Local Government Finance Bill

It is a great pleasure to be under your chairmanship, Mr Crausby. We have heard hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House express real concerns about how the scheme will work in practice, and particularly about what will happen in authorities with a large number of pensioners. Hon. Friends have spoken about the need to start the scheme on the right basis—a neutral basis—and to ensure that councils are adequately funded for the scheme that they are being asked to bring in. I want to speak about new clause 11 in particular, which seeks to address some of the real financial risks that are being transferred to local authorities. Many hon. Members will remember that last week we debated clause 3, which changed the requirement to pay a grant to a power to do so. In that debate, as in all our debates so far on the Bill, the Government refused to clarify how they would distribute money, fund local authorities and meet the costs of the duties that they seek to impose on them. That is exactly what the Government are trying to do with the localisation of council tax benefit. We are back to the old game of ensuring that the blame for their cuts is taken elsewhere. New clause 11 attempts to ensure that local authorities are reimbursed for expenses incurred as part of the council tax reduction scheme. The 10% cut in funding that many hon. Members have referred to, along with protection for pensioners, which the Government rightly want to ensure, means that others will face much larger cuts in their benefit. We will debate many of those issues under the next group of amendments.