Welfare Reform Bill

Lord Bishop of Chichester Excerpts

Monday 23rd January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wigley]

My Lords, in Committee when we addressed this question, there was a suggestion that as many as 200,000 people—I have not heard the figure gainsaid—may have to move from areas of high rents to areas of low rents. The noble Lord who has just spoken said that of course people will have to move. But where will they move to? We have heard mention of Middlesbrough in the north-east and Merthyr Tydfil in south Wales—areas where unemployment is high, the chances of getting a job are very low indeed and where local circumstances place tremendous pressures on social services departments. If not just the generality of those who cannot afford the rent in expensive areas such as the south-east but particularly those with special needs covered by the amendment are moved to areas that may not have the resources to cope with them, we will inevitably build up pressures when we should avoid doing so. We will build up pressures in the communities to which those people may move. Even more seriously, we will build up pressures for families who will essentially be forced to move away from their relatives, grandparents and friends in school. Is this really the sort of policy that our Government support? I urge the House to support this amendment.

[The Lord Bishop of Chichester]

My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, for responding to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton. I was feeling anxious abut what I should say but the noble Lord has largely made my case for me. One of the issues here is not just the moral and philosophical question of whether the benefits system needs to incentivise people to work and to take the initiative in their lives. We can all agree on that. The issue is that the Bill is going through the House at a time of unprecedented austerity when burdens are falling on families who are among the most vulnerable. There are times when one has the luxury of having a big social debate but this is not the time when we should burden poor families with more costs and burdens. We should debate these big philosophical questions on other occasions when we have more leisure to do so.

[Lord Winston]

I had not intended to intervene in this short debate, but I have just heard something that I feel is utterly wrong—the idea that people who are on benefit are having more children and thus keeping themselves on benefit. The evidence shows that this is simply not true. Populations expand when people are poor, women are ill educated and there is a lack of services to families. Surely, that argument cannot be used in this context in this Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Newton of Braintree]

The issue is at what level the benefit cap should be set, and whether to set a different level that automatically puts people with children, depending on the number, in a position in which fewer of them can afford to take jobs at the rates they are likely to be able to command. It is a matter of judgment not of fact. It is an issue that cannot be evaded, but it has been evaded in a lot of the discussion we have had tonight. I will not vote for the amendment but I will not dismiss the concerns, particularly those addressed by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. They need to be addressed by Ministers in working out the detail. I repeat my phrase that I will join in on holding their feet to the fire but I will not join in on this rather hasty and ill considered amendment today.

[The Lord Bishop of Chichester]

My Lords, I was very tempted to intervene in the middle of what the noble Lord, Lord Newton, was saying when he accused the Bishops of suggesting that we wished to have no cap at all. I have not heard one of us say that, but I am glad that I did not intervene as he then admitted that he did not really mean that and talked about us trying to raise the level of the cap. I am glad that I was patient.

I do not want to intrude on what my friend the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds will say later, but I want to address something that has not come up yet. Quite a lot has been said about the popularity of this Bill, particularly the cap. One has to be fairly careful about being too quick in response to vox pop when making legislation. If we were debating capital punishment, for example, I suspect that many of the same things would be said. If we were to tease out what public opinion was concerned about, I suspect that we would probably find a remarkable unanimity of view within the House about the end we want, but the question of limitation is important. There have to be limitations on benefits and there have to be limitations on all sorts of other things, such as rents, but that point has already been made. I suspect that there would be a remarkable degree of agreement about the need to incentivise people to work and encourage a culture in which society as a whole sees the point of work, and particularly that young people are educated with a vision and the desirability of a career.

Finally, I suspect that there would be considerable sympathy and recognition of the dependency culture that we have inadvertently allowed to develop, and out of which we need to enable society as a whole to grow. The question is: who bears the price of that change and in what time does it change? I agree entirely—I suspect that I have the mind of my colleagues on this—that we need to change the mind of society on how we address a number of things. This Bill, properly refined, could well contribute towards that. We also have to help to educate public opinion in the way in which it responds to vox pop surveys. I suspect that another thing on which people would agree—we might find a high degree of popular agreement—is that in the provision for children in their homes, their education, and the stability of their family lives lie the best possible foundation for the future. If you ask people that question rather than some others that get knee-jerk reactions, I suspect that we would find much greater unanimity in the country about what we are trying to achieve. I suggest caution on having too easy a reliance on popular opinion polls.

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

This will be not a Second Reading speech but a Second Reading remark, I hope said quickly enough to save my noble friend the Whip getting up gently to rebuke me. It would not have been relevant on the previous amendment but it is on this one.

The noble Lord, Lord Best—I almost called him my noble friend—indicated that homelessness was already on the rise. This debate is about homelessness as much as it is about fairness to children, and will be used as a quarry for homelessness policy in the future. Homelessness can still occur under this amendment in the future where the previous amendment sought to prevent it.

I shall make a counterintuitive comment. For 24 years I represented in the other place what was almost certainly the most poverty-stricken Conservative seat in the country by the proportions of standard household criteria. A lot of my homeless constituents were moved from hotel to hotel, frequently outside my constituency, and often from constituency to constituency. I do not recall anyone talking before about this diaspora but there is no policy, no rule and no mutual convention as to who their MP is as they move to different places. If MPs are not agreed about who their MP is, the poor homeless family cannot be expected to know. In the process, beyond the price their children pay educationally and socially by moving, the whole family pays a democratic price in not knowing who represents them. Believe me, as a former inner-city MP, I know that they stand in considerable need of representation. As a London Member, the present Secretary of State can almost certainly recognise this problem but I reward my Whip’s silence by saying that I am in favour of the cap.