MINISTERS sneakily unveiled huge council tax hikes yesterday — one of 36
bits of bad news they tried to bury as they head off on holiday.
The crafty move — on a day dubbed Take Out the Trash Thursday — will push tax
on the average Band D home up £48 next year.
Rises alone will total £320 by 2020-21, 22 per cent up on the current level.
Other damning data ministers tried to dump included:
THE bill for Chancellor George Osborne’s ten special advisers is now
£700,000, up from £230,000 for just four in 2010.
MORE than 30,000 failed illegals are still here two years after their
appeal rights ended.
MINISTERS have bottled plans for huge cuts in power firms’ solar
subsidies.
AND junior ministers have been named and shamed for excessive use of
limos, with one making 818 trips in five years.
News of council tax hikes — released on the last day before the Commons’
Christmas break — ends ministers’ four-year pledge to freeze the levy.
Pressure to raise bills was already building after November’s Autumn Statement
unveiled 6.7 per cent of local government cuts by 2019-20.
But Local Government Secretary Greg Clark has confirmed a funding scheme
encouraging town and city halls to freeze the tax has been scrapped.
Councils’ funding from Whitehall will also be cut by 2.8 per cent. Mr Clark
said they would be able to increase council tax by two per cent to go
towards the costs of elderly care.
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George
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Tax
credit cuts SCRAPPED by George Osborne in u-turn after Sun campaign
£10billion
to be injected into NHS in Osborne’s Autumn Statement
That will come on top of the two per cent by which they can put up the charge
without a referendum.
Increasing costs of local policing are also expected to hit bills.
Shadow Local Government secretary Jon Trickett last night condemned the cuts
as a “political choice, not an economic necessity”.
He said: “The message of this settlement is the same as every other one under
the Tories — cuts, cuts and more cuts, to hit the worst-off hardest.”
But a Downing Street spokesman called it “a radical devolution of power and
resources to local councils”. He added: “We’re giving them the ability to
raise revenue and choose how to spend it.
“It’s about giving local authorities the ability to look at how they can best
raise revenue and make use of the assets they have.
“If they have assets they can sell, they can sell those, retain the revenue
and choose how they use that.”
What they sneaked out…
Special Advisors
GEORGE Osborne has tripled his special advisers’ pay bill since 2010, while
slashing public spending.
Back then his four SpAds cost around £230,000. He’s got ten of them now, and
the bill’s £700,000.
There are now 96 Government advisers. Labour had 69 five years ago. David
Cameron has 32 — up six on last year — despite promising to cut the number.
Chancellor Osborne’s close aide Thea Rogers is paid £98,000, 42 per cent up on
last year.
Shadow Cabinet member Jon Ashworth said, with families struggling to make ends
meet, the rise was “outrageous”.
Muslim Brotherhood
THE controversial group Muslim Brotherhood has escaped a ban despite David
Cameron branding them a “gateway to extremism” and vowing to make them
illegal.
A report, finished last summer, failed to find enough evidence of wrongdoing
by members of the organisation.
House of Lords
THE House of Lords should be stripped of the power to veto laws and only be
able to ask MPs to “think again”, a report ordered by David Cameron says.
The move would stop peers from blocking the will of elected MPs, such as when
they blocked tax credit cuts.
Government
MINISTERS using limousines and other official cars cost the taxpayer
£6.325million a year.
In the last five years Lib Dem Lord McNally made 818 Government Car Service
bookings. Tory Mike Penning made 689. Hundreds of trips were made with no
minister in the car.
Asylum Seekers
OVER 30,000 failed asylum seekers have still not been booted out two years
after their right to appeal ended, it emerged.
The Home Office has also lost track of 10,000 more who lodged claims here, the
Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration’s annual report says.
Solar Boost
HUGE planned cuts to solar panel subsidies were scaled back.
Energy firms had expected cuts of up to 90 per cent. Instead, generous
subsidies for “small scale” solar panels on homes will be cut by 64 per
cent. They add £68 to average bills.
Fracking
THE Government rushed through scores of licences for UK frackers yesterday in
a bid to avoid the wrath of green protesters.
Regulators dished out 93 onshore licences to explore 159 areas. Campaigners
said it risked opening up swathes of countryside to fracking.