Human Trafficking

Lord Skelmersdale Excerpts

Thursday 21st March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, highlights an important point, which is that we need to ensure that victims of trafficking are referred into what we call the NRM, the national referral mechanism, because it is through that mechanism that they then receive the support and care that they need. She might like to know—I am sure she is already aware of this—that, as part of the Government’s ongoing efforts to improve the way in which we support the victims of this terrible crime, we have commissioned the Refugee Council and the Children’s Society to review our arrangements in this area so we can ensure that best practice in certain local authorities is repeated in all areas. Their report is due to reach us some time later this year.

[Lord Skelmersdale]

My Lords, is it not time that we called a spade a spade and described human trafficking as slavery, which is what it is and which has been illegal in this country for many years?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I like to think of myself as a plain speaker and I understand very much the point that my noble friend is making. However, the term “human trafficking” is one that is recognised internationally. Whether it is called “human trafficking” or “slavery”, the most important thing is that it is a vile crime and we need to stop it.

Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill

Lord Skelmersdale Excerpts

Wednesday 9th January 2013 Grand Committee

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Skelmersdale)]

My Lords, if there is a Division in the Chamber, the Committee will adjourn for 10 minutes.

Clause 51 : Sunset and review provisions

Amendment 26EA

Moved by

Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill

Lord Skelmersdale Excerpts

Wednesday 12th December 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord Borrie]

My Lords, I think that the Committee should accept, as a matter of principle, the point that my noble friend has been enunciating. Indeed, the experience of other regulators, including Ofcom, is that an in-house consumer panel—not strangers to the organisation but working closely with the regulator—is a good idea. Unfortunately, it cannot be called a consumer panel tout court in this Bill because of course there is something called the consumer panel already; that is, the people who make the decisions, the part-timers who are allocated particular jobs and make the final decisions of the CMA. That is all set out in Schedule 4. Perhaps some other means of dealing with my noble friend’s proposition has already been thought of by Her Majesty’s Government.

[Lord Skelmersdale]

My Lords, before the Minister responds, I note that the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, has tabled Amendment 24BA, which is obviously a second string to her bow in this matter. I am rather surprised that it has not been grouped with this amendment. Be that as it may, it seems to me that rather than having another panel under the CMA, it would be far preferable to have a consumer representative on the panel that already exists under the Bill.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, for this amendment, which seeks to establish a CMA consumer panel, and I note her very considerable experience in chairing consumer panels over many years.

Close co-operation between the CMA and consumer organisations will be essential to ensure that the CMA is well informed on issues that cause consumer detriment, and that it takes action in the right areas. Competition authorities are well used to taking account of consumer welfare in their activities and this will be the case for the CMA in particular, given its objective to promote competition in the interest of consumers. This is why we have established SIPEP, a new strategic intelligence, prevention and enforcement partnership, which will bring together key consumer bodies, including Citizens Advice and representatives from Scotland and Northern Ireland, to work together to identify those issues that impact on consumers and collectively agree priorities for enforcement, information and education. These will assist in guiding the CMA’s policies and priorities.

In addition to this, the Bill already has extensive provisions on transparency and consultation with consumers and other bodies. The CMA must consult stakeholders, including consumer representative bodies and the general public, on a range of issues that guide its policy. For example, paragraph 12 of Schedule 4 to the Bill provides that as part of its annual plan, the CMA must consult on its main objectives for the year and the relative priorities of each of those objectives. The CMA must also consult on statutory and non-statutory guidance which sets out much of the CMA’s policy and processes. The super-complaint process, in which the OFT is required to provide a fast-track response to certain consumer bodies, will also be retained for the CMA.

Given the consultation requirements, the new approach to enhanced working between the CMA and bodies across the consumer landscape, and the super-complaint process, I hope that the noble Baroness will consider that the arrangements for consulting consumers are already sufficient and will agree to withdraw this amendment.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

I thank the Minister for that response and my noble friend Lord Borrie and the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, for their comments. As usual, my noble friend Lord Borrie goes straight to the point that the name is wrong. Maybe we can negotiate on “consumer forum” or “consumer round table”. However, right as he is on that, wrong are the Government in their response.

Before I turn to the Minister’s comments, perhaps I may say that the comment made by the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, was interesting. It is about whether one person on a board is sufficient to represent all consumers, an issue which the consumer movement has discussed a great deal. It is like being the only woman in a committee and people assuming that you can speak on behalf of all women. When the noble Baroness, Lady Oppenheim-Barnes, was first at meetings—I hope she does not take this badly—she was very often probably the only woman present. Even women of my age are still experiencing that situation now. As the one woman, it was somehow expected that you would speak for all women. It can be the same with consumers. However, as I found on panels, there were BME consumers, rural consumers, old consumers and young consumers, and you need a broad panel, if you like, to reach in, understand and get to a hearing in that way. A middle-class woman such as myself as a consumer rep does not do it, but a much broader-based panel does.

I hope the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, understands that it makes it easier for one consumer representative on a board if there are mechanisms for a much broader consultation.

[Lord Skelmersdale]

My Lords, if the noble Baroness has finished with her remarks on me, does that mean that she intends to withdraw Amendment 24BA—because, if not, she is speaking against herself?

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

I am certainly not. I am suggesting that you need a person on the board with experience—I will come to that—but, on its own, this is not a sufficient condition for making the board work.

Let me now comment on what the Minister has said. If he expects the partnership to carry out the kind of role that consumer panels have carried out, he does not understand what consumer panels have done. A partnership that comes together once a month, once a quarter—I do not know how often it is going to meet; I think it has met only twice so far—simply would not be able to bring the right level of detail to the work of the CMA. Some of the matters the Minister mentioned are exactly those outside functions which will not be carried out by the CMA but by others.

