UK Parliament / Open data

8.25 pm

Proceeding contribution from Baroness Sherlock (Labour) in the House of Lords on Monday, 8 March 2021.

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Lister for her superb introduction and to all noble Lords who have spoken.

Amendment 10 relates to single payments of universal credit. The case has been made overwhelmingly clearly that the system of single payments facilitates financial abuse by allowing perpetrators to control the entire household income. Ministers only seem to have three arguments against acting on this: first, that claimants can ask for split payments, although, as my noble friend pointed out, that just puts survivors at risk; secondly, that most couples keep and manage their finances together, although, as Refuge points out, the finances of those experiencing economic abuse are not managed jointly but controlled by their abuser; and thirdly, that it would undermine the nature of universal credit and be a bit difficult. These are pretty weak arguments. All this amendment does is say that the commissioner will look into the matter further and report to Parliament. If the noble Baroness, Lady Sanderson, and the Government do not want the commissioner to look into it, can I suggest that they simply sort it out themselves? That would save our having to do so.

Amendment 69 would exempt domestic abuse survivors from repaying benefit advances made to mitigate the five-week wait. There is a real risk that survivors wanting to flee will be deterred because they know it is five weeks until they get paid—many are already in debt and do not want to take on more—and if they take an advance on, their monthly income falls below survival level, yet they have other debts to service. Does the Minister accept that this is a genuine barrier? I would be really interested to know the answer.

Amendment 72 would disapply the benefit cap for 12 months for survivors who fled and claimed universal credit. I am not going to repeat the devastating critique made by the noble Lord, Lord Best, but I do think Ministers owe it to this House and to survivors to engage with those arguments properly. Normally, Ministers argue that people can escape the cap by moving to

cheaper housing or by getting a job, but those are not practical for someone fleeing abuse. There are already exemptions for those in refuges, so why not for those in any accommodation? There is already an exemption from the work requirement of universal credit for someone who has fled abuse in the previous six months, but what use is that exemption if survivors cannot afford to take advantage of it because they would still be hit by the benefit cap and so could not afford to pay their rent?

These issues are all examples of social security policy or practice which have a differential impact on survivors of domestic abuse. If Amendment 68 were accepted, government departments would have to assess the impact of any social security reforms on victims or potential victims of domestic abuse before making changes, rather than afterwards. It would stop us being here over and over again, trying to point out the problems of systems already changed, by trying to address them beforehand. Had that been done before creating universal credit or imposing the benefit cap or the bedroom tax, these problems could have been designed out at an earlier stage.

The survivor quoted by my noble friend Lady Lister was right: you need money to escape. Our social security system should enable survivors to flee abuse, but it does not. As my noble friend Lord Rooker said, this is a failure of joined-up government. The sad reality is that problems do join up, and at the level of the individual survivor, but the Government response fails to address that. There is no point in the Government legislating to support survivors of domestic abuse while steadfastly ignoring problems in their own systems, which risks exacerbating or even enabling abuse and making it hard or sometimes impossible for survivors to flee and rebuild their lives. I say to the Minister, whom I know cares about these issues, a lot of work has gone into researching, evidencing, and debating the issues, and the fact that the noble Baroness is a Home Office Minister is not a reason not to engage with them. The House, the country and survivors deserve to have these arguments taken seriously. I look forward to her reply.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
810 cc1411-2 
Session
2019-21
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords chamber
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