Labour hits out at £2bn ‘bombshell’ council tax rise
Labour has hit out at Rishi Sunak for hiking council tax in yesterday’s spending review, claiming it was hidden in the text.
The chancellor’s spending review yesterday gave all local authorities the power to increase council tax bills by two per cent without holding a referendum.
Local authorities that manage social care institutions are able to hike council tax by a further three per cent.
This means the average council tax will rise by more than £100 and the measure could bring in as much as £2bn for the Treasury.
The spending review read: “Local authorities will be able to increase their council tax bills by two per cent without needing to hold a referendum, and social care authorities will be able to charge an additional three per cent precept to help fund pressures in social care.
“[The spending review] also provides £254 million of additional funding to help end rough sleeping – a 60 per cent cash increase compared to [the 2019 spending review].”
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Labour’s shadow chief secretary to the Treasury Bridget Phillipson hit out at Sunak for including the measure and not mentioning it in his speech to MPs yesterday.
“It appears that there’s a £1bn council tax bombshell lurking in those documents – that’s the kind of trick that George Osborne used to pull,” she said.
The measure will help claw back a tiny amount of the government’s spending this year on the Covid crisis, which will exceed £280bn.
Sunak said yesterday that this year’s deficit will be a record £394bn – the highest ever in peace time.
Sunak cut the foreign aid budget to save money, while also signalling that tax increases are on the horizon once the economy has begun to recover.