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Mr. Waterson: The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point. That is only one of many practical problems that should be tackled but does not appear to have been considered by those who support a local income tax.

Mr. John Gummer (Suffolk, Coastal) (Con): Does my hon. Friend agree that the Liberal Democrats support such a policy because, in the areas that will get money, they will tell people that money is coming and in areas where they might expect to do better out of local income tax, they will not mention equalisation? Liberal Democrats always say different things in different places. In my constituency, they recently blamed the Conservative winner of a local council election because he was too young and campaigned on the maturity of their candidate. In a nearby constituency, they said how wonderful it was to have a young candidate. Whatever the case, they will always present it.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am sorry to have to repeat myself but the Bill does not deal with such matters. I should be grateful if the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Waterson) dealt specifically with the measure's contents.

Mr. Waterson: I shall certainly do that and try to avoid too much party political discussion. In a sense, the Bill is more about council tax and local government finance than pensioners.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. It is true that the measure deals with how money is found for that purpose but not the detailed ramifications of the various aspects of the way in which council tax or other methods of payment are arrived at.

Mr. Waterson: I thank you for that guidance, Mr. Deputy Speaker. If I may answer my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) briefly
 
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before moving on, he is right about the detail. The briefing note that sadly fell into the wrong hands when the Liberal Democrats launched local income tax stated:

"We might get asked about the rate of local income tax we expect we would levy. We don't want to be drawn extensively into this."

How wise.

Clearly, a system that was different from the council tax and based on local income tax would have winners and losers, especially pensioners, who would pay more under the Bill if they had savings, worked hard and had a decent income. Many pensioners would pay more. It is easy to propose glib alternatives. In the Brent, East by-election, we were promised a £100 refund on council tax but that pledge appears to have been abandoned. In The Guardian, the leader of the Liberal Democrats

"insisted that he had not broken his promise, although he admitted the pledge would not now be met."

I am not sure what that means.

Let me press the Minister on some specific questions. Are we considering a one-off payment or not? He appeared to make it clear in his opening speech that it was a one-off payment to pensioners who are over 70. Yet clause 7 grants the power to make regulations

"providing for the making of payments . . . to persons who have attained the age of 60 years."

It is not unreasonable to press Ministers about the circumstances in which they envisage using those powers. Will the payment depend on opinion polls? Will it be made only to people in marginal seats? Will it apply to swing voters? Perhaps it will be made only to women. There would be much sense in making the payments to older women because the latest findings show that that group in the electorate is going off the Government faster than any other. We need to be told why clause 7 is included in the measure when the payment is described as a one-off.

In correspondence with my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie), the Minister made it clear that the payment is only for 2004–05. My hon. Friend and I accept that at face value. However, that makes the presence of clause 7 even more puzzling. It seems clear that Ministers intend to use it in future and it is important to know the circumstances in which that might happen.

Mr. Bercow: Does my hon. Friend agree that, if the Government are clear in their mind about their use of clause 7 and, moreover, believe that there is no ground for ambiguity on the matter, it would help to have a draft copy of the regulations before the Bill proceeds any further?

Mr. Waterson: My hon. Friend makes a telling point, as one would expect. However, after spending seven weeks serving on the Committee that considered the Pensions Bill, in which many important aspects are left to regulation, and not catching even a glimpse of a draft regulation, I do not hold out much hope.

Andrew Bennett: In the unlikely event of a future Conservative Government, would they make such payments?
 
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Mr. Waterson: With respect, it is not right to ask me to make such a commitment. I am trying to ask the current Government about their intentions, which appear very murky.

I want to ask about the qualifying date. According to my reading of the measure, a person in the household would have to be over 70 on the qualifying date in September to qualify. Why not make that a little more flexible? My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) mentioned the problem of a 70-year-old in the household who dies in the relevant period. Could not we provide that someone had to be 70 on the qualifying date in September, when the amount was to be paid in December or at sometime in the council tax year? That would be simpler and might be fairer.

Why in only this instance do the Government accept the logic of giving help to all pensioners in the same way? On more important matters, they pin their hopes on ever more means-testing. Are they perhaps beginning to appreciate the wisdom of the Conservative policy of restoring the link with average earnings?

I have now reached the part of my speech that the Minister was so keen to hear. Of course, the official Opposition will not stand in the way of older pensioners receiving their £100. Good for them. If there is a vote on the Bill, I shall invite my hon. Friends to support it. However, it is a blatant piece of electioneering. Worse, it has signally failed. It has been revealed to be a panic measure. Its implementation will be bungled because the money will arrive far too late for pensioners in genuine need. Pensioners and pensioners' organisations have seen through the whole exercise. In short, the Government will end up spending up to £500 million with not a single vote to show for it.

1.39 pm

Mr. Steve Webb (Northavon) (LD): One almost feels that the Bill need not detain the House at all. We all know what it is about. As the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Waterson) concluded, it provides for a one-off payment of £100 because the Government are panicking about the council tax; there is an election approaching, and there was nothing in the Budget for subsequent years. None of us would begrudge older pensioners £100 because we all acknowledge that many of them need the money, so why do not we accept that and go home? I rather feel, however, that having been given the Floor, I cannot quite leave it at that—tempted though I am.

The proposed payment clearly has nothing to do with council tax, because it will be paid to people who do not pay council tax, such as those living in households with members under pension age. It will also be paid to people who are already getting a full rebate. So it has nothing to do with council tax, just as the winter fuel payment has nothing to do with winter fuel—it has something to do with the winter, because that is when it is paid, but nothing to do with fuel.

The reason that the winter fuel payment has "fuel" in its title is that that allows the Government to pay it through the social fund, which meant that its introduction did not require primary legislation. If they could have called this payment a "council tax and fuel payment", they would not have needed primary legislation to introduce it, because as long as it has
 
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something to do with fuel, they can deliver it through the social fund. I am not sure whether millions of pensioners realise that they are getting social fund payments at the moment, but I shall draw a veil over that. My hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Jones) has pointed out to me that some of the council tax money paid by pensioners is used to heat council buildings, so perhaps the Government could have used that loophole to bring this payment within the social fund.

This is a bizarre situation. Under the Bill, £500 million—give or take—has been tossed away in the last minutes of a Budget speech. One of the strange things about the Bill is this business about the ability to pay other payments of this kind at any point in the future, as set out in clause 7. I asked a question about the circumstances in which the Government might want to do that, and I received a reply on 30 April, in which the Minister for Pensions referred to the affirmative procedure. So we will get a vote on the proposal to spend £500 million, or whatever, which will be wonderful, but we shall be voting on something unamendable.

The Bill therefore paves the way for proposals for payments—if they were to go to all pensioners, they could easily add up to billions of pounds—to go through after two 90-minute debates. Moreover, the Government will have some influence, shall we say, on the membership of the said Committee through the usual channels. Huge sums of taxpayers' money could therefore be spent with no opportunity to amend the proposals in any respect. That seems an extraordinary power to give to the Government through the Bill. At least we shall have some semblance of a debate today, and we shall have at least a day in Committee, which will give us some chance to look at how that £500 million is to be spent. But the fact that the Bill gives the Government the power to sling a few hundred million more in the direction of pensioners whenever they feel like it seems very odd and rather unacceptable.

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