by Rene Lavanchy
Labour councillors are planning to step up calls for a more left-wing policy agenda, including strong public services and more progressive local taxes, at the party’s last National Policy Forum before the general election.
The Labour Group in the Local Government Association, representing councils across England and Wales, hopes to mount a vigorous lobby for the manifesto it set out at the Labour Party Conference last month.
The meeting, as yet unscheduled, will be the last opportunity for constituencies, unions and councillors to pick up the “Warwick Two” policy discussions that have been on hold since last year’s policy forum. That was dominated by trade union demands, but the LGA section of the forum hopes to also push its case next time.
Sir Jeremy Beecham, leader of the Labour Group, implied in the manifesto that he wanted to show clear differences with both the Tories and New Labour, which he described as seemingly “seduced by siren voices urging the superiority of the private sector and the values of the market.”
Sir Steve Bullock, leader of Lewisham council, told Tribune: “The risk in the electoral cycle is that, rather than push on and be radical, we become overly cautious, and that will be part of the dialogue at the NPF.”
The document calls for council tax to be made more progressive through new bands to be added at the top and bottom of the scale, and for the Government’s power to cap rises to be abolished. It proposes paying council tax benefit automatically to households, which it says would mean the poorest 10 per cent would not be disproportionately hit.
Councillors also want the historic debt from borrowing to build council housing – cited as a reason why more council homes are not built – to be written off, and not redistributed as Whitehall proposes: “Local Labour has long argued for a rejuvenated, national programme of municipal house building”.
The manifesto adds that councils should have the power to “provide or commission any public service not explicitly ring-fenced by central government.”
Sir Steve said the manifesto would be an important campaigning tool because Labour had lost control of so many councils since 1997: “What this does is meet the need for the Labour party at the local government level to be able to tell a story that, if we left it to those councils that we control, would be very hard to do.”
