The councillor in charge of Wandsworth’s plan to nearly double council tax said last night he is “deeply uncomfortable” with it.
Cllr Peter Graham, the Conservative deputy leader and cabinet member for finance, was speaking at a debate on council finances organised by Riverside Radio in Clapham Junction. The station’s founder, Jason Rosam, and Ben Stephenson hosted a panel of all the parties on Wandsworth Council, plus the Greens and Richmond’s Liberal Democrats.
Graham was explaining why the council would not go further to protect low-income households: doing so would push the rise above 94 per cent for everyone else. “I am deeply uncomfortable about 94 per cent,” he said.
He also revealed that the council is looking at legal action against the government over the £84m-a-year funding cut behind the rise. “We’re also looking at further legal action we might be able to take,” he said, adding that he was “not able to say what that might be”. The council is “actively pursuing” it with the Conservatives’ shadow housing team and the office of the party’s leader, Kemi Badenoch.
Labour now wants the rise put to a public vote. “If they are confident this is the right plan, let’s put it to a local referendum,” said Cllr Simon Hogg, Labour’s leader on the council.
The council does not have to hold one. The government has lifted the rule that a rise above 5 per cent needs a referendum, for Wandsworth and five other councils, for the next two years. A council can still choose to. The Greens want one too. Independent Cllr Malcolm Grimston, whose vote keeps the Conservatives in office, said he was “completely against” the idea, because a referendum question cannot carry the complexity of a decision like this.
The rise without the cut
Hogg’s main charge was that the council’s budgets are inflated. “Even if you removed fair funding entirely, even if they reversed the whole thing, they’d still need a 70 or 80 per cent increase in council tax,” he said.
The council’s own figures back him up. Of the £143m a year it says it must raise from council tax by 2030/31, the government cut accounts for £84m. Take that out and the council’s share of a Band D bill would still rise by about three-quarters.
The rest comes from rising prices, more demand for care and housing, and £41m of spending plans the council says it inherited from the last administration, offset by £79m of savings.
Graham’s reply was that Labour has never shown how it would pay. “If Councillor Hogg somehow has a hundred million plus in savings that we haven’t identified, he needs to come forward with them,” he said. “All we’ve heard tonight are empty words.”
Grimston said he was waiting to see Labour’s figures. “If those figures are right, we have until March to change our minds.”
The station’s reporter, Nina Wilkins, spent the morning asking people in Battersea Park what they made of it. One woman said the rise was too big and too fast, and that the council’s letter in September would have frightened people. “You should have thought a little bit better, investigating the circumstances, before sending a letter out to residents and frightening them,” she said.
Another said she could cope, but many could not. “It’s 94 per cent and they haven’t consulted anyone,” she said.
“I’m OK money-wise, but there are other people that are worse off and they’re really going to struggle.”
She wanted a public meeting where residents could challenge it. “Even if they did increase it a little bit, people would be fine with that.”
A man was suspicious of the timing. “The Tories get in and then suddenly the council tax rises massively,” he said.
Listeners sent in messages through the evening. Judith, a pensioner whose family has lived in Wandsworth since 1916, said a valuable home does not mean a large income. Natalie, who is disabled, asked how people who cannot work are supposed to pay. Others asked whether the council had cut its own costs first, from senior managers to new logos and Putney road layouts that were later reversed. A listener in Barnes put it bluntly: everyone wants other people’s services cut, but nobody wants their own cut.
Graham’s advice to pensioners on low incomes was to check whether they qualify for Pension Credit, because claiming it brings help with council tax.
The Green Party’s Cameron Joshi, who stood in Tooting Broadway in May, said the party would launch a petition for a “progressive local tax”, aiming for the 10,000 signatures that force a debate at full council. A full policy will follow by the end of December. The idea is to keep bills low for households below an income threshold, perhaps £60,000, and charge those above it several times more, as he said Tower Hamlets does.
“Unfortunately it wouldn’t be lawful,” Graham said. The council has no way to check what people earn: “We’re not HMRC.”
Grimston looked up the Tower Hamlets scheme during the debate. It is for households earning under £60,000 with less than £16,000 in savings, he said, and Tower Hamlets’ own press release says it could help hundreds. It covers a 2.99 per cent rise: the most a Band D household can get from it this year is £107.91.
Graham said Wandsworth would almost double what it spends on council tax support next year to phase in the rise, and widen who qualifies. On Monday, the Cabinet also agreed to consult on making every working-age household pay something, which would end full support for 7,102 low-income households.
No way yet to measure the police
Grimston also raised the 25 extra police officers the council will pay for, at up to £4.9m a year. He said he had not seen what the council would measure “to see if these 25 new police officers are actually making a difference”.
Graham agreed. “Councillor Grimston is quite right to say he hasn’t seen the metrics by which we’ll measure this yet, because we haven’t produced them yet,” he said. The work was “well underway”. Cabinet approved the plan on Monday.
The station played a clip of Putney’s MP, Fleur Anderson, saying weeks ago that the size of the cut “has not been verified” and that it “does not need to happen all in one go next year”. The figures were published last December and approved by the Commons in February, with Anderson voting for them.
“Either our Labour MPs have absolutely no idea what’s going on and no idea what they’re voting for, or they’re not being truthful,” Graham said.
Wandsworth’s three Labour MPs have refused to back the council’s challenge to the government. In a letter reported by PoliticsHome, they said they “cannot support a narrative that seeks to rewrite the recent financial history of Wandsworth Council”. Hogg said the politics had got in the way, and that the MPs were “working incredibly hard behind the scenes”.
Richmond, whose council shares its staff with Wandsworth, cannot raise council tax by more than 4.99 per cent. Its Liberal Democrat deputy leader, Cllr Jim Millard, said it faces “really difficult decisions” without more time.
“We’re not questioning the principle. We’re not questioning even perhaps the amount,” he said. “More than three years is what we’re asking for.”
The government could still change the figures, Graham said, in the Budget on 28 October or in the funding settlement for councils due in December.
Full Council votes on next year’s council tax in March.
The debate was broadcast on Riverside Radio, the not-for-profit community station for south-west London, covering Richmond, Wandsworth, Merton and Lambeth. Listen on DAB+, the Riverside Radio app or online at riversideradio.com.
I think again we miss several main point regarding this topic. 1) Is it fair for wandsworth borough and residents to get central funding cuts? Yes no, and if Yes by how much and why? 2) is The timing is enough for council and residents to adjust to the central government cuts? 3) Does the government rights to cut off the normal process (referendum) is a good thing? im not sure for every party but a growing number of people find the council tax system quite unfair and it should be reformed ( only problem who gonna have the political courage to do it)