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Council Tax (New Valuation Lists for England) Bill

My hon. Friend is wholly right to point out that when the council tax was introduced it was received with some acclaim on both sides of the House, and we did not then hear such arguments from the Labour party. The Minister who had the misfortune of taking the legislation through the House was Michael Portillo. We specifically looked at how property could be revalued from time to time, and I remember an exchange in debate in the middle of the night between the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett), who has just left the Government again, and my right hon. Friend, as he then was, about whether we should have inflatable balloons floating over people’s back yards, which is no sillier a suggestion than those we have heard this weekend. This is not just a question of balancing function and who pays. The Minister of Communities and Local Government has forgotten that the whole point about whether local government finance is to succeed is where the balance lies between Treasury funding and the raising of tax locally. That is what the Government have failed to address.