(12 years, 10 months ago)
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“(3) Any such steps taken under subsection (2A) should be consistent with any advice relating to child poverty provided by the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission.”
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
My Lords, we form a select few still in the Chamber. I remind noble Lords that the Child Poverty Act 2010, which established the Child Poverty Commission, was passed with cross-party support. We believe that there is now similar support for the proposal to expand its remit to deal with social mobility. We welcome that move. However, our Amendment 62F seeks to ensure that the commission has a duty, an obligation and a right to advise Ministers so that the fruits of its expertise, research, understanding and work are put at the heart of decision-making. This is not to replace the Government’s role in decision-making but to input at the appropriate level into the intelligence available to the Minister, as strategies to tackle child poverty are developed and implemented. Amendment 62CZA seeks to ensure that the child maintenance and enforcement policies similarly do not fly in the face of objective, evidence-based advice. The Child Poverty and Social Mobility Commission may be a very valuable think-tank, academic centre of excellence and great publishing venture but without this duty to advise it will not be guaranteed a voice in Whitehall.
We naturally warmly welcome the Government’s Amendment 62JA, which appears to meet our request in Amendment 62K, and which enables Ministers to provide the commission with any resources, including research, which Ministers think are required for it to carry out its functions. Perhaps the Minister will confirm that this will enable the commission to request research directly where it believes that there are important gaps in the data available to it. Will the Minister also outline what might happen if the commission believes that such research is necessary but the relevant Minister does not? While we are delighted that the Government have seen the need for such research, it would be useful if the Minister could also say when exactly he expects the new commission to be established, as we need its input. These amendments are needed to strengthen the role of the Child Poverty and Social Mobility Commission. Amendment 62F is central, not an add-on, to the work of the commission. It would restore the duty for the commission to give advice to Ministers on the preparation of their strategy. The DWP note states:
“The Government believes that policy development should be the responsibility of Ministers … and should not be delegated to arm’s length bodies. The Commission’s current advisory role inadvertently provides a route for Ministers to avoid accountability if the Strategy proves ineffective by shifting responsibility to the Commission”.
It goes on to state that the commission will henceforth only be able to give advice on technical issues around the measurement of poverty and social mobility.
We welcome the strengthened accountability whereby the annual report of the commission will report on progress towards the target. Far from being incompatible with the commission providing advice on the strategy, part of that advice comprises being able to input into Ministers’ thinking on matters beyond just technical issues around measurement. A serious commission with quality members and staff will be hard to establish if it is denied the existing duty of advising Ministers. What, after all, will be the point of it as opposed to having this work done by a university department? There is no chance that Ministers would simply delegate development of a strategy to an unelected commission. It is clearly Ministers on whom the ultimate duty to eradicate child poverty falls, and who will be answerable in this House and elsewhere for the success of that strategy. Placing on the commission the duty to give advice to the Government would strengthen its role and status, allowing it to provide the independent scrutiny, intellectual challenge and source of expertise that were envisaged in the original Child Poverty Act, which passed with cross-party support. I beg to move.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett
My Lords, I rise briefly to support the amendment of my noble friend Lady Hayter. However, her case was made on the assumption that the commission will have expertise. The original requirement that commissioners must have expertise relevant to the work of the commission has been taken out by this legislation. Apparently, the Government have argued that, because the commission will be a reviewing rather than an advisory body, the expertise requirement is no longer needed in the schedule. However, as End Child Poverty points out, this makes no sense. Reviewing requires just as much expertise as advising.
I should therefore be grateful if the Minister could give a rather better explanation as to why that provision has been taken out, because it is in danger of weakening the commission. I understand that the commissioners will be appointed through the non-departmental public body appointing process. Can the Minister explain how the process will work in this instance? What type of expertise do the Government believe is necessary for the commission, taken as a whole, to have? How will the NDPB appointment process ensure that the commission has such expertise? We are of course talking about expertise on both child poverty and social mobility. It is perhaps also worth considering not just traditional academic forms of expertise but the expertise born of experience.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Freud)
My Lords, at the start of these two groups of amendments on the child poverty commission, I want to make it clear that this Government are absolutely committed to tackling child poverty. Our child poverty strategy, published in April last year, set out the package of reforms that we are implementing to ensure that no child faces a life trapped in poverty. As part of this, we want to create a new and more powerful commission that can assess the progress made as reforms are implemented.
Amendment 62F seeks to ensure that the commission continues to provide advice to the Minister as to how to eradicate child poverty. As noble Lords are aware, the new Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission differs from the original child poverty commission in a number of important aspects. First, it will have a broader remit that will encompass social mobility as well as child poverty. Secondly, it will for the first time have the power to publicly assess government progress. The previous child poverty commission’s role was simply to provide advice to government. The new commission is required to produce an annual report that assesses whether the Government are taking the steps that they said they would in their strategy, and it will therefore have the opportunity to hold the Government to account for the steps that they are taking and point out where they are falling behind. This will ensure that Ministers are still responsible for developing the strategy, as is right, but that there is external examination to ensure that it is being implemented.
Finally, the commission will no longer play a direct role in the development of the Government’s child poverty policy. This third change is crucial if we are to maintain our commitment to ensure that unelected public bodies are not established unless there is a clear need for their work to be carried out independently of government. This is one of the three key principles of the review of public bodies carried out by the Government last year. It is the role of the Civil Service, directed by Ministers, to develop policy. This is not a job for external bodies.
We cannot justify establishing a public body to provide advice when there is already a wide variety of ways in which government can access such guidance. Indeed, many of the organisations that we might expect to see represented on such a body provided recommendations on the current child poverty strategy via our extensive consultation exercise. Giving a single public body a statutory power to provide advice to government on child poverty policy also risks undermining ministerial accountability. It offers a degree of scope for Ministers to shift responsibility for their policy to an external body. When publishing its report each year, the commission will have the opportunity to advise the Government on steps that they should be taking to implement the strategy. As an independent body, the commission would be able to respond to government consultations and put points to Ministers, alongside other organisations with an interest. It is a fundamental principle of this Government that Ministers are accountable for the policies and strategies they put forward. Therefore, while we will continue to consult widely on this policy area, we do not believe that the commission should be given a special, statutory role in providing advice.
I can tell the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, that we are committed to establishing the new commission as soon possible, once the necessary legislative changes are made. That means, given that I need to define “as soon as possible”, that as soon as the amending legislation has been passed we will begin to put the new commission into place.
If the commission thinks research is required but the Minister does not, whether or not a particular request is granted will be a matter for private discussion between the Government and the commission. The commission will be able to request research directly; there is provision for it to do that.
