Welfare Reform Bill

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, and I support her in this endeavour—rare though that might seem to some of your Lordships. To be strictly accurate, my right honourable friend the Leader of the Opposition has done rather more than support this amendment; what he did was to write to the director-general of the British Legion with the explicit promise that should the current Government fail to implement this change, a future Government will. The important facts here are that less than 60 per cent of those who are eligible for council tax benefit actually make a claim, as the noble Baroness said. One reason for that is the stigma associated with being in receipt of benefit. The Minister will remember that in a recent Bill that emanated from the DWP, we talked an awful lot about stigma, in that case relating to disabled people—in particular with cancer, but other elements as well. We can all agree that in certain parts of this country a stigma is associated with being in receipt of benefits. Although some may tut-tut that that is so, the Government know as well as anyone that it is a real consideration for people, not least because a report by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister Select Committee in 2004 said that the stigma attached to council tax benefit being presented as a benefit rather than as, more accurately, a relief from tax contributed accounted for the dismal rate of take-up for council tax benefit. All the evidence is there. The aim behind the amendment is so strikingly simple that I cannot believe that even on an off-day the Minister could resist it—and I hope that today is not an off-day.