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Rates (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Order 2006

I can answer some points, but I probably did not sufficiently explain the benefits to low-income people. I will not go over it again. I know that we are far more polite in the House of Lords, but the Liberal Democrats should be ashamed of themselves. More low-income people will benefit under this system than under the present arrangements. Even a pensioner couple living in a £500,000 house would have to have incomes of over £35,000 and/or savings of over £16,000 in order not to get any help under this new system. At that level, they would still get help. They are going to be the minority. Most of the speeches that I have heard only make the case for the 45 per cent of those who have benefited under the present system. Obviously, because there has been no revaluation for nearly 40 years and house prices have gone up by different percentages in different areas, people have clearly gained. We must take account of that. We cannot go down the road of local income tax. It is seductive but impossible to explain, as the last general election proved. Property taxes are cheap to raise; the cost of admin is cheap, which is an important factor. You do not want to waste money collecting the tax in the first place, you want to collect the tax. Doing so on a basis that people can understand must be fairer. Before I respond to the individual issues, I must apologise. This is one of the problems of being part of the action when the issues are being discussed, but not being part of it at the end. I thought that we had put a single person option unrelated to ability to pay into the order, but it is not there. I alluded to the fact that it may be. There are things that the Assembly can do, but they are all related to the ability to pay—low-income households and low-income pensioners. They are things that are specific to pensioners, but they are related to income. The only non-means-tested relief to which I referred is the one for people with a disability, when the house has been modified because of the disability. That 25 per cent is not means tested. But the other relief that is non-means-tested is the one for young people or people in education living in a household. That is related not to ability to pay but to the pursuit of education and the age of the young people. I apologise for that. Most people in Northern Ireland will gain. That is the central issue, which people do not seem to appreciate. It is very difficult to argue against more people gaining, which is what the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats appear to be doing. This is not the poll tax, which meant more losers; with this, there are more gainers. I gave the figures of 68 per cent, if one looks at it in terms of households, of people who either gain, remain the same or pay less than £1 extra. If you take the narrow view of gainers and losers,55 per cent of people will either have the same situation or they will gain. I appreciate that the people who tend to complain are the losers. Most people, but not all, who tend to be the losers in this are those living in the properties whose value has gone up faster than the average. If they had all gone up on average, there would be no difference.