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Baroness Hayman: My Lords, I shall not detain the Minister for very long because I suspect that she may have a more glamorous engagement elsewhere. However, I should like to say a few words of welcome for the measure and to endorse the support that was given to it in another place by my honourable friend, Mr. Mark Fisher.
Although limited, this is an extremely important measure which recognises the valuable work of a small group of practitioners both within and outside the National Health Service. The Arts Therapists Board will be extremely important, not only in terms of recognising, promoting and monitoring the role of those already working in this area in music, drama or art therapy, but also, I hope, in promoting in a broader sphere the role of art within healing. In the past many of us who have worked within the health service have not sufficiently appreciated the effect of art on patients and their healthcare. Art is important whether it is in the form of design, artwork or music and it can play an important and beneficial role in healthcare establishments.
I emphasise my support for the work of art therapists--and not only in health service institutions--because one of my most moving experiences as the chairman of a hospital trust was the day when various women prisoners from Holloway donated to the hospital the works of art that they had chosen to produce to thank the hospital for the care it had given them. Under the auspices of the education department in Holloway, they had produced some wonderful work. It was extremely encouraging to hear those women talk about the importance of being able to do something creative and put something back into society. That made one feel that there were some ways in which prison could be made a positive experience.
I hope very much that the board will act not only to ensure high professional standards among art therapists, but also to research and to promote a wider understanding among the public of the healing qualities that art can have.
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for her support for the measure which I am sure will be widely welcomed among art therapists. The order will also do a great deal to protect the public. I endorse the views expressed by the noble Baroness about the role of the arts in hospital and in healing. We know that healing is a science, but I think that it is also an art. I commend the order.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Jobseeker's Allowance Pilot Schemes
7.13 p.m.
Earl Russell rose to move to resolve, That the Jobseeker's Allowance (Project Work Pilot Scheme)
Regulations 1997 and Jobseeker's Allowance (Project Work Pilot Scheme) (No. 2) Regulations 1997 be not proceeded with and that this House requests Her Majesty's Government to lay amended regulations omitting the words "could cease to be payable or" in regulation 4(2).
The noble Earl said: My Lords, I had understood that the Minister was to open the debate generally before me. If the noble Lord wishes to do so, I am happy to give way to him.
Lord Henley: My Lords, my understanding was that, since this is the noble Earl's Motion, he will speak to it first and I shall speak at the end. In speaking at the end, I shall speak to all my regulations to save the time that would otherwise be taken by having two separate debates, first, on the noble Earl's Motion and, secondly, on the regulations. Obviously, it is open to either the noble Earl or the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, to speak to all five of the different regulations separately after we have dealt with this Motion.
Earl Russell: My Lords, I thank the Minister--
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, are we sure that that is the correct procedure?
Lord Henley: My Lords, the Motion is in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Russell. He will speak to that. He will be followed by the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy. I shall then speak and then the noble Earl, Lord Russell, will speak again. Thereafter, we can deal with the regulations en bloc or as Nos. 1 to 5 separately. I had hoped that I had explained earlier to the noble Earl that I had intended, in replying to this debate, to speak also to the five regulations because that might speed up our processes--that is, as long as all noble Lords are content. I give way to the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy.
Lord McCarthy: My Lords, the critical thing is whether one makes one speech or two. If the noble Lord is suggesting that when the noble Earl, Lord Russell, speaks to his Motion, he speaks also to the regulations, he will make one speech, so will I and so will the Minister. The three of us will make three speeches. I should have thought that that was the best way; otherwise we shall have to make six speeches.
Lord Henley: My Lords, that is correct except that the noble Earl, Lord Russell, will make two speeches--he will speak at the beginning and at the end--while the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, and myself will each make one speech. That is a total of four if my calculations are right and I think that the House would probably be happier with that arrangement.
Earl Russell: My Lords, I really must apologise to the Minister for misunderstanding our brief, hurried but helpful conversation this afternoon. I think that that shows that "belt and braces" is on occasion a dangerous policy. However, I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord for trying.
