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House of Commons
Tuesday 12 November 1996
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Madam Speaker in the Chair]
PRIVATE BUSINESS
King's College London Bill [Lords]
Motion made, and Question proposed,
That the Promoters of the King's College London Bill [Lords] may, notwithstanding anything in the Standing Orders or practice of this House, proceed with the Bill in the present Session; and the Petition for the Bill shall be deemed to have been deposited and all Standing Orders applicable thereto shall be deemed to have been complied with:
Hon. Members:
Object.
That if the Bill is brought from the Lords in the present Session, the Agents for the Bill shall deposit in the Private Bill Office a declaration signed by them stating that the Bill is the same, in every respect, as the Bill which was brought from the Lords in the last Session:
That, as soon as a certificate by one of the Clerks in the Private Bill Office, that such a declaration has been so deposited, has been laid upon the Table of the House, the Bill shall be read the first and second time (and shall be recorded in the Journal of this House as having been so read) and shall be ordered to be read the third time;
That no further Fees shall be charged in respect of any proceedings on the Bill in respect of which Fees have already been incurred during any previous Session.--[The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.]
Debate to be resumed on Tuesday 19 November.
Oral Answers to Questions
SOCIAL SECURITY
Jobseeker's Allowance
1. Mr. Clifton-Brown: To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will make a statement on the introduction of the jobseeker's allowance. [1697]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Roger Evans): The jobseeker's allowance is now in operation and will achieve its objectives by helping people back to work and securing better value for money for the taxpayer.
Mr. Clifton-Brown: Does my hon. Friend agree that the introduction of the JSA is absolute proof that the Government are determined to devote the necessary resources to getting people back to work and preventing fraudulent claims? Is that not in total contrast to the Opposition, who are pledged to repeal the JSA?
Mr. Evans: My hon. Friend makes two powerful points. The hon. Member for Makerfield (Mr. McCartney)
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is on the record as saying that it is Labour party policy to repeal the JSA. That would cost £240 million in 1997-98. Let us hear what the Opposition now say.
Mr. McNamara: The Under-Secretary will be aware that the experiment took place in Hull. Will he be kind enough to tell the House how many people are now in full-time employment as a result of the experiment, and of those who had placements, how many had placements in private industry, as distinct from community employment?
Mr. Evans: The hon. Gentleman is referring to the current project work pilots which have been tried out in several areas, including Kingston upon Hull, as he mentioned. With respect to the three pilots in Hull, Medway and Maidstone, it is striking that more than 4,000 people joined the pilots, more than 1,200 have been through the first 13 weeks of intensive help, 263 have been placed directly into a job during their first 13 weeks, and 68 during their period of work experience. It is, however, startling that about one third of those referred for work experience failed to turn up for their first day of work experience.
Sir Donald Thompson: My hon. Friend will be pleased to know that I have spoken about the new scheme to people who work in jobcentres in my constituency. Will he give careful consideration to letters that come from all parts of the House as the new scheme is introduced, and accelerate his response to those letters, as there are likely to be administrative hitches that will need sorting out if this excellent scheme is to gain approbation?
Mr. Evans: The jobseeker's allowance is an enormous project, involving more than 30,000 officials and a new computer system. We are closely monitoring the project as it comes into operation, and will carefully attend to administrative problems, whether we are alerted to them by hon. Members or others.
Incapacity Benefit
2. Mr. Sutcliffe: To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what steps he has taken to monitor the impact of the all-work test for incapacity benefit on the incomes of disabled people. [1698]
The Minister for Social Security and Disabled People (Mr. Alistair Burt): The all-work test is designed to focus benefit on those who cannot work because of sickness or disability. Its impact on the income of disabled people will depend on individual circumstances. As with all new benefits, we are monitoring the effect of the changes on all groups.
Mr. Sutcliffe: Will the Minister accept that there is widespread concern that the test is inappropriate and inconsistent? That is borne out by the number of successful appeals against it--there has been a 50 per cent. success rate on appeals. What does his Department intend to do about the 50,000 people who previously could accept invalidity benefit but now cannot get it? What will be done to track those people, to ensure that their circumstances do not worsen?
Mr. Burt: There are two points to be made. First, the success rate on appeals is about the same as it was for
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the old social security appeals tribunals. Secondly, we are monitoring the way in which the test is being applied. A major study has been done on its consistency and we expect to publish that soon. I hope that that will help the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. John Marshall: Will my hon. Friend confirm that spending on the disabled has more than trebled in real terms since 1979? Will he accept also that many people find it paradoxical that, although the health of the nation has improved, the number of those receiving disability benefit has gone through the roof?
Mr. Burt: My hon. Friend is right: spending on benefits for the disabled has almost quadrupled during our time in office. We introduced incapacity benefit to deal with the problem of a doubling in the number of people on invalidity benefit in the past 10 years when, as my hon. Friend said, the "Health of the Nation" shows that people are fitter.
