Welfare Reform Bill

My Lords, before I start my remarks on the Bill, I congratulate the usual channels on the decision not to break into this debate by taking the Statement on swine flu. I hope that all speakers agree that that will lead to a much better and more fluent debate. The Minister, to whom I am grateful, has this afternoon introduced the second Welfare Reform Bill in just two years. As with the first one, which intended to encourage the 1 million people on incapacity benefit who say they want to get back into work to do so, this is another complicated and framework Bill. Complication has been endemic in social security benefits for decades, so I do not complain about that, even though one intention behind the Bill is to simplify the system by taking a power to do away with income support—a benefit introduced in 1996 in another place by my noble friend Lord Fowler and by my noble friend Lady Trumpington in your Lordships’ House. I therefore agree with the Freud report which says that the ideal would be for a single out-of-work benefit. If this becomes reality, I, for one, will welcome it, as I am sure will all those who fall into welfare whether they are able bodied or disabled, and so, too, will their advisers. I shall return to this theme later both today and in later stages of the Bill, not least because it was highlighted by speakers of the "Need not Greed" campaign launched in this House in February. We have every right to complain about the number of regulations that will be needed to bring the Bill into practice. Although I have not added them up myself, Mencap and Mind, to which I am grateful, have both commented on this aspect. Mencap pointed out that, ""some of the most crucial aspects of the Government’s welfare reform agenda will under this Bill be brought into legislation by regulations … rather than by primary legislation"." It then goes on to add them up and says that, ""the Bill refers to regulations 387 times"." Will the Minister confirm that that is a record number that has never been surpassed by any Bill—ever? Is he in a position to give us any of this huge number in draft before we start the Committee stage? If not, we are in for many long, hot, interrogatory hours in Grand Committee, whither this Bill is destined. How many hours will the Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee need to deliberate? It is hard not to sympathise with Mind, which has said that, ""it is difficult to welcome without reservation a Bill which leaves many of the details of the proposed reforms to be set out in as yet unpublished regulations"." That said, my party has been pressing for reforms similar to those outlined in the Bill, especially in Part 1, which is about the welfare to work agenda. I have said numerous times from this Dispatch Box that we believe, as we have always believed, that with rights go responsibilities. I was glad therefore to hear the Minister make a similar point. In this context that means that if the right to jobseeker’s allowance is not matched to the responsibility to do one’s level best to find an offer of employment within one’s capabilities and to take it up, sanctions of one sort or another should be used. Alas, very few have been used up to now. There are those—perhaps we will hear them today—who say that this is not the time to bring in such proposals. Last week’s unemployment figures speak for themselves. In the quarter to February 2009, 2,100,000 were unemployed, using the ILO basis. In March 2009, 1,464,100 were claiming jobseeker’s allowance—363,000 new claimants. The Minister knows the figures well, and I congratulate my noble friend Lord Roberts of Conwy who, by his persistent questioning, keeps the House up to date on them. I say to those who question the timing of the welfare to work provisions that they are needed now more than ever. The numbers of those out of work are increasing sharply and no one in their right mind would want this number added to the existing long-term unemployed figures. That is, of course, those unemployed for over a year. These are expected to more than double from 170,000 to 400,000 in this year alone. Just think of the untold misery that this would bring to thousands of families and individuals up and down the land. I was surprised, therefore, even shocked, by the early attitude of the unions. In my simplistic way, I would have thought that more employment would mean more union members. As I have said, on this side of the House we are in favour of any measure that helps people to find work. We welcome the proposals that jobseeker’s allowance claimants are to be required to participate in schemes that will help them into employment. Undertaking work, work-related activity or training are all things of which we approve. This is to be undertaken by outside bodies rather than by the Government themselves and in the first instance it will be piloted. We understand that there will be a few area-based contractors who will then sub-contract to specialist organisations, many of which will be charities which specialise in helping people with particular problems, such as physical or mental problems. We want to investigate this aspect in Grand Committee. The Bill moves on to talk about ways of getting single parents into work. The Government have been progressing this with existing order-making powers to the effect that, up to the First Reading of this Bill in another place, the proposals would apply to those with children of seven or older. The Bill goes further than that, however. At one point in another place, I understood that the intention was that it would come down to the youngest child being five years old. I was therefore confused when the Minister talked about children of six years old. Perhaps at some point he will explain. The Bill goes further than that, however, and it would seem that the Government intend that lone parents with a child as young as three should attend a work-focused interview and repeat that interview every few months. What happens after that remains unclear, and we will be investigating that when the time comes. Indeed, my honourable and right honourable friends had the—what shall I say?