HL Deb 25 February 1987 vol 485 cc305-16

9.55 p.m.

Baroness Seear rose to ask Her Majesty's Government, in view of the statement by the Citizens' Advice Bureau that thousands of people do not claim benefits to which they are entitled, whether they will arrange for an immediate television campaign to inform people, in detail, of the available benefits, and whether they will undertake a thorough investigation to find means of improving the take-up rate.

The noble Baroness said: my Lords, this is my second attempt to get this debate on the Floor of the Hose. At this late hour it is not surprising that it is still not a very well-attended debate. I put down this Unstarred Question during the big freeze because it seemed to me quite ridiculous that we should be discussing, at great length, ways in which people with low incomes could get an extra £5 provided they fulfilled a number of very complicated requirements as regards measuring temperature—I am not complaining about that, but it was a complicated scheme—when it was quite clear that a considerable number of them were already entitled to a much larger sum than £5. For one reason or another—no doubt frequently ignorance—they did not go along to draw the money.

I repeat, I am not against the £5 heating allowance, but it seems absurd to be concentrating on that instead of concentrating on ways in which Parliament's decision that these additional moneys should be available was conveyed to people in such a way that they would take up the benefits to which they were entitled. There can be no question—I am sure the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, is not going to deny this—that a considerable number of people do not draw the benefits to which they are entitled. I know that the Government have made a considerable effort to get information across to them, but in a number of cases it has not been successful.

I want to tell the House about one or two cases. I do not wish to detain the House long. These cases came to me directly from the institution which had to cope with these problems. They illustrate the kind of thing that happens because people do not know about or take up these benefits. I cite the case of Mr. and Mrs. X, aged 64 and 59 respectively. Mr. X was claiming invalidity benefit following an accident at work three years ago. Mrs. X was an epileptic who suffered with stomach ulcers and whose mobility was impaired by polio. Mr. and Mrs. X were in receipt of £62 invalidity benefit per week and standard housing benefit.

Mr. and Mrs. X steadily accumulated large debts and found difficulty in managing to meet their basic needs of buying food and paying fuel demands. The fuel authorities had sent letters about cutting off their supplies. Eventually, when Mr. X was admitted to hospital following a suicide attempt because he felt no longer able to cope with the increasing pressures and demands, it materialised that Mr. and Mrs. X were entitled to claim supplementary benefit for extra heating and diet additions. Also, Mrs. X claimed mobility allowance and attendance allowance which increased their weekly income by a staggering £58.09.

That is perhaps an extreme case. I have it from the hospital which these people went into. If that is an example it is absurd, is it not, that this kind of thing should continue? At this late hour I will not give more examples, but I could do so and I am sure other Members of your Lordships' House could add to them.

I know that the Government have been attempting to do a considerable amount. In my experience, many people in all levels of society and education do not read notices; do not read leaflets; forget what the leaflets say if they do read them; lose the leaflets—and I am high on the list of people who lose leaflets—and do not remember what they are entitled to. Of course there are many different benefits. I wonder whether anybody in your Lordships' House except the noble Baroness, could reel off the different benefits to which people are entitled.

Baroness Trumpington

I could not!

Baroness Seear

My Lords, I was paying the noble Baroness the compliment that she knew the benefits. I did not really believe it and she is honest enough to admit that she does not know. These are extremely complex matters and this raises another and much larger issue as to whether or not it is sensible to have this vast number of specific benefits. But, that is what we have at the present time.

My argument is quite narrow. There is one method of communication which succeeds far better than any other, and that is television. One reason that it gets over is well known to anybody who has ever taught; namely, if it is possible to penetrate more than one sense at a time—for example eyes and ears—information sticks far better than if you go through only one sense—for example, reading. There is evidence that this method has been tried and is effective. The GLC (which I know is not a favourite institution, or ex-institution of the noble Baroness) had a scheme of this kind and there was a remarkable increase in the number of people who applied for benefit.

My noble friend Lord Winstanley, who runs a programme of this kind in the North-West, can also tell of the remarkable results which flow from his graphic television programmes, delivered no doubt with all his usual wit and charm. But, it brings in the people and I think the noble Baroness is aware of this.

