---

Housing Benefit (Loss of Benefit) (Pilot Scheme) (Supplementary) Regulations 2007

rose to move that an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the regulations laid before the House on 29 August be annulled (SI 2007/2474). The noble Lord said: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister and to noble Lords on both sides of House for taking an interest in the debate. I say at the outset that I have no intention of dividing the House, which will probably not come as a surprise to many people. The purpose of tabling this Prayer was that I was minded to divide the House. The condition the Minister has now expunged and met is that the full guidance is now available in the public domain and to the stakeholders. These important pilots appeared as if by magic in my inbox this very morning. So, to that extent, I am satisfied. It is important—and I am sure that the Minister will agree—that the guidance should be made available. These pilots start on 1 November and everyone should know how these things are to be played through. And I am grateful for that. In parenthesis, and at the risk of being boring because I say this nearly every time we have an exchange with the Minister, I understand that the Government have to get the business through, but I, for one, would have been very much happier had I seen a formal reference to the SSAC. The Social Security Advisory Committee of course cannot take formal references on statutory instruments that flow within the six months of the passage of primary legislation. These pilots are quite contentious in a number of different ways, and I would have been happier if the SSAC, with its depth of knowledge, had been able to opine on this and give the House the benefit of its collective wisdom before the legislative process, which finishes this afternoon, was completed. This is the last chance for us to have a debate about this matter. It is not, obviously, the time to go into all the background principles and fundamental concepts behind the policy objectives. We have had those debates. We had a very good debate on the Welfare Reform Act, Section 31 of which spawns these regulations. That Act is a welcome piece of legislation. I think that the Government are perfectly reasonably able to found on these pilots. Valuable lessons can be learnt in the 10 areas in which they will obtain for the next two years. The pilots are for a limited period of two years. The areas are geographically restricted to England at the moment. So-called ““former occupiers””, in the Queen’s English, really means evicted tenants, but I will let that pass. The small number of people affected and the ultimate sunset clause of 31 December 2010 are welcome safeguards. We recognise that. Speaking for myself, I think that that is the least the Government can do. The Government can also perfectly reasonably found on these pilots, dealt with in these regulations, an important aspect of the respect agenda. The respect agenda is a common cause on all sides of the House. It is a terrible title, very Daily Mail—and anything to do with the Daily Mail gives me the heebie-jeebies. Notwithstanding that, the policy objectives behind trying to get people to be more responsible in their behaviour to their neighbours and the environment in which they live is absolutely right. I just do not think that the benefit system, and using sanctions in the benefit system, is an acceptable way to do that. Indeed, I think that the stakeholders and the Government deserve credit because there has been substantial consultation, and that consultation has produced a lot of extra safeguards. Perversely, they are making the guidance more lengthy and complicated. But it is all to the good because it is all to try to get better safeguards for the people to whom these pilots may apply. I hope that the Minister will understand that one of the key elements that we will apply when watching the outcome and development of the pilots is the extent to which they—by a process of osmosis, almost—introduce behavioural tests into eligibility for social security or housing benefit payments. If we start to go down that road, it will be deeply worrying. We started off in the old days with national insurance contributions producing benefit payments as a result. As the system has developed, it has become more means-tested and more targeted. Therefore, the eligibility for benefits is down to domestic household income. Those should be entitlements with a capital ‘E’. As soon as you introduce any other test by way of behaviour—which is a very difficult thing to define—there are real causes for concern. People’s rights and entitlements under the benefits system may be confused and diluted if we go too far down that route. I say again that laws that are restricted to apply only to people who receive a single type of benefit are deeply questionable. That is another thing that we will need to watch very carefully in the course of the pilots. Complexity is an even bigger issue, for the very good reason that there are yet more safeguards, which we welcome. The Government have, through the consultation process, found new ways to protect people. That is good, but you pay a price for that in increased complexity. I have not yet had a chance properly to read the notes and guidance in great detail. People obviously benefit from increased protection, but that makes the system more complex. We will be watching that very carefully over the next two years as well. Another continuous gripe that I have in social security debates is that we often forget that benefit deductions can be insidious. They pop up here and there and we do not take account of them. We think that all families are starting with a common level of income because they are on minimum benefits—even minimum benefits cause problems for people who try to live on them. They are a challenge to domestic budgets in some parts of the country. If some, whom we then forget about, are then subject to deductions of one kind or another—this is not a unique deduction, but it is yet another deduction—that may produce hardship in a way that is not easily seen. I still think that prevention is by far the best policy, as demonstrated by some of the evidence given by stakeholders. It would be useful if the Minister could say a word about what the Government will do during the two years when the pilots are in place to ensure that there is a network of rehabilitation support throughout England, so that we use that time to ensure that if the pilots in the 10 areas are rolled out more extensively, rehabilitation support services will be available for anyone who falls into the realms of the legislation. I am sure that the 10 areas were selected because they have rehabilitation services available, but, as I understand it, if we were to roll out the legislation and there were no rehabilitation services to hand, the legislation would fall, because local authorities cannot sanction people if they are not invited to use existing services. I sense that the money could be better used. I accept that there have been welcome developments in added protection. I must say that the good-cause provisions in Section 5 look very much as if they have been cut and pasted from jobseeker’s allowance, which takes us back to the wonderful prospect of good-cause circumstances including, among others that you could plead for avoiding the regulations, the manning or launching of a lifeboat. I will give the Minister a new Scots £10 note for every time that good cause could successfully be prayed in aid during the next two years. That is a no-lose bet for him and, coming from a Scotsman, that is very unusual. There are genuine concerns. The Government have gone some way to meet some of them—that must be acknowledged. I still think that the pilots are daft, but I am prepared to be persuaded. I conclude on this. I am sure that colleagues in the House on both sides will be watching the pilots like a hawk. If they slipped without further discussion into a major roll-out throughout the rest of the United Kingdom across the whole housing benefit system without very careful evaluation, we could store up problems for ourselves in future. On those grounds, I beg to move the Prayer to Annul the regulations on the basis that if the Minister gives us some steer as to how he will proceed, I will not test the opinion of the House. Moved, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the regulations laid before the House on 29 August be annulled (SI 2007/2474).—(Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope.)