Millions of UK households could face a council tax increase after July. The Labour Party's Wes Streeting has refused to rule out a council tax increase if it wins the upcoming General Election, with Sir Keir Starmer presently leading the polls.
Labour Defends Council Tax Stance Amid Conservative Claims
Mr Streeting told BBC One's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg that none of his party's manifesto pledges included an increase in council tax. Mr Streeting informed Kuenssberg: “We don’t want to see the tax burden on working people increase …
"What Rachel Reeves [the shadow chancellor] is going to work to do is to get growth back into our economy so we can invest in our public services and ease the tax burden on working people.”
He went on to say: “Every promise in our manifesto is a promise we can keep and the country can afford. None of those pledges in our manifesto requires increases in council tax, increases in fuel duty or any of the other taxes which the Conservatives are claiming we want to increase.”
When asked by Sky News' Trevor Phillips if the party could spend more on the NHS than outlined in its platform, Mr Streeting responded: “If the conditions allow, but only if the conditions allow. We will not make promises we cannot keep or that the country cannot afford.”
He continued: "But the polls do tell us one thing. They do show people that if people don't vote Conservative and some of the people vote for the smaller parties, and Labour does end up with a very large majority, they're going to have a blank check.
"They are trying very hard in this campaign not to spell out how they're going to pay for any of their promises. We know there is a black hole. We can have a debate about how big it is. We've said it's going to be £2,000 for every family in the next over the parliament, but there's definitely a black hole.
"We've set out the taxes that they might have to raise and they haven't ruled them out."