HS2: Wales

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Tuesday 8th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I understand the noble Lord’s concern, and the Government are looking very carefully at train timetables at the moment. Noble Lords will have heard me discuss in the House before the challenges at Avanti. We are working very closely with Avanti to make sure that it can offer as full a service as possible. The next upgrade is on 11 December.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Berkeley asked some specific questions about costs and delays which I do not think the Minister answered. Could she do so now, please?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I think the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, asked me about the cost of Old Oak Common station. I do not have that figure to hand, but I will be happy to write.

Queen’s Speech

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Wednesday 11th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, while levelling up is a welcome aim of the gracious Speech, the Prime Minister recently admitted to the committee of committee chairs that we cannot level up the country without reducing the number of children living in poverty. When it was pointed out that child poverty is not mentioned once in the levelling-up White Paper, he responded that this was a “purely formal accident”. But I fear that it is not an accident at all. Rather, it is symptomatic of how the levelling-up agenda has failed to include any form of anti-poverty strategy, even though, as the Social Mobility Commission pointed out last year, unlike the other nations of the UK,

“England has no official poverty or child poverty reduction strategy”—

and none is promised in the gracious Speech. Yet Action for Children identifies a child poverty strategy as key to levelling up for children.

In his letter to Peers on the levelling-up White Paper, the Minister noted that the disparities it promises to tackle are often larger within places than between them. Surely this suggests that levelling up has to address inequalities between people as well as between places—as noted by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley—which includes reducing poverty. The White Paper acknowledges that levelling up

“means giving everyone the opportunity to flourish”—

an admirable goal—but there is no recognition of the ways in which poverty stunts the opportunity to flourish of millions of our fellow citizens, or of the role that social security should play in preventing and alleviating poverty.

This has taken on a new urgency with the cost of living crisis. The combination of the withdrawal of the £20 uplift, despite cross-party pressure, and the uprating of benefits by less than half the current inflation rate is pushing low-income households into what the Trussell Trust, which has reported a recent surge in need for emergency food parcels, calls “desperate territory”. Just this week, the Food Foundation reported a sharp increase in the proportion of households with children experiencing food insecurity—from around 12% in January to around 17% last month. Today, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research warns that, without an additional boost to universal credit, which it says is affordable, around 250,000 more households could slip into extreme poverty, taking the total to around 1 million.

We are not talking about what the Prime Minister referred to as “feeling the pinch”, which is an example of a

“lack of understanding among policy-makers of the scale and severity of the difficulties”

that those on low incomes are facing—to quote a recent Covid Realities report. One participant in this important participatory research commented:

“There is quite simply nothing left to cut back on.”


Without a firm commitment to address the intense hardship and even destitution that so many confront, levelling up will appear to them as a cruel joke—as will the Prime Minister’s repeated assurances that the Government

“will continue to use all our ingenuity and compassion”.—[Official Report, Commons, 10/5/22; col. 17.]

What compassion? As a wide range of civil society groups and think tanks have made clear, rather than ingenuity, what is needed is a simple boost to social security benefits.

In its recent Universal Periodic Review report, the Equality and Human Rights Commission calls on the Government to “examine the factors”, including social security changes, behind the disproportionate risk of poverty faced by

“certain ethnic minorities and children … and develop strategies to address them.”

Will the Government commit to doing this? Can the Minister tell us when we can expect the strategy to tackle the “entrenched inequality” experienced by the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities that was promised by his department back in June 2019?

Poverty is not just a matter of low income; it is also experienced as powerlessness and lack of voice. While I welcome the acknowledgement in the levelling-up White Paper of the importance of community-led regeneration and the role that community wealth funds might play in that and in developing all-important social infrastructure, I would like to have seen greater emphasis on this. It is said that residents will have more of a say; I hope that they will have a say on more than just changing street names and al fresco dining, as set out in the notes on the Queen’s Speech from No. 10. There also needs to be a commitment to lowering the barriers to participation faced by marginalised groups, including those in poverty.

Finally, it is simply unbelievable that, yet again, the gracious Speech did not mention the employment Bill promised in the Conservative manifesto. If now, when a growing proportion of the workforce suffers labour market insecurity in various forms, is not the right time for the Bill, as Ministers have claimed in the past, when is the right time? As it is, the absence of the Bill from this year’s legislative programme means, among other things, that there is still no carers’ leave and still no reform of the hopelessly ineffective shared parental leave scheme, which has been under evaluation for over four years. Both are important to the levelling-up agenda, particularly from a gender perspective, as emphasised so ably by my noble friend Lady Prosser. More generally, the Women’s Budget Group comments that instead of

“meaningful measures that would have provided reassurances at a time of increasing financial insecurity … we have a set of policies that fail to consider the reality of women’s lives and fail to deliver the change women need.”

These various omissions from the gracious Speech mean that the Government’s programme for the coming year holds out no hope for those who, having first borne the main burden of austerity, are now facing catastrophe, as they are hit hardest by the cost of living crisis to which the Government have no meaningful answer.

Disabled Access: Standards

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Wednesday 28th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, as I said, the Government are absolutely committed to improving the lives of disabled people in both the UK and through our international development work. We are constructively considering the UN recommendations and will provide an update on the report, as requested, this summer. We have some of the strongest equalities legislation in the world, including the Equality Act 2010. We also have a strong record of engaging with disabled people to inform policy-making across government, supported by clear guidance stating the need to consult with all groups impacted—but of course we seek to continually improve our practices. For example, as I just mentioned, the Department for Transport is consulting on proposed changes to the blue badge scheme, and the views of disabled people received during this consultation will be critical in finalising policy.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, disability organisations have raised concerns about the effect on accessibility standards of our leaving the European Union. What assurances can the noble Baroness give them?

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, as noble Lords will know, all existing EU legislation will be transferred to the UK statute book through the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, and the current standards that people have will not be reduced as we leave the EU.

