Benefit Cap (Housing Benefit and Universal Credit) (Amendment) Regulations 2016

Debate between Earl of Listowel and Lord Shipley

Tuesday 8th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope for moving this regret Motion. He has raised a very specific issue about the need for additional support to be made available to help those affected by the cap to find work. But, as we have heard, the issue is broader than this. The Government need to get to the heart of the problem, which previous speakers have identified, which is that they have not been building enough new homes, and as a consequence prices have been rising steeply, whether for owner occupation or for rent.

Crucially, the Government’s emphasis on subsidising owner occupation has left the social rented sector seriously short of funding and therefore of supply. Those who cannot afford to buy are increasingly forced into the private rented sector, with its high rents in most parts of the country. We heard from the noble Lord, Lord Best, about the implications for the private rented sector and the likelihood that the availability of homes in the private rented sector will decline for those who are on housing benefit.

Building more homes will help to hold down rents, which in return can reduce the Government’s revenue costs in terms of housing benefit. I understand that there is to be a White Paper on housing supply shortly. That is welcome, but can the Minister confirm whether the purpose of that White Paper is to address the lack of social rented accommodation? Might it also address the absurdity of calling a home “affordable” when for many people such homes are nothing of the kind?

Meanwhile, the impact on homelessness of lowering the cap could be severe. The Government are already committed, as we have heard, to supporting the Homelessness Reduction Bill, but their support for the Bill seems to sit oddly with this cap, which will actually increase homelessness. We have heard a whole set of disturbing figures, from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds and others. I understand that Shelter has estimated that there will be more than 120,000 children in temporary accommodation at Christmas. I find that disturbing. Also disturbing is the fact that since the original cap was introduced, around 70% of those affected have not found work. So doubling the number subject to the cap and worsening it for those already subject to it means that many more people who are already poor are going to be made poorer.

When the Prime Minister took office, she declared that his was a Government for all the people. But this is a dubious claim when poor people are being made poorer. The Government must show that they are prepared to invest further in helping people back into work, at decent rates of pay, thus overcoming the barriers so many can face daily in their attempts to do so. If the Government do not do that, they are simply widening social and financial inequalities in our country, which is unacceptable.

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, I support this Motion to Regret, over three issues in particular. First, the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, referred to the 17% of mothers who have a child under the age of one. I would add pregnant mothers to that. Can they not be exempted, or can that at least be looked at? The Maternal Mental Health Alliance report published last year highlighted to all of us the terrible bane of post-natal and pre-natal depression and the risk that if a mother’s mental health deteriorates, her relationship with her young infant is damaged. This costs society huge amounts in the long term.

My second concern is about more children being taken into care. We were reminded earlier by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, that most children coming into care come from poverty. Has the Minister examined this policy to look at whether it increases the risk of children being taken into care?

Thirdly, the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, alluded to the fact that we face having 120,000 children in Britain in temporary accommodation this Christmas. There has been an 18% rise in the past year in the use of bed and breakfast accommodation for such families. I followed a woman’s journey through temporary accommodation last year. First, she was in a domestic refuge and then in a very small single room with her 16 year-old daughter and one year-old child. She was distressed by that, but most distressed by the uncertainty of where she would go next. She was evicted from there to another, even smaller room and then there was the fear that she might be moved away from London, as far afield as Manchester, where she would know no one; she was in despair about this situation. Finally there was resolution. She has, at least for now, a larger and quite comfortable place for the next six months, for which she is so grateful. But one cannot overestimate the impact on the mental health of families and children of being put into homeless temporary accommodation.

I recognise that the Minister may be limited in how far he can help the House today, but I hope he will take very much to heart the concerns that have been raised. I share my noble friend Lord Best’s gratitude to the Government for supporting the current homelessness legislation, the Homelessness Reduction Bill. I look forward to the White Paper on housing supply, and to the Minister’s response.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Debate between Earl of Listowel and Lord Shipley

Wednesday 27th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I will not detain the House that long, but I want first to pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Best, in particular and to other colleagues for the progress that has been made in discussions with the Minister on this important matter. Some associations would find it difficult to manage properly with such a reduction.

I received two letters this morning. One was from the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Freud, explaining the policy the Government are now following, which is a welcome change and I thank him for that. I hope it will prove to be a durable, long-term solution to the problem. I also had a letter from the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Trafford, also dated 27 January. I had asked a question about the cost of supported housing being exempt from the 1% rent reduction, and I had been told that the total sum involved was around £75 million a year. There has not been clarity about that sum. I am surprised that the Government do not seem to know the cost they will have to meet, given the decision not to implement the measure for one year and, hopefully, for longer. Is there a figure to which the Government are working? I look forward to the Minister’s reply because when we are discussing policy in your Lordships’ Chamber, it is important that we have some idea of the sums involved. If it proves to be true that the figure is £75 million, that is not in fact a significant sum.

