Welfare Reform and Work Bill (Ninth sitting)

Hannah Bardell Excerpts

Thursday 15th October 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment 19, in clause 16, page 15, line 25, at end insert—

‘(7A) The waiting period before a person can apply for a loan under this section shall be 13 weeks.”

To require that the waiting period before an application for a loan for mortgage interest can be made is 13 weeks.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen, ill or not.

Housing costs are never far away from our discussions in this Committee, and the clause brings the subject back into focus in a new and unexpected way. It is not at all clear to me what the Government are trying to achieve with this strange proposal. Support for mortgage interest—SMI—is a benefit that has been in existence in some form or another since 1948. It is the same age as the welfare state and the national health service and is paid exclusively to those on the lowest incomes. It is an important part of the social safety net, the entire principle of which is undermined when we start talking about replacing benefits with loans, which is what the proposal would do.

We have tabled mostly probing amendments to clauses 16 to 18. We do not believe that interest-bearing loans have a place in the social security system at all, but we have sought to highlight some of the most serious flaws in the proposal in the hope that the Government might reassure us that the consequences of the changes have been adequately thought through because, at first blush, it seems to us that they have not.

Towards the end of Tuesday’s sitting, we began to air some of the arguments about waiting periods. The Government made clear their intention to fix the waiting period for SMI loans at 39 weeks, which is three times its current level. That is without a doubt a substantial change. The waiting period was set at 13 weeks in 2008 when the global financial crisis prompted the then Labour Government to shorten the waiting period as part of a range of measures intended to prevent homeowners from going into arrears and facing repossession of their homes.

A research report published by the Department for Work and Pensions in 2011—I recommend the Minister reads it because it is very interesting and enlightening—says that the measures were successful. It stated that the changes

“resulted in more people being assisted, more fully and sooner. Borrowers accrued lower levels of arrears or none at all”

and

“lenders have been more willing to forbear and not seek possession.”

The report was published in 2011 and can be found on the Government’s DWP website.

Reversing the process by reverting to a 39-week waiting period is counterintuitive and likely to be counterproductive. It seems likely to increase the probability of homeowners facing repossession and homelessness when they fall on hard times. If the measure is about saving money, making things more difficult for people who find themselves falling on hard times when trying to buy their home and more likely that repossession will happen earlier is counterintuitive because of the costs to us all to look after the people whose homes have been repossessed. As we discussed on Tuesday, I was disappointed that there was no mention of that in the latest Government impact assessment.

The Government have not been able to provide any reassurance that there is a robust evidence base or, indeed, any evidence base at all for the contention that the charge will not risk an increase in homelessness. The best that the Minister could do on Tuesday was to tell us:

“The Council of Mortgage Lenders has not said that the 39-week wait will drive repossessions. That is an eminently respected organisation, and it would have said if it felt that was the case.”––[Official Report, Welfare Reform and Work Public Bill Committee, 12 October 2015; c. 360.]

I was interested and frankly surprised to hear that, and thought perhaps I had misheard it. I gave the Minister the benefit of the doubt at the time, but I am afraid I do not now. I wondered if the Council of Mortgage Lenders had looked into this in a bit more depth than the Government, so I went back and looked over its submission to the Committee. Imagine my surprise when I found that the view it had expressed on the waiting period was the exact opposite of what the Minister told us! For the sake of clarity, I will quote the submission at length, because it is a very helpful document:

“If the waiting time is extended, as planned, we believe that it will result in more cases of repossession as lenders will not be able to allow their customers to continue to accrue mortgage arrears over this period especially where the customer is unable to make any payment. Lenders already have to carefully balance allowing a person to remain in their home while not allowing their financial position to worsen. Extending the waiting time will only cause additional consumer detriment.”

There we are. The council is against it. The one piece of evidence that the Minister was able to cite in support of extending the waiting period turns out to be nothing of the kind.

The Government have to do better than that. In order to persuade Members on the Opposition Benches, the Government ought to make an effort to produce some evidence or opinion from someone apart from Government Ministers that shows that the proposal is a good idea, and that extending the waiting period for mortgage lenders to get repayment will not mean an increase in homelessness. That, I appreciate, is an uphill task, but it is one they have set themselves.

I appreciate that I am a cracked record on this, but we must go beyond the rhetoric and look at evidence. Social policy should be based on evidence, and I will be interested to hear whether there is any evidence to show that extending the period from 13 weeks to 39 weeks, as the Government want, will actually help anybody.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship once again, Mr Owen. The Scottish National party supports the intentions behind Labour’s amendment 19, because access to support must be available within 13 weeks and not the proposed 39 weeks.

According to Shelter, around £300 million per annum in SMI is “small” in terms of welfare spending, but it is very important:

“It covers the interest payments for around 200,000 home owners on their mortgages, meaning that they are less likely to be forced into having their home repossessed and, ultimately, to end up homeless.”

Shelter also says that SMI has

“tight eligibility criteria and is restricted to very low income households who are out of work, pensioners or sick or disabled. In fact, the overwhelming majority of recipients of SMI either qualify through pension credit or employment and support allowance.”

They are already some of the most vulnerable benefit claimants, so adding a further burden by turning the benefit into a loan is essentially giving with one hand and taking away with the other. We do not support the Government’s attack on the weakest by forcing more and more vulnerable people to take on the added burden of debt just to get out of hard times. How can we define that as welfare?

Amendment 19 would ensure a waiting period for applications by eligible claimants for support with mortgage interest of 13 weeks. That would offer protection against the Government increasing the waiting period, as they have done with statutory instrument No. 1647, which will increase the waiting period to 39 weeks from 1 April 2016. The explanatory memorandum to the instrument states:

“The provisions in this instrument introduce a 39 week waiting period for all working age claimants who are required to serve a waiting period before housing costs, including payment of eligible mortgage interest, can be paid.”

We do not want yet more financial pressure on benefit claimants due to having to wait more than half a year to receive financial help with their mortgage interest payments, let alone the added pressure of that financial help pushing them into further long-term debt when that benefit is turned into a loan. Has the Minister had discussions with the Scottish Government on the implications of that change from support to loan, which will impact the people of Scotland by pushing them into further debt? I would be grateful for information on that.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Shailesh Vara)]

It is a pleasure, Mr Owen, to serve under your chairmanship. First, may I clarify one point concerning the Council of Mortgage Lenders? The other day, I spoke in good faith and on the basis of the many regular meetings that we have with the CML during which the issue has not been raised at all. Indeed, Paul Smee, its director general, did not raise the issue when he was in a meeting with my ministerial colleague, the noble Lord Freud, when they met in early September. Although the CML has definitely said that it believes that the 39-week waiting period will drive repossessions, they are unable to quantify numbers of repossessions. We will continue to work with the CML to assess any such impact in terms of repossessions but we do not believe that these will be significant.

--- Later in debate ---

[Hannah Bardell]

I will make this brief. In Scotland, people did not vote for the Conservative manifesto or the Conservatives’ austerity cuts—more than 50% voted for the SNP. However, on the specific point I asked about—I apologise if I missed the answer—what discussions has the Minister had on the clause with the Scottish Government? It will affect people in Scotland.

[Mr Vara]

I will happily answer that question. There has been contact at official level, and the engagement will certainly continue with the Administration in Scotland.

Government amendment 129 is a straightforward technical amendment, which will ensure that new clause 13 has the same extent as clauses 16 and 17 and apply to England, Wales and Scotland. I hope the hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury will withdraw the amendment and accept Government new clause 13 and Government amendment 129.