Kemi Badenoch accuses Labour councillors of leaving flagship town hall with £137million budget gap while ministers its funding by 40 per cent

By MARTIN BECKFORD, POLICY EDITOR Published: 00:33, 20 August 2026 | Updated: 00:34, 20 August 2026 Kemi Badenoch has accused Labour of leaving a flagship town hall with a huge budget black hole – then starving it of future funding. The Conservative leader said Labour had left Wandsworth Council, which it lost to the Tories in May after running it for just one term, with a 'historic' £137million gap in its finances. And she said that central Government was now cutting its grant funding by a 'massive' 40 per cent, under Angela Rayner's controversial reforms that give more money to Labour-voting areas in the north. Mrs Badenoch joined a huge canvassing operation by her party to win one more seat on the south London authority in what she admitted was a 'crucial by-election' next week, which would then give the Tories an outright majority. She wrote on social media after her visit on Tuesday: 'Labour left Wandsworth Council with a historic £137m budget gap. 'And to make things even worse, the Labour Government are cutting Wandsworth's council funding by a massive 40%. 'It's no wonder Wandsworth's residents are fed up. Labour just doesn't seem to care about them.' She said that electing Tory candidate Otto Jacobson would 'give the Conservatives the outright majority we need to balance the books and clean up Labour's mess'. Conservative party leader Kemi Badenoch at a press conference on Wednesday morning A spending review published by the incoming Tory administration on the town hall last month said it inherited from Labour 'the largest government cuts, the largest projected overspending and the largest predicted budget gap in Wandsworth's history'. The report claimed that the previous Labour administration had used reserves to balance the budget, had increased staff by 14 per cent since taking over in 2022 and had spent and borrowed millions more without increasing revenue. It said the borough had previously been 'synonymous with low council tax' but that Labour ministers saw that 'as a problem, not a positive'. The report warned that Wandsworth's council tax 'would have to increase by more than 230 per cent' to balance the books if urgent action was not taken. But it pledged: 'We will not do nothing. Instead, we will find savings, identify efficiencies, cut waste and do everything possible to limit the impact on residents' bills. 'At the same time, we will protect the services that matter most and meet our manifesto promises.' Currently the annual bill for a Band D property in the borough is the lowest in England at just £1,020, of which half goes to the council and the rest to the Greater London Authority. The average across the country is more than twice as much, £2,392. It is thought that Wandsworth is considering hiking its share of bills next year by 160 per cent, which would be the largest percentage rise in history. Figures also show that residents of the borough, home to fewer than 350,000 people, already pay a total of £4.7bn a year in income tax to central Government, far more than major cities such as Birmingham, population 1.2million, contribute. Wandsworth Labour leader Simon Hogg insisted: 'When Labour ran Wandsworth Council we had the lowest council tax in the country, the highest reserves of any neighbouring borough and no external debt. 'The new Conservative administration has brought chaos. They are extreme and divided and clearly don't have a plan for how to run the council.'