Council tax: How much is yours going up by?

Published

3 years ago

March 8, 2023

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Council tax is due to rise on 1 April for many people, another turn of the screw for those already struggling with the cost of living crisis.

People in Wales have seen their council tax rise significantly faster than those in England and Scotland over the past 12 years.

However it’s those in Rutland and Nottingham, in the East Midlands, who will have the highest fees when the 2023/24 rates come in on 1 April.

People living in Band D properties there will pay more than £2,400 a year, while those in similarly-priced properties in Westminster and Wandsworth will pay less than £900.

Despite having lower rates per band than those in Rutland and Nottingham, people in Surrey councils are likely to pay some the highest levels of council tax overall as there are more properties valued in the highest tax bands.

In Elmbridge, a Surrey borough home to many Chelsea footballers seeking proximity to their Cobham training ground, more than a quarter of homes are in Bands G and H, six times more than normal across Great Britain.

Just one in fifty properties are in the least expensive Bands A and B, compared with a national average of one in five.

As a result, people in Elmbridge are likely to pay more than £2,800 each in the year to April 2024, more than any other area.

At the other end of the scale, almost all the areas with the cheapest council tax after adjusting for house prices are in Scotland.

People in Shetland or the Western Isles will pay less than £1,200 on average, higher only than Wandsworth and lower than even Westminster, which retain their positions towards the bottom of the table despite high house prices there.

The cheapest areas outside of London or Scotland are Stoke-on-Trent, Sunderland and Wigan, where people are likely to pay just under £1,500 each.

What’s happening in the different nations?

Every council in Scotland has reduced council tax in real terms since 2011/12, the first year for which equivalent data is available across all three of England, Scotland and Wales.

In Wales, council tax has risen by at least 12% in every council area, even after adjusting for inflation.

Northern Ireland’s Department of Finance say that it is “impossible to make a straightforward comparison” to the other nations on council tax. The country has a system of domestic rates which is similar but different to council tax.

In Wales as a whole people are likely to be paying about a fifth more than they were twelve years ago even after adjusting for inflation, while people in Scotland will be paying about 8% less.

This year’s high Inflation is cited as one reason why rates have risen in Wales:

“Budget setting is extremely difficult this year due to high inflation and other cost drivers. While the settlement from Welsh Government was better than expected, it still leaves an enormous gap of around £300m to be bridged,” explained the Welsh Local Government Association.

But inflation has also been high across the rest of Great Britain.

The Scottish government froze council tax from 2007/08 to 2016/17, and blocked councils from raising rates by more than 3% in real terms from then until 2020-21.

“This has resulted in 30-40% lower Council Tax charges on average in Scotland compared with England and Wales”, said the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities.

There has never been such a cap in Wales, while in England, councils with social care duties can raise council tax by 5% and others can put it up by 3%.

If a local authority wants to increase council tax by more than 5%, residents must vote for it in a referendum. As yet, perhaps unsurprisingly, none have been passed.

Croydon, Slough, and Thurrock, however, have been granted special permission from the government this year to raise their council tax above this cap because of huge gaps in their finances.

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Why do some councils set higher council tax than others?

You get a different answer depending on who you ask.

Councils that have managed to keep council tax low, like Wandsworth, Hillingdon and Hammersmith & Fulham laid credit to prudent and responsible financial management from those responsible over several years.

Places like Rutland, Dorset and Wakefield, which have all raised council tax by some of the highest amounts in England, have called for fairer funding for councils, however.

They say that many councils which charge lower council tax get more money given to them by central government grants, despite often having less demand for expensive services like adult social care.

Are the explanations fair?

The Local Government Association told Sky News that one fund that the English government distributes to councils – the Revenue Support Grant – meant that “essentially a lot of the calculation of how much council tax people pay is set centrally,” supporting claims by councils that higher taxes are somewhat out of their control.

The more grant money a council receives the more likely it is to have lower council tax.

Westminster receives more than £170 per person from the Revenue Support Grant, more than the 157 bottom councils put together – each of which get less than £2 per person.

Rural areas are worst affected. Five of the ten areas that receive the most per person from the Revenue Support Grant are in London and all the others are cities.

Adding to add to that issue, councils with the most over-65s – also more likely to be rural areas – have higher council tax rates than those with fewer.

Councillor Lucy Stevenson, leader of Rutland Council, told Sky News that “part of the first job is actually telling our rural story so that we get people to look beyond what they see is affluence, and actually inside the county.”

“When we were looking at levelling up, some of the residents said ‘Are you sure we deserve that money?’ I said ‘absolutely. Have you looked at our data?’

