Personal Independence Payments

Baroness Buscombe Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd July 2019 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Buscombe) (Con)]

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will now repeat the Answer to an Urgent Question asked in another place concerning personal independence payment:

“The Supreme Court has ruled on the case known as MM, or SSWP v MM. This case was about the definition of ‘social support’, when engaging with other people face to face in the PIP assessment, and how far in advance that support can be provided.

We took this case to the Supreme Court because we wanted clarity on this issue, and the judgment now gives us that clarity. We welcome the court’s judgment. We are pleased that it accepted that there is a difference between ‘prompting’ and ‘social support’, and that there must be a need for social support to be provided by someone who is trained or experienced in providing such support.

PIP is already a better benefit for people with mental health conditions compared to the disability living allowance. The proportion who get the higher rate of PIP is five times higher than under DLA—with 33% on PIP and just 6% on DLA.

It is clear that there is an increasing understanding in society about mental health and how important it is to make sure that individuals with poor mental health get the right help. It is not an exact science, but it is one of the few areas with cross-party support.

Getting this clarity will ensure that even more people who need help to engage face to face may now be eligible to benefit under PIP. Supporting disabled people and those with mental health conditions continues to be a priority for this Government. That is why we will now carefully consider the full judgment and, working with disabled people and engaging with Mind and other stakeholders, we will implement it fully and fairly so that claimants get the support that they are entitled to now”.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating an Answer to a UQ concerning a landmark judgment of the Supreme Court. The judgment, as we have heard, is to be welcomed and will mean that people with mental health problems who find social situations debilitating can now be assessed as having sufficient points to be eligible for the personal independence regime.

However, Mind—which should be thanked for its intervention in the case—suggests that, since the introduction of PIP, as many as 425,000 people with psychiatric disorders have been turned down for the benefit. Will the Minister say, therefore, what additional resources have been made available to enable past assessments to be reviewed and if necessary rectified, and what additional training is being provided to staff to enable them to better assess the needs of individuals with these conditions?

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his response and his understanding that we welcome this judgment. As he will know, we regularly consult stakeholders to help shape the training of DWP staff, and I am proud that we now have, in respect of training, a mental health champion in each of our personal independence payment assessment centres.

We welcome this judgment, as it helps us to gain a much deeper understanding of mental health issues and conditions across society. This will, however, be a complex process, which we are committed to doing, and we will report back to the House with further information. The vast majority of the appeals require additional medical information. That is why we are piloting the scheme: so that claimants can provide this evidence at the mandatory reconsideration stage, rather than at tribunal. We are, in other words, doing all we can to continue to improve the system to support those who need help.

[Baroness Thomas of Winchester (LD)]

My Lords, is it not clear, in the light of this and other judgments, that the PIP descriptors in the field of mental health need substantial amendment? It sounds as if that is what the Government have in mind, and I am very pleased that the department is upholding the judgment as much as the rest of us. We really need a cool, hard look at all the descriptors, and for the Government to consult on them fully and come back with detailed amendments. We also need better-trained assessors and a genuine stage of mandatory reconsideration, instead of the rubber stamp that we all too often get now. There is a huge number of successful appeals and consequently an unacceptably long wait for a tribunal hearing.

[Baroness Buscombe]

I shall do my best to respond to the noble Baroness, who of course knows so much about this area. On waiting times, we are committed to processing PIP claims as quickly as possible while ensuring that we have all the evidence we need to make the right decisions. A key issue has been not having sufficient medical information in the first instance. We are working with the NHS to see what we can do to rectify that. In the last quarter, February to April 2019, 55,097 claims on average were processed each month. The average new claim or reassessment claim waits just six weeks for assessment. However, PIP is needs based and not condition based, and reviews are a key part of the benefit to ensure that the right support continues to be delivered.

In a nutshell, we believe that PIP is working so much better. There were originally some quite difficult issues around it. We are constantly working to improve the situation. That is why now have a mental health champion in each PIP assessment centre. We are making sure that there are experts behind each assessor. We have videos to help people understand what the process is so that they can feel comfortable about that engagement at the assessment centre. We also encourage people to come with a trusted third-party individual to support them through that often quite emotional process.

Yes, it is a complex process. We are committed to doing all we can. We will report back to the House with further information in relation to the Supreme Court’s decision, but we continue to spend more on supporting those with mental health issues—quite rightly.

[Lord Low of Dalston (CB)]

My Lords, notwithstanding what the Minister says about the judgment, it is clear that there are still major problems with assessment of disabled people for benefits. Figures recently obtained from the DWP under the Freedom of Information Act indicated that more than a third of PIP assessments carried out by Capita were found to be defective—up 4% in the two years since 2016. This makes it clear that things are going in the wrong direction, and not the right direction as the Government habitually claim when such concerns are raised. What can the Minister say to assure the House that the Government are getting on top of these problems?

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, we are working hard to get on top of these problems, and no one is working harder than my honourable friend in another place the Minister for Disabled People, Justin Tomlinson MP. We recognise that for the most severely disabled claimants the award review process can seem unnecessarily intrusive. That is why those with most severe lifetime disabilities are more likely to have their evidence reviewed by a DWP case manager without the need for another face-to-face assessment, which we know has caused issues. Additionally, in August 2018 we introduced updated guidance for case managers which will ensure that those who receive the highest level of support under PIP, where their needs are unlikely to change or may even get worse, will now receive an ongoing award with a light-touch review at the end of the 10-year period. As I said earlier, we are working hard with the NHS to see what more we can do to get the right medical evidence to make sure that we make the right decision in the first instance.

Universal Credit: Managed Migration

Baroness Buscombe Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd July 2019 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Buscombe) (Con)]

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. The Statement is as follows:

“Mr Speaker, at the core of this department is the desire to deliver a considered and considerate welfare system that incentivises work. Universal credit has been rolled out nationally and now has over 2 million claimants. We continue to listen to claimants, stakeholders and Members of this House to improve the system. In short, we examine what works and act accordingly. That is why one of my first acts as Secretary of State was to announce legislation for a small pilot to move existing welfare claimants on to universal credit. This managed migration involves moving claimants who are still on legacy benefits and have not had a change in circumstances across to universal credit. This pilot will give colleagues and claimants confidence in the department’s approach to the transition before we return to the House to report on progress and seek permission to extend managed migration.

Today I am laying regulations to commence the pilot for no more than 10,000 claimants, which will start this month as promised. We will begin with one site— Harrogate, as previously announced—to ensure that people’s transition is carefully supported. We have the possibility to extend the pilot to further sites as it progresses. This will allow us to learn from putting processes into practice, and to adapt our approach accordingly. The department will continue to work closely with expert stakeholders to ensure that the pilot supports the most vulnerable and hard-to-reach claimants. Claimants who are moved to universal credit will be eligible for transitional financial protection to safeguard their legacy entitlement. They will also have access to additional financial support before they receive their first UC payment, including the two-week run-on of housing benefit and the discretionary hardship payment, in addition to advances.

I want to reiterate that the department does not intend to stop the benefits of anyone participating in this pilot. Instead, we will be testing how we can encourage and support those moving over to universal credit, without halting their benefits. The listen-and-adapt, evidence-based approach is the right way to deliver universal credit.

We have also revised our approach to claimants who are entitled to the severe disability premium. The regulations that I am laying today will enable us to begin to provide support for claimants who were entitled to the premium and have already moved to universal credit. From 24 July 2019, these claimants will be considered for backdated payments covering the time since they moved to universal credit. These claimants will also gain access to ongoing transitional payments that reflect the severe disability premium to which they were previously entitled. We have reviewed the rates of those payments to enable the most vulnerable to receive increased support. Claimants will now receive payments of up to £405 per month alongside their universal credit award, increased from the previous proposed maximum of £360. We estimate that by 2024-25, approximately 45,000 of the most vulnerable claimants will benefit from this package of support, worth an estimated £600 million over the next six years. My department will begin the process from Wednesday 24 July 2019, ensuring that claimants are paid at the earliest opportunity.

Following the High Court judgment on the severe disability premium, these regulations will also bring to an end, in 2021, the barrier that currently prevents its recipients moving to universal credit through a change of circumstances. Until 2021, anyone currently receiving SDP whose circumstances change will continue to be held on legacy benefits, as they are now. After 2021, the barrier will be removed. SDP claimants will move on to universal credit through natural migration, gaining access to the new payments available to those who have already moved over.

The department will continue to follow this approach in the weeks and months to come, identifying areas for improvement and seeking new ways to better support claimants. In the months ahead, we are completing an evaluation of the effectiveness of universal credit sanctions in supporting people into work in order to report back to the Select Committee in the autumn; evaluating the results of our pilots that explored offering claimants more frequent benefit payments on demand; launching a new service for private sector landlords to receive housing benefit rent payments directly from the department; and continuing a proof of concept in south London to test a “written warning” sanctions model whereby a sanction is not applied on the first failure to attend an appointment.

I am determined—and I know the department is determined—to ensure that universal credit is always a force for good”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

My Lords, I too am grateful to the Minister for repeating the Answer to the Urgent Question and would like to ask some questions about the pilot.

I am not completely familiar with processes of this kind and am grateful to the noble Baroness for raising a lot of issues that had occurred to me. I would be grateful if we could have more detail of the scope, approach and methodology of the pilot, when the findings are likely to be made public, when there will be an opportunity for external agencies to examine and question the report and, indeed, when there will be a debate here before the Minister comes back to Parliament for permission to carry out managed migration.

I hope that the pilot will look at some of the needs as expressed by the various groups and that they will be taken account of and reviewed: for example, bringing assessments back in-house for people with disabilities, following the whole record of the assessment process; providing split payments to protect vulnerable women; reviewing the work search process requirements, particularly for women with young children or caring responsibilities; and the piloting of different approaches to digital accessibility, particularly for disadvantaged groups and people with disabilities.

I welcome the proposed action on the judgment of the High Court and would like more detail as to how it will communicate to all people who are eligible, with a report back from the Minister on how that is being carried out. I very much hope that the pilot will provide us not only with insight and the chance to review some of the problems that I have been aware of since I have been covering the issue, but the opportunity for debate and external scrutiny before the managed migration process is carried out in full.