Before developing further the specific theme of my Motion, I should like to touch on one or two general points arising from the working of JSA which are relevant to my argument because they tend to show the possibility of error. A fair amount of trouble is still going on about the "joins" between the Employment Service and the Department of Social Security systems. I refer, for example, to a case in Hertfordshire which I have already mentioned to the noble Lord, Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish, although it may be news to my noble kinsman Lord Henley. The case involves someone who received two letters on the same day, one telling him that he had been awarded the Jobseeker's Allowance and the other disallowing his claim to JSA for,
- "the reasons we have told you about in another letter",
We have a considerable amount of trouble with voluntary unemployment and people not asking for a claim form. The department does not ask anybody to explain their reasons for leaving and then imposes the voluntary unemployment penalty because claimants' employers were not willing to give a reason as to why they had left. There are a good many such errors, many leading to disentitlement where that should not, in justice, have taken place.
We have some trouble arising from the changed programme. One Benefits Agency office sent a client to a citizens advice bureau to get the form filled in on the grounds that the Benefits Agency was too busy. That was confirmed on investigation. It suggests that perhaps the basis of the changed programme needs a little watching.
All of those things have led to errors. Most of the errors have led to people being without benefit. That makes one wonder whether, in a system which is so capable of error, such a degree of disentitlement to benefit is prudent.
The specific point of my Motion concerns the regulations for the pilot schemes for Project Work, the workfare scheme, and seeks to ask the Government to bring forward amended regulations, omitting the words,
- "could cease to be payable or".
The effect of that would be to make it impossible under the regulations to disentitle people totally to benefit. That is put forward as a general point of principle, the relevance of which extends far beyond the scope of these regulations. I make that general point of principle, which will not surprise either the noble Lord, Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish, or my noble kinsman, because it is important to indicate a continuing lack of consent on this point.
I can most briefly put my first reason for objecting to total disentitlement to benefit in the words of St. Paul, who said that we may not do evil that good may come. This is something which should be the subject of a taboo, just as there should be a taboo on failing to stop to pick up survivors at sea or failing to help somebody who is found bleeding after an accident. Perhaps I may take another example. A person I know quite well once slipped on the platform at Waterloo and fell, becoming
wedged between the train and the platform. She was naturally a little alarmed because the train was just about to depart--and all the passers-by walked on down the platform and did absolutely nothing to help her. I think that is a sign of a sick society. Disentitlement to benefit is the sign of a sick society in very much the same way.It has of course been tried in other places. There was a report last Tuesday of the effects of disentitlement to benefit in Wisconsin under the Clinton welfare reforms. It has produced a 30 per cent. increase since Christmas in homelessness. That cannot be done without cost. One of the people running a shelter said, "It is poverty that makes people homeless, and welfare reform is making more people poor, and driving the poor deeper into poverty. Then they show up on our doorstep".
As recently as yesterday, it was reported in the Independent that the BMA is complaining about GPs being asked to fill in a form about people disentitled to benefit to say whether they are a suicide risk. That interested me, because it is the first sign I have seen that the Government appreciate the potential gravity of what they are engaged in doing. In that situation, if my GP were to certify that I was not a suicide risk, I would be tempted to sue him for libel, because I would believe that he was certifying that I was capable of earning my living by criminal activity, which is the obvious alternative.
The effect of withdrawing from people the protection of the safety net is very much like the effect in times past of making them outlaws. It is withdrawing the protection of the state from them. Of course whatever the moral position may be--I am not touching on that--if one withdraws that protection from people, one gets the reaction that it weakens the impulse to keep the law. That is inevitably so.
The other trouble of course about doing evil that good may come, is that the good usually does not come. If you look, for example, at the Nottingham Young People's Benefit Campaign you find large numbers of people who did, in fact, however wrongly, take to crime because they were denied benefit. I shall not develop that theme. Noble Lords know perfectly well how I should develop it. Noble Lords might also notice the extreme prominence and frequency of mental illness discovered in the Shelter report Go Home and Rest, among people homeless on the street. All those are not cost-free things. So even in strictest Treasury terms we might wonder whether any saving results. It is of course impossible to check that--I have tried many times--because there are Chinese walls within government statistics. One cannot discover how many people admitted to hospital were destitute of benefit; one cannot discover how many people sent to prison were destitute of benefit. So one cannot make any quantitative study to show the extent of it. Before there is any more disentitlement to benefit such as is brought in under these regulations, that should be put right. Until it is, I do not see how the DSS can claim to be monitoring what it is doing.
