Good News and Bad News
April 9, 2004 12:00 AM
Stockport's Council Tax rise is below the national average, well under the 8% rise in Conservative-run Macclesfield, and less than half the rise in Labour-run Trafford Council. The Liberal Democrats have not only managed to keep the rise down, but have protected schools' budgets (which take 50p of every £1 the Town Hall spends), and improved key services such as recycling.
That is a real achievement when the town gets such a poor share of government grants. The grants make up two thirds of the budget, with the Council Tax providing the rest. The Government put Stockport very near the bottom of the grant league table. 140 councils get more grant per child than us for education, and only 4 get less. If Stockport got as big a grant per person as Manchester there would be so much money in the coffers that the Town Hall would be paying you!
Instead Stockport has to spend more each year complying with new legal requirements than it gets extra grant to pay for it.
Axe The Tax
It is a crazy system, where even a small rise leads directly to hardship for local council tax payers on fixed incomes. That is why the Liberal Democrats propose to scrap Council Tax and replace it with a Local Income Tax. Charles Kennedy has challenged Tony Blair in Parliament to see sense, and locally many people have backed the Axe The Tax campaigns that Patsy Calton and I have organised.
Now Whitehall has been forced to agree to a review of local taxation. In the coming months Liberal Democrat MPs will be pressing for a clear commitment to introduce Local Income Tax. For Stockport residents it would mean an end to the Council Tax, and a start for a new local income tax that would leave everyone with an income below £27,000 a year better off.
Calculations show that includes over 70% of pensioners, particularly those on fixed private pensions who face such a struggle with the existing system.
Tories Don't Know
Asked what he would do about the Council Tax the leader of the Conservative Party told the media "I don't know". Not too surprising, when you remember he introduced it in the first place.
End
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