Age-Related Payments Regulations 2005

I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, to his new responsibilities, but say that we miss him as chairman of the Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee. For reasons which I am sure that noble Lords will understand, I did not arrive at the House quite as early as I intended today. I was concerned to read and see the report literally coming out from the Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee on the day that we are due to discuss the order. Luckily I am a speed reader—I suppose we all have to be in this House. It makes some serious points. The noble Lord has dealt with the specific point it makes, but I think the general point is that, if the Government are to achieve their objective of making statutory instruments more accessible to the lay reader, the Explanatory Notes should be clear and should not assume previous knowledge of the subject. That point should be well taken and a little more starting from the ground up in the Explanatory Notes would be welcome. I turn to the substance of the regulations. Our position is that this is not the right way to deal with the obvious and acknowledged problems of poverty and old age, and, in particular, difficulties with council tax payments. I am afraid that these measures that we get year after year are classic Gordon Brown. What we get   is a raft of fiddly individual payments, almost as   though the Chancellor is going around like Lady   Bountiful at Christmas handing out turkeys to the grateful retainers on the estate, instead of actually paying them a proper wage in that sense or a proper pension all year. I shall make it quite clear that although we welcome, or would not oppose, any help of that kind, we believe that it is totally unsatisfactory and quite the wrong way to deal with the sustained, very serious problem of pensioner poverty. The extract from the Chancellor’s Budget Statement, for sheer bold effrontery, took the biscuit. The Chancellor said:"““I can announce that we will pay to every pensioner household, 65 and over, paying council tax, a refund not of £50 but a council tax refund of £200—a measure that is fairer and worth more to more pensioners than all other proposed schemes””.—[Official Report, Commons,16/3/05; col. 269.]" Proposed by whom? That is patent nonsense. How on earth can that be fairer than our policy, which is to abolish council tax altogether and relate it entirely to ability to pay through a local income tax? With those specific questions, I welcome any assurance that we can be given—I appreciate that this is not now his responsibility, but perhaps I can make the point—that reports from the Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee should give a little more time for consideration before these matters are considered. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.