|
Column Number: 3
Fourteenth Standing
Committee on Delegated
Legislation
Wednesday 14 July 2004
[Mr. Kevin Hughes in the Chair]
Draft Age-Related Payments (Northern Ireland) Order 2004
2.30 pm
The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr. John Spellar): I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Age-Related Payments (Northern Ireland) Order 2004.
A draft of the order was laid before the House on 24 June 2004. It will fulfil for Northern Ireland the promise in the Budget to pay all eligible households with someone aged 70 or over an extra £100 this year. This is a one-off payment to provide extra help with living expenses, but the order also contains a regulation-making power so that if circumstances warrant it, future payments may be made to people over 60 in specified groups. The equivalent provision for Great Britain is made in the Age-Related Payments Bill, which had its Third Reading in the House on 8 June. As it was a Money Bill, it was not possible to include within it an enabling provision for a Northern Ireland negative resolution Order in Council, so we are proceeding with an affirmative resolution Order in Council. So that payments can be made in Northern Ireland at the same time as payments in Great Britain, the order must be made at the Privy Council on 27 July.
The payment will be disregarded for social security, tax and tax credits purposes. Although the order provides for the social security disregard, as tax and tax credits are excepted matters, the disregard for those purposes cannot be included in the order. Advice from the Inland Revenue is that the payment will not be liable for income tax and will not be taken into consideration for tax credits. To ensure that the administration of the payment runs smoothly, it will be paid with this year's winter fuel payments. When combined with winter fuel payments, it means that households with someone over 70 will get £300 and households with someone over 80 will get £400.
2.32 pm
Mr. Desmond Swayne (New Forest, West) (Con): It is a matter of enormous satisfaction to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr. Hughes.
The attention of the House and the nation is elsewhere this afternoon, so I shall be brief. The order is government by cock-up—not the Minister's cock-up but the Chancellor's. When he announced these
Column Number: 4
payments, the Chancellor did not think he needed a Bill and presumably did not think such an order would be required either. However, that does not mean that I am opposed to such payments. I certainly would not oppose payments that are designed to relieve my constituents of the enormous burden imposed upon them by the 70 per cent. increase in council tax that they have endured since this rotten Administration came to power.
We learned today at Prime Minister's questions that the Chancellor's assumptions are that over the next two years there will be a further 20 per cent. rise in council taxes, so I am certainly in favour of this proposed form of relief. However, I have two reservations. First, the order does not address the fundamental problem, that council taxes are increasing and will continue to increase. That burden is placed not just on the over 70s but on pensioners from the age of their retirement onwards—and indeed on all our constituents. I cited the figures relating to my constituents, but perhaps the Minister will tell us what increase in local taxation has been imposed on the residents of Northern Ireland who will be the beneficiaries of the proposal.
My second reservation is that treating pensioners with one-off payments is not a proper way to proceed in the long run. The power to make such payments as may be necessary in the future does not bode well for the Government's intention to deal directly with the fundamental problem that is at the root of the order. It would be remiss to carry on making one-off payments to try to tide pensioners over the difficulties.
The order excludes people over 70 who have been in hospital for a prolonged period. Are those people subject to an abatement of their council tax commensurate with the abatement of the payment specified in the order? If not, that is most inequitable.
To conclude, the order is an admission of failure. It is an admission that we have failed our pensioners and council tax payers. The fundamental problem has to be addressed.
2.35 pm
Mr. Roy Beggs (East Antrim) (UUP): I, too, am pleased to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Hughes. I welcome the order bringing Northern Ireland legislation in line with that in the rest of the United Kingdom, as any steps to alleviate the financial situation of pensioners facing hardship must be commended. I have raised this issue often, and I am glad to have the opportunity to do so again.
The one-off payment of £100 to single people over 70 in receipt of the state pension credit, or £50 for those not receiving it, will provide some short-term relief. However, my colleagues and I share the concerns of many hon. Members here and in another place that the measure is selective and, to some extent, discriminatory. Many people will feel aggrieved by their exclusion from it.
I seriously hope that the Government are not so foolish as to imagine that they can solve the long-term problems facing elderly people throughout the UK
Column Number: 5
with quick-fix payments. The fact is that if there was an adequate state pension in the first place, there would be no need for the order or similar short-term approaches to tackle fuel poverty in so piecemeal a fashion.
Help the Aged reported last year that the deaths of 1,300 elderly people in Northern Ireland in the previous winter were related to cold weather. That was on the back of a report showing that Northern Ireland had some of the highest levels of fuel poverty in the UK. Sadly, recent research has shown that the Government have failed successfully to eradicate those long-term problems. In 2004, that is nothing short of a national disgrace. It is shocking when up to a third of households in Northern Ireland are not properly heated because of financial difficulties.
