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8.49 pm
Mr. Edward Leigh (Gainsborough): I am sure that the Bill is well intentioned and that the Government believe that it is the only course of action available to them. However, I firmly believe that it will be counter-productive to everything that they hope to achieve. It will compound rather than solve the problems. It will increase means-testing, not indirectly but directly. One has only to look at the proposals to end widow's benefit based on the contributory principle to realise that.
Sadly, the Bill is riddled with tokenism, such as the single gateway concept, which for many young people will be a gateway into a jobless void. Make-work schemes introduced in the past have simply made bureaucracy, not work. If they have made jobs, they have made them at a price that has not been cost-effective.
The Select Committee conducted a rigorous pre-legislative inquiry into pension sharing. However, I still believe that the proposals have been barely thought out, and I oppose them. If I am fortunate enough to be selected for the Standing Committee, I shall set out my opposition in greater detail.
There is no solution to divorce poverty. Indeed, divorce should be difficult. The only solution to divorce is some sort of judgment of Solomon which pleases no one, but that is the reality of life and divorce. We are in danger of creating a mini-CSA disaster. It is almost a cliche to say that the CSA has been a disaster. It will eventually be wound up, and these issues will be returned to the courts, whence they should never have been taken in the first place.
We are going down an extremely dangerous route. The only solution, in broad terms, is for the parties to a marriage that breaks up to keep for themselves everything they have accumulated up to their marriage, for everything accumulated during the marriage to be split down the middle, and, if children are involved, for the court to make a payment to the mother, who usually looks after them, based on a percentage of the father's salary.
I believe that pension sharing will not work. In my experience, the courts are used to dealing with property that is extant. Given the increasing number of short marriages, pension contributions will not have time to accrue to a significant extent. Pension sharing can work only for couples who have had long marriages and are close to retirement age. The courts will be required to interfere in events that will occur way in the future. I believe that chaos could result, and that many people will be beggared. Crumbs cannot be divided in two. If the pension hopes of divorcing couples have to be divided, the only way that can work is to use the Scottish system, which broadly divides everything accumulated during the marriage in half.
These issues have not been adequately debated by Parliament. This is a classic case of Members on both Front Benches walking blindly into something--as they did with the CSA. Many people will reap the whirlwind in years to come.
This is not the Bill that we should be considering. We should be discussing a Social Security (End of Dependency) Bill. We are as guilty as anyone else, and after all the bitter lessons that we have learnt in the past 10 years--my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) outlined them extremely well--we should try to reach a cross-party consensus. That may or may not be possible, but we should wind down the remorseless rise in spending of the past 50 years, which has thoroughly corrupted the working classes of this country, and ensured that people on low incomes are encouraged to work on the side while drawing maximum benefits. We have institutionalised--to quote a phrase current this week--family corruption. We should all be ashamed of that. Now we are putting a vicious new twist into the doleful process that both parties have been engaged in for the past 50 years.
In a manic attempt to get single mothers into work, we are ensuring that they will be paid to look after any children but their own. What could be more cruel, senseless and pointless than that? The most sensible
arrangement in life--it has been around for a long time--is two people committing themselves to marriage for life, with one working and one looking after the children. That has been deliberately eroded by Governments over the past 50 years.
It is a pity that Evelyn Waugh is dead, because we need a scathing "Vile Bodies"--type satire of the new work ethic. We are creating a ghastly 1970s Swedish perversion of the welfare state. Responsibility does not lie only with this Government: these proposals are merely the latest in a long, sad process that has continued for many years.
The time for tinkering is running out; the time for salami slicing is over. The time for palliatives is at an end. The time has come for a radical new step to be taken. We need to examine the Department of Social Security, all its benefits and all its structures, and unpick it from the foundation stones upward. That is a task for the Opposition as they prepare for government. [Interruption.] There is no point in the present Government's being arrogant. Sooner or later they will be the ex-Government, and sooner or later our party must try to prepare for government. We cannot return to the old days of tinkering with the system, or make the mistakes made by the present Government. We cannot indulge in short-term opposition, hoping that when we take over power the problems will somehow be solved. The problems will not be solved just by our taking power; we must have our own radical vision.
One benefit must, broadly, be retained. I refer to the basic state pension. That pension, however, should be based rigidly on the contribution principle, and should be passed to an independent body of the mutual, friendly society type. In other regards, however, radical reform is needed. At present, the Government are tinkering with the system. The introduction of stakeholder pensions, the retention of the basic state pension and the system of second pensions will merely confuse people, and I believe that the stakeholder pension will finally destroy any chance of re-creation of the occupational pension movement. Why should employers contribute, when their employees will be given rebates in return for entering the stakeholder pension system?
I believe that, eventually, poverty relief will have to be handed back to local authorities. That may sound radical, but it has happened in the past. I do not think that we can simply re-create 400 benefit agencies. We must think in terms of local action to deal with poverty.
As I said earlier in an intervention, there is a "third way", although it may not be possible. If we are now rejecting the idea of means-testing--as I believe we are--and if we believe that we cannot take the route advocated by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field), there must be another way. We must try to build into our system, through tax arrangements, increased pressure on families to maintain children, the elderly and the disabled. That may sound radical and shocking, but it is happening increasingly throughout the world. In many American states, for example, as social security budgets run out of steam, Governments and state legislatures ensure that families are made responsible.
