In saying that we wish to protect the child care support available for parents who work more than 16 hours, we are certainly not saying that we might not aspire in due course to see child care supported beyond that. The loss of financial support for child care will
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make working completely unviable and will be a dangerous and retrograde step that I do not believe Ministers have fully analysed.
It is important that we do not see child care provision simply as instrumentalising the return of parents to paid employment. Nowhere in the debate today have we said much about the welfare of the child. We do not know what short hours child care, if any, will be available in the child care market. It certainly seems to be a complicated and unlikely form of child care for parents to be able to access and it does not reflect the way in which child care provision is currently organised. Of course, child care providers might respond if more parents were seeking to buy shorter hours of child care, but the question that arises is whether it is a financially viable model for providers. I am not aware of Ministers investigating that, and I would feel more reassured about the validity of their proposals if they had been able to say a little more about what they meant for the market, its resilience and its potential for growth.
I would also have felt more reassured if Ministers had analysed the extent to which very short episodes of child care are or are not good for children. I genuinely do not know the answer, but I have a sense that putting a child in child care for two or three hours on two or three days a week presents an unstable stop-go approach. We certainly know that, for younger children, one-on-one care with a single main carer with whom the child can form a stable relationship is very important. Although I do not rule out the possibility that shorter episodes of child care could be good for children, I have not seen any sign that Ministers have investigated whether that is the case. It is extremely difficult for us to support a measure that has given no attention to the well-being of children.
On the proposals—or lack of proposals—in relation to free school meals, I do not blame Ministers for seeking to pass the problem to the Social Security Advisory Committee because it is an extremely difficult one to solve. The previous Government had been concerned about the cliff edge that exists as parents move off benefits and into employment and free school meals are removed wholesale. Parents have repeatedly told us as politicians that that is an incredible financial shock to low-income families as parents move into work. We have no idea what Ministers will propose in due course.
We have been struggling to find the model that will work. Models have been bandied around that could leave parents able to afford school meals on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, but not on Thursday or Friday, or that might mean that they can afford school meals for some children in the family, but not for others. There is a real concern that what Ministers propose will still lead us to a cliff edge.
We need to be clear about the principles that we seek to achieve. I would like absolute clarity from Ministers that when they receive the recommendations and advice of SSAC, they will ensure that support is available for all children who need free school meals; that the system that is put in place will be simple for families, simple for schools to administer and simple for the Government, too; that child health will not be compromised because children currently eligible for free school meals and therefore accessing a healthier diet are in future shut out of such provision; and that the design of the system will not create work disincentives.
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I have not yet seen any evidence that all those circles can easily be squared, unless Ministers are prepared to look again at the direction of travel that the Labour Government were following, which was, over time, to move towards extending the reach of free school meals. I accept that in the present financial climate it will be difficult to get all the way there, but Ministers need to think now about how they design the cliff edges and the tapers, because that is the foundation on which a future extension of free school meals to more children would be built.
The most comprehensive option would be to include a per child school meal element in the universal credit, which crucially would be paid directly to schools to provide meals, so that parents were not—by force, in many cases—obliged to use the money to meet other bills. I would like us to consider how a model could be designed that, when funding allows, would allow the money to be paid in full until the family reached their earnings disregard level, at which stage it would be withdrawn from universal credit at the taper rate, which we would like to have been maintained at 65%. That would mean that both DWP and families were contributing to the cost of school meal expansion. Entitlement could end when universal credit payments end, preferably when the imputed value of the school meal had been fully tapered out.
Achieving that vision immediately would undoubtedly create additional cost, which I recognise that Ministers want to avoid. Nevertheless, it is important that they give us assurances that they will seek at the outset to design a system that could be developed in that direction over time and as funding allows.
Amendment 68 relates to carers. A small group of carers seems to have slipped the notice of Ministers when considering the impact of the design of universal credit, specifically in relation to earnings disregards. We know that many carers can work only a very small number of hours because they are seeking to balance paid employment with substantial caring responsibilities. We also know that those few hours of work are very precious to them. They enable them to maintain contact with the labour market, they widen their social and external circles, and they provide a bit of a respite for the carers from the stress and strain of caring.
Where those carers are in receipt of income support, they can at present earn up to £20 a week from doing a few hours of paid employment without it affecting their benefit. In their proposals for universal credit, Ministers have provided for disregards for carers in a number of situations, but there seem to be some groups who will lose the benefit of that disregard as a result of the proposals before us. For example, some carers are caring for someone who does not live in the same home as the carer. Those carers may no longer enjoy the benefit of the earnings disregard. That seems completely at odds with the aspiration that Ministers have expressed for the universal credit, which is that every additional hour of work will pay.
I hope that Ministers will give careful attention to amendment 68 and consider what can be done to ensure that all carers are incentivised to take on even a few hours of work. What assessment have Ministers made of the number of carers who are left outside the ambit
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of the current disregard for carers, and of the cost of extending such support to all carers?
Finally, we cannot stress often enough how important it is that we ensure that payments for children go to the main carer of the child. Ministers seem to think it is good enough that couples have the option to make that decision, but very many families will, by default, allow all payments of universal credit to go to one member of a couple in a couple household, and we know from the evidence of the way in which the pension credit has been received in couple households that that is most likely to be the man.
Charlie Elphicke: Will the hon. Lady give way?
Kate Green: I will, but the hon. Gentleman will tell me that life is different now and that families share child-caring responsibilities more equally. I am sorry to tell him that although I would love that to be the case, all the research evidence says that it still is not. This is not in any event a gender point, although it would mean more money for women, because women are the main carers of children. Therefore, if we want to ensure that money is spent on children, we need to route it to the main carers, and that primarily means that we need to route it to women in couples.
I am surprised that the Conservative party has been so reluctant to accept that. The last time we had such an attack on the principle of money being paid to mothers for the care of children, it was Conservative ladies who were the best defenders of the interests of mothers and families, and I do not think the picture has changed that much. I know that the hon. Gentleman has an idealistic and ambitious view on the issue, and it would be good to hear it.
Charlie Elphicke: I thank the hon. Lady for her generous introduction to my intervention. I take issue with her argument not in relation to who has primary responsibility for child care, but in relation to culture. In times gone by there was a much more divided culture, which is why older people see life very much in the way she puts it, but the reality is that joint working has changed that. My issue is not about economic power and management, but about sharing in the family unit as a whole, and that is backed up by the figures, which show that 76% of partnered mothers are working. Life has changed, and she should understand that the economics are much more shared these days than they used to be.
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Kate Green:
I am prepared to accept that life is changing, albeit rather more slowly than the hon. Gentleman suggests, but let us not forget that the partnered mothers who work do so largely in part-time jobs and that their incomes usually make the smaller contribution to family budgets. Let us not forget the extensive evidence that continues to show that women fulfil the bulk of child care responsibilities. Let us not take the risk that by removing money from the main carers of children, whether that is the fundamental intention or not, children become the losers in the drive to achieve the glowing future that the hon. Gentleman seeks to describe. All the evidence suggests that money is most likely to be spent on children when it is paid to their main carers, so
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I am concerned that that should be built into our system as a default to ensure that that is where the money goes.
Other colleagues wish to contribute to the debate and we have had a full discussion on a number of issues raised by the proposed amendments, so I do not need to go into further detail on many of those points, other than to offer my strong support for amendment 26. As we move towards this fundamental change to our social security system, which Ministers themselves have described as the most far reaching since the introduction of the welfare state after the second world war, it is absolutely imperative that, if anything, more welfare advice is available, at least during the transitional period, as my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg) has pointed out, because it will surely be needed. Today’s debate is reaffirming the fact that this will not be a simple benefit to administer in practice. If we are to maximise take-up and ensure that people receive their entitlements, which I know from our discussions in Committee is the goal of Ministers, it is vital that proper advice is in place to support people as they navigate their way through the introduction of the new system under the Bill.
Guto Bebb: It is a great privilege to be called to speak in the debate. Having been here all afternoon, I feel as though I am back in the Bill Committee. My hon. Friend the Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb) must again send my apologies to Downing street, because I have decided not to attend a party there in order to be here this evening.
I wish to speak about four specific issues and to new clauses 3 and 4 and amendments 23, 24, 27, 28 and 29. Before doing so, it is important to set today’s good and wide-ranging discussions in context. It is a privilege to follow the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), who spoke with great knowledge and understanding on these matters in Committee and in her contribution to the House today, but an important point that we must bear in mind is this: the reason we need to look at changing the current welfare system is that it has not worked.
I challenged the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) on the figures for the number of people in the United Kingdom who have never worked, which worsened from 2000 to 2010, and the figures I quoted for Scotland were supplied by the Office for National Statistics. The figures for the United Kingdom are absolutely deplorable. The number of people who have never worked increased from 572,000 in 2000 to 841,000 in 2010, when the previous Government left office. As a Member who represents a Welsh constituency, it is disappointing to state that the figures in Wales also show a deterioration. The context for the welfare reform package, therefore, is the fact that the current system is not working.
Sarah Newton: Does my hon. Friend share my utter frustration that over the past 10 years, under the Labour Administration, so many of the new jobs that were created in the economy went to people immigrating into this country, rather than to those who were abandoned by Labour in long-term unemployment without the skills and support to get back into work?
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo): Order. I say to the hon. Lady, and remind all hon. Members, that any interventions or contributions in the Chamber are supposed to address the whole House and that she should keep an eye on the Chair. Otherwise, she will not know when I am trying to get her to sit down.
Guto Bebb: My hon. Friend makes an important point. It is something that was reflected in the comments of the hon. Member for Edinburgh East, who, in relation to the aim of our welfare proposals to support people into micro-jobs, was quite disparaging of that type of job. Indeed, she stated on more than one occasion that we should consider the “type” of job that people will be able to take up as part of our reforms. I think that that is a symptom of the problem.
In my constituency of Aberconwy we have worked extremely hard to try to turn the tourism industry from something that is seasonal to something that is year-round. We have put a lot of emphasis on trying to ensure that the seaside resort of Llandudno is no longer somewhere that attracts people only for three months in the summer. By investing in conference facilities and so forth, we have tried to ensure that the hotel and service industries supporting tourism in the town work throughout the year. We have seen a huge growth in employment in the tourism sector in Llandudno over the past 10 years, yet that growth has been filled largely by people from eastern Europe who are willing to work hard.
From my point of view, the incredible sadness is that those individuals who have gone into what some Opposition Members would call “poor jobs” have ended up working themselves into positions of responsibility and management. I despair when I go out knocking on doors during election campaigns and meet people in the town who have lived there all their lives but have not grasped those opportunities. They live in a system that has allowed Opposition Members to forget their consciences because they have been able to say that they are providing money. There is more to the welfare state than providing money: we have to provide aspiration and a concept of self-reliance. We have to send out a message not just as a Government, but as a society, that work not only has to pay, but that it is the route to better oneself and one’s family. That seems to have been missing from the Opposition’s contributions to the whole debate.
Finally, it is also worth making quick reference to the comments made by the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon), who is no longer in her place. She said that she was sincerely of the view that the Department for Work and Pensions should make no effort to hassle and harass people who are unable to take up opportunities to work because of child care issues and so forth. I was intrigued by the use of the word “harass” in relation to trying to support people back into employment. One aspect of the Bill that we must understand is that it is not happening in isolation, but hand in hand with investment in the Work programme, which will try to ensure that people are not left to fester on benefits or have an existence on welfare. The Government are trying to reform the welfare state, but we are doing so in a way that tries to support people back into employment, and that aspiration should be shared by all Members of the House.
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New clause 3 makes an important point. I disagree with it as it has been tabled, but I think that we will need to look very carefully at how we deal with free school meals in the system, because it is an issue of real concern to parents. Yes, of course they want to take the opportunity to have a job, and of course they are reassured by the fact that the reforms we are putting in place will make work pay, but as part of that, if they have three or four children, how we deal with free school meals is clearly appropriate and does not work against the proposals to ensure that work pays.
I fail to understand why the Government are being castigated for not providing enough detail in the legislation. The reason that we have not yet done so is that this is an incredibly difficult proposition to get right, as Members on both sides of the House have agreed. I see nothing wrong with saying that we will endeavour to get it right and that we are going to ask the experts to look at the issue on our behalf. I am reassured by the Minister’s comments in Committee, when he stated categorically that our aim was not to make any family currently in receipt of free school meals worse off.
Ms Buck: The hon. Gentleman is arguing that the Bill will make work pay and that we should accept it without these crucial details. Does he accept that key child care charities, when making their submissions to the Government following the seminar, pointed out that 250,000 families would see their entitlements cut by £30 to £35 a week, that some would face a marginal rate of deduction of 100%, and that a lone parent on the minimum wage working for more than 24 hours a week would have a marginal rate of deduction of 94%? If we are being asked to believe that the Bill will always make work pay, we should be able to understand what its impact will be and have a chance to interrogate the Government properly.
Guto Bebb: That is an interesting contribution, but in truth I fail to see how those charities can make those calculations when we have not yet brought any proposals to the table. It is difficult to understand how those calculations were made, unless they were based on hearsay or assumptions.
Asking the experts to look at this on our behalf will enable us to introduce a set of proposals that will work. Also, hon. Members should be reassured by the fact that we will allow Parliament to look again at the proposals before they are enacted. That will allow scrutiny once they have been developed in detail. I agree with Opposition Members who have stated that the free school meals policy needs to work. Ultimately, there is no point in creating a reform to the welfare state to make work pay if it does not take into account the impact of the free school meals entitlement.
