Welfare Reform Bill

Kate Green Excerpts

Wednesday 1st February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Byrne]

It becomes clearer and clearer that the flaws in this one-cap-fits-all policy loom large indeed.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that we are getting slightly misleading information about the percentage of people who are long-term unemployed? About 40% of them are on jobseeker’s allowance and have been for less than a year; a further 22% have been on employment and support allowance for less than two years; the remainder are on income support and are not required to look for work. These are not long-term unemployed people idling about; they are people who are either not required to look for work or who have not been on benefit for a particularly long time.

[Mr Byrne]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Perhaps if Conservative Members had not tried to play politics and had thought the policy through, we might be in a better place this afternoon.

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[Richard Graham]

As the right hon. Gentleman will have just heard, I came into this House from outside politics, with a background in the public sector, the charity sector and business, where making concessions and being flexible in achieving goals was generally considered to be a merit. Perhaps if he had shown more flexibility in his approach to the handling of taxpayers’ funds, we would not be in quite the situation that we are today. I am sorry, because I enjoy his company, but I came to the conclusion that his approach today does not remotely add up to a policy. It is simply the continuation of a welfare culture by his party that amounts to gross irresponsibility, married to a something for nothing culture.

In summary, the Bill achieves the following goals. It protects the weak, the disadvantaged and the disabled. There are transitional arrangements in place to help families who are unintentional victims of the Bill in places with high housing costs such as London. It does ensure that workers who are paying the tax that goes to support an enormous benefits bill can see that the Government are taking steps to cap the amounts that are paid out. It is the right thing for Gloucester and for this country, and the amendment is a clumsy, last-minute fudge rather than any solution. I have no hesitation in rejecting it and supporting the Government’s proposal.

[Kate Green]

I need only a couple of minutes to ask three questions, particularly in relation to the Lords amendment on leaving child benefit out of the cap.

As has been pointed out many times, families earning £35,000 or £40,000 and families on benefits both receive child benefit—it is a universal benefit. First, then, how can it be right to have the same cap for a single, childless adult as for a family with children? Secondly, why are this Government, of all Governments, importing a new couples penalty into the benefits system? It might make more sense for a couple, each of whom might separately be below the cap, to separate than to stay together and incur it. I have never understood why this Secretary of State, of all Secretaries of State, wants to introduce such a policy.

Thirdly, how will the cap be uprated—if, indeed, it is to be uprated? What will happen if a family is forced to move to cheaper accommodation because its costs exceed the cap, and then rents rise in the new area and it is forced to move again and again and again? Until we know how the cap is to be uprated, children’s well-being and family stability will be put at risk, but I have yet to hear Ministers address that issue.

[Chris Grayling]

In the past hour and 45 minutes, we have listened to a debate that sums up the difference between the Labour party and the parties in government. With the leave of the House, I will respond briefly to the remarks that we have heard.

It is my view—and, I believe, the view of the public listening to this debate—that we have to change the nature of our welfare state. We have to move away from the world that existed under the previous Government, where children grew up, generation after generation, in houses where no one worked, and where entire communities had people with no experience of work in their family and who knew nothing about how to improve their lot in life. In the Bill, we have introduced a package of measures that will do nothing short of transforming our welfare state.

The great tragedy of this afternoon’s debate is that Labour just does not get it. We have seen an extraordinary attempt by Labour to get itself off a highly visible public hook over a policy that commands overwhelming public support in every constituency in the country. If we walked out on to the streets this afternoon and asked the public what they thought about a benefit cap, we would discover that virtually everyone was 100% behind this policy. Yet what we have heard from the Opposition over the weeks has been an exercise in dancing around the issue. There have been moments when they have said that they favour the benefits cap, but there have been moments when they have said that they oppose it.

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[Maria Miller]

Hon. Members will forgive me if I make some progress, as I may answer some of their questions before they ask them.

