Welfare Reform and Work Bill — House of Lords, 2016-01-27
Topic: Social Welfare
Natalie Evans (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, this amendment, tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Lister and Lady Manzoor, seeks to set into primary legislation a requirement for the Secretary of State, when preparing a claimant commitment, to have regard to the impact on any child affected by it. I fully support the principle that requirements should be adjusted according to individuals’ personal circumstances, including the well-being of any children for whom the claimant is responsible. However, this amendment proposes to unnecessarily prescribe the contents of the claimant commitment in the Welfare Reform Act 2012. During discussions with individuals, work coaches already take into account all the personal circumstances relevant to both claimant and child when agreeing work-related activities. We continually review the operation of the claimant commitment and will act on anything we find that can be improved. Claimants can request a review of their claimant commitment if they have concerns On the question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, about Section 31 of the 2009 Act, it applies to JSA and ESA, not universal credit. As part of the claimant commitment, parents can input into the contents of the commitment within universal credit We are very clear about the importance of our responsibilities with regard to the well-being of children. Regulations 98 and 99 cover the circumstances in which all or some requirements should be suspended for a temporary period, which includes circumstances in which a parent has to spend time caring for a child in distress or if they are in the kind of situation which the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, talked about. The number of hours a claimant is expected to spend carrying out work-related activity is also tailored so as to be compatible with the claimant’s individual childcare responsibilities These reasonable requirements, including any limiting or lifting and the reasons for this, are recorded within the claimant commitment. The amendment does not specify that it applies to the responsible care of a child; it refers to "any child", which would make it extremely difficult to determine which children are being referred to other than those within the claimant’s responsibility. This would make it difficult for jobcentres to effectively administer The key principle of the claimant commitment is that we treat people as individuals and tailor their requirements accordingly. We have chosen not to prescribe in legislation what a claimant commitment should take account of in order that we can reflect all the possible circumstances people can present with. It would be too prescriptive to single out one element—the well-being of a child—and legislate that claimant commitments must contain this information. It would not be practical to prescribe everything a claimant commitment should contain—we want to take account of a broad range of circumstances We know that developing a skilled workforce is key to realising the flexibilities that we have built into the legislative framework of universal credit. We want to empower our work coaches to use this broad discretion to make sound decisions that are right for the individual in front of them. As the noble Baroness said, I talked at length about the work under way to invest in learning and development of our front-line staff, including the work coach delivery model and accreditation. I did that because I wanted to stress the importance we place on making sure that work coaches are trained and that they use their discretion to the benefit of the families they work with. I emphasised that element because I wanted to stress to noble Lords that we take that very seriously Existing legislation already enables us to take account of the well-being of children when setting a claimant commitment; it is something that work coaches routinely do. Therefore we do not believe that it is necessary to set out this level of detail in primary legislation. I hope that on that basis the noble Baroness will withdraw the amendment.