I am sure that the Government want people to claim benefits. It was suggested a few moments ago that the Government do not really want people to apply for benefits to which they are entitled. I do not attribute this to the Government. I am sure the Government recognise that if Parliament has willed that these benefits should be used, then they should be used. I am asking that the Government direct their attention to television as an effective instrument. The Government have recognised this because of the way in which they are using television in respect of AIDS. This shows that they know that it is the most effective way of getting information over. What they can do for AIDS, surely they can do for the other cases that we are now discussing.

There is another aspect to this problem which I will touch on briefly. It is not only that people do not know the benefits available, it is the difficulties experienced in the social security office. Such offices are staffed by young men and women (not all of them young) but not of a very high grade and not very well paid. In many cases they are overwhelmed with applicants. Inevitably, they have not been given a very great deal of training to deal with the problems they encounter, and to deal with people who are in need, anxious and often aggressive. It is a taxing job to do. I understand that the conditions of employment and the level of employment in the social security offices is an additional reason why Parliament's will that these benefits should be paid is being frustrated.

The Civil Service does not recognise the very important and taxing job which is done by people in social security offices up and down the country. This fact was underlined when I took part in the McGaw committee on pay of non-industrial civil servants. The Civil Service values only one thing, and that is people who make policy and scribble minutes on little bits of paper. People in the social security offices who are trying to tackle these hideously difficult problems deserve a great deal more support and a great deal more training—and probably a great deal more remuneration—than they receive. That is the second limb of the approach to improving the take-up of services.

10.4 p.m.

Lord Bauer

My Lords, I should like to pay tribute to the eloquence, compassion, clarity and vividness with which the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, introduced her Question. I have long been familiar with these policies because for years the noble Baroness and I were colleagues at the London School of Economics. Nevertheless, in the face of her sincerity I still wonder whether spending more to increase the take-up of benefits would exacerbate the conspicuous anomalies of the social security system, especially those of universal benefits.

The scope and level of benefits are laid down by Parliament, but one can disagree with the methods of administration and the attendant publicity. We should hesitate before encouraging or pressing people further to take up their entitlements. I am addressing the question of taking up of benefits and not the method of administration by the DHSS to which the noble Baroness also referred.

Discussion of those benefits takes place amid widely canvassed allegations of mass poverty and mass unemployment. Many millions are said to live in acute poverty, even at, or near, subsistence level. Yet according to official statistics released last month, in 1985 virtually all households had television and 86 per cent. had colour television. The latter figure may now be 90 per cent. or more. How can we reconcile this and much other reliable information, with allegations of mass poverty?

Again, in London several hundred thousand people are unemployed. But there are no porters at the railway stations, London Transport is beset by staff shortages and department stores and shops persistently advertise vacancies at all levels. All this is pertinent to the take-up of benefits and to equating a wider take-up with unequivocal improvement.

More detailed information reinforces such doubts. I know of a prominent, prosperous Lloyd's underwriter who was much surprised that on reaching 65 he could use London Transport for free. Very rich people, including people with six figure incomes and seven figure capital, take up child benefit and get free prescriptions. Only the other day I met two very well-to-do mothers. One takes up her child benefit, which she regards as her due because her taxes help to support other people's children. The other does not claim because she feels that she is much better off than most taxpayers.

On a more modest level my secretary, who has three young children, takes up her child benefit but does so with some misgivings. She regards it as objectionable that people should be paid for bringing up their children, whose maintenance should be the first claim on parental incomes.

Who are the people who do not claim their benefits? They fall into three categories: those who do not know their entitlements, those who cannot be bothered, and those who think it repugnant that the necessities should be provided, or subsidised, from public funds. Those categories of course overlap, especially the second and third. But are there many people in genuine need who do not know about their entitlements after many years of the most extensive publicity by the DHSS in its own offices, in post offices, through the media, on posters, on public transport and through publicity reinforced by local authorities and vocal pressure groups? It may be patronising to think that there are many needy people altogether ignorant and careless of matters affecting their welfare and that of those closest to them.