[Baroness Buscombe]

I thank both the noble Baronesses, Lady Sherlock and Lady Janke, for their questions. I have to agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, that it has been a journey. It has not been easy, but I am pleased to say that we are, we believe, now in a very good place. It has taken longer than we would have liked, but through that process, we have made some serious improvements not only to the whole system of universal credit, as people naturally migrate—we have now had the rollout into all job centres as of the end of last year—but to thinking through what we should do on managed migration. Indeed, I remind noble Lords—I am looking at the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, who is part of the House of Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee—that that committee suggested that the department should legislate for a pilot phase. I remember that the suggestion was first made at a meeting of all Peers. I cannot remember the date—I apologise—but it was some time ago. We listened to that recommendation and suggestion and, as many noble Lords will know, are now and have been for some months working closely with key stakeholders. We invited more than 80 to talk to us about how they might like to be involved to help us. Noble Lords will agree that this is a huge enterprise, a huge reform that we are working through, and we need their support and understanding. We need to learn from and work with them and test our processes. Much of this—I turn to the noble Baroness, Lady Janke—is about ensuring that we get it right by introducing a pilot, which we will keep to no more than 10,000 people, before we move on to the fuller phase.

I will answer some of the key questions. Why has it taken so long to lay new regulations? Our previous draft regulations were subject to a judicial review. That judgment quashed parts of Schedule 2 but made it clear that it was up to the Secretary of State to decide how to respond. We have been considering options and are now in a position to re-lay the regulations.

Why did we change from an affirmative—where we thought we were in the right place to debate with noble Lords—to a negative procedure? The previous draft regulations included an appeal rights provision, which clarified that there were no appeal rights for procedural matters where claimants are issued migration notices, request an extension of the time to claim or request a cancellation of migration notice. These revised regulations now introduce only a pilot, rather than managed migration as a whole, and a provision has been removed, making them now subject to the negative procedure. However, I make it clear that the provision was a clarification of policy, so its removal does not represent a policy change. In relation to appeals, claimants will of course be able to appeal their universal credit benefit decision if they feel that it is incorrect.

It is important to say that because only pilot regulations are being introduced, the department must return to Parliament for approval to continue managed migration activity after the pilot has been evaluated. We will bring forward such legislation only when the process works in the best possible way for everyone. While I appreciate that this means there is no automatic debate and vote on these regulations, Parliament will still have the opportunity to consider them.

We have broken the 21-day rule, as alluded to by the noble Baroness. It is there to allow people to prepare for the changes that legislation will introduce, but claimants have been expecting these changes in this legislation for over a year and they are positive changes. Therefore, after careful deliberation—and particularly considering the delay engendered by the judicial review and responding to the judgment—we have decided that our primary concern should be to pay former severe disability premium claimants the transitional payment as quickly as possible. Bringing into force the managed migration provisions will allow DWP to issue a migration notice—then claimants will have three months to claim.

We were asked why we are not laying the SDP transitional payments separately. SDP transitional payments are a fundamental part of the wider transitional protection framework. As the transitional payments are inextricably linked with the wider rules for transitional protection, it is essential that provisions for former SDP claimants form part of the regulations that introduce transitional protection as part of managed migration.

I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, that the Government are still appealing the TP and AR judicial review.

For those noble Lords who are not familiar with it, I will now give more detail about the managed migration pilot. We have chosen to commence the pilot at one jobcentre—Harrogate—where we will seek to learn from many cases with complex needs. It has a case load with a mixture of urban and rural claimants, which will further aid our learning, and is supported by a local service centre under the same management. It is important that we test an approach that is based on using existing relationships that the DWP or trusted partners, our stakeholders, have with claimants. Through these relationships we will establish whether someone is ready to move and how to get them ready.

We will initially select claimants for the pilot from those who currently attend the jobcentre for meetings with their work coaches. The work coaches will then build on these existing relationships to prepare claimants to move and support them through the process. We will start with small numbers and grow the pilot safely, only increasing it when we feel it is right to do so. We have thought through the process. We have been working closely and continually with stakeholders to make sure that we work with the evidence and that we make necessary changes as we develop the process.

It is also important to make it clear that there will be a considerable number of gainers in this process. Some £2.4 billion-worth of unclaimed benefits is not going to the people who need them because they do not know about them. By supporting claimants who may have been on universal credit for many years, without any change of circumstance, and who have not been in touch to re-engage with us, universal credit will make sure that this money will reach those who need it most. There are some amazing stories of where this has happened to date. When migration is complete, because of UC, 700,000 more people will be paid their full entitlement, worth an average of £285 a month.

More disabled people will receive higher payments under UC. The rate in UC for these claimants is higher at £336 per month—up from £169 per month on the equivalent ESA support group. This means that around 1 million disabled households will gain on average around £100 more a month on universal credit.

It is a continuing journey but we are in a good place to do the right thing by going forward in a measured way, working with claimants—particularly vulnerable claimants— and making sure that we look after those who need our support.

[Baroness Janke]

Did the Minister say there would be a report on the pilot? I specifically asked whether there would be a report which could be scrutinised and, if necessary, debated.

[Baroness Buscombe]

I am glad that the noble Baroness has prompted me. We will publish an assessment of the impacts prior to scaling of managed migration. As we said in our response to SSAC, we are conducting detailed equality assessments of migration plans as part of our public sector equality duty. We will report on the impacts of the testing, which will be evaluated, and we will respond through a report on the learning and adaptations.

[Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)]

My Lords, perhaps I may comment, as the Baron of Harrogate and a resident of Harrogate, that I will be watching the pilot with great interest. I hope that the positive outcomes my noble friend is anticipating will be delivered for the people of Harrogate.

[Baroness Buscombe]

I thank my noble friend for his question. As he will know, Harrogate has a strong mix of benefit claimants that will reflect case loads across the country as we start to scale. We looked at this issue carefully and took some time to choose somewhere that would have a strong mix of people who can work with ease with us and others who have differing complex needs. We wanted to be sure that we could reflect case loads across the country as we start to scale. There are many cases with complex needs which we will be seeking to learn from. Harrogate also has a case load with a mixture of urban and rural claimants, which makes a difference in terms of people’s approach. This will further aid our learning and is supported by a local service centre under the same management as the jobcentre. So I hope my noble friend will stay in touch with developments in Harrogate. We are very keen to start work tomorrow if all goes well.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I think that my noble friend asked for Parliament to be able to debate the report on the pilot before the regulations are laid, because it is very disappointing that, although the Secretary of State said that the Government continued to listen to Members of this House to optimise the system, they do not seem terribly interested in what we might have had to say about the pilot. I think that we could have come up with some constructive thoughts on that pilot, so that is disappointing.

I welcome the fact no one will lose their legacy benefits if they do not move on to universal credit during the pilot and what the Secretary of State called the “who knows you” approach, but how far will it be possible to learn lessons about the potential dangers of the widely criticised hard stop that my noble friend referred to once managed migration is fully rolled out? Because then, of course, that will no longer apply; people will lose their legacy benefits. And how easy will it be to scale up this approach nationally when the local support networks that the Government are very much relying on here are so variable and, in some places, pretty thin and probably getting thinner with local authority cuts? Also, the staff to claimant ratio is likely to be rather worse than it is for the pilot. So, just how much can we learn from this pilot in terms of what the fully scaled managed migration will look like?

[Baroness Buscombe]

I will respond to the noble Baroness by saying that I absolutely appreciate and very much respect the work that she does in relation to supporting just the sort of people we want to support through this process. I am quite surprised in some ways that the noble Baroness is not more involved with the stakeholders who we are constantly now engaging with—but I am sure that she is aware of those who are working with us in number to guide us and test us to make sure that we do not pursue a route that looks as if it is not going to work. We have to do this in a way that takes account of all the differing complex needs that people have, which is not going to be easy. People sometimes fluctuate over time in terms of those needs, so we have to be very, very flexible, and we think that that is the best way of working on this. Again, I go back to the advice from the Lords committee that suggested that we have a pilot just to make sure that we do our utmost to ensure that nobody falls through the cracks.

The noble Baroness referenced the hard stop. Once issued with a migration notice, claimants will have at least three months to claim universal credit and we are piloting this approach precisely to learn how we can contact and support people to move to universal credit without ending their legacy entitlement. We are not intending to move people to UC by stopping their benefits in the pilot. We will be testing how to encourage and support people moving on to universal credit without needing to stop benefits. It is not a question of hard stop and just giving people notice and then saying, “Sorry, cheerio, you haven’t responded”. We will do what it takes. There would have to be highly exceptional circumstances, I suggest, for there to be a situation where we had failed through every avenue to be in touch with someone and so would end their benefit. I have to say that it has not been and is not our intention to allow anyone to have their benefits stopped. The phrase “hard stop” evolved from the Opposition Benches, I think, and it is something that we have worked hard to deflect, because we do not want people to fall through the cracks or to stop receiving benefits because we have failed in some way to ensure, by visiting their homes, making contact with them, working with them and encouraging third-party trusted support to work with them and us, that we do the right thing and look after these people who need our ongoing support.

[The Lord Bishop of Durham]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for all she said and look back several months to how she involved us and engaged with a group of us in a range of helpful ways. The regulations that have been laid show evidence of the Government having listened. I am deeply grateful for the ongoing engagement with stakeholder groups. However, along with my noble friends who have already spoken, I wish to highlight that this House and the other place, not the stakeholder groups, have to scrutinise the regulations, so to land them on us at this point in a negative form seems quite hard to take, if I am being honest.

I thank the Minister for the explanation about Harrogate—I had written down, “Why Harrogate?”—but Harrogate is not going to produce 10,000, so presumably work has been done on other places that would also offer that kind of thing. Can the Minister give us any indication of where after Harrogate, because there will be similar issues?

I have three further questions. The Statement began by emphasising yet again that UC is about helping people into work, yet we know that the largest percentage of people are already in work. So, in the pilot, what examination will be undertaken to see whether UC really is helping people into work? Secondly, will the pilot include people who are being negatively impacted by the two-child limit, and will an analysis of the impact on those affected by the two-child limit be undertaken as part of the pilot? It could offer some comparison with the report All Kids Count, which sought to offer some analysis which shows how severely damaging the two-child limit is proving to be.

Finally, on migration notices, paragraph 44 of the regulations is very clear about people being informed that,

“all awards of any existing benefits to which they are entitled are to terminate and that they will need to make a claim for universal credit; and … specifying a day (‘the deadline day’)”.

Will the Minister acknowledge that this phrasing will still be extremely hard for people to hear and receive when a letter arrives stating that all their benefits are going to be terminated and that they will have to make a fresh claim? I acknowledge that the earlier criticisms about timescales have been heeded and there is a three-month wait, but what thought has been given to how that kind of letter will be worded to make it very clear that, as the Minister has said to us, it is not the intention that benefits will be terminated in the sense that no benefits will be received? That is not how it sounds in the regulations.

[Baroness Buscombe]

I thank the right reverend Prelate for his positive response to these regulations. I appreciate the frustration of noble Lords who feel that they seem to have come late in the day. As I said, the key reason for that relates to the judgment, which we needed to respond to. We needed to get it right. The judgment said that there was an unintended consequence and we were not being quite fair in how we were treating people in terms of the severe disability premium. We are really keen to get that right. From tomorrow, we can start working on how we can support those people, backdating their pay and so on to ensure that they are properly supported financially.

