Welfare Reform Bill

Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope]

My Lords, like others, I was absent from the last sitting of the Committee, unavoidably. I was having my gardening wound attended to in a magnetic resonance machine; I think I am still radioactive but I hope it is not affecting other people.

I am in favour of these amendments. Conditionality is an important part of this and I am not sure that we have got it right, although the principle of conditionality was hammered out almost to infinity over the last two welfare reform Bills and it is now a more or less agreed policy. That is not to say that we have not got to get some of these important questions right. The expertise of the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, is acknowledged in this field. It was demonstrated beyond any doubt in the last two welfare reform Bills and the Committee is the better for having his experience. Having buttered him up, I should say that this debate is at risk of being incoherent. I would much rather have had a conditionality debate over a solid period without a whole list of disaggregated amendments.

I am about to lose my well established credit with the Committee because I am going to repeat myself. I was looking at this last night when I came in. The Marshalled List was substantially different and I was looking forward to an all embracing principled debate, because we all know that if you have to resort to conditionality this policy is not working. I know this because I am a director of the Wise Group, and colleagues know that. If you have to inflict penalties in big numbers in circumstances that are not clearly defined, there is something wrong that needs to be fixed further up the food chain.

I want to continue with my whinge for another moment if Members will indulge me. I am very worried that there are four or five big issues here, one of them being disability, that we are not going to give proper time to if we disaggregate the amendments to the extent they were overnight. It is not for me to tell people how they do their business and I am speaking for no one but myself but I notice how far we are down the sitting stage. I have been here before—as the noble Lord, Lord Steel, said famously in the Chamber the other day, I didn’t come up the Clyde on a bike—so I see that we will end up doing three days on the trot, something disabled colleagues might find quite difficult to deal with, never mind the rest of us, to cover everything between Clause 15, which is where we are, and Clause 136.

I cannot do anything about any of this and I am willing to take part in debates. I do not want anyone to say that I am saying anything like conditionality is not important, because it is. As a matter of process, however, I appeal to all colleagues to try to make sure that we get to the important things. To be brutally honest and tell you the unvarnished truth, I want to put pressure on the coalition Government on four or five issues here. I may run out of time because we are doing things in a way that is disaggregated to the extent that it is. So I am appealing to my colleagues on all sides of the Committee—even from Rutherglen—to think carefully about that. We are having very good debates and we are getting very good responses from the Government and I make no complaint about that but we have to be realistic about making sure that we get to the really important political things in this Bill, otherwise the Committee will not do as effective a job for the House as it would otherwise.

[Lord McAvoy]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, for drawing attention to that sort of matter because, with the exception of the first two Committee meetings, at every sitting half the time has been taken up by the Labour Opposition and the rest by others. There is no question of anything deliberate on this side; that was a clear inference. This side has taken up half the time and half the time has come from others. I do not complain because on at least seven occasions the Minister, who is extremely able and competent—I can also butter up—has had to say “I will write to you” because of the complicated nature of the questions from my noble friends on this side of the House. It is a point that the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, should make but I do not think he should make it to this side.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, I was responding to the Minister’s reply and saying that I am sure we are all glad to hear that there is no intention to rush into these things. Perhaps I may say to the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood—when he is in his place—

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope]

He is behind you.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

It is always good to know that the noble Lord is behind me and I thank him for his kind words. I want just to say, on the nature of our debates, that we could have had a big debate around conditionality as a whole, but in Committee surely what we should be doing is going line by line through this legislation, challenging and probing it in order to try to understand its full intent. But even in itself, in-work conditionality is a new and big topic, as a number of noble Lords have said.

The key issue which has emerged is: what is the default position in respect of lone parents with children aged 13 or older? Certainly our understanding from the briefing is that the default position would be the 35 hours national minimum wage. If the noble Lord is now in a different position on that, or perhaps we have misunderstood it, it would be good if that is put clearly on the record. That would deal with the points made by my noble friends Lady Hollis and Lady Sherlock. However, in their different ways, my noble friends Lady Drake, Lady Lister and Lady Donaghy have pointed to the newness of and some of the risks and challenges posed by issues around capacity, how the discretion is going to be exercised and what it does to the employment relationship. We are in uncharted waters and these are issues of real concern.

In respect of using gross earnings, I did not object to this and I understand why that might be the basis on which it would be done. I said simply that where there are other features of someone’s employment terms, particularly employer pension contributions—someone might have lower pay but a good employer pension contribution—to try to force them away from those would not make any sense. I am sure that is not necessarily in the Minister’s mind, but those sorts of issues are associated with the capacity that is needed to make these evaluations. They would mark a departure for Jobcentre Plus and providers.

We remain concerned about providers. I understand that we may be close to negotiating the next round of contracts and that it can be addressed in those, but I think we would hang on to the point that, as it is currently structured, there is the potential for real conflict where providers are remunerated on getting people into work—at least 16 hours a week, I think—and keeping them in work. What in-work conditionality will do, if the noble Lord says it has to be done outside the work programme, is take people off that scheme, possibly before they have enabled the provider to earn their full remuneration for keeping them there long enough. It is those sorts of conflicts with which we have some difficulties.

I think that we have given this a good airing. I hope that we have put down a marker about our concerns, and certainly our concerns about taking up a framework for legislation. We know that this type of legislation inevitably has a framework basis to it, but with something so unformed and in many respects as vague as this, it is quite difficult for us to say that we will support it. That is why I return to my point that we may look for some sort of sunset provision here in order to see how it all works out in practice. Having said that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.