Welfare Reform Bill

Lord Lester of Herne Hill Excerpts

Tuesday 14th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, the short answer is that we will monitor it. However, I do not accept the amendment and I will explain exactly why. It does not work in the way that is intended. It is designed for us to have a full formal review. As noble Lords will recognise, we do have reviews and we treat them very seriously. If you look at the example of the Harrington review of the WCA, you see that they can be of immense value in the development of policy.

The way this one would work is that we would have a review one year after the measure came into force. The amendment would require that that report—a big formal report—is laid before the Houses of Parliament within three months, an incredibly rapid timescale as I am sure that the noble Baroness will recognise. We will monitor this and use evidence from a large number of sources on the experiences and outcomes of those affected. We will use DWP administrative datasets to monitor the trends in both the caseloads and in the level and distribution of benefit entitlements.

I want to put into context the huge paraphernalia that this amendment would require in practice. We are looking at the region of 15,000 claims to ESA youth every year. We expect 10 per cent of those not to qualify for ESA—not to be in the system. That is 1,500 people. It is not appropriate to have on the Bill a major Houses of Parliament review when the numbers are so small. The timing is not right. One does not look at a policy like this only once; one needs to keep it under review and look at it over a number of years, not do it in an inflexible way. I am trying to say that I buy the point that we need to watch it, but I do not think this amendment works. We can evaluate detailed specialist research. Broad surveys will be useless. It is too small and we will not pick up anyone if we do it on the FRS. It will be five people if we do it like that. We will have to review it very differently and then use it to inform how we guide our future policy direction and, potentially, operational improvements.

I do not wish to row about benefit tourism. The reason that it came through late, to be blunt, is that my blood was chilled towards the end of last year when I started working through some of this stuff. That is why I missed it in November. I had not really absorbed the implications. I do not think I would call it a panic—

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill]

I was troubled when the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, alleged that the use of EU law was a pretext—I think she said pretext—which means it was a kind of sham. May I take it that the analysis given about the decision of the European Court of Justice was based on legal advice and that what has been said explaining EU law is the Government’s understanding on the basis of EU advice as to what that judgment means and its effect, or is it some kind of political pretext?

[Lord Freud]

No, my Lords. The department has an international wing that monitors this matter very closely and is on top of it. It has lawyers and also takes advice from lawyers—although formally I am not allowed to say that we ever consult lawyers internally for advice. I think that is the position. All I can say is that there are many ramifications to this. I am not playing games. I am quite worried about the implications for our whole benefits system.