Benefit Changes: Vulnerable People
Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope Excerpts(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope (LD)
My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow my noble friend, whose speeches always repay later reading because of her expertise and experience in these fields. I particularly agreed with one of her earlier remarks when she talked about the difficulty the department has—and I think this is true—in that it seems to be turning a deaf ear to some of the complaints. Now, I do not think that demonstrates anything other than a misperception of how the department works, and I understand the Minister’s perplexity and why she feels the need to defend the professionals in the department, and she is right to do so, because they are excellent people. But it is true that the perception left outside the department is that, because there is so much difficulty in trying to resolve some of these problems, the department keeps founding on the fact it has an 80% approval rating, which it has. People who have work experience, computer knowledge and a bank account in positive balance always get a very good service, from my experience. I have studied this and watched cases being enrolled on to universal credit. It is partly why the employment rate is so high, and I think that will continue.
On the other hand, a benefit change of this kind, where you get six benefits in one payment, is a big change from an array of small payments that had previously been studded through the month. If anything goes wrong with that—whether it is bad process, partly the slightly strange ideology behind it or the lack of generosity of some of the benefit payments—and it does not come through the door on time or it is wrong, the household’s finances are severely affected immediately. The Government would be well advised to confess a bit more readily that, when it is in full rollout to 7.7 million households, payments of this kind will always go astray and there will always be people who will need help.
In satisfaction of trying to deal with that, I think that we should consider some sort of triage system, because there is a lot of data in the department and a lot of clever people who can cross-tabulate it. I cannot help but remember that dynamic benefits—the basis for universal credit—was set up in 2008. A huge amount has evolved about how people can creatively use data to identify cohorts within populations. The department should now be able to identify the vulnerable cases much more specifically, so that work coaches and advisers can be given a case that has a red flag on it that says, “This case needs special treatment because, if something goes wrong with it, children will suffer”—or whatever, because there will be consequences or it is a riskier than normal case. That can be passed on to the housing authorities and anybody acting on behalf of the applicant so that we can be much better prepared to stop people being thrown out of their rented accommodation because their UC payment is late and then sent to Yorkshire from London with three young children—
Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope
There is nothing wrong with Yorkshire; I was just referring to a programme I saw on Channel 4 last night. I see hard luck stories and bad stories for the department all the time. The department has to understand that, with a rollout cohort of 7.7 million families, it will always have difficulties and bad stories. It will get better as UC rolls outs.
My noble friend also mentioned the importance of getting more flexibility into the hands of the caseworkers. They are not using enough flexibility yet. I noticed that the Secretary of State was in Scotland this morning. There are some really excellent new flexibilities for people coming out of prisons. That is really positive and it was a good news story in the Scotsman today. That is good, but we should have more of it. No doubt the Minister will say that there are all sorts of things going on that we do not know about—and I believe that to be true—but it is perplexing that we are not better at identifying vulnerabilities. That is the point I am making, because if the professionals dealing with the cases had a bit more information of that kind available when they make judgments on the case it would make a significant difference.
I did not mean to say any of that. I meant to start by thanking my noble friend Lady Janke for introducing the debate in an excellent way. Her analysis was really good. It set the scene. The timing of the debate is very important because we are looking at, we hope, a comprehensive spending review and a Budget that might happen sometime in the autumn or maybe even later—if we still have a Government. Departments such as the DWP should be thinking clearly and carefully about what their asks are for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whosoever that may be. That work would then inform what happens in the next three years. That three-year period has to be used constructively to repair some of the damage that we have seen since 2010, some of which is still with us and some of which still has to be visited on us. The noble Lord, Lord Livermore, was quite correct in identifying that previous Governments have dealt with low income quite deliberately and politically by pouring money into the tax credits system, which saved an enormous amount of extra heartache from the financial crisis of 2008-09. If that had not been there things would have been much worse. The noble Lord was right to say that.
The right reverend Prelate was also right to advert to the two-child limit. I am old-fashioned about adjusting levels of expenditure. In social security, levels of expenditure are enormously high, not in proportion to national wealth but in nominal terms. Social security should be increased or decreased annually by adjusting the rates of the benefits. If money needs to be taken out of child support, there are ways of doing that without adopting ridiculous policies which will almost certainly be overturned by future Governments. There is no security or stability in this policy area. It will continue to fester, it will not prosper, and then it will change, and there will be another level of complication for the people that have to suffer the benefit changes that are the subject of this debate. We need a longer-term strategy. We need to find ways of raising resources during the CSR as well as spending them. I would lean a little more heavily on wealth rather than income to generate extra resources. There are other clever ways of doing that. I understand that extra money has to be found to correct some of these problems.
I want to make a point in passing about housing policy. In both Governments—this is over a longer period of time than just since 2010—housing costs have crept up. For low-income families, they are a significant cause of poverty. I attended an IFS presentation last week. In an article about it for the Times of 24 June, Paul Johnson wrote,
“low-earning households have housing costs a good 50 per cent higher than they were 20 years ago, while housing costs for the highest-earning households have not risen at all, on average”.
That is not easily fixed; it cannot be done overnight. However, it is absolutely insane that we spend £23 billion every year on housing benefit, and it goes to landlords— sometimes housing associations and councils, but mainly private landlords. We cannot go on like this. I do not have an answer—I am not a housing expert—but it is an area that deserves urgent, cross-departmental treatment. We need a housing policy that is worthy of the name. If we could do that, it would take a lot of pressure and some of the costs off these low-income families.
I commend the Government—because not many people do and I do not often get the chance to—on the employment rate that has been achieved, which I think is excellent. I would not have thought it would be high or have stayed that high; with a bit of luck it will continue to stay at that level. But two things flow from that. It is really good news that we have a high employment rate—the noble Lord, Lord Livermore, referred to this as well—but we need to increase hours within employment now, to deal with in-work poverty. We need to start concentrating on that, and it is quite complicated for Government to do, but we need to increase hours available for work. Secondly, we need to have more emphasis on in-work progression. That is really important.
I come back to where I started. As I recall, the National Audit Office report of June 2018 made the comment that the DWP could not really identify the vulnerable cohort particularly of its universal credit caseload. Hopefully, that is something that the Government will do. I hope that when the Secretary of State returns from Scotland, she will also explain how the Scottish child payment of £10 per week, starting in 2021, can be replicated here in the United Kingdom.
