Fuente : Conservative Party
http://www.conservatives.com/

CONSERVATIVES: Prescott exposes Labour's secret council tax agenda

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John Prescott has let the cat out of the bag about the real reason for council tax revaluation in Wales, Conservatives have claimed.

The Deputy Prime Minister's office has admitted that the re-banding exercise in Wales was intended solely to raise revenue - a claim repeatedly denied by his own Labour colleagues.

Mr Prescott's admission - made in a statement to the media - came as Conservatives stepped up pressure to prevent council tax revaluation in England.

The party has warned that millions of households could see their council tax bills soar by hundreds of pounds if the experience of property revaluation in Wales is repeated in England.

A third of all Welsh homes have risen by at least one band following revaluation, which came into effect in April. Bills for many of these properties will be pushed higher in the coming years as transitional relief payments designed to soften the blow are phased out.

Figures obtained by Caroline Spelman MP, the Shadow Secretary of State for Local Government, reveal that when transitional relief runs out in 2008, some 55,566 Welsh homes - 4.2 per cent of the total - will have gone up by two bands.

Another 6,608 (0.5 per cent) will have risen by three bands and 1,627 properties (0.1 per cent) by four or more. If the same pattern is repeated in England, some 6.2 million homes would be moved up by one band, 923,829 by two bands, 109,863 by three and 27,050 by four, Conservatives claim.

At the time of revaluation, Labour ministers in Wales said there'd be "as many winners as losers" in a process that would be "revenue neutral".

Last September, Mr Prescott's Labour colleague and Welsh Local Government Minister Sue Essex - the minister responsible for revaluation - said the process "was not undertaken as a reason to increase council tax levels".

But in a response to Conservative claims about revaluation in England, the Office of Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott said that "[the Welsh Assembly] had decided to use revaluation to raise tax revenue".

Under Labour since 1997, Band D council tax bills in Wales have risen by 86 per cent or £425. verage council tax bills soared by almost 10 per cent this year, with some areas seeing bills rise by more than seven times the rate of inflation.

But as recently as March, the Labour Assembly Government said this year's Band D rise was just 3.8 per cent.

The leader of the Welsh Conservatives in the National Assembly, Nick Bourne AM, said: "In his own unique fashion, John Prescott has let the cat out of the bag.

"We now know what we have always suspected, courtesy of the Deputy Prime Minister's bungling candour. Revaluation is nothing more than yet another Labour stealth tax which has hit people in every community in Wales. It comes as a direct result of Labour's mismanagement of key services in Cardiff Bay.

"I trust that First Minister Rhodri Morgan and Sue Essex will have the decency to apologise both for misleading the Welsh nation, but for the appalling way their government's failures have necessitated these tax increases. Council Tax revaluation in Wales was nothing more than yet another part of Labour's secret agenda to raise revenue by stealth."

The Welsh Conservatives' finance spokesman in the National Assembly, Glyn Davies AM, accused Labour ministers in Wales of "serious dishonesty".

Mr Davies is writing to Rhodri Morgan and Sue Essex seeking an explanation following the comments from Mr Prescott's office. And he added: "Throughout the long period of discussion prior to the revaluation coming into effect, Assembly Members of all sides depended on ministers answering questions truthfully.

"Democracy cannot function without a basic level of honesty. If John Prescott's statement is true, the answers given by the First Minister and the Finance Minister have not been true." notas_de_prensa_archivo