It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Caton. I welcome the constructive input of my right hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) and his fresh perspective on the topic of council tax. It is clear that a lot of work has gone into developing his ideas, and I commend him for his thoughtful approach. I also commend the London borough of Westminster for having kept council tax levels at the same rate for the past four years. The banding system is set nationally, but council tax levels are set locally, and Westminster’s approach has helped to keep living costs down for hard-working residents.
There are many matters about which my right hon. Friend and I agree. We agree that a mansion tax is not the answer, whatever the question. It would be complex to introduce, involve the re-evaluation of many homes and raise fairness issues about the ability of those liable to pay the tax. We have no intention of introducing a mansion tax.
My right hon. Friend and I also agree about the importance of affordable homes, which is why, despite the fiscal constraints, we have secured capital resources for affordable housing. Almost 217,000 affordable homes have been delivered in England since April 2010. Our affordable homes programme is on track to deliver another 170,000 affordable homes between 2011 and 2015. More than 144,000 homes have already been delivered under the programme.
The Government are now seeking to accelerate the increase in the number of affordable homes. By the end of the next Parliament, we should see 275,000 additional affordable homes built with £38 billion of public and private investment. That means that we will have built more new affordable homes than during the equivalent period in the past 20 years. We have introduced a range of measures to get Britain building again, to fix the broken housing market and to help hard-working people get the homes they want.
We recognise that the process of devolution is positive and necessary, with regard to local government finance. Indeed, the Government have devolved significant responsibility to local authorities, and the reforms are still bedding in. The affordable homes programme, which the Mayor has undertaken, comes with £1 billion of devolved money. There is a real commitment to work with boroughs and councils in London to deliver that package of housing.
My right hon. Friend and I also agree that the re-evaluation process is expensive and complex. However, we differ in that the Government do not support the introduction of a higher council tax band. Council tax is not a wealth tax, but a charge for the use of local services. The current banding system reflects the fact that larger homes make a slightly greater use of local services, but it is intentionally not a poll tax or a domestic tax.