On the issue of the expertise on the commission, raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, we intend that it have the appropriate balance of expertise in child poverty and social mobility and we agree that a commission without specific expertise in these areas would not be effective in carrying out the functions set out in the Bill. How will we conduct the appointment process? All members of the commission, including the chair and the deputy chair, will be appointed using a fair and open recruitment process which meets the standards required by the office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett
I am sorry to interrupt, but I also made a point about expertise born of experience. I sat on the Commission on Poverty, Participation and Power, half of whose members had experience of poverty. It was one of the most rewarding experiences of my career, because the insights of those with experience of poverty were such that I could not bring to the subject. Will the Government be open to such expertise?
Lord Freud
Yes, my Lords. I hope that I was making clear that our intention is to get people who are experts in the area. It is hard to overspecify what that means, but people in that category could provide a powerful insight. I am not going to write the job spec in detail tonight, but clearly those would be attractive sets of experience for the commission.
Amendment 62CZA would require that any steps taken in relation to collecting child support maintenance should be consistent with advice given by the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission. I will stick precisely to the point in relation to the commission rather than straying back into some of the discussions we had earlier this evening. Our view is that the commission should not be involved in developing policy. From that it follows that we do not think that it should develop policy on child maintenance. That is something for which Ministers alone should be responsible—or perhaps responsible for alongside the House of Lords.
Moreover, where payments are reliable and regular, child maintenance provides parents with care with a separate income stream that may improve the lives and life chances of some children in or near poverty. We have concluded that child maintenance payments are estimated to have a small, non-reportable impact on the number of families living in relative income poverty as currently measured and with current data sources.
Amendment 62JA, the government amendment, and Amendment 62K, would both create an explicit provision in the Bill for the Government to carry out research at the commission's request if it so wishes. We addressed that issue briefly in Committee. I gave assurances that having that provision in the Bill is unnecessary. The Bill already enables Ministers to provide the commission with any resources, including research, which Ministers think are required for the commission to carry out its functions. However, given that the issue has arisen again, we decided to table an amendment to allay any remaining concerns. The government amendment provides that Ministers have the power to carry out or commission research at the request of the commission if they so wish.
Before I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw the amendment, I make it clear that the Government do not consider any of the amendments consequential. I commend Amendment 62JA.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
I must respond to the Minister’s reiteration of the Government's commitment to reducing child poverty. He will be aware that I shall therefore quote from the IFS study and its prediction that the number of children in poverty, having fallen to its lowest level for 25 years, will, under the coalition Government’s policies, rise to its highest level since 1999-2000 by 2020, at which time one quarter of all children will be poor. We of course look to the Government to prove the IFS wrong by making sure that that prediction does not come true.
I am interested that it is the move to get rid of quangos that has led to the desire to remove the word “advice”. I think that that is wrong. In addition to needing expertise, on which there is some agreement, the commission needs authority to be able to advise ministers. That is not policy-making; it is an input into policy. Describing its advice as being alongside other bodies devalues it, but the Minister has said that he wants this to be a more powerful commission. If that is the objective, clearly, we support it. We like the change of name and remit. I hope that he can hold to that in setting it up. I guess the great bribe to us this evening, having been told that it would be set up when the Bill was through, is for me to sit down as soon as possible and enable the Bill to be enacted so that the commission can be set up.
I hope, however, that even if the word “advice” will not be there, Ministers and future Ministers will take the output of the commission extremely seriously as they develop policy, not simply in the implementation of it. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Freud
“Review of fees regulations
In section 6 of the Child Maintenance and Other Payments Act 2008 (fees), after subsection (3) there is inserted—“(3A) The Secretary of State must review the effect of the first regulations made under subsection (1).
(3B) The review must take place before the end of the period of 30 months beginning with the day on which those regulations come into force.
(3C) After the review, the Secretary of State must make and publish a report containing—
(a) the conclusions of the review, and(b) a statement as to what the Secretary of State proposes to do in view of those conclusions.(3D) The report must be laid before Parliament by the Secretary of State.””
Lord De Mauley
“Standards of decision-making
Section 81 of the Social Security Act 1998 (reports by Secretary of State and Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission) is repealed.”
Lord De Mauley
My Lords, government Amendments 62D and 67A deal with the requirement on the Secretary of State and the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission to prepare reports on the standards achieved in making decisions which may be appealed to the First-tier Tribunal. The duty was introduced in the Social Security Act 1998, and only three reports have been laid before Parliament since then. The reports have added little to drive for change within the department to improve standards in decision-making and they have not generated any debates or wider public interest.
In the past, publication of the report has been fraught with delay because of National Audit Office concerns over the quality of data. The department does not directly collect data on decision-making for the majority of the benefits that it administers and the best data available that would be used for this report are already in the public domain. The data which are publicly available include the monetary value for error figures for most Jobcentre Plus-administered benefits. Similarly, CMEC publishes its accuracy statistics every quarter in the publicly available quarterly summary of statistics. Accuracy figures for benefits formerly administered by the Pension, Disability and Carers Service used to be published in the PDCS annual report and will in future be published in the DWP annual report and accounts. Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service is also already publishing its statistics quarterly, including receipt and disposals by benefits types, outcomes of appeals and outstanding caseload. The report referred to in our amendment does not therefore add anything to the sum of knowledge. It will only duplicate the publication of data that are already in the public domain. To produce further new data in support of the report would add a substantial and unnecessary administrative cost and process for very little gain.
Our commitment to improving the quality of decision-making is met in other more effective ways. The department is working closely with HM Courts and Tribunals Service in the joint appeals taskforce to improve standards in decision-making and, as a consequence, reduce the caseload of appeals. Within the department, Jobcentre Plus has introduced the new national checking team, which was rolled out nationally on 31 October 2011. This is in response to a commitment to the Public Accounts Committee to extend the existing independent checking teams deployed in the Pensions, Disability and Carers Service. Its accuracy support teams are already deployed to measure attendance allowance, disability living allowance, state retirement pension and pension credit. The checking teams will examine the end-to-end benefit process, covering all aspects of delivery and focusing on improving overall standards. The aim of the checking teams is to identify performance improvement, not to meet number targets. The current NCT is covering IS and JSA new claims and will expand in due course to cover existing IS, JSA and ESA claims. The full national checking team will be in place by the end of June 2012.
On balance, in the light of all the department’s other activities, I do not believe that, even if further resources were to be expended, the reports would provide any additional information leading to substantive improvements that are not already being addressed, for example, through work by the department with HM Courts and Tribunals Service to improve decision-making so that there are fewer appeals, taking note of feedback from the tribunal judiciary and training for decision-makers. We know that critical to the success of welfare reform will be the quality of the assessment and the quality and standards of decision-making. A substantial amount of work has been carried out to ensure that that will be the case. For example, for the new personal independence payments we will be thoroughly testing our processes before implementation in a model office, enabling us to see how they affect the administration of the benefit.
