Welfare Reform Bill
Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts(14 years, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, the speeches that we have heard so far have been extremely powerful and I very much supported the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood. I shall refer to Amendment 113B in the name of my noble friend Lady Sherlock, as well as Amendment 113DA in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay. I feel strongly that structures should follow the objectives and not that we should adapt the objectives to be the outcome of whatever structures we think we can best achieve, which is what is going on, I fear, in Amendment 113B. Amendment 113DA is simply wrong and I am frankly amazed that the DWP has come forward with this proposition. It is morally offensive and I do not know from where it has come.
Like others we have the CSA engraved on our hearts. The 1992 legislation was a catastrophe primarily because it insisted on overturning existing court objectives and becoming retrospective, which means that the new system never caught up even though it was entirely well intentioned. I remember defending our intentions on the 2000 legislation in front of the committee chaired at the time by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood. We found it difficult to persuade the Treasury to budge beyond a £10 hand-back to women, so we could never get women to co-operate in setting the CSA on their old partners, as there was little in it for them.
The moves established by my noble friend in 2008 to allow women to keep all their maintenance was a triumph, but the problem with voluntarism, which also accompanied it, meant that it became a charter for bullies who did not want to pay, as indicated by my noble friend Lady Lister. We know that the people who pay are the men who need to pay most, not the men who need to pay least. They are the men who have been married, divorced, are older, earn more, have a profound attachment to their children and expect and want to pay. They are honourable and decent men and they are the ones who pay most. They pay and behave admirably. We also know, however, the ones who do not pay. They are the young, feckless men who have never actually lived with the child, who is perhaps the result of an overnight relationship, if we can dignify it with that term—a casual sexual act. They think that they were trapped.
There are the chaotic self-employed who never get their accounts right and never find the money to pay for their children. A group that surprised me are the men in uniform who are often very bitter, judgmental and followers of the language of fault—“She had an affair so it is her fault and I don’t pay”—with little regard for the children. Finally, there is the group mentioned by my noble friend Lady Lister—the men who have remarried, with second families whose new partner is often very hostile to any payment. These men change their address, their job, their name, and even their country to avoid paying.
Add to those problems a flaky computer and the problems of HMT, which is not only unwilling for women to keep their money but refuses to share key information so that NRPs can be tracked through their current records. We were not allowed to deduct even a £5 benefit payment at source. It would have been obvious for HMT computers to talk to DWP computers, but that was not possible either. It is no wonder that there has been a struggle ever since.
I fear that increasingly—with these measures, I am convinced of it—the concept of child support has taken a wrong turning in this country. Unless we accept the amendments moved so ably by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, and my noble friend Lady Sherlock, that wrong turning will become a highway down which the failure to pay child maintenance will rapidly escalate. I strongly believe that statutory payment should be not the last resort but the first. That is how we establish the appropriate level of money that should be paid; you establish a speedy pattern of payment. We know from Australia and all the international research that unless you establish payment early and ensure that it is paid regularly for at least a year, it dies within 18 months or two years. Establish payment early and get it paid regularly and there is a hope that you will get amicable contact arrangements. Then the whole thing becomes a virtuous circle.
Having voluntary payment in which the father can bully his way out of payment, as he too often has done, means that it never gets established. If instead we had statutory payment to begin with and then after six months or a year following regular, reliable payments the reward was voluntary negotiations, that would be wonderful. That would combine the best of all worlds. You would establish the pattern of payment, and then, if the father co-operates in that activity, you could allow that couple to make their own future arrangements. That way the child does not suffer. This way, I fear that the rights of the child to income and support from the father—it is the father in all but 3 per cent of cases—are going to get lost in what I have to say is the department pursuing cost cutting rather than ensuring adequate support for children.
We know that regularly paid maintenance is not only good for children in the signal that it sends from fathers about being committed to their children’s lives, but that it can be the payment above all—all the Alan Marsh research shows this—that lifts a lone parent with a couple of children from below the poverty line to above it. It can be transforming. It is like privatised, old fashioned family credit if it is paid and paid regularly. It will be so paid only if it is established early, and that means through a statutory system in which good behaviour allows you to go on to the voluntary path. I very much fear that in going down the path not just of voluntarism but of trying to get rid of CMEC, which at least was trying very hard to ensure that money was paid to children, we will lose the real benefits that are available to children through the poverty objectives and we will be overcome by the structural problems of seeking to reduce costs. That is highly unfortunate.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
My Lords, I apologise for not being here the whole time. I had to chair quite an important meeting on stalking, but that is another matter. I had not realised until just now that the amendment tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, to which I have put my name, is in this group.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, for introducing this group of amendments and acknowledge his long-standing interest and expertise in issues of child maintenance. Like him, I pay tribute to the staff of the CSA and CMEC who, over many years, have stuck with the various iterations of child maintenance that they have had to deal with and sometimes struggle with.
My noble friend Lady Hollis gave us a brief history of child maintenance. It is right that one of the problems and the reason why the first of these amendments in particular—I support them all—is so important is that along the way the CSA has sought to be different things and to achieve different objectives. In 1991, it was substantially focused on the clawback of benefit, so no benefit accrued to children. The 2004 amendments recast that and focused the CSA on child poverty in particular, but, as my noble friend said, it was stymied to a certain extent by not being able to make progress on the disregards. I defend the 2008 changes—noble Lords would not expect me to do otherwise—for a number of reasons. It potentially gets round the problem of those who do not want to pay by the assessment being on the gross income of the non-resident parent, which is obtainable from HMRC. That has not yet been implemented, but it was a key issue in stopping non-resident parents messing up the system, which is what happened to the two previous systems. Voluntary it might have been, but there was an absolute right for either parent to make use of the statutory system with charges, which we are going to come to, that did not deter people on low incomes.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
My Lords, I was more than happy to put my name to this amendment because the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, seemed to be making the right point in this amendment. I am only sorry that my noble friend Lord Northbourne is not in his place because the important parenting responsibility of fathers is one of the areas which he has been pushing for years. As has been stressed, sadly, we are really talking about single parents, 97 per cent of whom are mothers, who are in this position. There was a hope that the citizenship classes which the previous Government introduced would be about your responsibilities to your future children, not about sorting out disputes between you and your own parents, and thinking that the responsibilities of parents ought to be shared.
I am not going to repeat everything that has been said, but I agree that it is wrong in principle to charge single parents, mainly women, who have no alternative, when the other parent refuses to pay maintenance. That is not only unjust; it is, as has already been said, indefensible.
Gingerbread has given us a considerable number of quotes. As the right reverend Prelate said, they are very moving. I shall end by quoting a letter that Gingerbread sent to me, for which I am grateful. The writer was clearly quite sympathetic, in theory, to the Government.
“While I can understand many of the government’s cuts and tax rises—a number of which will directly affect me—I cannot understand these proposals. If only you knew how driven single parents have to be to even apply to the CSA. When I first turned to the CSA five years ago I eventually gave up. It was in such hopeless disarray … Fortunately, a judge laid out maintenance in my divorce agreement and my ex-husband paid up. But two and half years ago he stopped paying and I was forced, with many misgivings, to turn to the CSA. Luckily for me it had been reorganised and was able to progress my claim second time around, although it still took months. When the payments finally started coming via the CSA—you cannot imagine the weight that was lifted off my shoulders. I finally felt I could plan ahead for school trips, clothes and other essentials. The relief has been immense. The truth is that the proposals will only penalise the children the CSA is meant to help. Women generally only turn to the CSA when they have exhausted all other avenues. It’s an act of desperation. Those in government who preach about mediation and private agreements mean well, but they have no idea how difficult some ex-partners can be—some years ago, I would never have believed it myself. My message to the government is this: you will be hurting the very people you are trying to help. And, I fear, partners who only receive small payments will just give up altogether. It will be their children who will suffer. For me it will mean the worry returns—I will have to cut back and I already know that negotiating with my husband is an impossible task. So I will face having money intended for my children taken from me by a government which I trusted to come to my aid, and incurring his wrath over the fees he in addition will have to pay”.
That says it all. It is sad indeed that, although so many of us around this table and outside, would agree “Yes, let’s get everybody to sort out their own arrangements if humanly possible”, there really are situations where it is not going to happen. Until we get education on early intervention going in the way that the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, hoped that one day we would be able to encourage the Government to provide for, I fear that we are going to have to fight arrangements like this. It is with that that I happily endorse the amendment in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern.
Lord Wigley
My Lords, I support the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, in what seems to be one of the most important amendments that have come before this Committee in our long hearings. If it is not successful tonight—and no assurance is given—I very much hope that we will return to it on the Floor of the House on Report.
As the noble Lord, Lord Newton, said, those of us who had to deal with some of the Child Support Agency cases in the 1990s will know how desperately searing they were. It was not just one or two, but dozens, and sometimes even hundreds. I used to try to sort out problems with the local officers, either in Caernarfon or in the office that was administering the CSA in north-west England. It came to the point where I started writing to the Minister about each case because I thought that was the only way in which the message would get home. Poverty was referred to a moment ago. If one quotes the figures for the difference between south-east England and other parts, the average GVA per head in Kensington and Chelsea is over nine times that in Anglesey, and that is an average figure. Within Anglesey, there will be poorer people, as of course there will be in Kensington and Chelsea. It does not really matter where they are; it is what they are suffering. We want a system that can be sympathetic towards them; we certainly do not want a system which prevents people making appeals when things are going wrong. It must be our responsibility as a Committee to get that sorted out; if we cannot, then it will be decided on the Floor of the House.
