Council Tax (New Valuation Lists for England) Bill

I do not like having to try to explain, let alone defend, Opposition policies, and I am sure that the cleverest minds in the ODPM have advised my hon. Friend that that is the case. I am happy to take his word for it. It is not so long since Conservative party policy was to have a revaluation every five years, which would have meant constant change. People would not only have waited for their council tax bill to fall through their letter box every spring, but for their quinquennial revaluation, and that would have been very disturbing for those who have to pay their council tax out of a fixed income—who were mentioned, almost tearfully, by Conservative Back Benchers. Those people are largely pensioners, who were reduced to poverty in record numbers by the last Conservative Government and who would have borne the brunt of the £2.5 billion cut in local authority services that the Conservatives proposed at the last general election. So I do not need the crocodile tears of Conservative Back Benchers to plead the case for people on fixed incomes.