Housing: Underoccupancy Charge
Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds Excerpts(10 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Freud
My Lords, I have looked very closely at the issue of rural communities. That was why, this year, we put in an extra £5 million a year to handle the subsidy arrangements, which buys out a substantial proportion of the cost of this policy.
The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds
My Lords, what flexibility is there for housing authorities in the implementation of the underoccupancy charge in circumstances such as when a child dies and the house thereby becomes underoccupied?
Lord Freud
The basic principle here is that when a child dies or there is a death, there is a 12-month run-on so that tenants remain entitled to that room for that full year. However, the underpinning support for making sure that these cases of hardship are managed is clearly the discretionary housing fund, which is running at £180 million this year and will be at £165 million next year.
Millennium Development Goals
Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds Excerpts(11 years, 1 month ago)
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The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, and I share the welcome for the high-level panel report. I believe it could be strengthened in two areas. The first area is environmental sustainability. The millennium goals are weak on climate change and the high-level panel report does not make it sufficiently clear that global warming already damages the economies, and therefore the poor, in poorer countries such as Bangladesh. The panel has the laudable aim of eliminating $1.25 a day poverty but that needs to be inextricably linked with a new climate equilibrium, which we are far from attaining. Do Her Majesty’s Government agree that there needs to be a legally binding global climate deal in 2015 in line with the scientific consensus?
Secondly, the emphasis on absolute poverty must not hide the danger of increasing inequality in our world. Income inequality is rife in both richer and poorer countries and is one mark of the increasing power of elites at the expense of those in poverty. I regret that the powerful analysis of Pickett and Wilkinson’s Spirit Level, that less equal societies do worse, has almost disappeared from our political debate. This inequality within and between nations is exacerbated by the failure of tax justice so far to ensure that multinationals pay a proper proportion of tax and that this is paid in the countries where their profits are made.
Will the Government support a post-2015 agenda which focuses on inequality as well as eradicating extreme poverty; and how could a new set of goals ensure a more equitable distribution of power and resources, both within and between nation states?
Mesothelioma Bill [HL]: Impact
Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds Excerpts(11 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Freud
My Lords, as my noble friend pointed out, this scheme is based on a levy on insurers who are active in the market today, not those who may have actually been responsible for the historic liability. It is very difficult to assess who takes the real burden of the cost. I have been very anxious to get to a position where I am as assured as I can be that the bulk of that cost is carried by the insurance industry, not by British industry as a whole. The risk is that if the levy is too high, the amount would have to be passed on by the industry.
The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds
My Lords, not so long ago, I was at the bedside of one of our clergy who died of mesothelioma, having not been diagnosed until very late. Will the Minister tell us what part sufferers themselves, their relatives and support groups will play in managing what sometimes comes over as an agreement and arrangement between government and insurance agencies?
Lord Freud
Let me make it absolutely clear that we have been acting as the agents of the sufferers in our discussions with the insurance industry. The idea that there is some kind of cosy relationship between government and the insurance industry is absolutely not true. It has been a really tough business to get a deal through. I talk regularly to victims’ groups and lawyers. I get their support and as we develop the next stage, which is a practical process, I will be getting their views and having them very much in mind.
Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill
Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds Excerpts(11 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Pannick
My Lords, my understanding is that this amendment does not require the House to come to any view whatever on the merits or otherwise of the proposal. What it does is to recognise that there is to be a review of civil partnerships and it proposes that during the course of that review this topic should be included in the matters to be discussed, to be addressed and possibly to be the subject of future legislation.
The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, mentioned the case of Miss Burden and Miss Burden against the United Kingdom in 2008. I regret as much as the noble Baroness that I was unable to persuade the European Court of Human Rights to find that the less favourable treatment of these two ladies—it was severely less favourable treatment—was arbitrary discrimination contrary to the convention. It does seem to me as to many other noble Lords that since there is to be a review this topic should be covered.
My only quarrel with the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, is in her recitation of Irving Berlin’s song as support. She may recall that the lyric ends:
“And Lord help the sister, who comes between me and my man”,
which is perhaps not wholly appropriate in this context.
The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds
My Lords, I too want to support the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, on this amendment and to thank her and the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain, for their persistence in pressing the unfairness of the present law with regard to both carers and also family members.
The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, made the point that the amendment does not require any particular answer to the questions but simply tries to ensure that they will get raised. The point of having a review of the Civil Partnership Act 2004 is that, following the passage of this Bill, the circumstances of civil partnerships will be different. We do not yet know in what way they will be different, but they will be different because many people who would otherwise have entered into civil partnerships will enter into marriages. That seems to me to be an ideal point at which to consider whether civil partnerships should be extended to carers and other family members. If that is not the point at which we ought to do it, perhaps the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, can say what is the point at which we can tackle the unfairness which everyone seems to admit. We have had example after example of the unfairness of the present law. When are we going to be allowed to tackle that?
“Amendment of Education Act 1996
(1) Section 403 of the Education Act 1996 is amended as follows.
(2) After subsection (1C) insert—
“(1CA) Guidance under subsection (1A) must provide for education about the nature of marriage and its importance for family life and the bringing up of children to be given to registered pupils at schools which have a religious character in accordance with the tenets of the relevant religion or religious denomination.”
