My hon. Friend is entirely right. Even if we supported the Government’s changes in the Bill, their failure to align the changes with universal credit will cause chaos throughout the system, including for staff.
Many Government amendments relate to Wales, which the Government forgot about when they drafted the Bill—to lose a county is unfortunate; to lose a whole country is rather careless—but the Welsh Government have said they are profoundly concerned by the plan. Some 327,000 people in Wales will be affected, whom the Government also seem to have forgotten about—they have developed a habit of absent-mindedly mislaying citizens, such as those in work or those who happen to live in Wales.
The Government have tabled a series of amendments on council tax reduction schemes and default schemes, which could have been discussed properly had draft regulations been brought before the House, as the Minister promised us on 31 January. Instead, we are once again being asked to grant wide powers to the Secretary of State without any idea how they will be exercised, which is extremely worrying and a poor way to make legislation.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich raised the rushed implementation of the proposals, an important problem we raised in Committee. Last week, we received statements of intent, but not the draft regulations we were promised. I get the feeling the Government are simply not ready to implement the proposals. It is as if someone, somewhere in the Department for Communities and Local Government—I suspect the Minister for Housing and Local Government—had a wizard wheeze and said, “I know. Let’s cut council tax benefit,” but did not work out the details. The Government, following the example set by the Prime Minister, do not seem to do detail. They just wave a languid hand and say, “Detail will follow.” But, in government, details matter. They affect the lives of the people whom we represent. The Bill will result in enormous changes for
local authorities, which are being asked to cope with changes to non-domestic rates and with the localisation of council tax benefit, all at the same time.
By next year, local authorities will have to be ready to run their own local schemes, yet the Bill was rushed with indecent haste through the Committee—because the Government did not appear to understand the rules for carrying over a Bill—then kept hanging about like some kind of slow-cooking stew until after the Queen’s Speech. It will not have a Second Reading in the other place until, I believe, 12 June, and its first Committee sitting there is scheduled for 3 July. If, as I am told, the other place will not be sitting in September, who knows when the Bill will complete its passage?
Amendments will have to come back here, and if they are not agreed to—[Interruption.] The Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) talks about the recess, but he has perhaps forgotten that this House is sitting in September, although the other place does not appear to be doing so. That is the kind of detail that matters when we are trying to get legislation through. There could well be ping-pong between the two Houses. Regulations will also have to be set and passed by both Houses. In the meantime, councils are being expected to draw up a scheme without knowing the precise rules that they will need to follow, and with no certainty about their funding. That is not sensible government—it is pass-the-buck government.
We have also heard about the difficulty of producing the software required to implement the changes. Councils will need to be very clear about what they want from the firms that are designing that software, but they do not have the necessary information at the moment. Why are the Government so determined to meet the 2013 date that they will not listen either to local authorities or to the experts who design the system? I would call them pig-headed, but that would probably be unfair to pigs. Why are they so keen to impose cuts on the poorest people and chaos on local authorities? We know the answer: it is simply that they are out of touch.
The people who will suffer are the poorest people. Councils are in a no-win situation. If they protect vulnerable groups other than pensioners, those in work or seeking work will face even larger reductions in their income. This Government believe that the poor must pay for the poor, while tax cuts are given to the rich. They believe that the living standards of those who have very little have to be cut, while bankers in partly state-owned banks swan off for courses on executive nutrition at a spa. I am sure that many of the poorest people in this country would love to have to worry about the type of nutrition that they got; most of them have to settle for what they can afford.
The Government do not call the money given to bankers a handout, but that is what they call the money given to local councils. They do not call their tax cuts for millionaires a handout, but that is the term they use for the money they give to local councils to run essential services. This is a Government without a proper sense of direction and without a proper sense of right and wrong. We will continue to monitor the effects of the Bill. We will press our amendments to the vote, and we will ensure that the plight of the poorest people who are being hit by these provisions is not forgotten. It is for that reason that I urge my hon. Friends to vote in support of new clause 5.