Helen Jones
Main Page: Helen Jones (Labour - Warrington North)
Andrew Stunell
I am extremely disappointed by the right hon. Gentleman’s intervention. May I just remind him that when I assured the House that these papers would be published, there was universal astonishment that we proposed to do that before the Bill left this House? There was a universal assumption that I had somehow misspoken and that we actually meant to do this at a later stage. It is very much for the convenience of this House today that it should have these very important documents available for consideration, but the right hon. Gentleman is right to say that Members of the other place will have every opportunity to give further consideration to the information. Of course, the reason for publishing these papers in advance of the Bill completing its passages through the two Houses is to give local authorities and those who have to work on these schemes the maximum length of time to implement the necessary provisions, so that an appropriate and speedy commencement can be made next year.
Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)
In fact, the Minister promised us not statements of intent, but draft regulations. He said:
“we intend to publish draft regulations while the Bill is still before the House.”—[Official Report, 31 January 2012; Vol. 539, c. 777.]
Where are they?
Andrew Stunell
When the hon. Lady has taken the opportunity to look at the statements of intent, she will see that they are in effect—indeed, my note refers to it—draft statutory instruments. I remind her that we cannot publish draft statutory instruments until we have a Bill to publish them against. We have brought the statements of intent before both Houses so that matters for consideration are fully in view.
New clause 9 allows the Secretary of State to make regulations to introduce the necessary powers for local authorities to tackle fraud in claims for a reduction in liability to pay council tax, which will be effective from next April. Powers to investigate potential fraudulent claims for reductions in liability to pay council tax and to issue the appropriate penalties are a vital weapon for local authorities if they are properly to administer schemes and protect the public purse. The change from the existing scheme to the new scheme means that the new clause is needed to provide the necessary safeguards. Rather than simply reintroducing all the powers that local authorities have to tackle council tax benefit fraud, the clause allows us to work with local authorities to identify those powers and offences that will be needed to make local schemes work. The overall aim is that the regulations will reinstate only the necessary powers, offences, penalties and safeguards that are appropriate for the new scheme.
Andrew Stunell
I am sorry if I did not make myself clear. The powers that local authorities rely on to guard against fraud in the current council tax benefit scheme will, in effect, lapse with the introduction of the new scheme. They are not competent to be used under the new scheme, so we need a new scheme. The purpose of the new clause is to ensure that the scheme takes account not just of concerns such as those held by my right hon. Friend but of the need to protect the public purse and that they are kept in proper and proportionate balance. We will not be giving local authorities powers to enter premises or to conduct inquiries and remove and copy documents from such premises. I hope my right hon. Friend finds that assurance helpful. The powers we are giving will require people to enter into arrangements under which access is permitted to relevant records and will, in our view, be sufficient for council tax purposes.
New section 14C will enable the Secretary of State to make regulations providing that authorities may issue penalties as an alternative to prosecution or where a person has not been charged with an offence. That will ensure that local authorities are able to take proportionate action, rather than being faced with the choice of pursuing prosecution or doing nothing. Before the debate on the amendments in the other place, we intend to publish a detailed statement of intent that will spell out clearly our proposals for regulations in accordance with the new clause. We have also made it clear in the new clause that any regulations will be subject to the affirmative procedure and will therefore be debated by both Houses. I hope my right hon. Friend will be somewhat reassured by what I have said.
Helen Jones
Will the Minister explain to the House, for my benefit and, presumably, for the benefit of others, how regulations in this section can
“create an offence that may be committed by a person acting otherwise than dishonestly”?
Presumably, if a person is not acting dishonestly, they are acting honestly. How can that create an offence?
Helen Jones
Why does the default scheme replicate the existing scheme on a 10% cut? Is the intention to penalise financially those councils that do not come up with their own scheme in time?
Andrew Stunell
There is certainly an incentive for local authorities to introduce a scheme of their own choosing. The whole point of this is that local authorities should have the capacity to have their own scheme, designed as they see fit. If they have not formed such a scheme by the relevant date in January, the default scheme comes into play, and that scheme will, in essence, continue with the existing council tax benefit scheme in its entirety. Taken together, the amendments to schedule 4 ensure that regulations prescribing requirements for schemes and prescribing the default scheme allow local authorities to take this approach and, if they so wish, to adopt the existing scheme lock, stock and barrel.
The Government have already confirmed their commitment to protecting pensioners on low incomes and have said that there should be no change in support to them as a result of the introduction of this reform. Support will continue to be rules-based, with provisions about the calculations to be made set out in regulations under paragraphs 2(8) and 2(9) of new schedule 1A to the Local Government Finance Act 1992, which is inserted by schedule 4 to the Bill. As the House is aware, it is intended that the support scheme for pensioners will be protected so that their support is as close as possible to what they receive at present. Paragraph 4 of new schedule 1A provides powers for the Secretary of State to prescribe a default scheme in regulations to take effect in any authority that has not made its own scheme by 31 January. The default scheme will cover those who have attained the qualifying age for state pension credit and those who have not yet attained it. The Government have been clear that they intend the default scheme to be as similar as possible to the existing scheme.
These technical amendments will enable regulations prescribing the requirements for pensioner protection and the default scheme to make use of the same powers, definitions and treatments as set out in the detail of the existing council tax benefit legislation. The Government believe that that will help to facilitate their provision of protection for those of pension credit age and provide the legal backstop of a default scheme that can take effect should a local authority not complete its own scheme. In particular, amendment 51, new schedule 1A, paragraph 2 and sub-paragraph (10) will allow the Government, when they set up the scheme, to make equivalent provision to that contained in the one of the enactments listed in sub-paragraph (12). New paragraph (3A) in amendment 54 allows the default scheme to make equivalent provision to that capable of being made under the same enactment.
