Welfare Reform Bill

Debate between Lord Boswell of Aynho and Earl of Listowel

Monday 10th October 2011 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, for tabling these amendments and speaking to them so persuasively. I was very concerned to hear what she had to say. Three issues came to my mind. First, I thought of the children of alcoholic parents and of parents who misuse substances. If these individuals have a large sum of money in their hand, they can go on a bender and spend huge sums on alcohol, crack and other substances. If there is no hope of getting money fairly shortly for their children, the children will be in a very difficult position.

My second concern is more general. I was reminded of it at lunchtime today, at a meeting of the Associate Parliamentary Group for Parents and Families, which my noble friend Lord Northbourne chairs. There was an intervention from the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, the chief executive of Relate. She referred to the 120,000 most chaotic families about whom the Prime Minister is particularly concerned, and for whom he has given specific responsibility to the Department for Communities and Local Government. I would be very interested to learn what assessment has been made of the impact of these changes on those chaotic families. Perhaps the Minister will consult the Department for Communities and Local Government about what the change might mean for them.

Thirdly, in my capacity as vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Looked after Children and Care Leavers, it seems to me that this change might contribute to more children coming into care because their parents, who are somewhat chaotic, will be put under additional stress as they try to make ends meet. This might be an additional burden on them that will lead to family breakdown. I hope that that is not overstating the case, but what I heard troubled me, and I would like to know more about the impact from moving from weekly to fortnightly payments. There seems to be some questioning of the evidence that that was been done without much harm. I look forward to the Minister's reassurance on these issues.

[Lord Boswell of Aynho]

My Lords, I will speak briefly. Points have been made very eloquently by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and others. There is a common concern that this should be got right. Perhaps there is a slight subtext that if this is the nail in the shoe that gets the whole thing discredited because it does not work or gives rise to disturbing social consequences, we will have lost the great prize of universal credit that many of us want.

For the reasons that my noble friend just enunciated, there is an argument against complexity and having a double system. We have heard about the difficulties of having weekly, two-weekly and monthly payments. It could make things difficult and give rise to error and potential arrears, for example. We do not really know what will happen before we undertake this. One has to judge whether to go ahead and see what happens. If the Minister can explain with sensitivity how he intends to introduce safeguards, I am with him.

The most important point is picked up in Amendment 28. We need to have a mechanism, as I suggested at Second Reading, for assessing after the event whether this works—and, if it does not work, which we hope it will, for applying the brakes and changing it without loss of face. It is worth looking at this. There may be good reasons for doing it, but if it puts undue pressure on some of the most vulnerable people and their families, we should recognise that. In a wider context, it would not be worth saving small sums if we found that we could not deliver our intended objectives.