Welfare Reform Bill

Baroness Campbell of Surbiton Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, I, too, shall speak briefly to Amendment 40 and Amendment 41, which stands in my name and that of my noble friend Lord McKenzie. As has been said, Amendment 40 seeks to ensure that the restrictions on the size criteria for social housing cannot leave a foster carer unable to meet their rent. As has been suggested, as currently drafted, the social sector size criteria and related benefit cuts would hit foster carers who claim benefit. As has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Best, that is because foster children are not counted as part of the household. Therefore, any bedroom that they sleep in is defined as being empty and underoccupied. The Fostering Network has warned that the failure to exempt foster carers from the penalty could lead to a number of them leaving fostering altogether.

As was suggested by my noble friend Lady Hollis in her earlier question, it is indeed a necessity that to be accepted for fostering, carers are required to have spare rooms in their homes for such children. Indeed, if you look at any advertisements for foster parents, they say that a spare room to foster is necessary. In addition, it cannot just be any old room; it is expected that most foster children will have a room to themselves from the age of three upwards, as specified by the minimum standards issued by the Department for Education and Skills. That age is well below the underoccupation rules for birth children who live with their parents.

We all know that social housing can provide a stable, high-quality environment in which to care for children who, for whatever reason, cannot live with their birth families. I am sure that none of us would want to exclude the occupants of social housing from acting as foster carers. I cannot believe that the Government intend that foster carers should face the underoccupation penalty. It is fairly obvious what impact that that would have.

Foster carers can claim housing benefit for the housing needs of their families, but the ones that they look after are not taken into account, which would mean that, just as with any other family, the rooms would count as being underoccupied, despite the fact that children sleep in them, and the foster carers’ benefit could be reduced by 23 per cent for the use of two rooms or 13 per cent for the use of one room used by a foster child. Many foster carers look after two or more children, especially those carers who deal with emergency needs, when a whole family can arrive together, and the availability of not just one but two spare rooms is crucial.

Most foster carers do not receive financial compensation for housing costs at present. They receive allowances towards the care, which include household running costs but not housing per se. Last year, the Government changed the law to exclude foster children from housing benefit claims. The Minister will recall that he wrote that this is because fostering allowances are intended to cover all the costs of looking after a foster child, including housing them. However, that statement is inconsistent with official information about the purpose of fostering allowance. The minimum fostering allowances set by the Governments in Northern Ireland, Wales and England do not include housing costs. In any case, the levels for recommended minimum allowances are far too low to provide realistic compensation for housing costs.

In case it is thought that discretionary housing payments may be available, it is true that foster carers are entitled to apply, but even if this concession was awarded it would be only to a small minority. As other noble Lords have said, there is already a significant shortage of foster carers. If there was a penalty for keeping a room in order to foster, some experienced carers might have to quit altogether. This could have a significant impact, especially in major towns and cities and other areas where rents are particularly high. Accommodation is in short supply, yet the demand for such carers is great. As the noble Lord, Lord German, said, there are about 2,700 fostering families claiming housing benefit. One thing being asked for through the amendments is that the cost of permitting it would be more than offset by the cost involved in losing foster carers, with children therefore having to be kept in care.

It is very hard to overemphasise the value of the work done by foster carers. I should like to take a moment to talk about two families I know, who between them have had more than 120 children through their doors. They have mostly been children who either have difficulties or disabilities themselves, or whose birth families are, for whatever reason, unable to provide a home for them. They do not always arrive in a nice planned way. They can come in the middle of the night, after the death or illness of their only parent, as the result of an assault or, as in one case that one of these families dealt with, when one of the child’s parents had been murdered by the other. The need for a home in the middle of the night and a room for those children cannot be stressed too much. These families are ready to take someone in, often very distressed small children. It is something of which we all need to be aware.

The Local Government Association is particularly concerned that if the proposal should remain unamended, and therefore reduces the likelihood of fostering, as carers are forced to give it up to avoid the penalty, it will be local authorities who pick up the cost, at a time when we are already short of foster families. It is fairly obvious that particularly vulnerable children make up a large proportion of those who are placed in emergency or short-term care. Therefore, we hope that the amendment will get a very warm response.

Amendment 41, in my name and that of my noble friend Lord McKenzie, is there to assist the Minister. It would make an exemption for foster parents to prevent their being subject to any accusations of abuse. I do not believe that there is such abuse, but certain papers like to run scaremongering stories about benefit claimants living in mansions, while there are blogs that talk about people living in enormous eight-bedroom houses in Chelsea, paid for by housing benefit. I have yet to find one. Amendment 41 seeks to protect foster carers from any such accusation. It includes defining,

“the type of property reasonably required for a household which is providing or routinely provides foster care placements”.

So it is to try and help the noble Lord in a very simple way.

The guidelines for good fostering are that there must be a spare room, and that no child over the age of three should be asked to share a bedroom. That is what we would call a suitably sized property, so I very much hope that the Minister can respond positively on the issue of foster care.

[Baroness Campbell of Surbiton]

My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Best, especially on his amendment regarding the CLG criteria of one-plus-one bedroom. One thing that struck me is that we have not referred in this debate to people with fluctuating impairment who require overnight care but not on a regular basis. People with mental health problems, when they go into crisis, may need somebody to sleep in the bedroom next door for a month or two, and that is not necessarily counted as an overnight carer in considering criteria for an extra bedroom.

We should celebrate that 15,000 disabled people need overnight care in this country—that figure is given to us by the DWP. Has the Minister had discussions with the Department of Health about the implications of the changes to the housing and benefits extra bedroom situation for people with fluctuating impairments? Increasing numbers of disabled people are living at home in the community now, and that is to be celebrated, but many disabled people require the help of another human being in order for them to do that. Otherwise it is back to residential care and the old days of warehousing. This is another good reason to support the one-plus-one bedroom and if we cannot do that, then I certainly support all the exemptions that are called for in all the amendments.

[Baroness Meacher]

My Lords, I support all the amendments in this group, but I congratulate my noble friend Lord Best on his incredibly commonsense approach to this problem. It seems that allowing an extra bedroom would probably deal with most of the tragic exceptions that people have talked about—what a straightforward way to deal with those exceptions and normal life. I cannot think of any family that at some point does not badly need an extra room, and the case was so well put.

