The Businessman's Burden: Rates and the CBI
| Author | Timothy May |
| Published date | 01 April 1984 |
| Date | 01 April 1984 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9256.1984.tb00089.x |
| Subject Matter | Article |
34
M.
D.
Fletcher
Solinger,
0.
(1982), 'The Fifth National People's Congress and the Process of
Policy Making', Asian Survey, XXII
,
pp.1238-275.
Weng,
B.
(1982), 'Some Key Aspects
of
the 1982 Draft Constitutions', The China
Quarterly, No.
91,
pp.
492-506.
Womack,
B.
(1982),
'The 1980 County-Level Elections in China', Asian Survey,
XXII,
pp.261-77.
-0-000-0-
THE
BUSINESSMAN'S
BURDEN
:
RATES
AND
THE
CBI
Timothy May
The
CBI
is
widely seen as an organistion which concentrates its efforts at
national level.
1977)
and
the many textbook discussions of
British
politics reflect
this
emphasis.
Conversely
the
literature on local politics
has
little or nothing to say about
the Confederation. For example,
Kenneth
Newton's Second City Politics, one of
the most detailed dissections of the local role
of
groups,
never
mentions
it.
There is
no
reason to suppose that far much of the history of the Confederation
(and
its main predecessor, the F.B.I.),
this
emphasis
is
seriously misplaced,
though
it does reflect a general neglect of historical research on pressure groups
and especially
an
absence of such work at the local level.
the committee structure and the professional apparatus in London
would
seem to
support the picture of
an
organisation which emphasises the importance of national
political institutions, especially those populated by Ministers
and
civil servants.
However it has been clear that
in
recent years some significant changes have
taken place in the CBI's style of lobbying. Although these have been noted
(Grant, 1981; May,
1982)
they need
to
be more widely recognised in the accounts
of the nature and significance of the Confederation.
illustration of these changes has been the unprecedented concern
with
local poli-
tics. Initially
this
interest focused on the question of the rates
but
the
cam-
paignhas broadened out into
a
wide-ranging concern
with
the functioning of local
government.
This
description and explanation
must
be preceded, however, by
a
sketch of
the
local rating system which has so attracted the Confederation's attention.
There are important differences
in
the way local government levies rates on
business premises and domestic households.
mises were doubly represented: they had a vote from their domestic residence and
a vote from their place of residence. The 1948 Representation
of
the People Act
abolished such plural voting. Consequently businesses do not now possess the
direct electoral influence of domestic householders. Businesses have also been
distinctively affected by the tangled history of de-rating or differential rating.
The
1929
Local Government Act allowed business premises a 75 per cent de-rating.
Since the War
this
concession has been eroded
to
the
advantage of the domestic
rate-payer who is favoured by the present system of rate-reliefs.
As
a
result
business has paid an increasing share of the rate income
-
up
from 43 per cent
in
1938 to
61
per cent in 1975 (Dearlove,
1979,
pp.240-41). The burden of
the
rates
has also grown at a time of falling profits.
A
final
but,
significant difference
between the business and domestic rate-payer dates from the
mid-60s:
private
householders can spread their rate
1
iabi
1
i
ty through
the
year
in
monthly
instal-
ments
but
businesses have
to
pay yearly or half-yearly
in
advance. We can now
turn
to the campaign.
Both
the specialist literature (Blank, 1973; Grant
and
Marsh,
The
concentration of
One especially striking
The aim of this article is to describe and explain these developments.
Until 1948 occupiers of business
pre-
To continue reading
Request your trial