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Mr. Scott : Every piece of evidence that I have seen shows that the service that is now being delivered is substantially better than anything that was ever done, not least when we last had a Labour Government in office delivering those services. The hon. Gentleman has got it wrong and wrong again.
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Dr. Godman : I have a great deal of respect for the officials and managers of my local offices. There is a widespread belief among claimants in my constituency--about one third are in receipt directly or indirectly of social security income--that claim applications encouraged by what are known as take-up campaigns are subjected to a form of discrimination compared with other applications that go across the desk in the normal way.
Will the Minister give us an assurance that genuine applications that are encouraged by take-up campaigns are not subjected to discrimination in terms of the length of time taken for their assessment? Why is it that, in Greenock and Port Glasgow, genuine claims for disability benefit in respect of vibration white finger are almost always forced to an appeal? That is disgraceful.
Mr. Scott : Let me try to put the point. The hon. Gentleman knows how much respect I have for his campaigns in this area. Where individual claimants submit a genuine, soundly based claim or appeal to an adjudicating officer, if there is an organised campaign it is reasonable for our adjudicating officers to consider the claim with an eye that, although fair, takes account of the fact that it is an organised campaign. The hon. Gentleman and other hon. Gentlemen will know that those cases are still looked at fairly, but perhaps with the attitude that all the claimants were given a form and asked to sign their name at the bottom of the list, rather than submitted a carefully considered claim. It is understandable for our staff in the offices to look at such claims in a different way from that of someone who comes in off the street.
Mr. George Howarth : I had not intended to intervene again, but the Minister has invited me to do so. If a percentage of those claims turn out to be valid, the process must be utterly fair. We cannot discriminate between those who happen to have been advised that they might be entitled to claim and those who, of their own volition, decide to claim. Both are equally valid.
Mr. Scott : Cannot the hon. Gentleman understand that we are running a social security system in which we are trying to deal with the real needs of people who need support? If a welfare rights organisation or some other body hands out thousands of forms saying, "Sign at the bottom and send to your local social security office," that makes it more difficult for people with problems and claims to have their needs settled.
Mr. Peter Archer (Warley, West) rose --
Mr. Scott : I have great respect for the right hon. and learned Gentleman.
Mr. Archer : The right hon. Gentleman never fails to show courtesy. Our problem is that we do not understand how officials can know whether a claim is frivolous until they have looked at it.
Mr. Scott : If a claim comes in in the normal sequence of events and our adjudicating officers are asked to adjudicate, that is one matter. If they have 500 claims on a pro forma where people are simply asked to sign their name at the bottom, it is not unreasonable for them to consider those claims with a certain degree of scepticism.
There may be some genuine claims among the hundreds or thousands submitted. Some welfare rights organisations damage the cause of some genuine claimants when they
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mount campaigns that result in offices being swamped with claims, as that inevitably delays the decision on those genuine claimants.Mr. Patrick Nicholls (Teignbridge) : Does my right hon. Friend agree that the essence of this matter is that, if one makes a claim, one should be able to give evidence in support of it ? How can anyone who has a genuine concern for the people they are trying to help or any genuine concern for the taxpayers who provide the funds have any well founded objection to producing such evidence ? Just signing a form that states that one would like the list of one's benefits considered is not evidence but mere assertion.
Mr. Cryer : What concerns me is that, in effect, the Minister is saying that all campaigns are condemned before they begin. If not, does he have any figures relating to such campaigns, the number of forms that were received at offices and the percentage of claims that were rejected ? The right hon. Gentleman has said that those forms were filled in arbitrarily and that they have no substance. Does he have any figures to support his claim that, in some parts of the country, such campaigns were so vigorous that the Department had to take action ?
Mr. Scott : I think that I can satisfy the hon. Gentleman. In Strathclyde, 39,395 review applications were made. In Merseyside, more than 16,000 applications were made, and in the north-east, some 13,000 applications were received. Most of those applications were made in a few weeks. They came flooding in because they were deliberately organised by welfare rights groups in those areas. The hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer) knows me well enough, and I hope that I can convince him that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I will seek to meet any genuine needs. However, we are aware of campaigns that have resulted in tens of thousands of applications. People have been simply asked to sign their name at the bottom of a sheet of photocopied paper that says, "I want you to look again at my rights." Such pro forma applications will not help genuine claimants who need help through the social security system. It is wrong.
Mr. Gordon McMaster (Paisley, South) : Is the Minister suggesting that, because a claim is made on a printed pro forma, it is less valid than other claims? The right hon. Gentleman should congratulate authorities such as Strathclyde regional council on encouraging people with a genuine entitlement to such benefits to take them up.
