An announcement made at the Labour conference this week was that of giving all service personnel serving six months or more in Afghanistan or Iraq a £140 rebate off of their Council Tax. The BBC report is here.
Of course like most New Labour announcements, the headline is better than the reality. There is no new money being made available so this money will come out of existing funds. The MOD press release boasts a 25 per cent rebate based upon ‘the average Band D Council tax bill’, however the small print shows that they’ve not actually used the Band D figure to calculate the rebate; instead, they’ve used the figure for average council tax. This means, troops living in Band D accommodation are getting £25 less than they should (£140 rather than £165). Also this rebate is of course less than the rebate that the government grants to prisoners, who pay no council tax whilst in prison.
You can read more about the MOD's view of this announcement on Iain Dale.
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