The Chancellor will announce that he's freezing council tax for a further year in his conference speech this afternoon. He hasn't said so yet, but we knew yesterday afternoon that he'd be saying it. I'm finding the way the parties are leaking the key points of their speeches earlier and earlier very irritating - where is the incentive for anyone to turn up in the conference hall or even tune in on television if they knew what he was going to say 24 hours before?

This strategy allows the speaker in question to hit the airwaves in advance of their speech, controlling the news cycle for the longest possible amount of time. But it also allows the opposition to get in there with some counterargument and rebuttal before the speech has even been delivered.

Late last night, Labour's response to the Treasury's council tax announcement pinged into my inbox. It's not new, they claim. He's simply re-announcing something that's been around for years. Chris Leslie says:

"George Osborne is simply re-announcing a pledge first made in his conference speech three years ago and repeated in the Conservative manifesto and coalition agreement. This re-announced policy is too little too late."

Is this true? Is it a recycled measure, or have the Treasury mysteriously found some cash they're using for this?

In his 2008 speech to Conservative Party conference, then shadow chancellor George Osborne announced that freezing council tax would be a priority for a Conservative government. He said:

"I can tell you today that the next Conservative government will freeze your Council Tax for at least two years. Every council tax bill of every family in every council that takes part will be frozen. Instead of council tax bills that rise year after year under Labour, millions of families will get help at the time they need it most."

Flash forward two years, and the policy turns up in the party's 2010 election manifesto (although it's now missing the crucial words 'at least'):

"To help Britain’s families further, a Conservative government will freeze council tax for two years, in partnership with local councils."

In the coalition agreement, it changed again. It said:

"We will freeze Council Tax in England for at least one year, and seek to freeze it for a further year, in partnership with local authorities."

So it would seem that Labour is partly right - the extension of the council tax freeze from one to two years has been considered as far back as 2008. This is the confirmation of that extension. So not a new policy, but not exactly and old one re-announced, either.

Tags: Conservative conference 2011, Council tax freeze, George Osborne