Why is Rayner shifting the council tax burden south?

When Angela Rayner took over her department, the first thing she did was to delete levelling up” from its name. But she insisted that she was committed to the idea behind the phrase, and now she is about to announce a change in local government funding to prove it.

- JOHN RENTOUL

The new funding formula is expected to allocate money from central government according to local needs, including population, poverty and age, with extra weighting for rural and coastal areas with higher transport costs.

The effect will be to force local councils in London and the home counties to put up council tax. Many of them are expected to increase tax by the maximum 5 per cent a year for several years, and more than before will ask Rayner for permission to hold a local referendum on an increase greater than 5 per cent.

Councils in the north, the Midlands and east London, on the other hand, may be able to cut their council tax, or at least increase it by less.

Is this fair?

Labour argues that the Conservatives have fiddled the funding formula for 14 years, resulting in artificially low council taxes in places such as Westminster and Wandsworth - former Tory councils that attracted disproportionate media coverage in local elections. In the end, this attempt to cook the books could not hold back the electoral tide, and Labour won control of both councils in 2022.