Council tax bills across Britain will rocket by £329.8m, hitting cash-strapped families.
Labour’s policing plan relies on council tax hikes (Image: Getty)
Labour is set to clobber households again by hiking taxes to pay for Yvette Cooper’s policing plan.
The Home Office on Tuesday confirmed police forces will receive an extra £986.9m next year to fight crime and bolster neighbourhood patrols.
But a third of the increase is set to be funded through council tax increases of up to £14 per household.
This means council tax bills across Britain will rocket by £329.8m, hitting cash-strapped families.
Keir Starmer has vowed to bolster neighbourhood policing (Image: Getty)
And £230m of the £986.9m settlement will go towards covering employer National Insurance increases, Policing Minister Dame Diana Johnson has admitted.
The settlement has prompted fury, with critics arguing taxpayers are once again being asked to stump up for more.
And policing watchdog Andy Cooke said some inner-city forces with higher levels of serious crimes are left with fewer resources because housing stock is worth less in their area.
He said: “The police funding formula is an anachronism. It’s not been updated for a long time.
“What it results in, because there is such a reliance on council tax now, (is) the richer police forces get richer, the poorer police forces get poorer.
“So those who can’t raise as much on council tax, which is usually but not in totality the inner-city areas – Cleveland, Merseyside, Manchester, West Midlands – don’t have that housing stock that pays big money.
“In order to address some of the issues the government would like to address in relation to knife crime, violence against women and girls, the bulk of those occur in the inner-city areas where you’ve got less resources.
“There are numerous financial issues, but there have been the same issues for many years because the police funding formula hasn’t been properly addressed and doesn’t fairly allocate resources.”
One-year funding settlements also make it difficult for forces to plan ahead, Mr Cooke added.
Policing minister Dame Diana Johnson said the funding settlement “strikes the balance between protecting taxpayers and providing funding for police forces”.
In a statement to Parliament, she said the 2025-26 settlement for forces will amount to £17.4 billion, an increase of up to £986.9 million in the current year.
The additional funding will cover the costs of the pay rises given to officers, the £230.3 million increase in employers’ national insurance contributions (NICs) and also pay for recruitment to help meet the Government’s neighbourhood policing promises.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said: “Today’s settlement provides a substantial increase in funding for policing to help deliver on this government’s Safer Streets mission.
“This vital funding boost will enable forces to kickstart the recruitment of neighbourhood police officers and crack down on the crimes blighting our high streets and town centres.
“We recognise the financial and operational challenges that police forces across the country have faced in recent years, and that is why we are providing a significant and much-needed increase in funding to help forces protect the public and keep our streets safe.
“We will also work closely with forces at a national and regional level to maximise efficiency and innovation, so that every penny they receive goes as far as possible and provides real value for the public.”
Dame Diana said: “Of the £986.9 million of additional funding for police forces, I can confirm that £657.1 million of this is an increase to government grants, which includes an increase in the core grants of £339 million to ensure police forces are fully equipped to deliver our safer streets mission.
“This also includes £230.3 million to compensate territorial forces for the costs of the change to the employer national insurance contributions from 2025-26, and an additional £100 million to kickstart the first phase of 13,000 additional police officers, PCSOs and special constables into neighbourhood policing roles.
“This will provide policing with the funding required to tackle crime and keep communities safe.”
Police and crime commissioners have the ability to increase the precept – their portion of council tax – by up to £14 without triggering a referendum.
“This could generate up to £329.8 million of additional funding available to police forces compared with 2024-25,” Dame Diana told MPs.