Welfare Reform Bill
Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts(14 years, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Howe of Idlicote
My Lords, my Amendment 102A is in this group and I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, has used most of the arguments that I was going to use. I will merely stress the importance of why the payment would be much better paid to the main carer who, in most of these instances, is the mother. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, said that the payment is usually her only source of income. Equally, we know from experience that it will be spent on food and resources such as that which will keep the household together. When there is violence in a family, the payment would also allow a mother to have enough personal income, albeit family income, to seek help from a refuge and so on. I hope that the Minister will think hard about making the payment available, regardless of the circumstances, to just one person. As we have heard, in cases where the payment goes to one person, something like 80 per cent of applications are made by the male in the household.
On the inequalities that exist in some households and the importance of encouraging women who will, under these circumstances, be fighting for their children as well as for themselves and for the opportunity to lead a decent life, I hope that the Government will think carefully about this and will not continue with the approach of just one member of the household being able to apply for the payment.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
My Lords, briefly, I also support what my noble friend Lord Ramsbotham said. It clearly makes sense and is essential for the rehabilitation of offenders to be begun and appropriately carried through. Above all, the idea of applying it to all people, not necessarily just those who would have qualified in the first instance, must be a sensible way forward. I would have thought that the business of suspension and resumption would apply to very short sentences. I, too, very much hope that the Minister will rethink and at least have these conversations for the long-term benefit of what we are all trying to achieve—less offending in the first place.
Welfare Reform Bill
Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts(14 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Boswell of Aynho
My Lords, I have not spoken much in Committee on these issues but, very briefly and in support of what has been said, I, too, should like to register my concern. Having had the benefit of reflecting on what has been said so far, there seem to be two underlying themes. The first is that there is a need for the system—that is, the Minister and his officials who are acting on the legislation that we are in the process of enacting—to proceed with a degree of humility. I do not mean fawning or trying to say that there are no problems, or that it is impossible for a Minister to take a decision. A Minister always has to take a decision, or officials must do so in his name. However, I detect in the Minister’s responses this afternoon a readiness to understand that past practice has often been defective and is often, if I may say so, seen to be penal by the individuals concerned when they are in this process as claimants. Therefore, the process needs to be more sensitive to their needs and more conscious of the limitations of the human who has the power to bestow or withdraw the benefit. There should also be more understanding of the fallibility of the system.
Of course, we have to reach a conclusion but the idea of at least some process of iteration, evaluation and progressive change is important. I read the assessment criteria for PIP again today. They say explicitly that trying to get it right is an “iterative process”. That is what we are all trying to do, including the Minister. We are all trying to get a sensitive response. It is important that the process is sensitive not only to the establishment of this situation but to its evolution and development, the representations that are made to it by interested parties and the light of experience.
That brings me to my second point, on flexibility. If we eventually say, “We’ve done an awful lot of consultation and this is where we are. That’s it”, we will get into the danger that the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, reported. That is, if it becomes the law of the Medes and the Persians, we could then find that we are overtaken by events or experience and that it is not good enough. We would then be creating unfair or penal situations, or we would have to tear up the legislation and start again.
All I should like the Minister to say—I think he will want to signal something like this—is that the Government understand that this is an extremely sensitive area, particularly in relation to people on the autistic spectrum, but also more widely. We need an understanding that the system is on the side of individuals who are involved in this process. It is not designed to leave them out, humiliate them or create embarrassment for them; it is designed to be fair to them. I think there is a wish to do that. Fallible officials who need training, and may need retraining or development in this process in the light of experience, should also understand that they, too, are part of this process of discovery. The more we move away from the conventional model of opposition—of advocates and a decision—that we have always enjoyed in the Anglo-American system, towards an understanding that we are trying to hammer out a process that is fair to individuals and reflects their genuine needs, the better and happier we shall be.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
My Lords, I support this suggestion, which would solve an awful lot of problems. It would clearly give the Government time to catch up with their own aims and put them into practice much more clearly and in a way that other people will understand and be able to act on. There is a need for training and, from what we have heard from those who have practical experience, a need for retraining of some of the so-called experts. I am also slightly worried by what the noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins, said at the end of her contribution about huge sums of money being paid for “expertise” in this area. There was, almost inevitably, a comparison with the individual at the receiving end. Maybe we cannot afford to give them more but it is a small sum compared to what the expert gets. This is another opportunity to strike a better balance.
The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, I support the amendment. Does the Minister think that it might be worth while if he made a few comments on the issues of continuity and supervision of staff? I hesitate to ask because I am unfamiliar with this area but in the areas of the asylum and immigration process, which has some similarities, and in social work and work with vulnerable children and families, the two themes seem to be, first, continuity of relationship wherever possible and, secondly, good quality supervision.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
I will speak also to Amendment 86AB in my name and that of the noble Countess, Lady Mar, who sends her sincere apologies. Her absence is due to an unbreakable and important appointment. The amendments would ensure that people with fluctuating conditions, such as multiple sclerosis or some mental health conditions, are not unfairly denied PIP simply because their condition is fluctuating. As noble Lords will be well aware by now, such people may not necessarily have had a particular impairment at every point in the past six months but may well have experienced one at some point in the past six months.
To highlight the unpredictability with which people with fluctuating conditions have to live, I share an example from the MS Society of a man with multiple sclerosis. It highlights the unpredictability of a condition which can fluctuate not only month-to-month and week-to-week, but day-to-day and even hour-to-hour, as the right reverend Prelate mentioned earlier. The man states:
“Fatigue is where your body just shuts down. It doesn’t make an appointment with you to do so and you have to just rest immediately. I have to just lie down until it passes. I cannot even talk”.
Yet the current wording of the Bill could be interpreted to mean that a person must have been consistently unwell for the previous six months to qualify for PIP. The Bill states:
“whether, as respects every time in the previous 6 months, it is likely that if the relevant ability had been assessed at that time that ability would have been determined to be limited or (as the case may be) severely limited by the person's physical or mental condition”.
That wording suggests that people with fluctuating conditions will not qualify if they are not consistently ill for the required length of time, regardless of the severity of their condition. I do not know if that is its intended meaning, but given the context in which PIP is being introduced—a desire to save some 20 per cent of the budget, as has been referred to previously—and to reserve PIP for those with the greatest needs, we cannot afford to take that risk.
My amendment, therefore, changes the wording from “every time” to,
“the majority of the time”,
to allow for fluctuations in conditions and for people with fluctuating conditions to be supported accordingly through qualification for eligibility for PIP. My amendment also addresses the retrospective qualifying PIP period, which is currently set at six months—this has also been referred to. That means that a claimant must have been unwell for at least six months before they can apply for PIP. In my view, six months is too long to wait before receiving financial assistance, when the costs incurred during that time from impairment may be substantial and highly detrimental to an individual's quality of life. My amendment therefore changes the requirement from six to three.
Continuing with an “every time” approach that fails to recognise fluctuations would prevent the PIP assessment from accurately recording the severity and extra cost of a condition. If someone has a severe impairment that occurs only about 50 per cent of the time, they will not meet the qualifying condition; whereas someone who has a moderate impairment for most of the time will meet it. That seems extremely unfair. For example, if someone with MS or severe depression has had a few good days in the past six months and if the relevant ability had been assessed during those good days, it is conceivable that the assessment may determine that the relevant ability is not limited by their condition.
Lord Freud
No, no, no. The Treasury is not a disability organisation, let me assure you. Those who know the Treasury well will be absolutely confident in that description.
As I said, it is not a cost matter. It is a matter where people’s sensitivities have been very clearly expressed. We will go away to look at that very, very closely. Some of the observations in this room today will help us in that consideration.
I do not know if there are any other points I really need to make. I just reassure or assure the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, that the required-period condition will not be a snapshot in time. The legislation makes that quite clear by talking about the likelihood of the assessment being met on any particular day. It means that if someone is likely to meet the conditions for the majority of the time, they can safely be taken as being more likely than not to meet them than if we were just randomly to pick a day.
The other issue I need just to touch on, which is often misunderstood, is that during people’s stay in hospital, when the cost of their disability-related needs are being met, individuals will already be fulfilling the required-period condition for personal independence payment. The noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, was concerned that filling in your DLA or PIP assessment form was not the first thing on your mind.
That means that when someone is able to leave hospital, perhaps with a care plan in place and further rehabilitation scheduled, they may well have satisfied some or even all of the qualifying period. That currently exists for DLA and is often misunderstood, with people thinking that they become entitled only after they have filled in and submitted the form. The qualifying date starts on the day that the needs arise—the day you have the accident that has caused a particular problem, for instance—not from when the claim form is submitted. I acknowledge that some conditions that arise gradually and it is very difficult to pinpoint the precise day.
With those observations and commitments to reflect, I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
My Lords, it has certainly been a very interesting series of questions—and some answers—with different issues under the different amendments within this group. I will certainly want to reflect on what has been said about my amendments, as well as on some of the issues that have arisen, as to whether they have been as satisfactorily answered as they could be.
The noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, made the point about parking costs and so on. We know that some hospitals have begun to make exceptions, but it is fairly appalling that it is going on at all. We would all like to know how widespread is the removal of the requirement to pay for parking if you are going in for a number of cancer treatments.