—temerity to divide on this point on Report in another place, believing that mothers with very young children, up until school age, should be left to their own devices to relate—"bond" is the current buzzword—to their children. This caused the Minister’s temporary boss, who is the 13th Secretary of State in 12 years of this Government, to say that we are against the whole Bill. Let me make it clear that one swallow does not make a summer, or perhaps more accurately, one snow goose does not make a winter. Will the Minister dissociate himself from the Statement by the Secretary of State who, to coin a phrase, was economical with the truth? However, that is politics; what should concern your Lordships is whether this part of the Bill will have the desired effect. The devil, after all, is in the detail. The Bill does not need to go into detail on sanctions because, by virtue of a negative instrument debated by your Lordships on Monday, they already exist. However, the department provided an explanatory note for that order, detailing the step-by-step approach that it will then take to get people back into work. I, for one, will be putting that to good use in Grand Committee. Claimants who fail without good reason to take part in the Flexible New Deal, which is aimed at helping those on jobseeker’s allowance to find work, may have their benefits reduced or stopped for two, four or even as long as 26 weeks. That also introduces a sanction of one week’s loss of benefit for those claimants who fail without good reason to attend a back-to-work session when directed to do so. However, I understand that hardship payments are available when appropriate. Your Lordships’ Merits Committee noted that the order was not accompanied by an impact assessment, so there is no way of telling whether the operating costs will be absorbed within the current DWP budget allocation, even with an extra £1.3 billion being added to that budget in the PBR in November. Will the Minister be able to provide us with such information as the Merits Committee failed to achieve? Talking of operating costs, why have the Government shied away from committing themselves to the DEL-AME switch? We will, I am sure, all become closely acquainted with the jargon as this Bill progresses. However, to put it in a nutshell, that switch means using money that is saved by getting people off benefits—and into work—to pay for the contracts, which will need to expand for the foreseeable future as the unemployment figures rise. In other words, it is a virtuous cycle that appears too virtuous for the Government to adopt. We will also want to look at the terms of the contracts, which are currently front-end loaded even though the objective is the end result of getting people back into work and keeping them there. Concerns have been expressed that Clause 9, which covers drug users on JSA being made to go on rehabilitation courses if their condition affects their prospects of finding work, falls foul of the Human Rights Act. I realise that I am taking on the heavyweights of the JCHR, but I fail to see why someone using an illegal product can use the law to continue their habit. Schedule 3 extends the sanction to those affected by alcohol abuse which, being a legal drug, is in a different category. As a personal aside, I am rather surprised that the smoking police have not got in on the act. To be serious, what legal investigations have been undertaken to substantiate the Minister’s claim that the Bill does not fall foul of the Human Rights Act—which, incidentally, had such a going over in Grand Committee yesterday? Before leaving Part 1, I congratulate the Government, who, even in these economically straitened times, have acceded to a long-standing demand of the Royal National Institute of Blind People: that blind people should be eligible for the higher rates of mobility and disability living allowances. I understand that the Government became slightly overenthusiastic at the last minute about that; we look forward to their correction when it is made later. Part 2 of the Bill will be of great interest to your Lordships. It enables disabled people to take control of the services provided to them and to live more independently. Individual budgets are already being piloted in some areas and the results are, unsurprisingly, positive, although I understand that it is not working as expected. Only around 10,000 people currently have individual budgets, and a fifth of those are in the Borough of Oldham. We will need to discover if this new provision will work any better. I also note the parallel provision in the Health Bill that is currently going through the House, the debates on which will, no doubt, inform us during our studies in Grand Committee. We will also need an adequate explanation for the exclusion of social care money, which the Minister has just mentioned. Why are the relevant government departments unable to co-operate? The aim of personal budgets should be for the convenience of disabled people, not for the departments involved. The Royal College of Nursing makes the point that these proposals should not break the nurse/patient relationship by making nurses one of the gatekeepers. I think that, given the way it wrote its brief, it probably meant—never mind what it meant, "gatekeepers" will do. Part 3 concerns the sanctions available to the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission when non-resident parents refuse to support their children. Your Lordships will remember that we had a long discussion on the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission Bill about whether it was appropriate to remove driving licences and/or passports from such "refuseniks" by administrative action rather than through the courts, as is currently the case. Claiming that the Bill had run out of time, which was not the case, the Government dropped that provision after many noble Lords, supported by your Lordships’ Constitution Committee, had waxed lyrical against the proposal. This Government find it impossible to take no for an answer, as we have seen in the repeated attempts to extend detention without trial. So, here we are again with the confiscation of driving licences and passports. There is, though, a slight amelioration as far as driving licences are concerned. CMEC will undertake a pilot for two years, after which a form of sunset clause will apply. The Secretary of State must lay a report within six months of the end of the two years. If the Government wish to go firm on the administrative removal of driving licences, they must lay an affirmative instrument within 30 days of the publication of the report. It is a big "if" to my mind as I cannot imagine any non-resident parent not appealing to the courts. However, the Minister may or may not be relieved to hear that I am prepared to give it a go and a fair wind. What I do not understand, though, is why the sunset clause does not also apply to passports, though my view on this will be coloured by what, if anything, your Lordships and the Constitution Committee have to say on the matter; as, I hope, will the Minister’s. In winding up, my noble friend Lord Taylor will speak to Part 4, which deals with the registration of births. To me, though, it is another CMEC provision. So although the Bill technically has four operative parts, in reality it is like Gaul. The Minister will appreciate that, while I have probed a few of the matters in the Bill, they are at the moment matters of detail, not policy. We on these Benches believe in the policy behind it, although we are surprised that the welfare-to-work provisions have taken so long to reach Parliament. Those provisions can be traced back to the Conservative Party manifesto in the 2001 general election. We advocated paying private contractors a fee to take on an unemployed person, and paying a success fee if they find a job. That is why I believe that the policy is right. I only hope that it is not too late for the escalating number of people who, through no fault of their own, find themselves out of work.