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Council Tax Capping (Surrey)

I am sure that all hon. Members agree that such increases are totally unacceptable and that we do not want to see such levels again—council tax payers certainly do not want to. Successive years of grant increases and the use of our capping powers led to the average band D increase in England coming down to just 3 per cent. in 2009-10. The average increase per household this year is even lower. At 2.6 per cent., it is the lowest average increase per household since council tax was introduced by the Conservatives in 1993. Our involvement with Surrey police authority started just over a year ago. One local authority and several police authorities, including Surrey, set excessive council tax increases in 2008-09. We designated Surrey for capping, but after considering its challenge, decided not to cap it in-year. Instead, we set it a notional budget requirement for that year, which was lower than the budget requirement set by the authority. That meant that the authority was allowed to retain its excessive increases for 2008-09 and did not have to re-bill. Our action in 2008-09 limited Surrey's scope for increases in future financial years. We also gave it an opportunity to avoid setting an excessive increase in 2009-10. Unfortunately, Surrey did not take that opportunity and has set an excessive increase for 2009-10.