Fairness

March 2005

If it had been a Liberal Democrat Chancellor’s budget last week the unfair Council Tax would have been scrapped and replaced with the fairer Local Income Tax. With the Council Tax someone earning £20,000 and living in an average band D home pays about 5% of their income in council tax whereas someone earning £100,000 in the same band property only pays 1%. It is no wonder that the poorest 20% of society pay a greater proportion of their income overall in taxes than the richest 20%.

Coming later this year is the revaluation of which council tax band you are in. When this happened in Wales, a third of homes, went up at least one band. Although the Government have not revealed exactly how they are going to do this, it is likely that many properties in Portsmouth will move to a higher band. This is because house prices here have risen faster than the national average. But with the Lib Dems’ Local Income Tax the average household in Portsmouth would be over £400 better off and half of all pensioners would pay no local taxes at all.

I also want greater fairness in the NHS and more people with chronic conditions to get free prescriptions. At the moment, people with long term illnesses like Cystic Fibrosis and Multiple Sclerosis have to pay for their life-saving drugs, while people with Diabetes and Epilepsy get them free. Meanwhile we estimate 500,000 people are languishing on hidden waiting lists for a diagnosis test. For example in 40% of NHS Trusts people are waiting six months or more for a routine MRI scan to confirm a cancer, a brain tumour or a heart condition. The Lib Dems would make tough choices to scrap government departments and unnecessary red-tape to invest in the frontline NHS to speed this up.

The Tories would take us back to unfair taxes and run down public services and Labour still haven’t done enough to change things. I though will continue to make the case for fairness in tax and improvements to our schools and hospitals in Portsmouth.