Mr. Scott : If I were playing tennis, I would put the ball back in the hon. Gentleman's court by asking whether he thinks that those claims are genuine because they have been put through someone's letter box and because they ask the recipient to sign the form and post it back.
Mr. McMaster : How will we ever know if those claims are not assessed?
Mr. Scott : All such cases are assessed by adjudication officers. If Labour Members were sitting in my seat-- [Hon. Members :-- "When?"] Not when--if, perchance, Labour Members were in that position in 20 years' time, would they be prepared to have the whole system of
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assessing and adjudicating upon genuine claims destroyed by the campaigns that are being organised in some parts of this country?Mr. Graham : The Minister will be well aware of one of the first campaigns that Strathclyde regional council ever mounted. I happen to be a former Strathclyde councillor. We were very successful in getting more than £40 million for unpaid benefits. Obviously, we have information about poverty and deficiencies in Strathclyde, and it is right that local authorities and organisations tell people that they are entitled to benefits. Surely they are in the business of improving the quality of life for people living in poverty and of trying to get further finance from the Government for that purpose. Therefore, I see people who say that the pro forma is a marker. Never in my life have I seen social security payments abound unless they were for a pound of flesh. DSS officers do not hand out money lightly, but look for evidence to support claims.
Mr. Scott : I understand and respect the work of welfare rights organisations. They do a valuable job in alerting the Government and local social security offices to need in individual areas. However, the speculative element of applications is in real danger of distorting the situation. In Merseyside, there were more than 16,000 applications for review ; 11,000 were decided, and 848 of the 16,000 applicants were awarded payments. Just think of what that has done to the system there and to all the other applicants who have been seeking help from a Department that tries to ensure that people are given the awards to which they are entitled. It distorts the situation.
Will Opposition Members try to persuade the welfare rights organisations in their constituencies to behave responsibly? I promise that I want to ensure that people who really need help get it. I want to ensure that the system works properly and effectively, but I assure Opposition Members that, if they persuade and encourage welfare rights organisations to make speculative claims, they are not helping those who are in real need.
Dr. Godman : May I put Strathclyde's record straight? Strathclyde has a substantial history of take-up campaigns, some of which were undertaken with the full co-operation of the DSS. I remind the Minister of the take-up campaign that sought to improve the lot of mentally handicapped people attending adult training centres. DSS officials played a constructive role in that campaign.
I also remind the Minister that the then Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher), told me in a letter that we had every right to help organise a campaign for former employees of British Shipbuilders, who had a right to 13 weeks unemployment or supplementary benefit. So let us be consistent. In the past, the DSS has even helped organise take-up campaigns--
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker) : Order. I must tell the House and the Minister that there are only 15 minutes left for this debate ; other hon. Members wish to participate and I hope that they will get the chance to do so.
Mr. Scott : I shall respond briefly. I understand that other hon. Members wish to contribute to the debate before it concludes.
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There are different sorts of take-up campaigns. I certainly respect the genuine ones that have been organised in response to industrial injuries, and have been conducted properly and sensibly, and the Government have responded to them. However, there is a distinction to be drawn between those and some of the speculative campaigns. If I allow other hon. Members to contribute, perhaps I could have five minutes or so, along with Opposition spokesmen, to make my wind- up speech and give a total justification of what the Government are doing.11.16 pm
Mr. Charles Kennedy (Ross, Cromarty and Skye) : We have heard the Minister repeat the same argument in response to several interventions, and there seem to be two strands running through it : one of principle and one of administration. As the Minister stressed repeatedly, where there are take-up campaigns involving tens of thousands of vouchers or pro-formas, they undermine and devalue the system.
However, the Minister must be careful when making such an argument. One could use the intent and motive argument to claim that to maintain the standing of the House one should seriously devalue and perhaps scrap early- day motions. Even if we have not drafted early-day motions and have not seriously studied their subject matter but are broadly in favour of the sentiment, we stick our names at the bottom. Does that mean that those motions should be ignored because we have not studied the subject matter in detail in the way that the Minister says he wants people to consider social security matters? Members can present petitions at the close of business of the House each day, but in future should we disregard them because people have merely put their signatures to something which, according to the Minister, they may not give a damn about?
