Welfare Reform and Work Bill
Baroness Manzoor Excerpts(8 years, 9 months ago)
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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.
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.
Welfare Reform and Work Bill
Baroness Manzoor Excerpts(8 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Hollis of Heigham (Lab)
My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister. I am truly grateful that he has responded in such a compassionate and sympathetic way to the situation of people who are at the hardest edge of kinship care, when bereaved family members are seeking to look after bereaved children. What the Government, and the Minister in particular, have done is remove an additional pressure that we would have been putting on them of financial strain. As I understand it, he has confirmed that not only will such families be exempt from the benefit cap, the entire income, not just the guardian’s allowance, will not come under the benefits cap—in other words, as a group, they will be excluded. That is so important for those families to give the children they are caring for—as well as their own children, perhaps—the stability and security they need if, out of the wreckage of their lives and the damage that has been done to them, they can hope to build a secure future. I am very grateful to the Minister and thank him enormously.
Baroness Manzoor (LD)
I add my thanks from these Benches. It is great and really welcome. To have these two allowances removed from the benefits cap is essential. We have had long debates and this was pointed out very clearly and forcefully by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis. We on these Benches are really grateful.
Of course, I remain concerned about other areas, such as the additional children of women who are fleeing domestic violence. I implore the Minister to look again at that issue, and perhaps we could come back to it, so that those women, or indeed partners, could be exempted from the two-child tax credit limit.
The Lord Bishop of Portsmouth
My Lords, without wanting to detain the House, I add on behalf of this Bench our thanks to the Minister and offer our support and gratitude for the amendments he has brought forward today. The concerns that have been expressed around the House on many occasions for those who are most vulnerable in society have been passionate and heartfelt. It is good and reassuring when they are heard, and we offer our thanks as well.
Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his explanation of Amendment 5. It makes the drafting of this area somewhat less impenetrable. I was going to say that it would be churlish, given the occasion, to point out that this is the third or fourth attempt to get this drafting right but clearly there will need to be a fourth or fifth, from what the Minister has said, and we welcome the point to which he has alerted us.
I take this opportunity to welcome the Minister’s action in deferring the impact of the rent reduction policy for a period and holding back on the local housing allowance. We will have to see where that leads. Of course, this point was pursued rigorously by the noble Lords, Lord Best and Lord Kerslake. My understanding is that this has not necessarily allayed the concerns of providers sufficiently and there is the risk of holding back on some key projects in relation to supported accommodation, which would be a great pity. So I think there is a task for the Government there.
With regard to the amendments that go back with the Bill to the other place, all we can do is urge the Minister to send it on its way with his wholehearted support.
Baroness Manzoor
My Lords, we broadly support Amendment 5. It is a positive change. I take this opportunity to thank the Minister for the very constructive way in which he has allowed us to meet him, because there have been great challenges in the Bill. It has been a very difficult Bill and he has been a master at defending a very difficult piece of legislation. I sensed at times that he himself felt, “My gosh, what are we doing here?”. I may be putting words in his mouth but that is the sense I got.
Obviously, there are significant financial cuts to some of the most vulnerable in our society. As the Minister is aware, I have been very concerned about the issues relating to the work allowance and the cuts that will affect working people. We have looked at the Bill through the prism of work. I am also very concerned about the cuts to employment allowances for people with disabilities and progressive illnesses. I state again that I really cannot understand how cutting £30 a week from the employment allowances for people in the ESA group is going to make them better and fitter and enable them to go back to work. I say to the Minister: this is going back to the House of Commons but please could the Government look at this? It is so important as a sign of a compassionate, caring society that we look after the most vulnerable. But I thank the Minister, and the Bill team, for the time he has given to the Bill and the very constructive dialogue he has held with us.
Lord Low of Dalston (CB)
My Lords, the Minister made reference to the Bill going back to the other place without the provisions relating to the removal of the ESA WRAG premium and the comparable allowance under universal credit, and to the fact that he would be working to achieve the best outcome in relation to these provisions. I wonder if he would be prepared to meet my noble friends Lady Meacher and Lady Grey-Thompson and me so that we could work together on achieving the best outcome in relation to these provisions. My office is in touch with his office to see if we can set up a meeting with him and Priti Patel, who I believe has also been involved in these issues. I very much appreciate the support of the noble Baroness who spoke before me, and her plea for the Minister to give earnest consideration to this issue, with a view to achieving a better outcome than was in the Bill originally.
Welfare Reform and Work Bill
Baroness Manzoor Excerpts(8 years, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Manzoor
“Application of sanctions and disallowances to Jobseeker’s Allowance
(1) The Jobseeker’s Allowance Regulations 1996 are amended as follows.
(2) After regulation 22 insert—
0“Treatment of people found not to be actively seeking employment or available for employment
22A. The Secretary of State shall, by regulations, provide that the payment of housing benefit to a person in receipt of a jobseeker’s allowance shall not cease solely because that person’s award of a jobseeker’s allowance is reduced in accordance with regulations made under section 19B of the Jobseekers Act 1995 (claimants ceasing to be available for employment etc), including for a period during which the claimant ceased to be entitled to a jobseeker’s allowance by failing to comply with the condition in section 1(2)(a) or (c) of the Jobseekers Act 1995 (availability for employment and actively seeking employment), without other due cause.”(3) In regulation 69B, omit paragraph (7).
(4) In regulation 70—
(a) for paragraph (1)(a) substitute—“(a) in any benefit week, 100% of the allowance payable to the claimant, minus the sum of 10 pence; or”; (b) in sub-paragraph (1)(b)(i), omit from “100%” to the first “couple” and insert “in any benefit week, 100% of the allowance payable to the couple, minus the sum of 10 pence”; and(c) after paragraph (3) insert—“(4) The amount referred to in paragraph (3) may not reduce, in any benefit week, the amount of a jobseeker’s allowance payable to the claimant to less than the sum of 10 pence.””
Baroness Manzoor (LD)
My Lords, I shall be brief. Noble Lords can see very clearly what the issue is—it is technical and rather complicated. It is now late. If the Minister will give the assurance that he is happy to meet me and the Child Poverty Action Group so that we can discuss the amendment in greater detail, that will be really helpful and will save me having to go through a very complex explanation. I beg to move.
Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab)
My Lords, in the spirit of comradeship and friendship with the Liberal Democrats, we are very happy to support that request.
The Lord Bishop of Durham
My Lords, I support Amendment 51 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Best. I am speaking partly on behalf of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Rochester, who spoke on this matter in Committee.
Prior to being the Bishop of Durham I was the Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham, and I had the privilege of working closely with Framework, which provides much supported housing across Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Lincolnshire and South Yorkshire. Andrew Redfern is its incredibly impressive chief executive, and I quote him:
“We house more than 1,200 of the most vulnerable people in the communities we serve. They include rough sleepers, people with mental health, drug and alcohol problems, care leavers, young mothers and people with multiple and complex needs”.
He goes on to say:
“The exemption of specified accommodation from the 1% rent cut will offer some breathing space—a fighting chance to save what has survived the various rounds of local authority de-commissioning. If specified accommodation is not exempted, we will lose about half of our current provision over the next four years. Homelessness and rough sleeping will continue to increase”.
I am delighted to hear that the Minister has proposals that will be good news to Framework and many other providers, and I look forward to conveying it to them.
Baroness Manzoor
My Lords, I, too, very much welcome the letter that the Minister sent to all noble Lords earlier today. As I said in Committee, it is vital that supported housing and specified housing are looked at very carefully because this would have had an adverse impact on them. I hope that during this period while evaluation takes place, as the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, argued, so that there is some comfort for the future as to what happens within this type of accommodation. It is the very basic bare necessity for people who need it, and we have already discussed the people who need to use not only the accommodation but the services that are provided by these types of organisations.
In my haste to withdraw Amendment 46C, I did not thank the Minister for saying that he would meet me and the Child Poverty Action Group. I thank him very much for that.
Welfare Reform and Work Bill
Baroness Manzoor Excerpts(8 years, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 40, in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Drake, and to support the other amendments in this group in the name of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth, to which I have added my name. I thank him for introducing this group of amendments with what we are coming to see as characteristic clarity and compassion.
I shall say a word first about the two-child policy, which I regard as a regressive piece of social policy. In Committee, we found it hard to get Ministers to put up any kind of cogent argument for the policy as a whole, so why is it being done? Whatever one may hear behind the scenes, this is not about the small number of unemployed parents with lots of children. They would already have been caught by the benefit cap, which we now know would hit a couple with two children living in a modest house in Leeds or Plymouth. This is about a family with three children who are working but struggling anyway. It is about all those who had children confident that they could provide for them until, as the right reverend Prelate pointed out, something went wrong. Perhaps their spouse died, they got sick and could not work, a parent lost their job and so on. Those are all the things that the welfare state is meant to protect against. The nearest we got to a case was in the impact assessment, which states that it is about,
“ensuring those on benefits face the same financial choices around the number of children they can afford as those supporting themselves through work”.