Asylum Seekers

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Monday 20th May 2013 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I hate to disappoint my noble friend. I accept how important it is for people to work. However, we cannot allow these asylum seekers to work until the 12-month point because it would encourage economic migration. My noble friend talked about the loss of tax revenue, but the current policies of asylum support under Section 95 and Section 4 have reduced expenditure from £1.2 billion in 2003 to below £300 million now.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

My Lords, will the Minister tell the House what account has been taken of the evidence of the harmful impact on children’s well-being of continuing to deny their parents the right to work?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I am sure that it is taken into consideration, but our obligation to asylum seekers is to meet their essential living needs and determine their applications as fast as possible, which we do in a significant number of cases.

Local Government Finance Bill

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Thursday 19th July 2012 Grand Committee

[Baroness Hanham]

If it takes on the default scheme, it takes it on exactly. If it has to use a completely different scheme, it would have to consult on it and indeed it might not be able to give exactly the same benefits.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

I am sorry to prolong this, but I am getting a bit confused—well, not really, because I was confused to begin with. If there were a modified version of the default scheme, would that still count as the default? I think my noble friend is saying that some authorities will not be able to afford the default scheme as it stands because the 10% cut has got to come from somewhere, so if they take it out of the default scheme, would that still be called the default scheme modified or would it be considered a different scheme, which they would have to consult on?

[Baroness Hanham]

The default scheme is the default scheme, and the default scheme comes into operation in two ways. One is that the local authority does not have a scheme by the time we get around to 31 January next year, in which case the default scheme would be imposed. The second is that it can choose to use the default scheme as its scheme, and that will then still be the same. If it then does not have enough resources, it has to make the judgment as to where it gets those resources from. As I already explained to the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, that would not necessarily come just from the council tax support; it would come from its wider budget and whole programme.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

80: Schedule 4, page 58, line 32, at end insert—
“( ) A scheme must set out the steps, including consulting local charities and organisations providing advice on benefits, which the local authority will take to ensure that—
(a) it estimates the numbers of people eligible to an application for reduction under the scheme;(b) persons entitled to a reduction will be made aware of their entitlement; and(c) assistance is available to such persons who wish to make an application.”

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 80, I will speak also to Amendment 81 as they are linked in terms of their objectives.

The Government’s recent report on the 2010 child poverty targets noted that one reason why the child poverty target was not met was that,

“not enough families got the support that they were entitled to”.

It cited the 2009 Child Poverty Unit report that estimated that,

“there were 400,000 children living in relative income poverty as a result of their families not receiving all the benefits and tax credits to which they were entitled. Improving take-up and support for families with children was identified as an important element of the agenda to tackle child poverty”.

However, the report continues:

“DWP take-up statistics show a downward trend in the take-up of most major benefits among families with children since 1998”.

Amendment 80 is drafted to address this concern, although it is not confined to families with children. Whereas in the past increasing take-up has always been a win-win situation for local authorities, improving living standards for their residents and helping the local economy, under the new cash-limited council tax reduction schemes, it is a zero-sum game, in which improved take-up for one group, particularly pensioners, means less money available for others. We have already had a preliminary skirmish around this issue involving in particular my noble friend Lady Hollis, who cannot be in her place today, and the noble Lord, Lord Greaves.

For the first time ever, we have an incentive to depress take-up written into the template of a statutory income maintenance scheme. That cannot be right. Take-up of means-tested benefits is a perennial problem and take-up of council tax benefit is among the lowest. The latest government statistics show that between 31% and 38% of those entitled did not claim council tax benefit, although that may be a slight overestimate of non-take-up. In other words, it is possible that as many as nearly two-fifths of those eligible are not claiming. Take-up is particularly low among pensioners, of whom between 39% and 46% are not claiming, and among couples with children, of whom between 41% and 48%, nearly half, are not claiming. Overall, the trend in take-up of council tax benefit has been downward. Since 1993-94, take-up has fallen by at least 6 percentage points for pensioners, by around 7 percentage points for non-pensioners, and by a massive 15 percentage points for couples with children. However, all those figures are approximate.

In its 2009 report, Take Up the Challenge, the Child Poverty Unit set out what it called,

“a strong argument for local authorities and partners to focus on increasing take up of benefits and tax credits by poor families with large unclaimed amounts”.

It explained that take-up can contribute to tackling child poverty and related issues such as social exclusion and health inequalities. There are also benefits for the local economy with money claimed in benefits and tax credits being spent in local communities. It continued:

“Furthermore, improving take up will help local authorities and partners to ensure that hard to reach and vulnerable families are receiving support, and are in contact with services”.

It pointed out that:

“A significant amount of benefits go unclaimed by people who are working”,

so that the:

“Lack of awareness of in-work financial support available through benefits and tax credits can be a barrier to parents entering and sustaining employment”.

To the extent to which the new localised schemes will still cover working people, improving take-up will reinforce the Government’s aim of tackling poverty through paid work.

The report concludes that,

“spending on increasing take up can provide good value for money”.

Given that, it was disappointing and surprising that in a Written Answer to my noble friend Lord Beecham, to which he referred in an earlier session, the noble Lord, Lord Freud, stated that the Department for Work and Pensions,

“does not promote benefits … The department has not spent money in the 2011-12 financial year on promoting the take-up of welfare benefits, and we have no planned expenditure to promote take-up of welfare benefits for the next financial year”.—[Official Report, 23/4/12; col. WA 302.]

It was even more disappointing and surprising to learn the other day that the DWP proposes to cease publishing estimates of take-up of means-tested benefits. I found that out by accident. I did not find it out as a Member of this House; I found it out as a social policy academic. I also found that my colleagues here were unaware of that really rather serious step.

Can the Minister tell the Committee what the Government’s position is on improving benefit take-up? Do they still believe that take-up is an issue? It would appear that they are content for people on low incomes not to receive the money to which they are entitled, despite the arguments put by the Child Poverty Unit, and now it would appear that they want to bury the evidence of such non-receipt.

