Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Monday 14th December 2015 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

57: After Clause 15, insert the following new Clause—
“Review of application of sanctions
(1) The Secretary of State must, before the end of the financial year ending 31 March 2016, provide for a full and independent review of the sanctions regimes attached to working-age benefits, including but not limited to jobseeker’s allowance, employment and support allowance and income support, to determine whether they are an effective and proportionate means of meeting the Government’s objectives.
(2) The terms of reference for the review must include consideration of—
(a) the application of sanctions to lone parents with dependent children;(b) the application of sanctions to claimants who are disabled;(c) the effectiveness of sanctions in moving claimants into sustained work; and(d) any other matters which the Secretary of State considers relevant.”

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I speak to Amendment 57, tabled in my name and that of my noble friend Lord McKenzie of Luton, and with the support of the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the noble Baroness, Lady Manzoor. Its purpose is to provide for a full, independent review of the operation of the sanctions regime, to determine the effectiveness of sanctions in moving claimants into sustained work as well as any adverse impact on particular groups. It echoes a recommendation made twice by the Work and Pensions Committee but rejected by the Government.

The Government gave three main reasons for rejection in response to the committee’s recent report on sanctions. First, they wanted the improvements already made to bed in. Welcome as the improvements may be, they do not meet all recommendations from either the committee or the earlier Oakley review. There is evidence from many quarters that problems persist. Secondly, the Government argue that international evidence is clear that benefit regimes tied to conditionality get people into work. Last week the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, pointed to how the international evidence is not unequivocally in support of the value of sanctions and getting people into sustained work and achieving positive, longer-term outcomes. In any case, I do not see the relevance to the case for a review of this sanctions regime. Similarly, the Government point to wide agreement that sanctions play a vital role in supporting conditionality—up to a point, provided they are,

“applied appropriately, fairly and proportionately”,

to quote the Work and Pensions Committee. But the whole point is that few agree that they are. That is why we need an independent review that goes beyond the narrow remit of the Oakley review, helpful as that was.

Last week the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope, referred to the toxic effect of sanctions. The noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, cited some of the evidence, drawing on her experience as a member of the Fawcett inquiry into the impact on women, particularly lone mothers, rather spoiling the rosy picture painted by the Minister on Wednesday night.

There is also evidence from a wide range of organisations, such as Gingerbread, Citizens Advice and local advice agencies, including an Advice Nottingham report I helped to launch the other day. More evidence has emerged since our last sitting from the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hunger and Food Poverty, in the foreword to which the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury expressed shock at sanctions’ contribution to widespread hunger and reliance on food banks; and from Crisis, which published a study from Sheffield Hallam University that found that sanctions were leading to homelessness and exacerbating the situation of those already homeless, particularly those with mental health problems. I do not have time to document this evidence, but I want to interrogate some of the department’s responses to the Work and Pensions Committee’s recommendations, drawing on an analysis by Dr David Webster of Glasgow University, to whom I am indebted, as I am for his regular analysis of the sanctions statistics. I am glad to say that these show some improvement recently, but the rate remains well above the pre-2010 rate.

The response to the committee’s report was perhaps spun to give the impression that it had conceded rather more than it had. In particular, what was dubbed acceptance of a yellow-card system looks more like a deferred red card to allow for representations to the referee. I am sure my colleagues know that I do not normally draw on football metaphors. The recommendation was that the:

“DWP pilot pre-sanction written warnings and non-financial sanctions”,

for first-time incidents of non-compliance. The response was to,

“trial arrangements whereby claimants are given a warning of our intention to sanction, and a 14-day period to provide evidence of good reason before the decision to sanction is made”,

and to,

“provide further evidence to explain their non-compliance”.

That is a welcome improvement but I am sure noble Lords can spot the difference. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Freud, himself, in a previous role, called for first-time non-compliance to be met with a written warning rather than a sanction. The Oakley review called for the trial of non-financial sanctions for first-time failures. SSAC, too, favours such an approach.

In eliding it with a recommendation for an independent review, the department also rejected without explanation the call for an evaluation of the efficacy and impact of the four-week minimum sanction period under the 2012 Act, compared with a minimum period of one week. Perhaps we could have an explanation now.

