David Mowat, Prospective Conservative MP expressed his concern this week at new figures which have revealed the soaring use of court orders and bailiffs to collect council tax. Council tax bills have more than doubled across the country under Labour. In Warrington, bills have risen by 85% since 1997 thanks to Labour Ministers.

New statistics show that 1.4 million households had bailiffs knocking at their door for unpaid council tax last year – up nearly 70 per cent since 1997. Another 1,517 people were made bankrupt by the courts for their council tax debts. In Warrington, 5,882 households had visits from bailiffs trying to recover unpaid council tax.

·Whitehall guidance issued by John Prescott in 2004 encourages the use of bailiffs by town halls. It even recommends that in-house town hall bailiffs remove the official council branding from their bailiff demands.

·New official figures also reveal that that a record 3.1 million households are now in severe council tax difficulties and face liability orders for unpaid council tax. Across the Cheshire Accounting Division, 34,811 people were issued with a liability order in 2008-9. Liability orders allow councils to seize money from wage packets/benefits or commence bailiff proceedings.

·Conservatives have pledged to work with councils to freeze council tax bills in England and provide additional central funding to keep bills down for the next two years. Scotland has already benefited from a council tax freeze, making bills almost £300 a year less on a comparable home north of the border. Labour Ministers have ruled out introducing such a policy in England.

David Mowat said:

"Thanks to Gordon Brown doubling council tax bills, a record number of families in Warrington and across the country are struggling to make ends meet. More people now face the threat of menacing bailiffs knocking at their door. This is a crisis of Labour's own making.

"The fact that Labour Ministers have blocked a council tax freeze for England shows how out of touch Gordon Brown is with the plight of hard-working families and pensioners. Only a Conservative Government will work with Warrington Borough Council to help fund a council tax freeze and bring real help to low and middle income families. Only Conservatives can deliver the change our country needs."

Latest Growth Figures less than impressive warns Mowat

David Mowat today expressed concern about the latest figures on economic growth. The Office of National Statistics has announced that in the final quarter of 2009, the economy grew by 0.1%, however many economists have warned that the UK is still at risk of slipping back in to recession later in the year when the figures for Q1 of 2010 are released.

David Mowat said: "Gordon Brown's boast about Britain being the best prepared country going into the recession would be laughable if things weren't so serious. Whilst every other country in the G20 came out of recession months ago, Britain has only today managed to grow once more. However, if we factor in increased demand in the run up to Christmas and an artificial spike caused by the VAT rise on January 1^st, such puny growth hardly seems to me to be a ringing endorsement of Labour's policies."

"Obviously any growth is better than none at all, but we must remember that today only marks the end of the statistical recession, the real recession will continue until employers start hiring once more and people move back into work. Labour's plan for jobs is to increase the tax on employing people by hiking National Insurance. We can't go on like this, we need to cut Corporation Tax for businesses, both big and small and give help to new businesses that want to take on more people."

Conservatives have plans to get Britain working and growing again, whilst tackling Labour's massive debts

David Mowat, Prospective Conservative MP for Warrington South, today strongly endorsed radical and bold new plans – set out in the Conservatives' draft election manifesto – to tackle crime and to restore confidence in Britain's 'broken' criminal justice system.

Their importance is underlined by new analysis revealing that there were 2,942 violent attacks on people across Warrington in the last year, a rise of 131 per cent in the last decade. Under the manifesto plans, a Conservative Government would:

·Give Warrington's citizens greater protection if they have to defend themselves against intruders in their homes, or if they stop a crime being committed in the street.

·Create fifteen new rape crisis centres across the country, and give all existing rape crisis centres stable, long-term funding.

·Grant the Borough Council new powers to fight booze-fuelled antisocial behaviour in Warrington and stop supermarkets selling alcohol at below cost-price which is destroying law-abiding local pubs and fuelling low-level crime.

·Replace the invisible and unaccountable Cheshire Police Authority, making the police properly accountable to a directly elected person who will set priorities for local policing.

·Publish detailed street-by-street crime statistics online every month, in an open and standardised format, so people know the real level of crime in their neighbourhood.

·Make it clear that anyone caught carrying a knife in a public place can expect to be prosecuted and sent to prison.

David Mowat said:

"Labour have launched endless initiatives and top-down schemes which have made little difference. Their broken promises have undermined people's trust. We can't go on with the police filling in forms instead of fighting crime.

"Our hard-working local police officers deserve the highest praise. But many people across Warrington are hugely frustrated with our criminal justice system. They feel that it's just not on their side anymore. These major Conservative proposals will help put the law back on the side of local people in Warrington and give our police the full support they so richly deserve."

Read the full release here