I think I have touched on the problem of consultation. When it goes outside the family to Which? or Citizens Advice, it is put out in a pristine and finished way rather than at an earlier stage. It does not solve the problem.

We will need to think about this matter and possibly come back to it because it is vital to make this new authority work well.

Welfare Reform Bill

Lord Skelmersdale Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

My Lords, I strongly support the amendment moved by my noble friend. Throughout Committee and Report, the Minister has regularly made clear that he is concerned to make work pay and attractive, and to get behavioural change. I do not think that we on this side disagree with him at all on this. However, it subverts the value, virtue and continuity of behavioural change if sanctions that were applied before that behavioural change had taken place continue. Therefore, he is effectively defeating his own policy.

I was trying to think of an example. On page 33 of the Bill, proposed new Section 6J, “Higher-level sanctions”, which my noble friend referred to, says in subsection (2)(a) that a failure is sanctionable if a claimant,

“fails for no good reason to comply with a requirement imposed by the Secretary of State under a work preparation requirement to undertake a work placement of a prescribed description”.

A couple of weeks ago we had the story of a young woman, a graduate, who had been doing voluntary work in a local museum and was hoping that this would count as appropriate work experience to lead her to a job in that field. The work requirement placement that the local office came up with was that she should do a fortnight in Poundland, filling shelves, even though she had substantive previous retail experience; in other words, it was a very misguided imposition by the decision-makers in the local benefit office—from the outside, it looked as if she was much better off where she was. If she had refused that placement in Poundland, she would have fallen foul of 6J(2)(a) and she could have had three years’ worth of sanctions imposed on her, even if she had subsequently accepted a further placement, which would have been—in her view, and most people’s views—more realistic.

The Minister is stuck with the position that she would have been pulled out of something appropriate to do something less appropriate on the decision of a local decision-maker, and had she resisted that she could have been subjected to sanctions that would have continued for three years, even if she had made it clear that she was willing to accept further and more appropriate work placements that would help her with her career. It must be sensible for the Government to have a way back for people who have resisted—for good reason or bad—an original work placement offer but then go on to respect that imposition, whether appropriate or not. If there is no way back, how can the Minister expect people to respect that law?

[Lord Skelmersdale]

Perhaps the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, could turn over to page 34 of the Bill. New Section 6J(7)(c) talks about,

“the termination or suspension of a reduction under this section”.

That sounds like exactly the sort of principle that the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, has enunciated in moving this amendment. I that hope my noble friend will be able to confirm that.

Welfare Reform Bill

Lord Skelmersdale Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[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 Fowler]

My Lords, there is an amazing coincidence here. I remember back in 1985-86 being strongly opposed on the introduction of the Social Fund by someone with the same name as the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, who proposed this amendment. I have to say that she was not alone. It was one of the most controversial changes that we made at that time. We were strongly opposed by the welfare groups and the party opposite. From memory, we were strongly opposed by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, as well—I do not think that he is in his place. Another group who strongly opposed us—I am not sure that even my noble friend knows this—comprised my social security successors at DHSS who also did not want to introduce the measure. They said that it was far too radical. They put it to a meeting held after the 1987 election and around the table at No. 10, with Margaret Thatcher in the chair, that it should be dropped. Happily, they were defeated. Now I see that 20 voluntary organisations have signed up to it being retained.

The Public and Commercial Services Union, with more than 80,000 members in the Department for Work and Pensions, also regrets its passing. Therefore, I hope that it will be of some comfort to the Minister when he is attacked from the other side that sometimes you find after 10 or 20 years that positions change, as has the attitude taken on this measure. It is not altogether surprising that I have a lot of sympathy with the view taken on the Social Fund. I think it is common ground that we need a system for dealing with emergency payments of one kind or another. I think it is also common ground that some of the 67,000 families who will be affected by the cap will need such help. I think that is common ground all round.

As regards the mechanism, I have to say that I still rather support the Social Fund. That is not surprising as my noble friend Lord Newton and I invented it in the first place. It did have, and does have, a number of advantages. The department has experience of how such a scheme works and has local offices with local knowledge which are, however, kept within a national programme with a national budget. Therefore, I should have thought that from the Government’s point of view as well as from the claimant’s point of view it had substantial advantages. There is a risk that different local authorities will pursue different policies with regard to it.

My view is slightly unlike that of my noble friend, to whom I pay the usual tribute. We worked together for a long time. I made the popular announcements and he did the unpopular ones. I see that he agrees with that. The Government have decided to go this particular way and, as I said on Monday, I do not intend to trample over my successors’ proposals. However, I give just one warning, which is the warning of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, who knows so much. I pay tribute to her for all the work that she has done on social security over the years. If money is to be made available to local authorities for what I shall call Social Fund purposes, we must do everything that we can to ensure that that money reaches the proper destination—otherwise the exercise is all slightly pointless.

We have seen in the health service where this has not happened. Money intended by the previous Government for prevention of ill-health was siphoned off and used for other more general purposes. Whether my noble friend accepts this amendment —it seems unlikely that he will accept it—the House will wish to be assured that we have some way of checking that the money reaches its proper destination. That seems to me to be the crucial point and that is the assurance that the House seeks.

Welfare Reform Bill

Lord Skelmersdale Excerpts

Monday 23rd January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Drake]

My Lords, I support Amendment 60, to which my name is attached. It would support hard-working people and their families with a clear work ethic to manage the challenges of today’s flexible labour market and the consequences of losing their job through no fault of their own by allowing a transition period of 26 weeks before the benefit cap is applied. In integrating in and out-of-work benefits, universal credit has to be applied to two different constituencies: those who are out of work for long or sustained periods and those who are regularly in work. A single system has to provide an experience fit for both. I accept that a modern welfare system has to incentivise people to work and to address benefit dependency, but it also has to support hard-working people with a clear work ethic and their families in managing difficult economic circumstances. A benefit cap immediately applied can have a very negative effect on hard-working people and their children when the wage earner loses their job or work involuntarily, even more so where the loss of work happens quickly.

