Housing Benefit (Amendment) Regulations 2011

Baroness Thomas of Winchester Excerpts

Wednesday 12th October 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope, and I am grateful to him for giving us the opportunity to discuss these regulations. I shall speak briefly, which I am sure will be of great relief to the Minister.

I am very concerned about the potential implications for homelessness and rough sleeping that the noble Lord referred to, and also about the wider poverty implications, including food poverty. I have been catching up on my press cuttings while I have been away and there is information that more and more people are having to turn to charities for food. I fear that regulations such as this could exacerbate that situation. It is horrifying that in a welfare state we now have so many people turning to charity for their food needs.

Like the noble Lord, I welcome the fact that the Government have responded to some of what the Social Security Advisory Committee said with regard to exemptions, but I agree with the noble Lord that that does not go far enough. What he said about complex needs is worth exploring further. I want to draw attention particularly to some of the gender implications of the regulations, some of which the noble Lord touched on. The equality impact assessment shows that women are a minority of those affected. However, the SSAC makes it clear that there are issues here for women. It states:

“Women are specifically affected in two important ways. Pregnant single women”—

to whom the noble Lord referred—

“are restricted to the shared accommodation rate until they give birth, and face one of three undesirable situations. They can move home twice at a time when they may be financially, emotionally and physically ill-equipped to do so”—

we will be talking about the needs of pregnant women in the Welfare Reform Bill Committee tomorrow—

“into shared accommodation and back to self-contained accommodation when the baby is born. They can decide to move into shared accommodation and remain there after the birth of their child. Or they can try to make up the shortfall in their rent. The second group of women who are likely to be disadvantaged by the proposals are those escaping domestic violence, who may well find themselves having to live in insecure accommodation, putting them at risk of further abuse by their estranged partner”.

With regard to that, earlier research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation showed the real concerns that younger women have about the prospect of having to share accommodation with strangers. Clearly, that is particularly the case where there has been domestic violence. It said that the prospect of having to share with older people was noted to be particularly daunting, especially for female claimants.

The Merits Committee had a subheading in its report entitled “Evidence-based Policy?”. The question mark says everything. I do not think that this is evidence-based policy-making. The Social Security Advisory Committee report, which is such a bible on these occasions, stated:

“The proposals that have been presented to us are essentially cuts to the Housing Benefit budget and we do not find the rationale for the change to be either convincing or compelling when set against the potential negative impacts. There is no evidence that these measures will improve work incentives or that those under the age of 35 have similar patterns of housing to those under the age of 25. The evidence from private landlords is that the market for private rented accommodation is buoyant, that few landlords will reduce rents as a result of these proposed measures and that many are increasingly excluding Housing Benefit claimants”.

It is not surprising, therefore, that the Merits Committee states:

“DWP has offered surprisingly little evidence to demonstrate the feasibility of its proposal, in particular whether the rental sector has capacity to accommodate the change”.

Given what the Merits Committee and the Social Security Advisory Committee have said, I agree with the noble Lord that we should think very hard before introducing such regulations. I remind the Committee that the Merits Committee suggested to us that it may want to press the DWP for further information on how the policy will work in practice and on its wider consequences. I hope that the Minister will be able to provide us with that information before the regulations go ahead.

[Baroness Thomas of Winchester]

My Lords, I, too, am grateful to my noble friend Lord Kirkwood for tabling the take note Motion. On the face of it, the proposal to extend the age range for single people who receive local housing allowance from 25 to 34 seems entirely reasonable. I, myself, lived in shared flats or houses at that age, as I could not possibly afford a flat or house in London on my salary from the Liberal Party. However, although my fellow housemates and I tried to be careful when interviewing potential new sharers, we did not expect them to belong to particularly vulnerable groups or be on housing benefit. The only tension came when boys wanted to get girlfriends in, or vice versa.

The Government, to their credit, have, as we have heard, made two exemptions. I shall mention the exemption for homeless people who have spent more than three months in a hostel, which is particularly welcome because of the difficulty of moving those in hostel accommodation on. Here I declare an interest as patron of the Winchester Churches Nightshelter, which has an especially impressive record of moving clients on to suitable accommodation.

However, even with those two exemptions, there is a great deal of concern among all the stakeholders who were consulted about the policy. In fact, we see from the consultation outcome that none of the respondents supported the proposed changes and the majority questioned the rationale for them. The $64,000 question is whether the proposals will save the taxpayer money or cause even more to be spent by local authorities having to find extra emergency accommodation. The SSAC report answers that in clear terms. Thank goodness, I have a different sentence to cite from that quoted by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister. The report states:

“The evidence we have seen points to this being a high risk approach to cutting costs that does not take account of potentially negative impacts on other areas of public policy and potential increases in other areas of public expenditure”.

The Government’s solution is to increase discretionary housing payments to local authorities to support those in the most vulnerable situations who do not fit the exempted categories, but the discretionary housing payments will be spread extremely thinly across a lot of housing hotspots because of the changes to the 30th percentile. Such payments can be regarded only as a temporary sticking plaster. An awful lot is being asked of this particular pot of money, which will not go very far when spread across the poorer boroughs of London, not to mention those of all the other large conurbations. In Winchester, homelessness is increasing dramatically, with evidence from letting agents suggesting that fewer than 10 per cent of properties are affordable. As I have said before, Winchester is a very expensive place in which to be poor.

As my noble friend said, are there really enough houses and flats available for multi-occupation in areas where there are likely to be jobs, particularly low-paid jobs? In a buoyant market, will landlords really be willing to reduce their rents to let properties to what could be a potentially unstable cohort of people, when landlords will have no difficulty finding tenants who will pay the market rent?

In my view, this is a worrying experiment. The Social Security Advisory Committee report states that,

“the Department knows very little about either the shared accommodation market”,

or those who live in that sector. As we have heard, that committee recommends that the Government should gather evidence as a matter of urgency with the proposals introduced gradually and evaluated. That sounds like a very good idea to me.

[Lord Stoneham of Droxford]

My Lords, I am very pleased to join in this debate initiated by my noble friend Lord Kirkwood. I declare an interest as chair of First Wessex Housing Group, which has a number of shared-accommodation facilities, and I am also chair designate of Housing 21.

Sadly, this is an example of government spending cutbacks whereby the broadest backs are not assuming the biggest burden—probably the reverse. Among the 62,000 people who it is thought will be affected by these changes, there are a lot of very vulnerable people. The fundamental problem is that we simply do not know how many.

I accept that this is a tough decision in very tough times, and there are a number of positives in what the Government have done. The transition period is obviously very helpful, extra money has been provided for discretionary housing payments and certain of the exemptions have been widened—although we have heard my noble friend Lord Kirkwood’s reservations on those. It is probably also true that, in these tough times and in the current climate, it is inevitable that we probably have to encourage older children to stay at home with their families. Obviously, people in the private purchase market are having to do that as well. However, one of the problems is that we are often dealing here with families of children where the family relationships have broken down.

There are a number of negatives to this change. First, as I mentioned, we simply do not know who these people are nor, as a result, do we know how they will adapt. What we do know is that there are certainly some very vulnerable groups here, as my noble friend Lord Kirkwood mentioned, including people with mental health issues and drug addiction issues, young offenders and people trying to regroup from broken marriages and broken relationships. We also simply do not know what pressures on other areas of the public purse will result from these changes.