Why should further public funds be spent to cajole people who do not bother or who have misgivings about doing so to take up benefits? Is it reprehensible to have qualms about receiving personal subsidies of taxpayers' money, and to recognise that this undermines personal responsibility and the cohesion of the family? Is there anything wrong with not wishing to be pauperised? American black professors, notably Professor Glenn Loury of Harvard, have written convincingly on the destructive effect of so-called welfare programmes on the negro family. Higher take-up may do little to relieve genuine need, though it may benefit welfare activists and administrators.

These observations do not reflect a harsh, unfeeling attitude. I have no doubt that there are in our midst very many people in acute emotional, mental and financial distress who cannot help themselves, and who are neglected by families, friends and neighbours. I have in mind old and lonely people, chronically ill, disabled and mentally disturbed people, victims of inflation and of rapid social and economic change, refugees and many others.

Preoccupation with the take-up of benefits diverts attention and resources from the much more difficult task of helping these people, whose distress may not be visible or measurable but is nevertheless real. They cannot be readily assisted by state-provided benefits. Religious bodies, non-politicised charities and other forms of voluntary effort are likely to be much more effective. A familiar riauage from Goldsmith—Oliver, not Sir James—in many ways applies to state benefits: How small, of all that human hearts endure, that part which laws or kings can cause or cure". It is for Back-Benchers, who are not boxed in by political constraints and not concerned with Front-Bench responsibilities and possible adverse publicity, to dwell on such matters.

Lord Winstanley

My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, may I ask whether he will be kind enough to answer me just one question? I wonder whether he would agree that if Parliament goes to the trouble to vote special help for a special group of people in special need, it would be no bad thing if that help actually reached those people? Does he agree that the people in most desperate need are seldom the people who get all the benefits that are going? The people who get all the benefits are often those who are not in the most need but those who are the best informed.

Lord Bauer

My Lords, I tried to anticipate this question by expressing doubt as to whether, after many years of the most active and extensive publicity, there are still likely to be many people so ignorant or careless as not to know of these benefits. I suspect that such people are far more likely to be reached by voluntary effort than by state-provided benefit.

10.14 p.m.

Lord Rea

My Lords, it is interesting that I find myself talking after the noble Lord, Lord Bauer, when we are considering the less fortunate in this country, just as I followed him when we were talking about the less fortunate people in the third world a few months ago. In both cases I could not disagree more with his views; and in this particular case I have the benefit of working as a general practitioner among some of the very needy people whom he thinks perhaps should not receive the benefits to which they are entitled and to which Parliament feels they are entitled.

Many people throughout the country who have the misfortune to be both disabled and poor will be grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, for raising this topic. At least I hope they will be, but that depends on the answer which the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, will give. I know that she has a compassionate side and she has only too close an acquaintance with some of the problems which we are discussing tonight.

I want to consider a further way other than through the media in which knowledge of and take-up of benefits by the people who are entitled to them could be encouraged; that is, by helping nurses and doctors, particularly general practitioners, to be aware of which benefits are available to their disabled patients and to assist those patients to take advantage of them. After all, doctors are key people for all the disabled. Every disabled person will have seen his GP at some stage in the development of his illness and usually continues to do so at regular intervals. No other professional person is seen so often, apart from the district nurse, by those who are severely disabled and who are visited at home. Home helps also frequently visit handicapped people and their knowledge of these benefits is something that should be thought about.

But doctors and nurses—and I include myself—are woefully ill-informed about this important aspect of care and support for their patients. I and many other doctors have sometimes been treating patients regularly for years without realising that they are not claiming the benefit to which they are entitled. Sometimes this is because I am unclear about their entitlement. Sometimes I assume that they have applied for their benefits and I am surprised that they do not know about them.

Despite what the noble Lord, Lord Bauer, said, there are many people who do not know about their entitlements, even though he said that information has been going their way for a long time. A lot of people do not take it in. They may not have the sensory faculties to do so. They may be deaf or partially sighted. I sometimes find people who have not applied for supplementary benefit, which is the key to many other benefits, because of pride. They feel that to admit that they need supplementary benefit is demeaning, though they may well be suffering financially, getting into debt, not eating enough so that their health may be suffering, or getting cold and in danger of hypothermia in cold spells such as we have just had.