The Government have made clear that a driving principle of the Bill is that work should always pay more than out-of-work benefits and that a benefit cap is, first, a clear message that there is a maximum level of financial support that claimants can expect and, secondly, necessary to provide incentives to work and to reduce benefit dependency. When my noble friend Lord McKenzie questioned the Minister in Committee about whether, if it were established that the cost of the cap outweighed the benefit savings, he would still support the cap, the Minister replied:

“Clearly the message that we are trying to get over is a behavioural one much more than a cost-based one”.—[Official Report, 23/11/11; col. GC 421.]

What is the change in behaviour that the immediate application of the cap is designed to achieve in hard-working people who have lost their job and are desperately seeking another one? Where someone has a clear work ethic and a clear pattern of working and is desperately seeking another job, a grace period of 26 weeks will give them a fighting chance of re-entering the labour force before the weight of penalties comes into play and the cap bites. When faced with job loss, normal working people do not clap their hands and say, “Oh goody goody, I'm off to a life on benefits”. They are more likely to be stressed, anxious and worried about their home, paying bills, their children and their future while they rush around trying to find another job, probably fighting feelings of depression while they do so.

It is higher housing costs that are most likely to push families over the cap. As the noble Lord, Lord Best, said, without a period of grace, many families in private rented accommodation, particularly those with children and living in the south, will see the benefits for their housing costs cut, potentially forcing them to look for alternative housing elsewhere.

The Government’s impact assessment of the cap said that those affected will need to choose between taking up work, reducing non-rent expenditure or cheaper accommodation, but where someone who loses their job is clearly choosing to take work, they need time to do that. Finding a new job rarely takes days. It is most likely to take quite some weeks and even longer in difficult economic circumstances. The welfare system should provide this safety net, otherwise at the very time when a person needs to put all their efforts into finding another job, their efforts may be redirected to relocating to cheaper accommodation and relocating their children to different schools. In moving, they may lose, as has been said, their contacts, their local knowledge and their networks—all the routes that would most frequently take them back into work. The ultimate irony is that lone parents could face having to relinquish their childcare arrangements—their nursery place or their childminder—just as they need to keep them in place so that they are available to make an early transition back to work.

Currently, approximately 50 per cent of people on JSA get back to work within six months, 75 per cent in nine months and 90 per cent within a year. They clearly want to work. I accept that these figures might have been overtaken because of the rise of unemployment that we are now experiencing whereby 10 people are chasing every job in London, but the underlying argument holds good. They are chasing them because they want to get back into work.

The immediate application of the benefit cap would penalise those who have just lost their jobs—decisions about their rental costs or family size were made while they were employed—before they had even been given time to find another job. Rather than penalise people who are trying to make a rapid return to employment, universal credit should be supporting them. A grace period of 26 weeks does not contradict the simple message, as expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Freud, who said that,

“in the end, there is a limit to how much the state is prepared to support someone”.—[Official Report, 23/11/11; col. GC 422.]

Rather, a transition period would ensure that hard-working people faced with an involuntary loss of work are assisted in making an early move back into the labour force and getting their family’s lives back on track before the cap bites. That seems to be a fair, reasonable and decent thing to do.

The Government want to see an increase in private sector employment relative to the public sector to increase flexibility in the labour market through a reduction in employment rights and regulation, but they appear reluctant to transition the benefit cap to help hard-working people manage today’s labour markets and economic realities—realities that will become harsher as global competition intensifies. As currently drafted, the benefit cap would undermine the expectation that if you work hard, pay into the system and play by the rules, there will be a safety net available to you if you hit hard times so that you have a chance to recover.

This Bill also sets the welfare rules for people who have no record of benefit dependency and are paying their national insurance contributions. When I made that point in Committee, the Minister commented:

“I shall bear that point very much in mind as we go through the next stages”.—[Official Report, 23/11/11; col. GC 427.]

We are at the “next stages” and I encourage him to put flesh on that consideration. This amendment does not pose a principled challenge to the cap; it poses a 26-week transition for people who are rushing around urgently trying to find another job before the cap is imposed. I accept that the Minister has made a major contribution to welfare reform but I ask him to accept the case for a safety net. As I have said, that seems to me to be a fair, reasonable and decent thing to do.

[Lord Skelmersdale]

My Lords, would the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, accept that she is talking about those who have been earning more than cap and fallen on hard times rather than those with whom much of the legislation is involved: that is, those who in employment have been earning under the cap?

[Baroness Drake]

The Bill sets the welfare rules for people who do not have a record of benefit dependency. In the national insurance contribution system, one is trying to design something that gives people a cushion. Sometimes it will be because they will be earning higher than the cap; on other occasions it is because of the nature of their accommodation. Either way, instead of having a cushion so that they can concentrate on getting back into work as quickly as possible, which it is clear most of them want to do, there is a danger that the immediate way in which the cap will operate means that they will have to take defensive measures to bring down their level of expenditure rather than putting all their efforts into finding a job.

Welfare Reform Bill

Lord Skelmersdale Excerpts

Monday 28th November 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Skelmersdale]

My Lords, I am glad that the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, has called attention to Clause 113, because it is easy enough for some people not to understand the form that they are filling in, even sometimes in the presence of a member of the Minister’s department in the jobcentre. My real problem with this clause is that it talks about negligence. If you fill in a form in a slapdash manner, that is negligent. I would far prefer something like “knowingly”: in other words, designing to commit some sort of fraud. That would be a much happier arrangement.

