Council tax freeze pledge from Tories
Shadow chancellor George Osborne pledges to freeze council taxes for two years if Conservatives win next election
Also In The News
|
Tottenham remain rooted to the bottom of the table after a 2-0 defeat to Portsmouth at Fratton Park. |  |
Monday, 29, Sep 2008 08:15
The Conservative party has pledged to freeze council taxes for two years if they reach government.
The promise constituted the most important part of shadow chancellor George Osborne's speech at the party conference, in which he tried to peg the country's current economic woes on to 11 years of Labour government.
The Tories plan to operate the freeze by using the consultancy and advertising budget in Whitehall. They will use that money to offer additional resources to local councils who keep the council tax rise to 2.5 per cent or below.
"We are going into partnership with local councils. If they find matching savings in their town hall, we will give them these savings from Whitehall," he said.
"I can tell you today that the next Conservative government will freeze your council tax for at least two years. Every council tax bill of every family in every council that takes part will be frozen."
Each council will be free to accept or reject the contract.
Mr Osborne framed the Conservative approach to finance as one of sensible fiscal prudence, laying out a range of measures to taker control of national debt.
Gordon Brown's fiscal rules would be scrapped and replaced by a mandate specifying falling debt as a percentage of GDP.
A new office for budget responsibility would be created to independently assess the sustainability of public finances and audit the nation's debt, including off-sheet liabilities.
The Bank of England would be given a far greater role in the system of financial regulation, along with the Financial Services Authority (FSA) and the Treasury, Mr Osborne said.
It will be asked to take a broader role in managing debt in the banking system by maintaining communications with the FSA and setting out its assessments of market-wide risk.
To prevent another run on a bank, the Tories are also proposing a system of deposit insurance for savers for the first £50,000 of deposits, to be paid out within a week. Mr Osborne said this will restore consumer confidence in the banking system.
But Mr Osborne also confessed that because of the state of the national finances, a Conservative government would not be able to do all the things it wishes to do in office, such as tax cuts.
"The cupboard is bare. There is no more money," he said.
"So it's no good talking about the big up-front tax giveaways we might like to make, or the big spending increases it might be nice to have."
Other political parties were quick to react to the proposals.
Yvette Cooper, Labour's chief secretary to the Treasury, said: "George Osborne has proved that he doesn't understand how Britain's banking system works.
"If we had done what he suggests Bradford & Bingley would have gone under, with significant risks for depositors, confidence and the stability of the banking system.
"This is an incoherent and irresponsible approach, with no answers to the current problems in the financial system."
The Green party described the creation of an office for budget responsibility as anti-democratic.
"We already have an office of budget responsibility," said party leader Caroline Lucas. "It's called parliament."
"We don't need another quango, filled with the same corporate bosses that got us into this mess, with a few Tory donors and ultra-right thinktank wonks for good measure."
Today's speech marks the first Conservative attempt to rein back the economic agenda from Labour following an unsteady response to the current financial chaos.