Local Government Finance Bill

Jim Hood Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ward]

I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman carried out a full impact assessment before voting to get rid of the 10p rate of income tax, which affected the most deprived people in the country.

[The Temporary Chair (Mr Jim Hood)]

Order. That intervention is not relevant to the amendments.

[Mr Jones]

Interventions have to be relevant, as Mr Hood points out, but I would not stand for election, as the hon. Member for Bradford East and other Liberal Democrats did, on the idea of supporting the poor by increasing income tax thresholds, and then support the Conservatives in pushing through this Bill, which is going to affect some of the poorest and neediest in our society—and somehow turn a blind eye to that. As I said earlier in response to his hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke), none of this legislation could go through without the Liberal Democrats, and I am sure that in Bradford at the next general election the Labour party and others will remind the hon. Gentleman’s electorate that he and his party were the ones who put through this Bill, which takes away council tax benefits from the poorest and most vulnerable in our society. So he cannot have it both ways.

The amendment would take unemployment into consideration, and it is important to look at unemployment and how it affects local councils’ claimants for council tax benefit. As you will know, Mr Hood, unemployment in the north-east stands at 11.7%, 3.4 percentage points higher than the national average, while unemployment rates in the south-east are just 6.3%. If we look across the constituencies, we find that the most recent claimant count in my constituency was 2,674 people, or 5% of the population; in Beaconsfield, it was 903 people, or 1.5% of the population; in Aldershot, it was 1,749 people, or 2.6%; and in Wokingham—I have to say to the people of Wokingham that I have nothing against their town, but it is always a good example to cite in such debates—it was just 936 people, or 1.3%.

That shows the disproportionate effect of council tax benefit in different areas, and if there is nothing in the Bill to say that unemployment needs to be taken into consideration, it prompts the question, will those councils where unemployment is relatively low take it into consideration when fixing their council tax scheme? The Minister said that the Secretary of State will not need to intervene, but that is not the case, because as my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford) points out, the right hon. Gentleman will intervene if he does not agree with a scheme. He has the power to do so, and to change the financial year of a scheme, so what the Minister has said is not the case.

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[Mr Jones]

I am hoping to be made a freeman. I have given it enough plugs in these debates.

[The Temporary Chair (Mr Jim Hood)]

Order. I am sure second home preferences are a matter for some other debate, but not for this one.