(3) After subsection (2) insert—
“(3) For the purposes of subsection (1CA)—
(a) a school has a religious character if it is designated as a school having such a character by an order made by the Secretary of State under section 69(3) of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 (“the 1998 Act”); and(b) “the relevant religion or religious denomination” means the religion or denomination specified in relation to the school under section 69(4) of the 1998 Act.(4) Subsection (5) applies where—
(a) Academy arrangements have been entered into between the Secretary of State and another person;(b) the terms of the Academy arrangements have the effect of requiring that other person to have regard to guidance issued under subsection (1A) above; and (c) the Academy is designated as having a religious character by an order made by the Secretary of State under section 69, as applied by section 124B, of the 1998 Act or is treated as having been so designated by virtue of section 6(8) of the Academies Act 2010.(5) Where this subsection applies, subsection (1CA), and guidance issued under subsection (1A), are to be construed as if references to schools which have a religious character were references to the Academy.””
The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds
My Lords, this amendment is about education in church schools, mostly owned by the Church of England or the Roman Catholic Church, but also by some other denominations and in schools of faiths other than Christian. Before I describe what the amendment is intended to achieve, I need to explain why it is needed.
Clause 11(2) of this Bill makes wide-ranging changes to the law of England and Wales and its effect is explained in paragraph 55 of the Explanatory Notes. It states that Clause 11(2),
“ensures that the law of England and Wales, including all existing and new England and Wales legislation, is to be interpreted as applying, where marriage is concerned, equally to same sex and opposite sex couples”.
Together with Schedule 3, this sets out the equivalence of all marriages in law. That seems perfectly clear. For legal purposes, the meaning of marriage is changed, so that where an Act of Parliament refers to marriage, it will mean marriage of same-sex couples and of opposite-sex couples.
Section 403 of the Education Act 1996 places a duty on the Secretary of State to issue guidance designed to secure that when sex education is given, pupils,
“learn the nature of marriage and its importance for family life and the bringing up of children”.
Governing bodies and head teachers of maintained schools, including all church schools and academies, are required to have regard to the guidance when formulating their policies for sex education. After the Bill passes, that reference to marriage in Section 403 will, rightly, be read as a reference to marriage as redefined by the Bill. In other words, the nature of marriage to which Section 403 refers will mean the union of any two persons regardless of gender.
This Bill also recognises—indeed declares—in Clause 1(3) that the doctrine of the Church of England remains that marriage is,
“the union of one man with one woman”.
That is also the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church, most other churches and most other major religions in this country. The trusts of Church of England schools require education to be given in accordance with the tenets of the Church of England. Schools that belong to other denominations are in an equivalent position. As a result of this, church schools are recognised for their distinctive Christian ethos and the impact this has on standards and all-round education.
So far as teaching about the legal nature of marriage is concerned, there is no problem. Church schools, like any other schools, can and must teach their pupils that Parliament has legislated so that, as Clause 1(1) of the Bill states:
“Marriage of same sex couples is lawful”.
As at present, homophobic bullying must have no place in church or any other schools. Discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation is usually expressly forbidden within a school’s code of conduct and that must remain the case. The Church of England’s established policy is that pupils should have the opportunity to examine the full range of views on same-sex relationships—including different Christian views—and develop their own considered position. Within that atmosphere of open discussion, church schools must nevertheless be in a position to teach the nature of marriage in a way that is in accordance with the tenets of the Church of England.
The distinctive Christian ethos of church schools will be undermined unless that position is accommodated. Exactly the same goes for schools that belong to other religious traditions. The purpose of this amendment is simply to achieve that accommodation. It does not seek an exemption. No one is asking for a provision that would enable schools to operate outside the framework that the Secretary of State’s guidance provides. What I seek is a provision which ensures that the guidance itself expressly recognises the need for schools that have a religious character to teach the nature of marriage in a way that is in accordance with that character.
The meat of the amendment is the new subsection (1CA). The meaning of the provision is quite straightforward. It would require the guidance itself to address this particular issue. It would require it to do so by accommodating the need for schools that have a religious character to teach in a way that is consistent with their religious ethos, while continuing to operate within the statutory framework. Unfortunately the amendment needs to be quite a bit longer than that, to provide definitions that link it to other existing statutory provisions. It also needs to deal with the position of academies in a slightly different way, because of the legal basis on which they are established. In substance, it would put academies that have a religious character in the same position in this regard as other church schools.
When introducing the Bill, the Minister said that she wished to make clear from the outset that this Bill was,
“not just about allowing same-sex couples to marry; it is also about protecting and promoting religious freedom”.—[Official Report, 3/6/13; col. 938.]
The Government have very largely delivered on this commitment. Teaching about marriage in schools that have a religious character is one of the few issues of that nature that remain outstanding. I therefore hope that the noble Baroness will respond positively to this amendment, which is concerned with the same principles of religious freedom that she outlined at Second Reading.
