Pensions Bill
Baroness Meacher Excerpts(10 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab)
My Lords, I join my noble friend Lady Hollis in reviewing why this clause should stand part of the Bill. This debate gives us an opportunity to review its rationale, as my noble friend has done, and particularly to scrutinise what alternative support mechanisms are to be put in place for those newly required to notify the DWP of changes to retirement provision. As we know, the assessed income period removes the requirement to notify changes to capital and retirement pension for the purposes of pension credit. It will run for five years but is set indefinitely for somebody who has reached the age of 75.
As the Minister himself has said, the concept was based on the assumption that the capital and retirement income of pensioners would not vary significantly, that administratively it was appropriate to have a light touch for claims maintenance, and that it was also less intrusive for a claimant whose reporting of changes of circumstances obligations was significantly reduced. It is now asserted that the administrative burdens will not be forthcoming, in part because a huge volume of cases come up for review at the same time, and there is not the stability in levels of capital and retirement income originally envisaged. So far as the administration issues are concerned, it would presumably be possible to spread the load by modest extensions of the end dates of existing AIPs to even out their reconsideration. Perhaps the Minister can tell us why such an option was not considered.
We learn from the impact assessment that just under 2 million of 2.5 million people on pension credit have an AIP split roughly half and half between those with a specified end date and those of an indefinite period. Given that those with an indefinite period AIP are not to be preserved, it looks as though these provisions will potentially affect some 1 million pensioners. Do we have figures for those within this cohort who are in receipt of savings credit only, guarantee credit only or both? Obviously, savings credit would have no application for those who reach state pension age after 5 April 2016, and to a certain extent these provisions wither on the vine because those who reach state pension age post-April 2016 will get STP generally which will be above the guarantee credit level, so they get floated off and savings credit does not apply to them in any event.
As for changes to income and capital, as my noble friend has made clear, the numbers have been predicated on scaling up and are now, I think, upwards of 99,400 cases. We know that of those cases, 36,000 will see a reduction in their award—13,000 will lose all pension credit—18,000 will see an increase and nearly half will see no change. However, over a five-year period, the impact assessment suggests that 540,000 people will be affected by the change in policy, with one-third gaining and two-thirds losing. It would seem that the reasons for a reduction in award are attributable to increases in non-pension income as well as increases in capital—the former cases, I think, being more numerous.
We know that in a steady state the Government will benefit to the tune of £82 million a year and will gain further savings from housing benefit and rent support. I do not know whether we have an updated assessment for that figure. Incidentally, will the Minister remind us what is happening because we went through a period when an application for pension credit, council tax benefit or housing benefit was going to involve one process of application, and that was then going to be shared? I do not know what has happened to that process. Clearly, the council tax part of it has had to go because of the localisation of that but it would be helpful to have an update on that process.
Ensuring that pension credit assessments of means-tested benefit are accurate is not an unreasonable ambition, but an equally important ambition should be to improve the take-up of pension credit, as my noble friend made clear. We know that about one in three of those eligible for pension credit are currently not claiming it, although take-up of the guaranteed credit is higher. The greater the required engagement with the system, the greater the risk will be that pensioners will fall out of the system or not engage with it in the first place.
As my noble friend asked, what are the Government’s plans to improve take-up of pension credit? This issue must not be underestimated, especially in an environment in which people are living longer, and living at least semi-independently, with support from formal and informal carers. I have seen this in my family: whereas bank statements and pension slips were once neatly filed in date order, they are now tucked away down the side of a chair, scattered randomly in a drawer or thrown out with the rubbish. When you cannot always remember whether you have had breakfast, it is not always easy to remember to pass on a piece of correspondence to a family carer. These are real issues, particularly as people get older.
Of course, there are penalties for failure to report changes of circumstances, and we know that this Government are hot on sanctions. So can the Minister please say, given the changes to the AIP policy, what additional cost is to be incurred in supporting pensioners, both at the point of the change and routinely thereafter? What special protections will be in the system if someone is at risk of being sanctioned?
Finally, on the matter raised by my noble friend Lady Hollis concerning the effect of this change on equity release and capital more widely, it is with a degree of trepidation that I am bound to say that I cannot fully support the position of my noble friend. I know that that is dangerous territory. I agree that AIPs facilitate the accumulation of substantial sums from equity release without impact on pension credit, but that, of itself, is not a reason why it should be retained. It is common ground that AIPs were designed as an administrative easement, not as a route to allow certain types of capital to be outside the pension credit rules. I see great merit in equity release but I am not sure why capital raised just in that way should have more favourable treatment under the benefit system than capital raised in any other way. There is already a series of provisions under which capital is disregarded for the purposes of pension credit and, indeed, other benefits. They include amounts held to buy a home or to carry out essential repairs. There may well be an argument—and my noble friend has advanced these—to extend these capital disregards in effect to cover costs of caring. However, this should be done explicitly, not under the guise of hanging on to something via an administrative easement.
The Government are going down a dangerous path. Thousands of pensioners could be disadvantaged by this provision administratively, and we certainly want to know, if the Government are going to press ahead with it, what support is going to be given. I do not see anything in the figures about extra costs and more frequent reviews. What is in the analysis that states that the Government are going to support pensioners, particularly older pensioners, effectively to make sure that they take up pension credit when they are entitled to it, and that that they are able to comply with the new, more onerous reporting rules that flow from these provisions?
Baroness Meacher (CB)
My Lords, I support my noble friends. I have just worked out that it was about 40 years ago when I undertook and produced the first research report of the Child Poverty Action Group. The subject of that study was the non-take-up of means-tested benefits. At that time, when I was a young person, I assumed that the important issue was stigma. Of course stigma is a major feature, but what took me by complete surprise was the level of ignorance and complete unawareness on the part of, most particularly, the poorest potential claimants—ignorance that they might even conceivably be entitled to any benefit at all. It just had not crossed their mind. If you do not ask any questions, you do not get the answers to those questions. If he really wants to extend means-tested benefits, I urge the Minister to undertake some research into the levels of knowledge and understanding of potential pension credit recipients, because if the level of ignorance remains today as it was then, the social consequences of these reforms will be very alarming indeed.
Baroness Meacher
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 62ZA, but before doing so I must apologise to your Lordships—I have already apologised to the Minister—because I am running against a very tight deadline. I tabled this amendment assuming it would come up on Monday. Before addressing the amendment, I give my very strong support to Amendment 59, moved brilliantly by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis. I have no doubt at all that the replacement of the widowed parent’s allowance by the bereavement support payment has positive features, but the limitation of that benefit to one year is absolutely cruel. The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, really got across the point that bereavement is not just a short-term problem. It brings several years of very considerable distress and discomfort for the children, as well as for the parent left behind.
The aim of Amendment 62ZA is to remove the widowed parent’s allowance and its predecessor, WMA, from the list of benefits treated as income other than earnings for the purposes of universal credit entitlement. I realise that that would be a very big step for the Government, but the result would be that claimants with no other income or earnings would keep the value of the WPA in full. Those with earnings in excess of the personal allowance would of course pay tax on it, but they would at least receive the majority of the benefit.
This is a probing amendment. The Children’s Society has calculated that, without the amendment, those entitled to widowed parent’s allowance could find themselves worse off by about £400 per year compared to those with no entitlement and no national insurance contributions. An important point is that WPA is a contributory benefit. It is only payable when the deceased parent has paid sufficient national insurance contributions. The clear assumption behind the benefit is that a surviving parent with all those contributions should surely benefit over and above surviving parents with no contributions. We regard it as an anomaly that under the universal credit rules this advantage from having national insurance contributions would be stripped away. Do the Government really intend that outcome? I do not think so. The proposed bereavement support payment, which will of course replace a number of benefits including the WPA, clearly identifies bereaved parents with national insurance contributions as being entitled to benefits which are not available to others. There is therefore a real discrepancy between the two basic assumptions behind the two benefits.
Although the bereavement support payment will be limited in time—hopefully it will be provided for at least three years, which seems to be an absolutely basic requirement—nevertheless it will be of greater value to most of those entitled to it than the widowed parent’s benefit. The contributory principle is well and truly recognised by this new benefit. At the same time, as I understand it, those receiving the widowed parent’s allowance will continue to do so when bereavement support payment takes over for new claimants. The WPA will continue to be treated as income other than earnings, which again is a different principle. This means that the benefit will continue to be deducted pound for pound from the claimant’s universal credit entitlement. The result is that a widowed parent with no other income will experience zero benefit from his or her national insurance contributions, thereby entitling them to the WPA.
The situation is, of course, even worse for widowed parents who continue to work. The gross sum of the widowed parent’s benefit will be subject to income tax. I find that absolutely extraordinary. Working claimants may have their WPA deducted in full from their universal credit entitlement, but will also pay tax on the gross income that they have not received. Those are the parents who could end up £400 per year worse off. I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm that that is a correct reading of the situation.