Finally, there is a great shortage of shared accommodation in certain areas, especially in rural areas. One thing that has not been anticipated is the further market pressures that will result. For example, one of the hostels that I am familiar with is designed to encourage young people to become independent in the community and to get their own accommodation. By increasing the pressure in the marketplace from those aged between 25 and 35, we will make it much more difficult for landlords to accept people who are under 25, who are much more difficult to deal with, so landlords will go for the older people. That will mean worse problems in that market as well.

Welfare Reform Bill

Baroness Thomas of Winchester Excerpts

Tuesday 4th October 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

I am very disturbed to hear what the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, has just said about lack of consultation. In our dealings with the Whips Office we made it clear that what might be satisfactory to us would have to be also satisfactory to the noble Baroness and her colleagues. We made it clear that we could settle on an alternative room only if it had the noble Baroness’s agreement. If that has not happened, it is a real failing. Perhaps we cannot do anything about it now, but I ask the Minister to take that issue back, as we had assurances to the contrary.

[Baroness Thomas of Winchester]

My Lords, I would like to add a brief word. I hope that the Committee does not mind if I do not rise to my feet, as it would take rather a long time. I, too, am disturbed by what the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, has said, but I think that the people who have done the work in this Room have done a terrific job and I commend them. They have worked extremely hard to make the Room as comfortable as they possibly could, and they have done a much better job than a lot of us thought they would be able to do. I am sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, was not consulted but they have done a good job in making the Room comfortable.

[Baroness Morgan of Drefelin]

My Lords, it is important that we in this Room remember that we are being observed by the world outside. How we respond to the needs of disabled Members of our House reflects more widely the respect that we show to disabled people in our society. Getting this Committee right is important, not just for noble Lords who wish to participate but for building confidence among communities outside this House that they are being taken seriously and that their concerns have been raised and heard within this House too. I am sure that the Minister is well aware of that. I know that there have been concerns about the way that we are conducting this Committee, and we are doing that in public, rightly so.

Welfare Reform Bill

Baroness Thomas of Winchester Excerpts

Tuesday 13th September 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thomas of Winchester]

My Lords, I begin by saluting my noble friend Lord Freud and his colleagues, who have been determined to take the issue of making work pay for benefit claimants out of the “too difficult” in-tray and to create the universal credit, which is the engine driving the rest of this seven-part welfare reform train. To mix my metaphors, I just hope that the ship will not be spoilt for a ha’p’orth of tar and that some crucial matters will be addressed, such as childcare and children’s disability additions.

In view of the number of speakers in today’s debate, I shall concentrate on the personal independence payment, although I would like to have touched on the time limiting of ESA and the benefit cap, two matters about which I have profound concerns. Turning to PIP, as I shall call it, I do not intend to say anything at this stage about those in residential homes because we know that there is to be an internal review. In general, to say that many thousands of disabled people are fearful about the replacement of DLA with a new and supposedly better targeted benefit would be the understatement of the year. This is not surprising given the Government’s stated aim of wanting to save £1.45 billion in DLA/PIP expenditure by 2014-15.

I have been as critical as anyone about the process for claiming DLA, which involves the completion of a long self-assessment form—here I declare an interest because I receive the benefit. Although supporting reports from a doctor or consultant are supposed to be taken into consideration, they often seem to be ignored—I can give chapter and verse on that. The Government believe that the cumbersome process of self-assessment has meant that a great many people who should not be receiving the benefit are managing to claim it. However, I do not believe that anyone knows the true position, which presumably is why the Government want to reassess everyone. What we do know is that the vast majority of people who receive DLA find that it has made all the difference to how they live their lives, and I think that the Government are in danger of overstating the negative aspects of DLA. The form certainly needs to be overhauled and I am in favour of more face-to-face assessments, as long as they are undertaken by well-qualified and sympathetic people.

What is more than a bit chilling is, in the Government’s own phrase, that PIP is to be “better targeted”. That has the ring of means-testing about it, which we know is not the case. It also smacks of having a rather crude pecking order of disability, which could mean that people who genuinely need the benefit will be excluded. If we are living longer and more independently with our disabilities—hurrah for that—it is inevitable that spending on disability benefits will rise. DLA started in 1992 for in-work as well as out-of-work claimants, so year by year more people will be eligible as more disabled people live beyond retirement who started claiming well before retirement. There is no question that fraud, or even semi-fraud by people overstating their incapacity, is completely unacceptable and must be rooted out, but I fear that in future too many genuinely disabled people are likely to fall through the net because of the narrower criteria for PIP.

The crucial details of the scheme will be in the regulations, which I believe will be available in draft in October, but we know that the assessment,

“will take some account of aids and adaptations that an individual uses in their everyday activities”.

I find the whole question of aids, appliances and adaptations in relation to PIP puzzling. If you use an aid of any kind, does it mean that you do not need any extra funds to help you live your life? While you may have adapted to your situation by having, say, a manual wheelchair to get about, you cannot wheel yourself for miles—although perhaps the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, can—and you might still need to lease a Motability car to which you are entitled using your higher rate mobility component, or you may need the money for adapted taxis. Many trains are still not fully accessible to wheelchair users and will not be so for many years. Underground stations are inaccessible, as are many other train stations throughout the country. As for buses, the service is so hit and miss that it has to be discounted. I know there are many adaptations which have nothing to do with mobility, such as hearing aids and guide dogs, but I shall concentrate on mobility aids because I know that there is a view that some manual wheelchair users may not get PIP, and because I know that the new rules for the work capability assessment are able to take mobility aids into account—quite misguidedly, I think, because of the lack of facilities for disabled people in many workplaces. I should be interested to hear why the aids, appliances and adaptations a disabled person uses might disqualify them from receiving PIP.

On assessments, I fear I may part company slightly from some of the disability organisations that have briefed us. Of course, it is vitally important to the DWP to use the social model of disability in its assessments, which, quite rightly, means that disabled people are not defined by their disability but assessed by how they live their lives. However, I also think there is a place for a person’s medical condition to be acknowledged during the assessment. For example, one of the characteristics of muscular dystrophy is tiredness, particularly towards the end of the day; another very different disability with distinctive characteristics is autism, which could be mistaken for an unco-operative attitude during an assessment. If medical experts write reports drawing attention to the particular characteristics of certain conditions, those should be taken fully into consideration during an assessment. I do not think contracts have yet been awarded to a company to carry out the assessments, but some recent reports of current DLA assessments are not encouraging. The Muscular Dystrophy Campaign has told me that, in the last month, 43 per cent of all advocacy cases that it received were about unfair DLA decisions, which are having to be appealed. I am not speaking at this point about the WCA—the two assessments are quite different, although a lot of people think there is a read-across.

Finally, I urge the Government to consider two other matters. First, PIP should be available in certain circumstances to those who become disabled after the age of 65, for example as the result of amputation. Secondly, PIP should be granted after three months rather than six. Many people suffer from sudden-onset disability, and making them wait for six months before financial help is available is simply not justified. I hope an amendment along these lines can be agreed.

I am grateful that PIP will still be a non-means-tested and non-taxable benefit. I know the Government are still listening to our concerns and that the Minister is as good a listener as anyone. I look forward to the future stages of the Bill.

