Business groups welcome Tory devolution plans

Plans by the Conservative Party to transfer more power to local authorities have been warmly welcomed by business groups.

The Conservative Green Paper, Control Shift - Returning Power to Local Communities, outlines plans to give local authorities the power to levy business rate discounts and to control Regional Development Agencies.

The Institute of Directors' director-general Miles Templeman said: "For too long, businesses have contributed to local government coffers without any say over [their money's] use.

"If today's Conservative proposals open the book on some much needed improvement to the failing relationships between businesses and their local authorities, then this in itself would be a worthwhile victory."

Meanwhile Kevin Hoctor, policy adviser at the British Chambers of Commerce, commented: "Greater local economic incentives for councils and businesses are important ideas and sensible reform of regional arrangements in some areas may well be warranted."

However, Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs have said that the paper merely echoes the Government's existing plans.

Communities secretary Hazel Blears said: "This green paper does nothing to advance the increased flexibility Labour has given to local councils - instead it is designed to conceal plans to scrap local support for hundreds of thousands of businesses, and cut cash for councils that would mean an extra one per cent on council tax."

And Liberal Democrat MP Julia Goldsworthy said that rather than being radical, the proposals "could have been copied straight from the Government's agenda".

"What this makes clear is that the Tories, like the Government, have no intention of reforming the grossly unfair Council Tax that they created," she said.