As the Government are, in effect, washing their hands of the issue of take-up, it is therefore left to local authorities and voluntary organisations to do what they can to improve take-up. Local authorities have an honourable history in this area. They played a key role in countering the impact of benefit cuts in the 1980s by instigating often very successful take-up campaigns. The Child Poverty Unit report and an earlier DWP best practice guide give examples of the kind of take-up work that local authorities still do, including improving take-up of council tax benefit. Indeed, under the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992, local authorities now have a statutory responsibility for council tax benefit take-up. Each billing and levying authority,

“shall take such steps as appear to it appropriate for the purpose of ensuring that any person who may be entitled to council tax benefit in respect of council tax payable to the authority becomes aware that he may be entitled to it”.

Amendment 80 builds on this and would write a similar, if differently worded, responsibility into this legislation.

It has been suggested that the change of name from a benefit to a reduction or discount could in itself improve take-up, especially among pensioners. The noble Lords, Lord Tope and Lord Shipley, suggested that in an earlier discussion. I have no objection to the change of name, which could be helpful, but at the same time I return to the fundamental point that the cash-limited nature of the scheme will, as many organisations have pointed out, create a disincentive to local authorities to encourage take-up. This is particularly with regard to take-up among pensioners, whose entitlement, as we have already discussed, is protected by law. As many noble Lords have warned, the more money is paid to pensioners the less there is for other so-called vulnerable groups and for low-income working people.

In the face of this dilemma, it will be very tempting for local authorities to keep quiet about council tax reduction schemes and it is therefore crucial that there continues to be some form of statutory responsibility placed upon them to encourage take-up, hence Amendment 80. Another element in the dilemma is that even lower take-up could exacerbate another problem identified by organisations such as Citizens Advice and the IFS, which is of more people not meeting their council tax demands and there being extra work for local authorities trying to collect the arrears. Already, according to a recent report in the Guardian, the Consumer Credit Counselling Service has seen a 27% increase in the number of people contacting it for help with council tax arrears between 2010 and 2011.

As long as local authority council tax reduction schemes are funded by central government on a cash-limited basis, the traditional presumption that it is in the interests of both authorities and those eligible for assistance that take-up is maximised will, as I have said, no longer hold. Personally, I believe it is unethical to establish an income maintenance scheme for people on low incomes on this basis and I hope that the Government will think again. If they are not willing to do so, however, there is one step that they can take to mitigate the double-edged sword that improving take-up would now become. The money transferred to local authorities, whether or not they are subjected to a 10% cut—it goes without saying that I am opposed to such a cut—should be based on estimates of the numbers currently entitled to council tax benefit, rather than on the numbers actually claiming. The difference is considerable. In 2009-10, between £1.7 billion and £2.42 billion was unclaimed in council tax benefit. This should be included in the money devolved to local authorities, whether or not they are subjected to a 10% cut.

Amendment 81 is designed to address this issue in a different way by requiring the Secretary of State to ensure that there is sufficient funding available to meet the council tax reduction for all eligible claimants, so that if take-up improves it does not pose the dilemma that I have outlined for local authorities. In the absence of such a provision, can the Minister tell the Committee what the Government’s advice to local authorities will be as to how they should deal with the take-up dilemma created by the cash-limiting of the grant they will receive to run council tax reduction schemes? I hope that in the interests of maximising take-up the Government will be minded to accept Amendment 80, or to introduce their own amendment to retain a local authority responsibility to promote take-up, but that in doing so they will also address the perverse incentive they have created to depress take-up through an amendment on the lines of Amendment 81. I beg to move.

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I support Amendment 80, so ably moved by the noble Baroness. I will also speak on Amendment 81, which is slightly more problematic. It perhaps does not cover all of the issues quite as it might. First, there is an issue with the non-claiming of council tax benefit. There is a whole set of numbers; the noble Baroness mentioned £2.4 billion. These things are notoriously difficult to be certain about, but we can all agree that it is a very big number. A large number of people who are eligible to do so are not claiming council tax benefit. That gives rise to a conflict of interest for local authorities. That is a serious and important issue. That must be addressed. It may be in the financial interest of a local council not to promote or advertise the council tax support scheme. That cannot be right.

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[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

My Lords, I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate, and, in particular, to the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, for his very welcome support for Amendment 80. I shall come back to a point that the noble Lord made in a moment.

My noble friend Lord Beecham echoed my concerns about ending publication of the take-up statistics, which is currently being consulted on. It is still a proposal being consulted on, but I know at least one eminent professor who could not find it on the DWP website. It is quite difficult to get yourself into this consultation. I hope that the Minister will take this Committee’s concerns about the implications back to the noble Lord, Lord Freud, particularly with regard to the introduction of the universal credit scheme, which is being used as a justification for withdrawing the statistics. Improving take-up is one of the arguments being put to us for why universal credit will be an improvement on current arrangements. It seems very strange, just at the point when there is a big reform of the system, partly justified by reference to improving take-up, that there is a proposal to stop publishing those statistics. Perhaps the Minister could relay that back to the noble Lord, as I am not sure that he will necessarily read the report of these proceedings.

I am not very good at picking up regulation-speak and Act-speak. I am not sure whether the Minister was saying that the duty on local authorities will be the duty that I referred to—for example, a duty to do their best to ensure take-up—or whether it was a much weaker duty. I shall read the record, but I sense that it is not as strong a duty as we are asking for in terms of local authorities doing their utmost to maximise take-up of benefits. The current duty is to take such steps as appear to be appropriate for the purpose of ensuring that any person who may be entitled to council tax benefit becomes aware that he may be entitled to it. I do not think that what the Minister said was as strong as that. I shall look at it and I shall take on board the suggestions of the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, that if those duties are not strong enough, we will want to return to this on Report and take into account the suggestions being made about the wording of the amendment.

