Welfare Reform Bill
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Pitkeathley
My Lords, I, too, speak in support of these amendments. We are talking about essential rights for carers. When carers give up work in order to care, it is crucial that they are able to access financial support, which provides them with an independent income. I hope that your Lordships will forgive me for a brief trip down memory lane about an independent income for carers. In the 1960s, an independent income for carers was at the very heart of what started the carers’ movement. That independent income was achieved in the 1970s and went on to be extended in the 1980s. I should like to acknowledge the very active part that the noble Lord, Lord Newton, who is not in his place, played in extending those rights under—perhaps I may remind your Lordships—a Conservative Government.
Given the importance of carers, which has been acknowledged time and again, it is disappointing that the Government have not brought forward an amendment to place these rights in the Bill. If the gateway for PIP payments is left to regulations, different groups of carers will have their rights to carer’s allowance set out in different ways. Those caring for disabled children will continue to receive DLA and will not be moved on to PIP, and carers looking after an older person in receipt of attendance allowance, which is also unaffected by these reforms, will continue to have their right to carer’s allowance clearly set out under the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act. Yet those who are caring for disabled people of working age who are being moved on to PIP would have their rights set out only in secondary legislation, which would make for a confused picture.
I know that Carers UK, other Peers in your Lordships’ House and the Disability Benefits Consortium very much welcomed the Minister’s decision to bring forward their decision about both levels of PIP in December. But to give carers full confidence in their rights and clarity in the legislation, it is crucial for the decision to be written in the Bill.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
My Lords, my name is also on this amendment and it is clear that we support it. The amendments are, I hope, welcomed by the Minister as an opportunity to firm up what, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, has said, he said before Christmas: that carers of claimants of both rates of the daily living component will retain eligibility for the carer’s allowance, and to make that undertaking concrete by placing it in primary legislation.
The Minister and the House know well that the changes to disability benefits are causing considerable concern to disabled people and to their carers. This amendment is about providing some clarity. It cannot provide full reassurance because carers do not yet know how they will be affected by the 20 per cent proposed cuts or the exact way that the new thresholds will work. We know that half a million people will lose benefit, but we do not know how many of that half a million qualify for carer’s allowance at present. I am afraid we must assume that there will be a large number of current recipients who will no longer qualify for support.
There has not yet been any impact assessment—it is not simply that the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, cannot find it. We hope—indeed, we expect—that there will be as part of the response to the consultation announced yesterday. However, for today, we would simply ask the noble Lord to solidify his commitment to those who qualify under the new assessment process that their carers will be able to receive carer’s allowance. At the moment, the Bill does not repeat what is there for DLA. It does not even appear to do it in regulations.
A move from warm words to an undertaking in the Bill to maintain the status of carers’ rights would be very welcome. It would be a sign that the Minister is listening to disabled people and understands their need for clarity. In Committee the Minister spoke very warmly of our 6 million carers. Along with those warm words, can we have something in legislation?
Lord Freud
My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to place on record the value that this Government place on carers and their work. Although times are difficult, I have managed to redesign the universal credit so that we are ameliorating the £100 cliff edge, as carers do some earning, that they dislike so much. I hope that that is a token, even in these difficult times, of how much we value carers.
The second thing I would like to mention is more than a token. I was really pleased to be able to announce before Report that both elements of PIP will be a gateway for the receipt of carer’s allowance. I am grateful for the very detailed and knowledgeable debate that we had on this matter. We have had a lot of very thoughtful and clever representations from groups such as Carers UK, which we have taken very seriously indeed. I know that our announcement has been very warmly welcomed by various groups.
There is some concern about how the decision is to be enacted. That is clearly what is driving the amendments from the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins. I want to give an absolute assurance on this. We will use the powers under Clause 90 of the Bill to make the necessary change. We will bring forward, in due course, the appropriate secondary legislation to amend Section 70 of the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992 and put the position beyond doubt by making clear that people will be able to access carer’s allowance from both rates of the daily living component of the PIP. That is how we are planning to lock that position down, and it is a commitment that I make here and now to carers in this country. We have listened to the concerns from Peers and the carers’ lobby.
The noble Baroness asked how many carers would be affected. We expect to undertake an impact analysis as we get to regulations. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, spoke about large numbers being affected. That is a slightly brusque assumption given that carers currently on the lowest rate would not anyway be passported. We are talking about the top two rates. The assumption of a 20 per cent cut in that budget does not marry up. It is not a cut on where we are today; it is a cut on where we would be at the end of this Parliament. We have to await the impact analysis before we can know the real figures.
On the basis of the reassurances that I have provided, I hope that the noble Baroness will not press her amendments.
Welfare Reform Bill
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
My Lords, I think I have the right group. As we have heard, unless this Bill is amended, it will fundamentally alter discretionary payments. Budgeting loans will be replaced by payments on account as part of the universal credit. Community care grants, which help those on means-tested benefits stay in their own homes, and crisis loans, which basically do what it says on the tin —they are for a crisis and they are a loan—will both be abolished and the money handed over to local authorities.
As has been said, the problem is that there are no guarantees that similar support will be available to vulnerable people who need it; the funding will not be ring-fenced; and there will be no statutory duties attached, not even any guidance of the sort that my noble friend Lady Hollis has requested. Earlier the Government were very clear that they would not issue any guidance—we trust they may have had time to rethink that. Without guidance, which would guarantee access to certain groups or place a statutory duty on councils to provide the sort of service that has existed, or to ring-fence the money, there is a real danger that the kinds of support that have been available will simply dry up.
The lack of ring-fencing caused the biggest concern to those responding to the Government’s consultation: 42 per cent of respondents raised it, a higher proportion than on any other part of the proposals. The various charities, which know a thing or two about vulnerable people, have, I am sure, contacted the Government—they certainly contacted us about this. Crisis is,
“deeply concerned about the impact on homeless people moving into independent, settled accommodation”.
Family Action is similarly,
“seriously concerned about the abolition of the discretionary Social Fund”,
which it fears,
“will remove one of the final safety nets for some of the most vulnerable and needy members of society”.
Barnardo’s also knows a thing or two about working with vulnerable people. It feels that,
“the Social Fund is a lifeline for many”
and is therefore “seriously concerned” about its removal and the money being given to local authorities, should this not be ring-fenced. Scope is similarly,
“deeply concerned that the Government plans to devolve a vital source of support … with no intention of ring-fencing”.
I am sure that some 22 charities have been in contact because they are worried about the loss of this last safety net for the most vulnerable when they suffer from emergency situations in the form of traumatic events such as homelessness and domestic violence, which has already been referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Blair.
The lack of the ring-fence was mentioned here tonight by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, and in Committee, including by the noble Lord, Lord German, who is not in his place. In response to that, the Minister, who also is not in his place, said that he was extremely concerned about what was being said about the lack of a ring-fence and that he would reflect on the issues raised. I trust that his reflection is going to be shared with us shortly. As we have heard, a third of those getting community care grants are disabled, a quarter are lone parents and one in 10 are pensioners. These moneys go to people moving out of residential or institutional care to live independently, including children moving on from care and people coming out of homeless hostels, psychiatric hospitals and women’s refuges. These are exactly the sort of people who are being helped. In the future, of course, we may rather sadly have to add those who are forced to move as a result of the Government’s so-called under-occupancy rules, should the Government insist on overturning your Lordships’ amendment. Similarly, we risk larger families being forced to move elsewhere once the benefit cap, if that is not amended, affects high-rent areas such as London and the south-east. Again, people will be forced to move and set up home anew. Community care grants also help families at risk due to exceptional pressures. We have heard about overcrowding, relationship breakdown and the examples of a house fire or flooding.
Perhaps the Minister could tell the House whether he has read Destination Unknown, a Demos report tracking the lives of disabled families through the cuts. If he has read it, does he recall the central message that, for the disabled, one unexpected event such as an added illness, a mix-up over benefits, the need for new wheels on an electric chair or longer taxi rides to medical appointments can completely blow a person’s budget out of the water? The disabled tend to have no savings, no leeway and nothing else to rely on. It is exactly this sort of money that has been available to them. Charities, which have also often stepped in, are seeing their supply of funding drying up. They are finding themselves overburdened with demands. Jobs are less available, and the traditional hiccups or slight delays in payments that are bound to occur with the introduction of new systems that we will see at a later stage can have a devastating effect on the week-to-week budgets of disabled people. They just manage, but it is these sorts of emergency funds which can make all the difference when something goes wrong.
Crisis loans are slightly different from the other elements and the DWP has claimed that this expenditure rose following the introduction of the telephone-based application scheme. However, there is no actual evidence that it was a cause rather than a correlation which showed on the figures as the rise in claims also coincided with an increase in unemployment. Also, it is important to remember that the crisis loan scheme is a loan.