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

I support my noble friend’s amendment. Following on from what the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, said, I would say that the test of fraud is normally—I think I saw a former Lord Chancellor who would know much better than I—associated with intent and ignorance of the law and is not a defence, but I think in this case it is because we are dealing with the interlocking of very vulnerable people and a new and very different system for people to understand.

There are three or four matters on which if I were asked now whether people needed to declare things, I could not guide them, and I like to think I have some nodding acquaintance with this Bill. For example, a lone parent has a boyfriend who works away. He stays with her overnight one or twice over the weekend. As a result, is she no longer a lone parent? Clearly it will not depend on their sleeping arrangements but on what contribution he makes to their financial arrangements. On a weekend basis, would that be sufficiently substantial to make her no longer a lone parent but part of a couple and therefore falsely declaring if she claims to be a lone parent? I am not clear what would happen in that situation under the Bill. Perfectly reasonably she might regard the fact that as she is getting universal credit she is not a lone parent and he is somebody who comes in as a boyfriend but not a partner.

With housing benefit, you could have a family with a student son who is living at home, going to the local university and working part-time. Should he be declared for housing benefit as a potential contributor to the rent so that non-dependent adult deductions come into play? I do not know. I think it would be quite difficult for that couple to assess.

Let me give another example that we discussed at considerable length and about which the Minister was rightly sympathetic—kinship carers. Conventionally, kinship carers are entitled to claim for child credit and so on if they have the equivalent of the child benefit book, which normally takes about eight weeks to come across. In future, given that child benefit will not necessarily be a separate benefit entitlement, if there is a rotating relationship in which the child goes back to its birth parents for a few weeks and then, because the father or the mother may be an addict of some degree, goes back to the grandparents, at what point and for how long a period of continuous care are the kinship carers entitled to claim the child elements in universal credit? I do not know.

In those three cases—and I could elaborate another six on disability benefits that are becoming clear to us—I would not be able to advise somebody on what they should declare on their forms as being relevant for the consideration of UC. It would be natural for them in those quite complicated situations not to declare things that appear to work against them. They would not be doing it with an intent to deceive. They may think it is a perfectly proper statement of their position as they see it, yet under this clause they could be caught for negligence and fined. That is completely unreasonable.

The one piece of advice I would give the Minister is that whatever he does, whether he claims that this is needed as a reserve power or not, he should not touch it for at least three years until after the Bill has come into practical effect because of the bedding-down issues that it will have. The Minister has to make only one mistake, such as his department suing somebody for penalties for negligence when the department was wrong—and there will inevitably be departmental error; there always is when you introduce new systems—and the whole of the good will behind this Bill will disappear overnight.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wigley]

My Lords, I support the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, in what seems to be one of the most important amendments that have come before this Committee in our long hearings. If it is not successful tonight—and no assurance is given—I very much hope that we will return to it on the Floor of the House on Report.

As the noble Lord, Lord Newton, said, those of us who had to deal with some of the Child Support Agency cases in the 1990s will know how desperately searing they were. It was not just one or two, but dozens, and sometimes even hundreds. I used to try to sort out problems with the local officers, either in Caernarfon or in the office that was administering the CSA in north-west England. It came to the point where I started writing to the Minister about each case because I thought that was the only way in which the message would get home. Poverty was referred to a moment ago. If one quotes the figures for the difference between south-east England and other parts, the average GVA per head in Kensington and Chelsea is over nine times that in Anglesey, and that is an average figure. Within Anglesey, there will be poorer people, as of course there will be in Kensington and Chelsea. It does not really matter where they are; it is what they are suffering. We want a system that can be sympathetic towards them; we certainly do not want a system which prevents people making appeals when things are going wrong. It must be our responsibility as a Committee to get that sorted out; if we cannot, then it will be decided on the Floor of the House.

[Lord Skelmersdale]

My Lords, my noble and learned friend has produced a very cunning amendment indeed. It is cunning because it follows and detracts, just slightly, from the worst effects of the Government’s policy announcement. However, is the Government’s policy announcement the right one? Who is the sinner in this situation? It is the absent parent. My noble and learned friend is absolutely right that to fine the parent with care who has done everything possible to get to an agreement is quite wrong. The real sinner in all this is the absent parent. Surely the charges ought to be reflected on him and it ought to be for the state to chase him, which has always happened through the CMEC arrangements. That would be my preferred solution.

[Baroness Sherlock]

My Lords, I convey my thanks—and I suspect those of many other noble Lords around me—to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, for having brought this before the Committee and having done so in so eloquent, powerful and almost irrefutable a way.

I want to add only two things. One is a question to the Minister. We have talked a lot in this Committee about behavioural effects. I want to understand the point of this charging. If we think it through rationally for a moment, if the aim of the new system is to encourage absent parents to pay up, the logical thing to do would be to charge them if they do not. Why then would one charge the parent with care? The only possible reason to do that would be to deter them applying to the CSA in the first place, because as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, explained so clearly, the parent with care can do nothing to affect the outcome the Government say they want. Therefore to penalise her for failing to do so would obviously not be fair, so that cannot be the aim. Will the Government please explain to us what is the aim of charging the parent with care?

Welfare Reform Bill

Lord Skelmersdale Excerpts

Monday 21st November 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Wigley]

My Lords, I rise to speak very briefly in support of these amendments so ably moved by the noble Lord, Lord Touhig. Many of the arguments that underpin these amendments have already been rehearsed in the previous debate, so I will not take too much time.

It seems sensible to have an equal-handed approach to these circumstances. If someone has a condition that is palpably for life, the guidance should be that the benefit should run for life. Equally, in those circumstances where there may be doubt, there needs to be flexibility. What is needed, perhaps on the face of the Bill as these amendments propose, is that there are guidelines that take those two sets of circumstances properly into account. The system itself must be willing to respond to the individual circumstances rather than just follow a dogma about restricting benefits even where benefits are probably much needed.

