No council tax rises! No cuts!

Keri Andrews, Aldershot and North Hampshire Socialist Party

A 5% rise in council tax every year for a decade is baked into Labour’s spending plans for local government, it emerged in the spending review.

Next year councils will raise a total over £50 billion, equivalent to £1,740 per household – if councils decide again to agree with the Labour government and  make us pay more for less.

Councils can raise tax above the 5% cap if local referendums are held or a rise is approved by central government. This year, the government approved rises in Bradford (10%), Newham (9%), Windsor and Maidenhead (9%), Birmingham (7.5%), Somerset (7.5%), and Trafford (7.5%) – without referendums.

Increased revenue for councils should be assigned to essential public and social services. The reality is, however, that these services will continue to have funding cut. Councils saw central government funding slashed by Tory austerity in 2010. Since, accompanying huge cuts, councils have been plugging the gap by hiking taxes. In Hampshire, for example, Band D properties will pay £2,212.83 a year in 2025-26.

By the end of the next three years covered by the Spending Review, council funding will still be well below what it was in 2010.

The Socialist Party has campaigned against the ever-growing pressure on the working class to cover public funding voids and stood against all cuts. For example, our members supported protests in Bradford against the 10% council tax rise this Spring. Campaigning against that and cutbacks by the council forced a U-turn on cuts to school bus services.

Commenting on the spending review, Christina McAnea, Unison general secretary, said: “Extra cash will always be gratefully received by hard-pressed councils. But their financial situation is so dire, it’ll take much more than £3.4 billion to put them back on track.”

What she didn’t say is that Unison local government group has a policy that councils should resist cuts by setting no-cuts budgets, and campaign for central government for funding.

We demand no council tax rises and no cuts. A council taking that approach, including mobilising support from the trade unions and working-class communities, would win huge support and could put huge pressure on Starmer’s Labour government that is already being forced to do U-turns.

After 14 years of austerity, people have had enough. Rather than billions on military spending, funding should be going on local services. We need a new workers’ party to stand against Starmer’s Labour, demanding the super-rich is made to pay instead.