Welfare Reform Bill

Before I turn to Amendment 15 formally, perhaps I may thank the noble Lord, Lord Freud, for his support for the government amendments. I am pleased that we have been able to clarify the points that the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, is appropriately concerned about and that we have a meeting of minds. I acknowledge that the noble Lord, Lord Rix, is a huge campaigner and has great expertise around the issue of people with learning difficulties. He is fundamentally absolutely right about the need for monitoring. Without that monitoring and data, it is difficult to determine the progress being made. I thank the noble Lord for giving me this opportunity to discuss that important issue before I explain what data we collect on our employment programmes. Perhaps I may start by outlining the progress we have made since our debates in Committee. During the summer, departmental officials held a workshop with the Disability Benefits Consortium to discuss this issue. The discussion focused on the data that the department currently holds about a customer’s impairment type and how it could be used to enhance understanding of the effectiveness of DWP’s disability employment programmes. All parties were in agreement that monitoring by impairment type was important in order to allow comprehensive evaluation of the department’s employment programmes and benefits. The Government’s position remains the same. We are committed to monitoring by disability and medical condition where it is practical to do so. For all IB and ESA customers, the department holds detailed information about a customer’s primary medical condition. This information uses the international classification of disease. Figures on the high-level medical condition of IB and ESA claimants are already published on the DWP website as part of our quarterly national statistics publication. This information will be collected on customers taking part in the welfare reform pilots and will be used to analyse the impact of these back-to-work programmes. Subject to sample size and data validity, we plan to use such data to analyse the impact of our programmes and to publish them as part of DWP’s evaluation and research. For specialist disability employment programmes such as WORKSTEP, work preparation and Access to Work, the department collects high-level impairment information using a variety of classification systems. The Government intend to publish official statistics on the new Work Choice programme and we hope to include impairment information as part of this publication. I hope that this goes some way towards reassuring the noble Lord that we take this matter extremely seriously. That leads me, if I may, to government Amendment 15 and the amendments grouped with it. Again, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, for ensuring that during our discussions in Grand Committee, we did not lose sight of the impact that this Bill may have on children. Amendments 15, 24 and 60 ensure that the well-being of children is always taken into account when the personal adviser and the parent agree the steps the parent will take to prepare for and move into work when completing an action plan or a jobseeker’s agreement. We have drawn on the provisions in Section 7 of the Children and Young Person’s Act 2008 which state that it is the general duty of the Secretary of State to promote the well-being of children in England. The Act refers to a definition of "well-being" in Section 10(2) of the Children Act 2004 and requires the following to be taken into account: the child’s physical and mental health and emotional well-being; protection from harm and neglect; education, training and recreation; the contribution made by them to society, and their social and economic well-being. It is this definition that will be used when advisers and decision-makers make judgments on what is reasonable when they draw up an action plan or jobseeker’s agreement with a parent. This will require them to take into account all these important factors. However, we must not lose sight of the fact that ensuring that parents prepare for and enter work has a beneficial impact on individual claimants and their children. Evidence shows that the benefits to children if their parents are working are more far-reaching than increased income alone. Indeed, children have reported the benefits of parental employment, and parents making the move into paid work have observed positive psychological benefits in their children. For example, a study of newly working households found reduced stigma among children as a result of their parents leaving the benefits system and as a consequence fitting in more with their peers and having a less stressful home life due to fewer arguments about money. Personal advisers and decision-makers already deal with complex circumstances in their discussions with parents, and I believe that this amendment will enable them to deliver a more personalised and family-focused approach. I beg to move.