Dan Mead Is Right: Council Tax Reform Can No Longer Be Ignored

For decades, politicians have known that Council Tax is broken.

They have acknowledged its flaws, recognised its unfairness and promised reform. Yet somehow the system has survived, largely unchanged, asking each new generation to live with a tax designed for a Britain that no longer exists.

In his recent paper, Fixing the Shop Front of the State, Dan Mead makes an important contribution to a debate that Labour has avoided for too long.

His central argument is not simply about tax. It is about trust.

Local government is the part of the state most people encounter in their daily lives. It is where residents see services delivered, problems addressed and communities supported. When that relationship works, confidence in public institutions grows. When it breaks down, frustration grows with it.

The challenge, as Mead identifies, is that councils are increasingly trapped between rising demand and a funding system that no longer commands public confidence.

Residents see bills rising.

Councils see budgets stretched.

Yet neither feels better served by the system.

That should concern everyone who cares about the future of local government.

Council Tax remains rooted in property valuations from 1991. Entire generations have grown up, entered the housing market and raised families since those valuations were carried out. House prices have changed dramatically. Patterns of wealth have shifted. Britain itself has changed.

The tax system has not.

The result is a system that often asks proportionately more from communities with lower property values than from areas with far greater concentrations of wealth. In practice, Council Tax has become a tax on deprivation, placing some of the heaviest burdens on those least able to bear them.

Whether the answer is proportional property taxation, land value taxation, local income taxation or another model entirely is a debate worth having.

But before Labour can decide the solution, it must first acknowledge the scale of the problem.

That is why Dan Mead's intervention matters.

Not because it settles the argument, but because it demonstrates that serious voices across the Labour movement increasingly recognise that the status quo is neither fair nor sustainable.

The Labour Campaign for Council Tax Reform was established for exactly this reason.

Our objective is not to dictate a single answer. It is to ensure that Labour begins the conversation. To create space for members, councillors, MPs, trade unionists, academics and campaigners to engage with the question honestly and openly.

The current system is outdated.

It is regressive.

It is increasingly difficult to defend.

And the longer reform is delayed, the harder those realities become to ignore.

Dan Mead has helped move this conversation forward.

The task now is to ensure Labour has the confidence to finish it.