My other point is that we are not just talking about the actual sufferer but the effect on the entire family—the husband or wife who may very well be put in a position where their own finances are being appallingly hit. There is a lot more that we are going to want to talk about, perhaps on Report, but perhaps by then there will be rather clearer instructions that we will all be able to say meet our points. I hope so. Perhaps I am being a bit over optimistic. Under those circumstances I will, for the moment, withdraw my amendment.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, I apologise to the Minister for being fractionally late and therefore missing his statement. Had I been here, I would no doubt have been pushing him on the questions I now want to raise.
Although we welcome and very much appreciate that the passporting arrangements will be with us before the start of Report, we also need to know the statistics, the numbers. In other words, to what extent will the existing case load of people on middle and higher-rate DLA go through into PIP? Will some of those on the lower rate now come into PIP? If carers are passported, as the Minister gave us hope to believe, from both rates of PIP, will that mean there will be more carers in future because some lower-rate carers will be joining them, or will some disabled people on what is currently the middle rate of DLA, which entitles their carer to receive carers’ allowance, fall out of PIP altogether?
Until we know the mapping of the numbers we cannot understand the implications of the very helpful information the Minister is going to make available. The crude fact is that any carer who is now on CA who finds that the person they are caring for will fall out of middle-rate DLA—therefore they may fall out of even a relatively supportive interpretation of the new PIP arrangements with both tiers entitling you on to it—will then find themselves suddenly excluded from having carers’ allowance. Because they are caring for someone for 35 hours a week, that will vanish. As a result they will be exposed to full, in-work conditionality even though the care needs of that person—35 hours a week—will not disappear.
We need to know those numbers and they are issues that we are going to have to reflect on in Committee before we get to the relevant clauses associated with DLA and ESA. Will the noble Lord kindly say whether he will be able not just to tell us before Report, as I hope, that both the upper and lower rate of PIP will entitle you to carers’ allowance but how those two populations rub on to the two existing populations? Will there be losers as well as possibly gainers among carers with all the possible implications they will be exposed to? The Minister may be able to tell us what happens to disabled people and the numbers coming into the PIP framework.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
My Lords, I hope the Committee will forgive me for coming in at this stage. Earlier today, Carers UK asked me to ask a supplementary on this which is not dissimilar from what we have just heard. There are more than 560 carers receiving carers’ allowance and so on and they may well transfer over into PIP. The Minister has made it clear that decisions are going to be made and will be looked at in detail, but these are the questions Carers UK wanted me to ask. First, what assessments are being made on the impact of carers of the two options available—establishing eligibility through both rates or just through the enhanced rate of the daily living component? Secondly, if the Minister is unable to announce a decision—which he obviously is—on which rate will lead to eligibility for carers’ allowance, will he publish the assessments of the impact on both options so that the Committee can discuss their implications?
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
My Lords, I start by thanking, I think, the Minister for his very helpful responses on three months rather than six. That was on residential and now we are to have this early announcement. It leaves those of us who prepared speeches throwing them away. There is a nice bucket here with all of them. Nevertheless, I am always delighted to be able to do that and we thank the Minister for what he has just said.
The amendment, which also stands in the name of my noble friend Lord McKenzie, would establish in the Bill that PIP will act as the gateway for the carers’ allowance and that both rates of the PIP daily living allowance would deliver eligibility. We welcome the fact and therefore do not need to go through all the reasons why we needed to have this. We welcome that we will have that information on passporting before Report, whenever that may be.
Welfare Reform Bill
Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts(14 years, 3 months ago)
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Baroness Howe of Idlicote
My Lords, we have all been very moved by the speeches made by our disabled colleagues, particularly that made by my noble friend Lady Campbell, who put it so beautifully clearly. Perhaps one of the reasons is that quite a number of our colleagues in your Lordships’ House are getting older and are beginning to have some form of disability, which makes one a little more aware of the needs. I do not know whether this form of words is necessary but the more that I have listened to the fact that the word “disability” is missing from the description, the more worried I am, not least when you hear how the press is reacting and the effect that that may have.
On listening to noble Lords, I clearly recognised the detailed areas of their special needs. That was useful knowledge on which to play the rest of our approach to this Bill. I hope that the Minister will take back to his colleagues the sort of reasoning that has taken place during this debate. His colleagues are probably engaged in goodness only knows how many other debates around Parliament, but if they had been able to be here I hope that they would have been at least as moved as I was and would have changed their approach. I hope that he will be persuasive in getting them to do just that.
The Countess of Mar
My Lords, I, too, support these amendments. I think particularly of people with fluctuating conditions which eventually become so bad that they are housebound, bedridden and almost unable to get out, and of the 25 per cent of people suffering from ME who are in this state. I should say that I am the chairman of Forward-ME. Every day I get letters from people who are terrified of what is going to happen when the PIP is brought in. However, I am grateful to the Minister and to the Deputy Chief Medical Officer at the Department for Work and Pensions for specifically asking for people with ME to be part of the pilot programme for the PIP. But the feedback I am getting is that the people who are examining them have no understanding at all of their illness. We are talking about a personal independence payment, which is the idea the examiners have in their mind, against a disability payment. However, these are severely disabled people—we have heard some very moving speeches from my noble friends and from the noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins—who cannot even get out of their houses. They must have help with their laundry, cleaning and shopping—with everything. To call it a personal independence payment does not help them, I fear, so I strongly support this amendment.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
My Lords, I will be brief as I have not put my name to any amendments in the group, but there is a definite case for someone who has listened intently to what was said to back the arguments. The noble Lord, Lord Touhig, recalled to my mind a time in the early 1980s when—I usually get this phrase wrong—my noble kinsman held parties at No. 11 Downing Street. I was very involved with the National Autistic Society. The Christmas party, with him as Father Christmas, was held for the benefit of autistic children. In those days, autism covered just one group. Now there is differentiation between different forms of autism, as there is with many other forms of illness.
My noble friend Lady Grey-Thompson moved her amendment sensibly and practically. The requirement that the health implications of what the patient was suffering from should be known before any decisions are taken is obvious and essential, quite apart from all the other good reasons why various aspects should be taken into account. The communications skills that are so important in everything have yet again been re-emphasised.
I will say no more, but I hope that the Minister—if he is listening—will say something very positive. I hope that he has listened to and has been as impressed as I have been by the arguments that were made for something rather more positive in the Bill.
Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill
My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 86ZZA, 86ZA and 86ZB in my name. First I will say a few words in support of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord German. It is vital for adults with autism spectrum conditions to have this right. It is essential that a claimant whose disability impedes communication has an advocate to help them understand the meaning of questions fully and provide accurate answers. The condition also means that many claimants with autism experience high levels of anxiety. A known advocate would be a reassuring presence in an interview.
An autistic adult may have communication problems that are not obvious to the interviewer. That their answers could dictate whether they get the support they need purely on the grounds that they did not adequately understand what was being asked would be very unfair. Judging by the Explanatory Notes to the new draft regulations, which suggest that a claimant can bring another person to a face-to-face assessment, the Government might be sympathetic to the need for such support. However, without clear rights and duties to ensure that advocates are involved, there is no guarantee that such an advocate can attend, translate at and participate in the interview. Therefore claimants must be explicitly informed of their rights, and it cannot be left to the discretion of the assessor.
Amendment 86ZZA, which was tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Addington, and has already been mentioned by my noble friend Lord Touhig, is about the need for adequate training for assessors. I strongly support it. It is important because it is a safeguard against the fear of many parents that their autistic adult children will not be understood and that the wrong decisions will be taken about their needs and their ability to work. Families from the ACT NOW campaign group are very concerned that inadequately trained assessors will not understand the complexities of autism. They also believe that the government target to reduce expenditure on DLA by £1 billion will seriously prejudice individual discretionary decisions.
Although I welcome the Government’s acceptance of Professor Harrington’s recommendation that there should be mental, intellectual and cognitive champions in each medical assessment, I hope that that will also apply to the assessment of DLA—which possibly may become PIP—and that assessors will have training in autism as well as specific understanding of the limits of their knowledge and will know when to ask for expert advice. It should also be possible for assessors to have access to an expert champion to provide that advice.
The amendment would guarantee the safeguard of properly trained assessors who will have access to the necessary range of medical and psychological expertise. It is about ensuring a standard, regularised system of excellence that will deliver a high-class public service across the country. Families that have been through so much in trying to ensure that their children will be able to live independent lives need to know that the Government acknowledge their concerns and will not leave their child’s future well-being in the hands of inadequately trained and inexperienced assessors whose judgments could result in disastrous consequences. Families are concerned that if, as a result of the proposed 20 per cent cut, the new benefit focuses only on those with the greatest needs, their adult children with autism, who perhaps are unable to access social care support, will also lose this key benefit because of misjudgments by assessors who may be expected to take decisions influenced by the pursuit of targets that have been designed to reduce costs and the number of people on benefits.
Finally, I support the amendments tabled by my noble friend Lord Touhig to allow claimants not to be put through face-to-face assessments where it is possible to determine the claimant’s entitlement to benefits on the basis of available medical or social care assessment evidence. Interviews and other similar kinds of encounters may cause people with an autism-spectrum condition severe mental anguish. It is not the nervousness or anxiety that we may experience at the approach of a difficult or unpleasant event, but dread and terror. A person with autism has autism for life, as my noble friend pointed out. It is surely unnecessary to repeat a PIP assessment every few years. For many, it will be needless cruelty. A mother of a 20 year-old man with Asperger’s said of his medical assessments, “I think the whole process is completely overwhelming for people with autism”.