Another report that the House may be aware of was published by Barnardo’s in December last year on the vicious circle and heavy burden of credit on low- income families. Families can become trapped in a cycle of debt, which can have a very persistent effect. The Social Fund offers a far better alternative to vulnerable families than home credit, payday loans and other forms of high-interest lending, including of course illegal loan sharks. It is estimated that a £100 loan from a loan shark needs repayments of £285 and takes 57 weeks to repay. The same loan from the Social Fund costs £100 and takes 15 weeks to repay. Furthermore, these are the amounts we are talking about. I think that the average award last year was just £83, so we are not talking about hundreds of thousands, but we are talking about money that makes an enormous difference to a certain number of people. These loans can be life-changing. They can be the rent for a new home; they can be the move out of institutional care and help to pay either that rent up front or for the cooker that enables one to live there.
Our concern is that a lack of ring-fencing will mean that these loans are simply not available under a new scheme. Councils, as has been heard, are already worried that the money will drift away elsewhere, and we understand the temptation for that. We have already seen 123 local authorities increase their meals-on-wheels charges, some by up to 400 per cent, while their own grants to local voluntary agencies, which used to be able to help, are drying up. We should not be surprised if local authorities were a little tempted to move this funding elsewhere.
The amendment does not seek to frustrate the Government’s intention to localise, nor does it argue with the contention that need will best be met if identified at a local level. It seeks to provide a safeguard for the many people who need the support that the Social Fund now provides to help them in a crisis. It is because of the strong concerns that we have heard expressed across the House about the vulnerability of these groups of people if this money is not available that we support the amendment.
As Barnardo’s points out, some local authorities do not yet have expertise in working with the poorest. An inner London borough may well understand how to implement the infrastructure to offer a Social Fund replacement, but this is less likely in a shire county with a smaller and more dispersed population of disadvantaged people. Indeed, localised replacement is likely to be provided through adult social services. Many people who need the support of the Social Fund, such as homeless people, will not be clients of social services, so they may struggle to access it anyway. Without ring-fencing and some guidelines about who it should go to, we have grave worries about the gap that will be left. I hope that the Minister’s period of reflection on the amendment will enable him to accept it.
Lord De Mauley
My Lords, I absolutely understand what the noble Baroness’s Amendment 50 is trying to achieve. I assure your Lordships that we are equally committed to ensuring that this money is targeted on and reaches the most vulnerable people. We appreciate the importance of this money to vulnerable people, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, has just explained.
As noble Lords have said, ring-fencing was debated in Committee and the Government have thought carefully about the valuable points that were made. We share the desire of noble Lords to ensure that these funds are used in the way intended and are not lost in the general pool of local authority funding.
We have concluded that the most appropriate way to make clear to local authorities the purpose of the funding is by setting it out in a settlement letter from the Secretary of State that will accompany the funding that is sent to each local authority. This letter will set out clearly what the funding is to be used for and describe the outcome that must be achieved. It is important that local authorities are not constrained in how they achieve that outcome, so the letter will not prescribe the method that should be used.
Welfare Reform Bill
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts(12 years, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Morgan of Drefelin
I shall speak also to Amendment 47. First, I want to declare an interest as chief executive of Breast Cancer Campaign. I am grateful to have the opportunity to speak to these amendments that aim to ensure that cancer patients awaiting, receiving or recovering from chemotherapy or radiotherapy will automatically qualify for the employment and support allowance support group without having to undergo an assessment. I have to admit to being disappointed that we have had to come to the point where it is necessary even to lay these amendments now. This is a debate that we should have had in Committee, but we were unable to do so because at the time the outcome of the Harrington review and the Government’s response to it were not known. That is why we are having what is probably a Committee stage debate now—although obviously within the correct procedure for Report.
While I am sure the Minister will be able to highlight technical flaws in the wording of the amendments, I hope that the discussion today on these amendments will focus on the intention behind them, which I believe is clear. I am sure that if there are technical flaws that need to be addressed, they can be looked at for Third Reading.
Over several months, we have heard a number of seemingly very reassuring statements from the Government in relation to employment and support allowance and supporting people with cancer. I note, for example, the response by Chris Grayling MP, the Minister for Employment, on 18 October to a Written Question, in which he said:
“Ministers have had a number of discussions with Macmillan Cancer Support since the spending review announcement, as we are determined that the benefits system should support people who are diagnosed with cancer in the most sensitive, fair and appropriate way. The Department has no interest in making it harder for those who cannot work to claim benefits and is committed to an ongoing process of review and improvement”.—[Official Report, Commons, 18/10/11; col. 930W.]
That was a very reassuring statement.
Unfortunately, the recent publication of the Harrington review and the Government’s response to it resulted in anxiety across the cancer community. I have listened to the views expressed by organisations such as Macmillan Cancer Support and others and am sorry to say that I am not reassured by the news that the Government are considering withdrawing automatic qualification for the support group of ESA to those on non-oral chemotherapy—commonly referred to as IV chemotherapy—instead of extending the exemption to cancer patients receiving oral chemotherapy. In effect, that is going in exactly the opposite direction of that pointed to by the Minister for Employment.
We know that Macmillan Cancer Support undertook an expert consultation on this matter for the Harrington review. It did an enormous amount of work and I pay tribute to it for it. There is no doubt that the recommendations produced by it through consultation with an expert group of clinicians have not been adopted. Macmillan has been very clear on this point. I have had a look at the government response and it seems that Macmillan is making a fair point.
The Minister will no doubt suggest, as he has done previously, that the Government’s response is not contrary to Macmillan’s conclusions. However, it is my understanding that while the clinicians consulted provided the charity with a range of views—Macmillan has been totally transparent about all the views that it has received—a clear consensus was reached by experts that certain groups of cancer patients undergoing treatment should qualify for the support group automatically. As was stated by the charity, this is because those patients are more likely than not to be debilitated by their treatment and should not be made to go through an assessment while undergoing this debilitating treatment.
While I am not suggesting that it was the intention of the Minister and his colleagues to add to the struggles and difficulties that cancer patients experience, I fear that what is currently being proposed would do just that. In the Sunday Times this week, the journalist Jenni Russell shared her experiences of chemotherapy very movingly and said:
“I read these proposals with incredulity. I have been seriously ill at times in my life … but I have never felt as appalling as I did on chemo … I had assumed I would overcome it with a bit of willpower. Instead I had vomiting, nausea, headaches, muscle weakness and an inability to tolerate bright lights. For the first four days in every fortnight’s treatment, I couldn’t eat, speak, read, listen to the radio or get out of bed. My white blood cell count sank so low that I needed injections to boost my bone marrow production. For the next six days I was too weak to want to walk upstairs. There was no fight left in my body; every cell was being affected and it seemed every cell was losing the will to live. Then for three days I would feel almost normal until the cycle began again”.
Jenni Russell then provided her view on how cancer patients might interpret what was being proposed by the Government in this Welfare Reform Bill. She said:
“What people in treatment are hearing is that they will be assumed to be guilty of skiving unless they can prove otherwise. Nothing could be more demoralising to the individuals who are already having to cope with being cut open, poisoned or burnt in the hope of saving their lives”.
These are very hard-hitting comments in the Sunday Times and very difficult to read. While there are hundreds of thousands of other people who do not have the opportunity to share their experiences in the House today, I feel sure that the views expressed by Jenni would be endorsed by many cancer patients around the country.
I noted the Minister’s comments on Monday—I was disappointed that I was not here for the Question—that part of the rationale for not allowing automatic qualification for benefit is that it is important for many cancer patients to stay in work. I do not disagree with that at all. However, it seems far fetched to suggest that qualifying for the support component would stop cancer patients who wish to continue working for as long as they can from doing so. I do not understand how that holds up.
The Minister may also argue that the automatic support group status encourages the wrong kind of behaviour in cancer patients. The Minister shakes his head; I am sure he will put me right in a moment in his very clear way. I would welcome hearing from him whether he really believes that cancer patients would decide to leave work just because they are automatically eligible for this benefit. What picture does that paint of the motivations behind cancer patients’ behaviour? It is my understanding that automatic entitlement to ESA support group status would not prevent patients who wish to remain in work for as long as they are able from continuing to do so. If the Minister has any evidence that the existing exemption for cancer patients on IV chemotherapy, for example, has been or is being abused by cancer patients who are clearly capable of working, it would be very useful to hear about it. The House would welcome that.
Nor will becoming eligible for the support component of the ESA while receiving chemotherapy lead to people spending a lifetime on benefits. I know the Government are very concerned about ensuring that we do not leave people to languish on benefits for a lifetime. I totally support that. We know that work is good for people. Even if that is what people wanted—which they do not—they are reassessed for eligibility for benefit after their treatment. This would mean that when they are no longer in need of the support on offer from the support group, it would be withdrawn. There were many personal examples given in Committee. When I was talking about PIP, I used the example of my niece who was in the process of being treated for Hodgkin’s lymphoma. She is in hospital having her second transplant at the moment. Throughout her 18 months of treatment she has been reassessed three times for ESA to check whether or not she should still be receiving it in the support group. So there is no danger of her going on indefinitely in the support group.
The amendments will ensure that the added burdens associated with seeking financial support during the most difficult of times are minimised as much as possible. This would help to remove the anxiety experienced when people have to wait for the results of a decision-maker. With 40 per cent of appeals currently successful, we should not forget that these decision-makers are clearly frequently making the wrong decisions. It is feasible that, without the guarantee of receiving the support component of the benefit, cancer patients who are in the middle of treatment could be forced to attend back-to-work interviews or even be found fit for work.
