Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Government must now respond to the petition raised by Inside Croydon that opposes the imposition of a 15per cent Council Tax increase without first holding a cross-borough referendum on the matter.
The 10,000 signature threshold for getting an official Government response to the petition was reached yesterday lunchtime, and just five days after the petition was published by House of Commons officials.
Earlier this month, Michael Gove’s Department for Levelling Up announced that Croydon Council was to be allowed to increase Council Tax by 15per cent without the need of a referendum, after receiving a request from the borough’s Tory Mayor, Jason Perry.
The DLUHC has also given special permission to two other financially troubled councils, Thurrock and Slough, to increase their Council Tax by 10per cent without a referendum.
These huge Council Tax hikes – while most councils around the country have their increases capped at 5per cent – come in the middle of the worst cost-of-living crisis for a generation.
The petition to Parliament says,
No local authority should be able to increase Council Tax by more than 5per cent without a referendum. The Government should instead renegotiate its settlements with local authorities in England to find a way to resolve the exceptional financial difficulties that many councils find themselves in.
The public should not have to pay for a financial crisis which is not their fault through Council Tax increases above the 5per cent cap, unless these are approved through a public referendum.
Many people will be placed in dire financial circumstances during the cost of living crisis if their local authorities are allowed to raise Council Tax by more than 5per cent.
The focus for the Parliamentary petition is now to gather wider, national attention, in Thurrock and Slough, as well as in Nottingham, Liverpool and every other cash-strapped local authority, working towards garnering 100,000 signatures, which will trigger a debate in Parliament.
Over the threshold: the Parliamentary petition
The petition has already been signed by members of the public in every constituency across the whole of London.
In Croydon, almost twice as many people have signed the petition in Conservative-voting Croydon South constituency as have signed it from Labour stronghold Croydon North.
The second, “Say No to 15%” petition, directed at Croydon Council, was on its way to 25,000 signatures by lunchtime today. Croydon Council has already agreed that the petition can be presented ahead of the Town Hall budget meeting to be held on March 1, when a large-scale protest is expected on Katharine Street from a coalition of residents’ association, hard-working families and council employees.
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That’s quite an achievement, and one showing more leadership than demonstrated by any of our MPs or councillors. Take a bow, iC and Steven Downes
Well said
Ditto. What are the cances of popping a note to Master Hislop for him to run a short piece requesting others across the UK to sign the petition and get it to 100,000?
I can think of 4 councils that readership would rocket in! All Tory led as he intimated
Please let us know how we can get involved in the protest on the 1st March.
As a long-suffering Croydon resident I am having to pay for all this incompetence, as we all are. But why should everyone in the UK have to chip in? There must be some proper accountability. We’re already getting bailed out to a spectacular degree which may be a relief but in the long term only makes things worse.
It’s a national petition, Christopher. It applies nationally. On a principle that local authorities are not allowed to increase Council Tax by more than the national cap without a referendum, as is demanded by the law.
Croydon’s Council Tax hike is just a Tory stitch-up between Gove and his useful idiot, Perry.
You ought to have worked that out by now.
Thank you for setting up the petition ,which I have signed and shared widely This is an important issue which must be debated at the highest level
Chris Philp has been very quiet amongst all this. He use to continuously bleat in favour of the DEMOC petition when rabble rousing amongst the leafy enclaves of South Croydon to get it implemented. Funny how Croydon’s Minister in the Government of none of the talents has become the invisible man now we are suffering the results of his policies.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he was spotted nosing around more congenial parts of Surrey like his mate “Super” Mario.
Has anyone heard anything on the Parliamentary petition from Labour’s two Croydon MPs? No? Thought not…
As far as I am aware only Sarah Jones MP has said anything . The current MP’s need to support the long suffering residents in respect of the proposed Hike and be seen to do so . If they fail to do so hopefully the residents will not forget at the next election and vote them out. As stated above the only clear leadership to date has been from, IC .
from past experience they do not need to debate or menton this in parliament, even if they do it will be an 11pm debate with 1 man and his dog in attendance.