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Text of address 24/10/05 given by
Christine Melsom - the founder of ISITFAIR who campaign against
the unjust COUNCIL TAX
Thank you for inviting me to join you here today. By the way I am not a politician and don't enquire about the voting colour of our members.
“The job of local government is cloaked in impenetrable detail and insoluble difficulties”
Those were the words of Winston Churchill in a letter to Mr. Asquith, nearly one hundred years ago.
The same difficulties remain unsolved today.
The ISITFAIR campaign fights against council tax everywhere in the United Kingdom. It was initially internet based, but because of our growing strength, we are now being invited, by Press, Radio and Television, to give our opinions nationally.
We have the moral endorsement of two great charities. The Royal British Legion and Help the Aged, because of the hardship caused to many of their members by council tax.
We have held a rally in Trafalgar Square and twice marched down Whitehall calling at Downing Street to deliver petitions signed by one hundred thousand.
We have taken delegations to the Balance of Funding Review and the Lyons Enquiry.
We have held meetings with Conservative and Liberal Democrat representatives for local government affairs. We also, by invitation, have attended fringe meetings at both the Conservative and Liberal Democrat Party Conferences.
On 17th January this year, our case for council tax reform was taken to the European Parliament before the Committee on Petitions. Two hundred pensioner organizations had sent letters of support together with nearly 4,000 individual letters to Brussels.
The long awaited report of the Lyons Enquiry, already delayed, has now been delayed for a further year. The press are of the opinion that like other reports, it will be shelved. This again a ploy by the Government to avoid the subject of council tax being openly debated in the near future. The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister continually urges us to be patient and wait for the outcome of this report. How long will we have to wait?
We have worked hard. Our aim is to have council tax replaced with a tax based on income and affordability and not on property values.
Please join us - you will not be alone.
Politics today is about spending money - other people's money - yours and mine!
We know our national services must be paid for: but why is council tax the only tax to be increased every year? Not just increased to keep pace with inflation but with big rises of three, four and five times the inflation rate- year-on-year-on-year. For the last ten years. This is plainly unsustainable. Why can our Government be so blind?
In the run-up to the General Election, Nick Raynsford (then Minister for Local Government Funding) tried to pour oil on the angry waters. He said "the days of high council tax rises are over".
Well the days are not over and as you may have noticed Mr. Raynsford has lost his job. The new Raynsford is now called Mr. Milliband, and our Government, newly re-elected, has no intention of easing the plight of council taxpayers in any way whatsoever.
Sir Jeremy Beecham of the Local Government Association was asked this question on television
"Why is council tax the only tax to increase so much each year"?
This is what he said
"The services provided by local authorities tend to be labour-intensive. This causes high rises".
What a pathetic argument.
On average, 75 percent of local authority budgets is funded in the form of grants from Central Government, which are found from general taxation to which we all contribute.
But do we see any increase in income tax? - do we see any increase in VAT? No - they stand still while council tax doubles and re-doubles. So, when we hear ministers bragging about the extra billions being pumped into education or social services. Who do you think is paying for it? WE ARE: the golden egg- laying geese, paying for the extra funding.
That is why each year we have to find more and more money to feed the unquenchable appetite of the state. That is why they do not want to change. That is why they keep playing for time.
What is happening in our country? Why do we imprison a 71 year old retired clergyman and a 73 year old woman while hundreds of villains are free-free to burgle, mug and vandalise, while claiming their rights and benefits.
Well, because non-payment of a small amount of tax is regarded by our Government as far more serious.
'No taxation without representation' was the cry when the American Revolution began, and we may have trouble in store - as well, and soon by the look of things.
Council Tax has become a punishment for the careful and prudent to subsidise the wasteful and careless.
Ever-increasing demands are made, based on an asset we cannot sell, and which puts no money in our pockets.
I completely fail to understand how our political masters can decide to continue with a property based tax which is so patently unfair. Why retain a tax where those with the smallest income pay the highest percentage of it in tax? While the well heeled pay the least.
We agree that taxes are needed, but any compulsory tax must take into account affordability to pay it.
ISITFAIR members have calculated that revenue from council tax could be transferred to general taxation with a moderate increase in income tax and VAT (fully detailed documents have been prepared). The change could be phased over two or three years.
We are law-abiding people and so cannot advocate non-payment of tax or persuade others to break the law. But if one of our members decides to take that route, we will vigorously support and advise in every way we can.
The sacrifice so bravely made by Alfred Ridley in Towcester and Sylvia Hardy from Exeter, highlights the plight of hundreds of thousands of law-abiding people in every part of our country, who are frustrated by the complete collapse of local democracy.
Councillors, particularly in the Shire Counties, are puppets on strings leading to Westminster: victims of a central Government riding rough-shod over their aspirations and successfully silencing the voice of the local electorates.
The blame for spiraling council tax lies squarely with central Government. Each year they set targets for huge increases in expenditure enforceable by law. but withhold the necessary funding forcing Council Tax up, up, up.
Does the Government wish to add more each year to the millions already on council tax benefit?
The idea that pensioners living in the country are wealthy is wrong. There are many poor people in rural areas, whose need for extra funding is just as great as for those in the towns. The Government continues to fund through grant pensioners in urban areas to the tune of four times as much as those in the countryside. There are rich and poor everywhere. You cannot lump people together in this way.
Our council leaders have already warned us to expect continued inflation-busting rises in 2006/2007.
In Wales revaluation and re-banding is already operating. One third of properties went up by one two or three bands. Only eight percent went down. Many unlucky residents have had to face increases of £800 and more per year.
Re-banding in England has now been postponed, we understand until after the next General Election. The Government fears a voting backlash, particularly in the London Area.
Our Government recently floated the idea of the aptly named 'death tax'. This, they say, will provide a helpful way for pensioners to pay council tax bills. They will make it easy for old people to sign away the equity in their homes every year for the Chancellor to collect (at compound interest of course) when we are dead.
So there you have it. Houses have increased in value but they put no money in our pockets, and we need to live somewhere. The Government is ravenous for its pound of flesh. When we can no longer pay from income, they will take the savings which we used to rely on to maintain our homes.
Then when we have no savings left we must pay with the roof over our heads. Some tax!
We need change fast. How can anyone possibly object to paying for our core services from general taxation to which we all contribute without being made victims of political or geographical discrimination?
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