Charities call for end to 'cruel' threat of jail for non-payment of council tax

The telephone for betterment comes from bodies specified arsenic StepChange Debt Charity, Christians Against Poverty, Money and Mental Health Policy Institute, and Money Advice Trust who each signed the letter

A radical of indebtedness enactment and intelligence wellness organisations has urged the Government to scrap the "cruel and archaic" signifier of jailing individuals for not paying assembly taxation successful England.

The telephone for betterment comes from bodies specified arsenic StepChange Debt Charity, Christians Against Poverty, Money and Mental Health Policy Institute, and Money Advice Trust who each signed the letter.

This determination aligns with caller probe from StepChange revealing that 23% of adults are stressed astir gathering assembly taxation payments implicit the adjacent half-year, portion 31% are anxious astir energy bills. In December 2024, 34% of caller StepChange clients liable for assembly taxation had arrears averaging £1,937.

The campaigners request an extremity to imprisonment for assembly taxation non-payment successful England, critiquing its usage arsenic an intimidation instrumentality often targeting susceptible demographics. The missive said: "Women, azygous parents, and those surviving with intelligence wellness problems disproportionately carnivore the brunt of this escalating affordability crisis. We’ve heard from galore who, portion trying to support up with assembly tax, person missed different precedence payments, taken connected other borrowing and chopped backmost connected essentials."

“Yet alternatively of being met with empathy, those who autumn down connected assembly taxation look a strategy which is astatine champion dated – and astatine worst, dangerous.”

The missive highlights that England is astatine likelihood with the remainder of the UK.

It states: "England is an anomaly arsenic the lone state successful the UK wherever the enactment to perpetrate radical to situation for non-payment of assembly taxation remains possible.

"In Wales, this authorisation was revoked successful 2019, with its ‘outdated and disproportionate’ quality recognised by the Welsh Government.

"Crucially, statistical investigation undertaken for the Welsh Government by Policy successful Practice, unneurotic with findings from erstwhile research, indicates that the removal of the authorisation has not affected assembly taxation postulation rates successful Wales."

Chief Client Officer astatine StepChange, Richard Lane, said: "Current regulations astir imprisonment are outdated astatine champion and draconian astatine worst.

"That idiosyncratic who has fallen down connected their assembly taxation bills – truthful often a grounds of deep-rooted fiscal trouble – tin look the imaginable of situation is unfathomable successful the 21st century."

"Threats of imprisonment would not alert successful the user recognition sector, and it should not successful section authorities indebtedness collection.

"If the Government wants to present an easy, low-cost, and equitable argumentation to support those successful fiscal difficulty, past removing this regularisation is simply a bully mode to enactment the astir susceptible and awesome a precedence of fairness."

Juliette Flach from Christians Against Poverty highlighted the conflict of many, saying: "With astir fractional of our clients struggling to spend basal necessities, debased wages and payment levels are intelligibly impacting millions."

She added that utilizing imprisonment threats for assembly taxation indebtedness is "both unjust and ineffective," calling for a "more compassionate strategy that supports, not punishes, those trapped successful the vicious rhythm of indebtedness and poverty."

Helen Undy of the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute stated forcefully: "The Government should enactment an extremity to this cruel and archaic process, arsenic it destroys lives and does small to assistance councils recoup money.

"Even the menace of situation tin person a devastating intelligence interaction for radical who simply can’t spend their assembly taxation bill, and are already nether immense fiscal and intelligence strain. We impulse the Government to enactment present earlier much lives are needlessly ruined."

Grace Brownfield of Money Advice Trust, said: "It tin ne'er beryllium close that radical facing fiscal trouble are threatened with imprisonment.

"The absorption alternatively should beryllium connected providing meaningful enactment to radical struggling to wage their assembly taxation bills and helping them get retired of indebtedness safely and affordably."

January 2025 probe by YouGov, involving implicit 2,300 UK participants, accompanied the merchandise of these comments.

Councillor Pete Marland, president of the Local Government Association’s Resources Board, expressed: "Councils cognize however hard the rising outgo of surviving is for truthful galore radical and strive to retrieve unpaid taxation arsenic sympathetically arsenic possible.

"Bailiffs should lone ever beryllium utilized arsenic a past edifice and earlier it gets to that stage, radical volition person been encouraged by their assembly to use for fiscal support.

"One mode to marque the process easier would beryllium to region the request for the full yearly sum to go payable if an instalment is missed, giving households and councils greater flexibility.

"Local payment schemes tally by councils, including assembly taxation alleviation and the Household Support Fund, are besides disposable alongside targeted authorities help. Rising request means this whitethorn lone connection short-term alleviation to struggling households, amid an ongoing cost-of-living situation and continuing backing pressures.

"Anyone having occupation paying their assembly bills should get successful interaction with their section authorization for fiscal assistance and proposal arsenic soon arsenic possible."

A spokesperson from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) stated: "The instrumentality is wide that imprisonment should lone ever beryllium the past edifice for non-payment of assembly tax, and these powers cannot beryllium utilized wherever an idiosyncratic is incapable to wage their assembly tax."

They further added: "We expect councils to beryllium proportionate and sympathetic successful the actions they take, and we volition proceed to support this argumentation nether review."