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Mr. Pickles: The hon. Lady is courteous in giving way. I saw her name on the Annunciator screen so I came in to listen to her. She is doing well, but we are talking about 12 January. Information had gone out, instructions had gone out, everyone knew that there was a problem, and hon. Members were holding debates on the matter, but still the information had not got through to the Department. I cannot believe that we can run a Department on the basis of reading newspapers, but anyone who read a newspaper would have known. It is an indictment that the information was not passed down and that, on 12 June when a memorandum had gone out, it still had not told people in the Department to correct the mistakes.
Kali Mountford: I am flattered that the hon. Gentleman was so interested in what I had to say, but I would be more impressed if he did not try to use a tiny fig leaf to cover his embarrassment. It is extraordinary to pretend that the mistake is the responsibility of this Government when his Government introduced the procedures and I am surprised that he even attempted to do so.
Mr. Steve Webb (Northavon): The hon. Member for Colne Valley (Kali Mountford) has made a thoughtful speech in this important debate on an important issue, but she misses the point about what happens after six months. We are not saying that all financial support stops then. The significance of the six-month threshold is that it is when pressure starts to be applied to a widow. After six months, she ceases to be entitled unconditionally to what was previously the widows pension and will become the bereavement allowance. At that point, she receives only benefits conditional on actively seeking work and walking through the infamous single gateway. In other words, from the day of bereavement, a clock starts ticking and the widow knows that, six months down the line, pressure will be applied.
Widows will vary in their experience and circumstances of bereavement. A balance has to be struck, but we have been given no justification for the six-month threshold.
It is another arbitrary assertion. I dare say that the pressure for the six-month threshold came not from Richmond house but from the Treasury 30 yd over the road. The balance that had to be struck was between what the Chancellor would let the DSS get away with and the needs of widows.What research has been done into the experiences and needs of widows and when they feel ready to look for work? I would love to know what evidence there is. Or is it just arbitrary or Treasury pressure?
The phrase "By their deeds ye shall know them" will be well known to hon. Members. New Labour has reconstructed the division between the deserving and the undeserving poor. The deserving poor are elderly or poor pensioners and the severely disabled. None of us would query that. Who are the undeserving? The Government have attacked lone parents and the incapacitated, but who would ever have thought that widows would constitute the undeserving poor? That is the group from whom they are now taking half a billion pounds. What is the great crime that widows have committed that the Government need to take half a billion pounds from them? It is that they have lost their husbands. That makes them undeserving under new Labour.
Much mention has been made of what the Government are doing for pensioners and carers. We have heard mention of the so-called minimum income guarantee. I offer my hon. Friends a guide to new Labour-speak. When a new name is given to something, it always means precisely the opposite. Therefore, the Bill to clamp down on information getting out is known as the Freedom of Information Bill, and the Bill to abolish legal aid is called the Access to Justice Bill; and the money to which 500,000 people are entitled but which they will not get is called a guaranteed minimum income. The Government's fig leaf is that they will help poor people through the guaranteed minimum income but, unlike the contributory benefits that they are cutting, the means-tested benefits are not guaranteed and will miss many of the most vulnerable. They have no defence.
My hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel) spoke passionately about the attack on widows through the cuts in SERPS. My hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) pointed out some of the absurdities of the Government's approach. That highlighted an interesting benefits policy issue. Many elderly men are distressed about what will happen because, next April, the widows pension will not be phased down but slashed. It will fall by half, overnight.
While it is Government policy to phase the increased retirement age for women by six months at a time over a decade, this cut is keenly felt--Ministers do not realise this--because, although there is allegedly 15 years' notice, the 50 per cent. pensions cut will happen with dramatic suddenness. There was no notice and people were never told, so they feel angry about the sudden halving of their widows' prospective income. None of us would accept the threat of such a prospect. That is why there is anger and why we need action.
We have touched often on the Government's benefit changes that are an attack on widows, but several other things in our motion have not been touched on. The first is an acute problem for widows: the restriction of council tax benefit. The Conservatives propose that someone who lives in a property above band E--a big house or a house in London--should get only as much council tax benefit
as they would if they lived in a band E property. The Conservatives proposed that for everyone. The Government backed down on their proposal following pressure from the Liberal Democrats and others. [Interruption.] Labour Members snort; I am not sure whether that is parliamentary. I and my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury sat on the Committee that considered the regulation that would have introduced their proposal. We opposed it and voted against it. London Labour Members expressed their concern. The Government forced it through with their loyal Back Benchers but, after that debate, the Government rightly gave in to our pressure. That is a statement of fact.
The Government have protected existing recipients but new widows--widowhood can strike at any time--who live in properties above band E will find that council tax will be paid only up to band E equivalent. Why does that matter? Take a married couple who live in a large house and whose two or three children leave home for university and are no longer part of the benefit unit. The couple still live in a large or high-value home. If the husband dies, the widow, as well as coping with everything else, will find that the Government are saying that she lives in too big a house. That is the implication of the restriction to band E. The Government are saying that such people should trade down. They will only pay band E benefit because those people should not be living in such a big house. That is an extraordinary thing to say to people who have just been widowed. Not only are they being told that in six months they will have to get on their bikes and look for jobs, but, from now, day 1, they are to be told that they are living in too big a house. If they are on income support, they will have to find the shortfall in the council tax bill out of their basic income support--the poverty line that is supposed to be for food and clothing. How can that be acceptable?
I asked the Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Wallasey (Angela Eagle), a written question last week about how many people had been affected so far, because the measure came in only this April. The answer was that the Government do not know. They will know next January. They do not know the effects of their policy on widows. Every widow affected by this--there will be many in London and the south-east where high-value properties are not necessarily huge; we are not talking mansions--will have to make up their council tax out of their basic income support. Because of what the Government have done to local government funding, council tax is rising faster than inflation. It is a serious burden. It is part of the Government's attack on widows.
The amount that the Government are saving through their measures is pathetically small given the scale of Government spending, but it will matter to widows who have to find £2 or £3 a week out of a pension of, say, £60. That is a substantial figure and the Government should reconsider.
It is not just the council tax. What about bereavement tax allowances? That allows widows to keep the tax allowance to which husbands were entitled through marriage in the immediate aftermath of bereavement. The Chancellor abolished that in the Budget but we did not hear about it in the Budget speech. We had to rifle through the Budget press releases. When someone untrustworthy has been to a house, it is necessary to count the silver after
they have gone. When the Chancellor has not mentioned something in his Budget speech, we have to check the press releases to ensure that he has not abolished it. That is the precedent that he has set.
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