Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Baroness Sherlock Excerpts

Monday 14th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

I rise to support both these amendments and have attached my name to Amendment 62. I have an interest in this as vice-chair for the last 10 years of the parliamentary group for children in care and care leavers, and as a carer of a mentally ill adult. I know how fragile many of the individuals seeking welfare support are. The Minister himself may have been shocked to discover the issues around mental health as he has done his important work in building capacity in jobcentres. I strongly support my noble friend’s amendments.

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, I intend to speak very briefly as we have had a good debate on sanctions and the noble Lord, Lord Low, introduced his amendment with characteristic care and detail.

I just want to say a couple of things to the Minister. I know that the department is not attracted to statutory guidance on universal credit in particular. One of the reasons is that it likes to make personalised decisions. Before the noble Baroness tells us how the system is meant to work, I want to flag something up. I worked in government and know that you always get complaints from non-profit organisations about how things are working. At some point, the noise being made reaches a certain level, and you know that maybe things are not working quite the way they are meant to work. It is my judgment that we are approaching that level. The level of concern expressed by charities about the way the sanctions environment is working, particularly for vulnerable groups, and about the severity of some individual mistakes that have been made, suggests there may be something systemic going wrong. I am not suggesting that means it is going wrong on a large scale across the caseload, but that something is going wrong often enough, and on occasions badly enough, to merit attention.

When the Minister responds, even if she is not attracted to the way the amendment might resolve this issue, could she address the underlying problems and tell us how the Government might like to deal with them?

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[The Earl of Listowel]

I will speak to Amendment 62D in this group and apologise to your Lordships for giving so little notice of it. The issue was only drawn to my attention on Friday. I felt that it was important and timely so I asked for a manuscript amendment. I am very pleased to see that the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong of Hill Top, has attached her name. Unfortunately, she cannot be here. I have not had the opportunity to thank the Minister for saying that there would be a life chances strategy and I am sorry that I was so pessimistic. I was very pleased to read the comments made last week by Christine Lagarde, the head of the IMF, about the success of the economy in terms of employment and improving productivity. The Minister may feel that this is recognition of his good work and that of his colleagues in these areas.

This amendment was brought to my attention by the Family Rights Group and is supported by many other children’s charities. Its purpose is to ensure that lone parents under the age of 25 who are also care leavers continue in the same system under the new arrangements, so that they will be £780 a year better off. I very much welcome the extremely good work the Government have done and are doing for young people leaving care. The strategy has been a great success. Many people recognise that it is very difficult to get different departments to work together. Through the strategy, the DWP identified care leavers and can give them the additional support they need. Other departments also are aware of that. Staying Put has been a very important step forward. It recognises that young people leaving care should have the right to remain with their foster carer until the age of 21 where both parties agree. Some 50% of children in the general population stay with their parents until the age of 22, so these children should also be able to remain.

However, there is much further to go with these young people. Ofsted has recently started assessing care-leaving services. Its most recent report found that, of the local authorities it examined, 63% of the care-leaving services were inadequate or needed improvement. There is a very long way to go.

The Centre for Social Justice has done some important research on births. There is a much higher likelihood of teenagers leaving care becoming pregnant. One in 10 young people leaving care between the ages of 16 and 21 have their child removed. Often, they have been in care and then lose their own child. It is important that these lone-parent care leavers get all the support they can. This additional cash would be very important for them. They do not have the family network that many of our children have to support them. I hope the Minister is prepared to accept this amendment, and I look forward to his response.

[Baroness Sherlock]

My Lords, I will say a brief word on Amendment 62D and move on to the main amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Manzoor. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, has clearly made the point about the particular vulnerability of young care leavers and the way the changes to the provision of support for under-25s and universal credit will affect them. In 2013, half of 22 year-olds in the UK still lived with their parents. This Bill makes it more likely that even more young people will need to live at home. The issue, of course, for care leavers is that they do not have a home to live in. One of the problems is that they are simply not in a position to depend on the kind of support and home environment that other young people can turn to as an alternative. Perhaps the Minister will comment on that in responding to this amendment.

Likewise, an important point was made by the noble Earl about the position of care leavers who are much more likely to become teenage mothers and, in turn, lose their children. Certainly, when they are supported appropriately by charities and given appropriate financial support, there is much more chance of their being able to keep the children with them and then try to break the cycle. Without that, there must be some risks. I will be very interested to hear the Minister’s comments.