On the cost of the up-front payment, it is important that we recognise that the system costs the taxpayer almost half a billion pounds a year. We want to ensure that we are using the system to support families properly to take responsibility, but we also need to ensure that we make the prudent savings that taxpayers would expect us to make in these difficult economic times. The cost of charging up front will not disproportionately add cost to the whole system—far from it. We are incentivising people to come to their own arrangements. As I said in reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), more than half the people currently inside the system would like to make their own arrangements. I know that by putting in place an up-front charge we will get some of those people to consider the actions they take.

[Kate Green]

rose—

[Maria Miller]

The hon. Lady will forgive me if I try to make some progress. I know that many hon. Members want to contribute to the debate and we have another significant issue to discuss after this one.

We want to support parents in taking responsibility for their child’s financial support post-separation, so that they do not see the costly and heavy-handed CSA as their only option. As I have said, half the parents using the Child Support Agency tell us they would like to make their own arrangements, with the right support, which clearly demonstrates that the CSA has come to be seen as the default option.

We have already announced that we are putting in place the support that parents need to be able to come to their own agreements, with the collaborative arrangements that are best for children.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Lilley]

I will not, if my hon. Friend will forgive me.

I am also reluctant to take issue with the Lords unnecessarily. When I was Secretary of State for Social Security, I found that from time to time the Lords would propose amendments to legislation that I had introduced. At first I was shocked that anyone could think that my legislation could be improved in any way, but when I listened to what was said by the Lords in general and the bishops in particular, I usually found that it contained an element of truth. There was something worth listening to, even if I could not take on board everything that they proposed. I welcome the fact that my hon. Friend the Minister has listened to them, has modified the charging structure, and has taken their points on board. However, she is probably right not to adopt the whole principle of what the other place suggests.

I am not entirely persuaded of the Lords’ case, because I think that it is right in principle to charge for a costly service, and it is right that the people who principally benefit from it should pay an element of it in the form of a charge, rather than our leaving the entire cost to the other party or the taxpayer. It is right in principle, too, that wherever possible we encourage voluntary agreements, rather than reliance on state-funded bureaucracy, because voluntary agreements, where possible, are better, and because that reduces the load on an over-extended bureaucracy that has never been able to cope with the load that it has; it is better that it focuses on the most obdurate cases.

It is right in principle to charge both parents, as it is not possible, even though their lordships’ amendment implies that it is, to distinguish who is the goody and who the baddy.

[Kate Green]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Lilley]

I will let the hon. Lady make her own points in due course. We may reach our own judgments on who is right and who is wrong, but we cannot make the agency decide that. Both parents will benefit from an arrangement reached by the CSA, and it is right that it should make that arrangement.

I noticed that there were an awful lot of lawyers on the voting lists in the House of Lords. Lawyers do not say, “We won’t charge you if you’re right; we’ll only charge you if you’re wrong. We won’t charge you if you’re the aggrieved party; we’ll only charge the other party.” They should accept that similar rules apply to charging by the CSA.

Finally, as the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) said, now that child support is an addition to a family’s income, rather than it simply being about getting back the taxpayers’ money—I am not sure that it was right to make that move—it is sensible that there should be a charge to the beneficiaries. On balance, I think that my hon. Friend the Minister was right to make the modest concession that she did to her lordships, but to stick to the principle; I am glad that she has done so.

[Kate Green]

I want to make a point on child support, and a point on the Child Poverty Act 2010 and the change that the Government are planning to make to it.

I point out that there is an inequality of bargaining power, particularly in a high-conflict situation, which means that parents with care—usually women—do not have a choice on whether to arrive at a consensual agreement. In practice, women in particular will settle for little or nothing for the sake of a quiet life because they cannot afford the fee. I particularly take exception to the idea that a parent with care who has done everything possible to reach a voluntary agreement, but who meets with a resistant, recalcitrant non-resident parent, will have to pay a fee when it is absolutely no fault of hers that she and, more to the point, her children do not get the financial support that they should.

