'Lives will be destroyed': Dismay as Calderdale Council cuts council tax discount for poorest residents

Calderdale Council’s cabinet decision to reduce the council tax reduction scheme support for those eligible in Calderdale to 70 per cent - down from 81 per cent - was called-in by concerned councillors.

The reduction will impact working age households – the decision will not affect pensioners – with the aim of saving £1m.

But at an extraordinary meeting of Calderdale Council, a majority of councillors voted to release cabinet’s decision for implementation.

Labour councillors who called-in the decision said it caused them anguish.

However, they voted to release the reduction decision for implementation as they believed there was other choice, with the council having a legal duty to balance its budget.

The reduction will come in for council tax bills for 2025-26, due in April.

Opposition group leaders commended them for raising an important issue they were passionate about but also criticised them for not supporting a call for the decision to be sent back to cabinet for them to consider it again and look for alternatives.

Liberal Democrat group leader Coun Paul Bellenger (Greetland and Stainland) said: “Make up your minds and do what’s right for the poor people in our society.

“Don’t be contradictory and stand up for them.”

Coun Stuart Cairney (Lab, Ovenden) said the decision would put up bills for around 8,000 of Calderdale’s poorest households.

He welcomed measures he said lobbying by he and others had helped be introduced, including that people defaulting would not be referred to external debt collection agencies, and help offered to them.

Along with other Labour councillors, he blamed cuts in national Government funding over the last 14 years for the position the council found itself in.

He said: “The consultation responses revealed that lives will be destroyed.”

Leader of the council, Coun Jane Scullion (Lab, Luddenden Foot) said Government funding cuts going back to 2010 and a decision three years later transferring responsibility for the relief from national to local Government – and from national to local taxpayers – had led to this position.