As I say, I look forward to hearing the Minister’s reply. I welcome the progress that has been made on this matter, which will be very gratefully received by many people outside your Lordships’ House.

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, having six weeks ago spoken to a mother who had just moved into a refuge with her daughter and granddaughter, and heard from her about the years of abuse she had experienced in her family home, I am very grateful to my noble friends, noble Lords and the Minister for the announcement that he has made today.

Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]

Debate between Earl of Listowel and Lord Shipley

Tuesday 12th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, back in July, on Report, this House voted by 221 votes to 154—a majority of 67—that 16 and 17 year-olds should have the right to vote in local elections. When the Bill went to the House of Commons, this decision was reversed and, as a consequence, the matter has returned to this House to be considered once again.

I find it strange that so much emphasis is put on citizenship in young people’s education but that the natural extension of this to enable them to vote is a step this Government seem reluctant to take. Ten years ago, the Power commission, funded by the Joseph Rowntree Trust, concluded in its report on how to increase political participation that the voting age should be lowered to 16. It was one of its key recommendations, but it has never been acted on.

We cannot complain that younger generations are not engaging with politics when they cannot participate fully. Young people surely have a right to a say in how the communities they live in are run. They use public services locally; they are very politically conscious and we ought to build on that. Crucially, we need to get young people into the way of voting and starting at 18 can be too late, as turnout levels of people under 25 show. Our democracy depends on high levels of participation, and voting at 16 would instil in more young people the habit of voting. We now have the precedent of the Scottish referendum, 16 months ago, when 16 and 17 year-olds were entitled to vote. Although Scotland is outside the scope of the Bill, this precedent has served, in practice, as a pilot and has changed mindsets because it was a clear success.

Noble Lords are all aware that votes at 16 has been the subject of ongoing debate in this House since the general election. In recent months, we have had significant debates on the right to vote at 16 in the EU referendum Bill. We asked the Government to rethink their position, but this was reversed in the other place and, by a narrow margin, not pressed further in this House. In the context of that decision on the EU referendum Bill, I have carefully considered whether there is a justification for asking the House of Commons to think again about lowering the voting age in the context of this Bill. For this is a different Bill: it relates to local government, not to a referendum, and I have concluded that there is a case and a justification for doing so. The issue is important: it relates to the nature of our democracy and young people’s engagement with the democratic process. In the House of Commons, on 17 November, the Minister said that:

“It is undeniable that there is a debate to be had on the issue”.—[Official Report, Commons, 17/11/15; col. 556.]

I agree with him, and I think this House would do so, too. However, it is not clear to me when the Government plan to have that debate. I will listen very carefully to anything further the Minister has to say in response to this debate but, for the moment, I beg to move.

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, adolescence is a difficult time for all young people, whether they grow up in loving families or not. I remain concerned that the amendment would put an additional burden on adolescents. I am also worried that it would put a target on the back of young people for unscrupulous politicians, which might be unhelpful. Finally, I agree with Barry Sheerman, a very well-respected Labour MP who was, for many years, head of the Education Select Committee in the other place. In recent discussions on the franchise in that place, he talked of his concern about the shrinking of childhood.

Many noble Lords support this proposal: I ask them to consult on it with experts in child development. So far, only the Government have referred to the evidence about adolescence. They have referred to neurobiological research into adolescence terminating in the early 20s but, so far, I am not aware of that evidence being referred to by those proposing the amendment.

Health and Social Care Bill

Debate between Earl of Listowel and Lord Shipley

Thursday 8th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I support the amendment spoken to by my noble friend, to which my name is attached. I will strive to be as brief as possible at this late hour, but the issue is very important.

I will begin with an aside and refer to the short debate on productivity and manufacturing industry instigated at the start of business today by the noble Lord, Lord Bates. I will highlight the point made recently by Education Minister Sarah Teather that what happens in schools is important, but that the most important thing for children’s success outcomes is what happens in the home, outside school. As one academic put it, when one considers what makes the difference to a successful outcome for a child, only 10 per cent of it will depend on schools; the rest will depend on what happens in the background, in the family.

Of course, whether a parent is successful in their education is the single most important indicator that their child will be successful in their education. Businesses might be more aware, when they push for schools to teach children to read, write and do arithmetic better to get their apprenticeship skills, that they should think also very much about early intervention and getting it right in the family as well. If we are to compete with China in future, we need to think very carefully about the successful integration of services to support families and children.