[Lord Skelmersdale]

My Lords, I am not sure whether I ought to declare an interest, but I will do so nevertheless. My daughter is a research biochemist at the University of Sheffield where she works in a cancer laboratory. Her objective, as it currently stands, is to starve cancer cells of blood—something that other researchers around the country, and indeed around the world, are currently working on without yet having achieved a satisfactory result.

Although I readily understand why the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, has moved his amendment, I find the amendment, although this might be unfair, perhaps—to make up a word—a little closed mind-ish. There is no doubt that, over recent years, the medical fraternity has made leaps and bounds in research. There is even, as I understand it, a possibility that stem cells could be used to repair the nerve system up the back. Now, such developments may come up in five, 20 or 50 years— I do not know, and nobody knows—but an amendment like this is so restrictive that it rather ignores the possibilities of medical science.

I readily understand the interest of the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, in mental health, particularly autism. I confess that I do not know anything about autism, whereas clearly he does. It is not beyond the wit of man to believe that some better treatment, understanding or social environment in respect of any mental disease could well improve matters to allow people a certain amount of, for example, work. My son-in-law suffers from ME, and apparently there is tremendous argument as to whether ME is entirely a mental disease or a physical disease with mental attributes. I do not know whether he will recover enough to work; I suspect that neither he nor anyone else knows that. However, I find this particular amendment—especially the second one—somewhat restrictive.

[The Countess of Mar]

My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, in his amendment. I respect the view of the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, on ME, and I also thank the Minister for his recent letter to me that clarifies a lot about the department’s stance on ME. I am very grateful for what he has done.

However, there are serious cases of ME where people are just not going to get better. In the House the other day during our consideration of the Health and Social Care Bill, I described a young lady who has had ME since she was 15 and who is now 30 and is not going to get any better. There are a lot of people like that. She is suffering terrible stress with worrying about what is going to happen with her personal independence payments, and that is not helping her condition. In cases like that, where it is pretty obvious that the person is not going to get better—unless there is a miracle of medical science, when of course it should be reviewed whether the person’s health can be improved, which would be all well and good—such patients should not be subjected to the stresses of a medical examination.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Skelmersdale]

Before my noble friend the Minister responds to the questions asked by noble Lords, it seems to me that the key to all these questions is in Clause 99(4)(c)—in other words, what exceptions to the application of the benefit cap are due to be made? As I understand the matter, the average annual salary for a full-time worker is currently £25,900 a year. In his very long speech, the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, talked about the amount of money out-of-work families are expected to live on. Those were his exact words. I find it extremely difficult to anticipate that the amount of money out-of-work families are expected to live on should be more than the average annual salary for a full-time worker.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Skelmersdale]

Can I just finish? I accept that this will involve lifestyle changes. It is inevitable, is it not? Noble Lords have spoken about housing. There is no doubt that idleness—no, idleness is an unfair word—having more time than someone in full-time work costs money. How and with what—

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

Would the noble Lord approve of a lifestyle change that forced someone out of a council house, whatever the level of rent, into much more expensive private sector accommodation because they had been made homeless? Is that a lifestyle change that the noble Lord would approve of?

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

Perhaps I may add to my noble friend’s comments. Would the noble Lord care to compare apples with apples rather than apples with oranges—in other words, not compare the situation of a single man earning the average of £25,000 with the situation of a family who would also be entitled, for example, to child tax credits? If the noble Lord is going to make comparisons, he must in all integrity compare like with like.

[Lord Skelmersdale]

If there is a family where the sole income comes from either the man or the woman, then the situation is as I have described it. If, however, someone is working full time and someone is working part time, then the situation is clearly different, which is what I suspect the noble Baroness means.

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

The noble Lord is incorrect. He is failing to recognise that a man in work with a family at that income level will be entitled to tax credits that go into his net income. He is failing to take into account the additional benefits that come from the state over and beyond wages for someone in full-time work. He must compare like with like in all integrity.

[Lord Skelmersdale]

In that case, it would be useful for my noble friend Lord Freud to tell us how many families with an income of £25,900 a year are on benefit of any sort. I cannot imagine that he will be able to do so off the cuff but—

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

Perhaps I may intervene. I can tell the Committee off the cuff that all of them with children will be receiving child benefit, which has a 99 per cent take-up rate. They will be receiving exactly the same amount in child benefit as people out of work, and one of the amendments in the next group will address this matter.

[Lord Skelmersdale]

My Lords, as I understand it, everyone with children gets child benefit, so you can cut that out quite regularly because you know that it is going to come under subsection (4)(c)—that is inevitable. As I said at the beginning, we will find out from my noble friend what exceptions the Government are currently planning in order to change what the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, calls apples and pears into apples and apples or perhaps pears and pears.

[Lord German]

My Lords—

Welfare Reform Bill

Lord Skelmersdale Excerpts

Monday 14th November 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

My Lords, in the wording in proposed new subsection (2), all that comes close is in the regulations referring to capital being deemed to be income and income being deemed to be capital. Here we have something that has to be treated as being done is though it would have been done had it not been for the fact that it was not done. As a basis of legislation in future, I wonder whether the Minister would welcome such an approach from the Opposition.

[Lord Skelmersdale]

My Lords, the members of the opposition party have been waxing lyrical in this particular case. With all the experience of his advisers behind him, can my noble friend say whether such an accident—and an accident it most certainly is—ever occurred during the course of the last Labour Government?