We talk about all the amendments individually, but what is so painfully obvious is that it is the combined impact of the changes in the Bill that are going to have such a devastating effect on so many people. It feels irrelevant to talk about ESA and people being reassessed and placed on to JSA, and therefore losing a section or part of their benefits, but the individuals at the front line are going to be hit by that, then they find their housing allowances upgraded in line with CPI, then they find that their housing allowances are pegged to the 30th percentile, then find that they have an extra room. Oh my God, their housing benefit will not cover the accommodation they are in and they are going to have to think about moving.

It is the impact of so many hits that feels petrifying, and perhaps the change that frightens me more than any is the pegging of housing allowances to CPI. If that goes on longer than two years—perhaps we do not pay too much attention to it because we assume that it will not—we are talking about families and households finding every few years that they have a growing gap between their rent and the allowances they are paid for housing. They will have to move, and move, and move—is that not correct?—over a period of time, into ever more distant areas, ever meaner properties, ever smaller properties. It is difficult to imagine the psychological impact on households of all these changes.

I do not know who devised this law, but I wonder whether whoever it was stood back and thought about all that. I know, and the Minister has mentioned many times, that the driving motivation behind the reforms is to provide an incentive for people to move into work. From where I come from, dealing with people with mental health problems, one thing that stands between them and work is their level of stress and distress and anxiety.

It strikes me that if all the legislative changes go through, we will create an even bigger gap between very large numbers of people who are prone to anxiety and depression—if not psychosis and other things that are even more problematic to deal with—and the labour market. That troubles me, because I respect the Minister’s commitment to providing an incentive for people to go back into work. I also know that he is very sympathetic and understanding about mental health problems. I would be interested to know what he has to say about the apparent contradiction in what the Government are trying to do.

Another aspect of this for people with mental health problems is that to force them to move away from wherever they are—probably away from the carers who might just about prop them up and allow them to survive and carry on—is the last thing we want. The underoccupation rule impacts even more, given the other provisions of the Bill. As I understand it, young people are going to be expected, in some circumstances, to share accommodation. There are an awful lot of people with mental health problems for whom this might be quite helpful. There are others for whom it might be a complete disaster. Indeed, let us not forget to mention the potential sharer. It might be quite difficult to share with some of our folk. We have to be sensitive to the impact, and the combined and compound impact.

I sympathise with the amendments that noble Lords have tabled about disabled people who have had adjustments to their homes, and those about looked-after children. Those are obvious and glaring problems. I would like to think that the Minister will think seriously about that, in the context that I know he very well understands.

Welfare Reform Bill

Baroness Campbell of Surbiton Excerpts

Monday 10th October 2011 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I was most grateful to the Minister for his previous reply and for the offer of detailed information on the question I asked him. Now I would like to ask him about child trust funds, and I hope I have the right hook on which to put this question. There has been some toing and froing about child trust funds, but thanks to the work of Paul Goggins MP and support cross-party, they have been reinstated for children in local authority care. The local authority will put in a sum, supported by the Government, for each year that a child is in care, I think. I am interested to know how that will be treated in this context. The Government have also moved away from providing money to parents for trust funds, but they are looking to find vehicles to encourage parents to put money for their children into these child trust funds. Again, I am interested to know how that particular vehicle will be treated in this context. I hope that is clear.

[Baroness Campbell of Surbiton]

My Lords, I would like briefly to support this amendment by reminding Members of what happened when there was an assault on savings of disabled people who are reliant on social care. Over the past 10 years, one who is in receipt of social care support has significantly not been able to retain savings above and beyond £14,000. The consequence is that these people have not been able to develop their careers, buy a house, buy a car, save for a family and feel an equal member of society to a non-disabled member. I think we sometimes forget how the inability to save beyond £14,000 can erode one’s sense of self and of equality. I therefore support this amendment; I think it is admirable, and I will continue to raise the issue in the area of social care. Andrew Dilnot raised this in his recent commission report as being one of the greatest barriers to the life chances of people who rely on benefits, especially social care benefits and support, so I am very pleased that this has been raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, and I support it.

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

My Lords, I, too, support my noble friend’s amendment, which was so impressively and eloquently moved. I thought she had an unarguable case, but we will see in a moment whether the Minister thinks differently. The Minister has been very responsive, rightly in my view, not only to the issue of rewarding the move into work but to the issue of reducing the risk of moving into work. One thing I must welcome about universal credit is precisely that it takes into account the risk for people on very low and narrow incomes. I do not doubt we shall come back to the very high risks that people on very low incomes face when trying to manage on a frankly very tiny budget when we discuss an amendment on payment methods tabled by my noble friend Lady Lister.

There is another risk. You are in work, you may be receiving tax credits or may be self-employed, and you try to build up savings, through ISAs or whatever, because you need to replace a white van for your business to move things or because you are a self-employed carpenter with tools because you can no longer get a job as an employee, or because you are associated with a garden centre and are taking stuff around; or you might need a car, particularly one that is big enough to take your elderly parents out from their residential care, and that will cost you substantial savings; or, as my noble friend mentioned, you might be an older person in your 40s or 50s, with children approaching university age, who has been saving hard to make it possible for them to go to university without facing a massive fear of subsequent debt.

All these are expenditures which I am sure the Minister would regard as reasonable, and all require saving—in some cases, if possible, beyond the £16,000 figure. You may have several demands. A rollercoaster of demands might hit you, and you have over the years providently built up your savings to £20,000, £25,000, or whatever, so that you can lay off that risk. I know the Minister understands the point about risk if one is going from benefit to work.

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[Baroness Sherlock]

My Lords, I have little to add to the rather remarkable contribution made by my noble friend Lady Lister, but I want to address a couple of points.

First, I was delighted to see the DWP research report, Perceptions of Welfare Reform and Universal Credit, and I commend the Minister and the department for taking this kind of research so seriously. The foreword to that report says:

“The Department for Work and Pensions … is committed to involving users throughout the development of Universal Credit, from setting out the criteria for a good experience to detailed design decisions. This user involvement helps ensure issues are known, understood and mitigated as the Universal Credit system is being built”.

