---

Council Tax (New Valuation Lists for England) Bill

Of course my right hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and the Minister is blushing as we speak. Let us move on briefly to Tony Travers—a noted expert—who said:"““There must now be a risk the reform of local government finance becomes the object of near-permanent official inquiry. This issue would have been pushed into the longest of the long grass.””" Under a further headline, ““Miliband baulks a funding decision””, we read:"““Mr. Miliband has baulked his first difficult fence as a cabinet minister.””" We have an interesting piece from the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford) in which he said:"““There is no case for postponing a review of the system, which is already 14 years old. It is getting increasingly out of date.””" There is an editorial piece, ““Kicked into touch again””, which says:"““Yet ministers have bottled-out of grasping the council funding nettle, and passed the buck to the next PM, presumably Gordon Brown or, judging by their date for the next revaluation . . . a Conservative.””"