Mr. Dunne: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many foreign nationals married to students have been granted exemption from paying council tax in (a) each local authority in Shropshire and (b) England in (i) 2005-06 and (ii) 2006-07. [91440]
Mr. Woolas: Dwellings occupied only by school leavers, students, or students and their partners or dependants, not being British citizens and who are prevented by the terms of their leave to enter or remain in the United Kingdom from taking paid employment or from claiming benefits, are exempt from council tax under Class N of the Council Tax (Exempt Dwellings) Order 1992. The Department does not hold figures for the number of dwellings that fall to be exempt under Class N because they are occupied solely by non-British spouses and their student partners, independently of data on the number of dwellings falling to be exempt under Class N as a whole.
Where a non-British partner of a student meeting the criteria above lives in a household with non-students or any other non-disregarded person they are disregarded for the purposes of calculating the household's bill. The number of non-British partners counted as being disregarded, and reported by local authorities to the Department for Communities and Local Government on the CTB1(S) forms, in (a) each local authority in Shropshire and (b) England as at (i) 1 November 2004 and (ii) 10 October 2005 are shown in the following table. The data for 2006 are not yet available.