Baroness Cumberlege
My Lords, I have also put my name to this amendment. My interests are in the Lords’ register. I am also the chairman of trustees of Chailey Heritage Foundation and a governor of Lancing College, though both are non-maintained schools. I start by thanking the right reverend Prelate for his clear introduction. Noble Lords who are now well-versed in this Bill will know that the House has already debated concerns about its possible effects on teachers. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Dear, and my noble friends Lord Eden of Winton, Lord Elton and Lord Waddington, and others, for addressing those concerns, which are well argued and strongly felt.
The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds
My Lords, I am grateful to all the noble Lords who have contributed to this debate, which was much wider ranging than I expected it to be, and particularly to the Minister for her careful response to the issues that were being raised. I am also fascinated to see how many of us were brought up in Lancashire and received our sex education, or lack of it, there. I suppose my school was technically in the county borough of Bolton, but it was more or less Lancashire.
This amendment is about the institutional religious character of schools. It is about ensuring that the statutory framework addresses and accommodates the school’s need to provide teaching that is in accordance with its religious tenets when it formulates its policy on teaching about sex and relationships. There is, rightly, guidance from the Secretary of State about that policy, and the school needs to take account of it. It should not have to rely on the Human Rights Act, but should actually have it built into the guidance. Since we have guidance, it ought to address this particular issue, rather than the church schools being left in a position of having to act in a way that is not clear within the guidance. I would hope that that does something to respond to the direct question which I was asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Richardson. I believe that there needs to be guidance to avoid criticism of the family relationships to which she referred. As the Minister said, the current requirement for guidance was inserted in the 1996 Act in 2000. My belief remains that there needs to be guidance on this matter to take note of the changes brought about by the Bill. We need to acknowledge that those are real changes; otherwise, there would be no point having the Bill. We need to respond to the particular needs of schools of a religious character, not least in terms of the tenets of their trust deeds. It is not for the Secretary of State to say what those tenets are; they are declared by the relevant church and school in the trust deeds.
We may need to come back to this matter at a later stage. I still need to be convinced that there is no incompatibility between the Bill and the requirements of the 1996 Act. However, for the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Mesothelioma Bill [HL]
Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds Excerpts(11 years, 5 months ago)
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The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds
I will just add my support for this, particularly for subsection 2(a) of the proposed new clause and the place in it of the Asbestos Victims Support Groups. We have talked lengthily in this discussion about the place of insurers, but one principle of legislation such as this needs to be that nothing that is for us may be done without us. It is crucial that the victim support groups are represented on any oversight group that is produced.
Lord Avebury
My Lords, I think the Minister said in replying to the previous amendment that when we came to this one he would give us some more information about the membership of the body that the industry proposes to establish. It would be very useful to know that, as it conditions the way we will think about monitoring and reviewing. Clearly, if the board established by the insurance industry contains people who have an association with that industry, the degree of intensity of monitoring and reviewing would have to be far higher than it would if the board were totally independent.
Housing Benefit
Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds Excerpts(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Freud
My Lords, we are looking for local authorities to deal with this matter with adults. We think that there is a difference between disabled children and disabled adults in that disabled children cannot know whether they pose a risk to themselves or to another child whereas adults and couples are able to exercise choice in how they run their lives.
The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds
My Lords, I am told that estimates in Hull suggest that some 6,000 people there are affected by the under-occupancy rule and that there are something like 70 flats available for them to be moved to. I hear similar stories from all over the country. Will the Minister tell us just what people are supposed to do when no smaller accommodation can be offered?
Lord Freud
My Lords, there has been a substantial exercise by many local authorities and housing associations around the country to try to juggle people’s requirements. The figures on social-sector housing provision in England show that 31% of the housing has one bedroom, 34% has two bedrooms and the remaining 35% has three or more bedrooms. So there is provision. It is a question of getting people moved into the right accommodation. Let us not forget that 250,000 people are in overcrowded circumstances and 1.8 million people are on the waiting list for social housing.
Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill
Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds Excerpts(11 years, 8 months ago)
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Baroness Lister of Burtersett
My Lords, Amendment 11 is in part inspired by the speech made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester at Second Reading. He suggested that this was an occasion for considering,
“the moral responsibility of this House”,
and warned that this Bill,
“looks like part of an ideologically motivated attempt to alter the very nature of the welfare state”.—[Official Report, 11/2/13; col. 469.]
He voiced his fear that we are heading towards a US-style system, where pensions are protected,
“but working-age provision is less generous and more stigmatised, barely providing enough for people to live on without relying on charitable handouts”,
and asked:
“Is this really the kind of society that we want to live in?”.—[Official Report, 11/2/13; col. 471.]
It certainly is not the kind of society in which I want to live.
The purpose of this amendment is to facilitate a debate on that fundamental question of the generosity of benefits for working-age people and their children. The first part addresses the question of whether the social security benefits affected by this nasty Bill are adequate in the first place, and the second the principles that should govern the uprating of benefits in the future once the Bill’s provisions have ceased to have effect. Of course, the two questions are related because the current level of benefit reflects uprating policies over the years.
As the House of Commons Library briefing notes:
“It is a misconception that benefit rates in the UK are based on some regular, systematic estimate of minimum needs”.
In fact, they are not even based on an irregular systemic estimate, for as the briefing points out,
“no government has … attempted any official empirical study of adequacy”,
since a covert study undertaken by the National Assistance Board back in the 1960s, despite countless fundamental reviews of social security, which some of us have lived through to tell the tale.
