My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who contributed to this debate. The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, concluded on a point that he made at the beginning: the linking of these numbers to CPI, so that they remain the same in real terms in years to come. That important point remains unresolved, but there is a promise to return to it at Third Reading.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, for his support. As well as the taper, which is the subject of the amendment, he talked about raising the £30,000 or £40,000 threshold, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell. We may need to return to those points.
The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie of Luton, pointed out some of the many hazards in trying to calculate these sums: finding the two highest earners, updating their earnings from previous years and the rest of it. As a former Minister in this field, he understands the complexities of these things, and we should be warned by him of the problems in administering the arrangements.
The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, talked about the various kinds of benefit that need to be excluded from these calculations. I hope that she was at least in part reassured by the Minister’s comments.
The noble Lord, Lord Low, quoted examples from his own experience. The noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, wanted an appeals procedure, and I hope that he was satisfied that the Minister was able to reassure him that there will be an appeals procedure in this regard.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, wondered whether all this was about was raising £100 million to try to reduce the deficit. The Red Book following the last Budget Statement has a figure, and I think that that figure is £125 million a year, so she is not so far adrift there. We are talking in those sort of terms: £100 million a year, maybe £125 million a year, as the figure that will be produced from this.
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The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, pointed out that in the private rented sector, people pay on average some 43% of their income in rent, whereas in the council sector, it is only 28%, so there is room to increase what people in the council sector pay. However, it may be that the private sector rents are too high, not that the council rents are very much too low.
I am extremely grateful to the Minister for explaining a number of the points that have been worrying us. She explained that there will be a taper, how various benefits will be excluded from the calculation of this, how two people who are earning the national living wage would be within the taper and would therefore be okay—but one does not think of people earning just above the national living wage as being really high earners, and that is what this taper is addressing.
In the consultation paper, the Minister put out two choices: either a taper at 20p or a taper at 10p. Virtually everyone who responded to the consultation thought that 10p was rather better than 20p. It is, of course, extremely disappointing that the Minister now tells us that there is a firm commitment to 20p, not 10p: that is twice as much. She makes the point that it is only a little more to pay in rent for those who are only a bit above the level, but if a couple’s earnings are £40,000 instead of £30,000—perhaps each of them earning
£5,000 more than that limit—that is a £10,000 gap, which would mean that £2,000 of the extra £10,000, or £40 per week, would have to go on the increase in rent. With a 10p taper, it would be £20 per week instead of £40. In this amendment, I am claiming that £20 per week extra is quite enough for people who are not on very high incomes. They will have a multiplicity of other commitments, and to suddenly be faced with £40 per week rather than £20 per week makes a very significant difference.
I am glad that this will be looked at under the affirmative resolution procedure; that is good news for later. But I am sorry that the Minister, who I know has worked hard to try to get the best arrangements that she possibly can for us, has not succeeded in satisfying me—and, I suspect, others—with this level of taper. I would therefore like to test the opinion of the House.