Social Security Coordination (Council Regulation (EEC) No 1408/71 and Council Regulation (EC) No 859/2003) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Debate between Baroness Lister of Burtersett and Lord McKenzie of Luton

Tuesday 5th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing these regulations. As we have heard, they seek to address deficiencies in retained law caused by the UK withdrawing from the EU. They amend the retained EU regulations comprising the co-ordination regulations, which currently co-ordinate social security systems throughout the EU.

Given that the changes these regulations cover potentially create new imposts and a move away from the status quo, it seems to us that there is a case for an impact assessment and some consultation. Change is necessary, as we have heard, because the current system relies on co-operation and reciprocity from other member states and that cannot be guaranteed when we withdraw in all respects. It will not be possible, for example, to impose reciprocal obligations on member states when correcting deficiencies, or say when co-ordinating rules relate to individuals moving to or from the UK. We understand and accept that.

The regulations will amend retained co-ordination regulations covering provisions that will not apply to the UK, confer functions on EU entities that will no longer have functions in relation to the UK, and make provision for reciprocal arrangements between the UK and other European Union member states. According to the Explanatory Memorandum:

“The instruments aim to ensure that citizens’ rights are protected as far as possible in a no-deal scenario”.


How? It is asserted that this is about maintaining the status quo, but will the Minister say to what extent the instrument varies from the maintenance of the status quo in practice? How does she characterise this?

The legal framework, as we have heard, for co-operation and enforcing reciprocal obligations in a no-deal scenario will cease. The Explanatory Memorandum states that:

“These instruments aim to maintain the status quo on a unilateral basis”,


but there will be arrangements which are inoperable. These include the denial of membership of such bodies as the administrative commission, the advisory body and the audit board. Will the Minister say in more detail what the implications of this are? It is noted that the ability to make provisional payments in the event of an unresolved dispute will no longer exist, although it is understood that these are in fact little used.

The approach to amending the co-ordination regulations is to focus on circumstances where the UK legislation does apply. Will the Minister please expand on that assertion? The Explanatory Memorandum identifies that the change,

“may give rise to occasions where an individual becomes subject to the legislation of more than one state at a time”,

and possibly to the legislation of two or more states. This is noted as being an unavoidable consequence of a no-deal exit which cannot be managed using powers in the withdrawal Act, but has any assessment been undertaken of the consequences? On what basis does the Minister conclude that the changes,

“do not give rise to any new costs or any financial or economic impact”?

Further, it is understood that fixes for deficiencies relating to healthcare are not provided for in these SIs. How and where are they to be provided for? We know that, by virtue of the EEA agreement and the Swiss free movement of people agreement, the co-ordination regulations also apply in the EEA. Will she outline the full consequences of that for us tonight? I am conscious that there were one or two technical questions there, but this is a technical document and we are entitled to ask them, although I do not believe that we will have undue problems in supporting the regulations.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I also thank the Minister for introducing this rather hefty set of statutory instruments and I echo my noble friend Lord McKenzie in citing paragraph 2.6 in the Explanatory Memorandum—which the Minister also cited:

“These instruments aim to ensure that citizens’ rights are protected as far as possible in a no-deal scenario”.


Phrases such as “as far as possible” rather leap out at us when we are looking at these things. What does it mean exactly? Will the Minister tell us what scenarios are envisaged in which it will not be possible to protect existing citizens’ rights?

Noble Lords will be pleased to know that I will be very brief, after my rather lengthy speech earlier, but I am more worried having read the debates in the Public Bill Committee on the Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill. A number of those giving evidence to the Committee raised serious concerns about Clause 5, which deals with future social security co-ordination and which, in the words of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee is,

“so lacking in any substance whatsoever that it cannot even be described as a skeleton … There is, moreover, no indication at all in the Explanatory Notes or Memorandum that the Government have even begun to devise their policy on the future of social security co-ordination post EU exit”.

Will the Minister explain how the regulations and this thinner-than-a-skeleton clause in the Bill relate to each other? Can she give us some assurance that the Government have begun to devise their policy regarding future social security co-ordination post EU exit, and perhaps some inkling of the lines on which they are thinking?

