Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Debate between Lord McKenzie of Luton and Baroness Manzoor

Tuesday 9th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his explanation of Amendment 5. It makes the drafting of this area somewhat less impenetrable. I was going to say that it would be churlish, given the occasion, to point out that this is the third or fourth attempt to get this drafting right but clearly there will need to be a fourth or fifth, from what the Minister has said, and we welcome the point to which he has alerted us.

I take this opportunity to welcome the Minister’s action in deferring the impact of the rent reduction policy for a period and holding back on the local housing allowance. We will have to see where that leads. Of course, this point was pursued rigorously by the noble Lords, Lord Best and Lord Kerslake. My understanding is that this has not necessarily allayed the concerns of providers sufficiently and there is the risk of holding back on some key projects in relation to supported accommodation, which would be a great pity. So I think there is a task for the Government there.

With regard to the amendments that go back with the Bill to the other place, all we can do is urge the Minister to send it on its way with his wholehearted support.

[Baroness Manzoor]

My Lords, we broadly support Amendment 5. It is a positive change. I take this opportunity to thank the Minister for the very constructive way in which he has allowed us to meet him, because there have been great challenges in the Bill. It has been a very difficult Bill and he has been a master at defending a very difficult piece of legislation. I sensed at times that he himself felt, “My gosh, what are we doing here?”. I may be putting words in his mouth but that is the sense I got.

Obviously, there are significant financial cuts to some of the most vulnerable in our society. As the Minister is aware, I have been very concerned about the issues relating to the work allowance and the cuts that will affect working people. We have looked at the Bill through the prism of work. I am also very concerned about the cuts to employment allowances for people with disabilities and progressive illnesses. I state again that I really cannot understand how cutting £30 a week from the employment allowances for people in the ESA group is going to make them better and fitter and enable them to go back to work. I say to the Minister: this is going back to the House of Commons but please could the Government look at this? It is so important as a sign of a compassionate, caring society that we look after the most vulnerable. But I thank the Minister, and the Bill team, for the time he has given to the Bill and the very constructive dialogue he has held with us.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Debate between Lord McKenzie of Luton and Baroness Manzoor

Wednesday 27th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Manzoor (LD)]

My Lords, I shall be brief. Noble Lords can see very clearly what the issue is—it is technical and rather complicated. It is now late. If the Minister will give the assurance that he is happy to meet me and the Child Poverty Action Group so that we can discuss the amendment in greater detail, that will be really helpful and will save me having to go through a very complex explanation. I beg to move.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab)]

My Lords, in the spirit of comradeship and friendship with the Liberal Democrats, we are very happy to support that request.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Debate between Lord McKenzie of Luton and Baroness Manzoor

Monday 25th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Manzoor (LD)]

My Lords, I support the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell. I thank the Minister for meeting some of us last week to talk about why we felt that this amendment was so important. I shall outline the four key themes from my perspective. I agree that we need consistency of approach, as outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Low. We need to monitor and evaluate progress on the target. This is the Government’s target and it is laudable and very welcome. However, do they really not want to measure it and evaluate improvement? One could perhaps think that the Government do not want to measure progress towards the target, and consider that it is easier to pick off low-hanging fruit than to assess the great variations in disability and tackle those, so that more people enter employment. As has already been said, this measure is not costly and will certainly help to identify the support that employers need to help people with disabilities.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab)]

My Lords, we support Amendment 1 for the reasons advanced with conviction by the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, strongly supported by the noble Lord, Lord Low, and pretty much every other Peer who has spoken in this debate so far. We heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, about the importance of proper reporting to the ability to deliver proper parliamentary scrutiny. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans raised the very important issue of the need to have data on different groups, otherwise there is a risk that targets will be achieved by dealing just with those closest to the labour market. The noble Lord, Lord Wigley, reminded us about the impact of specific, detailed reports which come before Parliament. The noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, said that we can get full employment only if we make progress on the disability employment gap. The noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, and other noble Lords, talked about the failure of the Work Programme at the moment—a running theme on these issues. I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, touched on Amendments 42 and 43. That enables me, in the absence of my colleagues, to address those and I will do so in a minute. The noble Baroness, Lady Afshar, made an important point about tackling the stigma around mental health which, sadly, still pertains in some communities.

