Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Baroness Manzoor Excerpts

Monday 29th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Durham]

My Lords, throughout our debates on the Bill, we have all consistently expressed our desire to see child poverty in our nation reduced and, ultimately, eradicated. We have different views about how this might best be achieved, and about the impact the Bill will have. I continue to have deep concerns about its impact. I fear that it will lead to more children and families being poor.

Having said that, I fully agree that, in most cases, the best way out of poverty is through work, and work that is better paid. I remain unconvinced that the measures in the Bill will have the complete effect suggested. Among the many concerns that a wide range of noble Lords and those outside the House have expressed has been the matter of the publication of the information and statistics on financial poverty. The Government have consistently noted that to work simply on financial targets in relation to child poverty is inadequate, and I have consistently agreed.

I meet children from very affluent backgrounds who are poor. They are poor because they lack being loved. Sometimes, their parents are working so many hours to maintain a wealthy lifestyle that they give no time to their child. Such children in homes where money is plentiful have been emotionally starved and, generally, spiritually malnourished. Theirs is a different kind of poverty.

I meet children from very poor backgrounds, in terms of financial income, who are rich in being loved and cared for by their parents or parent. They are emotionally strong, doing well at school and have a wealth of spiritual life. In many cases, they have a parent, or sometimes two, in work but on low wages and working only part-time, the latter often because the parent prioritises—rightly, in my view—time with their child over time away from them simply to earn more cash. They are not poor in very many ways.

It is right to look properly at life chances, therefore, because issues of educational achievement, work, housing and the like have a serious impact on children’s lives now and their long-term life chances.

There is also a danger that, with only financial modelling of poverty, the very poorest are not properly helped. Strategies can be worked that just lift people above a specific target, rather than supporting those who are persistently and consistently the very poorest in financial terms. However, along with the almost unanimous view of academics and practitioners from the areas of healthcare, social care, education, economics and other disciplines, I share the conviction that lack of finance is one of the factors that places children in poverty, and that this affects their life chances. The evidence is clear that income poverty impacts cognitive development, school achievement, social and emotional development and health.

Absolutely, that is compounded significantly when other factors are also considered, and they too must be tackled, but not to take seriously the reality of financial poverty would be a major mistake. As the wise proverbialist Agur, from the book of Proverbs, said:

“give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full and deny you

and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’ or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God”.

The four indicators that have been used since 2003 work well together. It is how they are worked together that matters: any one standing alone and being used alone is inadequate. So I am delighted that the Government have decided to listen to the arguments and agreed to make a statutory provision for the continued publication of those figures. I think that a persistent poverty figure could well be a very useful addition, although how it is arrived at will need to be as robustly worked through as have been the existing, well-tested measures. It will be important, if it is to be a valuable addition, that it be as rigorously tested as they are.

In conclusion, I thank the Minister, and his team, for the time that he has given us and for how they have listened and worked with us to reach the conclusion that stands before us today in relation to publishing financial child poverty figures. These last weeks have been an interesting journey for myself and my colleagues on this Bench. We are pleased to have been able to serve those whom it is most important we serve well, the children in our nation who are living in poverty—a poverty which all of us must keep striving to end, and which I believe the publication of these figures will assist.

[Baroness Manzoor (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for bringing forward his amendment, and I am pleased that the Government have seen sense on the need to publish these important measures. They will help policymakers and others better to understand the issues affecting child poverty and the levers that may be used to help to lift children out of poverty. The argument with the Government was never really about their life chances measures, which it is clear will provide an important point of reference for policy interventions in the incredibly complex and multifaceted problem of child poverty. It was about understanding that, while child attainment and parental worklessness are important to understanding the problem, the money in a parent’s pocket is still important to understand when seeking to help to lift children out of poverty.

I understand the Minister’s concerns that focusing entirely on income risks the “poverty plus a pound” approach to policy. However, I equally understand that, for example, an intervention in the cost of transport may help to boost attainment, because you can understand that the cost of the bus for extra classes costs more than most of the families that you are trying to help can actually afford. That means that you must have access to data on income; that is important. These four additional measures will help, and not hinder, the Government’s attempt to take a more active approach to this issue. I am particularly pleased with the inclusion of the long-term poverty measure in subsection (1)(d), and I suspect that there may even be policy officials within DWP itself who will find that measure helpful in developing interventions.