Employment and Support Allowance (Work-Related Activity) Regulations 2011

Baroness Thomas of Winchester Excerpts

Thursday 19th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord German]

My Lords, I welcome these regulations. As the Minister said, they have been in train for some time. Progress on the process of helping people into work has been going on for several years now, so this is part of putting flesh on the bones of a project that clearly needs to be accelerated. As always when it comes to detail of this sort, it is the delivery that will cause the most anxiety in people who are trying to anticipate the conclusions that result from the implementation of these regulations. I would sum this up in an overarching phrase, that of fairness and even-handed treatment in the personalisation process about which my noble friend has spoken.

It is important to note that this marks a cultural change for Jobcentre Plus, particularly as regards how the staff have worked in the past. I approve of that because it is important to empower advisers so that they can make choices and decisions in order to be able to help people towards what will suit their individual circumstances. The consequence of that is that the advisers will have more flexibility that will enable them to treat people in different ways. That will be a considerable shift. Some months ago we observed that there was absolute direction from the centre to Jobcentre Plus offices. That resulted in different interpretations being made on, for instance, the number of job applications you could have before you were sanctioned. That was not envisaged by the Department for Work and Pensions and the Government. That largely came down to the strict top-down instructions being given. Now that we are offering freedom to Jobcentre Plus advisers, it is essential that they have the appropriate skills and training to be able to deal with the vast range of people coming before them. The questions of training and capacity are crucial. We know that the Department for Work and Pensions is not exempt from the overarching cuts that have to be made to budgets, so I wonder if my noble friend can assure me that these advisers, who are going to be so important in helping people get back into the workplace and thus productive in the British economy, will not be affected by the number of jobs available at the sharp end.

Personalisation, if we are going to take this perfectly appropriate approach, raises the spectre of a variation of views being offered to the same kind of people in different places. That is a consequence of offering freedoms. There are two counterbalances to that. The first is a lighter touch, but certainly some form of strategic approach set out in guidance from the centre to Jobcentre Plus advisers. Secondly, each Jobcentre Plus office should have some form of check and balance. People who feel that perhaps they have been treated unfairly should not have to go through a whole rigmarole, so advisers should themselves be subject to a check and balance to ensure that the decisions they take meet with the accord of their colleagues as well. In that light, words are very important. We have the word “appropriateness” to which I shall return later, and the term “good cause”, which covers a subjective decision but is important because it provides the flexibility needed when looking at a case that has been made by a customer which stands up and therefore needs to be tested. Clearly, if this is going to be left open to advisers, we must note that one person’s interpretation may be different from that of another. It is therefore important that a check and balance is available and that a sense of direction is given, but not in too heavy-handed a way that derives a distinct interpretation of good cause.

The personalised approach that these regulations give vent to will be more helpful if advisers themselves are able to access the full range of information about their customers. Why will the work capability assessments not be provided for the advisers? If they need to know about someone’s abilities and disabilities, something is already written down about it. Surely it would be more sensible to provide advisers with access to that information so that they can have a full picture before them when they speak to the customer. Only “some” discretion exists for this information being available to Jobcentre Plus advisers. Why will they not have that full level of knowledge, which one presumes will be available online anyway?

There are some lessons to be learnt from the processes—they have been going through very recently. Professor Harrington’s review pointed out that some considerable changes needed to be made to the way in which we handle customers. Those recommendations were accepted and are presumably being implemented as we speak. I should like an assurance from the Minister that those customers will be approached in the same way as customers who are carrying out their action plans for work assessments. I am anxious to ensure that no guidance is in any sense being misinterpreted or too literally taken. That is the test of getting it working.

I have a number of specific questions on the regulations. The regulations seem to say that there will be discretion for lone parents with children up to the age of 13, which seems to be the cut-off. Will that level of discretion be afforded to lone parents who have children between the ages of 13 and 16? I can think of two distinct examples. The first would be where a lone parent has a child who has some form of disability and needs to be at home when the child comes back from school. The second is the lone parent of a child who has come home from school. Despite their having told the child, “You are going to be on your own at home and you’d better look after yourself”, somebody complains to the school, and the school comes back to the Jobcentre Plus and says, “Why have you forced this lone parent not to be able to look after a child properly?” Discretion should be given in this area so that account can be taken of the fact that some lone parents of children between 13 and 16 need to be at home when their children get home.

The data provided with the regulations show a heavily weighted spread of people who will fall into this group in different parts of the United Kingdom. I come from Wales, which is likely to have the most people wanting help, and I wonder whether my noble friend could indicate whether the support given to advisers will be related to the number of cases that they are likely to take up.

I have two final points on the regulations. The first relates to review and evaluation. Professor Harrington’s work makes it clear that a continuing, rolling review of what has been done and whether objectives have been achieved is very important. This suite of regulations should not be exempt from that review either. Will the Minister consider extending the role of Professor Harrington to look at the impact of these assessments as well? The annexe to the impact assessment states:

“The evaluation is likely to include qualitative and quantitative approaches, alongside internal monitoring”.

I hope that the Minister will assure us today that the evaluation will, rather than is likely to, include some form of support for the regime of reviewing and making sure that it is absolutely correct.

Secondly, the Minister has just said that a big package of financial help will be provided for those who are furthest from the job market. He quoted the figures for the respective ESA groups: £3,700, £6,500 and £13,700. Those are large and sharp shoulders. In this discretionary and personalisation world in which we live, there are bound to be people who will fall just outside those boundaries on one side or the other. My noble friend referred to the issue of incentivisation payments: will they help to smooth out those shoulders? They are very steep steps and if you fall into one category it will be very difficult to get out over that shoulder.

My noble friend outlined particularly well the way in which these regulations will work but safeguards will be needed. The safeguard of reasonable behaviour by both the customer and the adviser is crucial. Will the advisers now have expert support, particularly when dealing with fluctuating conditions, mental health conditions and so on, in order that they can properly advise and be certain that that advice is of the best kind to meet the broad range of conditions they are likely to see?

In general, I am pleased to support these regulations as they appear.

[Baroness Thomas of Winchester]

My Lords, I, too, welcome this short debate about what the state now requires ESA claimants to do in order for them to receive the full benefits they are entitled to. If what happens on the ground is what we are told will happen in the regulations, in the Explanatory Memorandum and in the papers that my noble friend kindly sent us, then everything should go relatively smoothly and the results could be extremely encouraging and very welcome.

However, I fear that for many of us the elephant in the room is still the work capability assessment. I agree with my noble friend that this is not the place to discuss this because the regulations are about activity at least six months after the assessment will have taken place. However, the elephant is still there, lurking in the background, and I, too, look forward to Professor Harrington’s report on how the assessment deals with the two most difficult but commonest causes of people not being able to work—that is, mental health conditions and fluctuating conditions. I have been reminded this week about two fluctuating conditions which hardly get raised at all. They are both quite different from each other and make one realise how wide this field is: one is congenital heart disease, which is comparatively rare and completely hidden on the surface but can make someone feel fine one day and completely exhausted the next; and the other is Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, where a person can be fine for a month or five years and then, without warning, have a severe flare-up which can make regular and demanding employment difficult. Incidentally, today is World IBD day—that is, inflammatory bowel disease day.

