Welfare Reform Bill
Lord Newton of Braintree Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Walton of Detchant
My Lords, I had not intended to contribute to this debate, but I wish to speak briefly. As a neurologist with a long experience of caring for children with many forms of disability, I am fully aware of one important issue: that the nature of the disability may be relatively non-progressive—for example, in patients with cerebral palsy. The needs of children with cerebral palsy vary and change as they grow older. The problems faced by their carers—often a single parent, or both parents—become more demanding as the child grows older and is heavier and more difficult to manipulate.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, said, think again about patients with muscular dystrophy of the most severe kind. Boys with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, by the time they are seven, eight or nine years of age, are still mobile and still go to a normal school but walk with increasing difficulty. By the time they are 10 or 11, they are often confined to a wheelchair. In past years, many of those boys died in their teens. Nowadays, with vastly improved care, with improvement in their respiratory support and so on, they pass through that period of transition from childhood into adulthood, where their disability is greater and more demanding. Unless they are given proper support by carers and the support that they need in terms of respiratory support and suchlike, the demands on their parents become much greater. Furthermore, it is important to recognise that proper care and support in the home prevents a large number of emergency admissions to hospital, with major burdens on the National Health Service.
I was reassured at the beginning by what the Minister said. Can he assure us that the actual mechanisms of these three grades of support, and that important change from childhood into adulthood, are properly met by the provisions of this Bill? Will he also assure us that the recognition that disability is not static and that demands on the carers vary is fully taken account of in the decisions that are being made?
Lord Newton of Braintree
My Lords, I had not intended to intervene either. I will do so very briefly because I have made my points at earlier stages of the Bill. My principal point, as I said to the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, at the end of last week, was that I did not expect to be able to vote for her amendment because, while I thought that the cause was good, writing this kind of thing into primary legislation was not. That is reinforced by the points that have just been made. I see the noble Lord, Lord Walton, nodding; I am not sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, will be nodding. The very point that the degree of disability does not directly relate to the costs incurred is actually a point of not trying to write all this stuff in concrete into primary legislation, together with the variability to which the noble Lord, Lord Walton, has referred. So I very much hope that the noble Baroness will not press her amendment to a Division, even though I strongly support the general aim that she has in mind. I want to pay my own tribute to the part that she has played in focusing on this issue.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, like other noble Lords, I think we should be grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, for keeping us focused on the issue of disabled children, and to all noble Lords who have spoken in this short debate with a great deal of expertise and knowledge on the subject. They reminded us that even in this rich country there are people and families who still live in poverty and are challenged by poverty. The deliberations that we bring to bear through legislation may seem somewhat detached from that, but that legislation has a real effect on real people’s lives.
Like my noble friend Lord Peston and the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, I was a bit confused as to how this amendment became caught up in the issue of financial privilege because I thought that the Minister was on record as saying that this was not an issue of money. Indeed, the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, confirmed that. I did not intervene in the earlier exchanges on this issue but I am somewhat concerned about aggregate figures of costs flying around, whether we agree with them or not, and tagging on to them a provision that has no cost implication at all. If that is permitted under these arrangements, it is a bit of a slippery slope.
However, we should be grateful to the Minister for his engagement running right across the Bill, particularly on this issue, and for his promise of a review on definitions and access to the various benefits. I hope that he will take account of the point made by my noble friend Lady Hollis and others that the issue of costs does not correlate exactly with severity of disability. If I have to take issue with the Minister, I wish that he had not said that his commitment to undertake this programme was conditional on the noble Baroness withdrawing her amendment. Frankly, if it is right to do it, it is right to do it.
Perhaps I may pursue one point with the noble Lord. He previously stated that families would obtain the benefit of transitional protection so that the cash amount of support under universal credit would not reduce. That would not of course protect the position in real terms but perhaps we can at last understand a little more—on the record, I hope—about how transitional protection will work. Is it to be applied separately to the differing components of universal credit or will it be looked at in aggregate? Could an increase in the housing amount, for example, mean an effective reduction in the protected disability addition? Can we also get some clarity around changes of circumstances and what types of situation would cause the transitional protection to be removed? What about, for example, a move in accommodation that might have been caused by the underoccupation provisions that we debated previously and will debate again shortly? Could that represent a change of circumstances that could cut off that vital transitional protection?
I do not wish to go over all of our powerful debate on this issue. I acknowledge the commitments that the Minister has made but repeat that we should be thankful to the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, for keeping us focused on this important issue.
Lord Newton of Braintree
My Lords, having been a serial good-behaviour person this week, I thought that I ought at least, in fairness to myself and the noble Lord, Lord Best, to join in on this, as I was in my serial offending mode at the time the previous amendment was discussed. I am not going to repeat everything I said then, but I am tempted, not by every line of argument that the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, or indeed anybody else, deployed, but by two of the points. First, part of the problem here is that we have not got enough social housing, which is highly relevant to this. I declare an interest in that my wife is responsible for it in Braintree District Council—for action on housing, not for the shortage. The effect in rural areas was the main point of my speech on the last occasion, and it has been well illustrated by points made by the noble Lord and the noble Baroness in the past few minutes.
I am not sure that the amendment, because of its genesis, is the right way now to tackle this. I am reserving my position on that until I hear the Minister. However, I do think, as a practising politician and as an MP who used to have constituents complaining about this kind of thing, that the Government are playing a very dangerous political game, without quite knowing what will hit them when this comes into force. I will give some possible illustrations. I do not know the answers for any of them, but the Minister might like to bear them in mind. For example, a 16 year-old in north London is killed, by a bullet or a knife, by a gangster. His parents have a spare room, and soon after the inquest, somebody turns up and says, “You’ve got to move. You’ve got a spare room”. A carer looks after an elderly parent for 20 years. The parent dies and somebody turns up and says, “You’ve got a spare room—here’s the penalty” or, “You’ve got to move”. We can think of a lot of such potential cases. My concern is that the Government should not charge down this path in a mechanistic way without thinking what they are going to do at the point of transition and in relation to the numerous hard cases that will arise. Otherwise, as I said in my previous speech, this will not last five minutes. I would like to hear the Minister on those points.
I am slightly scarred by one bit of experience. As part of the social security reforms in which I played a modest part alongside my noble friend Lord Fowler in the mid-1980s, we proposed some fairly draconian changes in housing benefit, which were, to be blunt, forced on us by the Treasury. They were introduced happily. Two years after I ceased to be Minister for Social Security, I was Minister for Health—another bed of nails. In my recollection, although I have not checked the books, the impact of those changes was such that the then Prime Minister ordered their reversal within a month because the flak simply could not be withstood. That is the risk the Government are running here, and I hope they will think about it very hard.
Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Newton, has made a very important point about the lack of social housing. Amendments and policy changes of this kind should only really be—and can only be—safely embraced if they are taken in the context of a wholesale housing policy review for this country. That will take some time and it needs to be started. It should have been started earlier. In the context of that, it is possible to deal with some of the anomalies and contradictions that we now have in our housing benefit system. There is no doubt that it needs to be reformed, but I have serious doubts about it being reformed at this scale and at this rate because I think it will hurt people. It will hurt people for one reason more than any other: it all happens at once.
On 1 April 2013, everyone who is caught by this will be looking for smaller properties which in many cases do not exist. It is worse than that, because there is a geographical and spatial dimension to this policy which must not be underestimated. It was the noble Lord, Lord Best, who pointed out that in the north of the country underoccupation is prevalent in a way that we all understand. I come from a social background in which I was raised in a council house and someone made a point about Northern Ireland. There is an in-built residual and unavoidable underoccupancy. On 1 April 2013, people are going to be hit and they are going to be hit hard.
I understand the concessions that we have been able to suggest to the Minister. The £30 million of discretionary housing payment is welcome, although I did not know that it was being found by topping up the housing benefit cut. That is news to me, and not particularly welcome news. With the discretionary housing payment of £30 million applied even to the north of the United Kingdom—the north-east, the north-west, Scotland and Northern Ireland—I do not think we have begun to look at the difficulties that this policy will face in year one. I assume the £30 million is annually recurrent, but I do not know the answer to that. Certainly, if it is not annually recurrent, then we will have even bigger problems in year two.
There is another difficulty that lies behind the policy which concerns me greatly. It will disrupt social and family ties in a way that it is impossible for local authorities receiving or trying to downsize people or social landlords to deal with. Unless folk are moving across the street or moving around the block or moving in the same village—it is admittedly working-age populations that we are talking about here as people beyond the state retirement age are not included—they will have a different set of problems to face outside their envelope of family, friends, doctors and all the rest of it. The effect particularly on disabled people was referred to in the powerful speech made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis. She drew my attention to this; I had this as a lower priority when we started this process. In parentheses, I think the 17 sessions of Grand Committee were one of the best periods of my parliamentary experience in terms of developing the points and getting ministerial responses. To say that I enjoyed it would be a slight exaggeration , but it was valuable time because we had a Minister who knew what he was doing, who listened, who was accessible and who was able to respond. I know why he cannot respond to this today, because this is Treasury clawback. This Bill is a perfectly good Bill and it will serve the country well in the fullness of time, but the Treasury clawback that has been demanded by Ministers in another department is potentially going to cause the reputation of the incoming reforms to be tarnished by measures exactly like this.
This is a modest amendment proposed by a man who knows more about housing than anyone else in this House. Speaking for myself, I will trust his judgment, and if he thinks that he gets a ministerial response that enables him to withdraw this amendment, I will say amen to that; but equally, if he gets a ministerial response that he does not think measures up to this modest amendment, I will happily follow him into the Lobby.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
My Lords, I would like briefly to take up a point made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds in relation to kinship carers. I spoke previously on this and I remember that the Minister was sympathetic. I would be very glad to get some reassurance as to where his sympathy lies and how he proposes to endorse it.
Lord Newton of Braintree
My Lords, I am intervening only briefly, partly because I do not want to attack the right reverend Prelate, who seemed to be in a much less militant mood than he was on the previous occasion. I will, therefore, not repeat the remarks that I made then, when I made the point that what he was asking for was an increase in the benefit cap. I refrained from saying at that time—and the House ought to bear this in mind when thinking about all of this—that child benefit for the first child is now worth about £1,000 a year tax-free. For every other child it is a bit less than that. Bearing in mind that it is tax-free and that we are talking about a benefit cap of £26,000 net, which is said to equate to £36,000 gross, if you put child benefit on top you are looking at a position in which you would have to be a higher-rate taxpayer in order to hit the benefit cap, in terms of what you would have to earn. People ought to bear that in mind.
My main point is to express some reservations about the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie. What do we mean by “local area”? He really needs to answer that. My noble friend Lord Fowler and I—and I have already referred to some of our travails over housing benefit in 1986 to 1988—looked at this question of localisation and regionalisation. It is intractable, because housing costs do not vary on a regional basis or even on a district or city or borough basis; they vary on a street-by-street basis. Is that what the noble Lord has in mind? If so, it would become a complete administrative nightmare. He needs to think very carefully before pressing this particular line, whatever its intellectual attractions.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
My Lords, I put my name to Motion H2—which is linked to Motion H1—and will speak to it now. The amendment was drafted by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, who is, as I am sure noble Lords will know, away on a well deserved holiday. He is very sad that he cannot be here today; I am literally standing in for him.
The noble Lord, Lord Boswell, has reminded us of 25 January on Report when there was overwhelming support for the amendment put forward by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, demonstrated by the very large vote in this House. Of course, that has been reversed by the Commons. This amendment is, quite properly, not a replica of the earlier one. The earlier amendment referred to the payment of fees to the CSA by a single parent claiming maintenance from the other parent for children living generally with her rather than with him. I welcome the Government listening about the cost of the initial charge, and the very substantial reduction of the charge to £20. They are very much to be congratulated on that.
This amendment has a much more limited function and deals with a much more limited situation in which all efforts have been made to obtain payments by the other parent and it is necessary for the single parent to use the CSA statutory mechanism. If money is received from the other parent by that method, there is a collection charge, which provides a deduction to be made from the maintenance received. As the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, has already said, that seems to be a levy of between 7 per cent and 12 per cent of the money collected from the parent with care of the children.
