---

Council Tax Capping (Surrey)

The hon. Gentleman is completely correct. Other authorities have been nominated but have not had to go through the process of re-billing, but as my hon. Friend said, no matter where authorities are on the scale, there is a devastating impact on their ability, and the ability of the police authority concerned, to plan for the future and on job security. Of course, the re-billing aspect about which hon. Members spoke seems particularly silly. To recover £1.6 million for a cost of £1.2 million is surely bonkers. I am amazed that the Government cannot see that. That is why I described it as a purposeless macho charade. My hon. Friend spoke about localism and I spoke about the relationship between central and local government, but almost every hon. Member has spoken about the issue of the police authority in Surrey. The hon. Member for Guildford (Anne Milton) spoke about her town and a number of hon. Members spoke about airports and the problem of the M25 going through Surrey. Normally, when Back Benchers speak about difficulties in their constituency, a Minister stands up and says, "Oh well. It is the duty of Back Benchers to whinge about their constituencies and to make special pleas," but devolution is supposed to devolve power down to the local area because people there know best. The average local MP, police authority and local authority will know a good deal more about the issues affecting their area than a Government Minister, who may have never been to see what is happening on the ground. That is the nonsense of capping. We are supposed to allow local authorities to set their budgets and priorities because they know best, but central Government come in and slap a cap on them and say, "Actually, you don't know best and we're going to undermine all the priorities that you have set." The hon. Member for Guildford said that the police authority asked the DCLG for guidance at the end of its budget-setting process, but the DCLG consistently said that it had no firm plans to set a cap. That is silly. I spoke about that following a ministerial statement a few months ago. I hope that the Conservative spokesperson condemns capping in general. The issue of re-billing in Surrey and the fact that it went right through the system is not the only problem; capping in general is a problem. Central Government use a heavy hand to set priorities that may have little or no impact on the final budget, yet they have a huge impact on the quality of services. I agree with hon. Members who said that if the Government must have some kind of capping system, they need to find a way to avoid re-billing, and that going through a judicial review process, which will cost goodness knows how much more, would utterly undermine any purpose whatever. Part of the problem for police authorities is that they have no elected mandate. They raise and set taxes, but they are not directly accountable to the people from whom the taxes are raised. That probably allows the Government to do their worst in overruling the authorities' ability to set priorities. I would like police authorities to have some form of directly elected mandate and nomination of local authority representatives. That would give them a much stronger hand and the ability to say to central Government, "Don't interfere in what we're doing. We haven't only consulted; we have a direct mandate to be here and to set our own priorities and budget." Hon. Members have said that Surrey consulted. From my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Paul Holmes), I know that those in Derbyshire consulted heavily, yet central Government still overruled what the police authority was prepared to do. Some form of elected mandate would help a great deal.