The Liberal Democrats ALTER

Summer 2008 Landscape

Are we shy of Cable's shift?

Vince Cable caused a stir last week by suggesting that reforming the property tax, rather than replacing it with income tax, might be best for local government finance in Britain. The Scottish National Party has recently found Local Income Tax (LIT) more prickly than pretty in its efforts to reform north of the Border.
Writing in the Guardian last week, Vince wisely points out that under no circumstances will Liberal Democrats be in a position any time soon to introduce LIT. It will need coalition partners - and none of them want to abandon the bizarrely disfunctional Council Tax.
ALTER has always opposed LIT but accepts that the Lib Dems have made it a kind of "Clause 4" Holy Grail. So we've come up with a plan to merge property taxes into a "simple, unified, fair and green tax system" in which individuals and companies would only receive one tax bill. By stating on the tax form details of all properties owned (our land-value based property tax would be paid by owners not occupiers) and linking the property register to a continually updated and publicly available land value map, the "notional income" from property would be taxed alongside income from earnings and investment. Sweden has a similar system - and also has LIT.
Prompted by an article in the Party's weekly newspaper Liberal Democrat News on 1st August, in which Vince dared to reaffirm the commitment to a "fair, income-related" replacement for Council Tax (which upset some in ALTER, since he was recently made one of their Vice Presidents) Chair of ALTER Cllr Tony Vickers (author of Location Matters ) has written to him to suggest a meeting. The highly respected Shadow Chancellor has said he wants ALTER to help the Party develop its recently agreed tax reform package - which includes land value taxation - into a set of proposals that could command support across the political spectrum.
Cable recently agreed to help the cross-party Professional Land Reform Group, chaired by former Labour Leader of Hounslow Borough and Vice Chair of Transport for London Dave Wetzel, to form an All-Party Parliamentary Group.

ALTER at Bournemouth 08

Four months since any of you heard from "libdemsalter". If you first gave us your email address at our Liverpool Conference Fringe, where Vince Cable was the speaker my apologies for taking so long to do anything with it.

Another Lib Dem Conference looms

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Economics still matters! ALTER still has something to say. And Vince is saying it - again!! Alongside him at our Bournemouth Fringe this time (Sunday 8pm) will be Dr Adrian Wrigley of Cambridge, who calls his seriously radical idea "Systemic Fiscal Reform".
Conference is not the best place for a presentation of 102 slides about it - but we've asked Adrian to distil those parts of SFR that relate to Tax, Housing and Social Mobility into 20 minutes. Vince will then respond, before we open the subject up for debate.
ALTER submitted a topical motion for Conference on Credit Crunch and Housing Crisis but the Parliamentary Party got its motion in first, with Vince's blessing, so our next ploy is to see if we can improve that Housing Motion.
We will be producing our own ALTERnative Conference Preview for delegates at Bournemouth. Before that though, our quarterly newsletter Landscape should reach you, by email preferably.
Membership subscriptions can be paid by PayPal. They are almost our only source of funds to enable us to hold Fringe meetings, which get more expensive every year. So please consider joining ALTER, or renewing if you haven't done so yet.

Debt and house prices: whose problems?

Published in this week's Liberal Democrat News: a letter by ALTER Vice Chair John Pincham.

Owe the bank £100 and it's your problem, owe them £100 million and it's their problem. Add a few noughts and one has the developing relationship between the banks and the Treasury/us. Helping first time buyer? - yes to get deeply into debt.

Fail to lend the banks billions and they'll stop granting mortgages. House prices would fall, perhaps to 1997 pre-Labour government levels, and home owners would cease voting Labour.

With lower prices and owning second and third homes less financially attractive, more houses would be available and affordable by first time buyers whose lower mortgage needs might once again be financed by building societies from savings.

Keep up the letter writing - and let us know about your successes.

