Welfare Reform Bill

Baroness Grey-Thompson Excerpts

Wednesday 29th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sherlock]

My Lords, I shall say just a brief word. Barristers always say that you should never ask a question in open court unless you know what the answer will be. I fear that Ministers often take a similar attitude to research: do not ask a question unless you know what the answer will be and you know that you will like it. I commend the Minister, because I have had the impression throughout the passage of the Bill that he is not that kind of Minister but is genuinely interested in information. Because of that, I hope that he will feel able to give a generous response to the encouragement of many Members of the House to look for information.

I have two things for the Minister to think about. One is to follow up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, which is that if the Minister is right and rents change as a result, we will all be interested to learn that. If they do not, we will have learnt something about the market. If that is the case, that creates a question rather than just answering one: what is happening with the state of the housing market and what other levers are available to the state? It would be extraordinarily helpful to the country as a whole if the Minister would use his position in government to commend that set of questions to his colleagues, rather than stopping at that point.

My second point is in response to the comments made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds, which concerned the broader effects, particularly on families with children. Many noble Lords will be aware that when the United States engaged in significant welfare reform, one fear expressed at the time was that many people would simply disappear from the system altogether. Research was undertaken and that proved to be the case. I have expressed concern at different points during the Bill's passage about what happens to vulnerable children, in particular, and, more broadly, to vulnerable families. Perhaps the Minister can take this opportunity to reassure the House that the Government will do all that they can to track what is happening to individuals so that they do not fall out of the notice of the authorities.

[Baroness Grey-Thompson]

My Lords, briefly, I commend the noble Lord, Lord Best, on his determination with the amendment and offer him my support. I will not repeat the words of the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope, but he is absolutely right when he talks about reassurance. It is so unfortunate at this stage of the Bill that many people who may find themselves in really difficult situations, perhaps through being in the wrong place, will be extremely disappointed that we cannot take this further. As we have read in the press yet again today, many disabled people are being portrayed as benefit scroungers. That causes me great concern as we make some of these changes. The review is vital if we are to ensure that our worst fears are not realised.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, we support the Motion proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Best, and I, like others, thank him for the persistence, diligence, precision and passion with which he has pursued this subject from the start of our proceedings. I very much agree with the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, who said that this is no way to go about tackling issues of underoccupation; a much broader, more sophisticated approach is needed. It is a pity that we are stuck at this stage with, basically, having to live with what is in the Bill, subject to the review.

We have been told again that the amendment that we sent to the other place is an infringement of its financial privilege. It disdainfully clings to that financial privilege, which it could waive, without regard to the consequences for hundreds of thousands of households who will bear the financial burden of these cuts, in the same dismissive way that the Prime Minister today announced that the Bill would complete its parliamentary passage before noble Lords had even convened to consider it further. They brush aside our amendment, with its protection for families, notwithstanding that for some there are no smaller properties for them to move to; regardless of the fact that, for some, their disability involves them in additional costs which will be more difficult for them to meet and given their housing benefit reductions; and ignoring that many do not have a route to work to mitigate loss of benefit. The noble Lord, Lord Best, was absolutely right not to water down the amendment further and try to pick and choose which of those categories of individual is more deserving of escaping this iniquitous provision than the others.

Throughout the various stages of the Bill, we have sought to press on the Government the innate unfairness of the provisions concerning underoccupation. As we have heard, the arguments advanced have variously included the following. There is the appropriateness of adopting the CLG definition of underoccupation—a measure which provides sensible flexibility for households as family arrangements wax and wane, health conditions change, and young children grow older. There is the acceptance that only if there is suitable alternative smaller accommodation should families be expected to move, notwithstanding that that may be totally disruptive to their lives, and that meeting a housing benefit shortfall by getting a job or working more hours should not be insisted on where claimants are simply not able to work.

The losses in housing benefit a week, whether of £12, £13 or £14, cannot be borne without driving more households closer to or into poverty. Most are not sitting on substantial savings to cushion the loss of benefit; if they were, they would be ineligible for housing benefit in the first place. Moving to the private sector is likely to lead to increases in housing benefit costs for the Government rather than reductions. Taking in lodgers to contribute to the housing benefit shortfall will simply not be possible or desirable in many family circumstances. It is a false economy to force disabled people to move from a property which has been substantially adapted. To make it more difficult for those involved in foster caring makes no sense on many levels.

Your Lordships have supported those arguments, but they have been rejected by the Government in Committee, at Report and, now, at ping-pong. The only acknowledgement of the havoc, despair and poverty they will create is a £30 million annual top-up to discretionary housing benefit. Even that, as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Best, is funded by an increase in the housing benefit reductions for all.

The Government know full well that these clauses will not solve the problem of underoccupation of social housing. They cynically do not want to solve it, otherwise their intended savings will simply not materialise. The offer they make is to move further afield, away from your community, support network, friends and jobs—not a sensible proposition, as we heard from my noble friend Lady Lister—to take a lodger, to use your savings or to earn more money. That is essentially a bogus offer, because most will simply not be able to take it up.

If we cannot persuade the Government, the least we can do is to have arrangements which will confront them with the consequences of what they implement. That is why we support the Motion tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Best, which requires an independent review of the consequences of Clauses 11 and 68. Of course, it will not be just that review which explains what is going on. Local authorities, councillors, MPs, and voluntary and community organisations—and, indeed, the courts—will get the blast from this in little over a year from now, as the cuts begin to bite.

We do not deny the need to tackle the deficit, nor that that means some hard choices, but it is genuinely difficult to understand why this contribution is sought in this way to this extent from this group of people. The alleged cost of our previous amendment, £100 million, is, when we think about it, just 20 per cent of one company’s tax avoidance schemes.

However, that is what both partners in government have chosen to do, and we have not been able to persuade them otherwise. We hope that an independent review will reinforce the points that we have made and still persuade the Government to a different view. If the review concludes otherwise, we can have no complaint.

This is not the end of the matter; it remains work in progress; but this debate marks the conclusion of our deliberations on the Bill, a Bill that we have been able to improve in some respects, but which, in too many ways, imposes unacceptable burdens on the most vulnerable. They are entitled to better from their Government.