Housing and Planning Bill

Debate between Baroness Lister of Burtersett and Lord McKenzie of Luton

Monday 18th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a vice-president of the LGA. I want to comment briefly on some of the administrative and practical implications that seem to be emerging from this policy. I support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Best, in relation to tapers. One of the consequences of having a taper is that the income figure needs to be precise in every respect. It is one thing to have a threshold that people have to get over, but you have to be clear as to how much in excess of that threshold people have to be for the taper to operate fairly. That seems to me to bring into question some fundamental issues. We had a bit more information from the Minister today—a couple more veils were drawn back from how this is going to work. However, there are still some fundamental matters that have not been worked through, or, if they have, they have not been disclosed to us.

The first issue is whether or not what we are talking about will always be an annual assessment of a person’s income. Certainly the thresholds have been proposed in terms of annual amounts, but is there any suggestion that these are going to be divvied up into quarterly or weekly amounts so that the assessment would change not only periodically but frequently? If the answer is no, and we are looking at an annual assessment, that can be done only on the basis of a preceding year because until you get to the end of a year it is impossible to know what the yearly income is, particularly when you have fluctuating contracts. My noble friend Lord Beecham touched upon the issue of those who are self-employed. In any particular year, a self-employed person’s income is often not determined finally until some time after the end of the year, not during it.

Secondly, we do not know what the final definition of “income” is going to be. We know that certain benefits are going to be excluded, such as DLA and child benefit, and that is to be welcomed. However, what about things like SSP, statutory maternity pay or carer’s allowance and a number of other matters? What is to be included? It seems to me that the Government by now ought to have worked that through in some detail.

As to whose income is to be taken into account, again touched upon by my noble friend Lord Beecham, as I understand it the proposal is that if you have joint tenants it can be the income of those joint tenants or the income of their spouses or civil partners, whichever are the highest two. But that comes back to the issue of the period for which you are going to assess, because until you get to the end of a year, you do not know necessarily which are the two highest incomes from those four people. Somebody might get a year-end bonus on the last day of the tax year and that person could then become one of the two highest earners—what are you going to do then? Will the rent be recalculated on some basis? It does not make sense. These are fundamental issues about how this is going to work and I think we need greater clarity.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to make a few brief points in support of this group of amendments. First, with regard to the threshold, I thank the Minister for her response in her letter of 8 April to my question as to why it had been reduced from that in the voluntary scheme. However, the statement in the letter that the new thresholds are above the average median wage is not an explanation for the reduction, because that was the case already. Similarly, her response to my noble friend Lord Kennedy on the previous group of amendments was no answer to why there has been a change in the thresholds. Given that, according to the FAQs appended to the letter, the Government have no information on how the voluntary scheme has operated, what is the evidence base for changing the threshold? If as the Minister said a moment ago no local authority has chosen to implement the voluntary scheme, that speaks volumes. Nor has there been any public assurance that the thresholds will be reviewed regularly to ensure that they are uprated in line with median wages—although, as my noble friend Lord Beecham referred to that just now, I hope that we are about to be given some illumination on it.

Housing and Planning Bill

Debate between Baroness Lister of Burtersett and Lord McKenzie of Luton

Monday 14th March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

My Lords, I raised a number of questions at Second Reading which never got a reply and, as they are relevant to this group of amendments, I thought I would have another go.

The first follows directly from what the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, just said: why was it decided to reduce the earnings threshold from that in the existing voluntary scheme? Am I correct in thinking that there is no intention to increase the threshold in line with average earnings, thereby pulling more and more tenants into the net of pay to stay? If so, why? What protection might there be for vulnerable tenants unable to provide the necessary documentation? Crisis has raised concerns that they could be liable for the full market rent, regardless of their actual income. We can think of a lot of situations where there may be good reason why someone has not provided that information, but it would be totally unfair for them to have to pay the full market rent.

Finally—I did not raise this at Second Reading, but I raised it two groups of amendments ago and the Minister did not come back to me—there is the whole question of the lack of equivalisation. There will be such a crude means test that takes no account whatever of family needs. We are not treating like with like; we are treating the same income to meet rent, regardless of how many mouths have to be fed from that income.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab)]

My Lords, I start by apologising for not having participated in debate earlier, but I was on duty in the Moses Room. I support Amendment 77A. I may have missed some of the issues raised in previous debate, but there is variability not only because someone’s income may be derived from self-employment. It could be because they are employed but subject to a zero-hours contract. It could also be because the household changes.

I do not know whether we yet have a clear definition from the Minister of what will constitute the household for this purpose. Under the voluntary scheme, it was the tenant and the spouse, although there is also reference to the two highest earners. It would be helpful to have the intent clarified. Clearly, if it is the whole household, or all of the adults in the household, that can change. In many ways, that is more likely to change in an urban than a rural area. However, that is a key issue, as is the basis of the income. Will the Government try to use real-time information, which is fraught with challenges, or work on a preceding-year basis, around which the voluntary scheme was structured? If the latter, there are more likely to be variations between the base year and the year to which the rent levels are to be applied.

