Jobseeker’s Allowance (Domestic Violence) (Amendment) Regulations 2012
Lord German Excerpts(12 years, 2 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord German
My Lords, I will follow the noble Lord’s questions with a number of other issues that relate to these regulations. The first concerns the title. I am always in favour of government being connected across the piece. The regulations refer to page 11 of the handbook for health professionals. On page 10 there is a straightforward definition of domestic abuse that was provided by the Home Office and adopted across government. I will read the subsequent paragraph because it refers to something that is in the title of these regulations and to a change that it is seeking. Perhaps the Minister will consider it.
The handbook states:
“The term ‘domestic violence’ obviously covers a wide range of abuse—physical and otherwise. It also covers issues that mainly concern women from minority ethnic backgrounds, such as forced marriage, female genital mutilation and so-called ‘honour violence’. Throughout this handbook, we use the term ‘domestic abuse’ instead of ‘domestic violence’ wherever possible, because we are concerned that the latter might be interpreted as physical abuse only. We have, however, made use of information and statistics on ‘domestic violence’ and so have kept to that terminology in those instances”—
of straightforward domestic violence. Over the page are the definitions, which the regulations refer to. They are really a set of examples—physical, sexual, psychological, financial and emotional. If there is a cross-governmental approach to this, why do the regulations not use the term “domestic abuse” instead of “domestic violence”? It is a wider definition. The examples on page 11, which the regulations refer to, are not examples of domestic violence but of domestic abuse—the term used on the previous page. Perhaps my noble friend will consider whether the title of the regulations is wholly appropriate.
My second question concerns the evidence that should be provided. A broad range of people—Members of the House of Lords are not mentioned—can produce evidence on behalf of a claimant. The group includes the police. I presume that this is because when someone has resorted to making a complaint to the police, the police will be required to provide that evidence. Perhaps my noble friend will explain what evidence the police will be expected to provide in order to justify the continuation of a claim before them for discretionary easement.
My third question concerns discretion levels. There is a clear process that moves from four weeks to a total of 11, with individual weeks being added up as necessary rather than being taken en bloc, and with nine of the 13 weeks being taken in blocks as necessary. However, sometimes in the first four weeks that people have to provide the evidence, it may not be possible to provide that evidence if they require a public body such as the police to provide a letter or a pro forma to be completed, because sometimes the public bodies are not quite as quick as you might wish them to be. Is there any discretion for the Jobcentre Plus adviser to ease that four-week period and make it a little longer, if evidence is on its way from a public body that might exceed the four-week exemption period, and extend it to a further nine weeks?
I welcome the order before us. It seems a very sensible and very helpful move, and I commend the Minister for bringing it forward.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett
My Lords, I, too, welcome the order. I particularly welcome the very broad consultation that appears to have taken place, and the fact that—for once—there have been changes as a result of that consultation, which is very good to see.
The Explanatory Memorandum says that concerns were raised about some of the detail. In particular, it discusses:
“imposing time limits on the time a claimant can have to obtain evidence, and about having a maximum allowable deferral period”.
Were any other concerns raised that are not discussed in the Explanatory Memorandum? If so, perhaps the Minister could relay them.
The main issue I want to raise is in support of what my noble friend Lord McKenzie said about this being confined to victims of domestic violence or abuse where the perpetrator is living at a different address. Research in the United States shows that it is not unusual for a man who is abusing his partner to use violence to prevent her seeking paid work—for the obvious reason that he wants that woman under his control and if she gets paid work she can be independent of him economically. We know that economic dependence is linked to psychological dependence and makes women much more vulnerable to abuse. I am not aware of similar research having been done in this country but it seems quite plausible, now that partners are subjected to conditionality rules, that there will be situations in which someone may be prevented from seeking work by the violence or abuse of someone they are living with—and this will not allow for that. I would welcome the Minister’s response on that.
Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2012
Lord German Excerpts(12 years, 2 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord German
My Lords, I shall take up the point on which my noble friend concluded, and that is about the certainty which the Government have provided for those with pensions. The Government have done what they said they intended to do in terms of providing the triple lock, to which I shall come back in a moment. I am a little sorry that we have not been able to engage the Minister on geometric means. We had a very interesting discussion about that. He may want to refer, of course, to the ratio of averages or the average of relatives. These are important matters in relation to the CPI and the RPI. However, I will say this. For those who are advocates of one firm RPI framework, we need to look carefully at what makes up the CPI framework because we can derive a lot of benefit from it.
By way of illustration, the weighting that is given for food and clothing, which are the staples that underpin the prices index for poorer families, is 16.4 per cent for the CPI and 16.2 per cent for RPI. There is not a great deal of difference, but those are the staples. However, if you look at it carefully, you can see that, strangely, alcohol and tobacco are weighted at 9.1 per cent under RPI, yet only 4 per cent under CPI. I think that these are factors which we need to consider carefully when we try to come down heavily on RPI. It is the case, of course, that the CPI includes rent and the RPI includes mortgage interest payments. The Government have acknowledged that the discussion about the whole issue of housing costs is moving on and that there will be further debate as evidence comes forward from the various bodies that the Government are consulting on this matter. What we should celebrate, however, is the fact that we are providing certainty and that we have included the full 5.2 per cent in uprating both pensions and benefits.