This is a good compromise and I am pleased that the Minister has been able to achieve it. Thank you.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I warmly welcome Amendments 1B to 1D, and I offer my thanks to various people, at the risk of sounding a bit like an Oscar winner, which I am not. First, I thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham, who spearheaded the original amendment and made such a powerful speech on Report and again today. I thank the Minister for listening, hearing and bringing forward what I agree is a pretty fair compromise at this stage. As he said, it gives legal status to the commitment to continue publishing the very important HBAI statistics. Also, there was a letter to the Times last week from nearly 180 academics, including those at the forefront of child poverty measurement, including Professor Sir Michael Marmot—I declare an interest as one of the signatories in my academic capacity. Despite what the Minister said, I think that they will see this as recognition of what was said in that letter: income and material deprivation should be at the heart of child poverty measurement, because such indicators are vital to our ability to track the impact of economic and policy change. I thank Dr Kitty Stewart of the LSE, who organised that letter, and all those who signed it, along with the voluntary organisations that have worked tirelessly to achieve something like this outcome.

Last, but by no means least, I thank Rebecca, a mother of two who, off her own bat but with the help of CPAG, launched a petition to keep the measures and collected 50,000 signatures in less than a month. Writing in the latest edition of CPAG’s journal Poverty, she said that she had been very moved as she read through many of the words written by people explaining why they were supporting the petition. She concluded that we should make sure that all children who are living in poverty are counted in the measures so that we can really see if things are getting better for them. She wrote:

“Children in poverty already feel poor and disadvantaged, why should they also be unnoticed?”.

Amen to that.

--- Later in debate ---

It is nonsense to make such drastic changes to the financial support received by disabled people in the WRAG before the House knows what a reformed employment and support system will look like in the future. The Government are asking us today to take a massive leap of faith in their future policy intentions. This is a huge gamble with people’s lives and survival, and I am not prepared to take it. I urge the Minister to accept the amendments proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Low. They make total sense and are very realistic. They would ensure that the up-and-coming reforms are coherently structured to support the Government’s commitment to halving the disability employment gap. What we do not want is a policy that drives the most severely disabled in our society further into a life of poverty and further away from any hope of employment.

[Baroness Manzoor (LD)]

I start by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Low, for his leadership and commitment to this issue, and other noble Lords who have also given their wholehearted commitment. This is a fundamental and important issue, not only to Members of this House, but to the most vulnerable in our society. I thank the Minister for the three concessions he has offered. These are real, substantive changes to the operation of ESA, and the wider system of support for disabled people, which will have a positive impact on the lives of some sick or disabled people. I am particularly pleased by the decision to end the 52-week rule, allowing those who are able to do so to stay close to the job market by working part-time. This is really important. This is a positive change to bring things in line with the system that will be in place under universal credit, and it is to be strongly welcomed.

I am also pleased by the decision to increase funding for the flexible support fund by £15 million to help those who are struggling to stay in work while managing a sickness or disability with whatever will make that task a little easier for them. However, I hope the Minister can look at ensuring that those who may benefit from the fund are aware of it. As we all know, with many of these kinds of funds the difference between availability and awareness can be significant in their success.

Finally, the commitment to ensure that those with degenerative conditions are able to move quickly into the support group if and when their condition worsens is important, although I hope the Minister will be able to give the House some details now of how this may operate. I also hope that he will commit to providing further updates to the House as details of this mechanism become clearer so that we may help to ensure that it operates in a way that is most beneficial to those who may need to call upon it.