So it is about choice, and my suggestion is that we should use that as a yardstick by which we test these amendments.
Let us take first disabled children. Parents may have felt that they could manage a third child, but then they find that the child is born, or becomes, severely disabled. The disabled child element of tax credits will still be paid, but it does not begin to cover the extra costs. The charity Contact a Family states that it costs three times as much to raise a disabled child as one who is not. It is also much harder for the parents of a disabled child to raise their income through working, because it is difficult to find suitable childcare and more expensive if you can. Did the parents really make a choice to be in that situation?
What about the situation, described so powerfully by the right reverend Prelate, where a family is happily married or settled and the very worst happens, in that one of the parents dies? He described clearly what would happen to that family. As well as the trauma, the finances are going to get worse, especially if the deceased parent had been the main earner. This is almost a classic example of a family that probably did not need benefits or tax credits before, but suddenly finds that it is catapulted into a position where it needs to rely on the welfare state. This is exactly the kind of thing that the welfare state is meant to protect families against. Where was the choice there?
The right reverend Prelate mentioned stepfamilies. Perhaps it is not so dramatic, but what if the relationship breaks up? If the children deserved support when they were living apart, why do they stop deserving it because they are living in the same house?
Then there are the people who literally did not make a choice at all—cases of domestic abuse. Sadly, a child may have been conceived under duress rather than as a clear choice. Abuse can include the refusal to allow a woman to use contraception. It can include pregnancy as the result of rape, which may never have been reported to the authorities because of fear of the partner. Moreover, the fear must be there that the two-child limit will make it harder for a parent to leave an abusive relationship. Too often, they end up fleeing in the clothes they are standing up in. They are homeless and they have to hide from the former spouse, which means moving to a new area, away from jobs, schools and families. It is tough enough anyway to rebuild a life without added financial pressures.
On the subject of rape more generally, I hope that the Minister is now able to explain how the proposed exemption for women who have been raped will work. I hope that he can address the questions I asked in Committee. Will the exemption apply only when a woman has made a complaint to the police, or when someone has been charged or convicted? If not, will she have to give evidence to the DWP, to whom and what kind of evidence, and can the Minister assure us that this process will remain confidential?
We come now to the subject of my Amendment 40, which would exempt children who enter a household as the result of adoption, kinship care or private fostering. I hope very much that the Minister can accept this amendment, as the arguments are completely compelling. Children raised by kinship carers are typically unable to live with their parents because of parental abuse or neglect, perhaps due to alcohol or drug problems, or because the parents are in prison or indeed have died. A grandparent, and sometimes an aunt or a sibling, will then step in and take the children in, often in a case of emergency. There is clear evidence that children in kinship care settings do better than those in unrelated care, even though they have often had similarly adverse experiences in early life.
But kinship carers pay a huge price for their kindness. They face significant additional costs when their family size increases, and sometimes it can double in size overnight. A Family Rights Group survey found that almost half of kinship carers had to give up work permanently to take on the children, thus pushing them into reliance on benefits. The state should not be putting financial barriers in the way of families willing to take on often vulnerable children. It also makes no financial sense. The average child tax credit claimed by families with three or more children is £3,670 a year; it costs £40,000 a year to keep one child in foster care.
A similar argument applies to adoption, particularly of sibling groups. It is the Government’s policy, and I welcome it, to increase the number of children being placed for adoption and to remove any unnecessary barriers to the speed of the process, but this measure will directly undermine that policy objective. Adoptive parents often already have a child or children, so there is a clear disincentive to adopt if it would mean that they would not get payments for each child, and a particular disincentive to adopt sibling groups. There is already a shortage of parents who are willing to take on sibling groups, and this will only make that situation worse. If it delays adoptions, that becomes a vicious cycle. Children grow older and it is harder to place them, and therefore it is even less likely that they will be adopted at all. The only alternative is to break up sibling groups, which damages the children because that is often the only remaining bond they have. I hope that the Minister will consider this carefully.
If we judge the Government by their own yardstick, have they passed or have they failed? Have the families we have described today, who are covered in the amendments tabled by the right reverend Prelate and myself, been reckless in having children or taking on additional children without understanding the consequences? I do not think they have. Even if we accept the premise behind the two-child policy—and I confess that I do not—the Government’s own rationale simply does not work. These amendments make absolute sense both financially and in terms of the Government’s policies, and above all they are right for the people affected.
Baroness Manzoor (LD)
My Lords, we on these Benches have added our name to Amendments 36 to 38. We also support Amendment 40. The amendment is similar to the one that we put down in Committee when it was debated at great length. Noble Lords will be pleased to know that I do not intend to rehearse that contribution again today. Excellent reasons have already been given by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth and the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, as to why exceptions should be made to the two-child limit on receipt of tax credits and the child element of universal credit.
I want to pose a few questions. For those who did not sit through Committee stage, I will read out the exemptions we seek. Under Amendment 38, we seek an exemption if,
“the claimant responsible for children in the household is a single claimant as a result of being bereaved of their partner”—
I ask the Government, where is the choice in that?—
“the claimant has fled their previous partner as a result of domestic abuse”—
where is the choice in that?—
“the child or qualifying young person has a disability”—
where is the choice in that?—
“the child or qualifying young person is in the household as a result of a kinship care arrangement, private fostering arrangement, or adoption”—
where is the choice in that?—
“or … the claimant was previously entitled to an award for the child or qualifying young person and has re-partnered creating a household with more than two children”.
Of course, there is a little bit of choice in that. It is love, which we can believe in or not, but sometimes we do not choose who we want to partner.
Effectively, these circumstances are beyond the control of the claimants. This amendment attempts to demonstrate that the first responsibility is to the child. It must be so, otherwise what kind of society are we really creating? I was, and I remain, particularly concerned that, despite the Government’s laudable commitment to exclude women who have had a child as a result of rape from the two-child limit policy, the Minister did not explain to my satisfaction how this exemption would operate. I will not go into that debate again. It is such a sensitive area. Perhaps he will explain today. Should this amendment be voted on, we on these Benches will wholeheartedly support it.
Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)
My Lords, I have not taken part in the debate on this Bill before but I was chairman of the Select Committee on adoption. I have been very concerned by the Government’s concerns, which I share, that not sufficient children have been adopted. This is a current problem. We need more adopters. It seems utterly astonishing to have a situation where those who are prepared to take children out of care or take, perhaps, members of the family whom they then adopt when they already have children, will be penalised for doing something that is entirely in line with what the Government have said in their adoption policies.
It seems to me quite extraordinary that the Government do not exclude adoption and kinship care. The noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, has set it out very much better than I could and in greater detail, so I do not want to reflect on it. As she said, it is very expensive to keep children in care. There are practical financial reasons for the Government to look at kinship care and at adoption. They use the Bill as an opportunity to deprive these families of a comparatively small amount of money, put against the cost to the taxpayer of keeping in care children who could otherwise be living in a family of which they are truly members. That is why I support Amendment 40 in particular, and Amendment 38.
Baroness Manzoor
My Lords, I have added my name to Amendments 41 and 44. I have listened very carefully to what the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, has said and will try to give some answer to the question that I think he is putting forward, which I fundamentally disagree with.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Low, the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, and others for the very good report they undertook. I read it with great interest. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Low, for making a very comprehensive statement regarding these two amendments.
I do not want to spend too much time on this because we have, as the noble Lord, Lord Low, said, already discussed it for over two hours in Committee. However, I want to say a number of things. I was very disappointed to see the BBC news over the weekend state that government sources had said that people who were concerned about the cuts to ESA and the WRAG were “scaremongering”. This really is not the case. The facts speak for themselves. As I said, we had an extensive debate in Committee, which highlighted the research that has been done and the impact that these cuts would have. I do not want to repeat that research, but it is there. This is not scaremongering.
We on these Benches are opposed to the ESA and WRAG cuts, which will affect people when they are at their most vulnerable—when they are sick. These are people who have been independently assessed by government-appointed assessors—not by their own GPs who they have perhaps had a lifetime relationship with, but by independent assessors—as having limited capacity for work or as being able to return to some form of work in the future. As has already been outlined, over 50% of people in this group have mental health problems and it includes people with disabilities, people with progressive diseases, such as MS and Parkinson’s, and people who may be undergoing cancer treatments.