There are various indicators that we can use to assess benefits’ adequacy. The most basic is whether they are sufficient to keep people out of poverty and, patently, they are not, as so many people living on benefits are in poverty if one uses the relative income and material deprivation measures. The income support received by, for example, a couple with two children or a lone parent with one child is around 30% below the poverty line. Briefings from children’s charities underline the hardship that families already experience as a result. For instance, research undertaken by Barnardo’s among its service users found that two-thirds were cutting back on fuel and half were borrowing money. Three-quarters reported that food poverty was impacting on their children’s health and well-being. Similarly, a Children’s Society survey of teachers found that nearly half of those surveyed are seeing children coming into school hungry. Recent peer research undertaken by five Gingerbread community researchers in partnership with the Poverty Alliance found many lone parents skipping meals to feed their children. As one said, “Occasionally, I’ll miss meals and things like that just to make sure that they get wee bits and pieces. It makes me feel better about them having than me having”. This is an example of a common phenomenon, where mothers deprive themselves of basics to try to protect their children against the worst impact of poverty, as they act as the shock-absorbers of poverty. It is an example, too, of a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote, on our first day in Committee about how women are disproportionately affected by the Bill.
The most sophisticated benchmark of adequacy is the minimum income standard developed by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. It represents what members of the public through group discussion have arrived at as the minimum acceptable standard of living: what you need in order to have the opportunities and choices necessary to participate in society. I emphasise that it is about needs, as socially determined, rather than about wants.
The latest calculations indicate that a couple with two children, or a lone parent with one child living on the basic safety net benefit of income support, receive only three-fifths of the income needed to meet the minimum income standard. A single working-age person receives only two-fifths. The researchers, who are colleagues of mine at the Centre for Research in Social Policy at Loughborough University, observe that, because increases in costs have not been adequately captured by the consumer prices index, out-of-work benefits fall even further short, providing a lower minimum income living standard for non-pensioners than they did in 2008 when the MIS was first calculated. They concluded, even before this Bill was proposed, that the gap between the incomes and needs of the worst-off households is widening, especially for families with children. While the JRF is not suggesting that benefits should be raised to the level of the MIS, the sheer scale of the shortfall is indicative of how far they fall below the decency benchmark established by members of the public.
Policy has been more successful in ensuring that pensioners can achieve minimum income standards, which is of course a good thing, but according to Professor Jonathan Bradshaw, the decision to uprate pensions by 2.5% and working-age benefits by 1% for three years is going to exacerbate further the absurd differentials in benefit rates that have developed over time. In 1948, a single pensioner received only 10p more than a single person on national assistance. Now, a single female receives £71 per week in jobseeker’s allowance. When they are eligible, they get £142.70 on pension credit. A lone mother with one child gets only £133.21 a week. These differentials, Professor Bradshaw says, clearly have nothing to do with need.
That brings us to the second half of the amendment, on the principles underlying uprating policies. The significance of these policies was underlined in an earlier JRF study. It pointed out that uprating policies have big effects over time. They are among the most significant decisions taken by Chancellors. Their gradual effects seem imperceptible on a year-to-year basis yet they carry immense implications for the future. This year’s decisions will certainly be perceptible, and the implications for the future are even more immense, because, whatever decision is taken by future uprating policies, they will be uprating benefits that have been significantly depressed in real terms over a three-year period.
The report called for a more open debate about this often hidden area of public policy, so that decisions that prevent the poorest members of society keeping up with rising living standards would not be taken in the dark. Unknown to most people, uprating policies have resulted in a significant erosion of relative living standards among benefit recipients over most of the past three decades. Recently, this has been exacerbated by the use of CPI rather than RPI as the measure of inflation, particularly during the period when prices of necessities that represent a disproportionate share of spending among benefit recipients have risen faster than prices generally—a point that we made on the first day in Committee. As Donald Hirsch of the Centre for Research in Social Policy comments, in this context, the index used to uprate benefits has become a highly imperfect mechanism for preserving their real value and a rather arbitrary means of raising benefits by an amount that politicians feel that the country can afford rather than of protecting living standards.
Of course, assessments of affordability cannot be ignored. They can also be contested, as we are doing in relation to this Bill, but looking to the future I agree with Donald Hirsch that there is a need to establish principles linking benefit uprating to some stable concept of what is fair, rather than just ad hoc decisions about what can be afforded. He suggested that, as a start, this might involve reasserting the principle of human decency whereby the real value of benefits is genuinely protected and that, in the longer term, if prosperity starts to grow again, we need to consider how those in greatest need can share in such growth.
I suggest that a report to Parliament that addresses these fundamental questions is the least that we can ask of a Secretary of State willing to preside over a deliberate reduction in the living standards of the most deprived members of our community. I beg to move.
The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds
My Lords, I have put down my name in support of the amendment and am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, for her tabling of it and for her powerful advocacy of it. I have done so because I am repeatedly told by citizens advice bureaux and the like of the uncertainty which is being introduced by this Bill. It is ironic that we have talked so much of certainty in setting the rates for the years up to 2015-16, when those on benefit and providing advice feel uncertain as to its short and long-term effects.
