Scrap Council Tax

Program Introduction: Sky high bills and the OAP rebellion, how many more pensioners face a future behind bars?

Britain's prison population is at a record high, jails are so full that some offenders are being held at police stations, but even as ministers look at ways to end the overcrowding they face a whole new influx of prisoners who until now have never been in trouble with the law - they're pensioners, who faced with ever rising council tax bills are prepared to lose their freedom instead of paying up. Two of them have already been put behind bars, and as local councils consider next year's increases many more are prepared to follow.

So what's the reason for those increases and why are pensioners so angry? Here's Michael Nicholson.

Michael Nicholson: In a small Midlands market town 60 people, many of them OAPs, gather to celebrate freedom and plot something of a revolution - if successful it could change Government policy - the champagne flowed and the talk was of determination and defiance.

Brian Jaye: None of us mind paying taxes provided they are fair and it is based on our ability to pay it, council tax is not!
Albert Venison: This year they're talking in Devon about a 10% increase in the council tax - how can we afford another 10% increase when we can't afford what they want us to pay now.
Michael Nicholson: If your pension could keep track with the increase in taxes you would pay it?
Brian Jaye: This situation would never have arisen in the first place.

Michael Nicholson: Their argument is simple - council tax as we know it must be scrapped. In the past 10 years council tax increases have outstripped pensions by something like 3 to 1 - is it any surprise that our OAPs are angry? So many told me that they aren't going to stand for it any more and many said that they would go to prison if need be.

Would you go?

Anne Scott: I'd go, tomorrow!
Michael Nicholson: You say that now but when it comes to the crunch?
Anne Scott: I would go!
Brian Jaye: I would go as well, we have no rights whatsoever with council tax, none whatsoever, everything is weighed against us, so what is left open to us?

Michael Nicholson: The celebration was to welcome the so-called "council tax two" - they're the pensioners who have already done porridge and have become darlings of this campaign.

Alfred Ridley: The support that we received from you and lots and lots of people was terrific - I walked out of prison with over 600 letters and cards.

Michael Nicholson: Ex-prisoner MX 8993 is Alfred Ridley, he's 71. He's the first man in this campaign to go to prison.
Sylvia Hardy: Of course the campaign is still going on, this only the beginning!
Michael Nicholson: Sylvia Hardy is prisoner number HT 9564 but she prefers to be known as a 73 year old retired social worker. She went to jail after refusing to pay £53 council tax increase.

Council tax pays for the services that are available in your local area whether you use them or not - schools, social services, street lighting, rubbish collection, and the rest. But in recent years the number of those services has expanded - the additional costs, of couse, have been passed on to us.

Tony Travers, London School of Economics: The Government has in some ways brought this on itself, by pushing up spending and encouraging local authorities to spend more, councils have responded but the Government hasn't quite kept up in terms of the income that it (the Government) has given to councils with the rise in spending, and that's put pressure on council tax.

Phil Woolas (Local Government Minister): Well the Government has given local councils a third in real terms increase in its grant since 1997 - so that, I think, is a pretty fair assessment.
Michael Nicholson: Does that match inflation?
Phil Woolas (Local Government Minister): That's above inflation - the councils, for some good reasons, and some political reasons, say they're under huge inflationary pressures. I would say well Governments, of all types and persuasions are under huge pressures, central Government faces inflationary pressures, but we all of us have to act to control the costs.

Michael Nicholson: The current council tax is based on the value of the house - 15 years ago it replaced the hated tax that put a charge on every individual in the house - that brought anarchy and violence on to the streets, and today's politicians should not forget that those riots also marked the beginning of the end of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's term.

And this is where some of the worst of it happened, Trafalgar Square. If it's slipped your memory it was all about the Poll Tax. Well all these years on council spending is once again on the political agenda, this time round we won't expect to see mounted police, baton charges or blooded heads, because this new campaign of civil disobedience will be far, far more sedate - and the average age of the protesters will be about 65.

