§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Budgen.]
§ Mr. SpeakerAs the hon. Member for Antrim, East (Mr. Beggs) is not present, I call the hon. Member for Cunninghame, North (Mr. Wilson) to move the second Adjournment.
§ 10 pm
§ Mr. Brian Wilson (Cunninghame, North)This will be yet another lesson for the Scottish Tories—that deviousness gets them nowhere. Despite their filibuster, in which the Minister spoke for 47 minutes to kick off and poor benighted souls from the Isle of Wight and from Wanstead and Woodford were trotted in to prolong the debate, at the end of the day they will have to face the music, because someone has failed to turn up from Northern Ireland, despite their best efforts.
It is timely and valuable that the House should have a further opportunity to debate housing benefit, especially in the Scottish context, and for the Government to have to answer for the burden that they have imposed on local authorities doing their best to maintain decent housing conditions, despite cuts on every front in the past 10 years. Local authorities now have to cope with the fantastic bureaucratic mess of the Government's new housing benefit system. As Members of all parties know, at our surgeries every week and in our postbags every day there come tales of the human misery inflicted on decent people trying to make ends meet as a result of the changes in housing benefit. To call them changes is a euphemism. We are talking about savage cuts. The people at the sharp end, who have had to send out the calculations, have been the local authorities. As usual, the Government have treated them with the utmost contempt.
It is worse than that. After a few weeks of panic in the Tory ranks, the Government come along again claiming to recognise the political disaster that they have visited upon themselves and announcing cosmetic changes. We are told that great magnanimity is to be shown in the clawback, as it were, of the cuts in housing benefit. And who has to recalculate the benefit and deal with the confused folk trying to find out what is happening? Yet again, the local authorities are at the sharp end. And who is to pay for the recalculation, for the manpower and computer effort, not to mention the cost of all this in human misery? I hope that the Minister will tell us today that the Government intend to foot every penny of the bill which has resulted from the confusion that the Government have visited on local authorities.
In towns such as Kilbirnie, Saltcoats and Ardrossan in my constituency, where unemployment is running at rates up to 30 per cent., I know the suffering and heartbreak that has been caused when folk have been told that they face rent and rate increases of £10 or even £20 per week. What kind of Government impose that kind of shock on people already struggling to make ends meet? Many are elderly or disabled, but that is the way in which they have been treated by the Government. I shall not go into specific examples as every Member knows the truth of what I am saying and I wish to allow time for my hon. Friends to participate in the debate.
We then come to the deception that the Government visited on the House when the Secretary of State for Social 778 Services came back to announce the package dreamed up in an attempt to head off the worst of the political consequences for the Conservative party. They came back to talk about the £6,000 savings rule, principally because it affected the client group in which they were most interested for electoral purposes. Many elderly people in my constituency would have been affected by that rule, but relatively few will have been assisted by the changes that the Government announced. Those affected by the £6,000 rule, however, will not be the ones to suffer most. The real suffering will be experienced by those who would regard it as a joke in poor taste to suggest that they had £600 or £60 of savings, never mind £6,000. There was nothing in the Government's package to protect them.
A clear attempt was made to imply that no one would be paying more than £2.50 a week more in rent and rates than before April. That is simply an untruth. To the £2.50 in housing benefit cut have to be added the rent increases that the Government have forced upon local authorities. To the £2.50 and the rent increases has to be added the 20 per cent. rates rule introduced by the Government by sleight of hand. There are other elements, too. Many people will still be paying £7, £8 or £9 per week more in rent and rates than they were before 1 April. These are the very poorest people in our communities and that is the scandal of the Government's actions.
I want to make it clear that it is not the local authorities that are imposing the increases. The local authorities will seek to protect people from the worst impact of the Government's actions. Ministers plead concern and say that something has been done to help people out. Yet at the same time they cannot deny that many of those in my constituency and throughout the country—those with the least means in our society—will be hit by rent and rate increases accounting for upwards of 10 per cent. of their total income.
The Prime Minister made a grotesque public relations trip to Glasgow on Saturday to try to capture a minute amount of good publicity. She intruded shamelessly upon a great Scottish occasion. She was treated with contempt, and the ultimate contempt was simply to ignore her unwanted presence. If the Prime Minister is to make excursions to Glasgow to exude human concern, let her start by addressing the 140,000 people in that city—the poorest people in that city—affected by the cuts in housing benefit. Let her announce that the poll tax is to be done away with instead of persecuting those same people. Let us not have the window dressing of human concern, but the substance of human concern. That does not involve going to football matches; it involves showing compassion and decency towards those who stood on the Hampden terraces on Saturday.
§ 10.3 pm
§ Mr. Norman Buchan (Paisley, South)I am grateful for the opportunity of participating in the debate, and to all those who contributed towards our obtaining it.