This whole approach is fraught with difficulties, but until we have clear definitions of household income and the basis of that income, we will struggle with the outcome.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Debate between Baroness Lister of Burtersett and Lord McKenzie of Luton

Wednesday 9th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been a thoughtful and extensive debate. Amendments 24 and 26 in the name of my noble friend Lady Lister and the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, would cause data on low-income families where one or both parents are in work—that is, in-work poverty—to be reported.

We support these amendments. We know, as we have heard, that some two-thirds of children living in poverty are in working families and that whatever the climbdown on tax credits, the Government have in-work support in their sights. If we are concerned with measures that look at the current experience of poverty as well as the risk of poverty, there seems no logic in including out-of-work but not in-work poverty, although the policy levers may be different.

Amendment 25 in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, and the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, seeks to retain the current income measures in the Child Poverty Act. We, of course, support that. Our Amendment 46 does the same but retains that Act’s targets as well.

The absence of income measures cannot be justified and runs counter to pretty much all the evidence or views of those engaged with child poverty. The Government’s suggestion that income measures are a symptom of poverty, rather than a cause, is too simplistic. My noble friend Lady Blackstone gave us a great example relating to educational attainment. If people are poor they do not have the same opportunity to have the same equipment at home; they do not necessarily have books at home and they do not necessarily go to school with a meal inside them so that they can be more attentive at school. It is simplistic to say that one is looking at the experience of poverty and that it is not a symptom of poverty.

In its July 2015 response to the Government’s child poverty statement—a number of noble Lords referred to this—the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission stated:

“The commission has argued in the past that a more rounded way of measuring poverty—taking … account of causal risk factors—is sensible. The life chances of children, the poorest especially, depend on many things … It is not credible, however, to try to improve the life chances of the poor without acknowledging the most obvious symptom of poverty, lack of money”.

Pretty much every noble Lord who has spoken in this debate, with the possible exception of the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, agreed with that proposition. She asserts that looking at simplistic measures of income contains a number of flaws, but my noble friend Lady Hollis made clear that the Child Poverty Act 2010 had four measures. You need to look at the circumstances in aggregate, not just at one snapshot in time.

CPAG says:

“We believe that poverty is a condition marked by a lack of adequate resources, some of which may not be financial. Nonetheless, an inadequate income remains the decisive characteristic of poverty and must remain central to any poverty measurement”.

A number of noble Lords referred to the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion at the LSE and the work that it did. It looked at the responses to the DWP’s consultation on child poverty measures, which sought to test the level of support for replacing the existing measures with new dimensions, including those provided for in the Bill. As we have heard, the research shows that there is a very high level of support for the existing measures in the current Act. Most wanted no change and those who countenanced additional dimensions saw this as supplementary information, but not as measures of child poverty itself. Most respondents were of the view that lack of material resources— income—was the very core of child poverty. We agree with that. It is suggested that respondents to the consultation saw the proposals to change the measures as bringing to an end the official measurement of child poverty in the UK. How does the Minister respond to that? He will doubtless tell us that the HBAI figures will still be published as now, but we know from our prior deliberations—the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, made this point—that what gets reported under Clause 4 will be the focus of the Government’s attention. That is why they are approaching it this way.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

I am sorry to intervene, but I wanted to ask the Minister whether he could answer a specific question relating to that. I know that there are some fears about this among academic social scientists and the voluntary sector. I absolutely accept the Minister’s assurances that the households below average income statistics will continue to be published, but will he assure the Committee that they will be really clear and published in an accessible form, not just as a load of Excel tables that some of us will not be able to understand? It is very important that we have that assurance on the record.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

I thank my noble friend for that intervention. I doubt there is much that she does not understand or is incapable of understanding, but she asked a highly relevant question. I hope that the Minister will give that assurance.

We have had a number of contributions to this debate. My noble friend Lord Liddle took us back in history but stressed the importance of the work that went into developing these measures in the first instance, enjoining the skills of Tony Atkinson. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham recognised the value of having worklessness and educational attainment as part of a measure. However, he said that that was not sufficient; there needs to be a focus on income if life chances are to be influenced and addressed.