The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, made the point that I was trying to make very well. He talked about a conflict of interest. He said that that cannot be right. I do not think that the Minister addressed what I think is an ethical issue. It worries me because if they have the money fixed for seven years and if take-up improves, they will have to find other ways of finding the money. My noble friend Lady Sherlock pointed out that that might harm the very people we are trying to help. That is not necessarily an answer. As the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, said, not in all cases will authorities be able to find the money from second homes, single person discounts and so on.

I do not feel at all reassured. I thank the Minister for her very full reply, but I do not think that it dealt with—I am not sure that it could deal with—this fundamental ethical question about the conflict of interest that local authorities face, which was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley. I suspect that we shall want to return to this on Report.

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[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, Amendments 84 and 87 stand in my name, but I shall first address the issues in Amendment 83ZA, which has just been spoken to. It goes without saying that I support Amendment 88 in the name of my noble friend Lady Sherlock.

As far as Amendment 83ZA is concerned, we are not enamoured of the Secretary of State having a raft of central powers, but we have to balance this against our concerns about a fragmented system. With the prospect of hundreds of different authorities adopting hundreds of different schemes, all with different criteria, some standardisation of approach has merit. For example, the form and content of documents to be produced raises the question of what distributional analysis should be included and what the requirements should be for a general impact assessment and indeed an equality impact assessment. Having some central guidance on these matters may help to head off problems of potential judicial review for some councils.

Amendments 84 and 87 continue the theme of the default scheme which, as we have discussed, has now been produced in all its glory—all 155 pages of it. Despite its lateness, it has moved us on. It has been difficult in the time available comprehensively to absorb its content and to read across the existing council tax benefit provisions, and we have an outstanding question to the Minister from our earlier amendment about where the default scheme has not been able to replicate existing arrangements. However, given that Amendment 84 is just a probing amendment, I am content to proceed on the basis that any discrepancies or differences are minimal, and that the first part of the amendment has been addressed.

That being so, we are seeking from the Government their view of the protection that their scheme provides to vulnerable people. What, on the basis of 155 pages of regulations, is included in the default scheme for vulnerable people and how does the default scheme address their needs? In this age of austerity, we presume that the Government would not sanction any scheme that provides superfluous or excessive relief, so we are simply asking them to spell out how they are providing for vulnerable people in the default scheme and which aspects of the scheme provide particular support for which groups. Given that the Government have made judgments about who should be protected by the default scheme, they should have a view about who should be considered under local schemes. The amendment does not require any local authority to follow the Government’s view on this; they can exercise their own judgments, but should be able to do so armed with the knowledge of why the Government have made certain decisions.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

My Lords, perhaps I may crave the Committee’s indulgence and go back to an issue that we discussed at our last meeting. Although this is not technically about the default scheme, it is about vulnerable people and about carers. The Minister very kindly wrote to my noble friend Lord McKenzie and copied the letter to other members of the Committee. It responded to our concerns about carers not being mentioned as a vulnerable group. In her letter, the Minister said,

“The guidance we have published on the statutory requirements in relation to vulnerable groups does not refer to carers”—

as we said—

“but as was made clear in the discussion, it is not intended to be exhaustive”.

The guidance talks about disabled people, duties under the Child Poverty Act, homelessness, and even the Armed Forces covenant. When local authorities have ticked all those boxes, and when they have addressed the requirement on them to take account of work incentives, very few local authorities will say, “Hang on, let's see if there are any other vulnerable groups that we should be thinking about”, and turn their attention to carers.

I ask the Minister to take this away, not to put it on the face of the Bill, but perhaps the department would consider reissuing the guidance so that it specifically mentions carers among vulnerable groups. I have not heard the Minister say anything to suggest that she does not think that carers are a vulnerable group. So if the Government accept that carers are a vulnerable group, and as we do not have concern for any other vulnerable groups that are not mentioned in the guidance, is there any reason why they could not be put in the guidance? My fear is that, yet again, carers will be overlooked.

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Jenkin and the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, for their amendments and the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, for Amendment 88, which stands in her name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock.

It might be helpful, once again, to explain the Government’s intention in relation to the default scheme. I have done this a couple of times already today. The Bill provides that a default scheme should come into effect only where a billing authority fails to adopt a scheme before 31 January 2013. This is intended as a safeguard, to ensure that where a local authority fails to adopt a scheme by the deadline, there is still provision for people in financial need in that authority’s area to receive support with their council tax.

This scheme will be provided for in regulations and the Government have been clear that this default scheme should retain the criteria and allowances currently in place for council tax benefit. To this end, the Government have published a detailed statement of intent, setting out how they expect to provide for the default scheme in regulations, and confirming that the intention is to recreate, as far as possible, the current council tax benefit system in operation. Monday’s publication of draft regulations covering the default scheme should put beyond doubt our intentions in relation to the operation of the scheme.

These regulations also give an indication of how the default scheme will deal with claimants on universal credit, which we were discussing earlier. Regulations will need to take account of these claimants, but because of changes in the underlying calculation of the universal credit award, there may be some possible changes in the level of council tax support for those moving to universal credit. This is as a consequence of wider changes to benefits and the design of universal credit, and not a direct consequence of localisation. It is not intended that the default scheme will provide for any reductions in support where there is no change in circumstances; for example, which might be because someone has moved from an existing benefit to universal credit. Local authorities will still need to manage the 10% reduction in funding and there will therefore be a strong financial incentive for local authorities to avoid the imposition of a default scheme, as this will limit their ability to adjust awards to manage the funding reduction.

Amendment 83ZA would remove the default scheme from the Bill altogether. For the reasons I have explained, the amendment cannot be accepted. The default scheme is designed to be a safeguard to ensure that where a local authority fails to adopt a scheme by the deadline, there is still provision for people in financial need in that authority’s area to receive support for their council tax. That safeguard needs to remain in place.

Amendments 87 and 88 are intended to guarantee that under the default scheme there will be no reduction in the level of support for working-age persons and to put in place transitional protection for the persons whose support is reduced under the terms of the default scheme. Amendment 84 seeks similar protection for vulnerable groups.