I have been a Member of Parliament for more than 20 years. Without question the past five weeks has been the worst period that I have known in terms of human fear, suffering and tears. The letters have been heart-rending. The way in which the Government have acted in introducing the changes is deplorable. The ineffectiveness of the Government's attempt to remedy matters has been even more deplorable. The reason for that was underlined 779 by the astonishing answer that the Prime Minister gave when she was challenged on the effect of the housing benefit decisions. She said that this was a matter for local authorities. That is quite extraordinary. The measure was introduced by the Government. The speed with which they acted suggests that they may have been stupid, and if they did not know the consequences of their actions a year ago, they are worse than stupid—they are wicked.
I wish to draw three cases to the attention of the Under-Secretary. The first concerns a widow of 57. She has no £3,000 and no £6,000. She receives £41.50 a week. Her rent and rates have increased by a further £10 a week. That is an increase demanding 25 per cent. of her income.
There is another woman, who is doing exactly what the right hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) says should be done. That single woman goes out to work in difficult circumstances, She has a job, through the Manpower Services Commission scheme, doing 30 hours a week for less than £60. She has to take two buses to get to her work. She, too, has lost almost £10. After paying for her bus fares and rates and having her telephone taken out—her only link with her family-she is left with £17 a week for heating, lighting and food. She asks: "How can I do this?" I have sent her letter to the Prime Minister, because I cannot answer it.
These measures have been brought in within weeks of a Budget that gave nearly £2 billion away to the richest 5 per cent. of the community. This caused anger. The Opposition were accused of chanting, "Shame." I confess that I chanted, "Shame," and I meant it. I did it not as part of an organised team but because I knew the Budget's effect. I knew what could have been done with £2 billion. Five weeks later, the so-called poor man's Budget has been slashed, in one case to 25 per cent. That is appalling. We are told that the problems will be solved because the Government have responded to the pleas, but their response is inadequate. It does not deal with 90 per cent. of the cases.
The Government have been obsessed with people's capital. The adjustment from £6,000 to £8,000 is small enough but there are worse cases—people on low wages and people on small pensions. There is the woman of 67 with arthritis and her husband of 72 with angina, whose weekly income of just over £60 has been cut by about £10. They are the worst cases, and the £2.50 provision will not solve their problem. My hon. Friend the Member for Cunninghame, North (Mr. Wilson) said that it does not deal with the problem. At best, these people will have to pay £2.50, plus rent increases, plus 20 per cent. of their rates. I hope that the Minister will come up with some rapid answers because there is deep human misery in every poor area of Britain.
§ Mr. Donald Dewar (Glasgow, Garscadden)I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Cunninghame, North (Mr. Wilson) for giving me a few minutes to intervene in his Adjournment debate. I do not want to go over the ground that has been eloquently sketched by my hon. Friends the Members for Cunninghame, North and for Paisley, South (Mr. Buchan). I endorse their feelings.
This has been a bad time for many people of modest means living in difficult circumstances. In a strange way, it has been a bad time for elected representatives. Like my colleagues, I cannot remember ever being so stuck for 780 consolation or advice as in the past week or two. It is now commonplace to be approached by people who have been given the prospect of having to pay an increase in their housing costs in one month that exceeds their weekly income. With simple, stark finality we are told, "We cannot find the money, we cannot pay it. With the best will in the world, it cannot be done." We know that that is true and we cannot wish that fact away.
In fairness, it should be said that there have been some signs of repentance. The Secretary of State for Social Services said that the loss would be restricted to £2.50. The comment has been well made that that is only a partial account of what is happening and that the reservations, caveats and small print mean that almost everyone will still be a substantial loser. I still have in my constituency people who are not of pensionable age, who do not have children living with them in the family and who are not in receipt of any of the special disability benefits that bring them within the cover of the so-called protection. They are the low paid. Because they are low paid and not covered, they are still left in the original, frightening quandary that my hon. Friends have described in the past few minutes.
I want the Minister to give us some reassurance and some evidence that the Scottish Office, which, after all, is responsible for housing and for the operation of housing departments, has thought the matter through and that in the rather inadequate arrangements that have already been announced, a workable system is beginning to take shape. I am sure that the Minister has been giving a great deal of thought to the matter. I should like him to share with us his ideas of how the new system will work.
As I understand it, a DHSS unit is to be set up in Glasgow to deal with the United Kingdom. The onus will be on an individual applicant to look to that unit for the protection that may be available, that may lead to a lessening of the financial blow that he or she faces. I want the Minister to explain exactly how that system will work and how it relates to housing departments in Scotland. For example, will they have to continue for several months to take the new housing costs, rent and rate calculations, according to the new scales? There has been talk about the unit coming into operation only in July. The unit will then be inundated with work. Will people have to pay the new higher scales for a considerable period, without the benefit of any of the protection that has been announced? What are the duties of local authorities? How do they mesh into the system? Can they supply to the DHSS lists of those who are to get some help? Can we speed up the process?
