Spectre of council tax revolt looms

The prospect of widespread civil disobedience against inflation-busting council tax increases grew yesterday when an 83-year-old woman vowed to go to jail rather than comply with a liability order made by magistrates.

Pensioners' groups said scores of older people were prepared to defy the law after Elizabeth Winkfield told a court in Barnstaple, Devon, that she had no defence for failing to pay an outstanding £98.80 of the £747 tax on the bungalow where she lives alone at Westward Ho!

She was ordered to pay £10 costs in addition to the order. Later she said: "I have been doing nothing and will continue doing nothing."

Facing the prospect of bailiffs turning up at her home, she added: "I have not got anything which is really much good to them.

"I have never been inside prison, but am prepared for that."

An estimated 600 older people in Devon are refusing to pay part of this year's 18% council tax hike in the county.

Albert Venison, the chairman of a local pensioners' forum and one of 30 supporters outside the court yesterday, said many more people were prepared to follow the example of Miss Winkfield. She lives on a basic state pension of £312 a month, and grows her own vegetables to save money.

Torridge council, the collection authority for the county council, has issued summonses against 110 people for partial non-payment. Town halls elsewhere are also getting tougher. Last month Fred Estall, of Eastleigh, Hampshire, was ordered to pay £452 of outstanding tax plus £30 costs. His bill had grown by 17.5% over the year.

With this financial year's average rise at 13%, the government has said the increase in the forthcoming year should be in the low single-figures. It has told 65 authorities that their budgets risk being capped, and this week the local government minister, Nick Raynsford, gave 11 councils a final warning.

The average rise for the 2004-05 financial year still looks likely to be over 7%, with some increases in double figures. This week Devon county council agreed a 5.2% rise, by cutting highways and social services budgets.

Yesterday the former transport and local government secretary Stephen Byers, who is often seen as a Blairite outrider, signalled Labour concern by suggesting compulsory referendums if councils proposed rises at twice the inflation rate.

He also suggested the "relocalisation" of the business rate - removed from councils and redistributed nationally since 1991 - and the idea of pensioners being able to defer payment until after death, when their estate would pick up the tab.

John Prescott put down Mr Byers' intervention as the "private musings of a backbencher", but Mr Byers insisted: "There are concerns around council tax and the way it operates at the moment. If we don't address those concerns now, then the government will pay a heavy political price - and as a loyal backbencher that's something I'm not prepared to see."

Alternatives to the council tax, probably a property tax with extra bands to supplement the existing eight, will be suggested by a review chaired by Mr Raynsford this summer.