Welfare Reform Bill

Lord McKenzie of Luton Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd November 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, before we adjourned on Monday we had very significant contributions from noble Lords, as we have had today. We heard a powerful case from my noble friend Lady Lister against the principle of the cap, and, indeed, a brave speech by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, about why in his view these clauses are irredeemable, a point which was reinforced by the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, a moment ago. Nevertheless, I believe that we must try to amend Clauses 93 and 94, because to leave them unconstrained would leave some of the most vulnerable in our country subject to major injustice.

This second group of amendments seeks to introduce exemptions from the cap, either for particular groups or for specific benefits. Amendment 99ZB, moved by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds, and Amendment 99AD, to which we have added our names, exclude, in the first case, child benefit, and, in the second case, all elements paid with respect to children, from the calculation of total income from benefits for the purposes of the cap. As we have seen, at present the proposals have a disproportionate impact on children who can, of course, do nothing themselves to change their behaviour to escape from the impact of the cap. Moreover, as discussed, the cap is not only unfair but inconsistent in its treatment of these benefits which are included as income for those out of work but not in calculating the level of the cap. We support these amendments, and if the Minister is not able to do so, we would ask him exactly why these benefits are to be included in the calculation of the in-work but not the out-of-work income.

Amendments 99A and 99AAA, spoken to respectively by the noble Baronesses, Lady Hollins and Lady Tyler, create exemptions for, first, carers, and, secondly, family and friends as carers. They have had support from the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, and the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne. Like them, we are keen to understand the Government’s thinking on this. The Government’s impact assessment says that the impact on those affected will be that they need to choose between taking up work—of course, the cap does not apply to those entitled to working tax credit—reducing their non-rent expenditure or moving to cheaper accommodation or area. Can the Minister tell us which of those options he expects families who are caring to take up? I believe that he should especially answer the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, about why he considers that carers do not fit the description of working hard and playing their full part in society.

Amendments 99AB and 99D, spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Best, and to which we have added our names, provide an exemption from the cap for those in supported, sheltered or temporary accommodation. We know that those families may be particularly vulnerable and face real problems if forced to move due to a reduction in their housing benefit. As the noble Lord, Lord Best, said, families in temporary accommodation have not chosen to live in high-rent housing; they have been placed there due to there being no other options available. It seems particularly unfair to penalise them for a situation over which they have had little control. As Shelter, Crisis, Homeless Link and the National Housing Federation have stated, the caps for households in temporary accommodation create the prospect of a spiral of homelessness where households lose their income due to the overall benefit cap, but are unable to access accommodation under the main homelessness duty because they are still subject to benefit restrictions.

Amendment 99AA and 99C create exemptions for those who have recently started claiming benefits because of job losses. At present, the benefit cap will penalise those who have just lost jobs for decisions about their rent level or family size taken while employed. If it achieves its intended effect of forcing families to move to cheaper accommodation, the benefit cap is likely to increase hugely the disruption caused by job loss for such families and reduce the chances of them finding employment rather than giving them the level of security that the benefit system was designed to provide for people who have lost their job.

My noble friend Lady Drake spoke with some force, as did the noble Lord, Lord Best, about the traumatic situation facing people when they lose their jobs and at that very point confront what might be the further traumatic consequences of the benefit cap. As my noble friend declared, a modern welfare system is intended not only to incentivise people to work and to address benefit dependency but to support hard-working families with a clear work ethic in managing a flexible labour market. Perhaps the Minister will say whether he agrees.

We are told that much of the thrust or motivation behind the Bill is to encourage people into work, to keep them there and to ensure that work is rewarded. The group of claimants who would be covered by the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lady Donaghy are exactly the people who do not need any such incentivisation. They have indeed been working, possibly for decades and perhaps in hazardous situations since all have been injured at work. It is part of our contract with employees, which goes back to some of the earliest social legislation of workmen’s compensation Acts, that those hurt in the course of their work should be compensated, ideally by the employer or, failing that, by the state. This benefit is paid to all who qualify regardless of whether they are in work. It therefore cannot ever act as a disincentive to earning as the recipient continues to receive this money regardless of whether they have other earnings. It is compensation for perhaps being less able to work, for finding work more tiring or for not being able to return to one’s original occupation, but it does not diminish the financial advantages of working as it is paid out alongside any earnings. The point made by my noble friend Lady Donaghy was that to save perhaps £1 million we hurt those who have already been hurt at work. Is that fairness? I do not think so.