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

Before the Minister responds to that, perhaps I may add to the list of questions. A moment ago he said that these were fair and targeted proposals, but can he expand on that proposition for us? The increase in the taper rate that affects some people runs to the tune of £780 million and the disability living allowance changes to the gateway amount to a withdrawal amounts to £1.4 billion from disabled people. How does he deal with that juxtaposition? How does he evaluate it? What is the basis for saying that those are fair and targeted? The Minister said it is always right to remind us about the inherited deficit. Perhaps I could say that it is always right to remind Members opposite that a financial crisis has hit every economy around the world—certainly all the major economies; when the last Government left office, the economy was growing and unemployment was going down.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I support the amendment by the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell of Surbiton. I listened with particular interest to the analysis of the media representation of people who are disabled made by the noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins. What she said reminded me of the terrible force of envy. Perhaps it is not recognised enough, but envy is an enormously powerful motivator in human societies. To my mind, it seems to originate in early childhood. When new younger siblings arrive as babies into families, sometimes they are harmed by their older siblings who feel deeply envious of the intruder coming in. Envy can also arise out of feelings of competition between the love of the child for the mother and the father coming in. What I am suggesting is that these feelings of envy are laid down in us very early in our lives, and they can easily be stirred up again in adulthood. It is therefore an extremely important issue. Indeed, in an organisation one will often see those in one part of it seeking to starve those in another because they do not want to see that other part getting more than they get. In a family, the parent must send out clear signals to the child that they are still important and wanted, but that there is a new arrival to whom they have to give more attention for a while. Likewise, those in authority in society have to send out a signal to the wider society that some people need additional support and on some occasions resources, and that is the way it is. It worries me that signals appear to have been sent out indicating that a particular group is being over-favoured. That is quite wrong, and therefore this change of name might be important in that respect.

[Lord Skelmersdale]

I am sure that the eloquent and moving speeches we have heard today will cause my noble friend the Minister to think very hard indeed. I accept the need for a change in the name of the benefit. “Personal independence payment” is wrong for all the reasons that have been advocated. However, there is a problem. This is a totally new benefit for disabled people, but I believe that having “allowance” in its name is a mistake as it is too close to “disability living allowance”.

While listening to the arguments today, I came up with my own preferred formulation—“personal disability costs payment”. It is all of those things, and it is a payment. When my noble friend thinks about these issues—I am sure that he will not give us a plus or minus answer today; at least, I jolly well hope not—I hope that he will consider that suggestion.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, the proposition before us today is that we change references to “personal independence payment” and replace them with “disability living costs allowance”. We have heard strong and compelling arguments to support that proposition and I am happy to give support from the opposition Front Bench. I do not propose to offer an alternative formulation, but I understand where the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, was coming from. It seems that the reasons that have been articulated today are overwhelmingly right. They are about clarity; about sending out the right signals; about not conceding issues to the press; about not allowing the word “disability” to be airbrushed out of the system; and about trying to combat some of the fears about the way that the proposals have been brought forward.

The DLA has its origins in 1970 when attendance and mobility allowances were introduced for severely disabled people. It was introduced in 1992 under the guidance of the noble Lord, Lord Newton. I am delighted that he is regaining his self-confidence—I cannot imagine him without it. It was introduced because the then system was not meeting the needs of some groups of disabled people; for example, people with learning disabilities and visual impairments. The noble Lord, Lord Low, described DLA as now having iconic significance.

As the impact assessment produced for this Bill indicates, DLA is a benefit which provides a cash contribution towards the extra costs of needs arising from an impairment or health condition. Because it is not practical to measure each individual’s expenditure and therefore entitlement, entitlement has to be based on proxies for extra costs, care and mobility. These proxies were used at the time because research showed that they were the greatest sources of extra cost. So a decision about whether an award is made is not on the basis of an individual’s cost, but on the severity of their care and mobility needs.

Welfare Reform Bill

Lord Skelmersdale Excerpts

Thursday 10th November 2011 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I have a quick question for the Minister. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, for giving us the opportunity for this short debate. I wanted to ask the Minister about mentors for these individuals—what one finds, for instance, in the National Grid programme for young offenders, which has been so successful in rehabilitating young offenders. A key factor in that is the use of mentors in the workplace.

In the Youth Justice Board they are finding a great deal of success, again by using mentors in tandem with accommodation charities, and so on. In the past, the mentoring work of YoungMinds has identified that long-term relationships with a mentor have positive outcomes for young people. One of the very effective charities working with children in schools, Volunteer Reading Help, has volunteers who commit to at least a year’s work with the children.

Given the importance of mentoring, and my sense from discussions on apprenticeships that not much thought has been given to developing and training those individuals in the workplace who provided mentoring for apprentices, I would be interested to hear from the Minister now, or perhaps to have a note from him later, about how they intend to develop mentors for individuals caught by this clause in the future.

[Lord Skelmersdale]

My Lords, these are all clearly very relevant questions, but I would like to ask the Minister whether he construes “work experience” or “work placement” in the same way as he does “work preparation requirements” in proposed new Section 11(3)(c) in Clause 56?

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

My Lords, this summer we increased conditionality for ESA claimants in the work-related activity group with the introduction of the work-related activity regulations. For the first time, those who are able to prepare for a return to work will be required to do so, where it is reasonable.

This measure is another aspect of work-related activity, and thus those groups—such as support group claimants, lone parents with children under the age of five and those with caring responsibilities—who are not required to undertake work-related activity will not be required to do work experience or work placements.

Noble Lords asked, in relation to Clause 16, whether this measure extends the definition of work-related activity, which is one of the questions asked by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie. The Bill seeks to clarify what may be included by way of work-related activity, rather than extend its meaning. Work-related activity is already defined in the Welfare Reform Act 2007 as,

“activity which makes it more likely that the person will obtain or remain in work or be able to do so”,

and Clause 54 makes expressly clear that this may include work experience or a work placement.

However, an adviser will only place a claimant on a work experience placement if he judges that it will help support the claimant back to work, and if it is suitable. If a claimant feels that the requirements placed upon them are unreasonable, they can request that the adviser reconsider whether an activity is appropriate. Claimants are also able to follow a rigorous complaints procedure if they do not think that they are receiving a satisfactory service. I hope that that explains what the formal protections are to the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie.

