Local Government Finance

The Minister spoke of the traditional choreography of these occasions. Last year, the then Minister said that he expected council tax to rise by substantially less than 5 per cent. That meant in practice anything up to 5 per cent. Does the word ““substantially”” this year mean anything different from what it meant last year? Also, does the Minister realise that there is a problem with the universal bus pass, because the formula by which the fund is being distributed means that some local authorities, such as Harrogate, stand to be very substantially underfunded for that programme, and in order to meet their bus pass obligations they will have to look for resources from other work that might be more important? Will he discuss with the Secretary of State for Transport how that can be avoided for the local authorities on which it might bear particularly heavily?