Age-Related Payments Regulations 2005

The Grand Committee—if that is what we are still calling it, somewhat wrongly—will be grateful to the Minister for the very clear way in which he has explained the order. I find it ironic that, the day after I congratulate the Minister on his appointment, the Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee publishes a demerit on what I believe is the first order that he has laid before a Grand Committee. That said, I have no doubt that the recipients of these   payments will be extremely grateful to the Government for anything that can be done to alleviate the effects of the huge amount of council tax that they have to pay for the upkeep of their local communities, and the many duties that the Government have heaped on them over the years. And, of course, on a rather different level, the top-up of pension credit for those aged over 70. I find it curious that only in 2004, as the Minister has said, we passed the Age-related Payments Act, and, when the order implementing the order came through, we were told that it was a one-off. Well, now it is a ““two-off””, and beginning to look like a regular top-up of pensioners’ incomes. Of course the Minister will tell me that there is no current intention to repeat them. As a regular Government-watcher over the past seven years, I assume that that means until we near the next general election. That is no way to run a social security system. Indeed, both payments are completely unrelated to the tax and benefits system. That said, the fact is that, welcome as they are, these soi disant one-off payments do not solve the problem, which is one of the Government piling duties on local authorities without—and this is the point—providing sufficient resources from central taxation. While I accept that local authorities vary in their efficiency, on average they are under-financed by central government. Local government finance is in a mess. What plans do the Government, in the shape of the Deputy Prime Minister, intend to implement? Local taxpayers’ patience is running out. Was not my party right to say earlier this year that payments by pensioners should be capped? This holding position cannot and must not last. For the OPDM website to claim, as the Minister did today, that high council tax increases are a thing of the past is ludicrous. The OPDM review of the subject appears to have had no other result but to require another inquiry chaired by Sir Michael Lyons. Now that the general election is out of the way, the Government should get on with it and not take the lackadaisical approach that they are with pensions. But that is for another debate.