It is interesting to note that the Government have enshrined in law that there is to be parity between acute services and mental health services in the Department of Health, which is laudable. However, another department—the DWP—is penalising people with mental health problems on ESA and WRAG by cutting their benefit as though this will improve their health and will make them better sooner. That is not true, and there is no research which demonstrates it. The Department of Health and the DWP should at least try to have a dialogue to complement respective government policies. If there was more joined-up thinking between departments the taxpayer could save significant sums of money. There is no evidence that cutting £30 a week from the benefit to that of a jobseeker’s allowance will improve these claimants’ ability and fitness to work. Indeed, it may have the opposite effect.
On the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, it is unthinkable that we should put it in the Bill that these benefits should be cut from ESA and WRAG without reviews and without putting into place some of the things that noble Lords have suggested. We and the Government could do those reviews first and then implement a policy. To implement a policy that will have such dire effects first, and then consider that, whatever falls out of it, something will happen, is not right or fair. The Government have to undertake research, think about the policy, consider its impact and then implement it in a fair and considered way.
The Government should strengthen the support that is given to ESA and WRAG claimants by ensuring that specialist advice and support is available to these people. Work coaches should also be given the appropriate training to understand and meet the needs of these claimants.
I look at this issue through the prism of work. The Government must also tackle the thorny issue of employer discrimination—which, although against the law, still exists, sadly, in places—and identify exactly what kind of support they will give to employers to enable them to employ more people with disabilities.
Clauses 13 and 14 should be removed from the Bill. They have no place in a caring and compassionate society.
Baroness Meacher (CB)
My Lords, I support the proposal to leave out Clauses 13 and 14. I was disappointed in the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley. Of course, we all want people to be able to return to work, and employment is incredibly helpful if people are well enough to take it on. On the idea that, somehow, if we are not in favour of cutting these benefits we are content that people should remain out of work for an indefinite period unnecessarily, the crucial point is: can these people return to work, is it reasonable, and will these cuts facilitate that return to work or drive people further from the labour market? That is issue and we have all the evidence we need to raise serious questions about it.
I want to avoid repeating the arguments so ably put by my noble friend Lord Low but to endorse the view that these clauses will not achieve the Government’s objective of increasing the numbers of sick and disabled people moving into and remaining in jobs. It is remaining in a job which is absolutely crucial, because there is no point in getting a job for two weeks and then finding that you are so ill you have to drop out. Then, you will spend months trying to restore the benefits you have been receiving. In fact, it is a very dangerous thing for most people on benefits to take a job, which is one of the big issues the Government need to tackle. Until people feel freer to move in and out of work, we will not achieve the results we want. I know that that is the aim of universal credit and I applaud the objective. The reduction of £30 a week in the incomes of these vulnerable groups will undoubtedly cause the most incredible misery and hardship for a lot of already very vulnerable people.
I want to avoid duplicating the comments of other speakers and rather to draw the Minister’s attention to the four key points made by the Royal College of Psychiatrists about Clauses 13 and 14 and the cuts. First, as others have mentioned, more than 50% of people affected by this cut will be suffering from mental and behavioural disorders. These people find it particularly hard to get into work and, indeed, to maintain a job for reasons that have nothing to do with their benefits but more to do with fears about employers, health problems, travel problems and so on. Secondly, a survey by the Disability Rights Coalition found that almost seven in 10 disabled people say that the cuts to ESA will cause their health to suffer. To judge by my experience of some 25 years in mental health services, mentally ill people’s health will suffer most severely—if I dare say that in front of colleagues who know about other disabilities far better than I do. When faced with severe financial hardship, people with psychiatric and psychological problems will find it extremely difficult to function at all. Common sense tells us that someone with an anxiety disorder or depression will find rising debts and the prospect of eviction from their home impossible to cope with. Are these people really going to be able to search for jobs effectively? Of course not.
The third point made by the Royal College of Psychiatrists reinforces this. It points out that there is no evidence that cutting the amount of benefit someone with mental health problems receives will make it more likely for them to find work. This point has been made in respect of disabled people in general, but given the sizeable number of ESA/WRAG clients with mental health problems, the view of the psychiatrists should not be ignored. Finally, and most important from the point of view of the Government, these cuts could lead to an increase in demand for NHS mental health services. According to a Rethink Mental Illness survey, 78% of respondents said they will need more support from their GP, community services or in-patient mental health services if their benefits are cut. I do not believe that these services have the capacity to deal with an influx of demand from these groups.
Macmillan Cancer Support has made the point that success in finding a job and moving off ESA is related to the quality of back-to-work support offered, the availability of jobs, and the health of the individual rather than impoverishment. Surely these realities should drive the Government’s policy. Macmillan argues that its own research proves the correlation between financial deprivation and poorer health outcomes. In the case of cancer patients, too early a return to work can be dangerous and may drive people into the support group. That is detrimental to them and, of course, to the taxpayer.
The third group I want to mention briefly is the 8,000 ESA/WRAG claimants with progressive and incurable conditions including Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis and motor neurone disease, as already mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Manzoor. Does the Minister believe that anyone currently unfit for work due to Parkinson’s or motor neurone disease will become fit for work in the near future—or ever? These illnesses are relentlessly, tragically and depressingly progressive. Does not the Minister regard it as quite immoral—I do not often use that word but I feel I need to in this context—to treat such clients in the same way as young, fit people looking for work? I would be grateful for his views on this point.
In conclusion, I find Clauses 13 and 14 immoral in certain respects, as well as counterproductive even in achieving the Government’s own objectives of cutting the costs of sick and disabled people to the taxpayer through driving them back into work.
Baroness Manzoor
My Lords, I support the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, on this amendment. Once again, we had a very good debate in Committee, and, in her usual fashion, the noble Baroness has laid out a very comprehensive argument with which I concur absolutely. I can therefore add very little to that argument except to press the Minister again to say why the well-being of children is not being factored in when it already has been. For noble Lords who were not in the Chamber earlier, I will read what the amendment says. This is all is says—which is why I have difficulty in understanding why it cannot be in the Bill. The amendment states:
“In preparing a claimant commitment for a claimant, the Secretary of State shall have regard (so far as is practicable) to its impact on the wellbeing of any child who may be affected by it”.
What is so wrong with that?
The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, I will briefly support this amendment. Before doing so, however, I have not had an opportunity to thank the noble Lord, the Minister’s colleague, for the assurance and commitment that adoptive parents, kinship carers and others will be kept out of the two-parent limit. I was very grateful to hear that from him.
The amendment, which I support, brings to mind two questions. If a child has had, for instance, pneumonia, and subsequently gets ill on a regular basis, what mechanism is in place to allow for the fact that the child has been and continues to be unwell on a periodic basis, which will allow the parent to give the child the care they need to recover fully from this issue?
The other question—perhaps I am stretching a little—is with regard to dealing with mental health. There has been a great deal of concern about perinatal mental health, and clearly this is an opportunity to spot perinatal mental ill health, including post-natal depression, and to do something about it. I may have missed other debates during the course of the Bill—perhaps the Minister can refer me to them or just drop me a line—but I know that information about the health of welfare claimants cannot be shared with the health service directly. Are the Government thinking of doing what they do in police stations, which is to station a mental health professional in the jobcentre itself so that they can help spot any issues of this kind and ensure that the parent and child get the support they need to deal with that?
Baroness Manzoor
“Universal Credit (Work Allowance)
The Universal Credit (Work Allowance) Amendment Regulations 2015 are repealed.”
Baroness Manzoor
My Lords, I have tabled this new clause because I think it is fundamentally important. Noble Lords will recollect that Members of all parties and none were pleased when the Chancellor dropped his plans to cut tax credits. That happened only because of the pressure put upon him by this House.
I have put down this amendment because the universal credit changes are identical to the tax credit changes, so the arguments are almost identical. Although the universal credit changes come in later and will affect the flow, not the stock, of claimants, they will have exactly the same effect as the tax credit cuts. This impact has been confirmed both in the Red Book and by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which says that the tax credit cuts will, in the long run, make no difference, as the cuts to universal credit will affect the very same people. On average, low-income working people will lose £1,000—again echoing the tax credit cuts.
Baroness Manzoor
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response, which was very considered. I also thank my noble friends Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope and Lord Oates for supporting me on this amendment. I understand clearly the argument that the Front Bench has put forward and I get the argument because, like the Minister and the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, I am very interested in evidence-based decision-making. As a relative newcomer to this House, I sometimes think that we put the cart before the horse, as we saw earlier on when the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, spoke in relation to another amendment—let us do something and then see what the effects are afterwards. But we are talking about real people with real lives, not just figures to be moved around in the budget. These cuts will have an impact on those people’s lives.
I said earlier at Second Reading, a long time ago it seems, that we on these Benches are looking at the Welfare Reform and Work Bill through the prism of work; that is what is really important to us. It is about getting more and more people off benefits and into long-term, sustainable, well-paid work—that is the purpose of this. I do not feel that, as it currently stands, this will be achieved. I have articulated not my figures, but figures from respected bodies, which have indicated what the impact of this cut to universal credit work allowance will be.
