TOWN halls that set low council tax bills are to be “punished” by losing millions of pounds of funding claims the Telegraph.
The leader of Harlow Council isn’t happy.
According to the article, new rules have been introduced by Deputy Prime Minister, Angela Rayner, under which local authorities that set low council tax will receive less in government grants than those with high bills.
Her department has claimed that it would be wrong for the Government to “reward places that have been able to keep council tax levels low”.
Conservative-run Harlow Council has cut and frozen its council tax since the Conservatives took control in 2021. Council tax has been a bitter dividing line between Harlow Labour and Harlow Conservatives.
Harlow Labour increased council tax in every year they ran the council.
The Leader of Harlow Council, Cllr Dan Swords, has blasted the Government and says this “ideological attack” will “hurt Harlow residents”.
Cllr Swords said: “This is socialism gone truly mad. The message from the Labour Government: if you run your council well and keep the tax burden on your residents down – we will punish you.
“They are actually encouraging failure. Encouraging badly run councils and encouraging councils to tax you more.
“Council tax is a tough issue. My view is clear: we will not put one penny of extra burden onto our residents until we are as efficient as possible and all other revenue streams do not give us enough. Instead, we have a fierce pursuit to cut waste and grow our budget through every other means than increasing tax.
“Our story in Harlow is just that. We have cut and frozen council tax since we took control of the council in 2021. Before that, council tax was increased every year by the then Labour Council whilst services and our town declined.
“We have achieved this whilst dramatically improving services for residents, delivering the biggest regeneration programme of any district council in the country and being named the second most improved council in the UK last year.
“Our budget position is significantly better than it was in 2021 as a result.
“Voters have rewarded us for it. We retained control of the council in May 2024 against all the odds. Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner visited the day before that election to host a victory parade, but residents rejected their tax-hiking, declinist socialism in favour of a transformative, tax cutting, rebuilding agenda in which we promised literally and metaphorically to rebuild our town. All promises we are delivering on.
“It is hard. Of course it is. But the rewards are enormous.
“We have grown the size of our revenue budget meaning we can invest millions more into service provision and regeneration every year – not by taxing more, but by cutting waste and increasing commercial revenue through prudent decisions. The Government should be selling this as a blueprint, instead they have punished us.
“But worse still after 14 years of Harlow Labour slamming the Conservative Government’s record on council funding, in its very first year their own Government are not just punishing us by cutting our funding, but they’ve hit us with an increased National Insurance bill of hundreds of thousands of pounds too.
“It is truly absurd, but worse, this hurts our residents. I will fight it tooth and nail.
“I also expect our Labour MP, Chris Vince, to fight this disgraceful attack on our town with us. I will not hold my breath.”
We have contacted Mr Vince’s office for a response.