I take on board the points made by the Minister, and what Frank Field said, as well as the help given to single parents by state aid and the fact that a review of this charging regime is promised. However, I make no apology for repeating the quotation made by the noble Lord, Boswell, of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, who said:
“I do not believe that it is fair to require them to pay charges when they are not responsible for creating the need for the use of the service”.—[Official Report, 25/1/12; col. 1090.]
I would like very briefly to make a few more points. The money is to help in the upkeep of the children and not for the parent. Many highly regarded charities support this limited amendment—time does not permit me to say which they are but there is a considerable number of them. We are looking at parents in the poorest section of society who may receive a very small amount of money from the other parent and upon whom the major financial burden of the care of children rests.
I understand that—unlike the Government’s view—most cases are not very expensive, costing £350 a case if managed through the main computer system and £600 a case if managed off the main computer system. Of course, there are cases that cost significantly more, and sums of up to £25,000 have been mentioned, but I am informed that they are the exception, not the rule. According to the Government’s own impact assessment, the future average cost of processing an application is expected to be about £220.
This amendment, if accepted, would have limited financial impact on the CSA for the majority of applications but would make a significant difference to this deserving group of single parents. I urge the Minister to think again.
Lord Newton of Braintree
My Lords, I am intervening—as usual, you might think—for two reasons. First, on the previous occasion I sat down there and declared that I was standing shoulder to shoulder with my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern, which indeed I was, and I was therefore part of the vote that has caused us to be having this debate this evening. I will say something about that in a moment. Secondly, when this got to the Commons, a person who I do not know, described as Mrs McGuire, who I take from the context is a Labour Member of Parliament, read out the list of Conservative former Cabinet Ministers who had voted, including my name, and went on to say:
“I do not think that any of these people were fully paid up members of the liberal tendency”.—[Official Report, Commons, 1/2/12; col. 926.]
If it were not for parliamentary privilege, I would sue her! I just wanted to get that off my chest.
Lord Freud
I think it is clear that the way that maintenance direct works is that the two parents have to agree on it. That is the point of maintenance direct. Under that system the Government calculate how much child maintenance is payable, but the payments themselves are made directly by the non-resident parent to the parent with care. If the payments are made in that way, no collection charges apply. It is a mutual decision.
The Government will ensure that a service is provided that enables maintenance direct to be used without the need for any contact to be made or personal information to be divulged. By using this system, the parent with care has the security of knowing that where it is established that payment has not been made in full and on time by the non-resident parent, the case will be moved into the collection service and swift action can be taken to reinstate payments. They can switch back and forth into that system. I take my noble friend’s point that there is a lot of attraction in that system and it may be underpublicised. To the extent that it is, we need to do something about it.
Where the payments move back into the collection service, charges will then be imposed for its use and they are heavily weighted on the non-resident parent. That acts as a real incentive for non-resident parents to pay in full and on time, and indeed by the charge-free method of maintenance direct. On the question of some non-residents wanting to go on punishing their ex, the parent with care, that would be a very expensive way of doing it—it costs the non-resident roughly twice as much as it does the resident.
I want to come back to the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, who said that she would deal with my argument piece by piece. I did not particularly agree with her. I was adding up the benefits system but also the tax credits system, which presumably many of the others who were not on the benefits system would have been on. Tax credits were invented in the early 2000s. I am talking about what it was like in the 1990s. The process by which the state supplied money for lone parents grew gradually through the 2000s until there was a total disregard. Early on, that was in the form of tax credits. From 2008, a proportion was in the form of benefits. The full disregard came in 2010. Therefore, I do not particularly buy the dismantling of the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock.
I want to go into the costs. We estimate that the cost of Amendment 73C would be around £190 million, although it would depend on the exact level of the collection charge. There are assumptions around that. Therefore, in response to the question of my noble friend Lord Higgins, I say that it would be only a little less than the cost of the original amendment tabled by my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay, which was £220 million.
I also acknowledge the serious and considered concerns that have been set out by noble Lords both today and in our previous debate on this. I am prepared to make some specific commitments to the House on the development and oversight of the regulations, along the lines suggested by my noble friends Lord Boswell and Lord Newton. Later this year we will bring forward the regulations. At that point, other Ministers and I would like to offer Peers the opportunity to meet in a special session in Parliament to gather their views. We envisage an agenda based around the regulations, covering those that relate to the key concerns expressed during the passage of the Bill. I will of course take direction from interested Peers—there are a lot of them—as to the structure of that session. We will set that up as required.
We will also conduct a public consultation on the regulations. Following the finalisation of regulations after consultation, we will bring them back to the House. At that point, we will again offer a session for Peers to complement consideration by the committees of the House. That will not be the last time that the House debates charging; we will bring the affirmative regulations forward for debate.
We also acknowledge the need to evaluate and review constantly the impact of charges on parents. In respect of that, we have already amended the Bill to ensure that the review is published within 30 months of its introduction. Again, I here commit that we will seek the input of Peers during the course of that review in advance of a report being laid before Parliament.
Let me also be specific about what we intend to look at as part of that review. We will want to look at the impact of the application and collection charges on the behaviour of both parents and at the outcomes in terms of establishing effective maintenance arrangements. In our report to Parliament, we will make clear our intentions, including a specific view on the position of the poorest parents.
Lord Newton of Braintree
Briefly, may I just—in the form of a question, as I think is appropriate—ask my noble friend whether he is aware that I think that is a significantly generous response to my request for proper, genuine consultation and a real opportunity for the House to have a say?
Lord Freud
I am very grateful to my noble friend for that. In that spirit, I turn finally to my noble friend Lord Boswell’s Amendment 73BA. In doing so, I thank him for his contribution to today’s debate, which, as one would expect, was thoughtful and wise, as many other contributions have been, even those I have not necessarily agreed with.
We absolutely acknowledge the concerns around vulnerable groups, particularly parents with care. Although we will not further amend our current proposals, we want to ensure that, going forward, especially at the time of the review, we have the powers to evolve charges in line with evaluation. As I have stated, we especially want to consider the behavioural responses of parents and the outcomes they reach as part of our review. If in the light of evaluation and review we need to change our approach, I believe that Amendment 73BA clarifies that we would have the ability to do so under the 2008 Act. Therefore, I welcome Amendment 73BA and the Government wish to accept it.
Welfare Reform Bill
Lord Newton of Braintree Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Walton of Detchant
My Lords, I, too, wish to speak relatively briefly to this important amendment. In the course of my neurological training and in my career, I spent some time assessing children with cerebral palsy who attended the excellent Percy Hedley centre in Newcastle upon Tyne and received outstanding treatment. However, when I saw the varying degrees of disability produced by this group of conditions—a group of immense variability—and saw the effect that the condition of these children had on their families, sometimes leading to family breakdown, as the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, said, I became increasingly concerned about the evidence of the disability and the resultant poverty which developed in many of these families.
Some of my personal research was dealing with a progressive disease—Duchenne muscular dystrophy—where young boys born apparently normal would begin at about the age of three to have difficulty in walking. They then began to have problems with falling frequently and getting up from the floor, and progressively became increasingly disabled so that many of them were taken to a wheelchair by the time that they were aged 10. I saw the effect that this had when not just one but two boys might be affected in an individual family, and the problems faced by those parents were immense. I shall never forget one mother saying to me, “I see my son die a little every day”.
I am not talking just about static conditions such as cerebral palsy—although even in cerebral palsy as the child becomes older, the disability may remain neurologically non-progressive—but about the problems that begin to emerge over schooling and a whole series of other issues, which become increasingly important and increasingly matters for concern. I could go on about my personal experience in the field of neurology and paediatric neurology but I would simply say that this is a very worthwhile amendment, and one which deserves your Lordships' support.
Lord Newton of Braintree
My Lords, I wonder whether I might intervene briefly. I am in a slightly awkward position, and it may not surprise the House to know that I have been approached by all parties to this argument, either to say something on their side or to shut up. I am going to make a slightly ambivalent speech which will leave a lot depending on the Minister. I fully support the concerns that have been expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, by my noble friends Lady Thomas of Winchester and Lady Browning, and by others. The Government need to listen to this and take heed, and come forward with proposals which address these concerns.
In the light of what I said last week, it will not surprise the House to know that I do not think that setting benefit rates or benefit relationships in concrete in primary legislation is sensible. I would prefer that we leave it for Ministers to decide in regulations, as the Bill provides, provided it is clear that they are going to put something sensible in those regulations and that we shall have a proper opportunity to scrutinise them. It will follow from that that I want a positive response from the Minister before deciding what I am going to do.
I will make one further point, which picks up on what the noble Lord, Lord Walton, was saying. The other thing that strikes me about setting things in concrete is that this is a world in which things change very fast, because of medical advances. He referred to Duchenne muscular dystrophy. I think I have more knowledge of cystic fibrosis, where the world has moved on hugely in the past 20 or 30 years—not least because of work done at the hospital of which I used to be chairman, the Royal Brompton—and that is happening all over the scene. Conditions that were immediately life-threatening or life-limiting at a very early age are now more treatable, and life is longer. Anything that ties us down to an inflexible framework for dealing with these problems is probably not the right way forward.
That, though, is simply a view that I express to the House. My fundamental point is that this is better dealt with in regulations, provided we can ensure that the Government will do that. I look forward to hearing what my noble friend has to say.
Lord Newton of Braintree
I did not suggest that this was setting rates in concrete; I suggested that it was setting relationships between rates in concrete. That runs into the point that the noble Baroness just made and my earlier point: that there is a spectrum which changes over time.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
The noble Lord is precisely right and has therefore made my point for me. Precisely because that relationship may change over time, we do not want the cliff edge of being on either one-third or three-thirds of the rate. Precisely because, as he says, it changes over time, we want to reduce that cliff edge and not make such a sharp distinction in the spectrum of disability.
The final point that both the noble Lords, Lord German and Lord Newton, argued was that this should be in regulations because they believe in the benevolence of the Minister on the issue, as we all do. I am confident that the enemy of or opposition to the amendment is not the Minister. We know him, as we have been engaged in discussion in Committee and at Report. His principles, integrity, evidence and assiduity are without comparison. His enemy is the Treasury. I put to the House a simple question. Which does the House believe will most strengthen the Minister's arm in seeking to follow the wishes of the whole House as expressed today: leaving it to regulations which we cannot amend some way down the line—three months, six months, nine months or a year—when the Treasury can say “Go away”, as it said to me on many occasions; or passing an amendment today which would insist that the House of Commons and the Treasury think again? If they turn it over, I will be sorry about what I will regard as having happened to their moral compass, but that is their right and privilege.
I know that the noble Lord, Lord Freud, will have to read his script. I do not expect him to either confirm or deny this, but he will have to read out things that he would wish he could say differently. Whatever he may say, if we want to aid him today in his battle with the Treasury on behalf of the most vulnerable people in our entire society, we will support the amendment to establish the principle of proportionality in the Bill.
Welfare Reform Bill
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Lord Freud
My Lords, Clause 129 enables relevant information to be shared between DWP, local authorities and others for prescribed purposes relating to the operation and administration of welfare services and social security benefits. As thinking has developed in relation to new data-sharing arrangements, it has become apparent that we may want to supply social security benefit information to local authorities in connection with the administration of localised council tax schemes. These amendments will enable that, and will allow local authorities to share such information between and within themselves for the purposes prescribed. Making social security information available in this way will help local authorities design and deliver schemes that provide appropriate financial support to residents who are unable to meet the full cost of their council tax. I beg to move.
