Mr. John M. TaylorTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he has any estimates of the effect of the alternative system of local government finance proposed recently by the Association of London Authorities on the level of local taxation outside London.
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§ Mr. HowardThe ALA document does not itself offer estimates of the effect of its proposals on particular local authority areas, and does not provide sufficient information to enable others to calculate them in detail. However, the document proposes a combination of local income tax and domestic rates, with the latter equalised to reflect only variations in incomes between areas. Such an arrangement would make it virtually certain that the level of local taxation would increase in those parts of the country — particularly the north — where domestic rateable values are very low at present.