There remain some fundamental questions to be answered. I hope that the interlude since Monday will have given the Minister the opportunity to marshal his thoughts on some of those. We heard on Monday a reiteration of the Government’s position that households getting out-of-work benefits should not,

“receive a greater income from benefits than the average weekly net wage for working households”.

Can the Minister say whether this policy overrides any cost implications? Should the reductions in benefit expenditure from the cap be less than costs engendered, be it through homelessness, reductions in the number of people being able to care, the extra expense of supporting disrupted vulnerable families or the costs of bureaucracy in administering the system, would the policy still be for the cap to prevail? The Minister stated on Monday:

“The benefit cap provides a clear, simple message that there has to be a maximum level of financial support that claimants can expect the state to provide”.—[Official Report, 21/11/11; col. GC 345.]

Yet, we heard the welcome news that childcare costs were to be excluded. So what is the principle—if any part of this policy could be described as principle—which determines those items of support that can potentially be received in excess of the cap and those which cannot? What is the policy?

Perhaps the starkest example of an unfair element in the proposal is, as outlined by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds, the treatment of child benefit. This is a non-means-tested benefit paid to all families whether in or out of work and has very high take-up rates. It is included in the total of benefits but not included in the comparative income level. My noble friend Lady Lister called this patently unjust, as it is. Where there is a demonstrable, illogical injustice of this nature which collides with the rhetoric and intent of the cap, on what basis is the argument for justice jettisoned in favour of the cap? Perhaps the Minister will explain that to us.

The Minister is an enthusiast for the universal credit. This is the approach which merges in and out of work support, will be easily understood, will mean that it always pays to be in work rather than out of work and will change the paradigm of people’s attitudes to work. I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, touched on that point. If all this is right, what remaining role is there for the benefit cap? Before we reach universal credit, the cap is apparently to be administered by local authorities’ deductions from housing benefit. Can the Minister tell us what happens if the housing benefit component is insufficient to cover that, possibly because of support for mortgage interest being included in the calculation rather than a rental housing benefit amount? Will universal credit mean a greater range of support is apparently at risk when it is introduced? Can the Minister tell us about the practicalities of all this when the housing benefit and council tax benefit service has been outsourced by so many councils? My noble friend Lady Hollis raised some very practical issues about the impact of this on housing associations. What will it actually mean?

These are not theoretical questions but questions that will be faced, and faced in the near term. I do not believe that we have yet had the answer to the question posed by several noble Lords on Monday, that if most of the people to be affected by the cap are those for whom there is no full work conditionality, what is the change in behaviour that this policy is designed to achieve? We need to hear from the Minister on these points and on the whole range of other questions that were raised earlier.

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[Lord Freud]

All I am able to say at this moment is that there will be transitional arrangements and help for hard cases.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

The noble Lord again raises the issue of help in hard cases. Can he give us some indication of what he counts as hard cases, and of which, within the potential group of people who will be hit by the cap, he would say were soft cases?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, I am being enticed by the velvet tones of the noble Lord. I am afraid that as we build the regulations to tackle the issue of hard cases, I can only say that we are looking at transitional arrangements. I am sorry but I cannot go any further at this stage.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

I think that we understand that. However, does the Minister recognise the dilemma with which the Committee is faced? We have a broad framework which the Minister says gives the opportunity of reducing the cap, but we have none of the detail which is absolutely crucial to understanding how it will work and who it will impact. Without providing that he is facing the Committee with an impossible dilemma. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, is right and these clauses are irredeemable.

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

My Lords, it also means that the noble Lord will face a lot of amendments on Report, which he would not need to face, calling for breathing spaces or a transitional period of one year for people who suddenly lose their jobs or are suddenly exposed, at 27 or 28, to living in a single room, and so on. If he were able to give some clarity about what he proposes, he could wipe out possibly a dozen amendments.

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, I have been set a challenge and a reward. It would be lovely to collect on that, but I cannot make any further assurances.

I shall continue to speak to the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Best. Apart from the transitional arrangements that I have talked about, the underlying position is to ensure that people understand that they have to take responsibility for the decisions that they make in their lives in the light of what they can afford, and they cannot always look forward to the state stepping in to make good any financial shortfall.

I shall continue on to the more technical areas raised by the noble Lord, Lord Best, on temporary accommodation and supported and sheltered housing. The amendments provide an exemption for households to which local authorities owe a duty because they are homeless, or threatened with homelessness, and for those living in supported or sheltered accommodation. As I said on Monday, discretionary housing payments will not be included as part of the cap, but in wider terms it is too early to say how we shall treat those cases for housing cost purposes in 2013 and beyond. We are exploring options for the treatment of housing benefit for people living in temporary accommodation within universal credit and the overall benefit cap.