Lord Newton of Braintree
My Lords, I just want one penn’orth. I completely support these amendments, but they give me the opportunity which I missed earlier in these proceedings to record on the Floor of the House that the single silliest thing in this whole affair is the determination of the Department for Communities and Local Government to have separate council tax benefit systems in every corner of the country. That is a battle to be fought again on another day. I had devised an amendment that could have brought it up today, but I decided that discretion was the better part of valour at this stage. However, there is a local government finance Bill coming down the path. My noble friend—and, above all, his noble friends in the DCLG—should know that some of us are going to go on worrying away at this total absurdity, which I know is not supported in the DWP itself. These amendments may help to mitigate the effects but they will not completely eliminate them, and I shall go on trying to eliminate them.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, I concur completely with what the noble Lord, Lord Newton, has just said. We obviously will not oppose these amendments, but that should not be taken to mean that we are supportive of this proposition. When I say that I concur completely, I am not saying I am sure that this is the single silliest thing in this Bill—but it is certainly in the top 10. The briefing note that we had makes it clear that the support for council tax in future is likely to be based on a system of means-tested discounts. How on earth that can sit sensibly with universal credit and single tapers is a mystery to me. Maybe we will be enlightened when we get that legislation, which I think will come our way quite shortly. We could have a long debate around this today, as it is a real flaw in the universal credit, but I accept the need for this amendment, as it makes the data-sharing coherent.
Lord Newton of Braintree
My Lords, I can hope only that my noble friends on the Front Bench have already realised that Newton on Wednesday will not necessarily be the same as Newton on Monday. After Monday, I am amazed that the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, is still prepared to accord me hero status. I give her full credit for that. I do not know whether she regards me as adequate cavalry in substitute for the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, or, indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Blair, but here I am on my charger doing the best I can.
I indicated in the earlier debate that I was a heretical supporter of ring-fencing and that I did not want to see this Social Fund money frittered away on other things. All I am going to say now is that I agreed with every word that the noble Baroness said. I had better say straightforwardly to the Minister that if this amendment is pressed and we have not had what I regard as a satisfactory reply, I shall be strongly tempted to vote with the noble Baroness, should she press the matter. In saying this, I am linking it back with my earlier remarks. I have no doubt whatever that the obstacle here is not my noble friend—he cannot comment on this—but the DCLG. I do not think that the localism agenda should stand in the way of making sure that money spent for the purpose of these vulnerable people is spent on these vulnerable people. I therefore strongly support the thrust of the amendment.
Lord Skelmersdale
My Lords, the key to this amendment—I go a long way with my noble friend Lord Newton on what he has just said—is the settlement letter. What I think the House will need to know is what happens when the local government organisation in question does not abide by the settlement letter. On the answer to that, I suspect, will depend the decision of the noble Baroness on whether or not to call a Division.
Lord Morris of Aberavon
My Lords, I rise in support of the noble and learned Lord. This is my first intervention in this Bill and it will be brief. I hope that my experience as a constituency MP will be of some assistance to the House. In that capacity I was, I am sure like all MPs, overwhelmed by the number of cases arising from problems of dealing with the CSA. The majority were wives. Mine was a heavily industrialised constituency and industrial workers were not overpaid. The problem was trying to get two family incomes from one pot. All the difficulties arose from that. They were mostly, in fact all in my case, people of modest means. They came to their Member of Parliament because all else had failed. The CSA had failed. It did not have a glorious record. The proposal passed through the House of Commons far too quickly, almost on the nod. It was hardly questioned. It has been relaunched more than once. People at the top were moved but to no avail. From what I heard from the Minister a few minutes ago, this is yet another relaunch. I suspect that the burden on MPs, although I am now out of touch, has not lessened in recent years.
I was aghast when I read the proposal to have a charge. How will it assist people of very modest means before they avail themselves of existing machinery—however bad and unsuccessful it was in many cases? What is the purpose of imposing such a charge on the most vulnerable people? It reeks of unfairness and I support the noble and learned Lord.
Lord Newton of Braintree
My Lords, if anyone wondered why I moved from my earlier position, they would have guessed that it was to stand shoulder to shoulder with my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay. He and I were in cahoots over the attempts to tackle this problem 20 years ago. We were in cahoots with what was said in Committee on this matter, and I have made it clear that I intend to remain in cahoots with him on this amendment.
I have not been at the meetings, but I have had a number of conversations with Ministers and I give them credit for being willing to talk to me as well. I think that my noble friend in front of me will acknowledge that I have consistently said that if they could satisfy my noble and learned friend, I would not seek to push it, but if they could not satisfy him, I would stick with him. Essentially, I share his views. I do not think that it is fair, right or productive. The letter that presumably went to everybody in the House was mostly convincing. I have no problem with the case for reform or the desire to cut the costs. I have no problem with the desire to encourage people to collaborate voluntarily. What I have a problem with is that I do not think that those general points connect to the conclusion that my noble and learned friend’s amendment is wrong. I shall vote for it if he decides to press it, following what has been said.
It is a simple position. I will not rehearse his arguments or seek to elaborate them. I shall make only one other point which relates to the 13-month review. I am in favour of a review, but the case for reviewing it after experience is stronger on the basis put by my noble and learned friend than on the basis put by my noble friend the Minister. If there is evidence that it is discouraging sensible, voluntary arrangements in the interests of children, we can look at it again then. I do not believe that it will—and this would need to be shown before we changed from the basic, fundamental proposition that it is not right, fair or just for a parent with care to have money deducted on these grounds from the money paid for her children.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
My Lords, in the family courts the welfare of children is paramount. It is particularly important to remember that in relation to the amendment that the noble and learned Lord moved, which I very strongly support. I have absolute, practical experience as a family barrister and judge, from long before the CSA came into being and took that work from judges. I have vivid recollections of a certain group of parents, principally fathers but occasionally mothers, who absolutely would not pay. There was no point in even asking them—although I understand why the Minister thinks that they should be asked. They would do everything in their power not to pay. The only way they can be got at now is through the commission. It can only do a better job than the CSA, which profoundly failed at the task it was set.
These parents will not pay, and the idea that a mother in very poor circumstances, left with young children by the father, may find herself having to seek social benefit from the state, which she may not have sought before, when the father may have money while she has nothing that the state does not provide, and may then have to pay a fee to try to get money for the welfare of her children, particularly where she has no money and the father may have some, is profoundly unfair. I respectfully and strongly support the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, and hope that the House will support him, too.
Welfare Reform Bill
Lord Newton of Braintree Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Fowler
My Lords, it is not my habit to trample on the territory of my Conservative social security successors, but perhaps I could just intervene briefly. First, by common consent, we are at a time when public spending needs to be drawn back. The total social security and pensions bill at the moment is £200 billion. The truth is that if the social security budget is to be subject to all kinds of exceptions, we might as well not start the whole process of looking for social security economies. I say this as a former Secretary of State who worked closely with my noble friend Lord Newton, to whom I pay sincere and undying tribute. We spent six years fighting battles on the one hand with the Treasury and on the other with different welfare groups, not always successfully. Rummaging through my desk at the weekend, I found a badge that was distributed when I was Secretary of State, which says, “Action for benefits—more not less from DHSS. Stop Fowler’s cuts”, so this is not remotely the first Government who have sought to limit the social security bill. Nor is it remotely the first Government who have run into flak. I would claim, and I think that anyone with responsibility in a department for social security would confirm this, that it is almost impossible to make changes in the social security budget without running into controversy and flak.
One of the most extraordinary things about the proposal which the Government are now putting forward is that, first, the public seem to be overwhelmingly on the side of making this change. Secondly, on the cap that is being set, £26,000 per annum—the equal of £35,000 a year before tax—is a not ungenerous limit, and most people in this country would regard it in that way. On the cap itself, we tend to get into figures that rather overegg the number affected. I am not going to downplay this, but we should accept that the number is 67,000 households, or perhaps a little more than that on the latest figures: that is, only 1 per cent of the total claimant population.
As I say, everything must be done to prevent hardship to such people. One of the rather irritating things about how this debate is being organised is that the debate on the next amendment will be very similar to this one, so, if I may, I will discuss during the next debate some of the measures that can be taken to prevent that hardship. However, first and foremost, this change will be introduced in 2013, so we have the time to sort out the problems before that change takes place. We really cannot have the situation in which beneficiaries living in houses that they cannot afford, or could not afford when in work, will never be able to get back into work because of that situation.
Perhaps I may say this to the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, who proposed this amendment. I am rather intrigued by where the Opposition stand on these issues. The noble Lord started with how much he supported the principle of the changes, but ended with words about human misery being caused by them. I had rather gathered from their Commons spokesman that the Opposition supported the changes and did not intend to try and vote them down. I simply point out to the House that they have so far supported amendments that, far from saving money, will cost, I am told, something like £5 billion over the next five years. I do not want to be offensive—or no more than usual—but their policy seems to be one of, “Now you see it, now you don't”, and, frankly, mostly we do not. Goodness knows how much they would have spent had they not supported the principle of the Government’s policies, so it would be fair for us to ask the noble Lord where precisely the Opposition stand on this issue.
Above all, I put it to the House that there is a very great prize in the Government's plans: that of universal credit, which both parties have been seeking to achieve for the past half-century. That prize is something worth fighting for and the benefit cap is a crucial part of it. There is no question that the Government’s own plans allow us to deal with the 1 per cent who will be adversely affected. The amendment should be opposed and the Government’s policy should be supported.
Lord Newton of Braintree
Irresistibly, in view of what my noble friend Lord Fowler has said, I find it necessary to make what I hope will be a brief intervention.
This is a rather grandiose claim but I am going to make it: probably I alone, but certainly I and my noble friend together, have more experience of social security and its reform than any other people in history, let alone currently present in your Lordships’ House. We had our difficulties and our rows with the Treasury and, as my noble friend has just said, we would have given our eye teeth to have been able to bring forward this proposal for a universal credit, which is a huge achievement by the Secretary of State and the Minister on our Front Bench together. Everyone acknowledges that and supports it, yet now large numbers of people are trying to shoot it full of holes before it is even off the launch pad. That is not sensible.
I am not going to put a lot of weight on the point about deficit reduction. It is valid but others have made and will make it, and people can make up their own minds about how important it is. Personally, having caused some trouble for the Government on this on a number of occasions, I do not think it sensible or reasonable to go on voting twice a week, in whatever form, to make the deficit worse than it otherwise would be. That is all I will say; if people want to do it, they can.
I have a straightforward social security reason for being opposed to this and every other amendment on our agenda today. It is a great pity, as my noble friend said, that they are being debated in such a disorderly fashion; there are linkages between all of them. For example, the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote, on regional variations in housing clearly links with what we are discussing at the moment, and it would have been far better if these things had been discussed together.
For a long while as Social Security Minister—I was sometimes attacked for this—I made sure that social security legislation left wide powers in secondary legislation because you would never get it all right in primary legislation and you needed the flexibility to be able to respond to the things that you had not spotted in advance. However much work you do, that will happen. There is no doubt, though, that we have here a series of amendments, designed—some of them pretty hastily and off the cuff—to write requirements and restraints into the primary legislation that would certainly prove a drag when the detailed work was done.
As with the DLA last week, there is a right course for the House to take, and I will join it in taking it. Ministers know from me, privately and publicly, the importance that I attach to transitional measures and protection, but the place for that is in the secondary legislation. If the House wants to vote for enhanced affirmative procedures, as I said last week, I would be inclined to support that so that we would all get a proper opportunity to consider the detail when it had been done. However, I am not in favour of tying the Government’s hands and writing anything into the concrete of primary legislation that we shall regret in six or eight months’ time. I hope that the House will accept that and not vote to put this stuff in, in the way that is proposed today.
Lord Newton of Braintree
My Lords, I had not intended to speak again, having had my say earlier, and will not repeat what I said, although I cleave to the view that this is not a sensible way to deal with these problems; they should be dealt with in secondary legislation. In that, I embrace the comments made by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, about people taking in other people's children and the need to be sensitive to issues that could arise there. Indeed, I remember noticing while I was in not another place but another location during the first week of discussion on the Bill that a lady in Huntingdon, I think, was reported to have taken in five children of friends of hers, both of whom had died in a short space of time. Others may have noticed the story. Such a case, and others raised in an amendment by the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, need consideration in detail, but we cannot do that on the Floor of the House in discussing amendments to primary legislation.
I need no encouragement in willingness to hold Ministers’ feet to the fire about addressing some of those detailed problems, but I question whether it can be done in this way. My noble friend Lord Kirkwood is a real friend. I cannot remember the last time that I disagreed with him. He is clearly out to be more reverend than the Bishops’ Bench in his defence of no benefit cap at all. He makes his case. He suggests that it is not incompatible with his support for universal credit. Fundamentally, his position is hostile to the intention of universal credit, which is to diminish the number of people who cannot afford to work.