I want to commend that. I thought it was a very good decision. However, it means that if you ask people and they give you answers, it really is wise to listen to them. Having sought the opinion of those who are going to be using the system, and having been told so clearly that only a small minority appreciated monthly payments as a route and the majority clearly felt it was a problem, is the Minister at all persuaded by that?

I have two other points to add. I am particularly concerned about the impact on those who are in that territory between work and out of work. The most compelling argument made today was the fact that if only half those people are paid monthly at the moment, the whole idea that moving to monthly payments mimics work simply falls flat. If people are currently paid weekly or fortnightly, they could be in the bizarre position of having their wages paid weekly or monthly and their universal credit paid monthly, which seems ridiculous. At the moment with tax credits people can opt to be paid weekly.

I declare an interest as having been involved in advising Ministers on the design of tax credits, as noble Lords will know. I can understand the desire of the centre to want to simplify this. I really understand why having everybody on monthly payments would be an awful lot easier for the process, as well as the design problems in terms of processing capacity of having people opt into a variety of options. However, this feels so important that if the noble Lord is so committed—and I know he is—to the aims of universal credit in supporting people in work and to getting the architecture right, it would seem that this is a fairly fundamental piece of the architecture, and we get it wrong at our peril.

I have one final point. I spent some years working with single parents. Most of them had come out of relationships or marriages. One of the things that they always said they liked about being single—there were many things they did not like that were very hard—was that they could control the money. I heard many of them describe the struggles that they had had to protect the money coming into the household and to have it spent on the children. They described a whole range of situations that I am not in any way suggesting are typical, but they are none the less not invisible or irrelevant either. Some said that they quite often had a situation where their partners would periodically go out on a binge and spend the money. There were people who had quite a bit of money who would say: “I fed the children on child benefit till they got back”.

One thing about credits being paid directly to them and coming in weekly was that at least they knew there was another payment coming along soon. If in this situation one partner spends the money unwisely, it is an awful long wait until the next payment comes in. Would the Minister consider that alongside some of the later issues we are going to discuss about the Social Fund and single payments being made only to one partner or to a joint account? This is an area of which the Minister would be well advised to take careful consideration.

[Baroness Campbell of Surbiton]

My Lords, I would also like to support the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and congratulate her on her first amendment. What a good first amendment. Disability charities, including the full membership of the Disability Benefits Consortium, have expressed grave concerns to me that many disabled claimants, particularly those with mental health problems or learning disabilities, will struggle to manage their budgeting over monthly intervals. With the proposed replacement of the discretionary Social Fund and by confusing an unpredictable plethora of local schemes, accessing crisis payment when budgeting problems arise will be very hard for this group of people also.

I support a man with mild learning and behavioural difficulties. He can just about manage his two-weekly payments and often, at the end of the two weeks, it is up to his friends—normally me—to sub him until the end of that two-week period. I have no idea how he will manage on a monthly basis. He falls under the radar of most help and I know that he would not seek it anywhere but me. So it also puts a burden on families, friends and other poor relatives who are often in the same situation to make up the shortfall. I support the noble Baroness and would like to know what the Minister has in mind for this particular group of people to cope with a monthly payment.

[Lord Skelmersdale]

My Lords, at Second Reading I think all of us supported the idea of simplicity for universal credit. Of course, simplicity works both ways: it works in favour of the beneficiary and in favour of the department. If you offer people a choice, you are mucking up that simplicity as far as the department is concerned and, inevitably—and I am sure my noble friend will tell me—there will be a cost in so doing. He may even be able to quantify that cost.

As most of the Committee will know, my wife runs a small business which for part of the year depends entirely on attracting extra casual staff. Two years ago, she went to them and said, “It would make life a lot easier for me if we could pay your wages monthly rather than weekly”. Some of them immediately were very happy to say yes; others to say no. Eventually, without undue coercion or persuasion—except from their colleagues—they decided they would all go on a monthly wages basis. That is fine, but what I find difficulty with in the amendments is the proposal to offer people a choice and for the department to have to stick to that choice. For me, payments should be either fortnightly or monthly. We have heard very good arguments against monthly payments, which I accept. However, the second amendment in this group—the either/or amendment—is just plain loopy.

Welfare Reform Bill

Baroness Campbell of Surbiton Excerpts

Thursday 6th October 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Campbell of Surbiton]

My Lords, I would also like to support Lord MacKenzie’s amendment and add something to this particular area. Can I ask the Minister to reflect on what happens when a disability assessment process, or an assessment process regarding a disabled person, is not properly developed and constructed in co-production with those who understand in detail what it is to live as a disabled person; that is, disabled people themselves? I know I am getting a bit of a reputation for banging on about involving disabled people in the issues that concern us. However, I understand from the disability charities and NGOs that I have consulted, as well as from the countless disabled individuals who have written to me over the past few months, that the universal credit assessment process, with particular reference to the work capability assessment process, is still deeply flawed due partly to disabled people’s lack of involvement.

This morning, I telephoned the chief executive of the Royal Association for Disability Rights, Liz Sayce. Many of you will know her because recently she conducted the Government’s disability employment support services review. She is very assiduous and capable. With a worrying example, she demonstrated where we are in danger of going wrong with one of the universal credit assessment processes, the work capability assessment. She told me about a woman who lives in the north-west and has end-stage multiple sclerosis. She can now move only one eyelid and murmur inaudible words. She was telephoned at home by Atos. They told her husband that she needed to attend a work capability assessment. When he explained that this was not possible, they said that they must speak to her on the telephone and read out a statement. When her husband explained that she could not speak, they asked him to hold the telephone so that they could read it out to her, so he put the speaker phone on. They said:

“This assessment is necessary and mandatory. If it does not go ahead, there will be consequences”.

The woman, of course, found this very distressing and scary. They continued, refusing to take into consideration that the woman was not able to be interviewed. They were working from a script in which there is no flexibility and no requirement on assessors to apply themselves to real-life situations or to take a different approach to different disabilities or health conditions.

