POWER TO PROVIDE FOR THE TRANSITION TO INCAPACITY BENEFIT. (Hansard, 21 June 1994)

§ Mr. Scott
I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
147 The amendment will enable regulations to be made which will make it possible to rationalise the existing forms of transitional protection for dependency increases of invalidity benefit from April 1995. The intention is to align the old provisions with new forms of protection, which we intend to create when incapacity benefit is introduced. The House will be reassured to learn that acceptance of the amendment will not lead to cash losses for those whose circumstances remain unchanged.
During the 1970s and 1980s, the structure of dependency increases changed in a number of ways. I do not think that the House would want me to give a detailed account of those changes. A notable by-product of the process has been the creation of six separate forms of transitional protection. The number of affected beneficiaries is very small, and these forms of protection do not operate on a uniform basis. We believe that it is right to use the opportunity presented by the introduction of the new benefit to place them all on the same footing.
I explained that the relevant provisions do not operate in the same way. Some are linked to ongoing entitlement, and others are linked to the continuation of payment. Without going into any further details, I hope that the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr. Bradley) and the House will accept that these are reasonable proposals which will make a worthwhile reduction in complexity at the inception of incapacity benefit. I hope that the amendments will be acceptable to the House.

§ Mr. Bradley
I certainly do not want the Minister to go into the details of all the possible transitional arrangements which may be forthcoming. I wonder whether he could simply clarify a comment that was made in another place. I quote: The new rules will mean more favourable treatment for some beneficiaries and less advantageous treatment of others when compared with the current arrangements."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 10 May 1994, Vol. 554, c. 1466.] Is the Minister able to give specific examples of where it will be "less advantageous" than the current arrangements under the new rules for transitional payments?

§ Mr. Scott
I shall give an illustration. There is a form of existing transitional protection dating from 1985 relating to the introduction of the current earnings rule for adult dependency increases of invalidity benefit. Under that rule, payment ceases when earnings exceed a prescribed limit. However, the old rule provides for tapered withdrawal of the increase, so when the dependency increase is uprated each year the amount of earnings necessary to extinguish it also rises. That produces a rather bizarre effect.
Rather than merely preserving the position of beneficiaries affected by the change in 1985, this form of protection has increased in generosity over time, and would continue to do so at future upratings. Our intention is to place an overriding limit on that form of protection equal to the point at which protection currently ceases. If earnings exceed the limit for more than eight weeks, protection will come to an end. That would allow the existing advantage conferred by that form of protection to be retained, but would not allow subsequent increases in future years. That is one example that I can give the hon. Gentleman of the sort of complexities that have developed. We think that reining back may be necessary in some areas.

§ Mr. Bradley
Unfortunately, I have not worked up a similar example to compare with the Minister's, but his example is now crystal clear.
Clearly, the arrangements are complicated and we will have to consider them in detail, case by case, as they come up. While in no way opposing the amendments, we notify the House of our intention to return to the matter, probably through regulation, when the real effects of the legislation are apparent after April 1995. We will consider the matter at a later date.

§ Mr. Scott
I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
With this it will be convenient to take Lords amendments Nos. 33 to 39 and 76.

§ Mr. Scott
The amendments arise as a consequence of the recommendations of the House of Lords Select Committee on the Scrutiny of Delegated Powers. While that Committee was broadly content with the approach taken in the Bill, it drew attention to two matters. The first was the period during which regulations made under clauses 4, 5, 6 and 7 will be subject to the affirmative procedure. Members of the House, as well as members of that Committee, rightly pay close attention to whether powers are subject to the affirmative or negative procedures when they consider Bills that contain powers to make secondary legislation.
As the House will understand, twin pressures must be balanced. On the one hand, we must ensure that the business of the House is not cluttered up with regulations that are of minor import, and, on the other, that major measures are properly scrutinised on the Floor of the House. The Bill attempts to marry those concerns by time limiting the period to which regulations will be subject to the affirmative procedure.
The first few sets of regulations made under the provisions are likely to attract a high level of interest and scrutiny, as is proper. Future regulations, however, are likely to be in less controversial areas of legislation.
The Standing Committee welcomed time limiting the application of the affirmative procedure, which was a novel method, but one that responded to concerns expressed when we discussed the matters there. The Government had felt that three years from Royal Assent would be a suitable time for such regulations to be subject to the affirmative procedure. The Committee suggested commencement rather than Royal Assent, in cases where regulations were not made immediately. Regulations will, however, be made before the full commencement of the Act.
In all probability, a commencement order will commence clauses 4 and 7 of the Act in full, but clauses 5 and 6 only to the extent that regulations can be made. A later commencement order will fully commence clauses 5 and 6, along with the rest of the Act.
As clauses 4, 5 and 6 will not be commenced until April 1995, any regulations made under powers contained in those clauses would, if subject to the affirmative procedure only after commencement, automatically revert to the negative procedure. That was not the Committee's or the Government's intention, but we are sympathetic to the 149 Committee's concerns. We introduced amendments to extend the period in which amendments are subject to the affirmative procedure from three to four years.
Most social security regulations are subject to the scrutiny of the Social Security Advisory Committee. The two main exceptions are regulations made within six months of the Act and regulations that concern rates of benefit. We had originally thought that regulations made under the appropriate section would only set out the rates of age additions. Accordingly, those would not fall to be scrutinised by the SSAC and paragraph 52 was included in schedule 1 of the Bill.
The regulations will be broader than just the rates of benefit. It is appropriate, therefore, that the SSAC should consider those regulations. I commend the amendments to the House.

§ Mr. Bradley
We, of course, welcome the fact that the amendments have been tabled. My memory of the Standing Committee is not that we were all leaping up and down, full of exhaltation and pleasure because of the time limit on the affirmative procedure. We were expressing pleasure because we had the affirmative procedure and because it would last for a longer period than had originally been intended, rather than at the novelty of time limiting, as the Minister put it.
We also welcome the fact that the regulations will be scrutinised by the Social Security Advisory Committee. I assure the Minister that the Opposition will pay great attention, at every stage, to all the regulations that are introduced. As we have said on many occasions, we do not intend generally to accept that legislation should be by regulation, rather than primary legislation. The Bill is a classic case of more and more of the detail of legislation being pushed towards regulation and so we intend to scrutinise that at every turn, and by every means possible, to ensure proper parliamentary scrutiny of this crucial legislation for disabled people. However, we welcome the amendments.