I remain hopeful that the Minister will respond to the growing concern on this issue, which has been even more apparent over the past week. I hope he will be able to say that all patients receiving, due to receive or recovering from chemotherapy will automatically qualify for the support element of ESA. It would also be useful if the Minister could explain at this stage what further documentation and processes cancer patients receiving IV chemotherapy will have to provide and undergo in future as this would be extremely helpful in informing the debate at this point.
I hope very much that the Minister can give me reassurances that it will not become more difficult for those who are currently automatically put into the support group because of their cancer treatment to claim ESA. I hope very much that the Minister will be able to give undertakings about the consultation process, which I believe is due to be taken forward just before Christmas—Christmas holiday time—and that the consultation period will seek the views of many on a range of options. It looks a little like the Harrington review has asked Macmillan to do some work for it, does not like what has come back, and is going to ask some different people to see whether it can find some more opinions that it does like. I am sure—absolutely sure—that this is not what the Minister is proposing at all.
I hope that if there is to be a consultation over Christmas it will be done in a fair, open, transparent and timely way that looks at more than just one option and talks to patients, charities and a range of experts too. I beg to move.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
My Lords, like the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, I think the fact that this amendment is necessary comes as a surprise. When we started discussions of the Bill, it seemed that the issue of whether recipients of debilitating cancer treatment in the form of oral chemotherapy should be automatically exempted from requirements to look for work was being dealt with in a sensible manner by discussions between the cancer charities, cancer specialists and the Government. It is extremely disappointing to find that these discussions appear to have broken down. Disappointing for us, but extremely worrying for the many cancer patients anxious about what support they will be able to claim and how they will qualify for it when their main focus is living through and coping with some pretty debilitating—as we have heard—albeit wonderful, lifesaving treatments. The Government’s response to the second Harrington review states that its new proposals to ask everyone experiencing cancer treatment to go through the work capability assessment process,
“would increase the number of individuals being treated for cancer going into the Support Group”.
It also states that:
“They would also reduce the number of face-to-face assessments for people being treated for cancer as most assessments could be done on a paper basis, based on evidence presented by a GP or treating healthcare professional”.
While we welcome the acceptance of medical evidence, this proposal still puts cancer patients undergoing treatment through the uncertainty and stress of not knowing whether they will qualify for essential financial support or whether they will be expected to prepare for work while undergoing their treatment. With the proposals to time limit employment and support allowance for those in the work-related activity group, these assessments take on an added importance, since for many people they will determine when the clock starts ticking to the point when they will lose this contributory support altogether.
We do not think that anybody should be written off because they have cancer. We certainly do not think that no one with cancer will ever be able to work again. A brief glance behind me in your Lordships’ House is great testimony. This is not, however, what automatic entry into the support group means. We know that those in the support group can volunteer for access to the work programme and the support there to help them get back into employment. We imagine that the vast majority of those who have overcome their cancer will want to do just that. But for the Government to suggest that those receiving chemotherapy need to be tested to see whether they are really ill enough to avoid a conditionality regime, which we will remind the House was intended to put pressure on people to return to work, suggests that the Government somehow view all cancer patients as potentially taking advantage of the state. We are sure that that is not the Minister’s view and therefore hope that he will be able to accept the amendment.
Lord Freud
My Lords, this is obviously a very sensitive issue, and I want to start by saying that we are determined that the benefit system should support in a sensitive, fair and appropriate way people who are diagnosed with cancer and coping with it. I shall try to go through the argumentation here in as simple a way as I can.
First, we know that cancer and cancer treatment affects individuals very differently. That was one thing that the Macmillan evidence demonstrated. It shows that some people can continue working straight through their treatment, are capable of doing so and want to do so. On that evidence, we believe that automatically putting everyone undergoing certain cancer treatments into the support group is not the right way forward. Clearly, there is the example that the noble Baroness raised, the one in the Sunday Times, of Jenni Murray, who had a bad reaction, and one can only sympathise with that. Everyone in this Chamber will have friends or relatives who have gone through this experience and had a bad reaction. It is always painful. We are all thinking exactly the same thing; we are all thinking of someone we know who has gone through hell on this process. But when you talk to the experts, you get examples of someone—let us take a man—who has had testicular cancer and has recovered well from curative surgery and is now being treated with radiotherapy without any significant side effects. On this ruling, he would be automatically placed in the support group. That is a kind of counter-example, which half of us should be so lucky to have.
Welfare Reform Bill
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts(12 years, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
My Lords, as my noble friend Lady Hollis made clear, this amendment addresses the cases of those who, not having been housing benefit claimants, become in need of this, perhaps through the loss of a job, a change in domestic circumstances, illness or some other unanticipated event. It is aimed at the potential impact on vulnerable young adults: single people between 25 and 35, who rent in the private sector and from January will only be eligible for the single room rate, losing about £40 a week. Crisis—which we all know, particularly at Christmas, of course—an organisation that knows a thing or two about homelessness, believes that most of the 50,000 or more people affected are likely to lose their homes.
The amendment does not say that these people would be excused the shared room rate up to the age of 35, but it gives them a window of a year in which to find a new home or a job, to get well, or in some way to change their circumstances so that they are no longer dependent on housing benefit. It would extend the current 13-week breathing space to 52.
This is not just a matter of the individuals concerned sorting out their lives but of allowing the market to respond to these new rules. Research by the University of York on the impact of extending the shared-room accommodation rate found that there is insufficient shared accommodation available at the moment. Indeed, this would risk making such accommodation even harder to find for those aged under 25 as the supply of relevant accommodation takes time to build up. Furthermore, the York study found that sharing can sometimes be difficult or even dangerous, as we have already heard, and can have a serious negative impact on the health and well-being of vulnerable people.
As we have already heard, there are exemptions to the shared accommodation policy, including those for severely disabled people, care leavers aged under 22, people who have spent more than three months in a homelessness hostel and received resettlement support and those aged over 25 who are considered a risk to others. It does not include those who might themselves be at risk. In Committee the Minister reminded us of the other exemptions, such as those for certain ex-offenders who pose a risk to the public and certain former residents of specialist homeless hostels, which might include those leaving a refuge following domestic violence.
However, we also heard in Committee of a number of situations in which shared accommodation not covered by those exemptions would pose a real problem for people. My noble friend Lady Sherlock raised the question of single pregnant women, who may find such circumstances particularly difficult. The noble Baroness, Lady Campbell of Surbiton, raised the issue of those with obsessive compulsive disorder, who may also find the prospect particularly difficult. My noble friend Lord McAvoy, who is not in his position at the moment and is, in his own words, not a social liberal, talked about the situation of those with a mental illness and how they might gradually be forced out of successively worse forms of shared accommodation.
Many of the people caught by this proposed new ruling will be fathers of young children soon after a split, when it is particularly crucial for their relationship with the children to be maintained. If it is not kept close in that first year of separation it is very hard to re-establish it later. That relationship depends not just on shared hamburgers in McDonald’s but on cooking, eating and even washing up together. For this, a place of one’s own, where young children can feel at home—not a house shared with strangers—will be crucial. The amendment relates to that first 12 months, within which we hope finances, jobs or better accommodation can be sorted out. If it is not sorted out in that 12 months, at least it will be much less threatening for those children visiting their now non-resident parent to get used to a different way of living.
The amendment does not reverse the intention of the policy, which the Minister told us was to ensure that claimants make similar choices to those not on benefits. The flaw in his argument is that the circumstances of many of those on benefits are not the same as those who can support themselves. The benefits system is designed exactly to protect people when their circumstances change. The amendment provides a little extra support of this kind. It would give people sufficient time either to address the circumstances—whether job loss, illness or a change in family arrangements—that meant they had to claim benefit, or, at a later time, to find the shared accommodation that best meets their needs. It is a thoughtful amendment, which the Opposition are happy to support.
Lord Freud
My Lords, Amendment 19 from the noble Baronesses, Lady Hollis and Lady Meacher, deals with a subject that we have debated at considerable length—the shared accommodation rate. In case there is any doubt, let me be clear: the shared accommodation rate is what we pay people to share accommodation, not to share rooms, as some people think. We do not expect people to share one room or a bedroom, but to share accommodation.
Lord Cormack
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Best, has made a powerful case. He made it very gently but forcefully. I was also struck by what the noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote, said. As one who held MPs’ surgeries for about 40 years and saw people come in who were often in considerable distress, I know that it is not just the feckless who get into financial trouble. Many decent people get into financial trouble. The ability to say that this money should go direct to the landlord could be of enormous help to someone who suddenly has a sick child and feels that they must spend the money on that child. If the money has gone to the landlord, the landlord is secure and the tenant is secure. That must surely be wholly desirable.
Those of us who have been constituency Members of Parliament know how difficult it is to persuade private landlords to consider tenants in this general category. We need an abundant supply of privately rented accommodation. Anything that may detract from that is to be regretted.