This example, and I know that there are others, shows that the Government must develop a different approach to the universal credit assessment process. I know Professor Harrington has attempted to make this happen in his work; I have met him myself. He listens and he is a good man. He tries to understand and this is reflected in some of his recommendations, but the whole process has not been intelligently and systematically co-produced in any substantive way with disabled people and disabled experts. We have done it. It was and is being done through the Government’s Right to Control programme. Can we not do the same with this? The assessment process must not be driven by a script. It must allow for sensitivity and assessor judgment—personal judgment—as to when it is appropriate to change their behaviour and respond to a disabled person’s condition and situation. Can the Minister assure us that a more co-productive and intelligent approach to all the assessment processes for universal credit will happen, and happen more effectively?

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

My Lords, I shall speak very briefly in support of my noble friend’s amendment for two reasons. First, I was rather appalled by statements from the Prime Minister that the Government were for the first time tackling the issue of people who should be, but currently were not, in work. Really, that comes into the category of Boris-type statements, which are an imaginative reconstruction of events that did not occur. All parties—I am sure that I also speak for the Cross Benches on this—agree that we want to seek to help people into work, and we have been doing it.

When we came into Government in 1997, we had found that, particularly during the 1980s, thousands of people with some mild disability had been moved off unemployment benefit into what was then invalidity benefit, the precursor for incapacity benefit, in order to massage the unemployment figures. On behalf of the previous Government I took Bills to your Lordships’ House that brought in proposals for the New Deal for all sorts of claimant groups. It was never a problem, as it had never been a problem of trying to help the unemployed into work. They are always anxious and keen to do so. The problem has always been those who, for too long, have been economically inactive and marginalised from the labour market.

It is for that reason that I and my noble friend Lord McKenzie continued to follow these policies when he came into the department: to ensure that new deals into work for disabled people, lone parents and for the over-50s were brought in to help people who for some time had been at some distance from the labour market. I am delighted that, insofar as the decent supportive activity of the previous Government may be pursued by the current Administration, we should welcome it. Some horror stories are now coming through about Atos, and we should be joining our disabled colleagues in protesting about that deforming of what should be a decent policy.

Secondly, my noble friend’s amendment says that it is about supporting work for those who can provide security for those who cannot. I would like to spend a second to almost verbally amend it. Help into work those who can, provide security for those who cannot and support those who care; because those who care are left out of the equation. I do not doubt that the Minister’s intentions are as decent as those of any Member around the table in the Committee. However, one of our concerns is that of the 6 million carers, about 400,000 to 500,000 receive carers allowance, which is a passported benefit from what is currently the disability living allowance based on hours worked and the level of care needed.

We are still awaiting what will happen to PIP and the number of disabled people currently on DLA who will receive the higher or lower element of PIP and whether the carers benefit will be passported from the higher rate or from both rates. Until that happens, not just disabled people, but thousands of carers are worried, anxious and distraught that they may lose the carer’s benefit that they currently enjoy. I know that the Minister is engaged with this issue and I am not pretending it is a simple one, but I would be very grateful if he would, acknowledge first, the work done by the previous Administration in bringing those who are economically inactive back into the labour market, and secondly, that we all share a concern for the position of carers and if he could give us some idea as to when we will know what their situation is.

Welfare Reform Bill

Baroness Campbell of Surbiton Excerpts

Tuesday 4th October 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Campbell of Surbiton]

My Lords, I do not wish to comment on the overarching universal credit and associated issues, but I commend the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, on raising the issue of language. Language is absolutely essential not only to the dignity and self-worth of people who receive benefits, but also to what our message is to the world about those who survive because of the support they receive from what will be these welfare reforms. I remember writing about three years ago a very important article entitled Sticks and Stones, But Words are Hurting! It was about the issue of language as it pertains to disabled people. I remind noble Lords that disabled people have spent the last 25 years trying to get away from welfare and talk about rights. I would like us to think about this as we go forward.

I, too, will be raising the issue of language when we come to personal independence payments. Noble Lords will recall from the Second Reading debate that I have questioned the term, because it does not fit with what we perceive to be the original and, what we thought would be the enduring, intention of disability living allowance. So language is important and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, for raising the issue at this point. Welfare versus rights is something that we disabled people talk about all the time.

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

My Lords, like others, I thank the Minister and his Bill team for being so accessible and helpful; I genuinely congratulate them. When we can get the material in hardcover rather than on e-mail, I shall be even more enthusiastic and enduring in singing the Minister’s praises, which I am sure we all want to do.

I want to make two points, both of them triggered by the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, and my noble friend Lord McKenzie, which I thought were spot on. First, the main thing is to talk about language. The noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, is exactly right. Until recently, when we introduced a Bill like this, it would not have been a welfare reform Bill; it would have been a social security Bill. The gap between social security and welfare is precisely the gap between entitlement and stigma. We forget, when using words like “welfare reform”, what is the structure of who pays and who gains in our welfare state. We all know that a very substantial part of “benefit expenditure” is actually a redistribution of resources through people’s lifetimes, particularly from the working years to retirement. Our pension work falls into that.

A second key group of redistribution is what we would call the category benefits. They go to children and to disabled people. There are more methods of redistribution than merely from rich to poor. Instead, they go from those without children to those with children; they go from those who are in good health to those in poor health. That is something that all civilised societies would sign up to. Only the third category of benefits, those which are means tested, reflect a straightforward redistribution from rich to poor. They have been allowed to dominate and cloud the language and to stereotype claimants in ways that portray them as dependent on handouts and the goodwill of others. We should return instead to the more appropriate, all-inclusive language of social security. Apart from the very lucky few, who are probably white millionaires, male and in very good health indeed, all the rest of us will need recourse to the welfare state, to the social security state. We should all hold that firmly in mind and refuse to engage, wherever it is spoken, in language that seeks to make distinctions between the deserving and the undeserving poor—or, as the Victorians would have said, God’s poor, poor devils and the devil’s poor.

The second point I want to make, which follows that, is the point made rightly by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood. I strongly support the principles and much of the structure of the Bill, although, like others, I have real concerns about what I regard as the pressure points. In dealing with the Bill, we must not only be concerned with the question of language, but we must encourage the Minister to respond to those adjustments we need to make, particularly where the language of the amendments run by the Minister, or his replies, may suggest what I call the econometric model of the Treasury, which is that people have to be pained or punished into work, because the only stimulus that they will respond to is an economic one.

