Universal Credit

Lord Freud Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Freud)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord German for bringing this Question to the House. As noble Lords have said, I promised to come back with the findings of the review that I committed to undertake as we went through the Pensions Act 2014. Noble Lords have referred to my Written Statement on 23 October. The regulations for the measures were brought into force last November.

Let me remind noble Lords of the context. Concerns were raised by Peers, particularly by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, and my noble friend Lord German about the universal credit requirements placed on the parents of bereaved children. I have to say that the noble Baroness’s speech during the Committee stage of the Pensions Bill really resonated with me personally. She highlighted the fact that difficult circumstances can cause a substantial and varying amount of distress for children, and that parents and carers need time to provide them with additional care, support and stability. We have built a clearer, more demanding welfare system which places robust requirements on claimants. But placing robust expectations also means recognising that we should suspend these requirements at certain times, providing temporary relief from conditionality to deal with the situation without moving claimants too far away from the world of work.

I should like to mention that I have been ably supported in my considerations of the review findings by two external expert advisers—which is one up from the number recommended by my noble friend Lord German. They are Dr Jane Callaghan from the British Psychological Society and Karina Dancza from the College of Occupational Therapists. I am very grateful to them for their invaluable support. I should add that I also gained enormously from the insights from our own people on the front line, in particular Colin Cottingham and Graham Sandilands, who know what it is to help parents in this situation.

The review concluded that there are particular situations—bereavement or a child witnessing or being a victim of violence or abuse—where there is compelling evidence that children were very likely to experience a period of acute distress following such an event and where additional support would be required from the parent. These situations cover a wide range of circumstances where child distress can occur. There will be other circumstances that are not covered where we would expect our work coaches to use the current tailoring and discretion available in exactly the same way.

I decided to make these policy changes through regulations, as recommended by the review, as opposed to doing so purely in guidance. These regulations establish a clear and consistent framework for work coaches, which is so important when exploring such sensitive topics. More circumstances, such as homelessness, as my noble friend mentioned, could be included in regulations at a future time if evidence suggests that that is appropriate.

The review found that a six-month suspension of requirements for parents of children in cases of bereavement and domestic violence would normally be appropriate. We have therefore extended, from the previous three months to the current six months, the suspension of conditionality requirements for victims fleeing domestic violence where they are responsible for caring for their child. As the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, noted, child distress is not a linear process and families may experience late effects of dealing with grief. To help support their children in these circumstances the parent will be able to access a new one-month suspension of requirements once in every six-month period for a period of up to two years following the death or incident of violence or abuse.

I want to be clear: we will not seek to assess the child’s distress. Instead, we will look to identify the situation that has occurred and the impact it is having on the family unit. In terms of evidence, I do not want to introduce an overly bureaucratic system. When a claimant first accesses the one-month easement for the reasons set out in the regulations, if the work coach is satisfied that the situation is having an impact on the claimant’s ability to fulfil their conditionality requirements they will allow the easement. The work coach will at the same time ask the claimant to provide appropriate evidence. But unless work coaches think that it is necessary, we will not delay this first one-month easement because of waiting for evidence.

The form of that evidence is not set in stone. We do not expect evidence to detail the child’s distress but it should provide work coaches with information on the additional caring responsibilities that the claimant is undertaking. The types of acceptable evidence are varied and could include appointments at the child’s school, social services, healthcare professionals in connection with the child, additional childcare responsibilities or support arrangements. To help provide subsequent and ongoing support to families where longer than a month is needed to get them back on track, work coaches will make use of the discretionary tailoring available to personalise requirements in the light of individual circumstances. This helps to ensure that claimants can move on in a way that is appropriate to those circumstances.

When a parent has had a previous easement, this makes it easier for work coaches to identify the need for ongoing support and, as a result, to apply discretionary conditionality easements. I hope that that will provide the flexibility that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth and my noble friend Lady Miller were looking for. I echo the words of admiration of the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, for those deeply personal contributions and experience in this area.

We have strong evidence that shows that work has a positive impact on individuals and their families. Focusing on bereavement, the review found that the existing six-month conditionality easement is appropriate. It did not find evidence that extending the six-month period would benefit the majority of those who have been bereaved. My experts advised me that this, combined with very clear and supportive tailored conditionality, should help parents to cope. I am not saying, by any means, that the grieving process is over by six months. But the evidence shows that usually by this time, a person’s grief is no longer a barrier to their continued life, although it may not be normality as they used to experience it. Many parents facing difficult circumstances want to return to work, for themselves and for their children.

I recognise the concerns that noble Lords have expressed about the level of work coach capability in this whole area, which is why, as part of this review, my officials worked with experts in the field to develop guidance for jobcentre staff. The stakeholders we worked with include the Childhood Bereavement Network, WAY, Gingerbread, Child Poverty Action Group, Grandparents Plus and Refuge, to name but a few.

The universal credit learning programme ensures that work coaches have up-to-date skills to deal with any claimant interaction and support them in making relevant and appropriate decisions on an individual basis. The training focuses on providing a personalised, flexible service to claimants and treating them as individuals, building strong relationships with them. To ensure that work coaches adhere to standards, we have put in place a quality assurance framework which managers use to monitor the service and to ensure a high-quality level of support. I hope that that gives some reassurance to the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, in this area.

Let me now pick up on a few of the questions that have been asked in the short time we have had for this debate. In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, the six-month bereavement provisions can be found in regulation 99(3)(d). As to my noble friend’s concern about transitional protection in UC, this would be not affected by invoking this particular relief. In numbers terms, we expect that no more than 10,000 claimants a year will take up the easement when universal credit is fully rolled out. We do not have information on the numbers currently affected but they are likely to be extremely small. People subject to in-work conditionality will be able to access the same conditionality easements. However, I emphasise that in-work conditionality is at the beginning of its exploratory phase for getting it right. It is therefore currently not a policy with hard edges.

I think that I have dealt with all of the issues. I shall look through the debate and if there are one or two questions that I have not had time to deal with, I shall write to noble Lords.

We are building a new welfare system at the moment, which is a major endeavour. We cannot do so without talking and listening to people. I am extraordinarily grateful for all the help that I have had in this House over the past few years to get to a positive result in this and other areas. In this particular case, I thank again the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay—she made her point so effectively that it convinced me that action was needed—and I thank my noble friend for showing such tenacity in pushing for the process to be taken forward at speed. It has meant that the changes were introduced at the same time as we are now rolling out universal credit to families in the north-west. We are now up to 26 jobcentres where families are part of the process.

I am grateful to the House for trusting me to do this exercise without all the normal paraphernalia. It has meant that we have been able to do it quickly and I hope that noble Lords are satisfied with the outcome.