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Lord McCarthy: My Lords, I thank the Minister for giving way. I am becoming increasingly confused. The amendment states,
- "at end insert 'connected with types of employment suitable for that person'".
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, I had hoped that my noble friend was listening to me a little more closely. That is precisely why I detailed the range of experience and types of job that a not untypical working-class man had had. How could an interviewer know, in advance of meeting him, what his experiences were and whether, as a result, he could move into a related job or whether he had the skills to port into such a job? That also applies to other working people and to their partners.
The amendment is back to front. Neither the interviewer nor the person being interviewed can possibly know until after the interview whether work is a realistic choice. That is the point of the interview. No one can or should prejudge that in advance. The amendment writes off people. Once a steel worker, always a steel worker. There are no steel worker jobs; therefore no interview; or, worse, if as the wife of the steel worker she is not working, never again will she work so do not bother to call her in. That is cruel, patronising and belongs to a world long lost.
6.30 p.m.
Earl Russell: My Lords, if the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, were to bring the matter back at Third Reading making clear that what was at stake was a job that appeared suitable after interview, would the noble Baroness consider the amendment more favourably? We do not want it turning into a form of conscription.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, we already bring into work-focused interviews disabled people—people on a disability benefit some of whom are the furthest away from the labour market. We bring into interview people on a carers' allowance who are working 35 hours a week as a carer. Yet in all
seriousness, noble Lords are saying to me that their partners—they may be doing no caring and are fit, healthy and well—should not be brought in for interview to discuss their future options. We bring in the disabled person. We bring in the full-time carer of the disabled person but we do not bring in someone who has no impediment vis-a-vis the labour market. Is that what noble Lords are saying? In that case, there can be no meeting of minds because that is genuinely perverse.The point about an interview is to explore the option. No compulsion to work follows from that. We know in particular that, for example, for a carer on ICA the average time is about three and a half years. When that benefit ceases, the partner who is piggy-backing off that person's benefit will have to go into the labour market but will have lost attachment to the labour market having been denied the opportunity to come into work-focused interviews and the like.
No one can know in advance of the interview what makes good sense for that person. The interview gives the person being called—the partner of someone who is disabled but who is not a full-time carer or the partner of a carer—the information they may need on which to make an informed choice. I think that the work-focused interview gives people hope, opportunity, information and choice. Early findings from our research on work-focused interviews demonstrate that that is what people get from those interviews. I deplore any efforts to deny people the right to the information on which they make choices. I hope that my noble friend will be able to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, I am not assuaged by the statements from the Front Bench. I return to the query that I posed when moving the amendment. Why should someone on benefit risk losing that benefit because his or her partner fails to show up for a work-focused interview. I fail to see why the claimant's benefit should be put at risk in that way.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, if my noble friend will give way, it is not a claimant's benefit. It is a family benefit in which the claimant and his partner are receiving a larger benefit than would be the case if there were just one of them. It is their joint benefit and they have a joint commitment to maintain their family standard of living. If it is reasonable—of course, I believe that it is—to pay a benefit on a family basis, if there is no impediment, it is not unreasonable to call members of that family in to see whether they can benefit from a work-focused interview.
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, again I am not assuaged by that comment. The noble Baroness responded that the interview would be helpful, positive and unthreatening. But the threat is that benefit can be affected. A deduction of 20 per cent matters a great deal to people on benefit. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Razzall, that this is not a matter for an employment Bill. It is a social security issue. If it had been part of a social security Bill we should have had a great deal of interest shown and detailed debate on
this section. As it is, the issue is slipped into an employment Bill. In that context, it has not received the necessary scrutiny that it might otherwise have had. The noble Lord, Lord Razzall, is right. This is not an employment issue; it is a social security issue.That does not make the situation any better. I believe that the provision should not be in the Bill. We have sought to be supportive and constructive. That is why we tabled an amendment in relation to a suitable type of work so that an individual would not feel that he or she was being intimidated into taking work which was not suitable. I detailed a number of situations in which people would not feel capable of taking work: children, perhaps disabled children, may need to be looked after. There may be other reasons why employment would not be a suitable option for a partner.
There is no point in pressing the amendment at this point in the proceedings. I may well come back to the issue at Third Reading. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 119 not moved.]
Baroness Miller of Hendon moved Amendment No. 120:
- Leave out Clause 49.
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, the amendment seeks to delete the whole of Clause 49 which the Explanatory Note describes as making,
- "Full entitlement to certain benefits conditional on work-focused interview for partners".
I thank the Minister for her courtesy in taking the trouble to write to me at some length to explain the background and objectives of the clause; and for stopping me on more than one occasion in the Prince's Chamber to explain it in a little more detail. I hope that she will not consider me churlish when I say that I was not happy with what she told me. I did not understand everything she said. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Razzall, and the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, that the issue may be more appropriate in a welfare Bill. Some of the initials used by the noble Baroness were unfamiliar to me. I am used to dealing with employment Bills.
In describing the provisions of the clause, I can do no better than to read the first paragraph of the Explanatory Note provided by the department. It states:
- "Partners of working age benefit claimants who are themselves of working age will be required to take part in a work-focused interview, in default of which, benefit sanctions will apply. This will provide partners with the opportunity to discuss their skills and experience, the barriers they face in moving closer to the labour market and the help and support that is available to overcome those barriers".
