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Welfare Reform Bill

Like the right hon. Member for Enfield, North (Joan Ryan), I welcome that small step towards trying to improve take-up of council tax benefit. It is worth while, but it is very small step on a very long journey. My understanding is that council tax benefit is the social security benefit with the worst take-up rate of any in the entire system. As she said, many hundreds of thousands of pensioners, and indeed many veterans, are missing out on serious sums. It has always struck me as absurd that we have a grotesquely unfair local tax system, which we then attempt to ameliorate with a hopelessly ineffective means-tested benefit. Calling it a "rebate" is entirely welcome and may encourage some who do not currently claim it to do so, and it is therefore a step in the right direction, but surely the better system would be to have a fair local tax system to begin with. If we did, we would not need council tax benefit—or indeed council tax rebate. That must be a better way to go. In the debate on this group of amendments, we have spoken about disability living allowance. One possible amendment is, as it were, the dog that did not bark. Will the Minister say where the Government are at on DLA reform? In another place, Ministers said that when a child is on DLA, a lone parent will not be sanctioned for not seeking work. There is some uncertainty whether that applies to people on the care component or the mobility component of DLA. We expected a Government amendment to implement that pledge, but none has been proposed. Will the Minister reiterate that when a lone parent has a child on DLA, they will not be sanctioned for not seeking work, and that that applies to both categories of DLA, not only the care component? Those who have lobbied on the issue would be grateful for a clear statement of the Government's position. We have spoken about the RPI amendment. I must admit that I, too, am rather baffled about this. I am sure I can recall years in the recent past when Ministers have increased the state pension by more than the RPI, so it cannot be that the law—primary legislation—prohibits increases greater than that in the RPI. Therefore, current regulations cannot set a ceiling on increases. Why do we need statutory powers to go beyond a floor? As the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr. Harper) said, it is confusing why the amendment is in the Bill at all.