There is a great deal of detail that I am happy to bring to the House should Members wish to have it, and more in the statements of intent. If the House is content at this point, I will move on to Government amendment 52. As set out in the statements of intent that we have published on our plans for localising support, the Government do not propose to make regulations as to how a billing authority will prepare a scheme because that would not enhance the existing requirements and duties of authorities in consulting and involving local people. It therefore does not make sense to prevent billing authorities, after consulting their major precepting authorities, from proceeding to publish their scheme and to consult others if they are in a position to do so prior to the Bill’s receiving Royal Assent. Amendment 52 allows councils to proceed in that direction if they wish. In other words, if, after consulting its major precepting authorities, a billing authority wants to publish its local scheme and to consult any other person with an interest in the scheme, it can do so straight away without running any additional risks arising from carrying out those steps in advance of Royal Assent.
Helen Jones
Are not the Government too often taking steps to implement legislation before it has been passed? We saw that with the Health and Social Care Bill and we are seeing it again now. The essence of a democratic Parliament is that legislation has to go through two Houses and get Royal Assent before it becomes law. Are not the Government trying to compensate for the fact that they are rushing this change in far too quickly, instead of giving local authorities time to prepare properly?
Andrew Stunell
In the last Session, the hon. Lady spent a lot of time telling us that we had not produced enough detail, nor given local authorities enough warning or flexibility. It seems a little perverse for her to say now that she does not want local authorities to have the flexibility to get a scheme under way pronto, if they are in a position to do so. I do not understand her confused logic.
Government amendment 53 is a minor technical amendment, which will ensure that the first financial year to which the default scheme relates is the same as that specified for the implementation of council tax reduction schemes in clause 8(4). Amendment 55 relates to claims that are in progress when the schemes come into force: in essence, any claims in the pipeline will be rolled over, rather than applicants being required to start again with a new scheme.
That completes my remarks about the Government proposals, but it is right and proper that I comment on the proposals from other parts of the House. New clause 2, tabled by the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), would do away with the automatic entitlement to the single person discount, which has been a feature of council tax since its introduction. I remind the House that households with just one adult are eligible to claim the single person discount on their council tax bill, and that is not a benefit but a tax discount that has been a fundamental feature of council tax since its creation in 1993. Eight million households in England receive the single person discount, of which 90% are in bands A to D; it is therefore not a subsidy for the wealthy. Indeed, 29% of households in Great Britain are single-person households and another 7% are single-parent households, which are also eligible for the tax discount.
New clause 2 would pass to local authorities discretion on whether to grant a discount to such people and the size of the discount as part of setting their council tax reduction scheme. Clause 8(2) provides that
“Each billing authority in England must make a scheme specifying the reductions which are to apply to amounts of council tax”.
Helen Jones
Is the Minister therefore committing to produce a report, as requested in new clause 5?
Andrew Stunell
If the hon. Lady looks at the impact assessment submitted alongside the Bill, she will see that the specific question of whether the policy will be reviewed is addressed. The answer to her question is yes, and, if I remember correctly, the time interval before the publication will be three years.
Taken together, amendments 10, 13, 6 and 7 would delay by a year the localisation of the council tax reduction scheme, pushing it back from 2013 to 2014. The Government are very clear that the reform needs to be implemented in 2013 to secure the agreed savings set out in the 2010 comprehensive spending review. I think the Labour party is still struggling to come to terms with the fact that in 2010, £1 was being borrowed for every £4 spent and we were adding £400 million to the national debt every day. Tackling the deficit and establishing fiscal responsibility is a central part of the coalition Government’s strategy, and the changes to the scheme are fundamental to achieving the savings set out in the CSR.
There are things that councils should already be doing to prepare for the change, and we are supporting them in doing so, not least through the provision that the hon. Lady queried a few minutes ago. They should understand the circumstances of those in their area who currently claim support, ensure that elected members are aware of the decisions that they will need to take and engage with precepting authorities, such as police and fire authorities. They have the opportunity to prepare for and carry out consultation as soon as they are ready to do so—Government amendment 52 supports local authorities in their preparations by making that clear. The Government therefore believe that the amendments to delay the scheme are inappropriate and would create an unnecessary burden for local authorities, which will continue to be subject to their existing equalities duty and so will have to take that fully into account in their decisions.
The public sector equality duty includes a requirement for local authorities to have regard to advancing equality of opportunity between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not, and to the need to eliminate unlawful discrimination. That continuous process requires relevant decision makers in local authorities to consider equality issues. That has a bearing not only on the question of delaying the scheme, which would incur costs and difficulties, but on amendment 9, which would require local authorities to notify current claimants of the potential impact of the draft scheme. Local authorities are already required, by paragraph 3(1) or proposed new schedule 1A to the 1992 Act, to consult on the draft scheme with such persons as they consider
“are likely to have an interest in the operation of the scheme”.
Furthermore, public sector bodies, including local authorities, are obliged to comply fully with the public sector equality duty.
Helen Jones
On a point of clarification, the Minister appears to be saying that local authorities have a duty to consider those with protected characteristics. The problem he is not grappling with is that if local authorities seek to do that in their council tax schemes—in respect of disabled people, for example—the cut imposed on the working poor will be even greater. Which mode of operation is he arguing they should undertake? Is he arguing that there should be equal cuts for everyone except pensioners, or that cuts should fall more on people who are in work?
Andrew Stunell
The Government have made it absolutely clear that that is a matter on which local authorities should take a decision. I remind the hon. Lady—she made this point—that it is open to councils to continue with the default scheme if they wish to do so; to look at other provisions in the Bill relating to discounts for empty and second homes; to take resources from other parts of their budget, which they could choose to do; and to scale back the benefits they provide in a scheme on which they have consulted.
