Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Debate between Lord Freud and Baroness Grey-Thompson

Monday 7th March 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Freud) (Con)]

My Lords, in these opening remarks I shall cover Motion B as well. Last week the Commons considered the amendments passed by this House to place a duty on the Secretary of State to estimate further the impacts of the changes to the ESA work-related activity component and the universal credit limited capability for work element. The Commons also considered the aspect of those amendments that sought to make the commencement regulations bringing both changes into effect subject to the affirmative procedure.

The Commons voted solidly to reject those amendments, and the Motion now asks this House to accept that decision. In addition, the Commons Speaker has also ruled that these changes attract financial privilege. As noble Lords have not tabled amendments to the contrary, I will make the presumption that the House is now prepared to accept the changes, albeit with great reluctance, and will not defy convention.

I put it to noble Lords that as a House we have performed our duty. We have rigorously scrutinised the legislation to remove unintended consequences and sent back a number of concerns for the Commons to reconsider. Indeed, on the ESA work-related activity component and the universal credit limited capability for work element, we have twice asked the Commons to reflect on the measures and twice it has voted down proposed amendments with substantial majorities. I think that our duties are discharged, and there comes a point when we must accept the decision of the Commons on this financially privileged matter.

I am proud of the important work this House has done to improve and refine the Bill. I remind noble Lords of the important changes they have secured. We have put in place additional statutory protections around the publication of low-income data; we have secured exemptions from the benefit cap for recipients of carer’s allowance and guardian’s allowance; and, in the case of the limit on support through child tax credits and universal credit, we have secured exemptions for certain children being looked after by family-and-friends carers and adopted sibling groups. On the social rents measure, supported accommodation will now be excepted from the changes for one year, and across the Bill we have accepted—in full or in part—recommendations from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee.

Speaking personally, I thank noble Lords for the precision and clarity with which they have made their arguments. It has made immeasurably easier my task of relaying the concerns back to my colleagues in the department and across government and getting an agreed response. The quality of scrutiny in this place amplifies the power of the arguments within government.

On this occasion, I will not expand on the measures at issue; we have had an extended opportunity to do so during the Bill’s passage. However, I remind the House of the improvements it has helped to secure: improved guidance for those with progressive conditions, £15 million for the flexible support fund, and removing the 52-week permitted work limit in ESA to reduce barriers to part-time work.

I am proud of the work this House does to scrutinise legislation and highlight unintended consequences—as it has in this case to improve these measures to help more sick and disabled people back into employment. It is, I believe, the right moment for the Lords to accept that it has done its job in communicating to the Commons areas of concern for it to reconsider. I am confident that noble Lords have done an excellent job in scrutinising the Bill, and I am grateful to colleagues throughout the House for a series of powerful and thoughtful speeches.

In the light of the convincing votes in the Commons and the application of financial privilege, I beg to move the Motion.

[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)]

My Lords, I am deeply disappointed that we have got to where we are today with the Welfare Reform and Work Bill, but I thank the Minister for continuing to meet Members of your Lordships’ House. I and others spent a great deal of time last week working through every possibility of tabling another amendment to send this dreadful and punitive part of the Bill back to the other place. Unfortunately, because of parliamentary procedure, that was not possible. Placing financial privilege on these amendments means that the other place ultimately has its way, and it is entitled to do that—just as we were entitled and absolutely right to ask the Commons to think again.

As a Chamber appointed because of our expertise in areas such as this, we know and understand the impact this Bill will have, even if no formal impact assessment was carried out. I apologise to the people affected by this Bill that, at this point, we could not do any more. This may be the end of the legislative process, but it is the start of the negative impact the Bill will have on thousands of people’s lives. It may be seen as a victory in terms of voting numbers in another place, but we cannot forget that there are many disabled people who will lose out. That may be realised only when the letters come flooding in.

Disabled People: Mobility Benefits

Debate between Lord Freud and Baroness Grey-Thompson

Monday 2nd December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest in that I am in receipt of DLA but not of a Motability car. Regardless of whether the Government know the figures of who will be affected, this will affect a significant number of people. I travelled on a train this morning from Darlington to London. There were two spaces for wheelchairs and no accessible toilet on board. Can the Minister explain what consultation there has been with other government departments to ensure that when this huge number of people is affected, the public transport system will be able to cope?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, we have had a very thorough consultation on this. I cannot bring to mind right now the exact level of consultation with the transport department. I will need to write to the noble Baroness with that information.