We need to be careful about new clause 4, because it fails to take into account the complexities that I have discussed with colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions relating to the different arrangements for prescription charges in the various parts of the United Kingdom. Of course universal credit must take into account the need for some kind of support for prescription charges in England, but the situation is different in Wales and Scotland, where, for reasons best known to the Governments in Cardiff and Edinburgh, people do
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not need to pay for their prescriptions. I find that policy very odd. I can walk into a chemist in Llandudno and get a free prescription, whereas I would have to pay for it in London. Personally, I would be happy to pay a small contribution rather than getting support in that way.
The issue of passported benefits relating to prescriptions is an important one that needs to be looked at. We cannot end up with a system that builds compensation for prescriptions into a universal benefit for the whole United Kingdom without taking into account the complexity that I have just described. I applaud the fact that we are looking at this in detail and trying to introduce a policy that will be fair to all. I am surprised that the Opposition see the fact that we are giving these matters a great deal of care and attention as something to belittle, rather than something to celebrate.
As a Conservative Member, I would find it difficult to argue against the presumption of people saving for a rainy day. I find surprising some Opposition Members’ arguments that people who fall on hard times should not use their savings. If that had always been the argument in relation to every possible hard time, there might be some merit to it. However, we heard the bizarre argument from the hon. Member for Edinburgh East against someone who had had their working hours reduced having to use their savings rather than rely on universal credit, even though I suspect that she would be willing to continue with the current situation, in which someone who becomes unemployed, which is much worse, is expected to use their savings before being able to claim anything from the state.
7.15 pm
Our proposals for universal credit are trying to be fair across the board, and I do not think that we can have a rule that someone will have to use their savings if they are unlucky enough to become unemployed, but that the state will support someone whose hours are reduced, even if they have £50,000 saved in an ISA. I cannot see the logic of that proposal. Never mind the cost of the £70 million that Opposition Members have talked about, I simply do not understand someone who becomes unemployed having to use their savings while someone whose hours have been reduced is able to call on the support of the state.
I sincerely hope that, in better times, as we see a transformation in the public finances, we will be able to increase the limits on savings. I want people to be self-reliant. I want them to save for a deposit on a house, for their children’s weddings or for their retirement. We must bear in mind, however, that we need to be fair to all taxpayers. There is nothing acceptable in amendments 23 and 24. I see nothing logical in a proposal that the state should step in to support someone with £50,000 in an ISA whose working hours are reduced, yet if that same person were made unemployed they would be expected to use those savings to pay their way until the savings were exhausted. The Government’s welfare reform proposals are much more logical, in that they try to ensure that people have an understanding of the importance of self-reliance.
Amendments 27, 28 and 29 deal with the situation for the self-employed. The right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) noted from my contributions in Committee that I was supportive of small businesses,
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and he was astounded to hear me supporting the Government’s proposals on how universal credit will relate to the self-employed. I want to state categorically that the universal credit system must support self-employment. My constituency is highly dependent on small businesses and, indeed, micro-businesses. The definition of a micro-business is one that has between one and nine members of staff. Most small businesses in my constituency do not even have five.
I fully appreciate the importance of self-employment to the economy of Aberconwy and to Wales. I would not be standing here supporting a proposal that attacked the ability of the self-employed to benefit from the universal credit system. However, the system has to be fair and reasonable. The Department for Work and Pensions is trying to re-establish the enterprise allowance scheme, which is an indication of its commitment to encourage people to consider self-employment as a route out of worklessness. I do not for a second believe that the Government would encourage people into self-employment with one policy while penalising them for so doing with another.
I support the Department’s attempts to find a way of avoiding self-employment being used as a means of claiming universal credit payments when they are not actually justified. My example, which drew a degree of scorn from the right hon. Gentleman, is not made up; it is one that I came across in my previous life before being elected as a Member of Parliament. Someone set up a small business and, in an entire year of being self-employed, managed to generate sales of less than £80. It would be completely unacceptable for someone in that situation to get universal credit payments based on their being self-employed. Most people in small businesses work extremely hard, and they would not recognise £80-worth of sales in a year as running a small business. The key issue is that the Department must recognise the hours put into small businesses by their proprietors. It would be unfair to the self-employed if we ended up saying that somebody who ticked a box on a form saying that he or she had worked a 70-hour week in their business should have that calculated on the basis of the minimum wage. Having had discussions with the Minister, I do not think that that is the intention; rather, it is to have a clear level at which the self-employed are expected to perform before they can benefit from universal credit. That is reasonable and acceptable. I encourage the Department to continue to consult the small business community, who will be able to add a lot to the debate in ensuring that we get this right. The system must support small businesses, but it is not unreasonable to expect it to do so sustainably and fairly.
As a Government, we have to think carefully about what is deemed to be the income level of the self-employed and about the potential burdens that we might place on small businesses with a reporting system that is too demanding in terms of regular responses. I think the Minister alluded to the possibility of quarterly returns, and that is not unreasonable. Many small businesses in my constituency will not thank me for saying this, but they are quite happy to deal with their VAT returns on a quarterly basis. They would love to be without that requirement, I must admit, but they deal with it on that basis and are used to doing the same with their pay-as-you-earn returns. They would not necessarily find too unreasonable the burden of having to report their earnings
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in relation to universal credit on a quarterly basis. We need to take that into account.
Although using net profit as a means of calculating the income of the self-employed is equivalent to how the self-employed are dealt with for tax purposes, it might not necessarily result in a fair outcome in creating a system that provides support from the taxpayer for their living needs. An annual investment allowance of £100,000 for capital allowances does not sound like a huge amount of money for large concerns, but for many small businesses it means that they could invest in one piece of capital and immediately wipe out their profit. The frustration for other taxpayers when that type of thing happens is that they see somebody running a successful small company, investing in brand-new capital and getting a 100% tax allowance in one instalment, which means that they are reporting a zero income for tax purposes. I question whether that is an appropriate basis on which to calculate universal credit entitlement, because it is a means by which the self-employed have the capacity to reduce their earnings for universal credit purposes that is not open to those who are in paid employment. I believe myself to be a champion of the self-employed, but the Department is right to think carefully about how to ensure that we have a reporting system for the self-employed that is not only fair to them and encourages self-employment but fair to the general taxpayer and to other universal credit recipients.
Many of the amendments and new clauses are interesting, but when one considers the Bill in full, it is difficult to support any of them.
Tom Greatrex (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op): I listened with interest to the hon. Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb), who said that this debate reminded him of the Committee stage of the Bill. I feel a bit like an intruder, because I did not serve on that Committee. I am not sure whether he meant that he was enjoying the experience or enduring it.
I want to make a few remarks about new clause 6. I am not sure whether it comes into the category of superfluous detail to which the Minister referred—or blessed detail, as one of his hon. Friends described it—or deals with something that was considered in Committee. Last week, I had a discussion with people at Rutherglen and Cambuslang housing association in my constituency, who are concerned about the payment of the housing element of universal credit and the changes that are being made to the current arrangements on direct payments. As someone who is not an expert in these matters, the new clause seems to me to draw a good balance between the desire to try to ensure that universal credit gives people responsibility for the money that they receive and protecting the interests of tenants of social landlords and the effectiveness of social landlords such as the housing association I mentioned and, I am sure, many others around the country. The new clause would allow the housing element of universal credit to be paid directly to the landlord if the person in receipt of universal credit requests it or if the tenant is in considerable arrears.
Social landlords are worried that income streams might be significantly reduced because households facing financial constraints as a result of rising food and fuel prices and other calls on their budgets which may be greater in future choose to spend the money received
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from universal credit on items other than rent, for which the housing component of universal credit is primarily designed.
Sarah Newton: The hon. Gentleman is making a good point. Is he assured, as I am, by what the Minister has said—that the vulnerable types of household that the hon. Gentleman is so well describing can make those payments directly to landlords at the moment, and that because the Government do not want to disadvantage anyone in the transition to universal credit, that mechanism will be allowed to continue?
Tom Greatrex: I am seeking an assurance from the Government that that system will be able to continue.
The proposed change has potential difficulties for the social landlord as well as for the tenant. On several occasions over the past year, I have heard the Government express determination to try to ensure that organisations in receipt of public money are as efficient and effective as possible. That is also important for social landlords and housing associations. If we move to a new arrangement whereby direct payment is not possible, there is a risk that they will end up spending a disproportionate amount of their time, resources and effort on attempting to get arrears from tenants instead of trying to be as effective and efficient as possible in prioritising and concentrating on improving their stock and dealing with the other issues that they face. That could constrain their ability to repay private finance that they have borrowed to finance new building. If housing associations are seen as higher risks, they may face even stricter conditions on their borrowing, which would affect their ongoing business.
There is also the question of whether tenants may resort to doorstep lenders or other loan sharks. I am sure that I am not the only Member present who has seen examples in their constituency of people being driven into that sector. I know that Members on both sides of the House have addressed that issue in debates on other measures. In seeking to ensure that people are responsible for the benefit that they receive, we must not put ourselves in a worse position by removing that direct payment.
As I said at the start of my remarks, I am new to this area of debate. I was not on the Committee and have not dealt with it in the same detail as others. However, it is important to protect a system of direct payments, particularly for social landlords. I hope that the Minister reflects on that, even if he thinks that the new clause is superfluous.
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Paul Uppal: I will modify my speech to highlight some of the concerns expressed by the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Tom Greatrex) on new clause 6. That will be the beef of what I will say. We spoke about this issue at great length in Committee and I spoke about it personally. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb), I feel like we are back in Committee. I assure the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West that it was always a pleasure to sit on that Committee, and I am sure that Opposition Members will concur.
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We received representations from various groups on the merits of paying housing benefit directly to landlords, principally from Citizens Advice, Crisis, the National Landlords Association, the Residential Landlords Association, Shelter and the British Property Federation. As the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West said, and as was said in Committee, there are persuasive arguments about paying housing benefit directly to landlords. It is perhaps ironic that it was the last Labour Government who changed the system in 2008. Before that, rental payments did go directly to landlords.
As was rightly said in an earlier exchange, the Minister has highlighted that there is provision in the Bill for paying housing benefit directly:
“We recognise that in some circumstances, direct payments to landlords may be necessary, and the Bill makes provision for that.”––[Official Report, Welfare Reform Public Bill Committee, 5 April 2011; c. 363.]
I hope that that gives the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West some comfort on his specific concerns. I hope the Minister will forgive me if I am pre-empting his response, but we discussed this matter at length in Committee.
I think that there is a deeper point on the issue of responsibility. The Leader of the Opposition raised this issue this morning as the cornerstone of his speech. I do not want to go over what has been said too much. The essence of my point is that it is easy to talk about responsibility, but the Government are actually delivering on it. I have my concerns about the payment of housing benefit, but having sat on the Committee, looked at the findings of the reports and considered the evidence, I have come to the conclusion that if we are sincere about the aim of this Bill of getting people off benefit and into work, the first step is not only getting people into work, but individuals taking responsibility. The concerns underlying new clause 6 are addressed by the Minister’s remark that the whole essence of the Bill is to tackle the issue of responsibility.
I am sure, Madam Deputy Speaker, that you were as enthralled as I was by the exchange involving the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) and my hon. Friends the Members for Aberconwy, for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) and for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) about the number of people who have not worked in the past 10 years—a time of plenty compared with the situation that we face now. The point that was missed in that exchange was the pernicious nature and corrosive effect of what we have seen over the past few years; this is not just about getting people into work. We have arrived at a situation in which not only are there people who have never worked, but there are whole families who have never worked. The exchange missed that point, but it was eloquently covered by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy.
Ms Buck: The hon. Gentleman is right that addressing worklessness that has crossed generations should be a concern on both sides of the House, and it is. However, does he agree that the number of people growing up in households where nobody has ever worked through two generations is 20,000 at the most, which is 0.1% of people on working-age benefits? That is far too many, but it is only 20,000 people.
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Paul Uppal: I accept the hon. Lady’s point, but I go back to the corrosive effect that that is having on society. There are people living cheek by jowl with the 20,000 families that she has mentioned, who are aware of the situation.
A constituent spoke to me who comes from one of the handful of families on her road who actually work. The rest of the families on her street have made a conscious life choice to live off benefits. [ Interruption. ] The hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) may nod, sigh and take a deep breath, but I am faced in my weekly surgeries by people who live in the real world—people who have to deal with the hard reality of life. My constituent had to face ridicule for going to work. That is the situation that we have.
As I have said before in this House, I have experienced poverty in my life. I have not read about it in a book or dealt with it at arm’s length from behind a desk; I have seen it with my own eyes and experienced it in my family. That is why I am passionate about it and why I was proud to sit on the Committee. Too often, the issues that we talk about are detached from the reality of life. This legislation is not about appealing to red-top newspapers or making grand-standing statements, as was said in Committee, but about tackling the issue head-on. Hon. Members have talked about the number of jobs created over the past decade that were taken by foreigners who came to these shores with an ethos of working. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy mentioned eastern Europeans. My family have gone through that experience. We came to this country with an ethos of working; that was our aspiration. The idea that we could claim benefits and use the system to support us was anathema to us. That idea is what this Bill tackles.
Matthew Hancock (West Suffolk) (Con): I have been listening carefully to my hon. Friend’s powerful speech. Does he agree that 20,000 families who have never worked is simply 20,000 too many?
Paul Uppal: Absolutely; the intervention from the hon. Member for Westminster North was very telling. It missed the point about the message that Governments send out. Let me make it absolutely clear that I am not criticising individuals and families; it is the system that is corrosive. If the system is corrosive and, to quote my constituent, rewards idleness, what do we expect of human beings? I have faith in the British public. We have budding entrepreneurs and young people who have aspirations to achieve the best that they can. However, through unintended consequences, aspiration has been undermined, particularly over the past 10 years. I have seen that so often when I meet young people. They have a choice between work and a life on benefits. They have looked me in the eye and said that a life on benefits is not such a bad option.
Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con):
I recently met a lady in my constituency who is a health visitor, and she told me of a trip that she had paid to a family living in Northamptonshire. The mother had just had her fourth child, and her eldest child was 15 years old. As the health visitor left, the older daughter chased her out and said that her mother was trying to persuade her to have a baby to improve their income, but she did not have a boyfriend and did not really want one. She asked what the health visitor would advise that
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she do. That is symptomatic of some of the problems that we have in this country as a result of our welfare system.
Paul Uppal: I thank my hon. Friend. Sometimes we in the House have to face uncomfortable truths. We may not like them, but they are the reality that we have to face. I believe that the Bill, in its entirety, goes some way to addressing such problems. I have said before, and will say again, that it is very easy to talk the talk in opposition, but the Government are walking the walk. We are delivering something that is popular not just with Conservative voters but with Labour voters. There is consensus across the board on the issue, and it unites most voters whom I have met, whichever party they vote for. They have seen the reality of what we have done to introduce an ethos of work, aspiration and ambition.
I am glad that I am part of a Government who are taking the difficult decisions and doing the important things. This is a seminal Bill, and people will look back on it as one that changed this country for ever. I know that I may have veered away from my original comments on new clause 6, and I am sorry about that, but sometimes we have to say it as we see it. I, for one, am glad that we have introduced the Bill, and I think it will make this country a better place.
Yvonne Fovargue: I agree with one thing that the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West (Paul Uppal) said, which was about taking responsibility. I therefore hope that he can support amendment 26, because it will mean that agencies can ensure that people know their rights and responsibilities following what has been described as the most fundamental change to the benefit system.
One of the first witnesses to appear before the Public Bill Committee said that although universal credit is a simplified benefit, the application for it will not be simple, because of all the different benefits that are rolled up together into it. I am old enough to remember when supplementary benefit changed to income support, and I saw the rise in demand for advice among people worried about what would happen to their income. For people who are on benefit, a small change in income means a lot.
That problem will be exacerbated in the current case, particularly given the fear of a civil penalty for a mistake or omission. People who go to advice bureaux do not want to know how to defraud the system; they want to know how to fill their form in correctly. An online application process will also worry people—particularly older people, but also some younger ones—who are concerned about filling a form out online and not seeing it until three, four or five days later. Support is needed to smooth the transition.
Universal credit will start in 2013—exactly the same time when the proposed changes to legal aid will remove help for the most complex welfare benefit cases. As my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) said, that is the perfect storm. Local authorities are examining every non-statutory service that they provide, and in some cases local advice agencies are losing funding. In fact, in a survey, 54% of local bureaux said that they were worried that they were unlikely to be around in 2013.
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Let us scotch one myth. Local bureaux and advice agencies do not get any funding from central Government. The money goes to the central Citizens Advice, which provides a vital service in support of local bureaux. It provides information, training, support and IT services. Putting more money into local bureaux would mean that more would have to be charged for those services. It would be self-defeating. Local face-to-face advice is vital, along with the advisory telephone service. Many claimants are vulnerable, and such advice, provided locally, is of particular importance to them.
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con): Does the hon. Lady agree that local citizens advice bureaux are probably one of the most important and good causes to whose funding local government can contribute? Will she therefore join me in applauding my city council in Gloucester for the valuable increase in funding that it has given to our local CAB, and recommend that action to other councils?
7.45 pm
Yvonne Fovargue: I will, but to say that local government is the main funder of CABs is to oversimplify the matter. I know of one bureau that had at least five different funding streams—the primary care trust, legal aid, the local authority, housing associations and a hospital. CABs rely on a mixture of funding streams, many of which are being reduced at the moment. Local authorities cannot take up all the slack, much though they should be continuing advice services.
Investing in early advice saves money. Avoiding costly tribunals and appeals is vital, and people who do not have access to advice are more likely to pursue their case to the appeal stage, costing them money and stress. Public confidence in any new system is vital. Advice on welfare benefits is crucial, and I urge the Government to accept amendment 26.
Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP): The hon. Lady is making a powerful point. The CAB in my constituency—in the Rathcoole area, which is very needy—does excellent work along the lines that she has described. Does she agree that whatever one’s views about the other amendments or the Bill, everybody should support amendment 26? Clear advice to constituents and clients is what it is all about, whatever one’s views.
Yvonne Fovargue: I thank the right hon. Gentleman, and I agree totally. The amendment would simply give people the opportunity to receive advice about their rights and responsibilities. That is crucial at any stage, but particularly when a new welfare benefit system is brought in. I urge all Members to support the amendment.
Charlie Elphicke: I rise to speak against new clause 2. One of the major achievements of the reform of introducing universal credit is enabling people to have greater flexibility in taking on part-time jobs—so-called mini-jobs. I have made the point several times in interventions that it is critical that we enable people with child care responsibilities to have the maximum flexibility in how they organise their child care and for how long they wish to work, so that they are reintroduced to the world of work.
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I praise the Government particularly for making the effort to consult all parties in their recent seminar. It was not just members of the Public Bill Committee who were there, but members of the Work and Pensions Committee. Such engagement is important, because it enables us to get everything right. The Government have introduced a Bill that is a bookcase into which the books will later be slotted, and they are making an effort to ensure that the books read well and effectively.
One of the most telling parts of the briefing that we were given in the seminar was about what parents had told the DWP that they wanted. It informs the decision on whether new clause 2 is right. The DWP publication—“briefing” is probably a better description—is entitled “Childcare support in Universal Credit” and dated May 2011. It states:
“Recent findings from a survey of lone parents on Income support and with a child aged 5-6 found a strong preference for working part-time.”
Among those looking for work or expecting to do so in future, the majority stated a preference for 16 to 29 hours’ work a week, with 45% giving a preference of exactly 16 hours. Why exactly 16 hours? It has been drummed into everyone that they have to go out and work for 16 hours, not a moment less, or they will not get any help with child care. Subsection (5) of new clause 2 makes it clear that the Opposition want that prescribed minimum number of hours a week to remain. In other words, they do not want the mini-job, and yet we know that lone parents show a strong preference for working part-time, which should be respected. People are not here to dance to the Government’s tune: Governments should dance to the tune of the people, and be as flexible, helpful and enabling as people wish.
Ms Buck: While the hon. Gentleman is on the subject of the survey of parents’ opinions, does he know how many of the 250,000 parents who are expected to lose between £30 and £35 a week under both options in the Government’s proposals said that they wanted less support with their child care?
Charlie Elphicke: I have not conducted a detailed survey on that. I am also unsure what the 400,000 or 430,000 who will win approximately £50 say. There will always be winners and losers, but what I like about this policy programme is that there are almost twice as many winners as losers, and they will win an awful lot more money, which helps the transition to the policy.
Let me return to the evidence of parents. The Government document states:
“Many out of work mothers, both lone and partnered, are looking for jobs that will fit in with their children’s schooling—i.e. jobs that are part-time and preferably within school hours.”
That is obvious and self-evident—any parent knows that—but it is important to have survey evidence so that the argument has an element of objectivity. The document goes on to say that out-of-work mothers
“tend to look for work that is local and flexible, so that they can be available if, for example, their child is taken ill.”
All of us parents have been there—have we not?—when our children get sick and we send them off in the morning, tying their scarves up tight and hoping that no one notices. When they do notice, we get a call. I have had to make that run—even though, as I am told, as a man I have no rights in respect of child care
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responsibilities. Some of us in the younger generation are new men, although I hesitate to apply that description to myself.
The document also states that those factors—locality and flexibility—
“are often seen as being more important than the type of job they move into.”
It is all about flexibility, which we need. All of us parents have been there and understand that. Child care is quite often a nightmare, and always a juggle. Half the time parents are terrified that they will get a call just when they have an important meeting to go to.
“A study of lone parents who had recently moved into work had overwhelmingly chosen jobs where their hours fitted with looking after their children. It was common for interviewees to be working between 16 and 29 hours per week.”
Again, there was almost certainly not the flexibility to have a mini-job. Mini-jobs are important in enabling such flexibility. It is not right for parents, particularly parents of little children, to be forced into endless hours of work, or to work for more than 16 hours. New clause 2(5) is therefore extraordinarily unhelpful, and a retrograde step.
On parental employment, what happens when children are five and six is telling. This is about the youngest tots. When children are that age, parents are just going out into work, having previously perhaps been full-time parents. Employment of lone parents of children that age is about 55%, but the employment of partnered mothers is 75%, which is the parental employment rate. We can see, therefore, that there has been a massive societal shift into joint working among couples. There has been a move away from the traditional old-style model, whereby the bloke goes off to work and the woman stays at home to mind the kid and the kitchen sink, to more economic sharing and greater equality, which is a positive thing.
Richard Graham: My hon. Friend is developing a powerful case for greater flexibility, which is precisely what the Bill proposes, and which the new clause would not reflect. Does he agree that there is perhaps not enough understanding in the wider world of the flexibilities in the Bill that will help single mothers to take jobs on a flexible basis?
Charlie Elphicke: My hon. Friend makes an extraordinarily powerful point. Part of the reason for that is that a lot of scaremongering is going on. The scaremongers deny that the Bill provides that flexibility and say that people will lose out, but we know, from the detailed figures in the Budget and the briefing document to which I have referred, that most people will be far better off under the reforms, that they will have more money, and that work will always pay.
Ms Buck:
On the subject of scaremongering, is the hon. Gentleman aware that in their letter to the Secretary of State on this issue, the organisations that could fairly be said to have a good grasp of the issue—from the Daycare Trust to Gingerbread, Family Action, the Child Poverty Action Group, Working Families, the Children’s Society, Save the Children and the Resolution Foundation—said that they were concerned that the proposals could effectively end the prospect of full-time
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work for single parents and second earners, and for couples on low and middle incomes who need support with child care costs, and that that will have the result of hampering their ability to find work, and making it more difficult for them to lift their families out of poverty?
The hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) supports the flexibility for people to work fewer hours—in principle, we all agree with that—but he wants to restrict the flexibility for people who want and need to work longer hours.
Charlie Elphicke: I do not make my money out of campaigning, and I never have. Anyone who has done that will know that maximum fear is the way to get the most subscriptions, the largest membership and the highest amount in grants. I make my money out of my only job, which is serving my 71,000 or so constituents and trying to do what is best.
Perhaps I am old-fashioned, but I occasionally open the Budget Red Book and look at the detailed figures. Table A2 on page 80 makes it clear that a lone parent with one child working 35 hours a week would have £105 without universal credit, and more or less the same with it. However, when parents work 10 hours, things change. A lone parent working 10 hours rises receives £20 without universal credit, and £53 with it. If we move to universal credit, those people will end up, broadly, with more money. That mini-job is massively incentivised by universal credit, which makes part-time working much easier.
Why does part-time working matter, and why should we give greater incentives for it? To answer that, we must look at the proportion of parents with child care responsibilities who are in work. Some 61% of lone parents who have children aged between five and six, who would find things difficult under new clause 2(5), work part-time, as do 64% of partnered mothers of children of that age: 64% of all mothers work part-time. The statistics are pretty clear that we have had a joint working revolution: there is much more sharing of economic power in couples, and more pooling of income. To a great extent, universal credit recognises that in the system.
There has also been a revolution involving women in the workplace. Often they work part-time, because even now there is a bias towards women having primary responsibility for child care. Finances might be shared, but the responsibility for child care tends to fall to women. That is what comes out pretty clearly from the figures. For that reason, we should allow women maximum flexibility. Why have a 16-hour cut-off, as new clause 2(5) proposes? I, for one, cannot agree with that. It is not the right way to go; it is a retrograde step.
Sarah Newton: My hon. Friend makes an extremely good case. Does he agree that the letter referred to by the hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) was a response to a consultation, the whole point of which was to receive critical feedback to help the Government to develop appropriate policy?
Charlie Elphicke:
I completely agree. That is the whole idea of consultations. The Government have reached out to all those groups. I am disappointed that the Opposition have used this opportunity just to throw
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rocks, when the Government have reached out to all parties in the House in designing the fine detail of the Bill, and truly sought to engage.
8 pm
Richard Graham: It seems extraordinary that the hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck), with whom I sat on the Work and Pensions Committee, does not recall the stream of anecdotal evidence from our constituents about how many women are at home on benefits because they have worked out that under the current system it is impossible to take a job and be better off. The whole concept of work paying, which drives this Bill, must surely unite Members on both sides of the House.
Charlie Elphicke: I would hope so. New clause 2(1) mentions
“a childcare element for claimants who are in work, except in prescribed circumstances.”
One of the problems with the current system is that 52,000 families already in receipt of tax credits are entitled to, but did not claim, the child care element in 2008-09, whereas 55,000 families were entitled to the child care element but did not claim tax credits in the same period. We need to ensure that real help is available for children. Universal credit will ensure that we do not have thousands of families who do not receive their full entitlement. That is a really important aspect of the Bill.
I am not sure that new clause 2 is the right way forward. I am concerned that it would cost the vast extra sum of £400 million in Government spending. It would be expensive, but retrograde, and it would make life harder for those who want to be in part-time work.
My other concern about the new clause is that the maximum award for the child care element is far higher than was set out in the consultation document. I can only assume that in drafting it the Opposition thought, “What high figure can we come up with that will be a substantial number so we can appear to our constituents to be much more generous in spending other people’s money?” That is not a sensible approach. The right approach is to have the consultation that the Government are having so that the book, when it is written, is slotted into the bookcase and is as effective as possible.
