Welfare Reform Bill

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Thursday 10th November 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, this is by way of a serious probe to understand the Government’s plans and their progress on supporting individuals with drug and alcohol dependency. Clause 59 essentially removes the regime set out in the Welfare Reform Act 2009. Those involved in considering that legislation will recall that it ended up in a considerably better place than where it started. The noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, who is not in her place, should be able to claim considerable credit for encouraging the Government of the day to move from where they were to where they ended up.

The thrust of those provisions involves requiring claimants in the JSA regime to take part in a substance-related assessment where there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that they have a drug dependency which affects their prospects of obtaining or remaining in work. The jobseeker’s agreement is suspended if the individual engages in a voluntary rehabilitation plan. Such a rehabilitation plan could involve submitting to treatment, possibly at a specified institution. In the event of somebody failing to engage in such a plan, a mandatory plan could be imposed, but the legislation is very clear that such a plan cannot require a person to submit to medical or surgical treatment. A similar regime is provided for in the legislation for people in the work-related activity group but not, of course, the support group. Perhaps the Minister can remind us what, if any, regulations to introduce these measures were eventually promulgated—none, I suspect.

The information pack provided with this Bill states:

“It is considered that provisions from the Welfare Reform Act 2009 are too narrowly focused, impractical and expensive. In December 2010 the Government published a Drugs Strategy outlining first steps to ensuring the benefit system supports effective engagement with recovery services, which is considered to be more successful than coercion. For these, existing powers can be utilised”.

Perhaps the Minister can set out for us how the first steps are progressing.

On the Government’s drugs strategy, page 23 says:

“The first step is to ensure that the benefit system supports engagement with recovery services. We will offer claimants who are dependent on drugs or alcohol a choice between rigorous enforcement of the normal conditions and sanctions where they are not engaged in structured recovery activity, or appropriately tailored conditionality for those that are. Over the longer term, we will explore building appropriate incentives into the universal credit system to encourage and reward treatment take-up. In practice, this means that those not in treatment will neither be specifically targeted with, nor excused from sanctions by virtue of their dependence, but will be expected to comply with the full requirements of the benefits regime or face the consequences. Where people are taking steps to address their dependence, they will be supported, and the requirements placed upon them will be appropriate to their personal circumstances and will provide them with the necessary time and space to focus on their recovery”.

Clearly, the availability of support services will be key to this approach. Perhaps the Minister can give us an assessment of what is currently provided and available. The provisions that are being removed from existing legislation contain powers to extend the application to alcohol. Perhaps the Minister can say what the Government have in mind for those with an alcohol dependency; what services are available and what assessment has been undertaken.

The 2010 drugs strategy also says:

“We will also look at amending legislation to make it clear that where someone is attending residential rehabilitation and would be eligible for out-of-work benefits, they will be deemed to have a reduced capability for employment and will therefore be automatically entitled to Employment and Support Allowance”.

Is this still the plan and where is the legislation that provides for that? Presumably entitlement would cease after 365 days, maybe earlier if the claimant has a partner with modest income or capital. Whatever the limitations of the 2009 legislation, it provided a range of protections for individuals: a substance-related assessment could only be conducted by an approved person; relief from certain tests if the claimant provided a permissible sample, but not an intimate sample; an absolute bar on having to submit to medical or surgical treatment; protections concerning supply of information; and protection in criminal proceedings in respect of information provided about drug use. How will these issues be addressed in the new arrangements?

I should also be clear that we share a common goal of supporting people to live a drug-free life. An opportunity to get and sustain a job is an integral part of helping to achieve this, but we are entitled to know and have on the record what the Government plan in this regard.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, I will add a few more words on the 2010 drugs strategy. I very much welcome its view that the benefits system should support effective engagement with recovery services. It considers that this is more successful than coercion—a view that I strongly hold. As my noble friend said, the strategy covers all drug problems, including the severe misuse of alcohol. About 400,000 benefit claimants—about 8 per cent of all working-age claimants—are dependent on drugs or alcohol. I welcome the strategy of increasing the number of such claimants who engage with treatment and rehabilitation and go on to find employment.

I will ask a little more about the plan, quoted by my noble friend Lord McKenzie, about the choice between vigorous enforcement of the normal conditions and sanctions where claimants are not engaged in structured recovery activity, and appropriate tailored conditionality for those who are. How will that conditionality be decided?

My bigger question is: how can such claimants engage in structured recovery activity when the result of government cuts is that there are ever fewer agencies offering structured day programmes or any other form of treatment? I declare an interest as a trustee of Camden-based CASA. The noble Lord must pass it every day on his way back home. For 27 years CASA has provided in Camden a range of services for alcohol and drug misusers and their families.

