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Lord Higgins: My Lords, the House, as always, will be grateful to the noble Baroness for explaining the context of the regulations. Inevitably, the drafting is sometimes rather technical. One therefore relies on the Explanatory Note. As I have had occasion to say on previous occasions, I do not think that those writing explanatory notes achieve the degree of clarity that one might desire.
I take as an example the first paragraph of the Explanatory Note attached to these regulations. It states:
- "These Regulations impose a requirement on the partners of claimants of certain benefits to take part in a work-focused interview ('an interview') where the claimant is entitled to that benefit at a higher rate referable to the partner".
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, I am trying to find the paragraph to which the noble Lord refers.
Lord Higgins: My Lords, I am looking at the draft regulations and at the Explanatory Note attached on a final page. I do not understand what the expression "referable to the partner" means. No doubt when the noble Baroness comes to reply she can clarify it. I also believe that the word ought to be "when" rather than "where".
Leaving that aside, I believe it is important that the Explanatory Note should be drafted in rather clearer terms than is sometimes the case. I have found several other such examples. However, I shall not bore the House by going into the matter further—save to say that perhaps the noble Baroness will remind us of the definition of "partner" in this context.
The noble Baroness stressed strongly that there was to be only one interview. Therefore, I am somewhat puzzled by the final part of the third paragraph of the Explanatory Note, which states:
- "Regulation 8 specifies when a requirement to take part in two or more interviews is satisfied by the partner taking part in a single interview".
In her opening remarks the Minister drew attention to the situation regarding lone parents, and suggested that the success rate had increased from 46 to 54 per cent. However, as I understand it, the Government are currently rolling out compulsory work-focused interviews to all lone parents on income support. During the pilot phase only 17 per cent of lone parents due to have a compulsory interview received an invitation letter and only 14 per cent attended the interview. I have some difficulty in reconciling that figure with the figure of 46 per cent rising to 54 per cent which the Minister mentioned. Even the interviews that were attended have been criticised by various studies of the pilot scheme, including a comment that the interviews that did happen did not seem to encourage those few who attended to get into work. The study found that the proportion of lone parents in work, 18 months after claiming benefit, was lower in the pilot areas than elsewhere. That suggests that the pilot areas were not an enormous success.
Similarly, regarding the position with disabilities, another study said that in practice personal advisers felt that the pilots were driven by placement targets. In another place this evening there is a debate about the problems of targets. The study went on to say that rather than being able to help all clients in making moves towards the labour market, the main priority was given to targets for placing clients on job seekers' allowance into jobs, while other targets, particularly for the number of new claims processed, put further pressure on any scope for working with clients on incapacity benefits.
It seems that the Jobcentre Plus scheme has had only a comparatively limited effect. Looking at the overall picture, it has been difficult to obtain any figures on this issue, although attempts to do so are being made by way of parliamentary Questions. In February the then pensions Minister said that separate data for sustained jobs were not available for the New Deal for 50 Plus, the New Deal for Lone Parents, or the New Deal for Partners. It is important that if someone moves into a job the relevant consideration is how long they remain there. Perhaps the Minister can inform us
whether there are any relevant statistics on how many of these people move into permanent jobs. We also have no figures for the cost per job of helping people into employment. Succeeding in doing that is a great advantage, particularly for the individual concerned, but one ought to have some appraisal of cost benefit analysis.The Minister stressed the penalties for not attending an interview. I am not clear to what extent that has already happened regarding the pilots. I am also puzzled by one aspect which I believe we have discussed previously—that benefits might be reduced to allow for the fact that the partner has not taken part in an interview. Apparently they should never go below 10 pence. I have forgotten why, if the penalty is imposed—it would be hefty penalty if one progressively withdrew all those benefits because a partner was not attending the interviews—the benefit never falls below 10 pence. I may have misunderstood that structure. In any case, the explanatory memorandum does not give any guidance on that matter.
There has been much research into the way in which the pilots and the introduction of various schemes for lone parents, people with disabilities and so on have operated. This seems to be something of a cottage industry. There appears to have been a growth in employment in studying how these various proposals work. We are anxious that they should work. It is of great importance to the individuals concerned and to the economy. Regarding the general principle, one understands why the Government feel that this action should be taken for partners of those who are claiming benefit, so that if possible both they and the economy should benefit from both of them participating in employment. These are difficult matters and the Minister seemed over-optimistic on whether any significant success had been achieved. We must hope that this action results in greater employment, but we have doubts, given the history thus far.
Earl Russell: My Lords, the regulations are paved with good intentions. The Minister will remember a series of exchanges that we have had about the principle of this at every stage of the passage of the legislation through the House. So I do not expect to surprise the noble Baroness greatly by my comments tonight. But perhaps I may save her a small amount of work regarding the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, about the surviving benefit of 10 pence. Am I right in supposing that that will continue as a passport to housing benefit? If so it serves a useful, necessary and sensible purpose, and diminishes the force of the criticisms that I might otherwise have made and of the indignation which I might otherwise feel.