I really want to talk about universal credit and the implications of the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Manzoor. We on these Benches have long supported the principle of universal credit. I know the Minister has done a lot of work to make sure that the new system will make work pay and will work for working families. But I am getting increasingly concerned, as are many people, about the Treasury’s continuous slashing away at the money involved, which makes it harder and harder for universal credit to do the job. I do not expect him to comment on that, but he has my sympathies.

The speed at which this is being rolled out is also making a difference. As we know, from October 2013 there should have been no more claims for the old legacy working-age benefits. In fact, everyone would have been transferred over by April 2017. By last March, we should have had 4.5 million households on universal credit. The last time I saw the figure, it was about 141,000. There have been various slippages in timing and now it will not be fully rolled out until, I think, 2021. That matters because it goes right to the heart of the transitional protection arrangements for people moving across, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Manzoor. Along the way, the Treasury has made six—this is the seventh—cuts to universal credit: £6 billion has been slashed from the budget before it has even been fully rolled out. There are some potentially serious traps down the line.

I unreservedly welcome the fact that, after pressure from all quarters and being asked to think again by this House—I pay tribute to my noble friend Lady Hollis and congratulate her on her successful delaying Motion, which caused Mr Osborne to have the opportunity to think again—the Chancellor decided not to proceed with the tax credit cuts. Three million working families would have lost an average of £1,300 a year.

However, as has been mentioned, he did not reverse the comparable cuts in universal credit. I want to understand the implications of that, so I hope the Minister can help us. The Autumn Statement suggested that the Government are still planning to take £10 billion from working families through cuts to universal credit during this Parliament, as a result of removing work incentives and work allowances. That means that 2.6 million families will still be £1,600 worse off by 2020, on average. Therefore, I am trying to understand why the Secretary of State, Iain Duncan Smith, when touring TV and radio stations last week, was able to say that universal credit is a big success. He said on “The Andrew Marr Show” that nobody will lose a penny from the UC cuts. How can that be true?

In the wake of the Autumn Statement, the OBR put more figures out to help people understand. I have been poring over them with a wet towel around my head to try to make sense of them. I suspect that I have not, but the Minister will put me right. There are three issues: whether people on UC will be better off than those on tax credits, whether people transferring from tax credits to universal credit will lose out, and whether anyone will lose out in cash terms come next April.

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Moved by

[Baroness Sherlock]

62B: After Clause 15, insert the following new Clause—
“Disability living allowance (mobility component) for young children
In section 73 of the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992 (the mobility component), for subsection (1) substitute—“(1) Subject to the provisions of this Act, a person shall be entitled to the mobility component of a disability living allowance for any period and throughout which—
(a) he or she, from birth and on account of a condition, must always be accompanied by bulky medical equipment which cannot be carried around with him or her without great difficulty; or(b) he or she, from birth and on account of a condition, must always be kept near a motor vehicle so that, if necessary, treatment for that condition can be given in the vehicle or the child can be taken quickly in the vehicle to a place where such treatment can be given; or(c) he or she is over the age of five and is suffering from physical disablement such that he or she is either unable to walk or virtually unable to do so; or (d) he or she is over the age of five and falls within subsection (2) below; or(e) he or she is over the age of five and falls within subsection (3) below; or(f) he or she is over the age of five and is able to walk but is so severely disabled physically or mentally that, disregarding any ability he or she may have to use routes which are familiar to him or her on his or her own, he or she cannot take advantage of the faculty out of doors without guidance or supervision from another person most of the time.””

[Baroness Sherlock]

My Lords, I seek clarification on an issue that was raised with me by a charity called Together for Short Lives, which represents parents and children with life-limiting and life-threatening conditions. The amendment is brief but the issue is this: I understand that children under three are not eligible for the higher-rate mobility component of DLA. I believe that the rationale is that children under three are generally not independently mobile, although anyone who has babysat a toddler might disagree. The assumption is that under-threes will have to be carried in arms, lifted into prams and buggies and from them into cars and car seats anyway, whether or not they have a disability.

