidate for Tory leadership is colliding with a political disaster? Is the Secretary of State about to collide with his?
§ Mr. HowardI am thoroughly at a loss to know where to begin to deal with the remarkable foolishness contained in the hon. Gentleman's questions. I am confident that the council tax will be seen to be a fair replacement for the community charge, and I hope that the Opposition Front Bench will heed the urgings of the labour leaders of the Association of Metropolitan Authorities, who told the leader of the Opposition to soft-pedal his opposition to the council tax so that we could introduce it, to put the arguments of the past behind us and to ensure that we work together. I invite Opposition Members to co-operate with us to ensure the smooth introduction of the council tax next spring.
§ Mr. John MarshallWill my right hon. and learned Friend assure the House that he will seek to keep down the level of the council tax, by making widespread use of his capping powers to restrict the high-spending proclivities of Labour-controlled local authorities?
§ Mr. HowardI can certainly give my hon. Friend the assurance that capping powers will be available, will be used and will play an important part in the restraint of public spending, which is so crucial to the success of national economic policies.
§ Mr. StrawJust now, the Secretary of State said that he was not making predictions about the level of the council tax. He will recall that yesterday, at the annual conference of the Association of County Councils, he went further and said:
The Government has never made any predictions of the level of the council tax.How can those two statements be true, when I have here 28 pages of tables of predictions for the council tax, issued by his right hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) when he was Secretary of State for the Environment in April 1991? The calculations show, district by district and band by band, what the Tory party pretended to be the level of the tax in a run-up to the election, and give an average figure of £400. Is it not the truth that those figures were entirely bogus and an effort to defraud the electorate in the run-up to the election? The reason that the right hon. and learned Gentleman is trying to pretend that no predictions were made is that he will be profoundly embarrassed when the figures come out this week or next.
§ Mr. HowardNo predictions were made. I am astonished at the hon. Gentleman's incomprehension. He knows full well that the caveats attached to those figures were clearly spelt out at the time and that they never were 874 forecasts. If the hon. Gentleman cannot do better than that cheap misrepresentation when dealing with the problem, he ought to start again.