Melissa Kite: hands off my single occupancy discount, Lambeth Council

Some call me paranoid, but I don’t think one can be suspicious enough when it comes to the activities of Lambeth Council.

I guessed it might be up to another ruse when I received a more than usually threatening letter at the end of July informing me that it was undertaking a review of council tax discounts. Actually, I didn’t receive it at the end of July, because I was on holiday. Along with thousands of other people who will have been sent the letter at that time, I only read it when I returned from various summer trips.

It warned me that unless I re-registered for my single occupancy discount by 30 August, the discount would be rescinded ‘from the date that it was first issued’. Let’s think about that. The discount was first issued to me in 2001. I lost it briefly in 2002 when I took in a lodger. Then I re-registered for it in 2003 when the lodger moved out and have had it ever since.

If the discount was to be rescinded like this, I faced being billed by Lambeth Council for £300 a year for 11 years. Or to put it another way, if I had been on holiday throughout August, which was still legal the last time I checked, I would have returned in September to a completely spurious demand for £3,300. This would be doubly galling because my 25 per cent single occupier discount is one of the rare success stories in my ongoing battle against Them.

I secured it after a Labour minister informed me of its existence as we had lunch when I was a lobby correspondent. I was moaning about the depravity of Labour taxes when he suddenly said, ‘Hang on.