Standing Committee D
Tuesday 13 April 1999
(Morning)
[Mr. Humfrey Malins in the Chair]
Clause 47
Claim or full entitlement to certain benefits conditional on work-focused interview
10.30 am
The Chairman: I welcome the Committee back and hope that everyone had a good Easter break.
Mr. Quentin Davies (Grantham and Stamford): On a point of order, Mr. Malins. I hope to assist the Committee by raising this issue. No Chairman will ever give up in advance the flexibility to decide whether to allow a clause stand part debate. However, many issues that relate to this clause cannot appropriately be probed by amendments because, once an amendment is tabled, it signals a substantive view.
The explanatory memorandum deals with the pilots for the interviews. The Government's documents on the subject reveal considerable contradictions, especially with regard to the mentally and physically ill and widows. I do not want to exclude any possibility of what we may discuss, but we should probe the reference to widows in new section 2A(2)(d). We should also deal with the issue of the terminally ill and whether work-focused interviews should be available to those in work.
I do not want to raise those matters in an amendment. Many issues can be properly explored only in a clause stand part debate. I hope that if my colleagues and I impose a self-denying ordinance and do not raise those issues when we speak to individual amendments that it will be possible to have a clause stand part debate. Even if you do not wish to comment on that, Mr. Malins, I hope that my request has been registered.
The Chairman: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I am inclined to think that we should have a clause stand part debate, subject to developments during our discussion on the amendments, to which I shall listen with great care. I shall announce my ruling in due course.
Mr David Rendel (Newbury): I beg to move amendment No. 91, in page 44, line 27, at end insert—
`(iii) that person is neither severely disabled, nor is a carer of a disabled or elderly person, or of a child under the age of 5'.
May I also welcome you back, Mr. Malins? I hope that your Easter break was as good as mine.
The amendment would exempt categories of people who may be claiming benefits from the compulsory interview which the Government are determined to put them through. The reasons for exemption are different in each case, but there are good reasons for believing that the severely disabled, their carers and people who care for the elderly or very young children should be exempted from the clear threat of benefit removal by the Government if they do not attend the compulsory interview.
We have always said that it is important to give people every opportunity to discuss employment possibilities, if that is the route they choose to take. That would remain the case for people who are covered by the categories in the amendment. They should receive advice on job opportunities and, as we mentioned in our discussion on amendment No. 92 at the end of the last sitting, on benefit entitlement, child care and other relevant matters, but they should not be compelled to attend an interview with sanctions attached if they choose not to or are incapable of doing so.
A parliamentary answer on 18 March stated that the prime purpose of the personal adviser is to help clients explore ways in which they can overcome barriers to participation in the labour market. That is fine, in that it is consistent with the Government's espousal of work for those who can work, but they also claim to want to provide security for those who cannot work. It is important that people for whom work is an inappropriate option should be provided with security. Threatening them with the loss of benefits is the very opposite of providing them with security. For that reason, we feel that such people should be exempted.
Requiring someone who is severely disabled to attend what the Government insist will be a work-focused interview, implies a measure of doubt about that person's disability. The implication is that such a person may be lying and failing to take up work where work is a possibility. That is not the right way in which to treat such people. It is essential that the interview be seen not as a threat to allowance or benefit, but as a positive opportunity to discuss employment, benefit entitlement, issues such as child care and the entire range of help that the Government can provide. Sadly, during our deliberations on the Tuesday before Easter, the Government did not agree.
According to the Government, helping clients to explore work opportunities remains the prime purpose of the interview. Rather than spending money on helping people to overcome barriers to participation in the labour market, it would surely be better for the Government to remove those barriers. Currently, the disabled have to overcome various barriers: discrimination, prejudice and, importantly, inaccessibility. The latter can mean not only physical inaccessibility to the workplace but inaccessibility to the work itself. For example, people with a visual disability may need a computer screen that is larger than the standard size, written materials in Braille format or a large typeface.
On the Tuesday before Easter, I spoke to a lobby of disabled people about the difficulties that they face and how best to help those who wish to return to work to do so. I told them that the greatest difficulty that most disabled people face is not a lack of awareness or the opportunity to attend job interviews, but inaccessibility to the workplace or the work itself. My comments met with a roar of approval. Of course, schemes exist to help employers to remove some of those barriers, but they are insufficient and the Government must face up to the problem. At present, there remains a great shortage of suitable jobs for disabled people.
The Government are tackling the issue from a one-sided angle. They expect disabled people to be able to go out and find work even though there may be no work that is accessible to them. The Governement are failing to provide disabled people with an adequate working environment. Importantly, they have also failed to extend the compass of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 to include more small businesses. Firms employing as few as two people should be brought within the scope of the Act. It is a pity that the Government restrict the scope of the Act to those firms employing 15 or more people.
The Government have said that there are about 1 million people who want to find work. However, so far, the new deal has succeeded in finding work for only about 50 disabled people, and the disabled persons tax credit is not expected to help more than about 6,000. There are therefore huge numbers of people not being properly helped by the Government's current schemes. If the Government's flagship policies are making such a tiny impression on the problem, it is inappropriate to attach a benefit sanction to the compulsory interview, as the Bill sets out to do.
For those incapacitated while in work, or while trying to find work, the traumas are especially telling. It is wrong that people who suddenly find themselves incapacitated should be forced to go through an interview at such a difficult time. They may be facing the trauma of the impossibility of finding work, when they have been used to working all their lives. They may suddenly find themselves in a position where they may never work again, and yet they are forced to undergo such an interview, with the threat that they may have nothing to live on if they do not attend. In such circumstances, where someone's mental state may be such that they have difficulty in getting themselves together at all, it is inappropriate that they should be faced with such a threat to their future livelihood. That would only exacerbate the difficulties that people face at such a time. For those reasons, we feel that disabled people should not be forced to attend an interview.
Mr. Edward Leigh (Gainsborough): Will the hon. Gentleman explain how he defines severely disabled, and elderly? Presumably, the term ``elderly'' refers to pensioners, but how does he devine severely disabled?
Mr. Rendel: One definition of a severely disabled person might be someone who applies for the severe disablement allowance, which is one of the benefits listed in the clause. If the Government wish to accept the amendment, but wish to provide a more exact definition of severe disablement, or if the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh) would like to provide an adequate definition, I am sure that we would consider a further amendment to accommodate that definition, if necessary. At present, however, I am happy to leave the amendment as it stands.
The amendment also seeks to exempt carers from the compulsory interview.
Mr. Eric Pickles (Brentwood and Ongar): On a point of clarification, the amendment covers the carers of disabled or elderly persons. Does the hon. Gentleman mean full-time carers?
Mr. Rendel: We must consider the extent of care. I shall come to that in a moment, and I hope that I shall be able to answer the hon. Gentleman's question then.
There are people who care for the elderly, for disabled people of working age, and for young children. It is unfortunate that people who spend a large part of their time in unpaid caring work should be faced with such a threat, not least because it implies that their caring work is not worthwhile, and that they are not playing a full part in society, or doing their duty by society while they are playing a caring role. That implication is wrong. We do not look after our carers well enough in this country, nor do we have a high enough regard for unpaid caring work. The provisoin takes us in the wrong direction, by appearing to pay even less attention to the importance of caring work in our community. The Government are trying to associate carers with the something-for-nothing culture. I do not believe that people who care for the elderly, the disabled or the very young are in any way part of that culture. The Government's thesis is that the Bill is a way of removing that culture. However, by forcing carers to attend interviews, the Government are sending them the message that they are not doing a worthwhile job, and that if they are not prepared to accept work, they are trying to get something for nothing.
10.45 am
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