Local Government Finance Bill

Is not the Minister making it quite clear that this is not about the reform of local government finance, but about deficit reduction? The point that my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) has just made is that those people might well have been taken out of tax, but they will now be hit by this measure as well as by housing benefit cuts. Furthermore, the poorest are the hardest hit by the VAT increase—a policy that he once believed in.