Can the Minister confirm whether the Government really intend that those bereaved parents with a national insurance contribution record should be no better off than those with no such record and that those in work should really find themselves even worse off? Will the Minister confirm that many current recipients of the widowed parent’s allowance will continue to be disadvantaged in this way even after the introduction of the bereavement support payment? Finally, does the Minister accept that only relatively well-off bereaved parents, whose earnings take them above the ceiling for universal credit, will actually benefit from having a national insurance contribution record? Can that be right?
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)
My Lords, I support these amendments very strongly. The points about bereavement have been made most eloquently. However, I would like to add the scenario where one parent dies suddenly rather than as a result of a protracted illness, where the shock of the death may be absolutely overwhelming. That could be suicide, murder or a sudden death. There is another scenario, too, which is where the surviving parent was involved in a road accident and does not even start to grieve until much later. The children who are bereaved know that one parent is already dead and, for many months, they may not know whether the other parent will survive or not. The shortening of time is quite cruel, and I use that word advisedly. A year is a very short time in the life of anyone bereaved, and the anniversary of the death often marks a major step change in the way that they live their lives. That applies to children as well as the bereaved parent.
The government proposal to increase the lump sum is most welcome because the current lump sum gets nowhere near the immediate expenses incurred. However, it is essential that the Government consider this proposed three-year period, or until the child is seven, if that would be longer than three years, because pre-school children certainly need that security and will become very clingy when they realise that one parent has gone. A scenario might arise with an accident where not only has the parent died but another sibling. It is not uncommon, sadly, for a family of five or six to be suddenly left as a family of two—multiple losses all in one go in a horrendous road accident.
We know that the outcomes for children who are not well supported in bereavement are much worse. When we think about the cost of bereavement support, it must be put in context of the cost to society of young people who have been bereaved who have not had adequate support and have experienced excessive strain and mental health problems. That increases their risk of suffering from depression, attempting suicide and experiencing drug addiction, alcoholism, underage sex, unplanned pregnancies and so on. That cost must be offset against what appears, at face value, to be a demand for an increase in the amount that the Government will put there for bereaved parents. The long-term continuity becomes really important.
The only other point I will make, which was made to me by a young lady doing work experience with me, is that these days not that many parents are married. The issues highlighted in Amendment 62ZB are therefore really pertinent to the way that youngsters live today. I can see that administratively, if the parents are not married, it can become more complicated for government, but I do not believe that that is beyond the scope of being worked out. It is important to realise that the person who the child has lost and needs support to grieve over may not be their biological parent.
Mental Health: Cost of Living Support
Baroness Meacher Excerpts(11 years ago)
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The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Hill of Oareford) (Con)
My Lords, it is the turn of the Liberal Democrats.
Atheists and Humanists: Contribution to Society
Baroness Meacher Excerpts(11 years, 4 months ago)
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Baroness Meacher
My Lords, I applaud the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, for giving us the opportunity to consider this increasingly important subject. I make clear at the outset that I am not against religion, so long as religious believers adhere to the basic ethical principles of empathy and compassion. In my view, any Church of England member today would adhere to those principles. My other request is that people of religion should be open to the scientific method when they come to understand how the universe works, even if this requires them to adjust their belief in the supernatural. Where a religion departs from these principles—if, for example, adherence to a religious belief requires female genital mutilation—I part company with it, and I am sure that every noble Lord would agree with that view. That is the issue. Many religions have gone wildly off course over the ages.
To put my cards on the table, I would probably describe myself as a humanist Quaker. Yes, there are Quakers who do not believe in a supernatural God. I wonder how many people who call themselves Christian would also reject the idea of a supernatural God and would interpret the resurrection simply as symbolic of the human capacity for renewal—nothing more. I remember asking a very dear verger who worked with me on mental health many years ago, “Do you really believe the words of the Creed?”. He said, “I don’t really think I believe any of it, but I find it helpful to be in a spiritual place and to ponder on things other than the material, and other than the worries of today”. Was he really a Christian? If he was, perhaps for many Christians the term “Christianity” is synonymous with humanism.
One reason to promote humanism is the need to distinguish religious sects that subscribe to the basic ethical principles of humanity and those that do not. We cannot just assume that because somebody is religious, they have to be good, and if they are not religious they have to be bad. Another reason is the rapidly growing proportion of the population who are not religious at all. The noble Lord, Lord Harrison, referred to the figures. It is staggering that about half the population today do not have a religion. Religion is dying fast. Only one-third of 18 to 24 year-olds belong to a religion, compared with 72% of those over 65. Humanist values are thus absolutely vital to our society if we are not to decline into the amoral, brutish existence of which people speak.
The Dalai Lama has shown the way in his book, Beyond Religion. He argues that compassion is the most central instinct which enables human beings to survive and thrive. Compassion leads us to treat others as we would wish them to treat us—a central tenet of Christianity—that is, with concern, affection and warm-heartedness. The Dalai Lama—a lifelong Buddhist, of course—advocates,
“an approach to ethics which makes no recourse to religion”.
I find that very interesting and powerful. He argues for a secular ethics and sees no contradiction between that and his religious beliefs. Secular ethics, or humanism, is beyond religion, as the Dalai Lama suggests, not beneath or above it.
We now know from evolutionary biology and neuroscience that these values are innate in our biological nature. Humans survive and thrive only if they espouse these values. We need to promote these values within ourselves and in others. Many will say that they pursue ethical and humanist principles because of their religion. That seems fine to me; perhaps I part company with some of my colleagues in the Chamber today. Others work towards achieving compassion through mindfulness or meditation. That for me is good. I am not myself very good at it, but I believe that others are and greatly benefit from it. The important point is that we all agree on the humanist values by which the world should strive to live. It would be helpful if everyone also accepted the scientific method as the means to understand the universe, but I understand that not everybody takes that view. Humanists have campaigned for many of the great reforms of the past century, as the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, has already said.
I want to spend a minute to focus on another great humanist and, in my view, religious challenge over the next year—the Assisted Dying Bill. The principle of autonomy—the right of every human being to have control over decisions affecting their health and, indeed, their life and death—is perhaps the most fundamental ethical principle of all. I was chair of a clinical ethics committee for a health trust for some years and we had to consider some very complex issues for clinicians. The only way to be sure that our guidance would be in the patient’s best interests and satisfy the ultimate humanist principle of compassion was to put the autonomy of the patient at the centre of our debates.
The same applies to how we die. If patients who are terminally ill can make their own decisions about how and when to die, society cannot go wrong. Of course we need safeguards to ensure that callous and greedy relatives cannot in some way lead a patient to say something that they do not want to say, but those safeguards are in the Bill and will be in place if it passes. Last November, Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain established Inter-Faith Leaders for Dignity in Dying, an inter-faith group of clergy who favour the aims of Dignity in Dying, including the Falconer Bill. This proposed legislation is not contrary to religion, and I hope that those on the Bishops’ Benches may be able to support us. A YouGov survey commissioned by Inter-Faith Leaders for Dignity in Dying found that 62% of people who identified themselves as belonging to a religion support the legalisation of assisted dying for terminally ill people with mental capacity. Only 18% were opposed. Most of us would lead more contented lives safe in the knowledge that we would not have to suffer beyond our endurance at the end of our lives.
Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill
Baroness Meacher Excerpts(11 years, 4 months ago)
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Baroness Meacher
“Regulations
(1) The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision for the Registrar General to approve and permit organisations that are registered charities principally concerned with advancing or practising a non-religious belief to solemnise marriages according to their usages on the authority of a superintendent registrar’s certificate, and for related purposes.
(2) The regulations shall specify that such marriages may not take place in register offices, but may in particular—
(a) define minimum requirements any such organisation must meet before it may be considered for such approval;(b) define the procedures for the appointment of registering officers by such organisations, for the issue and custody of marriage register books, for the solemnisation and registering of marriages, and for related matters, and in these matters the regulations shall follow where convenient the several precedents to be found in the Marriage Act 1949;(c) create criminal offences of a kind similar to, and with the same maximum penalties as, offences under Part IV of the Marriage Act 1949;(d) include incidental or consequential provisions (which may include provisions amending an enactment);(e) include transitional provision.(3) The regulations under subsection (2)(a) must include provisions concerning whether an organisation—
(a) is a registered charity principally concerned with advancing or practising a non-religious belief;(b) has been in continuous existence for at least 10 years;(c) has been performing celebrations of marriage and other ceremonies for its members for at least five years, such ceremonies being rooted in its belief system;(d) has in place written procedures for the selection, training and accreditation of persons to conduct solemnisations of marriages; and(e) appears to the Registrar General to be of good repute.(4) The regulations shall extend to England and Wales.
(5) The regulations—
(a) shall be made by statutory instrument, and(b) may not be made unless a draft has been laid before and approved by resolution of each House of Parliament.(6) The Secretary of State must lay these regulations before Parliament within six months of this Act coming into force.”