Andrew Stunell
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. For some rural areas, especially tourist-focused ones, a significant fraction of the housing stock may be occupied—or perhaps unoccupied—as second homes, which makes it very difficult for those who live and work there to secure accommodation. I am sure he has taken note of our changes to the second home discount provisions, which give local authorities in those areas the opportunity to bring their council tax bills up to 100%. His new clause proposes a premium on top of that. I am sure that, in the years ahead, he and I will work jointly on proposals for a Liberal Democrat Government beyond 2015, and I look forward to working with him on that proposition.
Helen Jones
The Minister keeps referring to the right the Bill gives councils to increase the charge on second homes, as though all councils could gain a lot of money from that. Will he accept that in the poorest authorities, which will be hit hardest by the Bill—places such as Gateshead, Rotherham and so on—there is not an awful lot of second homes?
Andrew Stunell
I understand the hon. Lady’s point, but in Rotherham the funding gap is £1.8 million and the total value of discounts and exemptions granted by the Bill £1.9 million. To be clear, a 10% reduction for Rotherham is easily covered by the discounts and exemptions in the Bill. That is not true of every local authority, but it perhaps illustrates that there is a good deal of unnecessary trouble stirring by the Opposition. They are paid to do it, I understand that; but sometimes it is important to refer to the facts. In particular, I noticed that one of the leading financial officials on whom the Local Government Association draws for advice is the chief finance officer of Rotherham, so I am sure that those figures, which he submitted to the Department, are correct.
I am extremely sorry to have detained the House for so long, but I hope that I have provided a good foundation for the debate. The Government believe these to be important and significant reforms that will return power and responsibility to local government and take them out of Whitehall. We believe that is the right direction in which to head. I commend the Government’s proposals to the House and urge right hon. and hon. Friends and Members not to support the other amendments and new clauses.
John Healey
Perhaps, Mr Deputy Speaker, I had better not pursue that. However, it is certainly true that given their drubbing a couple of weeks ago, the Liberal Democrats will have to chase votes wherever they can find them.
Amendment 1 is designed to challenge the Government to concede, and to give a commitment to this House, that should they use their powers under the Bill and make stipulations about the schemes that local authorities will run, they will at least consult local government before doing so.
Amendment 3, which also stands in my name, exemplifies my belief that, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich argued, this is a rushed reform that has been introduced without an ear to proper consultation or a thought to the consequences. The amendment attempts to flush out whether the Government have properly considered the impact of the Bill in relation to the provisions of the Localism Act 2011, which allows a local authority, in setting its budget and its council tax, to put to the vote in a referendum a level of council tax that it might want to propose for its area, and allows local residents to veto what they may regard as excessive council tax rises. Under those powers, a local authority must hold a referendum no later than the first Thursday in May of the financial year to which the council tax would relate. In practice, that means that a local authority will have to run contingency spending plans, budgets and council tax levels until the result of the referendum is known, and if it is unsuccessful, those contingency budgets will need to be put in place and new council tax bills issued. That process must take place around the turn of the financial year, and by early May at the latest, yet the Bill requires that the council tax support scheme must be designed and in place by January—before most local authorities finalise and agree their budgets and council tax levels, and certainly before the level in any referendum might be established.
That mismatch indicates that this reform is ill thought out, rushed and likely to be wrong, and it reinforces the arguments that my right hon. Friend made about his amendments 6, 7, 10 and 13, to which my name has been added. There are good reasons for making this part of the benefits system local, but there is no justification for doing it by making harsh cuts to the national and local totals of spend available, by capping the totals against any future rise in needs or costs, by requiring local councils to carry all the risk of any increases in claims, or by forcing very big cuts in council tax support for many of those who need it most.
When we last debated this in Committee in January, my right hon. Friend and I noted that councils were faced with an extraordinarily tight timetable of 12 months until the point at which they would have to have these new schemes in place. That period is now eight months. There is no time to consult local residents, to design the computer software systems necessary to run these schemes or to test them and put them into practice, to work out how the tapers to the new universal credit system will have to work with the council tax support system, or to plan for the new local scheme in the context of next year’s budget planning by local authorities.
This is a disaster waiting to happen. The Government have not done the work needed for local government to do the work that it needs to do. I say this to Ministers: take a leaf out of the Health Secretary’s book, pause, listen, and be prepared to put back the start of this scheme from April next year to April 2014.
Helen Jones
It is a pleasure to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), whose speech was not only very passionate but extremely well informed.
Nothing could illustrate better what a shambles of a Bill this is than the seriousness of the new clauses and amendments that the Government have tabled at this late stage. It is, frankly, a gross discourtesy to the House to bring these issues before us with little notification and little opportunity to discuss them. Because we have not been allowed to take evidence on the Bill, we have had no evidence on the new clauses. We would have benefited from evidence on them, particularly from legal experts. Although the Minister assures us that the new clauses replicate powers that are already in existence, that is debatable. He could not answer a number of the questions that were put to him about how inaccuracy in data records could be challenged, which electronic records could be accessed under the powers, and how the powers would relate to a person’s personal electronic data that are held on their own PC.
Every council will, of course, need the right system in place to tackle fraud—nobody would argue otherwise. However, it is interesting that we have heard nothing from the Government in this debate about the reductions in council staff, which are making it much more difficult to tackle fraud, or their desire to abolish the Audit Commission, which is the very body that searches out fraud and assists local councils in tackling it.
I am concerned about some of the measures in the new clauses. Some of them do indeed replicate those in the Social Security Administration Act 1992. However, the Minister cannot explain how one can commit an offence other than dishonestly and he cannot explain the offence of
“allowing a person to fail to notify”
something. What on earth does that mean? Does one have to be under duress, or not? What is the definition of the word “allowing”? What kind of proof is required? Above all, what will the defence against those offences be? That is not clear from what is before us. I want to see dishonest people banged up in prison or fined, but I want people who have made an honest mistake to have a proper defence for any charges that are brought against them. It is a great shame that we were not allowed to discuss the new clauses in Committee.
