State Pension Age
Baroness Hollis of Heigham Excerpts(8 years, 2 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Altmann
My Lords, this will be an independent review. All these issues are a matter for the reviewer. I urge as many noble Lords as possible to make representations to the review. It will consult widely across society and across interest groups to ensure that all these relevant factors are considered.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham (Lab)
My Lords, does the Minister accept that there is a deep unfairness in having a single retirement age irrespective of background? In my home city, two wards one mile apart have a difference in life expectancy of 11 years. Those who are better off receive more state pension for longer and enjoy disability-free years. Will the Minister accept that every time she raises the state pension age, disadvantaged people have to wait longer for a pension while, at the same time, they are more likely to incur disabilities earlier, so that they enter retirement already unfit, unwell and unable to enjoy it?
Baroness Altmann
The noble Baroness raises relevant points. I stress again that the review is not just about raising the state pension age but about considering the appropriate way to run state pension age policy. I encourage her to raise those issues with the reviewer.
Housing: Underoccupancy Charge
Baroness Hollis of Heigham Excerpts(8 years, 2 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Freud
The way that this was introduced was to replicate what happens in the private sector, where the LHA does exactly that: it provides the family with what they require. The removal of the spare room subsidy brings the same system into the social sector as was introduced into the private sector by the very party that the noble Lord sits in.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham (Lab)
My Lords, two-thirds of those affected by the bedroom tax have a disability. Will the Minister tell us what proportion of those people affected—the two-thirds—are actually receiving discretionary housing awards? The money does not stretch to them.
Lord Freud
I have gone through these figures before. When you look at the numbers of disabled people who are subject to the spare room policy, 63% of the original number were disabled on a DDA basis but, by the time you take it on to the higher rate DLA basis, the figure was down to 17%.
Welfare Reform and Work Bill
Baroness Hollis of Heigham Excerpts(8 years, 3 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Hollis of Heigham (Lab)
My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister. I am truly grateful that he has responded in such a compassionate and sympathetic way to the situation of people who are at the hardest edge of kinship care, when bereaved family members are seeking to look after bereaved children. What the Government, and the Minister in particular, have done is remove an additional pressure that we would have been putting on them of financial strain. As I understand it, he has confirmed that not only will such families be exempt from the benefit cap, the entire income, not just the guardian’s allowance, will not come under the benefits cap—in other words, as a group, they will be excluded. That is so important for those families to give the children they are caring for—as well as their own children, perhaps—the stability and security they need if, out of the wreckage of their lives and the damage that has been done to them, they can hope to build a secure future. I am very grateful to the Minister and thank him enormously.
Baroness Manzoor (LD)
I add my thanks from these Benches. It is great and really welcome. To have these two allowances removed from the benefits cap is essential. We have had long debates and this was pointed out very clearly and forcefully by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis. We on these Benches are really grateful.
Of course, I remain concerned about other areas, such as the additional children of women who are fleeing domestic violence. I implore the Minister to look again at that issue, and perhaps we could come back to it, so that those women, or indeed partners, could be exempted from the two-child tax credit limit.
Welfare Reform and Work Bill
Baroness Hollis of Heigham Excerpts(8 years, 4 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Kerslake (CB)
My Lords, I declare my interest as chair of Peabody and president of the Local Government Association. I support Amendment 50 and wish to speak specifically to Amendments 53, 61 and 63. I will keep my comments brief as I am conscious of the hour.
I add my welcome to the movement and the moratorium referred to by other noble Lords. This is a demonstration of the Government listening and acting, which I welcome. I reinforce the importance of taking early decisions and not using the whole year for the review process, not just because of the uncertainty for existing schemes but for investment in new schemes that are so desperately needed.
Amendment 53 follows on from the debate we had in Committee, when we debated the very abrupt move from the 10-year plan of CPI plus 1% for rent increases to a four-year period when there would be a 1% reduction per annum. We had a considerable debate on what the impact of that change of policy would be. In tabling an amendment in Committee, I was ever hopeful that after the four-year period the Government might return to the original 10-year plan. However, the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, made it clear that that was not the Government’s intention and that they would take a decision on future rent movements in four years’ time. Given the difference of view on this issue, with the Institute for Fiscal Studies clearly saying that there will be a loss of housing association new build as a result of this policy and the Government’s view that the figure will be absorbed through efficiencies and reductions in surpluses, it seems to me imperative that an evaluation is undertaken before policy is set in four years’ time. I emphasise that it should be an evaluation, not simply monitoring the existing policies, and that that evaluation should be independently commissioned.
There is plenty of precedent in government for doing this—for example, with the new homes bonus, where such an independent evaluation was produced and published, and, indeed, influenced government policy on the bonus going forward. It is good practice for government when they introduce such a significant change to not just monitor the impact of that change but to evaluate its impact in the widest sense. That is why I think this amendment is so important. I would like to hear from the Minister what the Government’s view of this is but also how they expect to assess this impact.
Amendments 61 and 63 come together because they relate to social rents and affordable rent. I take very seriously the debate we had yesterday on the Housing and Planning Bill, and particularly the Minister’s view that we should do everything possible to maximise new housebuilding in this country. I endorse that view, whatever that new housing happens to be. This issue is specifically about new build schemes and the flexibility there has hitherto been for setting rents at the commencement of those schemes. This relates not to the viability of the housing association but to the individual schemes. It is why I have tabled the amendments which perhaps require a bit of elaboration.
When a housing association considers its investment programme in new supply, it looks at two things. First, it looks at its wider viability as a housing association and the risks attached to the scale of the programme it is undertaking. The second thing is to look at the viability of the individual scheme before it commits to it. In some cases the scheme will be highly viable and profitable and would go ahead regardless of this rent reduction. In other cases there will be schemes that were not viable before and with the rent reduction would most certainly not be viable now.
However, there is a small but important group of schemes which are on the margin of viability, with risks that are evenly balanced. Having the flexibility to start the rent at a slightly different point at the time the scheme starts will crucially influence whether those schemes go ahead and whether they do so now. This is the particular issue that I am focused on. It will not be a big cost but the numbers could be important. Given the crisis that we face on housing, “every little helps”. I hope that Ministers will hear this point and retain that flexibility. The small cost that is involved will be far outweighed by the confidence it gives to housing associations to go ahead with their schemes. I urge the Government to consider this carefully.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham (Lab)
My Lords, I have a brief comment and a brief question.
I support everything that the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, has said. On Amendment 53, I urge the Minister to take seriously the need for housing associations to be able to plan their building programme and their revenues more than three to four years ahead. The viability of their bank covenants depend on that, and, therefore, their capacity to manage new investment. If there is a query as to whether this 1% rent reduction will be continuing in three years, in whatever form, there will be a serious question mark over the Government’s ability to meet their goal of affordable housing through the social landlord sector.
I urge the Minister to take that amendment very seriously. Some of us have been engaged in negotiations with banks worried about there being no direct payments and therefore tenants having to pay rent out of their UC. They were worried that this would destabilise the rent roll and asked if they could refloat their loans at X, Y or Z. Some of us have already been through that and banks are quite willing to inflate a risk in order to get the revenue returns they would like to see on their covenants. Therefore, the more predictability the Minister can give us, the better. I hoped we would have a clear line, and that after 2019-20 this would stop. If it does not, housing associations and local authorities will have real difficulty in managing their business plans.
Like everyone else I welcome the one-year suspension of the 1% rent reduction in the social rental and supported housing sector. Can the Minister tell me how that will end? Does he expect to notify the House by virtue of an SI? In other words, will he say to the House that from this point on this accommodation will, as a result of this review, be expected to have a 1% rent reduction? Will the Government claim financial privilege, given that it will be a financial measure, so that this House will find it very difficult to discuss it and, possibly, ask the other place to reconsider?
Earl Cathcart (Con)
My Lords, as the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, has just said, under the old housing benefit scheme the tenant had the choice of the payment going to him or directly to the landlord. The Minister said that, under the new scheme, the,
“position is for universal credit to be paid as a single monthly sum direct to the claimant; that is designed to mirror what would happen if the claimant was in full-time employment, when they would be responsible for managing their own funds and paying their own rent”.—[Official Report, 21/12/15; col. 2438.]
In an ideal world that is an excellent idea, but in the real world it invariably does not happen. As a landlord, I can foresee that when the tenant receives the universal credit, the temptation will be to buy the weekly shopping, petrol, clothes and so on, and by the time the rent becomes due there will not be enough money left, so the spiral of debt takes hold. But the Government are adamant that paying universal credit only to the claimant not only will work but does work. Is this experiment working as the Government say it is?
According to a survey conducted by the Residential Landlords Association, it is not. It found that of those private sector landlords who had tenants on universal credit, some 63% had tenants in arrears on their rent—a point just made by the noble Baroness. Of that group of landlords, 85% had contacted the Department for Work and Pensions to have the housing element of the universal credit paid direct to them after eight weeks of arrears, as is their entitlement. More than 57% of that group said that it had taken the department more than five weeks to respond to the request, which means that the landlord is already more than three months out of pocket. I understand that the problem is even worse for social housing, with nearly 90% of tenants in arrears. It is heartening that the Minister said in Committee that,
“we are doing a lot of work now with social landlords to get the problem under control”.—[Official Report, 21/12/15; col. 2437.]
At least my noble friend admits that there is a problem and that the new system is not working quite as planned. Much of this could have been avoided if the rent had been paid direct to the landlord.
In October 2012, a survey of more than 1,000 landlords carried out by the Residential Landlords Association and the Scottish Association of Landlords found that more than 91% of landlords were less likely to rent to tenants on benefits as a direct result of the decision not to allow payment of the benefits direct to the landlord. Not making the payment direct to the landlord is not helping the landlords and it is certainly not helping the tenants. All the evidence, backed by Shelter, Crisis and the Money Advice Trust, has been that paying it direct to the landlord was popular with tenants, as they were assured that their rent was covered before they decided how else to spend their money.
If the Government really want to make tenants,
“responsible for managing their own funds and paying their own rent”.—[Official Report, 21/12/15; col. 2438.],
what better way than the tenant asking for the rent to be paid direct to the landlord? To my mind, that is the height of responsibility for the tenant: to ensure that the roof over their heads is paid for before deciding how to spend any remaining money.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, I strongly support the amendment moved so ably by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher. This is a real problem. The previous proposals that we were given, and the previous explanations that we wanted to model on the world of work, frankly belonged to a different planet. Those tenants, particularly in social housing, who need housing benefit are not those, for the most part, who are paid monthly. They very often are on ZHCs, have insecure or short-time jobs, or have fluctuating incomes week by week. That is topped up by universal credit. They want and need the security of a home in order to continue often to be able to find the jobs that they want, which would give them greater security. If they seek direct payments to the landlord, why does the Minister think that the Government and the DWP can second-guess what is in their best interest? Why not treat them as moral adults who can make their own judgment? The result that we are already seeing and beginning to worry about is, given the refusal to give alternative payment methods until after six to eight weeks’ arrears, and the time of processing that, we can be talking about debts of more than £1,000, from which tenants never recover.