I admire my noble friend, because he is thoroughly the master of his brief and because his underlying aim, which is to create a more responsible society, is one to which we can, surely, all subscribe, but there are exceptions and times when it is right to give a choice.
Another point, which the noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote, made, struck a chord with me. There are many elderly people in receipt of benefit who get confused. I am not talking about people who suffer from dementia, but we all know—the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, knows from his constituency experience—that elderly people sometimes get confused. They think, very genuinely, that they have paid something when they have not. It would be a great blessing to give those people that choice.
I would urge my noble friend the Minister to give very careful thought to this. I hope that the House will not divide on it tonight, but I hope that he will be able to give some thought perhaps even to putting down an appropriate amendment at Third Reading.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
My Lords, dinner beckons. Nevertheless, there are seven good reasons for accepting this amendment.
First, it is cost free. The facility to pay rent directly to landlords is there for certain beneficiaries, so it would simply be a case of using this for others.
Secondly, it helps to give financial responsibility and decision-making to claimants, as it would allow them to choose to have the rent paid in this way.
Thirdly, it is what the rest of us do with our mortgages or rent: it goes straight out of our bank accounts, normally the day after payday—in my case, usually the same day—so that we cannot get our hands on it in the mean time. The difference is, of course, that many of these claimants do not have bank accounts, or a joint bank account if they are a couple, and therefore do not have the ability to make such arrangements for direct payments. Furthermore, if they have a basic bank account, such accounts cannot go into the red, and so if there is not money to pay the rent, it simply will not be paid, even with a direct debit mandate, leading to the build-up of arrears.
Fourthly, this amendment is strongly supported, as has been said, by housing associations and by local authorities. Both know that arrears will build up more quickly without this amendment. For housing associations, the interest on borrowing will increase as their assured-rent income will decrease. To give the example of one housing association, 85 per cent of Riverside tenants choose to have their rent paid directly, as many of its tenants do not have bank accounts, and many more fear the bank charges if they go overdrawn. This is an important way for low-income households to manage their finances. If this existing facility is withdrawn, pilot studies show that, as has already been mentioned, rent arrears are likely to rise sharply, putting tenancies at risk. In addition, funders have indicated that they are likely to regard lending to housing associations as higher risk and thus to increase the cost of funding. In the long term, it will mean that social housing providers will simply be able to do less. Income streams to local authorities will similarly be threatened if direct payments, which exist now without any problems, are ended. CoSLA, the association for local authorities in Scotland, estimates that this will cost about £50 million a year in Scotland alone.
Fifthly, many vulnerable families will be at risk. To quote again from CoSLA:
“COSLA is deeply concerned that Housing Benefit paid direct to claimants without sufficient safeguards will result in an increase of rent arrears and evictions, sending households spiralling into debt and facing homelessness”.
We know the families for which the risk of not paying the rent directly will be the greatest: those with debts, where the pressure to pay these off—whether to the gasman or to the loan shark—will be pressing; those with a family member with a drink, drug or gambling habit, where temptation to use the rent money will be high; and those with immediate demands, as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, has said, for money to feed their children and yet who want to ensure that the roof over those children’s heads, albeit not today’s problem, is equally vital, so want to have that rent assured. While we know some vulnerable groups will have their rent paid directly, we can see no reason to wait until borderline cases get into problems, struggle and get into rent arrears, before we allow them to have the rent paid directly. Why risk that for no good reason?
Sixthly, it will make sure that we do not dissuade private landlords from coming into this sector.
Seventhly, the strongest argument: the noble Lord, Lord Best, who chairs the Local Government Association and has forgotten more about housing associations than most of us will ever learn, tells us it is the right thing to do. We concur.
Lord Freud
My Lords, my intention is to reassure the noble Lord, Lord Best, so that he withdraws his amendment. I start by trying to convince the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, and my noble friend Lord Cormack of the reason why we are doing this. It is not an arbitrary thing. We are not doing it because we want to annoy housing associations or local authorities. We are doing it for a very simple reason. If you are a tenant in social housing whose housing benefit goes straight through to the landlord and you take a job, all your arrangements for paying for your housing have to change. It is a major change in your arrangements and a real block on you taking the job. It is a major thing for you to organise, and you have to learn, when you take that first job and your housing benefit goes down within universal credit—because that is the change—that the money no longer goes through automatically to the landlord.
We have to break that link. It has to be the same arrangement whether you are working or not working. We deliberately excluded pension-age people from this because we are not expecting them to work. We do not need to worry about the people who find it difficult to work. It is working-age people who we want to go into work.
Lord Freud
Absolutely not; £4 billion is a very substantial figure. Over the course of this SR, we are looking at a loss of £18 billion spread over the four-year period. The noble Baroness can do the sums. The most important thing about universal credit is that the money goes into the pockets of the lowest two quintiles very efficiently. I contend that the noble Baroness’s argument is not a real argument.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
My Lords, if I understand the Minister correctly, he is saying that this is all part of getting people off benefits and into work, which we absolutely support. However, this will also cover those people who are never going to work—those in the support group—as well as people with young children who are not in work for some time. Therefore, we are not talking only about people who are on the cusp; even those people will lose the right to have their rent paid directly.
Lord Freud
No, my Lords. We have made it absolutely clear that we expect those who are vulnerable to continue to have payments made directly to the landlord. Indeed, in the private rented sector, where this process has already been in place and has worked rather well, 80 per cent of people pay their landlord directly, and 20 per cent are regarded as vulnerable and have a payment made directly to the landlord. That is how it works there. At the moment in the social rented sector, 95 per cent have direct payments and 5 per cent pay the landlord themselves. Therefore, there is a real disparity there.
I want to provide some reassurance for noble Lords who think that this is a draconian measure. I need to explain to the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, and the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, that we are doing this for a real reason. It is not arbitrary; it is intended to make sure that there are no artificial barriers for people who would stay in the comfort zone of not working. We need to make it easier for them to make that transition, and that is one thing that we are doing. This will empower people and allow them to manage their finances.
I shall now come to the reassurance factors, which I hope will have noble Lords nodding happily on the Benches. I am determined that, while we introduce this system, the housing sector will remain financially stable. I talk regularly to banks and to rating agencies in particular about what we need to do to make that happen. I am absolutely convinced that we can have our welfare cake—the transformative cake—and financial stability for the housing sector. I shall do nothing that undermines the security of the housing sector in this area. I absolutely understand that this country needs more housing, and it would be madness for us to undermine that ambition.
I completely understand the two imperatives here. We are working closely with local authorities and housing associations in running half a dozen demonstration projects, which are designed to find out exactly how to make direct support payments for housing costs so that they work with universal credit. I have been incredibly pleased that the industry has shown real enthusiasm for taking part in these demonstration projects, with no fewer than 70 different groups looking to join in. During the selection process, we have been delighted at how much choice we have had, and we are finding out what is going to work to get the two things that we need. These demonstration projects will allow us to identify those who are likely to struggle financially. The projects are testing not whether we should introduce direct payments but how to support landlords and tenants ahead of the scheme being introduced. The important part is to get the safeguards operating properly. We need to see when people are not able to handle the system and switch payments to the landlords, and then find out how to recoup the money over the period when landlords do not have it so that their security of income is locked into the system. That is what we are trying to find out here.
The noble Lord, Lord Best, mentioned the London & Quadrant research, and we are aiming to apply that to the demonstration projects. It shows the importance of communications. Clearly, we want to improve the outcome and throw out the doubling of arrears.
Welfare Reform Bill
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts(12 years, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Howe of Idlicote
I hope noble Lords will forgive me; I was a few minutes late in coming in, so I missed a little bit of what the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, said. As I was listening I wondered to what extent more carers would or could be encouraged to be carers if in fact such a situation as she was proposing existed. Perhaps I am looking at this in a slightly disorganised way, but if there is an answer to my question, I would like to know it.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
My Lords, I know that the whole House recognises the important contribution that carers make, and that all will endorse the case made by my noble friends Lady Bakewell and Lady Pitkeathley. Both noble Baronesses know this field intimately—the former from her involvement with an ageing population, with all its aches and pains, and the latter from her sterling work with carers over so many years. Nobody can gainsay their experience in this field. This amendment in their names is a true acknowledgment of the work of all carers, whether for the young, the old, the sick or the disabled.
We know that the Minister has considered the needs of carers, and we welcome the announcement this afternoon—just minutes before this Report stage started, so it just hit the promised timescale—that caring for people receiving both a higher and lower daily living rate under the new personal independence payment will qualify for the carer’s allowance.
However, as yet we have absolutely no idea as to the threshold of disability that will place someone into PIP, nor do we know who will take the hit of the 20 per cent cut—a cut of one-fifth of all such payments—that the Government intend to make. Will fewer people be placed in PIP than into the current two higher rats of DLA? We similarly do not know whether carers themselves are safe from cuts. Indeed, it is noticeable, as was impressed on us today by the Joint Committee on Human Right in its scrutiny of this Bill, that the Government’s impact assessment makes absolutely no mention of the impact of some of the Bill’s changes on carers, even when the impact will be very significant. That is so too for those who might lose their DLA under the new PIP thresholds. Not only would they lose that income but would become subject to the benefit cap.
