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Council Tax Capping (Surrey)

At this stage, I am not prepared to reconsider, because I think it would be wrong and would set a wholly inappropriate precedent. Surrey had the opportunity to look at things again last year, but it chose to ignore that and now it is paying the price. Even though it knew what the price would be, it is complaining. That is completely inappropriate, and it would be a wrong precedent to set. For that reason, I am pretty sure that I will not reconsider this matter in the way that the hon. Gentleman would like. We will not have the final word today, however, as the capping of the authority in 2009-10 is subject to the approval of the House of Commons. A draft order to cap it is being laid tomorrow, and we expect the House to debate the order at the end of this month or at the beginning of July. Hon. Members are right to vent their spleen about this, but they ought to vent it at Surrey police authority for not managing its books in the way in which 420 other billing and precepting authorities have been doing.