COUNCIL tax bills will soar across the region unless its local authorities dramatically improve their miserable recycling records, the Government has warned.

Ben Bradshaw, a junior environment minister, said residents would "pay the price" because of his plans to hike the tax for dumping waste in landfill sites.

The so-called "landfill tax escalator" is due to rise by £3 per tonne every year from its current level of £18 per tonne, until it reaches £35 per tone.

At that point, the tax will be almost double the current level - punishing local councils which continue to use environmentally-damaging landfill.

During a Commons debate, Mr Bradshaw described a local authority recycling rate of less than 20 per cent as "depressing".

Yet at least a dozen councils in the North-East had much lower rates last year, with Middlesbrough (10.2 per cent) the worst and the sixth worst anywhere in England.

Little better were Sunderland (10.3 per cent), Wear Valley (11.8 per cent), Derwentside (12.5per cent), Gateshead (12.5 per cent), Chester-le-Street (12.5 per cent), Easington (13.6 per cent), Sedgefield (14 per cent) and Redcar and Cleveland (14.9 per cent).

Mr Bradshaw said: "There is no excuse for it and MPs may want to take a stark warning back to their constituents and local authorities. As the landfill escalator hits in as one of the major financial incentives, council tax payers will pay the price for the poor performance of their local authorities.

"It is not merely good for the environment to recycle, reuse and compost - it is, in the long run, also cheaper for council tax payers."

Local authorities with poor recycling rates can "buy" allowances to dump more waste in landfill, but this will cost local taxpayers, Mr Bradshaw said.

Nationally, Britain recycles 22 per cent of its household waste while Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and Belgium all recycle more than half.

The Department for the environment, food and rural affairs, facing tough EU targets to avoid landfill, is drawing up a waste strategy to improve that performance. It proposes cutting the amount of waste put into landfill sites from more than 72 per cent today to 25 per cent by 2020.

To achieve that, the strategy suggests 27 per cent of all waste should be burned by 2020, compared with nine per cent now, which could involve building controversial new incinerators.