Jobseeker’s Allowance (Mandatory Work Activity Scheme) Regulations 2011

Lord Knight of Weymouth Excerpts

Tuesday 10th May 2011 Lords Chamber

I would like to see these regulations taken away and returned to us as a complete picture, rather than a sketch, but of course that depends upon the flexibility of the Minister. I regret that he has ignored the advice of the SSAC and the Merits Committee. I beg to move.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Countess and I am very supportive of what she has said and of her Motion, but I am now speaking to the Motions standing in my name on the Order Paper. In that context, it is probably as well for me to explain to your Lordships why I thought it necessary to add to her Motion by tabling two of my own.

I am only too aware that it is exceptional for your Lordships to agree an annulment. In this case, I am not opposed in principle to the subject of the regulations, to mandatory work activity—I was a Minister when we proposed a pilot of something similar, just referred to by the noble Countess. I was therefore very reluctant to seek to annul these regulations. What I was after was a mechanism that required the Government to take back the regulations and return with them, in improved form, with the necessary evidence to support their introduction on a national scale, much as the noble Countess has said she would like. In this, I too was informed by the 27th report from the Merits Committee that she referred to.

As I understand it, the regret Motion in the name of the noble Countess effectively reprimands the Government, but does not prevent the regulations from proceeding. Given the extent of criticism from the Social Security Advisory Committee and then from the Merits Committee, it seems appropriate to offer your Lordships the option of requiring the Government to address the concerns of those committees and come back with sufficient information before the instrument is agreed, but giving an indication orally that if they have such evidence the instrument will of course be passed. I was therefore delighted to discover a 2006 report from a Joint Committee on conventions to your Lordships. On page 63 of the report, at paragraph 232, it says:

“In the absence of a power to amend SIs, the most constructive way for the Lords, as the revising chamber, to reject an SI is by motion (or amendment) incorporating a reason, making it clear both before and after the debate what the issue is”.

I therefore tabled such an amendment in this spirit, incorporating a reason, and it was initially accepted. It was quickly then unaccepted, because such a Motion was without precedent. After further discussion, it was then accepted again before finally being rejected by the Clerks. The Clerks were then very helpful in splitting my Motion into the two we have before us tonight. The first is a traditional annulment and the second regret Motion is the explanation. I am most grateful to them for their assistance, but I have to say to your Lordships that I think the current situation a little odd. The way my two Motions sit on the Order Paper is not in the interests of transparency and has elicited a number of media enquiries as to what I am up to. I am therefore writing to the Procedure Committee to suggest that the recommendation of the 2006 committee be accepted so that we can be clearer in future on the Order Paper.

I turn to the substantial issue. As we have heard, the regulations allow the Secretary of State to introduce mandatory work activity for customers in receipt of jobseeker’s allowance from April of this year—that is, last month. Each placement consists of up to 30 hours’ activity per week and lasts for up to four weeks. Participants will at the same time be expected to be actively seeking work, attend fortnightly interviews and be available for work. If they fail to meet these conditions, they can lose 13 weeks’ benefit for the first offence and 26 weeks’ benefit subsequently.

While there is an appeal process for the sanction, there is no appeal for being mandated on to the scheme. There will be around 10,000 places per year and customers will not be able to volunteer to take up these places. An enthusiast would therefore have to persuade their adviser to make them go on the scheme. The DWP does not plan on issuing detailed guidance, as we have heard, but wants to give flexibility to Jobcentre Plus in how it uses this new weapon in its armoury. I was an early evangelist for local flexibility but I worry that this is all left a little too vague, given the seriousness of the sanctions that I have set out.

As I have said, I am not against the general principle; when in government, we legislated for a pilot to mandate Work for your Benefit. However, I am concerned about proceeding with a national scheme without evidence. If this Government had proceeded with the pilot for Work for your Benefit, they would have that evidence on whether this will work.

As the Social Security Advisory Committee has said in paragraph 4.2 of its report,

“published evidence is at best ambivalent about the chances of ‘workfare’ type activity improving outcomes for people who are out of work. The Department’s research indicates that ‘there is little evidence that workfare increases the likelihood of finding work’ unless conditions are as close to work as possible. The evidence suggests that the mandatory work activity must be carefully tailored to an individual’s specific needs and carefully timed to be of maximum effectiveness”.

In the light of that clear statement from the department’s independent experts, how does this four-week work activity differ from the work done on, say, community punishments? How will advisers be trained to tailor it to the individual’s needs and timed to be most effective?

As the Merits Committee said, the purpose of the mandatory work activity is not clear. Is it, as the Explanatory Memorandum says, to require extra support to help customers refocus their approach to job search? Or is it more, as the department’s memorandum to the Social Security Advisory Committee says, to give jobcentre advisers another intervention to deal with those doing only the bare minimum to comply with the requirement to seek work? The SSAC is concerned about the,

“precedent set by appearing to punish claimants who are satisfying the conditionality rules but who in the view of the Personal Adviser appear to display the ‘wrong attitude’”.

Is the committee not right that this is an extension of the conditionality rules by the back door, by negative instrument, and with no evidence to support it?

Why not delay the regulations and proceed with the pilot to ensure that the 10,000 work experience places are an effective use of taxpayers’ money in helping people into work? How would the Minister respond to those who suggest that this is going to end up just being a way of parking 10,000 customers and generating a few headlines in the Daily Mail, but not actually helping anyone?

Then there are the concerns about certain groups being able to do the activity and fulfil the other conditionality rules. I shall quickly run through those, and if he has time perhaps the Minister could address them too. Rural residents may be sent to work at some distance, at their own transport cost, and potentially a long way from the local office for signing on. Will the requirements be relaxed to allow them to sign on by phone during the period of the placement?

What about participants with children? According to the SSAC report, their childcare has to be funded from their benefits. Can that be right? Does that not put them in a position of choosing to use all their benefit for 30 hours’ childcare leaving nothing to live on, to lose a benefit sanction of three months, or to take risks on the reliability of informal childcare, which might mean that they were unable to get to work? What will that do to their experience of work as a positive activity? Remember, they have no appeal on the mandation. The Minister could assist greatly by being clear now that advisers will put the interests of children first in applying these regulations, and that parents will be mandated on to the scheme only if the childcare arrangements are adequate and affordable.