We, too, welcome the Government’s commitment to halving the disability employment gap by 2020. We are grateful to the Minister for organising a meeting last week, together with his colleague, Justin Tomlinson MP, although the message delivered was that the amendment would be resisted by the Government. I hope there has been a change of heart in the interim. This is notwithstanding the generally encouraging noises and the promise of a White Paper. We know that the disability employment gap has stayed stubbornly persistent—the noble Lord, Lord Low, referred to it as intractable—for too long and cross-government effort will be needed to deliver on the commitment.

The reasons why we need regular reporting have also been summarised, too, by Leonard Cheshire in its briefing paper and these include, in particular, the incentive for action in that it will provide a departmental and cross-government focus on the gap. As the Minister himself has frequently opined, it is that which gets measured and reported on which gets government attention. That briefing highlighted the somewhat conflicting messages we have received from the Government. The Employment Minister in another place stated that the Government did not see the need to report on disability employment, as the measure was essential to achieving the wider commitment to full employment. However, the more enlightened Minister for Disabled People did promise that the annual report on progress to full employment would include an update on the Government’s progress towards halving the disability employment gap.

We need some clarification on this, particularly considering the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Freud, in Committee, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, referred. The thrust of those comments was that the management information which this amendment seeks has not been built into the current plans and would not represent value for money, given the timeline to just 2020. Do the Government have no ambition after that? It would also disrupt the universal credit timeline, wherever that currently stands. If the Minister rejects the amendment, but promises regular reporting, will he make it clear what that will entail and what the sources of the data will be? The amendment is seeking not just aggregated data reporting but a proper analysis of progress over a range of conditions. If we do not have clarity on this and the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, is minded to test the opinion of the House, we will support her.

Amendment 42, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, seeks, as we have heard, to add people with mental health problems to the list of groups which are exempt from the conditionality element of back-to-work support schemes. We have received a very helpful briefing from Mind which covers this and other issues. It is suggested that conditionality, with its threat of sanctions, has a negative impact on people with mental health problems, that it undermines the relationship between claimant and adviser, removes choice and control, and has no evidence to support it working for people with mental health problems. It seems to us that this is fundamentally about having the right sort of support for people with mental health problems. Mind and others point out that the mainstream back-to-work support is currently often generic, as we have heard today, untailored and does not address the barriers to work which disabled people face. The lack of specialist support is undermining the opportunities for individuals to access work. This is a constant complaint from those who engage with these issues, so perhaps the Minister will tell us how he is to address this in the context of halving the disability employment gap.

Amendment 43, in the name of my noble friend Lord Layard, refers us back to psychological therapies, as we have heard. I am grateful for the interventions of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, so that we can at least debate this a little today. On the matter of drafting, we need to reflect on the reference to “primary medical condition” given that entitlement to the WRAG is determined by a range of descriptors which can be for physical or mental health factors. Drafting aside, my noble friend's objective is to encourage and assist those with a mental health or behavioural disorder to access assessment and, if appropriate, treatment. This is an objective which we wholeheartedly support.

My noble friend Lord Layard has previously made a powerful case in identifying that nearly a million people are on ESA due to depression or anxiety disorders but that only about half are getting treatment. We have heard that improving access to psychological therapies can make a real difference, as the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, confirmed. The pilots that took place were 10 years ago. My noble friend has previously explained that around half of those treated under the programme last year recovered during treatment. Such results could obviously assist the path for people back to work and we know of the evidence that work—good work—is good for people’s health. His amendment does not mandate anyone for treatment—we have been down that path before—neither is it instructing the NHS to treat in a specific way a group of individuals. But it requires that those with a mental health problem be encouraged and assisted to be referred for assessment and treatment. There is no conditionality attached and no suggestion that such individuals should somehow jump the queue.

If assessment and treatment is key to making individuals well and helping them move closer to the labour market, is that not exactly what the system should be about? This of course begs the question of what the process should be. I hope that the Minister will accept the thrust of this amendment and follow up with my noble friend and others who have been engaged in the past. We used to have mental health champions in Jobcentre Plus; perhaps the Minister could tell us what has happened to this role.

