My Lords, the purpose of the regulations is to amend the wording to be used in a council tax referendum question, and make amendments to the ballot paper to reflect the wording agreed with the Electoral Commission.
As noble Lords will be aware, since we took office, the coalition Government have prioritised the protection of council taxpayers. Council tax more than doubled between 1997 and 2010, and this Government have worked with local authorities to give council tax payers a break. We have put in place three council tax freeze schemes that have provided real help with the cost of living. The latest scheme potentially represents a real-terms council tax cut of around 2.5% in 2013-14. The Government encourage all authorities to take up the grant that we are offering and freeze their council tax once again.
As we promised in the coalition Programme for Government, we have abolished the old centralised system of council tax capping and established council tax referenda, so that voters could have the final say on any excessive increases. Following the Localism Act, a number of regulations were put in place to set out the processes that local authorities must follow if they set an excessive increase. The most substantive of these regulations are the Local Authorities (Conduct of Referendums) (Council Tax Increases) (England) (Regulations) 2012, which this Committee considered early last year. Both Houses approved the regulations. However, noble Lords will be aware that in preparing those regulations we were unfortunately unable to completely agree the wording of the referendum question with the Electoral Commission in time for the 2012-13 round of council tax setting. The Electoral Commission briefed Members of both Houses on their concerns about this.
During the debate on 14 February 2012, my noble friend Lady Hanham gave an undertaking that the Government would continue to work with the Electoral Commission and come forward with revised wording for the referendum question to be used in 2013-14. The House agreed that the regulations should be approved on this basis to protect council tax payers by not allowing referenda to go unregulated.
It is worth noting that no council tax referenda were held in the financial year 2012-13. Accordingly, no referenda have been held using the wording of the
question that we now propose to amend. My honourable friend, the then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Bob Neill, subsequently wrote to Jenny Watson, the chairman of the Electoral Commission, proposing a revised version of the referendum question. The revised version removes the phrase “do you agree”, which the commission had concerns about. The revised question also asks voters if they want their council tax to be at the level that has been set, with a clear indication that a “no” vote will result in a lower amount being set. This change removes any possible ambiguity about a voter’s liability for a council tax bill they have received prior to the referendum being held.
Following discussion, the commission confirmed that it was content with the suggested wording. I would like to place on record my thanks to the Electoral Commission for its highly constructive and timely approach to this work, and its sensitivity to concerns. In signalling its agreement to the revised question, the Electoral Commission repeated wider concerns about the complexity of council tax referenda and the need for government to ensure that timely information is provided to voters who take part in a referendum. We remain content that the multiple provisions relating to the provision of information set out in the lengthy 2012 regulations are sufficient and we are not minded to pursue any changes.
However, we take the commission’s views very seriously and remain in dialogue with it through various cross-Whitehall fora, and will discuss the scope for an appraisal of the voter experience if and when a referendum is triggered. The revised council tax referendum question needs to be in place before the current round of local authority council tax setting is completed. The final referendum threshold will be put to the House for approval alongside the final local government finance settlement on 13 February. All local authorities must have set their council tax by 11 March.
These regulations make a sensible, measured amendment to the question that will be asked in a council tax referendum. They reflect the views of the Electoral Commission and I commend them to the Committee.
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