Michael Nicholson: I first met Sylvia Hardy last year as she began her campaign of non-payment and she was resigned to go to prison even then. But an unknown benefactor paid her debt at the last moment. Three weeks ago we met again - and again she was objecting to what she considered excessive rises in the tax. And this time with no benefactor at hand she was preparing for jail.
Sylvia Hardy: Well we certainly wouldn't have taken this action if we had found a better way of doing it. But we felt that if we really wanted to make our leaders, our rulers, do something about this very unfair tax, then this is what we're going to have to do because the other things we did didn't work. It fell on deaf ears. Those of us who are in a position to do so will go the whole way, even if that means ending up with a prison sentence.

Michael Nicholson: As the magistrates heard the case against Sylvia her supporters gathered outside the court. They claimed that she had exhausted all legal methods of protest and that breaking the law was a last resort.

Albert Venison: She's not a martyr, she's a 72 year old person who's trying to make a point that she's no longer going to accept the fact that she's being made poorer and poorer, and her quality of life is going down and down every year.

Michael Nicholson: Sylvia was sentenced to 7 days for non-payment of that £53, and suddenly she became the campaign's figurehead, and she had this clear message for the Government.
Sylvia Hardy: Remember that most of your voting population are our age group. You cannot afford to go on ignoring us if you want to continue in power. And so if we feel let down, we feel we're not represented in any way, so if you want to prove otherwise then it's entirely in your own hands. Stop tinkering with the council tax, and abolish it completely!

Michael Nicholson: It isn't only pensioners who are saying "enough is enough" - this is Hampshire, one of England's largest and most affluent counties. It spends over one billion pounds a year on its services and 38% of that comes from the council tax. Many here are outraged that their annual council bills continue to outstrip inflation.
Steve and Linda Long have lived in this 3 bedroomed semi near Southampton for the past 10 years. When they bought it council tax was £600. Over those 10 years inflationary costs have risen by 30% - but their council tax is now £1200, and that's an increase of 100%.

Steve Long: We've got a big gripe about the council tax going up huge percentages to the extent that in the last 12 or 13 years it's gone up 130% in this area, and we're seeing our services getting reduced so we don't feel we're getting value for money.

Michael Nicholson: The Long's believe they have little choice but to pay up. Like most of us, non-payment and a prison sentence is simply not an option.
Linda Long: If you're not happy with your bill for electricity, for example, you've always got the option of seeking another supplier and getting value for money. With the council tax you don't actually have that option, and it appears that whatever they ask for you have to pay up.

Michael Nicholson: A few miles down the road, Mike and Maggie Schofield live in this 5 bedroom house. When the current council tax was first introduced they paid just over £700 a year, today that bill is more than £2000.
Maggie Schofield - It's quite a large amount - there's only the two of us living here now, we've no mortgage and at £200 a month that's our single biggest outgoing.
Michael Nicholson: The Schofield's know that the only way to reduce their council tax is to sell up and move to a smaller house, but they argue why should they? Why, they say, can't the council reduce its own costs.
Mike Schofield: One of the major concerns is the number of employees that work for Hampshire CC. Is there any need for 35,000 people to work for the County Council in Hampshire - that's a tremendous number, in fact it's more than the number of people who serve in the Royal Navy - and that's just the county council.

Michael Nicholson: So we asked Hampshire CC if they could show us how the money is spent.

[Bit that followed was about recycling sites (26 across Hampshire costing £1.4M a year to run) and comments by MikeS regarding services being reduced but CT still being increased.]

[Care homes for the elderly and services for young people were then described as examples of where council tax was spent.]

Ken Thornber (Leader Hampshire County Council): We have more demanded of us, Government funds less and less, in meeting more and more whether it's Government or the population, the council tax goes up.