ABC: ALTER - Banking - Cable

ALTER departed from its pet subject of Land Value Taxation to suggest an Emergency Motion for Liverpool Conference, which Vince Cable and the Lib Dem Treasury Team supported and adapted. It was debated for 20 minutes on Sunday 9th March and almost unanimously passed as new policy.

Christopher Glover, who helped draft the Motion and introduced it in a 4-minute speech - his first - to Conference, has experience of investigating accounts of major international banks and is an expert witness in banking fraud cases. Christopher admits that his main interest in ALTER is, like others, reform of taxation so as collect economic rent - but also like most ALTER members he recognises the close link between banking, imprudent lending based on inflated property values and the need for tax reform.

The wording of the Motion is below:-

SUSTAINABLE BANKING

Conference

i) Recognises that confidence in the British banking system has been severely dented by:

a. Imprudent levels of bank lending in relation to both consumer credit and mortgage finance;

b. the use of unsustainable business practices by some banks who have achieved rapid growth in consumer lending based on commercial borrowing rather than deposits;

c. the imposition of unreasonably high penalty charges for customers.

ii) Notes the failure of bank regulation and supervision which led to the first run on a UK retail bank for over a century and the Government’s use of tax payer funds to bail out Northern Rock which are yet to be repaid.

iii) Believes that the long period of time taken by the Government to nationalise Northern Rock after it became clear that no suitable private bidder was willing to buy Northern Rock and repay taxpayer loans in a timely fashion has caused considerable damage to the UK’s banking reputation.

Conference therefore calls on the Government to:

1. Ensure that all taxpayer loans to Northern Rock are repaid as quickly as is reasonably possible.

2. Introduce a new regulatory regime to address the inadequacies of the current tripartite arrangements on the Treasury, Bank of England and FSA and strengthen the supervision of UK banks with particular regard to liquidity adequacy, systemic risk and robust stress testing of business models.

3. Confirm the Bank of England’s independence of market supervision- but revise present arrangements concerning their ‘lender of last resort’ responsibilities; in particular ensuring that any bank which receives credit from the Bank of England in its capacity as the lender of last resort, does so on condition that if necessary the Bank of England can take management control.

4. Introduce a new Deposit Protection Scheme paid for by banks - as has proved successful in the United States - to provide 100% cover for personal deposits of up to £50,000 and if necessary allow immediate access for depositors in the event of a bank failure and to make the scheme widely known.

5. To ensure that there is greater banking stability, using capital requirements as a tool to reflect the state of the economic cycle and therefore deter prevent large fluctuations in lending particularly in the housing market.