Benefit Fraud
3. Ms Eagle: To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what plans he has to tackle organised benefit fraud. [1700]
4. Mr. Rathbone:
To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what recent review he has made of measures to ensure the reduction of benefit fraud. [1701]
The Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Peter Lilley):
The Government have introduced a comprehensive strategy to prevent, deter and detect benefit fraud--especially organised fraud. Nearly 300 officers are employed in tackling organised fraud. I recently introduced the fraud hotline and the fraud Bill will be introduced shortly.
Ms Eagle:
After 17 years of this Government's stewardship of the social security system, is it not a disgrace that £2 billion is lost yearly through housing benefit fraud? Why do the Government not give local authorities more power to check that landlords are bona fide and are entitled to the money that they claim?
Mr. Lilley:
It is extraordinary that the hon. Lady refers to the one type of fraud that local authorities are responsible for pursuing. It will not have escaped her notice that most local authorities are controlled by the Labour party. They took very little, if any, serious interest in the matter until I introduced incentives and penalties to force them to do so--and, even then, the response was not sufficient. That is why I am introducing in this Session the fraud Bill, which will establish an inspectorate of local authorities and give me the powers to galvanise local authorities into action.
Mr. Rathbone:
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on what he has done, and is planning to do, to solve the problems caused by increasing numbers of people working the system, either through sophisticated gangs or systematic individual fraud. Will he consider taking further steps to move from the present unsatisfactory
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Mr. Lilley:
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his support for our actions. I believe that the national insurance number is a sound basis for the administration of social security. We shall introduce measures in the fraud Bill to make it an offence to seek to secure a national insurance number falsely, even if it has not yet been used to abuse the system.
Mr. Frank Field:
How seriously should the House regard the Government's hotline approach to fraud? Is it not true that 90 per cent. of calls to the hotline cannot be followed up, largely because most of those who answer the telephones are untrained, temporary staff? When will the Government implement a serious programme to tackle fraud and be as serious as the Opposition in seeking to protect taxpayers' money?
Mr. Lilley:
Very unusually for the hon. Gentleman--who is normally well informed--his allegations are not correct. The benefit fraud hotline has so far received more than 100,000 calls, a significant number of which are proving successful.
Mr. Field:
How can the Secretary of State say that?
Mr. Lilley:
It takes time to follow them up. The quality of information is extremely good. In some cases, the calls refer to the same individual as he or she is well known in a locality for committing fraud and abusing the system. The staff use a systematic procedure to extract information from callers which is proving successful not just in extracting good information but in weeding out the small number of malicious calls that may concern some Opposition Members. The hotline has proved a great success and I am astonished that Labour Members should attack and criticise it.
Mr. Jacques Arnold:
Can my right hon. Friend confirm that, last year, his Department saved £1.4 billion as a result of anti-fraud measures? Is he aware that fraud against the taxpayer enrages my constituents, which is why they are delighted that he is taking steps to deal with it?
Mr. Lilley:
I can certainly confirm the point that my hon. Friend makes: that the savings last year through fraud detected and stopped amounted to nearly £1.5 billion. He is also right to say that the people who resent fraud most are the vast majority of honest claimants and decent working people, who resent seeing other people ripping off the system and ending up nearly as well off as they are but not doing a full day's work.
Mr. McLeish:
Will the Secretary of State explain why he is unwilling to crack down on the scandal of organised landlord fraud in housing benefit? Is it because private landlords have an opt-out from Tory fraud scrutiny? Is he aware that, in real terms, housing benefit has doubled in a decade from £5.2 billion to £11.1 billion, and that in the private rented sector it has trebled over the same period?
The real alarm is the fact that the Government have simply ignored the findings of the Social Security Select Committee, which suggested that £1 in every £5 of
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Mr. Lilley:
The hon. Gentleman's opening suggestion would be monstrous if it were not simply silly. Of course no fraudster has any exemption. We have cracked down harder on all forms of fraud, not least landlord fraud. Until we took action to galvanise local authorities into doing their duty in that respect, they were not taking the matter seriously.
As for taking seriously the Labour party's proposals, Labour proposes that there should be a programme of visits to landlords and tenants and that there should be eight minutes between each person visited, including travelling time. Is that a serious investigation of those who are fraudulently making claims? Our inquiries of those whom we suspect of that take an hour and a half. Ours is surely a much more thorough system than anything that Labour is proposing.
Sir David Madel:
People being pursued for maintenance by the Child Support Agency often report to the CSA that they believe that their ex-partner is fraudulently claiming benefit. Will my right hon. Friend see that, when such an allegation is made, the Benefits Agency tells that person that his or her allegation is being properly investigated?
Mr. Lilley:
I try to ensure that all allegations, particularly those received via the CSA, are passed on and followed up by the Benefits Agency. However, we cannot, for reasons of confidentiality, report back on the inquiries that are made to those who make the original allegations. It would be wrong to do so. I hope that my hon. Friend will recognise that, although we can give the assurance that those inquiries are followed through, it would be wrong to report back to those who made the original allegation on the guilt or innocence in, or the findings of, every investigation.
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