Last week in the House of Lords on 14th March there was a session entitled Housing: Young People and several people corresponded on it. One of them was Rita Donaghy who is a Labour member. During her comment she explained after some time that

However, since 2010, councils have had a 60% cut in spending by central government. Government Ministers, as the noble Lord, Lord Young, has said, encourage councils to be more entrepreneurial and raise their own funds. In 2015, the Government abolished the Audit Commission, which kept a check on local government spending; this was an appalling act of irresponsibility.

This week’s New Statesman contains an article about the dire financial state of local government. It gave the example of Hastings in East Sussex as

“a borough full of Airbnbs and Londoners moving in and pushing up house prices”.

Hastings is spending nearly half its annual budget on temporary accommodation. The council leader has called for a Ukrainian refugee-style scheme to house local people in spare rooms.

The director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies has indicated that house price rises since rates were last set mean that the average property in the Westminster council area is taxed at 0.06% of its value, while a far cheaper property in Hartlepool is taxed at 1.3%. We all know that it would be a brave Government that did something about rateable values.

The whole of the discussion can be obtained from here.