Baroness Meacher
My Lords, the purpose of this amendment is to provide for humanist and other belief-based marriages to have legal recognition in England and Wales, which they have had in Scotland since 2005. I apologise to the Minister and your Lordships for the fact that I have been in five different countries over the past few weeks and have been unable to attend any of the previous sessions on the Bill. I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, and the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, who tabled a similar amendment in Committee. I also convey the apologies of the noble Lord, Lord Garel-Jones, who is in hospital, I am sad to say. We were very keen to have his name on the amendment in view of the powerful speech he made in Committee.
It is gratifying that the humanist amendments have been supported on all sides of both Houses by people of religion and of no religion. Indeed, I hope the Minister will not mind if I quote her. She said that,
“of course everybody would support humanist marriages”.—[Official Report, 19/6/2013; col. 311.]
That, for me, is a tremendously valuable endorsement.
I applaud the Minister for tabling the government amendment, which takes a historic step towards eliminating the inequity in our system regarding humanist and other non-religious belief organisations. I offer the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, my personal thanks for having worked very hard to ensure that belief-based marriages are given legal status. It is appropriate and helpful that the noble Baronesses, Lady Thornton and Lady Brinton, and the noble Lord, Lord Alli, have included their names on the government amendment, illustrating the strong support from all sides of the House for the key principle of our amendment, while acknowledging, probably very fairly, the Government’s commitment to a consultation on the issue.
Noble Lords may ask why I am moving this amendment, bearing in mind the fact that we have the government amendment. The answer is that the government amendment does not actually guarantee that humanist marriages will have legal status in England and Wales. The noble Lord, Lord Garel-Jones, said that,
“we in the humanist movement ‘will not cease from mental fight’ until we have achieved full recognition in the law for humanist marriage”.—[Official Report, 19/6/2013; col. 298.]
I feel a great duty to carry the torch for our dear colleague while he lies in hospital. It is very much in that context that I need to put some points on the record and seek some assurances from the Minister. In so doing, I seek to avoid a rerun of the Committee stage, albeit I was not here to listen to it, although noble Lords will be glad to hear that I have read it.
Religious marriages reflect the deepest beliefs and values of religious couples, but humanist beliefs and values are of equal importance to humanist couples. In an increasingly secular society, it is important that we do all we can to promote and recognise good values. Registry office marriages now account for two-thirds of marriages in this country. Those marriages may not involve the couple committing themselves in a ceremony to the all-important beliefs and associated values that they will need in times of trouble. If we want marriages to survive, we must nurture beliefs and values which will help couples to sort out their problems. There is also the equity issue. In the case of humanists, despite the cost and inconvenience, some have two marriage ceremonies to achieve the things they want: a meaningful wedding and one that has legal status. I hope that the Government accept that the inequity cannot continue beyond a short period to allow for a review and consultation.
Humanist marriage is well tried and tested. Scotland gave legal status to humanist marriages eight years ago and has some 3,000 such marriages each year. Humanist marriages account for 58% of the increase in marriages in Scotland in the last three years. All of them, of course, are belief and value-based marriages, and I am sure that noble Lords value that fact. Every year in England, the number of humanist marriages exceeds the number of Quaker or Unitarian marriages. Yet humanist marriages have no legal recognition, while these smaller minorities do have it. Legally recognised humanist marriages have strong support from the public, according to a YouGov poll—this is another important issue for the Government—with 53% in favour and only 12% opposed. Few policies, I suggest, have such a ringing public endorsement.
No one has any reason to fear the legal recognition of humanist and other belief-based marriages, again another important point. In particular, I do not believe that churches have anything to fear. Religious ceremonies already have the intrinsic characteristic of what, for me, is a good ceremony: a focus on important beliefs and values. I understand that the Church of England is relaxed about this amendment and I welcome that fact. I hope this also applies to the other great religions.
The professionalism of celebrants of humanist marriages and funerals is to be congratulated. Anyone who has attended a humanist marriage or funeral will attest that they are of the highest quality of ceremony that one could have. I have attended only two humanist funerals. They were professionally conducted, moving and memorable. Those who have been to other ceremonies have said the same to me.
Registrars suggest that this amendment represents a fundamental legislative change, but it is absolutely not. It builds organically on the existing law of the Marriage Act 1949. It is based upon the provisions that allow the Society of Friends to solemnise marriages, but adds some tighter controls which I would think the Government—and certainly I—welcome.
Let me refer to the Government’s objections to the earlier amendment. All these concerns have been fully addressed in this amendment. I believe that the Government accept that fact. The draft has been vetted and cleared by a number of marriage law experts, and we know from the opinion of Matrix Chambers that the amendment is compatible with the European convention. So there is no reason to reject the content of this amendment. We hope that regulations will reflect the essential points so carefully drafted for our Amendment 7. However, we understand the Government’s wish to undertake a consultation before introducing regulations to give legal status to humanist and other belief-based marriages.
I now turn to the Government’s amendment and hope the Minister can give us just four assurances. First, will she repeat in this House her officials’ assurances that they expect to complete the review, consultation and report well ahead of the end of 2014, which of course is the date given in the government amendment? Most importantly, can the Minister assure the House that regulations will be laid before the next general election? With eight years of experience of such marriages in Scotland and many decades of experience of analogous Quaker and Jewish marriages, I trust that this is not too much to ask. The important point here is that the amendment should not be kicked into touch. Can the Minister assure the House that the considerable and unique experience and expertise of the British Humanist Association will be fully taken on board in the review and consultation, and that the criteria set out in the amendment will be considered as a basic guide for the future regulations when the review is being undertaken? No one has criticised those principles and points in our amendment, and they would provide a good basis for future regulations. Finally, can the Minister confirm that it is not her intention that commercial organisations will be able to profit from the regulations on belief-based marriages?
In conclusion, I express my sincere thanks to the Minister for her support for humanist marriages and for ensuring that the Government take this matter forward. I beg to move.
Baroness Stowell of Beeston
My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, for reminding the House that I am part of a team. While I am very taken by the kind tributes made by the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, in particular, and the noble Lord, Lord Alli, it is important to stress that we have worked as a team in Government to be able to come forward with this amendment. We are very pleased to do so. I echo all the tributes just made by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton. If it were possible in Lords-speak, I would say “Right back atcha”, as they might say somewhere else.
If I may, I will respond to some of the serious points that have been made. My noble friend, Lord Lester, is right that we are amending the Long Title of the Bill to ensure that this amendment is properly reflected in what will become an Act. I note his points about that. I also note his point about there being belief organisations and belief organisations, and the need for safeguards. I note the questions of the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, about what people call, in shorthand, sham marriages. I also note what the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester said about various points of detail. All of these contributions have emphasised why this is important, and why we think it is the right approach to have this review and consultation and make sure that all of these matters are properly considered. That is what we will do. As I said earlier to the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, it is in the Bill that we have to do that before 1 January 2015, so we will certainly make sure that it happens.
Baroness Meacher
My Lords, I must apologise to the House. I should have welcomed the noble Lords, Lord Lester and Lord Pannick, and the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, for having their names on the Government amendment. I am very grateful to all those who have spoken in this short debate. They have been very coherent and succinct, and quite excellent. I am perhaps particularly grateful to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester for clarifying the position of the Church of England, and also giving his personal support to the principle behind this amendment. That is very valuable to all of us. I am very grateful to the Minister for her helpful remarks and the assurances that she was able to give us.
I was obviously disappointed that the Minister could not reassure us about the timing of the laying of regulations. I am not at all surprised, but of course it is a disappointment. The Minister will know that all of us, including the noble Lord, Lord Garel-Jones, will be on her tail to ensure that the strength of feeling in this House and the other place is followed through to regulations after the consultation, to ensure that in future humanist marriages will have legal recognition. I say a last thank you to the British Humanist Association, without which I could not have done this. I arrived back from elsewhere and its support for me has been fantastic. I am very willing and happy to withdraw the amendment.
Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill
Baroness Meacher Excerpts(11 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Low of Dalston
My Lords, I support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, to which I have added my name, but I rise principally to speak to Amendment 3, which is in my name alone and provides that the 1% uprating should not apply to benefits paid to claimants in the work-related activity group.
The amendment is essential if the Government are to fulfil their pledge to protect disabled people from the 1% uprating cap. Only disabled people are in the work-related activity group. The assessment process ensures that non-disabled people do not qualify. A recent DWP study tracking those receiving ESA over 18 months revealed that three-quarters of recipients were undergoing regular treatment for a health condition, including a stay in hospital for some. ESA for those in the work-related activity group is paid in two parts—the main component, which is equivalent to jobseeker’s allowance and worth about two-thirds of the total benefit, and the work-related activity group component, which is worth the other third. Many disabled people are being placed in the work-related activity group. Capping increases in their benefit at 1% will mean that households receiving ESA in the work-related activity group will be £87.65 a year worse off. The Government’s proposals to exempt from the 1% cap the support group component for those placed in the support group mean that less than a third of ESA payments for less than half of disabled people receiving ESA will be protected. That is what the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, would achieve, but it would address the shortfall only for the quarter of a million disabled people in the support group.