We will start with a phased introduction to new claims only until around the autumn of 2013. While we recognise that this will be only a short period of testing the assessment and its associated processes will remain living tools well after implementation, and we will continually monitor and evaluate them. Perhaps I should also remind noble Lords that we tabled an amendment that will require us to conduct two independent reviews into the assessment criteria and processes and that the first report must be made available to Parliament within two years of the implementation of personal independence payment. The same applies to changes to child maintenance under Amendment 62CA, which ensures that we will report back to Parliament with a review and conclusion based on the review within 30 months. That reflects our belief that we have the right approach and we will evaluate it to ensure that that is the case. The department is currently developing an approach to the evaluation of universal credit which will address the key aspects of universal credit delivery and implementation.
I assure your Lordships of the department’s continuing commitment to improving standards. I reiterate that I do not believe that this statutory requirement provides any additional benefit, so we wish to repeal this duty. However, our commitment to improving the quality of decision-making and transparency will not diminish. With those reassurances I ask noble Lords to accept Amendments 62D and 67A.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, for that extensive introduction to the amendment. The effect of it would seem to be to remove CMEC’s duty to report on decision-making standards. The Government judge that this statutory duty provides no particular benefit: first, because the majority of the data is already in the public domain; and, secondly, because the reports have not generated any debate or wider public interest. When the noble Lord introduced the amendment, something he said about difficulties with NAO data rang a bell. There are historical issues around that, which I understand and acknowledge.
I have two questions. If the majority of the data is already in the public domain in other forms, what is included in the minority of the data that is not, and therefore that might be missed? Secondly, the noble Lord went through an extensive list of benefits that might be affected. I would like to be clear about this. The amendment removes Section 81 of the Social Security Act 1998. That covers a range of appeals covered by Chapter 1 in Part 1 of the Act, which will include appeals other than those relating to CMEC. Of particular interest are the data on appeals outcomes in relation to ESA, which have been a particular bone of contention. The statistic that 40 per cent of appeals are successful—I think that that is roughly the latest position—has driven a focus on the process. I would like to be clear about this. Perhaps the Minister will expand a bit on the range of benefit appeals that the amendment seeks to cover.
Lord De Mauley
I wonder whether the noble Lord would mind awfully if I wrote to him.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, that would be fine, as long as the noble Lord will concede that if we feel, following that and having read the record, that anything is unresolved, we will bring it back at Third Reading—within the rules, I hasten to add, as the Chief Whip is sitting alongside him.
Lord De Mauley
My Lords, I am now informed that there will be nothing in future reports that will not be available elsewhere. At least that answers the noble Lord's first question. Perhaps an answer to the second is coming.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, I am happy to have the answer in writing, as long as we can have it a decent time before Third Reading. That would be very helpful.
Lord De Mauley
My Lords, there has been much talk of the cavalry this evening, and mine has now arrived—at least it would have if I could read it. Decision-making in both the department and CMEC will be repealed. This will cover all benefits. Does that help the noble Lord?
Lord McKenzie of Luton
I think that it may, if I understand the scope of it. Does it mean, for example, that the data that we get relating to appeals and ESA—I cannot off the top of my head remember how those data get into the system—will be included? That is a very important statistic and is likely to remain so. If it will be taken out by the amendment, how else will it be covered, and how will it flow through into the public domain?
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, I am happy to leave it there for the moment. However, I will read the record. I would like to understand how the data become publicly available and whether the amendment will preclude them being made available by this route.
Lord Adebowale
“Condition relating to mental health
In section 8 of the Welfare Reform Act 2007 (limited capability for work), after subsection (4) there is inserted—
“(4A) Regulations made under subsection (1) shall provide that a person assessed as suitable for employment and support allowance by virtue of his mental condition but not currently receiving treatment from a mental health provider service shall be immediately referred to an appropriate mental health provider service and the prime provider shall then ensure that the person is already receiving or now receives suitable mental health employment support.
(4B) The Secretary of State shall issue guidance on what constitutes an appropriate mental health provider service and suitable mental health employment support for the purposes of subsection (4A).””
Lord Adebowale
My Lords, at this late hour I will try to be brief. The noble Lord, Lord Layard, who put his name to the amendment, apologises for his absence; he is at Davos. I am aware that the noble Lord, Lord Freud, expressed sympathy with the sentiments of what I am about to say in support of the amendment. I appreciate that and hope that we can move forward.
I start with a shocking fact; more than 1 million people are on incapacity benefit by virtue of mental illness. The condition may not be curable but it is treatable. Noble Lords may be interested to know what proportion of these people are in treatment. The figure is 52 per cent. This comes from the official psychiatric morbidity survey. It is the number of people receiving any form of treatment. Of those, half receive medication only, without any form of counselling or talk therapy. This tells us everything that is wrong with our current situation. We pay people money because they are sick but we do not have a process to ensure that they get treated. There is not a lot in this Bill that we can do to change that—that is the way it is—but if somebody is drawing benefit because they are sick, they should surely either be in treatment for that sickness or immediately be offered treatment. Anything else is a shocking waste of taxpayers’ money, apart from anything else.
Lord Turnberg
My Lords, in the absence of the noble Lord, Lord Layard, I would like to intervene briefly on his behalf. He spoke eloquently in Committee on this matter, and he is now busy saving the world in the economic forum in Davos, much to our dismay. I do not know exactly, but I have no doubt that he would want to point out that people with mental illness form a very high proportion of those who are out of work and seeking employment. They must be among the most difficult to place in work and among those we must strive harder to help. I recognise that the Government have put in place a system that aims to help with prime providers and so on but, as we have heard, this is of only modest benefit. It would be made so much more effective if, at the same time as being assessed for work and support allowance, claimants could be assessed medically for their mental illness and given the relevant treatment. A person whose mental illness is treated must be much more likely to get into work and to stay there. As the noble Lord, Lord Layard, pointed out in Committee, it makes no economic sense for the country, let alone for the people themselves, to leave them out of work because they are not gaining access to the relevant diagnosis and treatment that could make them fit for work. This is a marvellous opportunity when they are being assessed for work for them to be given the opportunity to get the treatment that would make them fit for it. I hope the Minister will look at this amendment as a valuable adjunct to the Bill and will accept it.
Baroness Thomas of Winchester
My Lords, I have a great deal of sympathy with this very practical amendment to a very real problem.
We heard a lot on Monday about taxpayers’ money, and particularly about how unfair it is for people on out-of-work benefits to be receiving more from the state for doing nothing than many of those who are in work, paying their taxes. However, we seem strangely passive about the problem of thousands of ESA claimants who are signed off work because of mental health disorders, thus costing the state millions of pounds, and who, as we have heard, are not required or even encouraged to seek treatment.
