Welfare Reform Bill

My Lords, I would support this amendment regardless of whether it was related to a cash change in Government. It is the policy issue that is most important here. I favour a national scheme, locally delivered, and I worry very greatly about the proposals before us for reasons which I will outline. Largely, the Bill will not be able to meet the principles on which it is set. I have one disagreement with the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis: I found that all four principles—not five in my copy—in Paragraph 5.2 can be criticised equally, because they cannot be delivered through a national scheme. Earlier this afternoon we heard a passionate plea from the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, about the need concentrate on the United Kingdom. In his reply, the Minister talked about our benefits structure being a system reserved to the United Kingdom. I want to point out to noble Lords that we try to be consistent in what we do in Government. We ought to recognise that the Scotland Bill is proceeding through Parliament at present. The origin of that Scotland Bill was a commission chaired by Sir Kenneth Calman which looked at which aspects of our society make it worth having a United Kingdom and at what holds the United Kingdom together. Apart from foreign affairs and defence, the one key thing which he said was holding this country together was our social security system. As a reflection on what we have heard this afternoon, I ask why it is that we want to damage that system of reserved powers which works for the United Kingdom as a whole. We have heard how it works in Northern Ireland, but it works in the same way and with the same outcome, so it is therefore a United Kingdom system. We are going to take £5.8 billion, whether it is cash-reduced or not, out of this system for the United Kingdom, and put it into a system which, quite frankly, will not work according to the principles laid out in the document which is being pursued by DCLG. I am reading from paragraph 5.2, just so we can get some consistency; we may be on a different page, but I am on page 13. It says, ““We therefore propose,”” that is, the DCLG, "““the following principles to underpin local schemes:""Local authorities to have a duty to run a scheme to provide support for council tax in their area””." This Parliament and this Government can deliver that in England, nowhere else. It then says: "““For pensioners there should be no change in the current level of awards, as a result of this reform””." This Parliament and this Government can deliver that only in England, not in the rest of the United Kingdom. It says further: "““Local authorities should also consider ensuring support for other vulnerable groups””." This Parliament and this Government can deliver that for England alone, not the United Kingdom. Finally, it says: "““Local schemes should support work incentives, and in particular avoid disincentives to move into work””." This Parliament and this Government can make sure that that works in England alone. Therefore, the principle upon which I believe the United Kingdom is based is being breached by this Bill and the change that we have before us. Of course, there are the premier arguments which we have heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, this afternoon. Essentially, if you believe in a universal credit, and you have a postcode lottery for what that amount of money might mean to you, how on earth are you going to be able to judge whether or not work is beneficial for you? Council tax benefit—or discount, or whatever terminology you want to use—is a part of the sum of money you will have to support you alongside the universal credit. This means you would have to take that judgment, and you would have to know about what would happen locally. This is along with all the other complaints that we have seen for this principle across various different areas. Of course we are talking about different areas in England. Who knows what would happen? Given the legislative competence in place in all three parts of the United Kingdom, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, all the powers over local government are with those administrations. They are not with this Parliament. So you cannot say ““it should be local government””, and you cannot put any ring-fence around it. All you can do is hand over a chunk of money. I have worked this out, and it is about £1 billion. So we are going to hand over £1 billion, and who knows what those Administrations might do with it? You cannot say it would be used for reducing council tax for people. What you can do, of course, is come to some form of accommodation, or concordat, or agreement; but is that what we want from a system of universal social security? I do not think it is. In this document from the DCLG, it says that the DCLG, "““will continue to work with the Devolved Administration Governments to ensure that schemes can be developed within the appropriate framework of powers””." It also says that, "““the Government expects that the Devolved Administration Governments will put forward their own proposals””." The Government may expect this, but they cannot guarantee it. That is what I mean about guarantees. This is a guarantee that we give across the whole of the United Kingdom. In my view it is important that we have a national scheme; no matter what funding is within it, given the problems we have, certainly we must have a national scheme, available across the United Kingdom. We have been promised an impact assessment on this proposal. We were told in the other place last November that the impact assessment would be appearing when legislation appears. Since the consultation for England only completes next week, it is unlikely we will see legislation before this Committee stage is completed, and therefore we are not likely to have an impact assessment. Therefore, I ask the Minister, would he be prepared to ensure that the impact assessment of the Government’s proposals on the abolition of council tax benefit is before this Parliament, and before us, in consideration of this Bill? The only legislation that can ensure that the principles of a scheme—those that I have read out—are universal will be this Bill, not any Bill produced from DCLG. It is surely our responsibility to ensure that we deal with these issues in this Bill. There is no other place for it to happen. So it is important that we have the information before us on which we can make that judgment. If council tax benefit falls out of universal credit now, it will be gone for ever, because we have given the power away—and you know that once you give power away you cannot get it back again. I also believe that there is a problem for England. The problem that England will have is trying to collaborate. The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, did not own up to a wonderful review that he wrote for the National Assembly for Wales in which he promoted collaboration between local authorities. That was the solution that we were all to follow. I must advise him—and I am sure he is aware—that progress has been somewhat slow in ensuring that his recommendations were carried out, even though they had universal support from the National Assembly for Wales. It is increasingly difficult, and you can understand why, with people who have democratic accountability, to ask them to work together. The consequence is that if this proposal and element were taken out of universal credit, we would be left with a range of schemes, loosely delivered, with local authorities exercising their democratic power and other parts of the United Kingdom, if they so wished. I would not dare to ask the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, to venture an opinion on this, but would it be beyond the wit of the Scottish Executive to say, ““We’ll take your money, thank you very much. We’ll add a little bit of Salmond paste on the top and then we’ll see if we can offer a Scottish scheme and then tell you that in England you’ve got it wrong””. I suspect that that is the consequence of this proposal. When we come to Clause 34—and I am not expecting the Minister to give us all the answers today, but we will have another bite at that clause—I would ask that we have the information that was promised for this issue to be before us at that time. The timescales are out of kilter, but I hope that sanity rules in this matter and that we eventually end up with a system that we can all be proud of as being a universal credit system that is universally applicable.