I want to concentrate on new clause 5, which I tabled with my right hon. and hon. Friends. The Government’s plans for council tax and what we have heard from them today clearly demonstrate how remote they are from the realities of life for many people in this country. They propose to take money away from some of the poorest people, including, as my right hon. and hon. Friends have said, people who go to work every day to earn their poverty. People with disabilities and families with children will pay the price for the incompetence of the Government. Many of them will already have lost tax credits or disability living allowance, which is being cut by £2.7 billion. It is estimated that about 400,000 disabled people will lose employment and support allowance when it is time-limited to one year for people who have paid national insurance contributions. Those very people will be hit again by the Government’s plans.
The Government consultation document said that they would
“seek to ensure that the most vulnerable in society, in particular low income pensioners, are protected”.
Pensioners are indeed protected from the cuts, and we do not disagree with that. However, coupled with the 10% cut in the amount that is available, that means that other people, many of whom are equally vulnerable, will face council tax increases. That is something that the Liberal Democrats do not seem to understand, but it is simple mathematics.
The Government’s default scheme in their so-called statement of intent replicates the current scheme and gives protection to many more vulnerable groups. The intent, I suppose, is to penalise councils financially. However, it is difficult to argue that we should protect vulnerable groups in the default scheme, but not legislate for that protection elsewhere.
There is no protection for people with disabilities—not even for those who are placed in the support group for ESA. Those people are, by definition, unable to seek work, even if it was available, which is not likely given the current flatlining economy. There is no protection for people placed in the work-related activity group, who are not expected to
“seek paid employment to increase their income”.
They are asked to take steps to increase their employability, but they are not yet expected to seek work. That shows how spurious is the Government’s claim that they are doing this to spur on local councils to get people into work. That is nonsense.
Mr Raynsford
My hon. Friend is making an extremely important point. The Government are introducing this Bill at the same time as they are making a number of other changes. That will have a large cumulative impact on certain households. What is deeply shocking is that the Government are not aware of what that cumulative impact will be, nor of the extent to which what they propose this evening will aggravate an already disastrous situation for people who are suffering other losses of the sort that she has identified.
Helen Jones
I could not agree with my right hon. Friend more. The Government simply have no idea of the pressures on people on very low incomes.
The Prime Minister said that carers were the
“unsung heroes of our society”.
He went on to say:
“We should all support, recognize and celebrate the incredible work that carers do”.
That was in 2010, and times have changed. Now he wants not to support them, but to increase their council tax—another broken promise.
The Government also do not want us to talk about those who are receiving council tax benefit and are in work. The Minister for Housing and Local Government, who is not here this evening, likes to pretend that those people do not exist. He told the Communities and Local Government Committee that
“if somebody is in work they will not be receiving the benefit because they will not need to.”
That is another example of why he is tipped for promotion: it shows his incisive grasp of complex issues. Only someone as wilfully blind as him could come out with that, and only someone with no experience of what it is like to live on a low wage.
Andrew Gwynne
My hon. Friend is coming to the crunch. A substantial number of people in receipt of council tax benefit are in work. It is an in-work benefit, not just an out-of-work benefit as some Government Members would like to portray it. Given that the Government’s statement of intent states:
“Local schemes should support work incentives, and in particular avoid disincentives to move into work”,
can my hon. Friend fathom the thought processes of those who are bringing in this scheme, which will clobber the working poor?
Helen Jones
My hon. Friend is correct and I will come on to some examples of what he says in a moment.
I received a parliamentary answer from the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Thornbury and Yate (Steve Webb), which said that in 2010-11, the last year for which we have the figures, 743,660 non-passported council tax benefit recipients were in work. There were 2,860 such people in Stockport, which is the area that the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Andrew Stunell) represents. That is more than 743,000 people who the Minister for Housing and Local Government does not think exist. They do not go to Tory fundraisers, I suppose, or attend the black and white ball. All the time, his implication has been that council tax benefit goes only to those not in work. The further implication, of course, is that they are deliberately not in work, which is what underlies most of what he says. Coming from a Government who preside over unemployment of 2.6 million, that is breathtaking arrogance.
Mr Kevan Jones
Does my hon. Friend agree that the people who will be affected are the same group who will be affected by the crazy bedroom tax? If they have an unoccupied bedroom in their house they will lose housing benefit, which is another in-work benefit.
Helen Jones
My hon. Friend is right. The same group of people is being hit again and again. Whatever the Government tell us, we are not all in it together.
Andrew Gwynne
My hon. Friend mentioned in passing the borough of Stockport. I will leave the Minister to speak for the people of Hazel Grove, but I assure her that I am acutely aware that a substantial number of my constituents in the Reddish part of Stockport are in work and qualify for council tax benefit.
Helen Jones
My hon. Friend is quite right. We can go through every local authority in England and find a number of such people.
It is not just people in work and on low wages who will be affected but disabled people deemed unable to seek work, carers, and part-time workers who do not even show up in the figures. An increasing number of people are being forced to seek part-time employment, and they will pay the price of the Government’s cuts.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford) said, there is a form of “doublethink”. The Minister for Housing and Local Government told the Select Committee that people could be protected by
“getting economic activity going so there are jobs.”
The Government are prone to lecturing everybody on getting economic activity going. They lecture councils and the European Union, but the one set of people they do not seem to lecture is themselves. They have no plan for growth at all.
Many people in receipt of council tax benefit are in work or not expected to seek work because of their circumstances. For them, the cut will depend not on their individual circumstances but on where they live and, crucially, how many pensioners there are in their local authority area. That varies hugely from one area to another. Claimants of non-working age make up 34% of the total in East Dorset. In Tower Hamlets, the figure is 68%.
The benefit cut that people receive could vary between 13% and 25%. The worst thing about it is that it is entirely arbitrary, with no pretence of fairness whatever. In fact, in their recently published statements the Government have explicitly rejected the idea of taking into account the number of pensioners in a local authority area when setting the funding level. Many Government Members will have cause to regret that in future years.
