Local Government Finance (Kingston upon Thames)

Indeed, because those are not my words, but the words of the hon. Gentleman in 2004. The hon. Gentleman has raised a number of concerns, and I shall try to deal with as many as I can in the time available. The formula grant settlement is designed so that more grant will go to authorities with a high need to spend on services—for example, they may have high deprivation levels and a low council tax base. As I am sure that he appreciates, the levels of deprivation are much greater in inner London than in the royal borough of Kingston upon Thames. I would therefore expect Kingston upon Thames to meet more of its net expenditure through council tax than inner London authorities do. The hon. Gentleman puts that another way, saying that the amount of formula grant per head for Kingston is below the average for London boroughs, but I would expect that too, and for the same reasons. After all, how is that different from the Liberal Democrats’ proposals for a local income tax according to which they say they would keep an ““equalisation”” grant? Their website says:"““Part of the grant councils get from central government reflects a local authority’s tax base—its resource base.””"