Welfare Reform Bill

Baroness Murphy Excerpts

Tuesday 13th September 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Murphy]

My Lords, having worked so happily with the noble Baroness, Lady King of Bow, in east London I am sorry to tell her that I disagree with almost all the points that she has just made. I support the provisions of the Bill. The Government are promoting the necessary cultural change in the benefits system which the vast majority of people in this country want to see. We need a shift in the expectations of what the state will do for us, and a radical shift in attitudes to choices enabled by the state which generate unintentional moral hazard. However, one thing that we seem not to have talked about sufficiently is the fluidity of dependency in populations and how quickly behaviours change as opportunities and threats change. I am talking not about changes in people’s levels of disability but about population changes and how they respond to situations.

The vast majority of people in receipt of benefits are merely making ends meet in ways that make legitimate sense to them. They have no alternative but to depend on the benefits to which they are entitled. However, there are huge numbers of people who do not consciously think about alternatives, because they do not have to and at present have too little support to do so. In my professional life as a psychiatrist I have witnessed many people with mild and more serious mental health problems who had to give up work during a very bad period, but who should have been assisted and coerced—in the best sense of the word; there is such a thing as good coercion—back into the workplace for the sake of their future health; and whose life has been blighted for many years after a brief episode of illness by a system which allowed them to remain unwell and workless, and indeed insisted that they should, in order to qualify for help. I have also seen in my own family how a modest chronic disability can unconsciously perpetuate dependence. Of course, the vast majority of people in receipt of benefits do not consciously make these choices, but some unconsciously make choices that are in no one’s best interests—if I can pray in aid another Freud.

I have a slightly different approach to the conditionality issues. The major problem with implementing conditionality—which can be so helpful for people to move them on to a different state, and remind them of the threat of this thing which will move them on to a different place—is how it is implemented in the DWP outposts in jobcentres and so on, by staff. Putting in the universal credit system—which we all want to see; it is very noble and sensible—and implementing it fairly will be a challenge. My noble friend Lady Meacher has articulated very well the difficulties with training, particularly in relation to some mental health problems, autism and some mild degrees of learning disability, where people are trying to access work and so on. Those problems are so serious that it is not just the culture of the dependent population that needs assistance to change; it is the dependence of the officers—of those who apply the system—that needs to change. If some of the assessment doctors continue to be reported as being unlistening, dismissive, unsympathetic and poorly trained, the Bill will not work.

I turn to the specifics in changes in disability provisions. I have, of course, read the multiple briefings from organisations working with people with various types of disability and I am surprised that more of them do not welcome the shift from disability living allowance to the more personalised personal independence payment, which is better focused on people’s individual circumstances and does not assume that disability is a fixed, unchanging matter. I have to say that I do not think that the disability support organisations have necessarily been very helpful in assisting people through the realities of how this will work. Enormous anxiety has been generated about the assessment and its efficacy, the interpretation of regulations and how sensitive the assessment tools and descriptors can be made. Of course, it is going to be difficult to get it completely right and we look forward to hearing how Professor Harrington’s second report, which is now apparently available, will change matters again.

There are quite marked differences in the proportions of different populations within the United Kingdom on DLA, which needs some thought. We have heard about the increasing level of the use of disability living allowance. For example, in Scotland there are, I think, something like 6 per cent more people on DLA. It is said that this is because of a different population level of disability in Scotland, due to cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease, but the age range of disabilities simply does not add up. The reality is that there is different interpretation of the rules north of the border. In many other parts of the country there are variations which do not take account of the fact that we need better assessment and recurrent assessment. I do not think it is right that people should be assessed once and left where they are. You lose all opportunities to continue to implement effective support if you do not assess people on a regular basis. Therefore, I completely disagree with the notion that people should not have to go through an assessment, because it gives them an opportunity to get the help that they need.

The housing benefit system has received much attention so I shall keep my remarks on it brief. I have looked at the analysis of the situation in London carried out by Shelter and the University of Cambridge Centre for Housing and Planning Research. I think that 100,000 households in London that are on housing benefit may theoretically be obliged to move to lower rental areas. However, the analysis does not take sufficient account of the possibility of the rental sector changing its rents. In fact, the map that has been drawn up shows that only three boroughs are affected—one is the City of London, which is a very tiny place where very few people live, and the others are Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster. I suggest that many noble Lords in this House cannot afford to live in Kensington and Chelsea or Westminster.

I see that the noble Baroness, Lady Turner of Camden, is in her place. In fact, it has been demonstrated that Camden is one of those areas where the people we are discussing will still be able to afford to live. There is ample opportunity to assist people through a transitional phase. However, I hope that the Minister will say how that might be done. Much has been made of the polarisation of rich and poor neighbourhoods but that has been going on in London since the early 18th century. A mixed neighbourhood does not comprise exceedingly wealthy pockets being situated next door to profoundly impoverished pockets; that does not seem to me a mixed community. After all, these social goods of a mixed community are not available to working people on low wages who are paying taxes and trying to live in London but who do not receive benefits. I find it difficult to understand why the noble Baroness thinks that that social good should be made available to those who are dependent on benefit.

We need the cultural shift that I have mentioned. Many changes need to be made to the Bill but its basics are profoundly right and I support it.