Social Security Regulations

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Winchester, has raised an important issue. It is one that she has raised several times before in your Lordships' House. I congratulate her because, every time she speaks on this subject, the Government swing a little more towards her opinion. During the passage of the Welfare Reform Act 2007, the Government started off in Committee completely opposed to the noble Baroness's suggestion, but by Report announced a raise in the earnings disregard level in response to her amendment. By the time the Minister spoke in May 2008 on the same issue when responding to the comments of the noble Baroness on the employment and support regulations, he teased your Lordships' House with a promise that the Government were considering her point further and that an announcement would be made by the end of the year. I assume that the provisions of these regulations dealing with payments made to service users are the result of that further consideration, more than a year and half on. If I have missed an important step in this long journey, I apologise to the House. It is not easy to track the Government’s policy development through Hansard. It is remarkable that, despite the Government’s apparent U-turn on how payments to the service users covered in these regulations should be treated, the Government have still failed to meet the noble Baroness’s original concerns, many of which my noble friend Lord Skelmersdale, who participated in this debate, fully shared. Service users should be encouraged to participate in improving our public services and any uncertainty about whether that participation may result in the loss of their benefits is not helpful. Service users are, as I am sure we would all agree, a vital part of adjusting public service delivery to the needs of the public. However, instead of recognising that in the treatment of the payments that might be paid, the Government’s provisions today appear to establish a two-tier level of appreciation. Not surprisingly, such as step was criticised by many stakeholders during the consultation and I wonder why the Minister did not consider their concerns valid. I am sure that the Minister will assure us that he and his department do not consider the contribution made by service users to charities or voluntary services to be in any way less valuable than that made to public authorities. I hope, therefore, that he will explain why such a distinction has been drawn. Are there differences in the levels of payment typically made to service users in each sector? Is there a variation in the amount or quality of work that they undertake? What difference do the Government see between the two groups? Does this distinction between the two different types of service user extend to the amount of hours they spend on this sort of work too? On reading Hansard from 2007 to try to understand the Government’s thinking on this issue, I was struck most of all by the enormous complexity of the whole system of benefits, work-related activity and disregards. Noble Lords have the advantage of access to briefing papers, helpful diagrams produced by the department and the chance to quiz an extremely knowledgeable and approachable Minister on the subject, but still, some confusion always remains. Imagine how hard it must be for the general public to navigate these waters, chock full of grey areas, inconsistencies and the constant fear of taking a wrong step that might result in benefits being cut. These regulations add yet another complexity to the rules. How do the Government plan to explain to service users just which bodies they may work for and which they may not, without impacting on their earnings disregard? The Government have managed, despite what I am sure are the very best of intentions, to make life just a little harder for some of the most vulnerable people in our country. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response and hope that my pessimism as to the effect of these regulations will not be borne out.