MILLIONS of English households will be clobbered by a council tax hike in April.
Downing Street today confirmed that town halls will be free to whack up levies by up to 5 per cent, well above the current 1.7 per cent inflation rate.
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The move will see bills in the average band D family household rise by £109.
At a fiery PMQs yesterday, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch demanded the PM rule out a town hall levy rise.
But despite pledging in 2023 to freeze caps in Labour’s first year of government, Sir Keir replied: “On the question of councils, she knows what the arrangements are.”
The opposition chief responded: “I think the House will have heard that the Prime Minister could neither confirm nor deny whether the cap on council tax was being raised.”
The Tories accused ministers of secretly plotting to raise council tax by a whopping £2.4 billion.
At PMQs Ms Badenoch also slammed Sir Keir for not exempting care homes from the Budget employer’s national insurance raid.
She accused Labour of creating a “social care funding gap”.
The PM responded that an additional £600m for local authorities announced at the Budget would help plug any funding black holes.
Sir Keir said: “It is all very well this knockabout but not actually listening to what I said three minutes ago is a bit of a fundamental failure of the Leader of the Opposition.
“I just said £600 million.”
