Welfare Reform

Debate between Baroness Sherlock and Baroness Browning

Wednesday 2nd July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Browning (Con)]

My Lords, I have power of attorney for two adults, close relatives, who are in receipt of PIP. As a carer and a mother, I have had to deal with the DWP for most of my life and most of theirs.

I just say to the noble Baroness that I was as critical of the Conservative Government’s methodology in reforming disability benefits as I am of this Government’s. If I ask her just one thing in this short period, it is this. When my noble friend opened on behalf of the Conservatives on this Statement, her experience shone through. There are ways of helping people who have lifelong disabilities to get into work, even people who have been out of work or never been in work. I have raised many of these issues with the noble Baroness; she knows my criticisms. Please, train the people in Jobcentre Plus. Use the examples that charities use—for example, to get autistic people into work—because they know how to do it. Please do it. The money will seem far less over time once those methodologies have been changed.

As a carer, I am exhausted. I am exhausted by having to try to explain to people who are really anxious about their financial futures, “Don’t worry about it, it’s all going to be sorted out—it’ll be all right”. In fact, I am genuinely worried. I am 80 next year and, like many elderly carers, I do not want to leave my relatives for whom I have responsibility with this sort of mess.

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Browning. The House has benefited, as have I personally, many times, from her expertise and the care with which she expresses what she does. I commend her on what she has done personally and express my regret that the pressure on her and so many other carers is as great as it is. She stands as a shining example. The points she makes are really important; I will pick up a couple of them.

First, I should have said in response to the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, and to reassure anyone listening, that we are not making any changes to PIP until we have had the results of the Timms review. Nothing in the Bill when it comes to this House will affect people’s entitlement to PIP. I think we made that very clear yesterday. To be clear, we have tabled amendments in the Commons to remove Clause 5, which said you needed a minimum of four points. That will not happen, so I hope that will give some assurance to people.

I hope that the noble Baroness will see, as we begin to unfold our reforms to jobcentres, that we are going with the grain of exactly what she says. One of our concerns is that the system in jobcentres has become too box-ticking. We really need to release our work coaches to spend less time checking everybody in and more time focusing on the person in front of them and figuring out what they can get. What do they need? What help can they get? How do we support them? For some people, that is getting into a job, for others, it is moving closer to the labour market, and for some it is leaving the house. Our job is to support our work coaches. We are doing some incredibly interesting work with piloting and evaluation, trying different ways of supporting people and trying to go with what works— I am sorry: I am taking too long. I am grateful to the noble Baroness and we will absolutely take on her points.

PIP Changes: Impact on Carer’s Allowance

Debate between Baroness Sherlock and Baroness Browning

Monday 31st March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, I cannot tell my noble friend at this stage what it will be, both because we are listening to the wider views and because we are going to take our time to work this through. To be clear, we specifically said in the Green Paper that we would look at the impact on carers and look at ways in which we could support carers who might find themselves losing entitlement to carer’s allowance.

To give a sense of timescale, assuming that Parliament approves the primary legislation that will bring about these changes to disability and sickness benefits, the changes to PIP that will affect carer’s allowance will not come in until November 2026. Only after that will somebody who is getting PIP at the moment see their entitlement change. It will be only as and when they are called to a review and their own circumstances are reviewed that their entitlement changes, which could in turn affect carer’s allowance. So I am confident that we have plenty of time available to us to work through the way in which we can support those who will lose out as a result of these changes.

[Baroness Browning (Con)]

My Lords, will the Minister explain how the Government will approach what is an increasing number of households, particularly as people get older, where you have two people in a household, both with some level of incapacity and one in receipt of PIP, who may lose it? How will the Government assess the carer who has health issues and get a balance that recognises that, for those two people living together, there is a level of support between the two? Remove the finance from one of them and you affect two people.

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is right. There are cases—unusual cases—where both members of a couple are entitled to sickness or disability benefits, and even cases where both are getting carer’s allowance to care for each other. I do not know how many such cases there are. For that to work, each party would have to be sufficiently sick or disabled to be entitled to PIP, and would have to lose it, and each would also have to be able to provide at least 35 hours’ unpaid caring work a week. It is not that such circumstances are not there, but the interaction of different parts of our benefit system is complex, which is why we want to take our time to work through the impacts on various circumstances.

Welfare Reform

Debate between Baroness Sherlock and Baroness Browning

Tuesday 18th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for that question. I have real confidence in this. The noble Lord may know that in January we published the terms of reference for the Keep Britain Working review, a review headed by the former chair of John Lewis, Sir Charlie Mayfield, who is looking at ways in which we can make workplaces more receptive and more able to take on people who have health conditions and disabilities. It could include all kinds of ways in which we can support them. We want to remove the barriers to employers doing that.

