Grenfell Tower: Tenants

Baroness Sherlock Excerpts

Wednesday 5th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, may I unpack this a little bit? I add my welcome to the Minister; I am just sorry that her first outing in this brief is in the circumstances, but I look forward to engaging with her on other subjects.

My noble friend is trying to explain that if, as the Government have promised, they rehouse families who were living in Grenfell Tower nearby at the same rent, because they are having to rehouse a lot of people very quickly in an expensive area, there is a reasonable chance that somebody will end up in a bigger house than they would normally have. At that point, the bedroom tax will kick in and they will end up having their benefit cut.

I understand the Minister wanting to say that local authorities have discretionary funds. The only problem with that is that they are temporary and discretionary. If the family is going to move into a permanent house, they want the reassurance that they can stay there for as long as they want—as long as the kids are in school—to carry on being able to make a new home. I know that her department is trying very hard to work with these families, but will she look again at this and try to find a permanent solution?

[Baroness Buscombe]

I thank very much the noble Baroness for her question and her welcome. I absolutely understand where she is coming from. First, I make it absolutely clear that all emergency and temporary accommodation is rent free for everyone affected. The noble Baroness will know that it is very difficult for us to compel local authorities to ensure that there is no shortfall but, that said, we are doing everything in our power to ensure that that simply does not happen.

As for the benefit cap and the removal of the spare room subsidy, it is for the Department for Communities and Local Government to manage the accommodation, but we can say that those placed in temporary accommodation are not subject to the removal of the spare room subsidy. We have already relaxed the benefit rules for anyone affected by the Grenfell Tower fire, and our staff are handling people’s claims with sensitivity. All I can say is that we are doing everything that we can in our power to ensure that people will not have to suffer a shortfall if they are moved on a permanent basis into a larger property.

Bereavement Benefits

Baroness Sherlock Excerpts

Thursday 6th April 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I am aware of the letter that my noble friend refers to. My right honourable friend will answer it in due course. I can give an assurance that we have consulted on these matters—my noble friend will be aware of this because she was a part of it—legislated on them and consulted on them again. We made changes to the regulations before we introduced them and we have made a commitment in the impact assessment that there will be a further review. Nevertheless, I will convey my noble friend’s concerns to my right honourable friend, and I am sure that, his door always being open, he will be more than happy to see her.

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, I also signed the letter and was pleased to do so. There is genuine feeling around the House that the Government have made a mistake on this. What will happen in practice is that a six year-old who lost her father last year will be supported until she leaves school; if her father dies next year, that support will stop after 18 months. That cannot be right. I know that I gave the Minister a hard time a few weeks ago when the regulations were in Grand Committee, but I do not blame him; I know that he did not make the decision. I think that we are now at the point where the whole House recognises that the Government have made a mistake. These cuts were simply part of an attempt to cut £12 billion off social security. The House does not believe that the Government should be taking money away from bereaved children. Will he please tell his Secretary of State that?

[Lord Henley]

My right honourable friend will obviously listen to what the noble Baroness has had to say, but I reject her allegation that these are cuts. There will be no savings to the taxpayer in the first two years; thereafter, as was made clear in the impact assessment, there will be some savings. The important point to get over is that we have increased the initial payment, which was frozen by the previous Government in 2001 and remained frozen for many years, from £2,000 to £2,500. We then make payments for 18 months to those with children. Obviously, no element of money will resolve the problems that individuals who have lost one or other parent will have. This is designed to help with the immediate costs of that bereavement. That is why we think that, by increasing the initial payment, we have made a very real change and provided some support for those with children.

Local Authorities: Relationship Support Services

Baroness Sherlock Excerpts

Wednesday 5th April 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

I am grateful to my noble friend for that question and I can give her an assurance that we will be evaluating phase one of the programme, which has been completed, and then phase two, about which I have just given details. We aim to publish an evaluation of phase one later in the summer, whenever that might be, and in due course we will consider an evaluation of phase two.