I agree with the intention behind the amendments, but the Government already fully intend that the default scheme will retain the current criteria and allowances and do not intend there to be any change in the level of award where an individual’s circumstances are unchanged. In May, the Government published a detailed statement of intent on the default scheme, explaining that this will closely follow existing council tax benefit regulations, so the amendments are unnecessary.

The noble Baroness asked whether the statutory guidance would include carers. I think that is probably not necessary. The difficulty is that once you include carers, you have to include a whole lot of other people, which reduces the discretion.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

The point is that a whole lot of other people are already in the guidance that has already been issued. I am not sure whether it is statutory, but I worry that so many other groups are mentioned. I know that the list is not exclusive, but carers should be in the list because if they are not, they will be overlooked. I am not asking for any change in the statute or for the noble Baroness to give an answer now but for her to take it away to consider whether the department could reissue the guidance so that it explicitly mentions carers.

[Baroness Hanham]

I am very happy to look to see what the guidance actually includes and whether that would up with us trailing a huge long list, but I will do that before our next sitting and let the noble Baroness know in advance.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

Thank you very much.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

The whole Committee will be grateful to my noble friend for her careful answer to the points made in the debate. We shall want to read carefully what she has said and, if so advised, to return to the matter later. Before I withdraw the amendment, perhaps I may say that I am about to withdraw myself. I have to make preparations to get off to celebrate my diamond wedding in Scotland. I hope that I may be forgiven. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[Lord Deben]

My Lords, I have a real difficulty with the amendment because it seems to be another example of trying all the time to limit localism. There are too many mechanisms for that. One is to stop it being localised in the first place and the other is to make it so difficult for people by having to report in so many ways that you remove the whole advantage.

For me, the advantage is that localities make their own decisions. If there are circumstances in which the Secretary of State feels that concern is so widely held that he ought to find out more about it, he has all the powers to do that. We really do not want a situation where every time we give powers to localities, the clever Dicks from the centre say, “We can’t let them get away with it. We have to have a whole series of ways to make sure that they report on everything”.

My real objection is that this is all part of a pattern that we have seen for years. We promise localism, but do not quite give it to them. If we get away with a bit of localism, then let us make sure that that there is a whole lot of reporting, measurement and all the rest of it. I would like local authorities to make their decisions about this. Only if there is a real reason and a real concern should we take any further action at all. When there is a real reason and real concern, I am all in favour of immediate action, but putting this sort of thing into operation is otiose.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

My Lords, I take a rather different position, as the noble Lord would probably expect. Some of us here are refugees from the Welfare Reform Bill, which sat for what felt like many years, but certainly for many months. One of the few things that we achieved on that Bill, partly in response to amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Best, was a commitment to monitor various aspects of the changes.

That is important, regardless of what the noble Lord has just said. We are making a big change to the basic safety net by removing it from being a national benefit to being a local one. At the very least, we need to know as a Parliament what impact that is having on some of the poorest people in our communities. I am sure that the Minister will do this, but I cannot believe that the Government have no plans whatever to collect some form of information so that we know what effect it will have, especially if the DWP take-up statistics are now in doubt.

If we can achieve nothing else in this Committee, it would be good if we could achieve some commitment to monitoring the impact of what is a very significant change. My noble friend Lady Hollis has explained very well why it is such a significant change to our income maintenance provisions.

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their contributions. It will not be entirely a surprise when I say that I support my noble friend Lord Deben’s general emphasis on this issue.

Paragraph 7 of new Schedule 1A to the Local Government Finance Act 1992 is inserted by Schedule 4 to the Bill and enables the Secretary of State to require authorities to supply specified information to the Secretary of State. The Government, in their equality impact assessment of this reform, made it clear that the powers could be used to collect information to support future evaluation of the policy.

Council tax support will become part of the council tax system that we have been through today. The Government already collect key data for the council tax system, including data on exemptions and discounts. We are currently working with other government departments and local government to determine the necessary data that will be required in future as part of the council tax system, or through other mechanisms, to monitor the policy and how best to collect this. To ensure proper scrutiny, new requests for data from local government will need approval by the single data list gateway group, which has been established by this Government to consider and challenge new data requirements from local government.

Amendment 92 requires a report on the impact of work incentives. To do so would place another administrative burden on local authorities. The purpose of the policy is not to make local authorities report to the Government on work incentives; rather it is to encourage local authorities to get people back into work. It will not be in the interest of local authorities to lock their residents into poverty and low aspirations. They will want to design schemes which support claimants into work, and the department has issued guidance helping local authorities to understand the importance of work incentives and how they can design schemes which support the objectives of universal credit.

The second part of Amendment 93ZB would require the Government to adjust funding allocations to reflect any changes in the number of eligible claimants. The amendment does not make it clear whether this is funding from within the council tax support scheme or additional funding from outside. Funding for council tax support will be included as a fixed allocation within the business rate retention scheme. Councils will have the responsibility and flexibility to deal with these on a local level. Councils, in designing their schemes, will need to consider the risk of variation in demand. In relation to in-year fluctuations in demand, mechanisms are already in place to enable billing authorities and major precepting authorities to enter into arrangements. This will enable financial pressures as a result of unexpected increases to be shared.

The Government do not think that it will be necessary or helpful for local authorities to be asked to provide that a report be published in Parliament. There are transparency requirements on local authorities to make sure that all of what they do is understood and made clear and, where possible, put on the internet. We think that that will be sufficient to ensure that there is wide knowledge of what each local authority is doing.