I must say to the right reverend Prelate that the basic point about the amendment is that it raises the level of the benefit cap. There may be an argument for that, but that is what it does. There is a knock-on effect of that. It must increase the number of people who cannot afford to work. That is a matter of logic. It must do. The more children you have, the less likely it is that you will be able to afford to work, because you will not necessarily be able to command earnings which will replace the benefit. That is the core of the problem that we are seeking to address.
The right reverend Prelates may want to do that; they may think that it is right; but it needs to be straightforwardly stated, in the context in which many people have said—I do not make a judgment on this—that the worst thing that can happen to children is to be trapped in a household which cannot afford to work, in which they have never known anyone in the household in work. Keith Joseph used to have a phrase for that: the cycle of deprivation. We are not free of it. We need to take account of it. People can draw their own conclusions about the right level, but we need to know what we are doing.
As I said, I hesitate to challenge the right reverend Prelates, but they are making life easier for some in financial terms but worse in what I would regard as a sensible way to approach social policy. They may have put figures on that; they may not; but that is my view.
Lord Greaves
Does my noble friend accept that the logic of what he is saying is that child benefit should be abolished for everybody who does not have a job?
Lord Newton of Braintree
I meant to say at the beginning, but I do not think I did, that if anyone can be held responsible for the continued existence of child benefit in this country, it is me. In the late 1980s, it had not been uprated for two or three years. I became Secretary of State for Social Security. I fought tooth and nail to reintroduce the uprating of child benefit.
I had a lot of battles with a lot of colleagues and managed to do it in the form of introducing the increased rate for the eldest child—the first child—which was laughed at at the time but appears again to have stood the test of time. I yield to no one as a defender of child benefit and I certainly do not want to abolish it. I have reservations about the Government’s proposals on taxing it—they will come up at another time—but I will not be accused of being hostile to child benefit. I am simply saying that I support it but I also support the objective of ensuring that children are in households where it pays for the people involved to work if possible.
Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon
I am most grateful to the noble Lord for making the point. Indeed, he deserves all the credit for child benefit—he does not claim it as he is not an immodest man—and millions in this country owe him a great debt. The question that puzzles me, and perhaps he can help, is: how is it right, morally or otherwise, to deny child benefit to somebody on £26,000 a year when they get it on £80,000?
Lord Newton of Braintree
The issue is at what level the benefit cap should be set, and whether to set a different level that automatically puts people with children, depending on the number, in a position in which fewer of them can afford to take jobs at the rates they are likely to be able to command. It is a matter of judgment not of fact. It is an issue that cannot be evaded, but it has been evaded in a lot of the discussion we have had tonight. I will not vote for the amendment but I will not dismiss the concerns, particularly those addressed by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. They need to be addressed by Ministers in working out the detail. I repeat my phrase that I will join in on holding their feet to the fire but I will not join in on this rather hasty and ill considered amendment today.
The Lord Bishop of Chichester
My Lords, I was very tempted to intervene in the middle of what the noble Lord, Lord Newton, was saying when he accused the Bishops of suggesting that we wished to have no cap at all. I have not heard one of us say that, but I am glad that I did not intervene as he then admitted that he did not really mean that and talked about us trying to raise the level of the cap. I am glad that I was patient.
I do not want to intrude on what my friend the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds will say later, but I want to address something that has not come up yet. Quite a lot has been said about the popularity of this Bill, particularly the cap. One has to be fairly careful about being too quick in response to vox pop when making legislation. If we were debating capital punishment, for example, I suspect that many of the same things would be said. If we were to tease out what public opinion was concerned about, I suspect that we would probably find a remarkable unanimity of view within the House about the end we want, but the question of limitation is important. There have to be limitations on benefits and there have to be limitations on all sorts of other things, such as rents, but that point has already been made. I suspect that there would be a remarkable degree of agreement about the need to incentivise people to work and encourage a culture in which society as a whole sees the point of work, and particularly that young people are educated with a vision and the desirability of a career.
Finally, I suspect that there would be considerable sympathy and recognition of the dependency culture that we have inadvertently allowed to develop, and out of which we need to enable society as a whole to grow. The question is: who bears the price of that change and in what time does it change? I agree entirely—I suspect that I have the mind of my colleagues on this—that we need to change the mind of society on how we address a number of things. This Bill, properly refined, could well contribute towards that. We also have to help to educate public opinion in the way in which it responds to vox pop surveys. I suspect that another thing on which people would agree—we might find a high degree of popular agreement—is that in the provision for children in their homes, their education, and the stability of their family lives lie the best possible foundation for the future. If you ask people that question rather than some others that get knee-jerk reactions, I suspect that we would find much greater unanimity in the country about what we are trying to achieve. I suggest caution on having too easy a reliance on popular opinion polls.
Welfare Reform Bill
Lord Newton of Braintree Excerpts(12 years, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Sherlock
My Lords, I want to speak in favour of all these amendments and to ask a question about Amendment 50ZB. When we discussed the Social Fund on our previous day on Report, I raised the fact that the Office of the Children’s Commissioner had published the Child Rights Impact Assessment of the Welfare Reform Bill. I understand that at that point the Minister had not had the opportunity to read the assessment in any detail, but I wonder whether he has had the chance to read it since then and, if so, whether he can assure the House about the line that says:
“In failing to guarantee that crisis support is available for children fleeing an abusive home with their parent/carer, the clauses abolishing the Social Fund fail to take all appropriate legislative measures to protect children from domestic abuse and we therefore believe they are in breach of Article 19”,
of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. That goes to the heart of the point which the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, has just raised. People might have a very good reason to cross boundaries. If one were fleeing domestic violence, that would be a good reason not to move to the neighbouring street, as I am sure the noble Lord would accept. How can the Government guarantee that local authorities will give appropriate support to children and families in that circumstance, and how can they prove that the UK will discharge its responsibilities under this convention?
Lord Newton of Braintree
My Lords, I speak as a heretic who is even now probably having his burning at the stake prepared by the Secretary of State for Local Government, my right honourable friend Eric Pickles, because I believe in ring-fencing. I have always thought it daft that Governments make available for a specific purpose money that is then spent by other people on something else. The Government get the blame for not having provided the money and everyone else gets the credit when anything good happens. I do not think that is sensible. However, it is a brick wall against which I do not propose to bang my head this afternoon.
The suggestion of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister—that if local authorities are going to have this money, they should at least be required to account for it—is a good one. I am slightly scarred by my experience as chairman—although I am no longer—of Help the Hospices; the previous Government allegedly made £50 million available but no one ever found it. It disappeared into thin air. I do not want to see that happen here. I do not want to see it spent on swimming pools, or campaigns, or many other good causes, when it is intended for people with severe disabilities.
Lord Newton of Braintree
My Lords, for the second time today I feel that I need to say something, however brief, because of my history. Just as I engaged in badinage earlier with the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, about the Social Fund, I now have to declare to the House—possibly as a proud boast—that as a Minister I was responsible for introducing the disability living allowance in the early 1990s. I was given huge help by someone who deserves a great deal of credit, namely my former and unhappily now late colleague, Nick Scott, whom some noble Lords in the House today will remember with respect and affection.
On that occasion, we cobbled together a slightly curious construction based on the existing benefits of mobility allowance and attendance allowance, using the maximum amount of money I could extract from the Treasury at the time, to extend help to various groups who had previously been excluded, including the mentally ill. Perhaps we did a better job than I thought at the time because it has not only stood the test of 20 years but has survived with people now seeking to defend it against all comers, in much the same way as they defend the Social Fund.
What I say to the House may be uncomfortable for the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, and the noble Lord, Lord Low, for whom I genuinely have huge respect. This is not flannel; they are immensely valuable Members of this House. However, I have been taken down a different path. If somebody had told me 20 years ago that that structure was to be seen as anything near a settled state for 20 years, I would have been surprised, because there were obvious ways in which it could have been developed and carried forward to build on what we had achieved at the time. That is what the Government now seek to do. I say to the noble Baroness that I am not sure that it is right now to try to slow down the process by yet another review after the many that we have had.
Only yesterday the Government published a revised review of the assessment process. I accept that neither I nor anybody else has had a chance to digest it. However, it makes it crystal clear—this picks up on the second half of the noble Baroness's amendment—that this will be worked through steadily and carefully, in conjunction with organisations representing disabled people. I assume that account will be taken of the results of that consultation. Of course I accept that it would be nicer in a perfect world if we had all the details now, and that there will need to be a good deal of tweaking—or perhaps more than tweaking—as the consultation proceeds. However, I also accept that we have a Minister who knows his stuff, who cares about the subject and who has shown himself to be willing to listen to those representations. We should let him get on with it.
I do not accept the tenor of the e-mails that jammed my system from yesterday through the early hours of the morning into today, which suggested that the Government had a dastardly plot to do down disabled people. It is not the case, and I would not say this if I believed that for a moment. It is clear to me, having glanced at some of the e-mails—I have not been able to read them—that a number of them came from people who will not only not lose but may well gain from the proposals that the Government made. I hope that the senders will reflect on that.
This is not the moment for the House to agree this amendment. If we want to agree amendments, I suggest that between now and Report both the Minister and the House might reflect on the desirability of some extra-affirmative procedure of the kind used in the Public Bodies Bill for affirmative resolutions—I hope that they will be affirmative—that will come forward as a result of all the consultation. That would be far more productive than trying to slow the whole thing down with another review.
I have other points to make but the hour is late and the House wants to get on, so I will conclude by saying that at the end of the day I speak only for myself when I say that this would certainly cause delay, and would almost certainly add to the cost of an already expensive government programme. There may be smaller issues later, including those espoused by my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay, on which I may take a different view; but this amendment is strategic, damaging and mistaken, and I hope that noble Lords in all quarters of the House will join me in opposing it if it is pressed to a Division.
Baroness Browning
In the context of this amendment and the ability of health and social services to carry out their statutory responsibilities under the Autism Act, will my noble friend agree to take a look the number of people who currently have DLA but are predicted to lose it? There is a read-across here, because small levels of support have been identified as having prevented people taking their place in society and gaining independent living.
As I mentioned previously, I am concerned that as regards those who will lose the allowance—some will and others who apply in the future will not get it—the measure is going to have an impact on the way in which we have required health and social services to implement the Autism Act. Does my noble friend agree that there will be some hardship for those who lose it and that we have to face up to that reality, and that the Government should have a clear and examined view of how they are going to square that with the new statutory responsibility?
Welfare Reform Bill
Lord Newton of Braintree Excerpts(13 years ago)
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Lord Wigley
My Lords, I rise to speak in support of Amendment 12, indeed Amendment 14 as it was, and other amendments. If some of these amendments are not passed, there will most certainly need to be exemptions built in somehow or other, as the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, said a moment ago, or a lot of vulnerable people are going to suffer. I am concerned about the impact of the Government’s proposals in relation to underoccupancy as they affect disabled people, including, particularly, those with learning disabilities. The Government will already be aware of concerns from the representations that have been made by Mencap —the noble Lord, Lord Rix, apologises that he cannot be here today. Numerous other organisations with an interest in this issue have also pressed the point that there is already a large shortage of suitably sized properties available to people who would under the new rules be deemed to be underoccupying their homes.
Furthermore, representations have also been made that there are around 100,000 properties that have been adapted specifically to suit the needs of the individuals living in them who would be affected by the new rules, meaning that should the occupiers have to move, new adaptations would have to be paid for, which seems a rather less than sensible outcome.
People with a learning disability regarded as underoccupying their home in the social rented sector will lose some of their housing benefit and have to make up the shortfall themselves. If they are unable to afford this, they will have no choice but to move to a different home. Very often, people with a learning disability will have established strong networks of friends locally, as well as family and support staff, and may not be in a position to adapt to the stress and anxiety of moving to a new home. The greater the distance from these networks, the greater the potential anxiety will be for them.
I am concerned that some disabled people will either face a reduction in their income or have no choice but to move home as a consequence of the Bill’s proposals. That is why I support the amendment.
Lord Newton of Braintree
My Lords, I apologise for once again coming in a bit late to the debate. On this occasion, I was at a meeting outside London and got badly held up by the demo currently taking place in Whitehall.
