Editing Michael Heseltine (section)

===Second term as Environment Secretary: 1990–1992===
Heseltine disappointed many of his supporters by not pushing for them to get jobs in Major's new administration. [[Ian Grist]] was sacked from the Welsh Office and [[Michael Mates]] was eventually given a Minister of State position following the 1992 election. There were suggestions that Heseltine might be appointed Home Secretary, but Heseltine advertised his lack of interest in the position, and Major insisted that he had not offered it to him. By contrast, his enthusiasm for industrial policy made it impossible for him to be appointed Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, the job he most coveted.<ref>Crick 1997, p. 362.</ref>

After a handshake of reconciliation on the steps of 10 Downing Street, Major appointed Heseltine to the Environment, the same job he had held a decade earlier. Civil servants found him a more secure and mature character the second time round, and keener to conciliate local councils, but at the same time a grander and more detached individual, aware that he had already earned a place in history and had the aura of a political heavyweight.<ref name=crick362-370>Crick 1997, pp. 362–70.</ref>

In a May 1990 article Heseltine had proposed that the [[Poll tax (Great Britain)|Poll Tax]] be reformed rather than abolished.<ref>Crick 1997, p. 366.</ref> He now had a remit to reform it, and invited the opposition parties to take part in his review of options (Labour did not; the Liberal Democrats did, and proposed a local income tax). Heseltine insisted that [[Michael Portillo]], who had been a major cheerleader for the tax, be retained as Minister of State for Local Government. Portillo and [[Robert Key (politician)|Robert Key]] handled the detail and presented Heseltine with a list of options. Various options were leaked to the press to test public reaction, and at one point Heseltine appeared to have settled on a tax graded both according to the size of the property and the number of adults living in it. Major was exasperated by the lack of progress and intervened, and – at Major's insistence – Chancellor [[Norman Lamont]] increased VAT by 2.5 percentage points to 17.5% in his April 1991 budget so as to provide a £4.5bn subsidy to bring poll tax bills down. Eventually, as expected, the poll tax was abolished and the new [[Council Tax]] was graded according to the size of a property, with the only concession to headcount being a single-person discount. In Crick's view, the outcome was much more [[Sarah Hogg]]'s and Portillo's and Major's doing than Heseltine's.<ref name=crick362-370/>

Heseltine was permitted by his colleagues to explore the option of elected city mayors, although it did not meet with Cabinet approval; other ministers were concerned at the likelihood that cities would elect Labour mayors or that there might be deadlock between mayors and local councils. Heseltine also explored the option of unitary authorities (i.e. merging district and county councils), setting up what came to be known as the [[Banham Commission]]. Crick regards the commission as a mistake for which Heseltine has received too little blame. The proposals rumbled on for several years, causing annoyance to many Conservative councillors and to their backers in Parliament. The commission was reconstituted and scaled down by the then Environment Secretary [[John Gummer]] in 1995.<ref>Crick 1997, pp. 370–4.</ref>

In the summer of 1991 Heseltine also launched a City Challenge process, whereby cities competed for government grants for capital projects, and played a key role in Major's decision to back Manchester's (unsuccessful as it turned out) bid to host the [[1996 Olympic Games]]. He also proposed plans for developing an East Thames corridor (christened "Hezzaville" or "Heseltown" by the media).<ref>Crick 1997, pp. 374–7.</ref>

Heseltine received a standing ovation at the October 1991 Party Conference, seen as a sign of his rehabilitation with party activists, and was included on the A-Team to prepare for the [[1992 United Kingdom general election|1992 election]]. He mocked Shadow Chancellor [[John Smith (Labour Party leader)|John Smith]]'s "[[prawn cocktail]] offensive" to try to butter up City opinion ("Never have so many crustaceans died in vain"). He was a leading performer in the election and it was felt that had the Conservatives lost he might well have won the party leadership and been Leader of the Opposition, while if they won he would probably be given Trade and Industry, the job he had always wanted.<ref>Crick 1997, pp. 378–9.</ref>