Local Government Finance Bill

I want to respond to what the Minister said, because I am not entirely sure, having listened to him, whether he has understood what is in the Bill that his Department has brought before the Committee. First, he tells us that the Bill hands control of business rates back to local authorities, but it precisely does not do that; the Secretary of State decides the central and local shares for each authority. The Minister also told us that need was in the system. Well, it may be somewhere in the system in his mind, but it is certainly not in the Bill. It appears nowhere in the Bill, and the Government have rejected every amendment that tried to put it there. Secondly, the Minister kept quoting the growth incentive for local authorities. Throughout these debates, no one on the Government Benches has been able to tell us what they expect local authorities to do differently under the new system from what they are doing now. He also talked about local authorities giving all their growth, if they are a high growth area, to other authorities, but that is not what the Bill does. That ignores the gearing effects. Local authorities with a high tax base will gain more from the same amount of growth than an authority with a low tax base. It is true that there is a levy on local authorities. That does not take back all the growth from a local authority, nor does the top-up and tariff system. Let me tell the Minister again that the levy takes back part of the disproportionate growth. It does not take back all the disproportionate growth. The logic of that is that some authorities grow at a higher rate than others. The problem is that the Government will not accept that the effect for some local authorities might be a huge gap between needs and resources. Once again, we are asked to give a blank cheque to the Secretary of State to distribute grants in whatever way he thinks fit. There are a number of objections to that. We will be told, no doubt, that the Secretary of State will do that fairly, and that he is a benign, generous and wise individual. His record so far on local government finance would not support that view. Even if we believed that, there are whispers that he might not be in that post very long. However, in the Bill we are giving power not to an individual, but to an office holder, with no checks and balances whatever in the system. I am amazed that Conservative MPs, who constantly lecture us about the growth and overweening power of the state, are prepared to cede such power, with no checks and balances in the system. What we heard from the Minister in his winding-up speech is cloud cuckoo land. It is nothing to do with what is in the Bill. Perhaps it is an aspiration, like not raising tuition fees, but we want to see these things written into the Bill. For that reason, we will press the amendment to a Division. Question put, That the amendment be made. The Committee divided: Ayes 214, Noes 288.