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Council Tax Capping (Surrey)

My hon. Friend is right, of course. Only local people can judge the balance of how much they think it is right to invest in policing and what they want in return. The other irony is how much money is being wasted on regional and local government by Ministers. In the past 10 years, the combined cost of unelected regional assemblies, regional development agencies and Government offices for the regions has risen to £12.8 billion, which is £580 for every household every year. The Government should trim those costs to gain efficiencies before looking to front-line services such as policing. The hon. Member for Brent, East (Sarah Teather) raised the question of our approach to council tax capping. We would abolish central capping, because we think that residents and local communities should have the ability to cap, if that is what they want and if they decide that what is being proposed is more than they can or are willing to pay. However, that is for local communities to do at a much earlier stage in the process than the last minute. As has been pointed out, we are already in the 2009 financial year, so the savings being forced on Surrey police have been exacerbated. They are not annual savings and will have to be taken over a much shorter period. We need more local decision making, and with that should come more local accountability from the police. We have discussed our plans to have more local democracy in the form of directly elected police commissioners and the ability for local residents to introduce their own referendums on local issues, if enough of them want to do so, and that should include capping. I will leave the Minister with a final thought. The question that he must ultimately answer is simple. Why is it for him to decide to cap Surrey police's precept and not for the residents who have been so clearly represented here today by their Members of Parliament?