Improving Lives: The Future of Work, Health and Disability

Lord Beecham Excerpts

Thursday 30th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, I have to say that we do not recognise the findings of the EHRC, because the analysis does not provide a full picture; it looks only at a particular subset of disabled people and does not include analysis on changes beyond tax and welfare. It will, therefore, present a skewed picture.

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, can the noble Baroness indicate the extent to which the interesting proposals in the Statement would apply to people who are not technically employed—that is to say the people in the so-called gig economy?

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, I think it is right to say that in the first instance, or at the moment, our focus is about getting as many people as possible into employment. The issue with the gig economy is that we then cannot ensure that all the support systems that need to be provided will be there, but that is certainly something I am sure will be at the forefront of the minds of those who are taking the Stevenson/Farmer review forward—and also working with the Matthew Taylor review—in terms of finding every way to ensure that whoever is doing whatever form of work in the United Kingdom is properly supported.

Housing: Underoccupancy Charge

Lord Beecham Excerpts

Wednesday 20th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

Some 20% of the total number affected have looked to improve their employment outcomes; among those who are unemployed, that is up to 63%. In the overall figures you can see real changes in behaviour, with the number of workless families in social housing down to an all-time low of 39%. This in a context of dramatic changes in employment levels, with employment at its highest level since records began; record lows in inactivity; record female employment; record youth employment; the lowest number of workless households since 1996; and out-of-work benefits at their lowest level since 1982. We are seeing a transformation and this is part of it.

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, in Newcastle alone, 4,720 households are affected by the charge—1,200 with children and 1,000 of them working households. The average loss per household is £748 a year, and arrears from 2,000 households amount to £639,000. How does the charge contribute to the well-being of these families and will the Government be applying equivalent financial sanctions for underoccupation to those to whom they intend to offer benefits under their starter homes policy?

[Lord Freud]

I understand that the noble Lord is referring to a study conducted by Newcastle University. I have to point out that that study was a qualitative survey, based on interviews with 38 people, which was a self-selecting sample.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Lord Beecham Excerpts

Tuesday 12th January 2016 Lords Chamber

I am told that, in exploring the opportunity to obtain a waiver from the rent cuts because the loss of rent would put them out of business, it has been suggested that the CLTs could ask much larger housing associations to absorb their modest stock of new homes. However, often after years of volunteer work in their village, these fledgling community land trusts are extremely reluctant to transfer their assets to a bigger organisation not necessarily based anywhere in their locality. Government has been supportive of these very local community-based initiatives and I am sure there is no desire to force them into insolvency or make them hand over their assets to a larger housing association. They have acted in good faith in securing local contributions of time, money and, above all, land and have been very prudent in their budgeting. Suddenly to face the prospect of a significant reduction in their income would be more than unfortunate and I know they would be very grateful for some reassurance from the Minister that these little enterprises will be outside the new measure.

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, I represent a ward in Newcastle-upon-Tyne—I declare my interest as a serving councillor there and as a vice-president of the LGA—which will be affected by various aspects of the Bill, but particularly by a matter that is the subject of an amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, who is not in his place, which deals with exceptions to rent reductions for registered providers of social housing which are almshouse charities. I have received two communications about that group, one from a London authority and another from a body called the Hospital of St Mary the Virgin in Newcastle, which operates two schemes, one in my ward—a place called Thomas Horsley House—and another in an adjoining ward. That body is very worried about the possibility of almshouses being forced to reduce the rents they charge. It provides homes for single, poor, older men and currently charges rents of £55 a week in one of the two homes and £57 a week in the home in my ward. Those charges include gas, electricity, water, TV licences for all the over-60s and all repairs and maintenance. The only things that are excluded are council tax, phone bills and TV licences for the under-60s. The body informs me that it has,

“been able to maintain these rents at considerably less than the market rate because we are beneficiaries of the related Estates Trust”.

I know that development well. It is a modern development with very nice accommodation and is on a bus route. It is adjacent to another very good scheme provided by Anchor Housing. For that very similar accommodation, Anchor Housing charges £101.20 per week, which is a considerable difference. The Hospital of St Mary the Virgin says:

“We have taken great care only to increase the rents … by c.£1-2 per week per year, to enable us to maintain the wages of staff at or above the Living Wage, to pay for any increases in utilities”,

and so on. However, the body says that it would find it very difficult indeed to continue to do that if it is compelled to reduce the rents.

I suspect that this is not a large group of social housing providers, but there will be almshouses up and down the country and if they follow the model followed by the body in my ward, they are providing very good value for a vulnerable group of people at a low cost which they will find difficult to sustain, and their tenants will have difficulty meeting higher payments should almshouses be affected by this measure. I very much hope that the Government will consider almshouses and housing co-operatives, which have also been mentioned, as bodies which should not be obliged to reduce their rents, with the implications that that would have.

It is estimated that, over time, Newcastle would lose some £529 million which would otherwise be invested, not just—I say “just”—in building new houses but in maintaining the existing stock. This poses a very considerable threat to the activities of an arm’s-length management company, Your Homes Newcastle, in regard to a substantial holding of houses. The problem here is that reductions in rents would affect not just the potential maintenance of the existing stock but the building of new houses, as noble Lords have mentioned. The impact is already being felt in the ward I represent. Two small schemes in the ward were going forward to tender. Two housing associations withdrew because they were concerned about the viability of the schemes and another is still on the margins of deciding whether to go ahead and, if it does go ahead, it will be on a somewhat different basis. Neither of these is a large scheme.

A relevant consideration is that the smaller the scheme, the bigger the potential impact on the housing association because it is less possible to provide cheaper housing if you are unable to compensate for that to some extent by providing housing that will attract a market rent or that can be sold. The impact of possible rent reductions and of right to buy is already visibly acting as a deterrent to the provision of new housing in my authority, where it is very much needed, and, I guess, in many authorities up and down the country. The Government really need to rethink the impact of this policy beyond the financial gain they will obtain from the reductions in housing benefit—a matter I first brought to light in a Written Question I tabled some months ago, and about which I have made previous mention. There is a very significant gain from that point of view but with very damaging implications for local housing and people who need it, including people who need it more than most—that is, the people catered for by the charities to which I have referred. I hope that the Government will look very sympathetically at the needs of those bodies but also at the impact of the measure on housing need generally in areas that are already hard pressed.