Surely it is particularly ludicrous to make that argument about social security, because even those with expertise on the subject find it difficult to understand fully. There are few enough hon. Members who can claim genuine expertise in the intricacies of social security matters. When we deal with constituents at our surgeries we have difficulty understanding the complexities. How can people be expected to submit detailed applications when, for a variety of social reasons and through no fault of their own, they do not have the wherewithal, information and literacy to express themselves? For many of those people it is probably a godsend when someone hands them a piece of paper that might unlock the door to access to a benefit that they would otherwise not receive. Therefore, the Minister must be careful when he argues about the principle of the matter. As the hon. Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman) suggested, the ham- fisted way in which the regulations were tabled, withdrawn, retabled and finally, under tonight's negative procedure, introduced, meant that many mentally and physically handicapped people lost out on their claims. Whether or not that was the intent of the regulations--and I am willing to believe that it was not the Minister's intent--that has been the net effect of the way in which the three-week period was cut off due to the way that the regulations were tabled.
If the Minister is saying that the proposal is liable to bog down the entire system and cause administrative
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chaos, he may be right as regards some of the effects. However, he should ask himself why it is that, when people are given access and are judged eligible for the benefits, the administration is so inadequate that paying out the genuine benefits breaks the system. That begs two important questions, and it would be good if the Government were to address those issues rather than the one that they are now tackling.11.19 pm
Mr. Patrick Nicholls (Teignbridge) : One of the difficulties of debating with the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) is that if one is not careful one is sucked into the vortex of hyperbole in which he seems to live. I have had the dubious privilege over the years of debating with him on many occasions. The hon. Gentleman's grasp of detail is usually so light that the idea of actually debating with him at all is risible.
I have debated several prayers over the years, but I have never participated in a debate in which the points made by the Labour party were so bogus. The Government's proposition is simple : a person making a claim that may date back a great many years ought to be able to produce some evidence to back it up. The hon. Member for Oldham, West, echoed, somewhat surprisingly, by the hon. Member for Ross, Cromarty and Skye (Mr. Kennedy), says that people should be able to sign a piece of paper in the hope that it will unlock riches for them.
We have a responsibility to bear in mind where the money paid out in benefits comes from. For the most part it does not come from wealthy people such as the hon. Member for Oldham, West and other hon. Members-- [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman seems to think that he can go to his constituents and say, "Woe is me, I only earn £30, 000 a year as a Member of Parliament." The amounts given out in benefits may seem trifling to people earning that sort of money. The hon. Member for Oldham, West may giggle, but £30,000 is riches beyond the dreams of avarice to many of the people whom he claims to represent. As I say, for the most part the money is not paid by the likes of me or of the hon. Gentleman ; it is paid out of the wages of people who never get beyond the basic rate of tax paying. We owe it to them to ensure that their money is not squandered. It is therefore plain common sense to require evidence.
On these occasions, the hon. Member for Oldham, West is always quick to try to compare social security with the Inland Revenue's processing of people's tax returns. He always forgets that, with the Inland Revenue, we are considering how much of a citizen's money should be handed over to the state, whereas in matters relating to benefits we are considering how the taxpayer's money is handed out on our behalf.
If the hon. Member for Oldham, West or I wrote to our local tax inspector and claimed that someone had put a form through our letterbox requiring only our signature for the taxation officer to open up our tax affairs for the past 30 years on the offchance that we might be entitled to something, that would be farcical. Yet the hon. Gentleman thinks that that is how our benefit system should be run. He was once a social security Minister and he does himself no credit by forgetting that there are two sides to every argument. He also does himself no good by laying a prayer
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that has to be among the most bogus, ill thought out and badly argued measures to come before the House for many a long year. 11.23 pmMr. Graham Allen (Nottingham, North) : After Mr. Nasty, Mr. Nice Guy.
Every Member of Parliament here tonight probably represents thousands of constituents who will be affected by this mean little regulation. The people targeted by the Government include the elderly, those with learning difficulties and their carers, the mentally handicapped, and the physically disabled. Those people are not exploiting a loophole or grabbing at a large pot of gold. They are entitled to these benefits, they should have received them in the past, and they should have received them by law. The House legislated for that help for the most needy in society, and the proposed legislation will remove from many the ability to claim backdated benefits. The current legislation allows benefit to be backdated indefinitely by reason only of a mistake made or something done or omitted to be done by an officer of the DHSS. That is quite simple. A person unwittingly cheated of his entitlement because of official error would receive backdated benefit when the error was discovered. There are many people in that position, and they have been found by hon. Members and by social workers and others involved in welfare matters. Many of those people remain dependent on officials in the Department.
