Financial Guidance and Claims Bill [HL]

Debate between Earl of Listowel and Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope

3rd reading (Minutes of Proceedings): House of Lords
Tuesday 21st November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope (LD)]

My Lords, I add my congratulations; this has been a very good outcome. The Minister has done a splendid job in reflecting the concerns. The Bill is now much better as a result, and she deserves some of the credit for that. I am interested particularly in Amendment 3, because vulnerable people are now much better cared for. It will put more work, pressure and responsibility in the direction of the new body. I begin to wonder whether it will be expected realistically to carry the weight of some of these new, important duties with the financial envelope that we have—we will have time to discuss that afterwards—but the shape and framework that the body now has is a lot better for serving the needs of the most vulnerable and distressed.

I hope that consideration of people with vulnerabilities will also include signposting to the official social security benefits that exist so that they are taken up—universal credit will obviously increase take-up automatically, but a lot of other residual benefits still sit outside universal credit. Signposting under Amendment 3 would add value to having the power in the Bill. I look forward to seeing how this works out. It is a much better provision than was previously the case, and the Minister deserves credit for that.

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

I, too, thank the Minister and noble Lords for making significant progress. Perhaps I may ask for clarification: will care leavers be included in the “vulnerable” group? I apologise to your Lordships for being absent from Report—I was not able to be present—so I ask this question now.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, I add my thanks to the Minister for her hard work and ingenuity in securing this amendment today. It has certainly moved a long way since our first discussion in Committee. She may remember that at the time I raised the issue of a particular care leaver who had a very stressful experience over two years because of the difficulties that we are addressing now. I am really grateful to her, particularly for care leavers who, after all, begin with a difficult start in their families, often have to experience independence very early in life and too often find themselves in financial difficulties. This will be particularly helpful for them. I appreciate the clarity that the Minister gave on the urgency with which the Government are moving forward on this, which was reassuring.

There is one point on which I would like clarification, and the Minister may care to write to me on this. Many care leavers are in difficulty around council tax. Some enlightened local authorities are now deciding not to charge care leavers but many still do so. When care leavers are pursued by their local authority for council tax, they can get into the position of the corporate parent aggressively pursuing their corporate child through the courts. I hope the dispensation will address that particular point.

One further point that the Minister may care to cover in correspondence: I believe that in Scotland the experience has been that six weeks may not be enough of a respite period to build a robust plan to go forward. I hope she might look at what is going on in Scotland and that we may build on that learning, perhaps looking at increasing the length of the respite period in light of the experience there.

I thank the Minister and all those noble Lords, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, who took this forward, as well as the charity StepChange, which has been so helpful in all these matters.

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope (LD)]

My Lords, following on from the comments made by the noble Earl about Scotland, I hope the Minister will encourage dialogue with the authorities in Scotland that have some experience of running these schemes. I am not saying the system is perfect but it would appear a bit absurd not to take advantage of the opportunity, through ministerial joint committees and what have you, to learn as much as can be learned and extract information about the experience in Scotland. I hope that might benefit and expedite the formulation of the scheme in due course.

An important point that I would like the Minister to confirm is that the provisions of this new scheme, which I greatly welcome, apply also to public bodies, local authorities and housing associations. If it does not do that then it will not be as effective, so I hope consideration will be given to that question.

If everything that can go right does go right—if I may invite the Minister to be optimistic for a moment—how quickly does she think this could be done? I absolutely understand the commitment that she has made; she has made it clear that she is personally committed to the scheme, and I am sure she will do everything that she can to deliver it. However, we live in uncertain times, and it may be that she gets promoted on to further and better things and other Ministers come in. If that were the case, we might look to the new Minister for Financial Inclusion to continue her work.

By what milestones can we measure progress of implementation of the scheme? It is so easy for these things just to disappear slowly by desuetude and disinterest, and by the throng and press of other matters in the departmental in-tray for such things to slip considerably. Can she assure us on the efforts that will be made to ensure that it stays up to the best possible implementation timetable to get done quickly, and on what sanctions there would be if the single financial guidance body did not keep up to the timetable limits set in the Bill? We would be even more reassured that this is a useful scheme if we had some sense of how quickly it will be accessible to ordinary people in the United Kingdom.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Debate between Earl of Listowel and Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope

Monday 29th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope (LD)]

My Lords, I have been studying these figures for as long as anyone. I start by acknowledging that I do not think the change would have happened without the direct personal intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Freud. I am very grateful to him, as the whole House should be, because he has the weight to be able to do these things and has the knowledge and understanding of what it means to people.

