07/01/08 - Why Do Council Tenants In Swindon Pay 28% Extra Tax?

Why do Council Tenants in Swindon pay 28% Extra Tax

Gordon Brown and his Government, continue to penalise our council tenants by taxing their weekly rent payments.

For example, those tenants on average rents have to pay a tax of around £17 aweek next year to the Labour government; to add insult to injury, the Government imposed formula for calculating rents means that tenants are due to pay an additional 7.1% on their rent next year and yet they will see it all go straight to the Government.

I am a Councillor representing East Walcot, an area recognised by the Government as being in need of extra funds because of high deprivation. I therefore find it hard to understand why the Government gave £1.5m over 5 years in recognition of this but then impose a 28% tax on the same people.  This means that they pay back the £1.5m over and over again.

If East Walcot is a deprived area then don’t give with one hand and take away more with the other.

In Swindon during 2008/09 the Labour Government will collect £9,1M from Council Tenants pockets in one year; this includes people on housing benefit. No one escapes.  Think of what that money could do for every council tenant, it would buy an awful lot of new kitchens, new bathrooms, and central heating systems for a start.

Over a 5-year period the tax will amount to some £45M, all from Swindon Council Tenants pockets and all gone to London. All indications are that the amount going from Swindon’s tenants to the Government is set to increase year on year.

This is unfair, it only applies to Council Tenants, people living in housing association properties or a private rented property are not penalised in this way.

My question is “What are our two MP’s doing about this?” it is their job to do what is best for all the people of Swindon and that includes Council Tenants. Labour used to claim it was the Party of the vulnerable and less fortunate; clearly, they now see this group as a ‘cash cow’ to impose stealth taxes on.

If you compare this to the Farepack fiasco which was hopefully a one off event, this is a tax that must be paid over and over again.  Our MP Anne Snelgrove was quick to offer her support to the victims of Farepack and rightly so but what about the thousands of Council Tenant victims of the 28% tax in her constituency?

Just lately our MP’s have been complaining about finding it difficult to work with the Council, well here is an ideal opportunity for them to show us all what they can do for their own people.  It would also demonstrate to us that their calls to work with the council are just not empty words.

I call on our MP’s, Anne Snelgrove MP and Michael Wills MP to do something about it.

Councillor Peter Mallinson - Walcot Ward

(13 The Brampton's, Shaw, Swindon)