POLL TAX

Early day motion 467, tabled 20 March 2001 by Gordon Prentice (Labour). Signed by 59 members.

That this House notes that the poll tax was abolished 10 years ago on 21st March 1991 and that it was widely regarded as the most unfair and inequitable system of taxation devised since the Middle Ages; recalls that the Right honourable Member for Kensington and Chelsea, the Shadow Chancellor, was the Minister for Local Government who brought in the poll tax in 1988 and that the Right honourable Member for Wokingham was the man who dreamt the idea up as head of the Downing Street Policy Unit; and considers the enthusiastic support given to the tax by the Right honourable Member for Richmond (Yorks) and the Right honourable Member for Maidstone and The Weald to have been significant errors of judgment.

Signatures by party: Labour 53, Labour/Co-operative 4, Liberal Democrat 1, Plaid Cymru 1.