How council tax ‘levels down’ cities like Sheffield – Gill Furniss

I also saw the challenges we faced in trying to prioritise budgets in the face of wave after wave of cuts.

Since 2010, many local authorities across the country have had to grapple with devastating cuts.

My council in Sheffield has lost almost 50 per cent of its budget, with cuts amounting to £475m.

Throughout this period, the Labour council has made difficult decisions and been forced to adapt many services but it always sought to protect the most vulnerable in our 
city.

The Government’s proposals to allow councils to raise tax by up to five per cent are absurd.

It would not come close to addressing the funding crisis that many are experiencing.

Next year’s costs for adult social care alone in Sheffield will be £31m.

A three per cent increase would contribute only £6.6m to that cost.

The further two per cent would contribute only £4.4m.

That does not come close enough to addressing the 
Covid funding gap of £61m 
that Sheffield City Council 
faces next year after the £92m cost of responding to the pandemic.

This policy flies in the face of the Government’s levelling-up agenda by benefiting wealthier areas.

While a five per cent increase in Sheffield would raise £9m, Surrey County Council would raise £38m with the same increase.

Councils across the country will, of course, be reluctant to raise council tax by five per cent but the Government have given them no choice.

They have done what they do best: they have shifted any responsibility away from themselves.

No council faced with significant funding gaps would refuse even the slightest boost to funding during these challenging times.

It is shameful to hold councils to ransom in this way.

My constituency of Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough ranks as the 12th most deprived constituency in England.

Over a third of children are eligible for free school meals.

Very many of my constituents face tremendous hardships to make ends meet.

Claims for Universal Credit have risen by 95 per cent since March, with almost 14,000 families now receiving the payments – around half of these are in work.

While the Government consider removing the uplift, they are also moving forward with this plan, which would add further strains to household budgets.

Families in Brightside and Hillsborough have particularly felt the cost of Covid-19. Funding this increase will be more difficult for many families in our community than in more prosperous areas.

I am deeply concerned that pushing forward with this plan would only further the hardships that many of them face.

Hundreds of thousands of families across the country are feeling similar pressures.

The Prime Minister said he would do “whatever it takes”.

It appears that this meant abandoning councils and pushing the burden of support for their strained finances on to local taxpayers.

The Government are adept at performing U-turns, so I hope that they will do another and scrap this policy.

The Chancellor must prioritise introducing a comprehensive funding settlement for local government to redress the budget imbalance that a decade of cuts and the Covid-19 pandemic have caused.

Gill Furniss is Labour MP for Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough. She spoke in a Commons debate on council tax – this is an edited version.

Luke Hall, the Local Government Minister, said in response: “Decisions on council tax levels are, of course, for local councils themselves.

“We are allowing councils 
the flexibility to raise council tax up to the ceiling that we 
have set, with a two per cent council tax referendum limit – a ceiling that many Labour councils have been asking us to raise – and an additional three per cent for adult social care responsibilities.

“We are also giving councils the flexibility to defer rises in the adult social care precept for next year, if that is what councils locally decide and if local circumstances require that.

“Vitally, we are also providing councils with £670m of new funding to enable them to continue to reduce council tax bills next year for those least able to pay.”

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