I want to be very positive about universal credit and about how the pilot will help more people into work. It is really important to stress that managed migration will open up the world of work for thousands and deliver financial support for those whose circumstances have not changed. The good news stories that our department reads about, listens to and sees on our videos and on social media on a daily basis are very different from some of the scaremongering that has gone on over the many months and years during which universal credit has been developed. It is fantastic when one meets people who feel for the first time an extraordinary sense of dignity and pride, and a sense of “can do”—a phrase used by the person who will become our Prime Minister tomorrow. That is really important, because these are people whose families, sometimes over generations, have not worked. They have lived in families who do not understand what the word “work” means and they have had no sense of self-worth. Now, they have that and it is fabulous. Therefore, I hope that the right reverend Prelate will support—

[Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Buscombe]

I am in full flight here.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

Does the Minister accept that this Government were not the first to understand the importance of getting people into work? If she goes back just a few years in history to previous Governments, she will see that it was a Labour Government who started the process of engagement with people, rather than leaving them to rot on disability benefits. The game plan of the noble Baroness’s Government was to push people on to disability benefits so they would not count as part of the unemployment statistics. It was only when a Labour Government came in that programmes such as New Deal and many others were started.

[Baroness Buscombe]

One reason I became a Conservative was that there was an incredible advertisement in 1979 that said, “Labour Isn’t Working”. It showed lines and lines of people outside what we then called the employment exchange. That was a long time ago, but in 2010—the noble Lord knows this—20% of working-age households were still entirely workless. We have got that down to 13.9%. It is still not good enough but we are doing all we can. I accept that in the past the party opposite encouraged people into work but we feel that this reform has made a huge difference. A thousand people have entered work every day since 2010, and that is an incredible legacy. The reality is that we have record employment and extraordinarily low unemployment. Indeed, I am rather proud that unemployment among women is lower than it is among men. We are working hard to encourage as many people as possible to contribute to the country they live in and to feel proud that they can work for and support their families.

In terms of the two-child policy, I say to the right reverend Prelate that I have made it clear several times at the Dispatch Box, and I will make it very clear again, that we believe strongly that people who would like to have more than two children must make the same tough decisions as everyone else and ask themselves whether they can support those children in the same way as people who do not turn daily to the state for support. My children’s generation are all asking themselves, “Can we afford to have more children who we look after, contribute to and support ourselves rather than expecting others to pay for them?”. I have to be really blunt about this.

[The Lord Bishop of Durham]

The report titled All Kids Count makes clear a number of cases where people made exactly the call the Minister described. Their life circumstances then changed and they found themselves unable to support their children. That is part of the argument about why this needs to be re-examined.

[Baroness Buscombe]

The right reverend Prelate will know that each and every parent will receive child benefit for each and every child, no matter how many children they might have now and into the future. In addition, we are talking about children born after April 2017. Following a decision that was made under the current Secretary of State, my right honourable friend in another place—and made very public so that people were aware before then—we have cancelled the possibility of people with a change of circumstances and children born before April 2017 losing their tax credits. The parents will continue to receive tax credits for those children up to the age of 20.

We must think about affordability. A family with six children will receive in tax credits—over and above all other benefits—about £17,000 a year. That is net. We are talking about a considerable sum of money which, if you gross it up, will be many people’s entire income. I must be blunt. That policy will remain firm—to the best of my knowledge, because I am merely the conduit of the policy in your Lordships’ House, in a sense.

The reality is that we are trying to support as many people as possible, encourage them into the world of work, be excited for them—

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

My Lords, I am sorry. This is to allow Back-Benchers to ask questions. There are one or two more who wish to in the remainder of the 20 minutes.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

The Minister has taken more than half of the time allotted. I have only a simple question. I declare an interest: I was a member of Sub-Committee B of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which dealt with this matter late last year and early this year.

The hard stop came from the stakeholders, not the Opposition. I did not quite hear the answer to the question. When the pilot has taken place, there will be an assessment of and report on it—lessons to learn, what we expected or whatever. Will Parliament have the chance to debate that report before the transfer over to the full Monty for the 3 million? We have not had a specific answer to that question. That is the key, because nobody will take any notice of what we say otherwise.

[Baroness Buscombe]

The noble Lord is quite right. There is no question—it is quite right, absolutely right—that we should report once we have done the pilot, before regulations are laid to roll out the entire managed migration. I apologise to your Lordships if I failed to make that absolutely clear. I think the suggestion put forward by that committee that we have a pilot was right. It has taken us time to get it ready. We absolutely will report the results of the pilot in full.

Universal Credit Fraud

Baroness Buscombe Excerpts

Wednesday 10th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Buscombe) (Con)]

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat in the form of a Statement the Answer given to an Urgent Question in another place on universal credit fraud. The Statement is as follows:

“Mr Speaker, universal credit is now in all jobcentres, with around 2 million people claiming this benefit. In accordance with our approach to test and learn while rolling out universal credit, we have made several changes to the advances claimants may receive while they wait for their first payment. If they need it, people can now claim an advance from day one of their claim. They can apply in person, by phone or online—a facility we introduced in July 2018.

On Monday, the BBC published an article which described cases where fraudulent applications had been made to acquire advance payments. The figures quoted are unverified anecdotes.

Those who defraud the benefits system take taxpayers’ money from the poorest people in society. We have a dedicated team of investigators working on this issue, and are working with the Crown Prosecution Service to ensure that, where appropriate, perpetrators will be prosecuted; we have in fact already secured our first successful prosecution. We frequently raise awareness among front-line staff to be vigilant to fraud risks, and raise concerns where appropriate.

I would like to remind honourable Members, and their constituents, that DWP staff will never approach a claimant on social media, or in the street, to discuss their benefit claim. Claimants should never give out personal or financial information to a third party unless they are certain they work for the DWP, and have followed a password or security protocol. Anyone with concerns about their benefit claim should contact their local jobcentre directly”.

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating that Answer. Claimants need these advances because they have to wait five weeks to get their universal credit in the first place, and that money must be repaid. Now the BBC tells us that tens of millions of pounds have been stolen in fraudulent advance claims. It saw DWP messages on an internal forum describing lots of suspicious claims, from a 19 year-old with six blind children to those inventing street names or people, where the landlord was called Harry Kane and the kids were Homer, Bart and Lisa.

In other cases, a genuine claimant has been conned into giving their details to someone who says that they can get them a government grant or payday loan. Instead, that person applies for universal credit in the claimant’s name, and they find out only when they are taken off their old benefits and put on to UC; the claimant then finds themselves worse off and may have to pay back a debt of £1,500 in the bargain.

Can the Minister tell us two things? First, assuming that the Government are not about to stop the rollout—which I think they should—where a legacy benefit claimant was scammed and a UC claim was made without their knowledge, will the DWP allow them to return to legacy benefits, especially if they are worse off? Secondly, eight leading banks have signed up to a new code to reimburse victims of fraud on a no-blame basis. Will the DWP do the same?

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, I repeat that we take this issue incredibly seriously. First, there is no question of us stopping the rollout; we will not. It is already completed in that it is now in every jobcentre in the country. The termination of legacy benefits is triggered simply where a UC claim is made, not where it is treated as made. It is essential for a smooth transition from legacy benefits to universal credit that the trigger for the move is simple, and that legacy benefit overlap is avoided as far as possible or is otherwise accounted for. The chief goal is prompt and accurate payments of UC to claimants, and, where fraud is alleged, a fraud referral is raised so that the case can be investigated to assess the evidence to establish the facts and determine who was involved, including any third parties. In deciding whether the claim is valid, the consideration needs to factor in whether, or the extent to which, the claimant is involved in the claim.

We at the Department for Work and Pensions are doing all we can to take this matter extremely seriously. We are talking about crime and the money of the poorest being taken away and going to the wrong people. It is important to properly investigate every circumstance; we deal with this on a case-by-case basis.

[Baroness Seccombe (Con)]

My Lords, I read that less than 1% of claims are defrauded in this way. Is that correct?

[Baroness Buscombe]

It is entirely correct: 1% of all claims referred by staff are fraud claims. It is important to make it clear that we have trained our staff properly to investigate those claims when they are received, to make sure that the work coach can assess the claims and transfer them on to our fraud and investigation service.

[Baroness Thomas of Winchester (LD)]

My Lords, is it not very sad that certain claimants say that they are being penalised in cases of fraud? Can the Minister guarantee that this does not happen? Is it not the answer that, until the fraud is sorted out, loans must be made face to face with a JCP official? This matter would not then arise. Until it is sorted out, is that not the safest thing to do?

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, where that is possibly the case, as the noble Baroness rightly said, it is important that we approach each and every case carefully on a case-by-case basis. Each case appears to be different. We do not intend to penalise people who have been duped by others; that is, those who have honestly received benefits incorrectly. We do all we can to support those people throughout the process, working closely with the CPS.

[Lord Tomlinson (Lab)]

My Lords, when the Minister repeated the Statement, she referred to the BBC relying on “unverified anecdotes”. That sounds remarkably complacent—particularly given that, in her answer to her noble friend, she said that 1% was about right for the level of fraud. Will she give us her estimate if we cannot rely on the BBC’s figures?

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, I am amazed if the noble Lord seeks to rely too heavily on the BBC. I am grateful that he is asking me, acting as a Minister for the department. To date we have received around 42,000 fraud referrals from staff relating to potentially fraudulent advance claims, and there have been around 4.4 million claims for universal credit; I say that because it is important to put this in context. As my noble friend said, this equates to less than 1% of claims taking out a fraudulent advance. We are unable to break this down to jobcentre level, but we know that the majority of those claims, 55%, are in the north-west. However, we are seeing an increase in the north-east, 14%, and the Midlands, 12%. This is entirely unacceptable, of course, so we are looking at the whole system at the moment to see what we can do to improve the situation.

[Baroness Eaton (Con)]

Will my noble friend confirm that her department has prosecuted people for these offences and will continue to pursue fraudsters?

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, I absolutely agree with my noble friend. We have had one successful prosecution, and something like 1,420 other cases are live at the moment. I take this to heart, as this area is in my portfolio at the department. We are doing all we can to make sure that we up our game in taking on the whole issue of benefit fraud. Another key point is that universal credit is part of the process of reducing claimant fraud; unlike with the complex legacy system, where it was much more difficult for people to inform the DWP of changes of circumstances, people can now do that. They are in constant touch with their work coach. We also have real-time information. We know what people’s earnings are, so we are now far better able to tackle issues of fraud.

