Welfare Reform Bill

Debate between Baroness Meacher and Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope

Tuesday 17th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Meacher]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to Amendment 50ZA and will refer to Amendment 50ZC. I very much applaud the aims of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, in seeking to have publication of information about the allocations of money to local authorities for the purposes envisaged. She presented her case very powerfully as always.

I want to thank the Bill team for a most helpful conversation. I understand that the £36 million allocated for crisis loans could be spent by local authorities on grants or payments in kind as well as loans. I find that very encouraging. I for one am very suspicious of loans for people attempting to live on the breadline—they can build up even greater problems for the future—other than when provided for budgeting purposes, which I know is very much what the Minister has in mind. If, for example, households receive half their monthly income half way through the month as a loan only to be repaid at the end of the month, that would go some way to ameliorate what would otherwise, for me anyway, be a highly risky set of proposals.

Amendment 50ZA, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, would provide information on whether the funds had been spent by local authorities on the purposes for which the Government are allocating them—we all understand that is what they are being allocated for. I have some concerns that, even if the Minister concedes this amendment, it remains true that there is no statutory requirement for local authorities to provide some form of assistance to households in crisis. Many Social Fund crisis loans are sought because mothers, often single mothers, have no cash for the electricity meter—apparently, this is really the dominant issue confronting people who seek these loans—with several days to go before getting any more benefit and, of course, the children are cold and the mother cannot even make a hot meal for them without some form of electricity. I understand that the idea of the settlement letter is to spell out the purposes for which the £36 million should be used. I applaud that. I also understand that the DWP plans to follow up a representative sample of local authorities after one year to find out how they have spent the money.

My concern is that over time the settlement letter might be redrafted—heaven forbid that Ministers even change from time to time—and, if local authorities report after one year that unfortunately the £36 million had to be spent on other matters, it seems to me that there is no way of ensuring that these households in crisis actually have funds allocated to those needs. That is actually my concern. We need to know that there will continue to be a system for dealing with these household crises, particularly for families with children. We do not want these children disadvantaged.

I understand the logic of making the £178 million for community care grants and crisis payments available to local authorities, which are no doubt closely involved with many of these families—certainly, if they are not involved, they should be. The aim, as I understand it, is that these funds need to be brought together with other forms of assistance for these families in order to generate greater value for money. At the moment, the Social Fund is a national system that operates at arm’s length from other services. I recognise that this has some disadvantages. The concern is that every local authority is likely to respond differently to this challenge. How can we be sure that households in crisis will have somewhere to go for help, as I have already said? The Government are already committed to the settlement letter and review after 12 months, again as I have already alluded to. I welcome those commitments very strongly. They are a start, but they are a weak provision in this very important area of policy.

I hope that the Minister will take seriously the need for a more robust system to underwrite what I understand to be the Government's intentions. The amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, is one option, but whether or not the Minister accepts Amendment 50ZA, perhaps he will consider incorporating in regulations the requirement that the funds envisaged for resolving household crises are indeed allocated to that purpose. I understand that how local authorities want to do that is a matter for them, but I think that ensuring that the funds are focused on that issue merits a sentence in the regulations. That would certainly make a much stronger support for the provision and give an assurance to the House that we have not lost it.

I would be very grateful for the Minister's serious consideration of the amendment. I should mention that I will not move Amendment 50ZC at this stage.

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope]

My Lords, I make a brief intervention to support the amendments, as I did in Committee. Clause 69 is very important for a relatively small but very vulnerable group of people. The discretionary Social Fund has been part of the furniture, if you like, of social security for a long time, and during the period that it has been deployed, people have been able to take advantage of it to save the public purse considerable sums. One of the main purposes behind the discretionary Social Fund is to prevent people being institutionalised in various ways, and it has done that very successfully. There is cross-party agreement that reform of the Social Fund is long overdue, but to abolish or decentralise it like this raises many questions, which remain unanswered. I hope that the Minister will take the opportunity to try to assuage the concerns that some of us continue to have.

First, the process that will now unfold is less than clear to me. Reading the penultimate subsection of Clause 69, I think that an affirmative resolution will be required to give effect to the power that the Government are seeking in the clause, but I should like reassurance about our ability to have ongoing discussion about how the Social Fund Commissioner’s assets and the apparatus that we have in place at the moment will be dismantled in a way that makes sense, and that the allocation formula for the disbursement of these moneys is carefully considered and consulted on, because the discretionary Social Fund spend obviously has a very spatial dimension to it because some communities need it much more than others. We need to be careful about how we make that decision in the first instance. That is another reason why Parliament, by virtue of affirmative resolution or statutory instrument, must be continuously approached for advice and reassurance. The sample of local authorities being lined up for the welcome review process needs to be carefully considered because of the point I have just made: the decentralisation process will affect some dramatically differently from others.