Our dual diagnosis service for those with mental health and alcohol misuse problems has been ended. Our families service has been curtailed. Our older persons service has been halved. Our back to employment service has been closed. This month we had to shut our Camden day service centre in Fortess Road, which was well known, and sell the building. Many of our staff were made redundant and our premises were closed. That is the impact of the cuts on local government and other potential funders. My question to the Minister is not about the intention behind this, but about where people will get the services and the help that they need to be able to respond to the strategy. Furthermore, with the Government's withdrawal of 100 per cent of its grant to the National Agency on Alcohol Misuse—Alcohol Concern, as it is known—which I set up at the Government’s behest and with government money in 1984, who will help set up, co-ordinate and make known such services to the claimants who need them?

I would also like the Minister to tell us how those for whom structured recovery activities are appropriate will be identified. Also, how is structured recovery activity to be defined? I have been trying for 27 years to define it for our clients and have failed. I do not mean that as a joke: it is very difficult because it is a highly personalised service. I would be interested to know the Government's definition of structured recovery activity. We also know that the drug co-ordinators who were responsible for building the relationship between Jobcentre Plus and external agencies in the drugs field, such as treatment and probation services, have now been abolished. Who is expected to co-ordinate the work of Jobcentre Plus with the providers of these services in their local community?

The impact assessment for the drugs strategy states that:

“Employment support will be funded on an outcomes basis, using benefit savings freed up when people engaged with recovery services move into employment or full-time education”.

The assessment suggests that this funding provision will be delivered via the work programme. Will the Minister tell us what proportion of work programme providers are offering support with drug and alcohol issues, and how many people have accessed the support? Furthermore, as I hear that St Mungo’s and other voluntary agencies are receiving none of the anticipated referrals from the work programme, can the Minister outline where such services are being provided and where participants are being signposted to?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, Clause 59 repeals provisions introduced by Section 11 of and Schedule 3 to the Welfare Reform Act 2009. These provisions would have applied to claimants of jobseeker’s allowance and employment and support allowance where their dependence on alcohol or drugs affects their prospects of finding or remaining in work. The regulation-making powers inserted by Schedule 3 to the 2009 Act could have been used to require JSA claimants to undertake a range of activities, including answering questions about whether they are dependent on or at risk of misusing drugs, and attending drug-related assessments or drugs interviews that would involve testing unless the claimant agreed to provide a sample that could be tested. Claimants could then enter a voluntary rehabilitation plan which might involve treatment. If claimants did not agree to enter the voluntary rehabilitation plan they could be required to enter a mandatory rehabilitation plan. Although a mandatory rehabilitation plan would not require a claimant to undergo treatment it could, for example, require the claimant to attend an educational programme or take part in interviews and assessments. These provisions also extended to alcohol dependency. Equivalent provisions were introduced for ESA claimants who are members of the work-related activity group. The mandatory requirements would have been enforced by using regulation-making powers to sanction a claimant’s benefit if they failed to comply.

These provisions, as the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, suggested, have never been commenced. The previous Government produced draft regulations for a pilot scheme to run for two years from October 2010. Those regulations were considered by the Social Security Advisory Committee in March 2010. The committee’s report, published in May last year, raised significant concerns. It recommended that the pilot scheme should not go ahead as drafted. The committee considered that the pilots were unlikely to be effective, contained a number of significant flaws and would not produce robust results. Having listened to SSAC’s concerns and having undertaken their own work on drugs, in December last year the Government published their drugs strategy, Reducing demand, restricting supply, building recovery. The strategy recognises that work is a key contributor to sustained recovery from addiction, but we also recognise that the previous Government’s approach of mandating drug testing and assessments, and requiring claimants to undertake a rehabilitation plan on pain of losing benefit, is not the right one. We say it is not the right approach in particular for the following three reasons.

First, it mandates claimants to do something, such as being tested for drugs, that is not directly about helping people to approach the labour market. That does not mean that entering treatment is not the right approach to help many claimants who are substance dependent to address their barriers to work, but—and this leads to my second reason—claimants enter treatment for a series of complex reasons, and whether or not they succeed also depends on a series of complex reasons. Forcing claimants to answer, for example, questions about possible drug use, requiring them to attend substance-related assessments about drug use and insisting that claimants enter a mandatory rehabilitation plan if they decline to enter treatment voluntarily would be asking them to do something a large proportion of them would not want to do. If we took the approach of the previous Government, we would create a high risk of those claimants immediately failing these requirements and having to be sanctioned.

Perhaps I could pick a trick that the Opposition have enjoyed using on me on occasion. I am aware that there may have been some differences within the previous Government regarding their attitude to this legislation. I am enjoying watching on the faces of some of the people opposite a similar smile to the one that I sometimes have to use.

Finally, we consider that the previous Government’s approach towards substance or alcohol-dependent claimants would be one that all the evidence from treatment providers and agencies who are experts in this area, as well as SSAC which consulted with those organisations, say would not succeed.

On the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, about our alcohol strategy and what service will be available, the Department of Health will be publishing a new alcohol strategy early next year which will set out what services we plan to have available.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

Perhaps I may ask the noble Lord when is “early next year”. I know that he likes dates. I had understood that it was going to be by the end of this year, but he is bringing us fresh news, if it is to be early next year.

