This Labour Government has been in power less than 18 months and all we get is tax hikes, prisoner releases, the winter fuel payment debacle, doubling the Borough’s housing targets, and going back on their promise to rebuild the Royal Berkshire Hospital.
As a result, it seems they are deservedly getting nothing but bad headlines. Even in the Guardian. A columnist once described as “the queen of leftist journalists”, Polly Toynbee, wrote a few weeks ago that “Keir Starmer is the most unpopular prime minister ever.”
One of the areas where Wokingham is likely to be affected the most is in the funding the Borough receives.
When this Labour Government first came to power, they decided to cut £1 million from Wokingham Borough Council’s funding and increased our costs with their employment taxes. This was a particularly unwelcome shock for the Council’s Liberal Democrat administration, whose Executive Member for Finance had previously said that “everyone is hoping there’ll be a change of government” and that there would be “a proper look at how councils are funded”.
Compare this to the previous Conservative Government, which increased Wokingham Borough’s grant funding by £2.3 million in 2024.
The Council is now set to lose an additional unprecedented £47 million over the next three years. In the Summer, the Government held a consultation on what it ironically calls ‘The Fair Funding Review’ formula. This is in fact set to take money away from Wokingham Borough and redistribute it to mainly Labour areas. Our Borough will lose more of its locally paid business rates and will see a steep reduction in grants and funding from the Government.
The so-called ‘Fair Funding Review’ will particularly impact councils in the South East, who are likely to lose the most money. The South East raises the second largest amount of tax revenue, including income, inheritance and other forms of tax for the Government, but spends among the least when it comes to public sector expenditure per head.
What all this means is that, while money that should have been paid for your local services gets sent off to mainly Labour councils, your tax will increase. And this will not mean more money going into services in Wokingham Borough. Instead, your Council Tax will go up, but funding will go down, as this money will simply be there to plug a gap created by the Labour Government.
You would expect the Borough’s Labour councillors and the Labour MP for Earley and Woodley to challenge their colleagues in Government, and make the case for a real ‘Fair Funding’ deal for our area. Instead, the Labour Party in Wokingham have defended the policy, saying Council Tax will remain a local tax. This is completely avoiding the issue, and they know it. They need to recognise that their role is represent the residents of our Borough to the Labour Government, and not to act as representatives for Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves to Borough residents.
The Council has already had to cover extra cost forced on it by the Labour Government like increased employers’ National Insurance.
Your local Conservative councillors are fighting against the Government’s seismic cuts to your Council’s funding. We are willing to work with any local party to make the case. This massive funding cut is going to make a difficult situation worse.
By Cllr Pauline Jorgensen
