Mesothelioma Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Freud and Lord Pannick

Wednesday 5th June 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Pannick]

To clarify, is the noble Lord saying that the only impediment to including a provision of this sort in this Bill is that this is a DWP Bill and research is a Department of Health matter? If that is the point, I think it will come as a great surprise to this Committee that it is not possible for two departments to liaise and come up with an agreed position to place within a Bill—not least because, as he will well know, as a matter of constitutional propriety, when a Bill talks about a Secretary of State, it covers all Secretaries of State. There is no division of responsibilities between Secretaries of State. Can the Minister think about whether it is really not possible to talk to his colleagues on these matters?

[Lord Freud]

I have done quite a lot of work on this, as I have said, and talked to the department. I am saying that this would have to be a Department of Health levy, but the Department of Health is not minded to legislate in this way on this matter because that is not how the structure of research provision in this country works. That is the position. I can get further clarification on this ready for Report.

Jobseekers (Back to Work Schemes) Bill

Debate between Lord Freud and Lord Pannick

Thursday 21st March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their valuable and interesting contributions. I need to register some disappointment that the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie of Luton, has tabled this regret Motion on the Second Reading of the Bill. I am saddened by that approach particularly because it contrasts to the very constructive approach of his party in another place. I hope that he does not press the Motion to a vote.

I shall deal directly with the various points raised. The first is the point about government competence. The ESE regulations were drafted to be flexible enough to encompass a wide range of programmes designed to support jobseekers into work. Introducing new regulations for each individual scheme would have been more bureaucratic and expensive. We do not agree that the regulations were ultra vires, and have applied to the Supreme Court for permission to appeal. We believe that the primary legislation does not require that the regulations set out the fine details of each different programme, and, indeed, that was the position taken by the High Court. In fact, we believe that it is undesirable to do so and that this was not Parliament’s intention since a wide variety of possible arrangements could be made depending on the nature of the labour market conditions in particular parts of the country. It is important that we have the flexibility to amend these schemes to reflect the changing labour market conditions on the ground without going through a laborious legislative process which would delay change beneficial to the claimants.

I also want to point out that the ESE regulations were considered by the House of Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments and the non-parliamentary Social Security Advisory Committee, as I said in my opening remarks. None of those committees suggested that the regulations were outside the relevant Act’s powers. They raised different issues.

The Motion also makes reference to the High Court and Court of Appeal judgments that the letters provided did not contain sufficient information to claimants about the consequences of not participating in these schemes, a point which the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, made with some vigour. That is not the Government’s view and that is why we have sought leave to appeal to the Supreme Court. Regulation 4(2)(e) of the ESE regulations simply required that the notice specify,

“information about the consequences of failing to participate in the Scheme”.

All our letters before the High Court explained that claimants could lose up to 26 weeks of benefit if they did not comply. That is clearly information about the consequences of failing to participate.

Claimants sanctioned under the ESE regulations knew perfectly well what was required of them. The notices that we sent to them clearly set out that they would face a benefit sanction if they failed to participate, and they have had detailed ongoing discussions with their Jobcentre Plus adviser about these schemes. The idea that these claimants failed to participate in these schemes because they knew that a court might decide that the regulations were ultra vires or the notice defective, particularly before any court case had been brought, is, quite frankly, ridiculous. There is no sensible case of unfairness to the claimants in this case.

As the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, said in 2009 while debating the Welfare Reform Act in this very place:

“Of course there is a very easy way to avoid being sanctioned in the first place, which is to engage with the programme”.—[Official Report, 11/6/09; col. GC 136.]

These claimants failed to do so and must face the consequences of their actions. They are not deserving of a windfall payment as the result of a technical ruling by the Court of Appeal.

[Lord Pannick]

Will the Minister explain how it can be fair or a question of windfall when these claimants had no lawful obligation at that time to go on these courses? Surely that is the point. The Court of Appeal has so held.

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, it was clearly laid down in the primary legislation that that was an expectation, and they were informed by their advisers of that expectation. We are looking now at a subsequent finding by the Court of Appeal, on which we have asked for leave to appeal. However, nobody could have anticipated the finding, which is in dispute. There was a lot more information going to clients than was in that letter, because they were in communication with their advisers.

One of the fundamental points at issue here is that we are trying to design a much more flexible welfare system in which we individualise responses. That means that we do not send out loads of generic letters with long lines of prose about what will happen if you do this, that or the other. We are aiming to have a specific conversation with people through a flexible system.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Freud]

I am doing my best to explain the reason why this is exceptional. I did not explain it in detail at the outset, so I am really grateful for the opportunity, reinforced by the noble Lord, to explain the exception.

