Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Finance and Trefnydd – in the Senedd at 1:38 pm on 17 March 2021.

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Photo of Rebecca Evans Rebecca Evans Labour 1:38, 17 March 2021

Council tax is fairer than it's been across the period of devolution because of the sheer work that we've put into making the agenda more fair. I'll give some examples as to how we've achieved that. For example, we've ensured that young people leaving care are now exempt from paying council tax to the age of 25. We've ensured that the sanction of imprisonment has been removed for people who have been unable to pay their council tax. Clearly, being unable to pay your council tax does not make you a criminal; it means that you're in very difficult circumstances. We've worked with local government across Wales to develop a protocol that means that they will work with people who are unable to pay their council tax rather than go to court summons as a first step. So, we've made those steps. We've also ensured that we have the council tax reduction scheme in place, which is a much better scheme than that which is across the border, and it supports more than 220,000 households across Wales with their council tax bills.