A recent survey in Sheffield by a medical student, Douglas Simkins, of 46 general practitioner trainees and their tutors found a large area of ignorance. I shall quote from the summary of his report: Only half of this group of doctors realised that a woman with multiple sclerosis who was virtually unable to walk was entitled to claim mobility allowance, and very few thought of the possibility of an entitlement to severe disablement allowance or invalidity benefit. GPs and trainees were also fairly ignorant about the conditions entitling people to free prescriptions, and only 17 per cent. realised that a working man receiving twice weekly kidney dialysis at home would qualify for an attendance allowance". The problem is that the topic, as the noble Baroness said, is very complex in detail, and for medical students and GP trainees it can be intensely boring to learn about all these details if the benefit entitlements are not related to the circumstances of individual patients. The subject is not taught at present, if it is taught at all, in a way which is appealing. I am not suggesting that doctors should have a detailed knowledge of the workings of the social security system. However, they should have some idea of what is available and what sort of disabilities qualify for benefit.

In the same way, no doctor knows the full contents of the national formulary, which as many of your Lordships may know is the detailed description of all drugs available. However, we do have a working knowledge of drugs and we frequently use the national formulary for reference. If a possible claimant were identified by a general practitioner or a nurse it should be possible to have a simplified guide to the system or such a guide should be easy to obtain from a DHSS or other advice centre. Hopefully, such information could be obtained by visiting the patient at home. I am not sure whether such information is now available and perhaps the noble Baroness can tell us.

A few general practice group practices now have access to a computer programme developed by Professor Brian Jarman and Peter Rice at Lisson Grove Health Centre (part of the St. Mary's Hospital department of general practice.) The programme makes it possible to see at a glance how to match the characteristics of the patient to their entitlement. I believe that the citizens' advice bureaux have a similar computer programme. Recently Pulse, which many of your Lordships may know is a magazine mailed to general practitioners by pharmaceutical manufacturers, published a two-part supplement for general practitioners giving a simple key to the benefits jungle. It is attractively presented and it is quite easy to use. I gather that citizens' advice bureaux also have a simple key of the same type which they would like general practitioners to have. However, so far they have not managed to reach more than a very small proportion of general practitioners with this key to benefits.

I wonder whether the DHSS should not concern itself with this need and possibly produce by itself or in conjunction with the citizens' advice bureaux a publication similar to that which I have outlined, which could go out to all general practitioners. I do not think that sending such a publication through the mail will necessarily be effective. General practitioners have a habit of throwing most of the things which come through the post from the DHSS and from the drug companies into the wastepaper basket. I think that a visit will be necessary and that liaison with the citizens advice bureaux might well be considered. A personal visit could be made to the GP and the leaflet could be explained.

Another way in which GPs can locate those entitled to benefit is to draw up a register of disabled patients within a practice. If GPs have a computer, that will assist. However, it is not essential. Disabled patients could then be reviewed systematically and their needs assessed so that no one is missed out.

There may be some economy-minded people (including, I think, the noble Lord, Lord Bauer) who do not want to spread the word about benefits around too far. It is perhaps thought that it is too bad if people do not claim their benefits, they are there for the asking. However, I think there is another aspect. In a recent report by the Audit Commission which was published last December called Making a Reality of Community Care it was stated that it is sometimes more cost-effective to help patients to get an attendance allowance and other benefits in order to provide care in the community in their own homes where they want to be than to admit a patient to a nursing home. Not only does the full uptake of benefit make for a better life for disabled people and give satisfaction to those caring for them, whether they are professional or family, but in some cases it can actually save money. I should be most grateful to hear the views of the noble Baroness on these points.

Lord Bauer

Before the noble Lord sits down, may I ask him whether he realises that there is no proper analogy between our exchanges today and official foreign aid to which he referred. What we are talking about is how we can best help poor people in this country, whereas foreign aid goes to and through governments.

Lord Rea

The analogy is there because the noble Lord makes out that in both cases the aid is counter-productive and diminishes people's own efforts. I fundamentally disagree with him on that point.

10.25 p.m.

