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Rates (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Order 2006

Yes, but I gave an example. A pensioner, even in a house worth £500,000—and I do not know whether there are many houses of that value with pensioners living in them—would have to have savings of more than £16,000 and/or £35,000 gross annual income not to get any help with the rates. It is not as if they will be penalised. The idea that we are penalising pensioners who are living in high-value houses, irrespective of income, cannot be true. Those are not nominal sums of money; in modern parlance, £16,000 savings or £35,000 annual income. Those pensioners will still get help and gain under the present system; they are not losers. That is in a house worth £500,000; not to mention houses of lesser value in which the gainers would gain more.