Tribune, 7 February 1992
Paul Anderson quizzes
Labour's environment spokesman, Bryan Gould, about the election campaign and
Labour's plans for local government
Bryan Gould is a busy man. On top of a massive brief as
Labour's front-bench environment spokesman, which covers everything from
standard spending assessments to global warming, he is due to play a major
role in Labour's election campaign, just as he did in 1987.
When Neil Kinnock is out of London, John Cunningham, the
party's campaigns co-ordinator, will take the chair for Labour's morning campaign
press conferences. And when Cunningham is away - as he often will be, not least
because his own constituency, Copeland, is anything but safe - Gould will be
master of ceremonies.
He also has particular responsibility for the campaign in
London, where Labour could win or lose the election and where the reputation of
Labour councils is likely to be a major factor. At present, though, there is no
doubt what is most on his mind: making sure that Labour wins the campaign
battle on local government taxation.
"The poll tax is certain to be a dominant election
issue whether the election is on April 9 or May 7," he says. "I think
it has got to be one of those two dates now. If it's April 9, the election will
take place when the bills have just arrived. If it's May 7, the campaign will
start the week the bills go out.
"The question is whether we can repeat our success so
far in equating poll tax with the Tory Government. Michael Heseltine will be
doing all he can to blame Labour local authorities for high poll tax bills. On
everyone's bill there will be a figure for 'other adjustments', which is really
a euphemism for non-collection costs, and he will say: 'That's what's pushed up
your bill.'
"So we're working very hard right now and through to
the election to explain that these are problems intrinsic to the poll tax. They
are not the fault of any local authority, Labour or otherwise. Even the Prime
Minister described the poll tax as ‘virtually uncollectable'. We're going to
dump it on the Tories' doorstep and say: 'That's where responsibility
lies'."
In line with this, Labour has done its best in the past
fortnight to emphasise the extent of the chaos created by the poll tax. Last
week, David Blunkett, the party's local government spokesman, released figures
showing that more than 10,500,000 summonses for poll tax debt had been issued.
Both he and Gould have repeatedly blamed government incompetence for the recent
breakdown in poll-tax non-payment prosecutions caused by the refusal of several
magistrates' courts to refuse to accept computerised records as valid evidence.
So far, the Labour poll tax assault seems to be working,
although it is a moot point what happens if the Tories are panicked into using
the budget on March 10 to reduce bills, as they did last year.
There is certainly less mileage for Labour in the council
tax, the Government's replacement for the poll tax from spring 1993. A banded
property tax, it is not so radically different from Labour's own proposed
"fair rates" system. Indeed, there has been much speculation that a
Labour government might find it useful to adapt the council tax to its own
purposes.
Gould says that Labour has considered this option but has
now rejected it. "One thing we've always been clear about is that we are
detennined to get rid of the poll tax as early as possible - which now means, unfortunately, April 1
1993. When we get to office we will pursue whatever course takes us most
directly to a position on that date when poll tax ends and the fair rates
system begins. Now, we did concede last year, because it made sense and it was
reassuring to local government, that, if it had emerged that the council tax
preparations offered the quickest way; to get rid of the poll tax and pick up
on our fair: rates proposals, we would not be dog in the manger on political or
ideological grounds and; say: 'No, it's a Tory idea and we’ll have nothing to
do with it.'
"But that was only ever a possibility if preparations
for the council tax were acceptable to us, if the valuation was a proper
valuation and not a Mickey Mouse operation. In the event, the council tax
preparations are a lot of rubbish and virtually unusable by us. In almost any
conceivable circumstances we will be legislating to pick up the 1973 rates
valuations which were in operation until 1990, not because it's ideal but
because it's the quickest way."
In anticipation of Tory attacks on the profligacy of Labour
councils, the Labour leadership has pulled out all the stops to dissuade Labour
local authorities from going on a spending spree in the expectation of a Labour
government, as many did in the run-up to 1987. The implicit message is that
Labour will not bail out anyone who gets into trouble under the existing Tory
rules.
