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Baroness Gould of Potternewton: I thank the Minister for his reply and for his explanation of the power of the Secretary of State and of the incorrectness of levels of benefit. I thank him for his assurance that there will not be a wholesale review of DLA. I am not saying that I am absolutely convinced about the motivation behind introducing the clause. I still believe that adjudication officers can instigate reviews in particular circumstances. Nor am I completely reassured that there are adequate safeguards against these vague powers being abused at a later stage. Unless there are assurances on the face of the Bill a future Secretary of State might interpret them very differently. However, I would sincerely hope not. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 96 and 97 not moved.]
Clause 18 [Medical examinations of persons awarded certain benefits]:
[Amendments Nos. 98 to 103 not moved.]
Clause 19 [Requirement to state national insurance number]:
[Amendments Nos. 104 to 110 not moved.]
[Amendment No. 110A not moved.]
Clause 20 [Return of social security post]:
[Amendment No. 111 not moved.]
Clause 21 [Information about redirection of post]:
[Amendments Nos. 112 to 116 not moved.]
Remaining clauses and schedules agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported without amendment; Report received.
Then, Standing Order 44 having been suspended (pursuant to Resolution of 18th March), Bill read a third time.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill do now pass.
I just want to say one or two words, not about the Bill itself--I have discussed it in some detail and we have all gone through it--but to thank those who have participated in our debates. I thank the officials who have helped me with the Bill and who have worked so busily behind the scenes. I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Gould of Potternewton and Lady Turner of Camden, and the noble Lords, Lord Carter and Lord Whitty, for their contributions to our debates. I thank my noble friends who have supported me in the Division Lobby when it has come to it.
I wish to look wider than the Bill to the two-and-a-half years when I have answered social security questions at this Dispatch Box. I thank my noble friend Lord Lucas for his excellent support as my Whip. There have been many occasions, as hour succeeded hour in debate, during which I am sure he must have realised that his official title of Lord in Waiting had more than one interpretation. Not only has he done a good job in looking after me, but I am sure he has impressed us all at the Dispatch Box in dealing with the very difficult issues which have fallen to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in the past year or so.
The noble Earl, Lord Russell, has shown amazing stamina and knowledge and an inexhaustible supply of anecdotes and aphorisms.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: He has not finished yet.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, I am hoping that he may have finished. His story of the two men taking the barrel of beer to the races to sell it and drinking it themselves on the way, passing the same threepenny bit between them for payment, as an example of the internal market, will always be with me. In some ways he reminds me of the ancestor of my noble friend the Duke of Montrose, whose military campaigns--the noble Earl is perhaps more of an expert on this subject than I am, so I am being cautious--involved him taking his army on long, seemingly impossible marches, often deep into the night--that will not surprise your Lordships--back and forward across the mountains and glens of Scotland, catching the then Earl of Argyll, the ancestor of my noble friend the Duke of Argyll (Campbell of Argyll), unawares on a number of occasions. I believe that Mackay of Ardbrecknish, also of Argyll, has managed a bit better than the ancestor of my noble friend the Duke of Argyll in not being caught unawares quite so often. I shall perhaps admit at this stage that my patience has been tried just a little by the noble Earl; but more often than not I have enjoyed crossing verbal swords with him and I thank him for his unfailing courtesy and good humour.
One of my problems is that I have been able to use only my left hand in order to fend off the noble Earl, keeping my right hand to fend off the noble Baroness,
Lady Hollis of Heigham. I am very sorry that she cannot be here today. I fully understand why she cannot be here and I know that she, too, regrets that. We have debated against each other on six social security Bills and on parts of two others; on many pieces of secondary legislation and on innumerable Questions.The noble Baroness has carried a formidable workload on the Front Bench opposite--perhaps the largest workload of anybody on that Front Bench. She has always been well briefed and well prepared. She has made good use of her distinctive debating style, her formidable intellect and her feminine charms to try to persuade your Lordships, especially those on the Cross-Benches and some of my noble friends, to unseat me. I believe that I can claim that we have been the lead players in some of the high drama debates of this Parliament. Indeed, on one or two of these occasions she has managed to weave her spell to such good effect that my noble friend the Captain of the Gentlemen of Arms has not carried the result of the Division to the Lord Chairman or to my noble and learned friend and fellow clansman, the Lord Chancellor. These battles and their results are now in the bound editions of Hansard. Your Lordships may be looking at the three of us and wondering, with Shakespeare and "Macbeth", when the three witches say,
- "When shall we three meet again
- In thunder, lightning, or in rain?".
- "When the hurlyburly's done,
When the battle's lost and won".
That battle will be a matter for others to decide, but for this moment suffice it to say that I would not have missed our many trysts around the cauldron in this House for the world.
Moved, That the Bill do now pass.--(Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish.)
5.30 p.m.
Baroness Gould of Potternewton: My Lords, in replying to the Minister's remarks, I must first express the regrets of my noble friends Lady Hollis of Heigham and Lord Carter, that they are unable to be present today. My noble friend Lady Hollis has asked me to apologise to the House and to the Minister for her absence. She has been unavoidably called away on a temporary family problem. Lady Hollis and Lord Carter were responsible for presenting to your Lordships' House many amendments to improve the Bill, including amendments to provide adequate safeguards for data protection and that highly sensitive personal information is controlled; to give greater powers to local authorities to tackle organised landlord fraud and for the Bill to be a vehicle for benefit entitlement and not just for the elimination of fraud.
I know that my noble friend Lady Hollis would also wish me to thank on her behalf her colleagues on the Labour Benches, my noble friends Lord Carter, Lady Turner of Camden and Lord Whitty, who made notable contributions to this Bill.
We on this side of the House welcome the overall thrust of this Bill to reduce the level of benefit fraud. Perhaps I may paraphrase the words of my noble friend Lady Hollis of Heigham at Second Reading. She said that with this Bill the Government have finally accepted the argument that we have consistently put to them, that there is an unacceptably high level of error and fraud of benefit payments. As a consequence, in principle we welcome one of the main planks of the Bill in respect of data matching.
However, the Bill as it stands does not strike the necessary balance between the rights of the individual and the collection of information to check fraud. We were heartened, however, by the undertaking given by the Minister that the Department of Social Security will publish a code of practice on data matching and that data matching exercises under the new powers in the relevant clauses of the Bill will not be conducted until the code has been published. I am personally grateful to the Minister for his sympathetic response on the question of appointees and the procedure by which they are appointed.
We do appreciate the good humour, which we have heard again today, and the courtesy and honesty with which the Minister has responded to the many amendments. I know that my noble friend Lady Hollis of Heigham will appreciate very much his kind words when she reads them in Hansard tomorrow. I am sure that she will read them with great pleasure. We are grateful, too, for the work of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. We are also grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Russell, for his erudite and, at times, extremely amusing contributions to the Bill.
We express our thanks to the team of advisers for their able assistance, which has been invaluable to us. In particular, we should like to thank representatives of the ALG, the ADC/AMA, the head of Lambeth's anti-fraud unit and the head of benefits at Westminster, including representatives of the offices of John Denham and Harry Cohen, Members in another place, for all their help with the amendments. We also thank the many organisations which have helped to provide briefings to us. That has been invaluable. Not least, we would like to thank our researcher, Robert McGeachy, who has always been there to give us support, both administratively and with background research and information.
In conclusion, there are a number of aspects of the Bill about which we still have reservations, but we believe that the assurances that we have received from the Minister will be honoured.
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