Welfare: Personal Independence Payment

Debate between Lord Freud and Baroness Grey-Thompson

Thursday 24th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, autism is, as the noble Lord points out, a really difficult area for people. It is difficult to understand and see sometimes, but we have a comprehensive training set-up for ATOS and Capita, which will be conducting the assessment. Clearly, each of those people will need to be approved by the DWP. Autism is among a group of quite difficult things to assess, and I personally take his point about its importance. The Government take his point and we will make sure that, when we give the approvals for that, it is one of the issues that is dealt with absolutely properly.

[Baroness Grey-Thompson]

My Lords, I am very disappointed that this issue did not come to the Floor of the House for proper debate. At the very least, the change to 20 metres should have been clearly stated in the consultation documents. The lack of consultation with disabled people and all supporting evidence from experts in disability access as to what distance enables practical mobility and participation mean that there is a real risk that this issue will be open to judicial review. Is the Minister willing to take that risk?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, the change was made because there was great concern among disability organisations about the previous draft. The concern was that only people in wheelchairs would qualify for the higher rate—that was picked up by Parkinson’s UK, the Multiple Sclerosis Society, the Disability Benefits Consortium and the National AIDS Trust, among others. That is why the change was made. I admit that I would have preferred there to have been more consultation on the 20 metres, but there is no effective change in the number of people receiving higher-rate mobility allowance because of this change. I hope that noble Lords will accept my assurances on this. That change has made it clearer and simpler to operate this measure; it has not changed the numbers affected. Before we start reassessing people in 2015, we will have had a full independent review which will have gone through this issue, among others, by the end of 2014.

Housing Benefit (Amendment) Regulations 2012

Debate between Lord Freud and Baroness Grey-Thompson

Monday 15th October 2012 Grand Committee

[Baroness Grey-Thompson]

My Lords, like other noble Lords, I am concerned about the potentially disproportionate effect these regulations could have on disabled people. It is my understanding that all disabled tenants other than those who need constant overnight care will lose a percentage of their rent if they have more bedrooms than they need. The DWP equality impact assessment, which was updated last June, clearly shows the disproportionate effect that the size criterion measure will have on disabled tenants. Based on the Equality Act 2010 definitions of disability, some 420,000 of the total 660,000 households affected contain a family member with a disability, which makes the housing benefit regulations very much a disability issue, and one that is of great concern to a huge number of people. There is the discretionary housing payments fund for 35,000 tenants with homes adapted for wheelchair access, but that is a small mitigation in terms of the 420,000 tenants who are potentially affected. I feel strongly that long-established definitions of disability do not depend merely on the presence of adaptations or on the outward appearance of a functional disability. I am very concerned that disabled people will struggle with these measures.

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, an enormous number of issues have been raised and I will do my best to deal with them. I know that this is an area of great concern to noble Lords. That was made clear during the process of what is now the Welfare Reform Act 2012, and I remind noble Lords that there were some government defeats on underoccupancy, which were reversed in the Commons. That is where we stand as the second Chamber when considering these regulations. However, as I say, I will do my best to answer the questions put to me as rapidly as I possibly can—in a fairly random order, if noble Lords will allow me.

I shall pick up some of the issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie. Under the Localism Act 2011 there will be fewer tenancies for life, so both private sector and social sector tenants are less likely to have absolute security. On the assessment of the impact of the overall changes, noble Lords will be aware that we have produced impact assessments for each of them. It has been extraordinarily difficult to combine them because one is not sure on which basis assessments should be made, given all the other changes that are going on. However, people affected by more than one change have the DHP fund available to them. I should point out that when the fund is taken in its entirety, we are now looking at a very substantial amount of money. Next year, for instance, the full DHP pot will be running at £165 million, plus the localised social welfare fund will move over, which I think will be another £178 million. So a lot of money that is not ring-fenced for particular things is going to local authorities, so that they can look at the problems in their area to try to provide the appropriate support.

Welfare Reform Bill

Debate between Lord Freud and Baroness Grey-Thompson

Tuesday 17th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, I have two answers to that question. The first is that people who need the support because of a disability may happen to be on the lower rate of DLA today but that does not mean that they will not be entitled to the standard rate in the future. My noble friend gave an example of people who are really dependent on that funding. I would expect in those circumstances that it would continue. Indeed, I would regard PIP to be a failure if it did not do that. Secondly, we will be monitoring that really closely. As I have discussed, later this evening I will present an amendment to make sure that we properly monitor what happens in this area and make sure that PIP does what it should be doing, which is to stop people ending up in the situation that my noble friend is so concerned about.