I say, again, to all noble Lords on all sides of the House, this amendment is different. It is not like the amendment on tax credits, where there was an issue about constitutional matters—though I took wide advice before I put down my fatal amendment and noble Lords will know that I did not speak in the debate that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde had; I have immense respect for him—this is something that will affect people’s lives. As I said, 2.6 million individuals are going to be affected. We cannot have this inconsistency in our approach. I passionately believe in consistency and I passionately believe in equality and fairness and this will not allow that to happen. We will see two sets of people who are in very similar or indeed identical circumstances being paid different rates of benefit. That cannot be right. I really do not want to be seen as a rebel in this House, as somebody has called me; that is certainly not my intention. But, for me, this is the principle of the matter and it is on that basis that I beg leave to test the opinion of the House.
Welfare Reform and Work Bill
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Baroness Afshar (CB)
My Lords, I support the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher. In the case of minorities, mental disability is regarded as a dishonour or as a great failure for the family, and only within the formal context of education, and at early stages, is it possible to intervene. Furthermore, because the intervention adjusts a young person to the requirements of the British community, with which the minority communities are not very familiar, it is essential to bring in these potential talents by catching them early and helping them.
Baroness Manzoor (LD)
My Lords, I support the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell. I thank the Minister for meeting some of us last week to talk about why we felt that this amendment was so important. I shall outline the four key themes from my perspective. I agree that we need consistency of approach, as outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Low. We need to monitor and evaluate progress on the target. This is the Government’s target and it is laudable and very welcome. However, do they really not want to measure it and evaluate improvement? One could perhaps think that the Government do not want to measure progress towards the target, and consider that it is easier to pick off low-hanging fruit than to assess the great variations in disability and tackle those, so that more people enter employment. As has already been said, this measure is not costly and will certainly help to identify the support that employers need to help people with disabilities.
Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab)
My Lords, we support Amendment 1 for the reasons advanced with conviction by the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, strongly supported by the noble Lord, Lord Low, and pretty much every other Peer who has spoken in this debate so far. We heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, about the importance of proper reporting to the ability to deliver proper parliamentary scrutiny. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans raised the very important issue of the need to have data on different groups, otherwise there is a risk that targets will be achieved by dealing just with those closest to the labour market. The noble Lord, Lord Wigley, reminded us about the impact of specific, detailed reports which come before Parliament. The noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, said that we can get full employment only if we make progress on the disability employment gap. The noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, and other noble Lords, talked about the failure of the Work Programme at the moment—a running theme on these issues. I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, touched on Amendments 42 and 43. That enables me, in the absence of my colleagues, to address those and I will do so in a minute. The noble Baroness, Lady Afshar, made an important point about tackling the stigma around mental health which, sadly, still pertains in some communities.
We, too, welcome the Government’s commitment to halving the disability employment gap by 2020. We are grateful to the Minister for organising a meeting last week, together with his colleague, Justin Tomlinson MP, although the message delivered was that the amendment would be resisted by the Government. I hope there has been a change of heart in the interim. This is notwithstanding the generally encouraging noises and the promise of a White Paper. We know that the disability employment gap has stayed stubbornly persistent—the noble Lord, Lord Low, referred to it as intractable—for too long and cross-government effort will be needed to deliver on the commitment.
The reasons why we need regular reporting have also been summarised, too, by Leonard Cheshire in its briefing paper and these include, in particular, the incentive for action in that it will provide a departmental and cross-government focus on the gap. As the Minister himself has frequently opined, it is that which gets measured and reported on which gets government attention. That briefing highlighted the somewhat conflicting messages we have received from the Government. The Employment Minister in another place stated that the Government did not see the need to report on disability employment, as the measure was essential to achieving the wider commitment to full employment. However, the more enlightened Minister for Disabled People did promise that the annual report on progress to full employment would include an update on the Government’s progress towards halving the disability employment gap.
We need some clarification on this, particularly considering the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Freud, in Committee, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, referred. The thrust of those comments was that the management information which this amendment seeks has not been built into the current plans and would not represent value for money, given the timeline to just 2020. Do the Government have no ambition after that? It would also disrupt the universal credit timeline, wherever that currently stands. If the Minister rejects the amendment, but promises regular reporting, will he make it clear what that will entail and what the sources of the data will be? The amendment is seeking not just aggregated data reporting but a proper analysis of progress over a range of conditions. If we do not have clarity on this and the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, is minded to test the opinion of the House, we will support her.
Amendment 42, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, seeks, as we have heard, to add people with mental health problems to the list of groups which are exempt from the conditionality element of back-to-work support schemes. We have received a very helpful briefing from Mind which covers this and other issues. It is suggested that conditionality, with its threat of sanctions, has a negative impact on people with mental health problems, that it undermines the relationship between claimant and adviser, removes choice and control, and has no evidence to support it working for people with mental health problems. It seems to us that this is fundamentally about having the right sort of support for people with mental health problems. Mind and others point out that the mainstream back-to-work support is currently often generic, as we have heard today, untailored and does not address the barriers to work which disabled people face. The lack of specialist support is undermining the opportunities for individuals to access work. This is a constant complaint from those who engage with these issues, so perhaps the Minister will tell us how he is to address this in the context of halving the disability employment gap.
Amendment 43, in the name of my noble friend Lord Layard, refers us back to psychological therapies, as we have heard. I am grateful for the interventions of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, so that we can at least debate this a little today. On the matter of drafting, we need to reflect on the reference to “primary medical condition” given that entitlement to the WRAG is determined by a range of descriptors which can be for physical or mental health factors. Drafting aside, my noble friend's objective is to encourage and assist those with a mental health or behavioural disorder to access assessment and, if appropriate, treatment. This is an objective which we wholeheartedly support.
My noble friend Lord Layard has previously made a powerful case in identifying that nearly a million people are on ESA due to depression or anxiety disorders but that only about half are getting treatment. We have heard that improving access to psychological therapies can make a real difference, as the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, confirmed. The pilots that took place were 10 years ago. My noble friend has previously explained that around half of those treated under the programme last year recovered during treatment. Such results could obviously assist the path for people back to work and we know of the evidence that work—good work—is good for people’s health. His amendment does not mandate anyone for treatment—we have been down that path before—neither is it instructing the NHS to treat in a specific way a group of individuals. But it requires that those with a mental health problem be encouraged and assisted to be referred for assessment and treatment. There is no conditionality attached and no suggestion that such individuals should somehow jump the queue.
If assessment and treatment is key to making individuals well and helping them move closer to the labour market, is that not exactly what the system should be about? This of course begs the question of what the process should be. I hope that the Minister will accept the thrust of this amendment and follow up with my noble friend and others who have been engaged in the past. We used to have mental health champions in Jobcentre Plus; perhaps the Minister could tell us what has happened to this role.
I finish where I started: fundamentally, we are very happy to support Amendment 1, which is very important, and to help the noble Baroness test the opinion of the House if that is her decision.
Welfare Reform and Work Bill
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The Earl of Listowel (CB)
I support these amendments. I too am most grateful to the Prime Minister for his recent announcements on maternal depression during and after pregnancy. I attended the launch last year of the Maternal Mental Health Alliance report on maternal depression and other mental ill-health issues. It found that the nation loses about £1 billion a year through maternal perinatal mental ill health. The main cost is incurred because the relationship between mother and child is impoverished by the mother’s mental ill health. I therefore strongly support the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Ramsbotham, and I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Baroness Manzoor (LD)
I too support the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, particularly Amendment 4. I tabled an amendment in Committee on reporting on attainment at key stage 1. I felt that was imperative, because that is the age at which early measurement of children, when they are going to school, can take place. I do not want to say any more now, because we had a very full debate in Committee; I just want to lend my support to these amendments. As an ex-health visitor—that was many years ago, I hasten to add—I recognise the importance of the health and well-being of both mothers and children. Measuring those factors in children at the age of five is imperative, rather than leaving the measurement of educational attainment, as the Bill now does, until the age of 16. We on these Benches therefore support the amendment.
Baroness Hollins (CB)
My Lords, I will speak briefly to Amendments 5 and 6. I remind noble Lords that the terms of reference of the health and well-being boards, established through the Health and Social Care Act 2012, require them to report on local efforts in reducing health inequalities and improving the well-being of their population, so it should not be too difficult to find a way to report on health and well-being, as suggested by my noble friend. On Amendment 3, the evidence is enormous that the nutritional status of women both before and during pregnancy can have an important influence on foetal, infant and maternal health outcomes. I remind noble Lords of the enormous parliamentary and public interest in the manifesto The 1001 Critical Days and the work that goes on in thinking about the first two years from conception to age two, and how nutrition is such a key part of improving the life chances of children and young people.
