Welfare Reform Bill

My Lords, in many respects this amendment, which stems from the Zacchaeus 2000 Trust and 16 other organisations and groups, including Mind, Save the Children and the Church of England bishops, is complementary to the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, and the subsequent debate that we have just had. Its purpose is to propose that the duty on officials responsible for making decisions on sanctions or penalties against benefit claimants, or the enforcement of overpayment recovery, takes into account the facts and circumstances of the claimants in each case, and that that duty should be in the Bill. My list of what that evidence-gathering might include may seem long, but the facts and circumstances are as many and varied as the lives of the claimants themselves. When a similar amendment was tabled in another place, the Minister replied, "““The more we prescribe and write into primary legislation and the more we say, ‘You have to take into account these 10 conditions before you decide whether somebody should be sanctioned or not,’ the more likely we are to end up with a decision that flies in the face of common sense””.—[Official Report, Commons, Welfare Reform Bill Committee, 24/5/11; col. 1161.]" Sadly, common sense is so lacking from many decisions on sanctions and penalties that I beg to differ. I have two examples of this. Last week the main concern expressed throughout the Second Reading of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill was its denial of access to justice, particularly—to quote the noble Lord, Lord Bach—by its decimation of, "““a system of social welfare law that over the past 40 years or so has cheaply and successfully helped many of the poorest people in our society to have access to justice and to resolve their legal problems””.—[Official Report, 21/11/11; col. 929.]" The possibility of similar injustice in sanctions and penalties enforced against poverty incomes in the Welfare Reform Bill begins unintentionally in Clause 14 with the claimant commitment and the work-focused interview requirement. Claimants are required to sign a commitment that includes the prescriptions that they must look for work and attend a work-focused interview. When the Minister replied to the debate on Clause 14 he said: "““Even for claimants who have work-related requirements placed on them, certain requirements are simply not open to negotiation. A claimant in the ‘all work-related requirements’ group must look and be available for work. A claimant in the ‘work-focused interviews only’ group must attend work-focused interviews. These very basic requirements are not open to negotiation””.—[Official Report, 24/10/11; col. GC 208.]" Workers in the field report that such a rigid requirement to attend work-related interviews, say once per week, whatever the facts and circumstances, is creating unnecessary sanctions that should be stopped now and not carried forward in the Bill. The Minister told the Grand Committee that, "““On the issue of numbers, over the last year, the number of sanctions and disentitlements rose by around 270,000 from approximately 490,000 in 2009-10 to around 760,000 in 2010-11””,—[Official Report, 1/11/11; col. GC 419.]" which is probably explained by the change of regime in 2010. There will be those who regard such an increase as a success, but what about the victims of the unintended consequences of the clause? My first example is Harry, who having recently left prison was desperate for work and finding it hard to make ends meet on an unemployment benefit of £67.50 per week. His record made finding employment difficult. He duly signed a claimant commitment requiring him to attend the jobcentre once a week, before he was taken on by a provider who sent him on a course. Attendance on this course meant that he could not attend the jobcentre as required, for which he was sanctioned by officials, against the advice of the provider and the police. He was fortunate that Zaccheus took up his case, appealed against the sanction and won, and his money was repaid. However, where was the common sense in the department’s official? Then there is the unnecessary expense of the appeal. My second example is an ex-sergeant in the Royal Corps of Signals, not an ex-offender, who was similarly desperate for work. He was sanctioned when he forgot about his interview at the jobcentre because he was studying on a course that the self-same jobcentre had recommended. Again, where was the common sense? I could give noble Lords many other examples that all reinforce my submission that reductions of statutory minimum incomes by the state, through the application of sanctions and penalties to poverty incomes by countless officials in jobcentres and local authorities, cannot just be left to their presumed common sense. What are needed, as with sentencing in the courts, are guidelines laid down to ensure that the standard of justice in the imposition of welfare punishments, and the enforcement of welfare debts, is no less than that required of the courts. My amendment is supported by the department’s own research, Perceptions of Welfare Reform and Universal Credit. One of its key recommendations about sanctions is that, "““The system should provide opportunity for claimants to explain themselves, and legitimate reasons should be taken into account””." It is also reported that claimants saw it as important that sanctions struck the right balance between toughness and fairness and that they protected the innocent, such as children in a household, as well as taking account of the knock-on effects of increased crisis loans, family breakdowns and crime. Concern about the enforcement of overpayments has been heightened by the Government’s abolition of the legal bar, which has existed since 1971, on enforcement when the claimant could not reasonably be expected to know that he or she was being overpaid. Again, something more than common sense is required to ensure that the Government’s commitment to the application of that rule, even though it is no longer a legal rule, is carried out in practice. There is even greater concern about the hazards associated with the entry of real-time information about pay by employers into the IT system, as has already been mentioned, which will pay the universal credit. One slip by the employer or an IT failure could result in large overpayments that are in no way the fault of the claimants. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, has pointed out, this makes it even more important that all relevant evidence should be taken into account. I put it to the Minister that an organisation as large as the department, with thousands of officials spread throughout the country dealing daily with vulnerable and impoverished people struggling to keep their heads above water, cannot afford not to lay down clear rules and guidelines to which they can refer when trying to settle cases of sanctions, penalties and overpayments. I suggest that the removal of legal aid from social welfare, as set out in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill, to which I referred earlier, makes it even more vital that the duties with which those officials must comply should be set out in the Bill in the interests of maintaining the bare minimum process that justice demands. I would be more than happy to discuss this with the Minister and his officials and look forward to his response. I beg to move.