Welfare Reform Bill

Baroness Primarolo Excerpts

Wednesday 9th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Teresa Pearce (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)]

All Members agree that the welfare system needs reform, and I welcome attempts to simplify the benefits system and make work pay. We need a welfare system that helps those who can work to do so, by supporting people into good, well-paid, meaningful work, and properly supports those who cannot work. However, I have serious doubts about the Bill’s effectiveness, and I am worried about the impact that some of its provisions will have on vulnerable people in my constituency.

I shall first raise some concerns that I have about how the Bill has been drafted and presented. Almost all the charities and organisations that I have been in touch with have raised legitimate concerns about the speed of the legislation and particularly the lack of detail. There is a heavy reliance on regulations and secondary legislation that makes it difficult for Members and others to scrutinise how the welfare reform agenda will work in practice. Clause 11 on housing costs, for example, is only 30 lines long. There is little detail or analysis of how child care costs, free school meals and council tax benefit will be covered under universal credit.

One of the most concerning aspects of the Bill is that some of its provisions are still under consultation. For example, clauses 69 to 72 propose the abolition of the social fund, yet the Department for Work and Pensions consultation on its proposed replacement is still open and does not close until 15 April. Abolishing the central fund and handing the emergency money to local authorities without ring-fencing is likely to create a postcode lottery. It is not right that this provision is included when we do not know its full impact and people have not had a chance to submit their views. I strongly urge the Secretary of State to withdraw any clauses on which consultation is still open.

One of the reforms in the Bill that will affect my constituency most is the changes to housing benefit. Capping local housing allowance rates and setting them at the 30th percentile of local rents rather than the median from April will create affordability problems. Many people will see a shortfall between their benefit and their rent. Plans to introduce regulations to uprate LHA rates based on the consumer prices index will make the problem worse. The DWP’s own impact assessment states that CPI is expected to rise by 2% each year, but rental costs will rise by 4%. This will break the link between housing benefits and actual rent costs, and means that many families will struggle.

The change will push many LHA claimants in London further out to areas like my constituency, Erith and Thamesmead, which has some of the cheapest housing in Greater London. This will place a great strain on our already overstretched housing and local services. The other possibility is that people will simply be unable to find any affordable accommodation, and will be at risk of debt and homelessness. Everyone should be entitled to a secure home. I urge the Secretary of State to think again.

Another of my concerns about is the proposal in clause 111 to apply a £50 civil penalty for claimant error. The proposal will affect the most vulnerable claimants—those who have difficulty filling out forms, those whose first language is not English and whose literacy skills are poor—and people who inadvertently miss out information. More importantly, it appears to link error with fraud, something that Ministers have done far too often recently and this afternoon, the most obvious case being the Chancellor’s announcement in the comprehensive spending review statement that over £5 billion was lost to benefit fraud. As we heard today from the hon. Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore), the figure is £1.5 billion. The DWP’s latest central estimates of total fraud and error across the Department shows that roughly the same amount of money was lost in claimant error as through official error by the Department, but we do not talk about departmental fraud. I urge the Secretary of State to reconsider the proposal to introduce a £50 civil penalty for claimant error, as well as the heavy sanctions in other clauses.

I was pleased that the Secretary of State decided not to proceed with plans to impose a 10% housing benefit cut on anyone who had been out of work for a year. That sanction did not make sense, and similar provisions in the Bill need to be reconsidered. A sanction-led approach does not make sense when we are facing huge public sector redundancies, a knock-on effect in the private sector and a weak growth rate which means that jobs simply are not available. There are 2.5 million people unemployed and fewer than 500,000 vacancies in the economy. I am already receiving a significant number of letters from constituents, many of whom were recently made redundant late in their careers, who are desperate to work but cannot find employment.

I have visited local colleges, where highly motivated young people are gaining qualifications in the hope of getting an apprenticeship or a job, but they are fearful because they know that the ratio of claimants to Jobcentre Plus vacancies is 12 claimants to every three vacancies. People need help overcoming barriers to work. They need personalised support, and a Government with a growth strategy to create jobs. A sanction-based approach will only cause severe hardship for the people who need the most support and further stigmatise people on benefits, setting neighbour against neighbour. I also fear that it will mean a significant increase in child poverty rates in this country.

Finally, I dispute the assertion by the Secretary of State that the welfare state is only for the most vulnerable. It is not: it is for each and every one of us. It is in effect a national insurance system into which people pay when they do not need it so that it is there when they do. It is a system in which contributions have just gone up by 1% for everyone in employment, but all they can expect is a cut in pensions and benefits. Overall, I support the principle of universal credit, and I am in favour of simplifying the benefits system and creating work incentives, but in the context of £18 billion of welfare cuts—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order.