ACCORDING to the British Retail Consortium, shop price inflation was down to 1.3 per cent in March – at its lowest since December 2021.

And from April 6, because of the Chancellor’s announcement in the Spring Budget, Employee National Insurance will be cut from 10 per cent to 8 per cent on top of a 2 per cent reduction in January, so that the average working person will be better off by over £900.

This is all welcome news, and it will provide some relief to hardworking families across the country – but I believe there are some long-term changes that need to be looked at to ensure fairness and prosperity across the country as a whole.

One area to look at, in my opinion, is council tax.

Under the current council tax system, many hard-pressed families already face council tax bills heading towards £2,000 a year.

I believe that one way to stop the tide of rising council tax bills, and to help millions of households save hundreds of pounds every year, would be to abolish both council tax and stamp duty and bring in a proportional property tax.

What would this look like, though? Research by the Fairer Share says it could be set at 0.048 per cent of a property’s value, and it would be revenue neutral for the Treasury – all the while leading to lower bills for around 76 per cent of households in England.

This would especially be beneficial to the north of England!

On average, households would pay £435 less property tax a year while in Carlisle the average saving stand would stand at around £700. Across the so-called ‘red wall’, 97 per cent of households would see lower bills and an average saving £660 per year.

Of course, there will be a minority of people in more valuable properties whose bills would go up. For them there should be a cap on the increases in tax of £100 per month. And to ensure there are no losers on day one, there would also have to be a deferral mechanism until point of sale on a low interest rate, so that nobody has to pay out immediately if they cannot afford to do so.

The fact is that reform of some kind to council tax is needed anyway. Council tax is based on property values that are thirty years out of date.

It taxes low-value homes at a much higher proportionate rate than high-value properties, and it hits renters saving up for a deposit just as hard as those who have very much made it onto the property ladder.

It is a rusty system that is no longer fit for purpose.

I will be pushing for this – and I would be interested in other ideas people may have to make our taxes fairer. Property tax reform might not be the most glamorous of policies a government can enact, but ideas like this could help the vast majority of people up and down the country while finally fixing a system that has been broken for too long.

Let’s level up property tax!