The amendments seek to ensure that people who have been diagnosed by medical or social care professionals as having a condition that is unlikely to change significantly or that will deteriorate over time are released from the threat of constant assessment which in so many cases adds to their anxiety and so makes their condition more difficult for them and their carers to manage. Many, but not all, DLA claimants with autism typically undergo a number of assessments by expert professionals. Reports from these assessments will be available, as well as detailed information about them from professionals working with them. The National Autistic Society, to which I am grateful for its briefing, has argued strongly that in many cases an additional assessment by DWP is therefore unnecessary.
Welfare Reform Bill
Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts(14 years, 3 months ago)
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The Earl of Listowel
I am reminded of an article recently published on the BBC website reporting on a survey about children reading with their parents. It reported that:
“For the majority (71%) reading with their child is one of the highlights of their day. But the poll of over 1,000 parents found 18% felt too stressed to do so. Two-fifths (41%) said that a child's tiredness stopped reading together being fun, while 30% cited their own tiredness as a problem. More than a third (36%) of the 1,011 survey participants said they were too tired to spend longer reading”.
Teachers were also surveyed:
“Nearly three-quarters of those surveyed (72%) attributed developed language skills and more advanced reading levels to those children who regularly enjoyed a shared book time with parents at home”.
The evidence is very clear that the home environment is the key experience for children in getting the best outcomes for their education, so we need to think about parents not having the energy after a long day’s work to spend that important time, particularly, perhaps, at the ages of five, six and seven, reading with their child.
I refer to an e-mail sent to me today by a primary school teacher. She wrote:
“Commuting up to ninety minutes a day would mean that I would have to leave my son in childcare and school from 7.30 am to 6.30 pm everyday … I am a primary school teacher in London and I see the affects of long term childcare on children. Some only see their parents for an hour each day or only at weekends!”.
The last time I worked with children—in a summer play scheme five years ago—what was particularly striking was that there were children who arrived early at the play scheme for breakfast and there were those who stayed until the end. These children in particular seemed a bit tired, a bit down and flat, so I can understand the concern that as the Government are implementing this, the adviser should very much keep in mind not only whether the parent is working but whether the parent will have a long commute there and back and the child will have a very long day at school, starting early and finishing late. Advisers should keep this in mind when they are considering whether a person has to take a job.
I am sorry to take so long, but to round up, I share the concerns. If there is anything that can be done to mitigate the impact on lone parents with children of this age, I would welcome it. There is a real question about the quality of childcare available. Research has shown that parents have traded quality off against affordability. They have understandably been so desperate to find childcare that the pressure to raise standards has not been as high as it might have been. In the current economic climate, with the great need for childcare, the Government have understandably been lowering the requirements for the education and training of managers of children’s centres, for instance. There is this constant pressure: we need more childcare places, so there is pressure to lower standards. One should listen very carefully to parents who say to their adviser, “I don’t have faith in the childcare in my locality”. One needs to give that weight, particularly in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, where the Childcare Act 2006 does not apply and they have not necessarily got the push on greater provision that we would want. I hope that the Minister can give some reassurance on these points, and I look forward to his reply.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
My Lords, I had not intended to speak but, listening to the debate, I think that the opposition expressed by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, would provide the necessary time to reconsider the effects that the Bill will have in this respect. I also agree with my noble friend that the business about child support is a problem. Quite apart from the cost, the quality has come under quite a lot of doubt recently. The major point that I want to make is about stress on parents. I invite your Lordships to think about how stressed all of you have been by the extensive amount of work we have all had to consider recently, and bear that in mind when you come to consider whether or not to support this amendment.
Lord Freud
My Lords, with regard to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, on how we could take it slightly easier, I regret that I cannot apply it to myself because my children have gone way past that age, although they do not seem to be any less stressful.
Our policies for lone parents are based on the key principle that work is the surest and most sustainable route out of poverty. In June last year we announced our intention to align the age at which lone parents could reasonably be expected to work with the time their youngest child enters school. Current legislation, yet to come into force, provides that income support must be made available to lone parents with a child under the age of seven. This clause lowers that age to five so that lone parents with children aged five or over will no longer be entitled to income support solely on grounds of lone parenthood. We would effect this change through regulations, and implement it drawing largely on the experience of having progressively lowered the age from 16. Support for these lone parents will be available through jobseeker’s allowance or employment and support allowance if they meet the relevant conditions of entitlement, or through income support if they qualify on grounds other than lone parenthood, most notably if they are carers.
We want to encourage lone parents to enter work but not at the expense of the crucial role they play as parents. We intend to carry forward the current safeguard that allows those with children aged 12 or under to restrict their availability for work to school hours. It is worth reminding noble Lords of the powerful impact that this policy has. When the age was brought down to 12, 16 per cent of lone parents leaving income support went straight into work and 56 per cent went on to JSA, many of whom will have subsequently gone in to work. We estimate that bringing the age down to five could lead to an extra 20,000 to 25,000 lone parents in work. Children in workless lone parent households are almost three times more likely to be in relative poverty than those where the lone parent works part-time, and five times more likely to be living in relative poverty than children of lone parents working full-time.
The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, asked about flexible work. The Government are keen to promote flexible working and have a strong commitment to greater family-friendly working practices. We have committed in the coalition agreement to consult on extending the right to request flexible working to all employees. The public consultation process ended recently and we intend to respond to the comments by the end of the year. We understand that stimulating real culture change to make flexible working practices the norm across the whole labour market requires more than just regulatory change on the right to request. There also needs to be help for employers to operate in a more flexible way and demonstration of the benefits it can bring to them and their employees. The Government have a role in leading culture change. This is why we are working with business leaders and employers to promote the business case for flexible working and ensure that employers know where to go to find support to implement practices in their organisation.
This clause also amends Section 8 of the Welfare Reform Act 2009, which relates to the possibility of requiring work-related activity from certain lone parents with children aged under seven. Section 8 as it stands would require regulations in this respect to be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure. This clause lowers that age from seven to five, in alignment with the lowering of the age for withdrawal of income support on grounds of lone parenthood alone. The key question asked by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, was whether it is right to make this change now rather than waiting for the introduction of universal credit. Introducing this change before introducing universal credit will help more lone parents into work, with knock-on reductions on child poverty.
A recent evaluation of lone parents’ experiences of moving into work also found that working had had a number of positive effects on their children, both direct and indirect. These range from children having the opportunity to go on school trips because of extra family income to observing the good example of a working parent and greater independence, both financially for the parent, once in work, and for the child, in terms of their role in the household. Help with childcare costs is currently available through tax credits and the flexibilities in JSA mean that childcare responsibilities are taken into account. There are a range of flexibilities available: lone parents with a child aged under 13 can restrict their job search and availability to their child's school hours, while lone parents will not be sanctioned for failing to meet requirements if they had good reason for the failure. Access to appropriate childcare will be taken into account before a decision is made.
On the state of the economy, we have to bear in mind that even in difficult times—which I accept that we are in—Jobcentre Plus holds an average of 275,000 unfilled vacancies at any one time, around a quarter of which are part-time opportunities. Clearly those figures are a snapshot which hides the number of new job opportunities that come up all the time. On average, about 10,000 new vacancies are reported to Jobcentre Plus alone every working day, while many more come up through other recruitment channels. It is not worth getting into a huge debate about the meaning of these figures but, as noble Lords understand, much of our approach to the work programme is aimed at trying to help the people who have not managed to get a job reasonably early back into the market. As the numbers of unemployed get bigger, one factor we are looking at is the average length of time that people are unemployed. As I say, there are flows all the time and many lone parents have excellent opportunities to find a job. Even in difficult times, there are still jobs going. On that basis, I commend Clause 57 to the Committee.
Welfare Reform Bill
Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts(14 years, 3 months ago)
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Baroness Howe of Idlicote
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness on the detailed and effective way in which she has presented the case for her amendment. I spoke firmly on the equality issue at Second Reading. I am most concerned about the extent to which the majority of second earners are women. Their very delicate position may be fine if they have a fully understanding husband, but we know that some families face situations that are far removed from this. I understand the point about mutual parenting, but if the Government put more emphasis on companies providing enough flexible working for both sexes, this situation would be much easier for families. My main concern is the vulnerability of the woman at home who, as we have heard, does not have a very good argument if she is not going to earn, as a result of her extra hours, enough to make any difference at all to the joint income. I therefore support what has been said.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
My Lords, this amendment seeks to tackle the introduction, under UC, of a poor work incentive for second earners who, as the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, has said, are mostly women. As my noble friend Lady Lister said, 300,000 second earners will see increased marginal deduction rates as opposed to only one-third of those who will see reduced MDRs. The policy to make work pay does not appear to extend, therefore, to a third of these affected second earners. According to the impact assessment:
“It is possible that in some families, second earners may choose to reduce or rebalance their hours or to leave work. In these cases, the improved ability of the main earner to support his or her family will increase options available for families to strike their preferred work/life balance”.
