Official Report search · Parliament Workbench

Chamber

Plenary, 06 Dec 2006

06 Dec 2006 · S2 · Plenary

Item of business

Council Tax

Swinburne, John SSCUP Central Scotland Watch on SPTV

I have never heard, in any debating chamber, so many people try to defend the indefensible. Indeed, I find it incomprehensible that any intelligent person can argue for the retention of a totally regressive taxation system.

In response to Tommy Sheridan, Charlie Gordon said that the Labour Party will restore the link between earnings and pensions. That will not happen until 2012, which will be exactly 15 years after Labour came to power—if it is still in power at that time—and a third of a century after Maggie Thatcher did away with the link. On Mr Sheridan's point about the erosion of the value of pensions, today's pension will be worth the equivalent of only £71 before anyone gets around to reassessing the situation and restoring the link.

I could make 1,001 points and talk for four hours on this subject, but I have only another three minutes. Where do I start? The Burt report recommends that

"a new Local Property Tax (LPT) should replace council tax."

That is simply the council tax by another name.

We should take a hard look at recommendation 10 in the report, which refers to

"the introduction of an optional deferment scheme for pensioner households who own their own homes".

That is already happening. As soon as anyone enters a care home, the first person at their bedside is a social worker to means test them. Means testing is the abomination that we all have to live with today. Good, decent people who have worked hard all their lives are being degraded by having to parade their poverty before civil servants and getting—if they are lucky—a pittance in return.

As far as "deferment" is concerned, social workers already tell people in care homes, "You don't have to sell your home to pay for your care—just sign this deferred agreement." The soul signs the paper and, when he or she dies, the vultures descend and take the house to pay for the care that he or she received over the previous X number of years. That is probably what the Burt report means by the

"optional deferment scheme for pensioner households who own their own homes".

What about those who pay rent? They simply do not come into the calculation and will receive no relief.

It cannot be right that, in 2006, a pensioner can receive a national pension of only 9p a week from this Government. Someone might have cared from the age of 16 for their mother for 20 years until she died and then cared for their father for another 24 years until he died. When they turn 60 and try to collect their pension, they find that they have no stamps. When they say, "But I've been a carer all that time," they are told, "If you had applied, we would have given them to you." When they ask whether they can apply retrospectively, they are told that they cannot. Moreover, they might be asked whether they have any money. If they say, "My father left me £25,000," they are simply told, "Come back when you're poor. In the meantime, you can have the minimum pension of 9p a week." We should all think shame of ourselves.

In any case, we must do something to stop means testing. I liked Mr Pringle's suggestions in that respect; indeed, I might even be tempted to vote Liberal with my first vote.

Search Hansard contributions

Plenary, 06 Dec 2006

In the same item of business