Big Brother Labour will hike council tax – Gove

MICHAEL Gove has accused Labour of ‘using Big Brother tactics’ to push up council tax on homes.

The Labour-run Welsh government has been using satellites to spy on homeowners living in properties with large gardens or that have undergone renovations and extensions.

As well as using aerial and street view photography, data from planning applications, statistics on school performance and crime rates are also being assessed as part of an overhaul of council tax bands being drawn up by the Senedd.

It means families who live in bigger, better insulated homes in areas with good schools or lower rates of crime could be hit with higher council tax bills.

Although Sir Keir Starmer has

‘Using aerial photography’

insisted that a Labour government will not raise taxes, he has described the Welsh Government as a ‘blueprint’ for ‘what Labour can do across the UK’.

housing Secretary Mr Gove said: ‘Sir Keir Starmer is using his “blueprint” Labour government in Wales to road test his plans to hike up council taxes on people’s homes. These Big Brother tactics will punish families with higher bills simply for having good schools or lower crime.’

The Valuation Office Agency, which has been commissioned to gather the data to update information on the value of Wales’s 1.5million homes, told the Sunday Telegraph: ‘We are simply accessing freely available information. The valuation methods we are using are internationally recognised as best practice.’