Welfare Reform Bill

Lord McAvoy Excerpts

Tuesday 13th September 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord McAvoy]

My Lords, we have had a number of really excellent contributions from very experienced people this evening—in particular from my noble colleague Lord Kirkwood, whose contribution was certainly worth listening to. I intend to concentrate on housing and hope to cut two or three minutes off my speech, and if the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, would regard those few minutes as off-setting his, I hope he will regard them as a gift from me—although some of his colleagues may say, “Beware of Tommy bearing gifts”. But you never know.

Like many colleagues, I, too, have a number of briefing notes, particularly from Scotland. There was one from Sense Scotland with which I certainly agree. It said: “We are concerned that the focus in the Welfare Reform Bill as proposed is on cutting costs rather than on the principles of a fair and equal society, although reference is made to fairness in the proposals without specifying what it means for people in their day to day lives”. We have been told this evening that the country cannot afford to pay for benefits; we have been told that the country is in a terrible state financially, so therefore these measures have got to be taken. There was not a word about the bankers, not a word about the people in the financial world who brought this situation about and still get their large bonuses, not a word about tackling them. It is all about tackling the people on benefits; that indicates the priorities of the Government.

I said that I was going to concentrate on the housing aspect of the Bill, and another briefing note I received was from Caritas Social Action Network. It says that,

“the Bill will enable the Government, through secondary legislation, to enact proposals relating to housing benefits”.

That is what I want to deal with. The noble Lord, Lord Freud, wrote in a letter to Archbishop Nichols in July 2011 that,

“based on the most recent impact assessment, the Government is still unable to estimate how many people will be left without accommodation”.

As for under-occupancy, I was brought up with my mother from the age of seven and we lived in a house which, in the current situation, would have been taken from us. We would have been forced to move because of the under-occupancy rule. We would have had to leave the community in which my mother and I were born and brought up. God knows where we would have gone or the condition of the house to which we would have been sent.

The under-occupancy rules will result in a large group of people being prodded and poked out of their houses and made to go elsewhere because they cannot afford to stay. Their housing benefit will be cut because they allegedly have been given too much. I am not sure whether the Government realise that the social engineering in which they are participating will create a large group of people who will be alienated from and by society. They will be treated differently and as people who are not quite of society or of the country. Severe discrimination could take place and it would be criminal. I will be blunt. The situation will affect people who have no understanding of how a whole swathe of working class people live. I am no social liberal and do not condone benefit fraud—I am quite hard-line on that—but I have to say that, measured on the scale of the situation created by the bankers and financiers, this is an overreaction. This is setting up an Aunt Sally. It will single people out and society will pay a price for it.

I am well aware of the limitations of this place. I support this place as a revising Chamber and not as a place for defeating the Government of the day. The noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, is correct, and we hope that there will not be any votes in Committee or at any further stages because changes will already have been made. I was also pleased to hear the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, mention the time factor, although I do not think that he will have to push too hard. The noble Lord, Lord Freud, has indicated that he favours 12 days in Committee, with which I would go along.

In short, I hope, as the noble Baroness said, that we get change. I feel frustrated and angry about the owner-occupancy rules but I accept the limitations of this place. I hope that the two minutes that I have cut will go some way to helping my colleagues.