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Mr. Webb: I have listened with interest and respect to what the hon. Gentleman has said. He made telling points about the appeals aspects of the Bill. I apologise if I pre-empt what he was about to say about lone-parent benefit, but just in case he was not going to mention it, may I ask him, as someone who is expert in welfare rights, what he believes will be the effect of scrapping lone-parent benefit on people such as those he used to advise?
Mr. Rooney: The hon. Gentleman needs to be aware that the vast majority of people who are paid single-parent benefit receive no advantage from it because it is deducted, pound for pound, if they are on income support.
Those on family credit lose about 72 per cent. So the number who actually receive any benefit is small. In an ideal world, it would not be done away with, but I think that the hon. Gentleman would accept, especially if he has kept awake during the past 18 years, that this Administration have not inherited an ideal world. I hope that he will see at the end of five years that the position of lone parents is vastly improved on what it was on 1 May 1997.
Mr. Rooney: I will not take any more interventions as I have nearly finished.
Staff morale is extremely low. The three programmes--change, adapt and prime--are continuing. The hon. Member for Beckenham (Mr. Merchant) mentioned change, but the other two programmes are very destructive to staff morale. Claimants suffer from lack of faith in the Department, from unintelligible decisions, confusing bureaucracy and the unresponsiveness of the system.
People who come into contact with the Department of Social Security have, almost by definition, suffered a traumatic experience, such as a death in the family or loss of employment. That is why they need to make contact in the first place. They should be met by a system that will deal with them compassionately, speedily and efficiently.
Ms Roseanna Cunningham (Perth):
I did not come into the Chamber with the intention of speaking in the debate, but I became so incensed by the remarks of Ministers, particularly in respect of clauses 68 and 70, that I felt that I had to say something. The impromptu nature of my decision, however, means that my remarks will of necessity be short.
I add my welcome to the hon. Member for Elmet (Mr. Burgon). It is many years since I was in Leeds, so I cannot say with any certainty that I have been to his constituency--although from his description it would seem unlikely that anyone visiting Leeds would avoid it. I was in Leeds to indulge a sporting interest, although I hasten to add that it had nothing to do with rugby, under either set of rules. I therefore bow to the hon. Gentleman's knowledge of that game.
I shall not, however, bow to the hon. Gentleman's--or the Government's--attitude to social security. I wish to deal mainly with clauses 68 and 70, which I notice that Labour Back Benchers have assiduously avoided this evening. I suspect that that is because they are deeply embarrassed about, and thoroughly ashamed of, those aspects of the Bill. I am under no such inhibition, and I intend to say what I suspect that many Labour Members in their hearts would wish to say if they were honest with themselves.
I have listened with care and interest to what is being suggested in regard to the removal of lone-parent benefit. I listened with astonishment to the remarks of the
Secretary of State, who appeared to suggest that there was a clamour from lone-parent organisations desperate for the Government to cut their benefits. I seem to have missed those briefing documents and demands--perhaps some selective lobbying is going on. While I do not doubt for one moment that all lone parents would like to be able to work and would much prefer earning to receiving benefits, the fact remains that many of them rely heavily on benefits and that those who find work are often on low pay. In such circumstances every pound is immensely important and I should dearly love to see or hear any evidence of a demand from lone parents that their benefits be cut, but I suspect that not one Labour Member could point to any such demand.
This move will hurt the very people about whom I have long understood that the Labour party claims to care. Now that Labour is in government, however, the very opposite would seem to apply and hypocrisy is the order of the day. That hypocrisy is exemplified by some of the remarks made by Labour Members when they were in opposition.
Like the hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith), who made some play of comments made in the past, I should like to allude to a few myself. Someone who was described as the spokesman for the shadow Secretary of State for Social Security as recently as November 1996 referred to the then Government's proposal to cut lone-parent support as "short-sighted". Presumably that person spoke with the full authority of the current Secretary of State. It was said of the proposals then that they would make matters worse and that any cut would enlarge the poverty trap.
What has changed between November 1996 and July 1997 to cause such a material change in the Government's attitude? Why has a proposal that would "enlarge the poverty trap" suddenly become the most wonderful thing since sliced bread? Such a U-turn in such a short space of time is astonishing--the more so when we recall that it will affect vulnerable people.
