Strong Local Voice, Strong Local Champion

I wish to make some brief comments and refer to the impact assessment on the localisation of council tax benefit, which looks at many of the issues raised by the hon. Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones). I note in particular that the impact assessment flags up some local authority responsibilities. The Child Poverty Act 2010 imposes a duty on local authorities to have regard to and address child poverty and, with their partners, to reduce and mitigate the effects of child poverty in their local area. The Disabled Persons (Services, Consultation and Representation) Act 1986 and the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970 include a range of duties relating to the welfare needs of disabled

people. The Housing Act 1996 places on local authorities a duty to prevent homelessness, with special regard to vulnerable groups.

Given that local authorities have those duties on them, is there any need to propose the amendments? These issues are important for the very reasons that have been identified-the 10% cut, the different numbers and proportions of pensioners in different authorities and the different balances that mean that some authorities could get more money through the changes to discounts for second homes and empty homes. Some authorities will have great difficulty in protecting vulnerable people. The number could be quite small, but that possibility is there because of the different demographics of different areas.

I understand that local authorities might have to go through an equality needs assessment and I should like to know from the Minister how they should address these issues, which are in the impact assessment on the localisation of council tax benefit. Will there be any question of councils having to go through judicial review? It seems to me that there are going to be protections in the detail of the schemes to be introduced, but also some challenges for local authorities given the difficulties that we are outlining over and over again-the 10% cut, the different proportions of pensioners, and authorities' different abilities to raise money with the new freedoms and flexibilities. With all those differences across areas, could some areas be faced with judicial review if they cannot address the duties placed on them by existing legislation?

The very point I was making is that there are variations throughout the whole country, so there needs to be some sort of stabilisation, contingency, transition-whatever we want to call it-because of the differences throughout the country and the possibility that the measure in the Bill will hit some very vulnerable people very hard. I make a plea to the Minister, even if he cannot give me the answers that I might want to hear today, to go away and look at all those issues, which have been raised on both sides of the House.

Yes, indeed. Such local authorities will need to talk to one another, and it will be difficult to get the right balance between a truly local scheme and work with adjoining authorities-I suppose I am

talking about working across, horizontally and vertically. It is not clear from the Bill how a district council will cope with the issue

The string of amendments under discussion is about funding, and the concern all comes from the 10% cut. There are potential extra revenue streams, however, and they need to be addressed. I appreciate that point, given the modifications to the second homes and empty homes premiums, but it is unlikely that we will get an absolute match between the money that is lost and any money that might be gained, so we need to look at that aspect.

I have given way several times, and I shall proceed in order to retain the flow of my speech. There are concerns, and it is right that we discuss how we address them.

A further concern is how the burden of the proposal is to be shared between the billing authority and any other authority that might be involved, such as a district or county council. I give the example of East Dorset district council, which last year had a revenue support grant of just £29 per head, meaning that it has very little flexibility with which to pick up any extra costs. So this is a matter not only of working with other councils, but of coming up with a clear solution to the issue.

I share the concern about whether the scheme can be introduced within the proposed time frame, which looks tight. The major software companies say that it cannot be done, but we know the timetable we are on: July for the Bill, October for the regulations and then the consultation on schemes. Can it be done? I want Ministers to address those questions and to give more thought to how the issue is going to be handled.

At this stage, we are debating, and I hope all trying to be constructive about, the direction in which we would like the Bill to go, and it is important to be constructive, rather than to look for an immediate political hit.

Returning to the point I was making-

At this point in time, it is easy to put such amendments forward, but one has to identify where the money is going to come from, and I shall touch on that in a moment, because there are two sides to the issue: first, what needs to be addressed, but, secondly, how we finance it. That is quite important.

Returning to the point I was making, I wish to emphasise that we all have constituents who come to us with a breakdown of their weekly expenditure, and we all know how little there is to spare in some of those budgets, so the possibility of losing £6 to £10 of benefit is truly frightening.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Crausby.

On the first stream, we are focusing on the 10% cut, which leads to all the other problems identified in subsequent streams. I accept that in addition to the 10% cut there are unexpected changes in the number of claimants and that apparently there is no cushion for that situation. Although I do not support the amendments that have been put forward, it is important to flag up the problems, which must not be ignored.