The Government have made a real effort to make strides on this issue and they have come up with a really great plan. They have also gone to considerable lengths to put up various options for discussion. Nowhere in new clause 2 does it canvass the possibility of a different rate for children under five, although the Government have canvassed that possibility. Nowhere does the new clause mention the differences between what people would get with 70% child care costs and with 80% child care costs: it just assumes that the figure should be 80% or 90%—figures that, on the face of it, appear to have been plucked out of the air. Nowhere does the new clause discuss the working of the hours rules, which would create great problems especially for lone parents and the parents of the youngest children who are just starting to find their way back into work. We must support them in going back into the workplace. That is
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the sort of discussion that we should be having, and I would hope that the Opposition would work positively with the Government to try to achieve a system that works for everyone.
These reforms are important because we need to reduce child poverty. In recent years, the figures have not been pointing in the right direction, if one includes after-housing costs. I will be challenged and told that that is the wrong figure to use and that I should use before-housing costs, but as I said in Committee people have to live somewhere. We cannot expect them to live in a garden shed or on a remote Hebridean island at very low expense where perhaps they could find shelter and the odd sheep. Indeed, the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), who is no longer in her place, nodded in Committee when I said that this was the right measure.
In 2004-05, some 3.6 million children were below the 60% median for after-housing costs and now it is 3.8 million. I regard that figure as worrying in terms of the mischief that the universal credit and new clause 2 are aimed at combating. The Government’s plans would substantially reduce child poverty. New clause 2 and the Government’s plans are presumably aimed in the same direction, but the latter would reduce child poverty by at least 50,000 in 2011-12. I see that as a positive move. I asked the Secretary of State today about the effect of universal credit on poverty and he said that 90,000 fewer people would be in poverty. That is the right direction.
The Opposition have tabled amendments 23 and 24, which propose that the prescribed maximum should be £50,000. In other words, if someone has £50,000 in the bank but their earnings are very low, they will be able to claim under universal credit. Earlier, I put an example to the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore). If a person earns £50,000, has no savings—probably a young person—and pays tax, they will be subsidising an older person on lower earnings but with £50,000 in the bank. If we asked people in the street whether that was really justifiable, they would say no. The reason we save is to have a rainy day fund. The whole idea of such a fund is that when it rains, we should spend it—because we believe in taking responsibility for ourselves.
Today, the Leader of the Opposition gave a little speech about responsibility. He said:
“Labour—a party founded by hard working people for hard working people—was seen, however unfairly, as the party of those ripping off our society. My party must change.”
But I looked at the amendments and saw that Labour wants to give benefits to people who have £50,000 in the bank. Are we being ripped off? Is that a party that believes that hard work brings rewards and that believes in responsibility, in a messianic conversion, or is it a party that simply wants to hand out other people’s money like confetti?
I read on in the speech and I realised that the amendments had been tabled for the sake of a sound bite. The Leader of the Opposition said:
“Just take their current welfare reform bill.
It punishes people in work who save, denying them the help they currently get through tax credits.”
Well, there is saving and there is saving, and if we polled people I am sure that we would find conclusively that someone with £50,000 in the bank should not get any out-of-work benefits. They should take responsibility and seek to get back into work as quickly as possible.
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Paul Uppal: As usual, my hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does he not highlight the fact that this is a moment for the Opposition to decide on which side of the fence they stand? They talk about reform, but it will be interesting to note how they vote today and on Wednesday.
Charlie Elphicke: I agree. In fact, let me use the words of the Leader of the Opposition, who said:
“Finally we will never encourage a sense of responsibility if society is becoming more and more unfair, and more and more divided.”
We know that Labour divided our country more between the rich and the poor when it was in office, and we know that giving people who have £50,000 in the bank out-of-work benefits would be deeply unfair to the ordinary working person in the street.
Sheila Gilmore: I apologise for missing so much of the hon. Gentleman’s speech. I am sure I would have been greatly entertained. However, I was not aware that the amendment before the House would give out-of-work benefits to people with savings. This is about people who are working and trying to get themselves back on their feet, which he said he wanted.
Charlie Elphicke: If we asked the person in the street, “Do you think that benefits, even universal credit benefits, should be paid to someone who has got £50,000 in the bank?”, they would give us a pretty robust response. I represent a constituency with a lot of deprivation. Average earnings are about £20,000 a year—£50,000 is a king’s ransom to the people whom I serve. Most people could never dream of having so much money in cash. They might have it locked up in their house, but they could never dream of having that kind of money in ready cash. It would be an astonishing position to be in. If I went down Dover high street and said, “Do you think that people should get universal credit if they have £50,000 in the bank?”, the response would be demonstrative, pretty conclusive and probably pretty rude—it would be expletive-laden.
In my constituency, when I knock on a door, like my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South West (Paul Uppal), and say, “What are your concerns?”, after expressing vehement concerns about the number of overseas visitors, 1 million of whom have taken jobs in recent years, and about the 5 million people who could work but do not, people move on and say, “And that person down the street has a plasma TV and so on, and they have not worked a day in their lives.” We have discussed this important and serious issue. We need to encourage people to take responsibility and to work, and not encourage them through amendments such as amendments 23 and 24, which would allow people to claim benefits despite having £50,000 in the bank.
This whole strand of thinking is symptomatic of a way of thinking that has caused the number of working-age people in relative poverty, after housing costs, to rise from 6.5 million in 2001-02 to 7.9 million in 2009-10. That is a staggering rise. We have to bear it in mind that in those years this country enjoyed the most massive boom, yet a whole load of our countrymen slipped further into relative poverty. It is not just a question of intergenerational poverty or of households that have not worked for ever and ever; it is a question of going
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into relative poverty. The message sent by amendments 23 and 24 is not one of responsibility. It is not a message that says, “Look, we are on your side. You’re hard-working. We will support you.” The message sent by the philosophy of universal credit is one of responsibility: “If you work hard, you will be better off, and you will not be subjected to the dependency culture.” That has to be one of the most important and essential messages that the Government can send, and it is why the Bill will, in my view, be the most important Bill in this Parliament.
I hope that the House will indulge me on one more amendment—amendment 33, which deals with pensions. If a man aged 66 is married to a woman aged 45, how can it be fine for that woman not to be incentivised to work? I am deeply troubled by this. I put this issue to the right hon. Member for East Ham, and the Minister asked him whether he supported the principle, and thrice the cock crowed, yet he would not deny it—or, indeed, not deny it. It was wrong to table an amendment defending that principle, and to say, when an argument was made saying, “How can it be right?”, “Ah well, isn’t it bad of the Government to sneak it into a schedule.”
The House deserves a better argument than that for why previously people were not incentivised to work, and why the Government are wrong to take action on it. The Government are right to take action, and they are right to send the message that work should always pay, and that, if someone is of working age, they really should work. We have a massive mountain to climb: there are 5 million people in this country who could work but do not, who have been encouraged to live in a dependency culture, and who would be worse off if they went into work. There is much evidence that that sucked in 1 million people from abroad and overseas to fill the 1 million or so jobs created during the recent boom, while we cast 5 million people on to the slagheap of welfare dependency.
8.15 pm
I suspect strongly that encouraging the 5 million people who could work but do not, and making work pay for them, will solve the problem of people being sucked into the UK from overseas. The problem might well solve itself, however, through a demand for employment from our countrymen. When that day comes, and if universal credit achieves it, it will be a great day for this country. It is fundamentally wrong that we should sell the pass on the hopes and aspirations of millions of people in this country who could be working, achieving and fulfilling their potential, but who for too many years have been thrown on the slagheap of hopelessness, dependency and failure. I am a Tory because I like people to succeed; I like people to do well; I want people to make money; I want them to be rich; I want them to be captains of industry; and I want the economy to grow even quicker, and I think that universal credit is the way to help more people to achieve and succeed in their hopes and aspirations, to get into work and to do really well.
Stephen Timms:
We have had an interesting debate, and I welcome the Minister’s concession on the affirmative procedure for the initial version of some of the key regulations that will be introduced under the Bill. I would have liked him to go further, but I welcome the
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extent to which he has changed the Government’s position and welcome the amendments he has tabled to effect that change.
Unfortunately, the Minister gave us nothing else that I can welcome. It is an extraordinary failure on the part of Ministers that we do not yet have Government proposals on child care, free school meals or concessions on prescriptions. The Minister said that it did not matter, because there were still two and a half years to go before universal credit was introduced, but actually it is only two and a quarter years now—it was two and a half years three months ago, but they failed to come up with their policy proposals and three months have passed. It is not simply an academic issue, because even if all the policies had been clear two and a half years in advance, it would have been a stretch to get the IT in place by October 2013. As it is, the Government have not decided on those key parts of the policy, and I suggest that there is now no chance that it will be ready. However, that is a discussion for another day.
The hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) accused the children’s charities of throwing rocks at the Government. It is out of order to make that criticism of Barnardo’s, Citizens Advice and the Children’s Society. Let me quote their letter:
“We welcome the removal of the hours rule”—
they welcome the provision that the hon. Gentleman supports—
“but the evidence shows it is not possible to do this. . . within the current budget without a significant negative impact on work incentives for those working longer hours.”
That is not throwing rocks but simply setting out obvious home truths, of which the Government need to take account.
Charlie Elphicke: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Stephen Timms: No, I will not. Our position is that the Government need to listen to what people are saying to them and that new clause 2 provides protection. We do not want the work incentives worsened in the way in which charities point out.
It sounds as though the Government have abandoned the idea of a payslip for every universal credit instalment. I am disappointed—that was a good idea. Sadly, the Minister reaffirmed the Bill’s extraordinary penalties on saving. He gave no firm assurances on self-employment income, even though the hon. Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb) recognised the importance of that. The Minister appeared to acknowledge that there was a problem, which, I suppose is progress from his previous position.
The Minister gave us no assurances on adequate welfare advice. My hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue) made a telling case about that. Many will be dismayed by his dismissal of the case for retaining support for disabled children. There is genuine worry about the impact of his refusal to ensure that benefit for children is paid to their main carer.
I wish to divide the House on new clause 2 on child care, on amendment 23 on the saving cap and amendment 27 on support for self-employed people in universal credit.
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Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
The House divided:
Ayes 215, Noes 293.
[8.20 pm
AYES
Abrahams, Debbie
Alexander, rh Mr Douglas
Ali, Rushanara
Allen, Mr Graham
Anderson, Mr David
Ashworth, Jon
Austin, Ian
Bailey, Mr Adrian
Bain, Mr William
Balls, rh Ed
Banks, Gordon
Barron, rh Mr Kevin
Bayley, Hugh
Beckett, rh Margaret
Begg, Dame Anne
Benn, rh Hilary
Berger, Luciana
Blackman-Woods, Roberta
Blears, rh Hazel
Blenkinsop, Tom
Blomfield, Paul
Blunkett, rh Mr David
Brennan, Kevin
Brown, Lyn
Brown, rh Mr Nicholas
Brown, Mr Russell
Bryant, Chris
Buck, Ms Karen
Burden, Richard
Burnham, rh Andy
Byrne, rh Mr Liam
Campbell, Mr Alan
Campbell, Mr Ronnie
Caton, Martin
Chapman, Mrs Jenny
Clark, Katy
Clwyd, rh Ann
Coaker, Vernon
Coffey, Ann
Cooper, Rosie
Cooper, rh Yvette
Corbyn, Jeremy
Crausby, Mr David
Creagh, Mary
Creasy, Stella
Cruddas, Jon
Cryer, John
Cunningham, Alex
Cunningham, Mr Jim
Cunningham, Tony
Curran, Margaret
Dakin, Nic
David, Mr Wayne
Davidson, Mr Ian
Davies, Geraint
De Piero, Gloria
Denham, rh Mr John
Dobson, rh Frank
Docherty, Thomas
Dodds, rh Mr Nigel
Donohoe, Mr Brian H.
Doran, Mr Frank
Dowd, Jim
Dromey, Jack
Dugher, Michael
Durkan, Mark
Eagle, Ms Angela
Eagle, Maria
Edwards, Jonathan
Efford, Clive
Ellman, Mrs Louise
Esterson, Bill
Evans, Chris
Farrelly, Paul
Field, rh Mr Frank
Fitzpatrick, Jim
Flello, Robert
Flint, rh Caroline
Fovargue, Yvonne
Francis, Dr Hywel
Gapes, Mike
Gardiner, Barry
Gilmore, Sheila
Glass, Pat
Glindon, Mrs Mary
Godsiff, Mr Roger
Goggins, rh Paul
Greatrex, Tom
Green, Kate
Griffith, Nia
Gwynne, Andrew
Hain, rh Mr Peter
Hamilton, Mr David
Hamilton, Fabian
Hanson, rh Mr David
Havard, Mr Dai
Healey, rh John
Hendrick, Mark
Hepburn, Mr Stephen
Hillier, Meg
Hilling, Julie
Hodge, rh Margaret
Hoey, Kate
Hood, Mr Jim
Hosie, Stewart
Hunt, Tristram
Irranca-Davies, Huw
Jackson, Glenda
James, Mrs Siân C.
Jamieson, Cathy
Jarvis, Dan
Johnson, Diana
Jones, Graham
Jones, Helen
Jones, Mr Kevan
Jones, Susan Elan
Jowell, rh Tessa
Kaufman, rh Sir Gerald
Keeley, Barbara
Kendall, Liz
Lammy, rh Mr David
Lavery, Ian
Leslie, Chris
Lloyd, Tony
Llwyd, rh Mr Elfyn
Long, Naomi
Love, Mr Andrew
Lucas, Ian
MacNeil, Mr Angus Brendan
Mactaggart, Fiona
Mahmood, Shabana
Mann, John
Marsden, Mr Gordon
McCabe, Steve
McCann, Mr Michael
McCarthy, Kerry
McDonagh, Siobhain
McDonnell, John
McFadden, rh Mr Pat
McGovern, Alison
McGovern, Jim
McGuire, rh Mrs Anne
McKinnell, Catherine
Mearns, Ian
Michael, rh Alun
Miliband, rh David
Miller, Andrew
Mitchell, Austin
Moon, Mrs Madeleine
Morden, Jessica
Morrice, Graeme
(Livingston)
Morris, Grahame M.
