Welfare Reform Bill

Baroness Hollis of Heigham Excerpts

Wednesday 11th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, I do not think that I can do that. We need to take a view now on this. All I can say is that Third Reading is probably not the time anyway for some of this stuff to come to a head. It is not the point at which my noble friend is thinking about it coming to a head. This kind of thing will probably come to a head when we have the debate between the Commons and the Lords. That is when some of these issues need to be looked at, so it is not helpful or productive to think of it happening at Third Reading. This kind of thing may become more relevant at a later stage, but not at Third Reading.

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

Does the Bill contain power by regulation, or would the Minister welcome an amendment to introduce it so that at some point down the line, possibly after further consultation and so on, he can make the changes which at the moment he is minded to make but is not yet in a position to introduce?

[Lord Freud]

Without having those in my ever helpful Box right behind me to respond to that—I hope that they are writing—my strong impression would be that I would have powers in regulation. No, my strong impression is the opposite. I am on my own.

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

Perhaps the Minister could write to us.

[Lord Freud]

I think I will owe noble Lords a letter. Thank you very much.

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[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

The Minister has not made this easy. I have been trying as best I can to avoid having a vote on this today.

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

If my noble friend will allow me, would the Minister be content if we were to introduce such a power by regulation at Third Reading, which would commit him to nothing or everything, according to how he wished to play it in future?

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope]

Before whoever it is who is speaking sits down, I should say that I think that the Minister is making life difficult for himself. If he cannot take the advice that he is getting from all sides—and I, too, concur with what has been said—I, too, will look to get an expression of opinion from the House, which I really do not want to do. The suggestion that has been made about regulation-making powers is an easy out. I do not care what the Box thinks, actually; the Minister has the knowledge and the wisdom to take that decision right now, which would be a beneficial outcome for everyone.

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[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

Forgive me—are we not dealing here with Amendment 46, which the Government have accepted is consequential on Amendment 36A?

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

My Lords, I was the person who drafted Amendment 36A. The noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, clearly introduced it as the paving amendment to Amendment 46. So the Government cannot do as they are now suggesting.

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, let me read out what I said in my speech. I said that I confirm that the Government see Amendment 46 as linked to Amendment 36A, but separate Divisions will be required on all amendments in this group.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, the noble Lord does not make that happen just by asserting it. One amendment is consequential on the other. We have had a very clear and substantial vote on this, and it is quite disgraceful that the Government are seeking to undermine that.

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Freud, does not wish to appear to be subverting the view of the entire House, which was expressed in the full knowledge that the amendment which we voted on was devised—I devised it—as a paving amendment to a substantive one, so that we could debate it in good time. Most of the population of the House has gone home, believing in good faith that the previous vote has established the principle—as it has. However, the noble Lord is trying to renege on that by forcing a vote despite the late-night keeping of the roster. That would be quite improper and quite unprecedented, and I strongly suggest that he think again.

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, I cannot understand this. I was extremely clear, and have been really clear all the way through, about which amendments relate to which, and which have to be taken separately. I read out what I said. I said it quite loudly and all noble Lords heard it. I cannot feel that it is right to accuse me of anything but absolute clarity in the House.

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[The Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells]

My Lords, it is often said that we read the world from the position we occupy in it. In particular, users of the Social Fund are unlikely to be very visible and able to hold local councils to account. Recent analysis of some 500 discretionary Social Fund applications has revealed that 12 per cent involved someone leaving institutional or residential care, 20 per cent involved someone who had experienced a period of homelessness and 8 per cent involved someone leaving prison. These groups are much less likely than others to be able to demonstrate local connections, and without crucial assistance from community care grants to buy essential items such as cooking equipment and bedding, they may struggle to sustain and maintain a home. That puts those who have been offenders at risk of reoffending or of moving back into temporary or institutional accommodation, which is far more costly and means they lose their newly found independence. The issue of vulnerable groups and local connection is recognised in housing legislation where people with no local connection must be assisted by the local authority to which they originally applied. I believe that similar provision should apply to protect such groups in the absence of a standard national Social Fund, especially as the Welfare Reform Bill also abolishes the independent review service that reviews refused Social Fund applications. I hope that we can take note of this amendment.

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

My Lords, I, too, support my noble friend’s amendment. The whole point about the Social Fund is that all the other elements in the social security system are nationally determined and demand-led—AME-led. The Social Fund has always represented an element of flexibility, of discretionary judgment, for those who do not fit tidily into categories and need only income. When, for example, people needed a modest amount of capital for a fridge, an oven or whatever, they could go to the Social Fund. If they needed to set up after a flood or a fire, they could go to the Social Fund in ways that you cannot cover within a national framework, except by a discretionary local grant.

That is fine, but the problem with the Government’s current proposal to send it to local government is threefold. First, there will be no necessary standards across local government so that similar circumstances are met in similar ways by different local authorities. For good and for bad, there will be a postcode lottery, and we know that demand will almost certainly be greatest in some of the inner cities and least, perhaps, in some of the more prosperous suburbs. There will be no consistency of standards.