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, I should like to return to the answer given by the Minister to my noble friend Lady Lister. Perhaps he should go back to his own paper entitled Improving Lives: Helping Workless Families, which came out yesterday. Paragraph 33 cites evidence that problem debt and financial burdens can put pressure on relationships. It attributes those issues to persistent low income and income shocks. Will he think again not only about the damage that has been done by cutting £12 billion off social security for those out of work? Also, given that this is aimed at workless families, if the DWP wants to get them back into work, why is the department persisting in cutting in-work benefits, the very things that make work pay? Before the Minister tells us more about the living wage, perhaps I may remind him of what he knows already. Most of the living wage for the poorest people goes straight back to the Treasury in taxes and lower benefits. Will the department look again at its strategy and make work pay?

[Lord Henley]

There is no need for the noble Baroness to try to answer my question because I will answer it in my own way.

Disabled People: Independent Living

Baroness Sherlock Excerpts

Thursday 30th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I understand the problems to which the right reverend Prelate refers. The department is looking at these matters. My honourable friend the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work is well aware of them. As the right reverend Prelate will know, schemes are available for one-off cash payments to help those who are losing their cars. We shall certainly look at speeding up the whole appeals process to make sure that the problems to which the right reverend Prelate referred do not get any worse.

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, to pursue this a little further, I appreciate that the Minister may be thinking about this but the point made by the right reverend Prelate is that people cannot wait. Between October and December last year, 800 people a week were having to hand back their Motability cars because they did not have the money to pay for them any more as a result of PIP reassessment. The Motability website says clearly that you get only six weeks from that decision to hand back your car. Frankly, the DWP is a long way off speeding up assessment to the point where appeals are concluded within six weeks. Will the Minister please look at this a little more urgently?

Child Support: Unpaid Maintenance

Baroness Sherlock Excerpts

Thursday 30th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, as I said, this goes back a long way. It covers Conservative Governments, Labour Governments and the coalition Government. We have all tried to sort this out. I am afraid that a lot of this money is lost for ever. We are looking at a new arrears scheme and will consult on that to try to get what we can, but I am sure the House would agree that the first priority should be to get money that can still benefit the children of today rather than trying to get the money that was owed yesterday, or the money that is owed to the department. The bulk of the money is very historic.

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, I am happy to take the Minister at his word. Let us look at today, but in doing so I declare an historic interest as a member of the board of CMEC before I came into the House. The Government are closing the CSA and if you have an active case on the CSA, instead of transferring it to the new system, it is shut down and you are invited to apply to the new system. The Government estimated that two-thirds of parents would apply to the new system. The NAO has found that only one in five is doing so. The Government have said that most of the rest would make private, family-based arrangements. More than half of families have no arrangement at all in place. This matters because it is not just important for tackling child poverty: a decent child support system sends out a message to the world at large that you might divorce your spouse or separate from your partner but you do not stop being responsible for your kids. Will the Government sort this out?

GovCoin

Baroness Sherlock Excerpts

Monday 27th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I wondered whether the noble Baroness would want to get in to highlight the fact that she produced the report that came out on Saturday. I think the report was embargoed until midnight on Friday and I have not yet had the opportunity to read it. I glanced at it but assure the noble Baroness that the Government will give it due consideration.