Baroness Manzoor
My Lords, I get what the Minister is trying to say but unless there is a comparator at key stage 1, by key stage 4 it will be too late—the children will be 16 years old. If the Government really are to assess the development of children from the ages of five to 16, there is a need for that assessment to start at key stage 1. If there is an issue, they can be given support much sooner so that they have much better outcomes at 16. That will not happen if we do not have information from key stage 1.
Lord Freud
As the noble Baroness knows, we have a lot of information about how pupils progress. The point is that it is necessary to have something that absorbs all that rather than having detailed measures at each point. The earlier processes have to be right to attain the achievements at the key target date. I have spoken in this House before about “targetitis”. If you give hospitals 220 different targets, for instance, which is what happened a decade ago, nobody knows what on earth they are looking at, whereas if you focus on the two things that really matter and not on the culmination of a lot of measures, you drive coherent behaviour through the targets that are set, and that is exactly what this strategy does.
I have already made the House aware that the measures that we have include key stages 1 and 2. Annual reporting at different stages of primary schooling already provides significant detail of the progress and attainment of disadvantaged pupils. Monitoring personal development in the way that the noble Lord suggests—
Baroness Hollis of Heigham (Lab)
My Lords, I very much support the amendment of my noble friend Lady Lister, which was supported so ably by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood. I will be puzzled if the Government propose to resist the thrust of this amendment. The Government know perfectly well that, although the incidence or percentage of poverty among workless families is high, and higher than that among working families because the number of working families is so much greater than the number of workless families, as has been mentioned already, two-thirds of children who are in poverty live in a family where an adult is in work. Part of that might be that the parent, if a lone parent, has restricted hours, but we know that, with insecure contracts and the minimum wage and so on, the key lever to get that family out of poverty is not just to get the single adult into work but, where there are two adults, to get the second adult into work as well. We know that that is a function of the age of the youngest child and the size of the family. Child poverty might well be for a temporary period until the second earner—let us say, for this purpose, the mother—is able to go back into the labour market along with her husband or partner in order to amplify the family income. The need to support those children may be a temporary issue.
Given that the Minister today has put so much weight on the strain being carried by the new minimum wage and given that he will want to know, as we will all want to know, the interaction of that with the benefit bill, and the extent to which, therefore, that helps to address the levers of child poverty, above all of which is getting the second earner into part-time work, I do not understand why he would not want to track the information that my noble friend has called for. We all support the Government’s move to increase the national minimum wage. If he is right, this hopefully will have repercussions that we would all accept and support for the benefits system. But do we need to do more than that? We do not know. It may be about the size of sibling groups or the need for a second earner. We need to know what levers to pull. Unless the Government track that information, we will not know. I am sure that the Minister does want to know, so I hope that he will think very carefully about this amendment.
Baroness Manzoor
We totally support this amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister. I also totally agree with my noble friend Lord Kirkwood, who has amply identified the arguments as to why it should be supported. The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, rightly said that we need levers. If we do not have such levers, how are we to address the issues about people who work, those who are not in work and in-work benefits? We will talk about the universal work allowances and the implications and ramifications of that. I hope that the Minister is listening very carefully. If the amendment is called to a vote, we on these Benches will support it.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Lister for tabling this amendment and for introducing it so well. In Committee, she made a very compelling case and I share her view that the Minister’s response was more than usually unpersuasive. In fact, she may have identified the reason for that and may be on to something. It is not as though we lack evidence. We have heard that two-thirds of children in poor households have a parent in work. I think we all accept that the risk of poverty is lower in families where parents are working and that the risk rises as the hours worked do not. But that does not change the fact that today large numbers of children are in poverty even though their parents are in work.
My noble friend Lady Lister and I clearly had the same weekend reading. How sad am I? I, too, dug out the State of the Nation 2015 report from the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission and the original evidence command paper from 2014. The commission put it really clearly. It states that,
“today 1.5 million children are in poverty because their working parents do not earn enough to secure a basic standard of living and the risk of absolute poverty for working families after housing costs has increased over the last decade”.
We clearly have a problem. In their command paper, from which my noble friend Lady Lister quoted, the Government analysed what drove how long a child stayed in poverty. They state:
“The main factor is lack of sufficient income from parental employment … this is not just about worklessness, but also about working insufficient hours and/or low pay”.
They did not mention something which was picked up by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood—namely, that another crucial determinant is the nature and level of in-work benefits and the way in which they apply. But the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission did raise that. In its 2015 report, it commented:
“Many families will find it very difficult to increase their earnings enough to make good the cuts in state support even if they benefit from the welcome introduction of the National Living Wage … we recommend that the Government should, as the public finances improve, revitalise employment incentives in Universal Credit”.
However, as we know, things are going in the opposite direction. The Government have done real damage to work incentives—the very thing that UC was designed to tackle—by cutting work allowances. In this Bill, they are cutting the value of the main in-work benefits through the benefits freeze. They are abolishing the family premium in universal credit for all families and significantly cutting child tax credit for families with more than two children, both of which will hit working families with kids. On Saturday, the Times reported that cost-cutting means that 240,000 families will be denied the free childcare promised to them in the Conservative manifesto.
In Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Freud, argued strongly against targets on relative poverty because he believes that they drive government decisions on allocation of resources and he does not like the way they do it. He got his way on that, if not on measurement. But the information should at least be recorded. The risk of failing to measure and to discuss the trends in in-work poverty is that the Government will not do anything about it because it somehow legitimises the idea that poverty is not about money but about worklessness, as though, by definition, children with working parents could not be poor. If we do not focus on that, it could distort policy-making too.
If the Government are focused only on worklessness, they could end up pursuing policies that just move children from being poor in households where they see their parents a lot to being poor in households where they do not see their parents very often because they are out working unsocial hours in order to be able to make ends meet. With all the consequent damage to family life that that does, that is not the answer. I live in hope that the Minister will accept this amendment, having been persuaded by the brilliant arguments of my noble friend Lady Lister, but just in case, unaccountably, he is not going to do that, will he tell the House one very specific thing? Does he accept that it is possible to be poor if your parents are in work and you are a kid? If so, what are the Government going to do about it?
Housing: Underoccupancy Charge
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The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)
My Lords, I am sorry to get up, but the noble Baroness, Lady Manzoor, has been trying to get in for a little while. Then we should go to the Labour Benches.
Baroness Manzoor
My Lords, it is really welcome that the Government have initiated the discretionary housing benefit allowance to offset the negative impacts that the spare room tax has on people’s health and well-being. Despite this extra subsidy, many people are affected. They are going to food banks and are in significant rent arrears. This will be compounded by the ESA WRAG component, under which many people with mental health problems and with a disability may be further affected and may lose their homes. Can the Minister say how this effect will be mitigated?
Lord Freud
I just want to point out to the House that some of the concerns that the House rightly had about the impact of this policy on what would be happening to arrears and so forth have actually not come to pass. We are looking now at rent collection levels in the social sector at 99%, and 92% of social housing associations are saying that they are within plan and that customers are managing their rent accounts well.
Welfare Reform and Work Bill
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Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, exemptions will apply to providers that demonstrate to the Government that they will face financial difficulties because of the reductions. I cannot prescribe from the Dispatch Box who those providers will be; it is for them to come forward to the Government. However, in the main we will expect providers to be able to cope with the reductions.
Baroness Manzoor (LD)
My apologies; my throat is not very good, so I hope that noble Lords can hear me. What is the Government’s view of the organisations that are currently supported and are exempt from these specifications but will not be covered by universal credit?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, there are several different types of accommodation. There is supported housing, which is a general term for housing that supports vulnerable people and covers a huge number in this sector. There is accessible housing, which is adapted or modified housing, and specified accommodation, which is accommodation used for housing benefit purposes. So there are different types of accommodation but, in terms of an exemption, it is up to a provider to come forward to the Government and say why they might face financial difficulties because of the reductions.
Baroness Manzoor
Forgive me for having to get up again; after all, we are coming to this subject on Amendments 107 and 109 so we will debate it then. However, I think there needs to be greater clarification regarding exemptions. There are currently organisations that are very vulnerable and provide housing services for some of the most vulnerable in our society to prevent people from becoming homeless, as well as those that provide refuge for domestic violence victims and so forth. I will not pre-empt the discussion that we will inevitably have, but I am looking for some reassurance from the Minister regarding whether these exemptions will continue to apply to those organisations that currently seem to be exempted. These rent reductions will have an impact because the providers will not be able to continue to provide those services, particularly to help and manage those kinds of conditions.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
Might the noble Baroness take the opportunity to clarify the distinction between exceptions and exemptions? I think she has been talking about exemptions today—exceptions are something else.
