Housing Benefit (Abolition of the Family Premium and Date of Claim Amendment) Regulations 2015 — House of Lords, 2016-02-03
Topic: Social Welfare
Maeve Christina Mary Sherlock (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I welcome the Minister’s enthusiasm to respond to the challenges put to him, but I regret that I am going to add to them, if he can bear with us for a little bit longer. I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, for giving us the opportunity to debate these regulations and for having gone into some detail about the process questions. I very much share his concerns. We have concerns of substance on these Benches, but the process should be of concern to all Members of the House, irrespective of the view that they may take on these regulations. I hope that the Minister gives some satisfactory answers on that As we have heard, these regulations do two things: they remove the family premium from claims to housing benefit from April 2016 and the backdating of housing benefit, to which I shall come in a moment. Existing claimants will also be affected if their circumstances change, such as if they move or if a child reaches the age of 18. When it is lost, it will be lost almost exclusively to working families, because households where someone is claiming an out-of-work benefit will automatically receive the maximum possible housing benefit payment. The Social Security Advisory Committee report cited an example from the Peabody Trust of a single parent in part-time work, caring for her disabled adult son. Should she need to make a new claim for housing benefit following the removal of the family premium, she would lose around £572 a year, compared to what she would get currently—a lot of money for someone in those circumstances My noble friend Lord McKenzie asked a very good question about the admin costs. It is hard to believe that simplification is the reason; one could always simplify benefits by abolishing them. We really have to have better arguments than that The DWP claims that withdrawing the family premium in HB will "promote better work incentives", but, as the SSAC points out, some HB claimants will permanently lose the premium if they temporarily increase their hours and therefore could be deterred from doing so. Equally, some will be deterred from moving address to secure or look for work if it means a drop in HB, or could be discouraged from taking short-term work over Christmas, for example, if it means a drop in housing benefit. Will the Minister comment on that The SSAC was also very critical of the Government’s refusal to adopt linking rules. It gives the very serious example of domestic violence victims who need to be rehoused and points out that if somebody moves outside a local authority area, they lose the entitlement. The SSAC points out that some local authorities and social landlords have a deliberate policy of moving domestic violence victims to a different local authority area to minimise the risk that they would run into their assailant and to protect them. It states: "Those organisations now face a fairly stark choice in terms of whether to keep the existing policy in the knowledge that the victim is likely to be financially worse off, or to rehome them within the existing local authority area where they may be at greater risk" The Government’s only response to this is to say: "Since 2010 our policy has been to move away from building new linking into our reforms to Housing Benefit" That is not a reason. That is basically saying "The reason for our policy is that it is our policy". I hope the Minister can give us the reason behind the policy rather than telling us that it is the policy. The Government go on to say that they do not think linking rules are the most appropriate way of supporting vulnerable cases, but they do not explain why. The only alternative they can offer is our old friend the discretionary housing payment, which has already been offered as an answer to almost every problem created by welfare change since 2010, from the fallout of the welfare Bill to the benefit cap The SSAC also points out that universal credit will allow linking and continuity of claim where there is a temporary increase in income or relocation to another local authority area, but they will not be available under these HB proposals which it says will have a negative impact on work incentives and will raise issues around income stability and security I now come to the backdating change which other noble Lords have commented on. A number of NGOs and charities have said that limiting backdating to one month will have a significant impact on vulnerable renters, a point made very clearly by the noble Lord, Lord Low, and my noble friend Lord McKenzie. As we have heard, the SSAC recommended that the Government should not proceed with the reduction from six months to one month. It is interesting that the committee expressed disappointment at the lack of proper consultation with local authorities, landlords and voluntary and charitable bodies which will be impacted by these changes. I hope the Minister can explain why that consultation was not done The SSAC’s view is that the position faced by HB legacy claimants, especially the more vulnerable, is substantially different and more challenging than the position following migration to universal credit. It pointed out that in the absence of a robust impact assessment the case for simple alignment was not there The response from the Government to the SSAC report was so slight as to be almost rude. Their only argument is to say that the policy intention is to align the housing benefit treatment with that in universal credit. Where is the rush? As the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, pointed out, it is not as though the entire population is about to land on universal credit. I know that back in November 2010 the DWP believed that everybody would be on it by 2017, but we now know that it is going to be at least 2020, possibly 2021, and maybe some way beyond that. We are years away from everyone needing housing support getting it entirely through universal credit. There could yet be millions of people who could come on to housing benefit, get it, move into work, come off it, come back on to it and still not be on universal credit, so there is a significant issue. I hope the Government will tell us their real reasons. It cannot just be that they want to be in exactly the same position on universal credit and on legacy benefits; otherwise they presumably would not have allowed the situation to develop where two people in identical circumstances, one on tax credits and the other on universal credit, could find themselves with a difference of £3,000 a year in entitlement. Will the Government tell us what the real reasons are To summarise I would like the Minister to answer some questions. I will be interested in his response to the process points made by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood. He referred to the Minister’s letter of 11 January to the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, saying that he had instigated a review of the way the DWP produces explanatory memoranda. Will he tell the House when that review is likely to report? Will its findings be published? If they are not going to be published, how will the House get reassurance that his department will be able to do this job better in the future than it has in the past? Will he tell us why the Government did not consult properly before issuing this instrument? Will he explain the reasons for opposing a linking rule in the family premium? In particular, will he tell us why he has rejected the SSAC recommendation of three months if the Government are not willing to go all the way to six months? I look forward to the Minister’s answers.