This gives me a lot more confidence that policymakers within the Conservative Government are not running away from the extent of this problem. I never really believed that that was the case, but this change means that they are not giving the impression that they do not want to see any of these figures published. Individually, these figures—they are relative, and there are well-recognised problems about relative measures—establish trends over time. That is important. Sixty per cent of national median income is perfectly well understood. It is a bellwether figure which we must all bear at the front of our minds as these policies unfold in future.

I remind colleagues that in the last figures the HBAI produced, in 2013-14, something like 17% of British children were in poverty. That is a ballpark figure of 2.3 million in all. That is a serious situation. If that is not difficult enough looking back, looking forward, the best estimate that I can find—the most accurate, up-to-date figure—is the projection that that figure might rise from 2.3 million to 3.8 million by 2020. That is the biggest increase in my generation and an issue of some concern. Obviously there are very difficult financial circumstances, and austerity has to be factored into the policy mix, but it struck fear in my heart when, speaking from Hong Kong, the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that he is looking for further savings in public expenditure. Looking forward to 2020, I think the pupil premium will help a lot in England, and the educational attainment and childcare provisions will help, but I do not think that the Government’s life chances strategy, as currently set out and planned, will deal with the projected increase in child poverty. That is serious and it is what we should be spending time on.

Having said that, reassurance will be provided by the Government accepting these figures and adding persistent poverty, which is a particularly important indicator, although it should be rebased, and I understand the technical need for that. This is a good and welcome step but, more than anything else, I want to acknowledge that it would not have happened without the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Freud.

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

I thank the Minister for bringing forward these amendments. I was delighted to see them tabled. I agree with him that employment and education are the most important ways out of poverty. I am also delighted to keep reading the employment figures and seeing that we have the highest records of employment on record, I believe.

I thank the Child Poverty Action Group, which has briefed me on this and introduced me to the First Love Foundation, a bank providing food to hungry families in east London, and, through it, to Lorna, a mother of three boys—two, I think, with disabilities—who was working 16 hours a week. Two-thirds of children in poverty live in working families. It was so helpful for me to meet her and hear about her experience and that of her family, and the difficulties she faced living on such a low income.

I am also very grateful to my Cross-Bench colleagues, who listened very carefully to the debate on Report. I am most grateful for their attention to this matter. I thank the Minister again.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Debate between Earl of Listowel and Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope

Monday 25th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope (LD)]

My Lords, I support the case that has been powerfully made by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister. We have been discussing for what seems like years what should be done to help low-income families in work, and she has made a very good case. I cannot understand why the Government do not see the force of monitoring carefully the circumstances and environment in which these children will live, admittedly in England, in low-income households.

The Minister referred—and I know the work well—to the Waddell and Burton concepts of the sustainability and well-being that derive from work. That study was done in the early 2000s, and it was a changing experience for me as well—it was new to me. He also referred to the work that he then went on to do with the Labour Government in his important report. It all suggests that low-income working families are struggling to get to the kind of rewards that Waddell and Burton were talking about in their biopsychosocial model, which was so instructive in changing the terms of the debate.

I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, that the evidence is that we are in a very precarious employment environment. It is particularly true, and becoming more so, of self-employment. Single-parent families in low-paid work suffer increased and increasing stress, and all the other well-known elements that lead to deprivation in terms of the indicators of disability. Large households and some ethnic groups have historically had challenges relating to making work not just something that pays a wage but leads to a fulfilling life. This whole area will become more, rather than less, important in future, as the precarious employment environment increases.

There are big regional differences to which, as policymakers, we are at the moment blind. There are geographical areas and differences within England—as the amendment refers only to England—that would be instructive for policymakers looking at children in low-income working families and to which we do not have access at the moment. We could so easily have it if this amendment were adopted by the Government.

Finally, the universal credit change that is coming in this direction is quite new. Not only does it require families on universal credit under the claimant commitment to get themselves ready and able for work but, once within work, they are under pressure under the new system to go for longer hours and higher-level wage contracts of employment. That is all backed by sanctions. That is something that, once universal credit eventually rolls out across 7.7 million households, we will have to watch very carefully in relation to the trends. I am not saying that there is anything wrong with trying to get people into higher-level jobs, because that is important for low-income families, but that element of universal credit is quite new, to me certainly, in relation to how the social security and social protection systems that we have in the United Kingdom work.

I would be much more comfortable if the Government were to agree to these amendments. We would be better informed and, as legislators in the future, we would be in a much better position to protect the interests of children in low-income families who struggle with poverty in this country. It is time that we tried to do something about that.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I support these two amendments. In the family to which I referred earlier, Ms Lorna Sculley has three children; the oldest and youngest sons have a disability, and she is a working mother. She works 16 hours a week as a dinner lady at the First Love Foundation—the food bank—and she discussed the prospect of getting more work. She calculated that if she worked seven more hours a week, she might get only another six pounds. It just was not worth her while to progress along a work route. I welcome very much what the Government have said about introducing the new, much higher, minimum wage, but the actual effect on families’ incomes might not be as positive as we would all hope, so I hope the Minister will consider accepting this proposal.

