George Osborne announced a freeze in Council Tax in England for this year in his conference speech earlier this week and as a result the Welsh Government will get around £40 million as a result of the Barnett consequential. The rather crass way it was announced got backs up as did David Cameron, George Osborne, Cheryl Gillan and the Welsh Tories suggesting that Carwyn Jones government should follow suit.
Which means Carwyn won’t freeze Welsh council tax for the very reason why the UK Government will freeze it in England namely political advantage and besides it’s another opportunity for Welsh Ministers to show local government whose boss by denying them the extra cash.
There is another more pressing reason for the reluctance to follow suit and that is Budget votes, Ministers are calculating why help struggling middle income families in Wales that Labour aren’t very keen on anyway, when they can cheaply buy one of the Opposition Parties with money that is only available for this financial year. And like the Programme for Government last week, the draft budget is highly political and threadbare and dressed up in grand ideas of growth and skills that the media have swallowed whole once again.
Politics aside I would freeze council tax and help ease the pressure on family finances now, because the alternative is the Welsh Government putting the cash into a Ministerial pet project or propping up one of their vested interest rather than investing in something that might actually help.Any source
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