Economics as if people mattered

Vince Cable was the main speaker at ALTER Spring Conference Fringe, on the day he was made a Vice President of the group. We had asked him to talk not about LVT itself, but about a wider range of radical Liberal economic policies that link to LVT. The meeting was intended to ‘launch’ the ALTER project to mark the 1909 Peoples Budget centenary with a book of essays.
Alter Chair Cllr Tony Vickers chaired the meeting, introducing the speakers and asking ALTER Secretary Jock Coats to explain why we’re planning the book.
Vince Cable surprised us by immediately but firmly returning the focus to LVT, asking ALTER to continue its valued role by “challenging the Party to come up with practical policies on the subject”, translating ideas espoused by a wide and growing range of modern commentators, such as Sam Brittain and the Editor of the ‘Economist’. He remarked on the “extreme and growing inequalities of wealth” and stated that “it is widely understood that rent should be taxed”, citing the gift of carbon permits to large energy producing companies and utilities as examples of how not to deal with “natural opportunities to accrue wealth”.
“There is a dangerous illusion that private landed property can be treated like a bank”, he said. “We have to find ways to tackle our obsession with private property”. He concluded his speech to around 100 Lib Dem members by posing two questions that he wanted ALTER to answer:-
1. How can the Party take forward its commitment to LVT in ‘non threatening’ ways?
2. Do we leave the current property tax system alone and capture rent in other ways?
On behalf of the younger ALTER membership, former Federal Executive member and Lib Dem Voice figure James Graham responded from the platform. He said that currently the country was “going backwards on social mobility” and claimed this was largely due to the failure of Governments during recent decades to tax wealth acquired through property. “We need to deploy stronger moral arguments in support of LVT” but recognise that “inter-generational arguments can be divisive” and we should never forget there are asset-poor older people as well as asset-rich ones. “The division in society is not simply between old/rich and young/poor. We need to emphasise solidarity among all who rent.” Graham saved special disapproval for Inheritance Tax.
A lively discussion session followed. Gordon Williams wanted to know if LVT would capture the value which good schools added to their catchment area. Bernard Salmon wanted Vince to say if he supported the old Liberal policy of co-ownership – mutuality – but got a luke-warm response: “Workers today are not so comfortable with co-ownership. They’d rather not have their assets tied up in their employment.” However Vince didn’t dismiss the idea and pointed to the success of the rather complex John Lewis Partnership model.
Neil Upstone of Cambridge was another who supported mutuality – in his case, it was community land trusts that interested him. Jock Coats, Chair of Oxfordshire CLT, bemoaned the difficulty of acquiring land to put into such Trusts and felt they would help make land use more dynamic. He applauded Vince for keeping the pressure on his colleagues and ALTER to develop policies on land value capture.
Richard Gadsden of St Helens wanted to know if ALTER supported using auctions for landing slots and other natural monopoly opportunities. Vince said that even Richard Branson supported the idea. Certainly, said Vince, he wanted just this kind of fiscal measure to capture economic rent.
A young lady from Vince’s own Constituency in Twickenham made the perceptive point that people tend to become disengaged from the Welfare State through acquiring personal property wealth. This was the kind of question that ALTER wanted to explore but time ran out on the discussion and Tony finished by thanking Vince and announcing his (and Leader Nick Clegg's) appointments as Vice Presidents of ALTER .

Party Leaders accept offer of ALTER honours

The new Leader of the Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg MP, and his Deputy and Shadow Lib Dem Chancellor Vince Cable MP have both been invited - and accepted - offers to become Honorary Vice Presidents of ALTER. The 2008 AGM of ALTER will take place at the Party's Spring Conference 7-9 March in Liverpool and it is expected that ALTER members will be only too pleased to confirm these appointments.

ALTER Chair, Cllr Tony Vickers, said when hearing about the Leader's acceptance: "To have the new Leader, his narrowly defeated rival Chris Huhne and his esteemed Deputy and Acting Leader for 64 days in 2007 all associated with ALTER is a great honour to us and a measure of how much progress we have achieved in recent years towards getting the policy of Land Value Taxation accepted by the modern heirs of Liberalism."

Another View on Clegg/Huhne

The following posting was offered by ALTER supporter (not a paid-up member) Cllr David Murray of Wolverhampton. It was written after David watched Sunday's Politics Show on BBC

"I am sure Nick is a "very very nice young man" with a large parliamentary majority on his side. But this may be the result of personality rather than politics. Like his Conservative look-alike, I get the feeling he supports policies that he thinks will be popular, even if by so doing, he demonstrates a lack of consistency over time.

"I fear that in a Leadership role, he would give way to pressure for consensus, not having strong beliefs of his own which he would be prepared to champion against all odds. It is all very well being angry about injustice, and wanting to do something about it, but we need thought-through solutions that address the realities of our time.

"Lib Dems need a bold and radical leader who has the courage of his convictions, and the will and commitment to see them through. Ming has played a valuable caretaker role, but has not moved the party forward. Some may think that a "media celebrity" would attract votes from an apathetic public on the basis of personality, but is that what we want and need at this time?

"We have to inspire our own membership to go out and spread the message, not rely on a TV poll of popularity which is here today and gone tomorrow. I am convinced that Chris is the right person to lead the party, and provide that inspiration, and have not changed my mind from the last leadership elections.

"The media and general public are not voting in this present contest, and I hope that Lib Dem members will support Chris. He alone has the knowledge and experience to challenge Gordon Brown. Nick's offer of being prepared to go to prison for refusing an ID card is no substitute."

