Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Lord Beecham Excerpts

Monday 14th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

In these circumstances, a word such as “provisions” would be a better and more even-handed way of looking at the measure.

From my point of view, the timing proposed in the amendment is too soon, the remit is too narrow and the terms of reference are designed to achieve only one result. Therefore, I hope that my noble friend will reject it.

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, I also have a slight reservation about my noble friend’s amendment, but it is not the kind of semantic quibble which the noble Lord has just advanced, if I might term it that way. I would like to see the review of the out-of-work benefits regime and sanctions, which she rightly calls for, extended to certain other aspects of the welfare system as it is now operating.

In debates in your Lordships’ House, I have referred before to the area in Newcastle I represent as a councillor. It is a ward in the west end of the city with high levels of deprivation and a life expectancy 12 years lower than that of the area where I live, some 12 minutes’ drive away. The ward has six primary schools, two of which are Roman Catholic schools. All the schools, together with the Excelsior Academy, founded by a Conservative philanthropist, provide breakfast clubs for their pupils. The ward is served by the largest food bank in the country and poverty is a very real local issue.

On 26 November, I was contacted by a constituent, a single parent with two very young children, whose child tax credit payments had been stopped for eight weeks. The family was left with £33 a week child benefit and £117 a fortnight income support. The children’s milk tokens had also been stopped, and formula milk needed by one child who suffers from asthma could no longer be afforded. The parent of these children could not top up the gas meter, when required, to the usual extent.

Concentrix, the firm dealing with my constituent under contract to HMRC, had initially stated that it would take six weeks to check the eligibility for child tax credits. I forwarded the details and my reply to the constituent to the local Member of Parliament, and advised my constituent that I had done so and would also endeavour to take up the matter with the Minister. However, three days later, on 1 December, I was again contacted by my constituent, who told me that a further telephone conversation had taken place with Concentrix. The initial response—now nine weeks after payments ceased—was that inquiries were ongoing. A request was then made to speak to a supervisor. Initially, that led only to an assertion by the supervisor that the mandatory reconsideration was being carried out by another department which did not accept calls from claimants. However, after it was said in the course of this telephone conversation that the local Member of Parliament had been informed about the case, the problem was miraculously resolved and payments immediately resumed, even though for weeks Concentrix had claimed that this could not be done by the department to which the calls had been made.

This sorry saga raises serious questions about the administration of the child tax credit system in general, and by Concentrix in particular. Of course, it is right that claims should be validated, but your Lordships might think that even six weeks seems like a long time for payments to be suspended, let alone the nine weeks which had elapsed in this case and the even longer period which, but for the mention of the Member of Parliament, would otherwise have ensued.

There are also issues about the approach taken by Concentrix in dealing with the matter, not just the length of time taken. This US-owned company, another beneficiary of the passion for outsourcing these services, was featured in an article in the Independent in February. Staff claimed they were under pressure to start 40 or 50 inquiries a day into possibly fraudulent claims without any initial cause. In effect, they were asked to fish for fraud. As of August, the Mumsnet website carried 91 cases of applicants complaining about how they felt intimidated by the company’s approach and its demands, for example, for original documentation such as bank statements, rent payments or catalogue, fuel and other bills, which were often prefaced by unsubstantiated and false assertions that claimants were not lone parents but were living with someone.

All of this is symptomatic of a deeply troubling approach to an important component of our welfare system, or, as I prefer to characterise it, our system of social security, which in so many ways the provisions of this Bill threaten to undermine.

A week last Friday, I watched a recording of JB Priestley’s powerful and moving play “An Inspector Calls”, set more than a century ago, which deals with the tragic history of a young woman driven to suicide by poverty and the withholding of what was then known as poor relief. I am not, of course, suggesting that we are in a similar position today or that this Bill, however imperfect, will take us back there. But I believe it is time for an inspector to call not only on Concentrix but on HMRC, the department and the Government as a whole to review not just how the system is administered, but the implications for those in need of the policies embodied in this Bill.