What many of us said in our Second Reading speeches, and what I hope we will all remember, is that when we ask people to move from being on benefit to coming into work, whether they have a disability, whether they have been a lone parent, whether they have struggled for a long time with being chronically unemployed because of the demography and the economic structure of their region, the issue for them is not just about whether they are better off; it is primarily about risk. Unless people understand—and I fear that too often the Treasury does not—the issue of risk and the abatement of risk that needs to go on, we are not going to make a success of the Bill. I think that the Minister understands this perfectly well. I think and I hope that he will accept arguments and that where, in future amendments, we seek to abate risk as well as reward work, he will understand that this is in order to make a philosophy that so many of us sign up to to work today.

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[Baroness Campbell of Surbiton]

I am sorry, my Lords, I wish to make an addition to my comments. In my eagerness to thank the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, I forgot two very important things. One was that I wanted to thank the Bill team and the noble Lord, Lord Freud, for all their help that they have given to me personally and to people who I have been working with in trying to get my head around this very complex Bill. I am sorry that I forgot my thank-yous.

The other is that the Committee will know that I was one of the people who complained bitterly about coming into this Room. I am afraid that I am not happy that we are here. Yes, I love this lovely desk and the fact that my PA is able to help me to drink, but three important things were forgotten. First, no one asked me what it was going to be like for me to participate in this Room. No one came to us, and that is the lack of consultation that we often complain about outside this building to local authorities. In the Disability Discrimination Act, the number one rule is that you must consult, but no one consulted me personally.

Secondly, it is a good job that I have an Olympian, the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, next to me, because she can reach to push the button on this microphone. There is no way that I can do that. No one asked me, and I do not particularly like having to ask every time that a thought comes into my head and I wish to intervene.

Thirdly, the reason why I have that office on the Principal Floor, probably three minutes away from the Chamber, is that at any moment I may have to leave the Chamber and go to my room where I might be assisted to breathe properly. It is dangerous in this Room.

I wanted Members to think about that and remember that consulting the person who experiences impairment is the number one rule. I do not want to shame noble Lords, but I have to tell them this because it is important that we in this House remember equality for all. Sorry about that.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

I am very disturbed to hear what the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, has just said about lack of consultation. In our dealings with the Whips Office we made it clear that what might be satisfactory to us would have to be also satisfactory to the noble Baroness and her colleagues. We made it clear that we could settle on an alternative room only if it had the noble Baroness’s agreement. If that has not happened, it is a real failing. Perhaps we cannot do anything about it now, but I ask the Minister to take that issue back, as we had assurances to the contrary.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Campbell of Surbiton]

I should like to intervene quickly to put noble Lords’ minds at rest. On a point of information, I am not putting myself at great risk, so noble Lords should feel quite relaxed. I promise that I will not ask them to perform CPR. I will just make the point that it is a risk I am happy to take, and my responsibility. I take it every time I attend a meeting that is quite far away from my room. My issue was that I was never asked personally: that is all. It is a simple point.

Welfare Reform Bill

Baroness Campbell of Surbiton Excerpts

Tuesday 13th September 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Campbell of Surbiton]

My Lords, we have a mighty task on our hands. I apologise for not staying for the marathon of this debate and I thank the House, and especially the Minister, for letting me go home to bed early.

None of us are in any doubt that the welfare system is in need of reform, but we must do it with care. We have to do it with wisdom and, more importantly, reliable information—people’s human rights depend on it. It is my greatest hope that this noble House will do its very best to scrutinise and amend the Bill away from ill considered political demands and media pressure.

The Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Freud, has definitely demonstrated his desire to create a welfare system that enables all kinds of people to live with dignity and make their contributions to society. I believe that he wants a fairer, simplified system, which motivates more disabled people to take paid work and be active citizens. I am grateful that he has fought hard to taper benefits and to negotiate with the Treasury not to reduce the budget, especially that for access to work. Unfortunately, I fear he might have been less successful in his work on DLA, which is the area of the Bill that I will concentrate on today and in even more detail in Committee.

I should declare an interest as a DLA recipient. During the past 30 years, DLA, which in the olden days was called attendance allowance and mobility allowance, has enabled me to pass many milestones. Without it I would not have attended university. I used it to pay the cleaner to get me up in the morning and to put me to bed at night. That was the only allowance I had. I used it to get a job and to stop living with my parents—in short, to live independently. Along with millions of other disabled people, I will be affected by this Bill. The allowance was given to me for life and I am about to have my assessments again—I already have 25 other assessments. That is something to look forward to.

If disabled people are to be independent and take on responsibilities like work, they must be given an equal playing field. Equality legislation alone will not provide this. Providing financial support to disabled people to be equal citizens has been a fundamental principle demanded from successive Governments over my lifespan. It has lifted us from being passive recipients of care and welfare to independent people with life opportunities. It is a cultural shift that has resulted in fulfilling relationships, education, work and greater happiness for millions of British citizens.

Something must be desperately wrong to cause these same citizens to write so many letters and e-mails to Members of this House, begging us—yes, begging us—to reconsider the proposed replacing of DLA with personal independence payments. We reform to make people's lives better. So are they right to feel so scared? To be honest, I still do not know. There is so little detail regarding this reform.

Last week, I joined colleagues on the Joint Committee on Human Rights for a visit to Essex Coalition of Disabled People. The visit was part of our inquiry into independent living for disabled people, which will provide a good measure for this reform.

At this point, Baroness Grey-Thompson continued the speech for Baroness Campbell of Surbiton.

ECDP is a large, regional, disabled membership organisation, a centre for independent living. It has a remarkable record of involving and listening to large numbers of disabled people. It tailors its services to respond to the needs, wishes and experiences of those disabled people. One if its members, Hazel, was able to give the JCHR insight into the fears produced by the changes proposed in this Bill.