“The second job is to come up with solutions. There is a wider issue for local government. Most councils are looking at deficit budgets or cutting services. The whole of local government needs serious consideration.

“It is the workhorse of the country for everybody’s day to day lives.”

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UK

Donald Trump confirms he will sue the BBC over Panorama edit – despite broadcaster’s apology

Published

5 hours ago

November 15, 2025

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Donald Trump confirms he will sue the BBC over Panorama edit - despite broadcaster's apology

Donald Trump has said he will sue the BBC for between $1bn and $5bn over the editing of his speech on Panorama.

The US president confirmed he would be taking legal action against the broadcaster while on Air Force One overnight on Saturday.

“We’ll sue them. We’ll sue them for anywhere between a billion (£792m) and five billion dollars (£3.79bn), probably sometime next week,” he told reporters.

“We have to do it, they’ve even admitted that they cheated. Not that they couldn’t have not done that. They cheated. They changed the words coming out of my mouth.”

Mr Trump then told reporters he would discuss the matter with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer over the weekend, and claimed “the people of the UK are very angry about what happened… because it shows the BBC is fake news”.

The Daily Telegraph reported earlier this month that an internal memo raised concerns about the BBC’s editing of a speech made by Mr Trump on 6 January 2021, just before a mob rioted at the US Capitol building, on its flagship late-night news programme.

The concerns regard clips spliced together from sections of the president’s speech to make it appear he told supporters he was going to walk to the US Capitol with them to “fight like hell” in the documentary Trump: A Second Chance?, which was broadcast by the BBC the week before last year’s US election.

Following a backlash, both BBC director-general Tim Davie and BBC News chief executive Deborah Turness resigned from their roles.

‘No basis for defamation claim’

On Thursday, the broadcaster officially apologised to the president and added that it was an “error of judgement” and the programme will “not be broadcast again in this form on any BBC platforms”.

A spokesperson said that “the BBC sincerely regrets the manner in which the video clip was edited,” but they also added that “we strongly disagree there is a basis for a defamation claim”.

Earlier this week, Mr Trump’s lawyers threatened to sue the BBC for $1bn unless it apologised, retracted the clip, and compensated him.

Legal challenges

But legal experts have said that Mr Trump would face challenges taking the case to court in the UK or the US.

The deadline to bring the case to UK courts, where defamation damages rarely exceed £100,000 ($132,000), has already expired because the documentary aired in October 2024, which is more than one year.

Also because the documentary was not shown in the US, it would be hard to show that Americans thought less of the president because of a programme they could not watch.

Newsnight allegations

The BBC has said it was looking into fresh allegations, published in The Telegraph, that its Newsnight show also selectively edited footage of the same speech in a report broadcast in June 2022.

A BBC spokesperson said: “The BBC holds itself to the highest editorial standards. This matter has been brought to our attention and we are now looking into it.”

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UK

Banksy art theft lands burglar with 13-month prison sentence

Published

9 hours ago

November 14, 2025

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Banksy art theft lands burglar with 13-month prison sentence

A man has been given a 13-month prison sentence for stealing Banksy’s famous Girl With Balloon print from a London gallery.

Larry Fraser, 49, of Beckton, east London, was sentenced on Friday after pleading guilty to one count of non-residential burglary at Kingston Crown Court on 9 October.

The print, one of the street artist‘s most famous, was stolen from a gallery in New Cavendish Street in London at around 11pm on 8 September last year.

Fraser used a hammer to smash his way through a glass entrance door at the Grove Gallery before stealing the artwork, which was valued at £270,000.

He concealed his identity with a mask, hooded jacket and gloves, but the Metropolitan Police’s Flying Squad was able to identify him and track him to a location streets away.

He was also caught on CCTV loading the artwork into a van before fleeing the scene.

A second man, 54-year-old James Love, was accused of being the getaway driver in the burglary, but cleared of stealing the print.

Fraser was arrested at his home address on 10 September, within 48 hours of the burglary, and charged the next day.

Officers were able to recover the artwork after executing a warrant on the Isle of Dogs. It has now been returned to the gallery.

Fraser pleaded to the court that he was struggling with a historic drug debt and agreed to steal the work “under a degree of pressure and fear”.

He said he did not know what he would be stealing, nor its value, until the day of the offence.

Jeffrey Israel, defending, said Fraser lived with his mother as her principal carer, and had only managed to “break his cycle of drug addiction” after his last prison sentence.

He added that it “would take a bold advocate” to suggest that the value of the print had increased by the burglary, but insisted “that is probably the reality”.