(Easington)
Mudie, Mr George
Munn, Meg
Murphy, rh Mr Jim
Murray, Ian
Nandy, Lisa
O'Donnell, Fiona
Onwurah, Chi
Osborne, Sandra
Owen, Albert
Pearce, Teresa
Perkins, Toby
Phillipson, Bridget
Pound, Stephen
Qureshi, Yasmin
Raynsford, rh Mr Nick
Reed, Mr Jamie
Reeves, Rachel
Reynolds, Emma
Riordan, Mrs Linda
Ritchie, Ms Margaret
Robertson, Angus
Robinson, Mr Geoffrey
Rotheram, Steve
Roy, Lindsay
Ruddock, rh Joan
Sarwar, Anas
Seabeck, Alison
Sharma, Mr Virendra
Sheerman, Mr Barry
Shuker, Gavin
Skinner, Mr Dennis
Slaughter, Mr Andy
Smith, rh Mr Andrew
Smith, Angela
Smith, Nick
Smith, Owen
Spellar, rh Mr John
Stringer, Graham
Tami, Mark
Thomas, Mr Gareth
Thornberry, Emily
Timms, rh Stephen
Trickett, Jon
Turner, Karl
Twigg, Stephen
Umunna, Mr Chuka
Vaz, rh Keith
Vaz, Valerie
Walley, Joan
Watson, Mr Tom
Whiteford, Dr Eilidh
Whitehead, Dr Alan
Wicks, rh Malcolm
Williams, Hywel
Williamson, Chris
Wilson, Phil
Winnick, Mr David
Winterton, rh Ms Rosie
Wishart, Pete
Wood, Mike
Woodcock, John
Woodward, rh Mr Shaun
Wright, David
Wright, Mr Iain
Tellers for the Ayes:
Gregg McClymont and
Lilian Greenwood
NOES
Adams, Nigel
Afriyie, Adam
Aldous, Peter
Alexander, rh Danny
Amess, Mr David
Andrew, Stuart
Arbuthnot, rh Mr James
Bacon, Mr Richard
Baker, Norman
Baker, Steve
Baldwin, Harriett
Barclay, Stephen
Barker, Gregory
Baron, Mr John
Barwell, Gavin
Bebb, Guto
Beith, rh Sir Alan
Bellingham, Mr Henry
Beresford, Sir Paul
Berry, Jake
Bingham, Andrew
Birtwistle, Gordon
Blackwood, Nicola
Blunt, Mr Crispin
Boles, Nick
Bone, Mr Peter
Bottomley, Sir Peter
Bradley, Karen
Brady, Mr Graham
Brake, Tom
Bray, Angie
Brazier, Mr Julian
Bridgen, Andrew
Brine, Mr Steve
Brokenshire, James
Brooke, Annette
Browne, Mr Jeremy
Bruce, Fiona
Bruce, rh Malcolm
Buckland, Mr Robert
Burley, Mr Aidan
Burns, rh Mr Simon
Burrowes, Mr David
Burstow, Paul
Burt, Alistair
Burt, Lorely
Byles, Dan
Cairns, Alun
Campbell, rh Sir Menzies
Carmichael, rh Mr Alistair
Carmichael, Neil
Chishti, Rehman
Clark, rh Greg
Coffey, Dr Thérèse
Collins, Damian
Crabb, Stephen
Crockart, Mike
Crouch, Tracey
Davey, Mr Edward
Davies, David T. C.
(Monmouth)
Davies, Glyn
Davies, Philip
de Bois, Nick
Dinenage, Caroline
Djanogly, Mr Jonathan
Dorrell, rh Mr Stephen
Doyle-Price, Jackie
Drax, Richard
Duddridge, James
Duncan Smith, rh Mr Iain
Ellis, Michael
Ellison, Jane
Ellwood, Mr Tobias
Elphicke, Charlie
Eustice, George
Evans, Graham
Evans, Jonathan
Evennett, Mr David
Fabricant, Michael
Fallon, Michael
Foster, rh Mr Don
Francois, rh Mr Mark
Freeman, George
Freer, Mike
Fullbrook, Lorraine
Fuller, Richard
Gale, Mr Roger
Garnier, Mr Edward
Garnier, Mark
Gauke, Mr David
George, Andrew
Gibb, Mr Nick
Gillan, rh Mrs Cheryl
Glen, John
Goldsmith, Zac
Goodwill, Mr Robert
Graham, Richard
Grant, Mrs Helen
Grayling, rh Chris
Green, Damian
Greening, Justine
Griffiths, Andrew
Gummer, Ben
Gyimah, Mr Sam
Hague, rh Mr William
Halfon, Robert
Hames, Duncan
Hammond, rh Mr Philip
Hammond, Stephen
Hancock, Matthew
Hancock, Mr Mike
Hands, Greg
Harper, Mr Mark
Harrington, Richard
Harris, Rebecca
Hart, Simon
Harvey, Nick
Haselhurst, rh Sir Alan
Hayes, Mr John
Heald, Oliver
Heath, Mr David
Heaton-Harris, Chris
Hemming, John
Henderson, Gordon
Hendry, Charles
Herbert, rh Nick
Hoban, Mr Mark
Hollobone, Mr Philip
Horwood, Martin
Howarth, Mr Gerald
Howell, John
Hughes, rh Simon
Huhne, rh Chris
Hunt, rh Mr Jeremy
Hunter, Mark
Huppert, Dr Julian
Hurd, Mr Nick
Jackson, Mr Stewart
James, Margot
Javid, Sajid
Jenkin, Mr Bernard
Johnson, Gareth
Johnson, Joseph
Jones, Andrew
Jones, Mr David
Jones, Mr Marcus
Kawczynski, Daniel
Kelly, Chris
Kirby, Simon
Knight, rh Mr Greg
Kwarteng, Kwasi
Laing, Mrs Eleanor
Lamb, Norman
Lancaster, Mark
Lansley, rh Mr Andrew
Latham, Pauline
Leadsom, Andrea
Lee, Jessica
Lee, Dr Phillip
Leech, Mr John
Lefroy, Jeremy
Leigh, Mr Edward
Leslie, Charlotte
Lewis, Brandon
Lewis, Dr Julian
Liddell-Grainger, Mr Ian
Lidington, rh Mr David
Lilley, rh Mr Peter
Lloyd, Stephen
Lopresti, Jack
Lord, Jonathan
Loughton, Tim
Luff, Peter
Lumley, Karen
Macleod, Mary
Main, Mrs Anne
Maude, rh Mr Francis
May, rh Mrs Theresa
Maynard, Paul
McCartney, Jason
McIntosh, Miss Anne
McLoughlin, rh Mr Patrick
McPartland, Stephen
McVey, Esther
Mensch, Mrs Louise
Menzies, Mark
Mercer, Patrick
Metcalfe, Stephen
Miller, Maria
Mills, Nigel
Milton, Anne
Moore, rh Michael
Mordaunt, Penny
Morgan, Nicky
Morris, Anne Marie
Morris, James
Mosley, Stephen
Mowat, David
Mundell, rh David
Munt, Tessa
Murray, Sheryll
Murrison, Dr Andrew
Newmark, Mr Brooks
Newton, Sarah
Nokes, Caroline
Norman, Jesse
Nuttall, Mr David
Offord, Mr Matthew
Ollerenshaw, Eric
Parish, Neil
Patel, Priti
Penning, Mike
Percy, Andrew
Phillips, Stephen
Pickles, rh Mr Eric
Pincher, Christopher
Poulter, Dr Daniel
Pritchard, Mark
Pugh, John
Raab, Mr Dominic
Randall, rh Mr John
Reckless, Mark
Redwood, rh Mr John
Rees-Mogg, Jacob
Reevell, Simon
Reid, Mr Alan
Rogerson, Dan
Rudd, Amber
Ruffley, Mr David
Russell, Bob
Rutley, David
Sandys, Laura
Selous, Andrew
Shapps, rh Grant
Sharma, Alok
Shelbrooke, Alec
Shepherd, Mr Richard
Simmonds, Mark
Simpson, Mr Keith
Skidmore, Chris
Smith, Miss Chloe
Smith, Julian
Smith, Sir Robert
Soames, Nicholas
Soubry, Anna
Spencer, Mr Mark
Stephenson, Andrew
Stevenson, John
Stewart, Bob
Stewart, Iain
Stewart, Rory
Streeter, Mr Gary
Stride, Mel
Stuart, Mr Graham
Stunell, Andrew
Sturdy, Julian
Swales, Ian
Swayne, Mr Desmond
Swinson, Jo
Syms, Mr Robert
Tapsell, Sir Peter
Teather, Sarah
Thurso, John
Timpson, Mr Edward
Tomlinson, Justin
Truss, Elizabeth
Turner, Mr Andrew
Uppal, Paul
Vara, Mr Shailesh
Vickers, Martin
Villiers, rh Mrs Theresa
Walker, Mr Charles
Walker, Mr Robin
Wallace, Mr Ben
Ward, Mr David
Webb, Steve
Wharton, James
Wheeler, Heather
White, Chris
Whittaker, Craig
Whittingdale, Mr John
Willetts, rh Mr David
Williams, Mr Mark
Williams, Roger
Williams, Stephen
Willott, Jenny
Wilson, Mr Rob
Wollaston, Dr Sarah
Wright, Jeremy
Wright, Simon
Yeo, Mr Tim
Young, rh Sir George
Zahawi, Nadhim
Tellers for the Noes:
Mr Philip Dunne and
Bill Wiggin
Question accordingly negatived.
13 Jun 2011 : Column 579
13 Jun 2011 : Column 580
13 Jun 2011 : Column 581
Amendment proposed: 23, page 3, line 7, after ‘it’, insert
‘excluding any amount in an Individual Savings Account, up to a prescribed maximum of no less than £50,000, where the claimant is in work’.—(Stephen Timms.)
Question put, That the amendment be made.
The House divided:
Ayes 217, Noes 299.
[8.36 pm
AYES
Abrahams, Debbie
Alexander, rh Mr Douglas
Ali, Rushanara
Allen, Mr Graham
Anderson, Mr David
Ashworth, Jon
Austin, Ian
Bailey, Mr Adrian
Bain, Mr William
Balls, rh Ed
Banks, Gordon
Barron, rh Mr Kevin
Bayley, Hugh
Beckett, rh Margaret
Begg, Dame Anne
Benn, rh Hilary
Berger, Luciana
Blackman-Woods, Roberta
Blears, rh Hazel
Blenkinsop, Tom
Blomfield, Paul
Blunkett, rh Mr David
Brennan, Kevin
Brown, Lyn
Brown, rh Mr Nicholas
Brown, Mr Russell
Bryant, Chris
Buck, Ms Karen
Burden, Richard
Burnham, rh Andy
Byrne, rh Mr Liam
Campbell, Mr Alan
Campbell, Mr Ronnie
Caton, Martin
Chapman, Mrs Jenny
Clark, Katy
Clwyd, rh Ann
Coaker, Vernon
Coffey, Ann
Cooper, Rosie
Cooper, rh Yvette
Corbyn, Jeremy
Crausby, Mr David
Creagh, Mary
Creasy, Stella
Cruddas, Jon
Cryer, John
Cunningham, Alex
Cunningham, Mr Jim
Cunningham, Tony
Curran, Margaret
Dakin, Nic
David, Mr Wayne
Davidson, Mr Ian
Davies, Geraint
De Piero, Gloria
Denham, rh Mr John
Dobson, rh Frank
Docherty, Thomas
Dodds, rh Mr Nigel
Donohoe, Mr Brian H.
Doran, Mr Frank
Dowd, Jim
Dromey, Jack
Dugher, Michael
Durkan, Mark
Eagle, Ms Angela
Eagle, Maria
Edwards, Jonathan
Efford, Clive
Ellman, Mrs Louise
Esterson, Bill
Evans, Chris
Farrelly, Paul
Field, rh Mr Frank
Fitzpatrick, Jim
Flello, Robert
Flint, rh Caroline
Fovargue, Yvonne
Francis, Dr Hywel
Gapes, Mike
Gardiner, Barry
Gilmore, Sheila
Glass, Pat
Glindon, Mrs Mary
Godsiff, Mr Roger
Goggins, rh Paul
Greatrex, Tom
Green, Kate
Greenwood, Lilian
Griffith, Nia
Gwynne, Andrew
Hain, rh Mr Peter
Hamilton, Mr David
Hamilton, Fabian
Hanson, rh Mr David
Havard, Mr Dai
Healey, rh John
Hendrick, Mark
Hepburn, Mr Stephen
Hillier, Meg
Hilling, Julie
Hodge, rh Margaret
Hoey, Kate
Hood, Mr Jim
Hosie, Stewart
Hunt, Tristram
Irranca-Davies, Huw
Jackson, Glenda
James, Mrs Siân C.