I worry that those who seek a single lock rather than a triple lock do not get the real message that seems to come out of the triple lock, which is that in some years it is costs, in other years it is wages, and in others it is the increase in prices. The triple lock itself means that it will be the highest of those three which is provided. For those who advocate only the RPI, if you do not have a lock with those three mechanisms, you will not do well for people in the future. The actuary’s analysis provided under table 3 of the key assumptions looks at the CPI increase from year to year, and for the year we are currently looking at, it is 5.2 per cent, which falls to 2 per cent by 2014, and in fact to 2.1 per cent by 2013. If you were to take only that as the prices figure, no matter what measure you choose you would not fulfil the obligation which you get from a triple lock, which gives the highest of the three measures—wages, prices and costs. All three form part of what the Government are providing as a measure for the future. Those on pensions will know that in future years, whatever geometric means or factors relating to housing are improved or changed within the CPI, there will always be a firm basis on which those pensions will be increased. Uncertainty was a factor in the past as reliance on a single lock produced increases for pensioners in the early 2000s that amounted to pence. At the same time, we did not get the benefit of being able to keep up with those factors which influence most people’s lives. Therefore, we need to celebrate the triple lock and ensure that it is a permanent—not temporary—feature, and that it is built into any discussion on CPI.
I understand that two factors are involved in the switch from the savings credit to the guarantee credit, one of which is the need to provide support for poorer pensioners. The savings credit involves switching provision from pensioners with more income to those with less. The challenge was to provide a higher figure than the £5.30 pensions increase. As I understand it, the relevant figure would be about £5.35. Was the figure chosen to ensure that it was higher than the pensions increase? If it was, that was an admirable thing to do.
Do the Government expect there to be a much broader debate about spending a further £4.5 billion or £5 billion in the 12 months after April? Sometimes our debates focus on small amounts of money, but this is a substantial amount of money. We should celebrate the fact that we are able to provide that money to those who need it most.
I will gladly take messages to the Deputy Prime Minister, but as regards the working poor, whom my noble friend mentioned, I would like to raise the tax-free threshold as rapidly as possible. That is the message I would like to take to the Deputy Prime Minister.
Welfare Reform Bill
Lord German Excerpts(12 years, 3 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord German
My Lords, before I raise a number of issues that the Minister considered on Report, I shall just say a word about some of the conversation that there has been on behavioural change in this debate. If we pause for a moment to think of the 1.8 million people on the waiting list for social housing and the number of empty rooms, and put the two together, there is something dysfunctional about our housing sector. We have people living in overcrowded conditions who are waiting for social housing. Around 700,000 of those people fall into the vulnerable categories.
Wherever I go, the answer is always to build more homes, which is obviously part of the solution. However, for as long as there is that dysfunction and a shortage of funding and land to build more housing on—and a resistance to building more housing in some rural areas—people will continue to extend that waiting list. It is important that we do not miss the opportunity to change that dysfunction in some way. That is part of the issue that is being addressed. However, there are difficulties over the transition and how it will affect people. It is not something that is done lightly; nor is it easy to do.
There are questions that I should like to pose to the Minister. In answer to me on 14 December, at col. 1302 of Hansard, on the additional £30 million that would be used for DHPs to make up for the difficulties faced by two specific groups, he said that it would, “assist around 40,000 cases”. Is that simply a division of the amount of money available by the numbers that are predicted, or is it a fundamental assessment of those who live in adapted accommodation or are foster carers? I know that many noble Lords have made significant contributions to the debate on foster carers, both in Committee and on Report. It is of great concern because it has a very wide impact. Therefore, is the amount of money that is being made available sufficient to cope not only with the existing flow of foster carers but with the additional numbers that we need in this country to satisfy a very broad demand?
The second issue that arises from the Minister’s statement on Report relates to the other group that will be assisted by the discretionary housing payments—disabled people who have significantly adapted accommodation. I recall that in Committee we talked about several examples of people who had had very expensive changes made to their accommodation at public expense. That public expense would be duplicated if they had to move to other accommodation. Will the Minister explain to the House what “significantly adapted accommodation” is? Is the definition to do with whether it would not be cash-worthwhile, or does it go beyond that and relate to the nature of the adaptation that has been made?
One issue relates to equipment. Some equipment for disability is very cumbersome, large and bulky and would not warrant being moved. It would probably have been built into accommodation. For example, does this apply to a home where a disabled person requires ground-floor accommodation and where the expense of building a ground-floor extension to a property means that there is an empty bedroom upstairs? Will we still require that sort of change?
This whole transition, which must be effected through regulations, will undoubtedly be the source of some detailed conversations about these matters. Therefore, will the Minister give us some indication of whether the DHP that will be applied will be sufficient to tackle the two specific groups in all circumstances; and what he expects to be able to afford to do in the transitional arrangements that he may bring forward in regulations?
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, the Government have moved in a number of ways on the issues that have been returned from the other place. Along the way, they have also accepted a number of other changes that were pressed on them by your Lordships’ House. However, the Bill remains unchanged in some of its most unacceptable provisions, not least of which are those relating to underoccupancy. That is why we support the amendment in lieu, which was moved with such precision and expertise by the noble Lord, Lord Best. As we have heard, the amendment is less ambitious than that previously accepted on Report, reflecting our obligation to take account of the financial strictures of the Government. However, the amendment is not cost-free and cannot be if it is to provide protection for hundreds of thousands of households that, on average, could see their income fall by £14 a week.
It is clear that, under the guise of addressing underoccupation, the Government seek to make further savings on housing benefit on top of the multiplicity of restrictions—the CPI uprating, the 30 per cent percentile, the rent and size caps and the shared-room rate—that are already in play. Savings from some of these are being made in parallel with the benefit cap. The Government’s stated aims for the underoccupation rules are to encourage greater mobility within the social rented sector; to make better use of the available social housing stock; to improve work incentives; and to curtail housing benefit expenditure. The amendment in lieu addresses each of these issues. It is clear that, should a suitable offer of accommodation be forthcoming, there is an expectation that an underoccupying tenant should take it up, whether or not they have only one spare bedroom or fall into any of the exemption categories listed. If they did not, the housing benefit reduction would ensue. What is suitable would have to be defined in regulations and would have to reflect the circumstances of the household, including its need for adapted property, transport links, access to support services and appropriate schooling.
