IMMIGRATION 'TO FORCE UP' COUNCIL TAX

FIRST PUBLISHED BY: THIS IS MONEY

COUNCIL TAX WILL HAVE TO RISE BECAUSE OF THE GOVERNMENTS FAILURE TO GET A GRIP ON IMMIGRATION, TOWN HALL CHIEFS HAVE WARNED.

They insisted there was no way local government could afford the public services that hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Eastern Europe would demand. Lord Bruce-Lockhart, head of the Local Government Association, has written a scathing letter to Home Secretary, placing the blame squarely on the Government.

In a devastating critique of the governments performance on immigration, he warns the crisis has created 'severe problems' that will lead to Council Tax rises, local job losses and cuts in services. Official estimates of the number of immigrants arriving in Britain have badly underestimated the pressure on the communities where they have settled.

The LGA claims the governments inability to calculate the scale of the problem has left local authorities out of pocket. Lord Bruce-Lockhart's anger stems from the massive influx of migrants that has stretched services to breaking point in Slough, Berkshire - a situation he says is replicated nationwide. According to figures provided by the Office for National Statistics, only 300 immigrants are settling in Slough each year. But the local council says there are at least 10,000 migrants alone living there.

Of 9,000 new National Insurance numbers handed out over the past 18 months, only 150 went to British nationals. Since local councils receive central government funding according to the number of residents living in their areas, failure to calculate the number of immigrants can lead to critical financial shortfalls.

This leaves the entire community suffering as schools and hospitals are overstretched. The LGA believes the arrival of immigrants could lead to a 6% rise in Council Tax - which has already soared by more than 70%. In his letter to government, Lord Bruce-Lockhart, the former Tory leader of Kent County Council, stresses that the same problem is affecting local communities nationwide.

Twenty-five councils from around the country were represented at a seminar a week ago at which they expressed concerns at the Government's inability to get its numbers right. He writes: 'There are a number of local authorities for whom the current system of measuring the number of migrants in specific council areas is failing to ensure adequate funding to keep council services to local people maintained. Councils are finding it difficult to provide services to growing populations that are not recognized by government statistics.

'Working migrants have become an invisible population whose children need school places, who need to be housed appropriately and in some cases need social services. Official statistics have failed to reflect this.' In his letter to, Lord Bruce-Lockhart demands to know when the Government will establish a system that can gather accurate information.

'Unless accurate, up-to-date figures on migration are produced, so that the proper funding to councils can be reflected, this could pose severe problems in the future as services get cut, or Council Tax has to rise disproportionately,' he warns. He also tells the Home Secretary existing workers are being forced out of the workplace by eastern European immigrants. He concludes: 'Chief executives, from places like Slough, are happy to welcome EU accession state migrants and recognize their contribution to a thriving local economy in many parts of the country. 'However, there is evidence that migration is displacing existing resident labour.'

Ministers claimed just 13,000 immigrants would come to Britain when its borders opened to migrants from the new states of the European Union. But since 2004, around 700,000 economic migrants have arrived to work here. The letter is a crushing rebuke, who used a weekend interview to call for a mature debate about immigration and indicated that an independent body could draw up limits on the number of immigrants Britain is prepared to accept.

A spokesman for the Department of Communities and Local Government, said: 'Government distributes formula grants to local authorities using the best statistics that are available on a consistent basis.'

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