While the Government are doing that, they might take a look at what they are doing—if anything—about rents in the private sector, where, of course, a great deal of housing benefit goes. Today we read of very substantial private rented housing increases across the country. To my astonishment, the rise in Newcastle in percentage terms is the same as that in London. Rents in London have been, and are, going up very considerably. They are going up even higher, I understand, in some other places. I think rents in Bristol have been cited in the Guardian as going up by something like 18% in a year. That is very difficult for people to cope with but must necessarily impose a charge on the public purse as well. What do the Government propose to do to protect tenants in that sector from that kind of rent increase and, indeed, to protect the Exchequer’s interest, given the consequences of rent increases in that sector? None of that seems embodied in the legislation, yet it will have a significant impact on people’s lives and on communities in the areas where these circumstances are currently causing problems, and will continue to do so unless action is taken. I hope the Government will look at that matter as well.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord has just read my mind. Doing so might be helpful because I think that we are now talking at cross purposes. An exemption relates to a provider, which is why I could not give the noble Baroness an assurance, because I do not know what providers might struggle because of rent reductions, whereas an exception relates to a sector, such as one that might provide for domestic refuges. Therefore an exemption is quite different from an exception, and I think we might have been talking a bit at cross purposes. I almost lost my train of thought there. However, I hope that with those reassurances, the noble Lord will feel—

[Lord Beecham]

Before the noble Baroness sits down, she referred to the private rented sector and implied that it was not as important as it would appear to be. However, has not the proportion of houses now in the private rented sector approximately doubled in the last few years, so that it now makes up 20% of total housing stock? How does that equate to her apparent fears for the viability of the sector if, for example, the Government take equivalent action with the rents they charge?

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Lord Beecham Excerpts

Monday 21st December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, I am sure I speak for many in your Lordships’ House when I say how pleased I was that funding for the troubled families programme was extended into this Parliament and that the Bill will create a statutory duty to report on our progress in supporting these families with multiple, highly complex problems.

In more than one in 10 of the original troubled families on the programme, an adult moved off benefits and into continuous employment, which was a huge achievement since, on average, troubled families in the first programme had nine serious problems to overcome. Surely I am not being too optimistic in assuming that this reporting obligation signals an intent on the part of this Government to keep helping such families in the most effective ways possible and to renew the necessary funding.

Although ongoing accountability and financial commitment are obviously essential, I have to confess to a nervousness about the wording of Amendment 70, which talks about,

“the adequacy of resources given to local authorities”.

My understanding of when and why troubled families programmes have worked best is that one crucial common factor has been the wider system reform that the funds have helped to effect. In early speeches about the intent of the programme, a recurring theme was that if social services were to help families turn themselves around, this would require the service landscape in a local authority area to be no less transformed itself.

The Government never intended to foot the bill for business as usual but to make a contribution on a payment-by-results basis to the bigger prize of system reform. Local authorities would not get the results they needed on the per-family spend alone—indeed, the first financial framework document published in 2012 was explicit that they would get only up to 40% of the unit cost of the intensive interventions that work with this group of families. Government were priming a pump, not signing a blank cheque. This should remain the guiding principle: a level of funding that incentivises services such as the police, health and social services to work more closely together to reduce costs, not a level of funding that is adequate in isolation to fund the support provided for troubled families.

This brings me to Amendment 71 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Manzoor. She argues that the report should specify which types of interventions were used and which were a success or failure. But this seems to ignore the evidence that a whole system has to become relentlessly focused on supporting families across the spectrum of need if a local authority can truly be deemed to be successful. Taking an intervention-level approach runs the risk of ignoring the importance of synergy and the whole-system emphasis also seen, for example, in the way in which Ofsted is now examining the entirety of a council’s services to support children, using the single inspection framework.

Local authorities, such as the Isle of Wight, which have gone through profound reform, have integrated their troubled families work and funding with early years obligations, delivered through children’s centres, by forming family hubs. These help families with children right up the age range and across the spectrum of need, so are able to offer early help as well as the more intensive help typically associated with troubled families. This is highly relevant, given the Prime Minister’s recent announcement that local authorities which fail to safeguard children adequately will be taken into special measures, because that is what happened to the Isle of Wight. It was taken over by Hampshire, forced to rethink all its children’s services and make prevention of harm the watchword. It is now modelling a better offer for all families.

Increasingly, family hubs are the visible manifestation of a system that integrates troubled families work with full-spectrum support in a sustainable financial envelope. Surely the future lies in evidence-based interventions being locally tailored into better functioning systems. I am not convinced that reporting at the level of interventions would capture the most important learning, which is surely the priority.

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

I spoke today to the officer in Newcastle who is responsible for the programme. We do not call it the troubled families programme in Newcastle; we call it the families programme. The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, is right to say that we need a title that does not imply some kind of stigma.

Newcastle has been extremely successful in the way in which the present scheme has been working. However, it was interesting to learn in a little more detail from the officer in question—I declare my interest as a member of the city council—what is occurring on the financial front and with progress on the ground.

In moving her amendment—I support both amendments in this group—my noble friend Lady Sherlock referred to the financial basis that was initially for a grant of £3,900 or £4,000. Two-thirds went on a fee for mounting the programme, while the other third went on a success fee. That has been turned around so that the larger proportion is spent on the success fee. Now, of course, the amounts have been reduced by roughly a third, so the total figure is in the order of £2,600 although, as I have said, the proportions have been reversed. That may in itself be a source of some difficulty.

However, other issues need to be considered. One of the criteria is getting people into employment. Of course, that is important and makes a significant difference, but those criteria will not necessarily apply evenly across all the relevant authorities. It will, frankly, be more difficult to get someone into a job in Newcastle and other parts of the north-east than in some other parts of the country, simply because of the state of the local economy. Too much weighting on that one factor could be regressive. That needs to be considered.

Then there is the question of what outcome we are looking for from the programme and, in particular, whether we are looking over a sufficiently long period to be able to judge what is happening and what is successful. I hope that, in any kind of survey of what is going on, we can take that long-term view—over several years rather than only two or three—to see what approaches have paid a dividend.

Another aspect that occurs to me is that the Labour Government made a mistake, frankly, in dividing children’s services from adult social care. I was chairman of the social services committee in Newcastle in the early 1970s, when the two services had been brought together. Dividing them, particularly in the context of families, is potentially difficult. It means that you are working across departmental boundaries, possibly less efficiently than would otherwise be the case. It is time—not only from the perspective of troubled families but generally, given the pressures on social care and children’s services collectively—to reopen that issue. It is worth revisiting whether that decision is now applicable.

The noble Lord, Lord Farmer, referred to changes and savings that might be made. We must bear in mind that at the moment—I speak with some unfortunate knowledge of what is likely to happen in Newcastle—financial pressures are such that we will see significant cuts in both adult social care and children’s services. We will lose experienced staff because we are facing a reduction of some £32 million in the resources available to the authority. I suspect that, to a greater or lesser extent, that will be the case across much of local government, particularly in the areas with greatest need.