I must point out that if we move to a three-tier system on the daily living component, the implications are that the caseload would be larger—possibly larger than that under DLA—and spending would increase rather than decrease against the original and revised forecast under the personal independence payment. We cannot possibly quantify such expenditure implications, mainly because we have not yet set the rates at which benefit is paid, but the implications are there. I want the House to be under no illusions that they would be anything but significant.

Before I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendments, I would like to confirm that the Government see Amendments 50ZGH and 50ZJA as directly consequential upon Amendment 50ZGB. On that note, I beg the noble Baroness to withdraw the amendment.

[Baroness Grey-Thompson]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response. I have to say that I am disappointed. I am also concerned and gravely worried for a huge number of disabled people. The tiny spark I take out of his comment is that he says he is listening. That is positive. However, there are lots of ways in which spending will increase if we push disabled people into poverty or do not give them the right support they need. We will be making massive, long-term mistakes for the rest of those disabled people’s lives. It is not a small number of people. It could be up to 500,000 disabled people—half a million disabled people could be affected by this.

I am keen to keep pressing the Minister to ensure that the outcomes of disabled people losing the lower rate of care will be monitored throughout the rollout of the PIP assessment because, whatever way you look at the maths, there will be people who lose out. It is a big mistake to see this as a deadweight expenditure. You only have to look at our postboxes or e-mail inboxes —in the past two days, I have had nearly 600 emails from different disabled people saying they are terrified of the changes that are going to happen.

It is really important that the assessment process properly records whether losing DLA has a negative impact on the health of disabled people or their ability to work. We have a long way to go on this. Very reluctantly, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Freud]

This is about doing the right thing for people and focusing money on them; it is not about playing silly games—by which I mean that we are not playing silly games here and we are determined to get this right. We are consulting widely and know that we have the right approach with the model that we are using. I understand the noble Baroness’s position, but we do not think that the Bill should specify that the assessment should consider social and environmental factors. That approach would be inappropriate and unworkable, because we need the assessment to be straightforward, objective and consistent. We would lose £1.4 billion of savings. For that combination of reasons, these amendments are not acceptable to the Government. Just for the avoidance of any doubt whatever, I confirm that the Government see Amendments 50ZJ to 50ZQ and Amendments 51A and 52A as directly consequential upon Amendment 50ZH. On that basis, I urge the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Grey-Thompson]

I thank the Minister for his response. It is nice to know that, even for a short time, I might hold a record in your Lordships’ Chamber for tabling the priciest amendments. I also thank the noble Baronesses who have brought much personal and moving experience to this debate.

I apologise to your Lordships; in introducing the amendment, I did not declare that I am a recipient of DLA, although I am fairly unlikely to be on PIP. I realise that to many the social model turns into a philosophical debate but I felt that it was important to raise it again, as—

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, I feel that I should interrupt. I think that when the noble Baroness looks at the PIP assessment, she will find that she is on PIP—without doing an assessment myself.

[Baroness Grey-Thompson]

I thank the Minister and accept that I did not just go through an assessment process.

I feel that it is important to raise this issue again as a gentle reminder that the social model is written by disabled people using their experience. The noble Countess, Lady Mar, made the important point that you cannot fit disabled people into boxes. I tend to think that we are a little more like Venn diagrams. It is obvious to me that if the Minister were truly committed to helping disabled people, the full social model would be used. I recognise that there is a balance between costs and how far we want to go to help disabled people.

I share the Minister’s view on autism but I would like to widen the issue and hope that we will take all disabled people’s experiences into account. I look forward to seeing the refined process that he mentioned.

There is one point on which I agree with the Minister: the biopsycho model is interesting. However, that is as far as I can go. If we looked at the definition of “interesting”, he and I would probably differ considerably. Perhaps we could save that exciting debate for another time. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, I hope that I have made it absolutely clear that if we write into the Bill that it must be the GP, who may not be the right person, we are stuck. If you give us the flexibility, we are not stuck and in those circumstances we will go to the person’s home to do the assessment, or take someone else's piece of paper on the tiered approach.

