Housing Benefit
Lord Lilley Excerpts(10 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)
As the Secretary of State responsible for introducing the regulations in 1996, which interacted in an unforeseen way with the regulations last year, I must seek the House’s indulgence at not having recalled the detail of their text and drawn any possible problem to the attention of my successor. However, I assure the House that there was no intention of granting any long-term relief from a change of policy that I envisaged introducing if we had been re-elected and I had remained Secretary of State.
Mr Lilley
I will give way not at the moment.
The problem that we face is a huge shortage of housing. We have 1.85 million people on council waiting lists, up 800,000 since 1997. That should be no surprise, given that the previous Government allowed the population to increase by 3 million during that period, with virtually no addition to the housing stock.
The symptom of such a shortage is overcrowding—a word which did not pass the lips of the Opposition spokesman in her speech. During my period as a Member of Parliament, many people have come to my surgery to seek help about a change in social housing. Overwhelmingly, they have been people living in overcrowded accommodation who want a bigger property and seek to move out of a one or two-bedroom property. I have therefore been surprised by the general approach of Opposition Members and by some of the media in saying that no one wants to move out of small properties into big ones and that there are therefore no small properties to be moved into by those affected by the removal of the spare room subsidy.
By chance, I bumped into an old friend who is now the chairman of an organisation called HomeSwapper. Some 80% of local authorities belong to it, and hundreds of thousands of tenants have registered on it that they want to swap.
Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
With all due respect to the right hon. Gentleman, the problem with his presentation is that the Government expect to make a fairly substantial saving of some £500,000—they will not actually make it—from people not being able to move. What is the real aim of the policy: is it about people moving, or about trying to extract money from them?
Mr Lilley
The policy is about making better use of a housing stock that is in very short supply.
My friend pointed out that hundreds of thousands of people are registered: last year, about 40,000 swaps were arranged; this year, the number arranged on the site has increased by 23%. I went to my local authority to find out its figures. Some 500 or more people registered as council tenants in St Albans are seeking to move, of whom 260 are seeking larger properties, while only 62 are seeking to downsize. I therefore ask Opposition Members to go to their local authorities and find out the actual figures.
Mr Lilley
Then the hon. Gentleman will know that nationwide, on HomeSwapper alone, 50,000 people with one-room properties are trying to move to larger properties that are available. It is simply untrue to pretend that such properties are not available.
I do not want to use up time unnecessarily in this important debate, so I will just draw the attention of the House again to the fact that we are dealing with a massive overcrowding problem resulting from a shortage of property. The Opposition are pretending that the reverse is the case and that we have a large surplus of rooms that we can allow people to have—it would be wonderful if we had an excess of cheaply available property, so that everyone who wanted an extra room could have it, subsidised and free, from the taxpayer—but we are not in that position. When will they wake up to reality, look at the facts and deal with the real social problem that most of us face, which is overcrowding in council and social properties?
Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
There is a fundamental incoherence at the heart of this whole policy. We have heard impassioned pleas from some members on the Government Benches about how much they care for people in overcrowded housing and that this is a policy to help with that situation, but at the same time it is clear from the Government’s own financial projections that they expected to make savings from people not being able to move and having to pay the extra. That is the fundamental inconsistency. The savings are going to be outweighed not just by discretionary housing payments but by the cost of administering them, of giving people additional advice and support and of employing more staff to do so. All that is being shouldered by local authorities and housing associations, and it has to be taken into account when looking at overall public spending.
DHPs do not make up for the fact that many people are suffering. These are real people. A constituent of mine was a cancer sufferer; he is in recovery. He has three children whom he wants to have with him at weekends. One is autistic—where is he supposed to put that child in a one-bedroom property? Is he not allowed to have a life? He did not qualify for DHPs first time around because his DLA was taken into account, so it is not a straightforward case of saying “People will be all right, even those who are disabled.” Why should people be made to make repeated applications instead of being exempted? The Prime Minister at times seems to think that those people are already exempted, but he is clearly wrong.