Although it is obviously right to bring people together as far as possible, so that we do not have a succession of different bodies or individuals working with the families in question, it will stretch the capacity of local authorities to be able to cope with this without depriving some other potential or current recipients of the support they also need. We need to look at the totality of funding across the range of services provided by local authorities and their partners in the health service and elsewhere to deal with these issues.

Both amendments encapsulate the correct approach: we should regularly be taking a significant look at what will be a long-term programme. I return to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, and encourage the Government to change the name, because it implies a certain stigma and it would be better if more neutral terminology were applied.

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, I urge that, whatever approach is taken, we are better at supporting families, particularly vulnerable families. In recent years, we have seen a steady increase in the number of young people being taken into care from their families and a flood of new-born children being taken into care. In some ways, that suggests that we are intervening better to take children out of damaging families, but we should really be trying our level best to support families so that they can keep their children.

Whichever approach one takes—I suspect that it will be a mixture of the two—one needs adequately to fund the general services of local authorities, and I am grateful to the Chancellor for ensuring that there is some limiting of the cuts expected by local authorities. At the same time, approaches such as the troubled families initiative—I express my admiration for Louise Casey, having watched her work in the past—which recognise the need to stick with the family over time, and the importance of loving that family until it can look after itself, are very welcome.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 70, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, and the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, seeks to require the Government to report on the adequacy of the funds provided to local authorities to support troubled families. We believe that the best way to judge the adequacy of the funding will be in the outcomes that the programme achieves. Our report will ensure that the Government remain transparent in publishing the progress made by families supported by the programme. This amendment, therefore, is not necessary.

The Government have committed to funding the new, expanded troubled families programme. In the spending review 2015, funding of £720 million was allocated for the remaining four years. Of course, the new programme also aims to incentivise local authorities to reprioritise existing resources to achieve better outcomes for families with multiple problems. These families are known to local services and money is already spent on them.

As the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, said, there is pressure on funding for children’s services, but we have actually seen local authorities maintaining relatively stable funding in these areas. However, we completely understand that there is pressure, and that is why we are also providing additional resources to change the way services respond to these families to achieve better outcomes.

As a number of noble Lords have said, funding for the new troubled families programme is available to local authorities in three ways. They are provided with a service transformation grant to transform their services and collect evidence for the national evaluation; they receive attachment fees of £1,000, as mentioned, for each family that they agree to work with; and they are able to claim an £800 results payment once one of these families achieves significant and sustained progress.

Of course, noble Lords will be well aware that the real financial prize, as a number of noble Lords have said, is the long-term change that we make to these families’ lives. It is not the money provided by central government, but the cost savings that can be delivered through redesigning their services to deliver better results for complex families with multiple problems and to see those families take control of their lives and move forward. We would certainly expect, as the noble Baroness suggested, local authorities to work together when a family moves from one area to another. It is both in the local authorities’ interest and in the family’s interest, so we would expect the sharing of information.

The programme has been designed to incentivise local services to reprioritise their money and front-line resources away from reactive services towards more integrated, targeted interventions to offer better outcomes for families with high-cost, multiple problems. By responding more effectively to the issues that these families face, the burden placed on local services can be reduced for the long term.

It is also important to remember that we are talking about a programme that has a track record of success. As the noble Baroness said, the original programme achieved success with about 116,000 families struggling with a multitude of problems. This could not have been achieved if the right services had not been in place. As with the original programme, the Government have asked local authorities to provide information that will enable us to assess its impact. This includes understanding what is being spent on families and the savings that are being achieved through local cost-benefit analysis. The noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, asked whether this would increase the burden on local authorities. We do not believe that it will, because local authorities have already agreed to supply this information as part of the national evaluation of the expanded programme. Furthermore, they themselves receive valuable analyses of the programmes to help them drive improvement to their services.

Amendment 71, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Manzoor, seeks to require the report of the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government to include information on the types of interventions families receive and whether they are successful. DCLG has always recommended that families should be supported through a whole-family approach to achieve positive outcomes, but it does not mandate a specific type of intervention. This is because we believe that, to work effectively, local authorities need the flexibility to adapt their approach to their local area and to each family they work with. There are no set or standard interventions that are universally applied by or across local authorities: each intervention is specific to each family. Given this necessary flexibility, the effectiveness of the programme will be measured through the outcomes it achieves with families rather than the individual intervention that it uses.

The duty to report, as it stands, already ensures that the Government are held to account on the effectiveness of the programme through publishing annual information on the progress made by families. To make progress, families will have received effective support from local authorities and their partners. The report will include information on this.

It may also be worth noble Lords noting that the report Parliament will receive annually on the troubled families programme will be based on the national evaluation of the expanded programme and the payment by results achieved by local authorities. The national evaluation will provide information about the progress of families against the six headline problems that the programme seeks to address.

The noble Baroness, Lady Manzoor, asked about data matching, which was used by local authorities in the original programme in relation to outcomes. They used data sets to track and monitor the progress of families. However, the fact that they used data in this way should not imply a lack of support for families. Every family that it was claimed had been turned around made real progress following support from local services. This is checked through the councils’ internal audit process before they can claim a results payment.

On the Guardian report that the noble Baroness mentioned, that was based on something of a misunderstanding of the programme. The programme certainly encourages services to join up and offer better support for families with multiple problems through redesigning their approach to providing support, and we advocated a family-style intervention approach, but that is not the only approach. The Guardian looked only at a certain subsection of families who achieved support through the programme in this particular way, rather than the large number of families helped through a whole variety of different approaches.

On the basis of the information I have provided, I ask noble Lords to withdraw Amendment 70 and not move Amendment 71.

[Lord Beecham]

Could the noble Baroness indicate whether it is intended to have longitudinal studies of the programme and, if so, what kind of period we might look at? Secondly, are the Government encouraging—perhaps they are; I ask out of ignorance—peer review between different authorities carrying out projects of this kind? That would seem particularly helpful given the range of problems faced.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I believe that the full scope of the reports has yet to be decided. I am certainly happy to take back those two suggestions to the department.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Blencathra]

I thank the noble Baroness. I think that the comments of Lord Justice Carnwath are what the lawyers would call obiter dicta—they did not go to the heart of the judgment. He was making an observation that it might be nice if the Government considered it, but there was no suggestion that the Government’s action in imposing the benefits cap was somehow contrary to the European Human Rights Act because we had failed to look after the interests of the child, as set down in the UNCRC.