The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, supported the existing measures in legislation. I think that the Child Poverty Act was the first legislation that the Minister worked on in opposition when he joined this place. At the end of the day, I thought that we had pretty much cross-party agreement, although it is fair to say that the Minister said there were other aspects of poverty which he thought should be reported as well. However, I do not believe that is the same as tearing up the Child Poverty Act, which is what this piece of legislation seeks to do. This is a very important issue because, unless we look at income, we will not address the here and now of poverty. It is all very well looking at some of those factors which have medium and long-term effects on people’s life chances, but we also need to address how people without resources exist today. That is why we need these amendments.

Jobseekers (Back to Work Schemes) Bill

Debate between Baroness Lister of Burtersett and Lord McKenzie of Luton

Monday 25th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 4 I will speak also to Amendments 5A and 6. I look forward to hearing from my noble friend Lady Lister on Amendment 5 and what appears to be a very worthy extension of the scope of the promised review and report, which we can also support. Amendment 4 relates generally to the criteria for Clause 2, and Amendment 5A has been tabled with the strong support of the shadow Secretary of State following press revelations of the existence of sanctions targets and league tables operating in London. It insists that the review specifically report on this matter.

Clause 2 brings some redemption to what is otherwise a deeply unsatisfactory Bill. The clause exists because of the perseverance of my right honourable friends Stephen Timms and Liam Byrne in another place and gives us the hope that at least something positive may yet come from this débâcle. The clause requires the appointment of an independent person to prepare a report on the operations relating to the imposition of penalties. The sanctions which are in scope for the review are those imposed for failures in the period from June 2011, when the defective regulations were first introduced, until February 2013, when the Court of Appeal judgment was delivered. We are told that the sanctions involved amount to around 25% of all JSA sanctions, which is clearly a minority of such sanctions. For those both delivered and withheld, covering the ESE and MWA programme, this amounts to in excess of 300,000 sanctions, mostly relating to those assigned to the Work Programme. The huge growth in the number of sanctions and the amounts involved—on average some £600 for ESE sanctions and £800 for MWA sanctions—are real causes for concern. There are suggestions that the growth of sanctions is a significant cause of the proliferation of food banks.

Recent revelations about targets and league tables are deeply worrying and reinforce concerns that the sanctions regime is being used to control benefit expenditure rather than for its proper purpose of supporting conditionality and changing behaviour. Ministerial denials will cut no ice until these matters have been fully and speedily investigated. We would be appalled if the reports of the suggested behaviour were true, as they would demonstrate not only that a climate of fear is being created within jobcentres but that staff are being actively encouraged to refer customers for sanction, especially to fine customers that they can claim are not fully available for work if they make mention of looking after a grandparent or having informal arrangements sharing custody of children. Jobcentre Plus is supposed to support vulnerable people, not try to trip them up on technicalities.

The review should also cover what management statistics are routinely kept and what use these are put to. At what point of it all are statistics around appeals on reconsiderations subject to any comparison, either intra a Jobcentre Plus area or between areas? Are the data broken down into individual decision-makers and matched against appeal performance? Do these form part of any discussion at appraisal time for individuals? Noble Lords will recognise that it is not even necessary to have formal targets to create a culture where these issues are seen to matter.

At Second Reading the Minister said:

“I have heard today concern from Peers about how DWP issues sanctions to JSA claimants more generally. I would like to make it clear that the department will discuss with the Opposition the terms of reference of the sanctions review”.—[Official Report, 21/3/13; col. 756.]

This is to be welcomed. Can we take it from this that the review need not be limited just to those sanctions identified above? Of course, a discussion with the Opposition does not necessarily mean agreement, which is why we have particularised, in Amendment 4, specific questions posed by the right honourable Stephen Timms in another place. We have added to the list the important matter which my noble friend Lady Lister spoke to at Second Reading concerning the public sector equality duty. I am sure that my noble friend will pick up that issue shortly and expand on her telling intervention that the Government know that they are treading on thin ice on this matter. It is too late for this legislation to be able to benefit from the scrutiny of the JCHR, which makes it imperative that it is covered by the review.

The items included on the list are for the most part self-explanatory and have been discussed numerous times before. However, now is the time to have an independent assessment of what is actually happening in practice. These include how penalties are being applied to those with a mental health condition, or rather fluctuating health conditions, which has been a longstanding concern under this Government and, to be fair, under the previous one as well. As we need to know how in practice the sanction and hardship provisions are really affecting people’s ability to survive, it is important that the review and report are thorough and that sufficient time is available to do the job effectively. However, this should not preclude an interim report, which is what Amendment 6 suggests.

