Welfare Reform Bill

Lord May of Oxford Excerpts

Wednesday 11th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

The figure that is closest to the one in Grand Committee is the one relating to Amendment 46, which I will come to, which is closer to £17 million. This one is £70 million.

Amendment 36A, moved by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, and Amendment 46 would allow new claims to ESA to be made by those claimants who at the end of the assessment phase would be placed in the support group. We understand the purpose of Amendment 36A to be to provide support for Amendment 46. I have already listed the rationale for rejecting Amendment 45, which would remove Clause 52, and that rationale applies to Amendments 36A and 46 as well. In addition, Amendment 46 would have accepted considerable unwanted—

[Lord May of Oxford]

At the risk of exposing my lack of full comprehension of this, I have been listening to the debate and I resonate with the concern that the Minister has expressed about the abuse of this system, but at the same time I have not heard clearly that his resolution of one problem has not created a different and arguably more severe problem that has been emphasised by people who really understand this.

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, we have had a pretty good Socratic debate on the welfare Bill for some time. I hope that I can get over to noble Lords that the move from an automatic payment system, which is what we have for these youngsters, to one based on their income needs will pay them effectively the same amount depending on the position of their disability, will cover 90 per cent of the same people and will leave out the last 10 per cent who have their own means of one kind or another. That is the solution that works best in terms of the European legislation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wigley]

My Lords, we went into this matter in considerable detail in Committee and the Minister withstood the pressure at that point on the basis of it being so expensive. Perhaps I may repeat the point made from several different directions in Committee. If it is indeed £200 million plus £400 million plus £400 million, that is money that is coming off vulnerable disabled people. There are other priorities which I believe are not as pressing as the needs of these people.

It has been said that some will lose £90-odd a week. That is a considerable amount of money for those who are dependent on help such as this. If they are indeed fit to work and can hold down a job, they would earn considerably more than that, so there is an incentive to go to work, but the disability itself might well prevent them being able to take up opportunities, and indeed the psychological effect of the uncertainty of waiting out the 12-month period might add to the lesser likelihood of their being able to work. In a civilised society it is not the disabled people at the end of the queue who should be bailing out successive Governments for the economic mess that we are in. If we need to share it out, as the noble Lord said a moment ago, there is such a thing as taxation, which shares out the burden more equally. Why put the burden on the shoulders of the most vulnerable in our society?

[Lord May of Oxford]

My Lords, I suspect that others might share my feeling that in some of the last exchanges the discussion has taken on a curious additional aspect. The exchange about whether whatever we do will ultimately be nullified by the Parliament Act speaks to me not as an argument for doing one thing or another but in support of the distinctive character of this Chamber. Particularly from the Cross Benches, the Chamber brings to debates that in the lower House would be basically political in nature a degree of expertise and knowledge of the impact on the ground of the things that we do. That is often missing, particularly in the upper chambers of parliaments in other countries with which I am familiar. I shall mention the acquaintance with uncomfortable facts, and again we have here an echo of what we heard a moment ago.

I have every sympathy for the Minister, who has quite properly to tackle questions of fiscal responsibility. At the same time, powerful points are being made about individuals and how this is going to play out in the system by people who really know it. That is something distinctive which we add to the debate, and I hope that it is taken into account when things go back to the Commons.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, we support each of the amendments tabled in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Patel. As we have heard, the first would amend the Bill’s 365-day limit on the contributory employment and support allowance and proposes to replace that with an order-making power for setting a limit, but with the proviso that it should be not less than two years. The proposal that any limit should be set by order opens up the opportunity, sadly missed in the Government’s formulation, for any time limit to be evidence based. The 365-day limit currently in the Bill is supported by scant evidence, apart from some references to “international practice”, which did not bear scrutiny in Committee.