FAMILY INCOME SUPPLEMENT

HC Deb 01 December 1970 vol 807 cc1165-73

7.30 p.m.

Mr. S. C. Silkin (Dulwich)

I beg to move Amendment No. 1, in page 1, line 15, at end insert: '( ) For the purposes of this Act a household may consist of one or more families and a family may consist of some only of the members of a household'. The debates so far have shown that it is the common desire of both sides of the House that when the Bill becomes an Act it shall be as clear as possible to those who are intended to benefit from it, to those who will be operating it, and also, as the Minister said, to Members of Parliament who will be advising their constituents about the possibility of a claim by them. It is not sufficient that there should be handbooks, or that information should be given to Parliament. The first essential is that the Act should be as clear and as simple as it possibly can be. The debates in Committee show that there is little about the Bill that is clear and simple. On the contrary, its complexities are only too manifest.

Clause 1 tells us that a family consists of certain specified members of a household. So already we have two expressions, the meanings of which we have to interpret—"family" and "household". What is more important, those who administer the Measure and those who are intended to gain benefit from it will have to understand what those expressions mean in the context of the Bill. Since, according to the Bill, a "family" is something that falls within a "household", these people will obviously want to know, first, what is a household. On that, the Bill does not enlighten them—nor, as far as I can see, is there power to prescribe its meaning in regulations.

We have not put down an Amendment on that point, but the Government might consider it, because where a house is in multi-occupation—there may be a number of households which are interrelated with a married daughter and her family living upstairs and the parents downstairs—it will be necessary to know whether they constitute one household or two. That is the first puzzle which those seeking to discover what the Bill means will have to solve.

The Secretary of State for Social Services (Sir Keith Joseph)

I know that the hon. and learned Member for Dulwich (Mr. S. C. Silkin) will not try to create difficulties. Perhaps I can help him by saying that a number of different families may live under a single roof. Those families may be interrelated, but they can still be separate families for the purpose of each receiving F.I.S. if they qualify, provided only that each such separate family has an earning parent in full-time work or an earning adult in full-time work, with children for whose requirements that earning adult is responsible.

Mr. Silkin

I am sure that any of my constituents who read the report of this debate and what the right hon. Gentleman has just said will be quite clear in their minds exactly what Clause 1 means. Unfortunately, they will not all do so. The right hon. Gentleman has come to the point of our Amendment. I have been anticipating that a little by talking about the meaning of the word "household", but the Clause is concerned with what is meant by "family", and the Minister has pointed out that the Bill intends it to mean something different from "household". That is obvious because of the use of the two different expressions.

From the debates that we had in Committee it is also clear that it is something entirely different from what the ordinary person understands by the term "family". When we explored these matters in Committee we discovered all kinds of situations in which "family", for the purposes of the Bill, will differ from what you, Mr. Speaker, or I would consider to be a family.

We accept the right hon. Gentleman's explanation that this will enlarge the benefits flowing from the Measure, rather than narrow them. It will do so because in the household there may be two or more families, as defined in the Bill, or there may be one family as so defined, together with other people who would normally be regarded in ordinary parlance as members of the family but who, for the purposes of other benefits of F.I.S. will not be regarded as members of the F.I.S. family. All that was explained in Committee.

A man may be providing for children and so constituting a family, but in addition there may be a woman who is not cohabiting with him—his mother, sister, or aunt, for example—who may be entitled to supplementary benefit in her own right. Again, that other woman—and I do not use the term in any narrow sense—may herself be providing for children and may herself be in full-time employment, as that term will be defined in the regulations, and therefore qualify for F.I.S. in her own right, or may not be, but may qualify for other benefits for herself and the children for whom she is providing.

The right hon. Gentleman referred to some of these possibilities in Committee. Having dealt with them he said: To clear up any doubt, if we contemplate a household in which a Nan has children of her own and joins up her household with that of the father of the children, we might well get a situation in which the same household contained two families, each entitled on its own to family income supplement. He went on to say: Now we come to the much harder cases. I have only covered the easy ones."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th November, 1970; Vol. 806, c. 1126–7.] If those are the easy cases, Heaven help us to understand the difficult ones.

In practice, the most difficult cases of all will surely be those where, within the household, we have adults and children and the money earned is pooled, so that it is extremely difficult to say who and who is not providing for the children. The Bill does not seem to require the child or children being provided for under Clause 1 to be the child or children of any of the people referred to in that Clause. It is sufficient that they are being provided for by one of those persons. That is enough to qualify them, whether it is full or partial provision. We have not put down an Amendment on that point, but perhops the right hon. Gentleman will consider whether the word "either" in line 14 should be replaced by the word "any".

