Tories and Labour councillors clash over 5% Kirklees Council tax increase

They have accused the Labour-led administration of hiking the bill by the maximum allowable “regardless of economic conditions”.

Conservative group leader on the council, David Hall, said some people will struggle to pay the average extra £92 per year and urged Labour to use “rainy day money” by dipping into cash reserves.

That led to a furious response from senior Labour councillor and Cabinet member Graham Turner, who said: “Perhaps if the government had delivered its long-awaited policy on how to fund adult social care, we would not be in the position of asking taxpayers to fund this by raising council tax.”

He called it “a sticking plaster to cover up the government’s abject failure to deliver a fair solution to adult social care crises”.

The Conservatives say their 2021/2022 budget amendment, which goes to a meeting of full council next week (Feb 10) “provides better services, with a lower council tax, paid for by setting ambitious but fair efficiency targets for the whole organisation.”

Meanwhile Liberal Democrats have suggested a 3.99% council tax rise by phasing the adult social care element over two years.

And the Greens are proposing a six-month rent-free period for the borough’s hospitality sector to cover cafés, coffee shops, pubs, restaurants and clubs.

For the Tories Coun Hall (Liversedge and Gomersal) added: “We can’t go on raising council tax by the maximum allowed year after year, and certainly

not now at a time of pandemic.

“Labour’s 5% increase is deplorable, given that many, many families have lost income and will struggle to pay the average extra £92 per year. The council has reserves for rainy days, and this is the time to use some of them.”

The Conservatives said their alternative plan addressed what they described as some “second-rate” services under Labour including the bulky waste collection service, bin collections over Christmas, extra road re-surfacing, better digital connection, flood management and drainage improvements, and action to deal with air pollution and climate change.

The group’s finance spokesman, Coun John Taylor (Kirkburton) said: “These are all areas where residents continually report dissatisfaction with Labour’s current services.”

In reply Coun Turner said: “No one likes raising taxes, and it’s never an easy decision to reach, but the facts are that we face ever increasing demands on council services.

“Sadly the adult social care sector has borne the brunt of the pandemic with far too many premature deaths in the older population.

“This has highlighted the issue of the underfunding of the adult social care sector, and we must do all we can to address these issues as we hopefully move towards the end on the pandemic.

“The impact of the pandemic, on not only the council’s finances but also the nation’s, does mean that at some point the chancellor is going to have to make tough decisions on how to pay for both the cost of dealing the pandemic and the downturn in the economy.”

He said the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, was guilty of passing the burden onto local authorities to make tough decisions, which was “grossly unfair”.

He added: “Right at the start of this terrible pandemic government said, time and time again, that local authorities should do ‘whatever it takes’ to get us through this terrible time in our history, and that they would pick up the bill.

“Yet in Kirklees alone we find we have been £14m short of those promises.”

Lib Dem leader Coun John Lawson (Cleckheaton) said his group had used a mixture of deferred spending, low-cost borrowing and efficiencies over the term of the budget to achieve its amendments.

He added: “The Conservative adult social care stealth tax is being used to shift the burden of the government’s repeated failures onto residents, hitting those who can least afford it the hardest.

“We continue to face unresolved government funding but we feel that we can still have some aspirations about what we want our communities to be like in a post-Covid world and that now is the time to be generating those ideas.

“We have concentrated mainly on well-being, climate change and business recovery. For example, through deferred spending we have allocated £1m to young people’s mental health issues.”

Green leader – and West Yorkshire mayoral candidate – Coun Andrew Cooper (Newsome) said his group’s amendment followed a successful three-month rent holiday for hospitality businesses last year.

He said it was vital for the vibrancy of town centres that the hospitality industry is saved from collapse.

“We have some excellent and welcoming businesses in Huddersfield town centre who have lost thousands. If Kirklees really has a commitment to revitalising Huddersfield then protecting the businesses we already have is vital at this time.”