Welfare Reform

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Lords Chamber

Question

15:02

Asked By

[Lord Christopher]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether their welfare proposals took account of the International Labour Organisation’s Convention 29 on forced labour.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Freud)]

My Lords, I can confirm that the proposals in the White Paper Universal Credit: welfare that works are compatible with the United Kingdom’s obligations under the International Labour Organisation's Convention 29 on forced labour.

[Lord Christopher]

My Lords, I am obliged for the Answer, which does not take us a great deal further than it did last Thursday. I have two concerns. One is the obvious Question that I tabled, and the other is that what is proposed at the tail end of exercises with those who are on benefit is clearly without any constructive objective whatever. This is a fascinating document, written 80 years ago. It is an interesting social read. There are 33 articles and I will read just three lines.

[Noble Lords]

Yes, come on.

[Lord Christopher]

It is no good looking at something if you do not know what it is. The Forced Labour Convention states:

“For the purposes of this Convention the term forced or compulsory labour shall mean all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily”.

I have been in touch with the ILO this morning and I believe that it is looking at the jurisprudence that has gone on in the past few years. Will the Minister explain how what they are doing meets that objective?

[Lord Freud]

The mandatory work activity is designed to help a small number of customers to get back into the labour market, with labour market disciplines. If the noble Lord is referring to the attitude of the ILO on the matter, ILO experts produced a report on it in 2007 in which they accepted that this kind of work to help people back into the workplace was acceptable.

[Lord Skelmersdale]

My Lords, may I take my noble friend a little further? Does not Article 2(2)(b) of ILO Convention 29 specifically exclude,

“any work or service which forms part of the normal civic obligations of the citizens of a fully self-governing country”?

Will not these provisions, once enacted, cover that point?

[Lord Freud]

I thank my noble friend for that question. As noble Lords will be aware, Convention 29 was originally designed with colonialism in mind and was then applied more generally. We do not think that the programmes that we are looking at apply in any way to ILO Convention 29 or, indeed, ILO Convention 105. Likewise, the Joint Committee on Human Rights looked at the European Convention on Human Rights in this context and found that these programmes do not apply.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Christopher has raised one of a number of interesting questions about the Government’s welfare proposals. Another relates to what the Minister said last Thursday on hardship payments. In response to my noble friend Lord McKenzie, he said:

“Hardship payments will be available, and the exact levels will have to be determined”.—[Official Report, 11/11/10; col. 330.]

However, in a move that the Child Poverty Action Groups says will be a retrograde step, the White Paper published on the same day says:

“We are considering replacing the current system of hardship payments with loans”.

Does the Minister regret that he was not more forthcoming on this controversial policy? I cannot believe that such a capable Minister would forget what was in his White Paper.

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, if I have forgotten what is in the White Paper, I stand reprimanded. In practice, we are looking to take elements of the hardship payments and the Social Fund generally and to localise them, including some of the loans. We are also looking at putting other elements into the universal credit. No hard decisions have yet been taken in this area. We are looking to finalise the restructuring of the Social Fund as we go into the next few weeks and introduce the Bill.

[Lord German]

My Lords, I am not surprised that the Minister has found that the ILO agreement suits the welfare reform proposals before us. However, does he agree that a symbol of a good welfare system is not how many people are locked and trapped within it but how many can be helped to get out of it? Is that not the reason why the welfare reform proposals are before us?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for putting his finger right on the point of these proposals: this is a measure to help people back into work. I should point out that a very similar measure, the Work for your Benefit scheme introduced by the previous Administration, was looked at by the Human Rights Joint Committee in the light of Article 4 of the ECHR, and it was found that it in no way went against people’s human rights or constituted forced labour.

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

My Lords, the Minister mentioned the universal credit, which I and, I think, most of the House very much welcome. It will bring together half a dozen benefit payments into one. At the moment, as the noble Lord will know, some payments, such as tax credits, go to the mother, whereas others, such as JSA, may go to the father. How will the Minister ensure that with a universal credit mothers’ incomes are protected?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for that question. With regard to the wallet and purse issue, we are giving each household the option to decide who gets the universal credit. We are also exploring whether couples can decide to divide the credit between them. Again, that is a decision that we have to finalise.