The focus of work experience and work placements will be on learning new skills and gaining valuable experience to get a flavour of the workplace environment. They will provide claimants who may have a limited work history with the opportunity to increase their confidence and employability. The precise nature of such placements will depend on what is deemed suitable for the individual, bearing in mind their physical and mental capabilities, and ensuring that necessary adjustments are made.

Placements would normally be short term, but there is currently no set duration, and this will normally be agreed between the adviser and the customer. Work experience and placements must be appropriate to the individual’s circumstances and need not be full-time. For instance, if a person’s health condition means that their mobility and pain levels improve over the course of the day, an adviser might find them a placement for two or three hours in the afternoon. This is quite different from the more challenging demands of paid work, which would normally be a longer-term and less flexible commitment with higher expectations placed on the worker.

The requirement to undertake work experience or work placements will be used flexibly by advisers as part of a range of work-related activities. It is not intended that such placements would necessarily replace other aspects of work preparation. It may be one of a number of work-related activities required of an individual which, in combination, best support a claimant to move closer to the labour market.

In response to concerns that work experience may be used to judge whether an individual is in fact capable of work, this is not the case. A claimant cannot be found capable of work unless they are found capable following a work capability assessment. This new measure will therefore not affect anyone’s underlying entitlement to benefit.

On the question raised by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, on access to work, the answer is that it is not available to claimants undertaking work-related activity. For claimants participating in sector-based work academies, funding will be available to help with reasonable adjustments during their participation in that provision. For work experience arranged through alternative sources, reasonable adjustments will be made where necessary to ensure that claimants are able to undertake any work experience or work placement in a safe environment which meets the needs of the claimant. Where necessary, Jobcentre Plus could assist employers with reasonable adjustments, using the flexible fund which is available to an adviser.

I shall clarify the issue of job outcomes for work programme providers. Work programme providers will not be paid for work placements and, therefore, there is no incentive for the provider to encourage a claimant to undertake long-term unpaid work experience, which I think is the underlying concern that the noble Lord has in raising this point. Payment arises for work placement providers only if a sustained, paid, full job outcome is achieved. Furthermore, sustainment payments also ensure that it is not profitable for providers to encourage claimants to undertake unreasonable work-related activity with the aim of making them enter the labour market before they are ready, as that is unlikely to lead to a positive long-term job outcome. I hope that I have described a series of formal protections but also an incentive structure that means that this is not going to lead to any abuse or, if it did, that it would be smack against the financial incentives that we have set up.

In response to my noble friend Lord Skelmersdale’s question on substitute Section 11(3)(c) in Clause 56, I can confirm that the definition of “work preparation” will be the same and will include work experience or a work placement in both clauses.

I owe the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, an answer on mentors. I wish to express our interest in mentors. I am absolutely with him on the importance of mentoring, and as he may or may not know, I have developed my own project with CSV, called Grandmentors, where we test how older, retired people can support youngsters making the transition to adulthood, along precisely that thinking. That project, which I think is one of the very few formal projects with research around it, tries to establish the real economic value to the country of mentoring. I have put my own wallet behind it. I look forward to reporting to him when I have some decent findings.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Skelmersdale]

My Lords, many years ago when my noble friend Lord Brooke was my temporary boss in Northern Ireland, never in a million years did I expect that he would ever be described, or indeed would describe himself, as St Sebastian. The reason I mention that is that I knew that when he became Secretary of State, he had moderately recently been a Treasury Minister. My job in Northern Ireland, inter alia, was to look after the Social Fund in the then 32 Northern Ireland social security offices. It quickly became apparent that the calls on the Social Fund in any particular office at any particular time were extremely erratic. I asked my civil servants if London would object if I moved money around the system in order to try to balance it up. Of course the following year I had to do it again because of that erraticism.

It is all very well expecting the Social Fund, which is expatriated to Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales as a whole, to operate well with ring-fencing, but I find it absolutely impossible to believe that ring-fencing can ever apply when it is expatriated to local authorities in England for the simple reason that one local authority will build up a certain amount while another will be permanently in deficit. That is not going to help the people whom the Social Fund is intended to help in the first place.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, we have added our names to Amendments 86ZZZB, 86ZZZC and 86ZZZD and we support the other amendments in this group. We have our own amendment, Amendment 86ZZZEB, and I should say to the noble Lord, Lord German, that I am happy to accept his amendments to my amendment. Perhaps we can go through the Lobby together when the opportunity arises.

The Social Fund, particularly the discretionary component, helps some of the most disadvantaged and marginalised individuals in the country. We have been given a lot of historical perspective on this, but my brief says that the fund has its origins in the exceptional needs payments scheme introduced by the Labour Government in 1948. However, some may go back a bit further. We should recognise that the fund as it operates today is not perfect. Indeed, a number of noble Lords have made that point. When we were in Government, we paved the way for change and consulted on it. The case we made was the one referred to by the noble Lord, Lord German, which was that the system was short-term, passive and complex. Its role was as a sticking plaster to deal with short-term crises and did not address the longer-term challenges which individuals face, particularly those of financial and social exclusion.

That said, we should never lose sight of the importance of a safety net for those who are in desperate need. We have all received powerful testimony from a range of organisations to the difference that a crisis loan or a community care grant can make when individuals with acute needs are faced with very difficult circumstances. It helps the poorest and the most vulnerable people in our society and we know how an early intervention can prevent a slide into even more desperate circumstances.