There is widespread ignorance about what may be claimed. Unbelievably, I discovered tonight that the majority of people in disability categories 9 and 10 fail to claim attendance or mobility allowance. Many of the claims that we are debating are made by those with a mental handicap, people who almost by definition are unable to act by themselves. Recently, it was found that a mentally handicapped woman in Durham had been wrongly denied benefit for a number of years and that the cumulative total was £25,000. That was entirely due to official error. She finally received the money, but now the Conservatives wish to obstruct such people in their pursuit of backdated benefit.
Mr. Scott rose --
Mr. Allen : The Minister tabled the statutory instrument when the House was not sitting and has just delivered a speech lasting 40 minutes. He has abused--
Mr. Peter Bottomley (Eltham) : On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it not unprecedented for an Opposition Front-Bench spokesman to refuse to give way to a Minister in a case such as this?
Mr. Deputy Speaker : I am sure that there are precedents. It is for the hon. Member who is on his feet to decide whether to give way.
Mr. Allen : It is unprecedented to deny people benefit by means of a statutory instrument tabled and coming into force when the House is not sitting. When the House finally has a chance to debate the matter the Minister of State takes 40 minutes over his speech. Conservatives seek to obstruct people who wish to claim backdated benefits.
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Mr. Scott : On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. May I impress upon the hon. Gentleman that any case of official error--[ Hon. Members- - : "That is not a point of order."] I make it absolutely clear that in any case of official error, no matter how far back the case goes, payment will be made.
Mr. Allen : One is tempted to ask why the statutory instrument is needed. The Minister is condemned by his own words and by his original statutory instrument which sought to remove entirely the words "supplementary benefit" from the regulation. As my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) has said, the Minister withdrew the statutory instrument and introduced the new one only when more than 50 voluntary organisations and others vehemently objected to what he was trying to do. The new instrument seeks to skin the same cat but in a slightly different way. This way of skinning the cat involves changing the burden of proof, extending the way in which benefits can be used, and not backdating them. The burden of proof has switched from the Department which made the error to the claimant. The individual--perhaps an elderly or disabled person--will already have suffered through losing benefit a repetitive, accumulating and hurtful loss.
It being half-past Eleven o'clock, Mr. Speaker-- put the Question, pursuant to Standing Order No. 15 (Prayers against statutory instruments, &c. (negative procedure)) :
The House divided : Ayes 211, Noes 271.
Division No. 9] [11.30 pm
AYES
Adams, Mrs Irene (Paisley, N.)
Allen, Graham
Alton, David
Anderson, Donald
Archer, Rt Hon Peter
Armstrong, Hilary
Ashley, Rt Hon Jack
Ashton, Joe
Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)
Barron, Kevin
Battle, John
Beckett, Margaret
Beggs, Roy
Bell, Stuart
Benn, Rt Hon Tony
Bennett, A. F. (D'nt'n & R'dish)
Benton, Joseph
Bermingham, Gerald
Bidwell, Sydney
Blunkett, David
Boateng, Paul
Boyes, Roland
Bradley, Keith
Bray, Dr Jeremy
Brown, Gordon (D'mline E)
Brown, Nicholas (Newcastle E)
Brown, Ron (Edinburgh Leith)
Caborn, Richard
Callaghan, Jim
Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)
Campbell, Ron (Blyth Valley)
Campbell-Savours, D. N.
Carlile, Alex (Mont'g)
Carr, Michael
Clark, Dr David (S Shields)
Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)
Clelland, David
Cohen, Harry
Cook, Frank (Stockton N)
Cook, Robin (Livingston)
Corbett, Robin
Corbyn, Jeremy
Cousins, Jim
Crowther, Stan
Cryer, Bob
Cummings, John
Cunliffe, Lawrence
Cunningham, Dr John
Dalyell, Tam
Darling, Alistair
Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)
Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)
Davis, Terry (B'ham Hodge H'l)
Dewar, Donald
Doran, Frank
Duffy, Sir A. E. P.
Dunnachie, Jimmy
Dunwoody, Hon Mrs Gwyneth
Eastham, Ken
Edwards, Huw
Enright, D.A.
Evans, John (St Helens N)
Ewing, Harry (Falkirk E)
Fatchett, Derek
Faulds, Andrew
Fearn, Ronald
Field, Frank (Birkenhead)
Fields, Terry (L'pool B G'n)
Flannery, Martin
Flynn, Paul
Foot, Rt Hon Michael
Foster, Derek
Foulkes, George
Fraser, John
Fyfe, Maria
Galbraith, Sam
Garrett, John (Norwich South)
George, Bruce
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