Noble Lords may be aware that we recently consulted on high-level proposals to change the method by which help with rent is calculated for those who live in certain supported housing in the social and voluntary sector. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, indicated, there is a series of issues here. We are working very closely with local authorities, housing associations and other government departments, including the devolved Administrations, on these very issues. Our considerations will, obviously, include possible interactions with the benefit cap.

Finally, Amendment 99C, in the name of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds, would place a requirement on the face of the Bill for exemptions for a range of groups. These include groups that we will provide exemptions for through regulations, and others that we have already discussed during the course of our debates today. The amendment also includes an exemption for lone parents with a child under five. I have made it clear that the cap is intended to act as an incentive to work. I acknowledge that we currently do not require lone parents with children under seven to work, although we are seeking to reduce this to five, but that does not mean that we do not want to encourage them to find employment Indeed that is the very reason why we provide extra support through work-focused interviews.

Each of these amendments would undermine the fundamental principles underpinning the cap—that ultimately there has to be a limit to the amount of benefit that a household can receive and that work should always pay. I have listened carefully to the measured and detailed arguments put forward today and will take them into account when deciding on the final design of the cap. In the mean time, I urge the noble Lords and the right reverend Prelate not to press their amendments.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

If I may say so, several questions remain unanswered by the Minister. First, if it were established that the cost and consequences of the cap outweighed the benefits savings, would he still support and seek to introduce the cap?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, we have done an estimate of the cost and benefits savings of the cap and we have looked clearly at the wider ramifications. The question is theoretical in practice. Clearly the message that we are trying to get over is a behavioural one much more than a cost-based one.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

If that is the case, and the Minister has made that point on several occasions, what does the benefit cap provide that is not catered for within the new world of universal credit? I thought that universal credit was all about merging in and out of work benefits, simplicity, making sure that work always pays and changing people's attitudes to work. That is all that the universal credit is about. How does the cap sit with that and what does it produce in terms of policy outcomes in addition to what the universal credit produces?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, the main difference is the simple message behind the cap: in the end, there is a limit to how much the state is prepared to support someone. That is a clear and simple message that can be readily understood in a way that, however simple universal credit is, that message would not be.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

One accepts that it is a simple message, but I am trying to understand the policy outcomes that the Government expect to achieve from that, which are different and in addition to the policy outcomes that they expect from universal credit.

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, what we are looking at now is a three-tier persuasion towards behavioural change. We have a conditionality regime; we have a universal credit that removes the concern of many welfare recipients that if they go to work they will be worse off; and we have a specific limit on how much benefit people can actually earn. That acts as a very precise work incentive, which is a long-term work incentive.

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[Lord Freud]

I welcome my noble friend’s support because he has expressed the argument much better than I possibly could.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

Is the Minister telling us that this is just an interim, transitional arrangement? I thought it was a permanent proposition.

[Lord Freud]

I return to the principle. As I understand it, this is a principle with which the Opposition agree: that there should be a limit on the amount of benefit a household can obtain. We have set that limit at the equivalent of £35,000 of earnings before tax and national insurance.

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[Lord Freud]

My Lords, I think I am reduced to making the mainstream point that the amount that such families can look to is the equivalent of what up to half the households in the country earn, which is £35,000.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Best, spelled out the challenges that some 200,000 people could face. The Minister may dispute the precise numbers, but he said that we are looking at a lot of measures to make sure that it is not 200,000 people. Can the Minister explain what types of measures are involved? What sort of measures are going to alleviate the challenges that the noble Lord, Lord Best, spelled out?

[Lord Freud]

Clearly one of the most important areas of support that we can supply is helping people find work. One of the areas of support here is clearly Jobcentre Plus, and we are exploring that area pretty actively.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

Are we seriously saying that, whether it is 90 per cent or two-thirds of the people affected by this who, under all the other rules and constructs that the Government have brought forward, are not required to get in to work, they are going to use this as a lever to force them in to work? Is that what they are saying?

[Lord Freud]

That is one of the areas of support. If we have about one-third of families who are subject to full conditionality and others subject to partial conditionality, by which we mean moving towards work over a period, a very substantial proportion of the group can be helped into the workplace.

