Welfare Reform Bill

Actually, my Lords, it is oddly enough not about trying to win a vote in the House; that is irrelevant. We are seeking to persuade the department that this proposal is profoundly unworkable as well as profoundly indecent. It has to be taken away to the Leg Committee—to use the shorthand—and rethought. That is what I am trying to do. This is not meant to be a grandstanding effort on the Floor of the House, though it might get even more contributions there. It is trying to strengthen the DWP’s concerns between the lines, if I judge it right, and empower it with some of the powerful arguments advanced today by experienced people—a former Minister in your Lordships’ House, a former Secretary of State, and in particular people who speak directly from the nations of this country outside England—that this should not and will not run. It should be taken back to the drawing board to think again. Given that consultation on the document finishes on 12 October, this discussion today is designed specifically to take that debate forward. I thank the Committee, because I am confident that they have moved the debate forward. I will pick up the point made by my noble friend Lady Turner and reiterated by the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, about discounts, rebates and benefits. My noble friend is absolutely right. Discounts and rebates are, for example, a quarter off for a single person. This is a standardised figure, irrespective of the individual’s circumstances. That is why it is a discount or rebate. One of the reasons why the British Legion was campaigning on this—and I stand to be corrected—was that it had succeeded in getting through the proposal that local authorities on a voluntary basis, but in practice fairly universally, awarded a 50 per cent rebate on the old council rates system for those veterans who enjoyed war pensions. I remember the debates vividly. If any council thought it might do otherwise, there was a march to City Hall and they occupied the first three rows in their uniforms and decorations as councillors tried—or did not try—to meet their concerns. They were seeking a rebate. The difference about a benefit is that it is tailored to individuals’ circumstances and council tax benefit does precisely that. That is why one cannot put it into the same category as rebates, which are a category which does not depend on means testing. Three issues have come up today, and I am very much indebted to your Lordships for these. First, there are worries about localisation as such. This was put powerfully by the noble Lord, Lord Newton, and I am very grateful. Added to that were the concerns—which I am sure are right—of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher: the worry and stress that will affect individuals. My noble friend was right to say that it originally came from the 19th century Poor Law, but after the old Poor Law and workhouse system were finally abolished in the mid-1930s, for about four or five years local authorities were responsible for running the social security system. They experienced precisely these problems. They were too small to bear the risk as well as the fluctuations, and it could not feasibly be borne by the inhabitants of the locality. This was one of the powerful arguments which went after the war towards establishing national schemes. So it is back to the past as we go forward. The first argument that was raised—and it was absolutely correct—is the worry that with each localised scheme, each individual’s CTB will not be an entitlement, but will be dependent on the circumstances and the finances of each local authority. I notice that the noble Lord did not use the argument that I expected him to run, which is that local authorities could top up their scheme if they so wished. I am grateful that he did not, because local authorities are facing 30 per cent cuts in their budgets and are having to choose whether to fund the CAB or the arthritis association in the locality. They cannot carry those cuts. The second issue that noble Lords raised, taken up by my noble friend in particular, was that as a result of these proposals, should they go through, CTB will not be demand-led, but cash-capped. This means that there is a real problem for each individual. There is a real problem for local authorities, whose economies will be various and fluctuating, and in the current situation this is sharper than ever. There will be real problems with take-up. Local authorities that are fortunate enough to do well out of this system will have a surplus. I do not blame them for that. They have a responsibility to their council tax payers, but it means that in two adjacent authorities we may see one rural one seeing its council tax not just frozen but in subsequent years reduced by virtue of reduced expenditure on CTB and its neighbouring authority seeing not only its council tax rising in general but the demands for council tax benefit by the citizens in that authority not being able to be met. If the first question is about localisation and its problems, the second is what happens when it is cash-capped under DEL as opposed to demand-led, which is what all benefits decently should be. Thirdly, there are the issues that the noble Lord, Lord German, particularly and rightly focused on, which relate to the interlocking with universal credit and the need to understand how these tapers are going to work. I was struck by the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Freud, was unusually briefed in his reply. I will not embarrass him by seeking to speculate why that might be. He did not comment on some of the very real questions raised by noble Lords today, except to say that we await a further impact analysis of the effect on universal credit. That will be welcome, but it is not just a matter of the effect on universal credit; what also matters is the effect on the recipients of universal credit who will each be in up to 400 different localised schemes for universal credit. In addition to that master copy, there will also be 400 localised impact assessments, given certain modelling assumptions. I understand why the Minister was unable to answer on questions of cost. As for appeals, the wording in the document, on page 33, paragraph 9.25 is: "““As the Government is proposing to make local schemes for council tax support an integral part of the council tax system, this might extend to the handling of appeals and we would welcome views.””" Finally, I cannot resist making one last point to the noble Lord, Lord German. He is quite right that by the time we got to pages 12 and 13 we had four principles, but on page 10 we had five. So even the civil servant’s heart was not in it, because one of the principles got dropped off in the intervening three pages. I thank noble Lords for their contributions. I hope very much that DWP Ministers and officials will share with their DCLG colleagues the real concerns shared around the House not on a party political basis, but on the part of people who have administered this system in local government and from central government, and are saying loud and clear now that it will not work. I beg Ministers in the other department and their civil servants to think again. With your Lordships’ permission, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 12 withdrawn.