17:03
Tieng Anh Vui
Hundreds of thousands of people have been taken to court in England for non-payment of council tax owing to benefit changes, according to the Labour Party.
Labour said 112 English councils had reported issuing 156,000 court summonses since April to people paying more tax as a result of the changes.
That meant 450,000 individuals may have been taken to court across the whole of England in six months, it claimed.
But Local Government Minister Brandon Lewis said the survey was "misleading".
Labour asked all 326 billing authorities in England how many court summonses they had issued following the change to council tax benefit in April.
It said the 112 authorities that responded were from a representative cross-section of councils, in terms of population density and deprivation, and extrapolating the numbers for the whole of England meant that as many as 450,000 individuals may have been taken to court since April.
'Utter failure'
Shadow communities secretary Hilary Benn said Prime Minister David Cameron needed "to wake up to what's happening across the country".
"People on the lowest income are struggling to pay his council tax rises.
"This is exactly what happened with the Poll Tax, as many are disabled people, veterans and carers," he said.
Pete Lumb, from Hornsea, a small seaside town in the East Riding area of Yorkshire, is one of the individuals that has received a court summons.
He is unemployed and has suffered with mental health problems. Living in a small bedsit, he says he has around £70 a week to live on.
Since April, the council has been asking him for a few pounds a week extra towards the council tax - money he says he simply doesn't have.
"The chances of me getting a job are pretty much nil. I feel society just wants rid of me. I feel a complete and utter failure," he says.
He's worried the next step will be bailiffs coming round.
East Riding Council said that the changes to council tax benefit were "entirely the result of government policy and not anything decided by this council".
It has encouraged anyone struggling to pay council tax to contact the authority at the earliest possible stage.
'Contradiction'
Council tax support changes
Council tax support (CTS) replaced council tax benefit (CTB) in April
Councils decide who qualifies for CTS, rather than the government as under CTB
Councils have 10% less money to fund CTS, changes that will save almost £470m a year
Pensioners are protected and households in Wales and Scotland are unaffected
Before April of this year, millions of people on low income in England paid no council tax at all, or had their bill substantially reduced. The council tax benefit system was then replaced.
The government said this was part of a wider package of changes designed to control the spiralling cost of welfare - and encourage councils to find ways of helping those on benefits into work.
It reduced the overall level of funding by 10% and said each council should decide how much support to offer residents - although pensioners were protected from any cut.
Some councils managed to find savings elsewhere and absorb the funding reduction, thereby maintaining the level of support for low-income households. The benefit cuts were not passed on in Scotland or Wales.
The majority of authorities in England, however, said they had no option but to ask some of the poorest residents for money. Many had never paid council tax before.
Often, these residents have been asked for just a few pounds a week extra. But that can add up to hundreds of pounds a year.
Already there have been reports of queues forming outside magistrates courts on certain days of the week, as the number of cases of non-payment increases.
The Citizens Advice Bureau in Hull said it dealt with 1,000 cases last August, but by this August the number had risen to 3,000.
But Local Government Minister Brandon Lewis said Labour's survey was "misleading" and "contradicted" by official statistics.
He said official statistics "show arrears have fallen, and the amount of council tax collected has increased".
The government does not have its own figures for the number of court summonses since April. Officials emphasise that every year there are a high number of court summonses for non-payment of council tax.
Labour said it had asked councils for specific numbers of cases as a result of the changes to council tax benefit, so the total in its survey represents the extra number of summonses - those people who haven't paid council tax until now, or have been asked to pay more since April.
Đăng ký: Tieng Anh Vui
Posted in: 
0 comments:
Post a Comment