Welfare Reform Bill

I add my support for Amendment 26. We are indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, for bringing it forward. It is easy to forget that Clause 1 is about an employment programme that will largely be contracted out. This amendment is apt as regards not only this clause but the totality of the Bill. I hope the Minister will understand that we are raising these issues because the Bill is so ill constructed that it is very difficult to get hold of issues such as resourcing, which is a fundamental part of the Bill. I have a couple of points to make on that front. It is easy to underestimate the amount of benefit churn that we will see over the next three to five years. The number of people who will be reassigned to this and that and the amount of effort, money, back-office inquiry, checking, rechecking and reassigning will all be unprecedented in the 20 years of experience that I have in following these policies, and that is saying something. A huge amount of administrative work will be done that will benefit no one, although it is important that it is done correctly, efficiently and speedily so that people can get the services to which they are entitled. An enormous change is envisaged in the Bill and we should not forget that. I shall try to relate my second point more to Clause 1 than to anything else. The departmental expenditure plans should come with a health warning, because we should have had the 2009 expenditure plans by now. I wonder why they are late. The previous ones were produced in May 2008. We are now past May 2009, so all the figures to which I am about to refer are out of date in more ways than one. All the figures arise—I hope I can get this confirmed—against a background of the 2007-11 Comprehensive Spending Review envelope, which requires the department to make annual savings of £1,225 million. I should like to have that confirmed because the 2007-11 Comprehensive Spending Review is very ambitious. It was cast in a very different set of economic circumstances and will run to 2010-11. If the DWP still anticipates saving £1,225 million each year, we should know that. Table 1 of the May 2008 document, at page 98, shows that the total departmental expenditure limit peaked in 2007-08. It was at £7.994 billion and was projected to fall to £7.460 in 2010-11. Those figures will have changed by now, and I expect to see the changes referred to if not in the May 2009 annual report then certainly in the Pre-Budget Report Statement that we are expecting in the autumn. A fall in the total departmental expenditure limit is already built into the system; that was announced for the 2007-11 Comprehensive Spending Review period. In addition, table 2 at page 102 of the May 2008 departmental annual report envisages, as I read it, a reduction in spending on employment programmes from £825 million to £494 million in 2010-11. A complicated note, number 7 on page 106, seeks to qualify that, but a reduction from £825 million to £494 million between 2007-08 and 2010-11 is a big fall. It may be that other money is floating around. The Government’s stated position is that they are spending £1.3 billion a year on employment programmes. I cannot find that figure in the annual report. Perhaps I am not correctly adding up the tables, or perhaps I am looking at the wrong pages. However, there is an awful lot of difference between that and being able to say with confidence that for the next three to five years we shall spend £1.3 billion on employment programmes, as has been broadly described. That will also affect staff numbers, because table 6 of the departmental report shows that the number of working-age permanent staff would fall from 73,980 in 2005-06 to 66,697 in 2008-09. Are these figures still appropriate and relevant? These programmes will take very careful implementation. The fundamental point of this amendment is that we have to be sure that the weight of this policy can be carried by the resources that the Government are devoting to it. All I am saying is that my reading of the departmental annual report does not give me any confidence that that is happening—indeed, the reverse. It shows that resources are leaching from the system. If that is true, we need to face up to it and we should be told about it. I hope that I will be proved wrong and that the Minister can correct my arithmetic and point me to more updated tables. It is not safe to proceed in these debates, even on the basis of Clause 1, if Jobcentre Plus is being affected by the plans that were published in May 2008. We deserve and will be looking to the Minister to give reassurances that the money is actually there to deliver this policy properly.