The most recent DWP figures show that there are 360,000 disabled people in the work-related activity group who also need protection. This amendment would achieve that. One third of disabled people in the UK were found to be living in poverty before the global economic crisis. Disabled people routinely experience higher living costs associated with their disability on things such as equipment, personal assistants and special diets. Disabled people experience the same increases in general living costs as everyone else: food inflation is running at 4.5% and travel inflation at 7%. Unfortunately, disabled people were not able to catch up financially during better economic times. We should not allow them to slip further behind as a result of this Bill; rather, we should ensure that the Government’s objective of protecting disabled people is fully delivered.
Baroness Meacher
My Lords, I support Amendment 2, moved by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, to which I added my name, and Amendment 3, spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Low. The Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Freud, consistently argued during the passage of the Welfare Reform Bill that there were two fundamental principles to the Government’s welfare reform provisions. One was to make sure that people in work had an incentive to remain in work and that those out of work had an incentive to move into work. The second principle was that the money available, however much there was available, should be focused as far as possible on those in greatest need. Throughout the debates on the previous Bill, I found myself very much in agreement with those two principles. It seemed to me that if money is short, at least one should abide by those two principles. That seemed very reasonable.
I find myself therefore confused that in this Bill those two principles appear to be breached. It does not seem that you are focusing on those in greatest need if there is an impact that reduces in real terms the living standards of people who are severely disabled. You are certainly not increasing the incentive to work if you reduce the benefit of people who have not a chance in hell of returning to work. We know that a lot of people who in any normal view of things would not really be able to work have been put into benefit categories such as jobseeker’s allowance, where they are expected to work, although they would regard this as being beyond their wildest dreams, much as they might like to. That is not the point that I wanted to make; I simply want to ask the Minister how she squares the provisions of this Bill with the principles so eloquently and consistently laid out by the noble Lord, Lord Freud.
Lord German
My Lords, at Second Reading I said that this Bill had some rough edges, and the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, is directed at one of those rough edges. Can my noble friend the Minister tell the House whether a deliberate step was taken to exclude the personal allowance part of the support group to meet the budgetary requirements? Was this matter overlooked in the discussion that may have taken place on the principle espoused both in this House by the noble Lord, Lord Freud, and by the Secretary of State in the other place that those who are unable to do something to help themselves should not be penalised in this way? That is why the example of DLA and PIP has been given.
It may be, though, that in the words of the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, people are generally not able to access the labour market. Can my noble friend the Minister tell us what the actual cost would be of reinstating the non-1% cap on the personal allowance part of the support group, given that people are in the support group because they obviously need support and cannot do things for themselves? That is the nature of the word. Has the department given any thought whatever to finding ways of ensuring that what is clearly not in the spirit of the statements made about providing for people who cannot help themselves will be carried through, if perhaps in some other way than by the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie? In other words, is there another way of dealing with this apart from using the methodology provided in the noble Lord’s amendment?
Baroness Stowell of Beeston
The point I am making, which the noble Lord is clear about, is that the Bill still provides annual increases in benefits, but at a reduced rate for some elements of those benefits. We are doing this in the way that we propose because it adds to the certainty. As I told the noble Lord when we were outside the Chamber, the IMF was very clear that to anchor market expectations, policymakers need to specify adequately detailed medium-term plans for lowering debt ratios, which must be backed by binding legislation or fiscal frameworks. This is part of what we are doing, and why it is important.
As I have said, despite the economic situation, which we have already discussed today at some length, we have found the resources to fund a 1% increase in working-age benefits and, in doing so, protected the incomes of disabled people as far as we can—especially those elements which are provided to cover the additional costs of disabled people.
The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, said that it would not be hugely expensive to accept these amendments and to make this change. It is important that I make it clear to the Committee that accepting these amendments would mean a loss of £340 million in savings, which we would have to find elsewhere. Those in the work-related activity group are deemed able to prepare for work and, as such, are better placed to be able to improve their income levels. Therefore, we believe it right that the component is also within the scope of the Bill.
Personal allowance rates are common across the working-age benefit system, as I have already said, reflecting the fact that they perform the same function: to provide basic support for everyday needs. Accepting these amendments would therefore break away from that model and would create additional complexity in the benefits system. Our proposals are proportionate. Although I understand the concerns and points that have been raised in the debate—please believe me, I do—what is being proposed here is fair. I therefore ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Baroness Meacher
Are the Government more concerned about certainty for the Government or certainty for the claimant? If the Government are concerned about certainty for the claimant, would it not be better to say that benefits would be uprated to the extent of 1% or 2% less than inflation, for example? That way, the claimant would know that they would not have a cut in their income of more than 1% or 2% a year. That would provide a level of certainty for the claimant, whereas it seems that the Bill is after certainty for the Government. Is that correct?
Mental Health: Access to Work Support Service
Baroness Meacher Excerpts(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Meacher
My Lords, I, too, applaud my noble friend Lady Thomas for tabling this important debate and for her rather pertinent quote from Shakespeare.
The Department for Work and Pensions indeed has an enormous challenge if it is to condense the vast numbers of claimants of employment support allowance. The objective at one stage was to reduce those numbers by 1 million over 10 years; I do not know whether that remains true today. Perhaps the Minister will correct me if that is not right these days. We know that nearly one half of all claimants have some form of mental health problem. If the department is to achieve any sort of target, it clearly has to make a major impact on the number of people who are not in work because of mental health difficulties.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bottomley, referred to my excellent husband. Perhaps I am allowed to refer to the excellent LSE report issued today, entitled, How Mental Illness Loses out in the NHS. It underlines the challenge for Access to Work as regards mental health. For example, the report points out that among under 65s, nearly as much ill-health is mental illness as all physical illness put together. That is a striking fact. We think of one single physical illness, but mental illness equals pretty much the whole of physical illness, and mental illnesses are, in general, more debilitating than long-term, chronic physical disabilities. I do not think that people fully appreciate that.
As others have mentioned, only one quarter of people with mental illness are in treatment, while pretty much everyone with any kind of serious physical problem is in treatment. It is a completely different landscape. To prepare those sick and untreated benefit claimants requires the DWP to work closely with the providers of improved access to psychological therapy services, because those services are evidence-based. At last, we have evidence-based mental health services; we have never before had effective evaluations. The commission has been given £400 million to roll out increased access to psychological therapy and, by next year, 900,000 people should be receiving those services.
In my view, DWP clients should be at the front of the queue for those services if the Government are to achieve what they hope to. May I be so bold as to challenge the Minister to contact his colleagues in the Department of Health to persuade them of the importance of ensuring that that £400 million is in fact devoted to increase access to psychological therapies and is not diverted to other parts of the system, because the money is not ring-fenced? If the DWP is to succeed, it must have that money spent where it is supposed to be. Otherwise Access to Work as regards mental health will have to pick up the pieces.
Of course, effective treatment is only the beginning for many such clients. The people we deal with need volunteering opportunities, help to improve skills, skilled employment support and all sorts of things which, in the secondary sector, we provide, but there are people not in the secondary sector mental health services who will need some of those services—probably not all of them. Many with mental health problems, unlike physical health problems, will need help once they have gone into a job. That is crucial, and employers and bosses will need some help as well as they do not understand these things. The need for special Access to Work as regards mental health is clear. That certainly came out of the Institute for Employment Studies’ evaluation of the main Access to Work programme. I have to say that its results are dismal. Others have mentioned the figure of 580 people receiving help through the Access to Work programme, compared to 27,000 altogether. One of our colleagues referred to 0.2%, I calculated it as 2%; but anyway it is a very small percentage compared with nearly 50% of all people who suffer from mental health problems.
Access to Work as regards mental health is therefore, as I said, so important, but we have only three offices for the entire country—one office for the whole of south-east London, I read in a document circulated by the Library. The only way to get these services is by a postal system so you have to write. Oh dear. As another colleague mentioned, it is the best kept secret. I talked to some employment specialists in east London who work with these issues all the time. They had never heard of Access to Work mental health. They had just about heard of the main programme, but, as they said, it does not deal with our people; they do not understand our clients at all.
So we have a long way to go. Clearly, the three offices will not touch the problem, if that is still the case today and that was the only briefing that we were given. I put one plea to the Minister. If the DWP really wants to achieve something, it needs one really good mental health specialist in each DWP office and a budget that they can allocate specifically to the personal needs of each individual with mental health problems. Many years ago when I went to Stockholm, Sweden had the lowest unemployment levels of any western European country and they had that budget. That was the key, alongside the skills of the individual.
I know the Minister well understands these issues and I respect his ability to come up with practical solutions, so I hope that he will respond positively to the practical proposal that I have just offered.
