Rob Wilson's Westminster Diary: March 3, 2011
Rob Wilson MP • Published 4 Mar 2011 09:00
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I raised the issue of Council Tax in the Commons at this week's Local Government Question Time with Secretary of State Eric Pickles because I was delighted to see that Reading Borough Council, for the first time ever, is freezing Council Tax.
We should not underestimate this huge achievement and I would like to publicly express my gratitude to Cllr David Stevens who has worked incredibly hard leading the budget process, pulling off no increase whilst protecting local frontline services.
Every year previously, Labour pumped up the Council Tax with the average home getting a 116 per cent increase between 1997 and 2010.
Yet at the same time Labour was massively increasing the debts of the Council from around £40 million in 2002 to approximately £200 million in 2010.
These are heavy debts for a small local authority to carry and it means that approximately 13 per cent of your Council Tax goes to fund the interest on the debt (not even to pay it off).
It appears that more and more deeply disturbing financial mismanagement is coming out of the Labour years in Reading as time goes by.
It really does make it quite offensive, when, at local and national level Labour refuses to acknowledge the financial mess it left.
Ed Miliband made a speech this week talking about a "cost of living crisis" and locally Labour is carping about some of the reductions in spending.
They need to be reminded that this is their fault and their mess that we're trying to clear up and it began under them.
I think I told you in a previous column how a lady visited my surgery in (from memory) 2009 saying that the cost of living and taxes were such that she had to choose between putting petrol in the car to go to work and food on the table for her children.
The cost of living squeeze started well before the Coalition Government came to power and it is the fault of the Labour Party.
It's all very well observing that there is a squeeze, what we all want to know is how are you going to deal with it. We want a plan, a strategy, anything - unfortunately Ed Miliband hasn't got any idea what to do.
Indeed Lord Mandelson is scathing about him and his failure to acknowledge or address the problems the country faces.
Thank goodness locally and nationally the Coalition is working hard on its plan to dig us out of the hole we are in and delivering important measures like the freeze in Council Tax as part of that.
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