[Lord Beecham]

The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, prayed in aid the state of public opinion about the benefits system. My noble friend Lady Hollis rightly corrected that. In addition to opinion polls, which have proved less than infallible in recent times, we should have a fact poll. We could then gauge what people really know about the issues that the country and individuals face. As my noble friend pointed out, there is a wide misapprehension about this issue as well as many others affecting the benefits system.

We are moving from a position in which the cap was related to average earnings to a different system. By sheer coincidence, perhaps, that move is taking place at a time when, after a long period in which average earnings have not risen, they have at last begun to rise. I suspect that this overdue rise in incomes, which would otherwise have affected benefits, has triggered the change that the Government are proposing. As other noble Lords have pointed out, and as we shall no doubt hear again during the Bill’s proceedings, one of the principal problems that families face is the very high level of rents in the private sector and the difficulty of obtaining alternative accommodation at a reasonable rent. So these incomes are very much under pressure, with or without benefits. We are not talking about excessive amounts of money; £20,000 for couples and lone parents outside London is not the kind of money that enables people to live a life of luxury—far from it.

These amendments do not destroy the system but try to impose some criteria by which the benefits cap should be assessed. What on earth can be wrong with the suggestion in Amendment 92 that the Secretary of State must take into account,

“the relationship between the level of benefit cap and median household income”,

the impact of the cap on households, local and public authorities and registered social landlords? What is there to object to in that proposal being a matter for consideration?

[Lord Elton (Con)]

May I tell the noble Lord my view, which is appropriate on occasions such as this? The longer a list, the more clear it is that things that are not included are not to be considered. That is counterproductive. The shorter the list, the more flexible it is.

[Lord Beecham]

If I may say so, that takes for granted the propensity of Governments in general, and this Government in particular, to look at a wide range of issues. Frankly, on the evidence of the last few years, I do not think that that is a plausible argument. Why should it not be on the record, as proposed in Amendment 93, that the Secretary of State should take into account,

“the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children”,

in his review of the benefit cap? Similarly, Amendment 94 proposes that the Secretary of State must take into account,

“the impact of the benefit cap on disabled people, their families and carers”.

If these issues are taken into account, the Government lose nothing by it, but if they are not, or if there is a risk that they will not be, then they should surely be part of the process.

If the Minister is going to resist the amendments, I cannot understand why. They do not dispense with the possibility of having a cap. In this context, and in others, I repeat: one of the principal problems is the cost of private rented housing, in which very many people who rely on benefits are found. We will return to that later, but we should not forget it even as we look at these amendments, which I commend and support.

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.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Lord Beecham Excerpts

Wednesday 9th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, I will briefly speak to Amendment 52, to which I have put my name. In so doing I express my strong support for Amendment 51, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, which aims to improve back to work support for people with mental health problems. I also signal my strong support for the arguments that have been put forward that Clauses 13 and 14 should not stand part of the Bill.

I will briefly speak on Amendment 52. The noble Lord, Lord Layard, has already argued very powerfully that any person with a mental health problem as a primary medical condition awarded ESA in the WRAG group is immediately offered assessment and treatment in a local IAPT service. That is very important, and I will explain why I added my name to that amendment. It is about offering that treatment, not about it being compulsory—that is an important point to grab hold of, given the discussion we have had.

There is now plenty of evidence which shows that when people experience mental health problems, getting the right type of talking therapy as early as possible can make a huge difference to their recovery and their ability either to return to or enter work, and to prevent them becoming ill again. It is a very good and helpful idea that people with mental health problems in the WRAG group should get that immediate treatment. I accept that there are issues to work through here, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, drew attention, about making sure that in doing this we do not build some sort of tiered approach to mental health services, which could create difficulties.

The key point I want to underline, which was made so powerfully by the noble Lord, Lord Layard, was that an approach like this could save a very large amount of money on welfare. From listening to the debate so far, I have understood from the Government that that is what the Bill is primarily about. There is an opportunity to do that here, so we should not pass it up. I also offer my services to work with the Minister to find a way to make this amendment work, because it has great potential.

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health recently published a report which suggested that the work capability assessment process might have led to the large number of 600 extra suicides. It says that its study,

“provides evidence that the policy in England of reassessing the eligibility of benefit recipients using the WCA may have unintended but serious consequences for population mental health, and there is a danger that these adverse effects outweigh any benefits that may or may not arise from moving people off disability benefits”.

It goes on to say:

“Although the explicit aim of welfare reform in the UK is to reduce ‘dependency’, it is likely that targeting the people living in the most vulnerable conditions with policies that are harmful to health, will further marginalise already excluded groups, reducing, rather than increasing, their independence”.

After reading about that report I tabled a Written Question, which produced a very prompt Answer from the Minister. I am grateful about the time it took, although the Answer was not exactly informative. The Question was:

“To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will release data relevant to the assessment of whether Work Capability Assessment tests are connected to the incidence of suicide or mental health problems of disability benefit claimants; and if so, when”.

The reply was brief and to the point:

“The information requested is not available”.

I can understand that but surely, the issue having been raised, it is incumbent upon the Government to make inquiries into the report that the journal produced and to satisfy themselves and others that the process of the work capability assessment is not resulting in ill effects upon those undergoing the process of such assessment to any significant extent, let alone, of course, the dreadful extent of suicides resulting from it. I hope that having regard to the thrust of the amendments in this group, the Minister will indicate that the Government will again look into, or rather look into—clearly they have not looked into the possibilities here—the impact of that assessment, taking into account the report to which I refer. It is surely imperative that in recasting the system we take every opportunity to ensure that minimal harm is occasioned by the processes that are instituted to distribute the benefits in question.

Housing Benefit (Transitional Provisions) (Amendment) Regulations 2014

Lord Beecham Excerpts

Thursday 3rd April 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, as the Regret Motion makes clear, we have to understand these regulations in the context of the impact of the bedroom tax.

My noble friend Lady Sherlock quoted Esther McVey on Radio 5. I will take us back to her rather wonderful interview on Radio 4, in which the interviewer had to drag out of her that the Government’s estimate is that only 8% of people had moved—a whole two percentage points more than the BBC estimate which she had been contesting. She was asked if she was disappointed. She replied:

“Well no, because it wasn’t that you had to move house”.

How is that consistent with her statement in debate in the other place? She said:

“The reason that we are putting these measures in place is that we want to ensure we make the best use of our social housing”.—[Official Report, Commons, 26/2/14; col. 311.]

In addition, how is it consistent with the constant refrain:

“How can we justify 1 million spare rooms when other people are sometimes crammed together in a room?”.—[Official Report, Commons, 24/3/13; col. 27.]

Can the Minister tell us exactly how many rooms have been freed up by this policy? As the Work and Pensions Committee report observed, it is,

“a blunt instrument for achieving this”

aim, and one that is causing hardship, as we have already heard from other noble Lords.