The current chair of the Work and Pensions Committee has written to the Secretary of State to express his disappointment at the refusal to accept the recommendation on monitoring the destination of sanctioned claimants. As he argues:

“Monitoring employment outcomes is surely fundamental to understanding … the ultimate aim of getting claimants back into work and out of poverty”.

The Secretary of State’s response to this crucial recommendation referred simply to quality-assuring universal credit statistics, with a reference to other unspecified factors that might affect claimant destinations, which was not very encouraging. Surely the department wants to know whether sanctions are moving claimants into sustained work and what happens when they are not. The Crisis study found that, perversely, sanctions were pushing some of those affected further from the labour market and that homelessness service users were begging, borrowing and stealing to meet their daily need. Indeed, some actually said that they were trying to get put into jail because it would be better than destitution. Surely the department wants to know the impact on the health and well-being of those sanctioned and their families, which, again, the Crisis study and others have shown can be very negative. These are all issues that an independent review would address and that I really believe that the department itself surely wants to know the answer to.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her response on vulnerable groups, the mentally ill and others. Perhaps in the letter that the noble Lord has kindly offered to send me on care leavers, he can confirm that care leavers were flagged up in the welfare system and will get this special consideration before any sanction is made on them—and whether he might consider extending that. Currently, if a care leaver is participating in work or education, up to the age of 25, they are flagged up in the DWP system and special measures can be taken for them—but if they are not doing that, they do not get that support; it finishes at the age of 21. So 21 to 25 year-olds not in education or training are missing out. I encourage the Government to think about extending the kind of considerations to vulnerable groups that she was just describing to care leavers who are not in education or training but who would be called care-experienced adults. In a sense, they are the most vulnerable, because they are not in education or training but have been in care and face all the difficulties. I am sorry to speak for so long—but in that letter, I would appreciate some comments on that.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

I am very grateful to noble Lords who have spoken, particularly those who spoke in support of the amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, made the very important point that we need to be clear about this before universal credit is rolled out any further. Increasingly, I feel that we are in two parallel universes—the universe of those on the ground and the voluntary organisations and the universe of Ministers and officials. I am very glad that the Minister said that they are meeting to talk but, unfortunately, it seems as if they still operate within these parallel universes, where there is a completely different understanding of what is happening. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord McKenzie for the very comprehensive and thorough case that he made for an independent review. I am grateful, too, to the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, who said that he was not opposed in principle to reviews. Perhaps we could look again at his criteria.

My noble friend made the point about timescale—that people suffering as a result of sanctions need this review now. However, I am a very reasonable person and I accept that, by the time the Bill becomes law, it will not leave very long between that and the timescale in the amendment. I would be very happy to discuss with the Minister perhaps a more realistic timescale.

On the remit being too narrow, I say that the whole point of the criticisms of the Oakley review was that it was too narrow. Indeed, Matthew Oakley himself acknowledged the narrowness of his remit and suggested that perhaps something broader was needed. So I am delighted that the noble Lord would like a broader remit than the one suggested in the amendment. The point about the term “sanctions” has already been addressed, but I just wonder how many times the Minister actually used the word; it was probably at least as many times as in the amendment itself. Perhaps, given that the noble Lord does not oppose in principle the idea of a review, he might help me to produce a better amendment for Report, if we decide to come back to this issue.

I am grateful, too, to the Minister. She started by saying that she was not sure whether the proposal was necessary. That seemed a rather tentative statement about something so important because, on this side of the House, we are sure that it is necessary. We have heard from my noble friend Lord McKenzie and others why it is necessary. She did not seem to have taken on board what I said about the yellow-card system. I welcome what is proposed, but it is not exactly the original Work and Pensions Committee recommendation. I was a bit disappointed that she did not explain why there had been that unacknowledged shift from what had been recommended. Perhaps she could write to me, and pop the letter to other noble Lords who have spoken on the specific question that I asked, about why the Government have rejected the Work and Pensions Committee recommendation that there should be a specific evaluation of the efficacy and impact of a minimum of four weeks’ sanctions. That was rejected without any explanation in the response to the report. I asked for an explanation and would be very happy to have one in writing. That said, I am grateful to her for her response. I do not think that it will satisfy the kind of organisations mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, or the people living in the universe that is engaging on a day-to-day basis with claimants suffering as a result of sanctions. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 57 withdrawn.