I am sorry to tell the hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Heather Wheeler) that many of us are deeply concerned about housing in our areas. New houses have been built in my city, but this week only 23 one-bedroom properties are available, of which five are sheltered accommodation. They are not suitable for people in this position. The houses just are not there at the moment, so why should people pay a tax, which is what it is, until that is sorted out?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I think the hon. Lady has finished her speech, which is helpful because I am sure Members would like to hear from the Minister as well.
Oral Answers to Questions
Lord Lilley Excerpts(11 years, 10 months ago)
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Chris Grayling
Of course, the purpose of the Work programme is to provide specialist back-to-work support. Those moving off ESA have early access to the Work programme, and those still on it can volunteer for the programme at any time, if they are not mandated to it.
Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)
Given that there are now 400,000 more jobs in the economy, the bulk of which have been taken by people who, by and large, are not eligible for benefits, because they are workers from abroad, might not loss of entitlement to benefit—for good cause—spur some people to get jobs and thus result in more jobs going to British people?
Chris Grayling
I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend. I have made it clear that I would like employers in this country to offer opportunities to local workers, but those workers need to be there—they need to be keen, energetic and wanting that work. I hope and expect that our Work programme providers will provide that energisation.
Welfare Reform Bill
Lord Lilley Excerpts(12 years, 3 months ago)
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Malcolm Wicks
In general, it is the mothers of Britain—sometimes it is the fathers with care, but it is generally the mothers—who have taken on huge responsibilities. It is the parent who does not pay who is the irresponsible party, and who reneges on his duty to care for his own children. I want a system that can be tough-minded about the fathers who refuse to pay. They are often self-employed, and have become deliberately self-employed. The mothers often know where they live. A mother will have heard about the new person in the father’s life, about the fancy car outside the house, about the foreign holidays—yet the system has failed to make those fathers pay. Let me put the question to the Minister again. Will a charge help in those circumstances?
Many mums will know that the Child Support Agency, or whatever we choose to call it, does not work. We want to make it work, but people say, “My friends didn’t get anywhere.” Only recently I discussed with the Secretary of State the case of one of my constituents who, throughout the lifetime of four children, never received any maintenance. That person thinks that the system does not work. I want it to work, but if some mothers are deterred from using the system, it will be a failure.
This should not be a big party issue, and I hope that the Department will reflect again on when the charge might be levied.
Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)
I support my hon. Friend the Minister on the issue of the Child Support Agency, but I want to make a brief observation on the housing benefit issue. My constituency might be wholly different from those of the Members who have spoke so far, but the overwhelming majority of the cases I deal with at my surgery involve people who want additional rooms because they have growing families or families who are becoming older. If this charge causes some people to want to downsize, that will help to strike a balance, but at present I do not encounter people who want to downsize.
Mr Lilley
What I am saying is that in my constituency I encounter people who have no spare room but want one, not people who have a spare room and want to give it up. The situation may be different in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency.
Let me now move on the point that I really want to make, which relates to the Lords amendment dealing with Child Support Agency charges. I am reluctant to discuss the Child Support Agency, as I was the hapless Secretary of State who had to introduce it after it was legislated for by my predecessor. Discretion being the better part of valour, I always delegated the matter to my hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt), whose emollient manner proved the text in Proverbs that a soft answer turneth away wrath. I kept as distant from it as I could.
Mr Lilley
I will not, if my hon. Friend will forgive me.
I am also reluctant to take issue with the Lords unnecessarily. When I was Secretary of State for Social Security, I found that from time to time the Lords would propose amendments to legislation that I had introduced. At first I was shocked that anyone could think that my legislation could be improved in any way, but when I listened to what was said by the Lords in general and the bishops in particular, I usually found that it contained an element of truth. There was something worth listening to, even if I could not take on board everything that they proposed. I welcome the fact that my hon. Friend the Minister has listened to them, has modified the charging structure, and has taken their points on board. However, she is probably right not to adopt the whole principle of what the other place suggests.
