Welfare Reform Bill

Anne McGuire Excerpts

Wednesday 9th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I am afraid that I do not agree with the right hon. Gentleman, because that is exactly what I was saying. The provisions gives us the opportunity to do just that; it does not specify what we do, but it tells us that this is what we are going to be doing. We are looking at all this because, in our view, we need to come forward with an amount that is relevant to the mobility that is necessary for people in care homes.

[Mrs Anne McGuire (Stirling) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State is playing with words. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) is right. Although reference is made to an indefinite award, these awards have always been liable to review. If someone has an irrecoverable disability such as permanent blindness, what is the value in regular reviews to assess whether they are still entitled to DLA or the PIP?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

As I said to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), it is assumed straight away that this is a terribly intrusive process, but in reality what goes on is patchy. For many people, their condition may well have worsened. Do we simply want to say that we should not speak to them or see them, and that it is therefore left up to the vagaries of the system? It is not built into the system that they will be seen.

[Mrs McGuire]

rose—

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Wait a minute. The right hon. Lady has made a point and I am trying to respond to it. As this is not built into the present system, it is left to decision making, which can be very ad hoc, about who someone sees and when they see them. All I am saying is that if we believe it is right to see people, we may then be seeing somebody whose condition has worsened, and surely that is an advantage.

[Mrs McGuire]

rose—

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I am going to press on, because I think that I have dealt with the right hon. Lady’s point. She may not agree with me, but I think that this is the right position for us to take.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Anne McGuire (Stirling) (Lab)]

I am delighted to follow the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin). In June last year, I made a contribution to a debate in the House on welfare reform, in which I congratulated the Secretary of State, then new to his post, on the sentiments that he had expressed on reforming the welfare system in this country. At that time, I said that he had used a broad brush, and that we had not yet seen any details. Frankly, we still find ourselves in that situation today.

Like other Labour Members, I welcome some aspects of the Bill. The introduction of the universal credit and the moves towards simplification are certainly proposals that we can endorse. Most of us, and most of the organisations that we communicate with, welcome those developments, but there is still serious concern about significant aspects of the Bill. In the time available to me, I want to concentrate on just a couple of those aspects.

First, the Bill is skeletal in the extreme. The clauses have definitely been drafted with a broad brush, declaring an intent rather than giving details of what will happen. For example, what exactly does

“benefit rates for people not in work will generally be the same as under the current system”

mean? How will “generally” impact on the specific? How will individuals know, when deciding whether to support the Bill, what is actually going to happen if work is not a realistic option for them? I have rarely seen a Bill in which so much depends on regulations that “may” happen—[Interruption.] I do not know which hon. Gentleman is chuntering over there, but I can give the House an example from clause 4 on entitlement. Subsection (2) contains the words “Regulations may provide”, and subsection (3) states that “regulations may specify”. Subsection (7) states that “regulations may specify circumstances”. And so it goes on.

We are not being asked to deal with a major piece of welfare reform here; we are being asked to buy a pig in a poke. We do not know the details. The Secretary of State made great play of the fact that this will form a contract. Well, in all contracts, the devil is in the detail. I welcome the comment of my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne) today that he is not prepared to sign up to the Second Reading of the Bill until we have seen the details. We have so many unanswered questions. What will happen when council tax benefit is abolished? Is it going to be replaced by a grant? How will that be assessed? How is it going to be managed?

I must point out to Conservative Members that it is not only in Labour constituencies that the Bill will have an impact. It will do so in the constituencies of Members across the Floor of the House, and individuals in those constituencies are now worrying about whether they will be able to maintain themselves in their own homes. What will happen to those who fall off the edge when their employment and support allowance runs out? Surely it is the right of any disabled individual in a civilised society to be supported if they are unable to work. Frankly, the Secretary of State’s comment about reviewing people whose impairment will not change throughout their lifetime was absolutely astonishing, and I think it did him no great credit. I would not like to explain to the parent of a deaf-blind child that they needed to bring their child for a review every so often—just to make sure that the child was still deaf and still blind.

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

Like my right hon. Friend, I have received representations from many constituents who have a similar concern. Does she agree that, regrettably, those parents who have heard the Secretary of State today are likely to be even more worried than they were at the start of the debate by his very refusal to rule out the type of continued reassessment about which we are so concerned?

[Mrs McGuire]

I agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend. I believe that this is one of the issues causing the greatest concern among individuals and families.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Maria Miller)]

rose—

[Mrs McGuire]

If the Minister is going to clarify what the Secretary of State said earlier, I would be delighted to give way to her.

[Maria Miller]

I just wanted to clarify that these measures do not affect children.

[Mrs McGuire]

In that case, we can take the age forward and talk about a deaf-blind adult. Our case about people whose impairments or disabilities will not change and who can be assessed as such is not at all diminished, as they will still have to go through this review.

The type of review is also an important issue. For a long time, disabled people in this country have fought hard to be recognised as part of a social model of disability. What we are seeing now is the introduction of an assessment by a medical professional. Is it any wonder that disabled people out there are beginning to think that all those things for which they fought so long and so hard—the achievements they have made over the last 15 years, with cross-party support—are going to be thrown on the scrapheap? That, I think, is the danger posed by this Bill, and I have highlighted the questions that disabled people are asking.