As some of the Opposition amendments point out, the new system will hit not only those in work or unable to work but those seeking work. The Government have been in such a rush to bring it in that they have failed to align it with universal credit, to which the Minister referred earlier. If they are so keen to have universal credit, they should have waited to align council tax benefit with it. Their own consultation document acknowledged the problem, stating:
“There is a risk, however, that some of the advantages from the single Universal Credit taper…could be lost if there is a separate and overlapping withdrawal of council tax support through localised schemes. This would produce a marginal deduction rate higher than 76%”.
If millionaires were having to put up with that, the Government would be rushing in to rescue them. What sort of Government include those warnings in the consultation and then ignore them? They are either incompetent or vicious—one or the other. [Interruption.] Both, somebody says, and I am beginning to think so.
As we have seen with business rates, the areas in greatest need will be hit hardest. Let us take the impact on people in work as an example. In Liverpool, there are 6,570 people in work and receiving council tax benefit. In Durham, there are 5,810, in Birmingham a whopping 16,780 and in Hackney 7,910. Just down the road in the City of London, there are precisely 40. In Purbeck there are 580, in Runnymede there are 610 and in Wokingham—I could not pass up another chance to mention Wokingham —there are 780.
This change is a triple whammy for the poorest areas. First, it will mean that local authorities with more people in work and receiving council tax benefit face a much bigger risk of default in their council tax collection. Secondly, it will make it much harder for them to mitigate the effect of the cut on people of working age. Thirdly, there will be a bigger impact on their local economy, because money will be taken from people who would otherwise go out and spend it. It will come as no surprise to my right hon. and hon. Friends to hear that the New Policy Institute estimates that five of the 10 hardest-hit local authorities will be among the top 10 most deprived in the country—Hackney, Newham, Liverpool, Islington and Knowsley.
In the Liverpool city region, it is estimated that the Government’s proposals will result in cuts of 17.23% for those who are not pensioners. In Halton, a single person will have to find at least £179 more each year. In Sefton, which has a higher than average number of pensioners, a couple in a band A property will have to find an extra £226 a year. That is probably small change to Government Members, but to people who struggle to keep their heads above water—those who have to count every penny to get to the end of the week without getting into debt, and without being driven into the arms of the loan sharks who are on many of our estates and ready to batten on vulnerable people—it is the difference between surviving and not surviving.
I sometimes wonder what Ministers know of that world. Have they ever stood in a supermarket watching people put things back because they cannot afford to pay for everything in the basket? Do they understand the struggle that some families have if a child needs a new pair of shoes? They know nothing of it, and they have no wish to understand it.
Mr Raynsford
Is it not telling that not a single Government Back Bencher has contributed to this debate in support of the Government’s measures? Does that not indicate that they know deep down that these measures are deeply flawed, deeply unfair and deeply wrong?
Helen Jones
My right hon. Friend is entirely right. [Interruption.] The Under-Secretary says that it is because they think the measures are right. Well, if I cannot appeal to their moral sense, let me try appealing to their economic sense. The poorest areas will have the biggest hit to their local economies. The 2010-11 figures show that a 10% cut will mean £10 million being taken out of Birmingham, £6.1 million out of Liverpool, £3 million out of Newham, £2.7 million out of Newcastle and £2.9 million out of Gateshead. By contrast, the prosperous local economies lose less. Runnymede will lose £454,000; Wokingham £518,000; Melton more than £246,000; and Hart £293,000; but—as we might expect with this Government, this is a big “but”—that is not the whole story.
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
That is exactly why we produced the statements of intent—to give local authorities and their providers the longest possible time to understand how they might best design and develop a scheme. That is also why we have provided a significant sum of money to assist them in doing that.
The hon. Member for Warrington North also asked about criminal offences being created by the Bill. The Social Security Administration Act 1992 creates several criminal offences in relation to council tax benefit, including an offence of dishonestly making a false statement and one of knowingly making a false statement for the purpose of obtaining council tax benefit. There is a different standard of proof for each offence, as I suspect that the hon. Lady knows better than I do. Greater penalties apply if it can be shown that a person has acted dishonestly.
Helen Jones
Can the Minister explain what the position is when a person has not acted dishonestly? We have asked him several times. He has referred to acting knowingly and to acting dishonestly, but the proposed provisions refer to offences that can be committed other than dishonestly.
Andrew Stunell
I am surrounded by lawyers, and the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), is giving me helpful advice, but let me say that there are two separate categories, which I think the hon. Lady has just restated: dishonestly making a false statement and knowingly making a false statement for the purpose of obtaining council tax benefit. To underline a point I made when introducing the debate, those provisions mirror and replicate the existing situation as far as the council tax benefit fraud prevention scheme is concerned. Another relevant point I made earlier is that we are conducting a full review to ensure that what is put into the new scheme is wholly proportionate to the new situation.
Helen Jones
Once again, I am very pleased to follow an interesting, passionate and well-informed speech from my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey). I can add little to the case he made for his amendments, so, given the time constraints, I shall focus on new clause 6, which stands in my name and that of other right hon. and hon. Friends.
We make no apologies for returning to the issue of need and the different levels of need within local authorities —the elephant in the room that the Government want to ignore. This issue has been raised time and again in our debates on the Bill by hon. Friends, many of whom represent some of the most deprived communities in this country and have seen at first hand the impact of the Government’s policies on those communities.
Why are the Government so wilfully blind to the effects of their policies? They have already hit local authorities with cuts that are larger than those inflicted on any Government Department, and we have heard from Opposition Members about the real and serious impact the cuts are having on front-line services—the cuts in school food provision, increases in home care charges, library closures in the poorest communities. However, none of this has any influence on Ministers, so out of touch are they with most people’s lives, and it now appears that they are going to make things worse.