I was pleased to see in one of the documents that there is flexibility around the timing of a claimant undertaking work-related activity, which is extremely important. I was also pleased that the Minister in another place reassured our colleague, Stephen Lloyd, that decision-makers in Jobcentre Plus have the power to seek medical advice, if they need it, for people with particular conditions. This is extremely important because, as my noble friend Lord German said, decision-makers do not have access to the result of the work capability assessment. I assume this is for reasons of confidentiality, but it does seem perverse.

I endorse what my noble friend said about more training for JCP staff. I am pleased that they are being given more autonomy and flexibility and I am reassured that the Minister in the other place said that he was looking for ways in which the quality of training for JCP staff could be improved. This is an urgent matter if these new regulations are to be brought in very soon. Can my noble friend tell us which groups are advising him about this new and improved training and when the new guidance will be available?

To follow on from what my noble friend said on the culture at Jobcentre Plus offices, the attitude of personal advisers and decision-makers is as important as their knowledge of various conditions. A sympathetic adviser will do a great deal to reassure an anxious claimant who may be extremely fearful of trying to find work for the first time in a long while. What is the current role of disability benefit advisers in Jobcentre Plus offices? Do they have any specialised training in medical conditions? We heard some weeks ago that quite a lot of Jobcentre Plus offices are being closed, although it sounded as though the staff were being deployed elsewhere. Can my noble friend say a word about that?

Finally, one way to know if these regulations are working is that the number of appeals against a sanction will be low and the number of ESA claimants being helped into work will be high. I hope for a good result.

Jobseeker’s Allowance (Mandatory Work Activity Scheme) Regulations 2011

Baroness Thomas of Winchester Excerpts

Tuesday 10th May 2011 Lords Chamber

In conclusion, I know the Minister takes his work here very seriously. Perhaps, by speaking in this debate tonight, we will help him to persuade his colleagues in the department that getting secondary legislation right is essential and not just an irritant. I look forward to his response and urge your Lordships to send a strong message to Ministers about the importance of Parliament, the Merits Committee and accountability by supporting at least the Motion of the noble Countess, Lady Mar.

[Baroness Thomas of Winchester]

My Lords, I, too, am glad to have the opportunity to debate briefly the thinking behind this order, which raises some important questions. I am not unsympathetic to the whole scheme. It has been introduced, we are told, because Jobcentre Plus staff wanted a tool to enable them, in the words of the Minister, Chris Grayling, when he gave evidence to the Merits Committee, to refer someone on JSA for a period of full-time activity to instil the discipline of work, and re-energise, refocus and remotivate them to enter or re-enter the world of work. This sounds reasonable until one looks at the process. It is very rare for the Merits Committee, of which I used to be a member, to draw the special attention of the House to an order using the following words:

“The Committee considers it unacceptable that the House has been given insufficient information to understand the policy objective of the scheme; to determine how the scheme will work; and effectively to assess whether the outcome will help claimants to improve their prospects of obtaining employment”.

Since then, the noble Lord, Lord Knight, has told us what the up-to-date situation is, which I had not heard about. I am glad he has given us that news.

It is important to say that this mandatory work activity scheme is not work-related activity, which is a very different scheme for those on the employment side of ESA. However, there is a similarity between the two schemes—not just between their names, which is unfortunate. Both are supposed to help unemployed people prepare for the world of work and both carry a sanctions regime, although neither is a sanction in itself.

The two sanctions regimes are very different. Work-related activity for ESA claimants carries a relatively mild sanctions regime, whereas this scheme—although placements under it last for only four weeks—has a much tougher regime. As we have heard, if someone defaults without good cause there will be a fixed sanction of 13 weeks. If this happens twice within 12 months, the sanction will be of 26 weeks. No wonder the SSAC considered this disproportionate. It was also critical of the fact that the sanction could not be overturned or shortened by a claimant re-engaging with the process, thus turning the whole placement, in this circumstance, into nothing much more than a punishment. How do we know what a good cause is for this particular scheme? We do not; it is left, presumably, to the decision-makers in Jobcentre Plus. Why? It is apparently felt that prescribing in regulations what constitutes good cause will limit the circumstances in which it can be applied, although it is prescribed for other sanctions regimes. Does this mean that there is likely to be inconsistency up and down the country in how good cause is judged? Yes, this is bound to happen, which must surely be why these regulations, as drafted, are unacceptable and leave Parliament unsighted as to how the scheme will work in practice.

One matter I am puzzled about is the nature of the placements under the scheme. The Minister in his evidence said that placements would be in the not-for-profit sector. He cited the examples of work in a charity shop or on a conservation project. However, nowhere is it spelt out in the regulations that these placements will be in the not-for-profit sector. Clearly there are all kinds of implications if placements are to be made in ordinary businesses, including the danger of exploitation. I wonder why this is not stated in the regulations. Many other questions are raised by the order. Perhaps two, crucially, are: is the balance right between what the Secretary of State lays down and what is left to local determination; and what will success look like?

All in all, Parliament is being asked to buy a pig in a poke with these regulations, framed the way they are. As I said at the beginning, I am not against the policy of trying to engage perhaps recalcitrant jobseekers with the world of work, but the lack of information we are given in these regulations leaves me with no option but to vote for the regret Motion of the noble Countess.

[Lord Rix]

My Lords, this is the first time that I have been in your Lordships’ House since the debate on disability last Thursday, when it was announced that the noble Lord, Lord Freud, had had an unfortunate accident. I am glad to see him back in his place and I hope that he is fully recovered.

I start by stating that I am, of course, in support of the principles behind universal credit—namely, making work pay and helping more people into employment, if they are able to work. I doubt that anyone in the Chamber opposes that. However, the means by which this is achieved must be sensitive to the wide-ranging needs and abilities of potential jobseekers. It is within these parameters that any assessment of the fairness and value of the Mandatory Work Activity Scheme must be considered to ensure that people are not disproportionately disadvantaged. I intend to focus on the impact that this regulation would have on disabled people and, as President of Mencap, especially on those with a learning disability, because I fear they stand to lose most as a consequence of these regulations.

Recently, the Employment Minister claimed that three-quarters of incapacity benefit claimants have now been found to be fit for work. Coupled with the removal of the exempt group, which means that people with a learning disability are not automatically exempt from the work capability assessment, this could result in a significant number of disabled people being found to be fit for work and migrated onto benefits, most likely JSA, where they will be subject to conditions such as the Mandatory Work Activity Scheme.

This holds many challenges—primarily the risk of imposing unreasonable demands on people who might struggle to fulfil them because of their disability or those who might not fully grasp the requirements made upon them. A failure to attend a mandatory interview, for example, may be as a consequence of an individual’s lack of understanding of what was expected of them, rather than a deliberate act of non-compliance. Indeed, the Social Security Advisory Committee has warned that:

“Evidence from the Department’s Equality Impact Assessment and DWP research shows that ethnic minority claimants and those with a learning difficulty tend to be disproportionately sanctioned for not actively seeking employment. This, alongside other societal factors, could lead to these groups being disproportionately referred to this scheme and, as a consequence, at even greater risk of sanction”.

I seek assurances from the Minister that the correct protocols will be put in place to ensure that people with a learning disability fully understand the obligations they must meet. It is also vital that these obligations are reasonable and that individuals are provided with appropriate support. This is particularly important because disabled people are statistically more likely to live in poverty and will often be unable to cope with the sanctions.

