Welfare Reform Bill

moved Amendment No. 3: 3: After Clause 1, insert the following new Clause— ““Service users (1) This section applies where a person in receipt of employment and support allowance who is a service user is asked by a public, charitable or educational body concernedwith health or social care to advise on service standards and delivery. (2) The Secretary of State may make regulations providing that— (a) a person who provides advice under subsection (1) shall be treated as having limited capability for work under section 8 in relation to the activities undertaken in pursuance of subsection (1) if he would otherwise be so treated; (b) in the case of contributory allowance or an income related allowance any fee received in recognition of the service undertaken shall be subject to such disregard and averaging as may be prescribed; (c) in the case of contributory allowance or an income related allowance, reimbursed expenses shall be disregarded as income in such cases as may be prescribed; and (d) regulations made under section 16(3)(a) shall not apply in relation to advice undertaken in accordance with this section. (3) In this section ““service user”” means a person with recent experience of using or requiring public services relating to their ill-health, disability or caring responsibilities.”” The noble Baroness said: Amendment No. 3 introduces a new clause whose purpose is to remove the benefit disincentives to service users who are benefit claimants and who act in an advisory capacity for public services. The new clause states that users of health and social care services who may under the Bill become recipients of ESA and who agree to be involved with advising a health or social care provider should not be treated as fit for work just because of this involvement if the fee paid, plus reimbursed expenses that are treated as earnings, exceeds the current limit. The reason that this is an important point is that it is an explicit requirement of the disability equality duty, which has been a statutory obligation for public bodies since the beginning of December last year. That duty requires public bodies to produce the disability equality scheme, setting out the actions they will take to address the barriers to equality faced by disabled people within a particular service. Central to the DES’s development is the involvement of disabled people. This is in addition to guidance issued by the Department of Health specifying that service users and carers who use social care or health services must be involved in all parts of the design and delivery of social work education and training. Many of these service users will have severe health or disability problems and are likely to be in receipt of ESA when it is introduced. It would be very sad if this important and growing group of people were thwarted in performing this kind of public service because they were worried it would affect their entitlement to benefit. When this point was raised in Committee in the other place, the position of local authority councillors was made clear—their position would be safeguarded under the Bill. But the position of service users was not addressed, although the Minister there said: "““We do not—and this is something that we can consider and reflect on in Parliament more generally—have any plans at this moment, as a matter of policy, to extend the deductions to anyone other than councillors. However, it is important to have the power contained in this clause which would enable that to take place, if that became the Government’s policy or any Government’s policy in the future””." I would be glad if the Minister could address this point when he replies. I beg to move.