The alternative is to try to help tenants to find ways to bypass the rigidity of DWP. So we are busy setting up jam-jar accounts and other friends are busy trying to use credit unions in order to bypass the total universal credit going into the bank account where the bank then takes payments for any other outstanding debts or anything else. As a result, HB becomes the last thing to be paid to the landlord. Many are already experiencing those problems. Certainly, one local authority tenant said to me, “Well, I won’t worry about that because that will be the last thing that gets paid. The local authority won’t evict me. It costs them more to send me into temporary housing and, given that I’ve got kids, I can run that risk”. That is the mental framework. She said, “I would be perfectly willing if they took it at the beginning of the month. But if I put it in the bank, it will be gone by the end of the month before I pay the rent”.
I suggest that the Minister responds very positively to this amendment. Where the tenant seeks it, the department should agree that alternative payment arrangement and stop all the futile effort that so many of us are making trying to find ways to loop around the system, to overcome the rigidities of the department, to help tenants avoid what will probably be debts from which they will never recover. I hope that the Minister will take the words of the noble Baroness and the noble Earl very seriously. It is a real problem on the ground.
Lord Layard (Lab)
My Lords, the Government are great believers in the principle of “nudge” and have greatly expanded the nudge unit. The fundamental principle of nudge is that, by quite small differences in institutional arrangements, you can produce big differences in outcomes. One principle of nudge is to give people an opportunity to protect themselves against their worse natures. That is exactly what this is about: offering people an opportunity to protect themselves against their own weakness. It is difficult for me to understand why the Government are not willing to use this elementary psychological principle. Would the Minister consider consulting the nudge unit before insisting that this ideological line that is being pursued is consistent with modern psychology?
Lord Freud
This amendment requires the Secretary of State to make regulations that would allow universal credit claimants to opt to have the housing cost element of their award paid direct to the landlord, irrespective of the reason. One key principle of UC is that the single, monthly payment mirrors the payment of monthly wages that most claimants would receive if they were in full-time employment. Whether they are receiving UC or are working, tenants need to make similar decisions on managing their money, including paying their own rent.
The Government understand that a move to a single, monthly household payment is a significant change for many claimants and that some will require help and support. Regulations came into force in February last year to allow DWP to inform social landlords whenever one of their tenants makes a claim for or is awarded universal credit with housing costs or when an existing universal credit claimant moves to one of their properties. This enables the social landlord to decide whether the claimant requires advice, support or assistance in budgeting so that they can manage their rental payments.
There will, of course, be instances where the claimant needs additional support and, to this end, the Secretary of State already has powers to pay all or some of a claimant’s UC entitlement to a third party through alternative payment arrangements—or APAs, in the trade. There are three APAs: paying rent directly to the landlord; making more frequent than monthly payments; or splitting the payment within the household. APAs can be considered by the Secretary of State at any point during the universal credit claim, whether at the outset or later on, if a claimant cannot manage the monthly payment arrangement.
Recent improvements allow the landlord to email their APA requests, which are dealt with in a matter of days as a priority—so some of the early teething problems as we started rolling out the system have been addressed to speed up that process. Wherever possible, these arrangements are time-limited and delivered with appropriate budgeting support to help claimants make the transition to monthly budgeting.
The arrangement also covers claimants who are in rent arrears, and managed payments to the landlord will be considered where claimants have arrears of at least one month due to repeated underpayment or where the claimant owes arrears of at least two months and is at risk of eviction. These protections, combined with the measures enabling landlords to recover arrears from a tenant’s UC award, already mitigate any impact on landlords’ income or on homelessness.
We are in fact making a series of initiatives in this area and one of the most interesting is the trusted partner trials, where we are working with local authorities so that they decide the people who should be put on an APA, at least initially, and then look to see the budgeting support that a person needs to run their own funding.
Picking up the point made by my noble friend Lord Cathcart on experience, in terms of arrears we did an elaborate direct payment project and we found that, in the early stages, the numbers who paid in full were running at 95.5%, compared with 99% of those where the state paid. However, by the 18th payment—these were weekly payments in the comparator in this project—the direct payments figure had risen to 99%. Interestingly, this happened when the removal of the spare room subsidy came in, and those tenants who had become used to managing their own rent handled the removal of the spare room subsidy better than the ones who had been on the state-managed payments system. That is not surprising because the managed payments system is not necessarily an easy option where there are reductions for non-dependants, the spare room subsidy and so on, because the claimant will still need to pay the shortfall to the landlord.
The other factor, which I am surprised that noble Lords have not clocked, is that a large number of the families on universal credit are in work. It is not like the old legacy system where you have one lot out of work and one lot in work; this is a blended group and people are moving from the out-of-work group into the in-work group. Therefore, the idea that you can be halfway down the taper—in the jargon—and have a managed payment would be incredibly hard for any organisation, including the DWP and the tenant, to manage. Two million households is equivalent to a quarter of the case load.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
The noble Lord makes our point for us. If a substantial number of people are in work and managing fine—as, indeed, is the case; it is one of the reasons for supporting UC—they will not seek alternative payment arrangements. Who will seek them? It is those who have the self-knowledge to know that they are vulnerable when it comes to paying their rent, given the pressure of debt payday loans and all the other debts they may accrue. If they are being hounded, as we know they are, what will go first is the money that should be earmarked for their rent. I urge the Minister not to superimpose on people who find it hard to manage assumptions about how those of us with rather more comfortable incomes and reliable monthly salaries handle our accounts. It can be a very different and very difficult world.
Lord Freud
The core reason why I dislike this measure—and I do dislike it, so it is not a question of persuading the Secretary of State—is that we can actually see this situation right now. Interestingly, my understanding from conversations I had with welfare rights people in the 1980s was that they were against managed payments because they disempower tenants. It is funny that the political debate has come full circle. If you say that tenants can choose but you have an imbalance of power between the landlord and the tenant, which is the reality, you will find very quickly that every tenant will choose to have a managed payment because they will be told by their landlords—who would love to have someone with an AAA credit rating paying them—“You must have a managed payment”. That is what has happened. Some 93% of people in social housing choose to have a managed payment. They are disempowered, which makes it hard for them to get back into work—I think the noble Baroness is shaking her head, as a landlord. You say lots of good things—
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
I have spent years in either local authority housing management or housing association management. I have represented, possibly unlike the noble Lord, a council estate—one of the largest in the city of Norwich—and day by day, week by week, year by year, we went knocking on doors. We know what we are talking about.
Welfare Reform and Work Bill
Baroness Hollis of Heigham Excerpts(8 years, 4 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Lord Bishop of Durham
My Lords, I would like to tell two stories that illustrate why I believe two of these exemptions are important.
A good friend of mine and his wife were unable to have children, and they put themselves forward as adoptive parents. They went through the rigorous process—this was a few years ago—and with great pride entered a room with several of us who had our own children and presented a piece of paper that said, “I have been authorised to become a parent in a way that none of you ever have”. This was a great joy. They were then asked if they would take three children, because those children had been born to the same mother and had experienced serious abuse living in a home with addiction. The absolute conviction of all concerned was that it was vital that these three children remained together. We, as a society, asked them to care for those children. They took up that responsibility and have exercised it for many years. They have, on our behalf, saved an enormous amount of money through those children not going into care. Also, a much longer-term point is that those children are healthy, well-educated and will be fantastic contributors to society. That is one of the reasons why adoption needs to be exempted.
The second story is of another two friends. When their first child was born, they had to come to terms with a severe disability. They had a second child who was fine and healthy. They chose to have a third child. That child also turned out to be disabled. Under the current proposals, without the exemptions they would not be given any support for that child other than the extra disability support. These are the children and the families we are dealing with in considering these exemptions. I sincerely hope, like others, that the Minister has had time really to consider such situations and has better news for us.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham (Lab)
My Lords, I do not want to add to the extremely powerful speeches we have had but I would like to ask the Minister a straightforward question. On Monday, when we discussed the benefit cap, we raised the issue of the guardian’s allowance. As noble Lords who were present at the time will know, the guardian’s allowance goes to those at the very sharp end of kinship care, looking after children who are not just neglected but orphaned and traumatised as a result. That benefit cap obviously interlocks very much with the issues of kinship care. In the light of that, has the Minister been able to think further on the arguments that were put during that debate and reconsider the guardian’s allowance issue? It is a subgroup within kinship care but a few may be affected by a benefit cap, which would have disastrous effects on their capacity to care for some of the most distressed and grieving children society is likely to see.
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Freud) (Con)
I thank the noble Baronesses, noble Lords and right reverend Prelates for their amendments, and all those who contributed to the debate. The amendments all relate to exemptions in certain circumstances from the policy which limits the child element in child tax credit and universal credit to a maximum of two children or qualifying young persons from 6 April 2017. I think we have gone through those exemptions so I will not go through them in the normal way but take them as read.
We have been clear since the summer Budget, when this policy was announced, that we will exempt a third or subsequent child or qualifying young person who is one of a multiple birth where there were previously fewer than two children in the household, and we will exempt a third or subsequent child born as a result of rape. These exemptions will be developed and brought forward in secondary legislation, as subsections of Clauses 11 and 12 permit. We believe that secondary legislation is the right approach for specifying exemptions, to allow for flexibility and engagement with stakeholders. It will be important to get the detail right and we have time to do that before bringing forward regulations for April 2017.
I recognise the deeply felt concern in this House, the other place and more widely about how this exemption will work—something the noble Baroness, Lady Manzoor, pinpointed just now. We all recognise that this is a difficult and sensitive issue and I would like to provide the House with further information. Clearly, we need to establish a way of making this assessment that is sympathetic and responsive to the claimant and timely in determining entitlement to benefit. Our intention is not to focus on or pre-empt criminal justice outcomes but to ensure that mothers receive the help they need at the time they need it, using clear criteria that are straightforward to apply and not overly intrusive, but which secure the system against fraud and error.
While we continue to look at the detail, our thinking is that a third party evidence model offers the most promising approach to striking the balance we need to achieve. This approach would not be new for the benefit system. For example, we use a third party evidence model in universal credit for the temporary relaxation of the requirement to be available for work in cases of domestic violence. The evidence required is the reporting of the abuse to a third party acting in an official capacity, such as a GP or social worker. This model was developed with input from stakeholders.
