Police, Fire and Civil Defence Authorities

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 1:13 am on 8 February 1988.

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Photo of John Battle John Battle , Leeds West 1:13, 8 February 1988

The Minister has not given a satisfactory answer to West Yorkshire. Why must our ratepayers be obliged to pay almost twice as much as people in other comparable authorities for a broadly similar level of service, not only this year but in the year before and the year before that? As the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Patnick) said, both the Home Secretary and the Home Office seem unwilling to acknowledge that, in our case, the police authority's reasonable request for a small increase in precept—to 16·5p—to preserve a realistic balance, cannot be met, in view of the circumstances. I shall be interested to hear what the Minister says about the request for the authorities to be cut, if not abolished. What is the strategy for the next few years, and what are the Government's hopes and intentions? I hope that he will come clean tonight.

There is an underlying political strategy. The Government, through the Home Office and the Department of the Environment, are setting up local authorities in a cynical, political budget manoevre. They want to demonstrate that for the three years of rate capping, the precept was reduced each year. Then, as the authorities are released from that constraint in 1989–90, those reductions will mean that they have to increase their precepts substantially, which will be a massive burden on their ratepayers. They will have to pay the price at a politically sensitive time as we go into the next general election. Service levels can be maintained only by increasing the precept at this stage, or ratepayers will have to pay the price in future.

If the Minister holds his ground and says that he cannot increase the precept, will he tell us what he expects to be the future levels of services in those authorities?