Welfare Reform Bill
Baroness Meacher Excerpts(12 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Meacher
As an amendment to Motion A, at end insert “but do propose Amendment 1B as an amendment in lieu”
Baroness Meacher
My Lords, before I say anything else, I will say two things. First, I was somewhat surprised that this particular amendment was dismissed in the other place on grounds of financial privilege, because I presented this as a revenue-neutral amendment. We were looking at ratios of benefits. As the Minister agreed in discussion, one could of course shift the higher rate in relation to the lower rate without spending any more money. We were not arguing in favour of spending more money, but about the cliff edge between the higher rate and the lower rate. I challenge the other place, if I am permitted to do that from this vantage point. Secondly, I express my personal gratitude to the Minister for the concessions and changes he has driven through as a result of the wonderful work done across all sides of this House. It is a credit to the House—we can feel proud of the work of the House—but also a great credit to the Minister.
Lord Freud
Gosh, that is a good question. I had better hold my counsel on that.
The amendment inserts a third rate for disabled children. It sets fixed relationships between those rates. With our primary structure, we are trying to have two elements—for disabled children and adults—aligned at the same rates, which are principled changes so that we have some consistency and make the system simple and fairer. I am trying to take out complexity from a system that, if your Lordships remember, is falling down because it is so complex. So simplicity has a value in itself. If the amendment went through, we would have different rates and a mismatch within the structure of universal credit.
I have been asked a lot of questions about the amount of money. The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, will be pleased to know that I did not include this figure in the £2.1 billion that I cited earlier. To maintain the level of £77, under the original amendment, would have cost £200 million, which is why the Commons attached financial privilege to it, in answer to the question of the noble Countess, Lady Mar. To answer the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, the reason why it is conditional is that there is not much point in having all the paraphernalia and trauma of a review if we have an amendment of this nature where we are locked anyway. That is why I made it conditional.
To answer the questions of the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, about how it would work, we start the universal credit timeline in late 2013, collecting information up to 2015, so we will have the information to undertake the review in 2015. The changes that the review will presumably recommend can be incorporated from then on.
Baroness Meacher
This is an important point. Can the noble Lord make clear that, having undertaken the review, the Government could adjust the rates for disabled children with different disabilities within the current legislation so that we would not have to wait for new legislation? If we had to do that we would be talking not about 2015 but an uncertain date in the future.
Lord Freud
It will depend on what comes out of the review. If it concerns child PIP, which it may very well be, which is a recasting of the whole structure, we may need primary legislation; but if it is an adjustment of DLA, I think we may not. It will depend on the outcome of the review, which will be serious and substantial. One issue that noble Lords are raising is that there is dissatisfaction with the way that we are applying these rates. There is general dissatisfaction about whether we are using the right criteria. We have one rather simple criterion at the moment. Building that review of how we do it will be a substantial exercise. The interesting thing about this debate is the general level of dissatisfaction about whether we are using the right definitions to get to the right children and the right families. Funnily enough, that has been one of the main things driving us to make this commitment.
We have here a commitment that either we are going with a major review of the child PIP or, if not, a fallback where there will be a review anyway, albeit within the context of the DLA. That is the commitment, and I can tell your Lordships that it has been somewhat hard fought.
Lord Freud
I think that we will be discussing this a lot in the years to come—it is not a dead issue. When you set up such a review, it generates its own momentum. Noble Lords know how powerful a review in this kind of area is. Once you have a review like this and the momentum that follows from it, something happens reasonably rapidly. I do not think that you have set it in absolute terms because it becomes an irresistible force. Therefore, I do not think that that is a concern. The exact nature of what we then do begs a lot of questions that we simply do not need to ask. However, with regard to how we carry out the review, the involvement of this House will be taken very much into account.
Baroness Meacher
I really do not want to hold up the House at this stage but this is such an important point. My understanding is that the details are going to be in regulations. If that is the case, a review will be undertaken and I have no doubt that it will show that these rates are unfair. Why cannot regulations be changed within current legislation to achieve a fairer distribution of additions? That is my only question.
Lord Freud
I am saying that that may be one outcome but there may be a much more radical outcome in the introduction of PIP for children. The question is: are you better off doing that or adjusting DLA with the passporting arrangement? That is very difficult to prejudge when we have not done the review. Therefore, there is method in the, or perhaps I should say there is some method behind—
Lord Freud
Yes, my Lords. I am sorry; I forgot to answer that. At this stage, I am not in a position to lay out transitional protection because we are currently looking at how it will work. However, it will be a bundled up protection. The work in progress effectively involves taking someone’s existing entitlement, comparing it with their universal credit entitlement and paying the difference as a lump sum, which is then maintained. However, in the context of what we are talking about, the migration process is rather more important than the transitional protection. In the vast bulk of cases, it is when those families move on to universal credit that will matter more than transitional protection, which will be towards the tail end of this period, if at all.
Baroness Meacher
I thank the Minister for his response. I accept what he says about the simplification of the system. That is absolutely right. However, I do not accept the suggestion that this system—certainly in this part of the Bill—is fairer. The fact is that it is not; it is deeply, deeply unfair. I find myself in a situation where we are either going to have the Minister’s acceptance—I think we do have that—that this is unfair and needs a full-scale review, or we have nothing. As the noble Lord, Lord Peston, indicated, maybe we are being bullied. My sense is that there are perhaps some rather large, old, hefty powers from another place leaning on us. Therefore, I would not wish to allege that the Minister is bullying us. I accept that if one has a full-scale review, there is a momentum and we will be there to see what happens and to try and make sure that the right thing does happen.
Disabled people and the disabled organisations who will be involved in the review will be on the case. Therefore, I feel reasonably confident that we will get there. My biggest worry concerns the timeframe and the need for further legislation. I still hope that if the Government get to the right answer in terms of the allocation of benefits to families with disabled children they could make adjustments to regulations while we await new legislation. That matters a great deal. We should not leave families newly coming on to these benefits severely damaged and, I think, cruelly treated. With that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Welfare Reform Bill
Baroness Meacher Excerpts(12 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Meacher
“such additional amount to be paid at either a higher rate, or a lower rate, which shall be no less than two-thirds of the higher rate as may be prescribed”
Baroness Meacher
My Lords, Amendment 1 seeks to ensure that the gap between the higher and normal-rate additions for disabled children is not too great. The Government’s proposals for these additions, according to the Minister, are designed to be revenue neutral. The money saved is to be used to raise the level of income for adults in the support group.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, I apologise to the noble Baroness, but might I just suggest that people leave the Chamber quietly, because it is very difficult to hear what she is saying?
Baroness Meacher
The amendment proposes that Ministers revisit the relationship between the new levels of disability addition for children and allocate resources to adults in the support group when new money allows. I know that we must move on from arguments made on Report, but I must make just a few points to help my argument here to be coherent.
Very briefly, under the new provision for a disability addition and a higher addition, families who have a child who is eligible for the higher addition will receive £1.50 per week more than current claimants do, but families with disabled children who do not meet the stiff criteria for the higher addition will receive £27 per week less. Most families with a disabled child will therefore lose about £1,400 a year.
This amendment would peg the normal addition for disabled children at two-thirds the level of the higher disability addition for children. The House voted on a more radical amendment on this issue on Report and the Division was lost by two votes. We are seeking to eliminate the cliff-edge between the two levels of disability addition for children because all such families are far less likely, for example, to be able to rely on relatives or other informal carers. Their childcare costs will be far higher than those with a non-disabled child. Of course, families will have to pay 30 per cent of their childcare costs whereas today they pay, I think, 5 per cent. There really is an issue of work incentives for those parents, although I understand that the Minister will have a go at me on that issue.
On another terribly important matter, the need for high childcare costs will continue until the child is very much older, if not indefinitely. That applies to children who would not qualify for the higher rate addition yet who may be very severely disabled. That is the point. This amendment would go a long way to creating a much fairer system, which is what we are all about.
One might ask whether it really matters. It does matter because 100,000 or so disabled children affected by this loss of benefit are very likely to live in poverty. Recent research by the Children’s Society indicates that once the additional costs of disability are accounted for, four in every 10 disabled children are living in poverty and a loss of income would really matter. Therefore, disabled children would not only live in poverty but would have vastly greater costs.
The Government argue that their new additions align the levels of support for disabled children with those for disabled adults, but the levels of support are based on completely different tests. For children the test is based on eligibility for DLA, and for adults it is based on their fitness for work. So I am not quite sure how the Government are arguing that these have been aligned.
The Government argue that the changes will ease the transition to adulthood for disabled children. On Report, the Minister said:
“We want to smooth the transition from childhood to adulthood by removing that artificial divide”.—[Official Report, 12/12/11; col. 1054.]
In fact, the restructuring will reduce the support for most disabled children. It will not reduce the support for the very most disabled children who require night-time care, but it will reduce it for others. Therefore, I do not accept the argument.
