Helen Jones
Main Page: Helen Jones (Labour - Warrington North)
Robert Neill
I have made it clear that we intend to protect the most vulnerable, but, equally, the hon. Lady has to recognise that spending on council tax benefit more than doubled between 1997 and 2010. That needs to be reduced as part of the strategy to lower the deficit that we inherited, in order to get the country back on track. We intend to do that in a proportionate and measured fashion, to protect the most vulnerable.
Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)
Is the Minister prepared to apologise to the more than 10,000 people in the local authority area of my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), many of whom are families with children, whose council tax will rise as a direct result of his policy? Given that families in Stretford and Urmston will, like other families, lose an average of £580 a year as a result of changes to be introduced in April, and that, scandalously, 930 adults in that constituency alone risk losing all their tax credits if they cannot find extra hours of work, is it not about time the Government abandoned this tax increase for the poorest families, instead of obsessing about cutting tax for those on more than £150,000 a year?
Robert Neill
The apology should come from those who created the record deficit in the first place. The hon. Lady might also like to apologise for the inconsistency in standing at the last general election on a manifesto that promised to cut housing benefit when she says nothing now about how she would make reductions and nothing about how one can reform housing benefit without reforming council tax benefit, which goes hand in hand with it.