Welfare Reform Bill

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wigley]

My Lords, we delved into this issue in quite considerable depth in Committee, and I do not want to rake over areas that we have covered. However, I suspect that there is a fundamental question here, which I think the Minister accepts—namely, that there will always be some people who find it difficult, if not impossible, to handle a lump-sum budget that is meant to cover a month. In those circumstances, some mechanism—whether it is a voluntary one making a facility available, as suggested by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, a moment ago, or some other mechanism—has to be brought forward by the Government to ensure that these people are helped to avoid getting into financial difficulties. That must be in the interests of the Government and everybody who is concerned about children, in particular, who may be vulnerable as a consequence of such action. I think that the House would be very glad to hear from the Minister how he sees the operation of a mechanism that will ensure in a minority of cases where the monthly pattern does not fit that a system is in place to answer the needs of these vulnerable families.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

My Lords, I am a relative newcomer to this debate but I should like to pick up one point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, who said that cost had never been an issue here. I cannot quite understand why money would not be saved if payments were made monthly rather than weekly. It seems to me that a saving would be made there, and surely we are trying to achieve savings because of the economic situation that this Government have inherited.

I should like to pick up one other point from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester. He seemed to think that it was a bad idea that the Government were trying to introduce a culture change. I should have thought that that was rather a good idea. Surely we are trying to get people into a mindset whereby they move into the world of work and come off benefits. Anything that can be done to encourage that seems to be a good idea. However, I should like some guidance from the Minister on whether there is any saving to be made here and whether he has any idea how much it would come to.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I, too, have sat right the way through Committee and have been very persuaded that some families—I accept that they are mainly families with children—who are not good managers of money will have difficulties in meeting the Minister’s no doubt otherwise ideal method of providing these benefits. However, I argue that there will be people other than those with families who may not be good with their sums or who, because of mental health problems or other reasons, might much prefer to have weekly or fortnightly payments, rather than monthly payments, which would mean a larger gap to fill with few finances.

Having said that, I accept that the Government clearly have plans in mind for sorting out this problem. However, echoing what others have said, it will be very important to get the support of those of us who have sat through all these debates by explaining in considerable detail exactly how the system will work and what flexibility it will contain. I hope that the Minister will be able to respond to those points.