As households across County Durham struggle to make ends meet in the middle of the worst cost of living crisis in a generation the Tory-led Coalition controlling Durham County Council opted this week to hike Council Tax bills by a record 5%.
Durham County Council met on Wednesday 22 February to agree its budget and set its Council Tax levels for the coming year. Despite warnings from the opposition Labour group that this was the wrong time, under the wrong circumstances, the Tory-led Coalition ploughed ahead with its Cabinet's proposal to increase pressure on residents by raising Council Tax by the maximum 5% allowed.
As deputy-leader of the Labour group and shadow cabinet member for finance I formally tabled the opposition's response to their budget proposals. In my comments I outlined the risk of increasing Council Tax at this particular time. Households were buckling under the combined pressures of high inflation, soaring domestic bills and low wages amongst other things, and the last thing they needed at the moment was an additional burden.
Twelve long years of brutal Tory government austerity has meant that many councils these days are forced to increase Council Tax to make up for any shortfall in funding. However that shouldn't be used as an excuse for the Coalition's leadership to sit back, do nothing and hope that someone in government will come to the rescue.
In the two years since the Tories took control of the council in May 2021 - willingly aided and abetted by the Lib Dems, the North East Party and so-called Independents - they've been fortunate to have received unexpected one-off funding from central government which should have been used to ease the burden on our struggling households across the county. Instead they've raised Council Tax by an average of 4% each of those two years.
This is probably a good time to mention that during the first two terms of the council, from 2010 to 2017, the Labour administration running the council kept Council Tax levels to below 1% on average each year - this included 3 years in a row when Council tax was held back at 0%. This stands as proof that on those rare occasions that we received additional funding we passed the benefit onto our residents rather than ramp up Council Tax. Compare that approach with the one adopted by the current Tory-led Coalition and you’ll see for yourself which party strives to protect households, and which prefers to punish them.
When I spoke in opposition to the Tory budget and Council Tax hike at Wednesday's council meeting I based my comments on a written statement I’d prepared beforehand for media use. I've published it below for information:
Durham County Council Labour Group
Budget response, Wednesday 22 February 2023
When the coalition’s budget is revealed in detail residents will pick out one clear message: You’re on your own!
As a one-off, short term fix the Government has handed over more cash this year than previously expected. But despite that services remain at risk of cuts, fees and & charges are certain to increase and Council Tax is set to go up by a record high of 5%.
Naturally people are going to wonder why they’re having to fork out more for less in return. And as they look behind the numbers and the hollow narrative they’ll come to realise they’re being forced to stump up for someone else’s mistakes. They’ll be confused and angry - and we as a Labour group don’t blame them. We’ve seen this coming for a long time.
And that’s why we’re opposing the coalition’s budget - on the grounds that hard-pressed households struggling through a cost of living crisis shouldn’t be burdened with another council tax rise – simply to make up for someone else’s mistakes.
When we look through the budget papers we can see there are several references to ‘unavoidable’ budget pressures.
That surely begs the question, what exactly is ‘unavoidable’?
Was it a decade of cuts to council budgets courtesy of David Cameron and Nick Clegg in that chaotic Tory/Lib Dem coalition back in 2010? Years of savage austerity that destabilised our communities and forced ordinary households to pay for the mistakes of the rich. We don’t think any of that was ‘unavoidable.’ We think it was deliberate.
All through the chaos of the Boris Johnson years we witnessed corruption and incompetence on a biblical scale. Rank ineptitude and deception that during the pandemic years alone cost the UK £billions in dodgy PPE contracts, fraud write-offs and other scandals. Are we being asked to believe that this was ‘unavoidable’ too?
And who can forget last year’s catastrophic ‘fiscal event’ when Liz Truss saddled the nation with an additional £40 billion burden, sent inflation and interest rates soaring through the roof and the value of the £ plummeting through the floorboards. Millions were left forking out more each month in grossly inflated mortgage repayments and soaring domestic bills – all because of Liz Truss’s power trip. That was the ‘mini-budget’ with a seismic impact on everyone’s lives. Are we meant to accept that that too was ‘unavoidable’?
Of course it was never ‘unavoidable’. Rather it was the inevitable consequence of incompetence on an industrial scale - hitched to an ideological conviction that those at the top had the right to trample the public underfoot in the race for private profit.
Far from ‘unavoidable’ it was a deliberate ploy to hold the rest of us back while the wealthy and privileged maxed-out the nation’s credit cards at our expense.
And now the coalition in county hall is sending the bill to the people of County Durham. Nothing but a Tory financial catastrophe cooked up in Downing Street and delivered direct to your door by a Tory-controlled coalition in county hall.
The chaos of the Tory years has had a profoundly negative impact on the residents and communities in County Durham, all because of the mistakes and deliberate policy decisions made at a national level. But that could have been mitigated if the right decisions had been made at a local level.