Mr. Speaker

Order. We are dealing with a very complex subject. We cannot discuss an Amendment that is not to be moved.

Mr. Silkin

I shall try to avoid that, Mr. Speaker. We are trying to help the right hon. Gentleman to make the Bill meaningful. At any rate, it follows that family income supplement will be payable, although someone not in the family, as defined, is providing for part of the requirement of the child or children concerned.

Thus, the first question which must be answered before we reach the question of the right to or amount of family income supplement, is: to which family in a household do the children belong? For the purposes of what I might call the "artificial family", do they belong to more than one family in the household? I referred to this question in Committee and suggested that the right hon. Gentleman might reconsider the wording of the Clause. It seems that he is satisfied with it, but to us it remains obscure. The question as to who decides what is the family is not made clear by the Bill, so far as I understand it. The question of what the family consists of is not made clear.

The Amendment seeks to write into the Bill that which, as the right hon. Gentleman made quite clear in the course of our debates in Committee, is intended by the Bill and which he may well say is implicit in it—that is, no matter what the household may be, it may contain one or more families within it. It follows that those families may have separate rights either under the Bill or under other legislation.

Our view is that, where there are these artificial conceptions and terms which mean something different from what the ordinary man takes them to mean, it is much better for the Bill to make quite explicit what is at present merely implicit. Many of us when we first read the Bill did not appreciate the subtle distinction which enables a grandparent, for example, living with her married son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren to be regarded as a family separate and distinct from the other members of what would normally be regarded as his or her family. We welcome the intention that she should be so regarded, because it means that she will be separately entitled to benefits. If that is the intention, as we understand it to be, we think it right to make it as clear as possible to those who will be administering the Bill when enacted and those who will benefit from it. That is the purpose of the Amendment.

If we are told by the right hon. Gentleman that the Amendment simply states the obvious, I can reply by saying that it certainly was not obvious to many of us until we had had prolonged debates on the Clause in Committee and it will not be obvious to many people, including hon. Members seeking to advise their constituents on the matter. Such hon. Members will not have the debates before them and they will certainly not have the right hon. Gentleman's recent intervention before them when they try to advise their constituents who come to them for help.

7.45 p.m.

Mr. Kevin McNamara (Kingston upon Hull, North)

I want to raise again a matter which I raised in Committee—c. 241–2, 18th November. By that time the Under-Secretary had spoken, but I think that he listened sympathetically to what I said. I hope that we can get a clearer answer if I raise the matter again.

The problem arises on the definition of "household". Let us assume that there are two families living in a council tenancy one or both of whom are in receipt of family income supplement and that the council operates a rent rebate scheme or a differential rent scheme. What happens to the rent that has to be paid, as a result of the increase in income due to family income supplement? Will they have to pay more rent because of F.I.S. or will it remain the same?

I have here an explanation of the rent rebate scheme issued by the City and County of Kingston upon Hull as a guide to tenants. In answer to the questions, "Who is entitled to a rent rebate?" it states in the relevant part of the answer: A rent rebate will not normally be made if:

1. (a) as well as the tenant and his wife, there is at least one other member of the household (the tenant's family living in the house) over 21 with his/her own income—for example, a working son or daughter or a retired parent with a pension.
2. (b) more than one household live in the dwelling. Even in these two cases a rebate will be given if there are special circumstances."

It then refers to Answer 4 as to what are special circumstances. It says in reply to Question No. 4: The rent rebate scheme cannot cover every situation. The Council, however, does not wish any tenant to pay more than he can reasonably afford. What the Tory-controlled Hull Council thinks is reasonable most hon. Members on this side would disagree with. I continue reading: If you do not qualify for a rent rebate under the scheme but cannot really afford to pay the standard rent ask at the Housing Department or your local estate office if you are entitled to special consideration. For example, a family with a low income and a retired parent living with them, or a low income tenant with a son over 21 but also on a low wage are likely to qualify for special consideration. One would hope that this would be interpreted to mean a family or group of families in receipt of income under the family income supplement scheme.

When the Secretary of State issues regulations on the definition of "household", does he intend to refer specifically to the situation which I have just outlined? Does the increase in income because of family income supplement mean that a council can demand more in rent? What happens if there are two or more families within the same dwelling in receipt of family income supplement? Will the Secretary of State give an undertaking to advise the Secretary of State for the Environment to inform local authorities that where there is an increase in family income or families' income due to the family income supplement, such an increase should be disregarded for the purpose of rent?

