Deputy Leader of the Conservative Group Cllr Robert Alden, who along with Cllr Gareth Moore led the campaign against Labour's 'Death Tax', (both Erdington Ward) have welcomed the news that the Labour Council have now dropped plans for the controversial 'Death Tax'. The 'Death Tax' which, was to be a £20 charge for the storage and release of bodies from the City Mortuary, was widely slammed in committee and the local papers. It was later revealed that simply generating the bill for the death tax bill in the first place would cost the Council around £50. This meant that the plan would have led to the Council making a loss of around £30 every time it charged residents, or would have led to the tax being increased to £70 per a body.

Cllr Robert Alden said "Labour's planned death tax was a callous, cold hearted and frankly mean thing to do to families of this great city at a time of personal grief and tragedy. All of this was made worse when our campaign discovered that the Council would be losing about £60,000 by implementing the plan in the first place".

Cllr Gareth Moore said "I welcomed that the Labour Council announced at Licensing that this plan has now been dropped. The revelation that the department was running at almost an £800,000 under spend and the Death Tax was only planned to raise £40,000 in the first place, (before it was discovered that the bills would cost money to produce), showed that there was no justification for charging residents to release the bodies of deceased relatives and friends".

This latest humiliating back track by the Labour Council comes after the news that planned, closures of 44 Children Centres, charges for bulky waste collections and a Council tax rise are all now also having to be reviewed.

Cllr Robert Alden added "the Labour Council are realising that residents in this city will not stand for charges to go up. What we must be on the look out for now is attempts to keep these plans by the back door".