Of course, a significant amount of work is needed to take forward and develop the detail of the model. I also want development of the model to include working with stakeholders to help ensure that the process is as compassionate and supportive as possible for claimants in these circumstances, while providing the right assurance to government that the additional support is going to those for whom it is intended. We will be getting in touch with organisations with an interest in this policy shortly to seek their input, and I encourage any other stakeholders who would like to be a part of this to let me know. While there is a significant amount of work to do and detailed questions to be answered, I hope this helps reassure the House and stakeholders that we are thinking very carefully about how we respond to this difficult and sensitive issue.
We have been clear since the summer Budget that we will bring forward further exemptions for exceptional circumstances, and we will be doing that today. I am grateful to those who have suggested amendments and contributed to the debate. As a number of noble Lords pointed out, I have been talking to Peers on this matter. We have carefully considered those affected by this policy and the options available, while taking into account the fact that one of our objectives for universal credit is that it will be part of a simpler and workable welfare system that benefits everyone. I know that noble Lords will remember my muttering about adding carbuncles every now and then.
Regardless, I am pleased to announce today that in recognition of the important role which family and close friends can play in caring long term for children who are unable to live with their parents and could otherwise be at risk of entering the care system, we are in favour of an exemption for children in such circumstances. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Sherlock, Lady Drake and Lady Armstrong, have made persuasive speeches on this issue not just today but in Committee—so it is worth putting the effort into those speeches. We recognise that in these cases such carers, often referred to as kinship carers, are not in the same position to make choices about the number of children in their family as other parents are. I am grateful that the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, is now taking my distinction there in a positive rather than a non-positive way.
As I have already mentioned, the Bill provides the necessary powers to make regulations to provide exemptions to this policy, and we intend to use regulations to provide for this exemption. In developing the regulations, we will need to ensure that we get the definition right to make sure that the exemption applies to the children to whom it is intended to apply. We will work with stakeholders in developing the regulations to deliver a solution which meets the needs of vulnerable children, while protecting the Government from the potential risk of fraud and error.
Lord Freud
We have a regulatory process where these exemptions will be gone through in detail. I can make a commitment today where I can do so, but I assure noble Lords, including the right reverend Prelate, that the machinery of government is not in a place which allows me to say anything more about anything else at this stage. However, the process of setting out regulations will take place some months from now, and we will be exploring in great detail how they work. If the right reverend Prelate is asking me whether there are going to be more opportunities to put pressure on the Government, I would imagine that there will be.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
In which case, given that helpful and tactful response by the Minister, will he help us even further by agreeing to publish draft proposed regulations before the formal procedure of “take it or leave it” in both Houses, thus allowing various participants to discuss those proposed draft regulations with the Minister before they are formally submitted?
Lord Freud
In practice, I think that what I have said produces that outcome. I have said that we will consult very widely with stakeholders to get this right, because these are very sensitive issues. The rape exemption is very difficult. Getting kinship caring and adoption right is not straightforward. In practice, there will be consultation, but I do not want to overformalise that process. I have committed to a much more open process than you might see in some other regulations that we issue.
The next complicated case is the formation of new households through re-partnering of single parents, which we have looked at very closely and which produces a number of difficulties. First, it would be perceived as unfair by those families with three or more children who stay together and receive a maximum amount of child element or child tax credit in respect of two children, whereas other families who have formed more recently could receive more. Secondly, there is a risk that families may try to manipulate the benefit system by breaking up and re-forming, or even claiming to have broken up and subsequently re-formed in order to increase the amount. Thirdly, there would be a practical issue in assigning children in newly formed families to a particular parent. We have not done that before. Your Lordships will hear me muttering the word “carbunclising”. That is not to mention the intrusive nature of that process.
Finally, I looked at the numbers involved. The reality is that, whether we like it or not, the bulk of children stay with the mother. The number of fathers with children joining mothers with children is not many. Once the measure is fully rolled out, we expect that only 7% of single men will have children, so it is not that substantial a problem. The noble Baroness, Lady Manzoor, talked about half a million. That is just not the reality. I reiterate what I said in Committee about the way it is introduced in 2017 for child tax credit and universal credit. Any household which has claimed within the past six months will also be protected. For those reasons, I urge the noble Baronesses and the right reverend Prelate not to press their amendments.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, all of us in the House supported universal credit and we all recognised the absolutely key role played by the noble Lord, Lord Freud, in seeking to deliver it. Why have those of us who worked on tax credits—my noble friend in the Treasury and myself as the Minister taking the tax credits Bills through this House—none the less gone on to support universal credit? It was because tax credits did make work pay, they transformed lives, and we were and indeed are proud of them.
But, first, without real-time information, we could not keep pace with the changes of circumstance. Half of all lone parents experienced more than a dozen changes of circumstance every year, and the computers never caught up. We had to have end-of-year adjustments and we had the sadness of trying to recover overpayments from people who could ill afford to make them. Secondly, as has been said, we absolutely needed to simplify the benefits system so that people would know what they were entitled to. Finally, tax credits were rightly built on a work model, and work was defined as 16 hours a week. However, we know that for many lone parents a job for fewer than 16 hours a week, a mini job, is the pathway into work. Instead of the cliff-edge of 16 hours, we supported the principle that the noble Lord enunciated in universal credit of a ladder up from mini jobs right on into full-time work. Over some 17 long Committee days, we supported the noble Lord on universal credit.
The architecture of universal credit remains, but to repeat the image of the noble Baroness, Lady Manzoor, the key driver of making work pay is being shrivelled by the cuts, slice after slice. My heart goes out to the Minister because he must hate it. But, of course, he cannot possibly comment. Instead of universal credit being more supportive than tax credits, which is where we came from in helping people into work, as my noble friend Lady Sherlock has said, increasingly the opposite is now true.
Yes, last autumn we protected existing families on tax credits—not new claimants—from cuts to their existing income, given the commitments made on all sides during the general election. The Chancellor accepted that as people move from tax credits to UC as part of the migration timeline, they should not be worse off simply by virtue of that administrative change. It was the right thing to do and I believe that everyone in the House, including of course the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, who was so key to this, was delighted by the move.
However, as my noble friend has said, such transitional protection may not cover situations where there has been a recognised, formal change of circumstance which, as it stands, could bring existing tax credits families immediately into UC over and beyond the migration timeframe, and at that point they will experience cuts in UC. I want the Minister to help us by clarifying the situation. What will take a person who is on tax credits now, who is not part of the planned timeline, into UC and thus experiencing immediate cuts? The reason it is uncertain is that at the moment, certain changes with tax credits must rightly be formally reported to HMRC. As my noble friend set out, that must be done when a lone parent becomes part of a couple or the couple breaks up, when there is another child or a child leaves school, and when hours of work or income change, or childcare costs change—for example, during the summer holidays. And, of course, tax credits rates are now and should continue to be properly adjusted to reflect those natural changes in circumstance. However, will such changes of circumstance, which would bring about a change in tax credits, now instead be a trigger on to UC, at which point families will find themselves caught by the UC cuts, or will they remain outside it? Or does this apply only when the tax credit claims have completely ended, so that no tax credits are in payment? For example, if a lone parent has repartnered and her partner’s income floats them off tax credits altogether and then, say, a year on, sadly, he moves out and she needs to make a fresh new claim, will that fresh claim be under tax credit rules or the more oppressive universal credit rules?
If the oppressive universal credit rules apply, will there none the less be a linking rule—as in the past with a well-established principle for disability benefits—so that within six months, or certainly a year, a new claim is regarded as a resumption of the old claim? In other words, the lone parent remains de facto on tax credits with the protection that that carries when, by the natural time migration, she moves over to UC. I apologise to your Lordships for being quite nerdish about this, but it is essential that the Minister clarify the position for us, which I am sure he will.
Finally, we supported UC over tax credits above all to incentivise people into work. My noble friend has spelt out the additional resource that the Minister was able to achieve to incentivise people into work, especially those more marginal to the labour market, by allowing them to keep more of what they earnt. We all thought that that was the right thing to do. Several years back, the Minister was absolutely right, while criticising tax credits because of the multiplicity of interlocking benefits, when he said that there was a high rate of benefit withdrawal—that is, the taper—which meant that some working people kept only pennies in the pound for every hour that they worked. Therefore, they did not.
However, although the universal credit regulations do not change the taper, in many cases they essentially halve the work allowance which can be earnt before the taper kicks in for many, and they withdraw it in its entirety for some. Therefore, cuts will affect people who come on to universal credit after April 2016. The cut in the standard work allowance for a lone parent working mother, from more than £8,000 to £4,764, means that she will lose half. Effectively, she will lose £2,628 a year by being on universal credit, which she would not if the work allowance had not been halved. Couple families with one partner with limited capacity to work because of disability will lose around £3,000. Single people will lose it altogether. Hence, this amendment.
I am concerned, as are my noble friend and others on our Benches, about the impact of these proposed cuts within universal credit, as we all are about work incentives. We need evidence. The Minister respects evidence. If it is not there it needs to be collected. If it is, I am sure the Minister would want us to address any problems that may arise. My fear is that universal credit, instead of encouraging people into work, will begin to disincentivise them. But I do not know, which is why, as my noble friend has argued, we need that report to determine how, where and with what severity those cuts will fall, and on whom. In particular, how will they affect the key significance of universal credit: to improve work incentives and, as we all wish, to make work pay?
Without improving work incentives, universal credit has lost its moral argument and becomes instead, I fear, a mere administrative tidying up of the current benefit system, with the added risk that we are already beginning to see of repeated cuts. There would be much upheaval for no gain for many claimants, and real, if potential, losses for many more. I hope that I am wrong but we need to know. Such a report would tell us and, if my noble friend chooses to put this to a vote, I hope this House will support her.
Lord Freud
Before I start, I acknowledge my appreciation for what Peers are saying. This is not an attack on universal credit. They are some of its greatest fans and it is in that context that they speak. I absolutely get that and I appreciate it. It has reminded me that I owe regular updates about progress of universal credit and has jogged me to get going on that as soon as this Bill is over.
The amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Manzoor, seeks to repeal the work allowance regulations. I am going to sound like the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock. This measure has been debated and voted on twice in the other place, and both times these regulations have been retained. Therefore, this House should think carefully about using a Bill such as this to introduce opposition to a financial measure that has seen that kind of support in another place.
On the amendment, let me remind noble Lords of the context of those changes. The previous welfare system was not working. Spending went up from £6 billion in 1998 to £28 billion in 2010, when we reached the stage where nine in 10 families with children were eligible for tax credits. Some families could earn £60,000 a year and still receive benefits. Yet, at the same time, the number of people in in-work poverty increased by about 20%. It also did not do enough to support people to get into work, stay in work, and progress in work. People were left with unfulfilled potential and did not have an incentive to progress. Even if we forget the money, it undermined opportunity and aspiration due to the distortions and complexities of the system.
