The councillor in charge of Wandsworth’s plan to nearly double council tax has said he is “deeply uncomfortable” with the rise.
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.
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.
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.”
London Streets has been covering the London Assembly and Camden schools today.