I am not entirely persuaded of the Lords’ case, because I think that it is right in principle to charge for a costly service, and it is right that the people who principally benefit from it should pay an element of it in the form of a charge, rather than our leaving the entire cost to the other party or the taxpayer. It is right in principle, too, that wherever possible we encourage voluntary agreements, rather than reliance on state-funded bureaucracy, because voluntary agreements, where possible, are better, and because that reduces the load on an over-extended bureaucracy that has never been able to cope with the load that it has; it is better that it focuses on the most obdurate cases.
It is right in principle to charge both parents, as it is not possible, even though their lordships’ amendment implies that it is, to distinguish who is the goody and who the baddy.
Mr Lilley
I will let the hon. Lady make her own points in due course. We may reach our own judgments on who is right and who is wrong, but we cannot make the agency decide that. Both parents will benefit from an arrangement reached by the CSA, and it is right that it should make that arrangement.
I noticed that there were an awful lot of lawyers on the voting lists in the House of Lords. Lawyers do not say, “We won’t charge you if you’re right; we’ll only charge you if you’re wrong. We won’t charge you if you’re the aggrieved party; we’ll only charge the other party.” They should accept that similar rules apply to charging by the CSA.
Finally, as the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) said, now that child support is an addition to a family’s income, rather than it simply being about getting back the taxpayers’ money—I am not sure that it was right to make that move—it is sensible that there should be a charge to the beneficiaries. On balance, I think that my hon. Friend the Minister was right to make the modest concession that she did to her lordships, but to stick to the principle; I am glad that she has done so.
Kate Green
I want to make a point on child support, and a point on the Child Poverty Act 2010 and the change that the Government are planning to make to it.
I point out that there is an inequality of bargaining power, particularly in a high-conflict situation, which means that parents with care—usually women—do not have a choice on whether to arrive at a consensual agreement. In practice, women in particular will settle for little or nothing for the sake of a quiet life because they cannot afford the fee. I particularly take exception to the idea that a parent with care who has done everything possible to reach a voluntary agreement, but who meets with a resistant, recalcitrant non-resident parent, will have to pay a fee when it is absolutely no fault of hers that she and, more to the point, her children do not get the financial support that they should.
The right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley) says that it is right that those who benefit from or seek to access the service should pay a fee, but it is children who are intended to benefit from a statutory system of child support. Is it right that money intended for children should be hypothecated in that way?
The right hon. Gentleman and the Minister seem to believe that it is impossible for the child support system to take a view on which parent is at fault, but in clause 138 of the Bill, that view is taken by the system, because access to the collection service is being limited to cases in which the commission has decided that maintenance will not otherwise be payable. If it is possible for the commission to make that assessment and to determine that there is no prospect of the non-resident parent making payment, how can no view be taken on whether efforts have been made to receive a voluntary payment or not?
The majority of lone parents are women and women are already typically worse off after separation or divorce whereas men are better off. The fact that those parents will now be hit with a further fee as there will be both an up-front fee and a fee for collection when that collection fails—although I welcome the fact that the fee has been cut to £20, I would like to see it at zero—means that those families on low incomes will be left with very little income.
Amendment of the Law
Lord Lilley Excerpts(13 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Chancellor on sticking to his plan to reduce the Budget deficit. Far from these cuts being too much, too deep, too soon, I believe that what he has proposed is the minimum over the longest credible period that we can reasonably expect will enable us to avoid the sort of financial crisis that has hit many neighbouring countries.
