Council climbdown over 'pay-as-you-throw' rubbish tax

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A load of rubbish: Town hall chiefs gave assurances that local bin collection taxes should not be introduced where public opinion is against them

Families should not have to pay extra taxes to get their rubbish collected, town hall chiefs said.

In a climbdown in the controversy over 'pay-as-you-throw' bills, they said that new charges for collecting the bins should not be used to increase council taxes.

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And they gave assurances that local bin collection taxes should never be introduced where public opinion is against them and that they must always go hand-in-hand with tough campaigns to stop fly-tipping.

The pledges from the Local Government Association, the umbrella body for councils, amounted to a U-turn over rubbish taxes that would mean a family could face bills of £10 a month to have its bins picked up.

They came amid growing signs of turmoil in Whitehall over attempts to make people throw out less rubbish and recycle more that have resulted in the widespread introduction of hugely unpopular fortnightly rubbish collections as well as the rubbish tax plan.

A Government document advising councils to bring in fortnightly collections in the winter to minimise public protest has been withdrawn.

And following independent warnings that recycling schemes and fortnightly collections have encouraged a plague of rats, ministers are waiting for the results of a belated study they have ordered into the health effects of fortnightly collections in summer.

Only last month the council bosses at the LGA called for powers to impose pay-as-you-throw charges, which they called save-as-you-throw, saying people should not be able 'to throw their rubbish away without worrying about the consequences'.

Then they said nothing about guarantees that overall council taxes would be kept down and insisted that rubbish taxes would be 'fairer because if you throw out less you pay less.'

Their thinking appeared to run parallel with plans being drawn up in Downing Street. A memo from Number Ten leaked last week advocated bin collection charges as a means to provide 'economic incentives' for recycling.

Assurances that pay-as-you-throw tax schemes should not be brought in without public approval appear to undermine severely the prospects of any council succeeding in establishing one.

LGA chairman Lord Bruce-Lockhart said: 'The proposed blanket introduction of waste charging is unhelpful and unnecessary.

'It is vital that any authority thinking of introducing save-as-you-throw should first make sure there will be no overall increase in council tax, it has public support and measures are in place to prevent fly-tipping.'

He added: 'The Association favours such initiatives only when a council has checked whether its own residents are happy with such a move.'

Plans for additional taxes are unlikely to meet with popular approval, especially since deep suspicion has greeted compulsory recycling schemes and fortnightly collections.

A number of fortnightly collection schemes have been abandoned in the face of opposition from local residents.

LGA officials said the pledge of no overall increase in council tax meant that a pay-as-you-throw tax should not increase the overall tax burden.

Homes that recycled rubbish would pay less, while those that did not do so would pay more, but there would be no increase in the overall council tax take.

Lord Bruce-Lockhart also criticised Downing Street, which he said wanted to force councils into imposing the tax.

'Only councils have the expertise to decide how best to encourage residents to understand the consequence of us throwing away more each year and to take responsibility for their rubbish,' he said.

'The one size fits all approach put forward by Number Ten flies in the face of devolution and giving local people the chance to have their say on the issues that will affect them.'

Downing Street considered the advantages of a rubbish tax in the run-up to the publication of the long-delayed report on the future of local government finance by Sir Michael Lyons.

Sir Michael is expected to back pay-as-you-throw charges alongside a number of other new local taxes.

 

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