Council Tax

Lord Watts Excerpts

Monday 3rd February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

It is not only Labour-run councils that apply for exceptional financial support. My honourable friend the Minister will be making a Statement later today about which councils have been successful in gaining that exceptional financial support. There are any number of reasons why councils need to apply for that. It is not necessarily poor financial management: it can be the circumstances they find themselves in, particularly those areas that have low funding because the fair funding was not looked after.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, many local authorities are able to raise millions of pounds from their council tax payers from things such as car park charges. Does the Minister intend to take into account the massive amounts of money that some local authorities can raise?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, fees and charges form an important part of councils’ income. Whether that is fair or not is for the council tax payers of the area in question to make their minds up about locally. The three strands of council tax funding very much include those fees and charges, and the voters will decide whether they are reasonable or not.