Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Baroness Pitkeathley Excerpts

Monday 21st December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I speak to Amendment 94—I emphasise that it is a probing amendment. I do so in the hope that we can highlight the need for a comprehensive and regular review of the impact of the totality of the benefit cuts on specific groups—who are the most vulnerable—applied during the past few years, including those in the Welfare Reform Act 2012, in more recent legislation and in this Bill. The amendment requires that in carrying out a review of the benefit cap, the Secretary of State must include an assessment of the impact of the benefit cap on disabled people, their families and carers. I for one have not fully grasped the full impact of the multitude of cuts. At the very least, I believe that the Government have a moral obligation to understand the implications of their policies for the most vulnerable citizens in this country and to make public that information. That is what this amendment is about.

The benefit cap applies even to benefits designed to compensate for the extra costs of disability or caring for disabled people, including ESA WRAG, incapacity benefit, severe disablement allowance and carer’s allowance. We know that one-third of disabled people—fully 3.7 million—live below the poverty line already. The benefit cap combined with the freezes and cuts to employment and support allowance for those in the WRAG group will see disabled people’s incomes reduced significantly again. This significant reduction is from a level which is already below the poverty line.

The Government argue that the new lower, tiered cap has been designed to strengthen the work incentives for those on benefits. When I met the Minister from the other place, he said, “The whole point of this is to encourage people to work for more hours”. I find that so cynical, when most of these people simply cannot work more hours for a range of reasons. However, as we have argued previously in Committee, the Government have provided no evidence to back up the claim that cutting benefits that disabled people receive will incentivise them to work. As I have already indicated, the Government’s reference to an OECD study failed to point out that the study did not even refer to disability throughout, and rightly so—of course, people who are disabled are in an entirely different position from those who are healthy and able bodied. We have evidence that reducing disabled people’s incomes will make it harder and not easier for them to move into work.

In addition, the impact assessment provides no detail on the impact of lowering the cap on disabled people who are in receipt of DLA/PIP—those who are severely disabled and cannot do much about their situation. This amendment has no financial consequences. I hope that the Minister will take this matter away with a view to bringing back a government amendment on Report.

I support Amendment 93 tabled in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, and the noble Earl, Lord Listowel. The case for the amendment has been eloquently spelt out and, fortunately, I do not need to add to that. I hope that the Minister will assure the Committee that this crucial issue will be dealt with on Report.

[Baroness Pitkeathley (Lab)]

I add support to the amendment just spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, to which my name is added. While an exemption for households including a DLA or personal independence payment claimant exists, this does not protect all families affected by disability or all carers from the cap. That is because of the way in which “household” is defined in the benefits system. For the purposes of the benefits system, a household is considered to be an adult, their partner if they have one and any children they have under the age of 18. If any other adult relatives—for example, older parents, brothers or sisters, or even adult children—live in the same house, they are considered to be part of a different benefits household even though they all live together. This means that while carers looking after disabled partners and disabled children aged under 18 are exempt from the cap, those caring for adult disabled children, siblings or elderly parents are subject to it.

The Government’s impact assessment for the introduction of the benefit cap estimates that 5,000 households containing carers would be affected by it. That seems to be completely contrary to the Government’s policy on supporting carers. In its 2015 manifesto, the Conservative Party committed to provide more support for full-time carers. The fact that the benefit cap continues to apply to carers and the further lowering of the cap are entirely contrary to that commitment. The inclusion of the carer’s allowance in the list of capped benefits also goes against the commitment to protect vulnerable families that are coping with the extra costs of disability and ill-health. I will have more to say about the inclusion of carer’s allowance and the recent judgment in a later set of amendments.

Carers struggle every day with the extra costs of caring and it is clear, as the noble Baroness said, that many carers are absolutely unable to work as a result of heavy caring responsibilities. Therefore they cannot afford any reduction in their income at all, and yet the Government continue to cap their benefits, with those carers who fall within the scope of the cap losing up to an estimated £169 a week under the new cap compared with the position before the introduction of the policy. The benefit cap places an increasing financial and emotion strain on families, pushing carers to breaking point and ultimately threatening the sustainability of those caring relationships. Surely the Government must be prepared, at the very minimum, to assess the impact of these changes.