The Government have stated their intention to move from a low-wage, high-tax, high-welfare society to a high-wage, low-tax, low-welfare economy and have set out a package of measures. Let me remind noble Lords that the national living wage is set to reach over £9 an hour by 2020 and the personal tax allowance is set to rise to £11,000 in 2016-17, taking 570,000 more people out of income tax. I remember some debates about increasing support for childcare, and we have moved it up to a rate of 85% of eligible costs. We have doubled the early years’ provision, which is free for the working parents of three to four year-olds. When one looks at the whole of childcare, we now spend £5 billion in total across all the schemes, including UC, tax credits and the early years’ provisions, which is more than any previous Administration. Since 2010, there has been an increase of £1 billion.
To respond to the noble Baroness, Lady Manzoor, the measure is different from the tax credit cuts. Universal credit provides an incentive to making work pay and helps to move people off a life on benefits. They get personalised support through a dedicated work coach which helps them through the barriers. It is a different structure. It is not the same thing as the reduction in tax credits. Clearly, we have two elements; namely, the work allowance and the taper rate. We have already got evidence that it works and gets people into work much more effectively than jobseeker’s allowance. Apart from the savings we will achieve on taxpayers’ money, it will generate—partly by focusing the money more efficiently on the people who need it most—gross economic benefits of £7 billion every year once it is fully in.
Family Test
Baroness Hollis of Heigham Excerpts(8 years, 4 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Altmann
My Lords, as I said, the family test is not a tick-box exercise. Policy is always about trade-offs, but the family test ensures that family impacts are explicitly considered when making those trade-offs.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham (Lab)
My Lords, we spent quite a lot of time yesterday looking at issues affecting the family through the Welfare Reform and Work Bill. My noble friends Lady Lister and Lady Sherlock in particular pressed the Minister time and again as to whether these proposals in the Bill passed the family test. Answer came there none. Can the Minister tell us in what way, explicitly, the proposals in the Welfare Reform and Work Bill have been subjected to and evaluated against the family test and whether they have passed it, as she has told the House today?
Baroness Altmann
I can only repeat to the noble Baroness that the family test is not a pass or fail exercise. It is right to make our welfare system fairer for the working families currently paying into the system to support others, and the family test has been explicitly considered in the new policies and trade-offs necessary in all policy-making.
Welfare Reform and Work Bill
Baroness Hollis of Heigham Excerpts(8 years, 4 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, I support these two amendments. In the family to which I referred earlier, Ms Lorna Sculley has three children; the oldest and youngest sons have a disability, and she is a working mother. She works 16 hours a week as a dinner lady at the First Love Foundation—the food bank—and she discussed the prospect of getting more work. She calculated that if she worked seven more hours a week, she might get only another six pounds. It just was not worth her while to progress along a work route. I welcome very much what the Government have said about introducing the new, much higher, minimum wage, but the actual effect on families’ incomes might not be as positive as we would all hope, so I hope the Minister will consider accepting this proposal.
I would like to raise another point about a further complication for Ms Sculley. She depends on housing benefit and lives in Tower Hamlets. Her benefit has not been sufficient to pay her rent, so she has to subsidise it from her other income. She says that she cannot move from where she is because of her eldest son’s disability: he is at a school that is good at meeting his needs. That is what I understood from what she said, so that is perhaps relevant to others in our discussion.
My final point in relation to Ms Sculley is that she was offered a parenting class because of her two sons’ disabilities, but it took place on a Thursday, which is when she has to work at the school. She is therefore, in a way, disadvantaged by being in work because she cannot take up the opportunity of attending the parenting class. There is a lot to be said for these two amendments, and I look forward to the Minister’s response. Before I finish, however, I would like to thank him for the time that he took last week—an hour—to speak on the needs of children as they relate to this Bill. I certainly appreciate that very much.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham (Lab)
My Lords, I very much support the amendment of my noble friend Lady Lister, which was supported so ably by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood. I will be puzzled if the Government propose to resist the thrust of this amendment. The Government know perfectly well that, although the incidence or percentage of poverty among workless families is high, and higher than that among working families because the number of working families is so much greater than the number of workless families, as has been mentioned already, two-thirds of children who are in poverty live in a family where an adult is in work. Part of that might be that the parent, if a lone parent, has restricted hours, but we know that, with insecure contracts and the minimum wage and so on, the key lever to get that family out of poverty is not just to get the single adult into work but, where there are two adults, to get the second adult into work as well. We know that that is a function of the age of the youngest child and the size of the family. Child poverty might well be for a temporary period until the second earner—let us say, for this purpose, the mother—is able to go back into the labour market along with her husband or partner in order to amplify the family income. The need to support those children may be a temporary issue.
Given that the Minister today has put so much weight on the strain being carried by the new minimum wage and given that he will want to know, as we will all want to know, the interaction of that with the benefit bill, and the extent to which, therefore, that helps to address the levers of child poverty, above all of which is getting the second earner into part-time work, I do not understand why he would not want to track the information that my noble friend has called for. We all support the Government’s move to increase the national minimum wage. If he is right, this hopefully will have repercussions that we would all accept and support for the benefits system. But do we need to do more than that? We do not know. It may be about the size of sibling groups or the need for a second earner. We need to know what levers to pull. Unless the Government track that information, we will not know. I am sure that the Minister does want to know, so I hope that he will think very carefully about this amendment.
Baroness Manzoor
We totally support this amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister. I also totally agree with my noble friend Lord Kirkwood, who has amply identified the arguments as to why it should be supported. The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, rightly said that we need levers. If we do not have such levers, how are we to address the issues about people who work, those who are not in work and in-work benefits? We will talk about the universal work allowances and the implications and ramifications of that. I hope that the Minister is listening very carefully. If the amendment is called to a vote, we on these Benches will support it.
Lord Freud
My Lords, let me go straight to that question while it is fresh in my mind. It is, of course, possible to be poor while both parents are in work, particularly under the present legacy system. That is why we are bringing in universal credit—to make that much harder. We are not arguing about the level of poverty; it is about what is likely to happen to the life chances of that child compared to both parents being at that level of income and out of work and in work. That is the argument I have been trying to make all afternoon, with, I think, some resistance.
Under Amendments 8 and 11, noble Lords seek to expand the reporting duty placed on the Secretary of State so that his annual report to Parliament must include data on children living in low-income families where one or both parents are in work. Their amendments would add the terms “low income” and “in work” to the list of terms to be defined in the annual report.
I have already gone on enough about the centrality of worklessness and educational attainment. Alongside these statutory measures, the Prime Minister has announced that we are committed to publishing a life chances strategy in the spring, which will set out a comprehensive plan to fight disadvantage and extend opportunity, including a wider set of non-statutory measures on the root causes of child poverty such as family breakdown, problem debt, and drug and alcohol addiction.
I have said before that work is the best route out of poverty but I want to restate our arguments about the centrality of tackling worklessness. The risk of a child being poor is dramatically reduced if at least one parent works. According to the latest statistics, the risk of being in relative poverty for a child in a working family is 13%, compared to 37% for a child in a workless family. So a child in a workless family is almost three times as likely to be in poverty as a child living in a family where at least one adult works. Perhaps those are the figures for which the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, was asking.
Last year, we published an analysis on the transitions into and out of poverty. What we found was staggering, although some might say that it was obvious. Of the children who are in poor workless families, 74% will leave poverty altogether if their parents move into full employment. The analysis also made clear that the more work parents do, the more likely they are to leave poverty, with 75% of children from poor families in part-time employment leaving poverty if their parents enter full-time employment. I remind noble Lords that we have a package of reforms to encourage people to work. These policies include the national living wage and changes to the personal tax allowance, which will allow people to keep more of what they earn. Furthermore, over 30 million individuals will see a tax cut as a result of the changes we will make in this Parliament. Some 570,000 individuals will be lifted out of income tax altogether by 2016-17 and, as a result of the introduction of universal credit, more people will enter work due to improved financial incentives. We have a vibrant and growing economy, and last year real pay grew by 2.1%.
On the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, on support for women, we are supporting families through the national living wage, which is expected to have a stronger positive impact on the female workforce, boosting the wages of three in 10 female employees by 2020. Our childcare reforms will provide support to women who want to find employment, helping them to increase their income.
We have discussed before that two-thirds of children in relative poverty are from working families, but let me go over my argument. I am not convinced that it will convince the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, but I must try. It is correct that the latest figures published in the HBAI show that 64% of children in relative poverty are from a family where at least one adult is in work. This proportion has grown over the last couple of decades due to the improved progress in tackling poverty in workless families. In 1996-97—the earliest period for which data are available—around 60% of children in relative poverty were from workless families, which is around 2 million children, and around 40% of them were in working families, which is around 1.5 million children. During the 2000s, there was progress in reducing the number in poverty in workless families by focusing spending on tax credits, but this had the unintended consequence of weakening work incentives that resulted in hardly any change in the number of children in in-work poverty, which stood at 1.3 million in 2009-10.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, if the Minister will allow me to say this, he is misrepresenting the statistics. It may be a statement about children in poverty, but in particular the number of lone parents in that period who were in work went up from barely 50% to some 65%. Therefore, tax credits made work pay for them.
Lord Freud
It may have made work pay for some people, but it had the effect that, while it was possible, through income transfers, to drive down the out-of-work poverty of children, which is what they were designed to do, it had virtually no impact on in-work poverty. That brought that policy to a reductio ad absurdum: you could not do it without undermining your work incentives because you were raising the level of the benefit structure and it was beginning to knock up the income scale. That was the problem; that is what the data show.
In-work poverty, combined with falling levels of children in poverty from workless families, led to a greater proportion of children in poverty being from those workless families. This meant that, from 1996-97 until the end of the last decade, the proportion of children in poverty from working families actually went up from four in 10 to six in 10. That is the reality of the situation today. I can see that there is some ideological difference to be found over that analysis.
The evidence review, raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, highlighted the importance of low earnings, but emphasised the impact of working a lower number of hours, rather than the impact of low-paid work. On the question of how we will know about the levels of poverty—in work and out of work—I reassure her, as I already have, that we will have that data in the HBAI. It will continue to be available. Indeed, those in-work poverty figures in the HBAI can always be broken down by whether the family is in full-time or part-time employment.
I described why having two separate systems worked so poorly. We are introducing universal credit exactly to address those disincentives. I can tell noble Lords that I have spent the most enormous amount of personal time trying to get this structure so that we do not have these odd disincentives, which are really undermining for society. Universal credit is the best way to give people the incentive to enter work: it reduces poverty by making work pay and making sure that people do not lose out as they start to earn more, which is the terrible discontinuity in the legacy system. It provides an effective route out of poverty, while supporting the most vulnerable households. We already see the evidence under universal credit that people are working more and are better off in work.