Additionally, I am very concerned about the precedent being set to punish people for having the “wrong attitude” when it comes to job seeking. It is imperative that the Government are clear about the intention of the scheme. If the aim is to incentivise work, I would suggest that there are better ways of monitoring how proactive people are being when in search of employment, rather than penalising them if someone determines that they are not looking hard enough. The truth might be that an unsuccessful passage into work might not be as a result of a lukewarm motivation but because of a lack of available opportunities to work.

People with a learning disability have very specific and individual support needs when seeking employment. With the increased likelihood of disabled people moving onto jobseeker’s allowance come the increased responsibilities to ensure that these people are properly supported in getting a job and are not given the added onus of unfair sanctions or conditionality if they are unable to do so. Equally, there seems to be no detail about a complaints procedure in the event of this support not being available. Given the significant evidence of prejudice that befalls many disabled people when seeking a job, what assurances can the Minister provide that this will be adequately addressed in the scheme?

As I said before, my concerns arise out of a lack of clarification from the Government about the details of the scheme and I hope that the Minister will be able to allay my concerns by assuring me that disabled people, especially people with a learning disability, will not lose out under these regulations; but, frankly, I fear the worst.

Employment and Support Allowance (Limited Capability for Work and Limited Capability for Work-Related Activity) (Amendment) Regulations 2011

Baroness Thomas of Winchester Excerpts

Wednesday 16th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thomas of Winchester]

My Lords, the DWP is in the middle of doing a very large jig-saw. The picture on the box is of a lot of people scurrying to work. In one corner older people are still going out to work, and in another corner people with disabilities are going about their business with the replacement DLA. But at the moment the pieces of the jig-saw are all jumbled up on the table, perhaps with the Minister frantically trying to find the straight edges. Are these regulations the pieces with the straight edges or not? I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Kirkwood for giving us the opportunity to discuss these regulations because there are some disturbingly divergent views, as we have heard most movingly this evening.

The Merits Committee has said that the regulations may imperfectly achieve their policy objective, which is not something that it says at all frequently. In particular, it encourages the House to seek further information from the DWP on the rationale for putting these regulations forward now. It will not be disappointed, as all noble Lords have raised this matter. This is a recurring theme in all the evidence that we have been sent, from the CAB to the disability benefits consortium.

There is puzzlement that the DWP wants to bring in these changes now for several reasons. The principal reasons are: that the data from the migration trials from incapacity benefit in Aberdeen and Burnley have not yet been evaluated; that we are expecting more changes to the descriptors and to the work capability assessment as a whole once Professor Harrington has published his second-year review; and that the bar is thought by some groups to have been raised so high that there is now hardly any difference between those in the employment group of ESA, which comprises the limited capability for work people, and the support group, which is the limited capability for work-related activity people.

The Social Security Advisory Committee is more forthright because looking at DWP regulations and commenting on them is its job. It says, as we have heard, that apart from a few changes which it welcomes, the department should not proceed with the remaining proposed changes to the descriptors in the WCA until they have been reconsidered in the light of the findings of the Harrington report into the WCA and the migration trial of IB claimants. Why is it that the DWP believes that the changes to many of the descriptors are improvements, when the disability and other lobby groups say, as we have heard this evening, the exact opposite; namely, that the changes represent a tightening of the screw, making it harder for claimants to claim ESA?

I believe that the answer may lie in the different interpretations of the purpose of the work capability assessment. It was set up to replace the personal capability assessment as a test of a person’s capability for work rather than their incapacity. As Professor Harrington says in his review,

“the WCA was designed to be a first positive step towards work for most people”.

However, he also says that it is not working as well as it should, which is borne out by the fact that 40 per cent of appeals against a decision that an individual is capable of work are currently upheld. This surely shows that something is seriously wrong with the assessment. In particular, Professor Harrington says that there are clear and consistent criticisms of the whole system and much negativity surrounding the process.

The wider interpretation of the purpose of the WCA is not just whether it looks at someone’s theoretical capability of work but whether it works in the real world of work. This is where the Social Security Advisory Committee report and the lobby groups diverge quite strongly from the DWP. The SSAC tries to be fair. I think that it is worth quoting two sentences from the report in full, which states:

“The Committee recognises that the assessment of capability for work is a contentious and emotive issue and has always advocated a positive approach to the assessment of capability that looks at what the individual is able to do and their adaptation to their health condition or disability, rather than focusing solely on what a health condition or disability prevents the individual from doing. However, the Committee also recognises the complexity of many individual cases and the significance of the factors that may determine capability in the real world but which cannot be easily measured by a test that scores functional capability”.

I would contend that this is why there are such divergent views between the SSAC, the Merits Committee and the lobby groups on one side and the DWP on the other. The DWP is obviously not prepared to wait until the migration trials have been evaluated to change the descriptors or for Professor Harrington’s task group to report on the mental, intellectual and cognitive descriptors, which will report to the Minister later this year.

However, there is a way forward, bearing in mind that the recommendations from Professor Harrington’s first report have been accepted in full by the Minister—here I echo my noble friend Lord Kirkwood. There are five recommendations, which can be summarised as follows: that more empathy should be built into the process, with JCP managing and supporting the claimant; that the transparency of the Atos assessment should be improved; that there should be better understanding by Atos of mental disabilities; that decision-makers should be better empowered; and that there should be better communication of feedback between Jobcentre Plus, Atos and the First-tier Tribunal to improve the quality of decision-making on all sides.

Professor Harrington’s full report is very instructive on all these matters. For example, he says that the language and logic used in the LiMA computer system,

“is not very intuitive or accessible to claimants who receive their final report”.

He goes on to say:

“The Atos Training and Development handbook encourages”,

healthcare professionals,

“to use open questioning and not to rely on the LiMA system”.

However, in practice this hardly ever happens. He also sheds light on the fact that claimants are expecting a medical examination, which looks at their illness or impairment, rather than an assessment of their functional capability. It does not help when the Atos healthcare professional conducting the assessment does not look at the claimant at all, but rather at the screen, nor does it help when the healthcare professional has poor knowledge of some of the less common health conditions, such as Parkinson's disease. Another key part of Professor Harrington's report was that the Jobcentre Plus decision-makers rarely make a decision that disagrees with the evidence provided by the Atos assessment because they lack the confidence to do so. In other words, the decision-makers are often just decision stampers.

The DWP says it is working to implement these recommendations as quickly as possible. I think the whole House would like to know how the department is getting on with this implementation, because this is not just an extremely important matter but, I believe, the key to the whole reputation of the work capability assessment when the migration from incapacity benefit is rolled out nationwide. Therefore, I would be grateful if the Minister would tell us what steps are being taken to implement the current Harrington proposals.

The Merits Committee report is, as usual, an absolute model of clarity. It states, as has been stated already today, why it is so important that the work capability assessment is got right. Those who are deemed to be fit for work and are on JSA will receive £65.45 a week, those who are found to have limited capability for work, and therefore on the work-related activity group of ESA, will receive up to £91.40, while those in the support group of ESA will receive up to £96.85. The difference in the levels is substantial.

Before I finish, I unequivocally welcome the change in Regulation 35 which allows claimants awaiting chemotherapy to be placed in the support group. However, in general, it is difficult not to agree with the SSAC's view that, in removing some of the subtleties in the descriptors, about which we have heard so graphically today,

“the test's relevance to the real world has not been enhanced”.