For most children and their parents that is true, but Together for Short Lives points out that there are small numbers of children who need help and should have access to the mobility component of DLA. That is because there is a small group of children who depend on ventilators for survival, who may have one or more shunts and IV lines for feeding or drug administration, or other technologies that are life-sustaining. The children are in effect constantly attached to life-sustaining equipment that is often bulky or heavy. The child has to be placed in a wheelchair or medical buggy capable of carrying the equipment, monitors and so on, so that the lines and tubes can be securely attached to the child. Parents therefore need specially adapted or broad-based vehicles capable of carrying these small children, linked together with their decidedly not small equipment, securely. The children cannot easily be lifted in and out of cars like most children of their age.

I want to put to the Minister the case for why this small group of children needs the mobility allowance. Some of the children always have to be placed in a medical buggy or wheelchair when not in bed because they need postural support. These are heavy items. In addition to the life-sustaining equipment attached to them, most of these children require a variety of equipment to go with them wherever they are. This could include a spare ventilator and battery, monitors, oxygen supply, a mask, emergency tracheotomy kits and feeding kits. That is on top of the usual paraphernalia that all parents of children under three find that they need to carry with them at all times. The children cannot travel on public transport, because buses will not take oxygen bottles, and there is the inevitable risk of infection.

As well as being susceptible to infection, the children are often prone to medical crises, such as fitting, and their parents need to be able to get them to hospital immediately for life-saving treatment 24/7. If they do not have a car, the children may not be assessed as safe to live at home and will need to remain in hospital or a hospice. As well as being heart-breaking for families and their children, that could, of course, cost rather more than the higher-rate mobility allowance of £57.45 per week.

What would this all cost? As a result of the Welfare Reform Act 2012, disability living allowance has been replaced by PIP for people aged over 16, but DLA is still given to under-16s. This amendment seeks to open up access to the higher-rate mobility component of DLA for under-threes who require life-sustaining equipment as described above. I am told that there are nearly 49,000 children with life-limiting and life-threatening conditions, but only a very small proportion are under-threes who require life-sustaining equipment.

To establish how many might need this component of DLA, Together for Short Lives submitted a freedom of information request to the Department for Transport in 2014 to ask how many parents of children under three had asked for a blue badge because their child was dependent on heavy medical equipment or needed to be near a vehicle in case they need emergency medical treatment. It found that 1,530 children had blue badges. The wording of this amendment is aligned to the criteria for blue badges. If those figures are correct, the cost of giving all 1,530 children access to the higher-rate mobility component of DLA of £57.45 a week would be about £4.5 million. That is a small sum for DWP but would transform the lives of families with a child with a threatening or life-limiting condition.

What I have described feels to me like an anomaly—I cannot believe that the department intended this to happen. I hope that the Minister will give it a very careful response. I am sure that there cannot be anybody listening to this debate here or outside whose hearts would not go out to the children and families in these circumstances. I hope that the Minister agrees that I have made the case that babies and children under three who depend on big and heavy life-sustaining equipment to stay alive and/or have need for immediate access to transport for medical reasons should be regarded as having an additional mobility need and become eligible for the mobility element of DLA. I beg to move.

[Lord Freud]

I thank the noble Baroness for tabling the amendment and for providing that degree of clarity over its purpose. I must express my own empathy regarding the intention of what this amendment aims to achieve. There can be no doubt about the harrowing position of families with very young, severely disabled children. However, I find myself in the unusual situation of needing to reflect a position set out by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, some six years ago when he was the government Minister for Work and Pensions.

On that occasion, what was to become the Welfare Reform Act 2009 was being debated in Grand Committee. Noble Peers may recall that that Act introduced, by way of amendment in the other place, a new provision which now gives access to the higher rate mobility component of DLA to severely visually impaired people. In Committee a further amendment, in much the same terms or at least intended as the amendment we are discussing today, was introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, who is not in her place today. On that occasion the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, was sympathetic to the situation set out by the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, but ultimately resisted the motion. He said that,

“in this difficult financial climate, we need to consider carefully the potential cost of any such change … This amendment would, of course, result in additional costs”.

He estimated costs at that time to be around £15 million a year and went on to say:

“This would obviously be a significant increase in what is, unfortunately, a difficult economic situation, and is simply not affordable in the current context”.—[Official Report, 25/6/09; col. GC 538.]

