Eric Pickles's latest vision means, again, to them that hath shall be given. It undermines our ability to live well together
This week, the communities secretary, Eric Pickles, announced a review "to end council dependence on Whitehall". Councils will be allowed to keep business rates they raise, instead of sending all the money to Whitehall to be redistributed according to local need. Instead, Pickles has "a vision of self-funded councils that keep their business taxes with central grant dependence scaled back". What would this mean?
Imagine if Westminster were allowed to keep all its business rates ? �1bn a year. No need for Westminster residents ever to pay council tax again: they could be paid instead. Currently Westminster keeps just �150m. Sigoma, the municipal authorities group, says that if councils were all allowed to keep their business rates, the City of London would gain �517m. Together, the Tory boroughs of the City, Westminster, Hammersmith and Fulham, and Kensington and Chelsea would gain �1.6bn. Who would be the losers? Birmingham would lose �175m, Hackney �116m, Liverpool �104m ? and Cornwall �45m. To them that hath shall be given ? yet again.
Remember how unjustly the cuts have already fallen on local authorities ? in reverse relation to need. The most deprived councils were hit hardest while the richest areas suffered least. Liverpool, the poorest city, was cut deepest. Who gained most? Oliver Letwin's Dorset. Least affected in spending power were Vince Cable's Richmond upon Thames, Windsor and Maidenhead, Wokingham, and Michael Gove's Surrey.
House of Commons library research found the political match near perfect: the more solidly Labour the district, the harsher its cuts; while the more blue Tory the shire, the less it was affected, with the Lib Dems in between. So if the government now adds to that injustice by rebalancing the proceeds of business rates, expect the distribution of spending power to become even more grotesquely distorted.
Worse is to come when �4.8bn of council tax credit is cut by 10% and handed to councils to decide what, if any, benefit to pay out. Surrey might decide to pay none and use the cash for tax cuts. Liverpool would never steal this �15 a week or more from its poorest residents, so would have less still to spend on other services. Adding this to his review shows Pickles has prevailed in a row with the work and pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith: localisation of council tax benefit makes a nonsense of Duncan Smith's "universal" credit, leaving some randomly worse off than now.
No doubt some redistribution will remain towards places that Pickles calls "dependent". But Phil Coppard, the outspoken chief executive of Barnsley council, points out that any change to the distribution of business rates means "stripping money from northern authorities to pour into the south".
Pickles asserts that central grants "act as a disincentive to growth", making poor councils sluggish, but Coppard replies angrily: "There is nothing, absolutely nothing we do not do to try to create growth here already." If southern Conservative councils call for "our money back", Barnsley points to the Treasury-funded Crossrail, designed for City-types to commute to Wiltshire.
For years the Lib Dems have advocated council tax reform with new property and local income taxes. But they have been ignored ? again. Only business rates are included in Pickles's review. That means the only result can be more inequality. A third of councils raise the same as they receive back from government, so they could keep their business rates. But any change that lets richer councils keep more means cash taken from poorer places: that's simple arithmetic.
Pickles boasts of "acting to protect local taxpayers with a council tax freeze, scrapping the council tax revaluation, abolishing bin taxes and increasing tax relief for small firms". Rather more dirigiste than localist. His "scrapping council tax revaluation" shamelessly leaves property at 1993 prices, another bonus for the wealthy.
With councils drained of cash, what should they no longer do? Pickles has posted on the Department for Communities and Local Government website this extraordinary spreadsheet of 1,294 statutes, asking if some of these are "unnecessary burdens or restrictions on local authorities". Sign here (http://bit.ly/pickles1294) and you have until 25 April to slash and burn to your heart's delight. Note that "you can fill it in as many times as you like".
Here are not just a few redundant old laws, but all the child protection legislation and all the children acts; all education acts; race relations; sex discrimination acts; employment law; the duty to provide libraries; and to license gambling, drinking and taxis ? all these open to challenge. The health-and-safety-gone-mad-lobby will have a field day with the wheeled child conveyances (safety) regulations and the bunk bed (entrapment) regs. Zap, zap, zap, who needs this big brother, nanny state anyway? Sack all the regulators, fire the inspectors, let there be no more traffic lights!
I spent all evening perusing this ledger of legislation. It's hard, dry reading but gradually it grew on me. Here in this litany of laws designed to improve citizens' lives is the record of human endeavours to live well together, not to cheat each other, to trust the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat. The smog before the Clean Air Act gave me constant bronchitis as a young child. Bathing water regulations make swimming a pleasure. Flood water management holds back the worst for millions of homes. The Rent (Agriculture) Act gives security to farm tenants. The 1936 Public Health Act makes councils provide mortuaries ? or shall we use Tesco's freezers?
Toy (safety) regs stop babies being poisoned by lead paint. Weights and measures acts mean we trust what we buy. Shall we scrap nutritional standards for school meals, again? Who needs a transport act that sees councils maintain railway and waterway bridges?
In all these everyday things is the weft and weave of government, unseen public servants going about their business behind the scenes, inspecting food hygiene, making roads safer, dealing with rubbish, checking sewers, protecting wildlife and the countryside, making telecommunications work, keeping the avarice of private companies in check while protecting children, the mentally ill and old people. All this, says Pickles, is too "burdensome". Soon there will be much less of it.
? Thread shortcut: Polly Toynbee responds to readers' comments here.
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