We must all understand the anxiety, even fear, that some are experiencing by this uncertainty over their future. We also do not know how the Minister intends to deal with carers under the new rules to impose in-work conditionality on universal credit claimants. Although some carers will fall into the no-conditionality group, those who do not may be asked to increase either their hours or their earnings. Although flexibility has been promised, it is not clear how that will work.
Finally, many carers look set to be hit by the benefit cap. Those who are caring for a DLA and, I presume, PIP recipient who lives in the same household will be exempt from the £500 a week benefit cap. But those who care for someone who lives independently—perhaps an adult or a child, as we have heard, or an elderly relative—will see the carers’ allowance, which recognises this responsibility, hit by the cap. If the carer is single, this means that their benefit to include their rent even in London will be capped at £350 despite their reduced ability to earn by virtue of their caring responsibilities.
We will discuss the various ways in which that cap is unfair at a later stage of the Bill but in our discussions of carers today, we surely need to remember that the desire to support carers is not always translated into reality in the detail of this Bill. When we debated this amendment in Committee, the Minister said that only a few carers would be made worse off by the lack of a disregard; that is, those working between two and five hours a week. But it is exactly those short-hour jobs that universal credit was intended to enable. It is precisely carers who are most likely to need these mini-jobs as they fit in with their caring responsibilities. Many people, perhaps 50,000, will be affected if the Government reject this amendment. They are people who want to work and who care.
In another case described by Carers UK, a 45 year-old man who lives and cares for his 65 year-old father who has dementia has had to give up work because the father needs 24/7 care and he has to be there. His sister has her own family and does not live close. She travels to look after their father for an afternoon and evening a week, which enables the son to go out to work. He can earn a little to supplement his income support. At the moment, if he earns £18 his benefits are not affected because of the £20 a week disregard, as has been mentioned. But, under universal credit, without this amendment and the earnings disregard, he would have only the basic disregard of £13.50, which is for everyone. There will be no special disregard for carers. After that, his benefits will taper away. He would keep only just over £15 of his earnings, compared with £18 now. That sum is serious money for someone living on benefits. We must remind ourselves that that person is living on benefits only to save the state a fortune should it have to care for the father at home.
To make use of the more generous taper in universal credit, or to overcome the loss of this reduced disregard, the son would have to work increased hours. However, he cannot do this. His sister cannot stay any longer and there is no one else to be with his father. It is a catch 22: he is receiving no recognition that his position as a carer restricts his employment potential. The whole thrust of universal credit, which we support, is to make work pay. This amendment seeks to do just that for carers, and thus has the support of this side of the House.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
If the noble Lord has no idea of how many people are involved, but thinks that the number is less than 50,000, surely he cannot know how much it would cost, and therefore this may be another small amount of money. If the number is small, it cannot cost much to give these people an extra £4 a week.
Lord Freud
This is not directly a money matter; it is about the structure and the simplicity of the system. When you are changing from an inchoate system, which is what we have now, there are patches where people are a little less well off than they would have been, and that is why we have transitional protection. As you move to a simple, clean structure, there are problems in doing that, and that is what we are trying to address. By definition, it is not possible to overhaul and simplify a system and keep all the existing rules. Existing claimants will not lose because of the transitional protection, so those who have built their lives around a four-hour week will not lose by this, although within the structure there will be a drive to encourage people to do a little more.
I hope that noble Lords understand what we are trying to do here. I know that there is general support for universal credit, but we must maintain something that is tangibly more simple. With that explanation of why the Government cannot support this amendment, I would urge the noble Baroness to withdraw it.
Welfare Reform Bill
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts(12 years, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, for moving the amendment. It is never quite as welcome as his normal Motion, which is that we should have a tea break.
There is nothing between us on the amendments. As the Minister said, and as was contained in the helpful note issued by the DWP, it is anticipated that the volume of cases that the DWP wishes to prosecute will substantially increase. What additional resources are being committed, first, to the CPS to enable it to deal with the substantial increase in prosecutions; and, secondly, to advice agencies, which will inevitably face an increase in demand as claimants seek to understand why they are being prosecuted and what their rights are in this area? Given the absence of legal aid in future for many such cases, as we have already heard today, such generic funding will be vital.
As the Minister said, the second group of amendments relate to information-sharing between the Government and local authorities and sensibly use the generic term rather than the specific ones for each particular benefit. However, can the Minister clarify whether there are any duties on local authorities to share information in the other direction—that is, with the department—because, as we have seen and has been mentioned again in the case of the benefit cap, understanding the amount of help with council tax that the claimant is receiving may be critical to ensuring that the system proposed can be made to work.
Lord De Mauley
I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her questions. In order to hasten things, may I write to her with answers to those questions?
“( ) The Commission shall advise Ministers on how to eradicate child poverty within the UK.”
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
I am going to apologise because I think that I now stand between the Committee and what I gather is the custom that the Minister buys drinks for the whole Committee at the end.
Despite the late hour, this is a really important issue that needs raising, but I fear that because of the hour we may need to return to it later. The Child Poverty Act 2010, which established the Child Poverty Commission, was passed with cross-party support, and we believe that there is now similar support for the proposal to expand its remit to deal with social mobility, a move which the Opposition certainly welcome. However, we have serious concerns about what will happen to child poverty in the coming years. It has been mentioned several times in the Committee. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has predicted that the number of children in poverty, which had fallen to its lowest level for 25 years by the end of the previous Labour Government, will now under this Government rise to its highest rate since 1999-2000 by 2020, by which time one in four children will be poor, measured in relative terms.
I am going to raise the main points. The main point is the duty. The potential rise in child poverty over the coming years makes the work of this commission essential. The debate about its function—whether it is simply going to help count numbers or whether it is going to give advice about the impact of the numbers—is crucial. If we look at the role of the commission, one of the most important things has been the proposal that it should have a duty to advise Ministers, but this is now to be taken out. It will therefore have no duty to advise Ministers on the preparation of their strategy. It has meant that this is only the responsibility of government.
Surely the commission should not just look at technical issues around the measurement of poverty and social mobility, but should also look at advising on the results of that measurement—to advise the Government on its role. If it was only measuring it, the commission itself would neither attract a high level of membership nor would it be able to do its role properly. We therefore ask why should there not be a requirement that it advise Ministers on the policy itself? Also, how can it be that this commission could be put together without a requirement that people so appointed should be expert in its field? The final question is that it should have to have the ability to get its own research otherwise it would be dependent simply on research from the Government, which it is meant to be scrutinising. I beg to move.
Lord Freud
My Lords, I will speak first to Amendments 114B, 114C and 114D, which would require the Government to consult the commission on the development of child poverty strategy, and for the commission to provide advice to the Government on eradicating child poverty.
We believe that unelected public bodies should be established only in cases where there is a clear need for their role to be carried out by an arm's-length body rather than within government. The new commission, with its remit to objectively assess government progress towards improving social mobility and reducing child poverty, is just such a case. A commission established to provide advice is clearly not. There are already a variety of consultation mechanisms by which the Government can obtain independent advice on child poverty and social mobility policy. Indeed, the consultation on the current child poverty strategy received 280 responses. Moreover, it is a fundamental principle of this Government that Ministers are accountable for the policies and strategies they put forward. These amendments put this principle at risk. They offer a degree of scope for Ministers to shrug off responsibility for any lack of success of their strategy.
Amendment 114E requires that the Government publish a response to each of the commission’s reports. By giving the commission the power to publish annual reports, we are actively ensuring that progress on social mobility and child poverty remains a priority for government. The legislation requires that the commission reports be laid before Parliament, providing the opportunity for parliamentary debate.
Amendment 114F reintroduces the requirement from the original Child Poverty Act that the commission should have a particular balance of child poverty expertise. This requirement has been removed because it is clear that the new commission will require a different balance of expertise. It will monitor progress towards both reducing child poverty and improving social mobility, meeting the child poverty targets and implementing the child poverty strategy. I can assure you that Ministers are fully committed to creating a commission with the right combination of expertise. To ensure that this is the case, the recruitment process for all members of the commission, including the chair and the deputy chair, will be carried out in accordance with the code of practice of the Commissioner for Public Appointments.
Finally, Amendment 114G would give the commission the right to request Ministers to commission research on its behalf. It would also require Ministers to provide a reason if they decide not to meet the commission’s request. We do not believe that this provision is necessary. This is because the commission’s new role means that there will be no need for the commission to be able to access new research as it will not be responsible for developing new policy or strategy. Instead, the commission will produce annual progress reports, and we would expect the vast majority of the evidence needed to fulfil this role to already be available either in the public domain or from the Government. If the Government need more and need to access new research to fulfil their duties, the new legislation already enables Ministers to provide the commission with such resources,
“as the Minister may determine are required by the commission in the exercise of its functions”.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
The noble and learned Lord withdrew his amendment and said that he had no choice in Grand Committee. Because of the time, I will also have to do that. We will come back on Report as we have not made the case, particularly about the duty and the need to respond to the annual report.
