Welfare Reform Bill

I support Amendment 99A, which would exempt from the benefit cap, as others have mentioned, claimants with entitlement to carer’s allowance or additional allowances within universal credit for claimants with regular and substantial caring responsibilities. I am sure that this amendment was moved extremely ably by my noble friend Lady Hollins. Perhaps I may make a couple of comments about the cap more generally. As Cross-Benchers, we do not normally refer to any political activities that we might have undertaken even in the distant past. Over a quarter of a century, however, I have spent rather a lot of time knocking on doors. One incredibly powerful recollection that I have is that the perception of the so-called scrounger was always the biggest single issue on the doorstep, even bigger than immigration. We cannot get away from the fact that low-income earners bitterly resent neighbours who they regard as being on benefits and, apparently, seeming to do rather better than they themselves. It is important that low-income earners feel that they are benefiting from going to work, which was the objective of the tax credit system. I strongly support the principle of that, albeit that there were a few problems with complexity. As for the political motivation behind the benefits cap, I understand that people must have that incentive to work and that those in work should not resent those who are out of work. I have concerns, however, which I believe others have expressed, about the cap as a mechanism for achieving that sense of fairness. My understanding is that the design of the universal benefit should achieve this objective if only, as others have said, the council tax benefit were incorporated within it—at least except for a small number of very large families and some people living in very high cost areas. I suggest to the Minister that the Government give some thought to finding a formulation in the legislation to achieve their fairness objective as between claimants and low-paid earners without resort to the notion of the cap. I know that the Secretary of State is extremely committed to this cap because it is a beautifully simple little message about being tough on claimants, if one is really honest about it. However, the Secretary of State should think carefully about whether this is acceptable within the traditions of democracy in this country. The aim, of course, would be to avoid relinquishing parliamentary scrutiny of the Executive. That is important because the levels and structure of benefits should not be open to change by the Executive without reference to Parliament. I understand that that is possible with the Bill as drafted. I know that the Minister will correct me if I am wrong but that is my understanding. As regards this amendment, if the Government are determined to have the benefit—and I still hope that they are not—one group of claimants who clearly should be exempt are carers. About 200,000 children in the UK are being raised by grandparents, older siblings or other family members and friends. These carers step in to bring up a child or children as a result of very difficult family circumstances which often involve drug or alcohol misuse, abuse or neglect, death or serious illness, domestic violence or imprisonment. These carers are saving the taxpayer very large sums. These households are often large, simply because they have children of their own and then bring in others, perhaps five or more; so they will be disproportionately affected by the cap. I am sure that others have already mentioned this issue but I hope that the Minister will address it directly. The idea of imposing a cap or some form of benefit control on large families is presumably to discourage parents from having more children than they can readily cope with, but that argument does not apply at all to carers who take on other people’s children. I do not know what the Minister feels about that point. Is that actually the main incentive behind the cap in relation to these households? Have I misunderstood? I would welcome his clarification. I know that he will want to support carers and hope that he is in a position to hold out some hope of concession on this issue. I hope that, at the very least, he will take this matter away for consideration.