The campaign to end a council tax anomaly which means that Welsh army families are not offered a tax discount available in England and Wales is absolutely right and has the full backing of the Welsh Liberal Democrats.
Service families are routinely charged twice for council tax, once on their family home and once for their service accommodation. In England and Scotland an automatic 50% discount applies to the charge on the family home, but the scheme does not apply in Wales, leaving dozens of families – many with loved ones serving in Afghanistan – with significantly higher bills.
The anomaly seems to have arisen after a change in the law in 2004 that allowed Welsh councils to levy 100% council tax on second homes if they wish. Though both Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan offer a 50% discount in the same way as England and Scotland.
One of the problems is that the Council tax is not fit for purpose in the first place. It relies on a series of discounts that are unsophisticated and difficult to manipulate to fit in with wider policy considerations.
We must be careful for example, in making the change for armed forces personnel, not to do away with the provision for Councils to charge full Council tax on holiday homes or on different types of second home such as those held for business reasons.
Equally we should look at another change and that is enabling Councils to charge more Council tax on homes that have been empty for two years or more so as to provide an incentive to owners to bring them back into use. There are 26,000 such homes in private hands across Wales.
This is not to undermine the efficacy and the justness of the change for armed forces personnel but it does recognise that an opportunity exists for further reform of what is already an unfair tax. It also underlines why this desirable amendment to the rules is not as straightforward as we would all wish.
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I’m glad to see confirmation that Liberal Democrats in the Assembly agree that this unfair treatment in Wales should end. I note that the recent headlines on the issue have been made by a group of Welsh Labour MPs at Westminster. They are clearly putting pressure on the Labour-Plaid coalition in Cardiff. We know that there has always been a strong anti-armed-forces tendency in Plaid; is this what is holding up the obvious rectification in the Bay?
England and Scotland surely?