Michael Nicholson: But pensioners are not necessarily pointing their fingers at you, but mostly at the Government.
Ken Thornber: Well it feels as though they're pointing at me quite often. I've got a number of letters burned in my memory from pensioners saying "Mr. Thornber, you took every penny that Gordon Brown gave us in our increase in pension this year", and a widower who writes to me and says "I only have £30 a week after I pay your rates Mr Thornber".
There is a black hole of funding - across the country we think its about 1.5 billion pounds and that has to be bridged somehow, and the poor council tax payer has been doing that.
Michael Nicholson: But it really ought to come from Government?
Ken Thornber: I believe so, yes.

Michael Nicholson: Until now the pensioners protests have been small and disorganised. But now the various groups are coming together, and that's largely due to one woman. From a small bungalow in a Hampshire village the IsItFair campaign co-ordinates pensioner protests from all over the country. It's only been going on for 3 years but it already has more than 10,000 members.

Christine Melsom: We cannot pay any more, we will not pay any more! The Government has got to start listening to us otherwise they're going to have really big trouble on their hands. It's not just pensioners, it's a whole range of people and they will not put up with it.
One thing this Government doesn't like is bad publicity. The IsItFair campaign doesn't encourage anyone to break the law, but if one of our members decides that they will withhold their council tax and they will go as far going to prison we will vigorously support them.

Phil Woolas (Local Government Minister): Nobody wants to see any pensioner going to prison or being punished. I've got parents myself of pensionable age, of course you don't want to see that. But also I have a responsibility to the taxpayer to say if somebody is unwilling to pay a tax it's not fair that they shouldn't be punished - it's not fair to the rest of the taxpayers.

Michael Nicholson: Retired vicar Alfred Ridley spent a month in Woodhill prison for non-payment. Two weeks ago I travelled there with his wife Una to bring him home.
Una Ridley: - He sat down one day and looked at this council tax increase which was 8.5% and he felt that this was not right, and that this could go on and on. So he had a good look at previous council tax bills and we could see that there had been a steady increase and if this went on goodness know where we'd all end up. Some people we knew already had been dipping into their savings in order to pay. You can't do that ad infinitum.

Tony Travers, London School of Economics: The issue of pensioners going to prison for not paying council tax will have the simple effect of scaring politicians witless.The problem is, there is a risk that like the fuel protests of a few years ago it could become an issue that derailed the Government. Council tax more than any tax in Britain scares national politicains and we will see more action yet.

Christine Melsom: A lot of people will go to court and will find it too stressful and won't continue. But you will get the people like Alfred and Sylvia that will go all the way, and there are several of those in the pipeline at the moment. But many, many, many people have said that they do intend to withhold payment, and certainly when the new bills come out in April if it's anything above inflation they will not pay!

Michael Nicholson: A few days after his release I visited Alfred again and I discovered a man who's lost none of his determination to see this thing through.

So what is the next step for you - do you simply take a back seat now?

Alfred Ridley: I shall be resting for the rest of this year probably, and if it appears that no-one's taking any notice in the official circles then I shall start again, yes.
Michael Nicholson: By starting again you mean you will not pay next years excess and you will go to prison again?
Alfred Ridley: That sort of idea, yes.

Michael Nicholson: And it's the same for Sylvia Hardy. She told me that she's due back in court for non-payment of this year's tax in one week's time.
Sylvia Hardy: It starts all over again on 24th October for not paying the full tax that I should be paying each month for this year. So it starts off back with the liability order, then the bailiffs.
Michael Nicholson: It's full circle again, isn't it?
Sylvia Hardy: Yes it is, and it will go round and round and round until we get what we are fighting for - and that's total abolition of this very unfair council tax.
Michael Nicholson: But that is exactly what you need, isn't it, a continuing stream of grey haired protesters?
Sylvia Hardy: We're only the first two of what we think will be many people over the next year or so. Of course the nearer we get to the general election the more scared the Government's going to be, because they know that nearly 25% of the electorate are our age group and we're the people that go out and vote.