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, I am tempted to invite the Minister to explain how bitcoin and blockchain technology work, but I will take pity on him. For people like me, it is much simpler. I understand that volunteers were given an app through which, essentially, electronic, digital money was paid to them and they could spend it only in certain ways which were tracked and recovered. Obviously, that raises significant issues about privacy and data. My understanding is that the Government’s own report on what is called distributed ledger technology said that it clearly needs a regulatory, ethical and data framework. In the absence of that, when the DWP started this, how did its Ministers assure themselves that benefit claimants were genuinely giving free, informed consent to be able to use this? If it is now to be a much larger-scale project, what kind of parliamentary oversight and scrutiny will there be?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, as I said, we have not yet decided to move on to a fuller and larger trial, but if we did, no doubt that would have the appropriate checks and balances and be examined by the noble Baroness and others in due course. This is a simple, small-scale trial involving some 20 or 30 people. I am assured that they all gave full and proper consent to it, and that some of them found it very useful indeed. I am grateful to the noble Baroness for not asking me to explain the more technical matters, which are probably beyond her—and me. As she knows, it is a very simple app designed in the form of jam jars into which one can put one’s money and then take it out for specific tasks. As I said earlier—and the assurance I gave on this would apply to any further trials—the department and the Government will have no access to that information; that is, what has come out of the jam jars and gone into housing or whatever.

Universal Credit

Baroness Sherlock Excerpts

Thursday 9th March 2017 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Sherlock]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact on claimants of the time taken between applying for Universal Credit and receiving payments.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Henley) (Con)]

My Lords, the universal credit assessment period and payment structure is a fundamental part of its design, reducing welfare dependency by mirroring the world of work. Safeguards are in place to help the minority of claimants who are in genuine need to transition to universal credit. This includes advances and budgeting support. We continue to work closely with landlords, local authorities and other organisations to ensure claimants are supported.

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, if only it were that simple. In 2013 the Government introduced a rule that when you first claim benefit you are not entitled to any money for the first seven days. The problem is that universal credit is paid monthly in arrears so it means you get no money at all for six weeks. That does not sound very long, but the typical family in social housing has only £200 in savings and some people are in debt. Social landlords are now saying that tenants are getting into big arrears and people are turning to payday lenders and even loan sharks. Even the noble Lord, Lord Freud, recently told the Work and Pensions Select Committee that the seven-day waiting period should be dropped. Please can the Minister not be complacent about this. Will he go back to his department, look again at the evidence and please take action before anyone else is pushed into debt?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I repeat what I said in my original Answer. It is a fundamental part of the design. That argument was put forward by my noble friend Lord Freud during the passage of the Bill and was debated at great length. We recognise that this does not necessarily suit everyone. That is why I again made clear in the second part of my Answer that there are safeguards in place. We introduced universal credit advances for new claimants. Claimants can apply for an advance immediately if they are in need and can receive up to 50% of their indicative award soon afterwards. To go back to the original point, it is important to make sure that we mirror the world of work where 75% of employees are paid monthly.

Homelessness: Housing Benefit

Baroness Sherlock Excerpts

Thursday 9th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I fully accept the noble Lord’s point. That is why he will find a list in the regulations—I do not want to delay the House by reading it out in full—of some 25 different exemptions for 18 to 21 year-olds. That will be operated in the most sympathetic manner, and I do not think that anyone with a genuine reason to leave home is likely to suffer at all. I am more than happy to show the list to the noble Lord and to others—but reading it out in full would waste the House’s time.

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, there are so many reasons why young people choose not to live at home, but remarkably few of them do. If somebody is out there on their own aged 18, something else is going on. The Minister can give all the lists he wants, but people out there who have suffered from repeated bad decisions when they have applied for disability benefit or all kinds of other benefits will not trust them. Is it not the case that all the homeless charities have pointed out that the proposal is likely to increase homelessness? Even though there are young people who want to go out and rent independently, the National Landlords Association said:

“Never mind the nuances, all landlords will hear is that 18-21 year olds are no longer entitled to housing benefit … they just won’t consider them as a tenant”.


Have the Government thought about that?

[Lord Henley]

Of course the Government have thought about it. That is why we are bringing forward this measure and why we will be working with stakeholders such as the National Landlords Association and others to develop appropriate engagement for landlords to make them understand how the new rules will operate. As I said, protections have been built into this that mean that no one who has to move away from home will suffer. We think it is right that there should not be a perverse incentive that encourages people to move away from home and live on benefits at the expense of the taxpayer.

