Susan Hall, the Conservative Party candidate for London mayor, voted for a 2023 hike in council tax as a councillor in Harrow despite condemning Sadiq Khan over his capital-wide tax rises.

Harrow has the third highest average rate of council tax of any London borough at over £2000 from April 2024, according to analysis by the BBC’s Local Democracy Reporting Service. Hall was previously highly critical of Harrow’s high rates of council tax when Labour controlled the council, telling the Harrow Times in 2017 that, “Labour’s mismanagement of Harrow’s finances are punishing our residents with yearly tax rises”.

In February, Hall’s council increased council tax by the maximum legal amount, 5%, boosting the local authority’s coffers by £7.69 million. 

Hall defended herself over the the increase when questioned by Byline Times, saying she had been absent for the vote, and added: “I’m not going to comment on [council] tax…It’s the first meeting I’ve missed in 18 years. I can be forgiven for missing one.” 

Hall is in line to receive a 35% increase in her councillor allowance this year after the licensing committee that she chairs approved an increase from £2500 a year to £4,382. On this matter she told Byline Times: “I’ve got thoughts on that, of course I do, it’s just who I share them with.”

In 2023, Hall was present to vote on the rise of Council Tax, and voted in favour of an increase of 5.9%.

That motion also included an increase in the Councillor’s allowance from a base rate of £8,561 to £9,063, a rise of 5.9%. 

Hall did is yet to respond to requests to comment from Byline Times.

Hall attacked Khan on X, formerly Twitter, over London-wide council tax hikes (for the so-called Mayor’s precept) on 23 January 2023 - one month before she voted to increase council tax in Harrow. 

Giving context to the tax increase in their budget document, council bosses wrote: “The Council’s revenue support grant has reduced from £50.5m to £1.825m (after accounting for the Council Tax Subsidy Admin Grant of £256k which is now subsumed into RSG).

The Council does receive other grant funding to support services, in 2022/23 this totalled £366m. However, these grants are all ring-fenced to areas of activity and cannot be used to support the core budget, for example the Dedicated Schools Grant of £143m. 

It went on: “… is increasing exponentially creating unfunded budget pressures […]. The impact of this is that the Council is heavily reliant on Council Tax to fund its core services. In 2022/23 80% of the Council’s net revenue budget of £183.3m is funded from Council Tax”. 

A January 2024 analysis by the Guardian of the effect of 13 years of austerity on local Government across the UK found that per person spending had been slashed across a wide range of council services including a reduction of 43% in real terms on net spending per person on cultural services, a 40% reduction in roads and transport spending, a 35% reduction on housing spending and 1/3 reduction on planning and development.