Local Government Finance Bill

Richard Burden Excerpts

Wednesday 31st October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Helen Jones]

My hon. Friend is entirely right. Many of us will have seen in our surgeries what is beginning to happen to some of the poorest people in our communities. I have seen people crying in mine, either because of what they face now, or because they know what is coming in April but do not know how they will cope. Many of those people are working—they are going out to work.

[Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)]

All Labour Members—and, I imagine, a few Government Members if they think about it—recognise the picture painted by my hon. Friend. Does it not mean that a number of the vulnerable people who will suffer as a result of these measures will need extra support from the local authority, or from the voluntary and third sectors, to get the advice they need? That advice will not be there, however, partly because the council is having to pay the administrative costs of the system that has caused the problems in the first place.

[Helen Jones]

My hon. Friend is entirely right. I already find in my constituency that the organisations to which I used to refer people for help—as, I am sure, did many of my hon. Friends—are so overburdened, or in some cases have closed down, that help is simply not there. This is a very short-term policy that is causing financial instability for local councils and is an attack on the living standards of the most vulnerable people. The least the Government can do is hold a review in three years’ time.

It may be that the Government still believe that the system will work—although that is increasingly looking unlikely—but I think they are beginning to get cold feet. They know what these reforms will do in their constituencies and local authorities, and that they will be unworkable. By the time we get to the review, it is likely that the Ministers who introduced these measures will have moved on. The poorest and most vulnerable people, however, will still be paying the price. I hope that the Minister will at least accept a review, because by the time it takes place, it will be obvious what a miserable, vindictive and failed scheme this is.