Local Government Finance Bill

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Monday 16th July 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord Tope]

I agree with the noble Lord, and frankly I was surprised when I saw it in the committee papers back at the beginning of June. However, the way in which my authority worked—and I played no direct part in this—was on the basis that the scheme had to be finalised by the end of January. Therefore, working back from that date, given the committee system that we have now adopted thanks to the Localism Act, it was necessary for the draft consultation to be agreed in committee in June. I am not arguing that it is desirable, and I accept that in the course of the consultation there may well be changes. I am quite sure that at the end of the consultation there will be changes as a result of the consultation, never mind any other changes, but unless local authorities start to get on with it now, they will get into difficulties with the timing. I say to the noble Lord that he may need to look at the timing in Wigan as well.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

The phrase keeps going through my mind, “More haste, less speed”. It is no criticism of local authorities, but we have to remember that devising a means-tested benefit scheme is very complicated. As the Institute for Fiscal Studies pointed out, councils face a difficult task in squaring a number of circles in devising schemes—and my noble friend Lord McKenzie outlined some of those circles and squares earlier. They have little experience or expertise in designing means-tested support schemes, and very little time to do it. It worries me that we are requiring local authorities to rush this process when they have to take account of so many factors in working out their means test, balancing all the different vulnerable groups that they are supposed to take into account while having their latitude squeezed by having to protect pensioners.

My noble friend Lord McKenzie pointed out that councils will have to take account of their child poverty needs assessments because they have a duty under the Child Poverty Act. A recent survey by 4Children found that fewer than half of English local authorities have a child poverty strategy in place, and 35 of those without a strategy do not even have a needs assessment, so presumably before they can work out their council tax benefit scheme they will have to do a child poverty needs assessment, which will slow things down as well. We will go on to talk about some of the other factors that they need to take into account—disabled people, carers and so forth. It really worries me that, all right, they may have schemes in place, but they will then have a year in which local people will be finding all sorts of holes in those schemes. It will not be us who suffer but local people in need.

[Baroness Sherlock]

I want to add one brief comment. If I understood correctly, the noble Lord, Lord Tope, suggested that the Committee should not try to press amendments that would delay the scheme because local authorities have already begun to consult on it. I do not want to overly stress the importance of Parliament, but surely the point of this exercise is for us to get the Bill right. If the Government have placed local authorities in a position where they are asking them to start the scheme so early that they are required to consult before Parliament has finished scrutiny of the Bill, surely that is a problem for us, not for them.

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[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute again. The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, talked about the complexities of the scheme. Yes, I understand that it is a very complex area and there are lots of factors to be taken into consideration. However, if a local authority wants to have a complex scheme, it can have one in later years, and it can go for a simple scheme perhaps based on the default scheme in year one.

The noble Baroness raised a very interesting point about the child poverty strategy. We are merely stating that there are existing strategies that councils need to consider in developing schemes. However, she raised a very interesting point about absent child poverty strategies. I will look into the issue and come back to her.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

I thank the Minister for that. I was talking about the absence of a needs assessment in particular, because if you do not have a needs assessment you cannot assess the needs of the people whom your scheme is supposed to help. I should add that there is no such thing as a simple means-tested scheme.

[Earl Attlee]

I was just about to say that the absence of these schemes is no reason not to go forward with the scheme.

The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, was concerned about universal credit details not being available until the autumn, but I am confident that local authorities will have all the information that they need from the statement of intent that we have already made and the regulations that are coming out in draft today.

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[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Browning. What I have to say follows on very well from what she said. My noble friend Lady Sherlock asked some searching questions of the Minister. I want to pick up on the one about cumulative impact. Ringing in my ears are the words of the late Lord Newton, who reminded us in proceedings on several Bills that we have to look at these pieces of legislation together, not separately—yet we always look at them separately.

I have just been reading two relevant reports, which I would like to bring to noble Lords’ attention and which emphasise the question of cumulative impact. One is from Demos and Scope, and says:

“Disabled households are not benefits recipients—they are parents, employees, students, home owners, older people and citizens. They rely on the same diverse range of services as everyone else, but the Government’s failure to grasp the whole picture beyond the welfare reform agenda can lead to an underestimation of the cumulative impact these hundreds of individual cuts can have on each multi-service-using household”.

We are now potentially adding to those cuts, which is why it is so important that there is a proper impact assessment that takes the cumulative impact into account.

The other report, by Citizens Advice and the Children’s Society, says:

“We are very concerned that the scale of the cuts in support for some groups of disabled people has not yet been properly understood, because the changes have been viewed in isolation”.

Again, the danger is that we view the changes here in isolation.

The other point that I want to make refers to carers, who tend to get overlooked constantly. I was slightly bemused because the impact assessment referred to carers as one of the vulnerable groups that local authorities need to take into account, yet the DCLG document, Localising Support for Council Tax Vulnerable people—Key Local Authority Duties, does not seem to mention carers as a group whose needs need to be taken into account. Could the Minister explain which of the two documents local authorities are supposed to take account of, and why there is this inconsistency in the reference to carers as a vulnerable group?

[Lord Shipley]

I will make three very brief points on these two amendments. The first is simply to acknowledge that, given that council tax support is to be localised, it should therefore follow that local councils have the responsibility for deciding what their schemes entail. That seems a very important principle. We will debate later the role of the Secretary of State in defining any exclusions at all.

Secondly, a scheme agreed by a local authority would be inappropriate if it did not have regard to disabled people and carers, not least for the reason that it would not meet the need of an equality impact assessment if due regard had not been given. However, the list is not exclusive, and we shall shortly go further into the definition of vulnerability. One weakness of the Bill at the moment is that it does not actually define vulnerability adequately.

I agree absolutely with the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, on the cumulative impact and the Government’s understanding—and this is not a particular criticism of this Government, because it has always been the case. Governments are not very good at seeing the cumulative impact of their legislation and the whole picture. A number of us have become very reliant upon the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation for pointing out some of these things to us, sometimes one would hope before the event but occasionally after the event as well. Governments should be smarter at understanding the cumulative impact of what they are doing.

However, in all this there is another option for local councils, which is to maintain their current schemes effectively and to make the cost of that a general charge on council tax. I might come back to that when we talk about vulnerability, because, where council tax will be localised, vulnerable people will have to be protected. How nice it would be if we had more than one additional band in the council tax banding—not just band I but maybe some further ones—because there is a real risk of redistribution occurring from those who are less well off to those who are better off, as the IFS and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation keep pointing out to us.