[The Lord Bishop of Chelmsford]

I ask the Minister for a bit of clarification. I do not pretend to understand all the ins and outs of this, but I see a lot of suffering, which now seems to be added to by crime. On the one hand, it is good to hear that it is less than 1%, but that would be no consolation for me if I was one of those people who now has to pay back for the fraud perpetrated against me by someone else. I am sorry if I did not understand the answer. I suppose I am asking the Minister to explain what help those victims will get in the terrible situation they find themselves in.

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, of course we take this extremely seriously, as I say. We have to be extremely careful to ensure that victims are properly looked after and supported through the process, but also that those who have committed fraud have the full force of criminal justice thrown at them. This is crime. I look forward to the latest British attitudinal survey being published imminently, because the last survey showed that people on the whole felt that some crime was fine, as long as it was not a lot of crime. We have to confront this, look after those who need our support and use our brilliant fraud and investigation teams, working with the CPS, to make sure that those who have committed the crime are brought to justice.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, like the right reverend Prelate, I am a little confused. If there is a brilliant fraud and investigation team and the Minister is genuinely concerned, why did it take a BBC investigation to draw it to our attention?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, in the department we were already aware that there was an issue, and we have been working on this. We have a strong team of investigators—125 people dedicated to working out what we do about incidents relating to advances. It is very difficult. As for support—I return to the right reverend Prelate—we are taking every step we can to ensure that people have access to money with ease when they need it on their first day. When they come into a jobcentre, people are often in trouble—they need our help—so there is a balance to strike, allowing ease of access and ensuring that those people have the money they need but, at the same time, do not take advantage. That is very hard to get right, and that is what we are working to do what we can to improve, working with others across Whitehall to make sure that, with data, we are doing the right thing to reduce cross-welfare losses to fraud and error.

Mental Illness: Job Security and Inequality

Baroness Buscombe Excerpts

Thursday 4th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Buscombe) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bird, for securing this debate. As usual, these Questions for Short Debate are too short as there is so much to say. I believe I have some good responses to all noble Lords, and I will do my best to answer their questions as I go through.

Both employers and the Government have a stake in the nation’s mental health. The Government provide the necessary health support, offer a safety net when they are out of work, and can ensure that employees have the right rights. Employers increasingly recognise that they have a crucial role to play in creating the healthy workplaces for employees to remain in work and thrive, in providing a supportive environment where employees can discuss health issues without stigma, and in helping people to return to work in the right way when they fall ill.

Mental health is a matter of national importance, and we are committed to improving mental health services by investing record levels in them, with annual spending reaching £11.98 billion last year. Targets in improving access to psychological therapies, or IAPT, are being exceeded. In March 2019, 99% of those completing treatment waited less than 18 weeks for their treatment to start in England against a target of 95%. In March 2019, 88.9% of people completing treatment waited less than six weeks against a target of 75%. In February 2019, this figure was 88.6%.

Under the NHS long-term plan there will be a comprehensive expansion of mental health services, with an additional £2.3 billion a year by 2023-24. This will give 380,000 more adults access to psychological therapies and 345,000 more children and young people greater support in the next five years. As the noble Lord, Lord Bird, said, early intervention is vital. We are going further by piloting a four-week waiting time standard for treatment, training a brand new dedicated mental health workforce for schools, and teaching pupils what good mental and physical health looks like. We encourage all NHS staff to undertake suicide prevention training with all NHS organisations to facilitate this.

The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care wrote to social media and internet providers on 26 January to express concern about suicide and self-harm content. He held a follow-up round table with them on 7 February 2019 to discuss the impact of the internet, particularly suicide and self-harm content, on mental health and well-being. Another round table was held on 29 April to discuss progress, and social media companies agreed to join and fund a strategic partnership with the Samaritans. That is close to my heart, as I used to chair the advisory board of the Samaritans. I do not think any noble Lords touched on social media, but it is a crucial part of the whole story behind mental health.

We know that too many people with a mental health condition do not participate as fully in the key activities of society, including work. The figures are stark: almost one in five working-age people in England has a common mental health condition, rising to almost one in two for people on out-of-work benefits. We know that people unemployed for more than 12 weeks are between four and 10 times more likely to suffer from depression and anxiety.

However, it is not good enough for people to be in work. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock: they need to be in good-quality work. The UK is leading the way internationally as we tackle challenges that have arisen as a result of new business models. The Government’s Good Work Plan represents the largest upgrade to employment rights in a generation. As laid out in the plan, we will legislate to improve the clarity of employment status checks to reflect the reality of modern working relationships; bring forward proposals on a single enforcement body for employment rights; introduce a right to request a more predictable and stable contract for all workers; and legislate to ensure workers get the full value of the tips they earn, except for those deductions required by tax law. Extending the right to a written statement to workers and making it a day one right will give people a better understanding of the employment relationship they are entering into and more information up-front about their rights and protections. Introducing a right to request a more predictable contract will help give workers more personal and financial security if they are seeking more predictable hours.

Good work supports our good health. It keeps us healthy, mentally and physically. It enables us to be economically independent and gives us more choices and opportunities to fulfil our other ambitions in life. Our Improving Lives: The Future of Work, Health and Disability Command Paper, published jointly in November 2017 by the Department of Health and Social Care and the Department for Work and Pensions, sets out a comprehensive strategy for achieving the Government’s challenging target of seeing 1 million more disabled people in work by 2027. Given the scale of this ambition, a key part of our programme is to achieve transformational change by focusing action in three key areas: welfare, workplace and health.

Employment rates are at historic highs. When I went to the UN in New York a couple of weeks ago, I was proud to be able to say that employment for people with disabilities has risen by around 950,000 in the past five years. I said that we in the United Kingdom focus on ability, not disability. I agree so much with what the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, said: those with disabilities have so much to contribute. If an employer is not employing someone with a disability, they had better watch out because they will find that the person they should be employing is employed by someone else. It is the right thing to do.

The Government recognise the crucial role of employers in creating mentally healthy workplaces. Too many people fall out of work because of their mental health, so we are asking employers to do more to prevent this. Last week the Government announced that a consultation on new measures to help employers better support disabled people and those with long-term health conditions in work will also be published next month. These measures will include reforming statutory sick pay, so that it is better enforced, more flexible—to encourage a phased return to work—and covers the lowest paid. As part of this consultation, the Government will consider how to achieve the appropriate balance of incentives and expectations on employers to create healthy, inclusive workplaces, and encourage employers to invest in occupational health support.

The Government remain committed to finding ways to help employers, especially SMEs, support their employees to return to work promptly from sickness absence. By working with our partners, including employers, this Government can continue to tackle poor mental health. This is part of building a country that works for everyone, and reflects what we have done as a result of the Stevenson-Farmer review, referenced by the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly. This was an independent review, set up in January 2017, into how employers can better support all employees, including those with mental health or well-being issues. It also set out a compelling business case for action, with a central recommendation that all employers should adopt a set of six core mental health standards to encourage an open and transparent organisational culture that supports employees’ mental health. These standards included developing mental health awareness among employees, encouraging open conversations—which are so important—about mental health and routinely monitoring employee mental health and well-being. It recommended that all public sector employers and private sector companies with more than 500 employees deliver mental health enhanced standards, including increasing transparency and accountability through internal and external reporting. Momentum is building around the challenge for all employers to adopt the core standards that lay the foundations for good workplace mental health, and for larger businesses to adopt the enhanced standards. Officials are working with a range of partners, including the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, large employers and charities, to monitor and review the effectiveness of the voluntary framework.

The Civil Service has embraced the framework. We are working with all government departments to support them in their ambition to publish against the framework in full this year. It will take time before we can truly call all our workplaces healthy and inclusive, but we have been encouraged by the level of engagement with and commitment to this agenda. In response to the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, the Minister responsible for this review and its outcomes is my honourable friend Justin Tomlinson, the Disability Minister.

We also have to think about those who are out of work. The Government are committed, as far as possible, to supporting into work people with mental health conditions who are out of work. All our work coaches across the Jobcentre Plus network now receive training on supporting people with health conditions and disabilities. Additionally, the rollout of the Health and Work Conversation across the UK supports work coaches in continuing to build engagement with claimants who have disabilities and health issues. The Government continue to invest in mental health-related trials and studies; this includes doubling the number of employment advisers, improving access to psychological therapies and launching a £4.2 million challenge fund to build the evidence base of what works to support people with mental health and musculoskeletal conditions.

We are doing more. We have to think about people with debt. In response to a consultation, we are going ahead with a breathing space scheme. Debt causes enormous stress. This policy will make a real difference in supporting people with debt. In addition, the NHS provides services to people experiencing the symptoms of debt problems and financial difficulties.

Reducing inequality is so important as inequality can cause or exacerbate poor mental health. However, the policies of this Government are highly redistributive. This year, low-income households will receive, on average, over £4 in public spending for every pound they pay in tax, while the highest-income households will, on average, contribute over £5 in tax for every £1 they receive in public spending. Income inequality is lower now than it was in 2010.

Much has been done to increase awareness and reduce the stigma of mental health. The DWP is working increasingly closely with the Department of Health and Social Care but, as the noble Lord, Lord Bird, said, it must be joined up and be cross-government. Also, as the right reverend Prelate said, it is not just about government. We have to think beyond government to all those who can offer support, including our religious institutions. How can they support, and what can we use to help those with mental disabilities?

Finally, my noble friend Lady Redfern referred to those leaving prison. I have been in discussion with Secretary Acosta, the US equivalent of the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, about what we are doing and what they are doing about employing people who have been in prison and what to do with people with disabilities. I heard a story of somebody in prison who was very well off; he had committed a financial crime. While he was in prison, none of the other prisoners ever asked him for money but almost every one asked him for a job. So much of this is about people having something meaningful to do, as well as being in a supportive society that recognises and understands mental health and is, not before time, removing a stigma, to support more people in a way that I hope will encourage the noble Lord, Lord Bird.

Work Capability Assessment

Baroness Buscombe Excerpts

Thursday 4th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Buscombe) (Con)]

My Lords, I will now repeat a Statement made earlier in another place as an Answer to an Urgent Question. The Statement is as follows:

“Mr Speaker, the department holds the original commission and final report for all peer reviews of disability benefit claimants’ deaths up to 2015. All these documents are kept for six years from the date of the final report. In October 2015, we moved from conducting peer reviews to internal process reviews. This change means we hold more information, including the original commission, all emails relating to the case, the final report and any recommendations resulting from the internal process review.

As the House may be aware, the Welfare Reform Act 2007 committed the Secretary of State to publish an independent report on the work capability assessment each year for the first five years of its operation. In 2013 and 2014, Dr Litchfield led the fourth and fifth independent reviews of the work capability assessment. The department fully co-operated with the reviews and shared all relevant information as requested. To assist the work capability assessment independent reviews and in response to a freedom of information request, we carried out a robust search to supply all necessary information to the reviewers. The record of the documents requested by or shared with the independent reviewers no longer exists, in line with the department’s document retention policy.