Let us consider the situation for a council faced with setting up a new system. Any savings it will be able to make through localisation of council tax benefit will need to be offset against the administrative costs it will incur. I accept that there must be some savings, because otherwise there would not be the same need for external audit when money is sent to the council to cover payments, but will the Minister state explicitly where the money will come from for the inevitably large cost of setting up individual schemes, particularly in the first year. There is of course the possibility that councils will work together, which would reduce the administrative costs of setting up new schemes, but they would then lose the advantage of localisation, because even an adjoining local authority will have a different demographic make-up. As soon as we focus on the 10% cut, we think about the demographic make-up.

I share some of the concerns that have been raised across the House. Once we ring-fence pensioners-we probably all agree that they should be protected-we effectively put a gearing effect on everyone else. By the time we have picked out families with a disabled member and other vulnerable groups, the reduction in council tax benefit, which might have started as an average of £2 a week, will start escalating on the backs of just a few people to £6, then £10, all depending on the make-up of the local authority area.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what progress her Department has made in implementing European Directive 2010/63/EU on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes.

What is the Department's view on local landlord accreditation schemes, and what advice does he give on such schemes to local authorities?

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Amess. I wish to make a few brief comments.

It is important that a local government body of councils should have a position on all the decision making, be it on the tariffs, the top-up or the levy or in relation to resetting. I do not know how formal that arrangement needs to be, but it is important to recognise that the information needs to come from a cross-section of local councils. Of course, we already have the Local Government Association, which is in a position to take such an overall viewpoint.

We have had some useful discussions about the length of the set-up period. It is fairly clear that no one here knows what the ideal period would be. I feel instinctively that 10 years is rather too long, but I recognise that we need a period of stability in order to make other measures work and to create incentives. I therefore hope that the Minister will assure us that a great deal of work will be done on this before we get to the regulations. I have a preference for a period of about five years, but I would also like an assurance that the Minister would have the power to reset, having listened to the LGA and other bodies, should something obviously have gone dramatically wrong. We have heard a great deal about uncertainty and, yes, there is bound to be uncertainty involved in a change of this magnitude, but the main thing for me is that we ensure that there is a safety net in place for ourselves, as decision makers.

I thank the Minister for giving way, and this is a genuine question. Is it not true that the baseline funding will have taken on board the council tax base? Was that not reflected in previous formulae? An authority such as mine, for example, would naturally get less formula grant because of its council tax base.

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I think my hon. Friend is hitting on the same issue that I have in mind-the respective time periods. It is important that we have clarity on that and I thought I had, but that was before I listened to the speeches this afternoon. We know that we are starting off firmly-councils know how much they are getting in the first settlement-but we need to know what will happen when the new system really clicks in.

I would like to make just a few comments, because I have listened intently to the discussion and found am quite confused about the time periods that different people are talking about. I would like to ask the Minister what time of year the levy will be announced-that is critical-and also which year will be used. I have found it difficult to see whether we are dealing with historical data or doing it as we go along.

One big change will be that council finance officers are likely to be preparing monthly reports on the revenue from business rates, which will be different from what happened previously. I can see how that will focus the council's mind on what is happening to its business rates, as well encouraging it proactively to talk with its local businesses to check stability and so on. I can see a lot of positives in that, but I need to know what the stocks and flows will be-it is really confusing-what the time periods will be and when the announcements will be made.

I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. However, the Institute for Fiscal Studies said of the autumn statement:

"New tax and benefit measures are, on average, a takeaway from lower-income families with children, and giveaway to middle and top of income distribution".

What further approaches will he take in the forthcoming Budget to ensure that we are all in it together, be it a demonstrable crackdown on tax avoidance, perhaps a mansion tax, and certainly more progressive tax measures?

What steps he plans to take to ensure that the burden of taxation is fairly distributed.

I thank the Secretary of State for her answer. I congratulate all those involved in community litter picks, including those at Canford Heath in my constituency. Litter alongside the busy roads that link our communities is a blot on the landscape. What more will she do to empower local councils to take effective action against people in vehicles who are responsible for such littering?

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change what non-means-tested assistance he plans to provide to people with disabilities towards their heating costs.

What steps she is taking to tackle littering and fly-tipping.

As a genuine point of discussion, let us imagine a situation in which set-aside is used for reasons that everyone could sign up to, and directed to local government services-an ideal world, I admit. Despite our desire to march towards localism, would not holding back on full localisation in the first few years be a prudent approach that would reduce uncertainty?