This is fast-track legislation which we now have very limited time to consider further. The independent review was an important consideration for us in our approach to this Bill and we need to nail this down as tightly as possible tonight. Paragraphs (a) to (l) of the amendment must be deliverable, and if the Government are approaching this in a spirit of co-operation it really should not present them with a problem. Will the Minister commit now to these being included in the terms of reference for the review?

Above all, however, we need to be certain that we get to the bottom of the alleged existence of targets and league tables, which is why Amendment 5A is essential. If the Government are committed to their mantra of low targets, they should have common cause with us in accepting this. If they want to tidy the wording for Report, then so be it. I beg to move.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 5 as well as in support of Amendment 4, moved by my noble friend Lord McKenzie of Luton. Amendment 5 complements and amplifies Amendment 4. The point behind it is that the sanctions in scope of the review established in Clause 2 of the Bill represent approximately only a quarter of all JSA sanctions imposed over the relevant period.

If we are to understand how the sanctions regime is working, the review needs to set the narrower group of sanctions in the scope of the Bill into the wider context of the operation of sanctions more generally. I have tried to make sense of the sanctions statistics, and it seems that there has been a massive increase since March 2010 in the number of fixed-length sanctions applied in relation to work-related programmes, and a smaller increase in other varied-length sanctions, albeit in both cases with some month-to-month fluctuations.

The review needs to help us understand what lies behind these statistics in the round. The sense that I am getting from voluntary organisations working in the field is that there is a growing concern about the general operation of sanctions. I am particularly grateful to CPAG and SPAN for the information they have sent me at very short notice.

I do not propose to pursue the question of whether or not jobcentre staff are being set sanction targets. My noble friend Lord McKenzie of Luton has already addressed that point admirably. However, I want to say something about the wider culture that is giving rise to such claims. It has been brought to my attention that some jobcentres are pursuing a practice of “botherability”, which includes bringing in claimants at weekends. CPAG sent me the example of a client of the CAB in the north of England.

The client is a lone parent with two children aged eight and six. The eight year-old has reduced hearing and gets low-care DLA. The client is claiming JSA, housing benefit and council tax benefit. She received a letter at the start of March 2013 calling her into the jobcentre for a compliance meeting a few days later, at 9.30 am on a Sunday, which was Mother’s Day. She asked for a different date but was told that her benefit could be sanctioned. She decided to go to the interview as she could not afford not to, but her two little girls were very disappointed as they were planning a treat for her on Mother’s Day morning. She has been on JSA for six months and says that she has jumped through all the hoops. Last week she said that she had applied for 22 jobs. She does not understand what she has done or not done that has necessitated a compliance interview, especially on Mother’s Day. She says she is pretty disgusted with the way that claimants are treated—can your Lordships blame her? I would be grateful for the Minister’s comments on such practices. Is he aware of them? Does he condone them?

It seems to me that whether or not formal targets are operating, such practices are indicative of an oppressive culture that is aimed at punishing claimants rather than helping them to find work. The point has been made to me that in assessing the overall impact of sanctions we need to be looking at those cases not just where sanctions have been applied but where they have been threatened, sometimes inappropriately; in other words, when claimants have been led to believe that failing to do something is a sanctionable offence when it is not.

I wish to focus on the paragraphs of Amendment 4 that deal with mental health conditions, the effectiveness of hardship provisions and the application of the public sector equality duty. Mind has argued that the incentive structure represented by conditionality and sanctions in back-to-work support for people with mental health problems is a misplaced and counterproductive response to the barriers they face. It cites recent DWP research which found that some staff believe that conditionality and sanctions are not useful or appropriate for some groups of participants, including people with disabilities or addiction problems, and some staff acknowledge that the stress that can be caused can be counterproductive in terms of claimant engagement, which also has implications for paragraph (k), which concerns,

“the effectiveness of sanctions in changing claimant behaviour”.

Mind cites a number of service users who have been in contact. I will take just two examples. The first is:

“I got a nasty letter which said my benefit was at risk because I didn’t attend an appointment and I had to give a really good explanation within a week or my benefit would be cut. It quoted all these regulations I broke. I freaked out because I couldn’t understand what I hadn’t done … It turns out there was a mistake”.

Another example is:

“I was made very anxious and sleepless by what I perceived as threatening letters and terms from Jobcentre Plus and A4e. I became depressed because I could see that my hopes to return to work were being made unrealisable by this route”.