Baroness Manzoor
I add my support for the amendment. I do not have much to add to what has already been said by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, and the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, except to say that it is a very simple amendment but a very important one. It simply says:
“The Secretary of State must, within 12 months of this section coming into force, produce a plan to offset the impact of lower social rents on housing associations and local government”.
To my mind, that seems very practical, very reasonable and very fair. Surely the Government and the Minister would want to understand the impact of their policy and to have an option B. If they have an understanding of the potential impact of the reduction in social rents, the Government and others can mitigate it and put in place proposals to amend the measure. Therefore, from the perspective of these Benches, the amendment seems absolutely reasonable and sensible. If the Minister did not accept it, we would not understand why, for all the reasons that have been articulated and which I shall not repeat.
When we come to Amendments 107 and 109 we will be looking at issues around homelessness and, in particular, at the impact on the generation of young people who will not get housing benefit. A policy of having an impact assessment will clearly go a long way towards at least gaining an understanding of the people who will be affected by the reduction in social rents, and I therefore wholeheartedly support the amendment.
Baroness Blackstone
My Lords, I did not get up again and ask the Minister for a reply to the question that I put at the end of the last group of amendments about the impact of the reductions in rent on the number of houses being built and on the Government’s targets, but I shall do so now as it is extremely relevant to my noble friend’s amendment.
When Governments introduce a policy of this sort—a rather unusual policy in some respects—it is right to then try to evaluate the impact and to monitor a change of this sort. It is simply a matter of good government. Therefore, I hope that, even if the Minister does not want to accept the precise wording of my noble friend’s amendment, she will at least come back to us and say, “Yes, of course, this should be evaluated and monitored. We will do it”. Above all, I would like an answer to my question about the Government’s current position on the effects of the reduction in rent on the longer-term targets that they want to achieve for housebuilding by 2020.
Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)
My Lords, I support these two amendments, and I declare an interest as chair of the National Housing Federation.
I support so many of the arguments that have been made throughout the debates this evening. I am extremely concerned about the impact of the 1% rent reduction on housing associations and their tenants. The federation estimates that the 1% cut year on year will mean a loss of £3.85 billion in rental income over the proposed four-year period. As has already been said, the Office for Budget Responsibility has warned the Government that the result will be 43,000 fewer homes than housing associations would otherwise have been expected to build.
The irony of this is that associations want to build homes, and they will be doing their utmost to manage the cuts and to strive for the efficiencies that the Minister has already referred to, but this is presenting them with an absolutely huge hurdle. It is also ironic—and others have made this point—that the Government, too, are ambitious. Given their ambition, and the urgency of that ambition, to build 1 million more homes over exactly that same four-year period, I agree with others that this policy seems somewhat perverse.
Even more perverse is the impact of the 1% cut on the provision of social housing for the most vulnerable people referred to in these amendments, including those escaping domestic abuse, veterans, people with disabilities and the homeless. All fall under the heading, which the Minister referred to, of specified accommodation. In speaking to these amendments, I want strongly to urge the Government, even if they change nothing else, to change their mind on this issue and to exclude this highly specialised, challenging and much more cost-intensive provision from the rent reduction requirement.
The Government will know that the purpose behind these amendments has support from all corners of the House. Indeed, the letter to the Times, which many of us signed and has already been mentioned, urged just such a reprieve for supported housing. I also believe that the Government did not intend to harm vulnerable people or to increase homelessness, yet that is exactly what this policy will do, and indeed it is already doing it.
Make no mistake: if the Government are to avoid what is likely to be a catastrophe for these very vulnerable people, they need to act now. I cannot overstate the urgency because, in the next few weeks, associations will be sending out thousands of letters about rent levels from 1 April. They will need to know what the position is for supported housing. Indeed, many of them have already discussed plans for closing down these facilities—these homes—because the financial risk would be too great to sustain them. They are making these plans with heavy hearts. These homes are a fundamental part of their social mission and charitable purpose. These are the very people associations were set up to house.
The sector has spoken with one voice on this issue and the message delivered to government could not be clearer. Providers of supported housing are united in their commitment to care and support for these vulnerable groups and equally united in their concern about the impact the rent reduction will have on their ability to develop and provide housing and services for these people in the future. It is worth emphasising that, unless the Government commit to this change, there will inevitably be much greater pressure on the NHS and a rise in homelessness.
On any count, this policy does not make financial sense. If it were excluded from the rent reduction measure, as we urge, it would reduce savings on that policy overall by £93.5 million, but the Homes and Communities Agency has estimated that the provision of specialised housing for vulnerable and older people saves the public purse £640 million—more than six times more. That is real value for money.
The Government have acknowledged that the rent reduction may cause a reduction in service provision, but their proposed solution is no solution at all—neither an organisational waiver, which the Minister referred to in her response to the previous amendment, nor a partial waiver, also mooted, offers a viable solution to a sector-wide problem. Indeed, one of the issues has again been referred to: since these schemes are higher and the margins much tighter, the rent reduction may sometimes push supported housing into deficit while not pushing the whole organisation into financial deficit. They may be abandoned to sustain financial viability. That is an important point that the Government need to take into account. It would certainly be extremely expensive and time-consuming to establish. I do not see how either of these would offer providers the certainty that they need to take the financial risks involved in continuing this provision.
I have had the opportunity to talk to the Minister and I am most grateful to her for engaging with me on this issue. I, like others, very much hope that she can today commit to bringing forward an amendment to address these concerns on Report. Providers stand ready to help the Government find the right way forward, but above all we expect to see the Government commit to what they have promised: to ensure that the provisions in the Bill do not have unintended harmful, even disastrous, consequences for the care and housing of some of the most vulnerable people in our society.
Baroness Manzoor
I rise just briefly, because I am an optimist and I do not want to delay the Committee further, to say that I totally concur with Amendments 107 and 109—they are one and the same—and the issues surrounding them relating to supported housing. I commend the Government on keeping supported housing out of universal credit and other benefits when they did their calculations. To my mind this is very similar. There needs to be clarity. As I said, I am an optimist; I do not for one minute think that the Government intended for these negative consequences to occur for supported housing where it is particularly needed for young people and people who may be homeless, and where crisis housing and services are needed.
I concur with everything that has been said and will add just one last point: if an organisation is totally on its knees, it will not think about investing for the future or how to improve. If an organisation has to come cap in hand back to the Government to say, “We need to be exempted now”, that will be too late because those services will have been lost for the future. That will invariably have an adverse effect on service standards. People may well end up being homeless. We must not forget that these organisations are there because we need crisis management for these people, whether they are drug users, young people on benefits, women fleeing domestic violence and so forth. I ask the Minister to answer the questions that were put so well by the noble Lord, Lord Best, to clarify whether specific accommodation and supported accommodation will be exempt from the measures in the Bill.
Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope
My Lords, I should like to add a codicil to the debate. I hesitate to join in this interesting discussion and I have listened very carefully to what has been said. I come from Scotland. North of the border, this debate and the Government’s proposals for the housing association social rented sector in general, particularly the supported part of that important contribution to our housing capacity, are viewed with total disbelief. People north of the border would consider that this debate, while taking into consideration the economic case, omits the social ethic and commitment that housing associations and supported housing organisations bring to the provision of accommodation units in the United Kingdom. There is a separate way of looking at things, and that ethic is being put at risk by some of these policies.
We have heard the Prime Minister say that he will address poverty by addressing what he calls its root causes. Some of that is absolutely embedded in the homes of challenged families, with drug abuse and people who are recidivists and serial offenders who come out of prison, and all of that kind of thing. The housing association supported sector as it is deployed in the United Kingdom is absolutely at the centre of supplying some of the solutions that the Prime Minister is aiming for in other aspects of government policy. That includes the Work Programme and universal credit. Housing associations are playing a very engaged and positive role in the rollout of universal credit, as I have seen for myself when visiting some of them. So I am puzzled that this supported sector is being put at risk—and I think that it is being put at risk.
We have heard evidence from some very powerful people with professional understanding of this issue. The right reverend Prelate and his colleagues also have personal experience of the consequences of a failure to support, care for and supervise some of the clients who use supported accommodation. It is clear to me that there is a real and present danger that we will end up reducing the sector’s capacity to operate. To my mind that case has been absolutely made. The noble Lord, Lord Young, referred to a powerful meeting attended by people who will be affected by these changes, which he and I both attended.
How I approach this issue on Report will depend a lot on whether I can understand the Government’s position with regard to the future risk to supported accommodation but, more importantly, with regard to exemptions. If we do not know what the Government are willing to do—if anything—by way of exemptions, we will be left to our devices in coming up with amendments, which will be pressed. Speaking for myself, although I am from Scotland, if some of the issues that have been so powerfully argued this evening are put to the vote, I will have no hesitation in supporting attempts to mitigate the Government’s policy.