My noble friend the Minister sent us all a very interesting booklet entitled Models of Sickness and Disability Applied to Common Health Problems, written two years ago by Gordon Waddell and Mansel Aylward, a lot of which I have now read, he will be pleased to hear. We know that mental health problems now account for more than 40 per cent of long-term sickness absence, incapacity for work and ill-health retirement. We learn from the booklet that if current trends continue, within a few years they will be the majority; that the problem is mild to moderate conditions such as anxiety-related disorders, depressive disorders and stress; and, as we have just heard, that the cost of mental illness in the UK is estimated to be as high as £40 billion to £48 billion per annum, the greater part of which is due to sickness absence and long-term incapacity. Finally, we learn that about one-third of the working-age population have mental symptoms such as sleep problems or worries; one-sixth would meet the diagnostic criteria for a mental illness such as depression; but only about 6 per cent of the working-age population actually seek healthcare.
No wonder those who have made more of a study of these statistics than I have have tabled this amendment. However, the jury still seems to be out, according to page 39 of the booklet, on exactly which treatments improve work outcomes, although there is strong evidence that various medical and psychological treatments for anxiety and depression can improve symptoms, clinical outcomes and quality of life. Waddell and Aylward conclude that there is an urgent need to improve vocational rehabilitation interventions for common mental health problems, and that promising approaches include healthcare that incorporates a focus on returning to work, workplaces that are accommodating and non-discriminating, and early intervention to support workers to stay in work and so prevent long-term incapacity.
We now also have the report Health at Work: An Independent Review of Sickness Absence, by Dame Carol Black and David Frost, published in November last year. They mainly focus on those in work who might well be off sick without the right interventions, and make the point that people with health conditions too often do not receive appropriate early support to remain in work, especially those with common mental health conditions.
I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Adebowale, will not divide on this amendment at this hour but perhaps he will instead seek a meeting with the Minister to discuss how to take forward this important matter, perhaps together with Dame Carol Black and Professor Waddell. I can quite understand why it is tempting to put something prescriptive into the Bill, but I do not believe this would be the right way forward.
Lord Winston
My Lords, I, too, also promised the noble Lord, Lord Layard, that I would chip in briefly on this amendment. As has been said, he is in a very different place—and I think they are probably all mad there anyway in Davos.
This is actually a very serious issue and I feel very deeply about it. It is a very good example of where there needs to be some joined-up thinking between what happens with welfare and the Health and Social Care Bill. This is one of the concerns that we have: more and more people with various mental disturbances—and of course it is a vast range of disease, much of which will probably not be helped by conventional treatment—becoming a particular problem in the workplace.
I support this amendment on the basis that a great deal can be done for mentally ill people, particularly those with anxiety disorders who are not necessarily severely incapacitated. The right support in the community—particularly, living in the community—is of immense importance. There would be a good chance of saving money for the Government if attention is paid to this area. I do not think that we would wish to press this amendment today but it still requires support even at Report stage.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
My Lords, I have listened to what has been said and there has been quite a lot of support for the amendment. Indeed, some of the figures are very alarming, including the amount that lack of provision costs the economy. My question concerns how much of what we are talking about in the amendment is available within a reasonable distance of where people with these conditions live. If there is not an adequate supply, which I have a sneaking suspicion may be the case, what are the Government’s plans to ensure a reasonable regional, at the very least, supply of this form of treatment?
Lord Wigley
My Lords, I support the amendment and I am very grateful to the noble Lord for bringing it forward. It is important that we do not allow this dimension not to have the necessary attention before this Bill completes its passage. Everyone accepts that mental illness is a widespread challenge and we all commit to the need for something to be done. Yet, decade after decade, we hear the same noises being made and we wonder whether progress has been achieved.
As has been said by a number of noble Lords tonight, it is not just for the benefit of the individual—clearly it is to the individual’s benefit if he or she can remain in work or get into work with the necessary intervention, help and support—as it is also clearly of benefit to society as a whole and to the economy.
Following on from the comments we have just heard about the regional dimension, I should like to add the rural dimension. It is difficult enough for those with mental illness problems in cities but it is sometimes even more difficult in rural areas where there are not the support networks within anything like reasonable distances. In any thinking that the Government may be doing on this, perhaps that also could be taken on board. Even though this proposal may not find its way into the Bill, I hope that the Minister is in a position to indicate to the House the thinking on the way that this dimension can be taken forward.
Baroness Tyler of Enfield
My Lords, I, too, add my support for this amendment, which was moved very powerfully by the noble Lord, Lord Adebowale. As other noble Lords have said, all we need is a little bit of joining up between some of the important work that has been taken forward by the DWP and Jobcentre Plus, the very laudable intentions of the work programme and the work being promoted by the Department of Health. I have looked at the DoH website and its work in relation to increasing access to psychological therapies. It talks about how it is now much more possible to join up the help being provided to those with mental health problems as regards their anxiety and depression, as well as helping them back into work.
One example of which I am aware involves Relate, the charity in which I have a declared interest, working closely with Mind in the Hull and East Yorkshire region and the Humber NHS foundation trust. Working together, the programme that they are providing for people with mental health problems is helping to tackle their anxiety and depression while, because they have an employment adviser on hand, helping to get them back into work and to stay in work. This is the sort of approach that we should be advocating. It just needs a little more joining up, which is exactly the spirit of this amendment. I also hope that it will be possible to have further discussions on these important bits of joining up between the welfare state and providers in the voluntary sector.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
My Lords, does not Davos sound interesting? I gather that the Prime Minister is there as well as the noble Lord, Lord Layard, but that Mick Jagger decided not to turn up. The advantage in one sense of the absence of the noble Lord, Lord Layard, is that we have had the privilege of hearing the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Adebowale, who is second to none in his experience of working with substance abusers and those with mental health problems. It is good to have him here.
The subject of mental health is an important one and has featured a lot in our debates throughout the Bill—in discussions on where and whether conditionality is appropriately applied, in looking at the length of time for which contributory employment and support allowance should be available, and in assessing ways of dealing with the caseload for DLA and how best to introduce and assess the new PIP criteria. In all these we have been dealing with the consequences of the increasing mental problems that have been touched on. We know that the diagnosis of mental health problems has been rising. An NHS study in 2007 found that the prevalence of common psychiatric disorders severe enough to need treatment was between 6 and 9 per cent among people of working age. That means that we are talking about between one in 10 and one in 20 of our fellow citizens.
The consequences of that for the Bill and for the DWP are most obvious in the growth of the number of people eligible for DLA. Since 2002 the rise in the number of claims—which the Minister has frequently cited when making the case for reform of the benefit—has been almost entirely accounted for by those with either learning disabilities or mental health conditions. So, ensuring that employment and mental health treatment services are working closely together would have clear benefits not only—although most importantly—for claimants, but also for the department’s own efforts to reduce the number of people forced out of work through ill health. Equally vital will be an attempt to work with employers to help them better understand and equip themselves to be able to use the talents of those who, whether on an ongoing basis or for short periods, experience poor mental health.