Occupational and Personal Pension Schemes (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018
Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope Excerpts(5 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope (LD)
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that extended explanation. It was quite clear, but perhaps it is easier for me to say that because I am a serving member of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which has been looking very carefully on the House’s behalf at all of these points. These regulations were cleared, and the SLSC does not clear regulations that are not properly looked at. All of the important questions were addressed. While I would encourage your Lordships to ask more questions about some regulations—because there are occasions when regulations are laid before Parliament that deserve a lot more scrutiny than they normally get—this is not one of them. This regulation is technical and I take the point that has been made about the lack of consultation. That is always something that the committee is very solicitous to understand and the explanation that we got, which was crystal clear to me, was that the objection that came in and was found by bilateral consultations with the industry was so technical that you would not expect a member of the public to be able to volunteer something of that kind.
There are two kinds of consultation, and we are always looking for consultations where there is any case for making them. In regard to this regulation, this was not a sensible judgment to make, so the department was right both to take the advice from industry and to make the change. It is standard that regulations, in the gestation between Parliament and the department, often get relaid. Often the Explanatory Memoranda are changed and that is all to the good.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My noble friend—I have known him for many years—is an expert on social security and a member of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. The two committees under the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, and my noble friend Lord Cunningham do a terrific job. However, is it not perfectly possible, because of the huge avalanche of legislation—the statutory instruments now coming to these committees—for things to be overlooked? Therefore, it is absolutely right that the Grand Committee and the House, where there is a wider membership and people might have looked at the regulations in some detail, might raise some of the issues. I fear that a lot of things will get through and these unintended consequences—few and far between as they have been in the past—will just become an avalanche themselves.
Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope
My noble friend makes a good point. I certainly have serious concerns about the scale, complexity and volume—not just the number, but the extent—of some of these SIs that the two committees upstairs are struggling to deal with. One thing that we are very solicitous of—and it supports the point—is that it is very easy to reduce the standards of scrutiny, which is one thing that we must not do. I gently say to the noble Lord, however, that if parliamentary procedures are tested to the extent that it takes up more time than this normally would, there are emergency procedures available to Governments which they might resort to if you push them too hard on the Floor on the time necessary to discuss these things. Therefore, I am absolutely happy to spend time when time is due to be spent, but these regulations are not of sufficient weight or concern to justify spending a lot of time, or more time than is necessary, on them.
The point about consultation has been made. The important thing is that we need to be more agile and more flexible about how we handle these statutory instruments. But I support the regulations and I hope the Government will take on board the important points that have been made about when consultations are and are not needed.
Benefit Reforms
Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope Excerpts(5 years, 3 months ago)
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Baroness Buscombe
I said I would begin by saying that we now spend more in this country than any other developed nation on family benefits. The aim of the two-child policy is an important one: to strike the appropriate balance between support for claimants with children, and fairness to taxpayers and families who support themselves solely through work. Parents who support themselves solely through work would not expect to see their wages increase simply because of the addition of a new child to their family. However, we are looking at the policy with regard to its extension, which is due to take place next month.
Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope (LD)
My Lords, the Resolution Foundation recently estimated that the four-year benefit freeze implemented in the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016 will result in a net cumulative saving by the Exchequer in 2020 of £4 billion. Is it not now time to think about redeploying some of those savings to provide much-needed assistance to hard-pressed low-income families with children?
Baroness Buscombe
My Lords, let us look quickly at what we offered in the Budget. The Budget has made an enormous difference in the amount of money that we have put into the system following concerns. We announced a £4.5 billion cash boost to universal credit in the 2018 Budget; that was voted against by the party opposite. The reality is that we are doing a lot to reduce the number of children in workless households because we believe that that makes an enormous difference to the possibilities for children: we know that they are five times less likely to be in poverty where both parents work. Children need role models, and parents need dignity and a sense of self-worth to believe that they can achieve their potential and support their children. The principles of UC entirely support this truth.
Universal Credit
Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope Excerpts(5 years, 3 months ago)
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Baroness Buscombe
I will respond by saying first that perhaps we should ask the press what on earth is going on. The news that there is a delay is wrong. The Government previously committed to hold a debate on the affirmative regulations in relation to managed migration, and that will happen in due course on the Floor of the House. We will debate them as and when parliamentary time allows, but we will also make sure that we meet our commitment to severe disability premium recipients. To ensure a start date from July 2019 for those 10,000 people, we have long said that we will work with a test-and-learn process.
The noble Baroness talked about a pilot. We have always called it a test. It is perhaps just different terminology. In my response to a debate put to the House by the noble Lord, Lord Bassam of Brighton, on 1 November, I made it very clear that we were always going to have the test-and-learn phase starting at the end of July 2019, whereby we would manage-migrate only 10,000 people through the following 12 months. A debate will be held on the regulations to allow for the managed migration.
Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope (LD)
My Lords, I welcome this change in so far as it separates the regulations in the first phase to do the testing and learning. It was argued for very forcefully by the scrutiny committee and others. I welcome the Government paying attention to that. However, a timing issue flows from it, because if we do not get the evaluation of the test-and-learn phase in time to be useful when the comprehensive spending review comes around later this year, we are going to be short of money. If we are to learn anything between now and July, time is very short, so the managed migration regulations need to be laid and they need to be evaluated in time to be useful to get resource put into universal credit in the longer term for the future.
Baroness Buscombe
I very much take on board what the noble Lord said. This has been very much part of our thinking in the department. It is very important that we make sure that we have an opportunity to debate the managed migration regulations prior to the end of July 2019 and the pilot phase—as it is now popularly referred to, rather than, as we have called it, the test and learn phase—whereby we will be co-designing the whole system with 70 stakeholders working with us to make sure that we get this right. So there is no question of us not being very cognisant of the fact that we want to ensure that we protect recipients of the severe disability premium so that they do not in any way have a gap in receipt of their severe disability premium. We want to make sure that that happens as soon as possible.