Jamieson, Cathy
Jarvis, Dan
Johnson, Diana
Jones, Graham
Jones, Helen
Jones, Mr Kevan
Jones, Susan Elan
Jowell, rh Tessa
Kaufman, rh Sir Gerald
Keeley, Barbara
Kendall, Liz
Lammy, rh Mr David
Lavery, Ian
Leslie, Chris
Lloyd, Tony
Llwyd, rh Mr Elfyn
Long, Naomi
Love, Mr Andrew
Lucas, Ian
MacNeil, Mr Angus Brendan
Mactaggart, Fiona
Mahmood, Shabana
Mann, John
Marsden, Mr Gordon
McCabe, Steve
McCann, Mr Michael
McCarthy, Kerry
McCrea, Dr William
McDonagh, Siobhain
McDonnell, John
McFadden, rh Mr Pat
McGovern, Alison
McGovern, Jim
McGuire, rh Mrs Anne
McKinnell, Catherine
Mearns, Ian
Michael, rh Alun
Miliband, rh David
Miller, Andrew
Mitchell, Austin
Moon, Mrs Madeleine
Morden, Jessica
Morrice, Graeme
(Livingston)
Morris, Grahame M.
(Easington)
Mudie, Mr George
Munn, Meg
Murphy, rh Mr Jim
Nandy, Lisa
O'Donnell, Fiona
Onwurah, Chi
Osborne, Sandra
Owen, Albert
Pearce, Teresa
Perkins, Toby
Phillipson, Bridget
Pound, Stephen
Qureshi, Yasmin
Raynsford, rh Mr Nick
Reed, Mr Jamie
Reeves, Rachel
Reynolds, Emma
Riordan, Mrs Linda
Ritchie, Ms Margaret
Robertson, Angus
Robinson, Mr Geoffrey
Rotheram, Steve
Roy, Lindsay
Ruddock, rh Joan
Sarwar, Anas
Seabeck, Alison
Sharma, Mr Virendra
Sheerman, Mr Barry
Shuker, Gavin
Simpson, David
Skinner, Mr Dennis
Slaughter, Mr Andy
Smith, rh Mr Andrew
Smith, Nick
Smith, Owen
Spellar, rh Mr John
Stringer, Graham
Tami, Mark
Thomas, Mr Gareth
Thornberry, Emily
Timms, rh Stephen
Trickett, Jon
Turner, Karl
Twigg, Stephen
Umunna, Mr Chuka
Vaz, rh Keith
Vaz, Valerie
Walley, Joan
Watson, Mr Tom
Whiteford, Dr Eilidh
Whitehead, Dr Alan
Wicks, rh Malcolm
Williams, Hywel
Williamson, Chris
Wilson, Phil
Winnick, Mr David
Winterton, rh Ms Rosie
Wishart, Pete
Wood, Mike
Woodcock, John
Woodward, rh Mr Shaun
Wright, David
Wright, Mr Iain
Tellers for the Ayes:
Gregg McClymont and
Angela Smith
NOES
Adams, Nigel
Afriyie, Adam
Aldous, Peter
Alexander, rh Danny
Amess, Mr David
Andrew, Stuart
Arbuthnot, rh Mr James
Bacon, Mr Richard
Baker, Norman
Baker, Steve
Baldwin, Harriett
Barclay, Stephen
Barker, Gregory
Baron, Mr John
Barwell, Gavin
Bebb, Guto
Beith, rh Sir Alan
Bellingham, Mr Henry
Beresford, Sir Paul
Berry, Jake
Bingham, Andrew
Binley, Mr Brian
Birtwistle, Gordon
Blackwood, Nicola
Blunt, Mr Crispin
Boles, Nick
Bone, Mr Peter
Bottomley, Sir Peter
Bradley, Karen
Brady, Mr Graham
Brake, Tom
Bray, Angie
Brazier, Mr Julian
Bridgen, Andrew
Brine, Mr Steve
Brokenshire, James
Brooke, Annette
Browne, Mr Jeremy
Bruce, Fiona
Bruce, rh Malcolm
Buckland, Mr Robert
Burley, Mr Aidan
Burns, rh Mr Simon
Burrowes, Mr David
Burstow, Paul
Burt, Alistair
Burt, Lorely
Byles, Dan
Cairns, Alun
Campbell, rh Sir Menzies
Carmichael, rh Mr Alistair
Carmichael, Neil
Chishti, Rehman
Chope, Mr Christopher
Clark, rh Greg
Coffey, Dr Thérèse
Collins, Damian
Crabb, Stephen
Crockart, Mike
Crouch, Tracey
Davey, Mr Edward
Davies, David T. C.
(Monmouth)
Davies, Glyn
Davies, Philip
de Bois, Nick
Dinenage, Caroline
Djanogly, Mr Jonathan
Dorrell, rh Mr Stephen
Doyle-Price, Jackie
Drax, Richard
Duddridge, James
Duncan, rh Mr Alan
Duncan Smith, rh Mr Iain
Dunne, Mr Philip
Ellis, Michael
Ellison, Jane
Ellwood, Mr Tobias
Elphicke, Charlie
Eustice, George
Evans, Graham
Evans, Jonathan
Evennett, Mr David
Fabricant, Michael
Fallon, Michael
Foster, rh Mr Don
Francois, rh Mr Mark
Freeman, George
Freer, Mike
Fullbrook, Lorraine
Fuller, Richard
Gale, Mr Roger
Garnier, Mr Edward
Garnier, Mark
Gauke, Mr David
George, Andrew
Gibb, Mr Nick
Gillan, rh Mrs Cheryl
Glen, John
Goldsmith, Zac
Goodwill, Mr Robert
Graham, Richard
Grant, Mrs Helen
Grayling, rh Chris
Green, Damian
Greening, Justine
Griffiths, Andrew
Gummer, Ben
Gyimah, Mr Sam
Hague, rh Mr William
Halfon, Robert
Hames, Duncan
Hammond, rh Mr Philip
Hammond, Stephen
Hancock, Matthew
Hancock, Mr Mike
Hands, Greg
Harper, Mr Mark
Harrington, Richard
Harris, Rebecca
Hart, Simon
Harvey, Nick
Haselhurst, rh Sir Alan
Hayes, Mr John
Heald, Oliver
Heath, Mr David
Heaton-Harris, Chris
Hemming, John
Henderson, Gordon
Hendry, Charles
Herbert, rh Nick
Hoban, Mr Mark
Hollobone, Mr Philip
Horwood, Martin
Howarth, Mr Gerald
Howell, John
Hughes, rh Simon
Huhne, rh Chris
Hunt, rh Mr Jeremy
Huppert, Dr Julian
Hurd, Mr Nick
Jackson, Mr Stewart
James, Margot
Javid, Sajid
Jenkin, Mr Bernard
Johnson, Gareth
Johnson, Joseph
Jones, Andrew
Jones, Mr David
Jones, Mr Marcus
Kawczynski, Daniel
Kelly, Chris
Kirby, Simon
Knight, rh Mr Greg
Kwarteng, Kwasi
Laing, Mrs Eleanor
Lamb, Norman
Lancaster, Mark
Lansley, rh Mr Andrew
Latham, Pauline
Leadsom, Andrea
Lee, Jessica
Lee, Dr Phillip
Leech, Mr John
Lefroy, Jeremy
Leigh, Mr Edward
Leslie, Charlotte
Letwin, rh Mr Oliver
Lewis, Brandon
Lewis, Dr Julian
Liddell-Grainger, Mr Ian
Lidington, rh Mr David
Lilley, rh Mr Peter
Lloyd, Stephen
Lopresti, Jack
Lord, Jonathan
Loughton, Tim
Luff, Peter
Lumley, Karen
Macleod, Mary
Main, Mrs Anne
Maude, rh Mr Francis
May, rh Mrs Theresa
Maynard, Paul
McCartney, Jason
McIntosh, Miss Anne
McLoughlin, rh Mr Patrick
McPartland, Stephen
McVey, Esther
Mensch, Mrs Louise
Menzies, Mark
Mercer, Patrick
Metcalfe, Stephen
Miller, Maria
Mills, Nigel
Milton, Anne
Moore, rh Michael
Mordaunt, Penny
Morgan, Nicky
Morris, Anne Marie
Morris, David
Morris, James
Mosley, Stephen
Mowat, David
Mundell, rh David
Munt, Tessa
Murray, Sheryll
Murrison, Dr Andrew
Newmark, Mr Brooks
Newton, Sarah
Nokes, Caroline
Norman, Jesse
Nuttall, Mr David
Offord, Mr Matthew
Ollerenshaw, Eric
Parish, Neil
Patel, Priti
Paterson, rh Mr Owen
Penning, Mike
Percy, Andrew
Phillips, Stephen
Pickles, rh Mr Eric
Pincher, Christopher
Poulter, Dr Daniel
Pritchard, Mark
Pugh, John
Raab, Mr Dominic
Randall, rh Mr John
Reckless, Mark
Redwood, rh Mr John
Rees-Mogg, Jacob
Reevell, Simon
Reid, Mr Alan
Rogerson, Dan
Rudd, Amber
Ruffley, Mr David
Russell, Bob
Rutley, David
Sanders, Mr Adrian
Sandys, Laura
Selous, Andrew
Shapps, rh Grant
Sharma, Alok
Shelbrooke, Alec
Shepherd, Mr Richard
Simmonds, Mark
Simpson, Mr Keith
Skidmore, Chris
Smith, Miss Chloe
Smith, Julian
Smith, Sir Robert
Soames, Nicholas
Soubry, Anna
Spencer, Mr Mark
Stephenson, Andrew
Stevenson, John
Stewart, Bob
Stewart, Iain
Stewart, Rory
Streeter, Mr Gary
Stride, Mel
Stuart, Mr Graham
Stunell, Andrew
Sturdy, Julian
Swales, Ian
Swayne, Mr Desmond
Swinson, Jo
Syms, Mr Robert
Tapsell, Sir Peter
Teather, Sarah
Thurso, John
Timpson, Mr Edward
Tomlinson, Justin
Truss, Elizabeth
Turner, Mr Andrew
Uppal, Paul
Vara, Mr Shailesh
Vickers, Martin
Villiers, rh Mrs Theresa
Walker, Mr Charles
Walker, Mr Robin
Ward, Mr David
Watkinson, Angela
Webb, Steve
Wharton, James
Wheeler, Heather
White, Chris
Whittaker, Craig
Whittingdale, Mr John
Willetts, rh Mr David
Williams, Mr Mark
Williams, Roger
Williams, Stephen
Willott, Jenny
Wilson, Mr Rob
Wollaston, Dr Sarah
Wright, Simon
Yeo, Mr Tim
Young, rh Sir George
Zahawi, Nadhim
Tellers for the Noes:
Bill Wiggin and
Mark Hunter
Question accordingly negatived.
13 Jun 2011 : Column 582
13 Jun 2011 : Column 583
13 Jun 2011 : Column 584
13 Jun 2011 : Column 585
Ms Buck: I beg to move amendment 31, page 5, line 29, at end add—
‘(6) Regulations are to provide for the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government to review not less than annually the relationship between housing costs in the private rented sector and the level of the housing component of Universal Credit.
(7) Regulations are to provide that the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions must amend the calculation of housing costs where this is necessary to ensure that at least the 30th percentile
13 Jun 2011 : Column 586
of the list of private rented properties in each locality remains affordable to claimants, in light of the review under subsection (6).’.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle): With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Amendment 32, in clause 68, page 52, line 19, at end add—
‘(4) After subsection (7) insert—
“(7A) In relation to a dwelling of which the landlord is a local housing authority or a registered provider of social housing, regulations under this section shall not permit the AMHB to be less than the actual amount of the liability in a case where a person has provided the relevant authority with such certificates, documents, information or evidence as are sufficient to satisfy the authority that the person is disabled and is living in a property specially adapted or particularly suited to meet the needs of that person.”’.
Amendment 72, page 52, line 19, at end insert—
‘(4) The Secretary of State must lay before Parliament a report on the impact of subsection (3) within 12 months of the coming into force of that subsection.’.
Ms Buck: These amendments draw out two strands from the wide-ranging set of debates that we had in Committee on the treatment of housing costs before and going into the universal credit. In today’s DWP questions, the Secretary of State, who is in his place, told my right hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State that I wanted to spend more on housing benefit whereas the shadow Secretary of State wanted to spend less. I want to put it clearly on the record that nothing could be further from the truth. I do not want housing benefit expenditure to rise and never have done. Nothing would give me more pleasure than seeing lower unemployment, rising incomes and low rents in both the private and social sectors that bring down the total housing benefit bill. I believe that Governments of both persuasions have been in error over the past 30-plus years in letting housing benefit take the strain of rising housing costs, especially given the deregulation of the private rented sector in the late 1980s, rather than investing in affordable housing supply over those three decades in a way that would have helped significantly in bringing down that total cost.
What I do not want to see, and what I fear may arise from the Government’s policy, is a set of arbitrary and ill-thought-out cuts to housing benefit and, indeed, local housing allowance that create homelessness and distress for vulnerable people and cause damage to the 400,000-plus working households in private rented accommodation whose housing support is going to be cut. It is worth noting that the homelessness statistics that the Department for Communities and Local Government produced on its website last week send out a warning message. For the first time in years there has been a significant increase in the number of households declaring themselves as homeless. There was a rise of 23% in the number of people approaching local councils for housing help—26,400 people approached their local authority for help in the first three months of 2011, and 11,350 applicants were accepted as being owed a main homelessness duty in the first quarter to March 2011, which is an increase of 18% on the figure for the same quarter last year and the first rise for seven years.
13 Jun 2011 : Column 587
Sarah Newton: Surely the hon. Lady is going to acknowledge that all this is because of a very important step that this new Government have taken. We are honestly collecting the data on the number of homeless people. It was shameful that under the previous Government the whole system of counting homeless people was so rigged. It is no wonder we have seen this rapid rise, because we now have an honest appraisal of the situation and we can start to tackle the appalling legacy that we have inherited.