However, there is no merit at all in an economic incentive to move to smaller properties when there are no smaller properties to which people can move. Therefore, the amendment provides that, with no suitable alternative offer, the underoccupation deductions—the room tax, in the terms of the noble Lord, Lord Best—would apply unless there was no more than one spare bedroom and one or more of the other exemption criteria applied. As for improving work incentives, this can surely have no application for those who have no work requirement placed upon them, for example because of a severe disability. These are people who the Government themselves recognise cannot work and should not be expected to work, so what is the purpose of an economic work incentive for them?
We know that disabled people face extra costs in their daily lives and that it is harder for them to take the hit of reduced housing benefit. Indeed, the Government have already recognised this in the benefit cap by exempting certain categories of individuals from loss of housing benefit or universal credit. These are the self same categories listed in paragraph (b) in the amendment, mainly those on DLA or PIP. War widows or war widowers are similarly included in the exemption to parallel the arrangements in the benefit cap—no more, no less. The noble Lord, Lord Best, referred to the sources of funding on offer to deal with foster caring. It is hoped that the Minister will be able to dispel any suggestion that the new money to which he referred is just being cynically recycled. The Government’s other solution is for people to take in paying lodgers. Perhaps the Minister can say what assessment has been made of this possibility.
We agree that underoccupation in the social housing sector should be addressed and clearly the lack of social housing and the need to build more is part of that, but it is clear that the Government do not see these provisions as a route to doing so. Their assumption is that most people will not move and will take the hit and that is how the Government will get their savings. These amendments would stop them getting those savings from the most disadvantaged in our country. We support them.
Welfare Reform Bill
Lord German Excerpts(12 years, 3 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Howarth of Breckland
My Lords, I support this amendment, but in so doing I understand the position in which the noble Lord finds himself with a set of sealed envelopes. Like many other noble Lords, I encourage him to go back to the Treasury, or at least to have a look at how the available funding can be properly distributed. After all, this is a compromise. Personally, I would like us not to be in this position at all but rather to ensure that we do not make any cuts, because these are cuts—unlike some of the other reforms—to the budgets of families with disabled children.
I do not want to repeat the eloquent speeches that have already been made but to make three brief and, I hope, slightly different points. First, the Government need to take the long view as regards financial management. If we take the short-term view, we will find that many of these families will fall into even more disarray than they are in already. We should remember that, as has been said—I reinforce this point—the majority of these families are single-parent families looked after by mothers. These are not women who have had a child for some feckless reason, as is often portrayed in the newspapers, but women whose husbands cannot tolerate the pressure of having a disabled child in the household and have simply gone out of the picture—so these women are alone. Often that means that they cannot support their child’s situation, which results in many children going into care. I shall not quote more statistics, but noble Lords know that there are large numbers of disabled children in care at the moment and placing them in foster homes is very difficult; in fact, to get them adopted is almost impossible. The state’s burden of caring for such children is huge; the costs per week of caring for a disabled child can run into thousands. In taking the long view, we have to remember the number of children in care.
My last point is that, as several people have said, if we are a civilised society, we want children to grow up to be active young people and to have a proper transition into adulthood. I declare an interest as the president of Livability, a charity which looks after young people in schools, in colleges and through into adult care. I understand the need for that transition. If we are to do that and if we are to ensure that such families have a proper life, appropriate funding is crucial. Noble Lords may have disabled children but, if you are trying to bring them up on the kind of money that these families have and in the housing conditions and relationship situations of these families, funding is absolutely crucial to underpin the care, love and continuity that these children desperately need. I ask the Minister to look in his envelopes again to see whether there is not some way in which the money can be redistributed to ensure that that does not happen.
Lord German
My Lords, I would like to take a little further the arguments, put by the noble Lord, Lord Newton, about where we go with the concerns that have been widely expressed around the House. It is worth reminding noble Lords that the intention expressed by the Minister is not in the Bill before us; that is the subject of future regulations that are to be brought forward. I understand that the purpose behind the amendment is to lock the Minister into a pattern which will remain for many years to come. If you put something into primary legislation, it will be locked there for many years until time is found to change it. I shall return to some of those issues later.
One thing that has not been mentioned is the other cliff edge—my noble friend Lady Thomas mentioned this in her speech—relating to those who are 16 and those who are 17. The cliff edge is enormous. We also have to consider the change in the funding, although it is not the subject of this amendment, but it is the subject of the Minister’s thinking, as expressed to us. Many people see the problem of no continuity for disabled people between the ages of 15, 16 and 17. That is the issue that the Minister is concerned about.
Another related issue is not just the level of payments, but the way in which the payments will be funded over time. Perhaps this House would be better thinking about having a further debate on this or having that discussion during proceedings on regulations. I shall come back to how that might happen in a moment. There are two possible routes out of the problem of the distinct difference in the funding for those who are post-16 and those who are less than 16. I guess that one of the ways might be to create new tiers. There are already three tiers in DLA and there are two tiers for adults. At some stage in the future, a Government—this one or a future Government—might decide that it is essential to have three tiers and they might want to redesignate. Of course, that would be stopped by this amendment.
The second and more purposeful way in which the amendment would not allow change would be as regards transitioning; I do not mean the transitional measures in the Bill, but moving to rectify the enormous cliff edge that occurs at the age of 16. For that to happen, it may well be that a Government of whatever kind would want some form of progress on changing the relationship between post-16 and under-16 provision.