The case has been made by others, particularly in a very powerful presentation by my noble friend Lady Lister, as to why we should continue to support this. I would like to comment on some of the other contributions. Perhaps I may say to the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, that the great mistake he made was to confront Derek Hatton with a Socialist Worker under his arm. It should have been Militant, and then he might have got a better reception. So far as ring-fencing is concerned, I recall one party conference when a certain Dennis Skinner was speaking from the platform. He addressed the mayor who had come to open the conference and suggested that he should melt down his chain and put it into the housing revenue account, so there are precedents as well.

One of the difficulties I have with the government proposals is in trying to understand precisely their vision of what should result from this process. On page 25 of Local support to replace Community Care Grants and Crisis Loans for living expenses in England, the Government’s response to the call for evidence, they say:

“There is no expectation or desire from central government that the new service will mirror the current Social Fund scheme in whole or in part”.

If that is right, what is the Government’s vision? What are they seeking to achieve? My blood ran cold when I turned to page 27—this was the point made by my noble friend Lady Lister—where it says:

“One of the design issues raised by a large number of respondents is whether provision should be in the form of cash payments or goods and services, including for example food parcels and both new and re-conditioned household items”.

The next paragraph says:

“The need to offer recipients choice or control over the item they received was not generally considered a requirement and by a number of respondents it was thought to be undesirable. There was a strong sense that if there is a genuine need recipients will accept the support that is offered”.

What sort of country are we living in where we have those sorts of rules? It is “take it or leave it”, living off the scraps from the supermarket when they clear the shelves at night.

My noble friend Lady Sherlock pressed on a range of points concerning funding. I shall address Appendix C of the document I just referred to. Bandied around somewhere in the text is a figure of £178 million, but this annexe says it gives us,

“National-level data from the latest available financial year and 2005-6”.

The year then was 2009-10, so it was not as up to date as my noble friend. It says:

“We have indicated our intention and already taken action to manage the current levels of demand and spend for Crisis Loans back towards 2005-06 levels. 2005-06 data should therefore be regarded as more representative of the levels of demand and spend at the point of transition to the new local provision”.

The gross spend on crisis loans in 2009-10 was £67 million, but what was it in 2005-6? It was £20 million. Is that what the Government are about now, trying to scale back from even the 2009-10 figures to just £20 million in allocating moneys to start this process? It is an absolute disgrace if that is the proposition, and this is supposedly not meant to be about saving money.

Notwithstanding that, the information we have had is that the Government are cutting back on some of these arrangements. Crisis loans for items only following a disaster and crisis loans for living expenses have been cut back from 75 per cent to 60 per cent, supposedly aligning with the hardship payment rate under JSA. Crisis loans for living expenses are limited to three in a rolling 12-month period. There is already a process under way to cut back on this spend before we get into the new arrangements. I would like to understand the rationale and the justification for that.

I thoroughly and wholeheartedly support the proposition concerning ring-fencing. What we are talking about is money that goes into local authority budgets, ring-fenced for a specific purpose. The Government have made great play of reducing ring-fencing on local authorities—as we did in Government to a certain extent—but as a technique and as a means of ensuring that the money that goes through to local authorities is spent on that endeavour, it is well tried and tested. There is not a problem in doing it. Indeed, one of the experiences we need to reflect on is what happened to the “Supporting People” programme. That programme was originally ring-fenced. It was then un-ring-fenced, I think with the support of the CLG Select Committee, but at least in those circumstances local authorities were required to continue to report centrally about how that allocation had been dealt with. It was not rigid but at least there was a reporting requirement. I do not know, but perhaps the Minister can tell us, whether any such arrangements are proposed so far as the Social Fund is concerned.

My noble friend Lady Hollis was absolutely right to identify the issues that will arise under two-tier authorities. She suggested that one way of dealing with this would be to have a mandatory allocation to districts, but that raises the whole question of who people will engage with at the local level to get the support they need. Most of their needs will be related to housing, which is at the district level, but some may be related to adult services, which are the functions of a county council. Where people go and what the process will be is entirely unclear.

The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, supported the issues around ring-fencing. He made the point, as did other noble Lords, about the pressure that is on local authorities at this time. They have had dramatic cuts made to their budgets and some of those cuts have been front-end loaded. In some respects, they have had greater responsibilities imposed on them under the Localism Bill. Indeed, what are hard-pressed councils to do when such extraordinary pressures are placed on them? They must try to make decent decisions so as to protect and support their communities. This is another example of the Government, in the guise of localism, pushing down on local authorities and giving them the supposed problem that they are not prepared to face up to and deal with themselves.

My noble friend Lady Turner centred her speech on issues around domestic violence. I wholeheartedly agree with her, and that is why the amendment should be supported.

The greatest difficulty with all this is being able to see what the Government’s vision is. Local authorities are innovative and many of them will work very hard to protect in every way they can the vulnerable citizens in their communities, and indeed those from outside their communities. The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, made the point about connections. If local authorities put in place a focus on people with local connections, it will particularly disadvantage those whom the Social Fund is designed to help—the people who are settling back into a community and perhaps do not yet have a fixed abode. They may be rough sleepers or—I think this is the expression—they sofa-surf, which is when they kip down for the night on friends’ sofas here, there and everywhere. Helping those people means that a barrier cannot be put on some localised connection. I would support all the amendments which seek to avoid that.

The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, was absolutely right to say that we need consistency of approach and transparency in all this. In part, that is what our amendment seeks to do: it would establish that there should be mechanisms to make sure that we get consistency. As I say, that has to be on an England basis because separate and well funded schemes will operate in Scotland and Wales. That is fine, and we should be happy with that. One of the other challenges here is that these changes are being introduced at a time when there is a whole maelstrom of change going on around localism, welfare reform, our health and social care provisions, and what legal aid support people can receive. In the midst of all that, these changes are being brought forward. They will affect the most vulnerable people in our society, and if we have a duty as Members of Parliament and certainly as members of a Government, above all we should look to protect them. These provisions simply do not do that.