We take the death of any disability benefits claimant very seriously and always conduct an investigation into the circumstances where we are informed that the claimant committed suicide. As the reviews contain extremely personal information, it would not be appropriate to declare which individual cases were shared with the reviewers on this occasion”.

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for repeating that slightly opaque Answer. This is really serious. There have long been complaints about the WCA process from campaigners concerned about the impact on people—including, in some cases, their deaths—following assessments.

The DWP conducts peer reviews into serious outcomes and deaths associated with DWP activity. The independent statutory reviews the Minister mentioned were conducted by Paul Litchfield in 2013 and 2014. Disability News Service reported earlier this year that letters to Ministers from coroners, along with several peer reviews, were not given to Dr Litchfield’s team. The DWP will not confirm that, but DNS says that it then lodged a complaint with the Information Commissioner and that the summary of its discussions with the DWP shows that that information was not passed along to the review team.

In response to a letter from my honourable friend Debbie Abrahams, the DWP finally said that it has had a good look around the department and that despite,

“a robust and thorough search”,

it could not find any information about this, citing,

“the length of time since the reviews were carried out”,

and,

“factors such as document retention”.

It also implied, as the Minister did, that the review team did not ask for them. These were documents related to the circumstances of people’s deaths. The independent reviewers were investigating the WCA process, including its impacts on the clients. Either these documents were withheld from the reviewers or the DWP’s record keeping is so poor that the department does not know whether they were passed across. I regret that, given the level of anger and mistrust of the DWP out there as a result of repeated cuts and the profoundly dysfunctional nature of the benefit assessment system, this will inevitably fuel suspicions that there was something in those documents that the DWP did not want an independent reviewer to see.

Does the Minister accept that it is the department’s responsibility to ensure that an independent reviewer has any potentially relevant information? It is not their responsibility to work out what to ask for. If that is true, why did it not include all peer reviews and coroners’ letters?

Secondly, since trust is now so low, will the Government accede to the widespread calls for an independent inquiry into how assessments are carried out and the medical evidence of their impact on the health and well-being of claimants? Will she guarantee that all documents relating to deaths or serious and complex cases related to DWP activity will be shared with any future independent reviewer? This is a matter of justice and it is the only way to restore trust in a deeply discredited system.

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, I refute the allegation that this is a deeply discredited system. The Department for Work and Pensions takes the death of any claimant very seriously. Where it is made aware that a person has died and it is suggested that that is associated in any way with the department’s activity, a review will be undertaken to identify any lessons that can be learned. It is important to make it very clear that in a case of suicide, a mandatory internal assessment review is undertaken. All these reports will be kept for six years from the date of the final report.

In October 2015, we moved from peer reviews to an internal review process, which is what I meant to call it in the first place. That process means that we hold more information, including all emails relating to the case, the original commission, the final report and any recommendations resulting from the internal process review. That relates to the death of any individual who has been in receipt of any benefit—not necessarily just the work capability assessment but any benefit at all.

It is important to make the point that we retain that information for six years. Some of it is highly confidential. What we do not retain for more than one year is the day-to-day business on emails which is where requests come in and out about who is asking for what information. That is in line with normal practice. We retain that information for only one year. Complex issues are involved in the decision-making for this, however, and we examine those issues with great care, also taking into account letters from the coroners’ courts. Once again, the department takes the death of any claimant seriously and always conducts an investigation into the circumstances.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, despite what the Minister said, if all that information is available, why do families not get to see those reports? Take, for example, the Justice for Jodey Whiting campaign. She died in February 2017. She took her own life 15 days after her disability benefits were stopped for missing a work capability assessment, when she was already seriously ill. Her family have repeatedly asked for that review and have never had permission to see it. Three disabled members of staff at the DWP wrote a safeguarding report, which was magically lost in the system. I understand that that was also not passed to the investigators.

The DWP changes its story every time. In May 2018, it claimed that it had no record of the reports or whether it shared vital documents linking fitness to work with the death of benefit claimants. Most extraordinarily, it recently said that the independent reviewers did not ask for documents. How on earth can they ask for documents that they do not know exist? I echo the call for an inquiry, but I want to add another couple of questions.

The Minister’s department claims that it does not hold information on claimants who have lost their lives. On the issue of the length of time for which certain documents are kept, surely there must be a full review of all documents and for how long they are held. Either it is incompetence or, more alarmingly, it is a cover-up. Will the Minister ensure that there is a proper, independent investigation specifically into those missing documents? Why were those documents hidden from the independent reviewer? It is just not good enough to say that they were not asked for, when the independent reviewers did not know about them. Finally, what scrutiny has the department given the private sector contractors, Maximus, Capita and Atos, carrying out the WCA and their record-keeping and passing on of information to assist the DWP when it gets requests from campaigners such as John Pring at Disability News Service, who has campaigned tirelessly for two years on this matter?

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, I cannot respond to the specific case that the noble Baroness mentioned, but I will write to her. I can only repeat what I have already said. This is not a question of keeping information from individuals. As I said in the Statement, the reviews that we carry out—84 since 2015—contain extremely personal information. It would not be appropriate to declare which individual cases were shared with the reviewers on this occasion. We instituted a change in October 2015 when we moved from peer reviews to the internal review process to ensure that we can hold more information, including all emails relating to the case, the original commission, the final report and any recommendations resulting from the internal review process. In line with the department’s document retention policy, any records of whether peer reviews and coroners’ reports since 2010 were either requested by or shared with the independent reviewers of the work capability assessment do not exist. As I said, we keep the information for six years from the date of the final report in the case of the reports and active emails—the day-to-day business of the department—for only one year.

I stress, however, that we take this situation and this issue very seriously. I do not accept that the department has in any way sought to withhold information for any ulterior motive. The department works hard to do the right thing. If one looked across the private and public sectors, one would see that the period for which we hold information of this kind is absolutely in line with normal practice.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, will my noble friend clarify one issue? Are we making changes to the work capability assessment to support claimants?

[Baroness Buscombe]

I thank my noble friend for that question because this instance relates to the work capability assessment. As I said, we carry out an independent review of any case where there has been a death by suicide. Yes, we are working hard to reassess the work capability assessments to support claimants and we will integrate the services that deliver both PIP and the WCA from 2021. We are testing the feasibility of having one assessment for people who apply for PIP and universal credit at the same time and we will test how to build better relationships with universal credit customers awaiting an assessment or in the limited capability for work group by changing how conditionality is tailored. We also want to explore whether we can improve the mandatory reconsideration process to reduce the volume of cases going to appeal. All of this of course goes towards doing everything we can to support claimants and reassure them through the process of obtaining support.

Child Support (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2019

Baroness Buscombe Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd July 2019 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Buscombe]

That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 9 May be approved.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Buscombe) (Con)]

My Lords, these regulations amend child maintenance legislation to enable the delivery of the child maintenance compliance and arrears strategy. The new child maintenance scheme was launched in 2012. It is underpinned by the key principle of encouraging and supporting parents to take responsibility for their children’s upbringing. We know that children have better outcomes when their parents work together.

Following separation, we want parents to make private, family-based arrangements for child maintenance where feasible, avoiding state intervention altogether if possible. Where parents are unable to make a private arrangement, the Child Maintenance Service can support them. This can be done by calculating a maintenance liability and enforcing payments where appropriate.

Following staged implementation, the Child Maintenance Service is working well and avoiding the widely recognised problems encountered by previous schemes. This Government now want to build on and make further improvements to the Child Maintenance Service.

Last November, this House approved regulations which closed known loopholes, introduced tough new sanctions for those who evade their responsibilities, and addressed the historic arrears built up under the Child Support Agency. This package of regulations would introduce further measures to support the compliance and arrears strategy. It includes provisions to make deductions from benefit more consistent, improve information-gathering processes and address uncollectable debt. This is alongside clarifications to the calculation and fees regulations so that they better reflect the intent of the 2012 reforms.

I will first explain the proposed changes to deductions from benefit payments. This Government believe that all parents should support their children, irrespective of their financial circumstances. Therefore, where a parent is in receipt of benefit, they should continue to contribute to their children in line with their income. This has been a long-standing feature of successive child maintenance schemes.

Under the current scheme, parents receiving certain benefits are liable to pay the flat rate of maintenance. Where a parent does not make payments voluntarily, the CMS can deduct the child maintenance they are liable to pay directly from their benefit payment. The regulations before you today are designed to make these deductions more consistent, as currently there are different rules governing what can be taken for ongoing maintenance and towards child maintenance arrears.

At present, the Child Maintenance Service can make weekly deductions of £8.40—£7 plus £1.40 in collection fees—towards ongoing maintenance from certain benefits and, at the same time, £1.20 towards arrears from a smaller list of benefits. So some parents have deductions of £8.40 per week whereas others contribute a total of £9.60.

The proposed changes to legislation would enable deductions towards arrears to be made from the same benefits from which deductions can be made towards ongoing maintenance. The regulations also ensure that £8.40 per week is the maximum that can be deducted from a parent’s benefit in all cases. This will prevent deductions towards arrears and ongoing maintenance being taken at the same time, as well as ensuring that deductions towards arrears will be taken only after ongoing liability has been satisfied. These changes send a clear message to parents who fail to pay for their children.

Additionally, the Government are proposing changes specific to deductions from universal credit. The Child Maintenance Service can already deduct £8.40 towards ongoing maintenance from universal credit if the paying parent has no income from employment. The new regulations will allow the service to do the same where the paying parent has earnings, in line with other benefits. This will apply only in cases where the paying parent is liable to pay only the flat rate; that is, based on earnings of £100 a week or less. The collection of maintenance and arrears will be more efficient from parents who are in receipt of universal credit and are also in work. At present, deductions would have to be made directly from their earnings if payments are not made voluntarily. This change introduces a more consistent approach to clients with similar financial circumstances.

--- Later in debate ---

Can the Minister also say what evidence there is that this change is needed? What is the problem to which this is a solution? Have there been any complaints about these powers, or is it just that having used the 2012 Act, this was the only thing the Government could find to offer up in light of that recommendation? I look forward to hearing the Minister’s reply.

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Janke and Lady Sherlock, for their contributions. I am pleased that the noble Baroness, Lady Janke, is supportive of the statutory instrument. We have been working hard since 2012 to ensure that this system is fairer. It is important that, wherever possible, we encourage both parents to support their children.

