Universal Credit: Rent Arrears

Debate between Baroness Meacher and Lord Freud

Wednesday 13th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

I absolutely accept that we need to get it right. I am spending quite a lot of time with the ALMOs. I have had a couple of meetings with Eamon McGoldrick and John Bibby to discuss their findings. It is complicated. The essential fact is that landlords like their money paid in advance and all benefits systems pay in arrears, so we do not know how much of this is what the ALMOs call book arrears and how much is real arrears. We need to get to the bottom of that and we need to get to the bottom of what are the processing and payment systems issues. We need to understand what the existing arrears are. They are much higher than we expected—50%—and that is a frightening fact. We may be looking at a group going into UC which is unusual because it is moving up and down, and we need to understand and quantify those factors.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for commissioning some work on the level of debt, but in view of the impact of rent arrears and other debts on mental and physical health, will the Minister commission a review of the cumulative impact of the benefit cuts since 2010 on the mental and physical health of claimants? If the Minister is moving on to other pastures, perhaps he could leave a note for his successor to commission such a review.

[Lord Freud]

I congratulate the noble Baroness on her timing with that question. I will not answer it. I am not in a position, however, to commission major research on mental health today.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Debate between Baroness Meacher and Lord Freud

Monday 7th March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Meacher]

The Minister says that some of this information cannot be given away. Obviously, you cannot give away any personal information. However, if, for example, the suicide rate in that group is 10% or 20% higher in the year after the introduction of this cut than in the year before, it should be perfectly possible to make that information public, and surely it would be highly significant. If the department could issue that sort of figure, I would be very grateful.

[Lord Freud]

We have recently produced a large analysis on this, which I will send to the noble Baroness. That analysis makes it absolutely clear that you cannot make these causal links between the likelihood of dying—however you die—and the fact that someone is claiming benefit. As I say, I will send that analysis to the noble Baroness but I wanted to make that absolutely clear now rather than set hares running.

As regards the point made by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, the Secretary of State has been absolutely clear that the impact assessments that we have used provide the most robust analysis that is available. The White Paper will touch on many issues related to health, disability and work, and will cover a lot of new ground which we have not had the chance to debate in the context of these provisions. I commit to taking on board views directly from the group, as a number of noble Lords have requested. We will seek those views, and value them, as we aim to get better outcomes for disabled people and those with health conditions. Therefore, I hope that noble Lords agree that in the context that we are talking about there is no need to test the opinion of the House on this matter. I beg to move.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Debate between Baroness Meacher and Lord Freud

Monday 29th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

I start by thanking noble Lords for their contributions. Clearly, many of them feel very strongly on this issue and they have expressed that.

I was struck by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, saying that this was merely an amendment to ask for extra time. However, the point that I tried to make was that the time being asked for was very substantial—as the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, accepted, we are talking about the way this is constructed—pushing this measure out to 2021. The noble Lord, Lord Low, rather gave it away when he said that the concessions—the practical concessions I am trying to deliver to the House, and to the people who need them to help with their particular circumstances—were not enough, and that he would therefore bring forward this amendment to drive at the whole structure of the Government’s proposal. The noble Lord said that this amendment is a compromise, but in practice it is not, because it would mean that these measures could not go forward. Research has to happen, which we could not therefore do to any reasonable timescale.

There may be compromises—I have found three—but this is not a compromise. Although I am sure that this is not the noble Lord’s intention, his amendments effectively wreck this policy, for those reasons. I argue that that is not something this House is here to do, given the very clear message that was sent. This House sent this measure back to the other place, and it has come back with financial privilege. If the noble Lord’s amendment is carried, we will be sending this measure back with just as many costs—I gave an illustration of those—as were involved the first time. I know that a lot of noble Lords will feel pretty uncomfortable with that process. I accept that many noble Lords do not like this measure, but we are beyond that position now: we are into the question of the appropriate position of this House, in the context of a very substantial vote for the measure’s coming back.

Let me deal with some of the points that noble Lords have made. I point out to the noble Baroness, Lady Manzoor, that there is evidence that financial incentives do work in this area, and I have quoted those in the past.

[Baroness Meacher]

My understanding is that the evidence is all about able-bodied people, not disabled people, and that is a crucial difference. Disabled people are a different issue.

[Lord Freud]

Disability benefits was dealt with in a paper by Barr et al, published by the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health in 2010, and there are some others.

