On Thursday, Keir Starmer, the leader of Labour, launched the party’s local election campaign, promising to use an extended windfall tax to freeze council tax for a year.
The Labour leader urged Rishi Sunak to use “the money that is currently on the table” and enact the tax cut tomorrow, only days before millions of English citizens’ council tax bills increase by 5% in April.
In the event that Labour won the next general election, Starmer would not, however, commit to freezing the council tax.
The Conservatives would constantly offer “tax cuts for the richest 1% while working people pay the problem, but this has to change,” Starmer said at a Swindon event, referring to the prime minister as “Mr. 1%.”
Council tax bills may be frozen, according to Starmer, who believed that the government had the funds to do so.
He claimed, in a speech with Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves, that Labour’s council tax reduction “matches the ambition” of neighbourhoods that desired change but were let down by the Conservative administration.
The next vote is at least one budget away, Ms. Reeves said, so “we’ll have to see what the public finances look like.”
However Greg Hands, the chairman of the Conservative Party, declared: “Labour’s announcement isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. They have no plan to introduce this if elected. They’re taking the British people for fools. If Labour was serious about cutting council tax Labour councils would be doing it now.”
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