All those things would not be assisted by an amendment that locked into aspic a set of placements between one set of benefits and other, and missed out the other half of this equation, which is not the subject of the amendment. Of course there are concerns about the levels of payment that go into these particular directions. If you forage around the background of these particular payments—they go back to supplementary benefits, and I guess that some noble Lords here will remember how those originated—their purpose was to pay for the additional costs that were not being funded from the disability living allowance system that we now have. Those payments related mainly to items such as energy costs—the costs of extra baths, the need for more heating in the house, extra hot water and so on. Those are very much some of the issues that face the over-16s as well as the under-16s.
We need to have this debate, but need to have it in terms of the absolute flexibility that we can create in the environment between now and when the Minister brings forward his regulations. I am sure that he has listened to what has been said today, and my advice to my noble friend would be to heed the warnings that have been given. Clearly, there are very strong views about how you treat disabled children but, at the same time, I ask noble Lords to consider in the same breath the plight of those over 16 and to think about how best we might approach this issue.
A compromise situation might well be achieved by my noble friend listening to this debate and saying that he will discuss these matters when we come forward with the regulations. I know that many noble Lords will think that you cannot do anything about regulations: they are laid before you and you can either vote for them or not. We are laying markers now and there are markers that people can lay. I am sure that all the lobby groups are lined up, ready to influence the Minister in this matter. There is time—is there not?—for us to make sure that we do not put right one problem and cause another to be set in stone against it. We need that flexibility and I hope my noble friend is listening to that, will heed what he is hearing, but give a commitment that he will consider these matters when he brings forward his regulations.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, I should like to come back on some of the points made by the noble Lords, Lord Newton and Lord German. First, I say to the noble Lord, Lord German, that this is a very narrow amendment. It is being considered at Third Reading and we were advised to focus very narrowly on the subject that we are discussing, and not to say that because we cannot do enough for older disabled young people we should therefore make younger disabled children poorer. That is what the noble Lord, Lord German, was arguing for in part of his speech, and I was sad about that. I thought it was inappropriate as well as, frankly, irrelevant—given the steer we were given from the Table about the amendment.
Secondly, the noble Lords, Lord German and Lord Newton, asked the Minister to take the opinion of the House and to come back in regulations, as though—in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Newton—we would otherwise be setting payments in concrete or, as the noble Lord, Lord German, said, in aspic. I think I prefer aspic to concrete but, none the less, the point is that we are not doing that at all. That would be fundamentally to misunderstand what the amendment seeks to do. It would be wrong to put in the Bill a precise sum of money that would require primary legislation to change. That would be wrong because it would fix a payment in concrete or aspic. We are not doing that. This amendment establishes a principle of proportionality, because—as the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, said so movingly and as so many other noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, who have personal experience of this, said—the costs of disability are not just connected to the degree of disability; they are on a spectrum and may change.
Unless the amendment is passed, the Government propose that more severely disabled children will have one sum and less severely disabled children will have one-third of that sum. The amendment proposes that the right proportionality would be two-thirds of that sum. That is the principle, because we accept the arguments that have been put today by people with first-hand caring responsibilities, such as the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, in a very moving speech, and during the whole passage of the Bill. The principle here is that disabled children fall on a spectrum of disabled needs, costs and of either an improving or a deteriorating condition. Therefore, we should not have an arbitrary line as to whether you get the full sum or one-third of it. It is not about fixing a sum of money in concrete, it is about a principle that one should be proportionate to the other. That is all we are asking the House to discuss today.
Welfare Reform Bill
Lord German Excerpts(12 years, 3 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord German
I do not know whether this is the right place in the debate in which to do it because it is the first time that I have had the opportunity, but I want to place on record our thanks to the Bill team and my noble friend the Minister for the way in which they have handled the Bill all the way through. The way in which access to civil servants has been granted and the openness with which the Minister has provided information has been a revelation. I am most grateful, as I am sure are my colleagues on these Benches.
Lord Wigley
My Lords, since this opportunity is being taken to say thank you, perhaps I may from our Benches—I am sure that others will want to do likewise—thank the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, for the courteous and happy way in which they have handled the Bill. The Minister has always had a smile on his face despite the fact that there have been occasions when I am sure he felt otherwise. He has always been eager and helpful in responding to inquiries. There is a danger that he will become known in the House as “the latter-day Lord Newton”; in other words, the person who the disability lobby knows is really on its side but whose hands are sometimes tied. There can be worse tributes than that. We are very grateful for all the time and consideration that he has given during the past few weeks.
Welfare Reform Bill
Lord German Excerpts(12 years, 3 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord German
My Lords, I should like to follow that because it is an interesting perspective. I come to this issue as one who has been an ardent devolutionist and as someone who believes in power being passed—obviously, in my case—to Wales and to local government. So, although I come with a different historical perspective, I understand the historical perspectives of the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, and the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, because I read all about it in an article that I am afraid I have lost. It quotes her at the front about how the money would be used in Wales.
I hope that for once the Minister can tell me the mechanism by which the money will be transferred to Wales and Scotland. I understand that it will be part of the local government settlement in England and in Wales part of the Barnett formula. If that is the case, we are transferring the power to deal with those matters to Wales and Scotland. Why should I not argue for that sense of purpose? I am arguing for it and am also arguing for local government to have responsibility. After all, would you expect the swimming pool attendant to have his case heard in London for a swimming pool somewhere in the valleys of Wales? Of course not. The people closest to this—colleagues and decision-makers—will know the local circumstances. This is only a very small part of the Social Fund that is being devolved.