--- Later in debate ---

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I expect I shall get some inspiration on that point in a moment.

My noble friend Lady Browning asked how local authorities should have regard to the Autism Act. She raised local authorities’ other responsibilities, particularly in relation to the Act. That is precisely why we have not proposed a new and potentially cost-cutting definition. Local authorities have a range of duties that they will want to consider. My noble friend is right to point to the Autism Act as one of the key matters that needs to be considered.

The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, claimed that there was no reference to carers in the guidance. The guidance is not exhaustive. It highlights some key legal duties.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

Surely the Minister will accept that if it does not highlight carers, the chances are that carers’ needs will not be taken into account.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, they are already taken into account. We are not saying that carers should not be taken into account. A competent local authority will take the needs of carers into account. Why would a local authority not? That is part of its duties.

I was asked whether pensioners and other vulnerable groups are protected. Low-income working families in an area will face a cut in support. Local authorities will have choices about how they manage the reduction in funding. They will be able to choose whether to pass the reduction on to council tax payers, using their flexibility over council tax, or to manage the reduction within their budgets. I know that noble Lords do not like hearing it, but that is the fact.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Greaves]

My noble friend Lady Browning, I am sorry. The noble Baroness is being mixed up with everybody today. I have been mixing them up for many years. I am coming to the view that perhaps we should close down this Grand Committee and go home, but we shall struggle on.

On the points that my noble friend Lady Browning made about local councillors, I believe that they will be able to make a good fist of this, but the problem is, as the amendment says, they will be making it on the basis of different criteria and views in different places. The question is whether that is a legitimate argument in favour of localism so well put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Deben, or whether it is a step too far.

The noble Lord attacked the postcode lottery, and I, too, cringe when I hear that phrase. It is an attack on localism and local decision-making by centralists everywhere, whether they are in the Daily Mail, the Labour Party or anywhere else. It is not a phrase that I would ever use, and it is something that I attack all the time. However, we do not want everything done at parish council level. I can imagine a situation in which the next time this country decides to go to war and invade a country such as Iraq the Army will be raised in a traditional manner by people going round and rounding people up whom they find in the fields and streets. Each parish council will be allowed to decide whether people should be rounded up from its parish, or not. That may be the way in which the Army is going with its cuts—that is the future—but I doubt it.

I am making a very important point, which the noble Lord, Lord Deben, made, that there are levels of government. I am a passionate localist and believer in subsidiarity, but I am also a federalist in the sense that there are different layers of government. The important thing is that each layer of government and democratic control should be responsible for those things appropriate to that layer. The noble Lord mentioned the European Union and Westminster, local authorities and parishes. The principle should be to push things down to the relevant levels. That is what I believe in. The argument is not whether everything should be done at parish level or even district council level—although I would be delighted with that, as long as we had the funding. The argument is what the appropriate level is to push things down to. The argument we have here is whether the council tax reduction—the council tax benefit, as it is now—should be a national benefit under which people in the country are all treated the same or whether that itself is appropriate to localism. On balance, I come to the view that it should be a national benefit decided at national level, precisely for the reasons that noble Lords have put forward. I do not think that that makes me any less of a localist.

The problem with the amendment was raised by the equally passionate speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, in moving it. She was speaking to the question of the level of the council tax reduction which will take place, whereas the amendment is about something more fundamental. The noble Lord, Lord Deben, explained the difference: it is about eligibility, not the level of the benefit. None of us have any hope of persuading the Government on the level of the benefit. I think that they are absolutely determined that it will go ahead on the basis that local authorities will make their own decisions. However, it ought to be possible to persuade them that the amendment has merit, particularly if the guidance was made on the basis not that it was government guidance of the traditional sort, which is actually an instruction which you disobey at your peril, but genuine guidance, where local authorities could improve the protection for disabled people—in other words, if the government’s guidance was an accepted minimum. Discussion might take place around that idea.

My second point was to go back to the 1930s. I am conscious that when I picked up the point made by the noble Baroness about the 1930s last week, Hansard thought that I had said the 1830s. Let me make it clear that I am talking about the 1930s, but the system was very much the same in the 1830s. The reason why the system of benefits was nationalised and the old localised Poor Law was abolished is that too many places were being too mean. The local position with the workhouses, and so on, was in some places unacceptable and therefore had to be raised to a standard level for everyone. The danger is that if you allow local authorities to decide on the level of benefit or, as we are now discussing, eligibility, some will behave in an appalling manner. That results in the wheel turning and rules and regulations having to be set out to prevent them doing that.

However, that was not always the case. There was at least one instance in the London Borough of Poplar in the 1920s, when it was run by a man called George Lansbury, when the local authority started to behave in a very generous manner and, in particular, started giving out relief—in other words, benefits in cash and kind that meant that people did not have to go into the workhouse but could continue to live in the community. The local authority was taken to court and to judicial review and was prevented from being too generous.

I say to the Government: be careful what you wish for, because the time will come, when economic growth resumes in this country, when it is easier for local authorities and other bodies to develop new schemes. Local authorities will have been given a power of general competence and at some time—who knows when?—there may be resources for local authorities to do things that central government think are outrageous because they are being too generous, not too mean. As I said, be careful what you wish for.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

The noble Lord, Lord Deben, gave us a rousing speech, but I did not hear him address the argument made by my noble friend Lady Hollis, which is that the needs arising from vulnerabilities are not locally determined, they are the same, regardless of where a person lives. I wonder whether the noble Lord would argue that the Government were wrong to protect pensioners from above, because for some reason, pensioners are being treated as part of a national scheme whereas people below pension age, who may be just as vulnerable, are not being treated as part of a national scheme.