We have a balance of argument. I can see why the Minister and the Government wanted to introduce some sort of provision for partners. The days when men must work and women must weep are very long gone. We should all be glad of that. So, because someone's partner has been working, that does not necessarily shed any light on whether they should work. The fact that the Government want to have interviews for partners, to see whether they can be
found a suitable opportunity for working, is something that we should welcome. However, there is here an undistributed middle that is of some importance. On these Benches, we move heaven and earth to try to get an opportunity to work for those partners who want to do so. We believe categorically in choice.The Minister has many times given an undertaking, which I accept, that no one under these provisions will be compelled to work. That is clear. However, there is a grey area that was slightly touched on in the Statement on the latest Green Paper on pensions, where people might talk about "encouraging" partners with children to work. That puts us on these Benches in greater doubt. The juggling necessary to combine children with work is a particular skill—just like going under the bonnet of a car engine and seeing what happens there. Some of us have that skill, some of us do not. It is not the business of the state to decide for people, or even to encourage them to decide, which way they should do that. The matter is strictly personal. The state should be helping them to choose whichever way they wish to go, no matter which way that might be. If the regulations were to be a precursor of any serious encouragement to both partners to work when they have young children, that would cause us concern.
The Minister has always said that the purpose of the interviews was that you do not know what you do not know. I take that point. However, although the Minister is undoubtedly right, it seems that people who have partners in work are more likely to be in work themselves.
According to the findings of the House of Commons Library, that appears to be nothing to do with work-focused interviews where we have carried out pilots. It reports that no evidence was found of an effect on labour-market participation and that the analysis of respondents' job-search behaviour found no difference between pilots and control respondents in the proportions of non-working lone parents looking for a job or delaying a search for work. Nor were there any differences between them in the methods used to find a job.
As regards further study of the pilot, there could be a significant finding. We have an immense amount of administrative effort which does not appear to be issuing in any particularly solid result. That is a point at which one might well pause and ask a few questions.
I take absolutely the Minister's point that our requirement is only one interview and that there is no pressure to work beyond that. When the Bill was before us, I made the point that it would produce fear and distress. Carers UK has discovered that that has turned out to be the case. It states that judging by calls to its helpline there is a problem in the style and approach to carers. Many find that insensitive and it seems to place a large degree of worry on stressful caring responsibility. It believes that it undermines carers' self-worth because it suggests that work is considered the only valuable activity.
If that is so, it should be a cause for concern. One does not want to cause that kind of reaction and one knows that people dealing with the welfare state often do so in a state of considerable anxiety. No doubt some of it is unjustified, but where that is the case, one wants to make it plain that that is the case and the creation of fear is not a useful process.
Furthermore, there is a specific problem with Bangladeshis. The Disability Alliance informs me that there is no specific word for "carer" in Sylheti, which is regularly spoken among Bangladeshis, because it is regarded as the task of all the women in the family. In this case, it is not easy to explain to them what is on offer and what is not, and who is allowed exemption for caring responsibility and who is not.
The point is also made that invalid care allowance is available only to one person, whereas the care of an invalid may rest upon several people. The other people may not receive any consideration for the care that they are giving. That point might be worth attention and it might even be possible to give it some attention.
It will not surprise the Minister that my chief complaint about these regulations—my chief complaint about this interview—is that it can be made a ground of a benefit sanction. The Minister is painfully familiar with my views on benefit sanctions. I keep asking her for evidence to refute them, as she clearly does not agree with them. She does not have any. On our latest round of Questions for Written Answer on the housing benefit sanctions, the Minister was able to offer me no information on what visible means of support were available to those suffering a benefit sanction. There is no information on whether more of them were admitted to hospital than other people and no information on whether more of them ended up in prison than any other people.
There seems to be a lamentable lack of curiosity. In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, I shall continue to believe that the imposition of a benefit sanction is a penalty little less in gravity than the death penalty; that it is potentially life-threatening. I have read the judgment of Mr Justice Collins and of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, in the case of Q. Incidentally, when the asylum Bill was before the House, I gave warnings that the Government were risking precisely that judgment. Some of these people were reduced to a state of real life-threatening misery.
I would like to know, and I hope that the Minister would like to know, how many of the other people who are victims of benefit sanctions are reduced to any equivalent sense of misery. That seems to be material in assessing how far a benefit sanction is a justifiable penalty.
The Minister remarked—a little casually, I thought—that the regulations were ECHR compatible. I wonder how familiar she is with the developments in process about the interpretation of Article 3; that is, inhuman or degrading treatment. She may remember that it was one of the main grounds of Mr Justice Collins' judgment in the case of the asylum seekers. It seems at present to be
the basis of Article 3 that to establish inhuman or degrading treatment one must establish destitution plus—destitution plus some other form of gross hardship or injury. Clearly, that is not a stable resting place; it is not a clear definition. It will go either forward or backwards.I am in no position to prophesy which, but which it is may have a real relevance to the future of benefit sanctions. It could conclude with the whole lot of them being found contrary to Article 3. Therefore, the Minister might exercise a little more scholarly caution in the assertion that the regulations are ECHR compatible. Incidentally, if she reads the judgment of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Phillips, she will note that he did not say that they were ECHR compatible; he said that the point was open to doubt on both sides. That is not nearly as much of a clearance as the Home Secretary took it to be.
The Minister was not in the Chamber last Friday when my noble friend Lord Goodhart gave the Government a powerful but carefully drafted warning about our future conduct on regulations if the Government should continue to put through measures in them which cause us more discontent than many of the measures that we vote against in Bills. My noble friend chose his words very carefully indeed. I will not repeat them because I am in full agreement with them.
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