The approach of the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, is absolutely right. The Government have made their position clear and no one is trying to stop that happening, but mitigation is possible, constructive and available if the Government are willing to discuss and treat. The only way they can begin to help us do that is by making their policy clear this evening, as Committee ends. Then we can go away and discuss the options collectively and respectively so that we can get the best outcome in the remaining stages of the Bill. The Minister needs to make clear the Government’s position on exemptions for supported accommodation. Otherwise, we will meet her in the Lobbies on Report later in the month.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I cannot give that commitment at this stage, but as soon as we can make any progress on it we will.
Baroness Manzoor
I understand that the Minister cannot give the commitment now, but can she assure the Committee that, having reflected upon it, she will undertake to write to us to say how soon that could take place?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My noble friends Lord Freud and Lady Evans and I have already been speaking to providers and my noble friend Lord Young brought this point up. I undertake that we will continue to speak to providers, but I simply cannot make a commitment from the Dispatch Box at this stage. We are doing all that we can to work with providers.
Welfare Reform and Work Bill
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Baroness Manzoor (LD)
My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendment 104, which is fairly self-explanatory. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, who is not in his place, for adding his name to it. It relates to loans for mortgage interest.
As we have heard, from April 2018, proposals set out in Clause 16 will mean that owner occupiers in receipt of income support will receive the offer of a loan secured on their property to help them to meet their mortgage interest payments, rather than a benefit, should they need it, to stay in their home. If there is insufficient equity to repay all the loan and interest, any remaining debt will be written off.
Age UK is right to say that we need to understand more about the people who will be affected and their likely response to the new proposals. For example, will it be possible to place a charge on all types of property, including leasehold property, those in shared ownership and sheltered housing? How will the system work if people have other loans secured on the property or have already taken out an equity release plan?
The Government have already said that they will make regulations about advice to claimants before claimants take a loan. That is welcome, but can the Minister clarify who will provide the advice and who will pay for it? Will it be free to claimants, and will it be independent and impartial, with no conflicts of interest—as the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, mentioned? How will the Government ensure that they do not create perverse incentives for the provider? Will the Minister also confirm that the financial advice given to claimants will be independent of the lender?
However, the purpose of Amendment 104 is to determine at what point any outstanding loan or mortgage interest, as proposed in the Bill, is paid off. I understand that the loan will be repaid when the property is eventually sold, rather than having to be paid off when the person receiving the loan gets back into work. However, there may be a series of other debts to be paid on the house when it is sold, the most obvious being the mortgage. It is therefore important to understand in what order creditors line up—i.e., who gets paid first, second, third, et cetera—and where the new mortgage interest loans sit in that queue.
My amendment focuses specifically on where it sits in relation to any outstanding payments for social care that may need to be paid. Under the Care Act—although not yet brought into force—a person can defer payment of their social care bills to the local authority during their lifetime, with the balance being paid off through their estate after their death, i.e., primarily through the sale of their home. My amendment seeks to clarify whether loans for mortgage interest or the deferred payments are paid back first. We on these Benches strongly believe that it should be the deferred payments, as this is money for the local authority which is vital to funding future social care needs. Will that be the case?
The Government also need to show that they are committed to helping people to meet the costs of social care by not delaying the implementation of the Care Act, a Lib Dem achievement in government. My amendment states:
“The regulations must provide that where—
(a) repayment of the loan is to be made based on the proceeds of sale of the person’s home, and
(b) the person has an outstanding deferred payment agreement under section 34 of the Care Act 2014 (deferred payment agreements and loans),
the repayment of the loan may not be settled until any amounts payable to the local authority under the deferred payment agreement have been settled”.
Otherwise, of course, the money just ends up with the Treasury, with no recourse for local authorities to recoup any moneys due to them for other people who might need help and support with social care costs in the future.
Lord Curry of Kirkharle (CB)
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 104A. I very much support the intentions of this Bill, but, of course, there are inevitably special cases that would be adversely affected by a change of this magnitude. The Government have been very clear in their intentions for this change, and I commend them for that. What I seek to amend, however, is not the principle of the clause, but its application. More specifically, I seek to amend this clause so that those who are in receipt of disability living allowance, or carer’s allowance and income support, are exempt from this change so that they can continue to receive support for mortgage interest as a benefit, not as a loan.
This clause was initially brought to my attention by a friend who attends my church. This man purchased a house in 2006 and was financially stable and secure. However, two years into his mortgage, he was diagnosed with a detached retina, which rendered him blind. As a consequence, he has had to cease working. He has been entitled to support for mortgage interest, due to being in receipt of disability living allowance, and carer’s allowance, as his wife is now his carer. With the help of SMI, his mortgage would have reached completion in 2030. At this point, he planned to downsize, using the extra equity to pay off other loans accrued since he was diagnosed as blind to equip his house as a result of his disability. However, the implications of the proposed change from interest support to a loan mean that 12 years’ worth of interest and a small capital contribution will need to be repaid. If interest rates stay as they are for the whole period, my friend, on top of his mortgage, will have to pay the Government back £63,000, the sum contributed by SMI as a loan, and £15,000 for the 5% interest on the interest owed each year. As I said earlier, I am in support of the clause in principle, but strongly urge the Government to reassess and reconsider applying the changes to those who are on disability living allowance.
My friend will be for ever incapable of working, and so would never be able to repay the loan. It is not right that such a burden should be placed on him and others like him—he is not unique—who receive disability living allowance. This change could potentially result in my friend losing his house and being forced to move into government housing, which would ultimately cost the taxpayer much more. Have the Government fully assessed the long-term implications of this? Surely, a successful policy is not one that saves money in one area, only for more to be spent elsewhere.
In conclusion, I repeat that I support the aims of Clause 16, but feel that it is entirely inappropriate for those on disability allowance to be treated in the same way as those on jobseeker’s allowance. The assumption is that those on jobseeker’s allowance will eventually get a job and be able to pay their mortgage in full themselves and also to pay back the loan. Those on disability allowance, however, might never be able to pay it back if they are for ever prevented from working. On these grounds, I urge the Government to reconsider the wording of Clause 16 and allow those on disability allowance or carer’s allowance to be exempt from the changes.
Welfare Reform and Work Bill
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Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, in moving Amendment 70 in my name and that of my noble friend Lord McKenzie of Luton, I will speak in support of Amendment 71 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Manzoor.
We are supportive of the recognition by successive Governments of the need to invest intensively in co-ordinated support for families facing multiple challenges, many of whom are involved with a number of agencies. Labour began work in this area, and in 2012 the coalition Government launched the first phase of what they called the troubled families programme. The Prime Minister, David Cameron, was reported as saying that he would put “rocket boosters” under efforts to turn around the 120,000 troubled families in the wake of the riots of 2011. I declare an interest as one of the four members of the Riots Communities and Victims Panel set up by the Prime Minister in the wake of those riots.
My experience as a member of the panel really stays with me. The panel was unpersuaded that there was much overlap between the rioters and the surprisingly precise number of 120,000 families who were then the target of the troubled families programme. In a poll we conducted of 80 local authorities, only 5% felt that there was much overlap between the rioters and the troubled families. One of our concerns was how we should support the roughly 500,000 forgotten families, who would not be reached by the government programme because things were not bad enough. They were bumping along the bottom, not coping but not doing badly enough to get help.
Those families need our help. I have never felt that the challenges families face are just about money, although its absence can be and often is a significant or at least aggravating factor. I will be interested to see the evaluation of the various programmes local authorities set up under the banner and funding regime of troubled families. I welcome the proposal in Clause 3 to require the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government to report annually to Parliament on the progress of families supported by the troubled families programme. Amendment 70 would require that report to include information,
“regarding the adequacy of resources given to local authorities to fund the support provided for troubled families”.
I find it hard to work out the detail from the published financial framework so I hope the Minister can help. Can she say for the record what the longer-term funding proposals are, now that the Autumn Statement is out? Councils are being asked to design their own programmes to work with an agreed number of families, using criteria set out by central government. I understand that the original troubled families programme offered £4,000 per family. The financial framework says there will be a £1,000 attachment fee when an authority first works with a family, then an extra £800 on a payment-by-results basis depending on certain outcomes. Satisfactory outcomes are either “continuous employment” or “significant and sustained progress” over the five-year period.
I have some questions for the Minister. First, what work have the Government done with local authorities to ensure that that is an appropriate amount to incentivise them to choose the right outcomes for each family, rather than the ones that are the easiest to evidence, to make sure that they get the money that they are going to depend on to be able to run the provision? Secondly, are the Government talking to local authorities to make sure that the reporting requirements are not so onerous that they drain valuable resources or create incentives to focus on more readily documentable activity or more easily evidenced outcomes?
