01-17-2017, 08:39 PM
The Conservative Government has recently proposed that local authorities in the UK will be able to increase local Council tax by up to 6% to fund social care.
At a time when the Government is talking about helping the Just Managing or Squeezed Middle, it is simultaneously talking about passing the burden of funding vital public services back onto these already struggling groups.
Yet the Conservatives, both in coalition, and now in power in their own right, have ruthlessly cut the transfer to local government year on year in the name of austerity and cutting the national debt.
The best estimate is that during the last parliament overall funding for public services fell by about 29%, whilst Social care funding has fallen by 9% in real terms over the past five years alone.
The Liberal Party opposes un-necessary and counterproductive austerity, which plainly doesn’t mean we are all in it together as David Cameron oft claimed.
Funding needs to come from an adequate settlement from central government, which in turn needs to ensure all in our society pay their fair share of taxes and contribute to the provision of fully funded local services for the most dependent in our society.
Liberals would replace the Council Tax with a local income tax and a local rate based on land values, which has the added advantage of promoting the release of unimproved land for commercial or domestic development as well as taxing the profits made from land ownership.
At a time when the Government is talking about helping the Just Managing or Squeezed Middle, it is simultaneously talking about passing the burden of funding vital public services back onto these already struggling groups.
Yet the Conservatives, both in coalition, and now in power in their own right, have ruthlessly cut the transfer to local government year on year in the name of austerity and cutting the national debt.
The best estimate is that during the last parliament overall funding for public services fell by about 29%, whilst Social care funding has fallen by 9% in real terms over the past five years alone.
The Liberal Party opposes un-necessary and counterproductive austerity, which plainly doesn’t mean we are all in it together as David Cameron oft claimed.
Funding needs to come from an adequate settlement from central government, which in turn needs to ensure all in our society pay their fair share of taxes and contribute to the provision of fully funded local services for the most dependent in our society.
Liberals would replace the Council Tax with a local income tax and a local rate based on land values, which has the added advantage of promoting the release of unimproved land for commercial or domestic development as well as taxing the profits made from land ownership.