As with Amendment 2, which we discussed earlier, these amendments would reintroduce an income-based relative poverty measure, which, as I have tried my best to explain—perhaps not as successfully as I might—do not tackle the root causes of child poverty. The Government are concerned with focusing our efforts and attention on those areas that will make a real difference to children’s lives, and concentrating on those root causes.
Resources are finite. It is crucial that we prioritise our actions to make the biggest difference for children. Statutory income measures cause the Government to focus their action and resources on direct and incremental increases to family income, but that does not necessarily drive any real change and is detrimental to the things that we think are vital—noble Lords know what I think they are.
Let us focus on the things that matter and drive the actions that will give our children the future they deserve. Let us not be distracted by measures that detract from that aim. As I said, we will continue to publish the HBAI figures so that we will know exactly what is happening. I therefore urge the noble Baroness to withdraw the amendment.
Welfare Reform and Work Bill
Baroness Hollis of Heigham Excerpts(8 years, 4 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Hollis of Heigham (Lab)
My Lords, guardian’s allowance is not separately listed in the Chancellor’s Excel sheets of benefits and budgets in the Autumn Statement. It is invisible. However, it emerges from obscurity to be included in the benefit cap.
What does guardian’s allowance do? Why does it matter and why should it be exempt? Guardian’s allowance supports those at the sharpest end of kinship care, not where parental care is extremely neglectful or unstable, as it is for many children in kinship care, but where no parental care is possible at all. It goes to those caring for orphans. Usually they are physical orphans whose parents have died but, very occasionally, they are what the Victorians would call moral orphans—the father is in jail and the mother is an addict or on the game, sectioned or imprisoned.
More usually, the mother has died and the father is missing, not known or not registered on the birth certificate. There is no known parent. Sometimes, sadly, both parents have died in a car crash. In one case, a lorry lost its load and killed both parents in the car behind it. In another instance, an 82 year-old grandparent, not of course herself affected by the cap, learned that her daughter had died of an overdose and 24 hours later her son-in-law followed suit. At 82, she was asked to be guardian to four children. Guardian’s allowance is worth just £16.55 a child on top of child benefit. It goes to those caring for those children: the maternal grandparent, sometimes an aunt, often the close friend of the child’s dead mother. Their guardian receives the allowance until the children leave school.
Why do they need it? The children come to them following an extreme, often unexpected and irreversible emergency, and they come for life. This is not revolving-door temporary care. They immediately need extra bunk beds and bedding and, depending on the home from which they have come, clothes, shoes and toys. There are no grants and no social fund for this. They may need a larger home with higher rent and therefore more housing benefit. They will be the most distressed and traumatised of children and usually it is distressed and traumatised adults who will be caring for them, having themselves lost their daughter, sister or best friend. Such guardians, if in work, usually have to give it up.
Few people know about guardian’s allowance. Government certainly seem to discourage any take-up of it among kinship carers, although I am sure that kindly staff do their best. The result is that only around 2,500 people receive guardian payments each year, a figure that has been stable since my time in DWP. No one can find out the total cost because the Chancellor does not seem to publish it. However, I estimate—and I could be wrong—it is in total perhaps £3 million to £4 million a year.
Most guardians will not be affected by the benefit cap. The maternal grandmother may be of pension age, although with women becoming a grandparent at the age of 51 and the raising of the state pension age, many other grandparents will be trapped.
Other guardians may be in a household where an adult works and is therefore not caught by the cap, but there will be some of those 2,500—perhaps 500 or 1,000—who will be caught by the benefit cap because they too, like the children’s dead mother before them, are in straitened circumstances. They will be her mother, her sister, her friend. They may be on benefit themselves. They probably have children themselves. If they are on benefit, have children of their own and become guardians, they will probably be caught three times over. First, they will be caught by the two-child policy: no additional child tax credit payments for them for cherishing these bereaved, traumatised children. Secondly, if they are in the private rented sector, they will be caught by the various housing benefit caps: no larger home for them, but more children cramped into the same tiny bedrooms as their birth children. Thirdly, if they are near or at the benefit cap, there will be no extra child tax credit, no child benefit and no guardian’s allowance either.
Lord Freud
Amendment 26 seeks to remove guardian’s allowance from the list of those that are included within the benefit cap, so that it is disregarded when calculating the total amount of benefits a household can receive before the cap is applied. Guardian’s allowance is paid to those who are responsible for a child or young person and either both parents or in some circumstance one parent have died. The Government recognise the crucial and valuable role that recipients play in helping children to recover from the loss of their parents, but I do not agree that it should be excluded from the benefit cap. That is about the principle that there is a clear limit to the amount of benefits that an out-of-work family can receive.
In the interests of time, I shall not repeat my previous arguments, but will provide the best information that we have, which is that the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, is right to say that this affects very few people. On our sums, the inclusion of the guardian’s allowance within the cap affects fewer than 50 claimants—those are the figures that I have. Rather than a blanket exclusion of this benefit, it is better that targeted support is offered to those who need it. That is where the discretionary housing payments of £870 million come into play. On that basis, I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
First, I thank my noble friend who spelled out the devastating situation in which these children find themselves, and how those who care for them—on kinship care, usually—are therefore entitled to receive guardian’s allowance.
The Minister made two points. First, he said that the principle was that there is a clear limit to benefits that out-of-work families can receive, even when that out-of-work family has taken on the joyless but essential and necessary task of caring for another family’s children. Why does the Minister not consider that therefore they are entitled morally—I am not saying practically, but morally—to benefits for two families, because that is what they are doing? We are not talking about families of their own children; we can argue for that, as my noble friend did, and she was absolutely right to do so.
I am talking about a situation at the extreme end of kinship care, when somebody has taken on responsibility for another family’s children. To say that, on principle, that out-of-work family should not get additional money for doing that—that is not a principle. A principle usually has some sort of moral quality to it. That, I am afraid, is a Treasury statement. I cannot believe that the Minister believes that it is the right policy to uphold in this situation. We should be hugging those kinship carers who are entitled to guardian’s allowance and giving them every support we can. Instead, what we do is to make them poorer.
The Minister’s second point was that he reckoned there were 50 families. I would love to see how he got to that figure. I could not work it out—obviously, because I could not work out how many people were grandparents, how many were in-work families and how many were below the limit, and therefore exempt, because they did not already have children of their own.
If we are really talking about 50 families, why on earth are the Government not conceding? How much does the Minister think this will cost? Let us assume that the average number of children taken on by a guardian is one and a half—in some cases one child, in others two children, and in a few cases three or more. I estimate that that would work out at about £1,000 to £1,200 a year. For 50 families that would be about £50,000 to £60,000 a year. The Minister cannot find £60,000 a year—or £65,000, if we push it—to address this problem? I am going to sit down and ask him whether, in the light of the information he has so far given, he is willing to reconsider his position.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
What does that mean—“at this stage”? Is the Minister willing to come back at Third Reading with a little amendment just taking out this group of people, who are among the poorest of the poor, who are taking on the hardest of hard tasks—caring for bereaved and traumatised children—at a time when they themselves are probably also bereft?
Lord Freud
Regrettably, as I said, I am not in a position to make any kind of commitment.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
I guess it is my fault. I should have brought this up in Committee and perhaps given the Minister more time to think about it. Perhaps he will look back on today’s proceedings. He absolutely rightly responded to my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley on a situation that we all recognised it was important that he should respect and meet—and not just because of the court case. I suggest to him that this is another such case—and I think he may wish to do otherwise. Obviously I shall withdraw the amendment now, but I would hope, none the less, that on reflection he will feel able, for 60,000 quid a year, to take guardian’s allowance, at the extreme end of kinship care, out of the benefit cap. He will not even notice it—but they will. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
“except in the case of persons who are at least 29 weeks pregnant or who are responsible for the care of a child aged under nine months, in respect of whom “welfare benefit” means any prescribed benefit, allowance, payment or credit.”
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, this amendment relates to a situation that we touched on earlier, when we were debating the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham. Gingerbread reports that if a single parent with two primary school children is expecting a baby next month, just at the time when her needs increase she will lose £32 in housing benefit because of the benefit cap. The amendment is tightly targeted and would exclude women in late pregnancy—at 29 weeks or beyond—and for nine months following the birth of a child, from the benefit cap.
There are three reasons for this, which I hope the Minister will address. The first is parity with the rights of women in work, the second is consistency with the DWP’s own benefit conditionality rules, which do not apply when a child is under two, and the third is concern for the health and well-being of mother and baby.
On parity, the Government want parents on benefit to face the same choices as parents in work. The Minister has repeated that several times today. Yet when those in work—better-off people—enter late pregnancy or care for a newborn, they rightly get protection and income that reflect their situation. Those on benefit may instead face a benefit cap and therefore an income cut. Parents in work have pregnancy and maternity rights. They can commence maternity leave at 29 weeks, at which point a mother will be eligible for statutory maternity pay or maternity allowance, both of which run for 39 weeks; maternity leave is of course for 52 weeks.
Lord Freud
My Lords, as I have already set out, those with a sustained work history benefit from a nine-month grace period before the cap is applied to them. Therefore, those households that have been in employment for at least 50 out of 52 weeks will be exempt from the cap. This gives time for households, including those with a new child, to adapt to their new circumstances before the cap is applied to them.
Households in receipt of working tax credits or which meet the UC earnings threshold will be entirely exempt from the cap. Although some single mothers will not be immediately able to move into work, for those households consisting of couples, the partner need work only 24 hours a week for the household to qualify for the exemption. Around 45% of households that include a maternity allowance claimant who will be affected by the new cap levels are households consisting of a couple, meaning that a partner can help to exempt a household from the cap through work. Households that include a claimant in receipt of maternity allowance may also be entitled to working tax credits and so be exempt from the cap.
Although I am grateful to the noble Baroness for speaking on this issue and for the research that she has put into it, I am not sure that the amendment would do what is intended. It would not create a disregard or exemption from the cap for the specified group; it would, however, appear to make the group subject to a different prescribed list of benefits to be defined by the Government in regulations. That would of course go against the approach that the Bill adopts of providing certainty about the capped benefits by including them in the Bill. I therefore ask the noble Baroness to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
I thank my noble friend Lady Sherlock. The Minister’s answer is that if a woman has a partner, he can increase his hours and she will be okay; if she does not, the amendment is technically deficient and so she cannot be helped. Is that a fair summary of what the Minister has argued? I think it rather is. But what about the situation of a deserted mum? She has one or two children already, she is now pregnant and the man has swanned off. What then? She has no partner who can increase his hours, she already has the care of children and she is up to or at the point of the benefit cap. She is now 29 weeks pregnant and trying to manage a budget, given she is in the private sector, that means she is probably unable to follow the nutritional guidelines and all the rest of it that is heavily recommended for her at this stage. I ask the Minister the same question that my noble friend asked: what is she supposed to do—apart from find another man?