Why NOT Huhne?

As the Party's only group existing to promote economic reform, you would expect us to endorse the candidacy of our President of the past five years, Chris Huhne. Your expectations are met.

This is a personal message from ALTER's Chair, Cllr Tony Vickers but comes to you with the support of ALTER's Executive Committee.

Chris has probably done more to impress the media and the wider public of our Party's 'green' credentials than any other MP. Together with Vince Cable (another supporter of LVT who surprised me by claiming to 'belong' to ALTER at this year's Conference) he has 'branded' the Green Tax Switch as a serious policy tool for tackling Climate Change, to the extent that the Tories now claim they invented it!

When the Planet could be facing melt-down in our childrens' lifetimes, what matters is "The Economy Stupid!" as a US President famously said. If our future isn't 'green', then its scary. Sure, the Home Office brief is important to voters - but if Lib Dems are to actually achieve a share of power at the national level, which must be our aim, the key to being actually able to solve the nation's problems lies in economics and not in immigration policy, policing or the courts. Having a Leader who offers us Hope and real solutions, who is 'media-savvy' but not too media friendly, who can draw on experience of life before and beyond politics - and has actually led something before! (not just 'something' but a City firm of international financial analysts) - seems to be what we need at this time.

It is not just that Chris has loyally supported the radical economic analysis that goes with LVT. Much more importantly for the Party, of the two men we can choose from Chris has clearly got the more powerful grasp of the most important aspect of government: economics. When we have a Government led by perhaps the most formidable Chancellor for 70 years, it is essential that our Leader can match - if not exceed - Gordon Brown's economic credentials in the Commons and among the Westminster chattering classes. The first job of our new Leader is to convince the wider electorate that the ex-Chancellor has no economic clothes.

It puzzles me therefore that Chris is seemingly not seen as the obvious choice for Leader at this time. Most organisations would give their eye teeth to have him at the helm. His age and CV are perfect for any CEO job. He stood last time and is therefore better known to the electorate that matters (Party members) and moreover he did pretty well and has a ready-made campaign team.

Nick Clegg, a younger man who looks remarkably like another Opposition Leader already in the Commons (!), was given front runner status by the media before the starting gun has been fired, I find that puzzling and slightly disconcerting. It was reassuring to learn that Nick mentioned Site Value Rating in a televised cross-party discussion soon after nominations closed, because ALTER has never had a response from him on the subject previously. Perhaps that shows hoe mainstream our ideas now are in the Party. Also many MPs and other Lib Dems I respect (including ALTER Vice President Edward Davey MP) have come out for Clegg.

But Nick was still working for his first degree in 1989 when Chris was writing Real World Economics for Penguin - a mass readership for the subject, if there is such a thing. Chris has an almost unrivalled grasp of the links between economics and politics that appear in every aspect of local service delivery and 'greening' society. Nick can deliver the right words on economics but to my mind lacks the necessary 'gravitas' in it. As Chris has said, Nick will make an excellent Leader of our Party - one day.

So whilst we ought to wait to hear what each has to say directly to us in their manifesto and - if possible, at a hustings before we finally make up our minds, ALTER members in particular ought to be asking one question first of all: "Why NOT Huhne?"

For want of an answer thus far in the campaign, I'm left to conclude that Chris is right when he says "don't expect a comfortable ride with me as your Leader". Some people in the cosy Westminster circle of the Party may not want Real World Economics to intrude upon their political lives. But the more I hear scary stories about how the world's leaders are not taking climate change seriously, and of impending 'credit crunch', the more I am convinced that what our Party and our country need is a Leader who can demonstrate with comfort, sincerity and utmost believability that only radical economic reforms will secure for humanity a Liberal future - or any future at all, never mind how well the police perform.

ALTER President stands for Leader of Lib Dems

ALTER's President Chris Huhne, MP for Eastleigh since 2005 and the Liberal Democrats' Environment Spokesperson in Parliament, was first to declare himself as candidate to lead the Party following the resignation of Sir Menzies Campbell.