I want to address an illusion. The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne), whom it is normally a privilege to follow, based his speech on it, and it permeated the speech of the Leader of the Opposition at the weekend when he addressed the large rally on cuts. It is the illusion that we can have something for nothing. We live in a world of finite resources. If we spend more on one thing, we have to spend less on another. If we spend more now, we must expect to spend less—substantially less—in future, when we repay our debts with compound interest. The Opposition do not seem to realise that. I would be more than happy to engage in debate with either of them if when they advocated the restoration of spending in one area, they simultaneously spelt out the additional cut they intended to propose in another area of spending, but they never do so and the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill did not do so today. As long as hon. Members refuse to spell out alternative cuts to those that they reject, rational debate in this place is simply impossible.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I know that you are well aware that the ancient states of the Peloponnese resolved these problems by rules of debate that required those advocating increased spending on programmes that would require extra taxation or more borrowing to stand up in the public forum on a platform and argue their case with a noose around their neck. If they succeeded in persuading their fellow citizens of the need for increased spending and taxation, the noose was removed, but if they failed, the platform was removed. I understand that this healthy discipline meant that those states remained solvent for centuries on end.
Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
The slight problem with that is that if we had a similar system here, under whichever Government, there would be no Members of Parliament left.
Mr Lilley
That is slightly unworthy of a former Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, who at least would remain, if in solitary glory.
A related illusion that the Opposition purvey is the call, frequently made by the Leader of the Opposition, for the Government to prepare a plan B in case the economic road gets rocky—a plan B would, by implication, involve higher spending and borrowing. Of course it is a bit rich for the Leader of the Opposition to ask for a plan B, given that he has not yet spelt out a plan A, but the reality is that if we abandon the plan set out by the Chancellor, we will get a plan B, but it will not come from the Opposition or from my right hon. Friend the Chancellor—it will come from the savers and pension funds whose money we would need to borrow to finance that increased borrowing. If we did bottle out of what we have proposed, they would demand deeper cuts over a shorter period and they would require us to pay a higher rate of interest. The net result would not just be deeper cuts in the public sector, as we have seen the markets impose on Portugal, Greece and Ireland; those higher interest rates would kill off and abort the recovery in the private sector on which we depend to create the jobs to take up the people not employed in the public sector. So it would be a disaster for this country if we were to go down that route.
The third illusion that some Labour Members purvey—perhaps the more honest elements among them—is the belief that we could avoid public spending cuts if we were prepared to put up taxation. But who would pay those higher taxes? Ultimately, taxes are always paid by individuals and if the squeezed middle are not going to pay them—they have been precluded from bearing a higher burden of taxation by the Leader of the Opposition —either the poor or the rich must do so. I would not put it beyond a party that sought to double the burden of taxation on the lowest paid by removing the 10p tax rate to seek extra revenues from the very poor, but that would not yield much money so Labour must look to the very rich for it. I just remind Labour Members that if they read the Red Book, they will see that the top 1% of income tax payers in the coming year are expected to pay no less than a quarter of the entire revenues of income tax—last year, the top 5% paid more than half of all income tax. We are reaching the point at which any further burden of taxation on those people would kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. In the words of my old friend, the sadly now deceased Lord Harris of High Cross, punitive taxes beyond a certain point do not redistribute income, they redistribute people. We have reached that point and we would go beyond it if we accepted the advice of the Opposition.
I urge my hon. Friends to support the Chancellor and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State in what he is doing at the Department for Work and Pensions and to ignore the blandishments and illusions of the other side.
Jack Dromey
Bankers’ bonuses and, as our Front-Bench team proposes, among other things, we would have a sensible programme of investment, just as we invested in the construction industry to get it going at a time of recession, providing 110,000 homes, 70,000 jobs and 3,000 apprenticeships. We would invest now in a fresh stimulus package of much-needed social housing, creating jobs, apprenticeships and hopes. That is what we would do, and that is the difference between them and us.
