Robbing the poor relation to bail out government

6.17.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Wed 14th Oct 2009

This week the Labour government announced the sale of £16bn of assets to counterbalance the debts built up bailing out the irresponsible banks. Of the £16bn of assets only £3bn are central government assets, the rest belong to local government.

Sal Brinton, Prospective Liberal Democrat MP for Watford commented on this announcement: 'As usual this is another huge headline grabbing stunt from a failing government, but the small print reveals that actually they are yet again taking money from local tax payers. Local council often use their building assets to generate income to keep council tax low.'

'As with other schemes, such as free bus travel for pensioners and free swimming for young people and pensioners, which looked great at the Government announcement, we discovered the reality was that both relied on local tax payers providing the funding. If these assets are sold off, our local council tax will be put under pressure as we will lose out on income from the buildings sold. This will force councils to have to ask the tax payer - yet again - to stump up the difference.'