Chris has always been a stalwart supporter of Land Value Taxation. In 1990, as a financial journalist covering the fall of Soviet Russia, he came across the famous Open Letter to Gorbachev in which many of the world's leading economists urged the new Russian Leader to adopt LVT as part of its transformation to a free market economy. This renewed his interest in tax reform as a powerful instrument of progressive politics. Ever since, he has been among the pioneers of modern British fiscal thinking and public ally to Land Taxers from all parties.

He told me this when I first met him at his City offices in 1999, when he was Director of one of the leading firms of financial analysts and I ran the Henry George Foundation. Shortly afterwards he became an MEP. He gave up a safe seat as a European Parliamentarian making his name as Economic Rapporteur for the Liberal Group at Strasbourg to enter Westminster politics - the only place from which to have a crack at leading a UK political party.

He first came to the fore as a national figure in January 2006, when he surprised many outside the Lib Dems by standing as Leader to succeed Charles Kennedy. He came an impressive second then and although the bookies don't yet have him as favourite to succeed Sir Ming I believe he will be an outstanding Leader. The timing of this election is perfect for him and comes after he successfully steered a radical set of policies on Climate Change through the Party. With neither Simon Highes nor Charles Kennedy standing this time, he has a campaign team already well-oiled from last year and will know what his fellow contender Nick Clegg (also a former MEP) has to do to win.

As for which of the two is more 'left' or 'right', one of the joys of being a supporter of LVT is that you breaks out of the left-right paradigm. You can be both an Economic Liberal and a Social Liberal. You can cut taxes on enterprise, boost free trade and achieve economic justice and sustainable development all at the same time - only by the Green Tax Switch which Chris helped to invent!

ALTER does not know where Nick Clegg stands on LVT - but will be asking him.

Meanwhile Chris wrote the Foreword for my book Location Matters: Recycling Britain's Wealth published last month. I know many of ALTER's Executive Committee will join me in urging all ALTER members and supporters to help ensure he becomes the next Leader of the Liberal Democrats.

Party members can register their support for Chris' campaign at http://www.chris2win.org/

Landscape in Lobby to Lib Dem MPs

All 63 Liberal Democrat MPs will shortly receive a copy of the pre-Conference issue of ALTER's newsletter Landscape, together with the book Location Matters: Recycling Britain's Wealth

The Party's Conference, its supreme policy making body, meets to debate the Party's latest tax policy reform proposals on Tuesday 17th September. In his covering letter to MPs, ALTER Chair Tony Vickers pleads for them not to oppose a call to drop reference in the Tax Motion to Local Income Tax (LIT) as the fairer alternative to Council Tax.

ALTER claims the Motion implicitly accepts that LIT so waters down the Lib Dems' much vaunted Green Tax Switch (by replacing a local property tax, albeit a very unfair one, with a tax on earnings) that it is almost worthless. Instead the campaign group, which has Environment Spokesman and 2006 Leadership contender Chris Huhne MP as its President, wants the Tax Commission to be re-formed exclusively to urgently tackle the unfinished business of developing new land tax proposals, which last year's Conference asked it to do - but which, ALTER claims, it didn't attempt.

The letter to MPs ends:

What we believe to be utter folly is the scrapping of any domestic property tax without at the same time replacing it with a fairer one. We cannot imagine any of the likely contenders for Lib Dem Chancellor being foolish enough to do it, so why persist in pretending that we would?

ALTER's newsletter includes extracts of correspondence between Vickers and Party Leader Sir Menzies Campbell, in which Vickers claims that LIT is less popular than a 'fairer property tax'. Vickers, who was a member of the Tax Commission and has studied property taxes for ten years, claims the Party is misleading Conference by saying in the Tax Motion that Sir Michael Lyons' recent report on local government favoured LIT as a fairer tax.

