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10.21 pm
Mr. Stephen Timms (Newham, North-East): In October 1993, the Secretary of State for Social Security stood before the Conservative party conference and described a new scourge which he said was sweeping the continent. In the abusive terms that our European partners have come to expect from the British Government, he employed a range of "'Allo, 'Allo" accents to conjure up a vivid picture of benefit tourists--back packers and the like from around Europe who come to Britain, pretend to look for work and claim benefit.
If one can ignore the crudity of that speech, which may have been required to please the Conservative party conference, it is easy to feel some sympathy for the Secretary of State, who had identified a problem that required a solution. Benefit tourism certainly was not the largest fraud in the social security system--indeed, it had never satisfactorily been quantified--but it was an undesirable phenomenon.
Having identified the problem, the Secretary of State announced his solution--the habitual residence test. It was introduced in August 1994 and it soon became obvious that, whatever its original intention, the test was reaching well beyond the scope of benefit tourism. In its first 15 months of operation, only 36 per cent. of those who failed the test were from other European countries; 22 per cent. were from Britain and 42 per cent. were from elsewhere. The figures for February this year--the latest available in the Library although I am grateful to the Minister who today provided me with the figures for March--show that the proportion of non-Europeans failing the test remained at just 36 per cent. while the number of British failures has risen dramatically to the same figure.
The position is clear. The habitual residence test does not merely deal with the Secretary of State's benefit tourists from elsewhere in Europe; it casts a much wider net and it withdraws the means of subsistence from many people from whom the Government did not and should not intend to withdraw subsistence. By withdrawing support from UK citizens, the Government are failing the test. The Minister will be aware of an important study by the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux published in February, "Failing the Test", which draws on evidence from more than 200 bureaux throughout the country. The report's conclusions are succinct, reasonable and fiercely critical of the Government. It stated:
That is a ringing and unequivocal verdict by an unimpeachable source. The report backs that conclusion with great detail, and shows that
The report points out that the test has
The report adds that many people from ethnic minorities
The report states that
that can be consistently applied. Appeals against failing the test by CAB clients are won in the majority of cases, adding to the evidence that the test is being inconsistently and unfairly applied. The test is costing much more than was anticipated to administer. However one looks at the test, it is doing great damage that greatly outweighs the cash savings to which it has led. I will return to NACAB's detailed recommendations, but real, human problems are at the centre of habitual residency cases.
One welfare adviser in my constituency remarked recently that public attention has shifted from the hardship caused by the test in recent months. She does not think that things have got any better or that the hardship has become accepted, but that newer injustices equally forcing people into penury--she was thinking in particular of the removal of benefits for asylum seekers--have stolen the spotlight. One way to stem criticism of an unfair measure is to introduce another, but the Government must not be allowed to ignore the large number of real and unintended hardship cases caused by the test.
The Newham docklands advice bureau, which covers part of my constituency, was visited recently by a young woman who went temporarily to Ghana, where her mother lives. When she returned, she was forced to undergo the habitual residence test and failed. That woman is disabled and unable to find work, and now she cannot claim benefits. What is she supposed to do? She was born in Britain and is a British citizen, but that is how her country is treating her. Sometimes the hardship is temporary, but it is no less unjustified for that. A Newham pensioner went to visit relatives in Bangladesh for six weeks, and on his return was forced to undergo the test. While he awaited the result, his income support was withdrawn. His family was forced to borrow money to buy food to subsist. Where is the sense or humanity in a system that works that way?
The worst aspect of the test is that it often hits people who are already facing a crisis. Twin 17-year-old sisters who recently sought advice in Newham both hold British passports and had lived in the UK with their father since 1994. Last year, their father died and after a habitual residence test interview, the sisters were refused income support. In addition to their bereavement, the Government forced them to face destitution.
When the Secretary of State set off in pursuit of back-packing benefit tourists at the Tory party conference, did he have in mind any of the people to whom I have referred? The answer is no--but those people and thousands like them are being hit by the test. The Government responded to their critics by saying that no one has devised a fairer measure that would make the same savings, but that argument is indefensible. It is absurd to say that a measure is good because it saves money, regardless of its ill effects on innocent people. It is like saying that the way to stop football hooliganism is to ban everyone from soccer grounds. If Ministers are really saying that they will do anything to cut the social security budget, irrespective of its effect on people who were not intended to be affected, they must accept that they will lose any claim to decency that they retain.