Social Security (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018
Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope Excerpts(5 years, 4 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Buscombe) (Con)
My Lords, these regulations were laid before both Houses on 17 October 2018. They enable the Government to make minor and technical changes to domestic legislation to reflect the fact that the UK will no longer be an EU member state after exit day.
Let me provide some context and background to the regulations. British domestic legislation contains various references to EU law and to the UK as a member state of the European Union, which will no longer be the case once the UK withdraws from the EU. It also includes a provision that allows the Secretary of State to implement reciprocal agreements. The social security legislation applying in Northern Ireland broadly mirrors that in Great Britain; we are making regulations that make analogous amendments to the corresponding Northern Ireland legislation. The Department for Communities in Northern Ireland has agreed to the text of the regulations. This follows the recommended approach in the EU exit SIs policy handbook: to make separate NI statutory instruments that create a separate “transferable” body of NI legislation made at Westminster in the absence of a functioning Northern Ireland Assembly. This helps to keep a separate body of Northern Ireland law intact for when a functioning Executive and Assembly return.
These regulations are made using powers in the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 to fix legal inoperability and other deficiencies that will arise on exit in retained EU law—so that the converted law continues to operate effectively post exit—and make consequential provision. The approach to these amendments is completely in line with both the policy and legal intent of the withdrawal Act. The use of secondary legislation to amend primary legislation—the so-called Henry VIII powers—was debated at length during the passage of the withdrawal Act.
The list of specific legislation that the regulations amend is lengthy. Broadly speaking, we are using the regulations to make two types of changes, the first being where the UK is referred to as a member state of the EU. In these instances, an amendment will be made to reflect the UK’s new status as a state independent of the EU. Secondly, we are extending the scope of Section 179 of the Social Security Administration Act 1992 to allow us to implement a social security agreement with a supranational organisation such as the EU. Of course, the ability to implement an international agreement with such organisations was not necessary as an EU member state. It is only logical that we make this consequential change to our legislation to reflect the UK’s position as independent of the EU and allow us to fully implement any agreement in domestic law.
The Northern Ireland regulations mirror the same amendments to Northern Ireland legislation. No formal consultation was carried out by the Department for Work and Pensions on the regulations as these changes make only minor and technical changes to existing DWP domestic legislation. Similarly, we expect the regulations to have no impact on business, charities, voluntary bodies or the public sector.
Noble Lords will know that the withdrawal Act is a crucial piece of legislation that will ensure, whatever the outcome of negotiations, that we have a functioning statute book on exit day, providing certainty to people and businesses across the UK. The Act enables this by providing a power for Ministers in the UK Government and devolved Administrations to deal with deficiencies in the law arising as a result of our exit from the EU. We are continuing to work closely with the devolved Administrations to ensure that all parties are involved in the process where their interests are concerned. I beg to move.
Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that helpful introduction. I understand that these are minor and technical amendments. I have looked at them very carefully as a member of the statutory instruments scrutiny committee of your Lordships’ House. I am pretty familiar with their scope.
Could the Minister clear up two questions from my mind? First, is there any prejudice, potential or otherwise, to transfer payments and entitlements made from United Kingdom sources and systems to United Kingdom citizens and families living in the European Union? I think the answer is no, but an assurance would help, particularly relating to pension payments.
Secondly, I know that the Minister cannot do anything about this but I am getting more and more nervous about the Northern Ireland arrangements being handled indirectly by the department with no meaningful legislature in Northern Ireland to deal with some of their consequences, particularly since it has a free-standing social security system of its own. Colleagues know that it is a mirrored system, so changes are almost automatic. We have been living with that for some time. But in situations such as this, where changes are being made at one or two stages removed from the good people of Northern Ireland who are entitled to these benefits, there are particular concerns that those entitlements should be especially carefully considered in these amendment regulations. If the Minister can help me with these two items I would be very happy to see the regulations pass.
Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing these regulations. It is fair to say that this is not the most exacting task she will have to undertake on matters Brexit. As we have heard, there are two sets of regulations, the territorial application of one set relating to Great Britain and of the other to Northern Ireland. The two sets cover parallel issues.
The Explanatory Memorandum reminds us that the Northern Ireland Executive are not in being, although the policy areas that are the subject of these regs are transferred matters and should be the responsibility of the Executive. That point was touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, with some expression of concern that we share. The memorandum states that the Government,
“will take through the necessary secondary legislation … in close consultation with the Northern Ireland departments”.
Perhaps the Minister will say what this involves. I think she might have answered that by saying that the Department for Communities was consulted.
The regs will operate with effect from exit day, but it goes without saying that many of us wish that that day will never arrive. Given that the powers of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 are engaged by these regulations, it is incumbent on Ministers to make certain statements. These encompass a requirement to state that the regs do no more than is appropriate to deal with deficiencies in retained EU law, but that there are good reasons for the provisions and that they leave intact equalities provisions. The Minister states that, given that the Equality Act does not extend to Northern Ireland, she has given due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, harassment and victimisation. We do not seek to disagree with those conclusions.
As we have heard, these instruments fall into two groups. They amend various provisions in UK domestic legislation that contain references to the UK as a member state of the EU, or of the EEA. Further, they amend Section 179 of the Social Security Administration Act 1992 and its Northern Ireland equivalent to enable social security-related reciprocal agreements to be entered into with international organisations. The Explanatory Memorandum instances the EU, but can the Minister state what others might be in contemplation? What is the position with any existing agreements that the UK has entered into with the EU? Could the Minister please list these? Do they have to be reinstated on some basis or do they run on?
The insertions made to Section 179(4) list a range of EC or EEC regulations. Can the Minister differentiate between the two? Taking new subsection (4)(am) as an example, I presume that its inclusion is not intended to change the domestic law. Can the Minister outline for us the impact of Regulation (EEC) 1408/71 on the application of social security systems to employed persons, to self-employed persons and to members of their families moving within the Community?
The regulations extend to other amendments to existing secondary legislation to ensure accuracy of references when the UK is no longer part of the EU. These cover persons abroad, invalid care allowance regulations, SSP, SMP, overpayments and recoveries, AA, DLA, housing benefit, PIP and universal credit. Can the Minister confirm that in each case there is just a change of wording to reflect the changed situation of the UK and that it has no wider implications for the position of the continuing EU members?
