§ 71. Mr. BurnsTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he intends to respond to the recent paper issued by the Association of London Authorities on its preferred alternative to the community charge.
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§ Mr. HowardI do not intend to comment in detail on the ALA's suggestions, which I assume are directed primarily towards helping the Labour party find a local government finance policy. The Government's own proposals are presently before Parliament and received a large majority in this House on Second Reading.
I have, however, noted that the ALA advocates a combination of domestic rates and local income tax. Such a system would fail to provide accountability, be very volatile, produce big changes in Bills, and he extremely complicated and expensive to administer.
§ 65. Mr. FavellTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is the estimated financial effect of the introduction of the community charge on a pensioner living on his own in(a) Stockport and (b) England and Wales as a whole.
§ Mr. HowardIn England and Wales as a whole we estimate that 80 per cent. of single pensioners living alone would have gained if the community charge had been introduced in full on the basis of 1987–88 local authority spending. Projections for individual local authority areas are not possible because of the limitations of the sample survey data on which the estimate is based.