David Cameron’s Council Tax pledge, unveiled in the Sun Newspaper this week, has not received the necessary scrutiny it deserves.

To make everyone’s job slightly easier, I’ve pulled together a briefing that takes apart Cameron’s claims and subjects it to some number-crunching.

This is meant to be a time-saver for journalists and activists and interested parties. It is also meant to point out that Cameron’s pledges don’t stand up in the way they are framed.

Key findings
1. A two year Council Tax freeze will cost Local Authorities in England between £2.48 billion and £2.53 billion in lost revenues. The Conservatives have yet to indicate how they will fund their proposed Council Tax freeze, through cuts in local public services or by increasing the level of central government grants paid to local councils.

2. At present, 3.7 million households in England would not benefit at all from a Council Tax freeze because they receive full Council Tax benefit, including 1.7 million pensioner households who currently receive pension credit/minimum income guarantee. The number of households who will not benefit from a Council Tax freeze will increase over the next 12-18 months, as unemployment increases.

3. To save ‘over £200’ in Council Tax over the course of a two year freeze, the ‘typical family’ referred by David Cameron in his pledge would, in at least 300 of England’s 315 Local Authorities, need to living in a Band E property and paying more than £1644.74 a year in Council Tax. But only 9.5% of properties in England are Council Tax Band E, placing these properties amongst the 20% most valuable in the country.

4. We estimate that a typical family living in a Band B/C property (a typical family home) will save, on average, only between £136 and £158 during a two year Council Tax freeze, not ‘over £200’ as David Cameron has pledged.

Download the briefing (pdf) here.

Reader comments

1. Liberal Conspiracy

   Article:: LC Briefing: Cameron’s Council Tax Pledge will http://bit.ly/KjGc1

2. The Sliver Party

   RT @libcon Article:: LC Briefing: Cameron’s Council Tax Pledge http://bit.ly/KjGc1 #cpc09

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3. sunny hundal

   Exclusive: Cameron’s Council Tax Pledge will only affect 1-in-5! http://bit.ly/dCPV5 (LibCon briefing)

   [Original tweet]

4. Liberal Conspiracy

   Article:: LC Briefing: Cameron’s Council Tax Pledge will http://bit.ly/KjGc1

   [Original tweet]

5. The Sliver Party

   RT @libcon Article:: LC Briefing: Cameron’s Council Tax Pledge http://bit.ly/KjGc1 #cpc09

   [Original tweet]

6. Tory Conference: Thatcherism is back – Green Christian

   [...] Another thing that seems to indicate that the Tories are only considering the rich is their council tax pledge – saying that the average family will save £200 on their council tax bill by imposing a council tax freeze means that the Tory definition of average is the richest 20%. [...]

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