• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 2736 0

to point up the differences between them and the Labour Party and then worked to get out the Conservative vote — rather than indulge in recrimination against the Government — they could do very well. (Indeed, some of our councillors opposed wider capping in 1990–91 on the ground that it would protect profligate Labour councils from the electoral coup de grâce.) Conservative successes in Wandsworth and Westminster were the results of that approach. Where the Conservatives were in control of an authority, the lower the charge it set, the better we did. The reverse was true where Labour was in office. In this respect the community charge was already transforming local government. There was the prospect that, even in a bad year for the Conservative Party nationally, local government elections could now be fought and won on genuinely local issues and the local record, rather than the political control of councils swinging according to national trends — something which had always demoralized conscientious councillors of either party.

These successes, however, did not diminish the urgency of ensuring that next year’s charge levels throughout the country were kept down. Throughout May and early June papers were produced and discussions between ministers and officials held. Chris Patten and I were still at odds over the question of a general capping power. He was demanding a substantial increase in central grant, sufficient to allow us to say with credibility that responsible authorities would be able to set charges in 1991–2 no higher than in 1990–91. I put some pressure on him by refusing to allow any discussion about the level of next year’s central grant until we had reached a decision on spending controls. John Major was in two minds. On the one hand, as Chancellor, he wanted to see effective controls on public spending. On the other, perhaps as a former whip, he was worried about getting the Parliamentary Party to pass the necessary new legislation for stronger capping powers. And this was a fair point. A number of our back-benchers were now in a mood not far short of outright panic and it was difficult to know how they would react to any new legislation which appeared to give them a chance — through amendments — to overturn key aspects of the community charge on which they thought their own electoral fortunes would founder. Quite how the argument would have ended up in government I do not know.

But suddenly the whole basis of our discussions was changed by new legal advice. When we had met on the morning of Thursday 17 May the lawyers advised that even new legislation on capping could be undermined by judicial review. This seemed to me to be extraordinary. It suggested that Parliament would not be allowed by the courts to fulfil its duty to protect the citizen from unreasonable levels of taxation: it cast doubt on our ability to control public expenditure and manage the economy. At that point I asked for urgent advice about how these difficulties could be overcome.

It is easy to imagine my surprise — and initial scepticism — when as I worked through my boxes overnight on Wednesday 13 June I came across a note from my private secretary reporting a telephone conversation with government lawyers earlier that evening. Their view now was that the present legislation — let alone any future legislation — might be more robust than their earlier advice had indicated.* They told us that we would be in a position to cap large numbers of authorities as long as we made clear at an early stage in the budgetary cycle what we would regard as an excessive increase in spending — and we could achieve this without the difficulties which new legislation would have brought. This legal advice was strengthened as a result of the Government’s victory in a court case several days later against a number of local authorities appealing against capping.

On the evening of Tuesday 26 June I held a meeting of ministers to sort out exactly where we stood. The lawyers confirmed their advice that it was unlikely that we could have any greater certainty about