HC Deb 17 December 1990 vol 183 c3
2. Mr. Pike

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security whether he proposes to make any changes in the regulations for poll tax rebates.

The Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Tony Newton)

We are currently consulting the local authority associations on regulations for changes to the community charge benefit scheme from next April, largely of a technical nature, and on two other instruments relating to subsidy matters.

Mr. Pike

Does the Secretary of State accept that we want changes that are more than of a technical nature, because, until the poll tax is scrapped, we need to improve the rebate system to help those least able to pay it? Welcome steps would include abolition of the need to pay 20 per cent., an increase of the level at which rebates are payable and changing the tariff income on savings.

Mr. Newton

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that, during the introduction of the community charge benefit scheme, the taper was made substantially more generous than under the old rate rebate scheme, which extended help a good deal further up the income scale. My right hon. Friend the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, now Prime Minister, made a significant improvement in the capital rules at the time of the Budget.

Mr. Jacques Arnold

Is not it the case that half the people receiving community charge rebate receive a discount rate of 80 per cent., which is no small beer? Is not the remaining 20 per cent. no more than the cost of a pint of beer a week?

Mr. Newton

Certainly, many of those receiving community charge benefit—including all those who are on income support—receive an 80 per cent. rebate.

Mr. Kirkwood

May I press the Secretary of State on the 20 per cent. community charge? A cause of some of the worst hardship in my constituency is the abolition of the old 100 per cent. rate rebate and the introduction of the 80 per cent. maximum rebate that is available to community charge payers. Is the rebate for community charge payers part of the review? Is it possible that it will he abolished as well as the poll tax?

Mr. Newton

Rebates, or community charge benefit, as it currently is, follow on from the consideration that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment is giving to the system in a wider sense. The hon. Gentleman knows that the basis of the present arrangement is the view that it is right that everyone should make a contribution. Benefit rates were adjusted to take account of that when the scheme was introduced.