I would like to raise another point about a further complication for Ms Sculley. She depends on housing benefit and lives in Tower Hamlets. Her benefit has not been sufficient to pay her rent, so she has to subsidise it from her other income. She says that she cannot move from where she is because of her eldest son’s disability: he is at a school that is good at meeting his needs. That is what I understood from what she said, so that is perhaps relevant to others in our discussion.

My final point in relation to Ms Sculley is that she was offered a parenting class because of her two sons’ disabilities, but it took place on a Thursday, which is when she has to work at the school. She is therefore, in a way, disadvantaged by being in work because she cannot take up the opportunity of attending the parenting class. There is a lot to be said for these two amendments, and I look forward to the Minister’s response. Before I finish, however, I would like to thank him for the time that he took last week—an hour—to speak on the needs of children as they relate to this Bill. I certainly appreciate that very much.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Debate between Earl of Listowel and Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope

Monday 7th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope]

My Lords, I will make just two points. First, although it makes me sound old-fashioned, I am in favour of using the social security uprating rules, established over years, for looking at the total spend of the department and what proportion of the national wealth goes to social protection. I am always frustrated and angry when Chancellors of the Exchequer stand at the Dispatch Box. The Treasury knows the square root of nothing at all about social protection. In the run-up to the Budget, we have purdah, so nobody knows what is going to issue forth from the Chancellor’s Budget briefcase. We get things landed upon us that we all have to live with as a consequence.

I want to try to persuade Governments in the future to stick to the established rules, because there are very clear ways of changing rates and benefits. In the annual uprating, Parliament has a chance to look at trends and how things are changing, make decisions and support the Government or make suggestions otherwise. That is a sensible, well-established way of doing business.

My objection to clause stand part, absent any further exemptions, is that we now have a two-child rule. It is a precedent that I believe is very dangerous, because Chancellors of the Exchequer in future could start importing it to other parts of the social security system without let or hindrance. We might start asking ourselves: what are the intrinsic differences between the child element of tax credits and child benefit itself? They are semantic and subtle; we could be entirely wrong. My point is that a clause such as Clause 11, interfering with child tax credits, and the way in which it has been done, leaves the House with some really serious thinking to do about whether this is supportable.

My view is an olive branch, and I will probably be off the Christmas card list of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, as a result of taking this weak-kneed position. But if the Government do not come up with serious responses to the powerful speeches that have been made this evening, it will condition how I will approach any future support for Clauses 11 and 12. Of course, it is technically true that clause stand part is not necessarily available to us on Report or at Third Reading, but there will be ways of trying to address this in other ways. I was put right on that by a stern note from the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, a moment ago. She is of course right, as she always is.

I am quite clear about this: it is dodgy procedure and a dangerous precedent. The Minister might be able to sell it to people like me if there is serious consideration of the powerful speeches that have been made. I understand the constitutional context; we are not in easy territory. I am not looking for trouble or to pull the Government down, defeat manifestos or any nonsense of that kind, but I have a conscience to deploy in deciding how to vote on some of these really important things and I will follow my conscience. I am not frightened of constitutional rows, if that is what it comes to. However, we do not need to get into that territory if the Minister carefully reflects, as he has done in the past, on what he has heard this evening and comes back with further and better particulars in terms of exemptions.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, in listening to this debate, a few things have become clearer to me. One is how important it is that the Government have been so successful in securing employment for so many of our people. In the debate that the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, had and the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, spoke to, both agreed that getting work is the most important way out of poverty. I pay tribute to the Government again for being so successful in that.

The Minister opened by saying that we are in an atmosphere of austerity and may need to make some tough choices. But it seemed to me that the language changed later on, to say that this is not just about austerity but is the right thing to be doing. I challenge that sincerely. It does not seem at all right to put these burdens on people. Just think: at the moment there is a storm in the north of England—Storm Desmond—flooding many families’ homes. A family in poverty, who may be working but on a very low income, may think to themselves, “We won’t take out insurance on this, that and the other, and we will hope for the best. We hope that there won’t be a storm”. Then this storm comes along and they have not insured their home, and they are already borrowing money anyway for various things because that is the only way that they can afford them, so they already have that debt and now they have lost more. The point I am making is that we are dealing here with some of the more vulnerable families in our society, and we are reducing their resilience.