Welfare Reform Bill

There are issues about which benefit people are seeking to access and the process to access it. Presumably, if a man seeks to apply for jobseeker’s allowance or ESA and states in his claim that he has two wives in a polygamous marriage, that will start the process of information being collected and he will have to provide that information for the claim to be successful. There are other issues about when conditionality kicks in and the sort of support that is available to individuals before you get to the sanctions process, but at the start of a claim the individual making it would be required to provide full information. If full information is not provided, that could affect the claim; it could certainly affect the amount because the level of personal allowance is driven by the composition of the household. If the amendment were to be accepted, it would not be clear how the DWP could decide which partners to select for work-related activities and, indeed, whether it would be possible for all the partners to be required to take part in such activities. New Section 2D(4)(e) is therefore necessary in order to provide the mechanism whereby an appropriate level of conditionality could be applied to different partners in such relationships in a consistent manner. We do not know how many people in receipt of benefits are in polygamous marriages, but we believe that the numbers are extremely small. Anecdotal evidence indicates that there are fewer than 1,000 polygamous marriages in the UK, and the number is decreasing. Only a very small proportion of these are receiving benefits. The Committee may be aware that since the Immigration Act 1988 came into force, people have been unable to form polygamous households in the UK. Under that Act the law ceased to recognise virtually all marriages celebrated under systems recognising polygamy. I turn to the second of the amendments. Clause 4 makes provisions with regard to couples where one member is capable of work. Along with Clause 2, this forms part of the legislative changes needed to introduce the recommendations set out in Professor Paul Gregg’s review. Clause 4 introduces provisions that will deny access to income support and income-related ESA to couples where one member is capable of work. Such couples will still be able to access help via income-based JSA, but the work-ready member will be required to look for work. Only the person who is work-ready will have to look for work and we do not intend this provision to apply to couples with a child under the age of seven. Clause 4(2) inserts two new sub-paragraphs into paragraph 6 of Schedule 1 to the Welfare Reform Act 2007. We spent many happy hours debating that provision, and who knows whether next year another one will come along? The new provisions will enable regulations to be made to define classes of couples who are not entitled to receive income-related ESA. It is currently possible for the partner of a claimant on ESA to remain in indirect receipt of benefit with no requirement for them to do anything to find employment. This is despite the fact that they may be perfectly capable of working. Indeed, they may want to find work but are not sure how to go about it. They may lack the necessary skills required or simply be low in confidence if they have been out of the labour market for some time. We intend to move couples in this situation from ESA to jobseeker’s allowance. This will ensure that those who are capable of work receive the appropriate benefit-and-conditionality regime to enable them to find employment. However, it is necessary to protect certain vulnerable groups such as partners who have limited capability for work, those who are eligible for carer’s allowance, or couples who have a member in the support group. Regulations under new sub-paragraph 2A(1)(da) will make clear which groups will be exempted and remain entitled to claim ESA in their current circumstances. The amendment seeks to remove couples claiming ESA from Clause 4 entirely. There is no justification for excluding one group over another. The key to the provisions in Clause 4 is that one member of the couple is capable of work. It is right that a person who receives benefits, even indirectly, and who is otherwise capable of work, should be required to look for work in return for support in doing so. I hope that those explanations have satisfied the noble Lord, but I should be happy to answer any supplementary questions.