The Government's warm homes scheme is a step in the right direction, but more needs to be done to help low-income pensioners to receive from the state the assistance that they deserve as a result of their years of paying tax and national insurance. At present, only pensioners in receipt of certain benefits qualify for the scheme as fuel poor. A large number of people, especially pensioners, fall outside that category while still facing serious difficulties in heating their homes adequately.
The BBC recently reported that Scotland's Deputy Minister for Communities, Mary Mulligan, had introduced measures to allow more people over 80 to get a new central heating system through a Government scheme. Before, only those with no central heating could apply to the programme, whereas now, an extra £3 million a year has been earmarked to enable those with partial or ineffective heating systems to take advantage of the offer. Ms Mulligan recently unveiled a £57 million funding package. Consequently, anyone over 65 with no central heating can have it installed free of charge under the scheme, whether they live in a council house, a private house or a property belonging to a housing association.
That is exactly the sort of action that the Government should be taking in Northern Ireland to root out the problem of pensioners sitting freezing through winter after winter. The Government must be proactive, not reactive, in their efforts to ensure that low-income pensioners throughout the country are adequately provided for during the winter months. I have heard a rumour that the Government are thinking of extending the Scottish scheme to Northern Ireland. I hope that they will think hard and come to the right decision, given the serious long-term problems facing many pensioners there.
We urgently need benefit take-up strategies to be pushed through with public awareness advertising campaigns and departmental initiatives to ensure that the message gets across to those who could be benefiting but are not. Help the Aged reports that up to a third of elderly people are not claiming the benefits to which they are entitled. If that is the case, it is no wonder that so many of them struggle needlessly. In the most extreme cases, some die of cold-related illnesses during the winter. I strongly urge members of the Committee to take a minute to think about the old
Column Number: 6
people whom they know, to spend some time checking to ensure that they are aware of the benefit options open to them and that they are not suffering unnecessarily.
Also absent in Northern Ireland are the data needed to ascertain where the worst-hit areas are and who the most vulnerable groups are, and what measures would be most effective in protecting them. For example, there are insufficient data available on the welfare situation of pensioners across the rural/urban divide in the Province, whereas such data are readily available for other regions of the United Kingdom. Isolated pensioners are one of the most at risk groups, and there is a moral imperative to protect them and ensure that their needs are met by the society that they have spent their lives serving. I should like to take this opportunity to ask the Government why that is the case. What strategic steps have recently been taken to rectify that situation? If and when the Scottish central heating system will be applied to Northern Ireland, it is the way forward, in my opinion, and could not come a moment too soon.
2.41 pm
Mr. Spellar: This has been a brief but useful debate, in which a number of points were raised. One point concerned levels of council tax, and of course, local rates in Northern Ireland encompass both local authority and water rates. The combined rates there are considerably lower than in England and Wales. We should bear that in mind, despite the comments of the hon. Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne)—although the Government are not responsible for the rate in the New Forest, under what is presumably a Conservative council. I merely point out that in the metropolitan borough of Sandwell, which I am proud to represent, we had an increase of only 1.9 per cent. last year, which probably helpfully contributed to maintaining our sizeable and dominant majority.
On the comments made by the hon. Member for East Antrim (Mr. Beggs), he will be aware that the winter fuel payment has increased each year, and in Northern Ireland there is the warn homes scheme. I recognise his concerns about qualifications, but the introduction of gas in many more areas of Northern Ireland is making a significant contribution. We must consider how we can improve those schemes in future.
I take the point made by the hon. Member for New Forest, West about hospital patients although I should point out that the period in question is 52 weeks. There may be some isolated cases where people in hospital for the long term have kept their property. We must consider whether they can qualify for rebates in that context. We shall consider whether there are individual cases, although the nature of the restriction means that they are likely to be limited. At the same time, we are encouraging benefit take-up more generally in Northern Ireland, and in the past three years, the Social Security Agency has secured extra financial help of about £25 a week for more than 8,500 pensioners through promoting benefit take-up. A lot
Column Number: 7
of Members of Parliament and of the Legislative Assembly are encouraging that, through their local offices, and we are working with them.
I welcome the general support for the order. We shall be constrained on a number of the details, because in social security matters we follow United
Column Number: 8
Kingdom rules. However, the order has been generally welcomed in Northern Ireland, and I commend it to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That the Committee has considered the draft Age-Related Payments (Northern Ireland) Order 2004.
Committee rose at sixteen minutes to Three o'clock.
The following Members attended the Committee:
Hughes, Mr. Kevin (Chairman)
Beggs, Mr.
Coaker, Vernon
Field, Mr. Frank
Foulkes, Mr.
Harris, Mr. Tom
Khabra, Mr.
Sheridan, Jim
Spellar, Mr.
Squire, Rachel
Swayne, Mr.
Wyatt, Mr.
|
