My answer to that is as simple as my answer to all questions about poll tax capping. It is our job to make democracy work better, not to abolish it. In our last debate on the issue a Conservative Member made the classic statement that poll tax capping could be removed when democracy worked better. As my hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould), said yesterday, we have made proposals to make that happen. We intend to introduce annual elections and to make the councillor's job easier. We shall provide for greater participation by people in the running of their services.

The Government's failure lies not in persuading Conservative, Labour or Liberal councillors to cut services but in the basic principles of the poll tax. The previous Secretary of State, the right honourable unmentionable, pronounced on 25 March that poll tax capping could not be justified. In a Radio 4 interview he made it clear that it was the job of the electorate to determine poll tax levels.