Keir Starmer has refused to rule out scrapping the single person discount for council tax bills, which reduces council tax by 25 per cent for taxpayers who live alone.

Single people have to pay more on a single income for Energy, Fuel & Food prices. Housing costs are rising – and all of these increases are disproportionately impacting single people especially during the cost of living crisis.

Single people who live alone already pay £7,564 more in living costs each year than those in a co-habiting couple. And when the energy price cap skyrockets in October, the gulf will only get larger. Single people don’t have the more obvious benefits of splitting the burden of rising bills, sky high rental costs and increasingly pricey food shops.

The only way single people are supposedly supported is that we are eligible for a 25% reduction on our council tax bill. But in the context of the cost of living, many are questioning why this discount isn’t 50%. Currently, single people in the average Band D property pay £113.60 per month on council tax, but individuals with partners paid just £75.75. 

''Could someone explain to me, in simple terms, why I, as a single person, have to pay 75% of full rate council tax and not 50%? Or is it, as I suspect, another example of single-person-household discrimination?''

— Tom Breheney (@Tom_Breheney) August 17, 2022

While plenty of single people are having to tighten their belts in the coming months, there are also those who will be pushed further into poverty and forced to make impossible decisions about whether they eat or heat their homes if this discount is scrapped. This also takes into consideration single pensioners, who are already looking to loosing their winter fuel allowance, widows, single parents & those on low income.

Please help to send Labour the message the single person discount is the wrong discount to scrap.