Social Security

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Tuesday 1st December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

I have to start by disagreeing with the very last point made by the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds). I am not here to thank the Government for introducing, by a direct-rule-style Order in Council, legislation that I opposed. The Democratic Unionist party may be happy to endorse by fiat direct rule legislation, parts of which they supposedly opposed; earlier, the hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) was honest enough to concede that his party had supported parts of the original legislation in 2011 and 2012.

I want to correct the misrecord that has come from some of the hon. Members behind me. Whenever the legislation was going through, we, as part of due diligence, were trying to get the Assembly to address properly and anticipate the implications of the legislation that passed through this House, precisely to make sure that we could mitigate and influence it and anticipate what mitigation measures and top-ups were needed to maximise whatever bit of discretion devolution could give us. DUP Members voted the proposal down in the Northern Ireland Assembly. They said that we were scaremongering. They said, “Leave it till we see how the legislation comes through and then our Minister will be able to negotiate some mitigation.” The mitigation that their Minister produced—we have heard Members repeat it tonight—was basically the same mitigation that Lord Freud told us in February 2012 would be available, so no additional concessions were got.

We wanted additional concessions. We said in the Assembly that concessions were available and that we needed to advance further mitigation, but DUP Members stalled. Yet now they make a virtue out of saying that their Minister manfully negotiated and pulled a rabbit out of a hat on concessions that were available all along anyway.

That is a dereliction on the part of DUP Members, because they did not get anything that was not already available in February 2012. We put it on the record that it was available then, and we could and should have got more if the Assembly had combined in that effort. DUP Members decided that they had sufficient confidence in the legislation that was being put through by the coalition Government here and in themselves not to create an all-party approach. An all-party approach should always have been created. I previously understood that Sinn Féin believed in such an all-party approach, but of course that tune has changed several times in the course of this whole exercise.

Let us be very clear about the content of the order: it gives effect to the 2012 Act. It basically introduces the Northern Ireland version of the 2012 Act with tweaks and adjustments, some of which were always going to be available anyway. When we first said that we were getting these concessions in 2012, the DUP said that we were scaremongering about the Bill and that we did not need to be looking to concessions. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) is chuntering away, not content with making his usual intervention; he is apparently the only Member of this House who would intervene on himself. Let us be very clear: we are told here that these concessions were got by the DUP, and at home that they were got by Sinn Féin. We have to ask, “Where are the additional concessions beyond those that Lord Freud told us were available in February?”

[Ms Ritchie]

Does my hon. Friend well recall the meeting with Lord Freud in February 2012 at which he stated quite clearly that these, shall we say, mitigations would include a slightly different sanctions regime and the ability for welfare payments to be paid to claimants fortnightly rather than monthly? Does he agree that those sanctions were agreed at that time and there was perhaps an unwillingness by the DUP to bring them forward through the welfare reform legislation in the Assembly?

[Mark Durkan]

I fully concur with my hon. Friend’s memory of that meeting. Let us be clear, because we dealt with this in the previous debate as well: at the time, the DUP Minister indicated that the computer system would easily facilitate fortnightly payments, or even weekly if it came to that, and that continuing direct payments to the landlord would not be a problem. He also said that the first time he had heard about Northern Ireland’s particular issue with the bedroom tax was from us, and that his officials had not had it raised in any of their meetings with the Department for Social Development. Of course, at that stage he had had no meetings with the DSD Minister and had none planned. When we consider who was doing due diligence in relation to staking out these issues and seeking these concessions, we should remember that that was the situation.

[Tom Elliott]

As I understand it, last December’s Stormont House proposals were accepted by the SDLP as well as Sinn Féin. Is the hon. Gentleman now saying that this is a worse deal or a better deal than the Stormont House proposal?

[Mark Durkan]

I will answer the right hon. Gentleman’s question: I think it is a worse deal. We not only have this order to transpose the 2012 Act—all the parties in Northern Ireland said they had difficulties with that legislation—but the way in which this is being taken forward means that the Government in Whitehall now have the power, by order, to transpose the Welfare Reform and Work Bill currently going through Parliament. That needs to be understood, because the legislative consent motion passed by the Assembly endorsed all the welfare clauses of the current Bill, as originally tabled. DUP MLAs voted to endorse all the clauses, even though they had voted for amendments to delete some of them or to insert additional clauses. Within a period of weeks, they voted with an entirely different attitude in relation to the Welfare Reform and Work Bill, hiding behind direct rule. I therefore think that the deal is worse.

