Welfare Reform Bill

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2012 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

50ZA: Clause 69, page 54, line 8, at end insert—
“( ) Where amounts are re-allocated to local authorities as described in subsection (5), the Secretary of State must publish the following information annually for five years following the first re-allocation—
(a) the amount of money which has been re-allocated from the Consolidated Fund in each local authority; and(b) an annual report accounting for the expenditure of these amounts in each local authority area.”

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

My Lords, like Amendment 50 debated last week, this amendment is designed to minimise the adverse effects likely to result from the abolition of the discretionary Social Fund—

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, in order to be of assistance to the noble Baroness, who is seeking to move a very important amendment, may I suggest that those leaving the Chamber do not pass in front of speakers? That is not the habit of this House. May they please leave the Chamber by another route, so that we may hear from the noble Baroness?

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

Thank you.

The amendment is about accountability. Considerable concern was raised in Grand Committee about the accountability of local authorities for the moneys devolved to them when the discretionary Social Fund is abolished. The amendment has been drafted with the help of Family Action, to which I am grateful, so as to put into effect the recommendation of the Communities and Local Government Committee report Localisation issues in welfare reform. While the CLG Committee accepted the Government’s case against ring-fencing the money, its report said that this,

“may carry some risks at a time of difficult financial circumstances for councils”.

The committee therefore recommended that,

“central government identifies clearly the amounts that are being allocated to local authorities, and collects information about their use, until the new arrangements have bedded in—we suggest a period of five years. … This would provide some reassurance about the effectiveness of the new system in helping those in need”.

Ministers have been giving out mixed messages on this issue. I hope that means that they are genuinely trying to find a way of answering the concerns about lack of accountability that have been raised in a number of quarters. One ministerial response has been to rely on the ballot box, even though the people affected are those least likely to vote, and also to contend that it is sufficient to set out the purpose of the funding in a settlement letter.

However, a chink of light emerged in the Government’s response to the call for evidence, when they said that the settlement letter, mentioned last week by the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley,

“may be supplemented with a requirement to report on how the funding has been used”.

The CLG Committee observed:

“This would fall some way short of the accountability mechanisms suggested by some stakeholders”.

Nevertheless, if the Minister now committed the Government to imposing such a requirement, we would be satisfied.

Last week, the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, spoke about supplementing the planned review of a cross-section of local authorities in order to collect more information on how the money is spent. While I welcome the spirit in which this very small concession was offered, I fear that it falls short, not just of what we believe is necessary but of what the Government themselves hinted at in their response to the committee’s evidence.

We are still awaiting an answer to some astute questioning in Grand Committee from the noble Lord, Lord German, about how the Government will meet their obligations of stewardship for the money allocated to local authorities in England. As the noble Lord stated very powerfully, this is a question of accountability to Parliament. How can such accountability be ensured if local authorities are not required to report on how they spend the money allocated to them?

The purpose of Amendment 50ZB is to allay the fears voiced by voluntary organisations such as Family Action, Women’s Aid and Platform 51 that local authorities might impose a local or residence condition as a way of rationing assistance when allocating social housing. Again, I am grateful to Family Action for help with drafting this amendment. Given the pressures on local authorities, it is quite conceivable that some at least might seek to impose a local connection test—that is, confine help to people who already have a local connection with the area. In Committee, I tabled a general amendment to prevent such a test. This amendment is drafted more tightly to ensure that such a test is not applied to people fleeing domestic violence—or, more accurately, people who have fled domestic violence—young people leaving local authority care, people who are homeless or who have been homeless within the previous 12 months and people leaving institutional residential care such as a hospital, prison or a young offenders’ institution. In other words, this amendment is designed to safeguard the interests of groups who are likely not to have a local connection.

As the voluntary sector consortium headed by Family Action points out,

“These groups of people are much less likely than others to be able to demonstrate local connection. Without crucial assistance from a Community Care Grant to buy essential items such as cooking equipment and bedding, they may struggle to set up and maintain a home. This puts them at risk of reoffending or moving back into temporary or institutional accommodation, which is far more costly and means they lose their newly-found independence”.

The consortium is particularly concerned that, without a clear legal prohibition on requiring a local residence connection, women who have experienced domestic violence will be discouraged from moving elsewhere to flee their violent partner, or will return to their partner because they are unable to provide basic household items such as a cooker to prepare cheap healthy food for themselves and their children. The consortium’s concerns were echoed in the impact report published last week by the Office of the Children’s Commissioner for England, which looked at the impact of the legislation in relation to children’s rights. When questioned on this matter in the House of Commons, the Secretary of State assured Members that local authorities had a moral duty. Welcome as this recognition is, I fear that if a woman who has fled domestic violence or an ex-prisoner cites a moral duty to their local authority they will not get very far. Surely if the Government believe that a moral duty holds, they should translate it into a statutory duty.

The Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Freud, did not address these issues in Committee but kindly wrote to me afterwards. However, he simply set out in his letter the local connection provisions on homelessness contained in the Housing Act 1996. I shall not spell those out now, but they protect a person from being denied any assistance anywhere because of a lack of local connection. If the Minister is saying that the same rule will apply here, then I welcome it, but does it not need to be written into the legislation? As I understand it, the Housing Act 1996 does not apply to the legislation we are discussing here. If the Minister were to offer to bring forward his own amendment at Third Reading to give effect to the Housing Act provisions on local connection, I would happily withdraw the amendment as unnecessary. As an absolute minimum, can the Minister assure the House that the settlement letter will spell out that local authorities should follow the same provisions as in the housing legislation?

It seems to me that the aims of these two amendments are not that far from what the Government themselves wish to achieve. I hope therefore that the Minister might be willing either to accept them or to agree to bring forward his own amendments at Third Reading. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, the local authority will not spend the money on a swimming pool.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate. They have added some powerful arguments and questioning. In response to the noble Lord, Lord Newton, I should say that it is better to go from zero to hero than the other way round.

I thank the Minister who, I feel, is inching gradually in the direction that we have been trying to push him. He has again reassured us that the Government share the concern across the House that the money that is allocated to local authorities should be used for the purposes intended. It was helpful to have more information about what will be in the settlement letter. However, I have heard nothing today to reassure me that the money will necessarily be spent on what is intended. We should think of the context. Local authorities are under huge pressure. Apart from anything else, they will have to be responsible for council tax benefit, with a cut of 10 per cent in the money available for it. How tempting it might be for them to say, “Oh, let us use a bit of the Social Fund money to top up council tax benefit”.

How can the noble Lord say with such assurance that the money will not be used on a swimming pool, a road or anything else? Without the information that this amendment would provide, I am afraid that the Government simply cannot give that assurance. I am very disappointed that the noble Lord has not felt able to go further in meeting the spirit of these amendments even if not the letter of them. I do not think that he has dealt adequately with the questions and comments made by noble Lords.

We have the example of the supporting people budget. When the ring-fence was removed, immediately many local authorities started spending the money on other things. That was with an existing budget. This is a new budget, which will be even more tempting for local authorities. I hope that the Government will reflect further on this issue. We will certainly reflect further but, for the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 50ZA withdrawn.