Council tax arrears: 450,000 in court, says Labour | Politics | The ...

Hilary Benn said vulnerable people face jail after the government cut benefits. Photograph: David Gadd/Allstar/Sportsphoto Ltd./Allstar

Up to 500,000 vulnerable people, including carers, widows and war veterans, are estimated to have been summonsed to court for failing to pay their council tax after the government cut benefits to help those on low income, according to figures collated by Labour.

Hillary Benn, the shadow local government secretary, said the figures showed that David Cameron had imposed a disastrous new poll tax on the poor, many of whom now face the threat of prison: "Disabled people should not be facing seizure of their possessions or even the threat of prison, simply because this poll tax is penalising them for being poor."

A Labour survey showed that 156,563 vulnerable people were summonsed to court between April and September after support for the means-tested council tax benefit was cut by £500m, around 10% of the total. The government also instructed local authorities to decide how the reduced benefit should be distributed.

Labour made freedom of information requests to all 326 councils in England to ask how many people have been paying council tax for the first time or paying increased council tax since April, when the changes were introduced.

The party then asked how many of the people in this group have received courts summons. Just over a third of the councils, 112, reported that 156,563 people in this group had been summonsed to court. Labour calculates that 455,710 people would have been found to have received summonses had all 326 councils replied.

Benn said: "David Cameron boasts about keeping council tax down, but last April he deliberately imposed a council tax increase on people on the lowest incomes, including hundreds of thousands of low-paid workers. To introduce it on the very same day that he cut taxes for millionaires shows exactly whose side he is on. The failure of this government to identify the number of people affected or to monitor the costs to the courts of all these summonses is negligent and irresponsible. "

Brandon Lewis, the local government minister, said: "This shoddy survey is contradicted by official statistics, which show arrears have fallen in the last year and the council tax collected has increased. In the last year of the Labour government, 3 million summons were issued for unpaid council tax.

Labour dismissed the Tory attack. Sources said the 3 million cited by the Tories covered all courts summons across all income groups — 27 million council tax payers. The Labour figures solely considered 2.6 million poorer people.Labour acknowledges that the highest number of courts summons will have occurred in councils under its control. But it says that Labour councils cover areas with higher levels of deprivation. The cuts in central government grants have hit Labour areas harder. West Oxfordshire Council, which covers Cameron's Witney constituency, has seen its grant increase by 1%. Leeds, where Benn sits as an MP, has seent its grant cut by 5.6% in the last year.

Source: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/oct/11/council-tax-arrears-labour
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