[The Countess of Mar]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, for tabling this prayer today, and I echo his core concerns. I declare my interest as chairman of Forward-ME and that one member of Forward-ME is a member of Professor Harrington's task group looking at fluctuating conditions.

There has always been a problem with the descriptors for the work capability assessment, particularly for people with mental illnesses and for those with what are termed “fluctuating conditions”. During the progress of the Welfare Reform Bill four years ago, I raised concerns about the ability of Atos medical staff to discern the difficulties encountered by people with ME/CFS when, on the day of the assessment—which is not, as some claimants think, a medical examination—those being assessed might have been able to perform a number of tasks on a one-off basis but they were frequently unable to repeat the tasks on a consistent basis. There seemed to be no room for detailing pain, muscle weakness, fatigue and other disabling symptoms that occur intermittently and often severely. As a result, the assessor has awarded very few points and the decision-maker has then considered them fit for work. In every case that I have encountered, people with ME/CFS who have appealed to the medical tribunal have succeeded in their appeals and their benefits have been reinstated.

When Professor Harrington published his An Independent Review of the Work Capability Assessment last November, the hopes of ME/CFS sufferers were raised. Other noble Lords have quoted from his report, and I am sure that the Minister knows it off by heart, so I will not repeat it all. The Secretary of State for the Department for Work and Pensions, as others have said, accepted all of Professor Harrington's recommendations on behalf of the Government. Under “A programme for work for year two” in that report, Professor Harrington wrote:

“This programme focuses on: the descriptors, particularly in assessing fluctuating conditions”.

He had already set up a task group to look at mental, intellectual and cognitive descriptors, and I am aware that that group has reported to him. In the new year the task group to review the descriptors for fluctuating conditions started work. They are due to report to Professor Harrington in April this year. I understand that the mental conditions report will be published in the summer and that for fluctuating conditions in the autumn.

I am aware that the internal review of the operation of the regulations was required by statute. I am also aware that all of the disability organisations involved disowned the report, which they say was flawed. They rejected the recommendations because of, among other things, the negative effect that they would have on disabled people and their families. As other noble Lords have mentioned, the Social Security Advisory Committee was unhappy with the part of the regulations that relate to the descriptors. It recommended that they be deferred until Professor Harrington's independent review of the WCA was complete and the evidence of the outcome of the trial of migration of incapacity benefit claimants to employment support allowance or jobseeker’s allowance was available. As we have heard, the House of Lords Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee accepted that the internal review found that the performance of the WCA was not working satisfactorily and it commended the DWP for wanting to revise it. However, the committee also highlighted some of the flaws in the current statutory instrument. These have already been discussed.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, and the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Winchester, I am pleased that the regulation that applies to claimants undergoing or likely to undergo chemotherapy is to be amended, as well as that which applies to drug or alcohol rehabilitation claimants. However, in the light of the conclusions of several reports and the views of a great many experts in mental health and fluctuating illnesses, and the fact that Professor Harrington has been asked to review the descriptors for both these conditions and will be reporting on both by the autumn, I cannot understand why the Government insist on making changes which all the experts, except the DWP, regard as draconian and premature.

We keep hearing about the Prime Minister’s ambition that we should all be happy, and that any government measures should include a happiness score. Has the Minister measured the happiness of the thousands of claimants who are terrified that their benefits are going to be severely reduced, who will go through months filled with anxiety and apprehension as they wait in an ever-lengthening queue to appeal to a first-tier tribunal, or who become totally demoralised because they are forced to apply for jobs knowing that no employer will take them on? Has he calculated the cost of the increased financial burden that will fall on the Department for Constitutional Affairs, which will have to cope with the anticipated increase in the number of appeals following decisions that are likely to be seen as unreasonable?

In order to improve the fairness and effectiveness of the WCA, Professor Harrington recommended building empathy into the process, better training for decision makers, accounting for the particular difficulties in assessing mental, intellectual and cognitive impairments, and empowering and investing in decision makers so that they are able to take the right decision. Would the Minister kindly tell the House whether these recommendations have been implemented?

How are decision makers to come to the “right decision” if they are not given all the information because of the limitations of the descriptors to be used according to these regulations? Are they free to ignore the Atos report if the claimant’s statement and any accompanying medical evidence conflicts directly with the findings of the Atos doctor? I am particularly concerned about people with ME/CFS who have frequently been denigrated and who feel defeated by a system that refuses to recognise their illness. The additional stress these regulations will impose on them will not help to improve their condition. Like many others, I am deeply unhappy about these changes. They are going to prove hugely costly, both financially and emotionally, to claimants and I suspect to the DCA, but then that is another department, is it not? Why can the DWP not wait until Professor Harrington reports later this year? Why the urgency?

Jobseeker’s Allowance (Work Experience) (Amendment) Regulations 2011

Baroness Thomas of Winchester Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord German]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing the regulations. My noble friend has outlined some of the key issues relating to why these amendments and changes are necessary. I certainly welcome them.

I shall start by explaining why, in my view, work experience is so valuable. If experience is the key word, then what is the most valuable experience that anybody looking for a job can have? It is surely the experience of real work. I shall come back to mandation, or the mandatory element, in a moment because, in any real work there is an element of mandatoriness—you turn up in the morning and, if you do not turn up very regularly, the employer does not wish to have your services for much longer. Even if the employer who gives you a work placement is not hiring, the job that you do will help you to get the key skills that are so valuable to boost employability in the future and to raise the chances of getting a job somewhere else.

When these amendments to the existing regulations were laid, I looked up the criticisms at the time of the previous set of regulations relating to this matter. I turned to the editorial of Personnel Today issued in September 2009. It seems to me that I can do no better than to quote a couple of key sentences in this editorial, written by the deputy editor. He said:

“It seems completely illogical that young people who show initiative and arrange work experience placements off their own back should be ineligible for jobseeker’s allowance”.

That is certainly the case. Why would you want to engage in this great experience if you are losing money? I echo the noble Lord’s sentiment: if you are going to lose money, why would you want to take on an experience of that sort? The editorial continued:

“The current set-up makes the presumption that if an individual is undertaking work experience then they are not actively seeking a job”.

This is, indeed, nonsense. We need to ensure that people who are getting the experience are on that ladder and pathway towards a job.

“And it also risks creating a two-tier system, where unpaid opportunities are only enjoyed by the more affluent”.

There are certainly examples of people trading off an opportunity to get their son or daughter into a form of work experience, where the jobseeker’s allowance does not matter to the jobseeker. However, there is a quid pro quo. The last sentence of the editorial says:

“But employers also need to look at their own policies and not use young people on work experience as a ready source of cheap or unpaid labour”.

That raises some key issues. First, as the editorial says, if the experience is to reflect what is in fact a real work opportunity and to give people an opportunity to see work in every aspect, are these regulations either too heavy or too lean on the mandation? I think that the Minister has got it just about right. If you turn up and find on day one or two that the job is not really what you have an interest in or is totally alien to you—in which case someone has failed to help you further down the line—you can turn away from it without penalty. However, when you stick it out for your first week and carry on with it, if you fail to undertake the normal aspects of being at work, you will clearly be subject to the same relationship as if you were at work. I think that that brings just about the right level of flexibility into mandation.

