Should single person households get council tax discounts? Have your say
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Deputy prime minister Angela Rayner refused to rule out scrapping the single person discount to council taxes when pressed on the issue in parliament on Monday.
Rayner, who is also secretary of state for housing, communities and local government, was questioned by the Conservative former minister Graham Stuart, who said the discount is "so important" to pensioners, many of whom now face losing out on their winter fuel allowance.
After urging Rayner to rule out scrapping the discount, the deputy PM said it was "astonishing" that after "running down the economy" while in government, the Tories were now trying to claim Labour are "about raising taxes".
“This government is about making sure that working people are better off and we’ll intend to do that," she said.
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> What discounts are available?
> The arguments for single person discounts
What discounts are available for single person households?
If you live alone, you are entitled to 25% off your usual council tax bill in England, Wales and Scotland.
Northern Ireland doesn't have this, although lone pensioners aged 70 or over could be entitled to a 20% discount. UK residents can contact their local council to check if they're eligible and to apply.
In Scotland, unless you have a water meter, the cost of water and sewerage is included in the council tax paid, meaning the same discount will be applied to water bills. Some, but not all water companies in England offer single-occupancy discounts.
Welsh Water does not offer a discount, while households in Northern Ireland aren't charged for water at all.
Who is eligible for single-person council tax discounts?
In England, Wales and Scotland, the single person discount applies if you are the only adult living in a home.
You could also be eligible if everyone else in your home are classed as "disregarded people". According to the Gov.uk website, this applies to the following people.
Under-18s
People on certain apprenticeship schemes
18 or 19 year olds in full-time education.
Full time university or college students
Under-25s getting funding from the Education and Skills Funding Agency
Student nurses
Foreign language assistants registered with the British Council.
Severely mentally impaired
A live-in carer for someone who is not your partner, spouse, or child under 18
A diplomat
For example, if you were working full-time but your other two housemates were full-time university students, your household would still be eligible for the single-person discount.
The arguments for the single-person discount
While scrapping the single-person discount would take more money out of the pockets of single mothers, or a disabled people living with a carer, campaigners say the elderly in particular would be hit hard.
Speaking to the Daily Express, Dennis Reed, director of senior citizens group Silver Voices said: “The single person discount helps many widows and widowers. They are already going to be struggling after the winter fuel allowance cuts, which came out of the blue and are cruel as well as crude."
When the case for scrapping the single-person discount was made by the Local Government Association (LGA) in 2014, then-local government minister Brandon Lewis said: "Single person council is a long-standing feature of the council tax system, reflecting the fact that single adults make less use of local services than larger households."
He said scrapping the discount would amount to a "Bridget Jones" tax which unfairly penalises people who live alone, Public Finance Magazine reported.
The arguments against single-person discounts
Contrary to Lewis' reference to the hit 2000s rom-com film series, the LGA argued at the time that keeping the discount would amount to a "wealthy bachelor" discount.
It said that local authorities lost more than £200m due to the discount being applied to people who live alone in large homes.
In a submission to the Treasury, it called for councils to be given the freedom to decide whether to abolish the discount, in the top four council tax bands – E, F, G and H.
As the discount is set centrally, Peter Fleming, chair of the LGA's improvement board said struggling councils were "facing the unpalatable choice of whether to reduce the council tax discount for the working poor or make additional cuts to local services."
It is often argued that single-person households make less use of council services, for example waste collection, and therefore should be entitled to a discount.
However, a report by the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), also from 2014, casts doubt on this.
It said that while larger households produced more food waste, which came as no surprise, the average amount of waste per-person was highest for single-occupancy households.
"Compared to larger households, a greater proportion of what was wasted by those in single occupancy households was due to food not being used in time."
It says other research suggests that managing food in smaller households is more difficult than for larger households, as it can be harder and more expensive to find food in appropriately sized packs.
Come back on Friday to read the results and analysis.
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