I hope the Minister will outline in his response not only how employment-focused services, in particular for those on ESA, are working with mental health experts and ensuring that claimants receive the right treatment, but also what his department is doing to encourage employers to put the right support in place and to take a positive attitude towards workers with poor mental health. If he follows up on the excellent suggestion of a meeting, it would be particularly appropriate, along the lines set out by my noble friend Lord Winston, to include the Department of Health in it. Perhaps we will be able to encourage a bit of cross-Whitehall working on this issue.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Freud)
My Lords, I start by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Layard, who is in a better place, and the noble Lord, Lord Adebowale, who moved the amendment, for all their work on mental health conditions. Last month I had a very good meeting with the noble Lord, Lord Layard, on these matters, so there is an active dialogue. I want to put this into some context. This is an area that I have taken an enormous interest in, and I think that we need to go much further. What we need to realise is that we are right at the beginning of the process of even thinking that for people with these kinds of illnesses, work is a solution and not a problem for them. It is early days in our understanding of what to do and how to do it, but in the years to come we will have a really good opportunity to try to lock some of this stuff down. It can be done from several directions, which I want to describe.
The problem is that, as we know, around a third of those going on to ESA have a primary diagnosis of a mental health condition, although dual diagnosis and co-morbidity is seen in many cases. Indeed, a lot of people have mental health problems because they are long-term unemployed or long-term inactive. They need the right interventions to help them back into work, and mental health services are absolutely vital in that area, along with employment training and support. It must be the role of GPs and health services to diagnose conditions and work out what, if any, specialist health support should be provided to each individual, and to make those referrals to specialist health services. They have the knowledge to make those complex judgments. It is not the role of non-medically qualified individuals in Jobcentre Plus to do that; it is simply not appropriate. They can do some things—they can signpost people to health support such as the IAPT programme; they can provide work support—but they do not have the training or the knowledge formally to refer individuals to specialist health support. Nor do I want to go down the road of mandation into treatment or of out-of-work obligations. That is not the right way to go. I think that noble Lords will immediately understand all the human rights issues around that.
I assure noble Lords that we have a significant number of safeguards in place to ensure that individuals who present with mental health conditions and who may need specialist health support are signposted to such support. If at work capability assessment stage an individual presents with unexpected findings or undiagnosed physical or mental health conditions that cause the healthcare professional concern, and they feel that their GP should be aware of it, that information goes to the GP within 24 hours of the assessment. Again, it reinforces the role of the GP.
I am not talking about passing the buck to the NHS, because we have an important role to play. We need to ensure that the incentives in the system are right so that we stop people falling out of work—mental health conditions come second behind musculoskeletal conditions in the list of reasons. These concerns led me to commission the sickness absence review led by Dame Carol Black and David Frost. That important review has done a lot of the analysis that I wanted, and one of its recommendations was an independent assessment service which offers a kind of second opinion and a much more coherent view on what a person can do in terms of the workplace and their illness. That is about catching people at the right time, and I want to be able to catch people right at the start. The review has made a very serious set of recommendations which, as we work through their implications, could become a valuable motor to our rethinking how we supply help and make the connections between health and work. That is one opportunity that we now have. We are taking our time to get our reaction out because we want to get it right and to sort this issue out in its context.
We are also working with work programme providers to help them support those of their participants who have a mental health condition in gaining employment. We have had a bit of a slow start, as I had to admit in this Chamber yesterday, with the flow of ESA, although there are good signs that it is beginning to pick up. We have established a relationship between the prime providers and the mental health specialists, and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Adebowale, who is one of the key people in working out the mental health interventions that help people on the road to work. He has started working that out precisely and I am looking to him to give me some of the answers. I should probably vote against him rather than him against me because he has the responsibility in that area.
Within Jobcentre Plus we have launched a new support for all advisers to ensure that they are better skilled in helping claimants to improve their health and well-being. Jobcentre Plus employs disability employment advisers who are able to help claimants with the most severe health problems and to refer them to specialist divisions, such as Work Choice. We employ mental health and well-being partnership managers to build practical links between the local mental health services and employment services. Outside of the employment support we provide, the department has been actively engaged with the Department of Health to ensure that employment support is an integral part of the IAPT programme. Similar work is ongoing with the devolved Administrations.
This is a serious amendment on a serious matter. It is a difficult matter and we are not going to sort it out with a little bit of legislation. I commit to continue giving the issue serious consideration and effort. We can make a big improvement to the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and I commit to go on working in this area. I will have any meeting on this matter. My door is always open anyway but on this matter it is wide open. I therefore urge the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Baroness Thomas of Winchester
Is Access to Work still available to people with mental health problems?
Lord Adebowale
I thank the Minister for his thoughtful response and the Members of the House who have taken part in this useful debate.
It is frustrating for me that there is evidence about the interventions that are likely to work with people who have the most common types of mental illnesses which restrict their ability to work—mainly anxiety and depression. The use of programmes such as Beating the Blues—the cognitive behavioural therapy approach which is most widely used in mental health, and the most widely researched intervention in the world—has a measurable and predictable impact on mental health. It is possible to apply some of these approaches and improve a depression and anxiety score such as to enable someone to work.
It is important that we pick up on the point, which noble Lords may not fully have understood, that we are dealing with people in a client group who are sometimes ill, but most of whom want to work. This is not me saying that—it is the expression of these individuals. They recognise that work is a powerful mental health improver. One in six people with serious mental health conditions currently work, and yet eight in 10 wish to do so. This means that there are 356,000 people with mental health conditions in the UK who wish to work but are not doing so. These people are inviting an intervention.
Although I recognise the seriousness of the Minister’s remarks on this issue, there is a systems failure that we could resolve. This is not about people like me and my organisations coming up with credible solutions; we have to match those credible solutions with the policy and the practice of the DWP. That is why the amendment is so important.
While I am on the subject of the work programme, my discussions with Ministers often ended with the sentence, “It is early days”—and it is early days—but the days are running out.
Lord Freud
“UK child poverty strategies
(1) Section 9 of the Child Poverty Act 2010 (UK strategies) is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (7)(a)(i)—
(a) for “progress” there is substituted “measures”; (b) for “needs to be made” there is substituted “need to be taken”.(3) In subsection (7)(a)(ii)—
(a) for “progress” there is substituted “measures”;(b) for “intends to make” there is substituted “proposes to take”;(c) for “in achieving” there is substituted “to achieve”.(4) In subsection (7)(b)—
(a) for “progress” there is substituted “measures (other than those described under paragraph (a))”;(b) for “intends to make” there is substituted “proposes to take”;(c) for “in achieving” there is substituted “to achieve”;(d) the words from “otherwise than” to the end are repealed.(5) In subsection (8), for paragraphs (b) and (c) there is substituted “and
(b) give an account (in such manner as the Secretary of State considers appropriate) of the effect of those measures, so far as relating to the purposes mentioned in subsection (2).””
