The Labour peer Baroness Hollis has branded the planned changes in the way less financially able people get council tax benefits as "deeply unfair and wretched".

Speaking to the Today programme she said that, with the new system, "what you will get for council tax benefit depends not on your need but on the lottery of where you live... every local authority will be inventing their own scheme".

Local government minister Bob Neill defended the changes and explains that what they are doing is "giving the local authorities the ability to design schemes which reflect circumstances in their area".

He explained that the key objective is to give local authorities "a real incentive to get people back in to work".

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