What we are planning will be better for people suffering from ME and other illnesses because we will be able to respond. I think that the market will change. My noble friend Lord Kirkwood said that there is not an adequate market in this area. Occupational health and support for people of working age is a Cinderella service. We will be building that. As things change, we can move the assessment. If you tie it up, we will be locked in to 1948 as the years go by. The only difference between us on this, I think, is how mandatory and prescriptive we want to be, and it would be most unusual to put it in the Bill.

Let me cover the technicalities. The Government consider that Amendment 50D is directly consequential on Amendment 50C; the others are separate, so I ask noble Lords not to press them to a vote and the noble Baroness to withdraw the amendment.

[Baroness Grey-Thompson]

My Lords, I thank the Minister and everyone else who has taken part in the debate this afternoon. On a point of clarification to the noble Countess, Lady Mar, although the wording of the amendment was “relevant healthcare professionals”, in her speech she mentioned doctors; it is much wider than that.

The amendment is a fundamental cornerstone of what is necessary in the move to PIP. I recognise that the Minister has moved a long way. I am still not comfortable with some part of his statement on the broad training for professionals. You do not know what you do not know. It is very difficult to instil that knowledge in people. I would like to know an awful lot more about the detail of how that training and education will take place.

There has been broad support around the House for my amendment, and I am grateful to noble Lords for that, but considering that the Minister has moved further than perhaps I expected, there is an awful lot to think about in what he has said. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, I do not want to debate where alternative cuts would be found by the Opposition if they were in government and needing to balance the budget. All I can tell you is that the effect of the amendments that the Opposition have supported comes to that figure. It is amazing how, given an amendment here and an amendment there, pretty soon you are talking serious billions. I am afraid that this is another amendment which involves a serious amount of money and, for that reason, it is not acceptable to the Government. I urge the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Grey-Thompson]

I thank the Minister for some of the reassurances that he has offered tonight. He has, once again, moved further than I expected, although it would have been wonderful to have heard some of it a little earlier. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Newton of Braintree, for his consistent honesty and for what he has done for DLA. Unfortunately, I am genuinely sorry that I do not agree with him tonight because we have to get this right.

The noble Lord, Lord Low, talked about confidence and, even with what the Minister has said today, there is such a lack of confidence among disabled people about where we are going with this that I am really concerned.

The Minister referred to costs, which are important, and huge financial sums are involved here. I would like to talk about cost—the social cost of what we are doing to the lives of disabled people. A number of disability organisations—I shall not go into how many—have contacted me and are telling me that we are not in the right place; disabled people are telling me that we are not in the right place; and my personal belief and conscience tell me that we are not in the right place. I wish to test the opinion of the House.

Welfare Reform Bill

Debate between Lord Freud and Baroness Grey-Thompson

Monday 12th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

That is the envelope in which we are operating. If I could find £200 million more to add to that envelope then I could do it, but we are not in that position. As noble Lords know, we have put a lot of money into the universal credit. The overall gross figure going into people’s pockets—the poorest people in the country—every year once we get universal credit in is £4 billion a year. Of that £2 billion is net extra; £2 billion is through a more efficient system. That is the money we have found; that is the overall envelope that we are operating in. I do not have any more money, and there are some very difficult choices.

The question is this: does the noble Baroness want to maintain the rates for moderately disabled children at the expense of raising the limits for severely disabled people? That is really the juggle that we have to do. As I have said, this is not easy; these are difficult judgments. It has been very difficult to get to this position, and that is the decision that we think is best for people who we really want to help. We want to focus our support on the most severely disabled people regardless of their age; to simplify and to align the extra payments for disabled people; and to smooth the transition into adulthood. That is fundamentally the reason why I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Grey-Thompson]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response and I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate on this vital amendment. The restructuring of support for disabled adults and children is taking money from disabled children who need it. The Government say that it is not a money-saving measure and that its main aim is to simplify the system and to give more to adults with the severest levels of impairment. However, the simplification is superficial and fails to give more to those with the greatest needs. I think that we should remember the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell of Surbiton, who quoted Dame Philippa on the need to move away from categorising people based on severity of impairment.

Additionally, this measure is going to cause significant hardship to families with disabled children, who are already disproportionately likely to be living in poverty. It will make the situation much worse for those who are likely to have higher costs—those in the very group of adults whom this measure is meant to help. I believe that the Government’s proposals will undermine their own prevention agenda. There is no reason why an adapted form of the current levels of financial support could not be introduced into universal credit, with extra help being given to the support group when new moneys allow. It would not cost anything and would mean that families with disabled children were not among the biggest losers under the new system.