Secondly, when that happens, and in the absence of identified funds, people who need that money will go not just to payday loan companies, because they do not have the security, or to pawn shops but to the forms of debt that we are all appalled by. One of the very good things about the Social Fund is that repayment, with no more than £5 or £10 per week of your income going out, is effectively interest-free. By pulling the Social Fund away from people who are most in need of some element of credit to get them from here to there, we are sending them into much more costly spirals of debt and very real problems of repayment. The third problem associated with this proposal is the guarantees we need to have that the money will be spent on the people for whom it is ordained.

The Minister can help us in this if he makes it very clear that local authorities will have no wriggle room to spend the money on anything other than the groups of people whom we are identifying. The firmer he can be in making clear to the House the statutory nature of that guidance, the more he will ease some of our concerns. He also needs to make it clear to the House what elements of the Social Fund will remain AME-demand-led and how much of it will be recycled and capped within a cash grant, what the situation will be in a local emergency—a factory explosion, a major flooding disaster or the like—and whether the local authority, as opposed to central government, has the capacity to respond to that in its social fund.

Therefore, can the Minister tell us first, how he can absolutely guarantee—short of ring-fencing, if that is not where he is prepared to go—that that is reported back to Parliament? Secondly, how he will manage the mixture of AME and DEL expenditure that currently goes into the Social Fund to ensure that local need is properly met?

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[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, I absolutely understand what the noble Baroness’s Amendment 50 is trying to achieve. I assure your Lordships that we are equally committed to ensuring that this money is targeted on and reaches the most vulnerable people. We appreciate the importance of this money to vulnerable people, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, has just explained.

As noble Lords have said, ring-fencing was debated in Committee and the Government have thought carefully about the valuable points that were made. We share the desire of noble Lords to ensure that these funds are used in the way intended and are not lost in the general pool of local authority funding.

We have concluded that the most appropriate way to make clear to local authorities the purpose of the funding is by setting it out in a settlement letter from the Secretary of State that will accompany the funding that is sent to each local authority. This letter will set out clearly what the funding is to be used for and describe the outcome that must be achieved. It is important that local authorities are not constrained in how they achieve that outcome, so the letter will not prescribe the method that should be used.

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

Obviously this letter has not yet been sent; I presume that it has been drafted. Would the Minister be willing to circulate to Members of this House taking part in the debate the draft of the proposed settlement letter that he expects to send, so that we can be reassured? I am sure that his intentions are entirely beneficent in this regard, but it might assuage some of our concerns were we to see a letter in draft before it was sent out. If we had comments on it, we could then feed them back to him.

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, the letter is not yet in draft. If it is possible to do something along the lines that the noble Baroness asks, I will do it, but I hope she appreciates that I will make no commitment on that.

The letter will ensure that the money intended for vulnerable people goes to vulnerable people without curtailing the freedom of local authorities to tailor provision and, for example, pool funding, without imposing a one-size-fits-all approach that does not take account of the different needs faced by different areas. Furthermore, to underline its purpose, the funding will be distributed to local authorities through a specific revenue grant, rather than including it with the rest of their general expenditure in the main revenue support grant.

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[Lord De Mauley]

My noble friend Lord Kirkwood asked about the structure of what is being transferred. The current Social Fund AME allocation of £178 million will fund the new local provision. It will be distributed based on spend at the point of transfer nationally between England, Scotland and Wales. In England, the funding will be devolved to upper-tier local authorities. Again this will be based on Social Fund expenditure. The AME funding splits £141 million to replace community care grants and £36 million for emergency provision. The first year of the new system will be 2013-14 and the funding will be the same as the amounts in 2012-13.

My noble friend asked about the Social Fund Commissioner. The Independent Review Service changed 20,886 decisions in 2010-11. The number of crisis loans, budgeting loans and community care grant decisions made was 5,595,000. The IRS makes decisions on cases that can go one way or another depending on the discretion of the decision-maker. All decisions on the discretionary Social Fund are also first subject to an internal review in Jobcentre Plus.

My noble friend asked about the possible substitution for cash and white goods and indicated that he thought it might not meet the needs. There will of course still be national provision of advances of benefit through the new payments-on-account scheme that will replace budgeting loans and crisis loans for alignment.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, asked how the mixture of AME and DEL will be managed. All the money is AME. There will be, of course, additional admin funding on top to cover the cost of the new burdens.

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

Is the Minister therefore saying that if local authorities represent that there is increased need based on the criteria in the letter of guidance, the Government will respond with increased expenditure because AME, of course, means that it is demand led?

[Lord De Mauley]

I would not go that far.

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

I thought that the noble Lord would not. I do not think that we can say that it is AME, in that case, if it is not. The point about AME within DWP is that it responds to demand. If it is going to be a cash grant, it is not going to be demand; it will effectively be DEL.

[Lord De Mauley]

Historically it has been AME. The funding for the year 2012-13 will be the funding that is transferred in 2013-14. It will not increase by that amount. However, there are the budgeting loans to which I have referred as well.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, raised a question over benefits. Short-term advances will replace crisis loans for alignment as part of a national payments on account scheme. These advances of benefit will cover those in financial need as a result of waiting for an increase in benefit or for a benefit claim to be dealt with.

On the question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, the policy is developed taking account of all relevant rights. We did not take specific legal advice.

I hope that what I have said will enable the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.