I should declare an indirect interest in that my wife, as I think most in the House know, is a cabinet member of Braintree District Council and has a strong interest in social housing matters. I nevertheless wish to speak because, had the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds not pipped me at the post, my name would have been on this amendment. I strongly support it and agree particularly with the words that have been uttered by my noble friend Lord Kirkwood.
I am not in a position as a result of my lateness to repeat all the arguments of the noble Lord, Lord Best, because I have not heard them. I have no doubt that, had I heard them, I would have agreed with them, because I have discussed the matter with him on a number of occasions.
I simply want to bring a bit of information from the coalface, as opposed to the rarefied atmosphere of Whitehall policy discussions. I happen to have in my hand a note issued by Braintree District Council about the new rules on underoccupancy. It thinks that these have probably the most far-reaching policy impact of any of the changes in the Bill. It makes the point that it applies different, more generous rules than those that are nationally applied to tenants claiming housing benefit. It gives priority for a family to move when the oldest child is five years old or more, not 10, and it recognises that this policy of using the younger age of five will be wrecked by the Bill.
Similarly, it tries to rehouse people in advance of change, because of the delays that occur if they need a three-bedroom or four-bedroom house. I shall not quote the whole document, but it states that people are likely to wait for more than a year to move in the case of needing a four-bed property and a long time where they have children growing up. Let me quote just one sentence:
“We therefore felt that it was better that a family, for example, with a boy aged 8 and a girl aged 6 should move to a home with 3 bedrooms and not be allocated a 2 bed and have to move again shortly afterwards. We felt this was better for neighbourhoods, for children’s schooling and so on, as well as reducing the pressure on our allocations process”.
That makes complete social sense to me.
I say in passing, as another illustration of one of my concerns about government policy as a whole, that we have just passed a Localism Act purporting to give local authorities greater freedom to make this kind of choice, and we now seek to pass a Welfare Reform Act telling them that localism is neither here nor there—they will do what they are told by central government. Somebody might perhaps try to explain.
There are a number of other examples from the note that I could quote, but let me quote an additional note that should ring a bell at least on these Benches, about the rural effect. This was a subsequent note, which I happen to have in my hand, and it relates to a large village, which I shall not name, in the Braintree district. Greenfields—that is the housing association—gives details of what housing it has in this village and goes on to say:
“This is a good example of a location where potentially, people claiming benefit would be forced to leave if they could not afford the extra rent to stay in the family home. [The village] is interesting because it is a relatively big village with a high overall level of stock and yet the balance of homes makes this policy a real problem for people needing to downsize from a 3 bed to a 2 bed. Clearly, people in smaller villages”—
many rural—
“are likely to face even more acute problems if they need to downsize. Given that we come under pressure to give people a priority to stay in villages, the policy looks like it may achieve the opposite”.
The rural effects of this are not to be underestimated and my guess is that my noble friend’s colleagues in the Commons will face a barrage if and when this comes into effect. Indeed, I would venture to say that if this comes into effect less than two years before an election, with the impact that could be involved in some of the figures that have been discussed, it will not last five minutes when it starts.
Lord Stoneham of Droxford
My Lords, I declare an interest as chair of First Wessex Housing Association and Housing 21. I am pleased to speak in this debate initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Best. I think everyone in the House today understands the extreme pressure of the need to reduce the housing benefit budget and to tackle the issue of underoccupancy at a time of housing shortages. We should not forget that underoccupancy of social housing is nearly matched by 50 per cent overoccupancy.
In Committee, the Minister set an objective for the changes he was proposing. He said:
“Housing benefit … will become more balanced in a way that will restore fairness, encourage better use of our existing social housing stock and encourage more people into employment”.—[Official Report, 18/11/11; col. GC 71.]
The problem is that the market for social housing is not flexible; it is quite rigid. It is a fight to get a home and, in severe shortages, requirements and needs are not easily matched. We wish we had a situation where people could have a better choice, but it is simply not possible. What we have available in any locality is way short of need, and often what is available cannot specifically match need. On the issue of underoccupancy, we know that there will be something like 180,000 under retirement age who want to move but that the annual available housing for them is about one-third of this.
Housing requirements change through life. In a rigid market where people cannot easily match their requirements to supply, some flexibility is required. Otherwise, allocations will be even more difficult. The Minister’s objective—balance to restore fairness—will not be fair if an individual wants to move home and cannot. The person will have to find extra income and, in the current economic climate, as my noble friend Lord Kirkwood, said, it will be extremely dubious whether they will be able to find the significant extra income they need. Let us not forget that in this situation—my noble friend also referred to this—underoccupation is greater in the north, and so there is a regional dimension. Thirty pounds a week is a lot of money for people least able to afford it, and 150,000 households will have to find nearly twice that.
The Minister also said that one of the objectives is to provide balance to make better use of our existing stock, but the reality is that the existing rigidities will be distorted by this change. Available new housing stock will now have to be used to move people. The people who probably need the most encouragement to move are those who are retired—who are underoccupying—and we will not now have the facility to move them. They are the people whose household costs need to be reduced. Indeed, we improve the housing benefit bill by moving them. As the housing stock is re-let, we will be required under the Government’s housing benefit reforms to let some of these houses at affordable rents. So for those people who take on that stock, we will probably be paying out a higher proportion in housing benefit.
The Minister gave us, in his Committee speech, figures from the future network. Under the claimants benefit research, he said that of the 670,000, 25 per cent want to move; 50 per cent will not move; 29 per cent are looking for increased work and income—which is going to be difficult; 15 per cent say that they will take in a lodger, and 35 per cent are said to be likely to go into arrears. Those are pretty dramatic figures. He also said that over the next couple of years we will look at putting strategies in place to make sure that this does not happen. The problem is we only have 15 months in which to do this, not a couple of years, as the measure comes in in April 2013. That is madness.
We have already heard this referred to as a room tax. In fact, in Committee, somebody referred to the window tax. It was not in the time of Queen Anne, as the Minister mentioned; it was William and Mary—1696. I looked it up; two shillings per window. That is interesting; £11.20 in real money—it is not much different. I am assured also by the research that the phrase “daylight robbery” did not originate from that time. We can imagine, however, the political campaign—and the slogans—should this room tax come in on a single day. I do not fancy the Chancellor—I hope my colleagues will remember this—standing up in March 2013 to give his Budget speech when in April 2013 this change will be coming in. I bet you he will have to move politically at that time, even if he does not move now.
We have to expect that 25 per cent of people will move. How is this to be organised in 15 months? There are not enough houses being built to do this. Housing associations do not even know how many and who will be affected. There is a lack of information. What are the strategies? What must the Government do in this situation? What do they need to say today?
The first proposal is that of the noble Lord, Lord Best: allow an extra room for flexibility. It is probably the best proposal, but—as we will be told—this will take £300 million of the £500 million savings. It is not actually a great deal of money. I just ask the House to think what the Chancellor will be thinking in March 2013. It is not clear that the £300 million in savings will come through. I expect that a lot of children and other relatives will suddenly emerge in these houses. Re-lets, as I have already mentioned, would lead to higher housing benefit claims. There are also the costs of moving, plus the costs of discretionary housing grants, and so on. Retired people who we want to move into smaller accommodation—saving housing benefit and saving their household costs—will not be able to move.
The second proposal is to extend the transition so it coincides at a minimum with the anniversary of tenancies; that ideally, as the Minister has already said, we should spread this change over a couple of years so that people can adjust. If you are trying to take from the poorest people these sums of money, they need time to adjust. So do the housing associations and the housing providers. They need time to adjust to allow a better transition, to allow the adjustments in housing stock. We cannot expect everybody to simply change on day one in 15 months’ time.
The third option is to extend discretionary housing grants. We hear this on each occasion, but we are not sure how that is going to be administered.
I urge the Government to move on this issue, for sensible housing requirements, for fairness and for assuring that the poorest and the least resourced will not assume a significant burden at a very difficult time. Above all, the providers also need time and flexibility to adjust the housing supply to the new demands and the new needs.
Welfare Reform Bill
Lord Newton of Braintree Excerpts(13 years ago)
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Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville
My Lords, I reassure the government Chief Whip that I intend to speak no more on Report than I did in Grand Committee; nor will I speak on the substance of this matter except early on Report to thank the Minister for providing upstairs on Thursday afternoon the opportunity to discuss this issue, among others, on an all-party basis. I think it would be in the spirit of the comradeship that we developed in Grand Committee to suggest that, following the graciousness with which the government Chief Whip rescued us from the procedural imbroglio at the start of this group, he or the Minister should, before we leave this group, confirm my understanding that on a group of amendments, in the absence of the first name on the Order Paper, anyone in your Lordships’ House can move the first amendment on their behalf without necessarily speaking to it, but that no one can speak on the subsequent amendments in the group unless this initial formality has been discharged.
Lord Newton of Braintree
My Lords, I do not know whether the Minister wants to give guidance on that point or to take it up later. I want to intervene briefly, and slightly apologetically, because, like the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, I was a bit late on the scene, but I am conscious that I played some part on this subject in Committee, so I think that it would be wrong to keep my head completely down in this debate.
I differ from my noble friend Lord Kirkwood in one respect; I think that the objective of what the Secretary of State describes as culture change in this field is not unworthy. Apart from that, I agree with pretty well everything that the noble Lord said. However, we need to remember something I learnt in various roles, including in my early years as a junior Social Security Minister when I became, it was be fair to say, friends, more or less, with the noble Baroness, Lady Lister. As I said in another context recently, culture change is not an event; it is a process. It takes time and not everyone will get through it. In an organisation, if you want a culture change and people cannot accommodate it, sooner or later they and the organisation have to part company, and they do something else.
This is the social security system, and people cannot part company with it. There is nowhere else for them to go, and we cannot abandon them. There is therefore real force in some of the concerns that are being expressed. Some people, such as those I tried to help in my former constituency, simply will not be able to manage. What are we going to do about them? As I say, we cannot abandon them. I might say that this will feed into something that is coming up later: whether rent should be paid directly to landlords. In some cases, where they cannot manage they will put the food for the baby first and the rent will not be paid. Then there will be another little problem, and someone will have to sort them out. Let us not pretend that this is easy, even if the objective is worth while.
I am not sure—and here I look with some trepidation at the noble Baroness, Lady Lister—that inserting into the Bill an insistence on ossifying fortnightly payments is right. The Bill already provides for some flexibility. Some benefits—including disability living allowance, I think I am right in saying—are paid monthly. This is not a simple picture. We do, however, need that flexibility where it is clear that failing to pay at more frequent intervals will multiply problems, difficulties and further costs in other parts of the system. The Bill allows for that, and I welcome that, but we need clear indication from the Minister this afternoon that this flexibility will be used.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, first, I thank the government French Bench for facilitating the debate on these three amendments, after the hiccup we had at the start, and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, for his helpful advice. I say to the noble Lord, Lord German, in respect of his comments on Amendment 3, that I take the point. If he wants, perhaps, a more iterative process, I am happy to accept an amendment to our amendment. I am bound to say that we rather learnt about calling for reviews from the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives when we were in government—it has the merit of generally not having much of a price tag attached to it.
We start our deliberations on Report by considering the important aspect of how universal credit would work—that is, how payment would be affected, especially the frequency of the payment. However, let me first put in context our approach to the general issue. As we have clearly stated on the record, we support the concept and broad approach of universal credit, a benefit system that provides in-and-out-of-work support, as a clear system of the income disregards and common tapers has significant potential, not least the prospect of clearer incentives for work.
As has been apparent from our Committee sessions, and the matters that we will discuss on Report, the manner in which it is proposed to be introduced is, we believe, flawed. Some of the shortcomings are resource issues—work incentives for second earners—but some are potential failings in the base architecture: the exclusion of council tax benefit; the treatment of self-employed people; and, also, the payment arrangements. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, that this is not a peripheral operation or issue—this is central to how the system should work.
We will come on to discuss issues about which member of the couple should receive payment and how landlords are to be treated—as the noble Lord, Lord Newton, has indicated. The amendments we are considering now address the vital matter of frequency of payment. Amendment 3, tabled in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Hayter, calls for,
“a review into the impact of payment arrangements on claimants, to conclude one year after the coming into force of this Act”.