So long as benefits have been uprated by inflation, it has been possible to budget taking them into account. But this cap on uprating is a major and apparently long-term change to the whole principle of our benefit system. Recipients and those who work with them are owed an explanation. I am not looking for commitments from either Front Bench beyond 2015, but I would be very grateful for comment from both of them on whether this is to be seen as a temporary reduction with the aim of restoring benefit values after 2016 so that we ensure a decent living standard for those on benefit—the requirement that has been so ably put by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister. Or is this actually a permanent reduction to a lower level, which will then be stabilised in real terms after 2016, or a continuation of a gradual reduction expected to continue after 2016? None of those options is desirable, but they are very different in the effect that they will have, and a sense of purpose and direction from the Government and Opposition is important in all this. It is important to know just where benefits are anticipated to be going in future, both from the opposition and the government Front Bench. I hope that they can supply that in the debate on this amendment.
Baroness Stowell of Beeston
With the introduction of universal credit, we will make sure that that is always the case. Therefore, I do not disagree with the noble Baroness at all.
The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, referred to the Government’s decision to move from RPI to CPI as the appropriate index of inflation. The Government believe that CPI is a more appropriate measure than RPI when considering the impact of inflation on benefits and pensions. It is worth saying that the judicial review of the switch from RPI to CPI found in the Government’s favour and we continue to believe that CPI is a more appropriate index. As an example of the costs involved, uprating the benefits and payments in this Bill by earnings would reduce the savings by £1.8 billion of the total of £1.9 billion in 2015-16 and, if we did so by RPI, would wipe out all the savings and cost an additional £700 million in 2015-16.
As regards paragraph (b) of the amendment, while I cannot predict the decisions that will be made by future Governments, once the provisions in the current Bill cease to have effect, the default position will be for uprating decisions to be made in line with pre-existing legislation.
In referring noble Lords to the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, during last week’s debate, I was going to mention his reluctance to say what his party would do if it was in government. Indeed, he was even more than reluctant; he refused to say what it would do. However, the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, has commented on that point today.
For social security benefits and statutory payments, the default position will be for uprating decisions to be made under Section 150 of the Social Security Administration Act 1992, meaning that the Secretary of State will make an annual review of benefit levels to see whether they have kept pace with the increase in the general level of prices. If prices have increased, he will then make a decision about how he should uprate the benefits covered by the Bill, based on the national economic situation and other factors he considers relevant. For tax credits, the default position is that the Treasury is required under Section 41 of the Tax Credits Act 2002 to review the amounts of certain elements of tax credits each year to determine whether they have retained their value in relation to the general level of prices.
Before I conclude, I refer to the question put by the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, about an assessment of the changes that we are making via this Bill on the well-being of adults and children. In response—and it was a point that I made in Committee last week—this Government publish cumulative impacts of government policy at every major fiscal event. We did so at the time of the Autumn Statement last year. Those assessments include the effects of any changes in welfare and ensure that the other positive measures being introduced in relation to tax rates and so on are taken into account. That represents an increase in transparency when compared with what was in place hitherto. The assessments are publicly available on the Treasury’s website.
This has clearly been a serious debate and I am grateful for the opportunity to respond. I hope that in future debates I am able to expand a little further on some of my comments because I am concerned that in some of my points I was not as clear as I intended to be. I will ensure that when I speak in later debates I am much clearer about the importance we place on ensuring that proper consideration and monitoring are taking place in the implementation of all these changes. If any additional measures are required to support people who are affected in a way that goes beyond that which we are expecting, we will make sure that they have the support they need.
The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds
My Lords, following the Minister’s final comments, can I check that the default position after 2015-16 will be that there would be CPI increases based on the lower level that benefits will have reached by then?
Baroness Stowell of Beeston
It will be based on the benefits that exist at that time.
The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds
My Lords, the three amendments in this group have two specific aims, and both concern the treatment of children under the Bill, which we have discussed under Amendment 12.
Amendment 14 seeks to remove child benefit from the Bill and Amendment 19 does the same for child tax credit, while Amendment 17 concerns the child additions within universal credit. I shall return to Amendment 17 later with regard to children with disabilities.
Amendment 14 concerns child benefit. Time and again in these debates on welfare reform, we face the challenge that our reforms have a disproportionate effect on children. Overall, some 30% of households are affected by this Bill. Of those with dependent children, 87% are affected; of lone-parent households, 95% are affected. For example, a single nurse on average earnings for her profession of £530 a week would lose nothing at all as a result of the Bill. If she had two children, she would lose £424 a year in 2015-16. Families with lower incomes are those who end up being the worst affected, whether by reductions in housing benefit or the freeze on child benefit, and so on.
I do not for one moment believe that it is the Government’s intention to target children, but it is the result of much that we do in welfare reform, and that is a matter of choice. The most powerful speech at Second Reading was that of the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, when she spoke of the way in which she and I and the vast majority of Members of this House were not affected by the responses that we make to our fiscal challenges. We could be: my personal allowance, winter fuel allowance or bus pass benefits could be withdrawn or taxed if we took a different line. In this Parliament, £9 billion has been spent on the increases to personal allowances and £4.7 billion on fuel duty—an effective cut by not increasing fuel duty.