I still have serious misgivings about this. If we are going to do this, we need to be really careful that we are getting it correct in the first instance and that the client group who have relied on discretionary payments from the Social Fund in crisis situations are not left wanting, completely abandoned and without access to liquid cash in circumstances where they find it difficult to survive.

Welfare Reform Bill

Debate between Baroness Meacher and Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope

Wednesday 11th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Meacher]

My Lords, I support Amendment 43, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Freud, and I also wish to congratulate him on levering a little money out of his Government, or the Treasury, to enable that amendment to be tabled. However, I also want to speak to my Amendment 42A, rather late in the day, which seeks to introduce just a little more humanity into this part of the Bill. It simply extends a little the remit of Amendment 43.

At present, a claimant who has a terminal illness and who is expected to live no more than six months would be placed in a support group, which means that they would have no conditions attached to their benefit entitlement. If they have a few good days when they might be able to work, there is no commitment for them to have to do that although anyone in this position who has a job will no doubt wish to work as far as they possibly can. I am talking about those people who do not have a job and who therefore find themselves in the position of having to look for one, when they have a terminal illness that will deteriorate over time until they finally die.

This amendment applies to a group of people who are suffering from a life-threatening disease, the symptoms of which cannot be controlled by any recognised therapeutic procedure, and where there is reasonable cause for these symptoms not to be able to be controlled by any such procedure. At present, the default position is that these claimants will be allocated to the work-related activity group and will be expected to undertake interviews and activities on this rather wild and ridiculous assumption that they should be finding a brand new job, with a brand new employer, for whatever little bits of time they are able to function. At the same time, of course, they have to prepare themselves mentally for the ever worsening symptoms that will lead to their death.

My question to the Minister is whether he regards such expectations of persons on a downward path towards death as humane and reasonable. I hope very much that he will answer that question rather carefully in his response, in the sense that having accepted the government amendment and put that forward, he will find that this amendment is a very minor shift which brings people in a rather similar position into line. Again, I must emphasise that this amendment would not in any way discourage terminally ill people who can work from doing so. Rather, it is an attempt to remove callous pressures from being applied to people who already have probably far too much to cope with.

The Minister knows that I understand very well the need to reduce the numbers of people on ESA and, most particularly, to reduce the months and years that some people remain on it. We are really of one mind on that. Of course, proper conditions need to be applied so that if people are really sufficiently well to work, they make every effort to do so. However, we are talking about people whose lives are severely curtailed. They will not be around to spend years on ESA, let alone to claim pensions. Are we not in danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater here?

I shall leave your Lordships with just one case to illustrate the point. A CAB client had had major surgery for breast cancer, twice. At the time of her assessment for benefit she was suffering severe pain and undergoing tests that revealed some abnormal bone activity. She told the HCP about her condition and the fact that she was due to have a further scan. This lady was found to have metastatic non-curative cancer of her bones, primarily in her pelvis, hips, back and spine, as well as down her legs and in the rib area. She was told that she had three or four years to live, although I have to say that sounds a little unlikely to me, and my guess is that it will be a pretty miserable three or four years.

On appeal, this claimant had her “fit for work” status—which is mind-boggling in itself—removed, but she was placed in the work-related activity group. She became very tearful and had to see a psychologist. She was unable to return to her previous job due to pain from the operations removing the lymph glands under her arms. She got extremely tired, of course—if you have metastatic cancer you are not going to be in a good way to do anything. The CAB adviser was of the view that this client would not be able to work again due to the increasing pain levels that she was going to suffer.

Anyone who has known anyone with metastatic bone cancer will know that this is not a happy thing to have; it is seriously deleterious. That is the point that I want to make: here you have people whose pain, tiredness and general debility cannot be adequately controlled, and there should be some fairly automatic procedure to deal with them. Perhaps the Minister could consider the position of a potential employer. Who would take on an employee with metastatic bone cancer? I have to say that I would not. How reliable would such an employee be, and for how long—for how many days or weeks at a time? Who knows? The prospects, though, are pretty poor.

This client will have to go through the humiliating and endlessly negative experience of writing applications and going for interviews, knowing in her own mind that employers, if they are half sensible, simply will not take her on. It is that aspect that we need to get hold of. Also, she could be accused of wasting employers’ time: why should they be reading these applications and interviewing her when, poor soul, she really is not in a fit state to work?

Noble Lords have mentioned in previous debates that terminally ill claimants will be saving taxpayers substantial amounts of money because of course they will not be living for decades with dementia, as people like myself might be doing. All we are looking for is dignity in those last months and, if they are lucky—although perhaps this might not be lucky after all—years before they die. As the Prime Minister said in his first party conference speech as Prime Minister,

“people who are sick, who are vulnerable, the elderly—I want you to know that we will … look after you. That's the sign of a civilised society and it's what I believe”.