As my noble friend Lady Lister has said, it is not clear how this will improve options for families who prefer to have a more equal working relationship, where both partners combine work and child rearing. It also seems to be in conflict with other bits of coalition policy, such as the BIS modern workplace consultation, which sets out options for families to share parental leave more evenly between men and women. Perhaps, in responding, the Minister can let us know what discussions he has had with BIS about whether the incentives within universal credit support the BIS policy.
The reduced incentives for second earners to work come on the heels of the April cuts in childcare and therefore, as has been said, further reduce the incentive for anyone with a child to take a job, not to mention other little things such as cuts to the baby element of the child tax credit, the health in pregnancy grant, the Sure Start maternity grant and the freeze in child benefit.
As my noble friend Lady Lister said, the pay of second earners is crucial in keeping families out of poverty. If I may be forgiven for repeating her figures, which I hope I have right, child poverty is at 19 per cent where there is one full-time earner but it drops to 5 per cent with two earners and down to 2 per cent with two full-time earners. Therefore, second earnings are absolutely key to the Government’s objective of reducing joblessness, child poverty, dependence on universal credit and increasing the tax take. I look forward to the Minister’s answer to whether it was the gross cost after taking account of tax take which led to the projected cost of this.
Childcare has already been mentioned and is clearly particularly important in two sorts of families. One is obviously lone-parent families, and the other is where there is a second earner, with both parents tending to be out of the house at certain times. The disincentive to work increases where there are child costs to be met. As has already been said, childcare will cover only 70 per cent of costs, and that leaves 30 per cent to be found from earnings, which is already a high enough take from the second earner’s pay. Therefore, without an earning disregard of their own, the second earner has a very high deduction rate where there are child costs to be met, effectively making the taking of a job financially unviable. Yet, as I have said, second earnings are crucial in keeping households out of poverty. They will be even more important if, as we read today in the Financial Times, there is any truth in the rumour that when times get tough it is the poor whom this Government will seek to make pay. According to these press reports, the Chancellor is looking at cutting further billions from benefits by scrapping inflation-linked uprates, even—this beggars belief—freezing some payments. We read in the same article:
“The Liberal Democrats will oppose anything that suggests the coalition is unfairly passing the burden of deficit reduction on to struggling families”.
We look forward to hearing whether the Minister can say whether the Financial Times is accurate. Perhaps he can also ask those sitting alongside him—maybe they could pass him a note—whether they would like to place on record their opposition to any attempt to pass on any cutbacks to struggling families. They must know that the rich can pay far easier than the poor. Are they going to use their bargaining power, such as it is, in the coalition to protect the very weakest in society?
These amendments are about reducing poverty and increasing the take-up of work, and it would be useful to know on which side the Lib Dem/Tory coalition sits on this. Later today, we shall reach Amendment 75A to Clause 51 standing in the names of the noble Lords, Lord German, Lord Stoneham and Lord Kirkwood, and the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, which effectively asks for an earnings disregard from the second earner where the first earner is now too ill to work. We very much welcome that amendment, but it would useful to know whether the same principle could be more widely adopted, as this amendment seeks to do.
The Minister may well be forgiven for wanting to reduce the number of working women on this side of the Committee but perhaps he would make it clear that that is not the intention with universal credit by ensuring that second earners really will be better off in work.
“(6A) Regulations under this section must provide that, for a claimant to be treated as not having limited capability for work, the claimant must be able to—
(a) reliably perform their work on a sustainable basis, for at least 26 weeks, without requiring excessive leave or absences; (b) work in open unsupported employment without requiring excessive support to perform their work.(6B) For the purposes of regulations made under this section—
“work” means work—
(a) that is for at least 16 hours per week on wages that are at or above the relevant minimum wage; and(b) that exists in the United Kingdom;“excessive support” means more than what is usually considered to be reasonable adjustments or normal supervision (or both).”
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
I present the sincere apologies of my noble friend Lady Mar. She had very much hoped that this amendment would come up on Tuesday, but alas, she has an engagement that she could not possibly break. So I will inadequately move it on her behalf.
Under the Bill, a person will be deemed to have limited capacity for work if the claimant’s capacity for work is limited by their physical or mental condition and if the limitation is such that it is not reasonable to require the claimant to work. The work capability assessment is designed to assess whether a claimant has limited capacity for work or limited capability for work-related activity, but there is no definition of work either on the face of the Bill or in regulations. A group of charities that includes the MS Society, Parkinson’s UK, Arthritis Care and Forward-ME have indicated that this is a significant omission, and it is one that I certainly agree with my noble friend Lady Mar should be rectified.
Individuals must not only be capable of some very limited work; they must be capable of obtaining realistic and sustainable employment. I am sure that the Minister will acknowledge that capability for work is not a clear-cut issue. Many disabled people fit neither the “completely fit for work” nor the “completely incapable of work” categories. As the Minister knows, the main interest is in those with a fluctuating condition—an area where my noble friend Lady Mar has both experience and, indeed, considerable knowledge. They can unpredictably veer between both categories and, however much they may want to work, this group finds it particularly difficult to obtain and retain sustainable employment.
My noble friend and I strongly support the principle that all those who are able to work should be supported through the work-related activity group in ESA, which is designed particularly to identify those who have a limited capacity for work. However, those who face significant barriers to returning to the workplace require extra time and support to move back into the work environment. The WRAG is a very important provision for those with fluctuating conditions, as it asks them to undertake work-related activities that are personalised and appropriate to their needs and abilities. However, the group believes that the current work capability assessment sets too high a bar for the test of limited capability for work—the test that admits people to the WRAG. The test fails to take into account the reality of the claimant’s abilities not just to take on work but to retain and manage unsupported sustainable employment.
The Australian Social Security Act 1991 and the Australian assessment of work-related impairment for disability support pension criteria supply a sensible definition of what could be meant by the ability to carry out meaningful work. Slightly amended for the UK, as is proposed in my amendment, this could provide an important aid in determining whether a claimant actually has limited capability for work. Broadly, the amendment would specify that, in order to be capable of work, the claimant should be able to: work for at least 15 or 16 hours each week in meaningful work that pays at least the national minimum wage; reliably perform their work on a sustainable basis without requiring excessive leave or absences—the Australian system takes this to be at least 26 weeks; and, lastly, work in unsupported employment without requiring excessive support to perform their work. I beg to move.
Lord Wigley
My Lords, I am very pleased to support this amendment. One is very aware of the tremendous work that the noble Countess, Lady Mar, has undertaken in this area and of her expertise. There is no doubt that the fluctuating condition of many people with disabilities can be a difficult factor from whichever end you look at it: from the point of view of the disabled person, who may want to work but is uncertain whether they can carry out the work, or from the point of view of the state and the way in which these regulations apply to such people.
The one element in this amendment that I am not entirely certain about is the question of “unsupported employment”. There are times when, if a disabled person is given adequate support, they can be in full-time meaningful work on a continuous basis. I would not want this amendment to undermine that dimension, which is very important.
Turning to new subsection (6B) proposed by the amendment, can the Minister comment on paragraph (b), which refers to work,
“which exists in the United Kingdom”?
This raises some interesting questions. Is it in the Government’s mind that there might be work outside the United Kingdom, the availability of which could, if it were not taken up, lead to people being debarred from their benefits? One thinks of people living in Dover: an hour’s journey puts them into the French catchment area. If one lives in Holyhead, if the fast boats are running one could quickly be in Dublin—presuming that there is any work in Dublin these days. The Government’s intention in this matter certainly needs to be probed. If paragraph (b) is necessary, I would be interested to know what the Government’s explanation is.
Lord Freud
My Lords, I will follow up the Croydon situation. I was not aware of it, even though I was brought up in south Croydon.
Let me try to make this absolutely clear. The whole point of the assessment is to judge whether someone is functionally able to do the job, which is exactly what the noble Baroness was asking for. The point is that it can be done coherently and consistently by people who are experts in that function, whereas GPs and specialists are trained in diagnosis and treatments which are entirely different; it is not their job to see people and make those judgments day in, day out on a consistent basis. But that is what we are looking for. Atos Healthcare professionals are trained in disability assessment, which is assessing the functional effects of a person’s condition or disability. That is exactly what the noble Baroness is asking for.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
My Lords, this has certainly been a very wide-ranging and passionate debate on these issues, with good reason. I am certain that my noble friend Lady Mar will read it with considerable interest and will no doubt have plenty of issues to raise at a later stage of the Bill, when I hope she will be available. We obviously have to wait for Professor Harrington’s final report, which will be extremely helpful. The various questions that were raised makes one realise how complicated the way through these things will be. Above all, we will need to reassure people with these fluctuating conditions that they will be treated fairly. On my noble friend’s behalf, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Welfare Reform Bill
Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts(14 years, 3 months ago)
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Baroness Howe of Idlicote
I hope that the Minister will forgive me for interrupting. He has painted a very clear picture whereby only a handful of people are likely to be affected by this measure as they will learn the relevant lessons. However, will he make clear a route, as it were, to those administering the regulations or whatever, so that they do not push to impose higher sanctions too quickly and for a longer number of years?
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
May I add to that? I was going to wait until the Minister finished, but I wish to add two points which are germane to this discussion. First, the noble Lord is assuming—I absolutely understand why he would—that people respond rationally to sanctions. However, the group with whom he may well be dealing are those whose lives are feckless, chaotic and without much shape. In my experience, those people are semi-literate and probably do not understand what is going on when the sanction is imposed. It is just one of those things that happen to them in a passive way, which means that a high obligation is placed on staff, with the aid of easy-to-read literature and all the rest of it, to make very clear what is going on and what the nature of those sanctions are. My experience of people who have been sanctioned is that they do not know why they have been sanctioned.