Vickers' book sets out what those proposals should be: primarily a national land value tax implemented fully over two Parliaments to replace at least £50bn/yr of taxes on earnings and enterprise.

Press Release: Location Matters

The publisher has asked ALTER to produce a suitable Press Release aimed at Lib Dem activists for their Chairman's book, of which you were notified on August 12th. Please download it and forward it on. ALTER will receive half of all profits from the book.

As the 'supply chain' for the book is now in place, please could readers place their orders for it now from tonyvickers@phonecoop.coop. Add £1 to the cover price for postage and packing. Cheques should be made payable to Modern Maps and sent to Tony Vickers, 62 Craven Road, Newbury, RG14 5NJ

Anyone undertaking to write a review of the book for any suitable publication should email the author and publisher immediately. Between us we will ensure that you receive a free copy for the purpose.

The official Launch date is 21st September. You are welcome to attend the author's talk about how he hopes his book will help focus modern politicians' minds on the problems which the Peoples Budget of 1909 failed to solve - because Parliament rejected Lloyd George's Land Tax. See http://www.1909.org.uk This will take place at 11 Mandeville Place, London W1U 3AJ at 2.30pm, as the first in the season's HGF Lunchtime Talks. If you are not a member of HGF but wish to attend, please contact HGF's Chairman David Triggs on 0775 361 8558 to let him know you plan to come.

]]> Foreword by Chris Huhne MP

AS WE APPROACH the centenary of Lloyd George’s 1909 People’s
Budget, this book is a timely reminder of one of its key themes:
location matters. Despite living in a largely ‘virtual’ world of internet
and teleconferencing, the issue of ‘where’ matters as much as
ever and is still vital to politics, community and society. The land
question has not gone away just because we don’t rely on British
land for Britain’s food supply and industrial raw materials. Instead
land lies behind the crises in affordable housing and the lack of
public transport infrastructure.
Vickers combines spatial and political awareness with many years
of careful academic research to give us a very competent and readable
oversight of the issues surrounding land values and land value
taxation. Like growing numbers of people in progressive politics, I
have long believed that the behaviour of imperfect land markets
needs to be addressed by modern government. Neither the property
market nor the tax system are fit for purpose in the modern age
without a carefully constructed land value tax.
The reasons for this have been known to the initiated since Adam
Smith. They are too often ignored and indeed kept from the wider
public by vested interests. This book is a primer for anyone who
wants to help create a more equitable, efficient and sustainable
Britain.
There are few people in Britain today who have done more than
Tony Vickers to bring the land question back into public debate.
In the past decade, numerous studies by and for governments in
these islands have come and gone, some of which have acknowledged
the beneficial attributes of land value tax (LVT) but all of
which gather dust. Some have had too narrow a remit; others have
preached to the converted and used language that makes ‘real world’
politicians and commentators cringe. There is a danger in overstating
the case for LVT of which Vickers is aware.
I commend this book to any radical of whatever party who
supports a free market system but believes markets are there to
serve society and not be their master. As Mark Twain famously said
of land: ‘They don’t make it any more.’ That perception – give or
take a polder or two – is what makes land both unique and capable
of creating such roller coasters of wealth and poverty both within
generations and between them. It is up to governments to intervene
where markets fail. Without land value taxation, the land market in
Britain is bound to fail to deliver the homes and communities we
need. If the Government does not soon intervene to recycle Britain’s
land values, we may not run out of land but we will run out of time
to secure a fair, free and sustainable society.
CHRIS HUHNE MP
House of Commons, July 2007

Sudden death of Chair of Labour Land Campaign

It is my sad duty to inform you that a very good friend of many ALTER activists, Brian Hodgson, died of a heart attack on Saturday. Brian was co-chair with Margaret Godden of the Oxfordshire County Council Land Value Taxation Study Working Group which set up and steered a study in the Vale of White Horse (near Oxford). The report was published in early 2005 and the County Council resolved to recommend a 'full' (i.e. tax-raising) trial of LVT just before the General Election that year, see entry on this site

Unfortunately Brian lost his seat at the county council elections on the same day. Also the Tories gasined overall control of the County and undid all the good work which Labour, Lib Dems and Greens had done for several years on LVT. However Brian continued to be very active in the cause as Chair of Labour's Land Campaign and a member of the Professional Land Reform Group. He and I were in regular and comradely contact.

