Don’t be fooled by the Tory proposal to have a moratorium on retrospective rate payments in the ports. Sounds good. Means nothing.

 

It means they’ve flunked the chance of doing what I was urging them to and writing off the retrospective charges thus forcing the government to act. Bob Neill was trying to persuade their Treasury team to do this but couldn’t so they’ve opted for this blue herring.

 

It doesn’t help if recovery proceedings have been started as they will be when the financial year ends this month. No incoming government can do that. It doesn’t write off the debt. It doesn’t change the law to stop the Valuation Agency suddenly dumping such huge bills on businesses. In short it does nothing but give the impression the Tories will do something when they won’t.

 

So its only use is to allow us to use it as a lever to persuade the government to drop the demand. My fear is that they’ve already seen through the deceit .The lever is made of polystyrene.

 

All of which means that it’s still only the Labour port MPs who stand any chance of getting anywhere. We’re still fighting. We’ll carry on until we win. I pledge to resist this damage to Grimsby.

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