Labour minister in council tax gaffe
In an embarrassment for the Labour Party a junior transport minister has said that the party is planning to scrap council tax if re-elected.
Labour has consistently refused to formulate a policy on the reform of the council tax system until the Lyons review reports in the autumn.
But, Charlotte Atkins said in a radio interview that her party were planning to completely revamp the current system, saying that it is “regressive”.
The 54-year-old has since apologised for her comments, saying that she was incorrect, but the incident is sure to be used by opposition parties in the run-up to the general election on May 5.
“We are scrapping the present system because it is regressive,” Ms Atkins, who is standing for re-election in Staffordshire Moorlands, told BBC Radio Stoke.
“It was bought in by the Tories and was their way of overcoming the fiasco that was the poll tax. [Conservative leader] Michael Howard was the architect of it.”
Local Government Minister Nick Raynsford responded immediately, claiming that “Charlotte simply got it wrong”.
Later, Ms Atkins released a statement attempting to defuse the situation. “Sorry,” she said. “I admit that I got this wrong. I recognise that our policy is to retain and reform the system and not scrap it.”
Responding, Liberal Democrats chairman Matthew Taylor suggested that the incident revealed that Labour secretly agreed with his party’s entrenched position on the council tax system.
“This is a Government minister admitting the Liberal Democrats are right that council tax is unfair and should be scrapped,” he said.
“Labour needs to come clean and tell the public before May 5 what its plans for council tax really are – who will pay more and who will pay less?”
Shadow Local Government Minister Caroline Spelman said that Ms Atkins’ comments had exposed secret plans to “hike up” council tax bills.
Ms Spelman said: “Labour are all over the place over their position on council tax because Mr Blair does not want to talk about his plans to revalue and introduce more stealth taxes before the election. Today a Labour Minister has lifted the lid on Labour’s secret manifesto to hit hard-working families with higher stealth taxes
“In their words, they would ‘scrap’ the current council tax system, only to replace it with a new ten-band system – something which Nick Raynsford, the Minister for Local Government, has already proposed. Millions of households would land up paying higher taxes.”
