Housing Benefit (Abolition of the Family Premium and Date of Claim Amendment) Regulations 2015

Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd February 2016 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope]

That this House regrets that the Explanatory Memorandum to the Housing Benefit (Abolition of the Family Premium and Date of Claim Amendment) Regulations 2015 does not contain sufficient information to gain a clear understanding of the policy objective and the intended implementation; and that some of those in receipt of housing benefit will be adversely affected by the regulations.

Relevant document: 17th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope (LD)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper, which refers to the 17th report of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. This is a slightly unusual Regret Motion. I gave the Minister’s private office notice of the fact that I wanted to spend a moment looking at some of the process issues around the regulations and in a wider context before moving on to some comments about the difficulties that may arise for those claiming housing benefit who may be adversely affected by the regulations.

I shall also refer to the 21st report of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee because, taken together, they cover an important worry that the committee, chaired so ably by the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, was beginning to have about the information and data supplied by the Department for Work and Pensions over recent weeks and months. Two other sets of regulations, the Universal Credit (Waiting Days) (Amendment) Regulations of a few weeks back and the housing costs amendment regulations, were also subject to some lapses, as is the committee saw it. The committee’s report stated in stark terms that it believed that there was insufficient information to determine the policy intent or intended implementation in the Explanatory Memoranda that the department supplied for the purposes of scrutiny by the committee.

The report used some stark language: there was a section on inaccuracy, a section on incomplete information, one on obscurity and one on lack of context. Taken together, they caused me some concern that this was a matter that should be drawn to the House’s attention. Speaking for myself, I rely almost completely on the excellent work that the committee, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, does. It has a duty to bring matters to the House’s attention when it feels that that is necessary. If it is not getting the basic data that it needs to do that, it is a matter for concern. Incidentally, the Social Security Advisory Committee report that also looked at the regulations in front of the House also complained about limited material, lack of consultation and no analysis of the backdating period that was currently being claimed for the regulations as they were submitted to the committee.

Having said all that, I must acknowledge that the noble Lord, Lord Freud, responded to that in a robust way. He went to the committee and the exchange that he had with it is clearly set out. He agreed to set up a review to ensure that the process is clarified at a strategic level to deal with some of the complaints raised. I warmly welcome that. His letter of 11 January, I think it was, sets out clearly that some work is being done. He has given a reassurance that he will make sure that that happens. I am perfectly prepared to take his word for that, but I am sure that I am not the only Member of this House who will be looking carefully at the review when it is published.

I say this not by way of threat by any stretch of the imagination, but process is an important part of scrutiny. If the process is inadequate, it could be tested in the Lobbies. I am not saying that that by itself would be a reason for voting down statutory instruments, because the policy content is important, too, but these are important procedural matters. I am pleased that the Minister responded as clearly as he appears to have done, but I want the House to know that I support the statutory instruments committee and the SSAC in pursuing the department if they feel that they are not getting the information they need.

Having got that off my chest, I turn very briefly to the content of the final clause of the Motion, which deals with the backdating issue. Again, I drew heavily on the conclusions of the Social Security Advisory Committee. It came up with a compromise of a three-month period for backdating, not one; it is currently six months, as colleagues will know. I have looked at the argument both ways and the government response. I just do not believe that the department has dealt adequately with the important set of detailed questions raised by the Social Security Advisory Committee, which eventually took the issue under reference after it had a workshop about it. These are skilled people who know the complexity of the legacy benefits in a way that is not normally given to the rest of us.

I absolutely agree that the digital service of universal credit will deal with some of this in future. The one-month backdating is perfectly adequate for universal credit in the way that it is cast, as far as I am concerned, although we will need to wait and see what happens. So this is a transitional issue; I understand that. Of course, the announcement was made in the Budget. As the Minister knows, I complained religiously about him letting Treasury Ministers make announcements about social security. It is not a good thing because it is done under purdah. Nobody really gets a chance to look at the consequences. I am sure that the savings are drawn like blood out of the department and it is not an easy thing to do. I understand, too, that there is a responsibility to the nation’s taxpayers. But the Budget announcement just came out of the sky and I do not think any of us had a chance to understand any of the implications until after the deed was done. Once a Budget Statement is made, there is no going back.