Let us put ourselves in the shoes of these people and imagine how stressful it must be for anyone, never mind someone with a mental health problem, to be treated in that way. Further examples can be found in evidence submitted by Citizens Advice Cymru to the ongoing Welsh Affairs Committee inquiry into the Work Programme. A number of them are where there was failure to take account of mental health problems as good cause for non-compliance—an issue to which we will return when debating Amendment 7.

A 20 year-old female sought advice from a CAB in south Wales. She had missed four appointments and was sanctioned. She suffers from periodic depression and memory problems and relies on her social services support worker to remind her of appointments. On these occasions, the support worker failed to do so. She could not apply for a crisis loan as she had been sanctioned, and she has no money at all. She is also worried that she will lose her accommodation.

Local Government Finance Bill

Debate between Baroness Lister of Burtersett and Lord McKenzie of Luton

Thursday 19th July 2012 Grand Committee

[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.

Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2012

Debate between Baroness Lister of Burtersett and Lord McKenzie of Luton

Monday 27th February 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

Perhaps I may intervene. I am sorry, but I did not know whether the Minister was about to wind up, so perhaps I could revert to a couple of the questions which are left outstanding.

In relation to the savings credit and passported benefit, the issue is that if there are, as we now know, 30,000 fewer people claiming savings credit, presumably there are some savings in respect of passported benefits that would go with that. The question is whether those savings are factored into the savings needed to produce the guaranteed credit upratings.

There were a couple of other items. In relation to non-dependant deductions, it was asked whether we could be told what the reduction in housing benefit and council tax benefit is estimated to be as a result of those changes. In relation to the small business issue, and the £45,000 threshold, I was trying to determine whether, because of increases in national insurance and fiscal or national insurance drift, the same thing would happen as with tax drift, where effectively more people are being excluded from the benefit of 100 per cent reimbursement, because in real terms it is declining.

There is one other issue—perhaps the Minister could deal with it in writing—which is the relationship between the uprating of guaranteed credit and the basic state pension. I am indebted to my noble friend Lady Drake for bringing to my attention some interesting material produced by the PPI showing the impact of pension credit over several years. The component that would produce the biggest reduction in the percentage of pensioners living below 60 per cent of median income would be if the current policy plus guaranteed credit were indexed to the triple lock. That would have a more beneficial outcome than the current policy, where guaranteed credit is indexed to earnings, although I accept that this year it is earnings-plus, but that is still not the same as earnings plus the 5.2 per cent.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

To save the Minister getting up and down, I would appreciate a comment on the point that I made about child benefit. Perhaps it is more appropriate for the noble Lord, Lord Sassoon. What is the logic of putting so much emphasis on increasing personal tax allowance in real terms and then freezing child benefit, which is the equivalent of a personal tax allowance?

Welfare Reform Bill

Debate between Baroness Lister of Burtersett and Lord McKenzie of Luton

Monday 21st November 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

That would certainly be satisfactory but even if that 10 per cent estimate is roughly right, it means that 90 per cent of the people who will be affected by this cap are under no obligation, under the Government's policies, to have full work conditionality. How does that square with the big thrust of this being about work incentives? I should also like to follow up on another point which the Minister did not touch upon: the profile of those, again within that 50,000, who would be tenants and paying rent of one sort or another. Is it the case that a significant proportion of that 50,000 are tenants of social landlords, RSLs or councils?

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

While the noble Lord is conferring, can he perhaps explain to the Committee what behavioural effects the Government are trying to achieve in the case of those who are not required to seek work?

Welfare Reform Bill

Debate between Baroness Lister of Burtersett and Lord McKenzie of Luton

Thursday 10th November 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, I am grateful to Gingerbread for a briefing on this issue. It has asked us to raise this matter, which I believe has considerable merit.

Clause 57 proposes to extend further the numbers of single parents required to seek work. From early 2012, single parents not in paid work and whose youngest child is aged five or over will no longer be entitled to claim income support. Instead, single parents will be required to claim jobseeker’s allowance or another benefit. On JSA, single parents receive the same amount of money each week as they do on income support, but face a substantial increase in conditionality and risk a payment sanction if they fail to demonstrate that they are actively seeking and available for work.

This latest proposal is estimated to affect 100,000 single parents currently receiving income support who have a youngest child aged five or over. It is understood that the Government anticipate this will save something like £50 million in 2012-13 by removing entitlement to income support from this group of single parents. However, I wonder if there is any revision to that sum, given the state of the labour market and the difficulties that are confronted by people seeking work.

