My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken, including my noble friend Lady Lister for a superb introduction, and for all the great speeches. I am grateful too to those who supplied briefings and to DWP Ministers for meeting us.
The amendments in this group cover four distinct issues, and I shall touch on each. The first is universal credit payments. As we have heard, single household payments actually facilitate financial abuse, because they allow perpetrators to control the entire household income. Claimants can ask for payments to be split
but, as my noble friend Lady Lister said, simply asking puts them at risk. Refuge front-line staff say, “It is rarely, if ever, safe for a survivor to request splitting UC payments”. That may explain why it is so rare.
As we have heard, there have been widespread demands from various organisations and committees for Ministers to find a way to separate payments by default. I know that Ministers do not like the idea, partly for operational reasons and partly for the reason mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Chisholm, that the vast majority of couples keep and manage their finances together. But, as Refuge, points out, for those experiencing economic abuse, their finances are not managed jointly but controlled by their abuser. And this is not a tiny minority. We have heard today that research from Refuge and the Co-op Bank found that 16% of adults had experienced economic abuse from a partner. That research also found that 39% had experienced abusive behaviours, such as not being allowed access to a joint bank account, or being scared into allowing debt in their name. Given the high numbers flowing on to universal credit in the pandemic, this is urgent.
Amendment 34, to which I have added my name, would simply place a duty on the commissioner to investigate the payment of universal credit separately to members of a couple and lay a report before Parliament. The noble Baroness, Lady Chisholm, expressed concern that that would be putting an imposition on the commissioner, but I am sure she has noticed that the briefing sent to noble Lords from the office of the commissioner designate actually indicated support for this proposal from my noble friend Lady Lister. So I hope that, on that basis, the Minister will be able to accept it.
Amendment 150 would exempt domestic abuse survivors from having to repay a benefit advance that is made to mitigate the five-week waiting period for universal credit. As we have heard from many noble Lords, those who flee often take little money and few possessions with them. They normally have to make a fresh claim for universal credit, triggering the five-week wait all over again. My noble friend Lady Primarolo explained compellingly why that is such a problem. We have heard evidence that, on average, the survivors of economic abuse are over £3,000 in debt. In addition, a quarter have had their credit rating suffer as a result. There must be a real risk that survivors who want to flee could be deterred because they know it will be five weeks until the first UC payment. They may already be in debt and worried about getting into any more, and if they take an advance, not only does their monthly income fall below the survival limit, they will have other debts to service out of that. If Ministers do not want to accept this amendment, what do they propose to do to support survivors and enable them to flee abuse with enough money to do so?
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Then there is the benefit cap, the problem of which was set out irrefutably by the noble Lord, Lord Best. Ministers always argue that people can escape the benefit cap in two ways: by moving to cheaper housing or by getting a job. However, as my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti and others have said, cheaper housing
in many areas is like hens’ teeth. Things are worse still for someone fleeing abuse because they might have to move house in a hurry. As my noble friend Lord Hendy pointed out, if someone flees to a refuge they can get an exemption, but it might not be the best place for them, and even if it is they can get stuck there because if they try to move on, they will be hit by the benefit cap. To avoid the cap by getting a job while fleeing abuse is hardly practical. The Government have already recognised this by granting an exemption from the work requirements in UC for someone who has fled abuse in the last six months, but can the Minister tell the Committee what use that exemption is if survivors cannot afford to take advantage of it? That is because they will still be hit by the benefit cap and cannot afford to pay their rent. Amendment 152 would disapply the benefit cap for 12 months for survivors who flee and claim benefits. If the Government will not do this, can the Minister explain why?
I mentioned at Second Reading that a friend contacted me when he claimed universal credit and found that he could see all the messages that his partner had exchanged with his work coach on the UC journal and vice versa. He was concerned about the implications of this practice for those in abusive relationships. I tabled a Written Question. The Minister’s Answer said that claimants should not share sensitive information on the journal. All kinds of information can be sensitive in the context of domestic abuse, such as asking about a job in another sector or a different part of the country, or for certain kinds of support. The noble Baroness, Lady Chisholm, said that claimants can contact their coach or the department in whatever way they want. Indeed, I was told again in the Answer that claimants can always phone their case manager. That betrays a lack of understanding of what it must be like to be trapped in a flat with an abusive partner who watches over every phone call they make—especially in a pandemic. Can the Minister please tell us that this will be looked at again?
If the provisions of Amendment 153 were in place there would be a duty on the Government to assess the impact of any social security reforms on the victims or potential victims of domestic abuse. Had that been done before creating universal credit, or before imposing the benefit cap or the bedroom tax, it might have shown up these problems at an earlier stage and solutions could have been designed. Many of us raised these issues in the early stages of the Welfare Reform Bill, but a formal impact assessment would have forced the Government to recognise that there were issues.
As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester said, our social security system should make it possible for survivors to flee abuse and rebuild their lives. However, I am afraid that, as my noble friends Lord Rooker and Lord McKenzie, the noble Baronesses, Lady Meacher and Lady Bennett, and others have said, the system currently fails in that task and it urgently needs reform. I hope that the Minister agrees and I look forward to her reply.