Local Government Finance Bill

I invite the hon. Lady to check her diary carefully and see exactly when it was that we had to buy all the banks because they had gone bust. I want to contrast Knowsley with another local authority. Knowsley gets £1,225 per resident in formula grant. I am sure the right hon. Member for Knowsley would say that is not enough, and I understand his point of view, but I want to draw his attention to Wokingham, which is often prayed in aid as one of those rich southern places that benefits from an unfair system. Wokingham had a 3.3% growth in its business rates in the period I have mentioned against Knowsley's 8.7%, and whereas Knowsley got £1,225 in formula grant per person, Wokingham got £686. That is being built into the system. The hon. Member for Hyndburn (Graham Jones) said he thought the Government were behaving grotesquely unfairly. He may think that, but I have hon. Friends who think that that outcome is grotesquely unfair for a different reason. We have a system that recognises need, albeit imperfectly and even though we have built in damping, which suits the right hon. Gentleman but does not suit my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner). The differences are entrenched in the system and it is important that if the Opposition make criticisms—understandably, because that is their job—they should be based on a sense of reality. We are introducing a scheme that provides an incentive for growth and localises decisions over the money that local authorities can spend. That growth and localisation is very much better than local authorities standing as beggars at the door of Whitehall, year after year, saying, ““We want more money.”” Surely it is right that those who have the money can decide how to spend it and those who can promote growth have opportunities not only to do it but to benefit from it. What about Westminster? The right hon. Gentleman prayed it in aid. Let us be clear: he should rejoice when Westminster gets loads of business rate. Why? Because the authority keeps only the baseline figure. It will keep only its formula grant figure. All the rest will go to help Knowsley, among other places—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) says it is not true. I am not sure whether she is accusing me of deceiving the Committee. Westminster gets its formula grant and the rest goes back into the pot. When Westminster has growth, it will be able to keep some of it. If it has disproportionate growth, it will be taken away in the levy. Two things will affect Westminster: it will get only the equivalent of its formula grant in its baseline, and when growth comes, any disproportionate growth will be taken away to fund the right hon. Gentleman's safety net.