On the reporting point, one local authority representative said in the evidence session on the Bill in another place that the troubled families programme is addressing behaviours built up over decades or even generations. It is not,
“a 12-month, quick-fix, dip-in dip-out programme”.—[Official Report, Commons, Welfare Reform and Work Bill Committee, 10/9/15; col. 17.]
How will the Government ensure that annual reports reflect the need for longer-term interventions?
Have the Government considered the extent to which other proposals in the Bill may obstruct the success of the troubled families programme and, if so, how they might mitigate that? The reduced benefit cap and the two-child limit are likely to force some families to move in pursuit of cheaper housing. One Member of Parliament reported that 1,000 families had already moved from her inner London borough to cheaper areas. But as the cap is reduced, they could end up moving again. Losing track of families who move has been a recognised problem for social services for years and it features quite often in serious case reviews, including some very well-known and damaging child protection cases.
Having to move is worrying because after families have been given support for the first time, when they move they can simply drop out of sight. They also lose access to community support services such as preschool activities, parenting classes, health visitors or support workers in mental health. I am particularly worried about children having to move schools—I will return to this on a later group—when a lot of work could have been done to get that child and school working together and keep them in school.
The family will also lose their troubled families support worker and that is a relationship based on trust, which can take a long time to establish. On the assumption that the worker will not move to the new boundary, how can the programme ensure that the work that has been invested in that relationship of trust is not lost? That relationship between the worker and the family is not the icing on the cake; it is the cake. Louise Casey, who runs this programme, has talked movingly about the missing ingredient in these settings often being love. This is based on relationships. My concern is that a significant investment in those families, both emotional and financial—as taxpayers’ money—will be thrown away if that relationship is broken. Can the Minister tell the Committee what arrangements have been made for transferring support for families if they end up moving across boundaries, especially as a result of the Government’s own policies? I beg to move.
Baroness Manzoor (LD)
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 70 and 71. I do not want to repeat what has already been so well put by the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, concerning Clause 3 and reporting obligations. I want briefly to summarise something that the Guardian found under a freedom of information request in November 2015. That request showed that in the 120 councils that responded, only 79,000 families were turned around through a family intervention, which is meant to be an integral part of the troubled families programme. The research also found that more than 8,000 families in more than 40 local authorities had not received any kind of family intervention but had instead been turned around solely on the basis of data-matching exercises. The research found that councils might, for example, trawl through employment, youth crime and truancy data to identify a family that would have been eligible for the programme and which, without receiving any help from the troubled families programme, fulfilled the criteria for being turned around because school attendance had improved or one of the parents had found a job.
My Amendment 71 is an attempt to prevent this. It asks that a report prepared under this section must include an assessment of,
“the types of interventions provided by local authorities in the previous financial year, and … the success or failure of the types of interventions provided by local authorities in the previous financial year”.
I hope that the Minister will feel that this amendment would enable an improved assessment of the interventions provided by local authorities and will accept it because without this kind of data, we are not going to get underneath exactly which services local authorities are providing. I believe that the Government believe they must have an evidence-based approach, and this amendment will enable them to do so.
Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope (LD)
My Lords, I want to make a short intervention in support of the two excellent speeches that have been made in introducing Amendments 70 and 71. I agree with everything that has been said, and I think we need another name for this programme as “troubled families” is a terrible name for it. I do not know whether we should have a competition for it—it might be too late. However, those families are certainly more troubled for being called troubled, so we need to think carefully about this. I hope that these suggested annual reports will not just be analytical and statistical but will come up with some policy advice and dynamics about change, to make these programmes better for the future.
I have had a bit of experience of working with a troubled families programme indirectly as a non-executive director of the Wise Group in Glasgow. It had a pay-as-you-go performance contract in the north-east of England, which was very interesting. I am in favour of the multiagency approach, but it is still in its early days and needs to be developed. I hope that these annual reports will look at a snapshot year by year and look across the different experiences and the different programmes mounted by the different local authorities to try and get best practice established and shared. That would be really useful.
Baroness Manzoor
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 72 and 92 in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, and the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, which I support. As I said at Second Reading, although we on these Benches agree on the need for a cap, we do not see the logic in reducing it to £23,000 a year for households in Greater London and to £20,000 for those in the rest of the country. Nor do we see the logic behind breaking the link between average earnings and the cap, as has already been said. I agree with the Child Poverty Action Group, which states that:
“The reduction in the level of the benefit cap severs the link with median earnings, and instead is based on an arbitrary figure, leaving it unclear what the fairness test is now”.
The Government’s rationale is that the benefit cap will deliver strong work incentives. However, the real concern here is that the requirement to find housing at an affordable level may force families away from areas where there are high levels of work opportunities, such as in London, to places of high unemployment. This would undermine the ultimate aim of getting people off benefits.
Although the Government demonstrate that the existing benefit cap successfully strengthens work incentives, as evidenced by the greater proportion of those capped moving into employment as compared to those under the cap, in-depth interviews conducted by DWP itself in 2014 show that many households responded to the cap by,
“being willing to accept low-skilled, low-paid jobs, rather than pursuing further qualifications which they hoped would help them get a better job in the future”.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, has already said, the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which undertook a peer review of the DWP research, concluded that its analysis told us:
“that the large majority of affected claimants responded neither by moving into work nor by moving house”.
Forfeiting further education and training for low-skilled, low-paid jobs limits an individual’s long-term human capital and earning prospects, which lowers potential tax revenues paid to the Government and, on an aggregated level, hinders economic productivity and potential output.
Long-term reductions in welfare spending will be realised only by increasing people’s income through employment and by reducing their outgoings, primarily through improving access to affordable housing. I urge the Minister to maintain the benefit cap as currently set.
At Second Reading, I asked whether the Government intended to undertake a distribution analysis of the levels of housing benefit that the average person hit by the benefit cap would receive and where they might be able to secure suitable housing. I wonder whether the Minister is in a position to answer this question more fully on this occasion. Will he also say what impact the further lowering of the benefit cap will have on single parents and how the rights of children will be protected? This has been very clearly highlighted by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister. Gingerbread quite rightly is concerned. Lowering the benefit cap will continue disproportionately to affect single parents, of which as many as 70%—I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, quoted 69%—will have a child under the age of five. That cannot be acceptable.
Baroness Meacher (CB)
My Lords, I speak to Amendment 94—I emphasise that it is a probing amendment. I do so in the hope that we can highlight the need for a comprehensive and regular review of the impact of the totality of the benefit cuts on specific groups—who are the most vulnerable—applied during the past few years, including those in the Welfare Reform Act 2012, in more recent legislation and in this Bill. The amendment requires that in carrying out a review of the benefit cap, the Secretary of State must include an assessment of the impact of the benefit cap on disabled people, their families and carers. I for one have not fully grasped the full impact of the multitude of cuts. At the very least, I believe that the Government have a moral obligation to understand the implications of their policies for the most vulnerable citizens in this country and to make public that information. That is what this amendment is about.
The benefit cap applies even to benefits designed to compensate for the extra costs of disability or caring for disabled people, including ESA WRAG, incapacity benefit, severe disablement allowance and carer’s allowance. We know that one-third of disabled people—fully 3.7 million—live below the poverty line already. The benefit cap combined with the freezes and cuts to employment and support allowance for those in the WRAG group will see disabled people’s incomes reduced significantly again. This significant reduction is from a level which is already below the poverty line.
The Government argue that the new lower, tiered cap has been designed to strengthen the work incentives for those on benefits. When I met the Minister from the other place, he said, “The whole point of this is to encourage people to work for more hours”. I find that so cynical, when most of these people simply cannot work more hours for a range of reasons. However, as we have argued previously in Committee, the Government have provided no evidence to back up the claim that cutting benefits that disabled people receive will incentivise them to work. As I have already indicated, the Government’s reference to an OECD study failed to point out that the study did not even refer to disability throughout, and rightly so—of course, people who are disabled are in an entirely different position from those who are healthy and able bodied. We have evidence that reducing disabled people’s incomes will make it harder and not easier for them to move into work.
In addition, the impact assessment provides no detail on the impact of lowering the cap on disabled people who are in receipt of DLA/PIP—those who are severely disabled and cannot do much about their situation. This amendment has no financial consequences. I hope that the Minister will take this matter away with a view to bringing back a government amendment on Report.
I support Amendment 93 tabled in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, and the noble Earl, Lord Listowel. The case for the amendment has been eloquently spelt out and, fortunately, I do not need to add to that. I hope that the Minister will assure the Committee that this crucial issue will be dealt with on Report.