Council Tax

I thank the Minister for the careful and courteous way in which he has introduced the order. I am sure that the House will appreciate that. I understand that, technically, the order relates simply to the situation in Lincolnshire, and I certainly want to respect the terms of the debate. But however careful and measured the tone that the Minister has adopted in introducing the order, he cannot escape the fact that what we are discussing today is a symptom of a wider malaise, for which the Government have to take responsibility. That wider malaise is made up, first, of the consistent and remorseless upward pressure on council tax. That affects not only people in Lincolnshire and the other authorities that were originally considered, but people right across the country. The malaise also consists of the tight financial settlement under which those authorities and others across the country find themselves. We must not forget that the Government cannot say that they are seeking to protect council tax payers in Lincolnshire while escaping the responsibility, which has to lie with them, for that underlying malaise. The increase in council tax is down to Government policy. The tightness of the financial settlement that affects those authorities is, again, the direct result of Government policy. It is worth reminding the House that for all the Minister's words about the protection of council tax payers, his Government have seen council tax double in the past 10 years. The tightness of the financial settlement, described by the Association of Chief Police Officers as the tightest settlement for police authorities in years, was, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Ruffley) pointed out when the matter was first debated in the House, the direct consequence of a macro-economic problem—the borrowing problem—that the Government have got themselves into. The simple fact is that the Government wasted money when it was available. They borrowed too much, and now they have to tighten up on the funding that is available to local authorities. Local authorities are feeling the pinch, and that means reductions in budgets or pressure on council tax. The Government are introducing this order because of a situation that is ultimately of their creation and their responsibility. That needs to be set in context. I know that several right hon. and hon. Members from Lincolnshire want to participate in the debate, so I will not go into much local detail. However, it clearly cannot be justified to say that Lincolnshire is historically a particularly profligate authority; indeed, the evidence suggests that police funding in Lincolnshire, in terms of spend per head and so on, is comparatively low.