I have never been sadder to have to agree with the noble Lord and to resist an amendment.

On the techie side, the amendment confers entitlement to neither the higher or lower rate of the mobility component. That is because the distinction between the two rates has been lost. There would also be some unintended consequences of the amendment—most notably that it would remove entitlement from the 16,500 children and adults who currently receive the higher-rate mobility component as a consequence of a severe visual impairment. However, I think that that is just a matter of drafting and I would not want to dwell on that issue—we could always sort it out.

The primary reason for there being a lower age limit for entitlement is that, while many children can walk by the age of three, not all will do so, regardless of disability, and few will be able to walk for any considerable distance. Age three therefore provides a reasonable boundary line between what may be considered developmental delay and walking difficulties arising from a disability or long-term health condition.

I think we can all agree that the majority of very young children, whether disabled or not, will need a considerable degree of support and help from parents and carers. Most parents will also be reliant on a range of bulky and possibly heavy items, such as prams or buggies, and items of equipment for feeding and changing. Nevertheless, I recognise that some young children with particular conditions may be heavily reliant on additional therapeutic equipment, some of which can be bulky and heavy. However, such technologies are improving all the time and in some instances equipment is becoming lighter, smaller or in other ways more transportable.

Despite the mobility component being unavailable to children solely on the basis of a need for such equipment, there already exists a range of provisions, financial and in kind, which can help support such children and their parents. For example, the care component of DLA places no restriction on how it can be used, and any entitlement to DLA can bring with it access to the disability premiums in the income-related benefits or tax credits. Parents may also be able to receive a blue badge for free parking if their child is reliant on heavy equipment or needs to be near a vehicle for treatment.

That, in turn, leads me to question the provision in the amendment which focuses on children who need to be near a vehicle for treatment or where a vehicle is used to transport them for such treatment. I question this for two reasons. The first is on the basis that the provision could help only those parents who already have use of a motor vehicle or who would gain access to one through the higher-rate mobility component of DLA. As I said earlier, the amendment is not clear in its intent regarding the rate at which children under three should become entitled, meaning that, by effect, it is also not clear whether such children would be given access to the Motability scheme and, in turn, a motor vehicle. Hence, the amendment as currently drafted would exclude families without access to a vehicle.

Secondly, I question this provision on a more practical basis. If a child requires emergency transportation along with bulky medical equipment, it is doubtful whether transportation by the parents would be a reasonable and practical expectation. Our emergency services, which are much better equipped in terms of medical training and suitable vehicles, are in place for exactly this kind of situation.

Finally, I must turn to the financial implications of the amendment, which are estimated to be still in the order of £15 million. Clearly, this amendment goes further than that debated previously and, in the time available, we have been unable to determine how many children could potentially be entitled on the basis of access to a nearby vehicle. However, patently that would add to what is already a significant extra cost burden and would further damage our capacity to stay within the welfare cap.

I am sympathetic to the broad intentions behind the amendment but, particularly now, the Government cannot accept it on the basis of the unfunded cost implications. Therefore, regrettably, I have to agree with the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, and I urge the noble Baroness to withdraw the amendment.

[Baroness Sherlock]

My Lords, before I withdraw the amendment, which I will do, can the Minister tell me how many children his costings are based on?

[Lord Freud]

I thought that I knew the answer to that, but I am a bit uncertain. I hope that inspiration is striking.

Sorry, it is not 1,600; 18,500 children under the age of three are in receipt of DLA and 5,500 children impacted.

[Baroness Sherlock]

I am grateful to the Minister for that. I am grateful also for his thoughtful reply. When he reads Hansard, and given all that he tells us of his view of the current economic situation and how it compares to when my noble friend Lord McKenzie was in office, he might like to reflect on whether his own assessment may be different from that. However, I can see that the two men are obviously of one mind. I ask the Minister to think very hard. My noble friend Lord McKenzie has put his name to this amendment and is very much supportive of it.

I wonder whether the Minister might also be willing for his department to meet somebody from Together for Short Lives, perhaps with me. I think that they would like to be able to understand the basis of the arguments that he was making, not so much in terms of the money but in terms of other things.

[Lord Freud]

I would appreciate meeting them with the noble Baroness. I really regret what I have had to say.

[Baroness Sherlock]

I thank the Minister for that. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 62B withdrawn.