Millions of English households are facing a stealth tax rise of nearly £18 billion under Labour, according to new Treasury figures, even as Prime Minister Andy Burnham prepares to hand more taxing powers to regional mayors.
Data obtained through a series of parliamentary questions shows the total council tax take across England is projected to climb from £41.2bn in 2024/25 to £58.8bn by 2030/31, a rise of 43 per cent.
It is the first time the Treasury has publicly confirmed its own expectations for the overall council tax burden, and the numbers were quietly passed to the Office for Budget Responsibility rather than announced from the despatch box.
Buried within those figures is confirmation that ministers expect council tax to rise by between 4.3 and 4.4 per cent every single year through to the end of the decade, comfortably outstripping the current CPI inflation rate of 2.6 per cent. For the average Band D household, which paid £2,280 in 2025/26, that trajectory points to a bill of £2,836 by 2030, an increase of £556.
The “Burnham Premium”
Conservatives have seized on the figures, dubbing them the “Burnham premium” and accusing the Prime Minister of presiding over a tax grab that will hit 25.6 million homes in every corner of the country. Shadow Communities Secretary Sir James Cleverly did not mince his words:
“Andy Burnham is right to want to boost growth across our communities, but his model of Manchesterism is a recipe for soaring taxes in every post code. Labour have already baked in £18bn of council tax rises, and now former Manchester mayor Burnham wants to go further and impose his high-tax regional model across England.”
The irony will not be lost on voters. Mr Burnham has repeatedly promised to make the cost of living his “number one priority” since taking over from Sir Keir Starmer in July, telling the country he understood “what it’s like to be ignored by politicians in Westminster.” Yet the Treasury’s own numbers suggest the opposite is unfolding on his watch, with families quietly billed hundreds of pounds more a year while ministers talk up devolution.
Form Over Substance on Devolution
The figures land just as Mr Burnham prepares to unveil plans, first reported by The Telegraph, to hand a number of England’s most senior regional mayors a share of income tax raised in their areas, alongside existing council tax powers. Those seven mayoralties, six of them Labour run and including Greater Manchester, Liverpool and London, would gain fresh fiscal levers, although Downing Street has so far declined to say how much revenue would actually be devolved, insisting the detail will wait for the autumn Budget.
Critics warn that giving mayors more room to raise money is unlikely to ease the pressure on household budgets, given the track record of the model Mr Burnham himself pioneered. Since he was first elected Mayor of Greater Manchester in 2017, the mayoral council tax precept on a Band D property, excluding policing, has climbed by 127 per cent, from £68 to £154. Sir James argued the same pattern would simply be exported nationwide: “What works in Manchester won’t be the same for Essex, Cornwall or Cumbria.”
Business groups have also voiced unease. Kate Shoesmith, policy director at the British Chambers of Commerce, said any new powers handed to mayors needed to be aimed squarely at practical problems firms face, “from skills and transport to infrastructure and planning,” rather than becoming a new source of red tape and local levies for employers already struggling with rising costs.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Housing, Local Government and Communities pushed back on the criticism, insisting councils “have not yet set tax rates beyond this year” and that individual authorities decide their own council tax “taking into consideration a range of local factors.”
That defence is unlikely to reassure households who, on the Treasury’s own admission, are on course for above-inflation rises every year for the rest of this Parliament, under a Prime Minister who came to office promising to ease the cost of living, not add to it.
The Treasury has been approached for comment.
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