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[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

I just want to pick up on my noble friend Lady Lister's point. We know that most lone parents come out of a relationship: very often out of a marriage. These are not people who are regarded by others on the estate as shirkers who need to be driven—that sort of mentality. We could have a situation where, before they separated, the total household earned income was perhaps over £30,000 and there was some housing benefit because it was a three-bedroom property in an inner city area at a fairly high cost. He then leaves and she is left with three small children under the age of five in their existing home, which is rented. As a result, they are facing the benefit cap. How on earth do we think that any of these proposals under universal credit or the benefit cap could or should alter that behaviour, the judgments that they have to make and the possibilities open to them? All it can do is turf them out and send them up to Middlesbrough, as far as I can see.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, I suspect that we have taken this as far as we can today, but I am sure that we will return to it on Report—perhaps we should already be thinking of booking an extra couple of days for that. I have a technical question for the Minister. As I understand it, before we get to universal credit, the variety of benefits that people have will be looked at. That will go into the calculation on one side. We will compare that with the earnings comparator and the difference will be withdrawn by way of reduction of housing benefit. Is that right? So that will be administered by local authorities.

What if people are in receipt of mortgage interest support or the housing benefit element is not necessarily sufficient to cover the shortfall? What happens with all the local authorities that have outsourced their housing benefit and council tax arrangements? There are a lot of them. Have they been engaged? Presumably, there are extracontractual costs because they will be required to do things in excess of current entitlements.

On universal credit, is it likely that the withdrawal will be in respect of only the housing component of the credit or will the broader range of support that is in universal credit be subject to the clawback?

[Lord Freud]

No; we have made it clear that it would apply to housing benefit and not to other benefits. The cap will not have full coverage until universal credit comes in.

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Moved by

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

102C: Clause 98, page 65, line 25, leave out subsection (2)

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, I imagine that this will be extremely brief. This is a genuinely probing amendment on a point of detail. Clause 98 covers payments on account and under the Bill there are three different legs under which those payments can be made. The first mirrors the existing provision of SSAA 1992. The second provides for payment to be made where a claimant is in need. Examples of how it might be applied apparently include where benefit has been claimed but the first pay day has not yet been reached. Regulations will provide the detail of the test of need. New Section 5(1)(r)(iii) enables the Secretary of State to make a payment on account where, again, subject to criteria set out in regulations, it can reasonably be expected to be recovered. I think such payments will replace the existing social fund budgeting loans. However, part of what this clause does is to repeal Section 22 of the Welfare Reform Act 2009, a provision which is not yet commenced.

The thrust of the question really springs from a sentence in the Explanatory Notes which says in respect of that provision that, had it been commenced,

“it would have extended the range of situations in which a payment on account could be made beyond the existing section 5(1)(r) … It would have extended making payments on account to situations similar to those that will be covered by new section 5(1)(r)(ii)”.

My question is: is there anything that Section 22 of the Welfare Reform Act 2009 would have permitted in terms of payments on account which are not now facilitated by those three legs in Clause 98? I beg to move.

[Lord Freud]

In the interests of time, I can give an assurance that there is nothing extra to worry about.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

Nothing extra to worry about is good enough to worry about with this Bill. I am grateful for that. Perhaps it can be dealt with in correspondence. It was a genuine inquiry about whether that swapping of the provisions precluded something which would have been allowed. I accept the noble Lord’s assurance on that. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 102C withdrawn.

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In conclusion, if the reconsideration process as it now stands is made effective, claimants will use it because they do not want the stress of going to a tribunal if they can possibly avoid it. It seems unreasonable to suggest that an extra step is needed in order for DWP to do what it should be doing anyway. In a Bill that is meant to be simplifying the system, it is very hard to see the justification for making the system more complex for claimants. I hope that the Minister will agree to look again at the proposal in this clause to see whether there are alternative ways of meeting the Government’s concerns.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, has made a powerful argument about why the current provisions cannot be properly implemented and why they are not sufficient. In welcoming the Minister to his first slot at the Dispatch Box today, I ask him whether it is possible, perhaps not today, although today if he can, for him to set out for us each of the benefits that would be affected by these proposed changes, what the current arrangements for those benefits are in respect of appeal provisions, what happens to payment or otherwise in the interim and the extent to which that would change under these new provisions? That would be important in helping us to understand what might happen in practice.

