Housing Benefit (Changes)

Part of Opposition Day – in the House of Commons at 5:36 pm on 27 April 1988.

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Photo of David Blunkett David Blunkett Member, Labour Party National Executive Committee 5:36, 27 April 1988

The information was given in the House by the Secretary of State for Social Services on 19 November last year and appears in Hansard. Those were the figures. A week last Monday, the Secretary of State for the Environment admitted to the House that so-called concessions on the poll tax rebate would be taken from housing benefit. This afternoon we have to ask, who in the system will be the losers and will have to pay for the concession that has just been announced?

Although we sympathise with those who have capital of more than £6,000, the capital sums are not the real issue. The real issue is that the difference in the tapering arrangements has hit so many widows and pensioners just above the income support level. Those people have scrimped and saved; they have done what the Government so often preach and then denounce when it is practised. Those people have scrimped and saved for their old age. They have put money aside and have taken part in the saving economy. Those people will lose. Those are the people on whose behalf we have spoken during the past few weeks and whom we shall continue to defend until the Government realise that at the next general election they will pay the price for their penny pinching.