First, they entrench unfairness in the system by basing it on the current local government finance settlement, so the inequalities and unfairness of the current scheme will form the basis of the settlement for years to come. We have heard many times during our debates on this Bill about cities that are losing spending power: Manchester is losing spending power of £186 per person, Birmingham £155 and Nottingham £147. Those are the cities that the Government think will drive the economic recovery; there is no linked-up policy here. Wokingham, of course, gains, however. Basingstoke and Deane gains £6.30 per person. East Dorset gains £3 per person.
According to the Government’s statement of intent—it is one of many, so I am unsure how much weight we can place on any of their statements of intent—each authority will keep 50% of its business rates and the Government will provide a revenue support grant to make up the difference between the local share of business rates at the outset of the scheme and the spending controls for local government. However, they will, it seems, have top-sliced that for the new homes bonus first, which already benefits most those authorities with a high tax base, and it appears that many other grants will also be included, as listed in the statement of intent.
We already know how the grant system has been used to penalise the poorest authorities with communities that are most in need, and there has been a significant reduction in resource equalisation. Under this scheme, the gap between richer and poorer authorities will widen. First, as the Yorkshire and Humberside councils have said,
“a baseline may not reflect the actual levels of funding councils need to deliver services from April 2013.”
They were right about that. Secondly, as we have discussed during the passage of this Bill, some authorities will find it easier to grow their business rates than others. It has been estimated that even if the top-ups and tariffs increased in line with the retail prices index, the gap between the richest and the poorest authorities, and between the north and the south, will widen. Cash growth in the City of London could be 139% over four years and the figure for Westminster could be 90%, whereas the estimate for Liverpool and Knowsley is 21.9% and that for South Tyneside is 22.7%.
When we add into that this Government’s abject failure to take into account the differing tax bases of local authorities, the situation becomes even worse. That failure means that local authorities do not start on the level playing field that the Deputy Prime Minister kept telling us about—although he was the man who said he was not going to raise tuition fees, so I am not sure that anyone takes much notice of him. In the long term, fortunate local councils might reduce or even get rid of council tax, whereas others whose tax base is low and where it is harder to attract investment will be unable to do so. When we also take into account the amount that some councils will lose through changes in council tax benefit, it is clear that they could be heading for the perfect storm.
Andrew Gwynne
May I use the example of my constituency to illustrate precisely the issue that my hon. Friend is raising? My constituency covers two metropolitan boroughs that lie side by side; Tameside predominantly contains band A and band B properties, so its ability to increase its income from council tax is less than that of neighbouring Stockport, which contains a much larger amount of properties in a wider range of bands. Is that not the fundamental unfairness of all this?
Helen Jones
It is the fundamental thing that the Government fail to understand: councils are not starting from the same baseline. Those who pay the price for these inequalities, which will increase, are those most in need. Need is the thing that the Government do not want to talk about. That is why our new clause 6 seeks to require the Government to take into account both the likely capacity of an authority to benefit from business rate growth and the authority’s level of need.
When the Secretary of State issued all these statements of intent last week, he sought to dismiss the whole concept of need. He talked of grants as a
“system of Government handouts to local authorities”.
He said that this
“encourages a begging bowl mentality, with each council vying to be more deprived than its neighbour.”—[Official Report, 17 May 2012; Vol. 545, c. 39WS.]
I have never heard such an appalling slur on local councils or such an arrogant dismissal of the needs of many of the poorest people in this country, and he should apologise for that. Is he really suggesting that councils are pretending to represent areas that are poorer than they actually are, simply to get Government grants? That is nonsense. So why is it that under this Government the needs of people who are out of work, of people who have long-term illnesses and of people in poverty can be treated as if they do not exist? These people do not have loud voices, because most of them are just trying to get by from week to week. They do not share mulled wine and mince pies with the Prime Minister or get invited to dinner at Dorneywood. By contrast, those who pay 50% tax—millionaires, who are apparently squeezed beyond endurance—must be relieved of their burdens. [Interruption.] The Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) says that that is a cliché. It is not a cliché; it points out the moral laxity of this Government, who cannot see that treating poor people unfairly while giving handouts to rich people is exactly what most of the country finds wrong.
Andrew Gwynne
My hon. Friend is making precisely the point that needs to be made in these debates, which is that the demands on local services vary widely and that it is often the poorest communities that have the greatest demands. I am very pleased that her proposal recognises children in care, because they are a big issue for local authorities in need. That argument needs to be made in this debate.
Helen Jones
My hon. Friend is right about that, and I shall discuss the number of people in care later. It is important that we recognise that many of the things we are discussing are statutory services, which the local authority has to provide.
Let us examine some of the differences between areas. In Knowsley, whose case was put forcefully in Committee by my right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth), 58,000 people—more than one third—live in areas that are among the top five most deprived in the country. In the north-east, 32.7% of people live in the most deprived 20% of areas. Those are the areas that will struggle as the gap between needs and resources widens. Such authorities are often the same ones that are having to cope with the biggest increases in unemployment. That both reduces the finance available to local councils, because more people are claiming benefit, and increases the demand for their services.
The Secretary of State seems to think that authorities are competing to be the most deprived, so let me ask him something—I would if he were here, but he seems to take these debates so lightly that he has not even bothered to turn up for most of this one. So let me ask this Minister: is unemployment in Birmingham, Ladywood higher or lower than in Henley? In Birmingham, Ladywood, it stands at 11.2%, whereas in Henley it is 1.1%.
Does Middlesbrough have a higher or lower unemployment rate than North East Hampshire? Middlesbrough’s rate is 9.7%, whereas that for North East Hampshire is 1.1%. Is the figure for Liverpool, Walton higher or lower than that for Wokingham? The figure for Liverpool, Walton is 8.5%, whereas that for Wokingham is 1.3%. Does he think that councils are making this up and deliberately causing unemployment to get Government grants? Not even he could get up to argue that. It is not local councils that have caused this recession, yet still we hear from Government Members that councils are “reluctant” to promote economic growth. Coming from this Government that is a bit like King Herod accusing someone of child cruelty. Local authorities are still having to cope with the long-term legacy of heavy industry, followed by de-industrialisation.
Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)
I am loth to interrupt my hon. Friend, who is making a powerful and passionate case that I have no doubt will sway even those stern Gradgrinds on the Government Benches. Does she accept that constituencies such as mine have islands of deprivation in a sea of affluence and that we have a post-industrial working class in parts of west London? Is it coincidence that the royal borough of Kensington and Chelsea has the longest life expectancy of anywhere in the United Kingdom, whereas places such as her constituency and mine are at the other end, not through any fault, but because of industrial history? What can be done to address this cruelty?
Helen Jones
My hon. Friend is quite right. In the first place, we could ensure that we address those legacies of ill health and poverty, which create a greater demand for services and mean that fewer people are able to contribute to them. For example, why does Durham council need to spend more on older people than a similarly sized council such as Surrey? It is not because it is profligate, but because it has higher deprivation and ill health, which lead to greater demand for home care services but mean that fewer people are able to finance that care. Fifteen times as many people receive a community service in Durham as in Surrey and two and a half times more receive a home care service. That demonstrates the huge variation in need across the country.
Those levels do not bear any relation to an authority’s ability to generate income. In Surrey, for example, 75% of the properties are in band D or above. Surrey can generate more income from band D council tax than a similarly sized authority, which is a point that was made earlier. Unless those factors are taken into account in any financial settlement, there is a huge risk to services for those in need.
Helen Jones
My hon. Friend is quite right and that is true in many conurbations, such as Manchester and London, for example.
Let us also consider the need for children’s services. Levels of child poverty, and thus the demand for services, vary hugely between authorities. In Hartlepool, 29% of children are in poverty. In Newcastle, the figure is 27%, as it is in Liverpool. That is 91,000 children. I could not resist looking at that often mentioned authority, Wokingham, where the level of child poverty is 7%. Which area has the most need for services, yet which is benefiting most and is likely to benefit more from this Government’s plans?
Such high levels of child poverty mean a higher demand for children’s services. In Liverpool, for example, 77% of the children in poverty are in single-parent families, meaning there is an even greater need for child care and support for families to help parents go to work, as well as for other support. Children in those areas need better service, not worse, and they need more help. There is no point in the Deputy Prime Minister’s banging on about the need to address inequalities in education unless the Government recognise that to make a real difference those inequalities must be tackled before children get to school.
So, we have places such as Middlesbrough—the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Stephen Gilbert) is shaking his head, but anyone in education knows that to make a real difference to educational attainment we need to tackle the inequalities before the children reach the age of five. By the time they get to school, those inequalities are entrenched and, if he does not think that that is true, I suggest he asks some teachers.
Middlesbrough is the ninth most deprived local authority in England and has seven times as many children receiving free school meals as Wokingham does. It clearly needs greater investment in children’s services. Poverty also drives the number of children being taken into care. We spoke earlier in the passage of the Bill about the huge increase in the number of referrals and children taken into care following the case of baby Peter, but the differences between authorities are stark. There was a 10% increase nationally in safeguarding referrals in the period around 2009-10, but in Liverpool the increase was 60%. Those are the differences that we are dealing with. The same applies to the numbers of looked-after children—children for whom the authority has a legal obligation to be the corporate parent and to provide. It cannot cut those services, it cannot trim them and it cannot decide how great the demand is.
Andrew Gwynne
I ought to declare an interest, as my wife, Councillor Allison Gwynne, is the cabinet member for children’s services in Tameside council. My hon. Friend’s point about children’s services and the cost of those services is absolutely correct, not least because children’s services, particularly for looked-after children, is such a resource-intensive service and cannot easily be cut, nor should it be. It is those councils that often have the least ability to raise business rates that are likely to be penalised the most.
Helen Jones
I could not have put it better than did my hon. Friend. These services are demand-led; they are not within the control of the local authority, and they are, as he said, very expensive to provide, as they must be. We are dealing with some extremely damaged and vulnerable children in local authority care. Surrey has 32 looked-after children per 10,000 of population, and Wokingham has 22, compared with 104 per 10,000 in Middlesbrough and 100 per 10,000 in Newcastle. That is a stark example of the differing levels of need in local authorities, and the idea that those services should be left to the vagaries of the market is breathtaking.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne, who is no longer in his place, gave some good examples of how business rates can vary from year to year. It is entirely unpredictable, yet this Government still refuse to recognise those different levels of need within local authorities.
Mr Betts
Am I being a little cynical when I say that the Government have devised a scheme that is now so complicated—top-ups, tariffs, set-asides, then revaluations, and on top of that the fact that only 50% of business rates will be returned to local authorities, and a rate support grant element as well—that when they achieve what they are trying to do, the transfer of money from deprived communities to more affluent communities, it will be virtually impossible to explain to anybody what they have done?
Helen Jones
I do not think my hon. Friend is at all cynical. He is exactly right. The whole point of the Bill, as we have said throughout, is to centralise power and devolve the blame. We saw it earlier when we were debating council tax. We are seeing it now in the Government’s plans for business rates. I believe their aims are simple. They go about it in a complicated way, but the basic aim is very simple: to ensure that whoever gets the blame for cuts in local services, it is not them. It is also to ensure that the voices of those who are most in need are excluded from this debate.
We believe that the views of those people ought to be heard. Let us think about who they are. They are elderly men and women who have contributed all their lives and who are not getting the home care that they need in their old age, or are paying too much. It is a child in a family who may not be well-off but is dependent on local libraries for his or her education. It is the most vulnerable children in need of care and protection. These are the people to whom this Government pay no heed. We have moved the new clause because we do not intend their needs to be forgotten. I urge my hon. Friends to support it in the Lobby. It might help if I indicate that we will press it to a vote.
Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)
Perhaps it is a sign of the complexity of the subject and the fact that we have not exactly taken the nation with us that there are so few Members in the Chamber tonight to discuss local government funding. We ought to remember that local government funding underpins local authority services, which support our most vulnerable people—the elderly and the disabled—and that it is women who are the heaviest users of local authority services and who are hardest hit when services are cut or funding is changed. Any changes to local authority funding need to be considered carefully and time must be taken to ensure that all intended and unintended consequences are known before those changes are made, not after, but adequate time and proper consideration are precisely what the Government’s proposals are lacking.
We heard only this morning that nine of the 10 poorest areas in the country are in the north-west, and the 10th is in the north-east. We know that Government cuts to local authority funding have already led to every person in the average north-west local authority losing £133. Every person in my local authority has lost £70, yet every person in deepest deprived Surrey has gained £2.
Because of the complexities of local government funding, even slight changes in one area often have major impacts elsewhere. We are beginning to see clear evidence that the pupil premium, although well intended, is responsible for a shift in funding from the poorest areas to the most affluent, and from schools with high concentrations of children on free school meals to schools with lower concentrations of those children. The Government have already signalled their intention to shift health funding away from need and deprivation and towards the elderly population. That will have an impact on areas such as mine that have high concentrations of people who, because of our industrial heritage, are in need of health provision and live in deprivation, because the funding will be transferred to areas in the south where the more affluent and the elderly live.
Now the Government propose changing business rates, which will simply carry on their work of siphoning funding from the poorest areas to the most affluent. Those policies on business rates are not new or untried; they were used in the USA in the 1990s and resulted in cities such as Detroit and New Orleans becoming derelict, because everyone who could move out did so and left the cities to the poorest and most vulnerable. The Government’s proposals on business rates take absolutely no account of the ability of individual local authorities to raise rates without the support of the Government.
The Government’s proposals also take no account of geography. Any area that is not within the golden triangle of south-east England, northern France and Germany needs the support of Government infrastructure to attract businesses and business rates. We have heard tonight how, as a result of these proposals, the City of London will see cash growth of almost 140% over four years, yet places such as Liverpool, Knowsley, Bury, Wirral and south Tyneside will see cash growth over the same period of about 20%.
The Government’s proposals take no account of the number of children living in poverty in a local authority or the number in need of local authority care and protection. They take no account of the number of elderly poor, the quality of housing or the number of people living in substandard housing or with chronic ill health. They do not take account of what local authorities need to spend; only of what they can raise.
I am asking the Government to agree to carry out and publish an independent assessment of the needs of different local authorities before deciding how much of their business rate they can keep. Local authority funding formulae are complex and any review must be properly handled and carefully considered. I know that the Government do not do detail, but that is what local authority funding formulae are all about. If they get the detail wrong, they will cause chaos for our most vulnerable people.
I remember that some years ago the previous Government were levering additional funding for schools, but the schools were saying that they were not getting it. Treasury civil servants initially pointed the finger at local authorities and said that they were creaming off the money. There was naming and shaming of local authorities, which came out very firmly and screamed that they were not creaming off the money. The civil servants looked again and then pointed the finger at special educational needs, saying that the growth in the SEN sector and its increasing cost was draining money that had been meant for the schools. A proper review found that it was not special educational needs, but a Treasury anorak—[Interruption.] I am sorry, but Ministers should listen to this, because it is important. It was a Treasury anorak who tweaked the system in one area and caused a Mexican wave in another. Local authority funding is complex. If the Government do not take the time to consider it properly, the most vulnerable people in our society will be the most affected.
Robert Neill
If the right hon. Gentleman deigns to read the statements of intent, he will find what is effectively an executive summary of the regulations, which will deal with how the default scheme operates, including for pensioners, who we have indicated should be protected. We are having regular meetings with our local government working group, which includes representatives of local authority treasurers, and we are also in regular contact with the principal software provider and other service providers. We are therefore doing exactly what the right hon. Gentleman would want us to do, although I doubt whether it will satisfy him, because it is not him doing it.
We have announced £30 million of initial funding to help meet the costs of planning and analysing draft schemes for both billing and precepting authorities, so we are supporting local authorities. The statements of intent are, in fact, very detailed. We have also provided a free online calculator to help local authorities to analyse the potential impacts of their proposed schemes.
Robert Neill
I notice that the hon. Lady is in what some might uncharitably term “sneering mode” this evening. I think that says something about the attitude of Labour Members towards a reform that they know needs to be undertaken, but which they never had the courage to undertake, which rather undermines their argument.
We have also taken steps in the Bill to make things easier for local authorities—for example, by clarifying that billing authorities can consult with precepting authorities, produce a draft scheme and consult more widely, all before the Bill receives Royal Assent. It is a fair point to say that the time frame is challenging, but doing those sensible things in parallel makes the scheme perfectly capable of being delivered. That is an important practical step that we have taken. We are determined to put local authorities into the best possible position to develop and consult on their local schemes. I stress that local authorities have real choices about how they develop their schemes for working-age council tax payers, what protection they choose to offer and how they choose to fund that protection.
The reality is that, under the circumstances, “one size fits all” will not work. Different areas face different challenges, and they have to make different choices. That is localism. I hope the Opposition will reflect on the fact that if they talk about being in favour of localism, it ill behoves them to seek to obstruct a Bill that, together with the Localism Act 2011, presents local authorities with the most significant practical step towards localism that we have seen in many a long day. I hope that, rather than repeating the mantra that we have heard so far—a mantra on, frankly, rather narrow ideological grounds—the Opposition will use their influence with their representatives in local government to step up to the plate, help to design the schemes that we all need to have in place and drive forward what is a real opportunity for local government in the years ahead. I commend the Bill to the House.