We must remember that the order will not only have the immediate effect of transposing most of the 2012 Act as implemented in Great Britain, but also provides a power, simply by virtue of regulations, to change a lot of the terms and conditions of the benefits, and can almost disappear some categories of benefits in the 2012 Act. In essence, we are being signed up to that without so much as a provision stating that when this direct-rule power is exercised, there must still be a legislative consent motion in the Assembly. We have been treated to the fiction that while we have direct rule, we have not lost any devolution because all the powers still exist on paper in the Assembly. That means it will supposedly be entirely in order for MLAs to table motions in the Assembly to amend such areas or to come up with their own private Members’ Bills, so we will have the nonsense of parallel, competing legislative strands. That is the sort of fiction and nonsense to which we are being treated.

Let us be very clear that the problem does not relate to the political or legislative processes; the real problem is the potential impact on people whose benefits and living standards will be affected as a result. Let us remember that when the Welfare Reform and Work Bill goes through—it has now been endorsed by a legislative consent motion—it will change the limited work capability element of universal credit for new claimants from April 2017. It is quite clear that although the decision-making power, which the Secretary of State has under the enabling legislation that went through over a week ago, will end in 2016, the effect of the decisions made under that power will not die with the power. The changes in relation to the limited work capability element of universal credit for new claimants will come in, meaning a reduction in the value of current payments of almost £30 a week—from £102.15 to £73.10. That is why all the health charities and disability campaign groups are so opposed to clauses 13 and 14 of the Welfare Reform and Work Bill. Unfortunately, Northern Ireland is now sealed into that by virtue of the legislative consent motion and the measure previously passed by Parliament.

There will be a similar reduction in the amount paid to those in the employment and support allowance work-related activity group. We know from hon. Members representing constituencies in Great Britain that that is one of the notorious vexations. We have heard about just how the work-related activity group has been treated in practice, and about some of the bizarre interpretations, decisions and procedures that people have had to go through. We are now locked into a lot of that courtesy of both the legislative consent motion and this order. We do not have reason to be happy if we take seriously what our friends in all parties across the House are saying in raising their valid concerns. That also goes for some aspects of the sanctions. The time limit on the sanctions is different, courtesy of the efforts that we all made in relation to Stormont House.

I want to make it quite clear that we were signed up for Stormont House in December 2014, because the terms of the agreement stated that the proposals would be developed and brought to the Assembly. When the Bill was brought to the Assembly, however, nothing in it had changed. That is why we tabled a series of modest amendments, which would not have shattered the Stormont House agreement in any way, and which the British Government confirmed would not have stretched or undermined their understanding of what was operable under the agreement. But no, the DUP decided to veto the proposals and, on top of that, Sinn Féin decided to vote down the amendments even though the Tories had voted down similar amendments here in the original 2012 legislation. So those were the people who decided that we were not going to take Stormont House forward on an all-party basis, as had been agreed. I want to put this on record, because I do not think that enough people have understood what happened.

I will make one concession to the Government. A lot of the wriggle room that we had in the Stormont House agreement came about as a result not only of the top-up mitigations from the Executive’s own budget but of the understanding that the Department for Work and Pensions and the Treasury were going to allow the Social Security Agency in Northern Ireland a certain amount of leeway in the interpretation and operation of some of the measures. That is one reason why the big money that it was thought would be needed to make good some of Sinn Féin’s demands was not actually needed after all. The funds did not need to come out of the Executive’s budget because of that leeway being allowed.

However, some of us recognised that the arrangement was time-limited. We were worried that the effects of the welfare cap—which is not to be confused with the benefit cap—would, over time, squeeze and reduce that comfort. We said that we had to be honest about that. The SDLP was also very clear about saying at Stormont House that we had to be up front and public about the fact that, when the next wave of cuts came, we would not be in a position to say that they could be sustained out of the Executive’s budget and that we could not make a claim on the block grant to try to make good those claims. We said that we had to say that up front so that people understood it. Sinn Féin did not want to acknowledge that fact because it was still locked into the pretence that it could say it was protecting all existing claimants and all future claimants for ever more, amen. We never joined in that pretence, but no other party joined us in making that candid declaration that we could not constantly find more and more hard shoulder to run on.

