Universal Credit (Work-Related Requirements) In Work Pilot Scheme and Amendment Regulations 2015

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Thursday 22nd January 2015 Grand Committee

I recognise that this is a marked departure from the more static DWP trialling approaches of the past. However, we believe that this more dynamic approach provides the best opportunity to build the evidence we need while retaining the right balance in safeguards and flexibilities. I commend the regulations to the Committee.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, rolling out universal credit and optimising such a colossal and innovative system without an iterative process of trial and error should be inconceivable. I am grateful for the opportunity to discuss these regulations because I see them as a sign of a fresh wind blowing through large-scale publicly funded social policy projects, which is an unapologetically experimental approach, as the Minister said, in the most robust sense of the word.

I also understand a randomised control trial methodology is to be implemented, as the Minister said, and it is the gold standard when it comes to experimental design. I am not a social scientist: I am a businessman and conscious that writers such as Jim Manzi, as has been mentioned, have been taking my world by storm by insisting that leaders there can and should use what he refers to as RCT experiments to test decisions in a controlled, low-risk environment before committing their firms and shareholders to large-scale and expensive changes.

We owe it to the people who are the subjects of similarly large-scale social programmes and the taxpayers who fund them to test what we think will work best and learn from that process whether they are in fact being aided effectively and cost-effectively. Both are important.

The Washington State Institute of Public Policy has led the world by raising the bar for policy development in this regard. All sorts of approaches might make a little difference but let us sink our resource into the ones that will help people make the most progress. Honing the many facets of the most effective approach requires the iterative and flexible piloting legislated for in Section 41 of the Welfare Reform Act on which these regulations are based.

As one who is used to having a free hand when it comes to undertaking the necessary fact-finding and research prior to investing my own and my clients’ money, I want to emphasise how innovative and important this flexibility is. As we have heard, static trials have been the standard fare of DWP research contracts but the Minister has already made clear how innovative the proposed assistance is. We have to roll out in-work support that ultimately could help hundreds of thousands to escape a low-income existence while, at the same time, testing and adjusting the assumptions different forms of support are resting on for a wide range of diverse people.

Moreover, it is my understanding that the DWP expects about 1 million universal credit claimants to fall within the “working but could do more” category. If the department wants to help such an enormous and diverse cohort effectively, it seems entirely appropriate that a flexible research model is adopted.

However, I have some questions. First, what does the 1 million figure represent as a percentage of all universal credit claimants and what benefits in terms of cost savings might there be to the country if people can be consistently helped to overcome barriers to raise their wages? In other words, what is the great prize that these trials can place within our reach?

Secondly, I am pleased to learn from the September 2014 minutes of the Social Security Advisory Committee that detailed guidance will be given to work coaches on the pilot, so that anyone randomly chosen to take part in this test-and-learn approach who is deliberately working fewer than full-time hours in order to get a business off the ground will not be forced to take part. A research agenda must not become the tail that wags the dog. Forcing someone to accept help to build up their hours when they are already taking steps to improve their circumstances and possibly even to employ others would be a perverse use of public time and money. It would also undermine the purpose of the trial.

Obviously, there need to be two-way safeguards. Selected claimants may be particularly concerned about complying with all the requirements placed on them under universal credit, not least to avoid sanctions, as they may be in a financially precarious position. They may not realise that there are exempted categories in the guidance. Will the Minister give an assurance that all people who are chosen for trials will be made fully aware of the characteristics, including permanent disability, that mean that their involvement is not mandatory? Given the lack of public and media awareness of exemption for many disabled people from the withdrawal of the spare-room subsidy through the use of discretionary housing payments, I suggest that all effort is made to make this clear from the outset, to avoid much worry and the proliferation of misinformation.

Thirdly, although my head believes that flexibility is indispensable, in my heart I worry a little about the power over claimants’ lives that these regulations are giving to researchers. The Minister mentioned tailoring and tweaking. The 21st report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee referred to the very broad nature of the powers permitted by this instrument and raised similar concerns to mine over the transparency of research design and process. Will the Minister say how we will know when researchers have made modifications to these? As the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee also asked, what controls will exist on the extent of these trials?

Finally, my wholehearted support is behind this Government’s ambition to help a million universal credit claimants to increase their earnings, but is the money to embark on this vast exercise in the departmental business plan for universal credit?

[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, I start by thanking the Minister for giving us an update on where we are with universal credit—27,000 people and 100 jobcentres. I wonder whether I can tempt him to tell us where we might be by the end of April, for example, with the number of people who are receiving universal credit and the number of jobcentres that are supplying it. It is important to note what progress we are seeing.