There is accountability because there are elections for local government. Local government is held to account, and the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly are both held to account by their electors. Clearly, there is a role for those who are receiving the money to be accountable to their electorates. I cannot believe that if there is a purpose to deliver something locally it should not be passed on to local government. We do ourselves a disservice by not accepting that there is a democratic right for local government to exercise this ability. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, that where I live in my country, her party supports no ring-fencing whatever for local government. It trusts local government to make those decisions. That is a form of devolution that is the right way.
We have to consider what functions are being transferred, whether to Wales or local government. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, in his usual manner of creating an environment, is absolutely right. If these are very small decisions about loans to people with whom the local council will already be in contact, surely it is right to trust local government to do it. I know that local government in England is ready, willing and able to do the job, and I know that there is an opportunity for their electorates to hold them to account. Sometimes it is important to let go and have the decision-making closer to the people whom it most affects.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
Perhaps I may challenge the noble Lord, Lord German. What he is saying is entirely applicable to Wales, where every local authority is a unitary authority and therefore has responsibility for both housing and social services and can read across, for example, from the help that will come from the discretionary housing allowance to the Social Fund. Often the same families need support in a crisis if, for example, a house has been flooded, has caught fire, or if someone is coming out of care, and so on. They will need both housing and social services help, and a unitary authority is rightly placed to give that, provided that it spends the money as it should.
However, the noble Lord has not mentioned that most local authorities in England do not want this because they are lower-tier authorities, and the social services which handle the Social Fund are upper-tier authorities. In the county of Norfolk, which is some 60 miles long and 40 miles wide, yellow lines are put on roads that you do not even drive down, and schools that you have never even visited are closed, which happened when I was a county councillor, because it was too large to be called local government. None the less, that social services authority will be determining the Social Fund for seven district councils, including one wholly urban authority, two semi-urban authorities and three or four rural authorities. As a result, there will be a postcode lottery within Norfolk because a county council of one political complexion will be dealing with half a dozen different authorities below it, responsible for housing and trying to manage the discretionary housing allowance at the same time.
We will therefore have two sets of officials, one at district level and one at county council level, dealing with the same vulnerable family, each of them focusing discretionary money with no mutual interlocking, decision-making or accountability. It is a bloody silly system that is being proposed and I hope that my noble friend presses the amendment to a vote and that, as a result, we give the other place a chance to think again.
Child Poverty
Lord German Excerpts(12 years, 3 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Freud
My Lords, we have a large number of measures to deal with unemployment in the short, medium and long terms, but the really important area here is to look at the long-term unemployed who have been excluded from economic activity. That is one of the most important areas of effort that we are undertaking to try and get those families back into the economic activity of the country.
Lord German
My Lords, the work programme is one of the cornerstones of the Government’s action to alleviate child poverty. Today’s NAO report on the work programme reports that harder-to-help people are not being referred to the programme in the numbers expected. Surely, as the Minister has said, this is the most important group to help to get back into work. What response does my noble friend have to the NAO report in that respect?
Lord Freud
My Lords, we are concerned about the slow way that people on ESA are moving into the work programme and we are looking closely at how to accelerate that process. Clearly, one of the ambitions of the programme is to get the hardest-to-help people back into the workforce, and there has been a rather slow start in that area.
Welfare Reform Bill
Lord German Excerpts(12 years, 3 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Hussein-Ece
I apologise. Although we have heard the assurances that there will be transitional arrangements, I have not yet heard what those protections will be for the families who will be most affected.
Lord German
My Lords, I start by making it clear that the concerns that have been expressed from these Benches are not around there being a cap. It is essential that there should be a cap; people find it manifestly unfair that claimants can receive in benefits more than the average working family gets in wages. The concerns expressed within the amendment are about two crucial issues: homelessness and housing; and the vulnerability of children. We are looking for discussion and reassurances from my noble friend the Minister on the issues raised by the cap. Our concern is about how those policies will be ameliorated—how to find a cap that fits.
I remind my noble friend the Minister that in Committee he said:
“The Government are looking at ways of easing the transition for families and providing assistance in hard cases. We recognise that there are households for which it would be inappropriate to restrict the amount of benefit that they can receive”.—[Official Report, 21/11/11; col. GC 346.]
The Government have already announced in another place and here that transition arrangements are to be made. This is the opportunity for my noble friend to express the Government’s views on those two crucial issues contained in the amendment. These details should emerge at this stage because it is appropriate that people know the Government’s direction of travel. It is not simply a question of us accepting that you need flexibility for the future. I understand that the Government’s regulations will follow from these debates, that there will be affirmative resolutions and that the House will have the opportunity to hear and vote on the detail. We need reassurances now in the broadest terms about the issues raised in the amendment.
I appreciate that by DWP standards—the noble Lord, Lord Fowler has said this already—the numbers captured by this policy are small. However, they are small only in respect of the DWP’s overall workload, not in terms of the 67,000 families or the 220,000 children who will be affected. We cannot put aside the fact that there is personal impact.
First, I turn to the issue of homelessness. I understand—we heard it this morning in a broadcast by the Secretary of State, and it has also been referred to in this debate—that the numbers of potential reported homeless households is based not on rooflessness but on the structure of how this is measured by the Department for Communities and Local Government. I wonder what reassurance my noble friend can give that we will not find families out on the street, that we will find homes for people and that they will be accommodated. If the numbers who are classed as homeless are those who are sharing rooms, which I heard from the Secretary of State, what methodologies and transition arrangements are being put in place? After all, if people are entitled to be classed as homeless by virtue of that definition, and are sharing a room, what is to prevent them presenting themselves to a local authority as homeless, thereby generating further cost to the public purse and creating no savings whatever? What transition arrangements will be put in place to ensure—what this House is asking for—that no one should be made roofless as a result of this policy. Any savings if they were to come by having to throw the balance to another department might be illusory. I am seeking reassurance from my noble friend the Minister. We want to hear the outline of the arrangements to be put in place to ensure that we do not sustain expenditure by simply passing costs from one department to another.