Secondly—I was waiting to hear the noble Lord refer to this but he has not done so, so perhaps he will go on to do so, in which case I apologise for anticipating him—we have always had a hardship category in relation to sanctions. For example, if you have dependent children the level of sanctions is limited so that, because of your hardship, you are not sanctioned all the way. Disabled people and those with a mental health problem would in my view come into the category of vulnerable people entitled to a hardship adjustment so that their benefit is not completely wiped out. Again, this requires high levels of training and support from the very people who the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, identified; namely, the disability employment advisers in Jobcentre Plus offices. Perhaps the noble Lord can reassure us on those two points. First, can he assume that people with such chaotic lives will understand the rationality of a sanctions system? Secondly, will the hardship regime apply to some of the people who were identified by previous contributors to this debate?
Lord Freud
I thank my noble friend for looking for clarity. There is a layer of protections here. We have a highly trained decision-maker with a specific job of making the decision. Also, the claimant can look for reconsideration within that office. Beyond that, they can look to reduce a sanction by going to an independent tribunal. There are layers of protection. The objective is that claimants who demonstrate good reason will not be sanctioned.
We will also maintain other protections. One is that we will continue to visit the homes of claimants with limited capability for work and a mental health condition or learning disability, to help us understand why they did not meet their requirement.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
My Lords, I remain worried by the point that was raised about a basic understanding of what I call the coalface: in other words, when you are in a face-to-face situation. It is important to have some training and understanding, not least in the example that the Minister gave of a well known and common complaint. It worries me that this will be dealt with by experts at various levels of appeal rather than being sorted out much earlier in the process.
Lord Freud
My Lords, it is important that the coalface does not do the sanctioning. It is important that there are really well trained people doing this. This is a complicated area that needs to be got right. These are some of the most highly skilled people in Jobcentre Plus aiming to do that with all these supports.
In response to the concerns raised by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, on Amendment 51FB, I want to make it absolutely clear that there are no benchmarks and no targets for sanctions referrals. Jobcentre Plus gathers a range of management information to support its work, as you would expect us to do. On the issue of numbers, over the last year, the number of sanctions and disentitlements rose by around 270,000 from approximately 490,000 in 2009-10 to around 760,000 in 2010-11. There are a complex range of reasons for this increase, including the introduction of new requirements, a slight increase in the average claim duration and a refreshed approach to monitoring compliance with requirements designed to maximise claimants’ chances of finding work. A particular reason is due to the 2010 rule change that led to a sanction rather than disentitlement for failing to attend an employment interview. The number of sanction referrals to decision-makers is a key piece of management information. It helps local mangers assess how consistently JSA conditionality and sanctions are being administered in their area. Managers may compare rates of referrals across different areas when analysing the data, but there is no benchmark and certainly no right or wrong level of referrals. The collection of management information also allows the department to monitor and evaluate the impact of sanctions. I urge the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, to withdraw the amendments.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
My Lords, I am delighted to have actually made it. With regard to the previous amendment and the proposal for pilots, it may well be that pilots are relevant here, too.
This amendment would introduce a specific earnings disregard within the universal credit to ensure that carers juggling work and care are not left worse off as a result of the new system of disregards. Approximately 250,000 carers currently in receipt of the carer premium to means-tested benefits such as income support, will be moved to universal credit. Under that, the earnings taper will be more generous than the withdrawal rate of existing benefits. Many claimants who are in work, including many carers able to juggle work and care, will be able to keep more of their benefits as they earn. However, this will depend on which earnings disregard they have access to and their level of earning.
Under existing plans, it appears that certain groups of carers would see the size of their earnings disregard in universal credit reduced, compared to their existing income support disregard. Currently, individuals in receipt of income support are eligible for a £20 a week earnings disregard, that is £1,040 a year, which allows them to earn £20 a week before their benefits start to be withdrawn. The Government have announced the following disregard groups for universal credit claimants, with approximate disregard levels: for a single person without children it is £700, about £13.50 a week; for a couple it is £1,920; for a lone parent £2,260 plus £520 for the first child and £260 for the second and third children; and for single disabled people or a couple where at least one person is disabled it is £2,080.
The Government have said that, taken together with the taper, this would leave couples, singles, lone parents and disabled people significantly better off in low-paying jobs. That is good as far as it goes. However, it does not apply to single carers, who currently have access to £20 income support through receipt of the carer premium, but who would be able to access only a basic single person disregard of about £13.50 a week under universal credit. Although £13.50 would be an improvement for unemployed single people being moved onto universal credit from jobseeker’s allowance, where they currently receive only £5 a week disregard, it would see the earnings disregard for single carers on income support drop from £20 a week, that is £1,040 a year, to £13.50 a week, or £700 a year.
Those carers who would see their disregard reduced would be those unable to access the higher disregards for couples, lone parents and those with children or covered by a disability disregard. Carers losing out would be those living on their own, who do not have children and who are caring for a disabled person who does not fall within their universal credit household. This latter group includes carers looking after a disabled or elderly friend or relative living elsewhere and carers looking after an adult disabled child, a parent or other elderly relative living with them but who is not considered to be within the same household for the purpose of universal credit.
The Government have estimated that around 20 per cent of households that receive means-tested benefits and include a carer would not have access to any of the higher disregards for couples, lone parents or households that include a disabled person. With approximately 250,000 carers on means-tested benefits, this would leave approximately 50,000 carers able to access only the lowest earnings disregard if they were able to juggle work and care.
I end with a case study to put this in perspective. Sheila is on income support and cares for her mother, who is 58, has early-onset dementia and receives disability living allowance. Sheila is single and has reduced her working hours as a librarian to just two hours a week. She currently earns £20 a week and, because of the existing £20 disregard, her benefits are unaffected. Under universal credit she would be eligible only for a single person's earnings disregard of £700 a year—around £13.50 a week. Sheila's earnings above £13.50 would be subject to the universal credit taper, which would mean that she would be £15.75 better off from her £20 earnings. She would be £4.25 a week—£221 a year—worse off than under the current system even though she would be earning the same amount.
I will not go on to outline the full impact because I have given an impression of what it would be. I look forward to hearing how this unfairness can be tackled. I beg to move.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett
My Lords, I am pleased to support the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote. I am glad that she was able to get to her place in time. I welcome the fact that a single person's disregard was included in the latest round of announcements about universal credit. I also welcome the more generous disregards being made available for most recipients.
I have banged on for many years about the importance of disregards. For me, this is one of the plus signs of universal credit. However, the interaction with housing costs and the complexities that will be created have qualified my enthusiasm for the new disregard regime. It sullies the supposed simplicity of universal credit. I came across some of my noble friends one evening last week wandering around in a state of utter confusion, trying to understand various calculations that we had been given on disregards. I should add that these noble friends are extremely expert.
Just how complex the calculations are was brought home to me by Sue Royston of Citizens Advice, who kindly e-mailed me to point out the implications for carers. I will read out what she said because if I try to paraphrase it I could get in a hopeless mess and get it all wrong. She wrote:
“The proposed levels of disregards have added a whole new area of complexity ... The new disregards have given single adults a disregard floor of £13.50. I have assumed in the calculations that CTB will pay council tax in full for those on JSA or ESA levels and that any excess earnings will be clawed back at a 65% taper as I would be very surprised if any Local Authorities were more generous than this. For the first £13.50 a single claimant will not be subject to a taper of UC but will be subject to a CTB taper so will gain 35% of their earnings. However, every £10 they earn beyond that will be subject to a taper of 35 per cent from universal credit and will then be subject to a further taper in council tax benefit, leaving them with a gain of £1.22 for every £10 they earn … a single carer who at the moment can simply earn £20 and keep all £20 as well as their benefits in full will now have to earn over £55 even to get a £10 gain if they pay council tax at £18. When someone is no longer subject to the combined taper will depend on the amount of council tax they are responsible for paying”.
She goes on to observe that:
“People will have to go through complex calculations to work out given extra costs of working, what level of hours they can afford to work and how much they will gain at different levels of income”.
I hope that I have not lost noble Lords in that, but if I have, it makes the point that this is extremely complicated. If we cannot understand it, how do we expect recipients and carers who are trying to juggle work and care to do so?
Juggling work and care is no easy matter. I have not had to do it myself, but anyone who has done so or with relatives who have knows that it is difficult and stressful. According to Ipsos MORI research commissioned by Carers UK and the DWP for Carers Rights Day 2009, about one in six carers had given up work or reduced their working hours in order to care. A major barrier is the availability of suitable replacement care. In a separate survey and research by Carers UK and the University of Leeds, over 40 per cent of carers who gave up work did so due to a lack of sufficiently reliable or flexible services. A similar percentage, 41 per cent of those surveyed, said that they would rather be in paid work, but that the services available do not make a job possible. I am not saying that a disregard will magically create these services, but it would certainly help to pay for the things needed to support the combining of paid work and care. We know the arguments around childcare, but we seem to forget them when we talk about other forms of care.