I have a number of questions about what constitutes work, where the work is placed and what a workplace is. Clearly, it is important that we place people in the best experience, which will help them to seek employment. This Government are particularly anxious that we should encourage the voluntary or third sector to engage. Do placements inside the voluntary or third sector constitute a place of work?

I also welcome but would like a bit more explanation of the flexibility of Jobcentre Plus in helping people to arrange work experience. The ability of the person to arrange their own work experience, to work with Jobcentre Plus to come to it together or for Jobcentre Plus to make the appropriate placement at a local level is crucial. Do we have the sort of experience and guidance for Jobcentre Plus employees to work in partnership with jobseekers and not simply to find them a place? The difficulty is also that, if the target for Jobcentre Plus is to get as many people into work experience as possible, you choose those who are easiest to get into placement. I have represented Merthyr Tydfil and Ebbw Vale, which compete with each other to be the most difficult places in the country to get people into work; these are places where long-term unemployment is a feature. My experience is that it is often the low-hanging fruit that makes these things difficult to achieve. I like to think that Jobcentre Plus will not focus only on those who are easy to get into these placements. We need rather to encourage this to work on a wholesale basis. Perhaps the Minister could reflect on that.

Finally, I go back to the editorial and the issue of whether employers will truly use the opportunity to give experience of work rather than simply finding someone who is an extra pair of hands to do a job that does not necessarily provide the right level of experience. I am talking about quality assurance. Will the Minister reflect on the nature of quality assurance that we will need to get from Jobcentre Plus staff when they seek to carry out these placements? These are a worthy set of amendment regulations and I trust that, with the appropriate guidance, the Minister will see success with their implementation.

[Baroness Thomas of Winchester]

My Lords, I shall add one or two comments. I, too, very much welcome these regulations. I was interested that the Minister said that they were aimed primarily at 18 to 21 year-olds. That presumably means that the Jobcentre Plus advisers have some discretion and that the only thing that is absolutely laid down is that the person must be over 18. Will that be known by all the Jobcentre Plus advisers so that they do not prevent anyone from getting a work experience placement if they are, say, 25? Someone may have had a very chequered career and may have been in and out of work; they might quite like to be involved in this scheme but may be over 21. Can the Minister clarify that? Furthermore, why did the Minister alight on the time span of two months? I would rather like one of these work experience people myself, but I suppose that the House of Lords is not an employer. It is a pity—maybe we should be.

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, we have had an interesting debate and, as usual, some snappy questions. One of the things that this short debate has clearly demonstrated is the concern that we all share for the plight of young unemployed people. Their plight is why it is so important to develop this scheme and other schemes like it. I shall try to work through some of the questions.

I start by making the point that we have effectively built something of a Catch-22 for young people in that employers require work experience, or are much more comfortable with people who have demonstrated an ability to hold down some good work experience, whereas the support system for poorer youngsters on JSA has been loath to let them do it. The previous Administration carried out some experiments and programmes on this, as the noble Lord, Lord Knight, pointed out, and I fully and absolutely acknowledge that we are building on previous experience. The noble Lord referred to the contract with Reed. I was interested to read the report on the Reed work experience and some of the interesting lessons there. One of the most interesting lessons was that the switch from going off JSA, which was a kind of bureaucratic requirement, on to a training allowance led to the loss of many youngsters, some simply because they could not transfer smoothly. The other factor that made that programme improvable—I will express it like that in the interest of consensus—is that the youngsters lost the link with jobseeking in that period. It was called a training allowance but they did not feel that they were still linked in. They lost the link with their Jobcentre Plus adviser.

This is a very different approach, which we incorporate within the mainstream JSA offer. The question “Why mandation?” was asked. I think that this is one of the things that starts to pull it together. We are saying to people, “You remain on the conditionality that JSA requires—you have to go on job searching. We will be more flexible about how you do that, working with the employers, but mandation remains in your JSA requirement and that carries forward into your work experience. Also”—as the noble Lord, Lord German, pointed out—“we have balanced it so that you have a week to work out whether this is really completely intolerable, and you can get out without a sanction. But once you have committed, you are like any other employee and you cannot bunk off without some repercussions”. In that way, the JCP regime is replicating what an ordinary employer would do to an ordinary employee where there is a set of mutual obligations. We cannot have a situation where employers, for whom we will want to make a lot of effort to ensure that this work experience is of great value, feel that they waste those resources because somebody can just stop turning up. That is the reasoning behind that.

Housing Benefit (Amendment) Regulations 2010

Baroness Thomas of Winchester Excerpts

Monday 24th January 2011 Lords Chamber

It is very easy to assign the cruelty to—and it is cruel if you are on the receiving end of these cuts and of the complexity that will be imposed on already stressed families and individuals—and to pray in aid, the Government’s and the country’s financial position. Frankly, it is not good enough, especially a week or so after we watched the chief executive of Barclays Bank in effect put two fingers up to the poor and to the rest of us. It is not acceptable. One group is being treated very differently from another. We need some equality of debate and of access to the good things in life, and I hope that the Government will at least support with enthusiasm the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Best.

[Baroness Thomas of Winchester]

My Lords, it is no secret that when these regulations were first announced I had deep concerns about them, as I made clear in the housing debate that the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, introduced at the beginning of last November. When the Social Security Advisory Committee’s very critical report was published, the Government modified their original proposals in two important ways, as we have heard: in relation to the timing of the changes and in allowing direct payments to landlords in certain circumstances.

The nine months of breathing space for existing claimants is welcome to give them more time to find alternative accommodation if necessary, although it will be paid for by bringing forward the moving of LHA rates from the median to the 30th percentile for new claimants. Also delayed is the introduction of the cap on LHA payments and a reduction in the maximum number of bedrooms that a claimant is entitled to, from five to four. Overall, the change in the phasing means that some claimants will be hit by the cut a year earlier than they might have expected, while others will have a bit more time before the cuts bite.

Turning to the other concession, direct payments to landlords, I am glad that the Government have now agreed to widen the criteria that local authorities should consider in order for this to happen, although I find the wording of this concession quite convoluted—perhaps deliberately so, in order to give some flexibility—so perhaps the Minister can help me. The wording is:

“From April 2011, in cases assessed under the local housing allowance arrangements, local authorities will be able to pay housing benefit direct to the landlord where they consider that it would help the customer to secure a new tenancy or remain in their current home. It follows that the rent must be at a level that they can afford. We will work closely with local authorities to ensure that this provision is used in very specific circumstances where landlords are reducing rents to a level that is affordable for customers”.—[Official Report, 14/12/10; col. WA 170.]

I am glad that the Government are providing guidance to local authorities because to me these three sentences could mean three different things. I am not an expert in these matters, but they do not quite seem to hang together.

While I am talking about welcome news, we must not forget the two provisions in the original announcement of, first, an additional bedroom to be included in the size criteria used to assess HB claims in the private rented sector for an overnight carer of a disabled person or someone with a long-term health condition and, secondly, a large increase in the discretionary housing payments. Both those measures are very welcome.

The $64,000 question remains, however, as all the speakers so far have said: will these housing benefit regulations mean that landlords will reduce their rents, thus bringing the huge housing benefit bill down, to general rejoicing by taxpayers and the Government, or will it mean that not enough landlords will, or can afford to, reduce their rents low enough for LHA claimants, that the discretionary housing payments will be spread too thin to make much difference and that therefore thousands of people will face eviction, child poverty will increase and local authorities will eventually have to pick up a very large bill?