The noble Baroness, Lady Janke, referred to the two-child limit, which is not actually related to these statutory instruments but I will touch on it very briefly. We are very clear that people should take responsibility and think hard about whether they can afford additional children, in the same way that those who do not rely on the state often make the difficult decision to limit the number of children they have to how many they can afford. It is also important to point out that, although the limit was introduced for children born after April 2017 and the change of policy was notified a good two years earlier, people continue to receive child benefit for as many children as they have.

On the benefit cap, it is very important to note that the cap is lifted when the parents are working a sufficient number of hours. Indeed, a couple with three children have to work only 24 hours a week between them—just 12 hours a week each. The benefit cap is then lifted and they are then in receipt of income equivalent to a net income of £35,000 a year, plus their housing benefit. I think most noble Lords would agree with me that that is generous. This is funded by the taxpayer.

The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, asked what happens in cases where the parent has a fraud penalty or is sanctioned and is possibly in financial hardship because of the sanction. Some clients will have a fraud penalty or undergo sanctions while claiming benefits and may be eligible to claim a recoverable hardship payment. If a claimant has a fraud penalty or sanction applied to their universal credit award which is equal to or more than 40% of their standard allowance, the only deductions that can be taken at the same time are arrears of housing service charges or rent and fuel. These are to help protect the claimant and their family from being made homeless or having their fuel supply disconnected. All other deductions cease while the fraud penalty or sanction is being applied, so no child maintenance deductions will be taken. From October 2019, the 40% maximum deduction rule will be reduced to 30%.

I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, on her ordination last weekend. That was very good to see, although it has not put her off from taking time out to ask me some difficult questions.

On the question of write-off statistics, up to the end of March 2019 217,500 cases held on the CSA computer systems with non-paying historical debt had the debt adjusted or written off. Some cases on the CMS system with debt below representation thresholds have also had their debt adjusted or written off. Activity on CMS system cases started later than on the CSA system and the data we need to report on them is not available yet. However, the CSA case load continues to reduce: the number of CSA cases held on CSA or CMS IT systems decreased from 809,000 in December 2018 to 674,00 in March 2019. The reduction in case load is mainly due to the closure of cases with government-only debt—a debt owed to parents of less than a thousand pounds. This historic debt continues to reduce, but the CSA has written to 125,200 parents with care to ask if they want a last attempt to be made to try to collect the debt owed to them.

We have not written off any debt without authority. As part of the case closure process, we brought to account some outstanding payments and activities and tidied up details of some cases. A significant number of CSA cases involved moneys being transferred directly between the two parties, and the case records have been adjusted to reflect this.

In July last year, the Government published their new compliance and arrears strategy for the Child Maintenance Service. This sets out how we are tackling the legacy of the failed Child Support Agency and the steps we will take to prevent arrears accruing at such a high rate again. Where it is cost effective and reasonable to do so, we are offering parents the choice of whether they would like us to make one last attempt to collect their debt. Where the collection of the outstanding debt is not possible or appropriate, we are writing it off. It was a difficult decision—we took some time to come to it because we strongly believe in enforcement—but many of the sums involved were very small. At the same time, it was costing the Government—in other words, the taxpayer—a lot of money to maintain this system and the debt within it. We prioritised the collection of maintenance for today’s children over historic debt where no child stands to benefit. The majority of the historic debt was owed to parents, not the taxpayer.

There was another question on how many parents on “collect and pay” actually pay. In the quarter ending March 2019, 67% of paying parents using the collect and pay service were compliant, up from 60% for the same period in 2018. This includes parents who transferred from the direct pay service having failed to pay their liabilities.

The noble Baroness also asked whether parents would be encouraged to be non-compliant, as they have seen outstanding CSA debt being written off. The write-off of CSA arrears is a one-off exercise and the regulations allowed us to do this only for debt accrued on the CSA schemes. These were historical arrears and this was in recognition that the majority of the CSA debt could not be collected, given its age and the circumstances of the parents. Where there is a possibility of successful collection at a reasonable cost to the taxpayer, we continue to do that. Looking forward, we believe that we are building a better CMS. In this package of regulations, we are making further provision to collect payments and stop arrears like this building up again.

Have we made use of the new enforcement powers? We have started to use the powers from the previous package of regulations, which allow us to deduct from joint and business accounts and disqualify a parent from holding a passport. In these early stages, the new enforcement powers are proving successful, and we continue to monitor their implementation. Where a parent fails to pay on time or in full, we aim to take immediate action to re-establish compliance before enforcement action is needed, but new powers introduced in the 2018 regulations enable disqualification from holding or obtaining a UK passport and deductions from joint and business bank accounts.

Moving on, we are proposing to change our power of entry process so that inspectors must seek a judicial warrant to access premises where they have previously been refused entry or may apply for a warrant to enter premises at which they expect to be refused. Inspectors will also be able to apply for a warrant authorising entry if they are unable to contact the occupier of the premises in advance. A judicial warrant is a safeguard, which will allow occupiers to make representation before a magistrate as to why an inspector should not be allowed to enter, but we expect this to be quite a low-impact change, with the Child Maintenance Service expected to apply for fewer than 20 judicial warrants a year. This change brings us into line with the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, and we believe that it adds a modest protection in a very small number of cases.

Deductions from universal credit will come into force on the day after the day these regulations are made.

I think that I have covered most of the questions. The fee for an application to the Child Maintenance Service is £20. This is intended to encourage parents to consider whether they really need a statutory scheme case, but it is not so high that it creates an obstacle to entering the scheme. Where an applicant has experienced domestic abuse or is under the age of 19, they are exempt from paying the application fee. It is not our intent to create a barrier of any sort for vulnerable claimants.

These regulations build on our earlier changes as part of the child maintenance compliance and arrears strategy. They will make deductions from benefit more consistent, allow writing-off of unenforceable debts suspended on the CMS systems, improve our information-gathering processes and update the CMS calculation and fees regulations. I commend this statutory instrument—

[Baroness Sherlock]

My Lords, before the Minister sits down I want to thank her for her kind words. I should perhaps have reminded the House of a now rather historic interest, as a former board member of the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission. Can I press her on a couple of questions which I think she did not pick up?

In one question, I was asking whether the Minister was happy with the compliance rate. I think we agree broadly what it is, at 66% or 67% of those paying something. That seemed quite low to me. I wondered whether the Government were satisfied with that and, if not, what difference these regulations might make. The other question I asked was about the proportion of parents who currently have an effective child maintenance arrangement in place, and how that compares to before when there was a more widespread statutory system. Is she able to comment on either of those points?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Buscombe]

I would like to take both comments away because those are quite useful questions to ask. Perhaps the noble Baroness and I could pursue them beyond your Lordships’ House, in our continuing to review the system as it is. Thank you.

Motion agreed.

Benefit Changes: Vulnerable People

Baroness Buscombe Excerpts

Thursday 27th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Buscombe) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Baroness Janke, for securing this debate, and I thank all those who have contributed on this important issue. I am particularly pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, is back in his place.

I shall go through this at a bit of a canter because there are a lot of questions and points to cover, so I ask your Lordships to forgive me for talking rather fast.

This Government’s ambitious welfare reforms are driven by our firm conviction that the benefits system must work with the tax system and the labour market to support people into employment and higher pay. This is the only way to deliver a sustainable, long-term solution to poverty, and it is also the best way of giving everyone the chance to succeed and to share in the benefits of a strong economy.

Our record on employment is therefore vital to our success in helping people out of poverty, and we are rightly proud of it. There are now over 3.6 million more people in work compared with 2010. Unemployment is at its lowest rate since the 1970s, having fallen by more than half since 2010, and this has not just happened in London and the south-east: more than 60% of the employment growth since 2010 has occurred in other parts of the UK.

Importantly, around three-quarters of the growth in employment since 2010 has been in full-time work, which, as the evidence shows, substantially reduces the risk of poverty. Wages have consistently outpaced inflation for 15 months—in fact, they are growing at their fastest rate for a decade—and the growth in employment rates has overwhelmingly benefited the poorest 20% of households. Household income inequality is also lower than it was in 2010.

Of course, behind these statistics are people whose mental health and well-being are improved by moving into work and having the dignity and security that that brings. Indeed, 930,000 more disabled people are in work today compared with five years ago, and there are 667,000 more children in working households compared with 2010. Not only are these children less likely to grow up in poverty but their life chances are significantly better. The evidence on this is very clear.

A working-age adult living in a household where every adult is working is about six times less likely to be in relative poverty than one living in a household where nobody works, and a child living in a household where every adult is working is about five times less likely to be in relative poverty than a child in a household where nobody works. Children in workless households are twice as likely to fail at all stages of their education as children in working families. Full-time work in particular dramatically reduces the risk of being in poverty. There is only a 7% chance of a child being in relative poverty if both parents work full-time, compared with 66% for two-parent families with only part-time work.

Universal credit is of course at the heart of our reforms. It is a benefit fit for the 21st century that will remove the structural disincentives to work that were part of the legacy benefits that it replaces. It supports those who need it while providing a springboard into work—every extra hour worked is rewarded and each claimant receives tailored support from a work coach to help them find the right job for their circumstances. I would like to issue a challenge to the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. I invite him to come with me to a Jobcentre Plus, where I will show him a very different world. The “plus” is about the fantastic wraparound support that our staff give.

As the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, quite rightly said, mistakes will always be made; we are dealing with 7 million people. Some 1,500 iterative changes in just the last few months show that we are constantly listening and learning. As the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, said, we need a lot of changes—but we are making them and responding. Once fully rolled out, universal credit will cost £2.1 billion more per year than the legacy system it replaces. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has reported that universal credit is likely to help an extra 300,000 members of working families out of poverty, the majority of which include someone who works part-time.

We have responded to concerns about the early rollout of universal credit by making a number of changes, as I have said. These include changes to remove waiting days, make bigger advance payments available and give extra support to disabled people. In the last Budget we announced a £4.5 billion cash boost that will make a huge difference to the lives of working families. Some of this has not yet filtered through, but it will provide extra support for people moving onto UC. In particular, we have put an extra £1.7 billion a year into work allowances, increasing the amount that hard-working families can earn before the taper is applied. So I cannot agree with the noble Lord, Lord Livermore. There is an incentive to work more; we are making work pay. This means an extra £630 a year for 2.4 million families.

We fully recognise that some claimants lack the digital skills they need to fully engage with a modern system. This is why we offer tailored, UK-wide, practical support to help ensure people receive their first payment on time when they make a new UC claim. Since April, we have partnered with Citizens Advice and Citizens Advice Scotland to introduce Help to Claim, a voluntary service which can be accessed any time until the first full, correct payment of UC is made. The service is available face to face, over the phone, online and through web chat to allow claimants to access support in the way that is right for them.