Hazel described her life as funded by a fragile construction of different benefits, a personal budget and voluntary support. She believes she is in danger of losing her higher rate DLA under the new proposals. She told us, “My life is like a house of straws. Once you remove one tiny straw, the house collapses. It's taken me years to feel independent and in control, to feel like an able-bodied person, to be human. If I lose out from the changes, I will stand to lose everything. Where's the sense in that?” All Hazel wants is for her human rights to be respected. Does PIP do this?

Let us start with the term “personal independence payment”. What does this mean? Can the Minister tell me whether his Government see independence as a medical barrier for assessment or a socioeconomic barrier? From what I have gleaned so far, the PIP assessment is largely a functional assessment of one's medical condition. It bears little relation to what many disabled people need to live independently, and largely ignores higher costs of living.

Physical or mental capability has only a small bearing on whether a disabled person is dependent or independent. For independent living to be a reality, a person needs choice and control in their life. Disabled people make choices about how to spend their DLA, demonstrating maximum control over their lives and thus becoming independent. For instance, the mobility component is not just about physically getting from A to B. The money might be used to pay for travel insurance, which can be astronomically more expensive for disabled people than for the non-disabled traveller, thereby inhibiting their mobility. Who on these Benches paid £1,500 for travel insurance to go on holiday this year? I did. That is the average extra cost that people with severe respiratory impairments must meet to go abroad. Assessing functionality can never determine economic inequality.

I ask the Minister to reconsider comments that he made during the 11 May debate on the new PIP assessment. He said that a person climbing Mount Kenya on prosthetic limbs should not be treated as disabled, for they are doing something that many of us cannot do. That is an extreme example, but it can be understood in two entirely different ways. I am sure that it was intended as a compliment and an acknowledgement of personal achievement. However, it tells us nothing about the additional costs of disability that people living with amputations must meet. Some amputees experience periods of excruciating phantom pain during which they are unable to work. Others experience extra costs in the form of transportation and housing adaptations. I am not sure whether the Minister believes that one can cease to be disabled by physical prowess alone.

Many consider appointment to this House to be evidence of accomplishment. Is that sufficient for the Minister to determine that I, too, am not disabled and therefore do not need DLA? Of course not—but that is what the assessment is in danger of leading us to. I do not wish to embarrass the Minister, but I will assure him that DLA has been, and continues to be, vital in enabling me to live independently and work towards my goals. Personal achievement must never be a yardstick against which we measure entitlement.

At this point, Baroness Campbell of Surbiton resumed.

From my mailbag, it is obvious that many disabled people expect to lose their independence. Do the Government believe that returning disabled people to levels of dependence last seen 30 years ago makes good economic sense? Disability Alliance and other notable organisations in the Disability Benefits Consortium have clearly demonstrated the knock-on costs to the Treasury in the form of increased health bills and a drop in revenue from those who will fall out of work. Will the Minister tell the House who is working on the cost-benefit analysis of the proposed changes? Where is their modelling? I ask him not to answer me by directing me to existing impact assessments. It is not there: they tell us nothing about this. Perhaps the impact assessments discussed in the Minister's opening remarks might address this. I am not confident, but I look forward to seeing them.

DLA reform, including the review, has not been co-produced with experts such as the National Centre for Independent Living. The Government have elected to revert to old forms of consultation, merely inviting contributions from such organisations rather than working together. The noble Lord, Lord Rix, expanded on this. I ask the Minister to read again the Government's independent living strategy. Disabled people know better than anyone the solutions to overcoming barriers to independent living and providing a good assessment framework. I ask the Minister to consider re-establishing the DLA/PIP advisory group that was sacrificed during the bonfire of the quangos. Noble Lords will remember the Government's disability rights task force that developed the most successful and significant disability legislation of this century: namely, the Disability Discrimination Act. Without the structure of co-production, I fear that we will be locked into arguments rather than shared solutions.

As I have run over my time, I will finish by saying that the term “personal independence payments” is disingenuous and should be discarded. It is obvious from the PIP proposals so far that the Government know very little about independent living. “Disability living allowance” describes the benefit well. It is about living. Let us keep the title—and keep living.

Disabled People: User-led Organisations

Baroness Campbell of Surbiton Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Campbell of Surbiton]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, for giving us this opportunity to debate the future of ULOs. I shall try not to get confused and talk about UFOs, because there is a practical joke in the disability movement about this. I shall talk particularly about ULOs and their relationship to the personalisation agenda. I also thank the noble Baroness for her very kind words.

I should start by declaring an interest as a trustee and co-founder of the National Centre for Independent Living. NCIL is one of the largest user-led umbrella organisations in the UK. It pioneered the personalisation agenda long before it was adopted by social care professionals and civil servants—and long before politicians did so. One of the first user-led organisations in the UK was the British Deaf Association, which dates all the way back to the 1890s. User-led organisations have one central principle, which is summed up in the slogan, “Nothing about us without us”. This phrase does not belong in the NHS and did not come from a politician but originated in the early 1980s at an eastern European conference of disabled people. They were fed up with others making wrong decisions about their lives by not involving them, very simply. From then on disabled people's influence over their situation escalated, becoming a social movement touching on all issues that affected their lives, such as transport, access to the built environment, social service support, healthcare, housing and so on. I was very privileged to be a child of that liberating time.

There are now a whole range of ULOs led by all sorts of people who use services, including mental health service users, young and older people, people who have been in care, carers, people with long-term illnesses—not, as many would think, just physically disabled people such as the noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins, or me. That is, not just wheelchair users.

ULOs represent an ongoing challenge to stigma, as they demonstrate not only what service users are capable of doing for themselves but, more significantly, what they can do for society. For example, Hampshire Centre for Independent Living pioneered the blueprint for direct payments, again long before it became part of an Act of Parliament and long before any politician had even heard of the words.

Shaping Our Lives is a notable example of a national ULO. It has been funded by government and NGOs, such as the Rowntree Foundation, to conduct research and evaluation, led by service users. The high quality of its evidence has informed public policy and practice for over a decade. In 2009 alone, it carried out studies and developed practice guidance for the Crown Prosecution policy on witnesses and victims with mental health and learning disabilities, on user-led involvement in social work, and on future housing services for older people. Most of the work is overseen by Professor Peter Beresford. Here is the big society at work.

At this point, Baroness Wilkins continued the speech for Baroness Campbell of Surbiton.