I will acknowledge that it might be more appropriately triggered by the universal credit provisions coming into force. We see this review focusing on the impact on claimants by looking at it from the claimant’s perspective. In Grand Committee on 10 October this year, at col. GC 440, the Minister referred to the research being undertaken, particularly around the frequency of payment. An obligation to undertake an early review of how things are working in practice and a report to Parliament would be entirely consistent with the Government’s evidence-based approach to this issue.
We know that at present JSA is paid fortnightly in arrears, that ESA is normally paid fortnightly in arrears, income support is normally paid fortnightly in arrears, and that tax credits are paid on request either weekly or every four weeks, although I think one would acknowledge that HMRC has an overriding discretion in that respect. Housing benefit is normally payable in arrears at intervals of a week, two weeks, four weeks or one month, but as I understand it, if the rent allowance is greater than £2 a week, the claimant can require it to be paid fortnightly. So in having for universal credit the norm as monthly payments, the Government are clearly not seeking to get the best fit with the current components that are to be displaced. Indeed, I think that the Minister and this debate have acknowledged that. He said on the same occasion in Grand Committee:
“With this system, we are one of the drivers of the way people behave and of social change”.—[Official Report, 10/10/11; col. GC 441.]
I support the comments that have been made by a number of contributors, including by my noble friend Lady Sherlock, about culture change, but culture change to what effect in this respect? We understand and accept the thrust of a system that encourages people into work and helps them to understand the benefits of work by seeing its financial rewards, but what is so important about trying to encourage people to get used to a monthly payment and budgetary arrangement rather than one on a different basis, even if they were in a position to do that? The noble Lord, Lord Freud, also referred in Grand Committee to his search for flexibility. If this is an acknowledgment that monthly does not have to be the rigid approach to payment, we may be closer on this issue than perhaps we thought.
We heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, my noble friend Lady Lister and other noble Lords about compelling reasons why payments on a monthly basis will create particular difficulties for some families, and not just a small minority of supposedly inadequate budgeters. As for mimicking work, which we have heard as well, while 75 per cent of those in employment are paid monthly, 25 per cent are not and half of those earning £10,000 a year or less are paid less frequently than monthly. We heard in Committee and again today about the growth in the business of payday loans. Recent surveys show that nearly half of the population struggles to make earnings stretch until payday, with 7 per cent considering taking out a high interest short-term loan within the next six months. The issue of how to stop the exploitation of poor people is a debate that I hope we will have on another day.
Amendment 1, eventually moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, would require regulations to be drawn up giving claimants the opportunity to require payment of their universal credit entitlement more frequently than would otherwise flow from Clause 7. We support this amendment and so, we hope, will the Minister, because it seems to fit foursquare with his acceptance of the need for flexibility. Obviously the regulations would have to set out practical parameters to the choice available to claimants, but this should include a fortnightly option. The Minister will know also that it would not preclude arrangements where a claimant could draw down against a monthly entitlement. It would be consistent with that. Neither would it preclude the Minister from retaining the distinction between the assessment period and frequency of payment, a point made by my noble friend Lady Lister.
It is understood that the Minister may argue that the issue of frequency of payment can be addressed by the development of new banking products and that he would not wish the Bill to preclude that. That is fair enough, but we consider that the thrust of the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, would not shut out those types of options provided that there are arrangements with parameters dealt with in regulation for claimants to choose. But we do not know today that these banking products can be delivered in time for the introduction of universal credit, whether they can be comprehensively available and without high cost. Without that certainty, it is right that something is included in the Bill along the lines of Amendment 1.
Perhaps the Minister will take the opportunity to update us on the Government’s thinking in this area, as other noble Lords have requested. In particular, do they support the proposition that there should be flexibility within sensible and practicable parameters of receipt patterns? Should there be a right for claimants to choose within these parameters? Can he confirm that the arrangements being considered are not just about drawing down on a monthly payment already made in arrears?
Amendment 2 is more clear-cut and, I think, more to the liking of the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood. It sets down a requirement for amounts to be paid fortnightly. It has the merit of being clear and closest to the current patterns of receipt, making it slightly more manageable to exist from payday to payday. We support the amendment as an alternative proposition should Amendment 1 be rejected or fail today.
Welfare Reform Bill
Lord Newton of Braintree Excerpts(13 years ago)
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Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, I am moving this amendment precisely because I strongly support universal credit. If the House agrees with me in supporting universal credit, I suggest in all decorum that it should also support this amendment.
At the moment, council tax benefit is a social security benefit—a national benefit—which responds to local need. The DWP reimburses local authority spend. If, for example, a factory closes, the need for council tax benefit in that community may increase, and that need is met because the benefit is national and needs-led. Sensibly, therefore, it should be part of universal credit, along with JSA, housing benefit, ESA and so on, because the need for council tax benefit runs alongside those other benefits and should be related to family need, as universal credit will be. Instead, the DWP’s need to include CTB within universal credit appears to have been trumped by the demand of the DCLG and other departments that it form part of a completely separate agenda—the localism agenda. These agendas—universal credit versus localism—clash, and so far the wrong decision has been made.
What is DCLG proposing? In future DCLG will award a fixed-rate grant to local authorities from which it will have to construct its own council rebate scheme. What is wrong with that, your Lordships may think? Quite a lot, and there are three reasons in particular. First, instead of one national scheme that is common across the country, understood by everyone—claimants, local authorities, staff and advice centres—there will be 400 different schemes. There will be a separate and different scheme for every local authority in the country. Norfolk, for example, will have seven schemes that are all different.
Think of the staff resources involved, when we are trying to save money, in constructing and running such schemes, especially when local authorities already outsource much of their work. Think of the complexity of giving advice to people who come into, say, the Norwich Citizens Advice office from all over Norfolk, trying to understand UC and then having to add on seven different taper arrangements according to which district council they come from within Norfolk. All of the admirable simplicity of UC goes out the window. Think of the possibility of underpayment, overpayment, error or even fraud because there is no standard scheme. Given that there will not be enough money to go round, why would any local authority encourage take-up? They will not.
We in this House are rightly building these problems out of universal credit, and the Minister is to be congratulated on that. But we will be building them back in again if this amendment is not accepted. DCLG has balkanised council tax benefit in the name of localism. It recognises this, and now DCLG urges local authorities to do the opposite of what it was calling for—to share common schemes—in which case, why balkanise it in the first place? It will be financed by a fixed grant and will not be needs-led in future. If a factory closes and local need increases, the grant will not go up. Presumably everybody gets less. Or, it will have to be topped up by the council tax that is already suffering 30 per cent cuts in services and a freeze. Think, my Lords, for a moment if that applied to jobseeker’s allowance, and that what you have if you are unemployed in your district depends not on your needs, or on any national standard, but on the needs of everyone else in your district. Your payment would go up and down according to local employment or unemployment figures in your district.
DCLG in its consultation paper recognises this risk, so it suggests—hopefully, idealistically—that local authorities should voluntarily help each other and bail each other out. Oh yeah? Why balkanise, as DCLG requires, if local authorities are too small to bear the risk, as DCLG recgonises? Worse, that fixed grant will be cut by the DCLG by 10 per cent, perhaps more in future. There will be a 10 per cent reduction in council tax benefit per head, but pensioners are to be protected, so the cuts that fall on others will be 20 per cent. However the council, under pressure from local charities, could decide to protect, say, disabled people—I could understand why they would—and give them the full CTB. The more vulnerable families you protect in devising your own local scheme, the more that families in low-paid work—the last man standing, so to speak—carry the cuts.
The Association of North-East Councils has calculated that once vulnerable families are protected, other working-age claimants will face cuts of up to 50 per cent in their council tax benefit. Then work will not pay and universal credit will be a waste of time. Severe cuts in other words are being smuggled in under the drapery of localism but are they essential? At the same time DCLG is spending £250 million on reinstating weekly bin collection or £800 million to freeze council tax, so that my council tax bills are protected while those with much lower incomes on council tax benefit will face cuts of 50 per cent.
Finally, what you will get in CTB will, of course, be determined by your income. Families facing the means test of universal credit will now find that they also face a second means test—that of CTB. How on earth will the value of moving into work be calculated, which is what universal credit is all about, when people face two means tests, two tapers—one with national rules and one with 400 separate local rules—that are layered on top of each other? As the noble Lord, Lord German, rightly said in Committee,
“if you believe in a universal credit, and you have a postcode lottery for what that amount of money might mean to you, how on earth are you going to be able to judge whether or not work is beneficial for you?”.—[Official Report, 6/10/11; col. GC 381.]
Exactly so; I could not have put it better.
UC was designed to bring all working-age benefits together into one so that every one of us would know what we would get and why work paid. Under the localism agenda, council tax benefit—a social security benefit—is being plucked out of UC, thereby destabilising it and balkanising the system. Forgive me, but this is administrative madness. All of this is being proposed in the name of localism but do local authorities want it? City authorities, like the one I used to lead in Norwich, hate it, as they will see some of their poorest citizens unable to pay their council tax and facing arrears and debts. Equally, some small rural districts are now wondering where they will get the staff resources to devise and run their own in-house schemes. East Devon district council’s cabinet has said that the scheme means: “costs, costs, costs”. A councillor said:
“This should be strangled at birth. It is a disgrace . . . We haven’t got the resources and we haven’t got the time”.
Nearly 6 million people receiving council tax benefit will in future not know what they will get because they will have no entitlement—just a handout from the local authority whose generosity or meanness will vary from district to district, from factory opening to factory closure, and from year to year. We took social security away from local authorities when we finally abolished the Poor Law after the Second World War. Now one of the worst effects of the Poor Law—the postcode lottery—is being reinstated for council tax benefit under the name of localism. That is wrong. To add extra means-testing on top of universal credit’s means-testing is insane. It will undermine universal credit without a shadow of a doubt. I and almost every other Member of your Lordships’ House want to see it working, so what then is the point of this Bill? Worse, this guise of localism will make poor people poorer, and local authorities, in whose name this is being done, will be powerless to help them. Council tax benefit needs to be brought back within UC. I beg to move.
Lord Newton of Braintree
My Lords, I shall be brief because I know that the House wants to get on. I am a supporter of the universal credit, so I am opposed to anything that is inimical to its success, and the exclusion of council tax benefit is exactly that; it is totally inconsistent with the Government’s proposals.
It is an open secret, although I do not expect the Minister to confirm this from the Front Bench, that the DWP does not want council tax benefit to be excluded, that there has been a battle with the DCLG and that for the moment, although heaven knows why, the localism agenda has prevailed. When anyone asks about 400 different social security systems, we are told that it will not be allowed to happen—so the localism agenda, we are told, will not be allowed to be localism because the local systems will be made to come into line in some sensible way. That is daft, but it is what we are confronted with.
I have two or three points to make. This is said to be cash limited, and indeed a cut. What is going to happen in an area where there is a big factory closure and the money has already been spread out? Does everyone already on council tax benefit have to take a cut in order to finance those who have just come on to it? In areas where, say, a big Tesco opens and 400 new jobs are created, does everyone get a bonus because a lot of people have been taken off council tax benefit? It is mad.
My first constituency boundaries straddled a parish boundary; number 36 Havengore was in Braintree and number 34 was in Chelmsford, but the houses were semi-detached. Can we really have totally different benefit systems for the people living in those two houses? Again, this is mad. Do the local councils want it? The answer is no, it is a nightmare for them. We should stop it, and if this amendment is pressed to a vote, for the first time today I shall not be able to vote for the Government.
Baroness Meacher
I support the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, on the importance of including council tax benefit within the universal credit structure and payments system, and I reinforce what the noble Lord has just said. As always, the noble Baroness has set out the arguments extremely cogently, and I know that the Minister needs no reminding of these arguments from me. I want only to reinforce the important point about the resentment of local authorities and their resistance to the proposal to leave them with the council tax benefit problem.