Lord Freud
One of the things we have tested rather thoroughly through the courts is the role of discretionary housing payments for the kind of hard cases that the noble Baroness is so adept at finding. This is precisely where one would anticipate that provision, which is quite substantial, being used. The courts have found, again and again, that it is appropriate to use those payments for such cases because they are so hard to define in statute. Because of that difficulty, the flexibility of the DHP is the way to address the issue.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
In that case, why do such women not fall within the Government’s guidelines as having high priority for DHPs? As my noble friend says, they do not. Although I have not been able to verify it myself, I understand that, as a result of that, in most local authorities they do not get such money because the money is not there. They certainly, I suspect, would not get it for nine months after and up to two months before, or something like 11 months’ continuous payment, because local authorities cannot run it. They use DHPs to deal with temporary, immediate emergencies. Therefore, if the Minister means what he says, he should be giving guidance to local authorities that this should be a priority consideration and he should back that with the necessary money, which is not there at the moment, to do so. However, I see that he is standing up, perhaps to respond to that.
Lord Freud
I just want to make the point that DHPs can be used for the long term. They are not just a temporary thing and the guidance says that very precisely.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
I do not know how many local authorities the Minister has spoken to about their use of DHPs, but that is not my experience. Obviously, I have not been able to test the opinion of the entire local authority movement, but certainly this is what I am assured. I have crawled over some of the priority considerations of certain local authorities and can assure the Minister that what he is saying does not hold good: there is simply not enough money.
As far as I can see, the only advice the Minister is offering is that these women should throw themselves on the mercy of non-existent DHPs from local authorities whose money is already spent, cross their fingers and hope. I do not think that is a policy. I do not even think it is appropriate for the Minister to possibly suggest that that is what they should rely on. However, at this point, and given the time of night, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Welfare Reform and Work Bill
Baroness Hollis of Heigham Excerpts(8 years, 4 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, I wonder whether my noble friend is aware that of the children in poverty who we are discussing at the moment, two-thirds have parents who are in work. The majority of the children we are discussing have parents who are in work.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham (Lab)
My Lords, very briefly, I support the amendment in the name of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham.
I am puzzled. When we considered the 2012 Welfare Reform Act, the Minister rightly commanded the respect of the entire Committee and allowed the proceedings to be lengthened from the original 10 or 11 days to 17 days, in the process of which he negotiated, discussed and shared information because he was determined that the introduction of universal credit would be, as far as was possible, evidence-based. That was something that we all responded to: we were not being motivated by the latest piece of journalism or an ideological twist; it was evidence-based.
What puzzles me about the Government’s position is not that they are seeking to get analysis of the impacts of poverty in terms of well-being measures, adult worklessness, child educational attainment at 16, and so on—it is perfectly sensible to have information about that. But this is not an either/or situation. We all know that we need to know about the income going into a family as well as about the impact of that lowered income on the outcomes that affect the family and the children, as the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, said. This is not an either/or situation. We need both because, above all, government need to know where they can most effectively intervene to ensure that, as far as possible, children and their families have good, strong, decent and well-funded lives. We cannot know that unless we collect the information on both income and on what the Government believe to be the impact. It is not a question of which comes first, which drives one or the other, or which is the gateway. That does not matter—we need both. On the basis of that evidence, we, as a House and as Parliament, can come in behind government to see what levers are most effective in addressing the issues that that evidence has identified.
The Minister is an evidence-based Minister, which is why he has our respect. Therefore, in the light of that and all the work that he did on the 2012 Bill, I urge him not to sabotage it by ignoring crucial evidence of how best the Government should use the resources at their disposal. I hope that he will accept the right reverend Prelate’s amendment.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, we on these Benches are fully supportive of Amendment 2, to which I have appended my name. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham has made a strong case for his amendment, backed up ably by my noble friends Lady Lister and Lady Hollis, and I will not add a great deal to the fundamental case that they have made. However, I do wish to say a brief word.
The Bill has a lot in it which will have a serious impact on the incomes of millions of families in Britain, particularly families with children and households with disabled people in them. I would love to send the whole Bill packing, as I would love to dispatch various statutory instruments recently passed through both Houses, but that is not what we are going to do; it is not our job. Our job over this week is to send back to the Commons for further consideration parts of the Bill where they have simply not begun to understand the consequences of some of what they have done; where the costs can be significant but often have just been shunted rather than taken away.
The great advantage of this amendment is that it does not cost any money and yet it would be incredibly powerful in holding the Executive to account, something which this House always takes seriously.
I have been struck, not only in listening today but in re-reading the excellent debate on this subject in Committee, that the Minister was signally unable to persuade Peers from around the House of the case that he made. Let me summarise the Government’s case. The report to Parliament by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on the drivers of child poverty said this:
“From the range of academic and institutional evidence reviewed we can confidently conclude that”—
brief pause—
“The key factor for child poverty now is parental worklessness and low earnings … The other main factors include low parental qualifications, parental ill health, family instability and family size”.
It also highlighted child education attainment as a key factor in increasing the risk of a poor child growing up to be a poor adult.
So what have the Government done in response to that evidence? This Bill guts the Child Poverty Act 2010, removes the requirement to report on income poverty at all and requires Ministers in future to report on only two factors—worklessness and educational attainment. That leaves a couple of key questions.
First, Ministers are not saying that these factors equal poverty but that they drive it. So presumably the Government will seek to address those factors and, if they are successful in addressing them, child poverty will fall—but how will we know? If we do not expect the Government to report on the effect on child poverty of the work they are doing, then how do we know whether their strategies are succeeding or failing? The Minister may point to the fact that data on households below average income are currently published, but, as the right reverend Prelate pointed out, there is no guarantee that that will carry on indefinitely without a statutory routing. If the Government are so confident, why will they not report on the impact of their policies on child poverty and be accountable for it?
Secondly, Ministers have cherry picked some of the factors on their own list and ignored others. In particular, as has been mentioned, why have the Government ignored the key factor of low earnings, which is the first in their line of analysis of drivers for staying in poverty. Is it because, by definition, it must be an income measure, to which there was therefore a political objection? Or is it because, as the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, pointed out, they know full well that two-thirds of poor children are living in households where a parent is in work. I will return to this issue in a later group but I remind the House that if the Government continue to damage work incentives by attacking universal credit and cutting the value of in-work benefits they can hardly be surprised to find that work is no longer a route out of poverty.
No one is arguing that money is all that matters—the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham expressed that very well. I fully recognise his comment that the idea that money does not matter is often most closely held by those who have plenty of it. I make an exception in the case of the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, who despite, as he said himself, having always been comfortable has shown an impressive concern for those who have not had the benefits to which he found himself entitled. I commend him for that. Nobody is arguing that, but when 202 out of 203 responses tell you that you have got it wrong, it really is time to think again. The odds on that only one being the one that is right have to be pretty small.
Lord Freud
My Lords, Amendment 2 seeks to insert a new clause that would expand the annual report to include data on children living in households with low relative income, combined low income and material deprivation, absolute low income, and persistent poverty. It would effectively reintroduce the same income-based poverty measures as set out in Sections 3 to 6 of the Child Poverty Act 2010—measures that fail to tackle the root causes of child poverty. I know that the amendment is well intentioned, but as it is drafted, it is technically faulty and cannot achieve what the right reverend Prelate, the noble Baroness and the noble Earl want it to achieve. For example, the amendment refers to how equivalised net household income is to be adjusted by regulations, but there is no regulation-making power in relation to the life-chances clauses in the Bill.
However, this is not the foundation of my disagreement with the amendment. I firmly believe that the existing statutory framework, set around the four income-related targets, simply does not drive the right actions to transform children’s lives. That is what we are all aiming for, so I think it is important for me to spend some time explaining why income measures are not the way to achieve what we all want to see. There will always be natural variations in income levels in society. However, having less money than someone else does not necessarily mean that an individual is in poverty. Income measures do not take this into account effectively.
Income measures focus on the economics of poverty and ignore the human dimensions: the social causes and the reasons people can get stuck in poverty. But even as economic indicators they are flawed. They are an indirect and imperfect indicator of poverty. They do not account for the full needs of the family or other financial deductions that reflect a family’s true financial situation, such as the amount of debt a family has, or even their non-income based resources, such as the benefits from education, such as the pupil premium. Households that have large savings or capital can still count as being in income poverty. This means that income measures can provide only a partial reflection of a family’s economic well-being.
There are other weaknesses, too. For example, the measures are based on current parental income and do not incentivise action to prevent poor children becoming poor adults. They do not reflect government action on raising attainment and improving life chances for disadvantaged children. These are some of the general weaknesses of income measures. I would now like to speak briefly in turn about why specific measures of relative low income—including persistent poverty, absolute low income and material deprivation—are unhelpful in tackling poverty.
If we first consider measures of relative poverty, the problem is that a household can be moved into or out of relative low income without any change in its circumstances. For example, in a recession, as median income falls, so does the relative poverty line. This means that many households that were previously in poverty will now be above the new, lower poverty line, even though their income and life chances have not changed. This incentive of “poverty plus a pound” does not drive transformative change in the lives of family members who still face multiple barriers to lift themselves out of disadvantage.
Conversely, policies such as raising the personal tax allowance and introducing the higher national living wage that give poor families a higher income could lead to increased average household incomes. This in turn raises the poverty line and brings more children into low income, punishing Governments for doing the right thing. As an example, while the economy grew from 2003 to 2009, income measures incentivised the previous Government to tackle the symptoms of poverty through expensive income transfers, such as spending £300 billion on working-age welfare and tax credits. This strategy did not tackle the root causes of child poverty or make a long-term difference to children’s prospects as the number of children in relative poverty remained broadly unchanged. Given that the proposed persistent poverty measure is based on families being stuck below the relative low-income line, it, too, will suffer from these same weaknesses.
I turn now to the disadvantages of absolute low-income measures. By definition, absolute poverty measures the proportion of children below a fixed income line, which is only adjusted each year to account for changes in prices. The current measure of absolute poverty uses the relative poverty line for 2010-11. However, the decision to use this as the absolute low-income line is essentially arbitrary, in the sense that there is no logic to why this is better than any other reference threshold that could be chosen as the absolute standard of what households should be able to count on in order to meet their needs.
Notwithstanding the clear criticism that this measure is subject to some of the same flaws as the relative poverty measure, it also leads to illogical changes in the level of children in absolute poverty. When the absolute poverty line was rebased to the 2010-11 relative poverty line, the number of children in absolute poverty under this measure went from 1.4 million children under the old baseline to 2.3 million children under the new one. These children saw no material difference in their lives or changes in their circumstances, yet just because the line was being drawn somewhere else they were all brought into poverty.