Instead we’ve seen missed opportunities, weak leadership, poor decision-making and a policy platform founded on spite, revenge and negativity. A programme focused almost entirely on reversing the work of the previous administration rather than standing up for the people of County Durham:
Looking back over the past 21 months of this coalition we’ve seen tens of millions poured into a high-end, silver service restaurant on land where the DLI museum used to be. We’ve seen the folly of plans to build three new council HQs - when in opposition the Tories and Lib Dems complained that just one new building was too many! And we’ve seen the fiasco of the ‘levelling-up’ process – spotted a mile away by almost everyone else as a scam designed to redirect cash into shoring up the Tory vote where it’s needed most.
But instead of learning lessons from the ‘levelling-up’ scam the coalition is now proposing we spend an additional £3m on leading us all into the same dead end.
And then of course there’s the proposed council tax hike of 5%. Bad enough under any circumstances – but unconscionable at a time when households are suffering from the worst cost-of-living crisis in a generation – and when nothing had been done to limit the impact on our residents.
In short, the first two budget proposals from this coalition have been characterised by broken promises; from hiking council tax to building several new council headquarters to pouring money into selected parts of Durham City at the expense of the towns and villages across the rest of the county - the coalition has failed to deliver on what it promised the people at the last election
It’s not forgotten that during this same budget process last year we mentioned that the previous Labour administration had set council tax at 0% on a number of occasions – that meant there was no increase at all in council tax. Not a penny.
It was pointed out from the other side at the time that we’d ‘only done that because we were given more money by government’. But that’s exactly the point. On those rare occasions when we got extra one-off funding from government rather than raise council tax we passed the benefit onto our residents.
Contrast that approach with last year’s budget when the coalition received an additional £8m in social care funding. Did they pass the benefit on to our residents? Of course they didn’t. They hiked the Social Care element of council tax up by 3% instead.
And the same goes for this year. According to the budget papers the council has received more money than expected this year – yet the coalition still wants to raise council tax by 5% at a time when many households across the county are buckling under the combined pressures of real-terms wage cuts and sky-high price inflation.
We as a Labour group recognise the unfairness of the council tax system. That’s why, when the opportunity arose back in 2021, we asked the coalition to join us in campaigning for a Proportional Property Tax to replace Council Tax. The coalition instead amended our resolution, sat back and did nothing.
But we all know why the Tories are happy with the council tax regime. They know fine well that it hits us much harder here in County Durham, but from a Tory perspective it benefits their heartlands in the comfortable, leafy suburbs of the Home Counties.
And that’s not just our opinion. That’s also the view of LG Improve whose research published last week warns against the danger of an over-reliance on council tax to fund front-line services – but it also exposes the way this distorts spending power in favour of Tory authorities in more prosperous areas.
As if to prove the point, the coalition’s own MTFP report shows that if the government chose to raise County Durham’s core spending power to the national average our communities would benefit by an additional £42m each year. But they won’t do that – it’s not the Tory way. Affluent communities in the the Tory heartlands will always come before our own here in County Durham.
So in summary, we’ve seen that the precarious financial position the Tory government and their coalition counterparts in county hall have put us in is far from ‘unavoidable’. It’s an inevitable product of policies created deliberately to benefit the rich at the expense of the rest of us.
The impact could have been mitigated locally if the difficult decisions facing the council had been made when they were supposed to be made. Instead coalition cabinet members have buried their heads in the sand waiting for government to come to the rescue.
We can tell them now. No one in government is listening. They’re too busy clearing up after the last crisis and preparing to deal with the next one to bother about us. If anyone is to come to the aid of the people of County Durham it has to come from a different approach in Downing Street and here in county hall.
We’ve seen where Tory loyalties lie – but as a Labour party we’ll always stand up for the residents of County Durham. We’ve shown that with sufficient political will there’s a way out of this dreadful mess. Moreover we’ve shown the way out – only to be dismissed by the coalition at every turn.
So we’re offering every member of the council - whether Lib Dem, North East Party, Independent or Green – the opportunity to join us in rejecting the coalition’s budget proposals.
The choice is straight forward. You can either vote with the coalition cabinet and help them to hike council tax by 5%. Or you can join us in standing up for the residents of County Durham who deserve much better than what’s on offer at the moment.
If the coalition’s claims are to be believed there’s sufficient flexibility in the budget papers on this occasion to send the cabinet back round the table to come up with something better. That’s what Labour members intend to do - and on behalf of the people of County Durham we appeal to all other council members to join us.
The coalition should have come up with a budget to protect our residents, not punish them. People are desperate at the moment and they need to know someone’s on their side. But it’s not too late to put things right. So say no to the coalition’s 5% council tax hike. Reject this budget and tell the coalition to come back with something better.
If coalition members aren’t prepared to stand up for our residents and their communities they should move aside and make way for someone who will.
Cllr Rob Crute (Blackhall Division)
Deputy Leader of the Labour Group
Durham County Council