Welfare Reform Bill

Baroness Gardner of Parkes Excerpts

Tuesday 13th September 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

There is nothing left to say on this Bill. Everyone has made the most marvellous, wide-ranging statements. A theme that is coming through clearly—that people should be encouraged to work, do their best, have an aspiration and stand on their own feet wherever possible—is in theory a wonderful idea. We all know that that is true. The difficulty is when it comes to applying these things. I have always declared that I have a daughter with a physical disability and another family member with learning difficulties. My daughter tells me that every form that you have to fill in now is 35 pages long. As a dentist, I remember that people had to fill in 25 pages if they wanted help with their set of false teeth. At the end of the 25 pages, you were told how many prison visits that you could have. It was a sort of one-form-covers-everything—many pages that were totally irrelevant to a lot of people. They had no idea how to fill it in. They always brought it in and you had to do it for them.

In those days, another issue was whether the payment came straight to the dentist or went to the patient. When it went to the patient, you often did not see it. I can understand the suggestion now that housing benefit might go straight to the landlord. That is a terrible situation, particularly for those on housing benefit with private landlords who are in some cases crooked and demanding a great deal of extra money in cash from them, as well as their housing benefit. Landlords are getting eviction orders against them all. When you go into an estate agent, as I did with someone who has just had a notice that they have to move out and that the bailiffs will be coming shortly, the estate agent makes very clear that, even if the rent is within the £250 a week, no private landlord wants to have anything to do with housing benefit cases. That is terrible, and something must be done about it. It worries me that if the money is going to be paid directly to the landlord, the tenant cannot in any way pretend that they are not a housing benefit case because the landlord will see that when the money comes. It is very difficult. I think it might be wise to bring in flexibility about whether the money goes directly to the tenant or to the landlord. It is a major problem. I have had this from local councils as well. They have told me that they have done research and found that in central London landlords do not want to know you, so I am very worried for people who will be hard hit by housing benefit changes.

Returning to the principle of the Bill, my noble friend Lady Stedman-Scott made an excellent speech. She has worked at finding jobs for people who have often been out of work for a long time. I think that is wonderful. My noble friend Lord Sheikh said how good it is for people to work. That is true. There are advantages in having a job not only physically but in the morale-building effect it has on you because you feel you are making a contribution to society and to your own life.

A point made by other noble Lords is so true: we should hasten slowly. The noble Baroness, Lady King, made this point. If we try to do everything in five seconds, we are not going to succeed. It is so complicated that it will take a tremendous amount of work to sort it out. The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, made the point that we are going to need a degree of flexibility. There are going to be cases that come suddenly out of the blue, and someone will have to look after those people. We cannot rely on charities to do it because they are finding it harder and harder to cope. It is a problem.

On mobility and the new personal independence payment, it is terribly important that people should be encouraged to be independent, but there has to be recognition of things we have mentioned, such as heating costs. I have raised them in Questions in your Lordships' House over many years, and the Answer is always that it is all taken into account in the money you get. Whether we are paying our own bills or someone else is helping us with them, heating costs are alarming if they are jumping at 18 per cent, 20 per cent or more. It is really quite concerning because a lot of people, particularly people who are a bit immobile, can easily die of hypothermia.

Years ago when I was on the local council here in Westminster, we introduced the free bus pass. Now I know that Ken very cleverly called it the Freedom Pass and everyone thinks he started it, but we had it going at least 10 years before that but were not smart enough to get the credit for it. Our main reason for doing it and for everyone getting it free, because at one time we talked about charging people for it, was that it was going to cost so much to assess people that it was cheaper just to give them the pass. We also thought it was better than any social service to keep people mobile and able to move around. I still hold the view today that if you can keep people able to go and do their own shopping, it is much better than having to give them a carer to help them do it, but where the carer is the only answer, we have to do that.

I am always very impressed when the Minister answers any questions on these issues. He has very clear thinking and understanding, but he has a huge job on his hands to satisfy the world and the people in this House. The job ahead will have to be done very thoroughly. As my noble friend Lady Stedman-Scott said earlier, her father, the furrier, said you want to cut only once, not twice.