Rate Support Grant (England)

Part of Lorries (GLC Ban) – in the House of Commons at 8:31 pm on 16 July 1985.

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Photo of Mr Roy Galley Mr Roy Galley , Halifax 8:31, 16 July 1985

I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman. That is an entirely different debate. There is no reason why the public sector should go into operation as a commercial company. It is not there to run commercial operations. It is there to give the best services that the ratepayers require at the least cost.

As my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Leicester, South (Mr. Spencer) said, the important factor is that in so many instances services have not been reduced in any way. Complaints arise from time to time about local authority budgets. It is remarkable that whenever local councillors have a pet scheme which they want to implement, somehow or other they can find the money to do so. They will take money for their pet schemes from other projects and then say that essential services cannot be provided because of Government policies.

I take as an example the way in which a series of ill-advised traffic management schemes in Halifax have led to the strangling of the town centre. Resources which should have been available for highway maintenance elsewhere have been denied. More importantly, larger sums of money have been used increasingly for overtly political expenditure by local authorities. I shall keep to West Yorkshire in my examples, as I am familiar with it. In opposing Government legislation for the abolition of metropolitan county councils, West Yorkshire county council spent nearly £600,000 of ratepayers' money, without a by your leave. That money should have been spent on providing services for the people whom the council represents, but it was used for party political propaganda. The council also recently diverted money to a campaign against the Transport Bill.

Leeds city council spent over £100,000 in opposing rate-capping legislation. There are many other smaller examples of purely party political use of ratepayers' money. Money is raised from every ratepayer for the services that ratepayers want, yet it is used for purely party political propaganda. If political parties wish to put forward a particular point of view, they should raise their own money to do so, and there should not be a precept upon the ratepayer.

There is an increasing use of public funds to encourage the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. There has been the appointment in Leeds of peace officers and the continuing development of councils' ludicrous nuclear-free zone policies, the production of leaflets, the financing of seminars, and the establishment of peace gardens. Throughout West Yorkshire such activities are increasingly using sums of money which should be providing proper services for the people of the area. I refer also to the "great" Liberation Festival in Bradford, when substantial funds were used to support and enhance several Socialist campaigns, such as the Troops Out movement and the El Salvador solidarity campaign.

I hope that in the next Session of Parliament my right hon. and hon. Friends will present to the House legislation banning the use of ratepayers' money for party political propaganda. There will be problems of definition, but I have no doubt that by using the Independent Broadcasting Authority's code of practice on advertising, which bans from advertising any overt political material, it will be possible to enshrine that provision in legislation.

The supplementary report for 1982–83 makes several corrections to the rate support grant settlement that had previously been agreed. I understand that one correction has not been made. It appears that the Department of the Environment made an error in 1982–83 in the allocation of the non-housing revenue GREA. That error resulted in additional payments being made to London authorities and insufficient money being made available to certain other authorities, including my metropolitan borough of Calderdale. As a result, the Calderdale authority lost £116,000.

That loss resulted, not from any over-spending or inefficiency on the part of the council, but from an error by the Department, and the report makes no attempt to correct that mistake. As the error has been known about for some time, we should be told why the position has not been corrected.

During this year's budgetary exercise the Calderdale budget was set on the basis of perceived GREA rules, and after the exercise was completed the amount available to the local authority by way of grant was about £300,000 less than had been anticipated. It is understood and accepted as part of the game that rule changes may happen after budgets have been set, although that presents difficulties for local authorities. It is hard to swallow the fact that apparently the Department of the Environment can make a mistake—a mistake to which Calderdale council had in no way contributed—and the local authority is penalised as a result. If the Department had not made that error, the council would be £116,000 better off.

My hon. Friend the Minister may say that it is a relatively trivial matter. To Calderdale, a small authority, it is not trivial. That money could have been spent wisely and, with the good management that we have in Calderdale, it would have been spent to the advantage of the local people. I urge the Minister to reconsider the matter and, if possible, give the money back to the Calderdale authority.