Social Security

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Wednesday 14th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Employment (Damian Hinds)]

I beg to move,

That the draft Welfare Reform and Work (Northern Ireland) Order 2016, which was laid before this House on 6 July, be approved.

The order will ensure that the welfare reforms enabled by the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016 in Great Britain are delivered in Northern Ireland while also ensuring that the Northern Ireland Executive have a workable budget. This order is an important part of delivering the “Fresh Start” agreement and will enable the Northern Ireland Executive to provide for supplementary welfare payments from within their own budget. Before the “Fresh Start” agreement, the impasse on agreeing the implementation of welfare reform meant that the Northern Ireland Executive had been operating on an unworkable budget. This had created significant political instability and it risked collapsing the devolution settlement.

This order today brings changes that will help to ensure that the budget of the Northern Ireland Executive is placed on a stable footing. We want to work with the Executive to support a Northern Ireland where politics works—a Northern Ireland with a stronger economy and a stronger, secure and united society. It is in the light of these goals that the Government have agreed to legislate on behalf of the Executive to enable the welfare reform changes in the Welfare Reform Act 2012 and the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016 to be implemented. Those changes include the introduction of universal credit, personal independence payments and the benefit cap. This formed an integral part of the “Fresh Start” agreement in November last year.

The Welfare Reform (Northern Ireland) Order passed in December last year has enabled the making of more than 30 sets of regulations replicating in Northern Ireland the welfare reforms in the 2012 Act. The order before the House today is the next step in that process. It has been drafted with the full consent and collaboration of the Northern Ireland Executive to bring social security in Northern Ireland back to a position of parity, thereby helping to rebalance and strengthen the finances of the Executive.

Across the UK, our welfare reforms have focused on supporting people to find and keep work. They have focused on employment, fairness and affordability while supporting the vulnerable. Over the past six years, we have stuck to our economic plan, delivered welfare reform and seen great progress, with employment up 2.7 million. Broadening life chances is a central part of this Government’s plans. In Northern Ireland, the raising of tax thresholds will take 110,000 of the lowest paid people out of income tax altogether, and 700,000 people will benefit from reduced taxes. Also, 100,000 people in Northern Ireland are projected to benefit from the national living wage by 2020. The Government’s support for working people goes hand in hand with the welfare reform programme to encourage people into work.

We have also invested in Northern Ireland. The Stormont House and “Fresh Start” agreements included financial packages of £2.5 billion to support investment and reform. This includes £350 million of additional capital borrowing explicitly for economic development projects. By working together, the Government and the Executive have achieved significant successes, including bringing £60 million of additional finance to Northern Ireland businesses, providing additional borrowing for shared education projects and boosting green investment by £70 million.

In Northern Ireland, 55,000 more people are in employment than in 2010, but there is much more still to be done. The most recent Northern Ireland unemployment rate of 5.6% is above the overall UK average of 4.9%. The percentage of unemployed people who have been out of work for more than a year is 47.8%—markedly higher than the UK average of 27%. Some 22% of working-age households in Northern Ireland are workless compared with 15% in the UK as a whole.

The Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016 built on the 2012 reforms, and this order provides the legislative framework to replicate some of its most important aspects, including changes such as improving fairness in the welfare system by changing the level of the benefit the cap. The order will ensure parity by bringing the cap that exists in Great Britain to Northern Ireland. Changes also include providing new funding for additional support to help employment and support allowance and universal credit claimants with health conditions and disabilities into work and removing the ESA work-related activity component, so that the right support and incentives are in place for those who are able to take steps back to work. The unsustainable rise in benefit levels compared with earnings will be corrected by freezing most working-age benefits. Importantly, the changes will help to ensure that the budget of the Northern Ireland Executive is placed on a stable footing.

It was agreed in the “Fresh Start” agreement that the Executive could supplement benefits from within their own budget. The agreement allocated up to £585 million of the Executive’s block grant over four years to provide for supplementary welfare payments in Northern Ireland, and that will be reviewed in three years. Under the 2015 order, the Assembly has already passed some regulations for supplementary welfare payments relating to the 2012 reforms. The provisions of this order will give the Assembly the ability to design and pass further such regulations, including supplementary payments to those affected by the removal of the spare room subsidy. These time-limited payments follow the recommendations of the Evason report, which flowed from a commitment in the “Fresh Start” agreement.

The order is about delivering the “Fresh Start” agreement and returning Northern Ireland to a position of legislative parity and financial stability, and I commend it to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Hinds]

Let me emphasise that this order fulfils a vital commitment made as part of the “Fresh Start” agreement. We have had a robust debate on some of the historical aspects of how we got to this point. In the interests of time, I think it best that I do not reflect further on that. Suffice it to say that the two largest parties in the Assembly signed up to the “Fresh Start” agreement of which this legislation was a crucial part. Moreover, the Assembly passed a legislative consent motion supporting the legislation to be dealt with here in Westminster. As the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds) said, Northern Ireland has long kept to parity on social security, as set out in section 87 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998. Restoring that parity is a crucial part of keeping the Executive’s finances stable. The provisions on the welfare supplementary payments will be put forward in full detail by the Executive and the Assembly.

In response to the question about taxation from the hon. Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie), supplementary payments to non-taxable benefits will be non-taxable, and supplementary payments to taxable benefits will be taxable, so the tax treatment will be the same as in the current system.

This order is a crucial part of delivering the “Fresh Start” agreement. It will help to build a politically and financially stable Northern Ireland. I commend it to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That the draft Welfare Reform and Work (Northern Ireland) Order 2016, which was laid before this House on 6 July, be approved.