Why do we assume that that is such a ridiculous idea? Why do we hand out child benefits to everyone, irrespective of income? Why do we not make parents responsible? Why do we allow young people to become
a charge on the state? Why do we not make their parents, or close family members, responsible? Is that such an impossible idea? Is it impossible to try to re-create the sense of family responsibility, the work ethic and the concept of enterprise by telling family members, "You will be responsible"?
Audrey Wise (Preston):
Let me begin by disposing of the Tory amendment, which will not take long.
The Tories complain that the Bill does nothing to increase job creation; that comes from the party that presided over a mass collapse of jobs. They complain about the missed opportunity for a lasting reform of social security; that comes from the party that, year after year and in Bill after Bill, made the social security system worse and more complicated. They complain about bad drafting; that comes from the party that frequently produced amendment papers that were more voluminous than the Bills to which they referred.
Some Conservative Back Benchers now say that they never agreed with all that. Means-testing is becoming Conservative Members' target. "Targeting" was the word that they often used. They were "targeting need", so everything was good. Now, everything is bad: it is means-testing, with which they never agreed. However, I can tell those of my hon. Friends who were elected at the most recent general election that I do not remember a single dissenting Tory voice--not one--on any social security issue. If Conservative Members were worried and embarrassed about those issues, they hid their feelings very well.
I move to the more pleasant task of welcoming the extension of mobility allowance to three and four-year-olds. I am very interested in and very concerned about children. Therefore I really do welcome the provision. Moreover, in that bit of the Bill, I do not have to say that anything is being taken back; it is an unadulterated good.
When I think about children, I think also about their parents. I think about lone parents, because they have special problems. My right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) said that he wants people to be interviewed and given an opportunity. I am not at all averse to the phrase that he used--"How can we help you with the rest of your life?" That is great. I do not think that such an offer will require compulsion. It will have to be made at the right time, which is not necessarily immediately after a traumatic event that causes someone to need benefit--in such cases, people need benefit very quickly--but the principle of offering help is fine.
I do not understand the need for compulsion. Particularly, I do not understand the need for compulsion for repeated interviews. If an opportunity is being offered, the word will get round. People will tell others about it, and they will flock to that opportunity. The danger of compulsion is that people think that it will lead to more compulsion. They think that it leads to compulsion to take jobs.
I believe Ministers when they say that that is not in prospect. However, I should just fire a warning shot by reminding the House that, for the duration of the second world war, when there was not only conscription but direction of labour--one not only had to work, but was told where to work--there was no compulsion on mothers with children of school age, which was then up to 14. If we could avoid such compulsion during the second world war, I do not know why we cannot do so at the beginning of the next millennium. Let us be careful. We do not want to put people off what could be a good idea by making them feel that there is a hidden threat.
A few weeks ago, I lobbied the Under-Secretary of State for Social Security, my hon. Friend the Member for City of York (Mr. Bayley), on abolition of severe disablement allowance, and have no doubt that other hon. Members lobbied similarly. I told my hon. Friend that there was absolutely no justification for a cut-off at 20, and that it would be a bit more logical if the age were 25. I am very pleased that at least that amount of sense has been seen, and that the cut-off will not be at 20, which would have been extremely damaging.
I have nevertheless to ask the original question: why abolish the allowance at all? The benefit started life as non-contributory invalidity benefit, which was introduced by the previous Labour Government. There was a need then for a non-contributory invalidity benefit, and there still is. Although I am glad that the effect of abolition of the benefit and its replacement with incapacity benefit will be greatly to increase benefit for the youngest, so that they will be better off--that is great; I am very pleased about it--I do not see the reason for preventing anyone, even those who are over 25, from claiming the benefit if they have need to qualify for it.
Let us not forget that we are talking about severe disablement. The Government apparently think that about 16,000 people--or even fewer, as now only those aged up to 25 will be able to claim--are able to claim severe disablement allowance, and that 70 per cent. of those will qualify for income support. The average loss for the other 30 per cent., whose other income disqualifies them from income support, will be £50 a week. That will apply to fewer people, but what counts is not just the other income of the person in question, but other income in the household. The disabled person might have no income, relying on that of a husband or partner. Taking that £50 a week will be a robbery of dignity as well as of cash. Both are important.
The Government predicted savings of £80 million a year in the long run. That figure will be lower now, so why not go the whole hog and accept that the previous Labour Government were right to take a great leap forward in recognising the need for a non-contributory invalidity benefit? Let us keep it available to all ages. The proposal discriminates particularly against women, because there is an assumption that if they are over 25 they will have had an opportunity to build a contributions record. That may not be the case and it is more likely not to be so for women. It would be untrue for anyone who had worked only part-time and remained under the contributions threshold, which is now about£80 a week. Many people go out to work but do not earn more than the threshold, so they never build a contributions record. I appeal to the Government to rethink the proposals.
Some of my hon. Friends have said that they are worried about changes in incapacity benefit. I echo what my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Mr. Berry) said about the dangers of the proposed changes to the contribution conditions. People may well be unable to build or keep a contribution record. If they go sick, they may be able to work only part-time. Their entitlement will be killed. Some will do it, just as they rest before going for medical examinations, then have to be in bed for the next month. People are generally honest. They try. If their contribution record goes out the window because they are not able to work for long enough or for high enough wages, they suffer. That disincentive to work is against all the Government's stated aims.
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