We are told that the department now has extensive information on the households that will be affected by the cap. I seek reassurance that there will always be a property available—not necessarily close to the same street in which the people have lived—for the people who will be displaced and that they will always have somewhere to live. Crucially, what help will be provided in the transitional period between now and April 2013 and perhaps, beyond, given the Minister’s comments in Committee. I also ask him to outline the processes to be put in place during this transition period and to provide the reassurances needed to demonstrate that rooflessness and overcrowding are not options that the Government are considering.
A second issue, which we will come back to in another debate, is that of children. This issue is mentioned in this amendment and has been raised before. It is indeed a powerful statement that children are not responsible for the decisions of their parents, but in workless households the worst disincentive is not to aspire to work. Those of us with experience representing the poorest areas—in my case, the poorest area—within our country know that it is a dreadful stigma which we place upon our young people. I wonder whether the Minister can provide some reassurance and tell us what arrangements he is making. What support will be given to the longer term aspirations towards work for our younger people? Alongside this is the impact of a parent becoming unemployed without suitable transition arrangements.
Perhaps all these issues need to be outlined in principle now, so that my noble friends on these Benches and noble colleagues around this Chamber can decide whether the Government are keen to ensure that the impacts are going to be ameliorated by this cap.
Lord Freud
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, closed his remarks on Amendment 58D by saying that it is designed to prevent a slide into poverty, particularly for those who are young. The benefit cap is about changing psychology. It is about trying to get a change of circumstances in those families. Let me remind noble Lords—I know that they do not need any reminder—that the worst thing for youngsters is to be in a workless household. We need to change behaviours, and this benefit cap is designed to do that.
We need to move towards the cap in a highly organised way, and we will have a year to work with those families that are going to be affected. As my noble friend Lord Fowler pointed out, this affects around 1 per cent of the population that we deal with and we know exactly who they are. In the new impact assessments, we were working on the particular families. We can spend a year with those families making sure that they respond in advance to what the cap implies for them. It is a very simple answer for the bulk of them: we need to get you into work.
Welfare Reform Bill
Lord German Excerpts(12 years, 4 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Blair of Boughton
My Lords, like other speakers I support Amendment 50ZB. Very few police officers have not come across the fleeing mother with her children. There is no more desperate person imaginable. However, that is not the point I want to make. My point relates to a longer-term issue, and is about making sure that this funding goes towards the long-term prevention of crime. The connection between criminality and having been in care, between criminality and homelessness, and between criminality and having been already in prison is so clear that money spent here and accounted for by the local authorities, as the noble Lord, Lord Newton, has just said, is money well spent. This money should be spent on this, and to have it spent on other things would be a great shame.
Lord German
My Lords, to concur with the noble Lord’s last sentence, this is a matter of accountability. I refer to Amendment 50ZA, which applies only to England. Members of the House of Lords will be very familiar with the fact that other parts of the United Kingdom will receive this money, and I would like some confirmation from the Minister on the arrangements that are to be made for Scotland and Wales. If, as I understand it, this money is to be transferred by means of the Barnett formula, the amendment will apply only to England. I wonder how it is possible to seek accountability for money that has been given by this Parliament for the services that are so vital for people within the current arrangements for the Social Fund. This is not an anti-devolution to local government statement, but the lines of accountability here do need to be judged. If we are devolving the power for that accountability to the Welsh and Scottish Governments, we need to state that now, and noble Lords need to understand that this is a further devolution of responsibility. Many noble Lords may accept this, or like it, or find it an attractive proposition, but the Government’s intention in this respect is as yet unclear to me.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
My Lords, I am not sure whether the noble Lord, Lord German, is for or against the amendment, but all the other speakers have clearly supported these amendments. This is quite sensible, because the amendments all set out to ensure that vulnerable people can continue to access support once the Social Fund has been devolved, to whomsoever.
The first amendment in the group implements a recommendation of the Select Committee in another place. It would provide some reassurance about the effectiveness of the new system of helping those in need, and clearer information to local voters about whether their local authority is choosing to spend less than the allocated amount. It does nothing to restrict local discretion in how to implement the Social Fund replacement scheme; it merely places a requirement on the local authority, as has been said, to account for it. I think that all noble Lords who spoke would support that, and I feel sure that this is an aim that the Minister, similarly, will support.
The second amendment in the group, as was spelled out, would ensure that the use of local connection rules cannot prevent, for example, care leavers, the homeless, those fleeing domestic violence—the noble Lord, Lord Blair, spoke about them—and those leaving institutional residential care accessing Social Fund-type support. It is true that it ties the hands of local authorities a little, but only to ensure that groups that might be very much in need of support are not left with nowhere else to turn. As we heard, for many women fleeing domestic violence, community care grants are vital in helping them to set up a new home and perhaps buy a cot, a bed or a cooker. Given that many women need to enter refuges or other homes away from their former partners, they will often be unable to meet local connection rules.
We know that, among people who use the discretionary Social Fund, one in eight is leaving some sort of institutional care; nearly one in 10 is leaving prison; and one in five has at some time experienced homelessness. I work in Camden with people who have alcohol problems. There are a lot of train stations in Camden, so a lot of people arrive on our doorstep. At the time we help them with their drink problem, they will not be in the same area where they have lived and worked for perhaps 30 years.
