Farage attacks 'bad' council spending decisions

Nigel Farage has criticised a Conservative council's spending decisions but admitted bringing its debts down would be difficult and did not promise to reduce council tax if his Reform party took over.

The leader was in Norfolk for a Reform rally, ahead of the local elections on 7 May.

Farage said the Conservative-run county council had made bad decisions and also criticised plans to reorganise local government.

The authority's Tory leader Kay Mason Billig said his criticisms were "nonsense" and borrowing had paid for services including libraries, schools and roads.

Reform believe they can take control of the county council next month, when all 84 council seats are up for grabs.

It is currently dominated by the Conservatives, who have 51 councillors.

Farage said the authority had debts of £884m as a result of money being poorly spent with "some bad decisions made", including the £200,000 salary for its chief executive.

Reform-run councils – including Kent and Lincolnshire – approved higher pay deals for their chief executives, but he said they had helped to keep their council-tax charges down.

"If you're paying people lots of money because they're top class and really good at what they do, they've got to deliver the goods," Farage explained.

When it came to reducing the council's debt, he said he would not "over promise anything" but Reform would be "as prudent as we possibly can be".

And he took aim at the government's plans to scrap all of Norfolk's existing councils, arguing the three new unitary authorities would not move "power closer to the people".

Mason Billig defending the Conservatives' record, arguing that all "councils borrow money to build stuff".

Almost all local authorities have a level of debt, with most of their borrowing coming from the Public Works Loan Board, which is a government body offering a much lower rate of interest than a bank.

She said the money had helped pay for "two [road] bypasses, nine new care homes, 41 Special Resource Bases for SEND children, five new schools, 24 new fire engines and 70 electric buses".

"We don't borrow what we can't afford, and we have a clean bill of health from our external auditors, obviously they can add up better than dear old Nige," she added.

Farage was speaking ahead of a rally at the Norfolk Showground last night.

Reform said it had sold more than 1,300 tickets at £5 a head and the BBC estimated at least 1,000 were in attendance.

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