I finish where I started: fundamentally, we are very happy to support Amendment 1, which is very important, and to help the noble Baroness test the opinion of the House if that is her decision.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Debate between Lord McKenzie of Luton and Baroness Manzoor

Tuesday 12th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Manzoor]

Forgive me for having to get up again; after all, we are coming to this subject on Amendments 107 and 109 so we will debate it then. However, I think there needs to be greater clarification regarding exemptions. There are currently organisations that are very vulnerable and provide housing services for some of the most vulnerable in our society to prevent people from becoming homeless, as well as those that provide refuge for domestic violence victims and so forth. I will not pre-empt the discussion that we will inevitably have, but I am looking for some reassurance from the Minister regarding whether these exemptions will continue to apply to those organisations that currently seem to be exempted. These rent reductions will have an impact because the providers will not be able to continue to provide those services, particularly to help and manage those kinds of conditions.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

Might the noble Baroness take the opportunity to clarify the distinction between exceptions and exemptions? I think she has been talking about exemptions today—exceptions are something else.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Debate between Lord McKenzie of Luton and Baroness Manzoor

Wednesday 9th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, this is an extremely important group of amendments. On behalf of the Labour Benches, my noble friend Lady Sherlock and I will oppose Clauses 13 and 14 standing part of the Bill and will support Amendments 50 and 53, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Patel. We support the thrust of Amendment 52 in the names of my noble friend Lord Layard and the noble Baronesses, Lady Hollins and Lady Tyler, which concerns access to psychological therapies. I acknowledge the campaigning work conducted by my noble friend when we were in government and the fact that he managed to move the issue of psychological therapies up the political agenda. More than that, he was significantly responsible for people getting treated.

As we have heard, Amendments 50 and 53 defer the changes to ESA coming into force until their impact on individuals’ physical and mental health, their financial situation and their ability to work has been estimated. All these matters have, in one way or another, been the subject of real concern since the substance of this policy—a £30 a week docking of the WRAG rate—became apparent. The noble Lord, Lord Patel, explained that he was particularly focused on people moving from the support group to the WRAG who were recovering from cancer. In so far as the Government’s impact assessment seeks to address these matters, it seems to conclude that it is doing claimants a favour by removing the WRAG rate and its equivalent in universal credit because this will encourage them to take steps back to work, with a consequent improvement in their health and the life chances of their children.

We should be ashamed, if not surprised, that a priority for our Government is to reduce the income of disabled people—individuals who have been assessed as not currently fit for work—from the current rate of £102 a week to just £73 a week, and to pray in aid a 10 year-old OECD report which, by all accounts, does not make a single reference to disabled people. We should also be concerned about the attempt to incentivise and coerce people into work when they have been found by a rigorous assessment not to be fit for work. There is either a lack of understanding of, or a callous disregard for, the financial circumstances that many in the WRAG face today, let alone in the future—circumstances that mean they struggle to pay their bills and maintain their health, rather than not drift into social isolation and focus on activity that will move them closer to work.

Of course, this is not a small group. There are nearly 500,000 disabled people within the ESA WRAG, almost half of them with a mental and behavioural disorder, including learning disabilities and autism. These are individuals who will need time and proper support to make it back to the labour market. Far from help with their struggles, the ESA cut will add to debt, stress and anxiety, making their journey more difficult, if not impossible, and pushing them into further poverty.

Most noble Lords here today will have received a raft of substantial and authoritative briefings from charities and other organisations whose opposition to this particular cut is remarkably consistent. We should thank them for their defence of disabled people, particularly their robust challenge to the proposition that cutting the WRAG is a work incentive. We also now have the benefit of the formal review of the proposed reduction in the employment and support allowance and how it will assist the Government’s declared aim of halving the disability employment gap.

The report was led by the noble Lord, Lord Low, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Meacher and Lady Grey-Thompson, at the request of a group of charities. We should acknowledge their commitment and the clarity of their conclusions and recommendations. I hope we will hear from them and have the benefit of their expertise during this debate. One of their central recommendations was to reverse the removal of the ESA WRAG component and the equivalent payment in universal credit. This is precisely what our amendments will do. But the review is not just about objecting to the change that the Government are seeking to impose. It sets out a series of recommendations focused on helping the Government to help more disabled people move closer to and into work. Perhaps a recast amendment on Report might better capture this broader approach.

I will not attempt to outline each of the 11 recommendations of the review in the hope that others will cover some of them but of particular significance is the call to redesign the WCA, focusing on a holistic approach which understands the barriers to work that people face, and ensuring that this information is used to provide appropriate support. Not only did the review find no evidence that the £30 a week WRAG component is acting as a disincentive to work, or that reducing the payment will incentivise people to seek work, it received evidence to the contrary—that the reduction would hinder rather than help people take steps towards work.

