§ 3.36 p.m.
§ Mr. Phillip Whitehead (Derby, North)I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to exclude payments of the constant attendance allowance from calculations of gross income when assessing eligibility for rate rebates under the General Rate Act 1967.No doubt the House is anxious to move on to matters of moment in the wider sphere of housing. I am as anxious as are my hon. Friends to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Grimsby (Mr. Crosland) into the crucial debate and into pressing the motion of censure. I shall therefore detain the House for only a moment.
§ Mr. Russell Kerr (Feltham)On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Many of us are anxious to listen to what my hon. Friend is saying but are completely unable to do so because of the noise of departing hon. Members. Will you therefore ask our dear departed to be more quiet?
§ Mr. SpeakerI am grateful to the hon. Member. I hope that his point has been noted and that hon. Members will withdraw quietly.
§ Mr. WhiteheadI am glad that there are so many hon. Members remaining in the Chamber and I am glad that they take a close interest in these matters.
The Bill seeks to take what many of us feel is the hardest case under present rate rebate schemes operated by local authorities under the 1967 Act and to write in a particular exemption from the calculation of gross income which the local authorities have to make. The exemption proposed is of the constant attendance allowance. I fully accept that there is a whole series of similar payments, notably disability and industrial injury payments, which are added on when gross income is calculated because the local authorities responsible for the administration of the rate rebate scheme have no discretion to vary their terms.
I also accept that the Government are turning over the idea of aligning rate 231 rebate schemes with the rent rebate proposals in the 1972 legislation to allow some discretion to the local authorities. However, the disabled cannot wait. We all know from constituency cases brought to us by the Disablement Income Group that even the basic rights secured by the Act which was piloted through the House, by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Alfred Morris), and since extended in principle by the present Secretary of State, are desperately hard to obtain. Those who secure the attendance allowance are often seriously, or even terminally, ill. The measured pace of massive reviews of legislation by civil servants is not good enough for them.
I have a constituent with multiple sclerosis. In her first six months of receiving the attendance allowance she and her husband found their eligibility for rate rebate drastically reduced. This is not a case of flinty-hearted borough treasurers seeking to grind down people who qualify for the allowance. The treasurer has no discretion to vary the terms under which the calculation of income shall be made under the Act. The local authority must take away its share of the small amount which the State has allowed, and it is taking it away from the desperately sick. A recipient might lose as much as £35 or £40 from the £200 which has been granted after a long struggle. It is not good enough for the Secretary of State to say that his review might put the situation right in due course.
Such people are extremely disturbed to find that what the State gives with one hand the local authority is now compelled to take away with the other. I am told by some of my hon. Friends that in some cases local authorities have actually been 232 circulating recipients of constant attendance allowances to find out whether this allowance is being paid out to a third party or to a spouse, in which case it is calculated for gross income purposes.
I am not necessarily doubting the good faith of the Government in saying that they propose to reform local government finance, but we all know that schemes take a great deal of time and that other things intervene. General elections sometimes intervene and those who plan general elections do not necessarily always win them, and legislation is postponed, or even dropped. We had examples of that in the last Parliament. Meanwhile, a small group, the very needy and the sick, suffer manifest injustice. It could be righted on a time scale which could comfort all of them by the addition of a few words to the General Rate Act. In a spirit of generosity and by a few hours of parliamentary time this House could do it. It is in that spirit that I seek leave to introduce this Bill.
§ Question put and agreed to.
§ Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Whitehead, Mr. Jack Ashley, Mr. Terry Davis, Mr. Finsberg, Mr. Jennings, Mr. Walter Johnson, Mr. Leonard, Mr. Meacher, Mr. O'Halloran, Mr. Skinner and Mr. Stallard.