It is not true that critics of the test have not offered constructive proposals to refine it and to reduce its injustices while keeping loopholes to Euro-scroungers firmly closed. The National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux set out seven specific recommendations in its report--short of abolishing the test, which is what it and I believe should happen--to fulfil the objectives. The first three involve changes to secondary legislation. NACAB proposes, first, that benefit regulations should be amended so that those who are considered settled by immigration authorities are treated as habitually resident. Secondly, where a claimant is certified as having no other means of support, an appeal against a habitual residence decision must be held within four weeks. Thirdly, failed applicants should be paid income support pending their appeal.
In response to the first of those points, the Government told NACAB--I just received today the Government's response to its proposals--that under the European treaties it is not possible to discriminate on the basis of nationality. That is true within Europe and is why the regulation was framed in a rather convoluted way in the first place. The proposal is not that the Government discriminate in that way between citizens of European nations. NACAB points out that a person with settled status is, by definition, not an European economic area national, so no discrimination between member states can be involved.
On the second proposal, the Government implicitly concede that the tortuously slow processes of their appeal system cause hardship, but they argue that it would be unfair to relieve that hardship in habitual residence cases and not in others. We are talking about the means for people to subsist. Surely something must be done to speed the process up and end the extremely long periods that people must currently endure with no means of subsistence other than that gained from borrowing from friends.
In response to the third NACAB proposal, the Government told it:
The Department's logic is alarming. Whatever the merits of the arguments I am proposing, whether we believe the habitual residence test is right or wrong, I am sure that we can all agree that there are occasions when emergency aid should be provided while eligibility for long-term help is determined. In many cases there is reason to believe that an initial adjudication on habitual residence may be wrong, and the number of reversals on appeal prove that. Sometimes it is simply good governance to offer short-term, emergency help. Neither of those possibilities seems to be recognised by the Department in its response to the CAB report.
In addition to those three suggestions for changes in secondary legislation, the CAB report also offered three proposals concerning the collection of information on the effect of the habitual residence test. First, it proposed that information should be collated on the ethnic group of passed and failed test applicants. There is growing circumstantial evidence that black and Asian people are more likely to be subjected to the test than others. That is alarming.
Secondly, the CAB proposed that data should be gathered on the appeals process, including the overall number of appeals and how many are successful. Thirdly, it proposed that the time taken to process appeals should be monitored and published.
The Government told NACAB that they had no intention of collating information on those subjects. They argued that principally on the grounds of cost. Although no estimate of that cost had been made, or at least not to my knowledge, it is hard to believe that any extra cost could not be found in the £37 million saving that the Government claim to have made from introducing the test.
There is certainly a need for more information. Even those statistics that are available do not seem to be understood by the Department of Social Security. For example, in their response to NACAB, the Government assert:
That is simply not true. On Government figures, only36 per cent. are EEA nationals; that is confirmed by the new figures that the Minister has given me for March 1996 and by the cumulative figures from August 1994 to March 1996. Significantly fewer than 40 per cent. of those affected by the test are EEA nationals. I hope that the Minister will acknowledge that.
There is one other important matter that I want to raise. After we debated the subject in March last year, I asked the Minister to place the results of habitual residence tests every month in the Library of the House. I am grateful that he agreed to do that for the year 1995-96; I have asked him if he will continue to publish the details for the coming year, and I am glad that he has confirmed that he will do that--it is most helpful.
"After eighteen months of its operation, the CAB Service has concluded that the test should be withdrawn. It has proved expensive, unfair and unworkable and has no part in a sensible and humane welfare system."
"in seeking to deal with one relatively small problem, the Government has created many more."
"created a class of people who, whilst able to live freely and work in the UK, are denied access to its welfare system."
"who lived and worked in this country for years have been excluded from help because they have travelled abroad for a period to stay with relatives."
"it has proved impossible to produce a workable definition of habitual residence"
"The intention behind the habitual residence test is to curb abuse of the benefits system. It would be contradictory to deny these people benefit on one hand only to pay it on an emergency basis on the other."
"the majority of people found not to be habitually resident are EEA nationals."
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