Social Security (Additional Payments) Bill — House of Lords, 2022-06-27
Topic: Social Welfare
Deborah Stedman-Scott (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to the debate today. I hope we agree that this package of support will make a significant difference to families up and down the country, notwithstanding the points that have been made As I said earlier, the Government are committed to going further to provide support to relieve the financial pressures families are facing. The measures announced by my right honourable friend the Chancellor will provide an estimated millions of low-income households with £1,200 of one-off support in total this year to help with the cost of living, with all domestic electricity customers receiving £400 through the energy bills support scheme. This Bill will give us the necessary powers to deliver the additional payments set out in this package to families on the means-tested and qualifying disability benefits which we have been debating today There were a huge number of questions, which I shall endeavour to answer. There are some where I will have to write and the answers will be much better if I do so, so I hope noble Lords will accept that The noble Baronesses, Lady Lister and Lady Sherlock, asked why we are not uprating benefits. The one-off cost of living payment will enable timely direct transfers, ahead of the next uprating review of benefits and pensions, which will commence in the autumn, with any change in rates being payable from April 2023. This will help to support households most in need in managing increased costs. Our cost of living policy will also provide a payment of £650, as we have already said, whereas uprating the same benefits by 9% from April 2022 would be worth, on average, only £530. These payments will be tax-free, will not count towards the benefit cap and will not have any impact on existing benefit awards. This approach will allow households to retain the full value of the payments they receive. There is no need for people to fill out complicated forms, as we have tried to reduce bureaucracy Separately from the 2022-23 cost of living support package, benefit and pension rates are subject to an annual review. As mentioned by the Chancellor on 26 May, the uprating of benefits is a matter for the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. Her annual statutory review of benefits for the tax year 2023-24 will commence in the autumn, when she measures inflation using the September consumer prices index. Following completion of her review, the Secretary of State’s decisions will be announced to Parliament in November. For the avoidance of any doubt, we are committed to the triple lock for the remainder of this Parliament The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, asked whether the uprating process will be adjusted in the future. The work of the department in 1975 was mainly undertaken by hand and on a claim-by-claim basis. It was therefore possible to uprate twice in one year, provided the trained manpower resources were available or could be secured. The department began to computerise the payments of benefits in the mid-1980s; we have indicated the constraints of the core IT systems in undertaking a mid-year uprating and the risk that would pose to payments. The Social Security Administration Act 1992 provides for a statutory annual review of uprating and is the basis on which Parliament has required successive Secretaries of State to act. The requirement is for one review each tax year The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, asked how long it will take to uprate all benefits, including UC and legacy benefits. I will need to write to her on that, which I will do and place a copy in the Library. She also asked about the flat rate of payments not tailored to circumstances. She said that this disadvantages children in large families and that the issue should have been solved by uprating benefits. The Government are committed to providing direct and timely relief to those who need it most through these one-off cost of living payments. Flat-rate payments are the quickest way to deliver support to those who need it most; they will allow us to make timely transfers to more than 8 million people and 6 million disabled people before the next benefit uprating in April 2023. As I have said, we have deliberately kept the rules as simple as possible. The Government are spending over £5 billion on qualifying means-tested benefits—around £2 billion more than the additional cost if the qualifying benefits increased in July 2022 to 9% higher than the previous year The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, who has been very busy, asked about the focus being on reforming UC and said that the two-child limit means that people do not receive enough money. Statistics from the Office for National Statistics show that in 2021, of all families with dependent children, 85% had a maximum of two in their family; for lone parents, this was 86%. The Government feel it is proportionate and fair to taxpayers to provide support through child tax credit and universal credit for a maximum of two children.