Personal Independence Payments

Baroness Sherlock Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement to the House. I want to concentrate on the judgment on the mobility component of PIP. Despite what the newspapers may have reported, the tribunal ruling does not mean that anyone with mental health problems can get the higher rate of PIP. What it does mean is that assessors cannot arbitrarily ignore all mental health problems when working out whether someone is entitled to the higher rate of PIP to deal with the higher costs that they face. Despite the Minister’s comments, MIND has pointed out that the Explanatory Memorandum for the original Act said that the higher rate was right if someone’s mobility was,

“severely limited by the person’s physical or mental condition”.

If these regulations go through, it seems that someone who is blind and needs help to plan or navigate a journey could get the higher rate of PIP but someone who, for example, has autism or early-onset dementia and could not manage to plan or navigate a journey without help would not be able to get the higher rate of PIP. My question is very simple: how does that sit with the Government’s commitment to parity of esteem between physical and mental health and to the Prime Minister’s promise to tackle the stigma associated with mental health problems?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, what the tribunal said was that there was some uncertainty in our regulations, despite the fact—I am sure the noble Baroness will remember this far better than I can, because I was not in this position at the time—that these matters were extensively debated during the passage of the Bill a year or so ago and agreed in Parliament. The tribunal said that there was uncertainty and we are trying to put that right.

The noble Baroness specifically referred to the example of people who are blind in comparison to those with psychological distress. That was a matter considered in one of the two cases that we are dealing with. Mental health conditions are more likely to fluctuate than conditions such as visual impairment or blindness, and people who cannot navigate due to a visual or cognitive impairment are more likely to have a higher level of need and therefore face higher costs. What we are seeking to do, quite simply, is amend the criteria to reinstate the distinction between those two groups, as was originally intended in the order. It is no more than that.

Bereavement Support Payment Regulations 2017

Baroness Sherlock Excerpts

Tuesday 21st February 2017 Grand Committee

[Lord Jones (Lab)]

My Lords, I am glad to follow the right reverend Prelate’s caring remarks, and my intervention will be brief. I thank the Minister for his thoughtful outline of the impact of these complicated regulations about serious matters. I note that Article 19 of the order to follow—the Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2017—refers to bereavement benefits. Can the Minister give us an estimate of the numbers of those claiming such payments in the past year? On the basis of that insight, can he estimate the number of future claimants under the new regulations?

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his explanation of these draft regulations and all noble Lords who have spoken today.

As we have heard, these regulations enact the provisions of the Pensions Act 2014—which, as the right reverend Prelate pointed out, we debated at some length. They introduce a new single payment to replace bereavement payment, bereavement allowance and widowed parent’s allowance for those whose spouse or civil partner dies on or after 6 April 2017. The Government’s case is that this will modernise the current provision and increase simplicity for those who are bereaved and seeking support. I am grateful to the Minister for confirming that the Government’s main aim is not to save money. However, I am pleased to reassure him that they are, accidentally, about to save quite a bit of it. I confess that my antennae always start twitching whenever I hear Ministers promise that a social security reform is mainly just about making things simpler. The first question is always to look at who stands to gain as a result of the new simplicity—the claimant or the Treasury. On this occasion, after two years of an introductory period the answer is, I am sorry to say, the Treasury. The Explanatory Memorandum tells us that after two years of reform, steady-state savings are expected to be about £100 million a year. In other words, these reforms take £100 million a year from bereaved families and give it to the Exchequer.

The Explanatory Memorandum offers two other objectives for the reforms: for the system to be fair and to promote self-dependency. I suspect that if the Government had tested public opinion on the matter of fairness, being kind to widows might come high up the list. Has the Minister reflected again on the issue of promoting self-dependency? People who get married or civilly partnered and have children were not intending to be self-dependent. They formed a family which had been ruptured, presumably by the death of their spouse or partner. That was precisely the sort of situation for which the welfare state was designed to step in. We on these Benches registered our concerns about the impact of these reforms during the passage of the Bill. Indeed, concern was expressed across the House. I still remember the powerful speech given by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby when we discussed these matters; his interventions were very much taken to heart by many in the House. We sought to amend the Bill to mitigate some of the effects but, sadly, we were unsuccessful —so here we are.