I may have missed the point when the noble Baroness was speaking on this issue, but is there a time limit for the DWP to respond to a reconsideration request? There are time limits which flow from it, but under these new arrangements, what causes the DWP to have to respond quickly or within a fixed timetable, particularly if for some of the benefits the dispute is about whether a benefit should be in payment at all? It might be an argument about the capital rules for universal credit or about the category that somebody is in. If it is ESA, I think the claimant gets the assessment rate until the matter has been settled. If the noble Lord is able to clarify that, it would particularly help us understand the import of these proposed changes.

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, has eloquently explained her concerns and those of her noble friend Lady Grey-Thompson, who cannot be with us today, about Clause 99. Let me try to address them.

I assure your Lordships that the time limits for claimants wishing to request a revision, or make an appeal, in relation to most social security benefits are not changing. What is changing is that claimants will need to ask for the decision to be looked at again before they can appeal. I hope that noble Lords will agree that it is in everyone’s interests for disputed decisions to be resolved at the pre-appeal stage wherever possible. Previous figures have indicated that approximately 65 per cent of cases overturned historically were a result of additional evidence being provided that was not available to the decision-maker.

While the claimant will be required to apply for reconsideration within one month of being notified of a decision, the process for making the request is informal. It does not require the claimant to supply a substantial submission and can be done by telephone, face to face or in writing, so claimants should not be subject to additional expense.

The purpose of Clause 99 is to allow DWP to focus on revision rather than responding to appeals, enabling more disputes to be resolved at an earlier stage. Claimants will still be able to ask for a written explanation of the decision and, where they do, the one-month time limit for applying for reconsideration will be extended. In the event that a claimant fails to request a reconsideration on time, the deadline can be extended where there are special circumstances—for example, a hospital admission —which make it impracticable for the claimant to meet the deadline. I assure the noble Baroness that when a request for reconsideration is made beyond the one-month deadline, no formal submission of reasons will be required. They can be supplied by telephone, allowing a decision-maker to consider whether they meet the criteria for an extension of the deadline.

This clause does not change which decisions carry appeal rights; it will simply require claimants to go through the internal reconsideration process first. The purpose of this is to ensure that the decision-making and appeal process is both fair and proportionate.

Although reconsideration is already practised in DWP, there is no legislative requirement for it to be carried out when an appeal is made. Clause 99 will introduce this requirement. Currently, decisions are routinely reconsidered on appeal, so the reconsideration process takes place after the claimant has already decided to appeal to the tribunal.

Under the new arrangements, DWP will use direct contact with the claimant to gather additional evidence relevant to the decision and will provide an explanation of the outcome of the reconsideration. The process will allow a claimant’s decision to appeal to be informed by whether reconsideration had provided them with a clear justification for the original decision, and a clear explanation of it.

Some parts of DWP have already introduced a more robust and independent reconsideration process. However, claimants may often have already made a formal appeal before this process begins. As the noble Baroness has rightly pointed out, under Clause 99, where a decision is overturned upon reconsideration, this will save the taxpayer the cost of an appeal and the claimant the stress of appealing.

The noble Baroness makes the point that, under the current process, no one can get to a tribunal without confirming their intent to carry on. However, if a claimant does not respond to the TAS1, the appeal does not simply stop. The tribunal will still be required to make a decision to strike out the appeal.

Currently, the claimant has 14 days to respond to a TAS1, which is sent along with the DWP response to the appeal and often the reconsideration outcome. Unless the claimant appeals early, which is the issue that we are trying to resolve, this gives the claimant only a short time to consider this information and make an informed decision on whether to proceed with their appeal or to withdraw.

Clause 99 will allow the claimant to make an informed decision about whether to appeal, having passed through a less formal process. There is currently no time limit for the DWP to complete the reconsideration process, nor is one proposed, but it is important to the DWP that each stage of the decision-making and appeals process is carried out within acceptable timescales and does not result in unreasonable delays for claimants. The department is considering carefully how best to monitor and evaluate this in future.

The noble Baroness expressed a concern that claimants will not qualify for payment of ESA pending reconsideration. No appellants should be left without support, since other benefits such as JSA may be available. No decisions have yet been made to change ESA. The main focus of the DWP is to make the correct decision, based on all the available evidence, at the earliest point. Clause 99 will also help claimants distinguish between revision and appeal. The process will be clearly explained via decision letters, leaflets and through direct contact with claimants.

The noble Baroness referred to costs. There will, of course, be costs, particularly relating to IT changes, to implement this clause. The DWP expects to meet these within its spending review settlement. Furthermore, savings are expected to be made in both the DWP and the Ministry of Justice via a reduction in appeals.

