ALTERNATIVE TO COUNCIL TAX

That this House deplores Labour's alternative to the council tax, which includes the abolition of charge capping, abolition of the Audit Commission, ending of compulsory competitive tendering and the repeal of the Government's proposed tightening of council spending restrictions, details of which have not yet been announced; believes that these Conservative measures enforce responsibility and restraint on profligate councils and that the inevitable consequence of their repeal would be to unleash a tidal wave of council spending requiring massive increases in rates were we so foolish as to return to them; and is of the opinion that such increases would totally undermine Labour's bogus claim that rates could ever be made fair, as the Leader of the Opposition ought to recognise, as he once described rates as `the most unjust of all taxes'.