There are good reasons for proposing a disability addition at two-thirds of the higher rate for children. This addition is needed to contribute to the costs of special clothing, repairing damage, safety measures and special food, and to contribute to the costs of giving disabled children access to the opportunities that other children have. We know that simple things like swimming lessons cost something like £270 for 12 lessons for a disabled child as opposed to £80 for a normal child. Where will that money come from? A summer club costs £450 per week for a disabled child compared with £100 a week for a non-disabled child. Yet these are the things that would give a parent a break and really help a child to socialise and benefit from development opportunities.
The Government’s proposed child additions go nowhere near covering these extra costs. I fear that their proposed reforms to disability additions are short-term fixes. I understand the position of the Minister, who is under huge pressure from the Treasury. One of the troubles for this House and noble Lords is that this reform, much of which we support in principle, is being tangled up with swingeing cuts to benefits which are having unacceptable impacts. Therefore, we are trying at the edge to ameliorate some of those unacceptable impacts. That is what we are about. The Government’s proposed reforms to disability additions therefore need another look by Ministers.
I turn to the particular problems of single parents with a disabled child. Many years ago I ran a group for parents of severely disabled children. I expected lots of mums and dads to turn up, and I was faced with what I thought was an absolute tragedy: the room was full of mothers who told me that the fathers had gone. Many of them had left home within months of the birth of the disabled child. It is these mothers and a great deal of others whom we need to have in our minds today.
Many parents of disabled children will be doing something very valuable for society by staying at home to develop their children’s full potential. They should not be under pressure, even in these stringent times, to go out and stack shelves. By devoting themselves full-time to therapy, play exercises and other learning activities, they are reducing the dependency levels of their children that, with luck, will last throughout their lives—some cannot make progress, of course, but many can—and increasing the possibility that their children can develop a degree of independence, and maybe even financial independence, in adulthood. It would be wise for the Government to take this issue very seriously.
I would ask the Minister to revisit the two levels of disability additions to consider whether the balance is right. Is there not merit in leaving the higher rate at £76 and retaining the basic level at two-thirds of that sum, which is something like £50? That really would make an enormous difference to these families. I would be grateful if the Minister would agree to take this matter away for further consideration, even at this very late stage, in the light of what I think are very powerful arguments for some change in their approach. Finally, will he agree to review the impact of the disability benefits changes in the universal credit system one year after its introduction—although I know that the system is to be introduced over time, so a year may not be terribly realistic? While doing that, will the Minister consider taking a look at reviewing the entire welfare reform package? I beg to move.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Freud)
My Lords, I think that I have to take up the challenge of the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, and try not to read anything at all in order to convince her that I actually believe in what I am going to say.
I preface my remarks by reminding noble Lords that the amendment is in the same territory as the one we discussed on Report that was moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, and on which there was a Division. I confess to feeling slight surprise when I saw it come back in such a similar guise. If my arguments sound somewhat familiar to noble Lords, it will be because they have heard many of them before. I need to go through them in the context of this skilfully drawn-up amendment.
I start by making it absolutely clear to all noble Lords—in particular, to my noble friend Lady Browning—that this is not about deficit reduction. Every penny of the money will be recycled to increase support for severely disabled children and adults. None of the money that we are talking about will go to Her Majesty's Treasury, with which I have absolutely cordial relations at all times. The principle that was picked up by my noble friends Lord German, Lord Newton and Lady Thomas concerns the cliff edge that exists at 16 when youngsters transition from childhood to adulthood. As my noble friend Lady Browning pointed out, many of these youngsters are in practice dependent on their families for a long time. The cliff edge is something that we wanted to smooth out. This will be essential to protect work incentives in adulthood.
I said many times in the debate that we are overhauling the whole support system for people who rely on benefits. It simply does not make sense to concentrate on any one element. The universal credit will provide a package of support for families to meet a range of their needs. That is why we need to look at the overall impact of universal credit on families rather than look at individual components. If some families get a bit less on one component, it does not mean that they will get less overall. I will pick up on the point raised by the noble Baronesses, Lady Meacher and Lady Wilkins, about some of the social activities that are required to have a good quality of life. The intention is for DLA to pay for those facilities. The purpose of universal credit is income replacement. The two benefits do different things.
I also remind noble Lords that, contrary to some estimates that have gone around this afternoon on the impact of universal credit, clearly the impact will be that families will be much better off. I remind noble Lords that I and my friends in the Treasury are managing on a steady-state basis to put £4 billion a year into the pockets of the poorest people through universal credit. That is the context in which we are making these changes. Noble Lords should not underestimate what it took to get that out through a government process: a steady-state £4 billion a year in universal credit for the poorest.
Baroness Meacher
My Lords, I think that I am right in saying that about £18 billion has been taken out in cuts. We are not getting extra benefit payments, but I applaud the Minister for having retrieved £4 billion; that is wonderful, and great news.
Lord Freud
My Lords, we are talking about severely disabled children receiving the full rate of £77. That is the point: we are trying to direct the money towards the people with the greatest need regardless of their age. That is what we are trying to do here.
Baroness Meacher
We have to be very clear about this. One of the main reasons for this amendment is the fact that it is so difficult to divide those who are eligible for the higher rate from those who are not. There is often a very narrow—and fairly arbitrary—margin. They just happen not to need to be disturbed at night, but during the day the costs may be even higher—the disruption to the family, the impossibility of working—all those issues are possibly just as great for those who will not qualify for the higher rates. It is really important to hang on to that.
Lord Freud
My Lords, this is a really important point. It may very well be that the concern of the House actually boils down to a discomfort with the dividing line between severely disabled and disabled. If that is the case, the way to do it—and I pick up what my noble friend Lord Newton was saying—is not to look at aspect or concrete ratios but at the precise issue that noble Lords are actually worrying about, which is the relationship. I will commit to having a very close look at this. It is clearly tied up with DLA definitions, which are under constant review and are being reviewed.
If we move the children from DLA to PIP, we need to look at this and there will be a real consultation process. I will review this dividing line and look at that very closely, and when we come to the regulations on this, I will report back to noble Lords on exactly what we find. My sense is that this is the real issue underneath all this. I know noble Lords had to find an amendment that had to weave through, to express this concern, so we all know what is happening on a technical basis. Let us go to the real issue. The real issue is: are we getting the dividing line right? People ask me if I am listening—I hear what noble Lords are saying; this is what I think noble Lords are saying, and I will go and do something about that.
Lord Freud
I thank my noble friend Lord Trimble for that. That is the position. I have heard strong arguments here and very great concern. I will talk to noble Lords before we get the regulations out to make sure that they find the regulations acceptable. I give that undertaking now. I beg the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Meacher
My Lords, I feel a huge weight of responsibility here. The Minister does not want me to test the opinion of the House, and I understand that, but hundreds of thousands of families all over the country with disabled and severely disabled children are desperate about this issue; I repeat, they are desperate. The pressure of that is difficult to bear. But I do want to say that I respect very strongly the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Freud, for the huge amount of work that I know he does all the time on working towards a simpler welfare system. He has done a fantastic job on this. But, as he knows, the job of this House is to try to ameliorate the worst effects of legislation, and that is what we have done consistently throughout this process. The Minister has generously agreed to take back and think about these issues following the moving speeches that have been made by many noble Lords, but the fact is that we in this House do not have an assurance that anything will happen.
The Minister is under huge pressure from a Secretary of State who is an awfully long way from this. I think that he has little real understanding of what it is to be a poor family with a very disabled child and not able to afford to give to that child what they know it needs. I have concerns about that because we need the Government to understand the enormity of the pressure on these families. I have often said to my own children that I do not think I could have managed it at all because these things are so tough. That is the situation here.
The Minister referred to a cliff edge at the age of 16. The noble Lord in his place beside me referred to a cliff edge at the age of three. The worry is that what the Government are doing is introducing a cliff edge at birth and then at one, two and three, when severe disability hits. Do we want these families to fall off a cliff—and that must be how it feels—when they realise that they have made a lifelong commitment to care for a child but the state withdraws some of its support? That is a big issue for us.
The Minister referred to DLA funding swimming lessons, school holiday clubs and so on. The reality is that DLA does not cover adequately those expenditures, and that is the issue. Families do not have enough money, and it is why 40 per cent of them are in poverty. They need more money if they are to help their children fulfil their potential, whatever that potential may be. The Minister also referred to families being better off in work. I accept that, but the difficulty is that that is being achieved by impoverishing an awful lot of people, some of whom can work—speaking for myself, I support the Government’s quest to get more and more people back into work. But when we consider families with disabled children, particularly single parents with disabled children, as others have said, they cannot do this and it is terrible to impoverish them.
That is the dilemma we are facing. I know that the Minister is going to be deeply unhappy with me and I do not like making him deeply unhappy, but I owe it to the families out there to test the opinion of this House. We have to do it.
Welfare Reform Bill
Baroness Meacher Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Meacher
My Lords, I had not planned to speak in this debate, but the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, put her name to this amendment, but has been detained and so cannot be in the Chamber. I think it is important to make the point that there is Cross-Bench support for this amendment.