The third reason why this is exceptional is to do with the nature of social security legislation. In almost all cases regarding social security decisions, the decisions of a court or tribunal are only prospective in nature. That is because the most common way in which to challenge a social security decision, including the underlying regulations, is to bring an appeal to the First-tier Tribunal. If that happens, the normal route is followed and the decision of the tribunal will not have a retrospective effect because of Section 27 of the Social Security Act 1998. It is only because there is an anomaly in the text of Section 27 that it does not apply to judicial review cases. That is something that I suspect that this Government will come back to, to clear up. It is clear from Section 27 that Parliament recognised that wholesale retrospective disruption of the social security system was not desirable. That is even more true in a case like this, when the beneficiaries of that disruption are not deserving of the windfall that they would otherwise receive. That is why this is exceptional.

I turn to the reason why we need to fast-track the Bill. I want to respond to the rather witty way in which the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, put his view that there was no urgency by explaining to him and other noble Lords that we have applied for permission to appeal to the Supreme Court. If we are not given that permission to go ahead—and that could come out any day—we immediately become liable to pay back the sanction money of £130 million. That is why there is particular urgency and that is why we are fast-tracking this legislation. We need to provide certainty to taxpayers that we will not spend this money in this way, unnecessarily. The department will endeavour to process the stockpile cases in a robust, transparent and efficient manner. While there is clearly a trade-off between robustness and speed, we will aim to do that as practically as possible.

[Lord Pannick]

I thank the Minister, who has been very kind. I have one more question for him. He says that it is necessary to have certainty, but why not wait until the Supreme Court rules? If the Government win, as they say they are so confident of doing, there is no problem. If they lose, they can bring emergency legislation before Parliament to clear up the matter in a few days before anyone can complain that they have not been paid out. Why not follow that route?

[Lord Freud]

The moment that there is a ruling—if there were to be a ruling—against the department, we would be liable from that moment to repay. What would we do? Would we obfuscate, say that we could not pay and were dealing with the paper work while we put through emergency legislation? We would be obliged to make the payments from the moment when the ruling came through. That is what this is about. It is why we are going ahead at this time and at this speed, which is clearly not something that we enjoy doing.

I turn to the review, which we have taken on in response to the Opposition in the other place requesting such a review. It will focus on the sanctions affected by the provisions of the Bill, which amount to roughly 25% of all JSA sanctions issued in the period. I have heard today concern from Peers about how DWP issues sanctions to JSA claimants more generally. I would like to make it clear that the department will discuss with the Opposition the terms of reference of the sanctions review. I assure noble Lords that the stockpile of claimants who are issued with a benefit sanction as a result of the legislation will receive the same information that is received by all claimants who are sanctioned for failing to participate in a scheme; namely, they will be told about their right to appeal, how to appeal and how they can go about claiming for hardship.

I will try to pick up as many of the questions that I have not dealt with as I can. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, appreciates how closely we have studied the Constitution Committee’s report. I can tell him that Miss Reilly will not be affected by the legislation as she complied with the scheme that she was required to attend and was not sanctioned. I say to the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, that we needed to put the regulations out within a day to keep mandating claimants going forward. The retrospective legislation required careful thought and an exploration of all the avenues. We also consulted the Opposition and the whole process took some weeks. I assure the noble Lord that there are absolutely no benchmarks or targets for sanction referrals. Sanctions will involve a temporary loss of benefit. We will not seek lump sums from people in work. We will look to use good cause and, for the more recent sanctions, good reason, but they are in practice the same.

As I said to the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, a little earlier, the information given to claimants was not confined to what was in the letters. The sanction decision notice provides information on how to appeal and access other help. The noble Lord, Lord Bach, was concerned about legal aid. The first stage of the tribunal process is inquisitorial and legal aid is not required. It helps to ensure that everything that is relevant is considered. That is the job of the tribunal. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, that the Bill is compatible with the ECHR and will overturn some of the undesirable consequences of the judgment. That should not be done lightly but it is entirely proper to do so in the circumstances.

A number of noble Lords enjoyed having a go at the Work Programme. However, it has resulted in 200,000 people moving off benefits. The PAC report is somewhat premature in its conclusion about what is happening. I look forward to talking about that programme further in the months to come. I conclude by urging the noble Lord to withdraw—