By Richard Johnstone in Manchester | 3 October 2011
Chancellor George Osborne has announced that the government will give councils £805m to freeze council tax for a second consecutive year, using money saved by cutting waste.
Speaking to the Conservative Party conference in Manchester today, Osborne said the move fulfilled the coalition agreement’s pledge for a two-year council tax.
Local authorities that agree to freeze the tax will receive a funding increase equivalent to a 2.5% council tax rise. The freeze will save £72 on the tax bill of a Band D property, Osborne said.
He added that the funding could be found as the government was ‘ahead of plans’ to cut the cost of central government bureaucracy by a third, adding: ‘When so many other bills are going up, council tax will be the one bill that doesn’t. That’s help for families, so we can ride out the storm.’
The speech also contained a strident defence of the government’s plan to eliminate the structural deficit in this Parliament. To change course now would be to risk Britain's ‘priceless financial credibility’, Osborne said.
He added a warning to trade unions that plan to strike on November 30 over proposed public sector pension changes. The action would ‘cost jobs’ and hit growth in the economy, he said. It was ‘totally irresponsible’ when unions were being offered ‘pensions far more generous than most other people could ever afford'.
But leading public sector trade union Unison said that it was Osborne who was behaving irresponsibly by failing negotiate seriously and properly with trade unions over the pension reforms. The union is balloting members over action on November 30.
General secretary Dave Prentis said: ‘Strikes are the last resort for care workers, nursery nurses, paramedics, social workers, and many other dedicated public sector workers.
‘They do not want to harm their local community. They go to work every day to make it a better place to live. But they have been pushed too far by this government.’
Other announcements included a £150m government investment to improve the mobile phone network in the UK, increasing coverage from the current 95% to 99%. It would be paid for from underspending in government departments, Osborne told delegates.
The government is also asking for proposals to create two new Local Enterprise Zones in Lancashire and Hull and Humber, after BAE Systems announced last week that it is to cut almost 3,000 jobs in Lancashire and Yorkshire.
