Council drops 15% tax vote… and gets a deal worth millions
A FLAGSHIP Tory council will be allowed to keep millions of pounds in business rates after dropping plans for a 15 per cent council tax increase, it emerged last night.
Ministers admitted that Surrey County Council had been offered a ‘bespoke devolution deal’ which could see it allowed to keep most of the business rates it raises locally.
The revelation will fuel claims that Surrey was secretly given a ‘sweetheart deal’ in return for dropping its plans to raise council tax to fund social care. It had planned to hold a referendum on the issue.
Theresa May was ambushed by Labour in the Commons over the issue yesterday when Jeremy Corbyn produced a leaked text exchange between Surrey County Council’s leader and government officials.
The messages appeared to suggest that the council had been offered assurances over funding in return for ‘killing off’ the council tax referendum.
Downing Street later ‘categorically’ denied that Surrey had been offered a dedicated ‘sweetheart deal’ to head off the threat of such a dramatic council tax increase.
But the Department for Communities and Local Government confirmed last night that Surrey would be made a ‘pilot area’ for plans to allow councils to keep 100 per cent of business rates. The DCLG insisted this did not amount to a special deal, adding: ‘All other councils will be free to participate in these pilots, and the Government invited them to do so.’
But Surrey will now join a handful of authorities allowed to access the scheme early.
The council’s threat to increase council tax was mysteriously dropped on Tuesday, when Tory council leader David Hodge said the Government had ‘listened’ to its concerns about the crisis in social care funding.
Mrs May was left on the back foot in the Commons as Mr Corbyn produced a series of text messages from Mr Hodge which Labour believe to have been intended for Nick King, an adviser to Communities and Local Government Secretary Sajid Javid. But they were apparently sent in error to someone else called Nick.
The Prime Minister ducked questions on the issue, but acknowledged the need to ‘find a long-term, sustainable solution for social care in this country’.
Mr Hodge told ITV News he ‘swears on the Bible there was no sweetheart deal’.