The police, too, are feeling the consequences. This Friday 300 of the most experienced police officers in the west midlands will be forced out under regulation A19. I was with five of them this morning. They included an inspector, the national champion of designing out crime, who on one Birmingham estate achieved a 97% reduction in crime levels; a sergeant leading an excellent team of neighbourhood policemen; and a detective constable, the specialist in robbery, who has put away those who robbed old people at cash points and those who robbed shops with a machete. They all now face having to leave the force against their will. The Government have said to them, “Thanks for your past loyalty, but here’s your notice.” Governments should cut crime, not the police.
With regard to the impact on the private sector, 1.2 million people in that sector depend on public expenditure, particularly the £38 billion spent on local government procurement. If local government budgets are cut by 28%, major job losses in the private sector are inevitable. The estimate for the midlands is that 67,000 jobs will go as a consequence of what is happening in local government.
On rebalancing the economy, the Government have abolished the most successful regional development agency in Britain—Advantage West Midlands—and put in its place local enterprise partnerships that have no money, no power, no statutory basis and no power over skills. The planning proposals are a cocktail of confusion and the regional growth fund has only a third of the funds that were available to the RDAs. Incidentally, the RGF is the most elastic fund in history, designed to cope with all sorts of applications according to the Government.
Then there is the impact on the voluntary sector, the good society. Billions will be lost to the voluntary sector, including, in Birmingham, the oldest citizens advice bureau in Britain and 13 advice centres—all facing closure. The CAB was founded in 1938 and is the quintessence of the good society. Excellent people give first-class advice with an army of volunteers, but, just when the people of Birmingham need their support and advice most, those centres are facing closure.
My constituency of Birmingham Erdington is one of the 10 poorest in Britain, but it is rich in talent, with young people who are deeply aspirational and want to get on. What now haunts the people of Erdington is the spectre of the 1980s and TINA: there is no alternative. I know families in Erdington, Kingstanding and Castle Vale, where excellent men and women in the 1980s were made redundant two, three, four, five times. Some of them never worked again, because they gave up hope. The idea that once again the spectre of mass unemployment should haunt north Birmingham is absolutely wrong.
Welfare Reform
Lord Lilley Excerpts(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Duncan Smith
The problem right now is that when people make applications, they have to make at least two completely separate applications at the same time if they are going back to work. There is literally no communication between HMRC and the DWP about what they are sitting on and what they are making their calculations about. That is why the reconciliation at the end of the year is so gross and why we so often have major overpayments and then try to claw money back. The purpose of these proposals is to bring everything together so that we have one single point from which to take information. Therefore, the tax credit system and the DWP system will come together to create this single taper withdrawal. In future, as people’s circumstances change as they go into work—in the past, if they did not inform HMRC or the DWP, they might have been overpaid because they did fewer hours—the information will automatically cascade back to the centre, and we will know what people are doing, so they will be paid exactly what they are meant to be paid. There will be no chase for the money at the end of the year, which, as the hon. Lady and many others know, causes fear and worry among far too many constituents who find that they have been overpaid and have to pay the money back.
Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)
May I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his ambitious programme of welfare reform? Among the most important components in it are the steps that he is taking to overcome one of the greatest problems in the system, which makes people reluctant to take work when it is available. Not only might people not earn much more in work than on benefits, but they fear that the job they take might be short-lived and that they might then find it difficult to get back on to benefits if they become unemployed again. Will my right hon. Friend spell out what that involves and, in particular, how he will tackle the problem of people fearing that they might lose housing benefit?
Mr Duncan Smith
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of the great fears that people have, particularly in respect of housing benefit, is that it can take a month or so before they get their benefit back as they come out of work. Because that will be included at the point at which they make the application and because that is tapered into the benefit, there will be a seamless change or transfer. As they come out of work, they will do so with their gross amount exactly as it should be—the thing that will change is the level at which they taper. In other words, the amount will be what they are necessarily paid in benefits. They will not suddenly have to make a reapplication—there will be a seamless process—which should get rid of exactly the fear that my right hon. Friend talks about.