The ULO ethos has been particularly important in the development of personalisation, so much so that it became a key objective in the 2005 Improving the Life Chances of Disabled People strategy, which said that there should be a user-led organisation in every area with social service responsibilities by December 2010. There have been some notable advances, but the funding and policy push came almost entirely from the Department of Health. That funding is now coming to an end, but there are over 60 areas still waiting for a ULO.

Lack of funding, of course, is only one part of the problem. Another has been linking ULOs so strongly with social care services and the Department of Health. ULOs are not solely about social care, and neither is personalisation. The majority of ULOs were established to further the broader goal of supporting disabled people to live independently, working across a range of life areas other than social care: transport, housing, health and leisure. So, if the Government want to deliver the personalisation agenda, ULOs have to be understood, resourced and supported from across national and local government.

The Essex Coalition of Disabled People recently conducted a study, resulting in the report on key issues facing ULOs. Interestingly, it identified the narrow social care approach as one of the major reasons why ULOs have struggled to succeed. I know that the Minister for Disabled People in the other place has been particularly impressed by this ULO as a role model for the future. It and others rightly say that personalisation can be delivered efficiently and effectively only with joined-up thinking and resourcing responsibility.

At this point Baroness Campbell of Surbiton resumed.

I was privileged to chair the Government's Independent Living Scrutiny Group for two years. It looks across government for evidence of this kind of delivery. I know how difficult this is to achieve, but we really need to crank up the mechanisms to do this. Can the Minister tell me what plans he has for this?

ULO personalisation services require an enabling framework that helps them to be more self-sufficient. Small pushes can help—for instance, with the use of the EC Article 19 procurement directive, which allows for public contracts to give preference to businesses with a workforce that is over 50 per cent disabled. If local authorities were encouraged to do this, it would help ULOs enormously in the bidding market. The Essex study and previous research conducted by Leeds University clearly shows that when an organisation involves disabled people throughout, the support costs are higher than for those that do not. The commissioning culture has never really factored that realism into its procurement processes, so ULOs have lost out. Will the Minister assure us he will liaise with the Minister responsible for local government on how this enabling power could be incentivised within local authorities? This will enable ULOs to survive better in the marketplace.

We have heard a great deal about the Government's £3 million over the next four years to help build capacity and support ambassadors. This is welcome, but as I think I have shown, disabled people have demonstrated their ability to provide the solutions to their own problems, against the odds, since as far back as the 1890s. What we need more than ever is money to pay the rent on accessible offices, computers and wages for staff—yes, that old chestnut—infrastructure funding that cannot be found from service contracts alone.

I look forward to hearing from the Minister about the Government’s imaginative plans to help disabled people continue to help themselves and others through the dynamic network of ULOs. Personalisation will never happen without them.

Disabled People: Disability Living Allowance

Baroness Campbell of Surbiton Excerpts

Monday 7th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

It gives me pleasure to say that that is the exact purpose of this assessment. We want to make sure that the money that we do have is well directed to supporting people to have independent lives. It would clearly be perverse if people were supported to live an independent life and that support was then removed when they still needed it. I cannot envisage that that situation would develop.

[Baroness Campbell of Surbiton]

My Lords, will the Minister tell us how the Government expect to achieve the projected savings of £1 billion by 2015 when the highly regarded disability charity Disability Alliance estimates that 823,000 disabled people will lose vital DLA support in order for the Government to meet that target?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, as the noble Baroness pointed out, the target is to reduce the spending on DLA by 20 per cent by 2014-15. But that is against a projection of a benefit that is, frankly, out of control. The actual figure in that year will basically come down to the level that it was in 2009-10, which is just below the £12 billion mark.

Disabled People

Baroness Campbell of Surbiton Excerpts

Monday 13th December 2010 Lords Chamber

Tabled By

[Baroness Campbell of Surbiton]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they will take to ensure that disabled people are involved in the decisions taken by Ministers that affect them.

[Baroness Wilkins]

My Lords, on behalf of the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell of Surbiton, and at her request, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in her name on the Order Paper.

Disabled People’s Right to Control (Pilot Scheme) (England) Regulations 2010

Baroness Campbell of Surbiton Excerpts

Monday 8th November 2010 Grand Committee

I hope that as we work towards a full evaluation in two years’ time, the trailblazers will help us find the best way to optimise a comprehensive right to control package. I therefore seek approval for these regulations and commend them to the Committee.

[Baroness Campbell of Surbiton]

My Lords, I also really welcome the regulations. I, too, pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, for introducing them; it was a very inspirational thing to do. It was risky and I think it will pay great dividends in the future. How nice that all sides of the Committee can support this initiative.

The right to control is, as the Minister said, a significant landmark for disabled people. For decades, disabled people have campaigned for the right to have choice and control over our lives. A small thing, you may say, but it is something that we have not been able to take for granted in the way that non-disabled people have. Now we have equality.

The regulations take us a long way towards the goal of choice and control. If implemented well—and they do need to be implemented well—they have the potential to transform the way we live. By exercising the right to control, disabled people will inevitably become more confident in taking personal responsibility for their role in the community and family life. It will enable greater freedom to plan and pursue educational, work or volunteering opportunities. In short, disabled people have at last been put in the driving seat of their own destiny. What is more, this is a legal right, enshrined in legislation—not a gift or a charitable favour, for which one must be grateful, but a right. This is a real step forward for disabled people.

As the Minister said, one of the key articles in the UN convention on the rights of disabled people is Article 19. It concerns the right of disabled people to live independently and be included in the community. As noble Lords will be aware, the UN convention states clearly that disabled people should have and enjoy the same human rights as everyone else. It sets out obligations on states to ensure that those rights are met. The right to control goes straight to the heart of Article 19 and provides a vehicle to realise this right and, consequently, goes a long way towards implementing the convention. That is terrific.

In addition, the way in which the right to control legislation has been conceived and developed accords well with the UN convention duty on states to involve disabled people in the planning and implementation of such rights. Both the previous Government and now the coalition Government have involved disabled people at every stage of developing the right to control legislation and now its implementation. I should know because I am the chair of the advisory group of disabled people and experts in independent living who helped to shape the legislation, proposals for the trailblazers and the evaluation. Everything about us was discussed with us during this process. The seven trailblazers are following the same model of co-production at a local level. This will ensure that the experience and knowledge of disabled people permeates how the right to control continues to be delivered and developed.