There is evidence about the stress and ill-health suffered by carers who do this juggling act, and of course we are talking about more women than men here. That is because while,
“women represent 58% of all carers, they make up 73% of carers on benefits. They are substantially less likely to be in work. One third of heavy-end male carers are in full-time work, but only 13% of heavy-end female carers are working full time”.
I, too, will end with a case study which I have been given by Carers UK, and I have a couple of questions.
“Cheryl is 45 and lives in Stoke on Trent—she has been her elderly father’s full time carer since her mother died in 2008. Spinal problems, a heart condition and arthritis mean her father needs full time care so he has come to live with Cheryl, her husband and their 5 year old son. Alongside providing childcare and supporting her father with everything including eating and personal care, Cheryl works for an hour on three evenings each week as an NHS cleaner, once her husband is home from work and can support her Dad and son. The only social care support she gets is six hours of respite care each Monday—time she uses to do food shopping and spend some time with her son who she hardly sees in the evenings. She wants to work more”—
clearly she has the same philosophy as the Government in that she believes in paid work—
“but has no one else to look after her Dad, can’t afford replacement childcare and would have to find a different or second job as her current employer is not able to give her more hours. Any work has to fit around her son’s school hours, school holidays, her husband’s working hours and his ability to provide childcare and her father frequent doctors, physio and hospital appointments during the day”.
That gives a flavour of how difficult life can be for carers. As I have said, a more generous disregard is not a magic wand, but it could ease that life and it is a way for the Government to say, “We recognise that the position of carers is different from that of other single adults”. It has been recognised in the past that there is a case for a higher disregard for carers.
Can the Minister explain why carers appear to be the only group whose earnings disregard will be reduced as they move on to universal credit? Not surprisingly, there is a feeling that that is discriminating against carers. Secondly, what assessment has been made of the impact on carers and particularly on their work incentives?
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
My second point is that the question that was not asked is why there is no additional amount of disregard for disabled people to take account of the council tax issues. I presume that the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, will speak, but if those extra points could be referred to it would be helpful.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
My Lords, this has been an interesting and extremely wide-ranging—
Lord Freud
I shall try to answer the questions. To pick up the point from the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, there is not an impact assessment on carers, but if we are talking about an entire universe of 50,000 and then we have to narrow it down to this very small group who are working two to five hours at national minimum wage, we are talking about a very small number. Do not forget that there is an element of the system that people change behaviour to fit around. You can see the encouragement here, as I was showing noble Lords, to start earning a little more than the five hours. The reality is that this is a very small impact. There are winners and losers all the way through the universal credit because we are putting in a new system.
To pick up the question from my noble friend Lady Thomas, the tax credits will no longer exist once the universal credit is introduced. As we stated in the revised policy briefing note—she has spotted this with her eagle eye—we aim to have a single assessment as the gateway to limited capability for work elements and the earnings disregard for disabled people. This assessment will be based on the work capability assessment and we are considering that this process may need to be modified in the context of the universal credit. We will have a chance at a later stage of the Bill to discuss the WCA in a little more detail.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
I am grateful to the noble Lord because it is an issue that is dear to their Lordships’ hearts.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
My Lords, I have been fascinated by the wide range of issues and figures that we have had to digest. It is clear that we will have to wait for the information on PIP with increased enthusiasm. However, I suspect that we will have to wait a day or two yet. I thank everybody who has contributed to the debate—a considerable number did so—particularly my noble friend Lady Lister, who supported my specific point but raised a lot of other fascinating issues.
I am afraid that I failed to say at the beginning that I owe my briefing to Carers UK, which produced an amazing range of facts and figures. The number of women carers must not be overlooked. It constitutes a huge percentage. It is well and truly worth taking into account what the state would have to pay if it were the carer in all the instances that we have talked about. The present system costs comparatively little. We will have a lot to read in Hansard tomorrow, quite apart from studying the table that we have asked for. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Pensions Bill
Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts(14 years, 3 months ago)
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The Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells
My Lords, I, too, express my appreciation to the Minister for the work that he has done in regard to this very complex matter. At the same time, I belong to the generation that has benefited extraordinarily from the provisions that have been made by the state and I have no worries about my pension. I am very conscious that this is an issue if not of gender justice then certainly of fairness. I recognise how difficult it is when that has to be balanced against finance, but many decisions that we make in government often demonstrate that money is spent on things that do not have quite the same moral imperative as this issue.
Noble Lords will be aware of the public pressure in respect of this matter—some will have seen the advertisements in Westminster Tube station. Perhaps we should remember that the Prime Minister himself has said that he is uncomfortable with these proposals. I recognise that there can be no universal panacea but I genuinely believe that, this being an issue of fairness, we must consider whether the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie of Luton, can be supported.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for the efforts that he has clearly been making and I am grateful for the changes that have been brought forward in the other place. As the right reverend Prelate said, the Prime Minister was made somewhat uncomfortable by all these protests and has perhaps looked rather deeper into the effects on the generation with which we are concerned.
I, too, am still very concerned about the age group which is most severely affected. The people in that group entered employment as far as they were able with their caring responsibilities. We should not forget the cost to the public purse of bringing up children—in an orphanage, say—if their parents do not look after them. We all know that it is mainly mothers who carry that responsibility, and that has definitely had an effect on the amount of time that they have been able to devote to whatever employment has been within their reach. Therefore, we still have a duty towards this group of women.
I accept that £11 billion is a lot of money, but there have been complications over equality and I would still like to see more done for this group. I would regard it as fair, just and proportionate if this group were given a full year. Although I should have liked to go along wholeheartedly with what the Government have achieved, I am sad to say that, with my background knowledge from many years of fighting for equality of opportunity and much greater equal treatment for women, I do not think that what the Government are proposing has gone far enough.
Baroness Drake
My Lords, I recognise that amendments have been made by the Government but I support the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord McKenzie. This is not an argument against raising the state pension age. It is not even an argument against accelerating the increase in the state pension age in the face of rising life expectancy to achieve the long-term sustainability that was articulated by the noble Lord, Lord Boswell. I frequently heard the quote from the noble Lord, Lord Turner, but if one gives it in its totality, he went on to say that he would also have been more radical on state pension.
As for my own situation, in 2004 I travelled the country attending public events and platforms telling people at a time when it was most unpopular to do so that the state pension age would have to rise not once but consistently. I have no difficulty in articulating the case for the need to respond to rising longevity. However, this is an argument about the manner and timing of this particular increase, which fails to take account of the need to give people sufficient time to adjust their lives and their planning for the increase. It means that a particular group of older women will disproportionately bear the burden of achieving these savings. That will happen for five simple reasons.
First, they will have lower state pensions for legacy reasons on the treatment of carers. Secondly, they will have lower private pension savings because of their economic and social position and the past incidence of gender discrimination. Thirdly, they are more likely to be undertaking caring responsibilities and less likely to be in the workforce. Fourthly, they will have lower incomes. Fifthly, they are less able to mitigate the loss of the income in the limited time available. The debate is about this particular increase, its manner and its disproportionate impact. It is not a challenge to the intellectual analysis of what you need to do to respond to rising longevity over the long term.
Those five reasons provide the essence of why the policy on this increase upsets people. It is seen as unfair. Consistently surveys show that women believe that coalition policies are seen as particularly harmful or harsh to women. We hear organisations such as the Women’s Institute articulating these concerns. At the weekend the Daily Mail highlighted the results of a Harris Poll survey showing that government support among women is slipping away. These proposals are an example of why that is so. They are very real in their impact on ordinary women. There are others, such as the change to the tax credit system, child benefit and childcare to name but a few. Yes, tough decisions have to be made. I do not disagree with that at all. But that mantra cannot be used to justify policies that consistently and disproportionately impact on women, particularly those who are carers and on low or moderate incomes. Until that is recognised there will be many more surveys revealing views of women similar to those reported by the Daily Mail at the weekend.
To get back to the point that I made in opening, the amendment of my noble friend Lord McKenzie—I know him well and we discuss these things frequently—is not a challenge to the need to respond to increasing longevity or the fact that accelerating the increase in the state pension age is part of that. In fact, the amendment does accelerate the increase in the state pension age compared with the existing proposals, and no doubt we will come on to look at ages 67 and 68. The amendment concerns the unfairness of the manner of this increase on a particular group of women for the reasons that I have laid out.
Lord Freud
My Lords, we do not have the figures on more informal care; we do not know how many are in this age group. That is not broken down—I certainly do not have the figures to hand. I am providing the figures for the women most affected with full-time caring responsibilities.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
Could the Minister answer the point that I was trying to make concerning the earlier period in women’s lives, when they were caring? That also will have had a huge effect on their capacity to find employment; certainly these days it is not an easy task.
Welfare Reform Bill
Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts(14 years, 4 months ago)
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The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, I am afraid my last comments were probably not very clear, for which I apologise. The question I really wanted to ask was about a young person leaving care who has a sum of capital in a child trust fund. Will that sum be exempt if he needs to draw on universal credit?
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
My Lords, having listened to the detailed arguments, which were extremely well put, if I may say so, the message to me is definitely that all this looks as though it is going to discourage people from saving. If the Minister cannot reply to what we have heard, that is a very worrying message to be sending out.
