Fact check: Labour’s council tax promise applied to 2023-2024
If they had been in power Labour said at the time they would have frozen council tax in the tax year ending in the spring of 2024.
At Prime Minister’s Questions on March 12 2025, Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch said: “The average council tax bill is increasing by over £100 in April after he promised to freeze it.”
Evaluation
Sir Keir Starmer and the Labour Party said in 2023 that if they were in power at the time they would have frozen council tax for the fiscal year ending at the start of April 2024. That promise does not cover the upcoming rises in April 2025.
The facts
It appears that Ms Badenoch was referring to a promise made by Sir Keir Starmer in March 2023 when he was leader of the opposition.
In a speech in Swindon that month, Sir Keir said: “Labour would freeze council tax next year, using that windfall tax that hasn’t been collected. Yes you heard it right, not a penny more on your council tax, not a penny more than the bill you paid last year.”
Sir Keir was therefore talking about the following fiscal year, which started in April 2023 and ran until April 2024. That means that his promise to freeze council tax was never intended to cover the changes that are set to come into effect from the start of April 2025.
Sir Keir’s speech was accompanied by several social media posts, all of which made it clear that the promise did not apply further than a year ahead.
Rachel Reeves, at the time shadow chancellor, also repeated that, and in an interview with the BBC would not say whether Labour would freeze council tax if it won the next election.
“We’ll have to see what the public finances look like going into a general election,” she said.
“Council tax” is not mentioned in the Labour Party’s manifesto for last year’s election.
