My Lords, Amendments 104BB in the names of the two noble Earls, Lord Listowel and Lord Cathcart, and the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, would address the question of direct payment. Direct payment was the subject of considerable discussion during the passage of what became the Welfare Reform Act 2012, together with deliberations on the frequency of payments and split payments, not to mention jam-jar accounts.
My noble friend Lady Hollis asked about the research mentioned by the noble Earl, Lord Cathcart, from the National Federation of ALMOs and ARCH. It did
indeed show that 89% of universal credit claimants were in arrears and that 34% of them were eight weeks in arrears, so they were in receipt of an APA. That is a significant proportion, so there clearly is an issue that they have picked up on about the extent of arrears—hence the question of direct payments.
We know that the Government’s starting point is that in the overwhelming majority of cases they want and expect universal credit to be paid as a single monthly payment in arrears to the claimant. But they have set down criteria for considering alternative payment arrangements in limited circumstances for the payment of the housing element of universal credit, invariably the first in order of priority. The guidance states that when arrears reach one month’s rent the DWP will review the situation, following notification by the claimant or the landlord, and when they hit two months or eight weeks, either the landlord or the claimant can request an APA. There is no automatic right to one because the Government are still clinging to the concept that managing benefits should mirror the choices in managing money that they say those in work have to make.
However, if an APA is in prospect, this would normally start with personal budget support followed by a managed payment to the landlord. The guidance sets out the tier 1 and tier 2 factors which will be considered for an APA. But having theoretical opportunities to have direct payments is one thing; what matters is how the rules are being applied in practice, so perhaps the Minister can help us here. We know that through to 3 December 2015, there have been 287,310 universal credit awards. Will the Minister tell us how many of them had a housing element included and how many have had an alternative payment arrangement? How many requests for direct payment to a landlord have been made by either landlord or claimant and, of those, how many were approved and how many rejected? I accept that the Minister may need to write to me on these points, but it would help us understand the scale of the problem and whether the research that has been identified is in fact representative of the situation for universal credit claimants more broadly.
Amendment 104BA in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Cathcart, seeks arrangements whereby payment of arrears in respect of a former property can be made by direct payment of a current universal credit claim. This has obvious difficulties because maintaining the current home should be the priority. There must be a risk that adopting that suggestion could lead to a round of evictions for rent arrears as arrears build up in a current tenancy in order to satisfy the arrears on a previous tenancy. There could be further complications because a universal credit award may not cover identical households for the current tenancy and the previous tenancy, so it is not clear how it might be apportioned.
Amendment 104B in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Cathcart, and the noble Lord, Lord Best, seeks a power for the Secretary of State or somebody else to supply information relating to any relevant social security benefit to a landlord, depending on the written authority of the tenant. Noble Lords will be aware of regulations enabling the limited supply of social security information
to social landlords, which is governed by the Data Protection Act. I understand the potential benefit to landlords of this, but it raises issues of a different magnitude given the sheer number of private landlords, let alone the capacity issue, so I will be interested to know how the Minister thinks that that might be approached.
There may be an issue here with regard to arrears and universal credit, and if the Minister is not minded to accept this amendment, he needs to come back to the House to suggest how the Government are going to go about dealing with this. I look forward to hearing his reply.