I want to make one point. The Minister has made a great deal of the importance of fairness between those in and out of work. We know that there are problems in this Bill such as issues of fairness across geographical areas or between different sizes of household. I shall simply focus for a second on the fairness between those in and out of work. One thing that puzzles me is that not only will those who are in work get their average earnings—let us say, of £26,000 a year—they will of course also get child benefit. As I understand it, they will also, if they have three or four children, receive housing and other benefits under universal credit. The cap will not apply to those in work, so there is a discrepancy not only in that child benefit will go to those in work but not to those out of work but because it will be at the same level of net income. This applies to other benefits too.
I certainly do not want the cap to apply to those in work, but one does have to consider this. Presumably the argument for not applying the cap to those in work is that those families are really struggling—the so-called middle earners or middle-income people. It is very tough to live with three or four children on average earnings. Therefore, they need a whole range of benefits. If they need a whole range of benefits, it is very difficult to see how the Government and the Minister justify excluding any reference to all the benefits that those in work will have, and arguing that those out of work should be able to live on a level of income that no one in work would be expected to live on.
If you assumed, as I sometimes get the feeling the Government do, that anyone out of work can get back into work, and you really could find and get a job within a week, or two or three weeks, you could just about justify this. However, so many people who are on benefits are going to continue to be on benefits, and they have a range of disabilities that will not even entitle them to PIP in the future, because things are going to become very tough. The Minister knows the group of people I am most concerned about: people with a range of mental health problems. It is very difficult for those people to get any employer to take them on, yet they are going to be expected to live on a level of income that people in work will not be expected to live on. I would like to hear the Minister’s response on that point.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
My Lords, I totally understand why the Government require it to be said that not everyone should get child benefit. There are two groups of those who are not employed and to whom the cap will apply about whom I am particularly concerned. I should declare an interest as the president of the Grandparents’ Association.
A considerable number of grandparents, particularly grandmothers, have been in perfectly good employment over a number of years and then for one reason or another find themselves obliged to take on the care of children, who are sometimes extremely young, in addition to their own teenage children. As well as grandparents, there are also other kinship carers, as they call themselves, who take on the care of other people’s children, usually their nephews and nieces and sometimes their great nephews and great nieces. They give up their jobs. They have to, because they cannot care for these young children, who have in a sense been dumped on them without any prior warning on some occasions. They will give up their jobs for the care of their grandchildren or other kinship children, then find themselves in real difficulties with this cap.
We are not just talking about one or two children—this is my second point. There are families with a considerable number of children, not all of whom are their own. There are single mothers who have gone through a number of different partners by whom they have had a child. They end up sometimes with five different successive partners, and with more than five children. How on earth will that group of families cope if they are unable to have additional child benefit? I can understand their coping perhaps with one or two children but not three, four, five or six. Such families make up a smaller percentage; the figures were given in our previous debate. However, they do exist and they will be in real difficulty. Unless there is some sort of hardship allowance for families who cannot cope on this £26,000 cap without child benefit, I fear that I will go the way I would prefer not to go—against the Government.
Welfare Reform Bill
Baroness Meacher Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Meacher
“(b) to determine that payment should be made to whichever of those persons is the responsible carer (as defined in clause 19(6) of the Welfare Reform Act 2011) in the case of any benefit awarded in respect of responsibility for children or young persons or any childcare element, or”
Baroness Meacher
My Lords, the amendment would ensure that within universal credit the elements of benefit awarded for children or young persons, and any child carer element, will be paid to the parent or person who is the primary carer of those children. The amendment is supported by Oxfam, Women’s Aid, the Children’s Society and Platform 51, whose experience makes clear that for millions of people living in poverty the way in which benefits and tax credits are paid is vital in enabling them to keep food on the table for their children day by day.
Recent government research shows that benefits that are labelled as being intended for children are much more likely to be used for that purpose. A study by Hall and Pettigrew for HM Revenue and Customs showed that child tax credit, for example, is commonly identified as money for children and is spent accordingly. A recent study of winter fuel allowance by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, published in 2010, also found,
“robust evidence of a behavioural effect”,
of the labelling of that benefit. A study for Save the Children, HelpAge International and the Institute of Development Studies, published in 2005, points to the value of targeting and delivery mechanisms.
Labelling is currently absent from the new system of universal credit. The amendment would rectify that apparently small but profoundly important fault in the system. I and many other noble Lords on all sides of the House have made clear that we support many of the principles behind universal credit. The amendment neither challenges those principles nor would increase the cost of the system, other than marginally, to cover the administrative costs of making two payments to some households or to those with children. I understand that all the amendment would require is a change to a few lines of code in the current IT system to mirror what already happens with child tax credit. It will be much cheaper to do that now, while the IT infrastructure is being constructed, than to leave it until much later to be dealt with under regulations.
Without the amendment, the universal credit system would deter couples from forming long-term, stable relationships, which I think the Minister would accept is an important point. For many single parents considering whether to form a joint family with a potential new partner by living together or getting married, the prospect of the entire benefit for the whole newly formed family being paid into one account will be a strong disincentive to forming a single unit, but the formation of such families holds out the best hope for those benefit claimants coping well with their children, becoming self-sufficient and coming off dependence on the taxpayer.
Another concern is that, once money reaches the household, it is often unequally distributed, particularly in low-income households, as the DWP and Ministers have acknowledged and as the research shows very clearly. Emergency powers in the Bill enable payments to be shifted in the event of abuse. That will not be a sufficient protection. Abuse is often hard to prove; it is often hidden within families and hard for the state to identify. In view of the pervasiveness of the financial vulnerability of primary carers, the aim of the system must surely be to prevent abuse, where it can, to protect children.
The Minister’s budgeting products, including jam-jar accounts provided by the financial services industry, might help with different problems, but they will not resolve the problems addressed by the amendment. We are trying here to deal with common family problems where the primary carer repeatedly finds themselves without money to feed the children. As the DWP knows from its research, many parents suffer from alcoholism, drug addiction and gambling addiction, and far greater numbers suffer from unhappy and often abusive relationships. In all those situations, the risks of the primary carer not receiving the money with which to feed and clothe the children are real. Those primary carers will continue to receive child benefit, but for them to receive the child elements of universal credit as well would go a long way to reducing their vulnerability in violent or otherwise abusive marriages.
The Children's Commissioner has expressed concern about the new single lump-sum payment arrangements. The amendment is not about the sex of the primary carer. A growing number of fathers take responsibility for children’s welfare if a mother is the one who is abusive, mentally ill or otherwise unable to take the primary carer responsibilities. I make the point that this is not about men versus women or women versus men.
The Government argue that putting universal credit into a joint account could guarantee access to both partners. That is not the answer. Of course, not all couples have joint accounts, especially those who might not have been together very long. In fact, joint savings, investments and debts are decreasing. Often, couples will have individual accounts and will have to opt for one or other for the payment of universal credit. That is our concern. In many cases, a joint account does not guarantee equal access to money for both partners anyway. Often one partner dominates the joint account, and there might be only one chequebook.
It is difficult to imagine that the Minister would disagree with the proposition that the payment of benefits for children to their main carer would be the best way to ensure that the money is spent on the children. I should be grateful if the Minister could confirm his view on that matter. Further, does the Minister agree that for new couples where one or both partners has at least one child and one partner would have responsibility for housing costs—which is likely to be the case if the couple get together—the payment of the whole universal credit to one bank account is likely to be a disincentive to the partners to come together?
Again, I endorse the Government’s objective to simplify the benefit system and I realise that this is a tiny fly in the ointment of that simplification process. I hope that the Minister will recognise, however, that the costs and benefits of this amendment would come down very solidly on the side of our proposed small change to the Bill, and I hope that in view of that the Minister will be willing to table his own amendment—no doubt this one would not be perfect—on this apparently small but fundamentally important matter. I beg to move.
Baroness Meacher
I apologise for interrupting the Minister. How does he feel that that will work if the partner into whose bank account the money is paid is an alcoholic and likes to spend most of the money, on a Friday or whenever it is, on alcohol, or a gambler, or somebody with mental health problems who is controlling and dominant and therefore gets the money paid into their account?
Lord Freud
I was going to say that 7 per cent of cohabiting couples and 2 per cent of married couples manage their finances completely. However, we recognise that there are cases—the noble Baroness mentioned some of them—which will require alternative arrangements. The Government intend to retain powers to split payments to couples as a safeguard. We are looking at the precise circumstances of where and how that split will be made and we will produce further detail as we develop the regulations. The obvious example, as the noble Baroness has said, is where there is proven abuse of the money by one partner or where children are considered to be at risk. But there will be other circumstances as well. That general point is accepted. Where an intervention by the state is required, we will make it to ensure that money goes to the right people or is split in the right way.
However, in circumstances where a universal credit award is split, neither party will receive specific elements such as that for child care. They will receive a proportion of the total award and be responsible for their own budgeting. Therefore, in practice, the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, Amendment 61C, is much closer to how we will manage such situations.
