Graham P Jones
Main Page: Graham P Jones (Labour - Hyndburn)
Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)
My hon. Friend makes excellent points, but on the confusion in the appeals process it is not yet clear whether council tax benefit staff will be employed in future by the Department for Work and Pensions under the universal credit or within local authorities. That changeover adds to the complexity and confusion.
Helen Jones
My hon. Friend is entirely right. Even if we supported the Government’s changes in the Bill, their failure to align the changes with universal credit will cause chaos throughout the system, including for staff.
Many Government amendments relate to Wales, which the Government forgot about when they drafted the Bill—to lose a county is unfortunate; to lose a whole country is rather careless—but the Welsh Government have said they are profoundly concerned by the plan. Some 327,000 people in Wales will be affected, whom the Government also seem to have forgotten about—they have developed a habit of absent-mindedly mislaying citizens, such as those in work or those who happen to live in Wales.
The Government have tabled a series of amendments on council tax reduction schemes and default schemes, which could have been discussed properly had draft regulations been brought before the House, as the Minister promised us on 31 January. Instead, we are once again being asked to grant wide powers to the Secretary of State without any idea how they will be exercised, which is extremely worrying and a poor way to make legislation.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich raised the rushed implementation of the proposals, an important problem we raised in Committee. Last week, we received statements of intent, but not the draft regulations we were promised. I get the feeling the Government are simply not ready to implement the proposals. It is as if someone, somewhere in the Department for Communities and Local Government—I suspect the Minister for Housing and Local Government—had a wizard wheeze and said, “I know. Let’s cut council tax benefit,” but did not work out the details. The Government, following the example set by the Prime Minister, do not seem to do detail. They just wave a languid hand and say, “Detail will follow.” But, in government, details matter. They affect the lives of the people whom we represent. The Bill will result in enormous changes for local authorities, which are being asked to cope with changes to non-domestic rates and with the localisation of council tax benefit, all at the same time.
By next year, local authorities will have to be ready to run their own local schemes, yet the Bill was rushed with indecent haste through the Committee—because the Government did not appear to understand the rules for carrying over a Bill—then kept hanging about like some kind of slow-cooking stew until after the Queen’s Speech. It will not have a Second Reading in the other place until, I believe, 12 June, and its first Committee sitting there is scheduled for 3 July. If, as I am told, the other place will not be sitting in September, who knows when the Bill will complete its passage?
Amendments will have to come back here, and if they are not agreed to—[Interruption.] The Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) talks about the recess, but he has perhaps forgotten that this House is sitting in September, although the other place does not appear to be doing so. That is the kind of detail that matters when we are trying to get legislation through. There could well be ping-pong between the two Houses. Regulations will also have to be set and passed by both Houses. In the meantime, councils are being expected to draw up a scheme without knowing the precise rules that they will need to follow, and with no certainty about their funding. That is not sensible government—it is pass-the-buck government.
We have also heard about the difficulty of producing the software required to implement the changes. Councils will need to be very clear about what they want from the firms that are designing that software, but they do not have the necessary information at the moment. Why are the Government so determined to meet the 2013 date that they will not listen either to local authorities or to the experts who design the system? I would call them pig-headed, but that would probably be unfair to pigs. Why are they so keen to impose cuts on the poorest people and chaos on local authorities? We know the answer: it is simply that they are out of touch.
The people who will suffer are the poorest people. Councils are in a no-win situation. If they protect vulnerable groups other than pensioners, those in work or seeking work will face even larger reductions in their income. This Government believe that the poor must pay for the poor, while tax cuts are given to the rich. They believe that the living standards of those who have very little have to be cut, while bankers in partly state-owned banks swan off for courses on executive nutrition at a spa. I am sure that many of the poorest people in this country would love to have to worry about the type of nutrition that they got; most of them have to settle for what they can afford.
The Government do not call the money given to bankers a handout, but that is what they call the money given to local councils. They do not call their tax cuts for millionaires a handout, but that is the term they use for the money they give to local councils to run essential services. This is a Government without a proper sense of direction and without a proper sense of right and wrong. We will continue to monitor the effects of the Bill. We will press our amendments to the vote, and we will ensure that the plight of the poorest people who are being hit by these provisions is not forgotten. It is for that reason that I urge my hon. Friends to vote in support of new clause 5.
Andrew Stunell
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am sure that the opportunity to give way will arise, and I shall certainly do so in due course to those who think that there is anything to be said against our view that the Bill represents a significant localisation for local government and local communities. The return of business rates to local authorities, the capacity to set council tax without having capping limits set by the Secretary of State, and the transfer of the benefits system to local authorities are all significant measures.