We have often heard it said that the devil is in the detail, and I agree, but I believe that the Minister is also making grand assumptions about the ability of parents of disabled children to work. We have heard much about the transition but this is about the new children who will be coming into the system. I believe that the measures that the Government are proposing will push more children into residential care.

I thank the Minister for asking me whom I would be most likely to support. That is not a question that I would like to answer on my own, and I therefore wish to test the opinion of the House.

Welfare Reform Bill

Debate between Lord Freud and Baroness Grey-Thompson

Wednesday 16th November 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Freud]

This is the Catch-22 that a number of noble Lords have pointed out today and in the past, whereby denying oneself an obvious aid is used as a method or device to maintain a higher level of PIP. Clearly, we want to discourage that because we want people to maximise their opportunities in life. The noble Lord referred to a period in which to obtain an aid. However, that drives straight down the other path of starting to multiply the number of reassessments, which we do not want to do. There is a balance to be struck here but most people are able to get aids and appliances. They may not get the four-and-a-half kilo device of the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. That is half the weight of my bike.

[Baroness Grey-Thompson]

My Lords, if I might interject, one of the issues is the cost of aids and equipment. You can buy a fairly okay wheelchair for £250. You can buy a semi-custom fit chair for about £3,500 and you can probably spend £6,000 on a chair. However, some aids and adaptations are very difficult to get, such as a stair lift, which costs £2,500. I tried to get one fitted in my house when I was pregnant but no company in the country would fit a stair lift in my house as the stair lift was not insured to carry two people, and as a pregnant woman I counted as two people. However, there were companies that were prepared to put one in for someone who wanted to carry their dog up the stairs. A through-the-floor lift costs £18,000. If you live in the south-east of England, moving to a bungalow is just not an option because it is so expensive. There are all these costs that keep adding up, and it is very difficult for disabled people even to think about getting the right equipment because of the huge cost.

[Lord Freud]

Clearly, one has to be absolutely sympathetic to this point. As we all know, levels of equipment can vary hugely. However, the point on this particular issue is that we will look at only readily available, cheap aids and appliances, which can be reasonably used. That will be the definition and it is the definition used today in DLA, so we are effectively porting that approach over. I think I have already asked for the amendment to be withdrawn.

Welfare Reform Bill

Debate between Lord Freud and Baroness Grey-Thompson

Monday 14th November 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, I will pick up the point of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter. I have no figures on how many people may or may not lose, mainly because we have not yet locked down the thresholds. However, I assure her that this is a bottom-up exercise based on assessing people's real needs. We are working at it that way round rather than working to a budget. That is what some of the testing we did over the summer was about.

The noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, asked about the work we have done on some passported benefits. We had detailed discussions with colleagues in the Department for Transport about passporting disabled people to the blue badge scheme. We will include key outcomes from the discussions in the updated impact assessment that we will publish in time for Report.

[Baroness Grey-Thompson]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions this afternoon. I took over the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell of Surbiton, and I am responding as such. I absolutely understand the need to prioritise the money that is available, and the fact that choices have to be made. I understand that the Government want to support those most in need. I, too, want that. However, the people currently seen to be not in greatest need will become those in need because they will not be able to carry out the daily tasks that DLA enables them to do. We may be storing up trouble for later. I look forward to seeing the more detailed information that is required to understand what the new landscape may be; and I look forward to having many more weekends taken up with reading.

I agree wholeheartedly with the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, on the difficulty of assessments, and with those of the noble Lord, Lord Newton, on transition. The barriers are still significant to those who may not be considered so disabled in the wider context of disability.

I think of this in terms of sport—and specifically athletics, which I know well. If life as a disabled person is a race and the finish line is full integration into society where DLA is not required, disabled people are not at the start of the 100 metres but spread out at different points along the marathon course. Many disabled people are still in the warm-up area and a few were left on the bus. Of course, this should not stop our attempts to remove barriers, but we should be very careful about the choices that we make. I have concerns that we are simply pushing this issue into other areas and I look forward to continuing the discussion with the Minister, especially around the projection figures of the Department for Work and Pensions, of which I take a slightly different view. I will come back to this at a later stage. At the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.