The head of the benefits department of a particular local authority explained on Friday that because they have so little time to change the council tax benefits system radically, they are going to have to use the current system with a 20 per cent taper. This means that they will have to impose a minimum percentage that every claimant of working age will have to pay. This will apparently vary from one local authority to another, depending, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, has said, on the numbers of pensioners living in particular communities and of other vulnerable people who will have to be protected. This particular local authority will have a basic council tax rate of 25 per cent that will have to be paid—a sort of poll tax of 25 per cent of council tax. The local authority in question is far from happy about that, and I understand, as others have said, that anger on the part of local authorities is widespread.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, we support this amendment, and consider, as my noble friend Baroness Hollis does, that council tax benefit should be dealt with as part of the universal credit.
My noble friend delivered a devastating critique of the proposal in Committee and has done so again today. Indeed, I thought I saw the Minister nod in approval at one stage. If he did not nod in approval at my noble friend, perhaps he did for the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Newton.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
Very good. Of course, this issue is having to be considered, as has been said, against the backdrop of the overall funding for council tax benefit being reduced by 10 per cent but with commitments to protect awards of council tax support for pensioners and possibly for other vulnerable groups. This means, as has been said, that support for working age claimants is to be squeezed dramatically.
The consultation on this proposition, the Localism Bill, closed two months ago, and perhaps we can know when the Government’s response to this will be forthcoming. Quite apart from the administrative consequences of the proposed localism of the benefit, there is, as my noble friend pointed out, a fundamental difference compared with what happens currently. Under present arrangements, council tax benefit is demand led. Whatever the calculation shows is due is made available to the claimant, by offset against the council tax bill, with full reimbursement from the DWP. It is, as my noble friend explained, the AME—annually managed expenditure—bit of government spending.
This will in effect change under a localised system. If claims under a localised system exceed the budgetary amount locally, authorities will have much more limited resources from which to meet the increased demand. They might dip into reserves, if they have any, or they might make the system less generous in a subsequent period. They might switch expenditure from other local authority spend, but given the savage cuts to local authority budgets that have been made recently, there does not seem to be much room for manoeuvre to do that.
It is suggested that local authorities might approach a localised system on some consortium basis, and therefore that other local authorities will help out. I suggest that the prospects for this are not strong. One consequence of these constraints will be that local authorities will inevitably budget on a prudent basis, building in contingencies that will further diminish the resources available to claimants of a localised system. That indeed is what the risk assessment will dictate.
The main reason advanced by the Minister, Grant Shapps MP, in evidence to the CLG Committee for the localisation of council tax benefit was that for local authorities,
“the big advantage is that they will have a stake for the first time in what people who live in those homes are doing; in other words, an incentive to help get the person back into work”.
This is a rather strange view: that it takes possible savings from a benefit pot for local authorities to have an incentive to help people back to work. It is a view that ignores, or is ignorant of, the proactive and imaginative work that many local authorities do to help local residents into work. However, in any event, the driver for having clear incentives to support work is supposed to be the universal credit itself. If there is any incentive in the system, there is a risk that local take-up campaigns will diminish, as any wider take-up will come from the resources of the council.
We have yet to know how much central direction there will be for a localised system. If the Government run true to form, there will be quite a lot. This was certainly the outcome of the Localism Bill, which espoused localism and gave additional powers to local authorities but came with lots of strings attached, as the noble Lord, Lord Newton, will recall, despite some of those strings being removed in your Lordships’ House. There will clearly have to be central direction if the position of pensioners is to be protected, and some form of direction to deal with tapers and work incentives.
We understand, to follow the line of questioning by the noble Lord, Lord German, that the Minister will say that he cannot support a change to the universal credit to include a council tax benefit now. However, there is nothing to stop it being included in the future, as the Bill now stands. If this is the Government’s position, will the Minister confirm that he considers that regulations under Clause 11 will be the route to effect this?
The noble Lord, Lord German, also raised some fascinating questions about how this works for Wales and Scotland. Can the Minister say whether the proposition that he will advance tonight will be, “Don’t worry about it now—you can get it all back in due course.”? What changes would have to be made to the systems that are currently being built to put this into effect? Including council tax support as part of universal credit is of course not without its challenges, particularly the payment issue, so perhaps we can hear whether there has been any thinking around that matter.
However, we support my noble friend’s strong contention that the sensible, practical and principled way to deal with council tax benefit is to include it as part of universal credit. We believe that the Minister, a very logical person, must have come to the same conclusion. If a strong vote today will help his cause, we are more than prepared to play our part.
Welfare Reform Bill
Lord Newton of Braintree Excerpts(13 years ago)
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Lord Mackay of Clashfern
My Lords, in view of the Prime Minister’s speech, to which the noble Baronesses referred, I thought it right to write to him to give notice of the amendment which I am moving. I copied the letter to the Secretary of State, to Maria Miller and to my noble friend Lord Freud. I got a very substantial reply from Maria Miller quite recently, explaining to me first, that the Government’s point of view was to try to get people to reach agreement; secondly, that various improvements were to be made in the system for getting money off the recalcitrant parent; and thirdly, that the amounts likely to be charged to the parent in question in my amendment would be rather small. Unfortunately, on the main point the letter appeared to hold to the previous position, which is why I am moving this amendment.
So far as I am concerned, I am perfectly happy with an arrangement in which, in the words of the statute, before the commission or its substitute accepts a person as an applicant, the commission may,
“before accepting an application under those sections, require the applicant to take reasonable steps to establish whether it is possible or appropriate to make such an agreement”.
I am entirely in favour of that: the less that the CSA, or its successor, has to be used, the better.
Unfortunately, experience has shown that there are some people with an obligation to their children who are not willing to make such an arrangement. When I first became Lord Chancellor I distinctly remember receiving a number of heart-rending letters from people who had obtained decrees in the magistrates’ court and the defendant had disappeared. The people writing could not do anything about tracing the defendants. They did not have the necessary resources. It is difficult enough for a large international group to trace somebody who wants to hide. For a lady on her own—and usually it was a woman who was writing, although that does not necessarily follow—to try to find somebody who wants to hide from his obligations is an impossible task. That was one of the motivations I had in supporting, with my noble friend Lord Newton of Braintree, the 1991 Act which set the CSA on its rather troubled course.
The principle of it was perfectly reasonable. The only difficulty was to implement the full policy, because some additional policy considerations were put on to it, which made the formula and its application rather difficult. The situation we are in now is that the Government are supporting the view that, if possible, parents should reach agreement about their children. As I say, I entirely support that. It is the principle behind the Family Law Act 1996, which I was responsible for bringing to Parliament and which went on the statute book, but so far, as far as this part of it is concerned, remains unimplemented. I entirely agree with that. However, when a woman, as a typical example, has taken all reasonable steps and done all that she can to reach an agreement but cannot manage it, I do not agree that she should be charged by the CSA for her application. I entirely agree with the power given in the 2008 Act to require fees to be paid—that was perfectly reasonable and was to be done by regulation—but I want to make an exception to that power which would prevent fees being levied on a woman in the position I have just described. That is utterly unfair. If anyone is to pay for that, surely it should be the person who has caused the difficulty by trying to escape from his moral obligations. There is no question of the woman getting benefit from this—she is acting on behalf of her child.
In her letter, Maria Miller mentioned that they were raising the level of child support. So be it, but the last thing you would want to do with the enhanced level of child support—which, I assume, is considered necessary for the support of the child—is to use it to pay a fee to the CSA. I do not understand how this can be justified. It is purely a matter of justice and fairness and nothing else. It is a short point and very easy to state. With that, I move my amendment.
Lord Newton of Braintree
My Lords, I know other noble Lords have attached their name to this amendment but I crave the indulgence of the Committee for a few minutes. As my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay said, we were in cahoots on this 20 years ago. We are in cahoots on it today and I support him totally in what he has said and what he is proposing.
At one stage I thought it was a pity that this group of amendments had not been placed with the next group. I did not agree with everything that was said on the previous group, but I do not have the courage to say who I disagreed with and so I will keep my head down on that. I should like the Minister to explain to me sometime—not tonight—the overarching coalition philosophy that links the Public Bodies Bill proposition that Ministers should take all decisions and the NHS Bill philosophy which says that Ministers should take no decisions. He can think about that and come back to me at his leisure—which might be in about three years’ time.
I, too, am grateful to Gingerbread for some helpful briefing. I wish to cover some historical points, one of which indicates that I have some sympathy with one of the noble Baronesses facing me—namely, the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock. My noble and learned friend has used characteristically more emollient language than I, but the original CSA proposals were made difficult by two things: one was that the Treasury wanted too much money out of it too soon; the second—and there have been echoes of this in the discussions today—was that the political classes, and I include myself in that, did not understand what they were dealing with.
There are four people in this Room who are former MPs—one of whom is in a Trappist position because she is the Deputy Chairman—my noble friend the former Member for the Cities of London and Westminster; my noble friend the former Member for—I forget what it was called but it was the Borders.
Lord Newton of Braintree
Yes. The noble Lord, Lord Wigley—he was lurking—and the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy. I am sorry. I had looked only at the Front Benches and included myself. They may care to chip in. If their experience was anything like mine when the CSA came into effect in 1992, for a lad who came from a middle-class 1930s family, it was a real eye opener. There are signs that one or two people who have been pontificating on the subject have not realised that this is a much more complicated world than they thought.
There are still those who seem to think that it is all a matter of feckless youths going out on a Saturday evening, or feckless male partners deserting women as single parents irresponsibly. It is hugely more complicated than that. I remember people coming to my surgeries who had children by multiple fathers and often did not know who they were, or were living in fear if they identified them. I seem to remember that Edwina Currie got into trouble for talking about a woman who had children by five different fathers. She made some critical comments. I do not know whether they went down well or not but they certainly struck a chord. We have to realise that it is much more complicated.
I have not too many more points to make. I share the general view articulated by my noble and learned friend, and earlier by the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, that it is much better to come to an amicable arrangement. I probably ought to acknowledge that I have been divorced and I came to an entirely amicable arrangement with my ex-wife 25 years ago, or more. It ought to be possible and it was possible in my situation, but there are many situations in which it is not possible which I have already touched on, and to which my noble and learned friend has referred. The notion that such an arrangement was either feasible or reasonable to expect in some of the cases in my surgery, and no doubt in others in the mid-1990s, is to live in a dream world. It is totally ridiculous. The proposition that my noble and learned friend is getting at, that if it is not practicable, people should be charged for getting justice and reasonable support for their children, is bordering on the indefensible.
That is about all I want to say but a question was put into my mind by what the Minister said. If there is to be no appeal against these decisions, which on the basis of what he said will be Secretary of State decisions, what kind of world are we living in? Did he say that there will be no appeal system? That stirs up all the worries I explored last week—unsuccessfully in the event—about the Government’s attitude to administrative justice and fair dealing between the citizen and the state. That needs looking at again or we shall have more trouble. I know that the Minister cannot answer all these questions tonight but I hope that he will look at them, otherwise he will have big trouble on Report.
The Lord Bishop of Blackburn
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord for his amendment and for this group of amendments. Noble Lords will know that the Church of England has for many years keenly supported a just welfare system as one of the key building blocks of a civilised society. We have always been concerned to ensure that the welfare of children is maximised in any system of benefits and I believe that that must include times of economic challenge. Some noble Lords may know that in the consultation period we said that an effective and sensitive child maintenance system is one that should seek to help parents negotiate their parenting and financial responsibilities towards children. The system should also be operated in tandem with appropriate support services and not discourage people from using it by levying charges. If there are to be charges, surely those charges must apply only where parents can afford it and where maintenance is being paid. I have no difficulty over means testing if the end result is that the very poorest single parents will not face the £50 charge.
Welfare Reform Bill
Lord Newton of Braintree Excerpts(13 years, 1 month ago)
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Baroness Turner of Camden
My Lords, I, too, support these amendments. I also do so with some humility because I have become mildly disabled in recent years and I can understand how many disabled people feel that the life-changing effect of disability is not always fully appreciated. Your life changes completely in all sorts of ways. You wonder whether you can accept an invitation. How will I get there? Will I be able to get back? What will it be like when I get there? Will I have to stand up?