[Lord Deben]

I thought that I made it clear that the assessment of vulnerability does not necessarily have to be central . I do not happen to think that if it were local it would be any less unpleasant or pleasant than if it were done centrally. As to the comment about whether the Government are protecting this group rather than another, I was suggesting that this is at least one step in the direction in which local people can have some real control over what they want to do.

The idea that they will all be less generous than the Government seems to be rather rude about locality and it shows that in the end people do not believe in localism because they always think that people at the top will make a better decision than people at the bottom. I just happen to think that Suffolk County Council does it much better.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

I certainly do not want to be rude about local authorities. Some things should be locally determined, but this is not one of them. I am sure that my noble friend Lady Hollis will return to that much better than I could.

I want to raise one point that I know will cut absolutely no mustard with the noble Lord: the position of people who move between local authorities, which some government policies encourage them to do. If there is no national guidance on vulnerability, they will not know how they will be treated when they move from one authority to another. The researchers in the report that I quoted earlier by Demos and Scope, said that they were struck by an “oppressive sense of uncertainty” that many disabled people were living with which,

“clearly jeopardised their emotional wellbeing”.

Without clear guidance, that uncertainty will be aggravated.

It is not only disabled people who feel uncertainty; it is part of living in poverty. There is a sense of insecurity and uncertainty. At least national guidance would allow people to know how they would be treated when they moved from one authority to another.

[Lord Shipley]

Perhaps I may raise one issue that we have not pinned down yet: whether the failure to define “vulnerability” may prove to be a legal issue that could be challenged through judicial review? I would appreciate the Minister's guidance in reply as to whether the Government are really happy that the failure to define “vulnerability” may actually prove to be a difficulty.

I think that vulnerability includes the working poor. They may not immediately be regarded as a vulnerable group, but in terms of all the benefit changes in welfare reform that are being implemented, they may prove to be seriously vulnerable. The Secretary of State should issue guidance on what “vulnerable” means. I think back to several long debates in the Localism Bill about what “sustainable development” meant. It actually mattered that we reached a common understanding. Without a common understanding between different local authorities acting in the spirit of localism, which I applaud, I fear that you may end up with judicial review from organisations that believe that their council has not properly considered the definition of “vulnerability”. It would therefore be much better if the Secretary of State issued guidance. That guidance could be advisory as opposed to statutory, but there needs to be a government view about this. Otherwise, we will head for some difficulty in the months ahead.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hanham]

I suspect that they will stay in place, but I will answer that later. I will write to my noble friend. I do not want to be wrong because I am doing very well here.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

It seems unlikely that council tax benefit regulations will apply once council tax benefit is abolished, so rather than prolong the Minister’s agony, perhaps she will write to us as to what statutory authority will ensure that carers’ needs are taken into account as part of the vulnerability guidance.

[Baroness Hanham]

I do not want the noble Baroness to think that any of this has put me into agony. We will write about council tax benefit; but it is all there under the default scheme.

I was asked a number of questions—in fact, there have been a number of stirring speeches—and I have already responded to my noble friend Lady Browning: I do not think that guidance will be in the Bill, but the guidance is there now and she can see what it is.

I am sorry that I cannot remember who asked the question, but I think it was the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, about how the precepting authorities and the precepted authorities will work. There will be a requirement to consult: the billing authority will have to consult with the precepting authority to make sure that their policies are aligned. That seems to be the most sensible way of doing it and, presumably, if there is a great difficulty between one and the other, they will resolve it themselves.

Local Government Finance Bill

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Tuesday 10th July 2012 Grand Committee

I am by nature a localist. I welcome things that pass down to local authorities. In this case, it would be so difficult to run a scheme like this that we ought to now think again and make sure that we get a nationally based scheme that people can easily understand. Therefore, I support the amendment.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

My Lords, I had not planned to speak to the amendment, but my noble friend Lady Sherlock raised a question about whether universal credit would be treated as income or not for the means test for local schemes. I am one of those sad people who has spent some of my weekend reading House of Commons Hansard Written Answers, and I have the answer for her. Stephen Timms asked the same question, and the answer was:

“Local authorities will be free to design their own scheme for localised support for working age people in their area. This includes being able to design any means test they wish to include, and deciding on what that test should and should not take account of”.—[Official Report, Commons, 2/7/12; col. 414W].

Going back to what my noble friend Lady Hollis of Heigham said, what local factor could possibly make it fair for one area to include universal credit as income and fair for another not to do so? It makes absolutely no sense at all. Every local authority, unless it goes for the default scheme, will be reinventing the wheel over and over again, working out their own means test. People will see absolutely no fairness in it whatsoever. It makes no sense not to have a national scheme.

[Lord Tope]

My Lords, there are a rather large number of people here who must have been council leaders during the period of the poll tax—as, indeed, I was. I do not want to rehearse much of what has been said about that period except to say that, in my local authority a few years before the poll tax was introduced, we had 47 Conservative councillors and three Liberal Democrat councillors. By the time we had moved to the council tax, we had 47 Liberal Democrat councillors and four Conservatives. The five remaining Labour councillors were astonished to find themselves the principal opposition. So some good did come from the poll tax.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

The Minister will of course be aware of the House of Commons’ Communities and Local Government Committee report on localisation issues and welfare reform. It said:

“We have seen little evidence to support the hope that new and better-paying jobs for individuals, immediately sufficient to off-set the 10% reduction in the benefit budget, will inevitably follow from”—

the incentives that have been discussed; and,

“the means of economic growth are never solely in the gift of individual local authorities”.

What evidence did the Government have that the Committee did not to support the Minister’s contention?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, on the activities of local authorities to encourage businesses to come to their areas, of course local authorities do that now—I fully accept that—but they will do even more because they have a greater incentive. The noble Baroness quite properly made the point about poaching. It was a good point. Actually, we need to encourage businesses to locate in the UK and not in either another European state or further afield. It is not a question of poaching from next door necessarily, but if the local authority adjacent to you is less business friendly, you might find that businesses will locate in your area.