House of Lords - Welfare Reform Bill (Second Reading)

Lords Oakeshott, Kirkwood, Addington and Baroness Thomas welcome plans to help long term unemployed back in to work, but warn that the Bill will need careful scrutiny and clarification to ensure its success.

Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay, DWP Spokesperson

Lord Oakeshott said: "Some 2,700,000 people are on incapacity benefit - almost one-tenth of the 29 million people now at work in this country. It is a truly shocking statistic. We know that the first big surge on to benefit came in the Thatcher years as the pits, the mills, the steelworks and the shipyards shut down, leaving middle-aged men with no realistic prospect of finding work in depressed areas such as south Wales and the north-east. They are the casualties of deindustrialisation, and you can still see a marked difference between the rates of incapacity in southern England and in the rest of the UK. But now we are suffering a second, different surge, this time from the casualties of our fractured society. Over 40 per cent of people now on incapacity benefit have mental health problems such as depression or schizophrenia, 40 per cent of them women."

He continued: "Getting 1 million or more claimants into work is a daunting task, but the payback for our economy and the Exchequer, if we can pull it off, will be immense. Can the Minister give us chapter and verse on how the Pathways to Work programme, which he mentioned, will be rolled out across the whole country and convince us that the Department for Work and Pensions is not trying to make water flow uphill by trying to do this at the same time as front-line posts are constantly being cut? Is "one million into work" just a typical Tony Blair instant initiative for a cheap and nasty headline in the Sun, or is it really a firm long-term commitment with the political will and the cash to make it happen? You cannot solve a persistent deep-seated, institutionally ingrained problem like incapacity on the cheap."

He concluded: "So we are all on the same side with this Bill. As we scrutinise it, improve it and help it on its way through the House, our watchwords on these Benches will be training and fairness; encouragement not punishment; carrots not sticks; practical help and advice, not threats. In my experience, those work better for most people most of the time, whether employed already or still stuck on benefit. Britain is one of the world's richest economies and, in the Blair decade, the wealthiest in our society have grown richer, often beyond their wildest dreams. It is high time to help many more of our people into productive work so that they can share in building and enjoying our prosperity and not suffer, as all too often happens, in the shadows of our society. In that fine cause, we must all work to produce an Act of which Parliament can be proud."

Baroness Thomas of Winchester

Baroness Thomas said: "The Pathways to Work pilot schemes have demonstrated that a great many disabled people of working age want paid employment. Being out of work is alienating, unsociable and, for many, begins an inevitable slide into poverty. Being out of work for a long time is even worse, as confidence levels plummet, with unemployed disabled people quickly believing that they are completely unemployable, leading to feelings of worthlessness. So I welcome the purpose of the Bill, which has the ambitious aim of trying to reduce the numbers of disabled people on incapacity benefit by helping them enter the workplace."

She continued: "No one can say that the Bill is making the whole disability benefits field simpler, as the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, said. A complex web of procedures are set out in the Bill, starting with the familiar personal capacity assessment although, of course, in a new form. We have not yet seen the draft regulations for this test - they are promised tomorrow - which does not give us much time to examine them properly before the Committee stage. However, the specialist groups have seen the draft proposals and there is great concern about the proposed withdrawal of several low-scoring physical descriptors. I do not think the noble Lord said that they have been restored, so I assume they are still withdrawn at present. The point of having descriptors such as, "Can only walk up and down a flight of stairs if he goes sideways or one step at a time" - I can identify with this - is that those people who fall into such a category need help and support with work. They are not necessarily seeking exemption from work, but they need physical obstacles to be taken into account lest they get forgotten. However, I welcome the announcement made by the noble Lord that the physical function and mental health function will be added together, which shows that there is now movement towards a social rather than just a medical model of disability; that is very welcome."

