Welfare Reform Bill

Lord Laming Excerpts

Tuesday 14th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, I have a genuine respect for the noble Baroness, Lady Royall of Blaisdon, but I am bemused by the position she seems to have adopted. I hoped she was going to clarify her position this afternoon. I read with concern the report of her views in the Guardian last Wednesday, which stated:

“She attacked the way in which the government was trying to neuter debate on current controversial bills such as the welfare bill by claiming financial privilege, a means by which the Commons can order the Lords not to pursue an amendment because it has financial implications beyond Lords' powers”.

From what the noble Baroness has just said, I think she may regret having stated that. Perhaps she has been wrongly reported. I thought there was a common view about the use of the financial privilege circumstances—when the Commons can assert its privileges. I have experienced both ends of the House. I thought we knew where we were. There were many occasions, for example in the last Parliament, when much more minor issues came up that had financial implications and she, when she was on this side of the House, and her noble friends, defended the right of the Commons to assert its financial privilege on much smaller sums of money than we are considering this afternoon.

As we were told, the 11 amendments under consideration on which the Commons has asserted its privileges cost in total something in the region of £2 billion. I draw the attention of the noble Baroness in particular to an occasion on 24 November 2008 when she and her noble friend Lord West of Spithead, who has left his place, defended the use of the financial privilege assertion by the Commons. She stated:

“Having said that, I realise that the reason given for privilege is precisely because it is a financial privilege. I hear what the noble Lord says, but I am informed that we are acting in accordance with the proper procedures”.—[Official Report, 24/11/08; col. 1294.]

The matter concerned a very small sum of money to be spent on DNA procedures under the Counter-Terrorism Act—far smaller in significance than the amendments that we are considering today. Therefore, I am bemused. I do not understand what the noble Baroness’s position is now. Is she trying to change the commonly accepted meaning of financial privilege, or is she going back on what she said to the Guardian last week? I hope she will clarify her position because it will do the House, and indeed her position in it, no good if we adopt an apparently selective procedure concerning financial privilege.

This afternoon is probably not the occasion to debate this in detail. However, I am very disappointed that the noble Baroness did not re-establish the point that she made when she was on this side of the House. There are long-standing conventions, nothing has changed and the very small number of amendments that have received this treatment from the Commons is in direct contrast to the many occasions when she asserted that privilege when she was in government.

[Lord Laming]

My Lords, I do not wish to get caught up in a cross-party dispute on these matters, which are very serious indeed. I am extremely grateful to the Leader of the House for his very helpful statement. I will also associate myself with the point that he made about the noble Lord, Lord Freud, who has been assiduous throughout the Bill in the way in which he has listened and responded to the concerns of the House.

The House has a proud record of scrutinising legislation and, if I may say so, improving it. However, in the circumstances in which we find ourselves, I will make a request to the Leader. Sometimes when amendments go to another place there is a temptation for the House to be portrayed as troublesome. I hope that in these special circumstances the Leader of the House will assure noble Lords that what has happened on the Bill is part of normal business between two Houses, and that we will continue to conduct business in this proper way to secure the best possible legislation.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Freud)]

My Lords, before I go into this Motion, I would like to pick up some of the points raised by my noble friend the Leader of the House about how what we are considering today is impacted by the ping-pong process that we are going into. The question asked by my noble friend—

[Lord Laming]

My Lords, I am sorry. This is a really important statement that we are all terribly keen to hear but are unable to do so amid all this noise. Perhaps it is my position in the Chamber, but I wonder if the noble Lord could start again.

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, I apologise, I was keen not to waste time. I want to pick up on the comment made by my noble friend: why would we bother with all this? I am considering all the work that has been done on this Bill, and as I look around noble Lords I can see that the most astonishing amount of energy has been put into this Bill through its Committee and Report stages; I am the first to register that. I want to assure noble Lords that the debates we have had have been heard, that I have represented the points made with great vigour in government, and that I have seen a lot of changes in this Bill as a direct result of that work. I shall name a few of those changes because it is easy to forget what we have done with this Bill.

On ESA time-limiting, we accepted the need to make amendments to protect those with degenerative conditions. On the benefit cap, we have put in a nine-month grace period and exempted those in the support group of ESA, again in response to debates in this House. On PIP, we have made a number of changes to the required-period condition and have restored the mobility component for those in residential homes. Within universal credit, we have put in £300 million a year to afford additional childcare. That all added up in this spending review period to £638 million. Looked at as an ongoing cost when universal credit is introduced, it amounts to an extra £518 million per annum in a steady state. Each of those concessions was made as a direct result of the debates that we had in this House. I think, bluntly, there was a point at which the Government decided they could not afford any more. The cost of the amendments that we sent through would have been £2.1 billion in this spending review period and another place decided that that was more than could be afforded. I think that we reached the limit and the way to interpret what has come back from another place is that we cannot afford any more. Despite that, I want noble Lords to know that I am going on listening today and I hope that there will be several areas where I can move things along in a way that is helpful to the mood and views of many Peers.

I turn to the Motion. Noble Lords will remember that this is about having just two rates in universal credit for disabled children which align with adult rates. Our objective is to distribute resources fairly and simplify the current systems of support. The idea is to target the money on need and not on age, because of the problem of when people move from the child system to the adult system.

We are absolutely committed to supporting disabled people, to improving their quality of life and to tackling poverty at its root. We need to assess how to invest scarce resources in the most effective way. It is clear that this has been a matter of great concern to noble Lords. I have been exploring that concern and trying to get to its root. The concern lies in whether we are channelling the money to the right children. At the moment, children are passported from DLA and the question is whether we have the right definitions. I understand that concern and am taking steps, subject to your Lordships’ response, to do something about it.

If we are going to have a system of alignment between children and adults, and make sure that that works effectively and that we minimise disruption, then we have to be certain that the categorisations are consistent through that age gap. This is not an easy thing to do, because at the moment the definitions in these areas are linked to DLA for children. We need to be careful not to pre-empt any decisions on the future applicability of that, because we may be looking to change from DLA for children to PIP for children. We need to spend a considerable time to get that move—if it happens—right. Children are different from adults and have different needs from them at different times in their lives. Just as for adults, we need to have a system that is fair and consistent for children.

We need to learn from the introduction of PIP for those aged 16 to 64, which will start in April 2013 and continue through to 2016 as people switch over. We need to build learning from that process. We are also looking at moving towards a single assessment process for children’s social care, health and special education needs. By the start of 2015, we should have gathered sufficient evidence to be able to consider our future approach.

On the basis of that timing and on the basis that the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, withdraws her new amendment, I am therefore happy to give a commitment to the House that, by the end of 2015, we will review the current definitions, working carefully through the issues with disabled people and disability organisations, so that we have a gateway in place that ensures that the most severely disabled children get the right support.

Before noble Lords say that 2015 is a long way away, I point out that it is not quite as far as it seems. Universal credit will start to roll out in October 2013, and we will migrate claimants into it slowly over the next four years. In practice, people with disabled children are likely to be towards the end of that migration queue anyway. In addition, we have transitional protection for the existing groups. In practice, the timings would mesh quite elegantly. It would mean that the commitment is there to either look at it in the context of a move to child PIP or to have a proper look at it anyway within the context of DLA.

I hope I have been able to demonstrate to the House that we are taking this issue very seriously. It is an important issue that has been raised, and it is one we have thought about very deeply, in order to get this process right. I therefore urge the House not to insist on Amendment 1. I beg to move.

Motion A1 (as an amendment to Motion A)