At the heart of the support that we offer to working-age claimants is an agreement that they commit to certain activities to improve or maintain their employment prospects, such as looking for work or doing work experience. We believe that it is right in principle that there is a system in place to reinforce conditionality, and to support and encourage claimants to do everything they can to move into or towards work, or to improve their earnings.

However, we have listened and taken action to ensure that the penalties for not meeting these conditions are proportionate, particularly for the most vulnerable. Last month, we announced that financial sanctions—which noble Lords have referenced today—for welfare claimants that last for three years would come to an end, and that in future the maximum duration of a sanction would be six months. In addition, there will be an evaluation of the effectiveness of UC sanctions to consider whether further improvements can be made.

Evidence about the effects of poverty is of course vital to tackling it effectively. We have committed to finding new and better ways to analyse poverty in this country. The Social Metrics Commission’s report, A New Measure of Poverty for the UK, made a compelling case for why we should look at poverty more broadly, to give a more detailed picture of who is poor, their experience of poverty, and their future chances of remaining in or falling into it. So we are working with the Commission and other experts in the field to develop new experimental statistics to measure poverty. These will be published in 2020 and, it is hoped, will help us target support more effectively.

But getting people into work at all costs is not the limit of our ambition. We are absolutely not treating that as a panacea for poverty, as has been suggested. Our reforms are about supporting people in work so that they can progress. The Government recognise that childcare costs can affect parents’ decisions to take up work, increase their working hours or remain in paid work. We are doubling free childcare to 30 hours a week for nearly 400,000 working parents of three and four year-olds and introducing tax-free childcare worth up to £2,000 a year per child.

When people move into work, this Government want to ensure that we do everything we can to support them to progress so that they can increase their earnings and build careers. As the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, said, in-work progression is really important. We are working and in discussions with the Trades Union Congress and the CBI on how we can take this forward. We are going further, with two national pilots on in-work progression. One will train work coaches to help those in work to decide when and how to switch jobs and focus on achieving that ambitious step up. The other will boost our capability to work with local businesses by creating jobcentre specialists who can encourage local employers to support progression and good-quality, flexible working.

We know that there is more to do to support working people but this Government have already gone much further than previous Governments, while the Chancellor’s Spring Statement set out the ambition of ending low pay across the UK. Low pay is a key area of this subject. I listened to what the right reverend Prelate said about the two-child policy, and a lot of this is about taking responsibility in the same way as those who make really tough decisions about whether or not they can afford to have more children. We have to think about low pay. I think about the Church and other religious institutions that rely on thousands of people who work as volunteers. What are they actually living on? Are they actually being paid, and are they being paid the living wage? This is something where we must all look to our own institutions and places of work and work out what we are doing to ensure that those people for whom we are responsible are properly supported.

Universal credit works alongside other policies introduced by this Government to promote full-time employment as the way out of poverty and towards financial independence. Our national living wage, which is among the highest in the world, is expected to benefit over 1.7 million people. The increase to £8.21 from April this year will increase a full-time worker’s annual pay by over £2,750 since 2016. Our tax changes will make basic-rate taxpayers over £1,200 better off from April compared to April 2010. Taken together, the most recent changes mean that from April a single person on the national living wage will take home over £13,700 a year, which is £4,500 more than in 2009-10. I encourage all those who employ others to look to the national living wage.

The welfare system is not just about providing a financial safety net for those who need it. That is why this Government have taken wider action to support and make a lasting difference to the lives of the most vulnerable, who often face complex barriers to employment. Our department seeks to support and help into work the most vulnerable people in society, people whose ability to work is frustrated by issues such as disrupted education, a history of offending, domestic abuse or insecure housing. We are addressing the barriers specific to different groups and ensuring that universal credit works for all those with complex needs.

Again I reference the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood. He talked about how we can do more to recognise. That is something that we are working on: we are adding more to the software so that we can recognise people with different needs. In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, on the whole question of those sex survivors and so on, they absolutely need bespoke support.

In jobcentres, work coaches are upskilled to recognise and help claimants with a wide range of complex needs. It is easy to underestimate the great work that our work coaches do to support our more vulnerable claimants. There are so many positive stories to tell; in contrast to the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, I do not have time to tell those tales today, but we have worked hard to build trust with these claimants to help them to turn their lives around.

Over 12,000 young people leave care each year and their education, health and employment prospects are poorer than their peers’. By supporting care leavers through their difficult transition into adulthood with a series of safeguards and easements, work coaches can have a real impact on a young person’s life chances. We are also doing more to support ex-offenders in re-establishing themselves back in the community and moving into work, with around 135 prison work coaches based in resettlement prisons across Great Britain who help prisoners to gain employment on release and support benefit claims pre-release. Those work coaches are going in to talk to those in prison five weeks before their release but we are now looking to extend that, possibly to 12 or 13 weeks, so that we can really build a relationship with these people who are particularly vulnerable and help them through the process of ensuring that they have housing and support, and we can help them to think about a future with a job before they leave prison.

We have a proud record when it comes to supporting victims of domestic abuse. Those affected can have their work-search requirements suspended for up to six months under universal credit to enable them to stabilise their lives. By the end of the summer we will have a domestic abuse and homelessness advocate in every jobcentre in England. They will be able to build work coach capability in these areas and make important links with organisations in the community. We recently published two guides outlining the wide-ranging support offer for those experiencing homelessness. For example, you do not need a permanent address or ID to make a claim for universal credit.

With particular reference to survivors of domestic abuse, we are committed to providing the best possible support for all our claimants, including the most vulnerable in society. This includes those who are or have been victims of domestic abuse. As it can be difficult for individuals facing abuse to come forward, all work coaches now undergo mandatory training in how to support vulnerable claimants, including the recognition of signs of such abuse. By the summer of 2019 we will have implemented such a domestic abuse specialist in every jobcentre to further raise awareness of domestic abuse and support work coaches.

I commend the work of the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, on Changing Lives. We are listening and learning all the time. We absolutely accept that we have more to learn and focus on. We are looking at the issue of separate payments, for example. We must be aware—and we are doing work on this at the moment—that eight out of 10 claimants are very happy to receive just the one payment from universal credit and that 97% of couples pool their resources. To make a blanket change across the system, which looks as though it would not suit the vast majority of claimants, would be a big and possibly retrograde step. We are therefore looking at other ways in which we can support these women.

Furthermore, we are considering what more we could do to ensure that the main carer more often receives the UC payment direct, although they can actually ask for it. The initial work on this area will be completed this year and will improve the claimant messaging on the service to encourage claimants and joint claimants to utilise the bank account of the main carer to receive their UC payments. I repeat, however, that there is work in progress in this area.

Noble Lords made reference to various reports, including the IFS report, which touched on housing. We delivered over 220,000 additional homes last year. That is over 1.3 million extra homes in England since 2010. We are looking at what we can do cross-government —we have a cross-departmental project on this—to tackle the huge cost of housing benefit. Yes, it is £23 billion a year, much of it going to private landlords. We are ambitious about doing more on this huge issue.

We welcome, however, what came out last week in the IFS report, which stated that while poverty is complex and does not have an easy answer, there are two positive reasons which account for two-thirds of the increase in in-work poverty rates. One reason that a higher fraction of those on the lowest incomes are in work is simply that there are more people in work overall and far fewer workless households. This is something that Paul Johnson of the IFS, writing in the Times, described as,

“a triumph that we celebrate all too infrequently”.

The other reason is that far fewer pensioners are poor than ever before.

I will move on as quickly as I can, because my time is running out. We are continuing to listen and learn. The noble Lord, Lord Livermore, talked about tax credits as being a good idea, but they propelled many claimants into higher tax rates such that they have spiralling debts as a result. Also, in 2010, 20% of all UK working-age households were entirely workless, which was not a great record.

On the two-child policy, as I said, this policy ensures fairness between those supporting themselves solely through work and those receiving benefits. Let us not forget they also continue to receive child benefit, no matter how many children.

On the questions raised by the noble Lord, Lord Low, and the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Winchester, we are looking at the workplace assessments quite carefully and at PIP to see how we can make it simpler, easier, more straightforward and fairer. I also say to the noble Lord, Lord Low, that we are doing a lot on accessibility. In fact, two weeks ago I was lucky enough to be in New York with a wonderful man called Victor, who is in charge of accessibility for New York City. What they are doing there is incredible. We were sharing intelligence on more things that we can do to assist people with disabilities, including those without sight.

I now have to wind up. There is so much more that I would like to say, but I conclude by saying that we are not complacent about the challenges we face for those people on the lowest incomes and those who are particularly vulnerable. We constantly make progress, but we also constantly want to listen and to learn. We are spending a record £220 billion this year on welfare. I am proud of the work our department is doing, and I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate.

Poverty and Human Rights: UN Report

Baroness Buscombe Excerpts

Tuesday 25th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to address the concerns raised by the report of the United Nation’s special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights on his visit to the United Kingdom, published on 22 May.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Buscombe) (Con)]

My Lords, nothing has changed since I answered exactly the same Question on this issue last week, when it was asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Janke. We have responded fully to the special rapporteur’s recommendations and will continue to reform the welfare system so that it encourages work while supporting those who need help—an approach based on clear evidence that work offers families the best opportunity to get out of poverty.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government have previously dismissed the report as “nonsense”, “barely believable” and “inaccurate”, and have effectively rejected virtually all its recommendations. Yet, as was pointed out in this House last week, the DWP’s lead poverty official has acknowledged that it “made … good points” and was “factually correct”. One of those facts was the highly regressive impact of tax and benefit changes since 2010, which,

“have taken the highest toll on those least able to bear it”.

Will the Government therefore look again at the recommendation that requests that the NAO assess the cumulative social impact of those policies, especially on those in vulnerable circumstances, which independent experts have shown can be done?

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, it is right that any Government are held to account for the effectiveness of their approach to tackling poverty, which was always one of our key priorities. While we take every report of this nature incredibly seriously, and recognise that there is more to do—as we always do—we remain disappointed by the overtly political tone of the report and strongly refute the suggestion that we have taken a deliberately punitive approach to welfare reforms. This year we will be spending £220 billion on welfare.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, not every assertion that comes from the United Nations should be taken at face value, any more than an assertion that comes from the Government or indeed from government agencies. But Philip Alston describes himself as left wing and then describes life for the poor as akin to a Dickensian workhouse. Can my noble friend tell me why, if this is the case, so many people are queueing up to come and live the awful life in this country?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Buscombe]

My noble friend makes a very good point. We are in very good shape in this country and we deliver the fourth most generous level of welfare support in the OECD. We spend more on family benefits than any other country in the G7, and as a share of our GDP, our public spending on family benefits is the second highest in the OECD. We continue to listen and learn, but we are also very proud of what this Government are delivering.

