Welfare Reform Bill

Baroness Stowell of Beeston Excerpts

Tuesday 13th September 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My Lords, I will limit my remarks to the parts of the Bill relating to the proposed universal credit and the benefits that it replaces. In doing so, I will focus in particular on the long-term unemployed.

I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that our benefits system is broken. Indeed, from the comments made by others today, it seems that many noble Lords agree. As it stands, it establishes dependency, destroys incentives to work and entrenches poverty. That is not good for the people who receive benefits, it is not good for the people who pay for them, and it does not say a lot for the political classes presiding over the system.

The evidence shows that public opinion about our benefits system does not divide along party lines. The simple fact is that too many people who get up every day to go to work see their neighbours and others who are like them in nearly every way except that they do not get up and go out to work because they do not think, apparently, that they have to. Allowing that to happen has had a profound impact on our society in several ways. We have diminished people's willingness to support a benefits system which needs to be there to care for the genuinely vulnerable and those who find themselves suddenly and temporarily out of work. We have provided a breeding ground for hostility towards people who make their way to the UK to take advantage of our broken benefits system. What is really bad about that, let us be clear, is that the people who suffer most from that hostility are those who come to the UK to work hard and want to contribute through their drive and ambition. What is really worrying is that we have also weakened people's belief in the democratic process itself because they look at us and see that we have allowed this to happen and go on for far too long.

When we get to the Committee stage, I hope that we do not lose sight of this bigger picture because the Bill—the new universal credit, the benefit cap, which I support, the work programme and the changes that will make work pay—may finally be the first step on the road to recovery. I say first step because, while I support the Bill, I see it as only a framework for us to build from. I know that some Lords might not agree with me, but I am pleased that much of the detail will be covered by regulations and secondary legislation because I am sure that we will need to experiment and trial different aspects of the Bill over the next few years. This applies particularly to the conditions and sanctions that we set and the way that we categorise claimants.

Some people get a bit windy on the topic of conditions and sanctions, but I genuinely do not understand why. If we accept, as I think we do, that people are only reacting rationally to this current system of welfare—some people are playing the system that we have created because they can, not because they are inherently bad—if we change the incentives so that it pays to work and we apply firm conditions and sanctions to the receipt of benefits so that they are not seen as a soft option, surely people will respond just as rationally. Why would they not? My concern is making sure that the conditions that we set go far enough so that they provoke a radical shift in rational behaviour.

During our scrutiny over the next few months, we will debate anomalies and we will want to mitigate the risk of unintended consequences. During this time, we will also hear of many hard cases. Of course, we must listen and make sure that the benefits system is able to respond to them with compassion and respect. However, let us not forget the old truth that hard cases make bad law. If we build the new system by using the exceptional as the benchmark for the average, the new system will be as broken as the current one and it will not help those it is intended to support.

The Bill gives us the opportunity to show people who have been on benefits for a long time that we want to help them and that we are serious about doing so. It gives us the opportunity to show that helping people means getting them to the point where they can earn their living and other people's respect. Indeed, anyone earning their living, in whatever kind of job, not only earns other people's respect but deserves it. Just as importantly, this Bill allows us, finally, to show those already trying hard to earn a decent living that they are the ones doing the right thing.

We need, of course, to combine welfare reform with economic growth, real jobs and better education for our children. I believe that this Bill is a big step towards correcting our welfare system, which has been broken for far too long. For that reason I support the Bill.