My right hon. Friend makes a good point. Let me take my constituency as an example. Compared with April last year, 384 more people are unemployed. The figure represents nearly 7.2% of the population and shows no sign of decreasing. The demand will not be on the central pot but on the councils. If councils have the large pressures that we see in Durham and others, because of the number of children in care and adults with social needs, where will that money come from? We can add the 10% cut to those pressures, too.
As for the chaos that the process will lead to, although some councils—certainly Wokingham—will be able to afford to absorb such a reduction to their budget, not many will be. The mechanics of putting the system in place will be very difficult. What will happen if, with the best of intentions and advice, the computer systems cannot be put in place? Where will a local council find its money? What will happen if a scheme is put in place that has teething problems that lead to mistakes? What will happen with appeals and with the process of dealing with the situation? There is no remedy at all.
Chaos and uncertainty will be faced by many low-paid families in this country and they will not know how the change will affect them. That is why amendment 9, tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich, is right. It must be made crystal clear what the effect will be on individuals. I support my right hon. Friend’s amendment, but I think that it might be playing into the Government’s hands, as they will want to blame the local council—in my case, Durham—for what is happening. Councils need to make it very clear
that responsibility for the cuts lies with this Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition Government. If they do not do that, the tactics that the Conservatives are using and that the Liberal Democrats have sleepwalked into mean that local people will blame local councils.
Local Liberal Democrat councillors in Durham, for example, are arguing against changes to library hours and to local leisure centres. They will sign petitions to their hearts’ content. Small equatorial rainforests are decimated for local Liberal Democrat copies of “Focus” that state that they are supporting decisions against such moves by Labour Durham county council. They are not explaining to the people, however, that their coalition with the Conservatives in government nationally is cutting the county council’s budget savagely while helping the leafy Wokinghams of this world. That is the message we must get across to people: these cuts and their effect on local services and on people’s income are down to the coalition Government.
I reiterate what I have said before: not one single piece of the legislation that has such an effect could go through without the complicity and support of the Liberal Democrats. They must take as much of the blame for the pain and heartache coming the way of many people in County Durham over the next 12 months as the Conservatives and it is no good hiding behind the idea that County Durham has somehow been given the freedom to come up with this scheme.
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My other concern is the differentials between schemes. That will create particular problems in parts of London, where there is a transient population and people frequently move around. They understand the present scheme and know what is expected of them. Different schemes in operation in different boroughs will lead to chaos and confusion not only for individuals but for borough treasurers trying to keep track of what people earn.
The Minister made it clear today that the measure is about deficit reduction. It is no great radical idea about devolving responsibility to local authorities, and no great victory for the Liberal Democrats who believe in the devolution of local decision making. If the scheme has been properly worked out, why can we not have a transitional scheme, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich suggested, so that the people and the councils affected have time to adjust? That would give some local authorities the stability that they will not get from the proposed scheme.
I hate to say it, but, as my right hon. Friend said, in 12 months or less, we will say we told you so. The misery and heartache that will be created for some of the most vulnerable people in our society is shameful. That is to be expected of Conservatives, but not of Liberal Democrats. The Minister may say that according to his impact study, equality is taken into account, but it is not. The measure will affect some of the poorest in society, including many women, who will not be protected in any way. The only group to have been taken out of the system for electoral reasons is the elderly. Having borne the wrath resulting from the granny tax, the Government clearly did not want to upset the elderly by allowing the council tax benefit reduction to affect them.
But the Government cannot have it both ways. They cannot say that they are devolving responsibility to local councils, and then tell local councils that they
must take one section of society out of that scheme from day 1, along with a 10% cut. If it were genuine devolution, it would not have been so rushed, and if the Minister genuinely believed in devolving power, although I have never believed that Whitehall would want to give truly devolved powers to local authorities, there would be no ring-fencing. The Government are doing that because they know that the measure will be unpopular with a large section of the population who actually vote. That is the only reason why older people are excluded from the provision.
A delay is needed, but the Minister let the cat out of the bag and said that the measure is nothing to do with local government finance, but is aimed at deficit reduction. The Opposition would enter into dialogue with the Government about genuine devolution and proper reform of local government finance, but they have shied away from the elephant in the room—the re-banding of council tax. Ministers will not go near that for fear of upsetting a lot of people. If there is going to be radical change in local government finance, it must include a review of council tax bandings. I am sorry if that scares members of my own Front-Bench team. Without that, the Bill is no more than a short-term measure to achieve savings, as the Minister admitted, as a means of deficit reduction.
The strategy has clearly failed. We are now in a continuing double-dip recession, which this time will be blamed on the euro crisis. Why pay for that on the back of some of the poorest parts of the country? That is inexcusable in the Government’s approach to the Bill. Let us do away with the pretence that it is about reform. It is about deficit reduction and about hitting the poorest hardest. We need to remind people at local level that the decisions taken in this place by Conservatives and Liberal Democrats will take financial support from the poorest in our communities and some of the most hard-working families in this country.