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, I like to be able to flesh out these adverbs—no, they are not adverbs. My grammar is slightly frail. The answer is that I cannot be any more specific. If that is news, I am not in a position to provide any more definition.

Clause 59 removes Section 11 and Schedule 3 from the 2009 Act, and also removes the provisions which Schedule 3 inserted into the Jobseekers Act 1995 and the Welfare Reform Act 2007. We know that the vast majority of people with substance dependency issues eventually want to break free of their addiction. The National Treatment Agency reports that, last year, more than 200,000 people in England entered treatment. That represents about two-thirds of all those with dependency issues. In 2010-11, 27,969 adults left treatment in England free of dependency, which is an increase of 150 per cent compared with 2005-06. Waiting times continue to reduce—96 per cent get into treatment within three weeks of referral. In England, we spend more than £400 million on drug treatment and this budget has not been cut. We want to build on that. We believe that the right approach is to offer support and encouragement for those who want to tackle their substance addiction. We are therefore ensuring that our advisers have the confidence to engage in the often difficult conversations with those who they believe have dependency problems, that they understand the issues that addicts face and that they work in partnership with local treatment agencies to improve referral rates. By encouraging closer working between Jobcentre advisers and treatment service providers we will increase the number of people moving into sustained recovery.

If claimants decide to take up the treatment opportunities available to them, we will look to ensure that they have the opportunity to focus on that treatment and make it succeed. This is not being soft on addicts. The choice to tackle addiction is not an easy one, as anyone who has tried will confirm. Claimants who decline the offer of treatment will be expected to comply with their ordinary full labour-market conditions as a requirement for continuing to be entitled to their benefit.

The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, asked about universal credit. We are clear that the imposition of work-related requirements under universal credit must not conflict with an individual’s treatment regime. We want to maximise every individual’s chances of an early move into work. For those with substance dependency, the first logical step will often to be to confront their addition, and we do not want simultaneously to impose labour market requirements that make it challenging or even impossible to complete treatment. This will be our guiding principle under universal credit and we will make sure that this can be achieved. The structure of universal credit legislation makes this relatively straightforward. We have considerable flexibility in the powers we are taking in the Bill to ensure that we can tailor work-related requirements to fit with the circumstances and capability of an individual. We will be considering how best this can be done as we develop regulations.

The provisions inserted by the Welfare Reform Act 2009 are inappropriate and likely to have unintended adverse consequences for substance or alcohol-dependent claimants, their communities and the public purse. The provisions have not been commenced and do not reflect this Government’s direction of travel in dealing with the very difficult question of drug and alcohol addiction, nor do they take account of the introduction of universal credit, which will replace both the income-related strands of JSA and ESA in due course. Hence we seek to repeal them. I beg to move that Clause 59 stand part of the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, this is purely a minor technical amendment to remove references to specific maximum amounts of weekly benefit payable for successive accidents and prescribed diseases for persons under the age of 18. The present amounts specified as subject to uprating have changed since the Bill was introduced. The figures currently specified in Clause 64 were correct on the Bill’s introduction but have since been amended by the uprating order—and it is likely that they will change again before the provision comes into force. I beg to move.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing the amendment, which will remove the significance of the age of 18 in industrial injuries benefits legislation. It will mean that all existing and new claims by persons under 18 will be paid at normal industrial injuries disability benefit rates. That is a very welcome move. I have no problem with the government amendment permitting the maximum amount to be specified in regulations rather than in the Bill. However, I will pose a couple of questions.

First, will the Minister put on record that the Government are not intending to reduce the maximum amount payable under this provision? Secondly, will he say whether, assuming the amounts will be in regulations, the regulations will be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure? Young workers who have suffered industrial injury may constitute a small group, but they are vulnerable and it would be useful to know whether the House will have an opportunity to debate the matter.

Thirdly, will the Minister let the Committee know whether payments made under the scheme will count as benefits under the proposed benefit cap? Our understanding is that they will be so included. Obviously, we will debate the benefit cap when we get to Clause 93. However, it seems that to include these payments, which are compensation for injuries at work, within a calculation of the total support that a family could receive from the state, would be somewhat unfair. It would mean that for a young person living with their family, any such support would be taken away from the total family entitlement, which would effectively turn the benefit into a means-tested benefit.

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, I will pick up on those points. I am grateful that the noble Baroness said that she welcomed the amendment. Clearly, the main thrust of it is to simplify. In this case she will have been delighted to see that we levelled up rather than anything else. It is always nice to be able to give money away occasionally. I confirm that we are not intending to reduce the maximum amount, which will be specified in the uprating order. We are working on the precise treatment of different elements—I apologise for the technical terms—and looking at the interplay between different benefits. We will treat some as the equivalent of earnings, some as the equivalent of benefit, which will knock out the right to universal credit, and some benefits will be disallowed. Clearly, that will be specified in the regulations. We can discuss that entire area when we look at the whole range of benefits. The principle is that generally, where something is the equivalent of state support, one does not want to double up state support. Sorry, I should clarify. When I said that it is in the uprating order, that is subject to affirmative procedure, so it will be affirmative.