That brings me to the points that were made earlier about the fines. We were asked whether we regretted the fines. We resented those fines, those penalties, those levies, those savings forgone. We have been told by the Secretary of State that they are not fines but savings forgone. I notice that the right hon. Lady did not contradict DUP Members when they were calling them fines; it is only me who gets contradicted. Whatever they are called, we resented them because they were an exercise in budget bullying. The DUP never objected to that budget bullying; indeed, one might think that they were actually in on the tactic, and in on the threat about not renewing the computer system.

The fact is that the Assembly was being bullied. I have said before that I do not believe that the Treasury will treat the new suite of devolved capacities for Scotland in relation to welfare reform in this way. I know that Scotland’s deal on welfare is not perfect. Its operation will be problematic, but I am pretty sure that the Treasury will not resort to the kind of tactics that it used against the Northern Ireland Assembly when it comes to dealing with clear differences of view between the Scottish Parliament and the Westminster Government. I believe that it will take a different course.

If we are to be honest about this issue, we must be clear that there is a need to consider whether we need to realign the devolution of welfare in future so that the situation is sustainable. When the sunset clause in this legislation kicks in, and if there is some other mid-term welfare reform package in this Parliament, we do not want the Assembly to spasm into crisis for exactly the same reason.

We said at Stormont House and elsewhere that perhaps we should realign towards something more akin to the Scottish model of devolution. In Scotland, the burden is to take an interest in the benefits that people rely on if they have disabilities and long-term conditions. That points towards a way that we could go that would allow us to be more complete in the protections that we say we are offering people and perhaps provide a more sustainable course for the future.

That answers the point that the hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) made about the architecture of the Good Friday agreement and devolution in the first place. There might be a need to look at realignment, as we have declared. Indeed, I declared that a number of years ago. However, we have not had any takers at any of the talks. If people want to do that, they will find that it could go ahead.

The way in which the implications of this order and the orders to follow are being sold is wrong. Remember that this is only the first of a number of orders that we will get, courtesy of direct rule. Indeed, it is more direct direct rule than we had before, because when a lot of the Northern Ireland social security legislation was passed under the old style of direct rule, it was taken through the House by Northern Ireland Office Ministers. Now, we have direct rule by the DWP, thanks to the way in which Sinn Féin and the DUP have decided it will happen.

It is wrong for parties that oppose these changes to benefits and sanctions to say in respect of making sure that these cuts and changes will happen by direct fiat and by the hand of a direct-rule Minister in the DWP, “Well, that was a good deal because we saved devolution.” Who was threatening devolution? The only parties that were threatening devolution and the institutions were Sinn Féin and the DUP. They contrived the brink and we all had to teeter on it. When they were saved from themselves in the end, they said that they had done a good job by getting concessions that were available anyway—they were not concessions at all.

That is the nonsense and dishonesty that lies at the centre of the politics of this. We are not one bit happy or content. We are not thankful to the Government for this at all. There were ways of dealing with these issues. They should have been taken in a mature way by devolution—

[Sammy Wilson]

Mature?

[Mark Durkan]

They should have been taken in a mature way by devolution, using the Assembly to anticipate when the legislation which has come through here—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for East Antrim is one of the people who said that we did not need to worry about the implications of the Welfare Reform Bill when it was here in 2011. He said that we were scaremongering and he voted down moves to deal with the issue in the Assembly. Now he is saying that we should be happy with what direct rule will do over the next 13 months. That will have an effect on benefits and people’s living standards for a long time to come, not least people with disabilities and long-term health conditions.

Those people are not just worried about the implications of the Welfare Reform (Northern Ireland) Act 2015 and dissatisfied about the arrangements for personal independence payment, which need to be improved on the basis of the experience in the pilot areas in England, but they are also very concerned about the implications of the Welfare Reform and Work Bill, which will change a lot of the terms and conditions attaching to universal credit. The very basis on which the original 2012 Act was sold here and the very basis on which the DUP tried to retail that Act in the Assembly was the prospectus for universal credit. Already, those terms and conditions are being changed adversely. As we pass this order, other legislation is coming through that will fundamentally change them. That is not a good deal for the people who are on these benefits.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That the draft Welfare Reform (Northern Ireland) Order 2015, which was laid before this House on 26 November, be approved.