Welfare Reform Bill

Debate between Lord Bichard and Baroness Hollis of Heigham

Wednesday 25th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

My Lords, we should be grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, for raising this issue, which comes at a point at which existing recipients of benefit may be experiencing real pressure. I hope that the Minister will be able to illuminate more fully than he has so far the Government’s intentions in this field. We are exceedingly grateful to the noble Baroness.

I think we all accept that one of the big problems with our current benefits system, which I strongly hope and believe universal credit will help to rectify, is that the complexity of benefits—the fact that they overlap and there is no simple, clear or obvious way of ensuring the appropriate entitlement—has been a great cause of error by both officials and claimants, and of fraud. These are built into the system in the present way in which it is organised. One of the reasons why I welcome universal credit is that the simplicity of a single benefit—with its clarity, its monthly paper trail and so on—should, I hope, allow us to overcome some of those difficulties.

Overpayments will still happen, and there must be a presumption, as with banks, that if there has been an overpayment one should seek to recover it because it properly belongs to the taxpayer. However, many benefit claimants cannot afford it and that should be one consideration; it may in that case properly be wiped out. Secondly, the benefit claimant may be under great stress, perhaps suffering from terminal illness or caring for someone with terminal illness, which has been overlooked and it is not now possible for them to repay; or the claimant may be in a mire of debts, including for utilities or rent, and if one sought to have a speedy recovery of any overpayment one could end up leaving that claimant homeless.

I am happy to leave it to the discretion of the local offices as to whether any overpayment should be pursued, deferred or patterned slowly for repayment, only if the Minister can give us full assurances about how that discretion will be used wisely and decently. Perhaps we could, in conjunction with the relevant voluntary organisations, go over the code of practice again in the light of its need to be clarified, given universal credit, and ensure that that code of practice has a statutory basis and that, if local decision-makers do not follow it, that would be a basis for appeal to a tribunal.

As I have said, I believe that if someone can afford to repay an overpayment and it is reasonable and decent to seek to get that repayment, we should do so, but for many people on benefits that will not be the case. It would be very helpful if the Minister could explain exactly how he will ensure that local discretion is exercised wisely and decently.

[Lord Bichard]

I support this amendment as someone who used to be responsible for delivering the benefits system. When I was in that position, I remember railing against the complexity of the system and am therefore delighted that we are doing something about that. I also railed against the complexity of some of the bureaucratic communications that were sent out. Since I am now more often on the receiving end of those kinds of communications, I fear that my railing had little impact because they are still excessively complicated and I find it quite difficult to understand some of the letters that I receive.

It is placing a very heavy burden on benefit recipients to expect them to understand fully all the communications that they receive and therefore fully to appreciate sometimes when an overpayment has been made. For those of us who had an overpayment of, say, an occupational pension that we have to repay, irritating though it is, we can probably afford to do that over a period of time. It is a very different issue for a benefit recipient to repay a large sum of money in their circumstances. Therefore, I support the amendment. It is really important to get some clarification of the situation as we move forward.