Blundell: 'Council tax is too expensive and should be abolished'

Council tax is too expensive and should be abolished. What is more surprising is that the demise of council tax, I believe, will not be because of a backlash from those living in high-banded properties, but from Corbyn’s new source of voters - the young.

Given how youthful the centre of Manchester has become this new set of leftie consumerists need a completely different set of ideas to keep them voting Labour than their parents and their parents before them.

Modern day Manchester is a far cry from the soot covered mills of previous decades. Ancoats looks more like Cubitt’s Pimlico than the poverty-stricken streets of the post war era. Both eras voted Labour en mass.

As a Labour party councillor, it was interesting to find that recent polling data shows younger citizens are more likely to be against higher tax rates than their older counterparts, which runs contrary to the orthodoxy that younger voters are further to the left than their parents.

I grew up on a council estate in Rochdale. The incoming Labour government expanded degree level education and as a consequence I spent a disproportionate amount of my school holidays sat in the lecture theatres of Salford University while my mother attended her classes.

The recently introduced student loans are essentially a 9% tax hike for anybody who does not have parents who can give them £40k and, therefore, the idea that we should be subject to any further taxation is ridiculous.

Furthermore, previous generations are happy to wait on the end of a phone, to be in the queue for housing repairs and would never demand money back if ever inconvenienced or if something didn’t work. 

Younger people spend all their time railing against travel companies on Twitter because their train is running 5 minutes late.

I will never forget when a young woman rang me, as her councillor, to explain that her bin had not been delivered. She explained she had just moved in and this was a great inconvenience. She demanded her money back, I decided to back her corner as I thought she had paid a charge for a new bin. She, in fact, wanted her council tax back and couldn’t see why she should have to pay for a poor service.

Council tax has been going up at a rate of knots due to the swingeing cuts imposed by central government. Most councils don’t have a choice but to put it up by 3% and after the Mayor has put on precepts for his commitments – which he will be justified to do so to help keep police levels from sliding further – we will probably be looking at a much bigger percentage.

As council tax goes up those on lower incomes will bear a bigger brunt as the levy is egregiously regressive. In Wigan the annual council tax of a band D property is £1532.28; in Westminster a band D property has a rate of £710.50 a year. Some will now be jumping up and down explaining the difference, I am aware.

This is why certain services, mainly Chrildren’s services and Adult Social Care, should be funded centrally as they deserve proper funding. Poorer areas have poorer council tax bases, so they find it harder to pay for services to help those who need a leg up. The exact opposite is true for richer areas.

In addition to this funding conundrum, younger rate payers don’t want higher taxes to pay for Adult Social Care; according to the latest polling data they would prefer to cut back on other services.

The current methods of funding local government and how money is raised bears no resemblance to one another. Adult Social Care is paid for by council tax increases while the government funds cash for pot holes centrally. Councils must engage in bidding processes to get cash to help build houses on brownfield while Children’s Services creak under the pressure of Universal Credit.

You could charge for council services but it never goes down well, look at the Tory bin charge in Trafford. This is mainly because the only council services that the majority of the populous use are environmental ones. Most young people will only have their bins emptied for the several hundreds of pounds they are charged.

The youth don’t enter in to contracts longer than 28 days, like gym or golf club membership, and only want to pay for things they use or they cancel the subscription. To point out the obvious: you can’t cancel your council tax or dispute the amount no matter what you get for the money or what your income is.

Everytime council tax goes up to replace funding from central government – or rather, to plug the gap left by cuts – the government shifts the cost of services from the rich, through income tax, to lower earners (most young people) as council tax is a regressive form of taxation.

The point is not about the debating of boundaries, business rates or redistribution. The point is council tax needs abolishing to make way for something more progressive and younger voters will see to its demise.