We hope to see these regulations gather dust in some corner of Westminster and not be called into use. In so far as they are, we agree that they do the job.
Universal Credit
Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement.
This is a very large pile of sticking plaster. I am glad that some of it is there—it is better than not having it—but in fact it highlights just what a problem lies underneath that which the Government are addressing. For years, Ministers have told the House that all is well with universal credit, and whenever concerns were raised on these or other Benches, they said that we were scaremongering. Whenever charities or churches raised it, they were scaremongering. Even the NAO joined in last June, publishing a damning report about the impact of universal credit. But I am glad that Ministers are beginning to acknowledge that some issues need tackling, and some steps have been taken today which are welcome.
I welcome the increase in work allowances in universal credit. Noble Lords will recall, I am sure, the time in 2015 when my late and sorely missed friend Lady Hollis of Heigham led your Lordships in demanding that the Government think again about those cuts in work allowances. Ministers agreed to do it in tax credits, but they did not for universal credit. But today they have restored £1,000 of that cut, which feels like a good tribute to my noble friend. However, a bit of me feels that it is still only half of what was taken off in that Budget. I am aware that that sounds a bit grudging. I do not like looking a gift horse in the mouth, but if someone gives me two horses then takes them away, then comes back a long time afterwards and gives me one horse, I will still hanker slightly after the two horses that I had in the first place. Your Lordships will forgive me if I am being a bit disgruntled but two horses are better than one. None the less, one horse is better than none. I will stop the metaphor now.
Other things in the Statement are welcome. The decision to roll on other means-tested benefits for two weeks for those moving across to universal credit is good, but the Red Book seems to suggest that that will kick in only from July 2020. Can the Minister clarify whether, if people move across from other benefits any time between now and 2020—for example, because they move into a universal credit area or they have a change of circumstance—they will get no help at all? Will they still be stuck, having to wait five weeks for all this money? What will happen there? I also welcome the minor change to the self-employed rules, but I still think that UC for low-income self-employed people is an absolute mess that will unravel before very long.
The real new announcements today are about managed migration. This really matters because, as the IFS said in its Budget commentary, this is,
“a huge change quite deliberately creating millions of winners and millions of losers. Something like a third … will be at least £1,000 a year worse off under UC than under the legacy system while about a quarter will be at least £1,000 a year better off”.
Ministers keep saying that no one will lose money as a result of moving on to UC. That is not because of generosity; it is because people have transitional protection which says they will not lose out at the point where they move across. However, Ministers do not often tell us that this applies only to some people. There are two ways you can get on to universal credit: through natural migration, where you move to a new area and have a change in circumstances—with this you get no transitional protection; or, at some point between now and three or four years down the road, the Government will move across anyone who is left, in a process that is called managed migration.
As this process is called managed migration, everyone assumed people would be managed. It now turns out they will not be managed at all. They will get a letter saying, “Your benefits are going to be cut off on this date”—I am glad it could be three months rather than one—“and if you don’t make a fresh claim, you will get no money”. If you make a claim after that deadline but within a month, you will get transitional protection; if it is after a month plus a week you will get no transitional protection even if you got your claim in.
Let us bear in mind that this is a complicated process. Around 30% of people who start an online claim give up before it is finished and put into payment. This could be really serious, especially for vulnerable people. The process essentially shifts the burden of responsibility from the state on to the individual, to deal with the consequences of the state moving almost 3 million people from their current benefits; of these, over one-third are either too sick or disabled to work. This is potentially very serious indeed.
The Social Security Advisory Committee had a number of concerns, most of which have been accepted, often in principle. Anyone who has read one of these reports knows that there can be a big difference between accepting something in principle and doing what the committee recommended. One classic example is that the committee suggested that the DWP—rather than making everybody make a fresh claim—could carefully analyse, segment by segment, and look for ways in which certain groups could be carved out and moved across automatically. The DWP simply said no. It said it needed clean data for everybody or that some people such as tax credit recipients may not be eligible. That is not trying. Why will the Government not take up that recommendation and try very hard to see whether some people might not need to make an application?
The Budget announced a further delay to the rollout, which was scored, by my reading, as a net saving to the Government amounting to around £1.2 billion over five years. Can the Minister explain that? I might be completely wrong, but it seems to me that one of the effects of delaying managed migration is that more people will end up moving across to UC on their own—because they move house, have a baby, or their kid leaves home, or whatever. That leaves fewer people at the end. It also means that all those people will not get transitional protection because they were not there at the end, which costs them money but saves the Government money. Does this change make any difference to the number of people who will eventually be in managed migration? The SSAC also raised some real concerns about deliverability. I do not have time today to go through all my outstanding concerns about universal credit. The Minister is shaking her head. Perhaps I can refer her to the questions the committee was asking about operational deliverability; I certainly had a different take from her on that.
I am deeply concerned that this is a sticking plaster while the underlying body is in serious trouble. I believe this could go badly wrong. There is a reason why the Opposition finally ended up calling for the rollout to stop. I am deeply worried that this is not going to work in the way the Government imagine. For 3 million people, as well as all those on the legacy system who will move across sooner, the benefits system is the only thing that stands between many of them and destitution. We cannot afford to get this wrong.
Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope (LD)
My Lords, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, on her analysis of the changes that have been made. Some are very welcome, but we are still facing a major, dramatic piece of administrative change. It will severely affect vulnerable families who are on low legacy benefits at the moment. I do not think it is safe to do this without somehow making an attempt to get an impact assessment of what the long-term effects will be. This legislation was originally put in place in the Welfare Reform Act 2012. A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then. We now have some very detailed and complicated regulations. Before we start the process, it would be good to know what the department expects the outcome to be. If we cannot get that, we will to a large extent be flying in the dark.
I welcome the three-month grace period for the minimum statutory notice period for the benefit, but we still have a hard stop at the end of that. Three months is better than one month, but can the Minister explain the sentence in the Secretary of State’s Statement which deals with the one-month period becoming three months? It says that,
“we have unlimited flexibility to extend claim periods for people who need it”.
Can she say what the circumstances are in which someone could claim to need that? Unlimited flexibility could mean that people were not facing a hard stop for legacy benefits, so it would be very useful to understand better what that sentence actually means.