On matters of detail, concern was expressed by the Social Security Advisory Committee and the Work and Pensions Select Committee about a number of areas, and I am pleased to see that the Government have responded to one criticism raised by both committees by extending the period that the bereavement support payment can be accessed from 12 to 19 months. Unfortunately, that is less generous than it sounds because the Government have simply redistributed the amount of money that they originally proposed over a longer period, so people get the same amount but for a longer time.

There are notional gainers, such as younger widows, although figures in the original impact assessment seemed to me to suggest that, perhaps unsurprisingly, and fortunately, there are very few of those, with the vast bulk of the current caseload in the over-55 bracket. Despite the time extension, the Childhood Bereavement Network, which I thank for the very comprehensive briefing that it sent to all interested noble Lords, suggests that 91% of parents will still be supported for a shorter time than under the current system and that the DWP’s own figures admit that 75% of claimants with children will get less money. Can the Minister confirm that those figures are correct and, if not, give the Committee the department’s own estimates instead?

Those with young children will be disproportionately affected, as the parents can currently claim for longer. The current widowed parent’s allowance is paid until the youngest child leaves full-time education. As the briefing from the Childhood Bereavement Network briefing pointed out, a six year-old child losing her father in 2016 would be supported until she leaves school. A six year-old losing her father in 2018 will be supported for just a year and a half. I suspect that her mother might be willing to deal with a bit of complexity for the sake of another decade of additional support to feed and clothe her daughter. The Childhood Bereavement Network says that those with younger children could be up to £31,000 worse off in total than they would have been without these reforms. Can the Minister confirm that this is correct?

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans raised the question of cohabiting couples, and I am sure that the House was glad to hear concern for those cohabiting couples and their children, notwithstanding his support for the institution of marriage. In their consultation response, the Government said:

“The Government position on this issue is unchanged: there are still no plans to extend eligibility for bereavement benefits to those who are not married or in a civil partnership”.


No reason was offered as to why the Government had rejected this proposal. Given that the right reverend Prelate had given his blessing and feels that the institution of marriage will be safe should the Government venture into this territory, can the Minister take the opportunity to tell the Committee why the Government chose not to extend provision in this way?

Lastly, I would like to ask a couple of questions about universal credit—first, on the interaction of universal credit with bereavement support. I think that I heard the Minister say—and I apologise as I did not quite follow the argument, which is entirely my fault—that BSP will be disregarded in full when calculating entitlement to universal credit. Can he confirm that in his reply? I apologise for making him revisit the matter.

Secondly, paragraph 7.13 of the Explanatory Memorandum says:

“Payments will be subject to a disregard within the calculation of income-based benefits; Payments will also not be counted as benefit income when calculating the maximum amount of other benefits a person can be paid”.


I think that that means that BSP will not count towards the benefit cap, but could he just confirm that? I apologise if he did so and I missed it.

There is then the question raised by the right reverend Prelate about those who need to claim universal credit as well as BSP and will be subject to conditionality. I understand that those conditionality requirements, as the Minister said, will be suspended for six months following the death of a partner or child, but during the passage of the Bill we had a lot of discussion about this point—the position of parents with children who are dealing with the consequences, not just for themselves but for their children, of losing a partner or parent. The consequences were emotional for the children and for the parent having to deal with their own and the child’s emotions, but also practical in a range of ways. During the passage of the Bill, the noble Lord, Lord Freud, agreed to conduct a review of the position of parents whose children had suffered distress in bereavement, in response to points made in the Chamber by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay. Parents whose children’s distress and bereavement disrupts their normal childcare responsibilities are, I understand, able to request a one-month suspension of work-related requirements. If I have read this correctly, you can request another one month every six months for up two years. So that would be potentially four one-month periods but only one every six months. I believe from my reading of the regulations that that was enacted in Regulation 8 of the Universal Credit and Miscellaneous Amendments (No. 2) Regulations 2014. Can the Minister confirm that that is the only specific provision available for parents in this circumstance? If it is, can he tell the Committee—or agree to write if not—how many claimants have used, or are expected to use, this facility?