Lord Freud
My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 62G, 62H, 62J and 62L, which have been brought forward to ensure that the commission’s duty to report on child poverty in the UK does not duplicate the responsibilities of the devolved Administrations. They clarify that accountability for progress on devolved matters affecting child poverty will remain with the devolved Administrations. They have been developed in close consultation with those Administrations.
The Government have always been of the view that the new commission will be most effective if it continues to have a UK-wide remit. That is why it will continue to have a member appointed by a Minister from each of the devolved Administrations, in addition to the members appointed by UK Ministers. However, it is important that the commission does not unduly duplicate the scrutiny measures already provided by each of the devolved Administrations. We have therefore agreed that the annual reports will not present the commission’s views on the progress of the devolved strategies. The reports will only describe the child poverty measures taken by the relevant devolved Ministers. This approach will ensure that responsibility for scrutiny of the content of the devolved strategies remains with the devolved Administrations.
Secondly, these amendments also enable Northern Ireland to join the commission at a later date, if the Northern Ireland Assembly passes a Motion to that effect and a Minister of the Crown makes a corresponding order. Until then, the commission’s report is not required to comment on the Northern Ireland child poverty strategy, and the commission will not have a member appointed by the relevant Northern Ireland department. By giving the Assembly this option, this approach allows us to proceed with the commission for the rest of the UK, respects the rights of the Northern Ireland Assembly and ensures that we adhere to the principles of the devolution settlements while ensuring that the Sewel convention is not breached. These amendments ensure that we can create a commission which can sit effectively alongside existing devolved provisions and report on progress across the UK.
Amendments 62EA and 71 clarify the provisions in the Child Poverty Act 2010 that set out the requirements for UK child poverty strategies. The Act requires each UK strategy to,
“describe the progress that the Secretary of State considers need to be made”,
over the period of the strategy. The current UK child poverty strategy does this in detail. It sets out the radical package of reforms that the Government are introducing and provides a clear timeline for progress in terms of policy implementation. However, the strategy does not set interim targets for reductions in child poverty by the end of the three-year strategy period. We do not wish to incentivise the short-term income-transfer approach in which small amounts of moneys are given to families to lift them just over the poverty line. This is the easiest way to improve child poverty figures but it does not strike at the heart of the problem. This is what our reforms will do, tackling the root causes of poverty and providing a sustainable solution which will enable us to meet the 2020 targets.
This approach is absolutely in line with both the letter and the spirit of the Child Poverty Act. It is important to confirm in statute our existing understanding that the Act does not require progress in this context to be expressed in numerical terms or interim targets. These amendments will ensure that it is a matter for the Secretary of State to decide how the strategy should describe progress and make it crystal clear that a long-term approach such as that outlined above is in line with the requirements of the Act. These amendments will ensure that the commission does not duplicate the responsibilities of devolved Administrations and clarifies the requirements for child poverty strategies.
The Government see Amendments 62H, 62J and 62L as directly consequential upon Amendment 62G. However, further Divisions would be required should noble Lords wish to push the other amendments in this group to a vote. I beg to move.
Lord Wigley
My Lords, I rise to speak to the amendments that deal with the devolved Administrations. I wondered until almost the last sentence that the Minister spoke exactly what the game was going to be. From what I understand, it will be mainly in terms of the avoidance of duplication. I do not know whether I have got that right—and perhaps the Minister can indicate whether it is mainly the avoidance of duplication, as opposed to giving anything additional with regard to the powers.
The 2020 target has had considerable enthusiastic support in Wales, but the progress has not always been as positive as one would have hoped. Of course, definitions of child poverty can sometimes be a problem, as I am sure that the Minister will immediately acknowledge. It is not just with regard to absolute levels of poverty; it is to do with relative levels as well. Perhaps the Minister will respond to this. One challenge is to get joined-up thinking between the devolved Administrations which have responsibility for social services, education, community services and local government. Many of the other responsibilities are in Westminster, particularly the economy and taxation and the transfer of resources. That is clearly important in cracking this problem. I welcome any steps being taken here that bring greater coherence and better working together between the various parts of these islands for that purpose. But I hope that something additional will come into the equation that enables greater progress to be made to eradicate child poverty, not just in Wales but throughout the UK.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, we are supportive of Amendments 62G, 62H and 62K. As we have heard, Amendments 62G and 62H clarify the position with regard to the devolved Administrations and Amendments 62J and 62L do so with regard to Northern Ireland. The briefing note explains that Amendments 62G and 62J ensure that there is no overlap between the role of the commission and the devolved Administrations by ensuring that the commission describes rather than assesses progress on each of the devolved Administration’s strategies. Could the Minister confirm, however, that the commission will still take a UK-wide view and ensure that it assesses progress across the whole country, including assessing where central government may need to take specific actions on those policies within its remit in a particular nation?
I listened carefully to what the Minister said about Amendment 62EA, clarifying the requirement in the Child Poverty Act for UK child poverty strategies to describe the process that the Secretary of State considers needs to be made by the end of the period. The department says that the amendment will confirm the Government’s existing understanding that a description of the progress in narrative or policy terms meets the requirements of the Act. Perhaps the Minister can say a little bit more about this amendment. As I understand it, the intention of the Child Poverty Act was to ensure that the Government set out a strategy to ensure that this progress was made rather than simply describe, perhaps in numerical terms, what that progress would look like. We would be concerned if the effect of the amendment was to weaken the duty on the Government to set out such a strategy.
Lord Freud
My Lords, the amendment is intended to clarify the Child Poverty Act, not to change the substance or affect the law. It will make it absolutely clear that describing progress in terms of policy is entirely in line with the requirements of the Act. It does not alter current government policy on child poverty. The Government will continue to be required to produce a child poverty strategy every three years, setting out the measures that will be taken and the progress that needs to be achieved in that period. The purpose of the latter two amendments is simply to clarify how progress can be described.
To pick up on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, the amendment will ensure that scrutiny of devolved matters relating to child poverty remains with the devolved Administrations, thus respecting devolution conventions. We will continue to work closely with the devolved Administrations to ensure that both the commission and the devolved strategies contribute to continued progress against the goal of ending child poverty.
Lord Freud
“( ) A report under subsection (1) must also describe—
(a) the measures taken by the Scottish Ministers in accordance with a Scottish strategy,(b) the measures taken by the Welsh Ministers in accordance with a Welsh strategy, and(c) in the case of a report made after the appointed day for Northern Ireland, the measures taken by the Northern Ireland departments in accordance with a Northern Ireland strategy.”
“( ) A Minister of the Crown may, if the Commission so requests, carry out or commission research for the purpose of the carrying out of the Commission’s functions.”
