London Mayor, Sir Sadiq Khan announced he is considering rising council tax across London to support the Metropolitan Police’s £450 million budget deficit.
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00:00I think that's a bit silly to be honest. Yeah, I don't really know why council tax should take a hit there on us.
00:07That should absolutely be on them. Not that I know a solution. I understand we need money and it's hard to find places to get it from.
00:15But yeah, I don't think that's the best place to start. I think there's a lot of money going into a lot of different pots and it needs to be reimagined.
00:22If it's going towards the police, then I suppose it's good. But I don't think much would change, honestly.
00:31I don't think much will change on the streets. People, I don't know, I don't think they really need the funding to be honest.
00:39I think it's just raising the council tax for no reason. I mean, I feel pretty safe. I know we're in South Kensington at the moment.
00:46But no matter where I'm from, I feel safe. I feel like if you put yourself in danger, it's your own fault.
00:52And don't get me wrong, I think police do a good job. But there's also corruption and I don't know, raising the council tax for that reason is just pointless.
01:05Pointless to me anyway. So that's how I feel about that.
01:10I mean, I feel like it's a short-term solution for a long-term problem. I feel like in many places they try to do these kinds of things.
01:19Just increase, I mean, you can call it, yeah, it can be council tax or to be honest, any kind of tax.
01:25But yeah, it's sort of like injecting money. I mean, it definitely might help.
01:32But yeah, in a few years you're still going to find the same issues and people are going to keep complaining.
01:40So with Sadiq Khan's planned council tax rise of up to £19 per year per household, where exactly is that money going?
01:50Well, as previously mentioned, much of it will be going to cover the Met budget deficit.
01:56However, a small portion will also be going to London's fire brigade, with about £5 out of that total £19 figure going to fighting fires.
02:06It is worth noting that councils are yet to decide what proportion of these figures they will be passing on to their residents.
02:15So that extra few quid a year will likely fluctuate depending on where you live.
02:22I guess it's hard to kind of answer that question for everyone, but I'm just about to start renting somewhere that's a bit out of my comfort zone for finances.
02:31So, you know, that does start to add up at certain points.
02:36But yeah, I mean, council tax in general is one of the things I'm confused in how it's so different between different ones.
02:41I was trying to get a house in Wandsworth to get it cheaper. Now I'm in Lambeth and it's like double.
02:48So council tax itself is weird to me. I don't understand how they work it all out.
02:53But yeah, I think that there's other places to kind of go from. But £19 a year isn't that bad, to be fair.