In a few weeks’ time, the Liberal Democrat administration will present their budget for 2025/26 to Council. Thanks to the new Labour Government, the prospects facing the Council are bleak.
Under the previous Conservative Government, the Council received an additional £2.3 million for the year 2024/25. For next year, Labour have cut Wokingham Borough’s funding by a £1million. Therefore, a greater proportion of the Council’s income will have to be funded by local Council Tax payers.
If that wasn’t enough, the Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves has decided to clobber the Council with an increase in employers’ National Insurance contributions. As a result, this increase, when combined with a welcome increase in the National Living Wage, will see the Council’s costs increase by £3.5 million. The Council will have to find millions of pounds more, not to spend on improving services, but on simply handing money back to the Government in London.
Wokingham’s Labour councillors have decided that a significant portion of their time should be used acting as cheerleaders and apologists for their party colleagues in Westminster. So, when the issue of the additional costs to the Council was raised at a recent committee meeting, a Labour councillor rushed in to point to a fund from the Government for compensating councils for the National Insurance increase. It was then quietly pointed out that, thanks to the Labour Government’s funding formula, Wokingham Borough would receive very little, it would probably be the least of any local authority in the country and negligible compared to the increase the Council is facing.
And just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, Angela Rayner has decided she also wants to ensure everyone is taxed to the maximum. Her department is proposing that councils who set a low rate of Council Tax will have their Government funding further reduced. This is nothing less than forcing local authorities to increase Council Tax bills as high as possible. Let’s not forget the promises from Sir Keir Starmer in 2023 that a Labour Government would mean a freeze in Council Tax.
Back in 2023 when the Conservatives were in Government, the Council’s Liberal Democrat Executive Member for Finance said that she hoped that there would be a change of Government when asked about local authority funding. You can’t help but wonder if she should have been careful what she wished for.
Based on the experience of the last two budgets in Wokingham Borough set by the Liberal Democrats, the Conservative Group I lead is not optimistic about the budget we expect to be presented with in February.
Previous years have seen the Liberal Democrats and Labour pass a litany of punitive moves that ultimately punish local residents. Council Tax rises by the maximum, yet parking charges more than doubled and other fees increased by eye-watering amounts. Universal services reduced, including the scrapping of weekly bin collection in the face of widespread public opposition. All the while, more money being wasted on expensive consultants, back-office costs and ideological pet projects.
Your local Conservatives will look carefully at the Liberal Democrats’ budget when we get it. Right now, under Labour and the Liberal Democrats, the future doesn’t feel bright for Wokingham Borough residents.