[The Earl of Listowel]

I rise to support the noble Baroness in these amendments. Relevant to this is the question of responsibility. It is clear that children are not responsible because they are not in charge, as it were. When we think about the difficult decisions we are making today, surely an important part of it was the greed of a few bankers some years ago that went unchecked. They are responsible to a large degree for the debates that we are having today. We should also think about the failure of successive Governments to build sufficient housing. The most important part of the benefits bill is housing benefit, and the reason that it is so high is that there is such a shortage of housing that we are paying over the odds for it in this country. It is not the fault of these children that they are in this position; it is due to successive failures by various people who were responsible in the past. I support the amendments because it is paramount that we keep the interests of the child at the very forefront of our minds as we make these decisions. We will simply be shooting ourselves in the foot if we neglect these children.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Meacher]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 75 I shall speak also to Amendments 78, 80, 81 and 83. The amendments seek to exempt those in receipt of carer’s allowance or disability benefits from the cap. I shall talk about the two groups, carers and disabled claimants.

As Carers UK has pointed out, unpaid carers save the state an estimated £132 billion per year. Clause 7 includes just one of a number of measures which will have a damaging impact on the finances of the 6.5 million carers in the UK. The lives of carers are already extremely hard. A Carers UK survey of 4,500 unpaid carers, mostly caring for 50 or more hours a week, shows that almost half of them, some 41%, are cutting back on essentials such as food and heating—one wonders what else they could cut back—while 45% said that financial worries are affecting their health. I want to draw to noble Lords’ attention the fact that Clause 7 breaches a Government election manifesto commitment to increase support for full-time unpaid carers. The cuts set out in Clause 7 and elsewhere in the Bill come on top of previous changes which Carers UK estimates will result in a cut to carers’ incomes of more than £1 billion between 2011 and 2018. I would be grateful if the Minister responded to this point.

The Government’s impact assessment identifies that 6% of carer’s allowance recipients will be subject to the cap. Those who have had their benefits capped at £26,000 will lose an average of a further £64 per week. The figure of 6% may seem small, but for every one of those families it will be devastating. The cumulative impact of the cuts, together with the cut to WRAG benefits and further reductions in local government funding, will inevitably undermine the capacity of many carers to continue their invaluable caring work. I know that carers looking after disabled partners and disabled children aged under 18 are exempt from the cap, but why are those who care for adult disabled children, siblings or elderly relatives not also exempt? I would be grateful if the Minister explained this. Why should one group of carers be given preference over another group? Surely that is an anomaly.

The Minister will be aware that on 26 November 2015 the High Court ruled that carers in receipt of carer’s allowance should be exempt from the benefit cap following a judicial review challenge to the policy and its impact on carers and the disabled, seriously ill or older loved ones they support. The judge’s comments will be known to the Minister, but I want to quote one short passage in which he concluded that, “With carers being unable to mitigate the cap, this endangers the sustainability of the caring role and indirectly discriminates against the disabled person, who will no longer be able to receive care”. What do the Government plan to do in response to this ruling? I hope the Minister will clarify the position for noble Lords.

Recent DWP research shows that households containing carer’s allowance claimants subjected to the cap are more likely to move into work than those not capped. To what extent has the cap already led claimants to abandon their caring responsibilities in order to return to work? How many disabled people have moved into residential accommodation as a result? The implications for social care services and costs to the public purse may be considerable. Does the Minister have information on this point? In fact, will the cap save money as far as it affects carers, or will it cost the Exchequer a great deal?

