My hon. Friend is absolutely right: this measure is not about reforming the benefits system or creating a benefit; it is about imposing crude cuts in expenditure either on individual recipients or on local authorities. It is about the Government passing the buck, putting the responsibility and blame elsewhere.
Let us look at the timetable. We know how many tasks are involved if a local authority is properly to introduce its own local scheme of council tax benefit next April. What will a local authority have to do? It will first have to consider in detail the implications of the regulations—it has to know what law it has to comply with. Over the last year or so we have heard about various aspirations from the Government. We heard the Minister say that no pensioner should lose; we have also heard the aspiration that there should not be any work disincentives. How those two are compatible we have never had explained to us. If we have a benefit that goes to a substantial number of pensioners and a substantial number of people in low-paid work, and if we exempt one of those groups from any losses and then announce a 10% cut overall, the other group has to face that loss by definition. It is, I am afraid, a simple piece of logic. The Government have not come forward with any explanation of how the aspiration that there should be no work disincentives can possibly be achieved. It is the most flabbergasting case of what George Orwell would have described as “doublethink”.
The first task of local authorities, when they have seen the regulations, will therefore be to consider the implications. Then they will have to devise a draft scheme, taking account of the needs of the area and local aspirations. Many people in this House support the concept of localisation, but want it done properly. That would require local authorities to have the opportunity to consider what the best shape of a local council tax benefit scheme would be for it to respond to the needs of the area. Having done that, they should consult, which we all know is part of good administration. Consulting the considerable numbers of people affected is not trivial—we are talking about 6 million households nationally, which means tens of thousands in every local authority area. After a proper consultation, whereby individuals will know the likely implications, local authorities should finalise their schemes and then brief their IT suppliers to produce the software necessary to administer them.
5.30 pm
Ministers are seriously suggesting that local authorities should conduct that particular process in a matter of little more than eight months, because January next year is the cut-off date by which the benefits scheme has to be finalised. What world are they living in? What experience do they have of implementing complex changes in benefits? If they had any real-world experience, they would immediately realise that they have set local authorities an impossible task.
What makes this sinister is the fact that we know what the Government expect to happen. They know that local authorities will probably respond by saying, “This is too difficult, so we had better take the hit ourselves. We will take the cost of the reduction in subsidy and absorb it into our own budget to avoid upsetting too many of our local residents by imposing harsh cuts on them.” That, we know, is the reality. As I said earlier, that is why the Government are guilty of
trying to offload this £500 million package of cuts either on recipients or on local authorities. That is why amendments 6, 7, 10 and 13 seek to get the Government off the hook by delaying implementation for 12 months to allow proper consideration and a proper orderly transition so that implementation will not lead to the problems I have described.
There is no logical case against that course. The Select Committee was adamant when it looked at the problem, and it recommended that the Government should delay. Local authorities are all backing these amendments, so why will the Government not accept them? We have heard the feeble excuse offered once again by the Minister, “Oh, it’s due to cuts. We can’t do anything else because of cuts.” I am sorry to say that this is not a Government looking intelligently or carefully at how to make savings without causing difficulties and hardship; rather, they are simply trying to offload these problems.
There is one other consideration to which the Government should give some thought, and I suspect some local authority lawyers are already giving thought to it. If it is impossible for local authorities to administer the scheme in a way that makes the savings by reducing benefits, and they conclude that they have to absorb the costs themselves, this amounts to a new burden imposed by the Government. Under the new burdens doctrine, Governments have said repeatedly—and this Government have repeated it—that they should cover any additional costs imposed on local government that result from Government decision.
I therefore advise Ministers to think a bit more about the implications of their new burdens doctrine. The Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), who, when in opposition, was only too keen to talk about new burdens and to attack the Labour Government of the time for not honouring the new burdens doctrine, would do better if he now ensured that his own Government followed the words he used then. It is an interesting case of someone changing their tack once they find themselves on the Treasury Benches—briefly, I suspect, in his case. [Interruption.] This is not a unique or personal sleight to the Under-Secretary, as I would apply it to the entire Government Bench.
Amendment 9 seeks to impose an obligation whereby councils, in devising their local scheme, should inform recipients in advance of what the impact will be “on their living standards”. This is a fairly straightforward and sensible proposal to make people aware of what the local authority is proposing. It was suggested for that reason, and I would have thought that any reasonable Government would support it.
Amendments 11 and 12 deal with the default scheme that the Government are going to produce. Amendment 11 simply confirms what the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Andrew Stunell) has said he intends—that there should be no pensioner losers. It is extraordinary, therefore, that he is so reluctant to accept it. He says that it is not necessary. However, because we know that so many Government pledges unfortunately prove worthless, we would rather have this on the statute book than in the form of a ministerial assurance, and we will draw our own conclusions from his refusal to accept the amendment.
Amendment 12 concerns transitional protection. If the Minister argues that there will be no losses under the Government’s default scheme, his argument will suggest that there is no need for such protection. The amendment would ensure that if losses are implicit in the default scheme, the scheme must include the transitional protection that is proposed. That is an entirely reasonable and logical formulation, and I am surprised that the Government are reluctant to accept it.
This series of badly thought out proposals will cause widespread hardship and serious financial difficulty to local authorities, and it is being rushed through a way that will make it difficult to implement properly. It is a sad and sorry saga, and I find it regrettable that the Government have not the realism and the sense of respectability to admit that they have made a serious mistake. They have got themselves into a difficult mess, and the only honest thing that they can, and should, do now is agree to the amendments that would defer implementation until 2014. That would provide time for the issues to be considered seriously and properly by all involved, and would enable the Government to escape from this mess.