Social Security (Restrictions on Amounts for Children and Qualifying Young Persons) (Amendment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2017

Lord Empey Excerpts

Wednesday 6th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, I start by apologising to the House and to the noble Lord for my late arrival.

The noble Lord, Lord Patten, is correct that Northern Ireland has followed a policy of parity for decades. That ceased a couple of years ago, when spare room subsidy legislation came in—colloquially known as the “bedroom tax”. Many of us in Northern Ireland were opposed to that because, for instance, by ensuring that landlords received money rather than money going to the individual, those individuals were less likely to be exploited by gangsters and money lenders and all sorts of people who would pounce on them as soon as the money came in. Moreover, because of the structure of the population, that would cause huge disruption.

Breaking the parity principle is a serious matter because of the sums of money involved. Social security has been a devolved matter in Northern Ireland all along; it was devolved there even though it was not devolved in Scotland or the other regions. Over the decades, as the noble Lord, Lord Patten, said, we followed slavishly whatever regulations were delivered here, because the sums of money involved were so enormous that it was not feasible to do anything else. However, when these measures came out, the Assembly and the Executive decided that they would make things different, but they accepted the Treasury rules—that they would effectively have to take that money out of the block grant. Therefore, they decided to use money for social security, which had always been devolved, instead of implementing the national policy that was introduced here; they recognised that they would have to pay that out of the block grant. That was the proposal on the spare room subsidy and other related matters.

We are having this debate tonight because of the impasse, because there is no Assembly in place to deal with the issue. All of these matters—abortion and so on—are exceptionally personal matters. I know that the process surrounding abortion was significantly reviewed about five years ago, and a lot of work went into that. Guidelines that were initially issued to professionals were withdrawn and had to be redone. Nevertheless, a lot of professionals still feel that the law is unclear and that they are vulnerable, as professionals. One understands that social security is not open-ended, with an infinite amount of money. I also know that we have seen Daily Mail examples of a relatively small number of individuals who have grossly abused the system. We must accept that.

However, there are a number of issues that I want to raise. It has not been mentioned that, as far as I am aware, neither the Northern Ireland Office nor the Department for Communities in Northern Ireland—responsible for the Social Security Agency—has conducted a Section 75 equality screening process. All legislation in Northern Ireland must be screened and measured against its Section 75 obligations; that process has not occurred. Although I accept that and would be interested to hear what the Minister has to say, concerning paragraph 7(20) of the Explanatory Memorandum, the Department for Communities nevertheless states that,

“if the third party knows or believes that a relevant offence (such as rape) has been committed, the third party will normally have a duty to inform the police of any information that is likely to secure, or to be of material assistance in securing the apprehension, prosecution or conviction of someone for that offence”.

As it stands, the law clearly places the burden on assessors to report rape disclosures to the police, with or without the consent of the applicant. If anybody thinks that if they report a rape, it will be a totally private and confidential matter, that will not be the position because a number of professionals will feel that they are under an obligation. I accept that, so far, there is no case law and we have no examples, but we are looking at the potential, and that is significant.

I suggest to the Minister that, sadly, we are in this position because of the impasse at Stormont and that these responsibilities should be taken by local representatives in Belfast. It is a shame and a disgrace that they are not there to do this job. Noble Lords may have seen the figures that were released last week on health. I think the noble Lord, Lord Patten, was responsible for a number of Northern Ireland issues over the years. There are 272,000 people on waiting lists and 78,000 of them have been waiting for more than a year to see a consultant. That figure has risen from 64,000 last year, and anybody who knows anything about health knows that if you are in that position, it is a life-threatening situation, yet the whole political apparatus is paralysed and is not paying any attention to these matters.

The question that arises here is on abortion. The law allows abortion in limited cases, but the professionals do not consider the guidance they have to be adequate. As the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, said, they have had no current training because there is nobody there to initiate it. They feel that the current law is unclear about where the lines are to be drawn. We can have an argument about the two-child cap, and I accept that it is a perfectly valid argument, but we are into the nitty-gritty of very specific cases here. Northern Ireland is a small place and I do not believe for one minute that women will have confidentiality guaranteed. I do not believe it, first, because of the relatively close-knit nature of the community and, secondly, because there is an unknown hanging over them: whether somebody somewhere will feel obliged to operate the law as they see it. In those circumstances, it would be opening a Pandora’s box.

These are decisions that should be taken in Stormont by the representatives of the people of Northern Ireland. That is what they are there for, and that is what they are paid to do. I accept that the Minister is in a difficult position because he is obliged to govern, but since this proposal has come forward I have looked into it more closely and, although I am no expert in these matters, I have become progressively concerned. A revitalised Stormont could revise any of these matters because they are devolved, so far as I know, but there is very great concern. It spans all the parties, and they accept that if they do not like some of these social security measures, they are going to have to pay for them, but that is a choice to be made by the local community after consultation with local bodies and organisations, both professional and from the third sector. I hope the time arrives when they will be in a position to do their duty.