She went on to say: "My last word at this point on the PCA comes from my experience of claiming disability living allowance, which was only granted on appeal, and here I must declare that particular interest. The form asked how far I could walk outside unaided. This is a difficult question and the form seemed well designed to take a range of answers into account, yet I was marked down because I was not VUTW. I had to phone up to ask what that meant. It means virtually unable to walk. None of my comments had been taken into account at all. Was it anything to do with a computer only understanding black and white answers, I wondered? In which case, God preserve all claimants from what a Member of the other place cited as, "Computer says 'No'". Watchers of "Little Britain" will recognise the phrase. What is the role of the computer is in this particular assessment? Is it the case that if pre-coded answers are not given, any non-standard responses on the form will not be attached to any particular descriptor and might just as well not have been written? Does that not make the case for having an independent assessment of the whole PCA process, and many dummy runs, before national roll-out?"

Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope

Lord Kirkwood said: "I absolutely agree that active labour markets and the policy of having work for those who can and security for those who cannot were perfectly reasonable, sensible and beneficial policy changes that came in after 1997. Call me old-fashioned, but I imbibed with my mother's milk the idea of the social insurance principle. People paid in and, during periods of adversity throughout their life, they got help from the state.

"After 1997, the Labour Government moved subtly away from that. There may have been good reasons, but it was done quietly, and I do not think that there was enough debate. I was perfectly happy to make the best of "work for those who can and support for those who cannot", but there is some evidence that the ground is shifting yet again, and we should be careful about that. Only a few days ago, Mr Murphy, the Minister of State at the department, made an important speech - important enough to go on the departmental website - which moved away from the adage of "work for those who can, support for those who cannot" to "work first, benefits second". I am not a conspiracy theorist, but that makes me deeply suspicious. If he is setting out a change in the thrust behind these policy measures, we may be moving into territory where people have to go on to a programme or a job or undertake some sort of training before they get any benefit at all."

Lord Addington, DWP Disability Spokesperson

Lord Addington said: "This is an odd Bill. Getting people off benefits and into work whenever they want is rather like motherhood and apple pie - how could anyone possibly be against it? The problem is how to do it effectively and to benefit people without damaging a few of them, some of them or all of them along the way; that is, how to minimise the risks and personal damage. That is where the problems lie."

He went on to say: "I turn to the concerns that have been raised. The main point was that the provisions' success or failure will lie in work-focused interviews and activity. In practice, the provisions will stand or fall on correctly placing people according to their skills, condition and disability. How can we give people the back-up they need to get off benefits and into the workplace? I have long been dealing with disability matters in this House, and there have always been two issues to address: perception and practical help. I believe that perception is the first issue to address. If it is perceived that someone in a wheelchair is unemployable, to take an easy example, he will be unemployable because he will be told that he cannot work. The minute the problem is addressed in a slightly more lateral manner, it becomes a minor problem because other jobs that he can do will be discovered. But people in wheelchairs are comparatively easy to deal with provided that that is their only problem. Although they have a movement problem, modern regulations have been introduced to help enable them to get into offices. Much work is based around modern business technology - PCs - and using a keyboard. Many people in wheelchairs will not have great difficulty using that technology once the initial impact of doing the job has been overcome.

"When we get to the more complicated group of people with mental health problems, the perception is that that they are all raging psychopaths waiting with an axe at the coffee vending machine, or that if they hear a cross word they will break down in tears or not turn up the next day. They will not do those things. Those perceptions must be broken down. Other legislation has attempted to do so. The Government must take that on board when they implement this legislation or much of it will fail that group."

He added: "Although I appreciate that this will have to be teased out in Committee, I hope that the Government will give us some idea about the linkages - the joined-up government, if we must use that now rather worn expression - with the Government's awareness programme for employers."

He concluded: "During the Bill's passage we have to ensure as a collective unit that the Government clearly answer how they think their regulations will come in and how they will create a system that stands a chance of working. Unless they support their front-line staff to make correct decisions and give them the flexibility to call in the help they need, we will end up having to address this issue again - after perhaps five years of hiding behind statistics that are rapidly moved round to show that everything is fine, until we have to admit that it is not."