It is to his credit that the Minister, despite not needing to do so, has fought for further concessions and I applaud him for it. These concessions will and could benefit many sick and disabled people, regardless of the cut to ESA being imposed by the Bill. But, as he well knows, no matter how hard fought, the concessions he has secured are merely tinkering around the edges. I do not believe for a minute that the Minister really thinks that the cut to ESA WRAG is a sensible measure or that it will somehow, as the Government have claimed, incentivise people to get better and into work more quickly. Some 50% of those likely to be affected by this cut suffer from mental health conditions. These are people living with depression and other conditions that make it hard for them to get through the day. The idea that pushing them closer to financial hardship, making it harder for them to afford their rent or feed their children, is going to help them in any way is, frankly, ridiculous. The fact is that for some, the risks of this added pressure could be severe.

If I could, I would seek to strike these measures out of the Bill again but, as we know, the Commons has spoken and the constraints of financial privilege have been put upon us. So we are left with the amendment to the Motion in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Low. This is a good amendment. It is not aiming to wreck the Bill, it is simply asking the Government to do one simple thing: to prove their case. The Government have said that this cut will help incentivise people to return to work. If that is the case, they should prove it. The Government say that this will have a limited impact on people’s physical and mental health. If they truly believe that, the noble Lord’s amendment gives them the chance to prove it. The Government say that sick and disabled people do not need that £30 extra a week. If that is the case, they should prove it.

When experts and NGOs from across the spectrum are saying the case is flawed, the least the Government can do is to present their evidence to prove their case before they implement the changes. That is what the noble Lord’s amendment does and that is why I and my Lib Dem colleagues strongly support it. Surely that is the bare minimum needed in the interests of good lawmaking.

The reason this cut has to happen is because of the need to meet an arbitrary spending target to completely abolish public sector borrowing set down by the Chancellor. The job of balancing the books can be done without this or other welfare cuts. These cuts are a choice, not an obligation. People deserve to know that they are happening because the Chancellor has made the calculation that it is better to look tough on spending and welfare by hitting those who are the most vulnerable than to accept, perhaps, that he has made a misjudgement about the economy.

I support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Low, not just because I believe that it is vital in ensuring that these cuts to ESA will proceed only if the claims by the Government about their impact can be proven but because those affected deserve some transparency—some honesty—from the Government. The Treasury must not hide behind good and honourable Ministers such as the noble Lord, Lord Freud, while doing immeasurable damage to some of the most vulnerable in our society.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, perhaps I may respond briefly to the points that we have heard in the last three speeches, which I listened to with great interest and respect. The points fall into two categories: one is on the substantive issues about the benefit changes; the other is the argument about the procedural changes mentioned in the amendment.

On the substantive changes about whether ESA claimants in the WRAG should have their benefits realigned with those on JSA, with comparable changes to those on universal credit, the reality is that these changes have been debated extensively by both Houses. They were debated most recently last Tuesday in the other place, where after a three-hour debate the House of Commons insisted with a majority of 27—above the Government’s national majority—that the changes which we made should be resisted. The time has come to recognise, as I think the noble Baroness has just indicated, that we should respect the view of the Commons on this.

The noble Lord, Lord Low, said that the Government lost the argument but won the vote. Whether one has won the argument is a subjective decision and I happen to take a different view. Whether one won the vote is not a subjective decision, and that is the basis on which we should proceed. I hope that those who have expressed anxieties have been reassured by what my noble friend Lord Freud said in introducing this debate. There is the increase of £15 million for the flexible support fund, aimed at those with limited capabilities for work and enabling them to attend job interviews and training courses. I hope that that reassurance and the extra resources will allay some of the concerns that have been expressed.

Amendments 8B and 9B seem, briefly, to be going in exactly the opposite direction to that in which the House wanted to go in the context of the debate on my noble friend Lord Strathclyde’s report where, by and large, we wanted more done in primary legislation and less in statutory instruments. In that debate, I urged the Government to set the tone for constructive discussion by not using SIs where primary legislation is more appropriate. These amendments go in precisely the opposite direction to what I think the majority of the House wanted by putting the substantive change not in the primary legislation but in the statutory instrument. That would deny the opportunity for a conversation, which the House has always preferred, because the SI would not allow that. In effect, the amendment would give the House of Lords a veto over this part of the legislation, which the House of Commons has approved, and we would be back in the same territory as we were last October. I, for one, do not want to be back in that debate again and I hope, for those reasons, that the amendment will be resisted.