Council Tax

Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Finance and Local Government – in the Senedd at 1:31 pm on 28 September 2022.

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Photo of Rebecca Evans Rebecca Evans Labour 1:31, 28 September 2022

The first thing to say about our proposals in respect of the reform of council tax is that they are not going to happen immediately or require a revaluation of all of our properties across Wales in order to give us the building blocks for the revaluation. We have had some work done by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which has looked at the potential implications, and we think that there will be more people who gain, by either having a reduction in their council tax or by having their council tax stay the same, than there are in terms of people who would see an increase. We are thinking about transitional arrangements for those people who may see an increase and that's part of our consultation as well. But, at the moment, this really is about testing our ideas and gaining as many consultation responses as we can. We've had 900 so far, so it's been incredibly popular, but we want to hear from as many people with as many perspectives as possible.

In terms of the immediate challenges of the cost-of-living crisis, I do want to draw everybody's attention to our council tax reduction scheme. We know that there are people across Wales who aren't getting the support that they are entitled to through that scheme. And people can go to either their council website or the Welsh Government's website to find out more and see how they can apply for that support because, as I say, it's not being taken up by everybody who is entitled to it.