I cannot figure out how the saving is £10 million. There are no data in there that persuade me that that is anything other than an estimate. I understand that it is a marginal amount of money in the totality of the Budget. I also understand that when this kind of material was being sifted through in the Treasury and the department there were a whole lot of other things going on. I can see a context where Ministers were saying, “Well, why are you bothering me with small amounts of money like this?”. Having said that, the people that it may affect are potentially the most vulnerable. We all know that these legacy benefits will still be around for a long time, in spite of everyone’s best endeavours to try to get universal credit implemented as soon as we can. Backdating, as I know from my former constituency days, is a well-known legacy safety net but one of last resort. People who really need it really need it. There are obviously delays, oversights and mistakes in the legacy systems, and we hope that universal credit will deal with some of that, too. But the histories of people who disproportionately claim backdating for lengthy periods of time are, in my experience, those claimants who have a disposition to mental illness and other vulnerabilities. That has to be weighed in the balance.

I would argue, too, that continuous good cause needs to be proved for any backdating claim to be seen under the legacy system. That is a way of dealing with claims that are not considered appropriate or within the rules. So there is a protection there. I also make the point that, as Crisis recently explained to me, its most recent work suggests that if people fall into homelessness —if they cannot get the backdating, are evicted and become homeless—that can cost between £3,000 and £18,000 further downstream to the public purse. That is just passing the problem on to our colleagues in local government. That is not necessarily helpful.

As I understand it, if there is only a one-month backdating period eligible, because there is no eligibility for housing benefit beyond that, there is no capability within the current rules as I understand them of applying discretionary housing payments. You need to be entitled to housing benefit to apply for DHPs. The Government have been quite creative about using discretionary housing payments to fill some of the gaps but I am not sure that they can be used properly in this context that we have in front of us this evening. I am be anxious to be put right on that if I am not correct.

I have just a final point of experience. Through my experience in the Wise Group in Glasgow, I saw one or two really difficult cases of sanctions being applied and, because of that, housing benefit being stopped over a long period of time—wrongly. That causes distress to housing benefit claimants whose situation will be made worse by these regulations.

So I am not sure about the saving. The wider cost-benefit analysis would need to weigh in the balance any discretionary housing payments or alternative payments found by local authorities to try to deal with the consequences of eviction as a result of these changes. I still believe that the SSAC compromise of three months would be a good one. Apart from anything else, the other legacy benefits such as income support and income-related JSA already have three-month backdating limits. So it is maybe not surprising that the SSAC in its conclusion came to the view that,

“the summary rationale given for the proposals—namely early alignment with UC—is too simplistic and potentially misleading”.

That is quite strong language for the Social Security Advisory Committee, but it is right to be concerned. I share its concerns and I hope that the debate this evening will point up some of the problems that may arise. I hope the Minister will watch these things carefully—I know that he always does—and that he will give us an assurance that if the changes have unintended consequences, he will do his best to bring these matters back to the House and try to get them sorted so that no vulnerable clients and HB applicants in future are caused further distress and misfortune by the content of these regulations. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

Some noble Lords will remember that we made a big effort to improve things in 2011. That at least got us a couple of years where we seemed to be getting it right, but it seems that another go at this is needed. These regulations will help to align housing benefit with universal credit and are part of a much wider system and set of reforms designed to bring about behavioural change in claimants while drawing a balance between their needs and those of taxpayers, who fund the welfare bill. We are saving money: we saved £6 billion over the last Parliament in housing benefit reforms, and the annual housing benefit bill would have been considerably higher than it is now if we not made some of these changes.

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope]

My Lords, I am grateful to all colleagues who took part and, as always, I am grateful to the Minister. We will all collectively study his remarks in the Official Report tomorrow. I am very grateful for the opportunity the business managers have given us to have this debate, and I am pleased to seek permission of the House to withdraw the Motion.

Motion withdrawn.