We already know that this is the case: reasonable adjustments are often talked about as a way of doing it. The noble Lord may think that these difficult hires. In fact, it is estimated that, on average, employers could save between £5,000 and £11,000 for every employee they prevent from falling out of work. So having an inclusive workplace is not a “nice to have”: it is not an extra. It is a way of making sure that we protect those who are currently working. There are significant numbers of people at the moment who are working but have a condition, and hundreds of thousands of them fall out of work every year. Our system is trying to work with employers to protect those who are already in work, but we have lots of employers really engaged with us in jobcentres, in the work we are doing and in building relationships. People want to do this. We can do this.

[Baroness Browning (Con)]

My Lords, I refer to my interest in the register. When we talk about getting people back into work, perhaps the Minister could reflect on that group of people who have never been in work. I am thinking not just of school or college leavers but people who are now in their 40s and 50s and have never been in work, but actually still want to. She will not be surprised to know that I am referring particularly to the autism community. In the 32 years that I have worked in this building, the employment rate for the autism community has gone up from 17% to just 23%. These people have lived through many Conservative and Labour Governments, not forgetting a coalition Government. To get them into work will require something really different from what has been applied before. They are a discrete but important group. Given the Green Paper and the Statement that we have heard today, is the Minister going to get autistic people into work?

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, I am really grateful to the noble Baroness for raising that question and, as she so often does, reminding us of the challenges in this area. Let me say a couple of things. To reassure those who may be worried, as I have said before, anyone currently receiving benefits will carry on getting them unless there is a reassessment and their eligibility changes. However, that is not the limit of our ambition. One of the reasons we want at least to have a supportive conversation, rather than abandon people who are simply getting those benefits, is to begin to understand what more we could do to support them.

There are some people who will find it very difficult to get into work but maybe they could, with the right support, begin to do some voluntary work. Perhaps they could begin to reach out and get some fresh kinds of support or connect with the local community. The biggest challenge for us, as in the noble Baroness’s words to us today, is how we challenge employers to take this on. We are planning, as part of the consultation on the Green Paper, to not only invite people—I expect very many responses—but to hold events for the public and round tables, to hold discussions both in person and elsewhere. I would be really grateful if she would be willing to talk to us about addressing this as part of that consultation.

“Get Britain Working” White Paper

Debate between Baroness Sherlock and Baroness Browning

Wednesday 27th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for that intervention and also of course for his many years of experience and work in the field of social policy and social care. I very much feel that what he described is what we are trying to do, and I absolutely assure him that the report will be looked at in detail and we will go through the recommendations carefully. One challenge we have is that it is too easy to write off young people. Nowadays, they are judged: the assumption is that they are not trying very hard and the expectations are there. Actually, I do not meet young people who do not want to be out there building a life. It is just that, sometimes, the challenges feel too big. If we can find the right way to support them—if we can get proper mental health support in place and if we can help employers to know how best to work with people who have mental health challenges—we can get people into jobs and they can stay in them.

In the years that I worked with single parents, for example, one thing I learned is that if people have found it difficult to get a job, if they find one that works for them, they are the most loyal employees anyone could get, because they have found a way in and something that works, and it becomes a brilliant relationship. So I am grateful to the noble Lord for that and I will take a careful look at it.

[Baroness Browning (Con)]

My Lords, on Friday morning, I was in a Jobcentre Plus office with a 50 year- old woman who has always worked—but not for the last two years, following a major spinal operation and rehabilitation. She is now ready to get back into work. When we went into that office, we were told that she was not entitled to any support from a disability job coach or adviser, although she is in receipt of PIP. The reason given was that she does not claim an unemployment benefit. What does the Minister suggest I do next to help this person? Why are we discriminating against disabled people wanting to get into work, whether they are claiming a benefit or not?

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

I am sorry to hear of the experience that the noble Baroness’s friend or family member had. What she said goes right to the heart of what we are doing. The point of the national jobs and careers service is that it is not just for people claiming benefits: it is for anybody who needs help getting into work, getting back to work or getting on in work. If we narrow it down to simply being about benefits, we will end up putting the incentives in the wrong place.

One thing that worries us about how the system has worked is that a lot of work coaches’ time is spent checking up to see whether everyone has ticked all the boxes and whether those on benefits have done all the right things. Of course, conditionality will always be a part of the system, but we want to see whether there are ways to reform that so that we can test different ways of making sure that people stay connected and work coaches can spend more time devoted to individuals —including the person that the noble Baroness described —to get them back into work if they want. There are 600,000 people out there who are long-term sick or disabled who want to work, but somehow they are not able to. We have to do something about that and we are determined to.