The Explanatory Note continues for another seven paragraphs covering five closely printed pages. I find it difficult to imagine how claimants will be able to find their way through this legislative nightmare. At Second Reading, I said that it was an extremely badly-drafted clause. A partner is defined as a person who is
a member of the same couple as the claimant. One then has to discover what "a couple" is. A couple is defined as a married or unmarried couple within the meaning of Part 7 of the Contributions and Benefits Act. That is a sloppy piece of drafting because the correct name of the Act is the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992.At Second Reading, I complained about that and invited the Minister to clarify the issue by a drafting amendment but that has not been done. On the contrary, in her courteous letter to me the Minister simply points out that the "Contributions and Benefits Act" means the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992 in accordance with Section 191 of the Administration Act. For someone who is not familiar with this area, it is quite a long way round to find out what we are talking about.
I was eventually able to find out for myself, with some difficulty, and with the aid of the solicitor who happens to be my partner within the meaning of the Act. That was the only way in which I could sort out what was meant. But how is the average claimant going to do that? I have the greatest admiration for parliamentary draftsmen who usually do a magnificent and complex job under great pressure of time and the weight of vast volumes of legislation. Nevertheless, it is very difficult. Is there not enough paper and ink in the DTI to enable the definitions to be contained within one Act, even repeating definitions in other Acts, in order to save applicants and their advisers from hopping from one Act to another including one which is inadequately named?
Should this clause remain after this debate—I suspect that it will—I hope that the Minister will at least ensure that its provisions in this respect, which apply particularly to applicants who are not lawyers, will be amended to make them self-contained within it. The reason why I said that I believed that the clause would remain is because I said to the noble Baroness that really I wanted information. As I could not get what I wanted in a letter, I have tabled the amendment in order that the noble Baroness can tell the House exactly what the provision means and its effect. I was very glad to see the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, and the noble Lord, Lord Razzall, because they have enabled me to cut out quite a great deal of what I was going to say. They have made certain points even though they have not been totally accepted. The Government may like to think again on certain matters.
However, I wish to make two quite short points. We know from the Explanatory Notes that to operate the scheme of work-focused interviews will entail the employment of 650 extra civil servants at an estimated cost of £35 million. With engaging frankness, the Treasury admits that the benefits to the Exchequer cannot be estimated at this time.
I accept what the noble Baroness said: that the benefits enable the partner of the claimant to have access to information such as has never happened before, and that the evidence shows that such people are then able to get jobs. Everyone in the House knows, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Razzall, that the noble Baroness does not say that there is evidence unless it really exists. I am prepared to accept that this has been helpful. I expect that the noble Baroness will say a little more to me about it. If it is so, and if it helps people, the extra civil servants at a cost of £35 million would be justified.
The other point is that the measure does not place any requirement on the partners beyond taking part in the interview. They do not have to seek work. Do they really know that or are they coerced into thinking that they have to look for work? Is it made absolutely clear to them that this measure is there to help them in some way, but that they will not be forced into taking a job? That is a very important issue. It is wrong if the measure is meant to coerce them. One would like to think that everybody who can get a job will do so. I do not believe that we are in the business of forcing people in that regard.
As the noble Baroness knows well, I have always been interested in women's affairs. I suspect that in many cases it would be the woman partner who goes for the interview. Let us suppose that the partner of the man was of the same sex. I do not know if they would be described as "a couple". Would he also be forced to go for the interview? I suspect not. In that case, it seems to me that it is discrimination against heterosexual couples and particularly against women. I hope that I have not put a fly in the ointment for the noble Baroness. I beg to move.
6.45 p.m.
Earl Russell: My Lords, I was tempted to make only one speech, but since the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Hendon, has not grouped this matter with the others, she has given me an opportunity to reply to what the Minister has just said, which I shall take.
My noble friend Lord Razzall accused me of being uncharacteristically kind to the Government. I believe that by now the Minister is able to recognise the appearance of Greeks bearing gifts, so I shall bring her a few more. She talked about the reasons why she changed her mind. She said that she had done so on the basis of evidence. I accept what she says. I believe it is true that certain people may be discouraged and refrain from taking the opportunity to attend a work-focused interview, although perhaps, having attended, they might have discovered things which might help them.
But one has to balance evidence one way against evidence from the other. One has to decide which is the lesser of two evils. That is why I believe that it is a very great pity that the record-keeping of the Department for Work and Pensions has meant that the downside of the evidence arising from this clause, if it should become law, will be permanently concealed from them. They will not know what harm is done by
disentitlement to benefit. To be open to the evidence in one direction without being open to it from the other is a somewhat unscholarly procedure.What the Minister said about partners calls for rather more wide-ranging thought than it has been given. We are in the middle of a very large social change, from a world in which it used to be assumed, or at least hoped for by some who could not actually achieve it, that the world consisted of men who worked and women who stayed at home and looked after children. Those days will not return. But what we do not know is whether we are moving to a world in which the two-income, two-career family is normal or whether we are moving to a pluralistic world in which some families have one earner and some have two. That is a question which is better decided by social evolution than by legislation. It is a question in which the state cannot be particularly authoritative and in which it cannot lay down the law for the great mixture of cultures which we have in this country.
I think of the effect of applying this clause in a Bangladeshi community, for example. It could cause rather more offence than envisaged. It is a piece of social engineering of the sort which all governments are tempted to undertake. But one should not really imitate Oscar Wilde and say that one can resist everything except temptation. Some temptations ought to be resisted and the temptation to impose a uniform pattern of expectation on the relations of the sexes in marriage or partnerships is one of them. We have to let this matter work itself out spontaneously because nothing else is going to be acceptable.
I also hope that the Minister will cease using the argument, "All they have to do is to comply". That is an argument which can be used in defence of any measure, however draconian, however authoritarian, however unjustifiable. It gives gross offence on this side of the House. I hope that we will not hear it again.
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