Welfare Reform Bill

Baroness O'Loan Excerpts

Tuesday 4th October 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Grey-Thompson]

I was asked yesterday morning to come into this room and check for accessibility. I came in at 2.15 pm to check that there was enough room and we are fortunate that a huge amount of work had gone on to make sure that there was enough space for wheelchair users who might come to speak or to deal with various colleagues’ needs. On the point about voting, my personal view is that it is incredibly important that if I take part in a vote, I actually walk, or push, through the Lobby. As much as being able to see my name in a list, it is important to me that Members of your Lordships’ House see which way I push. If there is a Division—I hope not today—I will be going to vote and that is something important that we should all have the opportunity to do.

I know that not all my fellow Peers feel as strongly about walking down one of the Lobbies as I do, but it is very important in terms of democracy.

[Baroness O'Loan]

I have a brief point in support of the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell. As we later consider the disability living allowance and the PIP which will replace it, we need to bear in mind that our understanding of the consequences of living with disability is limited. We demonstrate that by the way in which we conduct our business. People will judge the extent of our understanding in the discussion we have about social security arrangements for them. It is a hugely important issue.

[Baroness Meacher]

I support that strongly. If one of our Members is actually at risk, maybe the usual channels need to reconsider whether this Committee can be held in this Room. I do not believe that any work can be done by this House if a Member is at risk and feels that they may not be able to breathe. I urge the usual channels to revisit that issue.

Could I ask the Minister three quick questions. One is strongly in support of the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, that risk is more important than the idea of getting an additional 24p in the pound—or whatever it is—for every pound one might earn in employment. I know the Minister is as conscious as I am about the special needs of people with mental health problems in relation to risk.

This is a group who may desperately want to work, but who are locked out of employment because of the understandable concerns of employers about taking them on. I know this is much in the Minister’s mind. Has a real assessment been made about the impact of this Bill, geared to economic incentives, on that large group of claimants, particularly on ESA, in terms of the risk that they face? I have been talking about this Bill to a lot of service users, patients, in east London and they all refer to being terrified. Understandably, this might not have been fully taken on board by the drafters of the Bill, the Bill team and all the other people involved. Is the Minister satisfied that the depth of that issue and its importance to a very large group, something like a third or more of claimants in the employment service, on ESA, has been taken on board? That is the first question.

The second one concerns the point raised by the noble Lord behind me about the IT system. We all know about the NHS IT system: it was all going to be wonderful and we were looking forward to it. It was about integrating databases, computers and suchlike. It failed and failed and failed and cost billions. Does the Minister have an estimate of the timeframe for the integration of the Inland Revenue and DWP computer systems? I think that that is the project: obviously he will correct me if I am wrong. Also, what confidence does he have in that estimated timeframe and what is the evidence for his confidence if he has it?

My third point concerns DWP staff training. Can the Minister, again at this early stage of the Bill, give some assurance to the Committee about the level of funding going into the training of DWP and other relevant staff to ensure that they can understand the complex issues around capacity to get into employment? I have mentioned this story before. In conversation with a Jobcentre Plus manager, I asked how they dealt with people with mental health problems. The answer was: “We don’t”. I asked what happened and the answer was: “They become homeless and go back into hospital”. As somebody responsible for a mental health trust, I would be interested to know whether the Minister is satisfied that in future DWP staff and others will be adequately trained. Our trust and others will not be able to finance large numbers of people coming into hospital who at the moment do not do so.