---

Adjournment (Whitsun)

Indeed, I am just about to come to that, because it follows logically from what I have just said. My hon. Friend picked that point up instantly. The business rate is the one area of radical change that we could consider and make. I hope that the Lyons review will come up with a careful assessment of that possibility. The business rate was nationalised by the Conservative Government in 1990, and that leaves the domestic council tax payers as the only significant source of revenue open to the decision of local councils. Even that is constrained by Government capping powers, and I would like to mention them. I was a councillor in the past, but I would not attempt to be a councillor and a Member of Parliament at the same time. That is a matter for the hon. Member for Leeds, North-West to resolve in the weeks and months ahead. Good for him if he can do it. I am uncomfortable with capping. I believe that decisions about locally raised revenue are best taken locally and that, if levels of local taxation are judged to be excessive by local people, the local electorate should cap the councillors by booting them out of office. That is the best way to deal with the issue. However, in exceptional circumstances, I accept that there may be a need to use reserve powers and that what I have said does not appear to apply to the people of Bedfordshire as a whole who continue to return Conservatives to the county council. When the business rate was nationalised, it was pegged to inflation, but the council tax was not. Therefore, over the years, the share of local council budgets carried by businesses and local residents has shifted significantly on to the shoulders of residents. While the business rate contribution has dropped from 29 to 22 per cent. over the past 12 or 13 years, that from council tax has increased from 20 to 26 per cent. In effect, that means that the council tax payer is subsidising the business ratepayer, a situation that is unfair and unsustainable. We need to address that. It makes sense to return the business rate to local councils if we want a fair share of the cost of local council services to be paid and to reduce the gearing effect, although that would not be an automatic panacea.