Baroness Sherlock
My Lords, I would like to add one final word. Could the Minister reflect for us briefly on one of the wider consequences of this move? When tax credits were set up, they were, as he will know, designed to replicate work in many ways and to replicate the tax system, so it is not the case that having savings is not taken into account at all. Under tax credits, genuine income from savings is taken into account, and that is the way it should be, but under this new system it is not just the very richest who are affected. Once people reach £6,000 worth of savings, they will face, as my noble friend Lady Drake described, a heavily punitive rate of effective taxation on that. I wonder what the effect of that is on the marginal deduction rates as they move into work.
I ask the noble Lord to do two things. One is to comment on how he has factored that into the effective incentives to move into work in a whole variety of situations. Secondly, could he say whether he is not worried at all that it might push people back into an approach of dependency on the state as opposed to their trying to share that responsibility between themselves and the state, which the tax credits system encourages them to do?
Lord Skelmersdale
My Lords, before the debate continues, I have to say that I am afraid that the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, has somewhat misunderstood what I said. I came down firmly in favour of fortnightly payments. What I did not say, if for no other reason, was that the move from weekly to fortnightly payments is so recent. I do not believe that it has yet bedded down.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, on her excellent exposition of the case and the passion with which she presented it to us. Like my noble friend Lord Northbourne, for many years I have been and still am involved with the Peckham Settlement charity. I know that there was considerable concern when the money that the women had charge of ran out for one reason or another.
I am very impressed by the range of options here, but I would really like to support the one identified by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope, because I think that really said it all. It is a question of choice, and that should be what we give individuals in this situation. We know the number of times families have gone hungry when women have not had control of the money, for all the reasons that have been explained previously. This particular option is the one that we should all consolidate behind. More than anything else, I say this because the more people who speak in favour not just of this amendment but of what is being said in all these amendments, the more likely we are to persuade the Minister to have another look at this, and above all to take it back to his colleagues, who may have rather different views, and to try and persuade them.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, I support the amendment of my noble friend Lady Lister, which she moved so powerfully, and I certainly hope it will cause the Minister to reflect on the issues she has raised. I want to speak to a related issue that could be raised under Clause 29, but I raise it now because I think it will make worse the situation that my noble friend has described, and I am fearful. This issue is the payment methods for housing benefits—not to whom they are paid, which we will come on to later, but how they are paid. I hope the Minister can give us reassurances on that, and if not, that we can follow this up in the discussion afterwards.
Your Lordships will know that HB is very complicated to assess and to administer. Local authorities will often not allow a member of staff to fly solo on handling HB claims until they have had some six months—I repeat six months—training and chaperoning. This is almost as much as a police officer. The reason, of course, is that it involves checking entitlement, rents, family size, the non-dependence in the home, property size, the landlord’s veracity, any disability, backdating, separating out service charges—including fuel, water rates and energy bills—and careful checking against fraud, because it is a big-ticket item. It takes a good local authority with intimate knowledge of its locality an average of between seven and 10 days to process a housing benefit claim. Crawley Borough Council, for example, which is a very high performer, processes about 40 per cent of new claims in one day and the rest in under 10. None the less, do we think that universal credit staff can deliver a benefit as complicated as HB?
In future, this will be done online by a family in Exeter, with queries, I understand, to a call centre in Warrington. That call centre will be handling over 30,000 new HB claims a week: nearly 7,000 a day. Families competent in financial management may be able to cope; we calculate that perhaps 40 per cent of families are ready to use the online process. Those who are most dependent on HB are the same group who are most dependent upon and in need of weekly and fortnightly payments: people with, say, mental health problems or learning difficulties, or other people who for whatever reason lead chaotic lives. These are the people who find that their paperwork is lost, that landlords are unhelpful, that call backs go missing, that deadlines pass. I understand that there is a 63-page form to fill in: one mistake, and no money gets paid. I hope the call centre line is free. Is it? The lines will be jammed, callers will have to call back repeatedly, and they will have to hang on for long periods of time while their call is transferred to someone who knows something about HB—that is, if the call has not been cut off in the mean time through the handing-on process and they have to start all over again.
All that is handled now with skill, patience, good will and huge experience by local authority and housing authority offices. Local government officers find that 66 per cent of all those on housing benefit need the face-to-face service they offer. The Government are assuming that only 10 per cent will do so, and that that 10 per cent will be serviced by Jobcentre Plus offices, whose staff are not only not experienced in housing matters but in physical terms are often inconveniently located. For example, one district in Kent with 100,000 people has no Jobcentre Plus in its area. Claimants needing a face-to-face service in the north of the district have a £9 bus ride to get to and from the Jobcentre Plus offices, while those in the south have a £7 bus ride—a day’s allowance for the claimant gone on a day’s travelling costs.
At the moment, the only experience that DWP staff have of housing issues is from 200,000 home owners nationwide, less than 5 per cent of the jobseeker’s allowance caseload. Housing cost assessments will go up from 200,000 to 4.83 million. So I have some questions for the Minister, and I apologise for not giving him advance warning of them, but they are absolutely integral to the whole issue of how payments are made.
Will claimants get an itemised statement of the elements making up their universal credit so that they can see what they should get in housing benefit and thus, what is often the trickiest and most difficult to compute, be able to compare it with previous awards? Will claims get slowed down to the slowest part of the process? If there is delay over housing benefit, will the claimant know that that is where the difficulty lies, and will they none the less receive the rest of their universal credit, which may be more open to real-time assessment? At the moment, if a claimant gets their jobseeker’s allowance paid, the landlord can be pretty confident that they will get their housing benefit. Will that happen in the future?
If a claim has to be investigated further, perhaps because the family needs an extra bedroom because of disability, and it takes a fortnight or more to get the required information back from GPs, will the entire universal credit payment be held up until it is resolved? What, as my noble friend so eloquently argued, will the family live on in the meanwhile? What plan B does the Minister have in mind for the individual living on the breadline, especially since that same individual may want the housing benefit to be paid directly to the landlord? However, the Minister wants it paid directly to the tenant, who will now be far more exposed to the vagaries of administration as well as to the temptation of fraud.
Perhaps I can suggest a plan B to him: get local authority staff who are highly experienced, skilled and swift to do the housing benefit calculation for the DWP and—given that central and local government computers already communicate with each other on these issues and the whole system is online—get them to feed their data into the central universal credit processing centre. After all, the ATLAS project means that local authorities have a direct link into JSA, ESA and IS. On top of that, they can access electoral records, they can verify residency, they have knowledge of local HMOs, and they have street knowledge. No call centre 200 miles away can identify a contrived tenancy, or whether too many individuals all appear to be claiming housing benefit for a shared property, or whether rent arrears are beginning to mount up and intervention is necessary. Local housing benefit staff can and do, and they act on it. Having a local contact point would also stop the phones being jammed by worried landlords wanting to know whether their tenant is going to get housing benefit, which is essential if we assume that most tenants will in future get their housing benefit paid direct to them. Landlords want the security of a paid rent, and hence their demand that rents be paid directly to them, but they also rely on cash flow. Cumbersome administration that makes the timing of their payment from the tenant unpredictable is at least as significant.
Claimants who have steady circumstances and basic competence will cope with an online system supported by a call centre and may very well be able to cope with monthly payments. However, the claimants about whom so many of us around this Table, as well as local authorities and housing associations, are most worried, are vulnerable, chaotic and prone to error. They may have literacy difficulties, they are in constant flux and they will not cope. Many of the most vulnerable are also clients of other statutory services. No call centre can deal with them or will interface with them. The local HB office does this each and every day.
Tax credits are relatively easy because they are based on the previous year's income, with fixed periods of claim. Yet even here, as I know to my pain, the computer nearly toppled over and the backlogs were huge because no one had appreciated the rollercoaster nature of the lives of so many lone parents. Half of them had more than a dozen changes of circumstance per year, many connected to childcare. The computer was often three changes behind. HB is far more complicated than tax credit. It exposes the tenant to the much greater risk of homelessness, and no unemployed tenant facing homelessness will concern himself with looking for a job rather than trying to secure his home, which is the outcome that we want him to seek.
We will strengthen UC and protect some of the clients of UC most at risk by developing a partnership with local authorities, particularly as they will be holding and distributing the discretionary housing allowance to soften the difficulties that will follow from the tough new HB changes that we will no doubt debate in a later session. For the Government, local authorities represent a back-up resource that it would be foolish to squander. I realise that I have sprung some questions on the Minister. I hope that, if necessary, we can follow this up with a meeting. They were triggered by the concerns raised by my noble friend’s amendment, and by the additional difficulties inherent in the complexity of the nature of HB, which the system as presently constructed cannot begin to address.
Remploy
Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts(14 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Freud
My Lords, Remploy has about 54 different factory outlets doing various things, including packaging, logistics and CCTV—a wide variety of endeavours. That is exactly the point: what a Remploy factory operation needs to be successful is to be run as a profitable entrepreneurial unit. At the moment many of them are loss-making, and indeed across the piece only 50 per cent of people are doing productive work.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
Bearing in mind what the Minister has said, would he also please take into account the fact that Remploy is very flexible with the needs of some disabled people and those who have difficulties with learning? It can accommodate them, which makes a huge difference. I hope that that will be put into the decision that is taken.
Lord Freud
My Lords, I must emphasise that what Remploy Employment Services has done in the past few years is genuinely remarkable. In the latest financial year, it has put 20,000 disabled people into mainstream jobs and it is aiming to do that for 30,000 next year. This signifies real change for these people, and that is something on which we must congratulate Remploy.