I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, and with the Social Security Advisory Committee, that it would be much safer to try to segment some of the clients we are approaching in managed migration to identify vulnerable people. I do not mean vulnerable only in terms of disability and so on, but also in terms of heavy indebtedness, which means that they are unlikely to be able to withstand a long—or indeed any—gap in benefit provision during transition. We know that data is available, because organisations such as Policy in Practice are already stitching together local authority housing benefit data with Treasury, HMRC and DWP data. There is enough material there to anticipate the households that will have real difficulty facing this. I understand the department is saying that the systems do not talk to one another. During the managed migration period, which admittedly does not start for some time yet, we will not, as I understand it, have the advantage of an ability to mash that data and identify vulnerable groups. It can be done by think tanks and research groups; I think it should be done by the department. Proposals to differentiate the impact on different groups of people is, I believe, very important.
Another thing, from a logistics point of view, is that I understand we have to get these regulations done and dusted by the end of the calendar year. The Minister is very good at offering briefing sessions before these regulations hit the Floor; they are affirmative regulations and will need to come to the Floor of the House. I understand the urgency of getting the legality put in place to cover the department for the trial period—the test and learn period—early next year. I plead with the Minister to give us enough time collectively in this House to understand the full significance of all these changes. Some are beneficial, but we are still facing an enormous difficulty that could have a dramatic impact on low-income families in future.
Benefits: Reductions
Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope (LD)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Young of Norwood Green. I particularly like his idea that it would be useful to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Freud, thought about Patricia Hollis. I think that through gritted teeth, he would give a generous appreciation of the experience he had in Committee in 2012 during the passage of the Welfare Reform Act, where she took the noble Lord to pieces and put him back together again. I must say that I had something of the same treatment. In 2003, when I was chairman of a Select Committee, we went to the extreme of requiring the then Minister, Lady Hollis, who was in charge of reform of the child support systems, to give evidence during the Summer Recess. We invited her twice; she came, and got a bit fed up with all of that. At the end, it seemed that it was me, as chairman, not her, who was answering the questions. I hope the House will understand if I say that on that occasion, I was pleased to see the back of her. She was a very effective Minister, and we will miss her. I will certainly sign up for the annual debate—I want to put in an application in perpetuity to recognise her work.
This has been a valuable debate, and we can take some positives out of it. I take the view generally that we are in some difficulty, particularly in the economic context, in spite of some of the advantages of the Budget that we saw on Monday. We face uncertain times as we withdraw from Europe—or not, as the case may be. I wonder whether we are properly prepared to help vulnerable families.
The systems we have in place work perfectly well for people like me and, indeed, for other Members who took part in the debate this afternoon who were defending universal credit. I defend the architecture of universal credit; I have been arguing for a working-age benefit that is blind to work for 35 years, and that is what the architecture provides. Before 2008, the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, who has distinguished experience in this area that I respect, did valuable work constructing a report called Dynamic Benefits. However, that was a very different proposition. Because of the levels at which the taper rates and working allowances were set, it was a poverty reduction measure that did not have as many of the behavioural nonsenses we are suffering from, which were added in the implementation. The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, knows better than anybody about the ways in which the money is allocated, the periodicity of payment and some of the other flaws that will need to be ironed out—and which can be. Our Conservative colleagues do not therefore need to be defensive about the architecture of universal credit. We just want the original version, and want the money put back into it.
Lord Farmer
I would just like to correct the noble Lord: the Lord Farmer he was talking about was not me.
Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope
I beg the noble Lord’s pardon. I had understood from the way he was making his argument that he was involved in the Centre for Social Justice work that led to—
Lord Farmer
I was indeed involved with the Centre for Social Justice work, but as a supporter and an encourager from outside.
Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope
It sounds as if the noble Lord is being a bit defensive about the results of the work, but I will move on.
There was a theme in the debate: that all this is doable not just by the DWP, and that is correct. We need to work with local government colleagues much more; indeed, there was a very good Local Government Association briefing on this. The noble Baroness, Lady Wyld, talked about the need to put more effort into mental health; we need the Department of Health to assist with that.
The noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, spoke about housing, which is absolutely critical. We are handing huge amounts of money to private landlords at the moment, and that is destined to get worse. A recent Centre for Social Justice report suggests that we will be paying £75 billion by 2050 if we go on at current rates. That is clearly impossible. There is a welcome understanding across the House that the DWP needs to use its important influence within government to get more cross-departmental support for the development of these policies. It may seem that there is enough to do at the moment, but that is important.
I keep saying that the arguments across the House leave us talking past one another. Members of the Government, perhaps understandably, say that reasonable people should be able to work their way through the complications of applying for benefits and so on. But universal credit has some real complexities, an example being digital access. “Digital by default” is a real problem for many families. It will lessen as the system develops, because more people will be educated at school to use technology, but people are frightened. A couple of noble Lords mentioned fear; the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, for example, mentioned the real fear that people have when making applications.
The Government are saying that for people like me, should I need to apply for universal credit, it is a breeze. I know it is because I have been to the centres and listened to applications being made. The system works, and there are other advantages too. Indeed, in theory, in future nobody should miss out on benefits because take-up is accounted for under universal credit. It can be massively beneficial for people like me; but for those with big household debts, two or three credit cards that they do not know how to pay off, a disability, a lack of digital skills or family problems, it can be very difficult.
The Government need to fix this, and I guess the best vehicle for doing so is universal support. I welcome the extra £1 billion that is coming in. We will talk about that in more detail when we get the managed migration regulations, because that is where this sits. It would be helpful to get an idea of when the regulations will be coming, together with the SSAC report to which the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, rightly referred.
If people on the Government side are trying to defend the situation and are frightened that universal credit will be swept away, the one thing they can do is ask for more support, because it works. They got more money from the Chancellor—I did not expect that package. It was down to Conservative Members of Parliament saying, “We need to do something about this”. They now need to go back and say, “We need more put into universal support” to help the 10% to 15% of households who will really struggle to find a way through the difficulties, in addition to the sanctions that they face. There are things we need to do to guarantee the future of universal credit as a successor to the legacy benefits that the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, has rightly raised in his Motion.
Between now and next November’s comprehensive spending review, we need to put more support into universal credit so that it can be guaranteed to work. If I were to get the assurance of extra resources, I would become a stout defender—subject to dealing with the behavioural issues that still need to be fixed. I would be much more encouraged to defend the architecture of universal credit if it had a more effective system of universal support attached to it.
The noble Lord, Lord Livermore, was absolutely correct to mention the real mistake that was made. The decision to put money into tax allowance increases as opposed to unfreezing benefits was unconscionable. It was a political choice and, at this stage in the game, when we face uncertainty over Europe and everything else, flatly wrong. It was a big mistake. It was a choice that the Government made and they will be held to account for it, and rightly so.
Finally, I was encouraged by reference in the Red Book to providing better access to affordable credit. A lot of the families that I am talking about, and continue to be concerned about, are at the mercy of loan sharks day in, day out. Using assets from dormant bank accounts can help to deal with that. It is not a huge amount of money but if it works, it could be extended. I hope the Government will take that forward, because it would be a very positive move.
This has been a very good debate. Such a debate should be held annually, but we need not just to “take note” of things; we need to get them fixed.
Child Support (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2018
Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope (LD)
My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister, who, in adversity, has done a splendid job in explaining these regulations. I cannot help but believe that somewhere on the premises there must be a parliamentary sedan chair, which I happily will take one end of until she is better, and I hope that that happens soon.
I am a member of the scrutiny committee, and its report is part of the discussion this evening. It was interesting scoping the report, and we got some really compelling evidence from both sides of the argument, from non-resident parents as well as parents with care. My track record on all this stuff is longer than I care to admit. I was around in 1991 when the original legislation was brought forward and produced the 1993 scheme. The economic environment within which these schemes were started is now different. In the past, I have always taken a Gingerbread approach to this. In 1991 and 2003, the thing that really exercised me was that there were people acting in bad faith as non-resident parents with considerable amounts of money, and, because of the bad blood between the parents, they were taking it out on the children. That is what set my measuring stick for working out how this happens. It is very difficult for the state to go behind the front door of any family and interfere in these circumstances, and we learned that the hard way. It is true to say that under both Governments—and I could not help either from the place I sat in in the House of Commons or in the House of Lords—the two legacy schemes have been really difficult for families. Misery is not too important a word because they exacerbated the relationship between the separated parents.
None of this is easy, and my heart goes out to the professionals who have been running these schemes. They have been dogged by IT difficulties, and the collection process has struggled. The honest truth is that the elements in these regulations, which largely I support, should have been carried out years ago. I was part of the 2008 Act that gave passport legislation authority to the department, and now in 2018 we are actually implementing some of that. In parentheses, there is an interesting question about why that is not happening in Northern Ireland. It may be that there are special provisions for Northern Ireland at the current political moment, for all I know, but I would be pleased to know why it is an exception, because I cannot think of any other reason than the fact that it is getting special treatment.
When the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee looked at this statutory instrument, it looked at the fact that there is still only a 57% payment compliance rate. My colleagues on the committee, who have not been studying this legislation as long as I have, found it very hard to understand why a scheme of this duration was still getting only 57% payment compliance, and that is still an issue for me as well.
Concerns were expressed about the way in which assets are still being protected from actions in bad faith because of the difficulties of valuation. I understand that with physical assets such as works of art it is difficult to know how much they are worth, who owns them and so on, but we heard evidence in the committee’s investigation of this SI which demonstrated that yachts are being bought which, even under these regulations, cannot be attached to the liability due by the non-resident parent. That is too complacent. There must be some way of obtaining an independent valuation of an asset’s worth. I support the notional wealth which the regulations attach to assets but they do not go far enough, certainly in relation to some of the physical assets that the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee heard about in evidence when considering these regulations. I will be interested in what the Minister has to say about that.
The evidence we received from non-resident parents led me to think again about the relatively different economic environment for child poverty that we are facing. Non-resident parents have that problem as well as parents with care. They do not get any credit within universal credit for making maintenance payments, which must be difficult for some non-resident parents. They made that point with some force in the course of the evidence they gave. The department made a fist of answering some of these points, but we were still left with real concerns.
People are nervous that we are closing down these schemes—no one will miss them when they go—but, when we move into the new child maintenance scheme, are we taking proper advantage of the opportunity to look at this in a slightly wider context than merely these regulations? They are welcome as far as they go. The weekly value of assets being considered is good, deduction orders, lump sums and additional write-off powers are understandable, and I have mentioned passports, but the communities which will be deprived of pursuing some of these liabilities in future deserve better legislative consideration of the impact that will be felt by them when all of these dramatic things happen.
It would help if there could be an update on how these schemes are proceeding towards closure—what the time frames are and whether there has been any slippage from the last time we discussed this in Parliament. I am still concerned about some of the issues that were raised by the National Audit Office report of March 2017. I am delighted that the Select Committee in the House of Commons is still interested in actively pursuing some of these issues. However, the NAO report did not make happy reading either.
There are a couple of issues I wish to ask questions about. The NAO made special reference to the fact that the department does not tell non-resident parents who have arrears that there is an opportunity available to them to renegotiate the debt on cause shown where hardship can be demonstrated. However, the department does not do that, I suppose for the obvious reason that it gives people an excuse to pay less, but in the situation that we facing in terms of child poverty and for the next couple of years, I think that some non-resident parents should be told about that. The claim they make for a reduction in their maintenance liabilities can be contested by the department and controlled in that way. The NAO was right to raise that. Keeping it secret is no longer defensible and I hope the department will think about that.
Baroness Buscombe
I thank noble Lords for their contributions to this debate and for the constructive approach that they have taken towards today’s proceedings. I will now respond to some of the key issues raised. I will attempt to do this in order but I doubt whether I will succeed. I will do my best and if I fail to answer any questions, please be assured that we will write to the Committee following the debate.
I wish to put into context the justification for what we are doing. This has not been a quick or easy decision; it has involved exhausting other approaches to deal with the debt. We have also had numerous long debates and discussions within the department in trying to decide the best thing to do. We are talking about huge sums of money here. I say immediately that when considering resources and budgets, the truth is that we have to be proportionate—what is reasonable in the circumstances; what is more pressing; and what is more important. In our department we are already spending 25% of the entire government budget across Whitehall, so we have to think about resources and the degree to which we want to protect and support children going forward versus the difficulty of writing off such a considerable debt. We have to balance that against the fact that if we do not write it off and keep it on our books it would cost us approximately £30 million a year, which would not be money well spent. It has been a difficult balancing act.
Moving all the debt to the CMS IT systems would incur a one-off cost of at least £250 million, without the resources to action it. We have taken various actions to collect this debt, including using debt collection agencies to chase what is owed. More than 63,000 cases were passed to debt collection agencies for them to arrange collection, but after three years we took back 55,000 cases because the DCAs had not been able to make any debt collection arrangements.
This is our approach following exhaustive discussions, debates and thinking through what is fair to the taxpayer. As the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, said, the most important thing is to put the children at the forefront of our minds while seeking ways to send out the critical message that no one should cease to be responsible for their children. Enforcement matters.
I say to the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, that I absolutely respect his considerable and lengthy involvement on this really important subject. Of course, there have all along been compelling arguments on both sides. It is interesting what he said about the economic environment being different. Maybe there is also a sense that people are becoming more artful in how they seek to avoid their responsibilities, which is depressing. I am not sure what that says but the truth is that we must have the well-being of children at the forefront of our minds. In a sense, yes, these regulations are overdue, so it is important that we look forward. It is also important to say here that they form the first of two packages. We plan to lay a further set of regulations in 2019 to secure the remaining powers to deliver the 2018 compliance and arrears strategy. These will allow us to take a consistent approach to deduction from benefits.
I should explain that the regulations are being laid in two packages because the Social Security Advisory Committee needs to consider the regulations that make changes to deductions from benefits. But we would not wish to delay the rest of the regulations so that we may lay them all together. Those regulations are not yet drafted, so there is still time—I stress this—to take into account any thoughts on these provisions from noble Lords and honourable friends in another place. We welcome any input on that.
Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope
That is an opportunity perhaps, under an SSAC consideration of the second package of regulations, for affected parents with care and non-resident parents to make submissions to the SSAC scheme later this year. If I understood what the Minister was saying, the Social Security Advisory Committee will undertake a normal consultation and will be looking for people to make submissions for consideration as the committee makes its recommendations. Am I right in thinking that?
Baroness Buscombe
I ask the noble Lord to bear with me, because I do not want to get this wrong. The answer is: only if the committee decides to report the regulations.
I will focus on some of the questions put to me, which are welcome. I start with the question from the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, on case closure timescales and the fact that there has been slippage. We are still on course to have ended all existing liabilities on CSA cases by the end of this year, 2018. The noble Lord referenced the NAO report. In that context, it is really important to say that we are continuing to consider the recommendations in the report. The department, in a broader context, has really taken on board that we need to be much better at listening. We thought that we were doing enough perhaps, but there is always more that we can do—within time and resource constraints, of course—but it is very important that we listen.
The noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, asked how the representations will be sought. Will each parent to whom money is owed be written to individually? Depending on which category a case falls into, a client will receive a different letter or series of letters explaining what is happening and why, and, where appropriate, giving them the opportunity to ask us to try to collect their debt. These letters will be sensitively worded and will acknowledge that this may not be the outcome a client is hoping for. I was asked whether, if there has been a payment in the last three months, we will continue to collect. The answer is yes. If the case is in payment, we will continue to collect any arrears still outstanding for as long as the case remains in payment.
I was also asked whether our power to confiscate passports will be used only in a few cases. We will use this power in a targeted, proportionate way. I noted what the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, said about our having tried driving licences and asking whether that worked. The keyword here is “deterrent”. The vast majority of parents, we must stress, willingly pay towards their liabilities; we will seek to apply sanctions only in cases where parents wilfully refuse to pay. This happens only in limited circumstances. As with other enforcement powers, such as removing driving licences, the threat of exercising it can be very persuasive. The threat of denying people a passport is certainly something that stood out, when I first read the draft regulations, as something quite exceptional. I hope noble Lords will agree that it should send out a strong message to those who, frankly, are consistently refusing to take responsibility for their children.
The noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, and the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, enquired about compliance rates for cases of collect and pay, asking what we are doing to improve the figure of 57%. The latest data, published in September, for collect and pay compliance shows it is going up; it is now 62%. Of the £1.85 billion due to be paid since the Child Maintenance Service began, £1.6 billion has been arranged through direct pay or collected through collect and pay while £290 million is currently unpaid—around 12% of the total. This percentage share continues to decline from 12.4% last year and 13.1% two years ago.
The CMS is not the only option available for separated parents to arrange child maintenance; it is there for people who cannot work together to make their own arrangements. The collect and pay service is in place for those parents unable to work together, who are less likely to be compliant. This means that the caseload is smaller but naturally more challenging than the CSA caseload.
The noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, asked how many cases will be affected by the notional income power each year. We have not made projections on this point, but we anticipate the number to be small as, historically, only a small number of parents attempt to avoid their liabilities in this way. On the question of how many passports we expect to be disqualified every year, the figure referred to indicates that we project 20 applications for all types of sanctions will be made in the year. These include commitment to prison and disqualification from driving. Sanctions must only ever be a last resort; this is not just about how many we pursue but about targeting the right people. The threat often results in payments restarting.
The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, asked why the passport power is not being introduced for people in Northern Ireland. I can assure the noble Lord that this is not a particular sop to those resident in Northern Ireland who do not respect their responsibilities for their children. This is not being introduced in Northern Ireland simply because Northern Ireland citizens are entitled to an Irish passport; they have options for dual nationality, which would reduce the effectiveness of the power—they would simply find an easy way around it.
The noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, asked whether giving periods of representation to account holders would mean that NRPs can move money to other accounts. This change is intended to close down a known loophole. If we intend to deduct a lump sum from a joint or business account, the funds will be frozen during the representation period. If parents move their funds to another type of account—for example, a sole account—we will target that account. If the funds are moved to an account we are unable deduct from, we will use our other strong enforcement measures to collect the debt.
Universal Credit
Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
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Baroness Buscombe
My Lords, I am grateful for the noble Lord’s questions. Let me say straightaway that we have not been recalibrating anything. He will be aware that there have been a number of PQs in the past few months. There was a Written Ministerial Statement in June this year, wherein we set out very clearly that from the beginning of next year, we want to move to managed migration in a very slow and careful way. We want to be sure that we get it right, that the right systems are in place. As we also made clear to the Social Security Advisory Committee, we will not begin to introduce managed migration, which is those who are on existing benefits—the legacy system, as we call it—rather than those who are new to the benefit system who are going on to universal credit, until July next year. That has long been the case.
We are now waiting for the end of the rollout of the system into every jobcentre by the end of December this year. We are also now in receipt of some important recommendations made by the Social Security Advisory Committee as a result of our proposals to it with regard to managed migration regulations, which we hope to lay before the House in the near future. We are now considering those recommendations very seriously and I will report to this House in the very near future.
The most important answer that I must give straightaway is that a key point for the managed migration regulations, which we will bring forward, is to protect the most vulnerable. We are not halting any rollout. Our concern is to protect the most vulnerable— those who cannot work, those with severe disabilities—through the severe disability premium and careful full transitional protection through migration on to universal credit.
Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope (LD)
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for repeating the Statement. I concur with her tribute to Patricia Hollis. She was an integral part in the creation of this legislation and delivered a complete masterclass in parliamentary scrutiny in the 2012 committee which I was privileged to share with her. She will be missed.
Can I confirm that there will be no delay in the publication of the managed migration regulations and that the Social Security Advisory Committee report will be published in due time? There should be no delay in either of those two things. Some of us are a little surprised that the recent controversy about the cuts has suddenly blown up, because it has been painfully obvious since 2012 that a moment would come when these things would bite and things would get really tough in terms of financial hardship for low income families.
I will make two points. First, I am now really worried about the requirement for managed migration people to have their benefits turned off and then to make their own application. We need to seriously look at these regulations to make sure that there is automaticity of transfer to universal credit, and then we can sort out the difficulties afterwards. Otherwise, hardship will be exacerbated.
The other thing I will say strongly to the Minister is that Church Action on Poverty has produced a very interesting report indicating that the safety net that was available in 2012, according to its research, has been slashed. Community care grants and crisis loans totalled more than £200 million a year, and we are now at the stage when the Government have just announced £37 million as the total amount of money for universal support across the country. Frankly that is not enough to prevent hardship occurring in ways that will hurt families in the future. The House will need to turn its attention to these things during consideration of the managed migration regulations.
Baroness Buscombe
I thank the noble Lord and say straightaway that there will be no delay to the publication. Indeed, because we have to see these regulations on the statute book by the end of this year, it is very important to ensure that they are laid shortly and that we can debate them in your Lordships’ House. We very much hope that, unlike the package of £1.5 billion in extra support for universal credit that was introduced in another place following the Budget last autumn, the managed migration regulations will not be rejected, as the package was last autumn.
It is important to remember that we introduced a package that made advance payments quicker and easier for people to access. They could have a 100% advance up front for their first month’s claim, with no interest to repay for 12 months. We scrapped the seven-day waiting period and introduced a two-week run-on for people receiving housing benefit, with a cash payment that was not repayable. We are helping more than 500,000 people by protecting severe disability premiums.
That package was rejected in another place. Let us hope that this managed migration package will be supported in another place and in your Lordships’ House, because we want to protect the severely disabled, those with health conditions and those who genuinely need our support. We, too, are surprised by the recent controversy, because we are trying to do the right thing to support the right people. Benefits will not be turned off. We will be very careful to ensure that there is a transfer. That is why we will introduce the system slowly and carefully. We are using six months of next year to try to get this right.
Employment and Support Allowance
Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope Excerpts(5 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Buscombe
I thank the noble Baroness for her response. I turn straightaway to her point about restricting—as it were—the payments. Initially the department believed that we were legally restricted to calculating repayments from 2014 due to a statutory rule—Section 27 of the Social Security Act 1998—which governs the position with regard to payment of arrears when a court of tribunal finds that the department has made an error of law. Following a thorough investigation, however, we realised that this interpretation was incorrect. We have made this very clear in previous Statements to the House and we have made it clear that we have been working extremely hard to do everything we can to correct a mistake that should never have been made in the first place. We believed, however, that the law prevented our paying benefit back to the date of conversion. We now understand that we can do that. We have listened to a range of opinions, including those of the CPAG, undertaken a thorough investigation of the legal position and realised that the law that dictated that we could not do this in the first place was wrong.
We want to be sure, therefore, that we pay back everything that is owed. I would add that the staff have been working extremely hard to put this right and to help everybody who may have lost out from these payments since the whole process of migrating people from incapacity benefit to ESA began in 2008.
Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope (LD)
My Lords, is the Minister satisfied that the reduction in the departmental expenditure limit that the DWP has experienced over the past five to 10 years has not contributed to this error? She has just said that the DWP is now putting 400 staff on the case. I have a serious concern about the extent to which staff shortages are occasioning these massive administrative blunders that cause not just inconvenience but serious financial difficulty to large numbers of the population. Can she confirm that passported benefits will also be paid by way of compensation, because some of the people who have been left out in these underpayments have also lost out on free dentistry, NHS treatment, travel and free school meals, to the extent that it would accumulate to large sums of money each year, in addition to not getting the benefits to which they are entitled?
Baroness Buscombe
My Lords, let me make it clear that we do not believe that this is attributable to staff reductions at the Department for Work and Pensions. We still have over 70,000 employees. We have also been working hard to do more since 2010. Since this Government came to power, we have spent £5.4 billion a year more than we were doing in 2010 to support people with disabilities. We continue to do so while upping our game and, yes, demanding more from our employees, who are working extremely hard. That is to ensure that we have the proper resource and the staff to make sure that we can review all these cases at pace. We have already started making payments—over £40 million in arrears so far—so we are doing everything we can to ensure that people get the support they are entitled to and at pace.
Based on my meetings with the Minister of State for Disability and our Permanent Secretary, who made a robust case for delivery by our department in front of the Public Accounts Committee last week, I can say that the department is working hard. Yes, we are doing more, so noble Lords could say we are a little stretched, but we are proud of what we are doing and delivering. We want to get this right. On passporting benefits over to UC, we are making sure that people will not lose out in what they are entitled to.