There is also of course the possibility of instituting a real petty tyranny by sending decisions of this sort of import to people's lives down to a very low level
indeed, and, indeed, sometimes, in effect, by delegation, outside government circles altogether. Let us take, for example, a case reported from a CAB in Yorkshire: someone dismissed from his job after five weeks, he alleged, for making a joke in the presence of a supervisor. As we have seen in Welwyn and Hatfield, some jokes are funnier than others, but even there dismissal has not been held to be the appropriate penalty. That man was without any form of support except what he received from the Salvation Army for two weeks, and disentitled to regular benefit for 26 weeks. It must have been a very bad joke.Again, let us take this, reported from a CAB in the North West: someone disqualified from JSA, left without anything at all, even severe hardship payments for two weeks. The CAB commented:
- "He is therefore expected to starve in a dark, unheated flat for two weeks. We wonder how this will help him to get a job and get off benefits".
Perhaps I may ask the Minister to answer the CAB's question. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Jobseeker's Allowance (Project Work Pilot Scheme) Regulations 1997 and Jobseeker's Allowance (Project Work Pilot Scheme) (No. 2) Regulations 1997 be not proceeded with and that this House requests Her Majesty's Government to lay amended regulations omitting the words "could cease to be payable or" in regulation 4(2).--(Earl Russell.)
7.25 p.m.
Lord McCarthy: My Lords, I want to do two things this evening: I want to define our attitude towards the Motion and, secondly, to ask a number of questions about the regulations. I agreed with almost all the noble Earl said, subject to two clarifications which I must make. First, it is not our policy to divide the House on regulations. It is our policy to maintain that the Government of the day should have their way on regulations, and we hope very soon to benefit from that rule, so I would not take my agreement with him to a point where I would suggest we should divide the House.
Secondly, I feel that there must be a point at which the refusal to co-operate--I am not sure that the noble Earl would disagree with this--with fair and reasonable demands from an employment officer should result in some loss of entitlements. The question is whether that is happening after a fair and reasonable set of alternatives, and whether the sanctions, when they are applied, are themselves fair and reasonable.
We should see the Motion in the context of what has been happening with regulations and the benefits service since the introduction of the stricter benefit regime, because what is happening, and what is embodied in the regulations, is merely a development of the policy of the stricter benefit regime: ever stricter conditions to qualify for the benefit, and therefore much more likely, and much easier, to disqualify for the benefit. Also of course there is a constant use of Restart courses, job clubs, job
plan workshops, jobsearch seminars, and so on, and so on, which are offered on a compulsory basis to the long-term unemployed, although of course we have no evidence that that stricter benefit regime has produced any benefit in terms of positive outcomes. Positive outcomes from the new regime are still trifling.Then of course there are re-orientation programmes, upon which we have some more regulations tonight, and project work, workskills, contract for work, and so on. Again, there is no evidence, despite the increase in the sanctions and the increase in the compulsory work, that they have had any positive outcome whatever for the people going through these programmes; 95 per cent. of them still go back on to the unemployment register. Here we have two more courses advanced today in pilot form: the project work pilot and the contract work pilot, about which I shall say something.
The Government will say--they are entitled to say--that there is nothing new in such schemes. They are right. There are many other schemes. Indeed, I want to know why we have so many schemes. I want to talk about three of the regulations, because we have five regulations. It seems to me that two of the regulations are relatively innocent. There is the regulation which says merely that those on workskill courses should be exempt from the AST test when they are on the course. Well, even the Government could see that that is necessary. That is innocent enough. I read it carefully and I can see nothing wrong with it. Therefore, I have nothing further to say about that regulation.
The other regulation, which is logical if a trifle mean, provides that from the very beginning the AST applies from the start of the JSA. I doubt whether anybody would have known that it did not start at the beginning. That appears to be logical and not particularly important.
Tonight I do not want to talk about those two regulations, but I wish to ask a number of questions about the two regulations which affect the pilot work scheme and the regulation which affects the contract for work. I have four questions that I wish to ask the Minister. First, what exactly is the difference? What will be done by the unemployed workers who go on these schemes?
In the regulations the Government give a definition of what they mean. It is good to have that; it is the first time that we have had such a definition. For example, the project work scheme regulations inform us that project work means:
- "work experience and jobsearch help lasting for ... 13 weeks".