Finally, measures of material deprivation simply do not capture real material living standards robustly. The material deprivation measure asks subjective questions around whether families think that they can afford a certain set of items. We have looked into the accuracy of what it is trying to measure. Analysis from the IFS shows that almost 50% of children who live in a household that is deemed to be materially deprived have incomes well above the most commonly used relative low-income line. This brings up questions around whether material deprivation measures accurately reflect the true living standards of families. I hope that I have been able to show why the existing income measures are a poor test of whether children’s lives are really improving and a distraction from the aim of tackling the key drivers of child poverty.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
Before the Minister goes on to his next point, I am puzzled. He is going through the individual indicators as though those are the exclusive and sole measurement of child poverty. That is precisely why the previous Government introduced a suite of measures. Each one captured some aspect and together they captured the broad range of issues that determine how we assess child poverty. So deconstructing and challenging each individual measure is not the point: it is the suite of measures that is being dumped, and it is that suite which caught what it means to be in poverty.
Welfare Reform and Work Bill
Baroness Hollis of Heigham Excerpts(8 years, 4 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Hollis of Heigham (Lab)
My Lords, I want to raise a slightly wider point, as I see the 1% rent cut as the most recent of the attacks on social rented housing. What has triggered my comments is that the Prime Minister announced at the weekend that he wishes to bulldoze sink estates of 1960s tower blocks, where families and the employed had moved out to be replaced—in his words—by “gangs” and “ghettoes”. If that bulldozing is what local communities want, I would cheer him on. Low-rise and higher density housing is what most of us prefer—providing, of course, it remains available for social renting and is not part of social cleansing.
However, anybody who is familiar with the welfare housing of American cities, as I know many of your Lordships are, will begin to recognise his picture. US welfare housing is stigmatised, poorly built and poorly maintained, and if you get a proper job you are required to move on and out. People are therefore locked for life into unsafe streets and unsafe homes. The UK has had a very different history with social housing, ever since it built “homes fit for heroes” after the First World War. Even now, in Norwich, people put carpeting down on public stairways in social housing and carve out flower borders around the base of their flats. In those estates, you do not have a problem with arrears, graffiti or policing. We built some of the best social housing in Europe, which gradually broke the link between poverty and poor life chances in housing. We stayed together, supported each other and policed each other, and that generational stability produced what Nye Bevan called,
“the living tapestry of a mixed community”.
All noble Lords in the Chamber this evening know what makes social housing work, despite the Prime Minister’s comments this weekend. Yes, it is physically decent homes at affordable rents, but also steady jobs, because as Octavia Hill said a century or more ago, you cannot live regular lives on irregular earnings. You want decent homes, decent jobs and stable communities with low turnover. You also need competent management, chasing arrears, responding to the need for repairs and stamping out anti-social behaviour. None of this is rocket science. If that is what the Prime Minister wants, I will cheer him on. However, in my view, his policies are destroying, slice by slice, everything that he says he wants.
What is the point in rehabbing homes if at the same time you undermine the lives of those who live in them? Sink estates are caused by not just the physical fabric but, above all, the social fabric. To that, the Government’s housing policies, including this one, are doing irreparable damage.
Lord Elton (Con)
My Lords, I have a fraction of the knowledge and experience in this field of the noble Baroness, and I am tempted from my seat only by her final remarks and those she made early on. I remind her that this is not the United States and, on the whole, we behave differently here. My experience of right to buy, which is a little greater than my experience in the rest of this field, is that when it started, you could tell which were the right-to-buy houses by the brightly painted doors, the clean net curtains, window boxes and the flowers. Going round the same estates, I now observe that the same doors are brightly painted, with clean net curtains and window boxes with flowers. The whole picture is not as gloomy as the noble Baroness suggested. I make no comment on the rest of her speech, but that makes me listen to it with a little more doubt.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, to respond to the noble Lord, the latest estimate is that 60% or more of property sold under RTB is now in the private rented sector, it is no longer occupied by the people who bought it.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, this debate focusing on six specific amendments has become quite broad and—dare I say it?—welcome. The noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, kicked us off by reminding us of the background to the policy—in particular, pointing out that it is a complete reversal of CPI plus 1%, with its 10-year guarantee, which was introduced only a year ago. The noble Lord, Lord Horam, made the point that Governments may be foolish to offer 10-year guarantees, but one would hope that, whatever the term of the guarantee the Government gave, it would be met, and certainly not broken after just one year.
The noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, reminded us of what the policy as now constituted will actually deliver. Rents will be 12% lower and £2.3 billion per year will be lost to housing associations and local councils by 2020. Given the current structure of housing benefit, we are effectively talking about almost a straight transfer of resources from social landlords to the Exchequer. There is also the prospect of having 43,000 fewer social rented homes by the end of the period. The noble Lord emphasised the importance of certainty for the financing of housing provision.
I will come to the specific amendments on co-operatives in a moment, but the noble Lord, Lord Best, said that there are only three options for housing associations: cut programmes, cut the revenue costs which add value to housing association tenants or reduce surpluses. The Government have got themselves in a bit of a jam by believing that just because authorities and housing associations have reserves, that is free money. That reserve is there to support other activities and the current borrowing of housing associations and authorities. My noble friend Lord Beecham told us about the practical impact of the policies on his authority, and also supported the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, on almshouses, which I will come to.
The noble Lord, Lord Horam, reminded us that we have to deal with the deficit. Of course we do, but why do we always choose to do so off the back of the most disadvantaged in our society? Why that route?
The noble Lord, Lord Scriven, made the challenging point: is this dogma or is it practicalities that we are getting from the Government? My noble friend Lady Blackstone asked whether the Government would be honest and tell us what they think the effect of the policy will be. We ought to hear the Government’s view on what this will mean for housing provision over the upcoming period.
We had a fascinating lesson from my noble friend Lord Triesman on long-term annuity financing, which is very long-term with small margins, so changes in revenue streams could easily tip it into not being available.
My noble friend Lady Hollis challenged the PM’s view on bulldozing sink estates and made the point that to make social housing work requires decent homes, decent jobs, stable communities and decent management, and I agree with all that.
Amendments 104C and 104D, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, have the effect of reducing to three years the period of the rent reduction. That would coincide with when the Government tell us that the deficit will be dealt with, but that remains to be seen. From 1 April 2019, or the equivalent date where the relevant years are determined by Clause 21(6)(a), the rent reduction provisions will not operate. Amendment 104E requires that registered providers increase rents by CPI plus 1% from April 2020 and also requires there to be a review of the formula rent arrangements to see whether there are prospects of higher increases or greater flexibility.
We support the need to have as much certainty as possible for the future so that registered providers can develop long-term plans, although we understand that the Government may be coy about supporting anything beyond April 2020. It is presumed that the noble Lord’s amendments would apply to those tenancies to which the rent standard currently applies and not more generally. We also support the requirement for a review of the impact of Clause 21 to see what flexibility might be required to address its consequences.
I think that the way the Bill would operate at the moment is that if there is silence on the year 2020 before we come to the new arrangements, the regulator’s ability to set the rent under the rent standard would come back into play because it is negated by Clause 27 only for when the rent reduction proposals are under way. That would deal with the year between CPI plus 1% for 2020 onwards.
Overall, the effect of the noble Lord’s Amendments 104C, 104D and 104E would appear to be that the base for future rent increases would be higher than the Bill currently provides. The loss of income to councils and housing associations would be ameliorated and the shortfall in the provision of new accommodation would be reduced, to the benefit of those in housing need and to the benefit of the public purse, which would otherwise be bearing the strain. Other things being equal, the housing benefit bill would be higher in the short term than would otherwise be the case, as would the cost to those tenants who meet all or part of their rental costs. Overwhelmingly, the focus should be on getting back on track as soon as possible the investment programme under way as part of the 10-year settlement, which is what the noble Lord’s amendments seem to achieve: therefore, we are happy to support them.
Amendment 108, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Best, focuses on fully mutual housing co-operatives. Amendment 108A, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, focuses on accommodation which is excepted from the right to buy because of specific adaptations for disabled or elderly people. Amendment 109A, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, which covers almshouse charities, was spoken to by my noble friend Lord Beecham. These amendments should be supported.
The case on mutual housing co-operatives has been fully articulated, as one would expect, by the noble Lord, Lord Best. We heard in particular from the Edward Henry House Co-operative in Waterloo. It argues that the financial model for housing co-operatives is different from that of housing associations. They do not keep large reserves. The reserves are kept low because of the member-tenant role in running the co-op. The prospects for driving efficiencies is therefore limited. These co-operatives should clearly be an exception to the policy, as should community land trusts, which are a very small section of the sector.
It is understood that the exemption from the right to buy for adapted properties is not widely drawn. Is it the case that it would not apply to one-off adaptations and requires properties to form part of a development of similar homes and to have some sort of social service or extra care provided on site or nearby for them to be subject to the right-to-buy exclusion? If this is the case, such properties would appear to fall within the definition of supported specialised accommodation, which is the subject of a separate exemption which we are going to debate shortly. The Minister may care to comment on that. This begs the question of whether the right-to-buy exemption should be widened at all—but perhaps this is an issue for another piece of legislation.
The financial structure of almshouses is different again. Residents pay a weekly maintenance contribution, rather than rent, which is less than a commercial rate. The exception the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, seeks is entirely justified, and it is presumed that any impact on savings would be negligible.
We are confronted with six amendments, each of which should be supported. We have had a very robust debate around the thrust of this policy, the problems it creates and the challenges it will create in providing decent housing for people who have no option but to rent.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
It will be £1.6 billion to provide 100,000 homes for rent.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
So the Minister is saying that £20 billion is set aside for affordable housing, but only £1.6 billion of that £20 billion will be available for social housing to rent. Am I right?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
The £20 billion will be invested in housebuilding over this spending review, and £1.6 billion of that will be invested for 100,000 homes for rent.
The noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, makes the point that not many people pay their own rent. In fact, out of the 4 million households in the social sector, one-third actually pay their own rent, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, alluded to that.
Amendments 108, 108A and 109A seek to place some exceptions in the Bill. Perhaps I can offer some reassurances in this area. The Government have made clear our intention to look to continue to accept those types of housing that are currently exempted from the rent standard, subject to determining whether the existing definitions are appropriate in the light of the revised policy. These include specialised supported housing, which provides support for the most vulnerable people and was developed in partnership with councils or the health service. We will bring forward regulations to set out these and any further exceptions needed under Clause 22.
I recognise that many noble Lords are keen to see further categories of housing or provider excepted. Noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, in the absence of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, have spoken to amendments that would accept fully mutual housing co-operatives, homes for the elderly or disabled and almshouses. We are equally keen to understand noble Lords’ concerns and are keeping these matters under review. Nevertheless, the Government believe that most providers can find operational efficiencies to manage these reforms, and it is simply not appropriate to except large swathes of housing from the provisions to deal with a few hard cases.
