Local Government Finance Bill

Debate between Helen Jones and Mark Tami

Tuesday 31st January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Helen Jones]

My hon. Friend is right; indeed, Government Members expressed similar reservations during our earlier debate. Such a disincentive is precisely the opposite of what the Government say they want.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

It is the people my hon. Friend has mentioned—those who are on the poverty line and do not have any spare cash—who will be in arrears with their council tax. Every day in our surgeries we see people who tell us that the bailiffs are about to arrive. How can the Government’s proposals possibly help?

[Helen Jones]

They will not help those people, and they will not help councils. We discussed the financial risks for councils earlier, but one of the main financial risks is an increase in the number of defaults because people are simply unable to pay—and, indeed, there is no evenness in that situation. In North-East Derbyshire 49.4% of recipients of council tax benefit are pensioners, while in North Kesteven the proportion is 53.2%. People living there face a bigger cut than people living in, say, Luton, where the proportion is only 28.2%. The scheme will subject people to cuts that are entirely arbitrary and unfair, while transferring the risk to local authorities. Many people will find themselves in real financial difficulty, while councils’ collection rates will fall.

Amendment 67 would require local authorities to make people aware of their entitlement to council tax benefit, and to give the necessary assistance to those who wish to make an application. I believe that good councils will do that anyway, but the Bill puts such pressure on local authorities that some—albeit, I believe, very few—will be deterred from seeking out claimants and informing them of their rights. Authorities are currently reimbursed monthly for expenditure that they actually incur, but the Government intend to pay grants, and we do not know what methodology they will use to set the level of those grants. Although they have promised to set allocations annually for the first two years, there is no certainty about what will happen after that.

The Government have already said, in their response to the consultation, that

“multi-year allocations would provide greater certainty and better allow local authorities to benefit financially where demand for support was reduced over several years.”

I think my hon. Friends will see immediately where that is going, because we have seen it before. I am talking about the creation of incentives for councils to reduce claims. In a time of economic uncertainty, and when the economy is flatlining, we cannot reduce those claims by bringing in lots of jobs, because the jobs are simply not there for people to get. Not only will local authorities that are experiencing increasing unemployment or falling wages leading to new claims be penalised, but the Government are already considering how to build in incentives to reduce claims.

There will clearly be pressures on local authorities. They will take all the financial risks associated with the possibility of demand exceeding supply, and they will also have to deal with the extra costs of setting up the scheme—which may or may not be fully reimbursed—as well as the costs of revising it regularly, of notifying people about it and of appeals. That final subject has hardly been mentioned so far in our debate, but appeals could well be considerable when people find that their entitlement is being cut. If we add in the Government’s desire to move to multi-year settlements, we can all see that there is a genuine risk of the number of claims being driven down.

That is why we have tabled the amendment. We want to ensure that local authorities must take proper steps to publicise their schemes, and also that they assist those facing difficulties in applying, perhaps because of disability or because they are not sufficiently literate or numerate and do not understand the forms. We have all come across such constituency cases. Having rights is of no use if people are ignorant of them or cannot exercise them, so it is only fair and reasonable that these safeguards should be built into the Bill from the start. Through them, we hope to counter the Government’s incentives to reduce the number of claims from people who have an entitlement to benefit.

Amendment 68 seeks to ensure that before a scheme is drawn up there is consultation not only with precepting authorities and what the Bill vaguely refers to as “others” with an interest, but with organisations that assist and represent people on the receiving end of this Government’s cuts. In respect of this Bill, it is fair to say that so far such organisations have been largely ignored. The big society clearly does not include those who give up their time to assist some of our most vulnerable citizens, and who deal every day with the impact of job losses and the consequences of child poverty and try to help those for whom every day is a struggle. Any redesign of the scheme ought to take account of the views of those who will be dealing with its impact.

As has been said, the impact will be extremely severe because it will come on top of the Government’s other changes to welfare benefits. Let me give an example of a one-parent family living in a three-bedroom house in Knowsley. Assuming that they can stay in their home even though they will be more than £800 a year worse off under the Government’s changes, they will then be hit again by this scheme because in Knowsley there is likely to be a 20% council tax benefit cut. They will therefore have to find a further £170 per year. Those who deal with people in our welfare system and who give advice to people in poverty should be consulted on the design of these schemes.

We often forget the great number of children who will be forced further into poverty by this scheme. In the Liverpool city region, 14.8% of children in poverty are in working families—those claiming working family tax credit or child tax credit. Those families will also be reliant on council tax benefit. What will happen to them when this scheme comes into force is very clear. More people will be unable to pay, so there will be more pressure, more debt and quite possibly more people falling into the hands of loan sharks. Anyone who does not think that will happen has never walked around a big estate and seen how these people operate. They often wait outside the place where people collect their benefit, and take the money straight off them. That is the reality of life on the edge. That is what many of our charitable organisations and benefit advice agencies deal with every day. It is only right that they should be consulted.

Amendments 70 and 71 seek to ensure—[Interruption.] Yes, it is the same story, I say to the hon. Member for Burnley (Gordon Birtwistle), and it will be the same story for many of my constituents, and his, when this scheme comes into effect. I am terribly sorry the hon. Gentleman does not want to hear about the reality of the impact this scheme will have. That is hard luck for him, but it is even worse luck for the people who will be on the receiving end.