It is important to make the point about the cruelty—I use that word with considerable seriousness—that has been built into the operation and the way in which it has been mishandled. Given that disaster, I should like the Minister to explain exactly what will happen. If he does that and if, on Saturday-as inevitably will occur—someone comes to me, facing an increase in their housing costs of about £60, £70, £80 or—as happened last Saturday—£90 a month, although they live on benefit, instead of saying something vague and indefinite, such as "There will be some measure of help. I do not know when or how it will operate, because it is not clear," I shall be able to say, "I have talked and listened to the Scottish Office Minister. He has been able to explain to me exactly what will happen, how you apply, what the local housing department has to supply the DHSS with in the way of records and information, when you can expect to get help and how it will be calculated." 781 The Minister has 13 minutes. He can give us a great deal of information, which must be available. It would be a genuine service to me as a constituency hon. Member if he could do something to put into order the chaos, dismay and the damage that his colleagues' policies have brought to my constituency.
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton)I am glad to respond to the debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Cunninghame, North (Mr. Wilson) on his ingenuity in getting the debate.
These are serious and important measures. The subject of the debate is the impact of housing benefit changes on housing departments of Scottish local authorities. The hon. Gentleman will appreciate where my responsibilities and those of the DHSS begin and end. I assure him that, in so far as he has raised matters that relate more to the DHSS than to the Scottish Office, such matters will be drawn to its attention. Full information will be provided to the hon. Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) on the points that he mentioned. I shall deal as fully as I can with what I see the position to be.
Not a few hon. Members will be impressed by the procedural canniness with which the hon. Member for Cunninghame, North obtained the debate at such short notice. Of course, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services is responsible for housing benefit, but it might assist the hon. Gentleman if I comment briefly on the features of the reformed housing benefit system that was introduced. I shall then examine the effect that the system may have on housing departments in Scottish local authorities.
I emphasise that the first purpose is to make the new scheme simpler, because it will be aligned with the rules for income support and family credit. That means that people will not be so confused about what they are entitled to. The second purpose is to make the system fairer. People will be treated alike, whether or not they are in work, and the worst features of the poverty trap under the old scheme will be eliminated. It is worth noting that the Secretary of State for Social Services gave the undertaking that his Department would monitor the general effects of the reforms to housing benefits and the effects of the wider package of reforms that he introduced.
One feature of the new scheme that will be of interest to pensioners is the pension premium, which will benefit pensioners—the rates will be higher for those over the age of 80. It is true that pensioners will be the biggest group to be affected by the benefit changes and that is inevitable. It is widely appreciated that, at present, pensioners are by far the largest group of housing benefit recipients. They account for about 60 per cent. of recipients.
Much has been said about the new capital rules and I do not intend to rehearse the arguments about them tonight. It should not be forgotten that under the former system any income generated by savings was taken into account. At present, capital of less than £3,000 and any income generated from it will be disregarded in the benefit calculation. That will be of benefit to pensioners, especially those with small amounts of savings.
782 The disabled are another group who have done relatively well in the changeover from the old to the new system. The premiums for the sick and the disabled, for example, are much higher than the former enhancements for the disabled. One important point that I wish to emphasis is that the new housing benefit arrangements will insulate tenants from rent increases if they are receiving housing benefit. That means that even those tenants who have a small portion of their rent paid by housing benefit will receive a pound for pound increase in their benefit to match any subsequent increases in their rent.
I have outlined some particular features of the new scheme that I feel are particularly worthy of the House's attention. I believe that the former system placed an unacceptable burden upon the taxpayer.
§ Lord James Douglas-HamiltonI will not give way, as I have a lot to say in response. The fact that the former system covered approximately one household in three was not justified by any evidence of need. The changes are designed to protect the poorest and to direct resources more effectively to where they are needed most.
§ Mr. Home Robertsonrose—
§ Lord James Douglas-HamiltonNo, I will not give way.
I believe that the changes to housing benefit cannot be seen in isolation from other aspects of Government policy. The need to control inflation and public expenditure is without doubt just as important now as when we first came to office. There is no denying the fact that everyone benefits from lower inflation, especially pensioners and others on fixed income.
Any fundamental change in any scheme of support will obviously produce gainers and losers. There is no way of avoiding that. The Government believe that approximately one half of pensioners on income-related benefits will gain under the new scheme and that, consequently, approximately one half will lose. Generally those who lose will be relatively better off.
§ Lord James Douglas-HamiltonNo, I must press on.
I believe that to direct help first and foremost to the poorest and most vulnerable of our society is a sound and entirely defensible principle of social policy.