We are also investing in specialised housing for older people, and in the spending review we have committed £400 million of funding to deliver 8,000 specialist homes for the vulnerable, the elderly and those with disabilities through the affordable homes programme, with a commitment to further funding from the Department of Health for specialist accommodation. We will continue to support local areas to meet their local needs by maximising funding flexibility.
I remind noble Lords that while the Government expect providers to make all possible efforts to manage the rent reductions and to plan on that basis, Clause 23 of the Bill allows for individual providers to apply for an exemption from the rent reductions if they face severe financial difficulties. Many noble Lords have alluded to that point. We do not expect providers to budget on the basis that an exemption will be automatically granted; as I said, they should be able to make all possible efforts to manage the reductions.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
Will the Minister agree to the circulation before Report to all Members of your Lordships’ House of a list of the categories of social housing that are regarded by the Government as potentially exempt from the 1% cuts in rent, so that we know before Report exactly who will be affected and who will not?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I am afraid that I cannot give that level of comfort to the noble Baroness. As I say, we are very carefully keeping this under review, but I cannot commit to giving her that list before Report.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
If I may finish, all I can say is that we take very seriously housing providers that might suffer financial difficulties because of the reductions. In those cases they will be able, under Clause 23, to apply for an exemption.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
So what the Minister is saying is that the Government will come in after the event, when providers are already on their knees and some of them might be going under, as opposed to letting us know which categories may be exempt by virtue of their particular needs. These providers are offering supported housing, which has not only high physical building costs but high social costs in terms of supporting tenants.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, exemptions will apply to providers that demonstrate to the Government that they will face financial difficulties because of the reductions. I cannot prescribe from the Dispatch Box who those providers will be; it is for them to come forward to the Government. However, in the main we will expect providers to be able to cope with the reductions.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, Amendment 105 seeks to require the Secretary of State to produce a plan within 12 months to offset the impacts of the rent reductions on housing associations and local government. As my noble friend Lord Horam said, that is quite soon after the event.
Many private registered providers are in a strong financial position. Overall, the sector had a surplus of £2.4 billion in 2014, and local authorities had £2.2 billion in local authority housing reserves. However, it may be helpful if I recap some of the amendments made in another place which have been welcomed by housing providers. These include allowing providers with rent levels below formula to increase rent to the social rent rate when re-letting a property—that is formula less the appropriate annual reductions; and providing the Secretary of State with powers, by regulations under Clause 26, to allow rent setting for new tenancies in supported housing at up to 10% above the rate for general-needs housing. This should help providers of supported accommodation for vulnerable people to continue to provide that important housing.
Funding for supported housing is also part of the Government’s wider financial settlement to councils. This includes investing £5.3 billion in the better care fund in 2015-16 to deliver faster and deeper integration of health and social care. This will help councils to invest in early action to help people live in their own homes for longer and help prevent crises, as well as supporting councils to work more effectively together, deliver better outcomes for less money and drive integration across all local services.
Noble Lords have expressed concerns about the impact of these reforms on housing supply. Let me be absolutely clear that the Government remain committed to ensuring that there is housing for those who cannot access the market. The recent spending review further confirmed this Government’s commitment to housing provision. As I said in the debate on the previous group of amendments, we have £8 billion to deliver over 400,000 affordable housing starts; that is the largest affordable housebuilding programme by a Government since at least 1979. This includes around 100,000 homes for affordable or intermediate rent. However, we recognise that the rent reductions may have an impact on some registered providers. That is why the Bill provides for both exceptions to the policy, in Clause 22, and exemptions to the policy, in Clause 23, which we have debated previously.
The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, talked about the impact on child homelessness. I am sure he will forgive me if I say that the impact on the child will be the same as the impact on their family. The whole purpose of both this Bill and the housing Bill is to build a range of different types of houses for a range of different types of tenure, and for the social sector not to gallop out of kilter with the private rented sector, as it has. Of course, those children will grow into young people, and the Government have an ambition to provide 200,000 starter homes for people between the ages of 20 and 40.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
I wonder whether the Minister could rephrase her comment about social rents being out of kilter with the private rented sector. She has heard the evidence in previous discussions: first, that those social rents rose because government required them to rise; and secondly, that social rents are on average about 40% or less of private sector rents. Therefore, the pressure on the housing benefit bill has come very substantially from the increase in the number of properties in the private rented sector. That is completely at odds with the position that the Minister keeps painting: that the justification for increasing social rents is that they are somehow out of kilter.
The Earl of Listowel
That is certainly my understanding too: that more and more the poorest people are being pushed into using the private rented sector as the supply of affordable social housing has dwindled. This has led to more insecure housing and, unfortunately, more and more homelessness. Of course, many of these people are parents, and therefore their children become homeless too. Perhaps the Minister might think of writing to me before Report, because I have not given her notice of my question. However, I am listening to what she has to say.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I am very happy to write to the noble Earl. I do not make a judgment about why social rents have, in percentage terms, increased out of kilter with those in the private rented sector. The quantum might be different but, in percentage terms, they are out of kilter with the private rented sector.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, essentially, the Minister is saying that it is now acceptable to punish local authorities and housing associations for doing what the Government required them to do.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
No, my Lords; I am saying that we need to reset the picture for the social rented sector.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
Does that mean that the Minister did not know a year ago what the effect of the policies would be?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I was not the Minister a year ago. However, I get the noble Baroness’s drift. The point is that we now have a majority Conservative Government and this policy has come out of that. I am not saying in any way, shape or form that it is the social rented sector’s fault. I am saying that that is the position in which we find ourselves, due to many different factors. Over the past few years, inflation has been one of the factors driving it up. However, I will correct that if I am wrong, given that I am saying it from the Dispatch Box.
The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, asked about the guidance to social providers on maintaining surpluses. We feel that it is a matter for the housing association boards to run their businesses as they see fit. It is a well-regulated sector that, to date, has managed its finances magnificently. Boards have been advised to raise any anticipated exceptional challenges with the regulator to discuss any difficulties that they might anticipate.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I have listened very carefully to the comments made by noble Lords this evening in debating the amendments that would extend the exceptions—which we were talking about two amendments ago—to the policy to specified or supported accommodation. I can offer some reassurances in this area at this stage. It may be helpful if I first recap the commitment made in another place, which was welcomed by housing providers, to continue to allow rent setting for new tenancies in supported housing at up to 10% above the rate for general-needs housing. This should help providers of supported housing for vulnerable people to continue to provide that important housing. We will put this in place by way of regulations under Section 26, the power to make alternative provision for excepted cases.
To address the point made by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, the Government have also made clear their intention to continue to except those types of housing that are currently exempted from the rent standard, subject to determining whether the existing definitions are appropriate in light of the revised policy. These include specialised supported housing, which provides support for the most vulnerable people and was developed in partnership with councils or the health service. We will bring forward regulations to set out these and any further exceptions needed, under Clause 22 or paragraph 5 of Schedule 2, as appropriate.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
To go back to a question we asked about an hour ago, will the noble Baroness be providing those draft regulations before Report?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I cannot give that commitment at this stage, but as soon as we can make any progress on it we will.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My noble friends Lord Freud and Lady Evans and I have already been speaking to providers and my noble friend Lord Young brought this point up. I undertake that we will continue to speak to providers, but I simply cannot make a commitment from the Dispatch Box at this stage. We are doing all that we can to work with providers.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
I am afraid that is not an accurate statement of where we are. The Minister has known for some time that this is on the agenda. She has known since before Christmas that this issue was coming up. She has talked to the providers; she knows the concern around this House; everyone in this Committee has requested, begged or asked the Minister. She knows what will happen on Report if she does not. Given her consensual style, her willingness to meet providers and her wish to respond to the sense of the Committee, I am sure that she must come back before Report to tell noble Lords what she will do about this, so that we can make a judgment. That would go a long way to abate the concerns which she recognises. If she has to tell the department that it has to change its timescale, so be it.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, the noble Baroness has been in government and she knows the processes of government. She is right to say that I am a consensual politician, where I can be, but I will not stand at the Dispatch Box and give assurances that I cannot absolutely fulfil. I therefore have to say that I cannot do that but I will be doing all I can to make progress in this area. That is all I can say at this stage.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, it is different. We are looking at this whole area of provision but it is a different definition. The noble Lord asked whether we could include the exceptions on the face of the Bill. They would probably be too complex to include in the Bill, while regulations would provide more flexibility to effect better the appropriate definitions and make adjustments in due course.
Funding for supported housing is also part of the Government’s wider financial settlement to councils. This includes investing £5.3 billion in the better care fund in 2015-16 to deliver faster and deeper integration of health and social care. This will enable councils to invest in early action to help people live in their own homes for longer. It will also help prevent crises, as well as supporting councils to work more effectively together, deliver better outcomes for less money and drive integration across all local services. We are also investing in specialised housing for older people. In the spending review, we have committed £400 million of funding to deliver 8,000 specialised homes for the vulnerable, elderly and those with disabilities through the affordable homes programme, with a commitment to further funding from the DoH for specialist accommodation. We will continue to support local areas to meet their local needs by maximising funding flexibility.
I think it was the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, who asked about the combined impact of the social rent reduction and capping the highest housing benefit awards for social renters, in line with caps applicable in the private rented sector, meaning that supported housing will be decimated. Now that I am looking at the noble Lord, I do not think it was him who asked this. But there was a noble Lord who asked that question, because I have written it down. Applying a cap on the highest social rents will mean that housing benefit will no longer subsidise families who take new tenancies in social houses that many working families cannot afford. The new cap will have effect only from 2018 for new or re-let social tenancies signed after 1 April 2016.
The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, asked whether the savings of £75 million were for supported housing. I do not know but I will write to him about it and I can come back to that question on Report, if he wishes. My noble friend Lord Young asked whether we can meet providers, as I think I have said. We have met providers and will meet them again.
Finally, I reiterate that while we expect providers to make all possible efforts to manage the rent reductions and plan on that basis, Clause 23 allows for individual providers to apply for an exemption from the rent reduction if they think that they will face severe financial difficulties.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
Does the Minister think that it will remain private if any organisation comes to the Government saying, “We’re about to go bankrupt—please help us”? Do they think that the organisations will continue to get the confidence of their local authorities, or of the markets or investment? I am staggered by this approach of “Go to your knees, then we may help you out”, as though that is a way in which providers could continue to support some very vulnerable people.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, providers have a very good track record both in managing their finances and in terms of the housing that they provide, and I do not expect that a housing provider will go to the Government only when it is on its knees. In well-run housing associations, I expect that forward planning would show what sort of difficulties might be coming up and that they might therefore apply for an exemption on that basis. I hope it would not be at the 11th hour, because that is not good financial planning. I hope I have provided some reassurances and that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.