Rich & Twick letter on Vincent Cable from Francis King

Dear Sir,

The letter of last week of Vincent Cable MP - headlined “Complex Government formula a bad deal for councils” - is unusual, not least for the dismay it causes.

A committed constituency MP, Vincent writes as Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats and as their Shadow Chancellor. As such, in all conscience, one might have expected a ringing declaration of where his party stands nationally, and on how that standpoint might resolve some of the very real problems on government funding, that Richmond and its Lib-Dem Council faces.

Vincent rightly stresses the importance of the Lyons Review of Local Government Finance that is due in the next few weeks. But he then goes on to say that the review is “unlikely to change the system of taxation better to reflect the ability to pay.”

Opposition parties have had ten years to get their act together. The Lib-Dems have had one clear policy throughout on this issue - that Council tax should be based on income and not on property. Yet here is Vincent, his party’s spokesman on the issue, accepting defeat - and doing so before the first hurdle. If the Lib-Dem main plank fails to pass muster before the independent scrutiny of Lyons and his experts, then his party has to think again or forfeit credibility. All Vincent has to offer is a switch “returning business rates from central to local government” - but that too would be subject to a “complex government formula”.

Could not this Shadow Chancellor revert to first principles? Too many Cabinet decisions, these last 10 years, have been taken by the Blair/Brown duumvirate, and too often, without the clarity and support of those officers of the Crown, senior civil servants - as the former Cabinet Secretary, Lord Butler, has outspokenly deplored in recent weeks. That this overturning of well-tried and trusted democratic traditions can have bewildering, if not disastrous, local consequences was the subject of Liam Halligan’s articles on the NHS in last Sunday’s Telegraph, and in his Dispatches programme on Monday’s Channel 4.

In Richmond for instance, its Primary Care Trust has kept within its budget, until this year. Now it has been “top-sliced” £1.5 million, and it has kept its overspend to this level, thanks largely to cutbacks in learning disability services and those for the mentally ill. Neighbouring Kingston, however, had an overspend last year of over £7 million. This year its PCT has been allowed to increase its overspend by £15 million to £22.5 million. This is monstrous misgovernment for all to see - a waste of resources that reflects nothing but discredit on both the Health Secretary and the Chancellor. Richmond should be the first to call this an unacceptable nonsense - with its Twickenham MP taking the lead.

Yours sincerely,

Francis King