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Mr. Alan Howarth: Will the Minister give way?
Mr. Forth: I hoped that I would not be asked a question.
Mr. Howarth: The implications of the text that the Minister has read to the House are clearly considerable and important. As the House does not have power to amend the regulations, what will he do about the errors?
Mr. Forth: I am assured that the rather unusual procedure in which I am now engaged will enable us to correct the regulations. That is why I am detaining the House, but only for another minute or two. I am sure that I have been correctly advised. I hope that Opposition Members will accept that in good faith we are trying to find a way to ensure that the regulations emerge from our process properly and in the way intended, and are not vulnerable to a printing error.
Mr. David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside): Will the Minister give way?
Mr. Forth: Yes, if the hon. Gentleman is not happy with my response.
Mr. Blunkett: Is the Minister saying that reading into the record a change that the Joint Committee has requested will ensure that the change will be made, irrespective of the fact that we are not able to amend the regulations this afternoon?
Mr. Forth: The Joint Committee has identified a printing error in the regulations, and I have been advised that there is a way to correct that. I should like, if I may, to take further advice on that. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary can return to it.
I hope that the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) and his colleagues will accept that it is the desire of the House that a printing error in regulations as important as these, and which are so important to individuals, should be corrected. I have been advised in
good faith that there is a method so to do. If Opposition Members are unhappy with that, they are, of course, entitled to pursue the matter. However, if we could not correct the regulations this way, I should be very unhappy if they had to emerge from the House in an unsatisfactory condition, particularly when they refer to a formula that could affect people's entitlement to benefit.
Mr. Forth:
I give way seriatim to Opposition Members, starting, of course, with the hon. Lady.
Ms Eagle:
I thank the Minister for giving way to me first. I hope that he is doing so alphabetically rather than for any other reason.
Perhaps the Minister will explain the difference between the formula--with the so-called printing error that has appeared in the regulations--and the amendment that he is seeking to read into the record, and what it means in practice, rather than just reading out mathematical formulae.
Mr. Forth:
It is concerned with the meaning of the term N, which is a definition of the week, or the number of days, which then gives rise to the calculation of benefit entitlement. All that we are trying to do is ensure that the formula is correct and that its meaning is correct in the terms of the regulations. It is one of the ways in which benefit entitlement is calculated, and that is why I want to go to these rather extraordinary lengths to ensure that it is correct. There is no more and no less to it than that. The error has arisen, of course, after the report of the Joint Committee, which we are trying to follow in spirit.
Mr. Frank Field:
What the Minister is saying could not be more important. He suggests to the House that we should not pass regulations that are wrong, but he hopes that by reading a correction into the record all will be well. If we discover that the Minister cannot change the regulations merely by standing at the Dispatch Box and reading something different from what they say, as a result of which they will emerge wrongly, should we agree them? Is he suggesting that he will withdraw them? As he said, he has no wish for the regulations to be passed today if they are wrong.
Mr. Forth:
Subject to advice, I think that I would still have to ask the House to approve the regulations today, including the error. I would ask the House to approve the regulations with this small drafting error, which has arisen from a printing mistake--
Mr. Field:
It is a small error that affects benefits.
Mr. Forth:
If the hon. Gentleman will wait, I shall answer his question.
I envisage that I would then have to introduce amending regulations subsequently to correct the error.
Subject to further advice that I may take, I or my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will seek to clarify the matter for the House. I have no desire to confuse. Nor do I have any desire to undermine the authority of the House. I hope that Opposition Members will accept this in good faith. If it is found that this approach is not reasonable or,
indeed, that it is in breach of any of the rules of the House, I shall still ask the House to approve the regulations and will then proceed with amending regulations subsequently. I think that that would be less satisfactory, given the enormity and complexity of implementing the jobseeker's allowance across the country.
I hope that Opposition Members will bear with me and that during the debate, or perhaps in his winding-up speech, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will return to that matter with further advice. I can understand the points raised by Opposition Members. I am attempting only to get this right.
Mr. Field:
On a point of order, Madam Speaker. How long must we exist in our present limbo, not knowing whether the regulations that we are approving are wrong or right? Should we not know that now?
Madam Speaker:
The Minister is attempting, in good faith, to help the House as much as he can. He has explained his position. It is a printing error; that is all. He has said that, between now and the winding-up speeches, the Minister who will wind up the debate will have time to make the position clear. The Minister who is now at the Dispatch Box is doing his best to deal with a little difficulty involving a printing error. I think that the House should be tolerant, and wait a while until the Government have been able to make a clear statement. The Minister hopes to do that shortly.
Mr. Forth:
I am grateful to you, Madam Speaker. Let me continue what I was saying in the spirit in which I began, for the sake of completeness.