Ms Buck: I will be very interested to see the evidence for the hon. Lady’s assertion. Although I know that our two parties have differed in the past on their interpretation of “rough sleeping”—on street homelessness—and that there is a genuine debate to be had about how that is measured, I was not aware, and I stand to be corrected, that there has been a shift in the data set for the measurement of the number of people approaching local authorities as homeless and being accepted as such. Nothing on the DCLG website indicates that, so I dispute her definition and it seems to me that we are facing a genuine problem.
Even more worryingly, rent arrears and mortgage default were to blame for a growing share of the number of people who were approaching local authorities as homeless; although not the main cause, that is a growing cause of those applications. It gives me no satisfaction to see that; I do not want people to be made homeless. As we discussed in Committee, homelessness is one of the greatest traumas that any household can possibly face. The hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton) and other Government Members must face up to the fact that the statistics show a growing trend just as the cuts in housing benefit begin to be flagged up and as people react to the changes in the incoming benefits.
The second set of data to come out in the past week of which we need to be cognisant was a survey released on Friday by the National Landlords Association. It found that 58% of all private residential landlords plan to reduce the number of properties they let to tenants on local housing allowance. Some 80% of landlords expressed concern about the reduction in local housing allowance rates from the average market rents of the bottom 30% and the same number were worried, as I shall discuss in the context of the relevant amendment, about the future local housing allowance increases being linked to the consumer prices index rather than true market rents. The survey also found that 90% of landlords stated they cannot afford to reduce their rents to absorb changes to the local housing allowance as the large majority are faced with mortgage repayments and rising running costs.
The worrying picture is that our discussions are put in context by the cuts in housing benefit that have already been through the House and were opposed by the Opposition, which are feeding through into the concerns of landlords. One point of concern is that when the Government assert that 30% of properties will remain available to tenants on local housing allowance, they ignore the fact that not all the properties in that threshold will be available to tenants because it will not necessarily be the landlords within that cohort who are prepared to let in the first place.
We will have to wait and see, but it is entirely reasonable for alarm bells to ring on the impact on homelessness
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when we look at those two sets of statistics. If we find either that households are in an affordability crisis or that landlords simply pull out of the housing benefit sector, particularly in those areas where the demand for private rented accommodation is greatest—that is, London, the south-east and some of our cities—we will have a severe problem and many the assumptions being made by the Government about savings are unlikely to be realised. Homelessness is an expensive process and places considerable pressure on local government.
Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab): Is there not a third warning bell, also, in the evidence that is being produced almost weekly that the inability of first-time buyers to obtain a reasonable mortgage means that they are forgoing the possibility of ever becoming homeowners and are renting? That is increasing not only in cities but across the country, apparently.
Ms Buck: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Without any question, we are seeing a growth in the private rented sector for all those reasons, including the affordability crisis and the lending pressures in the home ownership sector. That means that the private rented sector, which we all applaud and support—we want a healthy private rented sector—can draw from an increased pool of potential tenants who are not on housing allowance. There will be competition for those properties between tenants who do not require housing allowance and those who do and are on the transitional protection path through the caps and reductions in the 30th percentile on which we have already agreed—I shall turn in a second to the further ratcheting down that is intrinsic to the future use of the consumer prices index rather than a local housing allowance determination—and that pressure will mean that a larger pool of people are frozen out of such accommodation.
9 pm
As we have frequently said, that will not affect every area of the country evenly. There are areas, as we know, where 80% of all private rented accommodation is underpinned by a local housing allowance, but almost all the authorities in that situation are in the north of England, in relatively low-cost areas, in places such as Blackpool. Fine-tuning local housing allowance levels potentially has a market lever effect, as Ministers have argued. Of course, the difference between a local housing allowance and actual rents is relatively small, so the cash saving in such situations is not likely to be great.
However, in areas where the share of the private rented sector that is made up of housing allowance claimants is small—the case in London and the south-east, for example—that market pressure will not have the same impact. In most cases, it is unlikely to have any meaningful impact at all in bringing down rents. That is when a very difficult situation is likely to arise, with the potential for increased homelessness and increased costs.
We discussed all these issues at length in Committee. Amendment 31 would create a statutory requirement for annual reviews to be conducted to assess how far housing support payments are keeping track of rents in the private rented sector in the future, to ensure that adjustment is made accordingly. There is deep concern in the housing sector that uprating future local housing allowance by the CPI will break the link with actual
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rent costs, a long-standing link which has ensured that a reasonable supply of private rented accommodation is available to low-income households. We know that although the cost of rent is included in the CPI, it accounts for only 5.4% of the basket of goods used to measure inflation, and that historically CPI has not increased at the same rate as average rents.
Between 1997-98 and 2007-08, average rents increased by 70%, whereas over the same period the CPI increased by only 20%. The Government’s own impact assessment indicates that the pattern is expected to continue into the future, with CPI expected to rise by around 2% and rental costs by 4%. What that means, and the reason that the housing sector is so concerned about it, is that it is a relatively fast process for large areas of the country to become completely unaffordable to tenants on housing benefit.
Cambridge university research that was commissioned by Shelter takes a longer perspective and is particularly dramatic over a period of 10 or 15 years, but even over the course of the current spending review, it is marked how large parts of London and the south-east in particular, but also Cambridge, Oxford, Manchester and other cities, become unaffordable to people on local housing allowance. Why does that matter? One reason is the proportion of people on local housing allowance who are in work. The Opposition keep stressing that, and I worry that we do not get enough recognition from Ministers of this point. During the recession years, an increasing number of those people turned to the local housing allowance to keep a roof over their head while they were in work and while their wages were frozen or perhaps their hours were cut. The local housing allowance fulfilled its function extremely well as an in-work benefit.
The one thing that we do not want to do, which I am sure the Government do not want to do either, is to create a crisis of affordability when someone hits hard times—if their income dips or is frozen, or even if they have a temporary period of unemployment—that tips them into homelessness, which is expensive and catastrophic, while we push a larger and larger proportion of them further and further away from the labour market.
The disparity is at its most striking between the north and the south, but it can even be within cities such as London and Manchester. The affordability of private rented accommodation can take people so far out that, once they factor in travel costs, they are simply unable to work, particularly given the Government’s belief in the mini-job as the means of bringing people out of unemployment, which we have just heard expressed passionately from their Front Bench. People will be unable to take up mini-jobs of 10 or 12 hours a week because as their homes become increasingly unaffordable, their travel costs will make it impossible to take a job and they will be pushed further from the labour market. Somewhere along the line, we have to find a way of squaring that circle.
We all agree about the importance of the private rented sector in our menu of housing options, but it should be a way of cushioning the impact of unemployment or a drop in wages, and, in parallel, be a means of ensuring that we do not return to the nightmare years of the early 1990s, when the level of homelessness went through the roof. The soaring level of homelessness in those years resulted in the large-scale placement by London local authorities of their homeless households
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from central London to Birmingham, Coventry and Liverpool, an experience from which many of those households did not recover.
Mr Aidan Burley (Cannock Chase) (Con): I am following the hon. Lady’s arguments closely. I represent a Birmingham constituency where the average salary of a working family in the private sector is £22,450 a year. Even under the Government’s reforms, such a family could still claim £26,000 a year in benefits, which is more than they would receive by going out and working in a proper job. Does she accept that there is a problem that people in low-paid jobs who want to work see other people getting more and having a better quality of life by choosing not to work and to live on benefits?
Ms Buck: The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point but is mixing lots of different arguments, if he does not mind my saying so. The whole point of local housing allowance, as I was obviously explaining imperfectly, is that it is an in-work benefit. If a household’s income dips and they are in the private rented sector, they are entitled to the allowance, so we cannot compare an out-of-work household and an in-work household in the way he is trying to do. It is intended as a cushion for that household. Similarly—I know that you, Mr Deputy Speaker, would not wish me to be diverted—the overall benefit cap needs to be considered, among other things, in terms of an equivalent household size, and we will no doubt return to that debate because it is much less clear whether the Government’s core argument holds any water at all.
The argument about whether the maximum percentile that a household can claim in the private rented sector should be 50% or 30% of the local market has been and gone, so let us not return to it. All the amendment is arguing is that we must have a statutory mechanism for review to make absolutely sure that, as the CPI uprating bites further into the private rented sector, which it will, 30% of all private rented accommodation in a broad market rental area remains available. That is the Government’s commitment, and without such a mechanism that accommodation simply will not remain available.
We have to be very careful about monitoring that. The rate is to come down from 50% to 30%, but even 30% might not be achieved, because the CPI will further undermine what is available in the sector and landlords will withdraw from it because of the insecurity of the income stream; we are already seeing significant warnings of that. Property will not only be unavailable at 30%, but sometimes it will not be available at all. The projections for 2016 show that in parts of London it will go down to 19% or 16%, and in my borough it could go down to almost nothing—but let us not worry too much about that now. The anxiety is that we must ensure that at least that 30% remains available to people in the private rented sector, because if it does not, when they lose their income or their job they will be cast away from the labour market, from the work they were doing and, on top of that, from the networks of family, friends and connections that the Secretary of State, with great passion—I am absolutely convinced of his sincerity—believes is so important.
We simply cannot argue that we believe in stable communities, in family networks and in connecting people with the workplace if we then take away the very
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mechanisms that make all that possible. The argument has been developed, with convincing statistical underpinning, by academic experts that there is a real danger of that happening unless we have an adequate review mechanism. No proposal for such a mechanism exists at the moment, although there is a willingness to understand that there could be a problem. In Committee, the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Maria Miller) said:
“The Secretary of State will be able to adjust rates to ensure that the housing support available does not become completely out of kilter or out of touch with local rental markets. We will monitor the impact of these measures and make further adjustments if it is right to do so”.––[Official Report, Welfare Reform Public Bill Committee, 3 May 2011; c. 711.]
That willingness to recognise a problem has therefore already been expressed by the Minister.
Also, I think that all three Ministers who are on the Front Bench have told us that the CPI rating will not last for ever, and that the arrangements could be reviewed at the end of the spending review period. However, the wording of the Bill is so wide that CPI or other measures could be used as a basis for setting rents under universal credit, and I think that Ministers are attracted to a permanent shift away from the idea of linking private sector rents to a market-based formula. That would be very dangerous and risky. We want the Government to offer clearer guarantees on how they will prevent an affordability and access crisis, which could in a very short time become even greater than the one that could be created by reducing the maximum percentile for local housing allowance claimants to 30%. We need a statutory assurance that monitoring will take place, and that it will lead to a proper review.
When we discussed child care and other elements of universal credit earlier, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) said that the success of universal credit would rest heavily on child care costs. I hope he does not think that I am disagreeing with him when I say that the treatment of child care and passporting costs will not be the only critical test for millions of people; the treatment of housing costs will be, as well. I am genuinely concerned that an underestimate of the real cost of housing is already feeding through into universal credit, which will lead to a lot of people being disappointed when universal credit fails to deliver on its promises in the way that we want it to.
Amendment 32 deals with under-occupation and adapted properties. The Government are planning to reduce housing benefit payments for 670,000 social housing tenants: one third of all working-age housing benefit claimants living in social housing can expect to see their benefits reduced in 2013. Under the new restricted size criteria, any household deemed to be under-occupying its home by one bedroom would lose 13% of its total housing benefit, while those under-occupying by two or more bedrooms would lose 23% of the total. The average cut across all households would be £676 a year.
We know that only a tiny minority of those affected will be able to downsize to avoid the penalty, due to the shortage of smaller properties and the striking regional imbalance between the level of housing need and under-occupation. That is because of the competing pressures that social landlords are under when it comes to meeting their statutory obligations to house homeless households and other people in priority need. Alarmingly, the Government do not want those affected to move, because
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if they did move, the Government would not be able to meet their savings targets. We have not so much an incentive scheme as a straightforward cut in income for poor households. When we discussed this in Committee, the Minister was unable to give us any assurance on exactly the true purpose of the benefit cut, as explicitly spelled out in the impact assessment.
I want to concentrate for a moment on disability and adapted properties. Of the 670,000 claimants—
9.15 pm
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb): The hon. Lady was present at oral questions this afternoon, when I tried to link the situation of 25 to 34-year-old single people who will be looking for shared accommodation with that of social tenants who have a spare room. Is she interested in the idea of social tenants, be they local authority or housing association, renting out spare rooms, thereby covering a shortfall in housing benefit and helping young single people at the same time?
Ms Buck: That is a reasonable option to allow people to take, but I seriously doubt whether it is an answer to the problem, for a whole host of reasons. In particular, there is a striking imbalance between where the social housing occupation is and where the demand for private rented accommodation is.
Many things worry me about what the Minister has just said, because here we are on Report, months after an impact assessment set out what the proposals are likely to mean, and suddenly an option as to how the Government think that the penalty might be avoided is thrown in. Let us sit down and have a proper impact assessment—a proper review. Let us see, for example, how any income from rental would be treated in the benefits system, because that could become subject to the same rules as non-dependant deduction, which would not leave people better off at all. Before the Minister asks me to regard it as a serious option, let us see exactly how it would be workable as regards the match between demand and supply and how it would be treated for the purposes of tax and other benefits.
Kate Green: Does my hon. Friend accept that there is a likelihood that from time to time, at least, if not constantly, disabled people may need extra space to accommodate overnight care? Therefore, the prospect of a tenant—a stranger, possibly—moving into their home would be completely impractical as well as potentially rather alarming.
Ms Buck: That is absolutely right; my hon. Friend makes a valid point. I am not going to say that just because someone is in a social tenancy they would not be able to have somebody else living in their home. People make that decision in the private sector; morally, it is not a completely absurd thing to do. However, I do not know whether it deals with the problem in any meaningful sense or what all the implications will be.
