ROYAL BRITISH LEGION AND AGE CONCERN ENGLAND PETITION

That this House congratulates the Royal British Legion for securing some 25,000 signatures supporting the Return to Rationing? campaign; notes that a petition was presented to 10 Downing Street on 25 February 2009; further notes with concern that a June 2008 Ipsos MORI survey, commissioned by the Legion, revealed that over a third of the ex-service community over the age of 65 exist on an income below the Minimum Income for Healthy Living as defined by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine; further notes that council tax bills are probably the most significant household expense for older people and yet, according to the 2007 Lyons Inquiry into Local Government, the take-up rate among older people for what is essentially a rebate has fallen by about 30 per cent. since it was renamed as council tax benefit, down from 90 per cent. take-up of the rebate under the old rates system; welcomes the Ipsos MORI survey finding that 56 per cent. of respondents believed eligible veterans would be more likely to claim council tax benefit if it were known as a rebate, not a benefit; acknowledges the 2006 National Audit Office estimate that just a 10 per cent. increase in pensioner take-up of council tax benefit would lift 47,000 pensioners out of poverty; believes therefore that many ex-service pensioners could gain from an increase in take-up resulting from council tax benefit being rebranded as a rebate; and urges the Government to commit now to such rebranding within the lifetime of this Parliament.