Local Government Finance Bill

Debate between Lord Beecham and Baroness Sherlock

Thursday 19th July 2012 Grand Committee

[Baroness Sherlock]

My Lords, following that helpful contribution, perhaps I may say a brief word. I was talking to a northern authority recently which could not raise significant sums from empty homes for obvious reasons but, as half of its council tax benefit claimants are pensioners, it was assuming that it would be a 20% cut across the board for the rest, because that is how the sums work. It did not have the money available. I had a look at its website. If I were living in a band B property on my own, even with a single-person discount, council tax would be £892.80. If I lost 20% of that discount, I would be £3.43 a week worse off. That does not sound like a lot, but actually, out of £71 a week JSA, that is about 6% of my income. If I were to lose 6% of my income under the current situation and, if the take-up were to increase significantly—given the gaps that both my noble friend Lady Lister and the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, described, that is quite possible, especially with the renaming—that figure would surely rise even further. How will the Minister protect those people and what assurances can she give that authorities would not be put in that position? If the take-up goes up and no additional funds were available, they would simply have to stretch the amount available even further.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, there are Ministers in the Government, I think including the Prime Minister and certainly including the Chancellor, although not, alas, the Minister, and there are certainly Members of your Lordships’ House, who were not even born when I first came into contact with what was then the rate rebate scheme. I put out a leaflet promoting that scheme in the ward to which I had recently been selected as a Labour candidate. That was in the winter of 1966, so we have been living with this system for a very long time, and my interest in it and in other aspects of welfare rights has been continuous throughout that period. Indeed, it is 40 years—I am sorry to go through this historical saga—since I, as opposition spokesman on social services, produced a report about social services for the Labour opposition in Newcastle. We included within that the establishment of a welfare rights department; we called for action to promote the take-up of all kinds of benefits; and we subsequently implemented that plan. Incidentally, I was advocating a passporting system which, at that point, was apparently impossible to achieve. We have something at least approaching that now and, in fairness, universal credit, subject to the qualifications that we have discussed today in Committee and on earlier occasions, should move us in the direction of streamlining the system and seeing that one door is open to the relevant requirement of support. I commend the Government for that, at least.

We are now in a situation in which very many people are clearly not claiming. I have been quoting a figure of £1.8 billion of unclaimed benefit. My noble friend thinks there is a band between £1.8 million and £2.4 million. Traditionally, the greater proportion of that is not claimed by owner-occupying pensioners. About the only good thing about this aspect of the Bill is the change of character from a benefit to a discount or reduction, which was advocated by the LGA—I make no more declarations. I think it was included in the two reports on local government finance which, I am sorry to say, the previous Government kicked rather rapidly into touch. I do not blame my noble friend Lord McKenzie of Luton for that. Others might, but I am sure that he has changed his mind as much as the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, appears to have changed his in a different direction. As we have said many times, the amount will undoubtedly and rightly increase. I would commend the Government for that if they provided the wherewithal to pay for it, so my commendation is qualified. However, the principle is right, and it will have that effect.

What the Government have apparently decided—it was only today that my noble friend Lady Lister of Burtersett discovered this—is that they will not take any steps to make any estimate of the number of people requiring this benefit, let alone promote take-up. I do not know whether the decision was made by the Minister’s department or the Department for Work and Pensions. Perhaps my noble friend can enlighten me.

[Baroness Sherlock]

It was the Department for Work and Pensions.

[Lord Beecham]

It is even less forgivable that the department that has the overall responsibility for dealing with the problems of poverty and sustaining the income of pensioners and vulnerable people should apparently not wish to know how many people are eligible or how many are claiming. It is not doing what it ought to be doing and promoting take-up. When it comes to promoting take-up, there are a number of things that many councils—in fairness, I think of all political colours—have pursued. I was able to persuade my own council, Newcastle City Council, then under the leadership of the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, to stage a benefits summit two or three years ago in which we brought together a range of people, some major public sector employers, such as the health service, trade unions, community groups and others, to look at ways in which we could promote a range of benefits. The council committed some resource to doing that. It certainly led to an increase on top of what was already being claimed. I think the figure was £8 million or £10 million, so it can be done.

The previous Government mounted take-up campaigns, usually advertising campaigns, but they are not actually all that effective. The increase in take-up from that kind of media campaign, with adverts in cinemas and perhaps on television, tended to be of the order of only about 1%. It did not have sufficient impact. What is needed is face-to-face or some kind of human contact at least, perhaps even at the end of a telephone, with people in the workplace and elsewhere promoting take-up. That is why the first part of my noble friend’s amendment is very important. It is hugely important to engage local charities, such as Help the Aged, although I think that merged into—

Welfare Reform Bill

Debate between Lord Beecham and Baroness Sherlock

Thursday 3rd November 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Sherlock]

My Lords, I want to save the Minister getting up twice, as I want to ask him a question on a similar point. I have been trying to wrestle with some of the briefing that has come in on this issue. Can he answer two simple questions? Is it possible for somebody to face MDRs of higher than 100 per cent if they are, for example, a second earner with childcare costs? Secondly, if somebody would actually be worse off in work, would they still be sanctioned for failing to do it?

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, may I ask what I hope is a final question? The Minister rightly referred to the fact that there would be no income tax income to the Treasury to offset the cost. However, has the Minister considered the likelihood of much of the income of a second earner being spent in a way which would incur VAT? Is that not a material consideration in terms of what would be offset against the cost?