When we discuss matters here, I am always deeply impressed by the expertise brought on health matters by doctors and NHS trust chairs, on higher education by university professors and academics, and on defence by senior military officials. When we wrestle with issues of poverty, there is no one experiencing deprivation to tell us what it feels like. Many of us know, because of other people whom we talk to, of the pressures, especially on those in work with low incomes, but we do not experience that deprivation for ourselves.
The extension of the threshold for the personal tax allowance in 2013-14 leaves basic rate taxpayers £47 better off. If you do not pay tax, that clearly has no effect. If you are a working family eligible for both housing and council tax benefit, you will lose benefit so that your net gain is not £47 but £7 in 2013-14. There are alternatives to the pressure on the most deprived families.
I am particularly concerned about the continued chipping away at the value of child benefit. This has been frozen for three years and is now to be capped at 1% for two further years. That is a total increase of 2% compared with an estimated 16% in CPI. Again, the issue is the cumulative effect of the reductions. This is in addition to the cuts in other benefits experienced by those on low incomes. The impact assessment shows that some 60% of the savings from this Bill come from the poorest third of households, with 3% from the wealthiest third. These three amendments would mean a substantial decrease in the 200,000 children pushed into poverty by the below-inflation increases in children’s benefits and tax credits in this Bill.
I wonder whether we realise, and get hold of well enough, the considerable extent to which child benefit in particular is regarded in most families as being specifically for the children concerned. My experience in West Yorkshire is of families on low pay struggling to make ends meet but quite clear that child benefit is to be used not for the general household expenses but by the mother to help her children. The points made persistently in debates on this Bill and on the Welfare Reform Act by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote, speak of the way in which it is women—often mothers—who are most disadvantaged by the measures we are taking because they are concerned particularly with the specific help of their children. Child benefit reduction fails to take account of the cultural and social support for children that this benefit provides, in addition to its financial obligations.
Reduction in child benefit specifically is also a disincentive to seeking work, so it is a direct challenge to the Government’s own desire, put forward powerfully by the Minister, to encourage people to return to work. Child benefit, rightly, is disregarded both from household income and in calculating the applicable amount before housing and council tax benefit are reduced. The result is that a low-income working family living in rented accommodation loses both the £4.80 a week in child benefit and a further estimated £4.10 a week because of the disregard rules. A loss of some £9 a week is a serious blow to working families, and that child benefit reduction in particular works against the Government’s aim to get people back into work.
Lord Newby
My Lords, that was not the point I made. I was talking about aligning the uprating of the adult and child rates, not the halving of the amount. I was making a different point.
The noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, asked about plans to uprate benefits. Benefits not covered by this Bill are subject to existing legislation, so the Secretary of State will review social security benefits annually, after publication of the relevant price figures. He will therefore decide what uprating will take place when he has that information in the normal way. I will write to the noble Baroness with the details of other benefits that are to be uprated by 1%.
As I have said before, the welfare system provides vital support for many families with children. However, government support for children must be about more than benefits. Securing the economic recovery matters to every household in the country, and only by doing that can we create a stable and thriving future for our children. I hope that I have also been able to provide some reassurance to the Committee that this Government are continuing to take action to support families—action that will change the lives of families with children.
The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds
My Lords, I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate, and not least to the Minister for his response. I am disappointed that he was not able to respond more to Amendment 17, because it is not an expensive proposal. It will help a significant number of children—real children with real disabilities. I know that money is being provided for disabled people in the greatest need, but the disabilities that are felt and known by those who would benefit from Amendment 17 are real. To accept the amendment would provide real support for a large number of children who could thereby have been enabled to play a greater part in our society, both for their benefit and for the benefit of the rest of us.
I accept that together, the amendments in this group would cost a significant amount of money at £0.9 billion. However, it is not fair to argue that welfare benefits cannot be excluded from the work that we have been doing in order to respond to our fiscal crisis. Welfare benefits have been tackled extensively through the whole welfare reform process. This comes over to me as twisting a knife in a wound. I regret that the Government have felt that this is the area where they have to find that £0.9 billion. I will not repeat the argument that there are other areas where we could have found it.
I am very grateful to all noble Lords who contributed examples of a wide range of people: the corporal in the Army with three children, who will lose £520 a year, the primary school teacher, the nurse, and so on. They showed that a wide range of people will be affected and damaged by the Bill. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, for stressing the organisations that support children. It is good to have all the statistics produced, but however many of them there are, the reality comes home to me, not when I read the Children’s Society’s statistics, but when I go to see its work in Leeds and its projects with children who are hungry, who have to cut back on food, as the noble Lord, Lord Low, said, and whose future prospects are being damaged, as the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, said. We need to do something to look at the ways in which we disadvantage children in practice by so much of the work we are doing.
I hope that we will come back to this issue on Report to see whether there is not something we can do to set down a marker and make a real contribution to the lives and vitality of children in our society. However, for the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds
I simply want to express my support for the arguments put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and the noble Lord, Lord Avebury. Being part of that inquiry was indeed a harrowing experience, although nothing like as harrowing as it is for those who have been on asylum support for two, four or six years and who cannot return to the countries from which they have come. The Government accept that they cannot return to those countries, so the argument that asylum support has to be kept very low in order to discourage people from staying here did not appear to have any weight at all in terms of the evidence that was presented to us.