Can I just say that it has been one heck of a learning experience for me? This is the first Bill I have worked on, and I shall take a moment’s indulgence to thank our leader. Being led by my noble friend Lord McKenzie is an extraordinary experience. In addition to thanking the Minister for his incredible patience at times, through him I thank the Bill team. They have been here night after night, day after day. We have had written briefings but also oral briefings—probably a bit above and beyond the call of duty. We thank them for that. Having said that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Welfare Reform Bill
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts(12 years, 12 months ago)
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“(a) to determine that payment related to the provision of support of children and for childcare costs should be paid to the main carer of those children,(b) to determine that payment related to the provision of support for housing costs should be paid to a person liable for payment of those housing costs, so far as those costs are not paid directly to the landlord, or(c) to determine that, where applicable, payments of universal credit shall be split between claimants in order to ensure payment is made in accordance with paragraphs (a) and (b).”
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
My Lords, I think that the Minister was hoping for a Division during the previous discussion like I have never seen a Minister hope for a Division, but he was not saved by the Bell.
We have two amendments in this group. Amendment 102ZA would allow for the person mainly responsible for meeting particular costs to receive that part of universal credit intended to meet such expenses. It would enable the main carer, who is primarily dealing with the costs of children and childcare, to receive the elements of support related to this, and the person responsible for meeting housing costs to receive the part of universal credit that relates to housing costs. Amendment 102B would allow for the elements of universal credit to be calculated in such a way that facilitated this aim, tapering away each element individually to enable a fair proportion of each component of universal credit to be paid to the relevant member of the household. The amendment is therefore the corollary of the earlier amendment, in that if the payment can be split between two recipients, it should also be withdrawn, whether for reason of the taper or of any benefit cap, in the same proportion, rather than be taken either from the childcare element or the housing element.
Amendment 102ZA seeks to mitigate the risks associated with paying all universal credit to one person, in particular the risks for women if the current proposal goes ahead unamended. Concerns have been raised by a wide range of organisations, including the Women’s Budget Group, Oxfam, Platform 51, the Child Poverty Action Group, Women’s Aid, Daycare Trust and the Children’s Society.
Lord Freud
I am thinking about this area. I do not think I am thinking in quite the same way as the noble Baroness, but I am looking at it and hope I will be able to have a vigorous conversation with her on where that comes in at a later stage.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
I thank the Minister for his responses, although I may not like their content. I also thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Howe, Lady Lister and Lady Sherlock, for their support on these issues, which are very real. My guess is that there will come a time when the Government will have to revisit this when they see the results.
The words of the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, ought to be resonating around. She spoke about vulnerable women and inequalities within households. She said:
“These are women fighting for their children”.
We are talking about people without great access to income needing to feed their children. Very often, it will be a mother living with a man who is not the father of those children. This is great—I am a stepmum and well used to these relationships. But we have to understand that we are very often talking about not the idealised couple but the couple struggling to get their relationship together. Not to enable the woman as a right to have access to that, I find a little strange.
The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, I will speak briefly to support my noble friend and also to ask whether, if there is some difficulty with achieving this as a one-off from the start, one might start by focusing on women in custody. They are more likely than men to have dependants. I see also the problem raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis. Unfortunately, one of the drawbacks of incarcerating so many women in this country is that once they are taken into custody, the family breaks down. If the Minister can go only part of the way in this context, I hope that he might think in particular about the issue of women in custody.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
My Lords, as I have often said, my education on these issues has grown thanks to the Minister, but I am afraid that today he was trumped by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, from whom I learned that one may use the word “baloney” in your Lordships’ Committee. Given his reputation, I am slightly hesitant about speaking on this, but I will add a few comments. I must say that the last time that the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, told us his story about Degsy in Liverpool, we got significant movement from the Minister, so I hope that his charm will work equally well today.
The amendment seeks to ensure that people who are coming out of custody get swift access to the benefits to which they are entitled. The Prison Reform Trust report, Time is Money, stated that eight out of 10 former prisoners claim benefits. Obviously, delays in accessing them can lead to enormous financial hardship and stress. It can also increase the risk of reoffending. We also know—although I am sure not as well as the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham—how many people in prison have multiple needs.
The transitions of entering or leaving prison, or becoming homeless, often lead to both personal and financial crisis. We think of coming out of prison as very positive, but it can be traumatic for people with multiple needs. With no financial contingencies, these people usually rely on a benefit system that they experience as complicated, slow and unhelpful. In extremis, some return to crime, as that was their proven source of income. The report found many problems experienced by people who were just out of prison, such as: delays of up to four weeks before the first payments, with little or no explanation; problems with claims that had been started before they had gone to prison, and which had to be resolved before any new claims could be made; problems of claims being delayed because they had no fixed address; disputes over prison admission and release dates, where timings can be crucial; and problems caused by not closing down a claim on entry to prison, resulting in a fraud investigation and the suspension of the new claim. Many of the people we are talking about have multiple needs. About one-third of people in prison do not have a bank account, which makes the payment of a deposit for housing or to cover early expenses even harder to organise on release.
As the noble Lord said, help beforehand with immediate access to benefits is key if the person is not to feel the need to return to using other people's money simply to survive. It emphasises the point that has been made about the need for help and advice while in prison. This will be particularly the case over the next few years, when the whole benefit system will have changed; the one that they knew on going into prison will be quite different from the UC world when they come out. We also know that in one survey that about half the prisoners had debts that awaited clearance on release, and one in three owed money for housing. That gets them started on a real problem of owing money on existing housing. It also touches on an earlier amendment about splitting a joint universal credit if they return to a partner with children and then want to take over responsibility for the housing amount. There could be some difficult readjustment or re-entry. When publishing a book about returning from the war in 1945—I remind noble Lords on that side of the table that we had a really good election result that year—it was interesting that it was difficult for stable, loving marriages when a man came home from the war and wanted to take over financial responsibility. So these things affect whole swathes of people. It is a stressful time, and getting benefits lined up early is really important.
The Centre for Social Justice, which is often mentioned in this Committee, has also highlighted the problems faced by people leaving custody. Its report, Locked Up Potential, recognised that delays in processing benefits meant that many people who are discharged have no source of income when it is most urgently needed. I am sure that the Minister is very familiar with its recommendations, which are that:
“To bridge the finance gap, with the objective of reducing the resulting crime which it can fuel, we recommend that all prison employment and benefits advisors be required by the Department of Work and Pensions … and the MOJ to initiate core benefit applications at least three weeks prior to a prisoner’s nominated release date”.
It would be helpful if the Minister could let us know what discussions the DWP has had with the MoJ about responding to the recommendations in that report and ensuring that those leaving prison are not left with gaps and delays in getting the financial support that may be essential to them in starting a new life outside custody.
We know that the coalition Government have decided not to continue with the progress to work scheme, which provided support to ex-offenders. That support will be provided through the work programme, although as we have heard there will be some difficulties there. It would be useful to know what decisions have been made about access to work programmes for ex-offenders and whether they will be fast-tracked to receive this support. If not, what alternative arrangements are being put in place to ensure that they receive the tailored employment support that they might need? While I hope that the Minister will respond to discussions for talk, I also hope that it will not just be talking the talk but walking the walk and that we will get some progress.
Lord Freud
My Lords, I have listened with interest to the noble Lord’s remarks and acknowledge his expertise on penal policy. I can also say that I am utterly delighted to meet the noble Lord. I can say now that I do not accept his amendments and I hope that what I describe of what we are actually doing will leave him joyful, both after what I describe here and after our meeting, which will happen as soon as we can. I believe that the route that we are going down will prove more beneficial in the long run than what he has suggested in this amendment, which is more expensive and resource-intensive, in terms of in-prison assessments.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
My Lords, as has been set out my noble friends and other noble Baronesses, the amendments relate to how and in what circumstances the state will seek to recover overpayment of universal credit from claimants. As many here, although not me, will remember, the issue of overpayments caused a considerable headache for the previous Government when tax credits were introduced, so it is vital that the present Government get this part of the Bill right. I am sure that anyone with those memories will support this.
In this Bill we have the added complication that, in addition to overpayments being recoverable from the claimant, they will also be recoverable, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, has mentioned, from landlords in certain situations. I am not talking about dodgy landlords but those who are blissfully unaware that the rent they were receiving was not from their tenant but was due to some sort of overpayment, whether by accident or design on the part of the tenant claimant or by error on the part of the DWP. We know that at present there are some cases of overpaid housing benefit that can be recovered from a landlord. Could the Minister tell the Committee whether this clause widens the set of circumstances in which benefits can be recovered? Also, what type of benefit could be recovered from landlords, rather than from claimants? What consultation has taken place on this proposal with the NLA or any other representative of landlords?