The Minister might well be thinking that all this is a matter of hyperbole. I do not think it is, and I know that many of my hon. Friends would agree, because we are hearing daily quite tragic stories about people who are terrified about what is going to happen. They are worried not necessarily because the Government have bad intent, but because the Government are not explaining exactly what is in the Bill. I do not think that the Minister has bad intent and I certainly do not think that the Secretary of State has, but given that they are embarking on something that will radically affect individual people and families, we must have a better Bill than the one before us.

The Secretary of State is often cited as saying that this Bill amounts to the greatest change in the welfare system since Beveridge. The reason why Beveridge worked and was sustained for so long was that it was about engagement with the whole of society. It was about a contract that people recognised, knowing that if they put something into society, they could occasionally get something back—not just a cushion, but something that gave them a participatory role in that social contract. What we have now is a deconstruction of those Beveridge proposals. What we have is a system that effectively tells people that they cannot have welfare unless they meet all the criteria, which are not even known, in a Bill that is far more skeletal than many of—indeed, any of—the welfare Bills brought before this House.

We should not give the Bill its Second Reading today. If the Minister can tell us in her summing up that all those issues will be dealt with in Committee, we might be able to give the Government the benefit of the doubt later in the process. I welcome, however, the view of my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill, the shadow Secretary of State, that if the Bill is not radically changed and if its contents are not confirmed, we should not support it even on Third Reading.

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

I rise to speak in support of the Government, very conscious that a large number of people will have legitimate and sincere concerns about the Bill. For example, I asked one local activist, who leads the Zacchaeus 2000 Trust, to critique the Prime Minister’s recent speech, and his response ran to 23 pages. I regret that due to the time I will not be able to share his concerns, but I will forward them to the Government, as a matter of interest.

I do not think there can be any doubt that the system is currently failing the very people that it is intended to help. I want to share with the House two stories from my constituents—one that shows the imperative for change and one that has slightly broader applicability.

Miss Rachel Pepin came to see me in a state of some anguish. She is a struggling single mum who wants to work more. She is in employment and the work is there for her, but she cannot take it because of the benefits system. She has two sons whose father will not support them. It seems that every time the Child Support Agency catches up with him, he drops out on to jobseeker’s allowance. Her current housing benefit receipt makes it profitable to stay on income support and actively not to seek work. She has reached the conclusion that it simply does not pay her to stay in employment. She sees her neighbours—on benefits—better off than she is.

I am glad to say that that is not how Rachel Pepin wants to live. She wants to work, and she is struggling against the treacle of the present system. It is letting her down, and that must end. Not everyone will share her admirable work ethic. Many will make the wrong choice when faced with the choice between being better off and doing the right thing. We must ensure that work is better for everyone, or we will encourage the decivilising consequences of the state encouraging bad choices.

My constituent Mr David Laws—[Interruption.] I expected that response from the House; I believe that he is not related. Mr Laws is most concerned about the recent changes that will end home loan interest payments after two years. He wishes to protest most strongly about the “unfairness of this legislation”, as he puts it. He has been out of work for some time. He says he is not workshy. He has a law degree and has experience of both public and private sectors. At the age of 51, he finds that many employers do not think him suitable for the low-paid jobs that are available. He finds himself willing to do anything but unable to find work. He therefore faces the very real possibility of losing his home if he fails to secure a job before April 2012.

That puts me in mind of two points. First, I think Mr Laws has a legitimate concern, which must be addressed. Secondly, if we cannot create an economy in which Mr Laws can find a job within a year when he is highly qualified and at the peak of his productivity, we will have failed. I urge the Government to impress on the Chancellor the need to fulfil his pledge for an enterprise-driven Budget. We simply must deliver those private sector jobs.

Given the time and the fact that other Members wish to speak, I conclude by echoing the sentiments put succinctly in the Centre for Social Justice report, “Breakdown Britain”:

“The more we struggle to end poverty through the provision of benefits, the more we entrench it. By focusing on income transfers rather than employment, the system makes people dependent on benefits. Habituation to dependency destroys individuals and communities, as well as reducing the overall competitiveness of the UK.”

I listened to my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton), who made the case brilliantly that the moral and intellectual high ground is on the coalition side of the House, and I agree with her.

We have heard a range of Opposition speeches. I welcomed the speech by the right hon. Member for Stirling (Mrs McGuire), who accepted that the Government’s intent is good. I share her concern that the Bill, in a sense, is enabling, but unlike her I suspect that in a complex welfare system it is necessary to give the Government some flexibility.

[Mrs McGuire]

On flexibility, does the hon. Gentleman recognise that the 300-odd regulations defining what is meant by the Bill should be before us today?

[Steve Baker]

I hear the right hon. Lady, as have Ministers, but as I have so little time, I hope she will forgive me for finishing my contribution.

I was glad to listen to the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett). In an intervention, I agreed with another Member that the banking system is currently the source of great injustice, but some of the contributions from the Opposition seemed cynically opportunistic. There has previously been broad agreement across the House that there must be change. I urge Members in all parts of the House to get on board a welfare reform that is well intentioned and must be seen through.