Judge Anne Brown was unmoved, however, and said the offence was “simply too serious” for a suspended sentence.

“This is a brazen and serious non-domestic burglary,” she said.

“Whilst you did not know the precise value of the print, you obviously understood it to be very valuable.”

She added: “Whilst I am sure there was a high degree of planning, this was not your plan.”

However, Fraser may be eligible for immediate release due to time spent on electronic curfew.

Detective Chief Inspector Scott Mather, who led the Met’s investigation, said: “Banksy’s Girl With Balloon is known across the world – and we reacted immediately to not just bring Fraser to justice but also reunite the artwork with the gallery.

“The speed at which this took place is a testament to the tireless work of the flying squad officers – in total it took just four days for normality to be restored.”

The 2004 artwork was part of a £1.5m collection of 13 Banksy pieces at the gallery.

Gallery manager, Lindor Mehmetaj, said it was “remarkable” for the piece to have been recovered after the theft.

The 29-year-old said: “I was completely, completely shocked, but in a very, very positive way when the Flying Squad showed me the actual artwork.

“It’s very hard to put into words, the weight that comes off your shoulders.”

UK

‘Incredibly dangerous’ sex offender Chao Xu jailed – as police say there could be hundreds more victims

Published

9 hours ago

November 14, 2025

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'Incredibly dangerous' sex offender Chao Xu jailed - as police say there could be hundreds more victims

An “incredibly dangerous” sex offender who drugged his victims and installed spy cameras around his home has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 14 years – as police appeal for hundreds more potential victims to come forward.

Warning: This article contains details of sexual offences

Chinese national Chao Xu, 33, has been described by police as “one of the most prolific offenders ever uncovered” by the Metropolitan Police.

Xu, who was a law postgraduate student at the University of Greenwich in London between 2015 and 2016, ran his own recruitment business and targeted victims at networking events at his home.

He invented his “Spring of Life” cocktail, a mix of alcohols and Chinese herbal medicines, to sedate guests, and planted spy cameras in items including air fresheners, sanitary packaging and speakers.

Police found thousands of pictures and videos, with some showing unconscious or incapacitated victims in his flat in Greenwich, south-east London.

Xu, who is from China but is believed to have been living in the UK since 2013, also covertly filmed women on their daily commutes at stations such as London Bridge in so-called upskirting incidents.

He pleaded guilty to 24 sex offences between 2021 and 2025 at Woolwich Crown Court in August relating to six victims, with two charges relating to a seventh woman left to lie on file.

Xu admitted four counts of rape, eight counts of assault by penetration, four counts of sexual assault, four counts of voyeurism, two counts of administering a substance with intent and two counts of operating equipment beneath the clothing of another without consent (commonly known as upskirting).

‘Incredibly dangerous man’

His Honour Judge Christopher Grout described Xu as an “incredibly dangerous man” who “took great enjoyment” from his offending.

“Your behaviour was calculated and planned, evidenced by the covert recording systems you had set up in your flats and the fact you had incapacitated a number of your victims by drugging them.

“You betrayed the trust of a number of women who you befriended in the most appalling ways imaginable,” he added.

Could be hundreds of victims

Another 11 alleged victims have since come forward but the Metropolitan Police believe there are hundreds more in the UK and China, with offences committed in workplaces, public spaces and overseas.

Acting Detective Superintendent Lewis Sanderson described Xu as one of the “most prolific” offenders the force has ever investigated, adding that his “crimes were calculated, sustained, and devastating”.

Speaking outside the court on Friday, he said: “Chao Xu was a prolific and predatory sexual offender who committed some of the most cowardly and abhorrent crimes imaginable. His actions caused deep and lasting harm.”

“The number of victims of sexual assault, voyeurism and upskirting is believed to be in the hundreds. This includes individuals filmed without consent in Xu’s flat at his workplace and in public spaces.

“That is why today I’m making a direct appeal. If you believe you may have been a victim of Chao Xu, or if you have any information that could assist our investigation, please come forward. You will be listened to. You will be believed and you will be supported.”

He said all of the sexual assault victims were Chinese women, aged between 18 and 30, while the voyeurism victims are also young females but of different ethnicities.

He added that there will be women who may not know they are victims of his crimes, as they may have been drugged by Xu.

Detectives were alerted to Xu’s crimes after he held a networking event in Greenwich in June.

When one of the women who attended became unwell, Xu offered to let her stay, before raping her several times, the Metropolitan Police said.

They later found he had drugged her with substances known to cause drowsiness and incapacitation.

The case included six million messages on WeChat, the popular Chinese messaging app, most of them in Mandarin, which all had to be checked with the help of a translator.