Lord Freud
“( ) After subsection (2) there is inserted—
“(3) In this Part “appointed day for Northern Ireland” means such day as a Minister of the Crown may by order with the consent of the Northern Ireland Assembly appoint (and different days may be appointed for the purposes of different provisions of this Part).””
“Review into the impact of the calculation of universal credit
The Secretary of State shall conduct a review into the impact of the calculation of universal credit, to conclude one year after the coming into force of this provision, and shall publish a report on the review to both Houses of Parliament, on—(a) claimants’ ability to access childcare, and(b) the impact on work incentives for second earners.”
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
My Lords, as has been repeated and endorsed many times, a main aim of universal credit is to make work pay. This amendment seeks to ensure that universal credit makes work pay for women and parents. At present, there are very real fears that, first, the cuts in support for childcare that the Government have introduced and, secondly, the impact on second earners of the way that universal credit has been designed will mean that universal credit leads to fewer women entering or remaining in the workplace. The amendment therefore asks for a review of the impact of universal credit on claimants in these two areas, to enable us to monitor the extent to which such fears are justified.
I trust the Minister will not try and tell us that a review costs £1.4 billion—the figure he quoted on 17 January for a review of the introduction of PIP, admittedly with some trialling, which he told us was happening anyway,. He has of course yet to answer my subsequent query on how this figure was reached, but I urge him not to repeat it today. He also told us on 29 November that the Government were investing £2 billion to cover all the costs of implementing and operating universal credit, which is why the figure of over half that for an independent review of a different aspect of the Bill is a little hard to comprehend.
Nevertheless, we welcome the Government’s support for the principle of reviews. In the case of child maintenance, according to the letter distributed to Peers mid-morning today, the Government’s amendment to review the impact of all their child maintenance reforms 30 months after the introduction of charging to ensure that the reforms have driven the behavioural change anticipated shows a welcome willingness on the part of the Government to test the evidence to see whether they achieved their aims. This amendment seeks no less. It is to enable the Government to set out the evidence for their various changes and assess the impact on the families concerned.
Lord Freud
My Lords, I have to admit that this amendment is not as expensive as the £1.4 billion PIP one, because the noble Baroness is looking to do the research afterwards rather than stopping it all and doing the research first, which would have delayed it. The reason why the PIP amendment was so expensive was the one-year delay, meaning that all those savings would not have accrued.
The intention behind this amendment is to allow discussion of the impact of the universal credit on both the accessibility of childcare and work incentives for potential second earners. Working families will be able to receive support in respect of 70 per cent of monthly childcare costs up to £760 for one child or £1,300 for two or more children. These amounts are equivalent to the current arrangements in tax credits.
We understand that childcare plays a crucial part in parents’ work decisions and are determined to help those moving into the workplace, which is why we found the extra £300 million to help people below the 16-hour limit of tax credits. The childcare market is very varied and does not always effectively meet the needs of working parents. We are introducing flexibility into the system, such as through introducing monthly limits based on actual paid costs, so that it supports the childcare market better. Local authorities in England and Wales have the duty to secure as far as reasonably practicable sufficient childcare for working parents. The Department for Education is currently consulting on whether a local annual report would be a more effective and meaningful way of enabling parents to hold their local authority to account.
Let me move now to the concerns over the work incentives for potential second earners. My views on this are on the record. The costs are high. If couples who were both in work were entitled to an additional disregard of, say, £700 a year, the cost would be £240 million. If the disregard were £1,000, the cost would be £350 million. Those are the sums and we simply do not have them at this stage. Universal credit should mean that most families in which one parent works full-time for 35 hours a week for the minimum wage will not live in poverty.
The amendment asks us to confirm in legislation that we will undertake a formal review of both these areas. However, my real response is that these are just two particular areas. We will monitor the effect of universal credit right across aspect after aspect of its impacts. I have also included powers in the Bill to pilot different policy approaches. We will do that by having affirmative regulations to approve particular pilots. Any substantive changes following a pilot will also require regulations and be subject to the usual SSAC, so there are a lot of protections here.
It will not be a question of doing a review of something such as the second-earner incentive. I want to see a pilot in which we can pinpoint the value of moving it around. That is a far more useful way of finding out such things. What is the effect of the taper? What is the effect of the second-earner disregard? What is the effect of moving them around? We need to know all these things in a much more coherent way than we would from carrying out a review. We will have econometric analysis of a kind that leaves anything that we have seen in the past in the dust. Therefore, this requirement for a review and a report on specific impacts just creates unnecessary bureaucracy. That is not the way I want to do it.
To summarise, I hope it is clear that we are aware of these two issues, which are very important and interesting. I will continue to give them the attention that they deserve, and I therefore urge the noble Baroness to withdraw this amendment.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
Having had the promise of the intention to give these issues the importance that they deserve, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Freud
“( ) in subsection (3A), “Part 1 of”;” |
“Section 1B(2).” |
“Section (Further entitlement after time-limiting)(2).” |
“Part 14Standards of decision-making
Short title and chapter | Extent of repeal |
|---|---|
Pension Schemes Act 1993 (c.48) | In section 171A— (a) in subsection (2), paragraph (b) and the preceding “or”; (b) in subsection (3), “, or annexed to,”. |
Child Maintenance and Other Payments Act 2008 (c. 6) | In Schedule 7, paragraph 3(3).” |
“(2A) Section 57 (entitlement of lone parents to income support etc) will come into force no earlier than 1 April 2013, and not before the implementation of universal credit.”
Baroness Lister of Burtersett
My Lords, yesterday the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, said to me, “Trust you to have the last amendment”. I am not sure that it was a compliment. Amendment 69 relates to the implementation timetable for Clause 57, which ends entitlement to income support for lone parents whose youngest child is aged five. This is to be introduced as soon as possible after the Bill receives Royal Assent. This modest amendment seeks only to introduce a delay to the implementation of the proposed change to ensure that it aligns with the planned introduction of universal credit, and to encourage the Minister to put on the record some concessions that would ease the situation of the lone parents affected.
Moving an additional 100,000 lone parents off income support and on to jobseeker’s allowance when their youngest child reaches five is a short-sighted measure in the current economic climate. Increased conditionality and tougher sanctions serve only to add unwarranted pressure on lone parents, when suitable employment opportunities remain sparse and access to further education is curtailed by work-related requirements. Critically, lone parents who find work of less than 16 hours per week will be unable to take advantage of the new childcare support provisions for at least 18 months. This potent mix could leave lone parents stranded on out-of-work benefits and unable to secure the foothold they need to enter the labour market on a sustainable basis.
