Welfare Reform Bill

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Although in theory mechanisms do exist to recover payments, the process is much more difficult than one would wish. I take her point, and my ministerial colleagues and I will continue to seek ways of ensuring that in such an eventuality, we can make recoveries.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

While the Minister considers that issue, will he also consider the case of the many hundreds of thousands of British people who live in Spain, who often rely on support, especially from the national health service and many other services that they receive, from the Spanish Government? The same applies elsewhere in Europe.

[Chris Grayling]

The hon. Gentleman is of course correct, but I am sure that he would also agree that if someone comes to live and work in this country, receives benefit payments and then returns overseas, they carry with them an obligation that they should fulfil. That is the sole point that my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) was making, and it is one that I think Members on both sides of the House would see as common sense. There is freedom of movement across Europe, but we must make sure that the mechanisms are in place to ensure that our systems are not abused. The primary purpose of DEA is to enforce recovery where the debtor is in pay-as-you-earn employment and will not make other arrangements for debt repayment. I think that that is a sensible approach to take.

I apologise to the Opposition for the fact that we were unable to bring the new clause forward in Committee. It has been very carefully considered and discussed in our regulatory processes. We have brought it forward at this time and hope that they will not find it controversial. One of the reasons why I hope that they will not find it controversial is that there is currently something of an anomaly in the system. If someone incurs a penalty, for whatever reason, and remains in the benefit system, we can recover that money through a deduction from the benefit payments they receive. However, if they move into PAYE employment and basically say, “No way. Go away,” we currently have no mechanism for recovering the debt that is owed. That is the purpose of the measures that we are considering.

The rates of deduction will be determined in the regulations, which will include a safeguard to ensure that deductions do not take the debtor beneath a given level of earnings. That is necessary and common practice in the operation of similar arrangements in other parts of society where deductions are made—for example, with court-related penalties and deductions for child maintenance. It is essential that we do not deduct money at a rate that will tip the person concerned below a given level of earnings. It is, and will be, a basic principle that recovery of overpaid benefits should not cause undue hardship.