[Baroness Corston (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, I draw the Minister’s attention to recommendation (e) in the report, which I hope is less contentious. It mentions the importance of the Government getting the new fairer funding review correct, as it affects every council’s ability to plan and provide for services for the most vulnerable and poorest in society. Can she update the House on progress with that important review, because at the moment, councils do not know how much funding they will get from 2020, how it will be distributed and the means of delivery?

[Baroness Buscombe]

I have to tell the noble Baroness that that is not exactly my area, but I will take away what she asked. It is important to say that we are doing all we can to ensure that we are delivering more from our services and continue to increase spending—certainly from the Department for Work and Pensions—to support those in need.

[Baroness Corston]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Meacher]

Thank you, Chief Whip. One of the causes of abject poverty of the most vulnerable is of course the work capability assessment. One of the creators of that assessment has declared it unfit for purpose. It denies severely disabled people benefits when they have no—but no—prospect of work. What plans do the Government have to review the model of the work capability assessment?

[Baroness Buscombe]

I am pleased to report that we are looking at that very point at the moment and are about to carry out a pilot for a much easier work capability assessment, which will mean that people do not have to have repeats or assessments for different things. That is something we are taking on board very seriously.

[Baroness Corston]

My Lords, given the Minister’s dismissive reaction to the UN report, can she explain why, for the first time in the history of the welfare state, teachers are bringing food into schools because so many children are too hungry to learn?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, I am not dismissive of the report overall but I am dismissive of the UN rapporteur’s approach, which was very unhelpful. We are doing an awful lot to support children in schools, with breakfast clubs and so on. We are also spending a lot more on family benefits to make sure that children are properly fed. However, we can always do more and we take poverty seriously.

[Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree that it is important for us to recognise that many good reports come from the United Nations on all manner of areas for which it is responsible, and that it is therefore rather unfortunate that this report was not objective in the normal way that we would expect of the United Nations? Does she agree that this should be drawn to the attention of the UN through our usual channels there?

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, I am extremely grateful to my noble friend for what he says. I have just been at the United Nations in New York, representing Her Majesty’s Government at a disability conference. Time and again, Ministers and commissioners—everyone involved with the UN—said that they do not recognise this report. Much that the United Nations does is brilliant but I am grateful to my noble friend for suggesting that sometimes, as in this case, its reports are not as objective as they should be.

Extreme Poverty and Human Rights: United Nations Report

Baroness Buscombe Excerpts

Wednesday 19th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Janke]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to address the findings of the report of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, published on 22 May.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Buscombe) (Con)]

My Lords, we have responded fully to the special rapporteur’s recommendations. A sustainable solution to poverty needs a strong economy and a benefits system that works with the tax system and the labour market to support employment and higher pay. Under this Government, employment is at its highest level since the 1970s. Wages are rising at their fastest in a decade. Income inequality has fallen. The number of children in workless households is at a record low.

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

The evidence in the report is from widely respected sources: one-third of children are in poverty—the Social Metrics Commission; 50% of children in one-parent families are in poverty—the Joseph Rowntree Foundation; the bottom 20% of earners will have lost 10% of their income by 2021—the Equality and Human Rights Commission. Is it not time that the Government listened to the poor and their charities and restored a social safety net worthy of the UK in the 21st century?

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, nobody wants to see poverty rising and we treat the issues raised by the special rapporteur seriously. However, we seriously regret the inflammatory and overtly political tone of his report and strongly refute the suggestion that we have failed to listen to stakeholders. As set out in our published response, we have taken action in a number of areas, including the recently announced reduction in the maximum duration for a single sanction from three years to six months.

[Baroness Bryan of Partick (Lab)]

My Lords, the rapporteur drew specific attention to the plight of women born in the 1950s, who have been particularly impacted by the “abrupt and poorly” phased in change to the pension age. Does the Minister accept that these women should be compensated for the loss they have experienced?

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, I believe in equality. Some of the rapporteur’s recommendations show a rather myopic understanding of universal credit. When I broached the subject of this report while representing Her Majesty’s Government at the UN last week, it was clear that everyone who knew about it was keen to distance themselves from it, preferring to compliment this Government on, “Groundbreaking, exemplary and world-leading policies in the area of work and pensions.”

[The Lord Bishop of Leeds]

My Lords, if the success is so great, why are so many schools in my diocese having to feed children, and why does almost every parish contribute to food banks?

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, we have done an enormous amount to tackle poverty since we came into government. We have invested huge sums of additional money into developing a welfare system that encourages people into work and supports them in work and with progression in their jobs, so that they can better provide, because we know that the best way to get out of poverty and save children from it is to work. As the IFS said today:

“Absolute poverty remains at its lowest ever level”.

[Lord Harries of Pentregarth (CB)]

Will the Minister comment specifically on Wales? The report says:

“Wales faces the highest relative poverty rate in the United Kingdom, with almost one in four people living in relative income poverty. Twenty-five per cent of jobs pay below minimum wage”.

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, we are tackling poverty across the country. I refer noble Lords to the leader article in the Times of 25 May:

“The failings of Mr Alston’s report are legion … it is padded out with such accusations as that the government evinces a ‘punitive, mean-spirited and often callous approach’”.


This is the Times. It said, “This is nonsense”. It goes on:

“yet poverty in this sense does not exist in Britain in the 21st century”.

We are responding to reports with care but, in all seriousness, we must say that many things in this report are exaggerated and inflammatory.

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, perhaps I may offer the Minister a quote about the report:

“we did a fact check of that report. He made a lot of good points. It was factually correct … in terms of the facts, of austerity, cuts to local government funding, of the reliance that we have on the labour market and the risk that we face if there was a recession, all of those things were really good points that we have taken on board”.

That is a quote from the policy director for children, families and disadvantage at the DWP, giving evidence to the Work and Pensions Select Committee last week.

Given that we have received not just this report but one after another showing that families on low incomes are really struggling, and given the crucial point made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds that families are turning up at food banks all over the country, working parents are going to food banks and schools are feeding hungry children, something is going wrong. Please will the Minister look again at this?

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, we continue to listen and to learn. The Government continue to spend more than £95 billion a year on benefits for people of working age. I say again, as I have said so many times before, that when the party opposite were in government, 20% of all working-age households in the United Kingdom—including Wales—were entirely workless. We have brought that figure down to 13.9% and we want to bring it down much further, but there are many different ways in which we are making a difference, listening and investing more money in real terms into the system to support and encourage people into the world of work and support those who cannot work.

[Baroness Boothroyd (CB)]

The right reverend Prelate asked a direct and interesting question. Will the Minister answer it?

[Baroness Buscombe]

I have answered it. We have listened; we have taken the questions and statements of the rapporteur very seriously. We do not accept, in the words of people at the United Nations last week, the political scaremongering, the hyperbole, the inflammatory and scaremongering approach to the whole subject. It is not helpful from someone who was not keen to engage with our officials.

Children Living in Poverty

Baroness Buscombe Excerpts

Monday 17th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

On behalf of my noble friend Lady Primarolo, and with her permission, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in her name on the Order Paper.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Buscombe) (Con)]

My Lords, there are 1.7 million children in families where at least one adult is in work in absolute poverty, before housing costs. However, the evidence shows that nearly half of these families are in part-time work or are self-employed. A child living in a household where every adult is working is about five times less likely to be in relative poverty than a child in a household where nobody works. This shows that work is the best route out of poverty.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

My Lords, I beg to differ that these figures show that work is the best route out of poverty, which is a message that the Government repeatedly tell us. How do they account for the fact that seven in 10 children in poverty have a working parent, up from just over half at the point they first took power? In particular, what assessment have they made of the impact on current and future levels of child poverty of their cuts to in-work benefits and tax credits?

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, the statistics expressed by the noble Baroness do not reflect the £1.7 billion a year cash boost to our welfare system announced in the Budget, which will enable 2.4 million households to keep more of what they earn. We have taken strong action to support working families. The latest rise in the national living wage will increase a full-time worker’s annual pay by over £2,750 since 2016. No one wants to see poverty increase. That is why we are doing more to help parents into work and to stay in work through multiple avenues of support from across government.

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

My Lords, the Social Metrics Commission found that in 2018 almost a third of children were in poverty. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that child poverty has been rising almost entirely in working families. What action will the Government take to ensure that children are not disadvantaged? Will they consider in the comprehensive spending review ending the benefits freeze and the two-child limit?

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, I have already made it clear at this Dispatch Box that we intend to end the benefit freeze next year. Again, the stats produced by the Social Metrics Commission last year predate much of the additional support that we have invested in the system since the last Autumn Budget.

We have done a huge amount to help families through transforming the welfare system so that people are not just helped into work. We are working hard on in-work progression, so that people preferably do not just have a full-time job—three-quarters of all jobs since 2010 are full time—because we want people to have good jobs, and are piloting new ways of supporting that. We are also boosting our capability to work with local businesses and working with jobcentre specialists to encourage local employers to support progression and good-quality flexible working which will support the children of those families in work.

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister has talked a lot about what the Government are doing to help people in jobs, but if the aim is to get families out of poverty, it is not working. The facts are clear: people are simply moving from one kind of poverty into another—that is, from out-of-work poverty into in-work poverty. The impact on children is very serious. Did the Minister see the recent research in the Archives of Disease in Childhood showing that child poverty has not only risen but will rise further? It looked at the impact on children of being in poverty in childhood and found that those in “persistent poverty” were three times as likely to have mental health problems and twice as likely to have a long-standing illness. The president of the Institute of Child Health said that we need,

“national targets to reduce child poverty backed by a national child poverty strategy, the reversal of cuts to universal credit and the reversal of public health cuts”.

Does the Minister agree?

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, again, we are doing a huge amount, quite a lot of which is not reported or reflected in the additional support we have injected. I have just returned from the G7 in Paris, where we focused on labour. There is no question that, across the world, the changing world of work presents challenges. We are at the forefront on this issue; other countries look to us. Our living wage is way in excess of what other countries afford their citizens. We are setting an example and achieving a huge amount in having a transformational system that helps people into work, pays them to work and gives them in-work progression. Let me give an example: a couple with three children need to work for a total of only 24 hours per week to be exempted from the benefit cap; they can then receive from the state the equivalent of a £35,000 gross salary a year, plus housing support. That is not ungenerous.

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con)]

My Lords, does the Minister welcome the recent weekly earnings increase?

[Baroness Buscombe]

Absolutely. The increase in weekly earnings makes a huge difference. Tackling poverty will always be a priority for this Government; they have lifted 400,000 people out of absolute poverty since the party opposite was in government. Inequality has fallen. Our reforms have made sure—this is important—that our welfare system encourages people into work, but is also fairer for the taxpayer and sustainable for the future.