People with disabilities are, by definition, much more likely to have formal or informal care or to want the capacity to have friends and relatives coming in to provide them with care. Yet we know from the Government’s impact assessment that 66% of all those affected by the cut in benefit in the social housing sector are categorised
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as disabled—not all severely disabled; I understand that—and that between 101,000 and 108,000 of those properties, depending on which definition one accepts, are specifically adapted for their needs. In Committee, the Minister made some reassuring noises about the problem. She told us that the Government were prepared to
“look in detail at how we can ensure that there are exemptions for individuals who are disabled, where their homes may have been subject to extensive adaptations to accommodate that."
However, earlier in the debate she had told us:
“Providing an exemption for all adapted accommodation would not be the right approach”
and that exemptions should be applied only where making a fresh adaptation would cost more than
“allowing someone to stay where they are.”––[Official Report, Welfare Reform Public Bill Committee, 3 May 2011; c. 685-716.]
That prompts several important questions about the sheer level of bureaucracy that will be necessary to send somebody into every single one of those 108,000 adapted properties to carry out an official survey to establish the extent of those adaptations and come up with a cost-benefit analysis to see whether a move to alternative property will produce a cost benefit, and if it does not to assess the margin of error. If an adaptation would cost £10,000, but it was deemed that the cost saving would be £9,500, would the person with the disability be expected to move from their flat? Would the difference be £1 or £20? This is one of those counter-arguments that sounds seductively simple until one starts picking away at it and finds that it does not sound very good at all.
Dame Anne Begg: Does my hon. Friend agree that the problem is not just the cost, but the upheaval and the incredible time it takes to adapt a house? I know about this because I have done it three times myself. It takes at least six months, and all that time, the person might not be able to get into their own home.
Ms Buck: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I have been drawn into arguing with the Government on their own terms, which is a clinical, cash-led way of debating such things: if it will cost £5, someone may have to lose their home; that is the only measure. However, my hon. Friend is right, and we expressed such anxieties about the whole under-occupation policy in Committee. We could be talking about somebody in an adapted property, somebody who has been in their family home for 30 years, or somebody who has been in their home for 30 years but has recently been widowed or lost a child and is suddenly deemed to be under-occupying.
Glenda Jackson: Is there not another bureaucratic hurdle for people who are in adapted homes or, as is often the case in my constituency, elderly people who have lived in a place for a long period whose families have moved? Both categories could be defined as vulnerable. I am not saying that all young people in this country are necessarily hell-raisers, but would there not be a justifiable cause for an additional tenant to go through a Criminal Records Bureau check?
Ms Buck:
I am not going to be drawn into debating the advantages and disadvantages of an argument that has just been thrown into the air by the Minister. In
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some circumstances, the idea may work. Some individuals of working age will actively want to downsize and will say, “We are in a three-bedroom property and it is too big for us. We have been waiting for years to get into a one-bedroom property.” In the real world, we all deal as constituency MPs with people with a huge number of different needs. There are people in all different circumstances, and these different options will work for some people.
The point, surely, in discussing this amendment is that there are 101,000 to 108,000 households in properties that are specifically adapted for their needs who, despite the slightly more sympathetic noises coming from the Minister, in just over 18 months will lose up to 23% of their housing benefit. I am not sure that the vague and general ideas being thrown out by the ministerial team are doing anything to help us deal with that reality.
Sarah Newton: Does the hon. Lady agree that what we are talking about is treating people like people? All people have their individual circumstances and the decision makers are best placed to use their discretion to tackle these issues. Within housing benefit, there is discretionary funding so that people can be treated like humans. Finally, to reassure the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Glenda Jackson), pensioners are of course excluded from the concerns that she raised.
Ms Buck: Pensioners are excluded. As I have argued, the attempt to move people of working age in order to avoid the disability penalty is likely to stop registered social landlords from moving pensioners who want to downsize voluntarily, because there simply is not enough flexibility in the social rented sector to allow that to happen. The hon. Lady is making my point for me: there is no discretion. The 670,000 social housing tenants who will be subject to the housing benefit cut, and the 101,000 to 108,000 people in specifically adapted properties, will be subject to a benefit cap. There will not be any discretion. All that the Government can say, apart from mentioning the possibility of people taking in a lodger or moving to an alternative property in a few cases, is that the discretionary housing payment will sort it all out.
Dame Anne Begg: Grampian Housing Association, one of the social landlords in my area, has written to me and said:
“If this goes ahead it will increase demand for property sizes that we simply cannot supply and lead to a great deal of stress for the families involved.”
It knows its housing stock, and it knows that it does not have houses of the size required.
Ms Buck: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We know from all the evidence that has been given to us by the experts who are running housing associations that they do not have flexibility in their stock. The one and two-bedroom properties that are needed for people downsizing from three and four-bedroom houses are not available. They simply do not exist. There is not a supply that will enable anything other than a tiny minority of people to avoid this punitive benefit cap, because people will not be able to move. The property is not there for them to move to.
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Nor is the property there for people who need adapted properties. I think it was my hon. Friend who made the point that when the cost-benefit analysis tips in favour of someone being required to move because of the value of their adaptations, they then have to make adaptations to another property. I had someone in my surgery last week who had an occupational therapist from Westminster council visit them in November about adapting their property, and they had not heard another word. That person, a wheelchair user who is unable to use their own bathroom, has been waiting eight months for the process of adaptations to be even started. We can multiply that situation by 108,000.
Sheila Gilmore: Has my hon. Friend noticed yet another anomaly that will arise? If somebody moves from an adapted home to another home that then has to be adapted, what guarantee is there that the first house will get a tenant who needs the adaptations that have already been done? There is therefore a waste of resources, not the best possible use of property that housing associations and councils attempt to achieve.
Ms Buck: There is the remotest chance of the property that such a person is leaving being occupied by someone who requires the same level of adaptation. It is like playing three-dimensional chess—it will be almost impossible to fit all the people into the properties that exist. At the moment there is supposed to be a flood of people who will leave under-occupied properties in the north-west of England and swap with people in London and the south-east. Then when all the individuals who need adapted properties are considered, it becomes a literal impossibility to ensure that properties match people’s needs properly.
Sarah Newton: The hon. Lady is being very generous in giving way to me.
I imagine that there are a great number of vulnerable people who are sitting at home listening to this debate, or who will read Hansard. For the sake of clarity, I think it is incredibly important to go back to something that was said earlier and remind the whole House that people who are disabled are not subject to the benefits cap.
Ms Buck: To be absolutely clear to the hon. Lady, I am not talking about the overall benefit cap. [Interruption.] No, it is a benefit cap. It is a benefit cut.
Steve Webb: You are confusing people.
Ms Buck: I am not confusing anybody. It is a cut in housing benefit of up to 23% for 670,000 households, of which, according to the Government’s own impact assessment, 400,000 include a disabled person and 108,000 are in adapted properties. Most of those people will have no means of avoiding the cut in their housing benefit, because there is nowhere for them to go. Even if there were, the Government do not want some of them to go there, because then they would not meet their own savings targets.
Jenny Willott:
The hon. Lady said that she thought that there was no earthly chance of somebody with a similar level of disability needing a property that had become available. I am sure that, like me, she must have an awful lot of people coming to her constituency
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surgery who have disabilities and have been waiting a very long time for adapted homes.
[Interruption.]
Disregarding the rest of the debate, and the Labour Members who are hollering at me, the chances are that there will be somebody who wants those properties. That is not a reason to go ahead with moving people, but it is not true to say that there will not be people waiting who need those properties.
9.30 pm
Ms Buck: The point that the hon. Lady misses is this: when people come to my advice surgery and say that they need an adapted property, they do not mean that they need one in Merseyside. That is the fundamental problem. Not only is there a regional imbalance in the supply of accommodation, but each individual has individual needs. If they do not, why does my local authority employ Dependability Ltd to send occupational therapists to assess individual needs? I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg) would support me on this, but every individual with a disability is likely to have personalised requirements. That is my central argument. Not everybody has wheelchair access adaptations or larger bathrooms or lower counters. Adaptations are highly tailored to the individual’s circumstances, as they should be.
In some cases, the Government’s proposals will work like a dream. Nobody is arguing that in no instance will a perfect match be found and people will be satisfied. My central point is that that will involve a minority of the 108,000 who will be affected. I cannot see—housing associations support my analysis—how the result could be anything different. The measure is likely to result in a phenomenal waste of money on adapted properties and/or to trap people with disabilities who are by definition on low and fixed incomes with a cut in their living standards, which is exactly what the Government told us they wish to avoid.
Last year, the Secretary of State claimed that disabled people had “nothing to fear” from his welfare plans, adding:
“It is a proud duty to provide financial security to the most vulnerable members of our society and this will not change.”
If disabled people are in an adapted property with an extra bedroom, they have every reason, as things stand, to worry.
To return to the intervention from the hon. Member for Cardiff Central (Jenny Willott), the discretionary housing payment, which the Government repeatedly say is a panacea, is the philosopher’s stone, as I described in Committee. Somehow, the £40 million a year fund will stretch to cover overall cuts in housing benefit of £1.5 billion. There is no earthly way in which it can stretch sufficiently to cover the protection of vulnerable younger people who are affected by the single-room cuts, of people in accommodation that has been adapted for disabled use, and of all those whom we want to keep in their homes because we want them to keep their jobs when their property becomes unaffordable owing to overall housing benefit cuts and the downrating from CPI.
Glenda Jackson:
As my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) mutters from a sedentary position, the scheme is not voluntary. That
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is surely the antithesis of what Government Members have argued—they say that their plans treat everybody as individuals. The scheme is an imposition.
Ms Buck: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The scheme is not voluntary. Voluntary downsizing has a proud history. Good local authorities and housing associations provide voluntary downsizing, which is sensible. The Government’s measure requires 108,000 households whose properties have been adapted for disabled purposes to take, within the next 18 months, a significant cut in their housing benefit, or to move, regardless of the value of that adaptation. The Minister implies a mammoth bureaucratic exercise to evaluate every one of those adaptations, and to establish individual cost-benefit analyses in every case, in the hope, which I suspect will be a forlorn one, that an appropriate property will be available for people to move into when they fall foul of such analyses. That appropriate property does not have to be within the local authority area or even the region where those people have family, friends, support and, in some cases, employment.
Those two concerns, of the many that the Opposition have on housing costs, are the subject of the amendments that we have tabled. I hope that the Minister, who has made sympathetic noises on both issues in Committee, goes a little further tonight, and gives us solid and binding reassurances that there is a way of resolving the benefit trap that will catch so many people, in order, as Ministers have frequently stated in the media, to deal with a very small number of high-value claimants who dominate the media agenda. It is not fair to capture 108,000 disabled people and 750,000 claimants of local housing allowance, all of whom will be affected by the housing benefit cuts, in order to deal with a small number of extreme cases, on which we could otherwise have had a sensible debate about attempting to resolve.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Maria Miller): I thank the hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck)for taking the time to talk to us about her amendments today. When I heard some of the reports on the radio this morning I thought that today would be a big day, when we would really be able to understand the Opposition’s approach to welfare reform—but on the basis both of Question Time and of the debates on the Bill, many of us feel that there is a lot more work to be done.
Today was an important opportunity for Opposition Front Benchers to set out their amendments and how they would change the Bill, to show how they would deal with housing benefit. I have listened hard, but there is still no clarity. In fact, what we have heard is more and more contradictions from the hon. Lady. In her opening remarks she said that she did not want the housing benefit bill to rise, and she did not agree with housing benefit taking the strain. However, the amendments run completely contrary to those objectives. Amendment 31 would significantly erode the savings that the Government propose, and amendment 32 would draw the exemption so wide that it would be far broader than anything recommended by the specialist organisations. That is a concern.
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Nor are we any wiser as a result of the Opposition Leader’s speech today, which did more to create further confusion in this area. He talked about supporting people into housing as a result of their volunteering or working. That may sound familiar, but if the Opposition seek to link volunteering and work with housing, we hope that they do not intend to undermine eligibility for lone parents when it comes to their housing needs. It is difficult to comprehend how the hon. Lady will achieve her objectives with her amendments.
Sheila Gilmore: I am fascinated by the Minister’s suggestion that people who volunteer cannot be lone parents, as she has just contrasted one group with the other.
In relation to housing, it could be suggested that amendment 31 would not achieve the results that the Government want. Having made one change—reducing the local housing allowance to the 30th percentile—are the Government really suggesting that they would be happy to see it move far beneath that if a gap appeared between that percentile and rent, if uprating were only in line with the CPI? Rents were previously uprated according to the movement of the market.
Maria Miller: If the hon. Lady recalls our debates in Committee, she will know that I have already made this very clear. The Government will keep such matters under review. Of course we want to ensure that things work as they should. What is important to me is that the Opposition have not set out in these amendments the principles that they would follow in this area. Do they want to continue to see spiralling rents in the private rented sector? Would they leave that unchecked? Do they want to see people on housing benefit being able to afford rents that those in work could never afford? Are the Opposition content to leave 250,000 social housing sector tenants in overcrowded accommodation when we have 1 million spare rooms paid for by housing benefit? The Opposition have failed to address those issues in their amendments today. In fact, they have gone further—
Sheila Gilmore: Will the hon. Lady give way?
Maria Miller: Will the hon. Lady forgive me for making a little progress? Many other hon. Members want to come in on this debate, and I want to set out my response to the amendments before we run out of time.
Before I turn to the specific amendments, I want to pick up on what the hon. Member for Westminster North said about rising homelessness. I am sure that she believed in the effectiveness of the previous Government, but she cannot expect the sort of impacts on homelessness that she implied after just one month of a policy being in place. I do not accept that the policies we are advocating will have the impacts on homelessness that she talked about. She has to get real: these policies have only been in place since April, and could not be driving the sorts of changes that she mentioned by this stage.