Although I understand that the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, will not press her amendment, I urge the Minister to consider it. We know that although universal credit budgeting loans could be available for rent in advance, crisis loans will be abolished before the introduction of universal credit, and it could be some time before the new system is set up and reliable. We know from our experience of many new IT systems that even the best laid plans occasionally go wrong. We have had many assurances from the noble Lord, Lord Freud, about the robust nature of the system being put in place, but it would be prudent to ensure that a national safety net remains while we wait for him—we hope—to be proved right on this occasion. I said “prudent” but it is probably vital that we continue to guarantee national access to community care loans and crisis loans until the universal credit system is set up. Once national systems have been devolved, the accountability that my noble friend spoke of, as well as the local connection rules, will be an essential part of helping these vulnerable groups. We are happy to support all three amendments in this group.
Welfare Reform Bill
Lord German Excerpts(12 years, 5 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Stoneham of Droxford
My Lords, I declare an interest as chair of First Wessex Housing Association and Housing 21. I am pleased to speak in this debate initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Best. I think everyone in the House today understands the extreme pressure of the need to reduce the housing benefit budget and to tackle the issue of underoccupancy at a time of housing shortages. We should not forget that underoccupancy of social housing is nearly matched by 50 per cent overoccupancy.
In Committee, the Minister set an objective for the changes he was proposing. He said:
“Housing benefit … will become more balanced in a way that will restore fairness, encourage better use of our existing social housing stock and encourage more people into employment”.—[Official Report, 18/11/11; col. GC 71.]
The problem is that the market for social housing is not flexible; it is quite rigid. It is a fight to get a home and, in severe shortages, requirements and needs are not easily matched. We wish we had a situation where people could have a better choice, but it is simply not possible. What we have available in any locality is way short of need, and often what is available cannot specifically match need. On the issue of underoccupancy, we know that there will be something like 180,000 under retirement age who want to move but that the annual available housing for them is about one-third of this.
Housing requirements change through life. In a rigid market where people cannot easily match their requirements to supply, some flexibility is required. Otherwise, allocations will be even more difficult. The Minister’s objective—balance to restore fairness—will not be fair if an individual wants to move home and cannot. The person will have to find extra income and, in the current economic climate, as my noble friend Lord Kirkwood, said, it will be extremely dubious whether they will be able to find the significant extra income they need. Let us not forget that in this situation—my noble friend also referred to this—underoccupation is greater in the north, and so there is a regional dimension. Thirty pounds a week is a lot of money for people least able to afford it, and 150,000 households will have to find nearly twice that.
The Minister also said that one of the objectives is to provide balance to make better use of our existing stock, but the reality is that the existing rigidities will be distorted by this change. Available new housing stock will now have to be used to move people. The people who probably need the most encouragement to move are those who are retired—who are underoccupying—and we will not now have the facility to move them. They are the people whose household costs need to be reduced. Indeed, we improve the housing benefit bill by moving them. As the housing stock is re-let, we will be required under the Government’s housing benefit reforms to let some of these houses at affordable rents. So for those people who take on that stock, we will probably be paying out a higher proportion in housing benefit.
The Minister gave us, in his Committee speech, figures from the future network. Under the claimants benefit research, he said that of the 670,000, 25 per cent want to move; 50 per cent will not move; 29 per cent are looking for increased work and income—which is going to be difficult; 15 per cent say that they will take in a lodger, and 35 per cent are said to be likely to go into arrears. Those are pretty dramatic figures. He also said that over the next couple of years we will look at putting strategies in place to make sure that this does not happen. The problem is we only have 15 months in which to do this, not a couple of years, as the measure comes in in April 2013. That is madness.
We have already heard this referred to as a room tax. In fact, in Committee, somebody referred to the window tax. It was not in the time of Queen Anne, as the Minister mentioned; it was William and Mary—1696. I looked it up; two shillings per window. That is interesting; £11.20 in real money—it is not much different. I am assured also by the research that the phrase “daylight robbery” did not originate from that time. We can imagine, however, the political campaign—and the slogans—should this room tax come in on a single day. I do not fancy the Chancellor—I hope my colleagues will remember this—standing up in March 2013 to give his Budget speech when in April 2013 this change will be coming in. I bet you he will have to move politically at that time, even if he does not move now.
We have to expect that 25 per cent of people will move. How is this to be organised in 15 months? There are not enough houses being built to do this. Housing associations do not even know how many and who will be affected. There is a lack of information. What are the strategies? What must the Government do in this situation? What do they need to say today?
The first proposal is that of the noble Lord, Lord Best: allow an extra room for flexibility. It is probably the best proposal, but—as we will be told—this will take £300 million of the £500 million savings. It is not actually a great deal of money. I just ask the House to think what the Chancellor will be thinking in March 2013. It is not clear that the £300 million in savings will come through. I expect that a lot of children and other relatives will suddenly emerge in these houses. Re-lets, as I have already mentioned, would lead to higher housing benefit claims. There are also the costs of moving, plus the costs of discretionary housing grants, and so on. Retired people who we want to move into smaller accommodation—saving housing benefit and saving their household costs—will not be able to move.
The second proposal is to extend the transition so it coincides at a minimum with the anniversary of tenancies; that ideally, as the Minister has already said, we should spread this change over a couple of years so that people can adjust. If you are trying to take from the poorest people these sums of money, they need time to adjust. So do the housing associations and the housing providers. They need time to adjust to allow a better transition, to allow the adjustments in housing stock. We cannot expect everybody to simply change on day one in 15 months’ time.
The third option is to extend discretionary housing grants. We hear this on each occasion, but we are not sure how that is going to be administered.
