Dear Editor,

I am grateful to Stuart Bird for his question to me, via your letter page (Issue 1137). He is right that council tax rates are unfair and people in Shildon (and across County Durham) are getting a raw deal. Comparing council tax bills across County Durham, Shildon’s are at the higher end. While a few areas pay more (Band D houses in Peterlee are charged £64.31 more per year than in Shildon), many areas pay less. For example, Band D properties in Middridge, Staindrop, and Witton-Le-Wear, are respectively charged £249.86, £267.24, and £289.46 less per year than in Shildon.

Looking at the national picture, the discrepancy is even bigger. A Band D property in Royal Tunbridge Wells is charged £651.13 less council tax per year than a Band D property in Shildon.

The reason council tax bills are higher in County Durham than in many other parts of England is partly because (a) a higher percentage of our properties are at the lower bands, meaning there are fewer higher band properties to pay a larger share; and (b) we have higher poverty rates, creating a greater need for housing and council tax benefit, which reduces what can be spent on services.

But there is a more sinister reason too, which is that deprived urban areas like Shildon have had central government funding cut as a matter Conservative Party policy!

Back to Royal Tunbridge Wells: some of your readers may have seen the leaked video in which Rishi Sunak was recorded at a garden party there, boasting how, as Chancellor, he had changed the funding formulas he inherited from the previous Labour government, to take money away from deprived areas and give more to places like Royal Tunbridge Wells.

Mr Bird also notes the steep increase in Council Tax. It would be easy for me to point our here that Conservatives won control of Durham County Council in May 2021 with a promise to freeze council tax bills – a promise they have very obviously broken – but in fairness, they will feel their hands are tied by two realities: firstly, central government cuts to the grant, which the Conservative government cut by an average of 40% from 2010-2020, with some areas worse hit than others (see above); and secondly, the costs of inflation, which the government has allowed to run out of control.

Finally, there will be a lot of things at the top of my “in tray” if I become our MP later this year, from NHS dentistry, to buses, to frontline policing, but I can assure you I will be fighting for fairer funding for our area.

Sincerely,
Sam Rushworth, Labour Parliamentary Candidate, Bishop Auckland