One of the joys of campaigning on this issue of economic justice is the cross-party friendships one makes. I can only ask you to do what Brian would have wished most from ALTER members: make friendly contact with your own Labour Party acquaintances and ask them to work on Gordon Brown from inside his own party.

New book out this week: Location Matters

A book comes out this week that ALTER President Chris Huhne calls

a primer for anyone who wants to create a more equitable, efficient and sustainable Britain

Author Tony Vickers is a councillor in West Berkshire, a Director of the Association for Geographic Information and was a member of the Lib Dem Tax Commission set up by Charles Kennedy after the General Election and reporting to Party Conference next month.
Entitled Location Matters: Recycling Britain's Wealth, the book
is priced at £8.95 plus p&p. It will be available at Party Conference from the ALTER stall at this price or for £50 for pre-print orders of 10 copies from tonyvickers@phonecoop.coop.
further details

Autumn Conference debate timings

The agenda for the Lib Dem Conference 16-20 September in Brighton has just been published and ALTER members may be interested in when the debates relevant to us are to occur.

Sunday afternoon sees the opening of Conference and a debate on Governance: The Power to be Different is the title of the policy paper being debated. Here we can support the aim of allowing every tier of Government the ability to raise and spend money in accordance with the wishes of the local electorate. However there is no mention of allowing devolved tiers to choose how to raise money. Perhaps we should remind Conference of its overwhelming support for our short simple motion on Choice for Revenue Raising in 1999. We could also point out that local equates to land - that whatever government finances an investment in land it is local values that are affected, which is why LVT is such a neat method of raising revenue - recycling wealth - at every level.

Monday morning is the big debate on Climate Change. Our President Chris Huhne MP will undoubtedly speak in it. We hope he points out that taxing the earnings and profits of those who are striving to meet the challenge of climate change is crazy: tax resource usage above all, for revenue raising; tax pollution, to change behaviour mainly and not to raise revenue.

Tuesday morning sees two debates of interest to us. A debate on Community Planning Auctions precedes the debate which mops up some of the issues that the Tax Commission left unresolved last year. The first of these debates proposes reform of the system of planning applications, so that Planning Authorities would collect most of the uplift in land values arising from planning permission. It would do this by means of a two-stage auction process. The details are set out in a paper by Dr Tim Leunig for CentreForum, which can be read here. ALTER Vice President Ed Davey MP is proposing the motion. We intend to make clear that we think this is no substitute for having LVT on owner-occupied homes, although it is supported by ALTER as a transitional measure, because it captures land value that would not be fully captured by LVT for many years after its introduction. The problem is that the Leunig idea fails completely to capture the spillover land value uplift that existing home-owners pocket.

The Tax Motion and policy paper, called Reducing the Burden, develops existing policy on Site Value Rating as replacement to Business Rates but makes no mention of any tax on domestic land or property. It reiterates our policy of replacing Council Tax with Local Income Tax and claims the Lyons Inquiry supports that. ALTER will ask for this part of the motion to be left out, without explicitly challenging LIT.

On Tuesday afternoon Conference will debate a motion on Poverty and Inequality, which makes reference to the Community Land Auctions idea because it helps control house prices. There is again plenty of scope for intervention in the debate to mention how LVT tackles the causes of poverty in a way no other policy can.

It is possible to attend Conference and to speak in debates without being a voting representative, although one needs to register for the whole Conference, not just for the day.

ALTER has a Fringe meeting on Monday evening at 8pm: a debate on the relative merits of Community Planning Auctions and domestic LVT, chaired by Ed Davey. You do not need to be a conference rep to attend this. It is at the Thistle Hotel.