In-work progression, which is the target that this pilot and these regulations are trying to attach themselves to, is one of the challenges of the next five years. I believe that we will find that this area requires a great deal of attention. It is an issue that relates to a drop in unemployment, so we have to make sure that those who are in employment are given the best possible hand-up and help. I could not help having a wry smile when my noble friend referred to the way in which DWP does this sort of trialling, saying that it was unique and distinctive. I congratulate him on that because we need to find out how universal credit has been doing. As you find out, you adjust, you change and you move on, rather than having a simple blanket approach, which is a recipe for difficulties in the future.

However, there are issues, and I welcome the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Farmer. I particularly welcome what he said about the wind of change. I wonder whether this is a sign of Harold Macmillan coming back to see us again and a revitalised way of looking at social policy. I raise that as an interesting point.

Child Poverty Act 2010 (Persistent Poverty Target) Regulations 2014

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Tuesday 25th November 2014 Grand Committee

It would not have cost the Government anything to have a more ambitious target—I think it should be 5%. If the Government do not reach that no one is going to jail, are they? Perhaps Ministers do go to jail; but I do not recall that being in the 2010 Act. A more ambitious target would have been better. I would respond positively to a clearer programme of new activity, as would other colleagues. We need a sense of urgency about the Government being across departments. I know that my noble friend works his socks off—I keep telling him that he is working too hard—but the cross-departmental response does not indicate to me that the whole of the coalition Government are urgently addressing this problem to the extent needed. I hope that the targets which will be adopted this afternoon will act as a new spur to action in future, because this is a very important part of future public policy.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, I believe that it is important to acknowledge that poverty rates, and persistent poverty in particular, will not be beaten down to the small number of 7% that we are talking about today—which is, rightly, the Government’s target—by means of financial assistance alone. The root causes need to be addressed in the total war against poverty that it is morally and pragmatically necessary to fight. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which my noble friend mentioned, and others have made the persuasive and well evidenced case that no country can afford to keep paying the costs of poverty, not least in terms of lost human potential. Therefore, I encourage the Government, in their various policies for tackling persistent poverty in children and adults, to come at this problem from as many angles as research has shown are necessary.

The 2014 social justice progress report, which has just been published, led on the recognition that family breakdown, divorce and separation, father absence, and dysfunction are drivers of poverty, not just a result of it. The report says that,

“family breakdown and other risk factors—worklessness, educational failure, mental health or drug and alcohol dependency—can feed off one another, compounding their effects, and leading to outcomes that can be very damaging for those affected and costly to society as a whole”.

Yesterday, the front page of the Times revealed that almost two-thirds of children felt that their parents’ break-up affected their GCSEs. One in eight had turned to drugs and alcohol to ease the stress, while almost a third were at risk of developing mental health problems in the form of eating disorders. Put that alongside the fact that two-thirds of 12 to 16 year-olds in the poorest households have seen their parents separate, and it becomes clear that the full effects of family breakdown will hit the poorest the hardest. Poor family functioning also gives children a very poor start in life, so this Government are to be applauded for their investment in the troubled families programme, about which we have just heard, as well as the Family Nurse Partnership Programme and other approaches aiming for the transformation of children’s life chances. This is the much bigger prize to be won, as opposed to merely moving their parents’ income across a somewhat arbitrary line.

However, we must not mistake the battle for the war. This Government have been courageous in putting family breakdown on the policy agenda for the first time ever but 40 years of negative family trends cannot be reversed in one term and with the somewhat restrained approach which we have seen to date. Divorce and separation carry a £46 billion price tag, yet only £7.5 million is spent on prevention. This is 0.02%, or less than one five-thousandth, of the costs that the policy is trying to save. Marriage is the far more stable family form yet the transferable tax allowance for married couples is worth a meagre £200 per family per year. This is a vital form of assistance to single-earner families who are not eligible for any childcare subsidy. It should be at least doubled for families with young children, so that they have a little more choice about mum and dad staying at home for the few short years of infancy. I believe that this would cost an additional £480 million per annum—money well spent.

Finally, the Government’s groundbreaking family stability review is deemed to warrant only a scant couple of pages in the social justice progress report. It must be published in full because of its fundamental importance for local authorities. They have to construct their own local child poverty strategies and urgently need to commission on the basis of the evidence contained in that review. I urge my noble friend to look again at the policy base for tackling family breakdown and consider strengthening it in the interests of hitting the persistent poverty target that he has set through these regulations.

Universal Credit

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Monday 24th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

We conducted a painstaking process of testing how people respond to paying their housing rent directly. We found that there was a three-month adjustment process until people got familiar with it. We are now ensuring that we have the right systems to help people make that adjustment into the monthly payment situation.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, the principles of universal credit are sound, but timings and cost to the public purse are vital considerations. Can the Minister tell us when all claimants will be on universal credit and how much it will cost to reach this point?

[Lord Freud]

In the last strategic outline business case the costs of the programme to 2023-24 were £1.8 billion. That is down from the £2.4 billion figure that we had in 2011. Under that case, we anticipate that the bulk of the exercise to transfer people on to universal credit will be completed by 2019.