Many statistics have already been given and I will not add to them. We all know why the bill for housing benefit has ballooned—there is nowhere near enough social housing throughout the country and so councils have turned to the much more expensive private rented sector, with buy to let becoming a popular way for people with capital to cash in on the shortage of rental accommodation. While there may be a percentage of greedy landlords who are able to charge unjustifiably high rents—the noble Lord, Lord Best, referred to them and gave a figure—is not the real truth of why the HB bill is so high not that housing benefit has inflated rents but that there are huge numbers of low-paid and unemployed people who qualify for housing benefit?

It is clear that, as my noble friend Lord German has said, London with its high rents is in a category of its own, even though a lot of the boroughs are receiving the cushion of the bulk of the discretionary housing payments. To those of us who live and work in London, the mix of housing works to everyone’s advantage, as the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, said in her powerful contribution. If a large number of the low-paid workforce who receive LHA are forced to move out even of Greater London, then everyone suffers, because life in central London depends on low-paid workers; we do in this House. Of course we all understand that low-paid or unemployed people on housing benefit with large families cannot expect to live for ever in high-end houses or flats in central London, although I am quite sure that very few actually do. However, we know that a lot of families will be forced to move in the next couple of years, as the noble Lord, Lord Adebowale, said. We just hope that this will not mean that they will be pushed out of the reach of good employment and transport, thus exacerbating the situation.

The real worry about these regulations is that dropping to the 30th percentile could have a devastating effect on these families all over the country, many of whom find life a struggle even now. This regulation is the one that could cause evictions, particularly in housing hot spots outside London, such as Brighton and Cambridge, with landlords not having to reduce their rents because they can always find someone not on housing benefit to pay the going rate.

What we need, and what I called for in our debate in November, is what the noble Lord, Lord Best, calls for in his Motion: an independent review of housing benefit in the private rented sector. I know that the Minister will say that this happens automatically in his department, but we need an independent review to be set up and to alert Parliament quickly if the worst fears of some of the relevant organisations in this field, which have already been mentioned, are being realised. Many groups are warning of the dire consequences of the effect of these regulations in today’s difficult economic climate, particularly for single parents and disabled people. The noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins, may say more about disabled people shortly. What would reassure many of us who are concerned about these changes is to hear that the Government will take swift action to alleviate the situation if they are wrong and the organisations are right. I look forward to my noble friend’s reply.

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

My Lords, I declare an interest as chair of Broadland Housing Association. I will not follow my noble friend Lady Sherlock, the right reverend Prelate and the noble Lord, Lord Adebowale, in talking about the human stress, distress and misery potentially in waiting for so many thousands of families with children in our country. Instead, I want to do something different; I want to challenge the very premises behind the Government’s strategy, which I think are false.

We have been here before, with the Housing Finance Act 1972 and especially in the late 1980s when the Tory Government again pressed up rents on the grounds that they should subsidise people, not property. We on the Labour Benches pointed out then what would happen. The selfsame money that had been spent on new homes was now being spent on housing benefit, which in turn trapped people out of work and left us with a shortfall in housing. Now the Government are trying to rectify a problem of their own creation by capping HB. They believe, falsely, that HB is driving up private sector rents, that the HB bill has grown because of those increased rents and that, by capping HB, they will press down rents.

The second fallacy is that this policy is consistent with universal credit—a policy for which I applaud the noble Lord, Lord Freud—which seeks to bring more people into the labour market. On the contrary, I fear that these HB caps, together with the unpleasant and bizarre policies of Mr Pickles, will have the reverse effect. Let me unpick this a little. The Minister says that as 40 per cent of the tenants of private rented sector properties receive HB—a rather disputed figure—HB rates determine rents. However, he will be aware, I am sure, of two very simple statistics from his own department. First, as quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Best, the DWP’s own figures show that the increase in housing benefit has been caused not by increased rents but by increased demand for HB from more tenants in both the private and public sectors. Only 13 per cent of the increase in HB can be attributed to private sector rent increases. In other words, the increase in the HB bill has not come about because HB has driven up rents and, therefore, has sought to catch up with the rents that it has inflated. Instead, the HB bill has risen because more and poorer people are claiming HB, including those in low-paid work. That is a fact.

The second statistic is also from the DWP. An Answer to a PQ in August 2009—I do not have later figures—showed that 48 per cent, or nearly half, of all those receiving local housing allowance had, on average, a shortfall of £23 a week. This was because their contractual rent was higher than their HB. Some will have been in work, others on income support and so on. I do not know how they made ends meet. For those in shared accommodation, paying single-room rent, the HB research for the DWP showed that 87 per cent of young people faced a shortfall, on average, of £35 a week. I dread what will happen now that we propose to raise the age at which single-room rent can be claimed from 25 to 35. I repeat: 48 per cent found that their HB did not cover their rent. If the Minister is right and their HB then did not press down on their contractual rent—however much the tenants would have wanted and needed it to—why does he think now that by cutting HB 18 months later he will press their contractual rent down? It is a triumph of hope over history. It was not happening 18 months ago and landlords tell us that it will not happen this time either. SSAC confirms this. Nine in 10 landlords will avoid anyone on HB. Why? Because they can now let to other people at the rents that they seek to charge. In other words, the Government do not control, as they believe they do, the rents of the private rented sector. It is a fallacy. Indeed, preliminary findings from current research suggest that, whether housing benefit claimants account for 20 per cent or 70 per cent of the private rental market, it makes no difference at all to local rent levels. HB levels, and therefore the Government, do not shape the market, full stop.

Benefits

Baroness Thomas of Winchester Excerpts

Monday 20th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, I am obviously disturbed to hear what the right reverend Prelate has told us about this case. When we find cases and I am alerted to them, we react rapidly to make sure that the individual case is sorted out. If he lets me have the details, I will deal with it.

[Baroness Thomas of Winchester]

My Lords, can my noble friend tell me whether Jobcentre Plus decision-makers in particular will have extra training following the Harrington review so that they can take into account what the review said about those with mental health problems and fluctuating conditions?

[Lord Freud]

Yes, my Lords. One of Professor Harrington’s main recommendations is to put more power back in the hands of the decision-makers in Jobcentre Plus. Clearly, we will be looking to make sure that they exercise that power effectively, particularly because we need to reduce the number of appeals to tribunals. We need to get the decision right first time.

Disabled People

Baroness Thomas of Winchester Excerpts

Monday 13th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, the Government’s strategy is to go down the path of personalisation of services, on which we clearly look to local authorities to take the lead. As the noble Lord pointed out, we have made £2 billion extra available. In practice, local authorities have much more than that available and it is up to them to make sure that the funds go to those with disabilities in the most effective and efficient way.

[Baroness Thomas of Winchester]

My Lords, further to the first reply that my noble friend gave to the noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins, will the Government also take into consideration disabled children in residential schools whose parents have a car on the Motability scheme and who, given the need to look after their children in the school holidays, need the higher-rate mobility allowance? I quite take my noble friend’s point that there is a public consultation on the disability living allowance—I declare an interest in that I have received the consultation, which is very welcome—but this problem must not be overlooked.

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, I reassure my noble friend that there is a requirement for residential care homes, children’s homes and educational establishments such as special schools to meet children’s relevant needs, including their mobility needs.