The way in which we have developed the right to control over the past two years, as an advisory group and on the ground with our buddies, has taken the personalisation agenda a step further and set a new dynamic support service culture whereby disabled people, who once had to apply to five or six different agencies for support, will now engage with one support planning process. This is something for which disabled people have been asking for a long time. A new public support service where disabled people will, again by legislative right, decide for themselves how best to use their resource allocation is at the heart of this process. We will be able to devise creative solutions of our own for our own support, and exercise as much control in the commissioning of the outcome as we feel able. If you do not feel that you can control everything, you do not have to; you can have a plurality approach.

I know that some noble Lords have concerns that some disabled people may not be able to take that kind of control over their lives in this way. However, I can reassure them that on the advisory group we looked at this issue and made sure that the right permits flexibility and will be well supported throughout the process. Flexibility, of course, is the key. Disabled people can ask for a particular service to be provided or take a mix of existing services and a direct payment, or, in my case, use a direct payment to purchase all their support themselves and be totally 100 per cent in control. However, I know that most disabled people are not control freaks like me.

There will be support and advice for those who want their payments to be managed by a third party, and advice, training and guidance for people who want to employ personal assistants. Advocacy and support will be an integral part of the right to control. I am particularly keen to see how well the trailblazers fulfil this important part of the right-to-control culture and keen that we scrutinise it as it develops.

Peer support is incredibly powerful in demonstrating to disabled people what can be achieved. It is another important part of trailblazer activity. Before I began employing my personal assistants more than 20 years ago, I needed to observe how other disabled people managed their employees and I learnt from their mistakes—as I am sure others have learnt from mine.

We all have dreams or expectations from life; disabled people are no different. Delivered successfully, a right to control will change for ever the way in which the state responds to our needs. I am confident that, by transferring power from the state to the individual in this way, we will overturn decades of low expectation and witness a transformation in people’s capability and well-being.

However, I recognise that this is an ambitious project. We are overturning a culture of dependency and philanthropy. There will be teething problems as we bed it down. However, I have been extremely pleased to be part of this transformative exercise. I have seen how people have grown, even during the two years in which I have had the privilege of chairing the advisory group. I am looking forward to seeing the success of the trailblazers and their eventual rollout across the country.

[Baroness Thomas of Winchester]

My Lords, as my noble friend said, it is just over a year ago that the band of Peers who speak on DWP matters welcomed the amendments to the Welfare Reform Bill, now Act, of 2009 which have triggered these regulations for pilots. I, too, can give them a hearty welcome.

I said a year ago that the amendments, now regulations, would herald a real shift in power from the state to disabled people, ensuring that they are in the driving seat when it comes to the support they need. I seek a few clarifications and have a few questions.

The amendments, which inserted a new clause, included a power for the Secretary of State to issue directions under existing community care legislation to deliver alignment under existing enactments. The then Minister, the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie of Luton, to whom I also pay warm tribute, said:

“Alignment means delivering the effect of the right to control to individuals in receipt of adult community care services”.—[Official Report, 27/10/09; col. 1114.]

My noble friend Lord Freud responded that it made far more sense to base the right-to-control approach on community care services, which are likely to be required on a sustained and long-term basis, than on the more transitory requirements surrounding support for disabled people to secure employment.

I should be grateful for clarification on that point. I think it means that adult community care is not included in these regulations because it comes under other legislation on direct payments, but that under these regulations authorities are enabled to share information about community care. Is this correct? Presumably this means that assessments will be shared so that disabled people do not have to undergo multiple assessments.

We all know how stretched local authorities’ financial resources will be. Will any support be provided to authorities to enable them to develop and implement a single assessment system? Will there be any practical support for organisations that provide information, advice, peer support and advocacy? There is an obligation for authorities to give to the disabled person information about organisations that provide advice and assistance, but there is no duty to sustain those organisations, nor is there a right to advocacy. Perhaps my noble friend can say what support there will be for the pilots.

Having read the document helpfully provided by the Office for Disability Issues, Making Choice and Control a Reality for Disabled People, I end by asking my noble friend one or two questions arising from that document. On page 20, I see that the Office for Disability Issues is working with the Department of Health to consider allowing, within the trailblazers only, third parties to carry out non-complex assessment reviews. Are we talking about people other than healthcare professionals? I was not sure. If we are, there is already a certain amount of controversy about those who carry out the work capability assessment, and it is important to get all these assessments right.

Another small point is the rule that a disabled person has to be informed in writing of various things. We are told that this means,

“in a format that is accessible to the person”.

If that is what the regulation means, why does it not say so?

Finally, have we got anywhere with the idea that the excellent access to work provisions might be guaranteed to a disabled person before the offer of a job, so that a potential employer would be more encouraged to offer that person employment? I hope that my noble friend can answer those questions—perhaps in writing, if not today. However, in general, I welcome the regulations most warmly.

Disabled People: UN Convention

Baroness Campbell of Surbiton Excerpts

Monday 5th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her informed questions, which I know come from her interest in and passion for equality issues. I can assure her that we will treat this convention with great seriousness and will push ahead to make sure that it does not slow down. Next July, we are due to report on progress in this area. We will be pushing to make sure that we do so to time. I can also assure her that in our welfare reforms we will look precisely at making sure that those who need support the most continue to receive it.

[Baroness Campbell of Surbiton]

My Lords, one-third of disabled people live below the official poverty line, which does not measure the additional costs of disability. Under the UN disability convention, the Government must promote the right of disabled people to an adequate standard of living and social protection. Will the Government’s review of the disability living allowance and, more importantly the recent closure of the independent living fund to new recipients, breach that obligation?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, when we look at our obligations under the convention, we are clearly looking at a journey towards complete equality for disabled people. It would be naive to claim that within one bound we shall produce total equality. This has been a long journey, which started many years ago. We are committed to press on and make sure that as we move ahead we produce greater equality and improve the lot of disabled people steadily as the years progress.