A pattern seems to be developing here. Clause 70 deals with restrictions on reasons for backdating benefit. In this case, Labour is not just taking up what the previous Government wanted to do--it is showing every intention of trying to out-Tory the Tories in almost every respect. Earlier this afternoon there was a mischievous point of order inquiring whether the Liberal Democrats, in the light of today's events, would not be more comfortable sitting on the Labour Benches. After last night's debate, and having heard this evening's debate, I wonder whether Conservative Members might not just as well mingle with Members on the Labour Back Benches as there is precious little difference between them--except that the new Government are going even further than the former Administration were prepared to go.
There must be people sitting on the Government side of the House who, deep down, are sick and sorry about the impact that the proposals will have on ordinary people. The Secretary of State failed to tackle the new inclusion of housing benefit and council tax benefit in the backdating restrictions. Not even the previous Government were prepared to restrict the 12-month backdating rule to three months and one month, respectively--and for good reason. Arrears can mount up if these benefits are not paid. I do not know whether my mailbag is completely different from that of other hon. Members, but I would be surprised if they did not have to
deal with these problems in their constituencies. Neither a private nor a public landlord will write off arrears of rent just because ordinary people have lost money in this way, and local authorities will not write off council tax arrears that people cannot pay if their claims are not backdated.
It is indeed astonishing that the Government should take this line, although their continual use of the phrase "keeping spending down" gives the game away. I remind the Government that the Social Security Advisory Committee criticised the changes brought in by the previous Government as paying
The removal of lone-parent benefit and the decision on backdated payments, taken together, will cause direct hardship.
Mr. Browne:
Will the hon. Lady give way?
Ms Cunningham:
No, I am about to wind up my remarks. I said that I would keep my speech short. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will speak later.
Mr. Desmond Browne (Kilmarnock and Loudoun):
I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the debate. Before coming to the remarks that I have prepared, I want to deal with Opposition Members' somewhat contrived interpretation of clause 70.
It would appear that hon. Members who read clause 70 as allowing backdating for only one month have failed to read the whole clause. It is obvious, especially from subsection (2)(b), that there is an opportunity to deal with the very circumstances that Opposition Members anticipate might cause difficulty and hardship. It might have been more helpful to the debate if those who have experience in the area and who have received correspondence on the matter had been able to give Labour Members--especially my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and her team--more details of the circumstances in which such arrears could build up and difficulties could be engendered. The Under-Secretary of State for Social Security, my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr. Bradley), will no doubt be able to address the specific difficulties and see whether the provision that I have pointed out would enable circumstances to be prescribed to deal with such difficulties.
We have heard thus far a generalised complaint from more than one source, that the backdating provisions can operate in only one way. That is a restricted interpretation of the clause, which I commend to the House. There are opportunities to deal with difficulties in the very situations to which the hon. Member for Perth (Ms Cunningham), in particular, alluded. If her mailbag is so crammed full, would it not have been helpful to have articulated some of the circumstances in which such injustices could come about, so that a proper response could be made to them?
The importance of the welfare system cannot be underestimated. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State put the system into a national perspective. When one considers, as I often do, that £93 billion--almost a third of public spending--is eaten up by the welfare budget, the national perspective is clear. Conservative Members ought to be very clear about it, because their policies created the circumstances that have caused the need for such spending to be devoted to providing a sometimes well-holed safety net for many of the most unfortunate people in our society.
On a more local level, the problems, complaints and trauma of my constituents, who regularly attend my surgeries clutching bundles of papers--mostly incomprehensible correspondence from the Department of Social Security or other benefit agencies--have brought home to me the personal difficulties generated by the present welfare system. I suspect that my constituents will join me in welcoming the Government's commitment to the reform of the welfare state.
It is a measure of the need for reform that almost no one who is involved in the system expresses any confidence in it or public support for it--despite the fact that we are spending such a vast part of the nation's wealth on it. The task of rebuilding that lost confidence is gargantuan and the measures in the Bill are to some degree the beginnings of that long process. The customers of the service--claimants or those who are entitled to benefits--deserve a better deal. The Bill is a significant step towards providing that better deal, in three important ways.
First, in clause 1, there is a provision that will rationalise the initial decision-making process. That objective is supported by all who have made representations to me on the Bill--many unsolicited--including representations from citizens advice bureaux and the Child Poverty Action Group. Further, the objective was supported almost universally by all respondents to the previous Government's Green Paper.