§ Mr. WilsonCan the Minister tell us where the poorest begin and the less poor end? The people who come to my surgeries and who write to me are, by any humane definition of the poorest, within that category. In the Minister's world, does somebody need to be living in a cardboard box before he is regarded as one of the poorest?
§ Lord James Douglas-HamiltonThe Secretary of State for Social Services listened carefully to the representations that were made by hon. Members; that was why he came forward with changes that took into account the varying circumstances.
I have described the basis of the thinking that lay behind the reforms to housing benefit. I shall now consider the effect that those reforms may have on the housing departments of Scottish local authorities. As I have already said, I believe that the new scheme is simpler. Consequently, the task of administering it by local 783 authorities will be that much easier. There will be fewer exceptions, rules will be aligned across a wide range of benefits, there will be one taper instead of six so there should be fewer mistakes in assessing individual benefit levels than in the past. It is true that the Government are changing the subsidy arrangements by which we pay back local authorities for their benefit and administration costs. We are doing this to encourage efficient administration.
§ Lord James Douglas-HamiltonNo, I shall not.
Councils will still receive a fair level of support for costs reasonably incurred, but we are giving them firm incentives to control costs and improve efficiency.
§ Mr. DewarBefore the Minister concludes, will he tell us what advice he would give to someone who is faced with a substantial increase in their housing costs? How will he explain what will happen in the next month or two? How will the Minister tell them to get the protection that he has been talking about, and relate that to the restriction of £2.50? How is it going to work, and what kind of information will they have to supply, to whom and when?
§ Lord James Douglas-HamiltonThe hon. Member for Garscadden asked a lot questions all rolled into one. He is asking what one would say to one's constituents. I will tell him exactly. The first point is to ascertain whether the constituent is claiming all the allowances to which he or she is entitled. Frankly, in some cases they are not doing that. It is important to go thoroughly into the facts. The specific DHSS levels are the responsibility of the Secretary of State for Social Services.
In conclusion, I affirm that the Government have struck a careful balance in their reform of housing benefit between the need to reflect the ever-increasing cost and scope of the scheme, the need to simplify and the need to protect the poorest. I believe also that the considerable simplifications introduced by the new scheme will benefit local authorities, contrary to the assertions that have been made.
§ Mr. Home RobertsonIt would be helpful if the Minister could reply to some of the points put to him by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar). However, perhaps the most interesting question that our constituents would like the Minister to answer is how he could manage to live, after paying for his housing costs, on as little as £14 a week. Would he be prepared to do that? If not, why should his or my constituents be expected to do that?
§ Mr. WilsonThis is an astonishing occasion. Hundreds of thousands of people in Scotland are living in the direst poverty and fear because of this issue. Conservative Members failed to head off a half-hour debate on this subject. The Minister is left with 13 minutes to explain the details of how this wickedness is to operate. He cannot 784 even do that. He sits down in deadly silence. It is the biggest indictment of ignorance, alongside incompetence, that we have seen in the House this Session.
§ Mr. Henry McLeish (Fife, Central)I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Cunninghame, North (Mr. Wilson) made the point that this is an extraordinary response to what is a crisis in Scotland for our tenants. I am sure that the Minister will face numerous problems in relation to housing benefit, especially as it will have an impact on the housing departments throughout Scotland. One of the crucial issues that we face is that, because of changes in social security and reductions in housing benefit, many of my constituents will be unable to pay their rent.
What guidance will the Minister give to local authorities which may have hundreds of tenants unable to pay their rent? Will the Minister consider a non-eviction policy emanating from St. Andrew's house? Clearly, many people are on the breadline.They will not be able to pay rent or rates to the local authority. I am sure that the Minister is aware that I have had pensioners and people on low incomes, in tears at my surgeries. It is a horrific experience to see people, who have paid their taxes, rents and rates all their lives now in the invidious position of being worse than beggars with a bowl. They come to surgeries and they say, "What can we do? What can you do to help?"
§ Mr. McLeishWe are left in the amazing position where we can only say that we will write to the Prime Minister and bring it to her attention. There are few constituents who can appreciate that a Government can be so mean, so vicious, so malicious and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) said from a sedentary position, so ignorant of the plight of hundreds of thousands of Scottish people. These people are on the breadline and they feel that this kick in the teeth over housing benefit is something that they cannot cope with.
Why has the Minister not answered some of these questions? Housing departments are looking for guidance and leadership. After what this Government have done to my constituents and many of my hon. Friends' constituents, we deserve answers. Sadly, they have not been forthcoming.
§ Lord James Douglas-HamiltonDecisions on the rents to be levied are wholly for the local authorities to take into account.
§ The Motion having been made at Ten o'clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, MR SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
§ Adjourned at half past Ten o'clock.