Reform councils set to raise taxes for nearly 5 million people despite promising cuts

As many as eight of the 13 local councils run by Nigel Farage’s party have hinted at plans to raise council tax by next year.

In at least six of these councils, making up around 4.8 million people, bills could rise by the maximum of 5 per cent.

These increases come despite Reform pledging to bring down council tax ahead of last year’s local elections.

Read more: Richard Tice admits previous tax pledges were 'aspirational’ as Reform refuse to guarantee pensions triple lock

Read more: Reform councillor switches to Tories after becoming ‘uncomfortable’ with party

Bills are expected to increase by at least £59 per year in Durham, Kent, Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Leicestershire and Lincolnshire, according to The Times.

It comes after Nigel Farage walked back on his party’s plan to cut taxes if they win the next General Election.

Reform’s manifesto had committed the party to tax cuts worth around a third of the NHS budget, including raising the personal allowance to £20,000, introducing a £100,000 tax-free allowance for companies and exempting some high street firms from business rates.

At the time, the Institute for Fiscal Studies said the plans, along with £50 billion of spending commitments and £150 billion of cuts, were “problematic” and cost far more than Reform claimed.

Speaking at Banking Hall in the City of London on Monday, Nigel Farage said: “We want to cut taxes, of course we do, but we understand substantial tax cuts given the dire state of debt and our finances are not realistic at this current moment in time.

“There are some relatively modest things we would do: We would immediately remove IHT from family farms and from family-run businesses, and we will raise the thresholds at which people start to pay tax to begin the process of getting people out of the 16-hour a week working debt trap that so many people find themselves in.”

He added: “One of my own great frustrations is that Brexit has been squandered. The opportunity to sensibly deregulate, the opportunity to become competitive globally, all of that has been squandered.

“And the worst thing is that regulations and the way regulators behave with British business is now worse than it was at the time of the Brexit referendum vote.”

Labour said Mr Farage’s new proposals would “take us back to austerity”.

A party spokesperson said: “We’ve seen from the councils Reform run that they’ve failed to deliver the savings they already promised and are cutting services and raising taxes as a result.

“They’ve said themselves that those councils are a shop window for what a Reform government would do nationally – we know that this is more empty promises and no real plan.”