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Welfare Reform Bill

I am pleased to report to the House that, just as the Bill left this place in a good condition, with a strong consensus, that approach was maintained in the other place, where all of those with a keen interest in this important issue played an important part in helping to maintain that consensus. There has been continued engagement with stakeholders, disability organisations and others. It is fair to say at the outset that that has been assisted by the consensus approach across political parties in this and the other place. The one exception is the Scottish National party, which played no role whatsoever in our proceedings at any part of the process. Indeed, today SNP Members have not shown up to their work. There are five areas of the Bill and its policy aims that are the subject of amendment. I would like to talk about each briefly in turn. First, I will talk about the issue of the annual report on the operation of the revised personal capability assessment. Amendment No. 1 concerns the operation of the new benefit, the employment and support allowance. The amendment introduces a requirement for the Secretary of State to lay an annual independent report before Parliament on the operation of the revised personal capability assessment. As I previously confirmed, it has always been our intention that there should be ongoing monitoring of the effectiveness of the revised PCA. I gave an undertaking on Report that there would be ongoing independent monitoring by the technical working groups for the first two years following implementation of the revised assessment. My noble Friend Lord McKenzie of Luton gave a similar undertaking in the other place and made a further commitment that monitoring would continue for the first five years following implementation and report to Parliament. That is reflected by the duration of reporting required by the amendment. Lords amendments Nos. 2, 13, 15, 16 and 55 relate to health care professionals other than doctors carrying out a medical examination to provide information used in making a decision on entitlement to benefits. From the outset, the Bill provided for the use of heath care professionals in assessments for ESA. However, shortly after the Bill left the Commons, it became clear that the current legislation did not include the power to make full use of health care professionals in the provision of medical services for customers claiming other benefits, such as disability living allowance, attendance allowance and industrial injuries benefits. Lords amendment No. 13 will enable us to take full advantage of the skills that health care professionals offer in the delivery of medical services for purposes involving social security benefits. Lords amendment No. 2 will commit us to using only health care professionals who are members of regulated professions. It gives a consistent definition of a health care professional across the benefit system. All health care professionals will, of course, be given full training. They will need to be approved by the Secretary of State before they are able to carry out assessments. Lords amendment No. 55 will ensure that all health care professionals carrying out medical examinations will be bound by the same duties of confidentiality as departmental staff with respect to information about individual customers. Lords amendments Nos. 3 to 7 relate to the contracting out of welfare to work services. They will ensure that the Secretary of State cannot authorise a contractor to undertake decision making that could lead to sanctions under the ESA conditionality regime. The Government made such amendments to the Bill in response to concerns expressed about the possible problems associated with the contracting out of sanctions decision making. While, of course, there are potential advantages in moving decision making closer to front-line services, we accept that there is more to be done before we will be aware of how that will work in practice. We will thus not take such a power in the Bill. The fourth group of amendments covers sanctioning following an eviction for antisocial behaviour. Lords amendment No. 9 relates to the housing benefit sanction following an eviction for antisocial behaviour and a refusal to accept support. We believe that the sanction will be an important power for local authorities to use in tackling antisocial behaviour in our communities. The amendment provides for a limit to the piloting period. The Government will thus be allowed to press ahead with piloting the scheme, but if there is to be a scheme in place after 31 December 2010, further primary legislation will be required. We have made a commitment that piloting will be a key element of our plans. If the measure works as we intend and the threat of sanctions encourages antisocial households and families to engage in support programmes, the end date of 31 December 2010 that is specified in the amendment will mean that we will have sufficient time to learn lessons that could inform national design and possible implementation. The fifth group is, by necessity, made up of technical drafting amendments. The Joint Committee on Human Rights and the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee reported on the Bill and we tabled appropriate amendments following those reports. Lords amendments Nos. 8, 22 and 23 will mean that the regulations that will be made under the identified powers relating to entitlement to components and the loss of benefit will be subject to the affirmative procedure. Lords amendments Nos. 10 and 11 make it explicit that the powers in clause 40 relating to the use of social security information are to be used solely to encourage people to claim the benefits to which they may be entitled. Lords amendment No. 17 to schedule 3 will ensure that the Secretary of State will have an obligation to review the relevant ESA amounts in each tax year to determine whether they have retained their value. Lords amendments Nos. 21 to 54 will amend schedule 4 to provide a power to migrate those with an existing award of a benefit relating to incapacity or disability to ESA. The amendments do not affect the policy position that we have taken previously on the migration of existing customers. I urge the House to agree to the Lords amendments to this important Bill. During the Bill’s passage, we have managed to maintain a remarkable degree of well-considered consensus between both sides of the House. Together we can be confident that the Bill will make a real and lasting change to the lives of many people who were written off for so long in the past.