I want to restate my point about the return to local authorities of the ability to set council tax discounts. If every local authority chose to exercise the changes that are being passed into their hands, that would generate for English local authorities a total of more than £400 million. There is no direct connection in the Bill, but I want to make it clear that, whatever might be said about the proposals in the Bill, that discount change will be of significant benefit to local authorities.
I shall deal with some of the points raised in the debate. The right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford) suggested that we ought to accept at least some of his amendments, simply because they were already in the Government’s plans. Well, it is because they are already in the Government’s plans that we do not need to accept them. Some of his other amendments were intended to dismantle the Bill and its provisions, but I made it clear that this is not just a localism measure but a component part of putting our finances right. At no point have we disguised the fact that localisation and deficit reduction are both involved in the proposals.
Andrew Stunell
I am happy to give way to the hon. Gentleman, even though he could not find the time to be present earlier.
Graham Jones
I am very grateful to the Minister for giving way. He keeps using the word “localisation”, but it is obvious that what he is doing is localising cuts. He has spoken about raising £400 million and about the empty homes premium and the council tax discounts. Why are central Government being prescriptive about such measures? Why are they stating that homes must have been empty for two years? Why will they not give local authorities the power to decide how long a home needs to have been empty in order to qualify for the empty homes premium?
Andrew Stunell
The flexibility on discounts will apply to all empty homes from day one, not just to those that have been empty for two years. The two-year condition relates to the empty homes premium, which is a separate provision that is being put in the hands of councils by the Bill.
The hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) made some interesting points, but he did not seem to be aware that, whereas Wokingham has the capacity to generate £700,000 extra income, Wigan, which he mentioned specifically, has the capacity to generate £2.2 million from the discounts. If Wigan chose to implement those measures, that would completely offset the funding gap he talked about.
To be clear, much of the shroud-waving from the Opposition is completely misplaced. It was strange that the hon. Member for North Durham argued—although he tried to back out of it—for additional cuts in council tax benefit for pensioners, because he wants councils to have the flexibility to switch their spending on pensioners to others whom he thinks are more worthy of protection. That is a point of view, but it is not one that the Government share.
I have a lot of time for the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey). He served time in the Treasury, during which I believe he was party to the introduction of the 10p tax rate—[Interruption.] We all have skeletons we wish we could keep in the cupboard. When it comes to protecting the low-paid, it is this Government who have raised tax thresholds for low-paid people, many of whom are women, of course, and will take 2 million people out of tax over the next three years.
The right hon. Gentleman did get round to welcoming the localism measure, but—not for the first time—he wants localism, but not yet. The Opposition do not have a strong track record on localism, but they have realised just how important it is to the people we represent. They now pay lip service to it at every opportunity, but I see no sign that it goes beyond lip service to their agreeing to implement localism in practice. At every turn, they try to delay, dismantle and divert the successful attempts of the Government to localise decision making and give local communities the power to take decisions about their services.
I answered the right hon. Gentleman regarding Rotherham’s figures. He mentioned Barnsley, and its figures are an almost exactly equal balance, just slightly in favour of Barnsley, with £1.6 million in each direction. He also waxed lyrical about the new clause 2 single person discount. Some 29% of households are single person, and another 7% are single-parent households. I do not believe that he would want to put those people under additional pressure. The Government do not accept that new clause 2 is the way forward.
The right hon. Gentleman also made an interesting point, of the kind that only a former Secretary of State might make, about what would happen if a council tax referendum failed and the impact that would have on the scheme. The scheme that a local authority sets up by 31 January each year will have statutory force and cannot be changed for the following 12 months, so it would be required to be considered in any reduced budget. Of course, when a local council sets up its scheme, it will be with the full knowledge of its intended settlement. As I say, the right hon. Gentleman welcomes localism, but he does not want it yet.
I draw to the attention of the hon. Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) one of the documents we published last week, “Localising Support for Council Tax: Vulnerable people—key local authority duties”, which sets out clearly the factors that a local authority needs to have in mind when it exercises its discretion and introduces a scheme. When she studies that, she will find that many of the questions that she raised are answered and her concerns are dealt with.
The hon. Lady commented on the introduction of the Welsh Assembly clauses. She will know from what the Government said previously that we took the time to consult with our colleagues in the Welsh Administration, and it is at their behest that the clauses take their present form. That is an example of the Government taking a measured approach, consulting with the relevant bodies and introducing proposals entirely in accordance with the Welsh Administration’s views.
The hon. Lady also drew attention to an amendment on consulting with those affected. There is a requirement on local authorities, when they have drawn up their scheme, to consult with those whom they believe will be affected. That clearly will involve a consultation with all the groups the hon. Lady mentioned.