This is with relatively mild disability—for people who have greater suffering it is much worse. I suppose it is one of the reasons I have received more articles and letters on this bit of the Bill than any other section. I recently had a letter from Scope, which is in support of these amendments, of course; it urges that they should be fully supported. It points out that a social-model-based assessment is required and a great deal more attention needs to be paid to the life-changing aspect of disability.
I thank the noble Lords who have brought this before us because it is quite important. If one is able-bodied, one does not realise exactly what it means to have no real mobility. It really is totally life-changing and I do not really think in setting the new arrangements in relation to the PIP this is entirely appreciated by the Government.
Lord Newton of Braintree
My Lords, perhaps I may intervene briefly in view of the fact that I arrived at exactly the moment the noble Lord, Lord Low, was making kindly references to me in his speech, although he will probably not have recognised it until a bit later. I was told subsequently by the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell of Surbiton, that she has also referred to me in reasonably friendly terms and I am duly grateful for that and also for what I understand were friendly references made towards the back end of last week by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, and possibly also again by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister.
If you wonder why I have not been here it is not just because I am so busy but because I was frightened off by the phalanx of female Peers that fell on me the last time I was here for some entirely innocent remark. It has taken me a long while—believe it if you will—to regain my self-confidence. However, I am here and since I have not heard all the debate I am not going to attempt to comment in detail. Also, it would look a bit odd for me to defend the name or the precise detail of it or anything else that I and the late Nick Scott—who played a seminal part in all this and should be remembered in this context—put in place 22 years or so ago.
It is important to recognise from what has been said, even while I have been here, that it has captured the support of disabled people as a phrase, a concept and a purpose, and it would be a huge shame if—I gather that the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, has used this phrase—we landed up throwing the baby out with the bathwater and losing some of what was gained with DLA, even if it is obviously right that at this stage, 20-plus years on, it should be reviewed and refreshed.
All my instinctive sympathy says that if this nomenclature is what disabled people themselves would like, are comfortable with and feel reflects their needs, I cannot see why we should die in a ditch to change it. That is my position, and I will leave it there with the Minister. I am looking forward to his usual—what was the word used about the noble Earl, Lord Howe, in the papers yesterday: silky?—silky and constructive reply.
Lord Touhig
What’s in a name? I come from south-east Wales where these things are important. We all call the Department for Work and Pensions the DWP, but in my part of Wales “dwp” is a word; it means “stupid”. It seems to me that if we are creating a new benefit, it ought to have some relation to the people it is supposed to support.
I am president of a group at home called Access. It campaigns on behalf of people with disabilities. Our members are middle-aged and militant. If they see cars parked on pavements, they stick stickers on them saying, “Pavements are for people. Shift it”, and they go back to check whether the cars have been moved. When the town centre was being redesigned, they persuaded two council officials to sit in wheelchairs and said, “You try to get into town and see the problems”. I talked to some members recently about this because they were asking about the new benefit and what a personal independence payment is. One, who I have known for many years, said to me, “I am not independent. I am wheelchair-bound and dependent on my husband, my family and my friends. Surely the benefit ought to reflect the fact that it is support for me as a disabled person”. So I have every sympathy with those who have tabled this amendment. It is important that the name reflects the people that it is to support and aid. It is quite reasonable to propose that “disability” should be in the name of this new benefit.
Lord Newton of Braintree
My Lords, I hope that the Deputy Chairman will not mind if I intervene from a sedentary position, which I think has been accepted in this Committee previously. I take the Minister’s point. We are all—I certainly can hardly deny even with a big “C”—being conservative with a small “c” on some points. Picking up from what the noble Baronesses on the Front Bench here, as it were, were saying earlier, we have to acknowledge a combination of things, which is nervousness among the disabled population about what is going on, accompanied by a change of name with which it feels comfortable. If the Minister could allay the concerns more clearly, it might be easier to change the name. I ask the Minister to bear in mind that at the moment they are trying to change a name which is aggravating the worries about the actual changes that are going on. That is the political point.
Baroness Wilkins
To follow up on that, perhaps I may press the Minister on press reports. Is his department, or are Ministers, ready to undertake some counteracting of what is going on in the press? On a previous day in Committee, he said that we do not control the press. Of course, the department does not control the press but there is a strong suspicion that stories such as the one that appeared last Friday in the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph with the same words may have been leaked from the department to the right-wing press. If Ministers cannot control the press, it would ease the fears of disabled people immensely if they could come up with some very positive comments for the radio and television media where they have some control to counteract the appalling image that is being put across about disabled people.
Baroness Wilkins
My Lords, the amendment asks the Government to think again about the proposal to have only two levels of the daily living component of PIP compared with the current three levels for the care component of DLA. While changing from three to two levels may seem attractive from the point of view of simplicity, it is likely to be achieved at the cost of creating unnecessary dependency and hardship among large numbers of people. As we have heard it could also result in greater pressure on health and social services.
I am sure that the Government are aware of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation inquiry, which found that,
“that little bit of help”,
was crucial in preventing greater needs developing, enabling older people to remain in their own homes, living active lives and saving unnecessary expenditure on health and social services. The same experience applies to disabled people below retirement age. In addition, for many disabled people it is that little bit of help that makes it possible for them to seek and retain employment. Currently the lower rate of DLA care component can make a major difference and, in the long run, save unnecessary expenditure.
As the DWP has acknowledged, many of those who responded to the consultation opposed the proposal that there should be only two rates of the daily living component and expressed a fear that it would result in many people who currently receive some much-needed help no longer getting it. As the Government’s own review of research on what DLA is used for shows, there is widespread evidence that current payment levels do not cover the real costs that disabled people incur. That includes those receiving the lower rate of the care component. Not only will the removal of assistance to this group mean that some—many—will make greater demands on health and social care services, it will deprive local authorities of the funds to enable them to do so. Currently local authorities take the whole of the care component when charging for community care services. Once more, local authorities will face higher demands with fewer funds.
I shall close by quoting two people who currently receive the lower rate DLA care component and who explain the difference that it makes to their lives. The first person said:
“My medical condition means I need a special diet if I am to remain out of hospital. I use my DLA to pay for this food, and also for the extra heating I need to keep warm”.
The second person said:
“In the early stages of my wife’s illness we got this small sum of money which did make a major difference to our lives. It helped to pay for someone to sit with her while I went out shopping, and it meant that our lives could carry on that bit longer before we asked for more help”.
It is hard to believe that abolishing the lower rate will do anything more than remove much needed help from large numbers of people. This may help the Government to reduce the DLA budget but the costs will undoubtedly turn up elsewhere in public expenditure, whether it is in the costs of increased health needs or in the implications for social services budgets.
Lord Newton of Braintree
My Lords, I picked up two points in the course of this debate. First, I think the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, indicated that she thought there were 655,000 potential losers from this. Is that right?
Lord Newton of Braintree
I got it nearly right, but it is still quite a lot of people. In that case, my question to the Minister is: what steps does he expect to take—it may be that this is already clear and I just do not know—to protect people who are already receiving DLA at the point of transition? We are talking about sums of money that, although not large to many of those in this Room, can be very large indeed to some of the people who are receiving them. One of the things that I always had in mind—I think at one stage my then Cabinet colleagues occasionally referred to it as “Newton’s law”—is that not giving somebody something is quite different from taking away from somebody something they already have. I would like to hear my noble friend’s comments on that.
The other thing is also, in a sense, a question directed to the Minister, although it may also have occurred to the noble Baronesses and others who are interested in this. It is the reference in the Bill and in this amendment, which follows the Bill, to a person’s ability to,
“carry out daily living activities”,
being limited by,
“the person’s physical or mental condition”.
I would like to say a word or two about how that is to be done. In my day, which some in the Room will remember, we had a benefit called the housewives non-contributory invalidity pension, which entailed a lot of tests, that were regarded as demeaning and humiliating in the extreme, about whether somebody could boil a kettle or take a tin off a shelf. I think there were others, to judge from the reaction of the noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins, who will remember them. I would not want to get back into that. Indeed, I got rid of it. I hope that we may have a word that there will be a more civilised way of assessing the ability to carry out daily living activities than is revealed on the surface of the Bill.
Lord Wigley
If the Minister accepts the figure for those who will lose relatively small sums that are of critical importance to them, and if the services that they have been able to purchase or the benefits in their life that they have been able to obtain by virtue of having that money now have to be found through some other means, has some assessment been made of the additional cost that may be going elsewhere in order to ensure that they do not lose out on aspects of their lives that are critical for their day-to-day existence?
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, I support my noble friend in her request. In order to have a sound evidence base, we are going to need stats about how the existing clients of DLA—if I can put it that way—will map on to the future ones proposed for PIP and the implications for carers. It is not a discrete thing: it has interactions with ESA; it has interactions with in-work conditionality; and it has interactions with other things, like housing benefit, extra rooms and the rest of it. It has tentacles right through the whole of the Bill.
I will make a serious proposal to the Minister. I will personally not be happy to go into a Report stage of this Bill unless we have had, at least three days before the first day of Report, all the information that we need on the proposed changes to DLA and the linking effect to carer’s allowance, because it interacts with so many other aspects of the Bill. I hope the Minister will agree that that is an acceptable position to hold.
Lord Newton of Braintree
My Lords, before the Minister replies, which I assume he is about to do, I will just chip in again. I do not have the up-to-date knowledge that the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, has from her more recent experience as a social security Minister, but I did once again prick up my ears at the reference to carers. There is obviously a link between disability living allowance with its three rates and the payment of carer’s allowance. This is not something that I have focused on, but I would much appreciate a word from the Minister about what the effects of that might be. That would be on top of the 652,000, as I understand it, and could mean that some households suffer what in conventional jargon would be called a double-whammy. We need to know something about that.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
I would add to the noble Lord’s very helpful intervention that if someone who is currently getting carer’s allowance finds themselves disqualified in future, they will come within the whole remit of in-work conditionality and all the other issues that affect this Bill. It is not just a one-off enclosed issue; it has tentacles or effects or implications right across the Bill.
Lord Newton of Braintree
I can understand that; that is where the noble Baroness is more up to date than I am. The Minister must be the most up to date of all.
Lord Freud
My Lords, I apologise that the information about the second draft criteria was not available earlier and I apologise for ruining a lot of weekends. What is the reason? We had a large volume of feedback to our informal consultation and we have made a significant amount of changes. It took some time—rather longer than we hoped—to work through it all. It is crucial that we get this right. One of the reasons—as noble Lords have pointed out already—is that there is a lot of sensitivity around this. If we put things out that are not right, we will create concerns where we should not. Misleading impressions here are very dangerous.
As I said, we aim to have the thresholds available for the Report stage of our consideration of this—not before the whole of the Report stage, but in good time for when we reach these matters at Report.
Baroness Hollins
My Lords, the second draft of the assessment regulations is very interesting but it does not help in the consideration of what we are talking about. It does not tell us the threshold, so we cannot assess how many points you would need in order to reach a level of having a limited ability to carry out daily living activities and so on. Will the Minister explain how we could use these to judge what he has just been talking about?
Lord Newton of Braintree
In an attempt to stop the Minister having to pop up and down, I think that I am right in saying that he has not responded to my concern about the effects of this proposal. Whatever the figures turn out to be, there appear to be some “losers”. What are the effects of this? What steps will be taken to protect or to provide transitional measures? We are talking about sums of money that are significant to people who have not got very much. We have to keep that in mind all the time. The Minister has obviously had his ears bashed enough and no one thinks that we will press the amendment, but we hope that he will think about it.
On carers, I listened with mounting horror to the fact that we shall not know what the effects will be by the time we return to this. If among those 652,000 so-called losers, or whatever number it is, there are a number who also lose carer’s allowance, we are talking about a number of households which will lose serious amounts of money in relation to their income. We need to know what is happening in order to make a judgment about these proposals. I do not expect the Minister to say anything else but he needs to know that this former Secretary of State recognises some concerns.
Baroness Morgan of Drefelin
My Lords, I, too, invite the Minister to expand further on the blue badge. Obviously, we have just had a very important discussion about passporting, carer’s allowance and so on. The Minister was almost seen to be giving me reassurance about blue badge and other mobility passporting issues. Perhaps he could expand on the discussions that he is having and on what he hopes the outcome of those discussions might be, and give me a little more hope on that matter.