13-1-05

Barrett to help bring forward new law on Council Tax Benefit

John Barrett, Liberal Democrat MP for Edinburgh West, will help spearhead a parliamentary campaign to help poorer pensioners pay their council tax.
 
Government figures have shown that £750 million in council tax benefit goes unclaimed every year. Take up rates are especially poor amongst pensioners, with an estimated four out of ten pensioners not claiming the council tax to which they are entitled.
 
John Barrett is co-sponsoring a private members bill, which would place a legal responsibility on local councils to inform all known pensioners in their area of their council tax rights and entitlement.
 
In a statement, John Barrett said:
 
“More and more pensioners are telling me of their difficulty in paying their council tax bills. Because pensioners are on fixed incomes, recent council tax increases have hit them the hardest. What makes a bad situation worse is that thousands of pensioners are paying council tax when they should be paying less or not paying council tax at all.
 
“Council tax is one of the most unfair and complicated taxes in theUK. The long term answer has to be scrapping the council tax and replacing it with a new fairer system, which is based on people’s ability to pay. In the meantime though, this Bill, if passed, could make a huge difference in terms of informing pensioners of their entitlement to council tax benefit and encouraging take-up. 
 
“Hopefully, the Government will get behind this initiative and will not block what I think will be a popular measure when it comes up for debate in the House of Commons.”
 
ENDS