Clause 4 - Disqualifications
Age-Related Payments Bill
10:15 am
Professor Steve Webb (Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Work & Pensions; Northavon, Liberal Democrat)
That was the assumption I was working on.
The other reason why this is a good amendment is that there is incoherence at the heart of the Bill. The Government say that it is about helping with council tax; they then say that people who are not paying council tax—ordinary people on pension credit in ordinary homes, who are getting their full council tax paid—can have £100 because the Government want to give them £100. People in hospital, however, who are not paying council tax either, will not be given £100 because, the Government ask, why do they need it when they are not paying council tax? It is rubbish. Why discriminate against old people who do not pay council tax because they are ill by saying that they cannot have any help while saying that healthy old people who do not pay council tax because they are on council tax benefit can have help?