LABOUR IN COUNCIL TAX CHAOS - WHAT HAVE THEY GOT TO HIDE?

For Immediate Use – Monday 20 December 2010



Attn: NEWS DESKS


POLITICAL CORRESPONDENTS


FOUR WASTED YEARS SHOW LABOUR NOT UP TO JOB OF GOVERNMENT


The SNP has today branded Labour’s council tax plans as chaos and condemned the party’s four wasted years of searching for new forms of local taxation – time during which Labour could have supported fair local taxation and backed the SNP’s Local Income Tax.


This weekend signalled that Labour’s policy to replace the council tax with a new property tax was in disarray after they had continually promised that they would soon be publishing their plans and that they would be a key part of their election campaign next year.

In October 2008 Iain Gray admitted their plans in 2007 ‘didn’t add up’ and that they would not make their new plans ‘on the back of a fag packet’.

In March 2009 Iain Gray announced that a working group had been set up by finance spokesman Andy Kerr to study the issue.

By August 2009 it was reported that the policy would ‘form a key part of the party’s campaign and manifesto for the 2011 Holyrood election’ and would be ‘revealed in the coming months’.


Yet by August 2010 no plans had yet been published and Labour MSPs were warning Iain Gray that they needed ‘a coherent policy’. An MSP close to the leadership predicted that details would emerge in October at their Oban conference.




In the interim Labour indicates support for council tax to be increased by 3%

But by October 2010 at the Labour conference the working group was in the hands of Michael McMahon who said it was ‘finalising its report’

December 2010 still no finalised report and Labour is saying that its ‘plans will be published in our manifesto’.


Commenting SNP MSP Kenneth Gibson said:

"Labour are at sixes and sevens over local taxation. They have had years to come up with their plans and now say they will only publish weeks before an election. What are they hiding?


"Labour have spent the best part of eight years promising to reform or replace the unfair council tax, and have come up with nothing apart from a disastrous idea to impose a basket of new local taxes on top of the council tax.


“They don't have a credible alternative. They have an uncosted wish-list of too-good-to-be-true policies and Scotland. Their council tax confusion shows they are inexperienced and inconsistent.”

ENDS


Notes

News copy showing Labour’s changing positions on their property tax proposals:


1. Iain Gray, Sunday Times, 4th October 2008:


“We don’t have our own proposals,” he says candidly. “We went into the 2007 election with a proposal to try and make the council tax fairer and it didn’t add up. Central to our new manifesto is a properly worked out suggestion for how we make the council tax fairer.”

He is not prepared to give any further details of a putative scheme. “I’ve always resisted being asked to do that immediately on the back of a fag packet,” he says. “We made that mistake once before.”


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article4881250.ece



2. Press Association Scotland - 4th March 2009


Labour would keep a link to property when reforming the council tax, local authorities heard today.

The reformed tax would also be set locally, party leader Iain Gray said…

…Mr Gray said the working group set up by finance spokesman Andy Kerr to study the issue comprised seven people including two councillors, Graeme Morrice of West Lothian and Stephen Curran of Glasgow.


"As a first principle, it should be a property tax," he said.

3. The Times – 11th August 2009

Labour is preparing to regain the political initiative in Scotland with a plan to replace council tax with a local property tax.


The proposed tax would be based on the valuation of individual homes and would see those who carry out improvements, such as adding a conservatory or garage, paying more. It could form a key part of the party’s campaign and manifesto for the 2011 Holyrood election…

…The plan, which is to be revealed in the coming months once it has been agreed by the shadow Cabinet, is regarded as the answer to the Nationalists’ postponed attempt to introduce a local income tax.


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article6790853.ece














4. The Times – 31st August 2010






Backbench Labour MSPs at Holyrood are warning their leader that the party risks losing again to the SNP if it goes into next year's Scottish election without a coherent policy on replacing or changing the council tax.






They are anxious that with only nine months to go until Scottish voters go to the polls, the party appears no nearer to developing an alternative method of raising local authority finance…






…While they accept that Labour's policy formulation process has to be respected, the MSPs believe that time is running short for voters to familiarise themselves with Labour's alternative…






…Instead, they believe that Mr Swinney will simply warn councils that if they increase the council tax for next year he will remove each individual council's portion of the £70 million government subsidy that he gives them at present to cover the cost of the freeze.






"If that happens and we have still said nothing about what we would do, we'll be left looking as if we're backing the councils ... and that will be a very bad place to be," the MSP said.






…There was also confusion last night in Labour ranks about whether an alternative to the existing council tax would be revealed at the party's Scottish conference in Oban at the end of October. An MSP close to the leadership predicted that details would emerge in Oban.






However, an official spokesman for the party at Holyrood said: "It's possible, but not confirmed. It has to be properly robust. We are looking at a property-based alternative, but it is not certain what the timescale is."






















5. Michael McMahon, speech to Scottish Conference, 29th October 2010:














“The Domestic Taxation Working Group I have been chairing is finalising its report.














“It will take account of the proposals announced in the recent Westminster Spending Review, it will take account of the 10% cut in Council Tax Benefit the ConDems have imposed and we are now waiting for the Scottish Government to publish the Scottish budget to see the full extent of the government cuts.














“We will come forward with our proposals when we know that we can deliver them - unlike the SNP, who can’t seem to make a promise without breaking it.














“Let me also be clear, though, that Scottish Labour remains committed to the principle of a property based tax.”














http://www.scottishlabour.org.uk/speech-to-scottish-conference-by-michael-mcmahon






















6. Scotsman, 20th December 2010














A row has erupted over Scottish Labour's planned property tax amid reports the party had abandoned the policy…














…However, Labour claimed the report was speculation and said that the party's "plans will be published in our manifesto".














http://news.scotsman.com/uk/Row-over-Labour39s-tax-plans.6665915.jp