Helen Jones
Main Page: Helen Jones (Labour - Warrington North)
Andrew Stunell
Clearly, a good way of reducing the cost to the state of the council tax benefit system, and the cost to the householder, is to freeze council tax, and I commend the hon. Gentleman’s local council on the work that it has done.
Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)
The Government’s own figures show that a cut of 16% in council tax benefit will cost the poorest families more than £161 a year, but does the Minister accept that, in fact, the cuts are likely to be far higher than that, up to 25%, depending on the number of pensioners in a local authority area? Does he think that this postcode lottery for the poorest families is fair? How can the Government justify cutting the incomes of 1 million struggling families while increasing the incomes of millionaires?
Andrew Stunell
The hon. Lady of course is completely off track. In reality, local authorities will have choices about how they manage the reduction and be able to choose, through the design of their scheme, whether some awards should be reduced. They can manage the reduction by reconfiguring the funding of other services, through efficiency savings, by using reserves or with flexibility over the council tax, which the same Bill before Parliament gives to local authorities.