Why, then, have people not moved? As has already been said, it is partly because there is nowhere to move to. In the Independent, on 3 March, it was reported that,

“a severe shortage of smaller council homes across the country is being exacerbated by the right-to-buy scheme—leaving many victims of the bedroom tax with no choice but to accept reduced benefits”.

Also, many people do not want to move because they do not want to lose social networks that are very important to them—a point I have made over and over again in this House. We are not talking about housing in the abstract, but about people’s homes within communities that matter to them.

As Demos said, in a study it carried out on social ties,

“policies can serve to actively undermine the kind of self-help and mutual support that families engage in”.

One would have thought that that would be approved of by a Conservative-led Administration who believe in the big society. Reforms such as the removal of the underoccupancy penalty—dubbed the bedroom tax—have left people with a choice of either finding more money for rent from already stretched budgets or moving away from support networks that make life liveable for many.

We have heard about rising rent arrears, but they are only the tip of the iceberg. Earlier this week I attended the launch of a report by Community Links on the impact of the first year of so-called welfare reform—although I would call it social security cuts—in the London borough of Newham. The person presenting the findings pointed out that many people prioritise rent for fear of eviction. Therefore, there may not be rent arrears, but what other impact is it having on what people can spend on other essentials, and how many people are turning to payday lenders or, even worse, to loan sharks? That morning we heard tales of utter despair—the result of the cumulative impact of this and other benefit cuts such as council tax benefit.

The suggestion has been made: “Let them take lodgers”. Do we know how many people have taken on lodgers as a result of this policy? Some noble Lords who are following the Immigration Bill will know that later this afternoon we will talk about its residential tenancy provisions. Anyone who takes a lodger as a result of the bedroom tax will be turned into a mini-immigration officer and will have to check the immigration credentials of their lodger. Do we really want people on benefit being turned into mini-immigration officers to prevent illegal immigration?

The Minister, Esther McVey, pleaded that the BBC report showed how complex this is. I can suggest a simple solution: follow the policy of the Opposition—which I hope will very soon be the official policy of the Liberal Democrats—and abolish the bedroom tax.

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, I think I am the only serving, elected councillor who is likely to speak in this debate, unless the noble Lord, Lord Tope, in his declining days as a councillor—I believe he is standing down shortly—joins in to proclaim the new, belated Lib Dem policy on the bedroom tax. I bring a snapshot from Newcastle, where 5,400 households are affected, at an average cost to each of them of £13.47 a week. If paid, that represents around £3.75 million to be taken out of the local economy, so there is a knock-on effect, quite apart from the housing effect, on that economy. Just under one-quarter of those are working households, one-third have children and, as we have already heard, many have disabled people in them. In my own ward, there are 315 such households.

As has already been pointed out, it is not a simple matter to transfer into a smaller property. In Newcastle, we have 3,558 people seeking one-bedroom accommodation. The average number of available one-bedroom properties per year is 64. It would take a generation or more to accommodate those people. Some 615 are seeking to move down to two-bedroom accommodation. There is, admittedly, a slightly higher availability of this—all of 101 a year. Any effect on the private sector, which in Newcastle is largely taken up with students, will drive up rents. Landlords are increasingly reluctant to take tenants who are on benefits of one kind or another. This policy is not only cruel and inefficient; it is based on a complete misunderstanding—to put it generously—of what happens in the social housing market. It is damaging people’s lives.

I conclude with an anecdote about meeting a couple of people in their fifties—not in my own ward—who benefited from the decision which required the Government to effectively refund the amount paid because of the length of their tenure of the property. I was able to tell them they would be getting the money back but I also had to give the bad news that the Government were seeking to ensure that the money returned to them was spent on paying the bedroom tax. Here were two disabled people, living in a house for just under 30 years, with one of their grandchildren staying with them when I called. This just illustrates the cruelty and incompetence of the measure and I congratulate my noble friend on bringing this Motion of Regret.

[Baroness King of Bow (Lab)]

My Lords, when I saw that the Government were introducing an amendment to the bedroom tax, I mistakenly assumed they wanted to put right the wrongs visited on tenants by this unjust law. Instead, they want to close loopholes and increase the number of people victimised. As one housing expert said:

“This is a shambles caused by the DWP failing to understand the significance of their own legislation”.

This is an extraordinary failing by the Government that disproportionately burdens the most vulnerable, two-thirds of whom, as we have heard, are disabled. These people will have to wait for a Labour Government to abolish the bedroom tax—unless the Minister would like to tell us something quite unexpected today. One way that Labour will fund the reversal is to abolish the Government’s tax cuts for hedge funds. I have nothing against hedge funds—I want to see the City of London thrive because our economy depends on it. However, I do not want it to do so on the backs of the poorest and the disabled. I have rarely heard anything so perverse.

Austerity demands choices: choices reveal priorities. The Government’s priorities here are absolutely shameful. Why do they not concentrate on closing loopholes to end tax evasion by the richest instead of closing loopholes that hurt vulnerable people so much? I urge the Government to abolish this tax.

Town and Country Planning (Temporary Stop Notice) (England) (Revocation) Regulations 2013

Lord Beecham Excerpts

Monday 17th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I begin by congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, on tabling this Motion, and my noble friend Lady Whitaker. They are two Members of the House who have devoted considerable time and energy to the problems of this particularly vulnerable community, and it is appropriate that we should hear from them tonight.

This is another indication of the penchant of the Secretary of State for selective indignation. For example, council tax rises are not permissible even if they are around 2%—less than the rate of inflation. However, council house rent increases can be twice the rate of inflation. Indeed, that is something that the Government do not just acquiesce in but insist on. When it comes to caravans, which can be unsightly and cause potential problems, the Government will produce regulations of this kind to facilitate their removal. On the other hand, when private houses stand empty, councils cannot acquire them or take any steps in relation to them unless they have been empty for two years, despite a very severe housing shortage.

Different standards appear to be applied to different issues, according to what would appear to attract more popular support. However, I am pleased to note that at least the junior Minister has a sense of irony. Mr Lewis has been quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, as saying that government action to force councils to do what they ought to be doing in providing places would be a top-down approach, contrary to the Government’s policy. There will be mirth in every town hall in the country at the suggestion that this Government’s policy on local government is not one that can be described as being top down. When the Secretary of State tells councils that they ought to be collecting refuse weekly rather than fortnightly, not to mention pronouncing a range of other instructions and wishes which are then backed by the Government’s financial distribution, it is a little much for the Government to rely on their so-called localism as a defence for orders of this kind.

