Labour council tax raid fears after leaked speech suggests whole system ‘needs to change’

A Labour frontbencher has expressed frustration at the “out-of-date” council tax system and hinted that a tax raid may be coming.

In a leaked recording, Darren Jones, the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, admitted that Labour cannot openly talk about revaluing homes for council tax because no party that does so ever gets elected.

He also suggested the whole council tax system “needs to be changed”, in comments that have been seized upon by the Conservatives.

The Tories say Mr Jones, who is likely to be No 2 at the Treasury if Labour wins this week, has been “caught saying the quiet part out loud” and that Sir Keir Starmer intends to increase taxes on people’s homes, cars and pensions.

Labour described it as “scaremongering nonsense”.

Mr Jones has previously been recorded saying that Labour’s green energy plans will cost “hundreds of billions” and that inheritance tax will be used to “redistribute” wealth.

Labour has consistently refused to rule out increases to council tax, capital gains tax or inheritance tax, and the Conservatives claim households will pay more than £2,000 extra in tax under Labour.

The issue of tax has dominated the election campaign, and Mr Jones’s latest comments were made at a coffee morning in Bristol on May 18, just four days before the election was called.

Mr Jones was asked by a voter about the prospect of council tax rises for people living in houses worth more than £1 million.

Mr Jones replied: “There’ll be people in this village that will pay a lot more council tax than they currently do, many of them older people. So the fact is again, I get the frustration but you live in a capitalist democracy.

“So that requires people to vote for you to have power to hold power in order to be able to do things within a framework people are willing to work within. Now you can say that the whole system is like c--- and needs to be changed.”

When he was asked about increasing council tax “for those people who can definitely afford it” and then “pour[ing] that money back into working class people”, he replied: “And I agree with you that the council tax system is very out of date.”

He went on: “Let me be frank with you about council tax, right. Any party has ever suggested revaluing council tax has never been elected. They just haven’t.”

When the questioner pointed out that Labour had a huge poll lead, Mr Jones replied: “They won’t if they start telling everyone they have to pay more council tax.”

Labour has said it will not increase income tax, VAT or National Insurance, but Sir Keir has flatly refused to rule out rises to council tax.

Asked about the possibility in an LBC interview last month, he said: “We’ve been really clear we’re not going to be raising tax on working people...what I’m not going to do is sit here two weeks before the election and write the budgets for the next five years.”

Neil Amin-Smith, policy adviser to Rachel Reeves, the  shadow chancellor, authored a report in 2019 calling for a national revaluation and reform programme of council tax.

Ms Reeves has in the past called for a “radical overhaul of the tax system”, saying “our current system of wealth taxation isn’t working”.

Laura Trott, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, said: “Labour have been caught saying the quiet part out loud. Darren Jones admitted that talking about any of their secret taxes on the family home before the election would cost them votes.

“The real risk of a Labour supermajority cannot be clearer. A vote for anyone other than the Conservatives will deliver a Labour Government, intent on taxing your home, your pension, your car - even your children’s education.

“Do not give them a super-majority to lock in higher taxes for a generation.”

A Labour spokesman said: “If the best the Tories can offer on the day of the election is a recording of Darren Jones explaining why Labour has no plans to raise council tax, then it shows the utterly desperate state they are in. Any other interpretation of his words is entirely false, scaremongering nonsense.”