I will say a brief word about the amendments aimed at excluding disabled people’s benefits from the calculation of the cap for any household. We have already discussed the severe consequences of this Bill for disabled people, particularly if all the cuts go through unmodified. I want to say in the context of Clause 7 only that disability benefits were introduced to compensate disabled people for the additional expenditure they incur because of their disability. If these benefits are included in calculating the cap, families with a disabled member will be poorer than able-bodied families. They do not benefit in material terms from their disability benefits, because all those benefits do is compensate for the higher costs of travel, heating and so on than able-bodied families incur. Is it the Government’s intention to hit disabled people particularly hard with this legislation? If they wish to treat disabled people on an equal basis with others, disability benefits should indeed be excluded from the cap calculations. I would welcome the Minister’s comments on this point. I beg to move.

[Baroness Pitkeathley]

My Lords, I rise to strongly support the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher. We have said already that the cap is applied unequally to carers. While I welcome the exemption for households in receipt of PIP or DLA, it means that carers who are considered to be not in the same household as the person they care for will be penalised.

[Lord Freud]

In the interests of saving time, it may be worth me saying one of the key things that I will say as I close. Clearly, noble Lords will be aware of the High Court judgment in the case of Hurley and others. The Government are considering this closely. Can I ask noble Lords to allow me to come back to them on this important issue at a later date? By that I am hopeful that it will be on Report. I am hopeful but I cannot guarantee it—well, it must be at Report stage. I will come back with the Government’s decision on that, which might help to truncate some of our deliberations. That is all I can say at this stage.

[Baroness Pitkeathley]

I am grateful to the Minister and will happily truncate and wait with bated breath for his response on Report. Meanwhile I simply support the amendments of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher.

[The Earl of Listowel]

I rise to speak to my Amendment 90B which would exempt kinship carers from the benefit cap. I am most grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, for adding her name to the amendment.

I will be brief as the Committee has already discussed kinship care and the Minister has knowledge of it through his charitable work. One does not need to believe in an afterlife to know that there is a hell. One need only hear some care-experienced adults speak of their experience. The experience of too many is: to grow up without love; to be betrayed by those they trust; to be left in that position for years before the state intervenes; to experience rootlessness in care often; to look to alcohol or drugs for respite from guilt and the inability to relate to others; and to give birth to child after child only to have each baby removed by the state.

Our amendment increases the chance that these souls will know heaven rather than hell, and increases the chance that they may know love and security and then go on to love and be loved themselves. The best rehabilitation we can offer children taken for their protection from their parents who cannot love them is the chance that these children can find love themselves and go on to be adults who will start healthy families and have children they can love and who love them.

We know that 30% of kinship carers are on housing benefit and 36% of the larger of these families are on HB. There is a concentration of kinship care in London, with 1.7% of children in this city cared for under kinship care arrangements. Brent has 2.8% of its children in kinship care—the highest level in England. Failure to amend this Bill will put more of these families into poverty and, I fear, uproot others.

What kind of choice is it that the state is forcing families to make when in order that an aunt or uncle should do right by their niece and/or nephew, they must uproot their own children from their home, friends and school, leaving behind their own support network, to live in poverty somewhere they may not know? A grandmother carer said of the Bill as it stands, “I had a really well-paid job and now I worry constantly about money. I always listen to what the Government are doing as the changes with universal credit will affect me and my little one. I am scared of losing my home and being homeless”. I beg the Minister to accept our amendment and ensure that this Bill makes the welfare of these particular children paramount.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

I shall be very brief. I support what the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, said about kinship carers. I am delighted that the Minister will come back before Report on the question of carers. I remind him of something he said during the passage of the 2012 Act. He said that one thing the Government were not looking to encourage was a change in the carer’s behaviour so that they stopped caring.

I hope that he will remember that statement—and what he has heard about how strongly Members of this House feel about the inappropriateness or “indecency”, as my noble friend put it, of applying the cap to carers—when he makes these considerations about how to respond to the High Court case.

[Baroness Pitkeathley]

Perhaps I might just add to that. I ask the Minister to bear in mind that we have already heard that many carers are working more than 50 hours a week. That is more than any full-time job and we need to keep that in mind when we consider pushing carers into work.