Harlow Labour continue to put pressure on Tories over council tax pledge
News / Sun 12th Dec 2021 at 10:04am
THE LEADER of Harlow Labour has continued to put pressure on the ruling Conservative group over council tax promises.
Councillor Chris Vince asked a number of questions at Thursday night’s council meeting.
Cllr Vince’s link of attack continues to centre on the Harlow Tories pledge in their election leaflets last May to “cut council tax immediately.
His second line of attack is to question the Tories as to what exactly they have done since coming to power seven months ago.
The film of the exchange between cllr Vince and the portfolio holder for finance, cllr James Leppard.
Nicholas Taylor
2021-12-12 11:16:23
This subject is the clearest yet that the Tories never thought that they would sweep into power last May. They made a number of election pledges which they never thought they would have to try and implement and are finding it much more difficult to be in power than when in opposition. If they had thought they would gain control of the Council then they should have had a plan ready to reduce tax, in order to comply with their pledge to cut it immediately. With inflation running at about 5% and a public service pay rise due next April , it will be interesting to see how they will achieve and by how much the Harlow Council proportion of the Council tax will cut.
JD
2021-12-12 12:12:24
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the pledge was "cut council tax immediately". Not "cut the Harlow Council proportion of the council tax", but "cut [the whole] council tax". Any cut should result in a lower total bill. I know that the Harlow Council proportion is the only bit they can control, and that the Essex Council and Police etc parts are much larger. But the pledge was to cut the council tax immediately. The whole tax. Not just a bit of it. Anything else would be breaking the election pledge.
Michael Hatton
2021-12-12 14:30:07
Sir - Perhaps, just perhaps, the deficits in the accounts, now revealed to the Tories, are so bad, that the plans that they had for Harlow have been blown out of the water due to the extravagance of the outgoing Lefties, the group that was mostly made up of ex school teachers, and you wonder why our children's education is so poor.
3 Comments for Harlow Labour continue to put pressure on Tories over council tax pledge: