European Social Fund (EUC Report)

Lord Knight of Weymouth Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My Lords, it is a real pleasure to be able to speak in this debate about this useful and interesting report from your Lordships’ European Union Committee on the excellent work done by the European Social Fund. I join others in paying tribute to the work of the members of the sub-committee, led so ably by the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth of Breckland, who summarised her report so well earlier in the debate.

I confess to your Lordships that I find myself yet again in a slightly odd position in leading for the Opposition on a report that scrutinises my work when in government; indeed, I was the Minister who gave evidence to the committee back in February and approved the evidence given to the committee by the Government. In the circumstances, it is tempting to oppose by adopting what some would unkindly term the Liberal Democrat principle, by which I mean a graceful three-point turn under the excuse that the outcome of the election has changed everything. However, I have reread the evidence that I gave in the light of the committee’s conclusions, and was pleased to find that not only does it appear that at the time I might have understood these issues but I mostly agree with what I said back in February.

For the interest of the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Hornsey, I say that the area where I am most likely to reassess my position is around soft outcomes. As I have reflected back on my time as Schools Minister, I have also been taking more interest in assessment—what it is possible to assess and measure. I am now more persuaded that it is possible to assess some of these soft outcomes in a more objective way and show the progression that people are taking to get closer to the labour market, which is clearly an area of additionality that the European Social Fund is addressing. I also find myself in agreement with the Government’s response to the committee’s report. I am pleased that the transfer of functions from the Learning and Skills Council to the Skills Funding Agency, which was one of my main worries, seems to be working well.

On that basis, I could just sit down and leave it all to the Minister, but reading it all through again raised a series of questions about how the European Social Fund will operate alongside the changes that the Government are taking through. I gave the Minister advance sight of my speech this morning to give him time to assemble some pithy answers to my questions. These fall broadly into three areas: additionality under the work programme; how regional priorities will be set; and the integration of employment and skills programmes.

As the Minister knows, I support the principle behind the work programme. I hope that some of the work that I did as a Minister is helping him as he tries to implement it against a very tight timeframe in a difficult labour market, but I will not dwell on those concerns now. I would be fascinated, though, to hear his response to the worries of the noble Lord, Lord Cotter, around delays to the work programme. If he could clarify for the sake of all those who are concerned about the programme whether there is a delay, that would be exceptionally helpful.

What is relevant to this debate is that the European Social Fund funds must be additional to government spending plans. How will that work under the work programme? As I understand it, the work programme will be a single programme for all who can work. It will be designed so that contractors have significant incentives not to park customers who are particularly difficult or cream off profit by just focusing on those who are easier to help into work—the committee used the word “cherrypick”. If that were to happen, the programme would not be a success.

Those are the very issues that the committee asked me about in the context of ESF. Is my understanding of the work programme correct? If so, how will the Minister achieve additionality with the continuation of ESF under the work programme? If the work programme is to be for every sort of claimant, be they on jobseeker’s allowance or employment support allowance, and the contractor is paid on outcomes not inputs, how can the ESF work be additional? How does the Minister respond to the committee concerns around soft skills in the context of black box contracting?

I also noted the ending of the working neighbourhoods fund in the comprehensive spending review. As the Minister’s noble friend Lord Shipley said in Monday’s debate, this was not an easy cut to spot. He went on to say:

“The fund has been used across the country to tackle worklessness by investing in voluntary sector partnerships, thus securing additional leverage and ERDF matched funding. It has helped to address community health and community safety issues. It has tackled economic deprivation and has targeted resources to those young people not in education, employment or training. The fund, worth £0.5 billion, has vanished”.—[Official Report, 1/11/10; col. 1541.]

Like him, I too must declare that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association. Given that the fund has “vanished”, how will the Minister deal with the likelihood that the ESF will be used to fund the same sort of work that was funded by the working neighbourhood fund? Will he not be highly vulnerable to the charge that the Government have cut this spending knowing that they can backfill with ESF programmes? Is that not counter to the additionality rules?

The second issue is about regional priority-setting. As the Minister knows, ESF is currently subject to regional priorities set in England by regional committees made up of the Skills Funding Agency, the regional development agencies, trade unions, government departments, local authorities and third sector representatives, and chaired by the government office of the region. As I made clear in my evidence to the committee, I think that this could be rationalised by merging it with the regional employment and skills boards, if the Commission were to agree that this met its audit requirements, which it may not. What I had not envisaged was a rationalisation as a result of the abolition of the RDAs, subject to the Public Bodies Bill going through—a dreadful piece of legislation that we will be debating fairly soon in this House—and the abolition of the government offices themselves. How, therefore, does the Minister see the regional priorities being set in the future? Who will sit on the regional committees? Does he agree with the LGA in its briefing for this debate when, as my noble friend Lord Liddle, mentioned, it says:

“Councils, groups of councils or Local Enterprise Partnerships should set ESF’s strategic direction to ensure it delivers outcomes relevant to local need”.

In its recent report, EU Funds and Place-based Budgets, the LGA argues that, first, the delivery of the main EU funds—the ESF, the European Regional Development Fund and the Rural Development Programme for England—should be joined up into a set of single programmes at the subnational level; and, secondly, within this framework, we should offer local partners the opportunity to manage local packages of EU funds, should they want to. Does the Minister agree? If so, again, how will it be additional to the previous working neighbourhood fund work carried out by local authorities but now cancelled? My argument for a long-term future without the ESF—which was trashed by the committee—centred on regional structures being in place. It is necessary to be close enough to the ground to identify pockets of need, but with enough of an aerial view to join up programmes strategically.

In the new Government’s response to the committee, they say:

“Over time, wealthier Member States should be phased out of the Structural Funds and funding focused on the poorest, enabling them to catch up with the average”.

We note the opposition to that position of the committee and everyone else who has spoken in this debate. In the absence of regional policy from the government office and the RDA, I cannot see how this renewal of the policy that I had to justify to the committee works. What are the Minister’s justifications for this long-term policy?

I want to ask about employment and skills integration. The Minister cannot be criticised for a lack of ambition or a drive to join things up. If he manages to pull off the work programme and the universal credit, it will be as a result of the most monumental effort and ambition. Is employment and skills integration also on his radar? Of course, the ESF does both. Can he see a way of commissioning them together from contractors in this programme and more widely as part of the work programme? Is that not vital in giving the contractors the tools that they really need to do the job?

This was a useful and authoritative report by the committee. It has allowed us to focus on the European Social Fund, which has done much to help those in our country who most need help from an active Government. The debate has also allowed us to ask the Government questions about its future, and I look forward to the Minister's considered response.

Welfare Reform

Lord Knight of Weymouth Excerpts

Monday 11th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My Lords, I am grateful for this Statement—although, given that Parliament was sitting last week and given the contents of paragraph 9.1 of the Ministerial Code and paragraph 6.35 of the Companion, it would have been much better to have had the Statement last week. I disagree with the Minister’s characterisation of the macroeconomy, but we can debate that some other time. Suffice it to say, given that the UK has one of the lowest debt-to-income ratios in the G7, the pace of reform is a choice and not an inevitability.

As my right honourable friend the new shadow Secretary of State said today in the other place, we are not against reform and much of the reform is a continuation of what we did in office. But there are of course a number of questions. On the migration of incapacity benefit claimants through the work capability assessment, rolling this out nationally is, as I am sure the Minister would agree, a huge undertaking. What is he doing to increase capacity in the market for providers of those assessments? Furthermore, given the bleak projections by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and others of rises in unemployment due to the speed of public spending cuts, what proportion of providers’ income will be paid by results on the basis of job outcomes? What is the Minister’s prediction of the unemployment rate when the work programme starts next summer? Given that the bidders of the programme are, with their financial backers, having to make predictions on successfully getting people back to work, I do not think that he can any longer hide behind the mantra that I used that Ministers are not in the business of making predictions.

What is being done to encourage employers to take on those who have been long-term sick when, with the claimant count now rising, they could take the recently unemployed, recent graduates or highly motivated EU migrants instead? Finally on this point, what will be done differently by providers in this programme from that done by those who deliver the old Pathways to Work programme with such mixed success, where the private sector did not outperform the public sector?

I shall move on to the proposed benefit cap of £500 per family per week. To some, that may sound reasonable, but it will cover not just the main income replacement benefits such as jobseeker’s allowance, not just child benefit and child tax credit, and other benefits such as carer’s allowance, but crucially it will also include council tax benefit and housing benefit. In many of our urban areas and in the south-east, the high cost of rented housing and council tax means that, if you lose your job and have a larger family, it will not be long before you lose your home as well, as you will not be able to afford the rent. Does the Minister think that that is fair and will really help those families back into work?

As regards child benefit, has the Minister seen the report in Thursday’s Guardian where the right honourable Secretary of State for Work and Pensions said that child benefit will be rolled into the new universal credit from 2017 and will therefore be means-tested? Can he confirm that the Chancellor’s new wheeze for clawing back child benefit from higher rate taxpayers is only temporary? What discussions took place between Ministers in the Department for Work and Pensions, especially those responsible for child poverty, and Ministers in the Treasury before the announcement was briefed last weekend? In the other place today, the Secretary of State claimed that the unfairness of the child benefit changes was due to the unfairness of the taxation system. Has the Minister seen the comments of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which stated:

“Using the means-test in tax credits could be considered fairer to single-earner couples, and would not distort incentives so dramatically”?

Is it just not-invented-here syndrome that prevents the Government from using the tax credits system to do this?

Finally, the Chancellor repeated in the media last week that his proposed changes would affect those paying the higher rate of tax—about 1.2 million families. That was also repeated by the Secretary of State in the other place. What is the Minister’s latest estimate of the number of higher rate taxpayers who will lose out due to the child benefit changes, given the reduction in the threshold for higher rate taxpayers announced in the Budget? Surely, if the higher tax threshold is lowered as part of moving to meet the Liberal Democrat ambition of a starting tax threshold of £10,000, there will be many more than 1.2 million people affected by this measure.

The announcements of welfare reform are in large part welcome in principle, because they follow from what my party, and I, pursued in government. The announcements about child benefit last week were frankly a shambles. I hope that this Minister, whom I know to be a good and noble Minister, will clarify things for the benefit of Parliament.

Poverty

Lord Knight of Weymouth Excerpts

Thursday 22nd July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My Lords, we are grateful to my noble friend Lord McKenzie of Luton for instigating this debate, the subject of which brought so many of us into politics and public life in the first place. We have heard some excellent contributions, particularly the maiden speeches. Like my noble friend Lord Haskel, I am not sure what the collective noun is, but my noble friend Lord Boateng, as ever, gave us an outstanding oration and an uncontroversial appetiser for what I am sure will be substantial contributions to come. I was particularly pleased that he reminded us of the importance of giving a voice in your Lordships' House to looked-after children and other children at risk, for whom he has been such a great advocate throughout his career.

The noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, treated us to a taste of her extraordinary range of experience and reminded us of the threat of joblessness leading to increased poverty—something that I will return to later. It was great to hear once again from your Lordships’ equivalent of a retread with the return of the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty. He made a passionate plea for attention to the dangers of stigma being attached to those dependent on benefits. Like him, I had an early career in the arts on the enterprise allowance scheme and I look forward to the Minister's answers to his questions on that.

The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, gave us an insight into his experience of tackling child poverty in Newcastle, particularly on the council there, especially reminding us of the links to health and education inequalities. As a former Schools Minister, I was particularly struck by his description of the excellent work done on family linking with schools. I was delighted to be here for the final maiden speech of the day, from the noble Lord, Lord McFall of Alcluith, which he explained meant “the rock on the Clyde”. For me, the noble Lord was the rock during my time in the other place, chairing the Treasury Committee and always leading off the Back-Bench contributions to the Budget debates as the measures flowed out from this place to the country. We look forward to more contributions from all these excellent new Members of your Lordships' House.

We have not yet heard from the Conservative Benches, but I am sure that it would be unkind to suggest that they are contracting out concerns for poverty to their coalition partners. In the lead-up to the general election, in response to questions about fairness from the Child Poverty Action Group, the Deputy Prime Minister, as he now is, said:

“The Liberal Democrats want to make sure that the burden of controlling spending falls on those who can afford it… so that closing the gap doesn’t bear down on those who already have too little”.

I welcome the coalition’s commitment to continuing the work undertaken by my party to eradicate child poverty by 2020 but, taking on board the findings of numerous non-governmental studies, I believe that this Government’s economic policy risks not only delaying that target but plunging further families into poverty. Cuts in allowances, the VAT hike, decreased incomes and increased outgoings—the right honourable Chancellor is going to hit the poorest hardest. As my noble friend Lord McKenzie said, it was his choice. As the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, reminded us, that was the choice made in the 1930s, when the then coalition Government, encouraged by business, pursued austerity and then took us into the great depression. From that situation, Keynes developed his great economic theories, now abandoned by the Liberal Democrats. As the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, reminded us in the context of disabled children, if we want to raise children out of poverty, we need to raise their household incomes, and this Budget promises anything but. While the Chancellor may claim that his cuts are not expected to raise measured child poverty, there is little of any comfort in it to those families already below the poverty line. I share the fears of Save the Children that, as a result of this Government's regressive approach to tackling the deficit,

“those families living in poverty will have less income and fewer or less effective services to mitigate the worst affects of poverty”.

Despite the welcome, if menial, increase in personal tax allowance and child tax credits, the Work and Pensions Secretary’s mangling of the benefits system and the axe-wielding of the Chancellor will undoubtedly cost lower-income families more than they can hope to gain. As the noble Lord, Lord Watson, reminded us, more than half of those 3.9 million children whose families live in poverty come from households where at least one of the adults is in paid work. For these families, child tax credits, which many noble Lords have spoken about, are vital. Yet many will see that lifeline disappear in the immediate future. A family with one child on as little as £15,000 will see their tax credits fall next year. The following year, a one-child family earning just £30,000 will lose all their tax credit. Meanwhile, the promise of a £210 increase in that benefit for those eligible over the next two years is, of course, when isolated, a great step forward—but not if that increase ultimately leaves lower-income families worse off than they were previously. Failure to correspondingly amend the way in which housing benefits are calculated will have exactly that effect. At present, the child tax credit is not disregarded in calculations for housing benefits. Resultantly, the coalition's proposed rise in child tax credits, increasing the family income, will lead to cuts in that family's housing benefits.

Other conflicting and confusing measures have been discussed by noble Lords, including the proposed 10 per cent cut to housing benefit for those who have been on jobseeker’s allowance for 12 months or more, which the Child Poverty Action Group has called a stealth cut on JSA. The Chartered Institute of Housing has calculated that the cumulative outcome of the coalition's proposals means that by 2020 every tenant's housing benefit will be too low to cover their rent. The net outcome of this is clear: debt, overcrowding and homelessness. There are already 1 million children living in overcrowded households. Such living conditions affect children’s mental and physical health, their education and, ultimately, their life chances. As we have heard from speakers such as the noble Lord, Lord Best, reductions, restrictions and caps on the housing benefit that families can claim will force some of them to move, often into accommodation inappropriate to their needs. In addition, that might unnecessarily fracture the family unit and leave families out of reach of the services that they rely on. So much for being the party of the family. The Child Poverty Action Group warns that:

“There may be, in effect, an expulsion of low income families from some communities and a tendency for greater ghettoisation of poverty where there are concentrations of substandard housing stock”.

The coalition could go some way towards remedying this simply by altering the status of child tax credits so that they were disregarded in benefit calculations. Furthermore, the proposed cuts in public services present a severe indictment against the fairness of the emergency Budget.

Poorer households are higher users of public services. Thus, cuts to these services disproportionately hit lower-income families compared with those that are more affluent, owing to the larger contributions that they make to such a family’s income. One study projects that public spending cuts will be equivalent to 20.5 per cent of the poorest 10th of households' regular income, but equivalent to only 1.6 per cent of the richest 10th. These measures reverse any positive impact that direct taxation or government-provided subsidies and services might have for the poorest in society.

As my noble friend Lord Haskel has just argued so forcefully, the unfairness in the Budget manifests itself most significantly in the VAT rise. This will, as Save the Children has identified, simply widen inequalities and entrench existing unfairness. Not only does a rise in VAT, so nobly campaigned against by the Liberal Democrats at the election, risk economic recovery at such a fragile time but it disproportionately hits the pockets of low-income families. The VAT rise impacts on the entire population, regardless of earnings or income level. In that respect, it does what the Chancellor says it should—we all share in the pain.

There are exemptions, of course, and it is argued that these equalise such measures, assuming that lower-income families spend the majority of their income on exempted items like food, children’s clothing and household bills. But do poorer people not need beds to sleep in, clean clothes to wear or hot food in their stomachs? There are no exemptions on furniture, toiletries or household appliances like cookers and washing machines. Increasing VAT simply makes these items even more difficult to afford, making it harder for low-income families to stretch their budgets even further. Simply because the Budget does not discriminate, that does not make it non-discriminatory. These rising costs are likely to increase the number of households that fall below the poverty line.

There is much more to say but I do not want to delay your Lordships. The noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, reminded us of the health consequences of the Budget, especially for the elderly. On Tuesday I set out some of my concerns about unemployment rising due to cutting too fast and due to cutting employment programmes such as the Future Jobs Fund and the six-month allowance. As the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, said, work is the best route out of poverty, but the Government are pulling up that ladder.

Similarly, the free-market schools policy and allowing outstanding schools to be academies risks allowing the best schools to advance at the expense of the poorest, widening the gap and making it harder for poorer families to use education as a route out of poverty—as, again, the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, said. Mention has been made of ending free school meals and breakfast clubs, both fundamental to alleviating poverty. I will just argue with the noble Lord about the Labour Government’s record on schools; to take reading as an example, we ended a 30-year standstill in improvements in reading quality during the course of the previous Government with the introduction of the literacy hour.

Because of this Budget, the founder of the Child Poverty Action Group, Peter Townsend, warns that we risk perpetuating the exclusion of already impoverished children from the,

“ordinary living patterns, customs and activities”,

of average families. Accordingly, the Budget elevates the risk of negative life outcomes. These measures condemn to poverty those kids from lower-income households—families looking not for a handout but for a foot up.

One of the key measures of the success of this Government and their Budget will be how they tackle poverty. Like so many others, I am worried that they will fail miserably.

Employment and Support Allowance (Transitional Provisions, Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit) (Existing Awards) Regulations 2010

Lord Knight of Weymouth Excerpts

Tuesday 20th July 2010 Lords Chamber

As I said at the outset, the purpose and direction of travel are right. There is certainly a need to boost confidence and to develop personal motivation in this client group. We must not write anyone off and we must provide for the most vulnerable. That is, crucially, why we have to get this process right.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Winchester, for tabling this Motion, which has allowed for an excellent debate. It also allows me to reassure the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope, that the regulations are not some kind of incendiary device planted by me and my noble friend Lord McKenzie to cause the Minister a problem.

The situation in which I find myself is slightly odd. This is my first time at this Dispatch Box scrutinising the legislative work of the noble Lord, Lord Freud, but I am afraid that it is not a chance to show my great forensic skills in unpicking the inadequacies of the regulations. That is, of course, because the regulations were inspired by the previous Government’s White Paper, which was written by the Minister before he jumped ship and joined the other side. They were then signed in March by my friend Jonathan Shaw, when he was working with me as a Minister at the Department for Work and Pensions. Therefore, the Labour Government’s regulations are now being tabled by the Tory Minister who inspired them when he was a Labour adviser. As the shadow Labour Minister, I can assure your Lordships that I am not opposing the regulations.

Instead, I want to ask the Minister a series of questions, similar to those raised by the noble Lords and the noble Baroness who have already spoken, about the policy context in which these regulations will now operate. That context has changed with a change of Government, in particular with the introduction of the work programme. The basis of the regulations, which we fully support, is that we should move people in incapacity benefit through a work capability assessment to then decide which sort of employment support allowance they should be on or whether they are fit for work and can go straight on to jobseeker’s allowance. I assume that, under the work programme, this would determine not only the level of benefit but also what support people would receive under the work programme. The contractors under the programme would then be paid on the basis of the numbers that they would get into work.

The first set of questions then arises. If you go through the assessment and are moved on to JSA, you suffer a benefit cut after a transition period, as set out in the order. The theory is that then you will be helped into work. However, given that, according to the impact assessment, 93 per cent of incapacity benefit customers have been on the benefit for over a year, what assessment has the Minister made of the numbers who will go into work, given their distance from the labour market? Has he allowed for a worsening labour market? Will he not listen to the Social Security Advisory Committee and wait until recovery in the labour market is secure?

I know that the right honourable Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, predicted that due to his Budget more than 2 million jobs would be created in the private sector in the next five years, but the OECD said two weeks ago that it expected the UK recovery to be,

“too muted to result in strong job creation”.

The OECD also said that Labour’s active labour market strategy had prevented unemployment from rising as rapidly as in previous recessions, and said:

“While the large fiscal deficit makes it essential to focus on cost-effective programmes and target the most disadvantaged groups, labour market policies should remain adequately funded. In this context, it may also be of concern that the new Budget ends funding for two crisis measures, namely, the Future Jobs Fund and the Six Month Offer”.

So it looks as if government action will make things more difficult for disadvantaged groups in the labour market because of the ending of those programmes.

Has the Minister convinced the Treasury that the market is able to raise the finance for the work programme, given that it is paid by results in a highly uncertain labour market? What assessment has he made of the impact on those communities, particularly former mining communities, where there is a high concentration of incapacity benefit claimants? Will those areas get special help as £25 per week is cut from many people’s benefit?

What is the Minister’s analysis of how the saving of £1 billion in the impact assessment will be drawn geographically? Has he then looked at how that will relate to the over £1 billion of additional savings in a few years’ time shown in the Budget through changes to the disability living allowance? Will those DLA claimants be protected under this order?

I have a few other concerns about how things are being planned in practical terms, especially given the Government’s fiscal position. First, the order is dependent on contractors being able to carry out the assessments, and a number of important points have been raised about these. I am pleased that the Government are so supportive of the changes for those going through chemotherapy, which we agreed before we left office, that they re-announced them in their Written Statement. I hope that they are also sticking with the changes that we were making for sufferers of ME.

Can we go further to meet the concerns of those with mental illness, especially given the worries faced by these individuals following the Government’s announcement of the ending of primary care trusts and the consequent breakup of the NHS? Has the Minister considered automatically moving those with complex mental and physical illnesses straight on to the appropriate ESA without an assessment, to relieve them of the concerns of going through such an assessment?

There is one other worry regarding assessments, which was raised by the noble Lord, Lord German. When I was a DWP Minister a few months ago, there was only one contractor capable of doing this work—Atos Origin. Does the Minister share my concern that that contractor is already struggling to do the current amount of work on time? What is he doing to get more contractors into that market? Can he guarantee that the capacity will be there, especially to meet the needs of the Treasury in scoring the savings on this programme and the DLA cuts? Perhaps the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, was right to call for a review.

Like the noble Lord, Lord German, I worry about appeals. The Tribunals Service is already overloaded, as we have heard from the noble Lord’s speech. This work will mushroom under the programme and the DLA changes. Has the Minister agreed with the Treasury and the Justice Ministry that the budget for the Tribunals Service will be protected so that he can guarantee a service? Otherwise, people will wait an age for their appeal and remain on the higher benefit, and the Treasury will not get its savings.

Will the Minister give us an update on how the extra work for Jobcentre Plus and its contractors, referred to in paragraph 10.2 of the Explanatory Notes, will be delivered and paid for? Is there new money for this? Is it contracted?

That work would currently be part of Pathways. In government, we found that in the end that programme was disappointing, after such a good start in the pilot phases. It showed no extra gain from using the private sector over Jobcentre Plus. Does this cause the Minister to pause and wonder whether the backdoor privatisation of Jobcentre Plus embodied in the work programme will work? Does he agree with our conclusion that we need to ensure that those who are moved straight to jobseeker’s allowance should get extra help, given that their health may not be perfect and their distance from the labour market may be significant? Will this be priced into the work programme? Will this in turn include specialist help for those with mental illness, as was so brilliantly provided by the mental health co-ordinators in Jobcentre Plus who were put in following the work of Carol Black? Will the access to work programme continue so that we can ease the ways into work for some of those customers?

I am sorry to ask so many questions—I note that the Minister was scribbling away frantically and I hope that he can answer them. I suspect that he may not be able to answer them all, but those that he cannot need an answer. I urge him, and those listening on his behalf, to ensure that, if he cannot answer them now, he does so in writing and places a copy in the Library.

Disabled People: UN Convention

Lord Knight of Weymouth Excerpts

Monday 5th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

The United Nations convention is not a matter of law in this country or in Europe. It is a convention that holds us to account on our performance, and on which we report back to the UN. We will do that in July.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My Lords, Article 28 of the convention promotes the right to an adequate standard of living. Elsewhere, the convention requires that all activities must include the participation of persons with disabilities. How have persons with disabilities been involved in the decisions in the Budget that show, in table 2.1 of the Red Book, that £360 million in 2013 and then over £1 billion in 2014 will be cut from the disability living allowance?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, this is the first time that I have had a chance to welcome the noble Lord to these Benches. As he points out, part of the convention says “nothing about us without us”, and we take that seriously. We will go through the normal Budget processes in terms of ensuring that equality and human rights issues are dealt with.