We have an opportunity to introduce a delay to the proposed change and instead align it with the planned introduction of universal credit from 2013. This can be achieved by simply removing this clause from the Bill, which is what this amendment seeks to do, and would mean that single parents with a youngest child aged five would continue to receive income support until universal credit is implemented. At this point, single parents, along with responsible carers and couple families, will be subject to work search and work availability requirements, as outlined in Clause 22; that is, “all work-related requirements”.

Noble Lords will be aware that Clause 57 is an extension of the lone parent obligation policy which we brought forward when in government. The LPO restricts entitlement to income support for single parents according to the age of their youngest child. The reforms have sought to move more and more single parents from income support to JSA. Implementation began in November 2008 and first affected parents whose youngest child was aged 12 and over in October 2009; parents with children aged 10 and 11 were also transferred to JSA. In October 2010, single parents with children aged seven, eight and nine switched into JSA. In previous years, single parents have been given clear advance notice of six months in order to prepare for the switch from income support to JSA. However, we have not yet passed this piece of legislation and this will be implemented in April 2012, which is certainly in the near term.

Some 57 per cent of single parents are in paid employment and many more want work as a means of increased income and financial independence. Those are key motivators, along with personal independence, the opportunity for social interaction and to set a good example for their children. Indeed, 42 per cent of single parents say that having almost any job is better than being unemployed and on benefits. Critically, single parents require jobs that allow them to be there for their children when necessary. With only one parent to do the school run, care for children when they are ill and support them with their schoolwork, jobs with flexible working patterns are absolutely vital, as is access to affordable, high-quality childcare. We have discussed that on a number of previous occasions. Flexibility does not just mean part time but can include job share, compressed hours in term time and annualised hours. However, employment opportunities that provide the degree of flexibility that single parents need are few and far between, particularly in difficult economic times.

The particular reasons for delay are as follows. On 7 October this year the Government announced an extension of childcare support to those working under 16 hours to be implemented as part of universal credit from October 2013. Currently, through working tax credits, as we are aware, single parents working 16 hours or more a week can access support of 70 per cent of their childcare costs up to £175 per week for one child and up to £300 per week for two or more children. This provides vital support to working parents on low to middle incomes and makes all the difference as to whether they can make work pay. However, it has always been a challenge for those with caring responsibilities or those who have been out of work for some time to make the leap from no work to 16 or more hours a week. So the further investment to provide childcare support at the same level for those working under 16 hours a week from 2013 onwards is welcome. This support will be of particular benefit to single parents of five and six year-olds who move on to JSA from income support after a period of time looking after their child. That is why it makes no sense to push 100,000 single parents into this position 18 months before the new childcare support is available.

In addition to the logic of delaying the switch from income support to JSA to enable single parents to access the new childcare support that will be available under universal credit, I suggest that there is a broader rationale in aligning this change with the overall implementation of universal credit. The transition from the current benefits and tax credits system to unified universal credit will require a huge administrative change in order to transition all existing claimants on to the new system. When resources are stretched, it would therefore be both needlessly disruptive to single parents and an unnecessary cost to the state to put the same group of claimants through two substantial administrative processes within a relatively short period of time—ending entitlement to income support in early 2012 and then a migration on to universal credit for existing claimants from April 2014.

It is also important to note that the Bill we are considering introduces changes that will affect the job search requirements of lead carers in couples families which will be implemented from 2013 as part of universal credit. From this point on, nominated lead carers in joint couple claims will be required to seek work when the youngest child reaches the age of five and be subject to increased conditionality accordingly. There is therefore no clear rationale for why single parents should be subject to identical changes in advance of nominated lead carers in a joint claim.

According to the Office for National Statistics, in the three months from June to August 2011, unemployment rose to 2.57 million, an increase of 114,000. The fall in the number of people employed was 178,000 and has been particularly driven by the loss of part-time jobs, down by 175,000. Single parents rely heavily on part-time work as this allows them to juggle their caring responsibilities with work. The total number of people claiming JSA is 1.6 million, of which 124,000 are single parents. The total number of single parents claiming JSA increased by 48,000 over the 12 months from August 2010. Unemployment is at a 17-year high and job creation in the private sector has so far failed to plug the rising tide of redundancies and job losses in the public sector. Overall, the picture is bleak, with markedly fewer family-friendly jobs available and increasing numbers of single parents trapped on jobseeker’s allowance, so moving an additional 100,000 single parents from income support to JSA when their youngest child reaches five is a blunt instrument in the current economic climate.

