Friday, October 23, 2026
Plaid Cymru bottle council tax reform
They say that Elin Jones claimed that the decision was made because she could not afford the kind of financial relief she would want to put in place if she went ahead with a planned revaluation in two years' time.
However, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) think tank has described her explanation as "nonsensical" and "absurd logic", while the Welsh Labour finance spokesperson Huw Thomas accused Plaid of failing to back progressive policies in government, pointing out that in opposition, Plaid claimed the moral high ground on this issue and promised action in their manifesto, but instead they are showing political and moral cowardice.
The reasoned and intellectual case against this delay, however, was made by David Phillips, an economist working for the IFS. In a thread on Twitter, he argued that both the government and opposition were wrong in their analysis of what the revaluation would mean:
1. With council tax bills based on 2003 property values, households living in properties with the same values now can face bills differing by hundreds of pounds a year. In effect over 40% are in the wrong band, over 20% paying too much and 20% too little council tax.
2. Revaluation and reform was aimed to be revenue-neutral. Guaranteeing that would be hard given councils set tax rates not Welsh Govt but Welsh Govt planned to reset bands based on modern values and maintain council funding - so no need to increase overall average bills.
3. There is a big change to revaluation process. Back in 2003 they fixed the bands BEFORE doing valuations. Because property values in 2003 were booming, they'd ended up setting thresholds too low. This time they'd VALUE FIRST then set bands, so could avoid this problem!
4. Without a revaluation, any reform to make council tax less regressive (e.g. a new top band) is only fiddling around the edges and risks applying it to the 'wrong' properties. The Scottish Govt had to shelve plans to make its tax less regressive because values were out of date!
5. The government's stated reason to delay revaluation makes NO SENSE. It says it will cost too much to phase in bill increases. It refuses to phase in bill decreases too to cover the cost. So instead those due cuts in bills won't get any cut at all. That's absurd logic.
6. Is the supposed cost of transitional relief instead a convenient fig leaf for a Government not wanting to expend political capital on the necessary but thorny task of fixing an out of date unfair system? Two delays in a row risks this can being repeatedly kicked.
7. As the Minister says we have been undertaking analysis for Welsh Govt and will publish a report to inform stakeholders about what revaluation and reform of council tax would entail - and so what delay means.
8. But our views on the desirability of revaluation and reform are well known. And the Welsh Govt has always respected our independence and that that means we must be able to make our views known. Despite today's disappointment I'm thankful for that mature relationship.
The Plaid Government are committed to making council tax fairer, but as David Phillips says, without a revaluation any reform will be ineffective. They cannot do this piecemeal. It is likely thought that, after this decision, it may not happen at all.
