Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Darren Jones, tells Baroness Hazarika…
… there is no suggestion of capitulation. What there is is a suggestion of resetting the government’s relationship with public sector workers because we now need everybody.
Council tax – one of Britain’s most hated taxes and one of the most regressive – has some serious problems developing with its fundamentals. A new study from the Centre for Social Justice finds that more than 1.3 million households are no longer paying council tax as local authorities fail to collect a record £6 billion a year. Failing to pay council tax can lead to a prison sentence of three months or more, but with the courts clogged up, more people are risking non-payment…
Council tax debt now represents almost a sixth of total income from the tax itself – suggesting that the charge is no longer really working. Councils resorted to bailiffs to collect debt 2.5 million times last year, up by a fifth – the cost of enforcement is skyrocketing, in turn piling more pressure on local authority tax receipts. No wonder council tax is hated by rich and poor alike, and even by many council officials…
The Labour government is mulling plans to reform council tax – probably by ditching bands and switching to a proportional tax based on the value of each property (rather than groups of properties). A leaked recording revealed Treasury Minister Darren Jones apparently wants bands to be ditched – hinting that he thought re-banding would be politically impossible (the exact reason it was always put on the back burner by the Tories). Resolution‘s Torsten Bell – now the Labour MP for Swansea West – has promoted a proportional property tax, an idea which has a lot of fans on the Labour backbenches. There’s only one problem – an IFS analysis found a proportional tax would add £1,230 to 4.2 million household bills – with council tax going up in 124 local authorities. Labour would take a massive whack in the polls if they pursued that kind of council tax reform, but can the Reeves Treasury afford not to?
Shadow Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson was asked this morning on GB News how many billions Labour’s Net Zero plan would cost. She refused to answer the question, instead spinning the costly plan:
“The answer is how we move to a position of decarbonising our economy, creating more jobs, is through private investment, not just public money. So you can invest relatively modest sums of public money and that brings in real returns.”
It comes after The Telegraph leaked a recording of Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury Darren Jones admitting that their energy plans would cost “hundreds of billions” of pounds. He dubbed the original £28 billion black hole – already an eye-watering figure – a “tiny” amount compared to the reality. It’s clear they’re hiding the true cost of the plans, which will ultimately be shouldered by taxpayers. Labour will do as they always do: tax and spend, tax and spend…
When your “no new tax rises/maybe some tax rises” pledge is so complex it can be difficult for Shadow Cabinet Ministers to keep track. Darren Jones said this morning:
“Income tax, national insurance, VAT — tax thresholds on those measures of tax will not be changing under a future Labour government.”
He said that twice. As Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, he would know the party’s tax position, wouldn’t he? Apparently not…
Labour officials quickly shut down the suggestion that thresholds on all of those taxes will remain static – which constitutes a stealth raid – under Labour. They say he was actually talking about rates. Parties like to keep quiet about thresholds as freezes are the easiest way to massively increase revenue. The current threshold freeze will raise more than £33.5bn by 2029 and will drag 3.8 million more taxpayers into the additional rate band. A freudian slip from Jones?
UPDATE: Starmer says Labour will keep the Tory threshold freeze: “We’re not planning to change the position on thresholds that the government has put in place because we’re not prepared to make promises we can’t keep.”
Darren Jones made clear there are still unpurged Corbynites when asked by Kate McCann if there was a ‘purge of the left’ on Times Radio:
“There are many colleagues of mine in the Parliamentary Labour Party who would define themselves as being on the left who are endorsed Labour Party candidates.”
It looks like a split is forming on the Labour front benches between the socialists and the rest. Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury Darren Jones at a Labour attack conference was just asked whether he was a socialist, like his leader:
“I would describe myself as Labour, I don’t really get into this business of sub-factional definitions – I’m a member, and a very proud member of the Labour Party I’m a proud trade unionist and I’m very happy to go to the country on that basis at this election.”
So far it’s committed socialists Starmer and Reynolds vs revisionists Reeves and Jones. How will the ideological war play out?