I have certainly heard anecdotal remarks from both actual and potential landlords. By the way, I am not someone who thinks that lots of anecdotes add up to evidence. However, I have heard that the idea that landlords might be asked to make good some overpayment made to a tenant when they have no way of recouping it from the tenant is a further disincentive to entering or remaining in this market. I remind the Minister that this comes just at a time when access to private rented accommodation, especially the one-bedroom type quite favoured by small landlords, is so needed due to the housing shortage; to take in the swathe of refugees from the social housing sector as his policy on underoccupation kicks in; and as families may be forced to leave high-rent London for far distant places, as we heard earlier today. We need to encourage landlords to make properties available, not threaten them that they may be left paying for overpayment of a tenant’s claims.
Amendment 103ZZA seeks to ensure that the recovery of any overpayment leaves the claimant with the correct entitlement based on their circumstances, as my noble friend Lady Lister spelt out. Again, this draws on the experience of tax credits, where in some cases claimants were asked to pay back overpayments on the one hand while applying for additional entitlement because of a change in circumstances on the other. The amendment would make sure that the end result is that the claimant receives the payment to which he or she is entitled.
Amendments 103ZZB, 103ZZC, 103ZZD and 103ZZE seek to replace references to earnings with those to income, and then to ensure that the recovery of overpaid benefits cannot leave a claimant without sufficient income on which to live. As has been said, within the current system protections of this type are in place, setting limits on the amount by which the DWP, local authority or HMRC can reduce benefit payments to recover an overpayment. Could the Minister let us know what limits the department intends to place on the recovery of universal credit, and whether they will meet the aim of ensuring that claimants retain a minimum amount on which to live?
Amendment 103ZA ensures that benefits overpaid as a result of official error cannot be recovered when the claimant could not reasonably be expected to know that he or she was being overpaid. In explaining new Section 115C in Clause 113, the DWP says that negligence constitutes not exercising the care which the circumstances demand; that is, being careless. It gives the example of not checking statements made in a claim. However, this amendment is quite different. It is not about lack of care; it is about lack of knowledge. The claimant cannot be expected to know that the amount they were receiving was in fact an overpayment.
Each of us, perhaps even some very rich people in this Room, would know whether £1 million came into our bank accounts as opposed to the £1,000 that we were expecting. However, I have to confess that when the DWP pays my pension I have no idea whether the amount is correct. It is difficult to determine that, partly because I do not get a monthly statement—the equivalent of a pay slip—from the DWP and partly because it is four-weekly and every now and again there is a month when I receive two payments. If that happened to fall in January and then perhaps in October and I got a double payment, I am afraid that I would have absolutely no idea whether that was the correct timing for my extra bonus month—it is always very nice—or whether it was an error, and I have precious little way of checking. This amendment is about ensuring that any overpayment which the claimant could not be expected to know was wrong should not be clawed back. I promise noble Lords that it is not intended to protect my own position; it is tabled simply in the interests of fairness.
Lord Freud
My Lords, I am delighted to hear such full-hearted support for monthly payments. First, I would like to speak to Amendment 103ZZA in my name. This amendment is technical in nature and seeks to restore the policy intent and simple premise that where a claimant has a debt, the debt should be recoverable from them. In the majority of cases, overpayments of benefit, penalties, payments on account and certain hardship payments will be recoverable from the claimant and will be recovered by deduction from the benefit that is paid to them. As the Bill is drafted, however, the Secretary of State is prevented from recovering such payments where the claimant’s benefit is paid directly to a third party, for example a landlord. This means that recovery from a claimant is limited to deduction from those benefits paid directly to them. This is unintended and so this amendment seeks to ensure that where a claimant’s benefit that is subject to recovery is paid to a third party, recovery may be made from that benefit.
This ensures that the DWP maintains the same powers of recovery as it does presently for recovery by deduction from housing benefit where it is paid directly to a landlord. Although the claimant may have other benefits from which deductions could be made, to do so adds both cost and complexity to the recovery process. In such cases, where no benefit is payable other than that paid to the third party, the DWP would be reliant on negotiating repayment from non-benefit income or potentially using direct earnings attachments to recover from debtors who are in pay-as-you-earn employment.
The situation becomes even more difficult where the debtor will not negotiate repayment, has no benefits paid directly to them and is not in pay-as-you-earn employment. Without the amendment, this would result in a situation where the DWP or local authorities have no effective way to recover the overpayment or penalty. I am sure noble Lords will agree with me that where there is an obligation to repay benefit debt, the fullest possible powers should be available to the relevant authorities to make recovery by the most efficient means.
I shall now address Amendments 103ZZB, 103ZZC, 103ZZD, 103ZZE, 103ZA and 103ZZZA. These opposition amendments seek to achieve a number of objectives, but are primarily concerned with protecting debtors. I am sure that there is no disagreement over the need for safeguards for vulnerable claimants and those in financial difficulty. We recognise, like the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, that protection needs to extend to the calculation of overpayments as well as their recovery. In common with the noble Baroness, we recognise that such a provision has value in ensuring that an overpayment reflects the true loss of public funds and for this very reason, such a provision already exists in secondary legislation relating to the recovery of overpayments of current benefits.
Like the noble Baroness, we believe that similar provisions should apply here, but feel that such a provision sits more happily in secondary legislation. For that reason, I am happy to offer my assurances that it is our intention to make provision for such a calculation in the regulations to be made under Clause 102, new Section 71ZB(4), which allows regulations to provide that recoverable amounts,
“are to be calculated or estimated in a prescribed manner”.
Placing the provision in secondary legislation allows for both flexibility and review.
Concerning the other issues raised within these amendments, I believe that future overpayment recovery from working-age claimants will be more streamlined and efficient than it is presently. Recovery will thus provide both greater returns and better value for money for taxpayers. For example, under the previous Administration, it was believed that there was a right under common law to recover overpayments occurring due to official error, and the DWP thus requested repayment of those overpayments on that basis. I see that noble Lords who may have been responsible for those requests are in agreement. The Supreme Court, however, ruled that there was no such right and that is why we are legislating to bring the law for working-age benefits back in line with the policy of the previous administration—a policy that we support.
Prescribing that an overpayment caused by official error would not be recoverable if the claimant could not reasonably be expected to know that they were being overpaid brings forward a need to make subjective assessment of the debtor’s capacity to understand entitlement before the overpayment is determined. Although I sympathise with the lack of understanding of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, about all the incredible overpayments that she gets and the £1 million that goes into her bank account on a regular basis, I have to say that that is not workable in this context. The DWP will not be prescribing those circumstances for the discretionary write-off or non-recovery of an overpayment. Cases will be considered carefully on their individual merits because each case is different.
As mentioned earlier, the code of practice will outline the policy as to whether recovery should be pursued, and lead to considered, consistent decision making. in response to the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, I am happy to confirm that that will be published in the form of a leaflet.
Considering whether an overpayment can, or should be recovered, the DWP will look at a number of factors, not solely whether the claimant received the money in good faith. It will have regard to ensuring that deductions from benefit or earnings—
Lord Freud
Yes, that is the process. It becomes a requirement, and then if the claimant says, “Look, I can’t afford that rate, I’m in hardship”, then it is adjusted. That is a regular process. In practice, only half the people now make repayments at the maximum rate. That is a very well established process which works pretty well, and I do not think we need to put in extra processes.
My noble friend Lord Kirkwood—Kirkwood of Kirkhope, some people were unaware—asked about an independent appeal right. There is just a general appeal right here for overpayments, and I think that covers this as much as anything else.
Lord Freud
What we are talking about, and what I was describing, is where a payment would be going directly to a landlord, but it is for the rent. There would be recovery from that, so then the obligation becomes the debtor’s to replace that amount for the landlord, so, no, the landlord does not have a right to appeal because it is not his money. It is just a direct payment device.
As my noble friend recognised with his amendments, claimants may have other debts that are being repaid that will impact their ability to repay their DWP debt. In such an instance, we may agree that recovery should be suspended until a particular financial commitment of the debtor ends. Additionally, because we recognise that hardship need not solely be financial, these considerations will include whether recovery is likely to be a threat to the health and welfare of not only the debtor but their immediate family. Exceptionally, where it is warranted, DWP may decide not to pursue or to stop pursuing recovery. These hardship situations are well established and balance the needs of the debtor and those of the taxpayer. I believe that this approach is more effective than the prescriptive considerations set out in the amendments. This approach ensures that those claimants who are able to meet the repayment obligations do so and recognises that in some instances there is a need to take into account a claimant’s specific personal circumstances. I trust I have assured noble Lords that these amendments are unnecessary as we already have protections in place to ensure that a debtor does not suffer undue hardship when deductions from benefits or earnings are made and that, where appropriate, a claimant’s individual circumstances will be fully considered.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, asked about limits on universal credit recovery. Recovery will be subject to a maximum rate, as it is currently. This will differ depending on whether the payment is wholly universal credit or a combination of universal credit and earnings. We still have well established hardship considerations. If repayment causes difficulty in those circumstances, we will be able to discuss it. I therefore urge noble Lords not to press these amendments.
The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, has given notice of his intention to oppose the Question that Clause 105 stand part of the Bill. Clause 105 clarifies that the Limitation Act does not apply to the recovery of benefit overpayments and of social fund and tax credit debts by methods other than court action. It ensures that recovery of such debts by deduction from ongoing entitlement can continue beyond the six-year limitation period for bringing court action. DWP has long taken the view that the statute of limitations has no application to the recovery of benefit overpayments or social fund debts by means other than court action, including by deduction from continuing benefit entitlement.