It is my experience--it is obviously one that I share with some of my hon. Friends--that the roots of many of the later problems that are addressed in the Bill are to be found in the initial decision-making process. Among the customers of the Benefits Agency, the Child Support Agency and the Employment Service, there is a significant lack of confidence in initial decisions being correct--even when they are. That public perception is supported by the findings reported in consecutive annual reports of the chief adjudication officer. There appear to be two important reasons for it.
The first reason, which is highlighted by the chief adjudication officer in his latest report, relates to the adequacy of the evidence on which initial decisions are made. Reporting on his monitors' responses, he commented that there were
The second reason arises from the first. It is clear from my constituents' experiences that one of the direct effects of the poor quality of initial decision making is an overloading of the system at both review and appeal stages. The instinct of claimants, many of whom are imbued with a cultural distrust of agencies, is not to accept the initial decision. Those who are worldly wise or who have previous experience of the benefit system--there are many such people in my constituency--are motivated to appeal simply because they have no confidence in the process. Those who consult advisers, welfare rights officers or citizens advice bureaux are often advised to appeal, if for no other reason than to keep their options open or simply so that they can go on the lengthening waiting lists for appeals.
The analysis of the monitoring statistics prepared by the central adjudication services and published in an annex to the chief adjudication officer's annual report justifies such an approach to the appeals system. The statistics not only give ground for concern because of the large proportion of cases in which, when monitored, the accuracy of the payment of benefits was either in doubt or just plainly incorrect, but show that, for certain benefits, a small proportion of decisions was found to be incorrect. There must be a better way of making decisions, so that claimants can have confidence that the decisions on their claims are just, fair and accurate.
My experience as a constituency Member of Parliament, short though it is, and my constituents' experiences, which are much longer, are supported by the findings recorded by the central adjudication services monitoring process, as reported by the chief adjudication officer. That is the convincing case for change. It is no answer to the Government's proposals--at the very least, it is an inadequate answer--to say that, if the Secretary of State takes on the role as proposed in clause 1, those making first-tier decisions will lose their independence. The hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood), who is no longer in the Chamber, made that point earlier by way of intervention.
It may be a legal nicety that adjudication officers are independent in law, but it cuts no ice with the claimants for whom they are making decisions. Legal independence and the attention that has been paid to improving the process have failed to deliver. Claimants demand the delivery of an efficient, reliable and accurate service within a reasonable time. That can be achieved only by reforming the existing mixture of different decision makers into one.
It is accepted that that change alone will not deliver the objectives, and that it must be supported by other changes if we are to improve the decision-making process. The chief executives of various agencies should be responsible for ensuring that staff decisions are as accurate, simple and clear as possible. Training, advice and guidance must be improved, and that will become the responsibility of the chief executives when the Bill passes into law. It is a step in the right direction.
Concerns have been expressed in lobbying papers that I have received about the monitoring of decision making, which is at present carried out by the chief adjudication officer. I am content that the responsibility should lie with the chief executive of the relevant department. The monitoring process is now well recognised and understood, so it is important that it should continue. However, chief executives must report the results of monitoring to the Secretary of State to whom they are accountable. Although that process of accountability is important, the results of monitoring exercises must be reported publicly. Accordingly, before moving to my second reason for supporting the legislation, I invite my hon. Friend the Minister to confirm whether the Department intends to require the publication of chief executives' reports.
"insufficient regard to the reasons why claims are submitted late and/or without the necessary substantiating evidence".
The committee recommended that the rules should not be changed. The then Government rejected its main recommendations, but the new Government intend to go much further. The backdating period--now set at one month, unless otherwise stated by regulation--may keep spending down: it will certainly keep down the spending of claimants because they will have precious little left to purchase anything. The decision is iniquitous, and especially harsh with respect to housing and council tax benefits. It is astonishing that the Government intend to proceed down such a road.
"too many comments casting doubt on the adequacy of evidence. Whether the evidence was ever to hand, was missed under general pressures or the processes were just too complex is often far from clear."
Despite significant efforts to improve the performance of adjudication officers, the chief adjudication officer was able to report
"only on a year of mixed achievement".
The report said that he
"saw no dramatic general improvement in standards."
It is against that background that I welcome the rationalisation of the decision-making process and the abolition of the distinction between decisions made by adjudication officers and those made by the Secretary of State. The Government cannot be expected to address the complexities of the process--the other half of the perceived problem--after only two and a half months in power. That work will be addressed over the years to come.
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