"A lot of people got their fingers burnt last
time," says Gould. "Our message now is that councils should frame
budgets and take other decisions on the basis of known facts and not future
hopes and expectations. One can't stop people from hoping, but no prudent and
sensible authority will budget other than on the assumption that the current
regime will apply during the next financial year. We're not saying that with a
Labour government there would not be some relaxation of rules on spending, but
that's a separate issue."
The main areas for relaxation are the ending of the
"ring-fencing'' of receipts from council house sales, which earmarks them
for repayment of borrowing, and the abolition of central government
"capping" of local government taxation (although not until 1993).
"On the capital side, there's a total of between £6,000
million and £8,000 million in capital receipts and we think it's crazy that
this should be tied up when it's desperately needed, especially for house-building,"
says Gould. "We'll progressively relax those constraints, although not
overnight. The construction industry resources just aren't there to use it all.
"On the revenue side, we can promise nothing for the
next year. In future years, we're absolutely clear: no capping. We're
certainly looking to local authorities being responsible when setting fair
rates bills, but it will be their judgment as to what they think is a proper
programme to put before the electors. Annual elections will subject their judgment
to the judgment of the electors. In terms of grant, we're not promising more
taxpayers' money, but we are promising a better and fairer distribution."
Tb ensure that councils provide "value for money",
Labour plans to introduce a "Quality Commission" to oversee
standards of services, with powers to send in its own management to take over
and improve a poor service or to compel the council to put it out to tender.
That, says Gould, is the only area where Labour will retain the compulsory element
in competitive tendering: in all other cases, councils which want to put services
out to tender will be free to do so but will not have to.
That existing councils spend and do is only part of the
election problem, however. The Tories have also begun to attack on grounds of
cost Labour's plans for regional government in England. Inside the Labour
Party, the scheme has been widely criticised as nothing more than a sop to get
northern English MPs to vote for Scottish devolution. Many commentators believe
that the commitment to regional government will be quietly forgotten as soon
as a Scottish parliament is up and running.
Gould insists that regional government will not be ditched.
"The objective will be to lead, within the lifetime of a first Labour
government, to legislation which will provide for regional government,"
he says. "We can't be absolutely certain that the legislative framework we
will establish will be implemented by that first government.
"But, to give a flavour of the sort of timing we'd be thinking
of, it has been suggested, and I wouldn't dissent from it, that it might be
possible to hold the first election for regional assemblies at the same time as
the general election after next." As for paying for regional government,
he says it "would be financed by block grant".
The Tories have attempted as well to raise the spectre of a
free-spending "Greater London Council Mark Two" emerging from
Labour's plans for an all-London authority. Gould is keen to emphasise that it
won't be like that at all. "It will have no powers to intervene in what
the boroughs do now," he says. "What we need is a strategic
authority which does what is not being done at present and does in a
democratically accountable way what these numberless quangos now do."
Land-use, economic and environmental planning, emergency services and transport
would come under the new body, but not housing.
If local government is already a focus for the election
campaign, the same cannot be said for Gould's other responsibilities as
environment spokesman: carbon dioxide emissions and climate change,
destruction of the ozone layer, chemical waste, nuclear reprocessing and so on.
With the economy deep in recession and the Green Party at
around 2 per cent in the opinion polls, the received wisdom is that there are
fewer votes in green issues than there were three years ago.
Nevertheless, they remain important, says Gould, and,
especially in the south-east and among younger voters, they could affect the
election result. "One of the reasons that they have gone off the boil is
that, while the Tories have lost interest, we have established a good comprehensive
position. While I wouldn't say that the environment campaigners have given up
pressing us, they feel they've made their number with us. Our job now is to
bring these issues back to the fore." With the profile of environmental
politics due to be given a much-needed boost by the United Nations Conference
on Environment and Development, coming up in June, he could be making a
shrewd judgment.