Longitudinal research with lone parents who had elected to move into employment and with their children underlines the importance of such a secure foothold. The research was carried out for the department and was indeed cited in a note that the Minister kindly circulated on the impact of maternal employment on schoolchildren. This note referred to the evidence in the research of how lone parents’ employment can provide a good role model for their children. However, the research also found that that is not always the case. One of the researchers, Tess Ridge of Bath University, writes that,
“encouraging lone mothers into unstable and insecure labour markets runs the risk of alienating children from the values of employment. For these children work had held out the promise of something better and that promise had not been kept, so they also experienced disappointment and for some an apparent loss of confidence in the value of work”.
In light of such findings, my advice to the Minister is: more haste, less speed. The long-term gains associated with requiring the lone parents of younger children to be available for paid work might be better achieved by adopting this amendment.
As I argued in Grand Committee, gaining a level 3 or higher qualification makes a significant difference to the amount of money a lone parent can earn and increases their chances of upward mobility. Work search and work availability requirements will severely limit the ability of lone parents to gain qualifications and skills that could help them find higher paid employment that is sustainable, and to make the most of opportunities to progress once working. Currently, lone parents can receive a fee remission if claiming JSA. However, they are also required to continue to seek work while studying and be prepared to leave a course if offered employment. If they refuse, they face a payment sanction. It seems to me that in these circumstances work-related requirements inhibit, rather than enable, a claimant’s ability to find better paid employment. This is an unintended consequence, I am sure, and is in fact preventable. Previously, lone parents on income support could complete a full-time further education course, up to and including level 3, when their children started school, and crucially before moving on to jobseeker’s allowance—a benefit with significantly higher conditionality.
The prescribed circumstances in Clauses 22 and new Section 6F—inserted by Clause 49—should, I would argue, permit access to further education up to and including level 3, and training for responsible carers claiming JSA or universal credit. This means that, if undertaking a further education or training course, they should be treated as fulfilling work search and work availability requirements until their course ends or their child turns seven. This would allow responsible carers to “skill up” and increase their earning potential when their youngest child starts full-time education. This is entirely consistent with the Government’s anti-child poverty and social mobility strategies, which emphasise the importance of education and training and the contribution they can make to ensuring that paid work represents the best route out of poverty. The Minister expressed some sympathy with the arguments presented in Committee when he was pressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, to write greater flexibility into the Bill. I wonder whether he has been able to give further thought to this and perhaps go rather further than he was able to in Committee.
Lone parents require jobs that allow them to be there for their children when they need them. With only one parent to do the school run, care for children when they are ill and support them with their school work, jobs with flexible working patterns are absolutely vital, as is access to affordable, high-quality childcare. On this point, the announcement that the Government will extend support for childcare costs to those working under 16 hours is very welcome. This is due to be implemented as part of universal credit from October 2013 onwards. The demand for jobs of less than 16 hours per week, so-called “mini jobs”, is likely to increase as lone parents of five and six year-olds look for work that dovetails with their caring responsibilities. The extended help with childcare costs will be of particular benefit to this group of lone parents. However, unless the implementation of Clause 57 is delayed, 100,000 lone parents of younger children will be unable to access it for up to a minimum of 18 months, if offered a job of less than 16 hours a week.
Finding the money to pay for childcare can be a significant hurdle for lone parents and is often the straw that breaks the camel’s back when it comes to making work pay. Until very recently, responsible carers in short-hours jobs could access financial help towards childcare costs. Prior to April 2011, a time-limited discretionary in-work childcare subsidy payment was available for lone parents and partners on the New Deal and who worked less than 16 hours. This provision has since been abolished and incorporated into the flexible support fund. This is a generic pot of money for discretionary use by advisers to cover a wide range of claimant’s needs and is available only when all other avenues of possible financial support have been explored.
Might I suggest that introducing an interim payment akin to the previous in-work childcare subsidy would be a positive work incentive for this group of claimants during the interim period? I am sure that Gingerbread, to which I am grateful for help with this amendment, would be keen to discuss the possibilities with the Minister, who has said that he always has an open door.
To conclude, there is a strong case for delaying the implementation of this policy to coincide with the introduction of universal credit in order for the Government to achieve their objectives. However, if this policy goes ahead as planned, it would require the kind of additional interventions that I have outlined, and I therefore hope that the Minister will look favourably on them and at the very least make a commitment to give them serious consideration. I beg to move.
Lord Freud
My Lords, as noble Lords are aware, our focus is on supporting and helping to lift children out of poverty and improve their life chances by encouraging lone parents to enter paid work. Evidence shows that paid work is good for lone parents and their children in nearly all circumstances. Indeed, just under 80 per cent of lone parents with a youngest child aged five or six are either in employment, looking for a job, or would like to work.
Many lone parents consider making the transition to work when their youngest child starts school, and it is for these reasons that we announced our intention to align the age at which lone parents could reasonably be expected to look for work to when their youngest child reaches the age of five. This means that once a lone parent’s youngest child reaches the age of five we would want the parent to claim jobseeker’s allowance if they are capable of work. If they have limited capability for work, they would claim employment and support allowance, unless they are entitled to income support on some other ground, for example as a foster carer. If we delay carrying out this change and wait for the introduction of universal credit, we delay bringing these lone parents closer to the labour market, delay making any benefit savings but, more importantly, delay lifting more children in lone-parent households out of poverty.
Picking up the point on the current economic situation, it is important that we do not repeat the mistakes of past slowdowns and allow people to slip into inactivity. In fact, one of the best things about this economic slowdown—and there are not many good things about it—is that we have not let more people fall into inactivity. In fact, there is less economic inactivity now than a couple of years ago. Maintaining our active labour market policies will ensure that people, including lone parents, do not become detached from the labour market and are well placed to benefit when the economy picks up again.
As noble Lords are aware, this is especially significant because, compared to a child of a lone parent who is not working, a child of a lone parent who works part-time is almost three times less likely to be living in poverty, and a child of a lone parent who works full time is five times less likely to be living in poverty. While we want lone parents to enter work, we do not want them to do so at the expense of their caring responsibilities. This is why we maintained the right for lone parents to restrict their availability for work to school hours, and we will retain all other flexibilities within jobseeker’s allowance to ensure that lone parents can balance caring for their child while working. I described all those measures in Committee, and I shall not do so again given the lateness of the hour.
I stress that this initiative is an important lever in lifting lone parent families out of poverty. If it were delayed until October 2013, it would result in about 17,000 fewer lone parents being in work, which in turn would prevent increases in household income for up to 25,000 children. However, in response to the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, I am conscious of the importance of putting together training and employment strategies. When I wrote my report in 2007, the two strategies were so far apart that they never met. They are moving together, and my view is that we should move them as close as we possibly can, so the door is particularly wide open to discuss with the noble Baroness and, perhaps, with Gingerbread how we can achieve that in the months and years to come.
With that explanation, I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.
Lord Freud
“( ) any provision of Part 4 (personal independence payment) or of Part 9 of Schedule 14;”
Lord Freud