This is an important problem which will arise where there are two or more families in receipt of F.I.S. within one household according to the interpretation under the Bill, but it can obviously arise where there is only one family. It needs clarification. When we have discussed the question of rents hitherto this point has not been belaboured to the extent that it deserved.

Sir K. Joseph

I came to this Bill with something like a passion for short sentences. I find that I am constantly needing qualifications and that my sentences grow longer and longer. Hon. Members, particularly hon. Members opposite, are enjoying themselves constructively and helpfully in postulating cases which they present as very complicated. We are likely to be dealing with a large proportion of numbers eligible who are in perfectly straightforward understandable family units.

The Amendment is unnecessary because its purpose is already covered by the Bill as drafted. F.I.S. may well be payable to two or more families living in the same household and under the same roof. The entire purpose of the Amendment, therefore, is met.

An F.I.S. family, for the purposes of the Bill, may consist of the following: a man in full-time work, with his wife or a woman living with him as his wife, and any children, whatever the relationship—and even if there be no relationship—whose requirements they are meeting; a woman in full-time work, not living as a wife, together with children whose requirements she is meeting; or a man in full-time work, on his own, and any children whose requirements he is meeting.

It is conceivable that there may be two or more such family units dwelling under the same roof, in sub-divisions of the house or even not in sub-divisions of the house. There may well be what appears to us as laymen to be a confusion of families.

It will be for the families concerned, with the advice of my Department, to divide themselves into F.I.S. families if there is more than one potentially F.I.S. family among them. It will be possible, also, for that group of people, where there are two separate adults not living together as man and wife, each potentially looking after the requirements of a child or children, to decide between themselves which full-time earning adult should qualify for F.I.S. and which should not. The result of the agreement among themselves will be to exclude from the assessable income the earnings or income of the adult who is deliberately left out of the F.I.S. household. We shall seek to make it as beneficial as possible to the people on very low earnings.

The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North (Mr. McNamara)—who already has, so to speak, the scalp of the foster-child to his credit, having persuaded the Government to cover the position of the foster-child in regulations —is to be congratulated on dragging into this debate, on the hypothesis of two families living under one rent-paying roof, the problem of the rent allowance. He asked me whether a rent rebate would be reduced as the income calculable for a rent rebate rose owing to payment of F.I.S. I think that he gave the right answer himself. Clearly, I must speak to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment to make sure that, when the Government's rent allowance scheme comes before the House, this particular possibility has been taken into account. In the meantime, local authorities retain their autonomy as regards rent rebates, and this is a matter for their discretion.

Mr. McNamara

I understand that local authorities will still have their autonomy until the new scheme is introduced. However, as the right hon. Gentleman's F.I.S. scheme is to come into operation next August, and as we cannot hope to see—indeed, some of us would probably prefer not to see—his right hon. Friend's scheme until next autumn, there exists a situation in which some local authorities are, and will be, operating a scheme based upon recommendations issued by the former Ministry of Housing and Local Government. I was trying to direct the right hon. Gentleman's attention to that problem. Might another directive be given?

Sir K. Joseph

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I undertake to speak to my right hon. Friend. If there is anything which could usefully be said, perhaps we might let it be known in another place.

I hope that I have reassured hon. Gentlemen opposite that their Amendment is tautologous. I know that the hon. and learned Member for Dulwich (Mr. S. C. Silkin) has penetrated the Bill remarkably and understands all that I have said. If there is a question which I have not covered, I gladly give way.

Mr. S. C. Silkin

The right hon. Gentleman has said, far more clearly than I could, precisely what I intended to say. But the yhole point is this: why not put just a few simple words into the Bill so that those who read it will understand as clearly as he does after living with the Bill for the last few months and as I have come to understand it through listening to the right hon. Gentleman?

Sir K. Joseph

The hon. and learned Gentleman is most persuasive, but I cannot think that he imagines that many of those eligible for F.I.S. will read the Bill when it reaches statutory form, and nor are they likely, therefore, to miss what he calls the few simple words which he wishes to insert. It will be my task and pleasure to send out guidance to my offices, to the supplementary benefit offices, to the large number of social workers in all the many social work armies in the field, and to voluntary societies. I shall make it abundantly plain to them who are the potential F.I.S. recipients. I shall put it in language which will be sure to lead them to any potential recipient.

I assure the hon. and learned Gentleman that the addition of these words will in no way strengthen the power to help with F.I.S. more than one family in a household, and I hope that, on that assurance, he will not press the Amendment.

Amendment negatived.