The right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley) says that it is right that those who benefit from or seek to access the service should pay a fee, but it is children who are intended to benefit from a statutory system of child support. Is it right that money intended for children should be hypothecated in that way?

The right hon. Gentleman and the Minister seem to believe that it is impossible for the child support system to take a view on which parent is at fault, but in clause 138 of the Bill, that view is taken by the system, because access to the collection service is being limited to cases in which the commission has decided that maintenance will not otherwise be payable. If it is possible for the commission to make that assessment and to determine that there is no prospect of the non-resident parent making payment, how can no view be taken on whether efforts have been made to receive a voluntary payment or not?

The majority of lone parents are women and women are already typically worse off after separation or divorce whereas men are better off. The fact that those parents will now be hit with a further fee as there will be both an up-front fee and a fee for collection when that collection fails—although I welcome the fact that the fee has been cut to £20, I would like to see it at zero—means that those families on low incomes will be left with very little income.

[Maria Miller]

How does the hon. Lady suggest that the agency should decide which parent stood in the way of an agreement? Would she take the same view as was taken in the debate in the other place, which is that it would always be the non-resident parent’s fault that an agreement was not in place?

[Kate Green]

The point is that a system is being established whereby the parent with care must access the system. There will be a discussion at that point about the process by which that approach to the agency is made. There is no difficulty at all at that point in taking a decision about the responsibility and behaviour of the parent making that application. I cannot understand why the Government think that it is perfectly okay for other officials in the DWP to make decisions on whether people are making appropriate efforts to make themselves available for employment, but not for a decision to be taken on whether a parent has properly engaged in a process of seeking to reach agreement with a non-resident parent.

I also want to speak briefly about the Government’s proposal to amend the obligation on the child poverty target under the Child Poverty Act. The current obligation is for the Government to report on the progress that must be made to achieve child poverty targets—targets to which every party in this House has signed up. There will now be a far weaker requirement simply to report on proposed measures. In other words, there will be an obligation on the Government to report on what they might or might not do, but absolutely no obligation to report on whether it works or on what difference it makes. That undermines what lies at the heart of the Act, which was a genuine wish across the House in the previous Parliament to see real progress in bringing down child poverty and for every politician in this House to be accountable for that outcome.

I very much regret such a weakening of the Child Poverty Act. In future, the Government could legally produce a child poverty strategy that makes no reference to the number of children in poverty—an extremely important measure in driving progress—and has no clear goals for how the proposed actions will reduce that number. When the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies suggests that the cumulative impact of the Government’s welfare reforms on other measures will be to drive up child poverty between now and 2015 and onwards to 2020, one has to wonder whether the proposal is not a rather cynical and calculating step on the part of the Government to wriggle out of an obligation that they know they are not on track to meet.

[Jenny Willott]

I want to speak quickly on under-occupancy and the Child Support Agency.

The main concern on the Liberal Democrat Benches about under-occupancy and the housing benefit proposals—as hon. Members have heard from a couple of my colleagues and from Members on both sides of the House—is about the impact on rural areas and, in particular, the Scottish islands. There is also a concern about urban areas where an active allocation policy has meant that families have been given larger houses in areas that are less popular. I appreciate that it is difficult to lay out in legislation the need to ensure that tenants are offered appropriate alternative accommodation, but it is important that we ensure that when alternative offers are made they should take into account issues such as family and support networks, which are particularly important in helping people to get back into work. Offers should also take into account the distance people will have to travel, how that will relate to the communities, the lack of public transport in rural areas and so on, as well as where people are working and how easy it is for them to commute if they are required to move.

I understand that the Government will be doing that through discretionary housing payments, but I would be grateful if the Minister would ensure that guidance making those elements very clear is provided for local authorities. I know that discretionary housing payments are ring-fenced, and that is extremely important, but it is also important that general rules taking into account a sensible approach of looking at community links and the availability of alternative accommodation, or lack thereof, are applied across the country.