I urge the Government to move on this issue, for sensible housing requirements, for fairness and for assuring that the poorest and the least resourced will not assume a significant burden at a very difficult time. Above all, the providers also need time and flexibility to adjust the housing supply to the new demands and the new needs.
Lord German
My Lords, I have two groups of people to whom I want to refer. My noble friend Lady Thomas referred to them in Committee, and I referred to one of them. What does the Minister anticipate doing for foster carers? We have already been told that we have a shortage of foster caring in this country, and foster carers need to keep a bedroom to be able to host and look after children in foster care. It is very important indeed—and I think that the Minister acknowledged this in his response in Committee—that something needs to be done to accommodate the needs of that group of people.
The second group of people are those who have had adaptations to their properties. Those adaptations probably cost the public purse quite substantial sums of money, so it does not make sense, for example, to require people to move from one property that has a stair lift to another where a stair lift has to be put in place. Can my noble friend tell us what he anticipates doing for both those groups?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Freud)
My Lords, I need to thank noble Lords to start with for a thoughtful and insightful debate.
The introduction of size criteria into the social rented sector from April 2013 is essential to reduce housing benefit expenditure, which without reform would reach £25 billion in cash terms by 2014-15. With savings from this measure estimated to be around £500 million per annum, it will play a key role in our efforts to control housing benefit expenditure and to tackle the budget deficit. In these difficult economic times, we cannot avoid having to make these choices. I assure noble Lords that these decisions have not been taken lightly.
In case there is any doubt, let me remind noble Lords that the size criteria measure will affect only working-age housing benefit claimants living in the social rented sector who are underoccupying their accommodation. For a family of four, with two adults and a teenage boy and girl, we are proposing that they will be entitled to housing benefit for a three-bedroom property with a living room, kitchen, bathroom and possibly even other rooms, such as an extra bathroom and study. This is the same as we allow for people living in the private rented sector. Those in a property that has more bedrooms than the size criteria allow will receive a percentage reduction in their eligible rent, meaning, on average, a shortfall of around £14 per week.
It is only fair that everyone plays their part, but we will, of course, ensure that we maintain safeguards for those in the most vulnerable circumstances. However, even with the reforms that we have started making to housing benefit, we are still expecting to spend nearly £23 billion on housing benefit this year. By the end of the spending review, we expect to achieve £2 billion in annual savings from the package of housing benefit reform. That is £2 billion off the £25 billion that I referred to. The Government believe that it is right that those living in oversized properties in the social rented sector contribute to those savings. Claimants in this sector make up over two-thirds of all housing benefit claimants, although most of the £2 billion in annual savings will still come from claimants living in private rented accommodation.
In England, approximately 420,000 households in the social rented sector underoccupy their accommodation by two bedrooms or more, while over a quarter of million households are overcrowded. What is more, 1.8 million households are currently on the housing waiting list in England. Over 700,000 of these households belong to reasonable preference groups, which means that they are treated as having a higher priority on the waiting list. This includes the homeless, people living in insanitary or overcrowded housing, and those needing to move because of a medical condition.
This measure is necessary to control spending. It is necessary because spending was allowed to spiral out of control under the previous Government, but we also believe that it will encourage greater mobility among households living in the social rented sector. It will help local authorities and other social housing providers to make the best use of their existing housing stock. It runs alongside and in support of measures introduced as part of the Localism Act, such as increased flexibility for local authorities to manage their housing waiting lists and the development of the national home swap scheme.
We have discussed this measure in detail and I have listened to and thought at length about the important issues that have been raised. We have various amendments to get through, but it might be helpful if I first set out what conclusions the Government have arrived at and what we intend to do. Noble Lords will understand that there is limited scope for manoeuvre within such a tight fiscal context, but I am pleased to announce today an additional £30 million that we will add to the discretionary housing payment budget from 2013-14, in support of the introduction of the size criteria into the social rented sector from April 2013. We believe that the amount made available is reasonable, based on what we know about the numbers likely to be affected by the measure. We think that £30 million could assist around 40,000 cases. It could help even more if local authorities choose to use DHPs to make up some, but not all, of a claimant's shortfall.
My noble friend Lord German asked what that funding is for. It is specifically aimed at two groups. The first group is disabled people who live in significantly adapted accommodation, and the funding is to enable them to remain in their existing homes. I hope that goes some way to satisfying the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, as well on that matter. The second group, which a number of noble Lords mentioned, is that of foster carers. We have carefully assessed the number of foster carers who will need to keep an extra room for when they are in between fostering, and we have an amount for them. I hope that goes some way to satisfying my noble friends Lord German and Lord Kirkwood on that matter, and indeed the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds, who I hope feels that there is some room at the inn for this very vulnerable and important group.
The case for providing some mitigation for these two groups is clear, but we have decided that the way to do it is through the discretionary housing payment route rather than through specific amendments. We need rules in the benefit system that do not increase administrative complexity. We need to be able to make and deliver effective legislation not just within housing benefit but within universal credit. Such exemptions might, for example, include those who would otherwise have met the shortfall themselves, and might miss others who would have had a stronger case for additional support. I am convinced that a more localised, discretionary approach is the best way forward. It means that the limited resources that we have can be efficiently targeted at those who need them most. Of course we would like to do more, but there is simply no more money available.
Discretionary housing payments can be paid only where there is a linked claim to housing or council tax benefit. This is in effect, therefore, ring-fenced funding, although we cannot tell local authorities precisely who they should spend it on or how much they should spend. That is for local authorities to decide. However, we provide further guidance for local authorities through the DHP good practice guide. We have an illustrative draft of that, which I can share with noble Lords this evening, and we look forward to refining that with the input both of noble Lords and key stakeholders.