I was grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Newby, for his promise at Second Reading to pass on the concerns about asylum child support to the Home Office. Have the Government received any response to that request to the Home Office and do they agree that we need to have some idea of what is happening to support the 10,000 children who are on asylum support?
I was grateful, too, to the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Holbeach, for the expression of his own surprise at the bizarre nature of the provisions being made for that support. The noble Lord, Lord Newby, likes simplicity. I do not know whether you could find anything more bizarre than the provisions under Sections 4 and 95 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. If we could simply move to some way of linking that support to the benefits that the Government believe are rightly paid to those in need, that would be a major act of concern for those who are in the most need of all within our society.
Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill
Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds Excerpts(11 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Stowell of Beeston
I think I am clear that the Bill refers just to the personal allowance for housing benefit. If I am wrong, I will of course correct that.
As I said, if we were to change the personal allowance for housing benefit, we would introduce inconsistency to the way in which this part of in-work benefit is calculated. There would no longer be consistency between the different kinds of personal allowances that apply to different benefits. In addition to increasing the complexity of the system, this would lead to additional costs.
Before I conclude, I will respond to a question from my noble friend Lord Kirkwood, who asked about costing methodology. I confirm that costs have been modelled and presented in a way that is consistent with the Autumn Statement. I will be happy to provide further details to the noble Lord before Report.
The Government are supporting working households. One of the key ways in which we are doing that is by taking tough decisions to reduce public spending, reduce the deficit and restore economic growth. The amendments tabled by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester, including Amendment 13, would reduce the savings of the Bill by about 40%—or £800 million—in 2015-16 alone. Not including in-work benefits in the Bill would be simply unaffordable. Therefore, I ask the right reverend Prelate to withdraw his amendment.
The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds
Perhaps I might ask the Minister about work allowances, which were referred to by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester. The Minister’s response left me unsure whether, as time goes on, they will be increased in line with inflation. They are a major element of support for those who are in work.
Baroness Stowell of Beeston
I am sorry, I should have been clearer. Work allowances will be increased by 1% in 2014-15 and in 2015-16. That was announced in the Autumn Statement.
BBC: Resignation of Director-General
Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds Excerpts(12 years ago)
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Viscount Younger of Leckie
I agree very much with the comments of the noble Lord; we must keep the issues in proportion. He is completely correct. I was alarmed by the feeding frenzy that came out of the press, particularly some of the headlines regarding the resignation of Mr Entwistle. I believe this should be a period of calm; there is a need for stability to allow the BBC to work through these very difficult problems. I appreciate the comments made by the noble Lord.
The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds
My Lords, I am very grateful that in the initial Statement the Minister said that we must continue to recognise the needs of those who have been abused. He spoke of the BBC facing a series of crises. Those who were abused face a far more serious series of crises. Will he stress again that the primary concern at this point needs to be the protection of children and young people? Will he also stress the continuing desire of us all to encourage those who have suffered abuse to come forward so we can change the culture of how we deal with such issues?
Viscount Younger of Leckie
The right reverend Prelate makes a very important point, with which I concur. I encourage all people who have suffered this horrendous abuse to come forward, as a large number already have. I also agree with him that our thoughts today should be with these people who have suffered so badly. His point is well made.
Welfare Reform Bill
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Lord German
My Lords, I commend the thrust of this amendment. However, as has been demonstrated, the way in which it is drafted may mean that it does not include everything that we would wish it to include. I would expect the Minister to comment about the way in which a review should be conducted. I do not wish to sound like a well-worn record but I have a long-standing view about the way in which major shifts and changes should be reviewed. It is absolutely essential that any part of the Bill which has profound implications for change should be reviewed in a proper manner. I wish to use two analogies—a route map and a set of milestones. We use a route map to get a sense of direction, find out where we can turn off a route and make diversions, whereas a milestone signifies the distance that we have travelled. Reviews which rely solely on milestones do not necessarily fulfil the point to which the noble Lord, Lord Best, referred: namely, to make changes on route. That is one of the key issues for any form of review of major change.
The Government’s principal success in this field was their appointment of Professor Harrington to undertake a series of milestone reports. One of his reports was colloquially referred to as his report number one and a half. He continually places on record what he sees as being the changes which are necessary. He has followed different routes and different avenues in looking at the whole issue of the WCA and the way in which it is adopted. That has enabled the Government to make changes as they are going along. I commend the suggestion to the Government that they should think carefully about appointing independent people to conduct a continuous evaluation so that we not only have the milestones when formal reports have to be submitted but changes can be made as the need for them arises. Such a process gives flexibility to the people who are conducting the evaluation to address problems as they emerge.