I will speak briefly, on International Women’s Day, about another matter raised in an earlier debate today: namely, domestic violence and women fleeing to refuges. A few years ago I spoke to a child and adolescent psychiatrist, Professor Panos Vostanis of the University of Leicester. He had gone into these refuges and worked with the mothers and children over time, providing them with support. He said how important and effective it had been, but how rare the service was. He has now been commissioned by the European Union to conduct EU-wide research into support for families where there has been domestic violence.

This theme recurs in children's homes, refuges and other settings. It seems elementary that a mental health professional such as a psychiatrist or clinical psychologist should visit a children's home or refuge once a fortnight, to speak to mothers, work with children and support staff. That is best practice and it happens—but very often the model gets overlooked because, understandably, clinicians are under pressure and there are high thresholds of access for children and adults to these services.

Perhaps I may give one further example on the matter of schools. I recently attended an international conference on the mental health of children in schools. It was organised by Dr Rita Harris, head of child and adolescent mental health services at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust. We were given a presentation by two wonderful mental health nurses who had tried to revive a service in the Sunderland area. They found that schools had given up using child and adolescent mental health services because they would write to the service and it would respond by saying: “I am sorry, your child is not sick enough for us to see. Wait until he gets sicker and then we might see him”. The nurses had tried to mend the relationship with schools, build trust and ensure that every school had a mental health professional allocated to it. However, one school simply did not want any truck with them because it had had such a bad experience in the past of trying to work in this integrated way with child and adolescent mental health services.

The record is very poor. Given the concerns that many have raised in the past about the possible fragmentation that might arise from the Bill, and the many clinical commissioning groups that will come into being and the large upheaval that will take place, I am looking to the Minister for reassurance that the Government will improve a situation that has been so disappointing in the past, that we will see a better integrated service that will better meet the needs of children and families, that we will see better outcomes for children and they will be more successful in school in part because health and social care services will have been better integrated for them and they will have received, early in their lives, the support that they need. I look forward to the Minister's response.

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendments 238AA, 238AB, 238BZA and 238BA and to declare my interest as a member of Newcastle City Council.

These amendments relate to the membership of health and well-being boards. As currently proposed, the boards will have at least one councillor of the relevant local authority—so it could be one councillor, or it could be more. The choice will be with the council. However, several other people who have membership will be officers or unelected co-optees. This means that the board as currently proposed is effectively a board of directors, not a council committee which—unlike all other council committees—is made up of those who are publicly elected. Yet the board as proposed is legally a council committee; and because it is legally a council committee, only councillors can vote—officers must advise. For officers to vote, specific regulations will have to be put in place, and of course they can be. However, I hope that the Minister is willing to think further about this. Councillors, being elected, have both a democratic mandate—unlike officers—and a perception of service provision which comes from a geographical perspective as well as a service perspective. At times that can be very valuable, particularly in a geographically large council area.

To have just one councillor—which is what the Bill permits—would be a mistake. It would mean a council committee, the health and well-being board, would be dominated by officers and co-optees. It would also mean that only one political group was in membership of the board, which in my view would be deeply unwise.

Given the board’s terms of reference, I do not argue that councillors have to be in majority. However, I do argue that councillors are important; that geographical differences in a council area should be acknowledged; and that more than one political group should be fully represented on a board. Amendment 238AA solves this problem. It defines the minimum number of councillors as three. That would give the board greater breadth and enable political proportionality to be effective. Amendment 238AB states that where a council is a county council and part of a two-tier system of local government, there should be a district council representative as well as county representatives because district councils have statutory duties in relation to health and well-being. Having one district councillor appointed in this way as a representative of several district councils is normal procedure for those councils when duties span the two tiers. The other two amendments are simply enabling amendments assuming that Amendments 238AA and 238AB are agreed.

In Committee there was a discussion about councillor membership—how many there should be, whether they should be in a majority and whether they should have powers over the budgets of other health organisations not managed by the council. There was no conclusion to that debate, but I have thought long and hard about it. I have concluded that the amendments in my name and those of the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Eaton and Lady Henig, which reflect all parts of this Chamber, give a solution to this problem and would enable us to balance professional knowledge with the necessary democratic accountability.

I do not propose to press this to a vote, but I hope that the Minister will be willing to engage in discussion on it. What is being proposed from all parts of the House is a solution to a problem that needs to be resolved. It will prevent difficulties arising further down the line should a council decide to have only one councillor as a member of the board.