Power to Prescribe Maximum Rates and Precepts

Part of Clause 1 – in the House of Commons at 7:45 pm on 27 March 1984.

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Photo of Mr John Powley Mr John Powley , Norwich South 7:45, 27 March 1984

I wish to urge my right hon. Friend the Minister to reject this amendment, for reasons which I hope to put forward in the next few moments, but also for many more reasons of which I am sure he will think.

With respect, I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Morrison), who moved the amendment, that I suspect that I might have agreed with it if it had been moved in similar circumstances some 20 years ago, when the situation in local government was rather different from what it is today. It is because of those different circumstances that I oppose the amendment.

I have had experience of working through three decades of local government during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. A great many Labour local authority members come from a different breed now. I know that looking back is easy and that past events look better when viewed in retrospect, but I am taking that into account. During the 1960s and 1970s, Conservative members of local councils had a great deal of respect for some of the distinguished Labour members with whom we had the honour to serve. We had political differences, but those Labour members approached local government with a different attitude from that now taken. Many Labour members on the council on which I served actually had the guts to tell those who wanted to spend more and more—their own supporters—that they could not afford to do that. They said that the rate level should be kept in moderation, and they earned a great deal of respect for that attitude.