I make no apologies for returning to the issue of foster carers. I raised it in Committee, on Report and I raise it again today. As we have just heard, the sum of £30 million is intended to support 40,000 households which contain disabled people or foster carers. What analysis has been done of the adequacy of that sum or of whether 40,000 households is the correct figure to cover people who fall into both those categories? I refer specifically to foster carers. We have a distinct shortage of foster carers in our country. Only 65 per cent of children in care are in foster care, which means that many thousands of children who could benefit from this provision if appropriate foster homes could be found for them are missing out. However, it is natural and reasonable that social services departments and fostering services place increasing emphasis on the importance of finding a good match vis-à-vis a child and a foster carer. That has inevitably led to a longer time span in appointing foster carers. Did the Government take that extended time span and the increased demand for foster carers into account when calculating the support that they would make available to the groups I have mentioned? We do not know how many of the 40,000 households include disabled people and how many include foster carers. I should be grateful to my noble friend if he could respond to those points.
In conclusion, I commend to the Minister the review process proposed in the amendment. As has already been pointed out, some noble Lords may think that the amendment should include other matters. Its proposed new subsection (3B)(g) would allow other matters to be taken into account. One might want to refer to the problems caused by disrupted education. I believe that noble Lords have referred to that in previous debates on the Bill. It seems to me that the amendment may not have the right wording but its sense of direction is very appropriate. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will be able to accommodate its main thrust.
The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds
My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Best, for the amendment and for his persistence on this issue. He has continually sought to get us to think of ways in which we can provide support for those who may be in need as a result of the Bill’s provisions. Therefore, I support Motion A1.
There has been much debate about what effect the Bill will have in practice when it becomes an Act. Some believe that it will result in a very positive change of culture which will be of benefit to all. Others believe that we still massively underestimate the Bill’s effect in terms of the number of people whose lives will be damaged and who will be made homeless as a result of it. A tremendous variety of assessments have been made regarding how many people will suffer as a result of the Bill, not least the number of children who will suffer.
I spent this morning with staff of a charity called Streetlights, which seeks to support those who are unemployed in the City of Westminster. It is based just round the corner from here in Great Peter Street. It provides food for those who are homeless and at the same time, in seeking to provide holistic support, points individuals and families towards legal and mental health support. Streetlights is backed by the Church Urban Fund, and I was there this morning, partly because of the fund’s promotion of today, 29 February, as a “spare day” to encourage volunteering for places such as those run by Streetlights. I was therefore able to talk both to those who run Streetlights and their clients about the effects of homelessness in general and the particular effects that those in charge there envisage as a result of Clauses 11 and 68. They are convinced that homelessness will increase significantly as a result of the bedroom tax proposals and other measures in the Bill. We cannot know whether they are right or not, but it is a real concern among charities that are seeking to find volunteers who will be able to provide necessary support and are pretty unclear as to whether they will be able to do so.
I therefore support very firmly the idea of a review, so that when there is some evidence that we can talk about, we can look at the ways in which we can support and help those in most need. I was very grateful indeed in our earlier discussions on the Bill for the Minister’s promise of a review of the impact of the benefit cap as it comes into effect so that we can find out what is actually happening as a result. I very much hope that he will be able to repeat that sort of assurance and promise now. I support the amendment.
Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope
My Lords, I should like to encourage my noble friend to support at least the thrust of the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Best, as it gives us some reassurance that we will be able to track the changes that will happen as a result of these provisions. I profoundly hope that my noble friend is right to say that rent levels will reduce as a result of the Bill. I fear he is wrong but I will big enough to admit that I was wrong if what he has said turns out to be the case. However, the stakes are quite high. Whether he is right or I am right the Bill will produce effects on the housing of households at the lower income levels in a way that could be dramatic. However, time will tell what the effects will be. I hope that he is right and I am wrong.
I endorse the comments made by others about the persistence of the noble Lord, Lord Best, and the advantage that we have had of his expertise. We owe him a great debt, no matter which side of the argument we are on. I urge him to maintain his persistence because although the review he is suggesting is important, it will come in after the event. Before that we will have a process of regulations to implement some of these provisions. I would encourage the noble Lord to continue with his persistence through those regulations because some in-flight corrections may be possible within the envelope that my noble friend on the Front Bench has available to him. If the noble Lord, Lord Best, is prepared to continue his interest and my noble friend on the Front Bench continues the open-door access policy that he has demonstrated to everyone’s satisfaction —certainly mine—constructive tic-tac might be achieved before the review is implemented and that would have a positive effect. I would be happy to contribute to any continuing discussions of that kind during the regulations process.
The only other thing I want to say is that I am now convinced that as a result of the housing aspects of the Bill we are dealing with symptoms. We need a fundamental look at housing policy. We cannot do housing benefit like this. We are imposing consequences on an unlucky few who happen to be in the wrong place through no fault of their own. That is very difficult to justify. Of course there is deficit reduction and we cannot wait for housing policy to change. A housing policy change that embraced some of the fundamental core issues facing our nation, as opposed to symptoms, would take a long time, but the journey has to start somewhere. The experience that the Minister has had from this debate puts him in a strong position to go to his colleagues across government to develop housing policy in the social rented sector with rents that people can afford. It will take time and will involve winners and losers. It will also be a tough policy, but at least if it were consistent and done against a background of a wider housing policy, it would be fairer in the long run. If it is the view that we are spending too much on housing support—£20,000 million a year is a lot of money—we must be very careful when addressing the question in the round. I seriously encourage my noble friend, as a result of the consequences of the Bill, urgently to adopt that position within government and with his ministerial colleagues in order to address this issue as soon as possible.