Increased conditionality and tougher sanctions only serve to add unwarranted pressure on single parents when suitable employment opportunities remain sparse, childcare costs continue to rise faster than earnings and single parents are not able to take advantage of new childcare support that will be introduced from 2013. Single parents will struggle to find work that is sustainable and that fits around their caring responsibilities when faced with increased conditionality, limited access to support for childcare costs, limited opportunities to access training and further education, low growth and a stagnant job market. I oppose the clause standing part.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

I had not planned to speak but I support the opposition to the clause standing part. It seems eminently sensible that we should postpone this provision. I am prompted to speak by a rash of e-mails that I received today from people who clearly feel strongly about it, although I shall read from only one of the e-mails. However, I am ambivalent about the issue of lone parents and paid work. On the one hand I was a member of the Commission on Social Justice which, to a lot of criticism, recommended that lone parents with children aged 12 and over, I think, should become part of the workforce. One of the reasons for that, as my noble friend said, is the importance of paid work to women as a source of independent income and so forth. On the other hand, it also worries me that much new policy underestimates the importance and value of care work and the time and energy it takes. So, as I say, I am ambivalent. However, I think that lowering the age to five is perhaps going too far. It is putting a lot of strain on lone parents in terms of the competing responsibilities that we are placing on them. That is very much reflected in the rash of e-mails that I received today. I shall read out from one. I do not necessarily agree with everything in it but it reflects what people are feeling. This e-mail is in fact not from someone directly affected but from a grandmother who would have been affected had this rule applied earlier. She says:

“I have been informed that you are discussing legislation which will force mothers who are [on] welfare to look for a ‘job’ when the youngest is five years of age. I am a grandmother now but raised three children on welfare following marriage breakdown. It was not a lot of money but I had control of it”—

an issue that I have been raising in other contexts—

“and was able to survive and care for all my children. I did try going out to work but it was almost impossible to cope first of all with having time with them. Keeping tabs on where they were every day of the week was a nightmare. When I lived on welfare they knew they could come home after school bring their friends with them home if they wanted. Much safer for everyone. The proposal that children have to be out of their home from leaving for school in the morning until I get home later in the evening”—

I myself would not put it this strongly—

“is nothing less than child abuse—adults are exhausted after doing such hours”.

I think that we should be conscious of that point on exhaustion. We are asking an awful lot of lone parents. She continues:

“How are children supposed to develop with any feelings of confidence and security if they are constantly shunted around from pillar to post, treated as if they are an encumbrance, rather than being valued by the society”.

I shall not read any more. However, there is a feeling that we are devaluing the work of caring for young children whether it is done by mothers or fathers. This opposition to the clause standing part would allow us to pause and think again about whether this is the right way to go, particularly in the current labour conditions, and whether it would not be better to wait until universal credit is introduced and the childcare changes referred to by my noble friend are made. I hope that the Minister might be willing to pause and reflect on this matter.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

The noble Lord is absolutely right. That was deployed in relation to the flooding in Cumbria.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

I raise this to ask not so much about housing but about people's white goods and furniture that may have been destroyed for whatever reason. My understanding is that, at present, they can turn to discretionary crisis loans in such cases.

Welfare Reform Bill

Debate between Baroness Lister of Burtersett and Lord McKenzie of Luton

Tuesday 8th November 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

If the Minister has moved on from national insurance, perhaps he might just address this point of circumstances where somebody starts off in the WRAG and at the start of their claim meets the national insurance contributions, because they have been both credited in and paid sufficient in one of those years. That claim is terminated or ceases after 365 days and the person then moves into the support group. Would that be a new claim for the purposes of attachment to the national insurance contributions? If people had to look afresh at that point, they may well have been credited insufficiently, but they would not be able to pay in, because they would not have been in the labour market and would not have had earnings. They would therefore be disconnected from contributory ESA.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

I shall ask the Minister another question, so that he can get his breath back. I very much welcome what he said about credits. This may reflect my ignorance of the mechanics of it, but could he explain how people get credited, if they cease to be part of the system and have no entitlement to anything?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

Forgive me if I am wrong and I expose the frailness of my knowledge of social security, but I thought that claimants got a lower rate during the assessment phase. Therefore it may be called the same benefit but, in terms of the money people get, it is less. That period is not being included. That is why I am saying that it is a year minus 13 weeks. Yes, they are getting a benefit but at a lower rate.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

I can support my noble friend: as I understand it, people get the basic JSA rate in the assessment period.