On backdating, paragraph 7.17 of the Explanatory Memorandum states:

“Given the vulnerability of this claimant group there will be a period from the date of death in which the claimant can make a claim without losing any money. If a claim is received more than 3 months after the date of death payments can be backdated for three months before the date of claim. This time limit is extended to 12 months for the initial higher payment to help ensure that people do not miss out on this payment”.


I am glad that the Government are acknowledging that people are vulnerable after a death and that they may not always quickly manage to turn their attention to making a claim for bereavement support payment. However, given that the Government have accepted that, what is the rationale for limiting that flexibility only to the lump sum? Why not allow people the same flexibility in relation to the monthly payments?

I endorse the point made by the right reverend Prelate about whether or not it is the Government’s intention to update the value of this payment in line with other benefits. It would seem that it is not. I hope that we have misread that and that the Government can tell us now whether it is their intention or that we can expect a change of policy on that matter very soon.

I thank my noble friend and the right reverend Prelate for their contributions and I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Henley]

I am grateful to the right reverend Prelate for saying that it has been rejected. By that, I take him to mean that it is still not possible for those of the opposite sex to have a civil partnership. Civil partnerships will therefore apply to those of the same sex, and marriages to those of the same sex and those of the opposite sex. We took the view that it was better and simpler to confine it to those groups, rather than to extend it to cohabitees. Cohabitees, as we have always known, have the ability to take steps to rectify their position and become married or, in certain cases, to become civil partners. To add the complexities, which I accept already face cohabitees regarding, for example, income-related benefits, such as UC, to a payment of this sort would not be appropriate. It can be dealt with by people themselves if they wish to regularise their position, which is always important to know.

I can remember some of the debates on various Private Members’ Bills, particularly one which I think was promoted by the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill. He said that there was gross ignorance about this matter and that people thought being a common-law wife or husband gave them the same rights. I think that by now, most people should know that it does not give them the same rights; their rights are distinctly different if they are cohabitees. As I said, it would add excessive complications to a benefit of this sort, and I do not see the reason for extending it.

The noble Lord, Lord Jones, asked about the numbers of those who are likely to be affected. In the past, it has been something of the order of 40,000 a year and we have no reason to believe that it will be any different. I can add to that one other figure, which will be of interest to him and the Committee: of those 40,000, some 8,000 also have dependent children. That figure might or might not surprise the noble Lord. I was slightly surprised, since we are talking about claimants of working age, that it should be as low as that. But that is the figure, and I have no reason to believe that it will change.

Finally, I can confirm to the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, that bereavement support payment will be disregarded for universal credit and for income-related benefits. I think I made that clear in my speech. If even Homer nods, perhaps even the noble Baroness occasionally nods.

[Baroness Sherlock]

In a different way.

[Lord Henley]

She was nodding in a different way but anyway, I can confirm that it will be disregarded, as it will be for the benefit cap.

Finally, the noble Baroness talked about the time for claiming the benefit and the fact that the monthly payments must be claimed within three months but that in terms of the basic amount, they had a full year. The simple answer is that for monthly payments it is appropriate to have a cut off that is shorter than for the lump sum. I do not believe—this is the important thing—that there is much ignorance, once people are bereaved, about benefits of this sort. Certainly the evidence we have and the evidence we have had in the past, which implies a very high take up of this benefit, seems to suggest that most people get to know about it very quickly. It is one of those things that, for example, I am sure undertakers know about and will advise on, as will others.

I hope that, with the assurance that I may find that there are one or two points I have not answered, the Committee will accept the regulations.

Motion agreed.