UK Parliament / Open data

Welfare Reform Bill

Proceeding contribution from Steve Webb (Liberal Democrat) in the House of Commons on Tuesday, 17 March 2009. It occurred during Debate on bills on Welfare Reform Bill.
The Bill has two redeeming features. One is the additional powers and control that disabled people will have over services. We were unable to talk about those measures today, but we welcome them none the less. The second is the additional support for blind people that has been added to the Bill this evening, and which we also very much welcome. Without those two redeeming features, we would have had no hesitation in opposing what is otherwise a nasty Bill. The Committee did their best to scrutinise the Bill, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Paul Rowen) for his work in that regard. However, the remainder of the Bill is a very worrying piece of legislation. We were just about to get on to the provisions for people with drug addictions, but we did not do so because we again ran out of time. I hope, however, that our noble Friends in another place will have been looking in on our debates and will perform the scrutiny that—notwithstanding the efforts of my hon. Friend and others—we were unable to do in this House. The provisions for people with drug addictions are profoundly flawed. The serious addiction problem that we have today is the Secretary of State's addiction to cheap headlines, to talking tough and to yet more welfare crackdowns. What have we had this evening? We have had deadbeat dads, money going to drug dealers and all the rest of it. Behind all the rhetoric, however, we find ineffective policy and, for all the talk, the plans for people with drug addictions are profoundly worrying. The Government have admitted, for example, that people with a serious drug habit who are on £60 a week jobseeker's allowance will clearly be involved in crime, because they cannot feed themselves and their drug habit on £60 a week. The Government's answer to such people is to threaten to take their money away unless they accept forced treatment. The Secretary of State said that no one was being forced to do anything and, of course, they are welcome to say no if they want to have their money taken away. The Government are breaching an important principle here. The Secretary of State is a thoughtful man, and it is rather disturbing that he has blinded himself to the principle that we do not force people to take treatment. He said that they would simply have to come in for a conversation and an appraisal, but if the appraisal found that treatment was appropriate and the individual did not accept that—or, more realistically, if they accepted it but were unable to stick to it because of the chaotic lifestyle that many of these people lead—they would face the threat of their money being taken away. I have a simple question for the Secretary of State. Assuming that these powers are ever used, what does he think would happen next? Let us suppose that the arrangements were not 100 per cent. successful, and that some people failed to meet the conditions and were sanctioned under the powers in the Bill. What does he think would happen next? Does he think that those people would come to their senses and snap out of it and that all would be well? Or might they find some other way of getting money? Is that really what we want? There is far too much stick in the Bill, and not nearly enough incentives. The Government have pilot programmes for people with drug problems, and they have proved effective. However, they have been based on incentives and encouragement, and on getting alongside people, not on threatening them. The Bill is riddled with new threats and new incursions into people's liberties, which we do not support. There are new provisions for taking away passports and driving licences, for example. That can already be done now, but the Government want to be able to do it without reference to a court. Their lordships threw that proposal out last time, and I hope that they will do so again. There are also new sanctions for people who have not committed an offence, but who might have accepted a caution because they did not want the hassle of a court case. They will now be able to have their money taken off them more readily, as will people who fail to make it to interviews. That is not to mention the change to the social fund, which we did not even get round to discussing, whereby the Government originally threatened store card rates of interest on people. They then backed off, but we do not know what they are going to do; we have no idea. This Bill is riddled with provisions that give Ministers an excuse for tough talk, but the policies that lie behind that talk are often ineffective. On Report, the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) mentioned something that the Ministry of Justice had done. It is interesting to note that the ministry is responsible for evidence, but when it tried out a benefit sanction for people who did not keep their community orders, it said, after several years of trying the scheme, that the evidence showed that it did not work. The ministry stopped the scheme, but the Department for Work and Pensions does not stop doing things when they do not work; it just talks tougher and passes another piece of legislation without waiting to see whether the last one has worked. Let me now put a prediction on the record: the drug addict provisions will run for a couple of years, and then there will be a report. The policies should be carried out only if subject to an affirmative resolution, but the Government will press ahead with them simply on account of their dogma of talking tough. They will not want to sound as if they are not talking tough, so they will press on. As I have said, if it were not for the redeeming features of the Bill, it would give my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale and me the greatest pleasure to oppose what is a fundamentally nasty Bill. The redeeming features are the provisions for disabled people and the new provisions for blind people, which we will not oppose. However, I hope that our noble Friends in the other place will do a lot to take out the fundamentally illiberal and ineffective proposals that run all the way through the Bill.
Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
489 c871-3 
Session
2008-09
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
Back to top