The correct formulae are reproduced in a memorandum sent yesterday to the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments by the Department of Social Security, attached as an annexe to the fifth report. As both mistakes resulted from a printer's error, we undertake to correct them in the version of the regulations that will be published subject to the approval of both Houses.
As for the defective drafting, it appears that printing gremlins have also got into the Joint Committee's system. The definition of the variable N for whose absence regulation 152 was reported as being defectively drafted is, in fact, missing from regulation 151. As the Committee pointed out, the meaning of N is reasonably clear, but should nevertheless have been included. For the avoidance of doubt, let me explain that N should be defined as the number of days in the part week. That partly answers the question posed by the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle). I should like to give an undertaking--subject to the guidance that you have given us, Madam Speaker--that the deficiency will be corrected by means of an amending instrument as soon as possible.
I am about to end my speech. If any hon. Members are not happy with what I have said--or, dare I say, with what Madam Speaker said--
Mr. Ken Purchase (Wolverhampton, North-East):
I shall come back another day.
Mr. Forth:
I shall quit while I am behind.
We are debating an extensive and far-reaching package of legislation, but the regulations have one simple common theme: the Government's commitment to offer every help, encouragement and incentive to unemployed people to find work as quickly as possible. We already
offer 1.5 million opportunities to unemployed people on Government programmes, and will continue that commitment next year. I am happy to say that the Employment Service is already placing a record number of people in jobs; we want to build on its achievement, and the introduction of the jobseeker's allowance will further that success.
Mr. Ian McCartney (Makerfield):
On 24 January last year, the Jobseekers Bill commenced its stormy passage through Standing Committee. During the Committee's first sitting, I described the actions of the then Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr. Portillo), as inequitable and monstrous. The regulations with which we are dealing today lay to rest any pretence that the Tories are a party with one-nation values.
Both here and in the other place, the Bill was criticised for its lack of appropriate detail, before and after its enactment. In truth, the Act was a mere skeleton; all the vital issues and draconian measures contained in it were removed from public awareness and parliamentary scrutiny. If the motion is passed, the Secretary of State will have 116 powers to control the lives of the unemployed without further recourse to the House. Expansively drafted catch-all clauses, to be implemented by non-negotiable and, at the time of the Bill, non-defined regulations, would prescribe circumstances leading to the loss or reduction of benefit for upwards of a quarter of a million unemployed people and their families.
This contemptuous sleight of hand, devised to evade parliamentary scrutiny and deceive the public about the real purposes of the legislation, was forced through the House with all the subtlety of an elephant sitting on a pinhead. The Bill was badly drafted, ill thought out and socially divisive--51 pages of legislative vitriol directed at innocent victims of the Government's failed economic and social policies. Following scant consultation, the Government revealed the real Act under the guise of the regulations. They are a mesmerising 160 pages long, have 13 parts, 172 regulations and eight schedules. To that can be added a sprinkling of back-to-work regulations. The Act had only 51 pages and contained three parts, 41 clauses and three schedules.
The regulations are controversial and technical, but they will be forced through the House in approximately two and a half hours' time. The whole process brings Parliament into disrepute, and demeans this place as a democratic legislature. During the Minister's speech there were points of order and he asked us to bear with him. During the passage of the Bill, there was a complete negation of all attempts at dialogue with Opposition Members, behind the scenes, across the Dispatch Box or in Committee, about the nature of the regulations. All attempts, whether with the Minister of State or the Under-Secretary of State, to have such a relationship were rejected out of hand.
I want some clarification. If the Minister can seek by a verbal statement to amend the regulations, is it possible for the Opposition to do likewise? At least one regulation
is seriously defective. If I am correct, it renders another two regulations ineffective, or at least in need of redrafting or of being withdrawn altogether.
If there is to be such an arrangement, as a matter of principle it must be for all hon. Members. If the Minister knew about this matter before he came to the House, he should at least have had the courtesy to consult behind the Chair and elsewhere with my right hon. Friends who have Opposition responsibility for the business of the House. If that had been done, perhaps we would be a little more forgiving about the shambles that the Minister outlined at the end of his speech.
The shambles does not stop there. In the Bill, the Minister claimed savings to the Exchequer of
£410 million in the financial years 1996-98. That was reduced to a net saving of £320 million after taking into account measures relating to the national insurance contribution rebate.
So ill planned has been the introduction of the jobseeker's allowance regulations that the costs of implementation have escalated. On 8 November 1995, I questioned the Minister of State about the implementation cost, and I was advised in a written answer that it was
£270 million for the four main areas of implementation. The cost for information technology was £110 million; for training, it was £70 million; for premises, £45 million; and for project management and communications, £45 million.
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