That is not very different from the meaning of contract work, the definition of which is:
- "work experience, vocational training and jobsearch help and training".
Vocational training is added, but there is still work experience, and that lasts for 26 weeks. What precisely is the difference? The workskills course, a regulation that I do not wish to debate, is employment-related and is a programme of learning lasting more than 12 months.
Reading the definitions of the courses, they appear to be very much the same, except that they last for
different periods. That is not the only confusion. The Government have had other schemes such as training for work, learning for work, community action and work trial which have similar definitions. Why do we have all these different schemes? What is the point, when 95 per cent. of the participants go straight back to the dole?I turn to my second question. All these schemes are to be made compulsory, but we have one well-established scheme which has been voluntary--community action. It takes 40,000 people off the dole for a mere £70 million. Why are we getting rid of community action, which is a voluntary scheme? What is wrong with community action that it has to be phased out as these compulsory schemes are introduced? Is community action cheaper or more expensive? Is it a better scheme or a worse scheme? Why is it being phased out when it covers 40,000 people? I suppose that these tiny pilot schemes are being put in its place.
My third question deals with the contract for work scheme. I suspect that it is one of the Government's favourites because it introduces the private-sector element. The definition of a contract for work scheme is:
- "Work experience, vocational training and jobsearch help and training".
It lasts for 26 weeks, but I understand that it will be split in two. Two of the pilots are to be privatised but the other two will be undertaken by the Employment Service. Why is it being done like that? Is it that the private sector is being watched by the public sector? Is it that the private sector is thought to be cheaper or more expensive? Do the Government have any idea what the costs of the two schemes will be?
I understand from the statement made by the Chancellor in his latest Budget that the private-sector scheme will be run by consultants--nowadays virtually everything is run by consultants--who will receive a commission. Can we be told the size of the commission? Can we be told what they will have to do for the commission? Can we be told that if they succeed they will be able to take over all the schemes? I shall be interested to have any information that the Minister has about the private-sector element in the contract for work scheme.
I turn to my final question. It is not really a question; I am trying to get clarity from the Minister. It is a conceptual question. As I see it, the Government have two ways of approaching the problem of what to do with the unemployed--workfare and searchfare. The question is whether you can combine the two. Workfare means that if you are on benefit you must be working for the benefit. We are not having people taking benefit and doing no work. If you do more work while you are taking the benefit, you get the benefit plus--it may be another £10 or so. Searchfare means that all the time you are on benefit you must be actively seeking work. We see a mixture of those two elements in the pilot programmes. What is the balance? Even the Government can see that you cannot be working all the time and searching all the time. There must be some
kind of trade-off; otherwise for the unemployed there will be no work and no rest. Even the Government cannot believe that.7.35 p.m.
Lord Henley: My Lords, I wish to speak to the five sets of regulations standing in my name on the Order Paper and then to the Motion in the name of my noble kinsman Lord Russell. Following whatever decision the House may take--I am sure that it will take a wise decision and reject my noble kinsman's Motion--I shall formally move all five Motions.
As the House will be aware, these matters were debated in another place on 26th February in Committee. I believe that only one Member of the Opposition party deigned to attend, whereas my party was considerably better represented even than it is on this occasion. Certainly on this occasion it is better represented than the noble Lord's party.
The Jobseekers Act 1995 provides for pilots of new approaches to helping unemployed people into work to be established through regulations. I believe that the policy is supported by the party opposite. My purpose today is to seek your Lordships' approval to introduce new pilot schemes which would allow us to evaluate some new and innovative approaches to helping unemployed people into work. I am also seeking agreement to some minor amendments to JSA regulations.
I would like to introduce the regulations to the House by explaining briefly the nature of the powers being sought and how the pilot schemes would work. I turn first to the Jobseeker's Allowance (Workskill Courses) Pilot Regulations 1997.
During the passage of the Jobseekers Bill we made two commitments. First, we said that we would collect information about the effect of the JSA rules on education and training. We have met that commitment. Research reports will be published shortly, possibly by the end of the month. Secondly, we said that we would consider piloting different arrangements. We have now met that commitment too. These regulations will allow us to introduce the pilots. They will be called the workskill pilots. They will allow us to evaluate new, more flexible arrangements for people who have been receiving JSA for six months or more to undertake employment-related education and training to help them into work.
