Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill

Lord Adebowale Excerpts

Monday 11th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Adebowale]

My Lords, I declare my interest as chief executive of Turning Point, an organisation that works with many of the people who will be affected by this Bill, should it become an Act. I felt compelled to join in this debate because many of the people who stand to be affected are people with whom I and my organisation work; they are some of the most vulnerable in society. It is important that we remind ourselves of this during the course of the debate.

In his opening remarks, the Minister made the point that the rich were going to pay more and carry a greater burden than the poor. However, it is the poor who feel the impact more than the rich. I refer to an article I once read by the sister of the Mayor of London. She pointed out that during times of austerity, the rich of course feel the burden of cuts, but generally the burden is restricted to deciding whether they should take one or two cooks on holiday with them this year. We should think about this Bill in that context.

I would like to raise a few points about the Bill’s potential impact on certain groups and make a few further points about fairness and public attitudes. Those who stand to be impacted include many working-age adults; many people accept that now as a given. Many of those with complex needs and challenges are the people supported by Turning Point. We work with people who are experiencing challenges such as substance abuse, mental ill health, learning disabilities, employment difficulties or a combination of some or all of these. I have said in earlier debates that I have yet to meet any one of our clients who does not want to work.

Around half of those who used Turning Point’s integrated, complex-needs services last year have already had benefit and housing difficulties. They have had problems accessing disability benefits despite physical and mental health problems and have been left with debts due to lengthy appeals processes. The point is that people are already struggling due to changes that have begun to affect them and there are still other changes that will start to hit from April.

I got some advice from Crisis, an organisation that is well respected across the House. It gave me an example of a young man called Russell, who had been urgently looking for a shared property in London since September, but did not have the deposit that nearly all landlords require. His rent for a small studio flat was, until September, paid by housing benefit. However, when the changes to the shared accommodation rate kicked in, his housing benefit was slashed from the £180 a week he required to £86 a week. As a result, he had to drop out of his computer course to look for somewhere to live and has accumulated nearly £3,000 in arrears and been served an eviction notice. Homelessness was a real threat for Russell. I am really pleased to report that this morning, I was told that he has just managed to find a new place to live, but has no idea how he is going to pay back the debt accumulated over that period.

The Bill has been described as a real-terms cut with the IFS estimating that, given the current forecasts for inflation, it could amount to a cumulative 4% real cut in the benefits affected. In reality, we do not know what its impact will be as it depends on future inflation rates. The IRS states that this will expose some of the most vulnerable to inflation risk.

I recognise and welcome the fact that disability benefits and carer’s allowance are exempt from the legislation, but the problem remains that the Bill will apply to the main rate and the work-related activity group component of employment and support allowance. According to Disability Rights UK, all of the 991,000 disabled people receiving ESA in the support group and work-related activity group will experience the impact of a 1% cap, and it estimates that that will amount to a loss equivalent to a loaf of bread and a pint of milk per week, or £87.65 a year. That does not sound like a lot, but I come across people whose lives are hugely affected by the ability to afford that loaf of bread and that pint of milk each week.

The Government talk about fairness, which is a big part of their motivation for reform. The debate about skivers versus strivers has been played out a lot recently, and whether it is helpful or it contributes towards polarising opinion and increasing stigma is perhaps a matter for another discussion. Still, the employed and the unemployed cannot be compared with one another so simply. For a start, many working people are in receipt of benefits. We know from recent data that households with at least one employed adult have accounted for 93% of the increase in the number of housing benefit claims in the past two years and that there are around 3.6 million working households already living on an economic “cliff edge” who could be squeezed further by this Bill. The Children’s Society has calculated that the Bill will mean that by 2015, a lone parent with two children on a weekly income of £530 would lose £424 a year, and a couple with two children on a weekly income of £635 would lose £351 a year.

Public attitudes to welfare spending are often impacted. I think that the prejudices which have been mentioned by contributors to this debate are based on the fact that the public do not often understand what the actual impact of this Bill will be on individuals. An argument used in favour of reform is that the welfare bill accounts for a quarter of total government spending. Last year’s data show that the DWP does indeed account for 23% of all public spending, or £166.98 billion. However, of the £159 billion of that sum which went on benefits, 47%, or around £74 billion, went on state pensions compared with JSA and incapacity benefit, which saw spending of approximately £4.9 billion each. Despite this, a YouGov poll recently commissioned by the TUC has found that on average, people think that 41% of the entire welfare budget goes on benefits to unemployed people. The same poll also suggests that support for this Bill actually depends on the level of understanding of it, as I have already mentioned. The Government have a duty to educate the public on the realities of welfare benefits and the impact on the poorest in society as opposed to being tempted to take advantage of ignorance of this matter.

The Government want to improve fairness and incentivise work, but welfare reform cannot be tackled in isolation from other factors such as the labour market and current inequalities. Despite it being a commonly held view, it is difficult confidently to identify evidence of widespread welfare dependency and intergenerational worklessness. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the University of Bristol recently found that only a very small minority of households, some 15,350, have had two or more generations who have “never worked” and of those, many of the second generation have been out of work for less than one year.

Policies that change behaviour are a risk when the roots of the problem go beyond behaviour. Just one worrying trend is the 109% rise in the number of people being helped by food banks, as reported recently by the Trussell Trust. While some people think that food banks are a good idea, research in Canada seems to indicate that the level of nutrition provided by such food is very low compared with the ability to choose your own produce. I am worried that the impact of welfare changes, spending cuts to services and rising living costs could contribute to a further increase in the use of food banks. It would be interesting to know whether Ministers think that an increase in the use of food banks would be a credible and useful outcome of this Bill.

I worry that the Bill risks pushing vulnerable people, including disabled ESA recipients, the working poor and people such as Russell, further away. I would like the Minister’s response to perhaps provide some advice for the Russells of this world—he is not alone and represents maybe a few hundred thousand people—as to what they should do when faced with the impact of the proposed Bill.