Looking at the consultation documentation, I was struck by some of the phraseology used. In the summary they provide, the Government refer to:

“The availability of appropriate alternative sites for caravans used as main residences will be a factor”—

a factor—

“in determining whether it would be appropriate to use Temporary Stop Notices to stop such unauthorised development”.

What are the other factors that would be involved in determining whether it would be appropriate? Factors for and factors against are not indicated at all in the consultation. The document goes on:

“Revoking Statutory Instrument 2005/206 to give councils greater freedom to determine whether to use Temporary Stop Notices may therefore encourage councils to identify land for sites to meet their traveller needs”.

That is a complete non-sequitur, in any event, but “may” is hardly a strong word to use in this context, given the implications for individuals and families—and, in particular, the impact on children.

In addition, the policy context—which the Government quote—refers, as the noble Lord has done, to the fact that,

“councils should set targets for traveller site provision based on robust evidence, including identification of sites for five years and forecasting ahead where possible to 15 years … provision”.

It goes on:

“If a council cannot demonstrate an up-to-date five year supply from 27 March 2013, this should be a significant material consideration in any subsequent planning decision when considering applications for the grant of temporary planning permission”.

As the noble Lord has pointed out, a five-year supply of land is not the same as a supply of serviced sites. Indeed it is very unlikely that simply indicating at this stage that there is a five-year supply will carry any implication that there are service sites available. In any event, councils do not seem to be providing indications that there is a five-year supply of land, let alone of particular developments which would facilitate the use of such sites by Travellers.

The consultation also refers to the penalty for non-compliance with a temporary stop notice. This has not yet been referred to tonight, but it is interesting that there is,

“a fine of up to £20,000 on a summary conviction, or an unlimited fine on indictment”,

and that:

“There is no right of appeal against the service of a Temporary Stop Notice”,

although, as the noble Lord and my noble friend have pointed out, this,

“may be subject to judicial review”.

The question again arises—I am the third person to mention it, so perhaps the Minister would be kind enough to clarify the situation—as to whether legal aid for judicial review will be available or not. It seems unlikely that it would be available. In that case, my noble friend and the noble Lord are right to question whether the reference to judicial review offers any route at all for people faced with this notice to have access to justice and to have their case heard.

The consultation, which was fairly brief, has given results to which both previous speakers have referred. The Government’s document confirming the changes repeats that,

“where authorities cannot demonstrate that they have identified a five-year supply of suitable sites then this will be a significant material consideration in the determination of temporary planning permission”.

What other considerations would be material in the determination of a temporary planning permission? Will it not be the authority serving the notice which will determine whether planning permission is to be granted or not? If that is the case, surely the odds are significantly stacked against the people who receive the notice.

Statutory instrument 2005/206 restricted the use of notices by preventing them being issued where the caravan was a main residence,

“unless there is a risk of harm to a compelling public interest that is so serious as to outweigh any benefit to the occupier of the caravan”.

That seems a sensible and balanced approach to this issue. It is one that the Government are clearly cavalierly discarding. Of course, the Government genuflect briefly in the direction of the European Convention on Human Rights, saying:

“It will still be for local authorities to balance the impacts of using their enforcement powers against individuals … against wider impacts on the local area”.

That, again, is not much consolation on the significant issue which the noble Lord has raised.

The document goes on to state:

“The government’s aim … is to secure more authorised traveller sites in appropriate locations, to address historic under provision and meet future supply needs”.

That is a fine statement, but where is the evidence that anything is actually happening to fulfil that objective, which was announced in March 2012? What progress has been made? What steps have the Government taken to see that progress is being made, or are they simply relying on their policy without making any effort to see that it is being implemented? What financial assistance, if any, is available to local authorities to meet that obligation?

The noble Lord asked about the guidance which the Government say will be produced in line with their guidance review process. I do not understand that phrase, but perhaps the Minister will explain it. I am not aware—this may be my fault—of any government guidance review process. Is that a general process or is it specific to this particular case? The document states that the guidance is supposed to support local councils to assess the various matters referred to, including,

“the impact on equalities and human rights”.

However, we are at the point when the statutory instrument will become effective. Where is the guidance, when will it be issued and what will it say?

The Government are using this statutory instrument to deal with what is not a huge problem in terms of the total numbers. The numbers of unauthorised caravan sites have declined, as the consultation document shows. They draw an interesting comparison in relation to the suggestion that there is unequal treatment of different kinds of development by saying that,

“regulations prevent local authorities from using Temporary Stop Notices against unauthorised development of buildings which are being used as a dwellinghouse”.

That, of course, will remain the case. Councils cannot use a temporary stop notice for that, but can in relation to a caravan. They ignore the distinction that while a caravan is immediately a home once occupied, a house under construction is not a home until it has been completed and subsequently occupied. That is sophistry. It is a significant breach of planning law to build something which cannot be stopped in the way that the temporary use of a site by a caravan occupier would be.

This policy could bear very hard on a relatively small but vulnerable group of people, where there is no real evidence that it is necessary. Where is the evidence that there is a significant problem here? The justification for the measure is, to put it mildly, thin and little thought is given to the consequences for those people who will be moved on—to where, no one can say in the absence of alternative serviced sites. The question also arises of the potential costs of the measure. If people are evicted from a site, it may well be the case, particularly if they have children, that a cost will fall on other areas of a local authority—for example, on children’s services departments, which may have to take children into care if they are not capable of being suitably housed. That does not seem to have entered into the equation at all.

This is a Motion to express regret. I do not imagine that the noble Lord will seek a vote on it, but it is right that we should discuss it and that the Government should look again at the implications of what they are doing. It is particularly right that they should listen to the advice of two such distinguished Members of this House as the noble Lord and my noble friend, and take action to assist local councils in meeting the need for properly serviced accommodation, suitable for occupation by this quite small group, without recourse to the draconian measures which they are now implementing in this statutory instrument.

Growth and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Beecham Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Burnett]

My Lords, I remind the Committee that we have been through, and probably are still in, the most incredibly severe recession. It is an appalling recession and many building companies have gone broke. They have gone into liquidation. Unfortunately they and other companies have signed up to planning agreements which, because such almost impossible burdens are attached to them, sterilise the sites, development, and the ability to build on them. This clause, the thrust of which I very much support, recognises that fact, and some local authorities, to their credit, recognise it because they are already renegotiating these planning burdens. Local authorities recognise that they want some affordable housing rather than none. The quid pro quo argument made by the noble Lord, Lord Best, is well worthy of consideration as long as there are reasonable time limits.