We aim to introduce the pilots in April 1997. There will be two versions. One will be run in Liverpool and in Leeds. This will allow people to undertake certain part-time courses of up to a year and to be available for and look for part-time work which can be fitted around their course. The other will be run in Cardiff and in Wolverhampton and Walsall. This will allow people to undertake certain full-time courses of up to a year and excuse them from the normal JSA rules on availability for work and looking for work while they are on the course.
I turn now to the Jobseeker's Allowance (Project Work Pilot Scheme) Regulations. The project work pilots provide an intensive period of jobsearch help and, for people who need it, a period of mandatory work experience.
In May last year, the House approved the Jobseeker's Allowance (Pilot Scheme) 1996 Regulations. Since then we have been running two project work pilots in Hull and Medway and Maidstone. The results of those pilots have been encouraging.
The regulations before the House today would establish two new pilot schemes. One provides for an expansion of the project work approach with some modification to 28 new areas, starting between February and May this year. The other replaces the current pilots in Hull and Medway and Maidstone with a further and modified scheme which would continue to run alongside the pilots in the new areas.
We want to test some variations to the model used in Hull and Medway and Maidstone to see if we can improve its effectiveness. There will be an emphasis on literacy and numeracy help in all the new pilots. In some pilots, we will be testing intensive and additional literacy and numeracy support. We also want to test in some pilots whether experience in a real workplace improves people's chances of getting a job through increasing the involvement of the private sector.
I turn now to the Jobseeker's Allowance (Contract for Work) Pilot Regulations. We are also seeking powers today to run four contract for work pilots, two private sector and two ES pilots, each covering 3,000 people--12,000 people in all. The contract for work pilots will run in Manchester, London, Glasgow, and Birmingham. The pilots will cover all those in the areas in which they are run who have been unemployed for two years or more. They will start in June and last for 12 months. Participants will be referred to the pilots for six months.
Participants who leave the pilot before completing six months but return to claim JSA during the life of the pilot will be referred back to the pilot for the balance of the six months remaining. The pilots will be mandatory: participants will be liable to benefit sanction for misconduct or non-attendance. Pilot participants will receive JSA, or an allowance equivalent to their JSA entitlement, while on the pilot. Participation on the pilots will not affect eligibility for passported benefits. Private sector organisations will be paid for their success in placing people in sustainable jobs.
I turn finally to the Social Security (Jobseeker's Allowance and Mariners' Benefits) (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 1997. These amendments correct an anomaly in the current regulations which has come to light in the operation of JSA. JSA labour market conditions are applied across a full benefit week of seven days. But most jobsekers will have a period of a few days at the beginning of a claim for JSA before the cycle of full benefit weeks kicks in. The policy intention is that such jobseekers should still be required to act in such a way that they could meet the normal conditions of JSA had that period been a full week. But the current regulations have the effect of giving some jobseekers entitlement to JSA in that part-week period
whether or not they are available for work or taking any steps to look for work. These amending regulations simply restore the original policy intention. In the case of the mariner's benefits, the regulations remove an obsolete provision.The pilot regulations, if approved, would be in force for one year only and would establish scheme which will operate in specified areas. Any possibility of further extension is a matter for future consideration, which would include further scrutiny by the Social Security Advisory Committee and require further regulations to be put before Parliament.
I hope that those opening remarks have been useful. I shall certainly move on to the Motion in the name of my noble kinsman Lord Russell. However, perhaps I may answer a few of the points put by the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, on the different regulations. In effect, he asked four questions and to some extent they all have the same or a similar answer. First, he asked why there are so many different schemes. There is one very simple answer. I refer to a word which appears in the title of a number of the regulations; that word is "pilot". We want to try a whole range of different ideas and methods. As I have heard from the noble Lord's party on a number of occasions, that view is accepted. Noble Lords opposite now accept that there is no one simple answer to the particular problem of encouraging people to come off benefit and look for work. Why else is it proposed to impose a windfall tax on successful privatised utilities other than to provide the necessary finance to try out a number of different schemes. We are trying them out by means of pilot schemes so that we can try to see which schemes are most effective.
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