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Pensions Bill

Can the noble Lord suggest how, under any circumstances, he will remove council tax benefit and housing benefit from an existing pensioner population—all 11 million or so of them—who are in their existing housing with their existing income and entitlement? How will he bring the number down from 30 per cent or 25 per cent to 10 per cent in order for the second part of proposed new subsection (2) to come into play without making them poorer? Does he propose that they should have that benefit withdrawn, or that the local authority should cut rents, or that the Government should halve council tax? Given that he is dealing with the existing pensioner population, he cannot have more than marginal changes at the edges of the statistics. The noble Lord is therefore saying that the amendment would in effect delay the implementation of the legislation to the disarray and discomfort of all the stakeholders involved who have been planning to this timetable. There is no way in heaven or hell that you can deliver proposed subsection (2), given the existing pensioner population who are already in the council houses and flats and housing association homes and claiming council tax benefits now. The amendment is nonsense. It is simply a recipe for delay that would disrupt the entire planning process for all the stakeholders who are working to the 2012 deadline. I suggest that the noble Lord thinks again.