Another thing that has not been mentioned sufficiently is that, even if you renegotiate a planning permission, that takes a great deal of money, time and effort. Let us get some planning done and let us get some houses built. We are building only about 100,000 homes a year. We need at least 200,000 a year. The noble Lord, Lord Deben, is absolutely right. Let us try to remove some of these burdens and get builders building again. There has been a fundamental change of economic circumstances. That is what the clause is trying to deal with and that is why I support it.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Deben, made what Ministers are apt to call some interesting points, which usually presages a disinclination to approve them. However, he did make some interesting points, not least the thought that perhaps the Treasury should revisit the issue of how significant housing projects and more generally the construction industry, to take up the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Burnett, might be supported. However, the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Deben, was too limited in some ways.

The assumption throughout the noble Lord’s speech was that we are talking exclusively about housing, but Section 106 agreements are not, of course, confined only to housing matters. Secondly, he assumed that affordable housing schemes are for owner occupation. Of course that is true of a greater proportion, but they are not necessarily confined to owner occupation. There is also a need—which is one of the reasons for these agreements in any event, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, implied—for a mix of tenure which would potentially ensure that there is a social mix within the development. In addition, the noble Lord, Lord Deben, implied that we are talking only about first-time buyers. I do not know what the evidence is for that assertion. When new estates are built, wherever that is, there are certainly a number of first-time buyers, but equally there are people who are, as it were, trading up and who are not necessarily first-time buyers. The position is not quite as stark as he suggested.

It follows that we need to be very clear about what the policy objectives are. First, as everyone in this Committee and in the House generally would confirm, we need to build more houses. Secondly, they should be accessible, through one form of tenure or another, to a wide range of people, not least in order to meet the desirable aim of having the kind of social mix that would help avoid a divided society. There are different ways of doing this. Clearly, Section 106 agreements can facilitate matters, and we will debate that issue in greater detail later. However, I recall in the 1970s, when there was a collapse in the property market, that my local authority stepped in to buy up unsold new private housing developments. That may have happened in other places as well but I cannot say whether it did. They were taken into the municipal stock. Subsequently, of course, under right-to-buy, they virtually all left local authority ownership. However, this might be a way of freeing up the industry; if not properties that are currently built and standing empty, then at least local authorities or social housing organisations taking a share of a development, thereby providing initial purchases and helping to ensure that kind of social mix.

[Lord Greaves]

The noble Lord reminds me of what Pendle Council did when I was chairman of the housing committee, back in those days when we were all young. As the noble Lord may recall, it was possible because it was a central government initiative that provided the funding, by some means or other, whereby the councils could do that.

[Lord Beecham]

Precisely. I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Deben, would agree but that might be one of the lines of inquiry that the Treasury could pursue and the Government could adopt. The position is not quite as stark as the noble Lord was suggesting and I certainly support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Best.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, let me say at the start that I support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Best. I was tempted to follow the Minister’s suggestion that we do not range more widely over this issue but I was sorely tempted by my noble friend Lord Davies, among others, to get into benefits policy, which I am very happy to talk about for a long time. I share my noble friend’s concerns.

Before I get into the detail of the amendment, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Deben, that the component that seems to be missing from the analysis is the value that accrues to landowners on development from the community granting planning permission and agreeing that they want their community to be in a certain way, as a mixed community. An alternative might be to have special taxes that you get from looking at the uplift in value from planning permission—I will come back on that point—and you might then have your national scheme. For as long as that does not exist, you surely need to recognise that by agreeing to grant planning permission the local community is giving value to the landowner and developer, and to those who are going to occupy the houses that are built on that land.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, in September last year Housing Voice, which calls itself the Affordable Homes Alliance, published the report of an independent inquiry into what it termed—rightly, we would all agree—the affordable homes crisis. The inquiry was chaired by my noble friend Lord Whitty and part of its analysis was to stress:

“The social rented sector is becoming increasingly residualised”.

It pointed out that not enough local authority and housing association homes at social rents were being built to meet need. At that point the waiting lists in England stood at 1.8 million and there were concerns about the Government’s policy as to whether current social housing programmes were adequate. In particular, reference was made to the operation of the affordable rent model under which homes are let at up to 80% of market rates and the introduction of shorter-term, less secure tenancies. That again raises the question of what we are talking about in terms of affordable homes. What is the definition of affordability? In particular, what do we mean by affordable homes for rent?

I notice that the Secretary of State dominates the front page of the Daily Telegraph today with his denunciations of councils—some of them Conservative —for having the temerity to raise council tax to the extent permitted by the Government without having a referendum. The same Secretary of State had no hesitation at all in increasing council house rents by 5.1% which is two and a half times the maximum that a council could raise its council tax.

Leaving that aside, it would be interesting to get the perspective of the Government and that of the Minister on what the Government actually mean by affordable homes in terms of price and the income that might sustain that; rents and the income that might sustain them; and in particular the proportions within projects that should be devoted to the different types of affordable housing. The scheme in the ward that I represent in Newcastle—I hope that it is going to appear on the ground as opposed to being a rather subterranean task being discharged by the contractors—will see 25% of houses being allegedly affordable at the moment. Of that only a small proportion—10% or less of the total—will be for rent. In the economy of my city and several other places that strikes me as a rather low figure. Ironically the development will start with the affordable homes rather than the others because at the moment the market is unlikely to sustain those which even the developers would not regard as being within that category. A little enlightenment would be helpful.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Greaves]

The noble Lord makes some good points. I will put a slightly different scenario to him and ask what he thinks. In an area where development is difficult to get under way because it is not a growing or economically buoyant area—I am obviously talking about my own area—clearance took place under the old housing market renewal scheme, so there are small brownfield sites. The council will provide those brownfield sites for free to the main local social housing landlord, the RSL which deals with the former council stock. The intention was to build mixed developments of affordable housing on there, some of which would be for sale and some for rent. However, when you take into account free land, the cost of developing the site and the rents which can be charged in a low-rent area over the next 30 years, as against the costs of developing and management during that period or the price that would have to be charged for affordable housing for sale, the figures just do not add up. Those sites remain undeveloped because they are not affordable to the RSL under the existing rules and regulations. Does the noble Lord have a solution?

[Lord Beecham]

If I did, it would not necessarily be one that has as yet been reached by my colleagues at the other end of the building. I cannot be writing Labour’s housing policy, much as I would like to.

We need to go back and consider the point which I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Deben, was implying: the Treasury and the Government have to look at the extent to which public investment is required to meet the housing crisis that we are facing, if only because that will have wider impacts upon the economy as a whole. It is as good and necessary a time for that kind of investment to take place, given low rates of interest in borrowing and the need on the construction and housing sides. I think an element of public subsidy would be desirable, but I emphasise that I am not authorised to make any such pronouncements.