I do not think that I have responded in detail—

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, we are not trying to introduce a new stage—reconsideration and appeal have existed before; we are trying to get a better process of reconsideration before we get to appeal so that we can avoid a large number of appeals that occur. We are introducing an element of flexibility and informality so that claimants are not held quite so rigidly to deadlines, information and the form in which it comes. We plan to make the process more streamlined for them as well as for the department. We require Clause 99 to effect that.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

I understand the thrust of the point the noble Lord has just made but I am also trying to understand the position of claimants who ultimately rely on a successful appeal to end up in the right category. If I understood what the Minister said, the reconsideration needs to take place before they can get to an appeal, and there is no timeframe within which the DWP has to go through that reconsideration process before that appeal starts. Other things being equal, that would mean that it could take longer for those who rely on a successful outcome of an appeals process to end up in the right category. The extent to which that matters depends on what people are being paid in the interim. If, under ESA, they are paid the assessment period rate—the JSA rate—until the appeal has run its course, at least they may have some resources. However, if the issue is whether or not the benefit is payable at all, as there may be a dispute about capital, as I said earlier, they would receive nothing for that period. That is part of the worry. However, we understand the point about streamlining and the improvement that the noble Lord is seeking to make.

[Lord De Mauley]

I am grateful to noble Lords for allowing me the opportunity to clarify that. It is important to the department that each stage of the decision-making and appeals process is carried out within an acceptable timescale and does not result in unreasonable delays for claimants. Alongside implementation of this power, we intend to make further improvements to the reconsideration process, which will include suitable arrangements for monitoring and, where appropriate, improving the speed of the process.

Taking the second point made by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, which is allied to that to a great extent because it is a matter of how a claimant affords to live in the mean time, whatever the outcome of the appeal, the tribunal’s decision takes effect from the date of the original decision. So if the tribunal rules in the claimant’s favour and, for example, makes an award of benefit where the original decision was that the claimant did not qualify, all the arrears of benefit will be paid in full from the date that the claim took effect. I do not think that that particularly addresses the noble Lord’s concern.

The noble Lord and the noble Baroness expressed the concern that claimants will not qualify for the payment of ESA pending reconsideration. I have said before and I will say again—I hope that this will address the point made by the noble Lord—no appellants should be left without support since other benefits such as JSA should be available in those cases. He also asked a broader question about benefits more generally and generously offered me the opportunity to write to him or meet him. I would be grateful if we could expand on that in such a forum.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for that and very happy to deal with that matter through correspondence. However, what does he believe to be a reasonable timeframe within which the reconsideration should routinely take place? What is the target and the plan for the department?

[Lord De Mauley]

I do not have an answer for the noble Lord. He is right to raise this issue. Perhaps I may include that in the correspondence.

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[Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill]

My Lords, I will also speak to Amendment 103ZA. I will be brief. It may appear overly generous on the part of a cash-strapped Government already making severe cuts in benefits and public services not to demand repayments. However, in the interests of natural and administrative justice it cannot be right to request repayment when every penny is already allocated to get a family through the week—and now to be the month. Benefits are about to be cut and will no longer keep pace with inflation. Housing, energy, food and travel costs are all rising at frightening speed. With the best will in the world, I cannot comprehend how a family which is already struggling can be asked to pay back more than its members are currently being paid either in wages or benefits or both. Many charities and churches have raised the alarm over this element of the Bill. I strongly urge the Government to reconsider such a course. It may seem small in the overall picture of state spending but would be enormous for a family on an already modest income.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Hayter is going to do Front-Bench duty on this group of amendments. I want to speak briefly to Clause 105, where a probing amendment has been put down, to make sure that we have understood what is happening in respect of the statute of limitations.

My understanding is that, at the moment, to take action to recover sums which are outstanding, you cannot go back more than six years: they are statute-barred at six years. The issue is what an action is for these purposes. The clause clarifies that, other than proceedings in a court of law, recoveries of sums due are not actions. The consequence, as I understand it, is that they are not statute-barred, so unless you need to take action through court proceedings, as a result of this clause there is no statute of limitations applying to debts arising under the Social Security Act or the provisions that are set down in the clause. That seems to be a departure from the existing position.

Moreover, the clause says that the amendment is regarded as having always formed part of the 1980 Act, so that it is retrospective, and does not just operate from the date this clause comes into existence, except in respect of proceedings. I have a question as to what, for these purposes, the proceedings are which would still remain outside the retrospection of this clause. But more importantly, what assessment has been made of the additional amounts that might be brought in scope for recovery as a result of these changes to the law?