We are really not talking about a lot of money here. I hope that the Minister will consider this matter.

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope]

My Lords, I would like to make a brief contribution to this debate. Anyone who was part of the collective consideration in Grand Committee would have to acknowledge the very constructive role that the Minister played in this part of the Bill. The Bill is very difficult territory. I think that it was an amendment in the name of noble Lord, Lord McKenzie of Luton, that opened the door to some of the changes that the Government are now proposing, but it was palpable to everyone who was watching the Minister that the defence that the department was taking at the time was not adequate to meet the demands that were being made of it in the cross-examination that he was getting. For myself, I think that it was commendable that he was alive enough to what was being said by adult people around him at the time on an important issue. It is not a huge issue; there may be 4,000 or so claimants who might now benefit from this measure, but those who do will get substantial benefit. It is appropriate, particularly from my side of the coalition on this side of the House, to recognise that this is a significant amendment that was won only because the Minister was willing enough to listen and make a constructive response. That is why we have the amendment in front of us today, and I hope that the House will support it unanimously.

Welfare Reform Bill

Debate between Baroness Meacher and Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope

Tuesday 8th November 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Meacher]

Perhaps I may suggest that the Budget is a completely different kettle of fish, because you absolutely have to implement financial changes on the day of the announcement—otherwise all sorts of people will play games and use the delay to do all sorts of things. However, social security is completely different. You are talking about vulnerable people dependent on benefits, and that is why the convention in the social security field is totally different from the convention regarding the Budget.

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope]

Can I just make a point? As to the Minister’s explanation of when things start from, this announcement was made in 2010. If logic is to stay on his side, implementation should have started in 2010.

Welfare Reform Bill

Debate between Baroness Meacher and Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope

Tuesday 1st November 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope]

My Lords, I am trying hard to say nothing from this end of the table because it is important to make progress. However, I too am very worried about the press reports that have coming since the summer. I said at the beginning of our first session in Committee that some of the language that was being used in relation to these issues and to benefit deductions was extremely worrying. It is getting more acute and more refined. I do not think the Minister can hide behind the defence that he tried to use, although it is absolutely accurate. Changes of this kind would come under the powers given to the courts because these things will be decided in court. But the latest BBC newswire I have seen on this issue described the Prime Minister, David Cameron, talking about benefit reductions for fines up to a maximum of £25 under universal credit. That came from a BBC report. If the Prime Minister has it in his heart and head that universal credit is going to be subject to what I calculate to be a 37 per cent reduction in the standard allowance, I do not think it is fair for this Committee, or indeed the House, to go through all these legislative proceedings, pass this Bill and give it Royal Assent, without some consideration of exactly what that means.

Now I have two complaints. First, as I said in the first day in Committee, a particular language is being used. The Prime Minister talked about the current maximum deduction of £5 as “much too soft”. Indeed, the Secretary of State is not absolved from some of these phrases which really target people on benefits. Of course, we are talking about people in the courts and who have committed crimes. We may even be talking about people who took part in riots—I am not sure about that. That has to be borne in mind and taken into consideration, but to remove up to 25 per cent of £67.50—the level that I understand is being set for the introduction of universal credit in 2013—is a massive reduction for anyone to contemplate. It will simply push people to the margins.

Secondly, what kind of benefits are we talking about? Are claimants to include state retirement pensioners who may find themselves in the courts? Are they contributory benefit claimants who may well have been paying in for all their lives to get that access? Under this new regime, are they likely to be subjected to a £25 benefit deduction? It is not sensible for the Committee or House to contemplate going into universal credit against the background of this being possible without serious consideration of what it is, in detail, that is in the mind of the Prime Minister or Secretary of State. I completely absolve the Minister of any of this stuff, but he must understand that it causes serious concern to people. I guess that this could be introduced by a change in regulations, late at night on a wet Thursday. Unless I get some pretty compelling, better evidence about the provenance of this idea, I will be there, wet on a Thursday, waiting for him. It is unimaginable that we should just pass these things willy-nilly because these benefit claimants riot and need 37 per cent of their entitlement reduced. It is unconscionable and we need a better explanation than the one we have at the moment.

[Baroness Meacher]

I rise very briefly to add my support to this. Many years ago, I wrote a book about the withdrawal of benefits after four weeks from people who had been in difficulty. The book clearly showed that 90 per cent of them or more went straight into more crime. This is just another obvious, simple situation where that is all that the Government will do. I know that the Minister will not wish that to happen. I plead for him to take this away and think about it.