Universal credit is replacing a benefits system which in practice undermines personal responsibility by separating a person’s income into different streams for different circumstances. This does not reflect the world of work or encourage financial responsibility. We must trust that people know what is best for them and for their families, with the exception of those individuals and families who cannot handle that responsibility. In respect of those who can, it is not for government to dictate how a family manages its money. However, we are committed to ensuring that people can access support to manage their payments and help them budget effectively.
We are looking at a wide range of support. As noble Lords may remember, I think that one of the most exciting opportunities offered by universal credit is to enlarge the scope for financial inclusion which has been so lacking for many benefit recipients. We are looking at access to nationally available advice and guidance and at locally delivered, targeted support. We are talking to local authorities, housing associations and other stakeholders about how best to deliver this support. We are talking to the financial services sector about widening access to basic, including joint, bank accounts and developing improved budgeting accounts to help benefit recipients manage their money. We are looking to create valuable support mechanisms for a part of our community that simply has not had them. My aim is to have some quite specific new products that slot right under universal credit and give families much more flexibility to manage their money. I look forward to sharing more detailed proposals with your Lordships in due course.
With regard to my noble friend’s sleeping patterns, I think I can allow him to sleep at night. If we find that we need to make more splits than anticipated, the computer system will allow us to do that. We are designing that in. If he is right and I am wrong we will be able to make those changes, albeit more in the pattern of Amendment 61C than Amendment 61B. I can also assure him of a commitment to conduct intensive research on how universal credit works. We will make sure that what we are doing optimises the position for families. I hope with that second commitment my noble friend will not only sleep but sleep like a baby. With these explanations, I urge the noble Baroness to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Meacher
I thank those who have contributed to this debate and thank the Minister for his reply. I am interested in his suggestion that we are dealing here with normal families who are perfectly capable and reasonable about the allocation of their money. When I ran the Child Poverty Action Group campaign for the introduction of child benefit 40 years ago, I received 2,000 letters, most of them from normal families. The letters were from the wives of all sorts of people—vicars, doctors and members of the Army—whom I would have considered very normal. However, they wrote to say that they depended on family allowance, which was only some ridiculous amount like 90p for the first child, and would often have to survive on it for a week because their doctor husband or their vicar husband gave them nothing, having drank their money away or whatever else they were doing with it. There are too many “normal families” that one might see walking up and down the street who do not treat their other half in a normal and acceptable way, so I am very relieved to hear from the Minister that there will be a computer system that will enable more splits and more complexity and sensitivity in this system. I am absolutely sure that it will be necessary, not only for a handful but for vast numbers of people across this country.
I am also relieved that the Minister will look closely at not only how universal credit in general will work but how it will work in this particular regard. I think I understood him to say that, and I very much hope he will pay great attention to this issue. I am absolutely certain it is terribly important for an awful lot of families. After my experience of 40 years ago—and I do not think human nature changes in 40 years—I really believe that is the case. I very much respect his new products and I think they will be splendid, but they will not deal with the sort of issue we are throwing up in this debate. I am sad to withdraw this amendment, but I am pleased to have had some assurances that this issue will not be lost.
Baroness Meacher
“Benefits payments to prisoners
(1) Regulations shall provide that a person undergoing imprisonment or detention in legal custody who, at the time that imprisonment or custody commences, is in receipt of any of the qualifying benefits, shall be assessed, during his time in imprisonment or custody, for eligibility for those benefits at the time of his release from imprisonment or custody.
(2) For the purposes of this section, the qualifying benefits are—
(a) universal credit;(b) jobseeker’s allowance;(c) employment and support allowance;(d) income support;(e) personal independence payment, to the extent provided for in regulations made under section 84 (prisoners) above; and(f) any other benefits provided for in regulations made under this section.(3) Regulations made under this section shall provide that the assessment required under subsection (1) shall commence as soon as a person is received into imprisonment or custody.
(4) Regulations shall in particular provide that a person appointed by the Secretary of State shall record, at the time a person is received into imprisonment or custody, details of any qualifying benefits which are in payment at that time, together with any personal information needed to establish the person’s identity, including but not limited to their national insurance number.
(5) An assessment of eligibility under subsection (1) shall be completed in such time as to ensure that the person assessed receives payment of any benefits for which he is assessed as being eligible no later than one week after his release from imprisonment or custody.
(6) Regulations under this section shall be made by the Secretary of State and shall be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure.”
Baroness Meacher
My Lords, I rise to move, very briefly, Amendment 62 on behalf of my noble friend Lord Ramsbotham, who apologises to the House for not being able to be in his place. As noble Lords will know, he generally speaks with little in the way of notes, so I shall do my best.
The purpose of the amendment is to ensure that regulations will provide for prisoners who were receiving benefit at the time of their imprisonment to be assessed during their time in prison or custody for their eligibility for benefit on their release from custody. I passionately agree with my noble friend Lord Ramsbotham that the amendment has huge merit. In Grand Committee the Minister outlined the arrangements that have been made to cover those who claim jobseeker’s allowance, which my noble friend accepts, but the Minister did not accept my noble friend’s proposal that all prisoners should have claims to other benefits processed before release.
Last week my noble friend had an extremely useful meeting with officials in the DWP, with whom he discussed the situation, reaching the following conclusion—that my noble friend Lord Ramsbotham would now table an amendment to the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill, putting the onus on the Ministry of Justice to confirm a prisoner’s national insurance number and current entitlement to benefits on reception into prison. Before release, these should be processed in time for suspended benefits to be resumed and necessary arrangements made to cover the gap before any payment could otherwise be made, subject to payment in arrears. This will require protocols between the DWP and the MoJ to be established. The question is whether the Minister will be prepared to support this proposal.
The arguments in support of the amendment were put by my noble friend Lord Ramsbotham most forcefully in Committee and I shall not repeat them. I beg to move.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, I shall speak briefly. The thrust of what the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, is trying to achieve has considerable merit. I wonder how some of the detail in the amendment about assessments when people start their sentence would work in practice, particularly if someone is likely to be in prison for some while.
We dealt with regulations about a fortnight ago on the importance of people being able to get into the work programme on immediate release from prison. However, I was a little disturbed that, as the Minister explained, applying for JSA was voluntary but that once on JSA there was an inevitable path into the work programme. That of itself is fine, except that it may not take account of many good programmes that are already around in prisons where people are supported sometimes before they leave prison and certainly supported when they do. The route via the work programme might pre-empt and override all of that. The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, was involved in that debate.
The thrust of trying to get as many benefits as possible sorted out for individuals before or at the point they leave prison must be helpful to them. The opportunity for them to have resource—presumably under the advance payment arrangements if it happens immediately, because typically benefits would be payable in arrears—is fine, but there is a concern about potentially damaging those good programmes in prison, where they exist, which help people to adjust to the world of work before they formally finish their sentence.
Lord Freud
My Lords, it is a real point because we know that virtually all addiction treatment centres are manned by people who have gone through the experience of addiction. That is one of the reasons why they are able to help people. There is probably a very similar argument for convicts. Given the way in which we have incentivised the work programme, I would expect that that fairly basic knowledge will be picked up. I am in no position to instruct any work programme to do anything, but I hope that the way in which this has been structured financially will drive that logic.
Baroness Meacher
The Minister was talking about being unable to accept this amendment in full and referred to alternative arrangements. The whole point of this amendment tabled by my noble friend was to have clarity on the Floor of the House about acceptance of it. As I understand it, it seeks to ensure that the processing of claims goes on while prisoners are in custody so that when they come out the benefits can be paid very quickly. The idea is to avoid such people running straight off to recommit crimes. There is tremendous power behind this—logic, sense, cost-saving and so on—in terms of criminal justice costs. Perhaps the Minister could spell out what in the amendment the Government cannot accept and what the Government would put in instead. That would be very helpful.
Lord Freud
Last week, I think, we had a regulation on this. Time does not fly for the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, as he thought it was weeks ago. We have already announced that we are processing all JSA claimants in prison. It is hard to process everything. Clearly, housing cost is one element that is not there. I know the noble Lord is concerned about what we do with ESA claimants. The issue becomes real because as we move from universal credit, it is not just a question of not having JSA claimants but having universal credit claimants; we also have to look at how we will do that. We have to do that anyway. However, at the moment we have done JSA claimants and we have the issue of housing. We have support at the prison gate. When we discussed it in Committee, the noble Lord seemed almost shocked that we were doing that. We are moving very fast now. For the record, we will continue to work with the Prison Service, the Ministry of Justice and the other agencies to ensure that prisoners have all the necessary information about claiming benefits on release, and that benefit payments are made as quickly as possible on release. With these assurances, I urge the noble Baroness to withdraw this amendment.
Baroness Meacher
I would like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, but also the Minister for that very helpful reply. It seems that the Government are doing everything they can to resolve what has been a ridiculous situation of prisoners coming out of prison and having virtually nothing to live on for some time. With that, I am happy to withdraw the amendment.