However, in a 2009 case involving recovery of a housing benefit overpayment by a local authority the High Court came to a different view. DWP was not involved in that case, but given that it could be read as applying also to the recovery of other benefit overpayments and of social fund payments, we believe it is necessary to introduce this measure so that we remain able to balance the recovery of public funds against the financial circumstances of the debtor. In many cases, seeking to recover social security or tax credit debt by means of deduction in a period of no more than six years would place an unfair or impossible burden on the debtor and their family.
We are not proposing anything new; Clause 105 merely clarifies a long-standing and well accepted interpretation of the application of the Limitation Act limitation to the recovery of social security and tax credit debt. The provision ensures that all deductions of benefit made more than six years after the debt became due since Section 9 of the Limitation Act came into force were, or will be deemed to be, legitimately made. It is retrospective to cover the legality of recoveries of six years of debt already made under the presumption that that was the legal position.
By contrast, without this clause—Egyptian calligraphy is very complicated—we may be forced to endeavour to recover all overpayments within six years, and this would imply higher recovery rates and potentially hardship for claimants affected. We have made this measure retrospective to cover all recoveries already made, as I have already said. I hope this clarification will convince the noble Lord and the noble Baroness to allow Clause 105 to stand part of the Bill. I beg to move.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett
My Lords, I will be very brief. I thank the various noble Lords who have contributed and really strengthened the case that was made. Readers of the Official Report may not be able to tell a joke when they see it—my noble friend was not supporting monthly payments, and we will be coming back to that on Report.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett
I am very glad that the noble Lord has put on record that the question about underlying entitlement will be covered in the regulations. I am sorry that he is not prepared to put into statute the protection of claimants where it is the department that has made the mistake, not the individual. I am unhappy with so much discretion, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, made that point. I am very pleased that the code of practice will be published in the form of a leaflet and that noble Lords will be able to see it before Report. I welcome that, and I welcome what I think the Minister said that there would the general right of appeal on overpayment questions. It is good to have that on the record. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Welfare Reform Bill
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts(13 years ago)
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Baroness Howe of Idlicote
My Lords, I hope the Committee will forgive me for coming in at this stage. Earlier today, Carers UK asked me to ask a supplementary on this which is not dissimilar from what we have just heard. There are more than 560 carers receiving carers’ allowance and so on and they may well transfer over into PIP. The Minister has made it clear that decisions are going to be made and will be looked at in detail, but these are the questions Carers UK wanted me to ask. First, what assessments are being made on the impact of carers of the two options available—establishing eligibility through both rates or just through the enhanced rate of the daily living component? Secondly, if the Minister is unable to announce a decision—which he obviously is—on which rate will lead to eligibility for carers’ allowance, will he publish the assessments of the impact on both options so that the Committee can discuss their implications?
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
My Lords, I start by thanking, I think, the Minister for his very helpful responses on three months rather than six. That was on residential and now we are to have this early announcement. It leaves those of us who prepared speeches throwing them away. There is a nice bucket here with all of them. Nevertheless, I am always delighted to be able to do that and we thank the Minister for what he has just said.
The amendment, which also stands in the name of my noble friend Lord McKenzie, would establish in the Bill that PIP will act as the gateway for the carers’ allowance and that both rates of the PIP daily living allowance would deliver eligibility. We welcome the fact and therefore do not need to go through all the reasons why we needed to have this. We welcome that we will have that information on passporting before Report, whenever that may be.
Welfare Reform Bill
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Lord Low of Dalston
My Lords, my name is on the amendment. I will very briefly make clear my support for it. Most of the things that I intended to say have been said, but I will underscore them. My first point is very much the same as that of the noble Lord, Lord Newton. The proposal to eliminate the lowest rate of DLA care when introducing the daily living component of PIP at only two levels is one of the principal causes of the fear and apprehension on the part of disabled people that we talked about when discussing the earlier amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell. As we heard, we are not talking about a small number of people but 652,000, or nearly three-quarters of a million. That is a substantial consideration of which the Government should be mindful.
My other point, which I do not think anybody has made, is that the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, allows the Government room in regulations to reduce the number of disabled people receiving the lowest rate of the care component while still ensuring that some of those who currently access this level of help will not be cut adrift at a stroke from support when the new benefit is introduced. Now I come to think of it, this point is the same as that made by the noble Lord, Lord Newton; it is about transition and flexibility. If the Government, for cost considerations or for any other reason, feel it imperative to push ahead in this direction, I urge them to give serious thought to the question of phasing out and showing flexibility on the precise number who will be cut adrift from the benefit at a stroke. If we need to lose some people, perhaps consideration can be given to articulating the benefit in such a way that not all 652,000 people are affected at once.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
My Lords, I hope that by means of the Minister’s response to the amendments we will come to understand the Government’s thinking on why and how they will move from three levels of disability living allowance to two levels as part of what today I will call PIP, even though I hope that we may rename it.
PIP will have a daily living and mobility allowance, with the daily living component awarded according to an individual’s ability to carry out key activities so as to enable them to participate in everyday life. This is a fairly fundamental description of why it should be paid. However, I will ask four questions about the move to abolish one of the rates. First, what is the evidence base for this change? Clearly there is one; we know that the Minister is a good evidence-based policy developer. However, I am unclear about what it is. Will the two rates satisfactorily encompass the whole range of disability that we seek to help or will it be simply administratively easier and therefore quicker to administer and get help to people? What is the rationale?
Secondly, if neither of these two explanations is right, is it simply a device that has been selected by Government to help achieve the 20 per cent cut? Is it to be achieved by chopping out the bottom one-third of assessed needs? I am afraid that the Disability Alliance judges that this is the reason. It is particularly concerned that disabled people receiving the DLA low-care payments may lose support as a result of the scrapping of this bit of assistance and the Government’s stated aim of only helping those with the most severe needs.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
This is obviously more a matter for the usual channels. Having just asked that discussions should happen with representatives of disabled people, the other way of meeting the major problem is by delaying Report and not starting it before Christmas. There are two reasons for that. The first is that we do not have the information and the second is the difficulty of trying to get disabled groups to give us the feedback that we need over Christmas when many offices close down. We will not be as informed as I know the Minister would want us to be. The possibility is that we should not start Report. I know that this is well beyond the Minister’s decision, but there are two ways of cracking it.
Lord Freud
My Lords, the proposition is that we need to have this locked down ahead of the rest of the Bill. Regrettably, we are not expecting to have the passporting elements of this ready for the time we consider it. I will go into some detail. The timing issue is that there would be no gain, if that is the real concern, in pulling this information earlier and hurrying the consideration process artificially.
Lord Freud
My Lords, as I said earlier, the history of this is that only 30 per cent of the gain that we have seen in recent years has been due to demographics. The rest has been the result of a drive in demand. I do not think that there was any assumption of a huge change in expectation in the projection. I am sure that once she has gone through Hansard, the noble Baroness will work it out.
I shall take the question on transitional protection put by my noble friend Lord Newton that I failed to answer. He had to ask it again, and I apologise for that. We do not have any plans to introduce such protection for people who currently receive DLA and may not be entitled to PIP. While I accept that they may have been entitled to it for some time, it would be strange to continue to pay a benefit to people who no longer met the entitlement criteria. So there is no difference between this and the similar 2004-05 exercise where 12 per cent of people were found no longer to be entitled.
I turn now to the question raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, on the difficulty of working out what the assessments we published on Friday mean. That was an exercise in showing the weightings and how the criteria might work to prioritise relative need. We know that there are strong views on these relative weightings. That is why we have published them: so that we can now discuss and fine-tune them to the extent that we need to. As I said, we will be able to move on this when we come to these clauses on Report, having done the exercise and worked out what it means in terms of entitlement thresholds.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
Will the Minister explain whether the department, having done that, will put everyone on a list depending on the number of points they have and then say, “Right, we have a fixed amount of money so we will adjust the levels accordingly”? Or will the divisions be based on a real assessment of people and will the Government then find the money come what may if people meet the thresholds?
The Minister did not answer my earlier question about the assumptions the DWP must already have made about the number of people who are likely to lose out. He said some will gain, some will stay the same and some will get less. After all the modelling that the department has done, there must be an assumption about this. It may need changing in the light of the thresholds, but it would be useful for it to be shared.
Lord Freud
My Lords, I will pick up the point of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter. I have no figures on how many people may or may not lose, mainly because we have not yet locked down the thresholds. However, I assure her that this is a bottom-up exercise based on assessing people's real needs. We are working at it that way round rather than working to a budget. That is what some of the testing we did over the summer was about.
The noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, asked about the work we have done on some passported benefits. We had detailed discussions with colleagues in the Department for Transport about passporting disabled people to the blue badge scheme. We will include key outcomes from the discussions in the updated impact assessment that we will publish in time for Report.
Welfare Reform Bill
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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?
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.
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.