Welfare Reform Bill

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Monday 23rd January 2012 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds]

My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 58D for a number of reasons. The figure of 80,000 people who could be made homeless—really homeless—by the cap must be alarming to us all, not least because it comes when homelessness is, in any case, increasing across our country, partly because of the increase in unemployment at the moment. The number of homeless people in west Yorkshire is rising steadily and churches and others in the county are increasingly involved in providing night shelter accommodation for the homeless. Any arrangement which seeks to find accommodation for people is liable, in practice, to see some of them slipping through the net and finding themselves with nowhere to go at all. Just this weekend, churches in Halifax have begun to offer that particular service but those who are providing the service are frightened that an already inadequate service, as they would say, will be made hopelessly so by extensive homelessness as a result of the cap.

In addition, I support Amendment 58D because, at last, it gets children into Clause 94. I retain that major concern for children whose parents are made redundant and become unemployed. Such children are in danger of losing not only their home, but also their school, their friendship groups and their local contacts. Schools are very concerned about the possibility of children being moved from one locality to another as a result of their parents becoming unemployed and as a result of the effects of the cap. There is not only an effect on those children but also on their friends and the whole life of the school. Later, we shall debate the issue of child benefit, but this amendment will defend a significant number of children. It is those who cannot speak for themselves who are likely to suffer as a result of the cap. This amendment will go some way to preventing a spiral of homelessness and it will relieve the pressure on some of those vulnerable people who are affected by the cap. I hope that noble Lords will feel able to support it.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

My Lords, I find it remarkable that the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, says that the Labour Party in principle supports a cap, but in this particular instance thinks that somehow it should be alleviated. We face a considerable deficit in this country and the social security bill is certainly one of the largest elements of public spending. If we continue to find all sorts of ways of alleviating measures that the Government are taking, no savings whatever will be made to the social security bill.

This is also an opportunity to change attitudes completely. We are privileged in our House to have the right reverend Prelates on the Bishops’ Benches. I think it was Alastair Campbell who said of Tony Blair, “We don’t do God”, but in this House we do not have to be inhibited in that way. We can talk about the morality of a benefits system that encourages single mothers to have more children, because the more children they have the more benefit they get. Is that moral? I have my doubts. Is it moral for a Somali family to move down from the Birmingham area to Hampstead because they wanted to live in a more salubrious part of London where it was extremely expensive to house them? Is it moral to have a benefits system that pins people in their houses and prevents them going out and looking for work, given that underlying this is the Government’s intention that people should be encouraged to go and find work?

Of course people will have to move, but that is what people in the private sector do. I question the morality of having a benefits system that gives people infinitely more money than the take-home pay of people on average earnings in this country. It is the taxpayers who are paying for these very high levels of benefit. I support this cap and I hope that the House will vote against the amendment.

[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.