People in the WRAG are not incapable of working: they have limited capability to work. That is the distinction—the tier down—from those in the support group. The noble Baronesses, Lady Campbell, and Lady Grey-Thompson, made the point about the barriers that exist. I accept that people face barriers to work in this category. One of the things we are focusing on in the White Paper, and which we will spend a lot of time on in future, is dealing with these barriers, because this Government are committed to halving the gap.

Meanwhile, the flexible support fund is designed to go to the work coaches. However, to pick up on the questions of the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, this depends on whether it is in relation to ESA or UC. Within UC the work coach maintains the relationship right the way through regardless of the health status or employment status of the person. That is where we will focus our attention and, clearly, because there is a relationship with a work coach, the money will be available directly to support such people.

As to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Manzoor, on progressive conditions and reassessment, I thought that this was a legislative issue and I was considering how to sort it out. However, it is not a legislative issue but a communications and operational issue. That is why the approach I have taken is to work with some Members of this House and stakeholders to get the system working. It is important. Sometimes people who have Parkinson’s are fine at the beginning and go about their lives, but then it gets worse. So being labelled with a particular illness does not mean that you should be at the top rate but, if you take a downward move, it is vital that you are straight in. We need to look at the processes for that and I have committed to doing so.

As to mental health conditions, which many people have talked about, the most frightening single statistic about our system of welfare support is that 42%, I think the figure is—I am speaking without a note—of people go into ESA with mental health reasons as the primary indicator. Once they have been on ESA for a year, that figure has moved up to 68%. We have turned the system round. Work is part of the solution. Leaving people sitting at home is the worst possible thing we can do for them. The whole of our welfare system has been wrongly directed at that kind of projection and we are moving the system round to stop that—

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Debate between Baroness Meacher and Lord Freud

Wednesday 27th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

Perhaps I should not have personalised it.

The reason this idea of choice does not work is that it is too attractive for a landlord to have an AAA income stream. That is why the solution of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, cannot work. It is a retrograde step away from claimants being job-ready. We know that we need to give an enormous amount of help to people with budgeting, and we are doing so. We are looking to social landlords to help us with that, and many are doing a great job. But I am afraid that I must ask, with some passion, that the noble Baroness withdraws this amendment.

[Baroness Meacher]

It is extremely late but I would like to thank the noble Earl, Lord Cathcart, the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, and the noble Lords, Lord Layard and Lord McKenzie, for their very helpful and powerful contributions. The Minister and I will have to disagree passionately about this issue: I do not think we are going to agree. The Minister is right that landlords have a lot of power. They will walk away. Why should they let out their properties and not have their rent paid? They will not do it. That is my big worry—I say that seriously to the Minister: they will not do it. One can talk about budgeting help and all sorts of things but this is very difficult. As benefits reduce, people are going to find it incredibly difficult to manage at all. They simply will not be able to leave any money in the pot until the end of the month to pay their rent because of the pressures they will be under. I profoundly and passionately disagree with the Minister, as much as I respect and like him. But what am I supposed to do but withdraw my amendment?

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Debate between Baroness Meacher and Lord Freud

Monday 25th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Meacher]

My Lords, before the Minister sits down, perhaps he would help us by explaining what the technical problems are in a simple referral to NHS by IAPT of people who have a diagnosis of a mental health problem.

[Lord Freud]

Yes. The Secretary of State for the DWP has no power to make referrals into the health system. That is just the way that these things are kept separate, and there is enormous sensitivity in the medical area about data and information flowing around the systems. In practical terms, that makes it impossible to join them up; it must be done in a much more subtle and clever way.

Housing: Underoccupancy Charge

Debate between Baroness Meacher and Lord Freud

Wednesday 20th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

We have run a well-being survey since 2012, published by the ONS. I am pleased to report that, on all four key measures of well-being, there has been an improvement every year since the survey started almost four years ago; that is, in life satisfaction, finding activity worthwhile, happiness, and reduction of anxiety.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I understand what the Government are attempting to achieve through the underoccupancy charge, but does the Minister have an estimate of the number of people who are subject to that charge for whom there is no appropriately sized accommodation available? Does he have any plans to relieve those particular households from the charge, when it is no fault of their own that they cannot move out?

[Lord Freud]

We saw in the report that came out just before Christmas—which we were able to discuss in this Chamber—that nearly 100,000 people have moved and are no longer affected by the removal of the spare room subsidy. More than half of them have been able to downsize—mainly within the social sector, but some in the private sector. More want to do so and the process is continuing.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Debate between Baroness Meacher and Lord Freud

Monday 21st December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

I have already answered that question in the first of these amendment groupings. I repeat: there is a difference between having a state expectation—and conditionality attached—for people to go to work, and a financial incentive for them to do so.

The noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, asked whether responsible carers would be set requirements that they cannot meet. We will ensure that any work-related requirements will be tailored to individual circumstances and compatible with childcare responsibilities.

I turn to the amendment tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, on kinship carers. The Government recognise the service that kinship carers and others provide, and the Bill continues the current provisions for foster carers, kinship carers, and family and friend carers. If they, or a child for whom they are caring, are in receipt of an exempt benefit the cap will not apply. In addition, any payments received from the local authority for providing care will be disregarded from the benefit cap. Finally, there is a nine-month grace period whereby the cap may not be applied to those who have recently left sustained employment. This will give time for kinship carers who may have had to leave employment to take on additional caring responsibilities to adapt to their new circumstances. Family and friend carers are treated in the same way as parents in the benefit system, so it is only fair to ensure that this principle applies to the application of the cap, too. The benefit cap is intended to promote fairness between those in and out of work, and to increase incentives for people to move into work—principles that I believe apply in the same way for family and friends carers as for parents.

Regrettably, I am not in a position to supply the specific data requested by the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, on what is happening in London. As I said, I will come back to the matter of carers at a later date but I cannot support the other amendments and I ask noble Lords to withdraw or not press them.

[Baroness Meacher]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken very powerfully in support of these incredibly reasonable amendments. My understanding is that what we are all about is seeking that the cap does not apply where it is completely inappropriate and unfair to expect that person to work. In the case of kinship carers as well as other carers, the impact on the disabled child or relatives is likely to be extremely serious. The impact on the Exchequer or the taxpayer is also likely to be extremely costly.

I thank the Minister for informing the House that Ministers will be returning to the issue of carers, but surely the arguments of the High Court and the judge in relation to carers in general apply equally to kinship carers. I cannot see any possible argument that they do not—they just have to—so I ask the Minister to take away that point and consider the relevance of the High Court judgment and comments on kinship carers, and the need for some consistency. I also ask him to think further about the importance of people who cannot work for whatever reason, whether they have a one year-old child or are disabled to such an extent that they simply will not get better. Those people should be exempt from the cap and I ask the Minister not just to put that issue away and think “Job done”, but to think seriously and say, “Now hang on—surely we should be doing something about this”.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Debate between Baroness Meacher and Lord Freud

Monday 7th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

We are getting way off but our evidence is that the vast bulk of households share financial resources, so although someone in a household may receive a particular amount of money it does not necessarily mean that they do not share the burdens evenly. One can make a lot of false assumptions out of some of these data if one is not careful. I urge noble Lords not to press these amendments.

[Baroness Meacher]

My Lords, I thank the many noble Lords who have spoken in this relatively short but very powerful debate. The Minister certainly got a clear message that this is a matter of considerable concern to Members in most parts of the House. Perhaps I can say again that one-nation Tories of the past have always supported families with disabled children. I still hope that this Government too can show that they will follow the traditions of their party and not leave these families bereft and in severe straits. That is what these provisions will do in the absence of any amendments to them. I thank the Minister for his thoughtful responses as always. I think he always gives us a pretty good innings, but I hope that before Report he will feel able to clarify the relative costs of these various amendments, and then we can perhaps sit down and really think where the need is the greatest. If we are all in the dark it really is quite difficult to make sense out of things, unless the Government have implacably decided they will not change anything in this Bill at all. I hope that is not the view of the Government and of the Minister. I thank all noble Lords and the Minister and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Benefits: Sanctions

Debate between Baroness Meacher and Lord Freud

Thursday 10th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

Let me clarify this. The sanctions level runs at around 5% on a monthly basis. That level is the running rate of sanctions and other figures are simply wrong. On the first point that the noble Baroness made, we do use illustrative examples where they are real, and we make it clear where they are not. In this case, it was wrong—and we have said it was wrong—to have made illustrative examples look as if they were real.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I was involved in an inquiry earlier this year on behalf of the Fawcett Society into the effects of the welfare reforms. One of the greatest problems for clients seems to be the errors on the part of staff, as a result of which a woman can go to a post office for some money at the end of the week and be told, “Sorry, you are sanctioned”, because the message had not been passed on that her child was ill so she could not attend an interview—that sort of thing. Can the Minister tell the House what action his staff are taking to stamp out these errors in communications with clients?

[Lord Freud]

Clearly, one error is one error too many. We work to try to eliminate the error rate, and we have layers of safeguards, for both JSA and ESA, to make sure that we review these cases at each level so that we get it right. Some, of course, will creep through.