The extra money individuals in the WRAG receive is to recognise that they are likely to be unemployed for a longer period than those receiving JSA, and that once out of the workplace disabled people find it more difficult to return. The typical time for which claimants were expected to be in the WRAG was two years; for those on JSA it was much less. This loss of resources is being imposed on a range of other measures that can affect disabled people—council tax support cuts, the bedroom tax, the benefit cap for those not on DLA/PIP—and benefit freezes are in place. The review reminds us why this extra income is so important to disabled people and why the threat of its loss—as well as the reality, should it come about—is so hazardous to their health and well-being.

Your Lordships should read the report and understand the strains of daily living for so many of our fellow citizens—individuals who would welcome the chance of moving towards and into work if we would only invest in tailored and personalised programmes to make this a reality for them. I urge the Government to reject these misguided cuts, listen to the views of those whose lives would be made a misery if they proceed, and instead grasp the opportunities that could genuinely transform the lives of so many disabled people.

[Baroness Manzoor]

My Lords, we on these Benches strongly oppose the question that Clauses 13 and 14 stand part of the Bill, along with the opposition party. At Second Reading, I made it clear that these were the clauses that the Lib Dems were most concerned about—in a Bill which had little to be joyous about.

Clause 13 legislates to reduce the amount of money that new claimants receive within the employment and support allowance work-related activity group—known as ESA WRAG—by £29.05 per week or nearly £1,500 a year. This cut is mirrored in Clause 14 for the equivalent payment in the new universal credit, called the limited capability for work group. As the Disability Benefits Consortium says, this is despite the fact that the WRAG is specifically there to provide support for disabled people who are assessed as being not fit for work, as the noble Lord, Lord Patel, stressed.

In his summer Budget, in order to make savings on welfare expenditure, the Chancellor announced that he would reduce the level of benefit paid to claimants in ESA WRAG to the value of jobseeker’s allowance—JSA. How can that be right? These are people who have been deemed to be ill. This is despite the fact that, as the noble Lord, Lord Patel, and others have said, the people receiving ESA WRAG and the limited capability for work element of universal credit have been independently medically assessed by government assessors as being too ill to work—not by their own GPs but by independent assessors, and that is really key. These are people with disabilities—nearly 500,000 people; people with long-term health conditions such as mental health and behavioural disorders—nearly 250,000 people; and people with cancer or progressive motor neurone illnesses such as MS and Parkinson’s disease.

I entirely agree with Macmillan Cancer Support, the Disability Benefits Consortium, Mind, Mencap, Leonard Cheshire Disability, Scope, the Rowntree Foundation and many others—they cannot all be wrong—that reducing the amount of money received by individuals on ESA WRAG and the limited capability for work element of universal credit will make it harder for individuals to cope with the financial impact of their condition and to afford what they need to support their recovery. The additional pressure to seek work when not fit could detrimentally impact on an individual’s health and recovery. I have seen this, having worked in the NHS for many years. This could actually move them further from the labour market. That is not what the Government want to do. The negative impact of returning to work before individuals are fit to work compromises them and is unsustainable, and may lead individuals to require welfare support for longer or indeed move them into the support group, where they do not work again. That cannot be right.

The Government’s impact assessment states:

“Someone moving into work could, by working around 4-5 hours a week at National Living Wage, recoup the notional loss of the Work-Related Activity component or Limited Capability for Work element”.

Frankly, that is unbelievable, as people in this group have been found not fit for work. That is the hub of the whole issue. Clauses 13 and 14 have no place in a caring and compassionate society and I urge that they be removed from the Bill. It is far better that the Work Programme trains advisers better to understand conditions so that the most appropriate support and help can be given to individuals to return to work. Barriers to employment such as lack of job opportunities, attitudes and transport difficulties must also be addressed by the Government, and employers should be given the necessary training and support to enable them to take on more disabled people so that people can return to work when they are deemed fit to do so.

I urge the Minister to exempt people on the ESA WRAG and that Clauses 13 and 14 do not stand part of the Bill. The Government must give people hope and support. I fear that these measures are merely about the Treasury wanting to demonstrate that it can achieve a budget surplus—how wrong is that?—without, I fear, the Treasury thinking about real people and real lives, and the impact it will have on those people. This is not about figures on a balance sheet but people who will find the impact of these clauses deeply damaging, as they will affect their life chances. This is not just about the young. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Patel, that these clauses are not sensible or morally right.