Political commentary
Mr Jenkin's cap
Charles Moore
When the Conservatives proposed the introduction of county councils in 1888, Lord Randolph Churchill welcomed it as an extension of 'Tory democracy', but
said, the only danger I see is, that the county councils may be tempted into finan- cial extravagance.' He proposed that the Government should either forbid councils to borrow, or insist that each loan that they raised be approved by Parliament. He also hoped that the councils could gradually be given greater powers, but that they should not immediately control the administration of the Poor Law and of schools.
It has taken nearly a hundred years for central government to decide that the coun- ties and their urban equivalents have suc- cumbed to the temptation of which Lord Randolph warned, so it is not surprising that Mr Patrick Jenkin's rate-capping bill which is to have its second reading next week, is seen by many councillors as a hideous novelty and an attack upon the im- memorial liberties of Englishmen. A political habit can be dignified by the name of a tradition after about 15 years, and if it is much older than that it is widely believed to be in Magna Carta. So the Association of County Councils and other rebellious Tories say that Conservatives have always been opposed to an overmighty central government and have been devoted to local autonomy.
It is true that there is a strand of Conser- vative thinking which resents central government, or, to put it in 18th century terms, trusts the country and fears the court. There is also a conservative liberal belief that the state is incompetent to regulate people in the petty and particular aspects of their lives which are generally the subjects of 'local issues'. But neither of these is the same as a faith in the freedom of local government. Modern local govern- ment in Britain did not develop so much out of the desire for local independence as from the rise of the modern state. With more people enfranchised and more duties per- formed by public agencies it seemed conve- nient to set up local bodies to carry out the more minor work. There never was a doc- trine of local autonomy.
Even the more recent development of local government has been almost acciden- tal. Governments have looked for suitable people to work their latest scheme, and as often as not have chosen councils. Since the beginning of the welfare state, the volume of the work has increased enormously, but no new principle has animated it. Councils pay for schools, but not for health, for police but not for water. The only general rule of the past 30 years has been that coun-
cils have had more and more work to do, and more and more money to do it with.
So Mr Jenkin is trying it on rather when he complains that local authority expen- diture now makes up a quarter of the total of public spending. The reason for this is that governments have chosen to parcel out their work in that way. But his opponents are also wrong to claim that government controls on their spending are unpreceden- ted attacks on local autonomy. Govern- ments constantly limit local autonomy by prescribing the duties of councils; and until the mid-1970s, they reduced it progressively by contributing higher proportions of rate support grant to councils to support their own purposes. You could even say that the rating system itself, with rateable values determined by civil servants, denies councils autonomy in their methods of taxation.
What it amounts to is that people given other people's money to spend believe that they are free, so long as that amount of money increases or at least remains static. If it diminishes, they believe that they are tyrannised. The truth is that they are now the victims, instead of the beneficiaries of a policy. Ever since 1975, that policy has been to reduce all spending and to treat local authority spending on terms comparable with the rest. Various methods have been tried. Mr Callaghan's Government cut the rate support grant. Mr Heseltine invented the 'new block grant with taper'. Then there were further experiments with other 'holdback' powers. None of these worked. The latest idea is to pick on notorious evil livers among councils and forbid them to raise their rates beyond a certain point. The bill also asks for a general power to control the rates of all local authorities, although the Government says that it hopes not to have to use it.
Given the Government's aim, then, this bill has the advantage over its predecessors that it is more likely to work, which is partly why it is being particularly strongly oppos- ed. If you are simply not allowed to put up your rates, there is not much that you can do about it. You cannot persuade the elec- torate to demand the right to pay higher rates, and you will probably bring greater trouble upon yourself than upon the Government by behaving as some Labour councils now suggest and refusing to govern locally on the grounds that the law has made it impossible for you.
But even if the Government can be ac- quitted of tyranny, is it, as Mr David Howell asks, being prudent? The present bill is the result of desperation rather than deep thought. For years the Tories have been stuck with a commitment of varying
vagueness to do something about the rates; yet in the last Government the Cabinet repeatedly rejected the abolition of rates, or even their supplementation by other taxes. But early in 1983, Mrs Thatcher was at a loss for interesting things to put in the manifesto, and so forced her colleagues in- to a policy designed to win the support of suffering ratepayers. The present bill is a 'manifesto commitment', which is thought by some to make it binding on the loyalty of Tory MPs, but which also makes it more in- flexible than legislation not so widely billed in advance. And if such a bill, with the strong personal backing of the Prime Minister and the presumed approval of the electorate, were to attract, say, 30 Conser- vative votes against, and so to split the party, would it be worth it?
One suspects that Mr Jenkin himself does not think it would. He admits that he does not 'relish' rate-capping and that the business will be 'cumbersome'. One feels that, having hoped to be Chancellor of the Exchequer, he accepted the Environment without much joy. Now, of course, he has to get his bill through to retain his position at all, but he may privately wish that his leader were not so impatient and that he will be moved to something better by 1985 when the rows with the rate-capped coun- cils begin.
If, as is almost certain, the bill does become law (perhaps with the removal of the general power to cap as a last-minute concession to the rebels), the Government will be slightly more successful at control- ling local spending. The simple act of cap- ping, rather than the power to take whole councils into commission and administer their areas centrally, prevents the Govern- ment from becoming embroiled in prob- lems which it cannot understand. Local government will still have plenty of discre- tion, just slightly less money. The trouble with the bill, or rather, with government policy towards local government, is that it jumps on the symptoms of problems without addressing their causes. The scope of council work has now become very large, thanks to government, and councillors are therefore not fit to perform it. The answer is not that they should become full-time, paid, sub-MPs, but that the duties of their councils should be reduced. Is it really necessary that councils be responsible for education (37 per cent of all local authority spending in 1981-2)? Few councils are guilty of great wickedness, merely of the in- competence that comes from having great- ness thrust upon them. Councillors tend to be rather self-important, and so may not have noticed that their campaign to defend themselves seems to have won no public support at all. But it actually is sad that so few of us esteem our local worthies. We might do so if they were more local, if they had nothing to do with national parties, and if their work were once more concerned only with the very small questions which a man who knows a village or a street can answer better than anyone in Marsham St.
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