My Lords, as others have said, we should be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Freud, for his focus on a number of initiatives that seek to ameliorate the problems created by withdrawal of the WRAG component for new claims after March 2017, whether those were intended or unintended. However, I will be clear up front: we do not consider that the Government’s package of proposals adequately deals with the consequences of that withdrawal.
I will start by addressing the specific points raised by the Minister. First is the commitment to increase the funding in 2017-18 for the flexible support fund with guidance to jobcentres to ensure that the additional funding is targeted specifically at those with limited capability for work. The sum of £15 million has been mentioned. Obviously, this is to be welcomed so far as it goes and it could be used to help with extra costs of expenditure on attending interviews, training courses, accessing the internet, and so on. The focus on those in the WRAG is important because at present, as the 57 pages—would you believe it?—of guidance to district managers makes clear, the fund can be used to support all Jobcentre Plus customers, including 16 and 17 year-olds. Does the Minister have any indication of the current annual application of the fund to those in the WRAG, and how many claimants in the WRAG is the new money expected to help? With half a million people in the WRAG, £15 million amounts to 50p a week on average.
As for those with progressive deteriorating conditions, increasing awareness of the right to seek reassessment is fine but is this not just what the system should deliver anyway? Perhaps the Minister can say a little more about how it works at present, what data there are on the numbers currently seeking reassessment from the WRAG, and what information there is on the timescales within which these assessment are delivered. If it is envisaged that this awareness-raising would lead to greater numbers of individuals being reassessed, what additional resource is being made available to cope with it all?
On permitted work, the proposition is that someone on ESA will in the future be able to undertake work for more than 52 weeks, which, as we have heard, is the current limit, as long as it is for fewer than 16 hours a week and earnings do not exceed £107.50. It is understood that such earnings would not be taken into account for benefit purposes, including housing benefit. Perhaps
the Minister can confirm that. Can he also say what the position will be in relation to council tax support schemes?
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This proposal does not seem to add anything to the current arrangements for supported permitted work, where there is no 52-week limit at present, nor for permitted work for those in the support group. Of course, there are no permitted work provisions in universal credit, although the briefing note refers to the non-time-limited work allowance arrangements. We can see the similarity but there does not seem to be any direct read-across on the amounts. We can see the merits of removing the time limit for permitted work and the encouragement that this would bring, particularly to those closest to the labour markets, but it raises a couple of questions. What in fact would bring it to an end, and what would be the position of somebody on JSA and somebody on ESA, each working, say, 15 hours a week at the same rate of pay? What would be the consequences for somebody on ESA of having undertaken permitted work when it came to reassessment? As we know, the DWP has to be notified if somebody undertakes permitted work. Perhaps the Minister can say whether this would trigger any process for early reassessment. As a matter of fact, how many notifications does the DWP have in any one year?
All in all, these government proposals might be said to be helpful but they are a long way from being transformational or addressing the real damage being done by the removal of £30 a week from those in the WRAG. That is why we will support the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Low.
We have previously debated this matter at length and have rejected the clauses that abolish the WRAG component in ESA and the equivalent component in universal credit. We share the concerns of those who challenge the assertion that the removal of this component would be a work incentive and that it would assist in closing the disability employment gap. In particular, we agree that the analysis has not properly understood the barriers to accessing work faced by many disabled people—the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, spelled those out in some detail—nor the poverty that they face, which will be made worse by implementing these provisions. Nor indeed has the analysis properly understood the adverse impact that there will be on the health of many disabled people. Widespread evidence has been presented to us on these matters, and we have had the Halving the Gap? review, led by the noble Lord, Lord Low.
In those circumstances, the call to hold back on the legislation until there has been a fuller impact assessment of its effects on the physical and mental health, the financial situation and the ability to return to work of those affected seems “modest”—I think that that was the word used. The Government have in part recognised that there is a serious issue and, as we have heard, they have promised a White Paper, although the timing and scope of this is unclear. It is hoped that it will in part make amends for a wholly inadequate impact assessment, but is it not at least a recognition that more is to be done and that legislating in this Bill in this way is premature? It is the wrong way round.
The Minister has told us that the data requested by the amendment are not currently available. Is that not a rather flimsy basis on which to legislate? It seems to us unacceptable—indeed, reckless—to legislate without those data and without that analysis, and it is playing havoc with the lives of many disabled people.