[Lord Greaves]

Of course, they were originally going to stack up because the relatively small gap funding required there was going to come through the housing market renewal scheme. Unfortunately, the coalition’s abolition of that scheme now makes it impossible.

[Lord Beecham]

There is, of course, also £300 million in the Government’s programme for affordable housing. I have today tabled a Question for Written Answer, which might be anticipated by the Minister, as to where that is going.

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, I apologise. I was not sure whether the exchange across the House had been totally completed.

[Lord Beecham]

Neither was I.

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, within this group of amendments we cover some of the ground we have already covered, so I will try only to fly over the top of that. These are important amendments and I want to do them justice.

Clause 6, as we have discussed, has a clear and specific purpose: to get houses built. It will deliver private and affordable homes where those homes are currently stalled. As I said at Second Reading, stalled sites represent no local growth, no community benefit and no new housing. Across the country, we have 1,400 stalled sites, with the capacity for 75,000 homes, including affordable housing. The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, asked me whether we could say how much affordable housing was caught up in this. Local authorities hold that information; it is not necessarily passed back to central government. I therefore cannot give him a definitive response to that, except to say that we know that a good percentage of that 75,000 is affordable housing.

We know that many councils are voluntarily renegotiating to bring sites forward; we have discussed how this can be voluntary. We are in favour of this good practice. We are supporting this approach through a mediation service, bringing together local authorities and developers to help unlock sites, so that they can come together, discuss it and see how they can move on. But where authorities and developers are unable to come to agreement, developers should have a right to challenge. Current legislation prevents the developer appealing formally for five years. This is too long when we need homes.

There may need to be a fundamental review of obligations for those agreed at the peak of the market. We intend to make regulations in the coming weeks to allow earlier renegotiation of all planning obligations agreed prior to April 2010. That was a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham: voluntarily, before 2010, you could do that but the regulations will make that part of legislation. These negotiations can take time and be costly and complex, so we are also ensuring that there is a rapid, focused mechanism for a review of the affordable housing element only, where the viability of the scheme is at stake, with a right of appeal to the Planning Inspectorate.

Affordable housing often comprises the largest single contribution on residential schemes, which is why we have focused there. Research in 2007-08 found that about 50% of all planning obligations are for affordable housing. There should also be capacity to vary the affordable housing provision in most cases. The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, asked what we meant by “affordable housing”. That can be found on page 50 of the National Planning Policy Framework. I will give a snapshot and then the noble Lord can look it up for himself. Affordable housing is:

“Social rented, affordable rented and intermediate housing, provided to eligible households whose needs are not met by the market … Homes that do not meet the above definition of affordable housing, such as ‘low cost market’ housing, may not be considered as affordable housing for planning purposes”.

Those are the three major elements.

It is important to understand that we are not proposing that developers can somehow avoid their obligations, which was suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Davies, earlier. We are simply allowing a review to be made to ensure a viable and deliverable scheme as agreed. Furthermore, we are not proposing that developers can ensure blanket removal of affordable housing requirements for their schemes. We are requiring an evidence-based approach that will adjust the affordable housing requirement by only the amount necessary to bring the scheme into viability. This would not be wholesale removal except in the most extreme cases.

Evidence will be key to this process. Developers will have to submit revised evidence to the local authority to justify why their current planning obligation is not viable. The local authority will be free to respond to this proposal and be able to collect its own evidence if it wishes. Concerns are often expressed about the quality of viability evidence. However, robust evidence must be the best basis on which to make a judgment on the viability.

To assist as much as we can in ensuring consistency in how developers and councils approach this new process, we intend to issue guidance to support this clause. The guidance will not advocate a single methodology for viability assessment, but it will work with industry practice. It will be clear on what developers need to do to support their application for review. We will discuss the guidance with professional bodies and it will be published in due course, but I hope that we will be able to have a discussion about it before Report. The guidance will also be clear on the flexibilities open to local authorities to encourage developers to start on site and to get development going.

Overall, this measure presents a real opportunity to stimulate local housing growth by ensuring that consents are viable and realistic. The provision will not affect those affordable housing contributions that are planned on viable sites; in other words, where the costing stacks up, the developers cannot come back and suggest that they contribute less affordable housing. However, the measure provides for adjusting unattainable levels of affordable housing on unviable sites. Those values may have been estimated during a high point in the market, and we are clearly not there at the moment.

I turn now to the amendments in this group. Amendments 55A and 55CD would limit the life of the clause to those planning obligations in place at the time of Royal Assent or three years after Royal Assent—this is the sunset clause. I understand the arguments being made that the intent of the clause is to address obligations made in different economic circumstances. It is about giving developers the opportunity to review affordable housing requirements and bring forward stalled sites. The difficulty that I have with the amendment, which allows applications in relation to existing obligations only, is that it assumes that we are now in a period of stability in the market and that any obligation made currently should not be challenged on the grounds of viability because we know that all is well in the property market. If we knew all the factors that were to be involved and their impact on a developer’s viability—namely, construction costs, sales values and borrowing costs—and if those were certain and fixed for the foreseeable future, we could focus on the past only. However, evidence from public sources, such as the Office for Budget Responsibility, indicates that we are not actually there yet. Evidence indicates varying performance up and down the country. House price growth remains subdued across most of the country. The recently announced 2.5% house price increases in England were driven by a 5% rise in London and a 3% increase in the south-east. Elsewhere across the country there is still a wide variation in house price growth.

There remains uncertainty in the housing market. The Government continue to provide strong support for housing growth—for example, the NewBuy and FirstBuy schemes—and we are making progress. Net additions are up 11%. Nevertheless, the wider market remains uncertain. While transactions are up year on year, they are down around 47% compared to pre-recession levels. So we do not yet have the certainty that we would like on the housing market and associated viability. The clause already includes, as noble Lords have said, a provision to allow the Secretary of State to switch off the provision by order. This has been drafted in a way that allows for a judgment to be made at the appropriate time, based on the state and stability of the housing market.

However, I am clear from the debate that we have had today that greater certainty on this would be desirable. I am also very conscious of the report published last week by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee of this House. We are giving the report and its recommendations very careful consideration, especially in relation to the suggestion that a sunset date should be considered. Therefore I think it would be more helpful if we return to this matter on Report, and I hope that I can have some further discussions with noble Lords before we get there.

Disability Benefits

Lord Beecham Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

Yes, my Lords. One of the things we are aiming to do with the employment and support allowance, and the support elements there, is to make sure that we have consistent and simple definitions of who should obtain benefits. At the moment, we have a multiplicity of benefits, and we are aiming to simplify things so as clearly to direct our support to those who need it most.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, do the Government intend to implement Professor Harrington’s recommendation to subject cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy to work capacity assessments?