Labour’s Caroline Penn is apparently ‘appalled’ by our administration’s proposals to address the £25m budget gap we face next financial year, including a 5.9% council tax increase (Letters, July 8).

Ms Penn’s comments would be a little bit more convincing if Labour’s record on the city council hadn't been an average annual council tax increase of almost 9%, memorably topping out at 14.5% for 2003/4.

Staggeringly, Labour’s inflation-busting increases were at a time when council funding was growing.

By contrast we are seeing huge cuts to our funding as well as extra demand for social care services. If agreed, our 5.9% increase would still leave council tax rates over the period of our Green administration having risen below inflation.

Ms Penn also claims that the city already has one of the most expensive council tax rates in the UK. Simply not true. A quick look at the data shows that for this financial year, our band D bill of £1,508 was slightly above the English average of £1,468 and almost spot on the average of £1,502 for unitary councils like ours.

It’s clear that no matter which party, if any, wins the next general election councils will continue to see huge annual cuts to budgets. Indeed there are hints that a Labour government would route more funding up North away from us. We have proposed balanced ways to help meet the pressures of these cuts. So far we’ve heard nothing of any substance from Labour other than a ‘fairness commission’, which will cost yet more money and take a year to complete.

Whatever one's views on our budget, our citizens deserve better than this continuous negative sniping from Labour.

Cllr Jason Kitcat, city council leader