Welfare Reform Bill

Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville Excerpts

Monday 23rd January 2012 Lords Chamber

[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.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, this is an important amendment that we can wholeheartedly support. I pay tribute to the right reverend Prelate for his leadership and support for this proposition that has come from many quarters, especially the faith communities. Far from being out of touch, we know that it is the faith communities that so often reach the most disadvantaged people and that statutory services, for all the want of trying, simply cannot reach them.

The debate is fundamentally about fairness. I do not propose to repeat or answer all the points that have been raised. That is the Minister’s job but I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, that if this were about undermining universal credit we would not support it. That is not what it is about; it is a completely separate issue. It has become very confused in the debates we have had both before and now.

I shall speak a little about the dependency culture issue. As I said before, I thought that universal credit was the mechanism to encourage people into work, into the labour market, and to make it clear that being in work paid. That was the key government policy. If that is not sufficient and if it is a deficient policy that needs another component, as said by my noble friend Lady Sherlock, perhaps the Minister can explain that. If this is to drive everyone who is caught by the cap into employment, how does the Minister deal with the point that fewer than half the people on the updated analysis of those who will be caught by it are, on the Government’s own assessment, not required to work, not fit for work or have responsibilities for young children that place them outside the properly constructed category of those who should be expected to work and not rely on benefits? Does the Minister say that somehow the broad policy and all the assessments that have been put in place as a result of universal credit have to be torn up and rewritten for this specific category of 75,000 households? If so, perhaps he can tell us precisely why.