Baroness Jeger

My Lords, we are greatly indebted to the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, who has brought this important Question before us. It would be helpful to have some assessment of the scale of the matter. I am sure that many noble Lords have received a great deal of information about the non-take-up of benefits which is the subject of the debate. I have been reading Cmnd. Paper 56 on the Government's expenditure plans for 1987–88. In paragraph 20 this official document says: It is clear, however, that a significant proportion of people who could qualify for income-related benefits, for example, supplementary benefit, do not claim". That is an official statement which I hope the noble Lord. Lord Bauer, will take on board.

I have many papers before me with which I shall not concern your Lordships at this time of night. I have a publication from Age Concern which claims that 35 per cent. of old people do not claim all benefits. In a publication called Everyone Can Benefit the Association of County Councils estimates that £2,000 million a year is unclaimed. I have a publication from Merseyside where there was a campaign for taking up rights. It is called Claim it Now. The campaign resulted in 33,000 new claims. Those were from people who had not known of their rights until the campaign started. There was a big increase in the number of claims. I do not think that I should stray into Scotland but I understand that Strathclyde had a campaign to inform people of their rights. This resulted in many more applications from people who had riot realised what they could do.

There are some disincentives. After we have the figures for non-take-up, let us see what are the disincentives to claiming. I totally disagree with the noble Lord. Lord Bauer. I do not think he has ever stood, as I have, in the snow outside the DHSS office in Tavistock Square. It closed at 10 o'clock in the morning because there were so many applicants. We had to stand outside in a queue because there was not room inside. People in that situation just go home. I spoke to some people who said that they would rather starve than put up with it.

The conditions in some offices are uncomfortable, to put it mildly. I know that the noble Baroness shares with me the belief that we ought to improve these premises. A good deal has been done to improve them. I make no party point because the present Government inherited a good many grotty premises from a previous government. However, there is much discomfort. There are times when the harassed staff take off the telephone because there are not enough people to answer it. As a result, I know that old people say, "I could not get through, so they do not care any more."

The Government and, I hope, the noble Lord, Lord Bauer, should perhaps take a moment to look at the citizens advice bureaux report on the conditions in Greater London offices. That is a responsible body, and it has found a great many difficulties. For example, claimants had to wait for more than an hour to be seen at 94 per cent. of DHSS offices; 88 per cent. of supplementary benefit offices had insufficient staff; and there were delays as a result of mislaid papers. I am not raising these points as a criticism of the staff but only to explain why I feel there is a lower take-up. It is because people get so fed up and the staff get so over-worked that there is not the sympathetic response that there ought to be.

I do not know whether the Minister can say how many offices have to shut their doors early, how many cut off their phones or whether the staff problems are being dealt with. I know from a Question which I asked that there are more staff being taken on and I hope that that will help the situation.

As regards information, there is something to be said for television. I have one small suggestion for the Minister. I am so old that I have a pension hook. At the back of the book, there is reference to "Information on other benefits." However, that is in very small print and it is not very clear. Perhaps some communication that is clearer for poor old people like me whose eyesight is not very good could be included with the pension book.

I have one specific question on the take-up of the £5 a week cold weather benefit. That seems to me to illustrate the problems that arise when the Government make benefit provisions only for people to find themselves in a muddle about how to obtain such benefits. How many people have received the £5 a week benefit? How many people have been refused? how many applicants were there? Are the Government satisfied that during this spell of cold weather the new plans are working well? I hope the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, will agree that that matter is all part of the problem of take-up and that the measure of take-up during cold weather is an important part of our considerations.

Those are some of the questions in our minds. We hope very much that we can have some answers and hear something about the plans of the Government to increase the take-up. However, I repeat what I said at the beginning of my remarks. What we need, above all, are statistics about the take-up. There are contradictions, and we must analyse the problem before we can deal with it.

10.34 p.m.

Baroness Trumpington

My Lords, at the outset I should like to say that I fully understand and share some of the concerns which have been so eloquently expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, this evening. The subject of benefit take-up is vitally important and I am pleased, even at this late hour, to have this opportunity to bring to your Lordships' attention some of the major steps forward which the Government are taking.

The Government's policy on take-up is and will remain quite clear. We aim to promote greater awareness and understanding of the benefits available and to encourage those who are entitled and wish to claim to do so. We have heard the important, thought-provoking but polarised contributions from my noble friend Lord Bauer and the noble Lord, Lord Rea. In the spirit of compromise, I hope that the truth lies somewhere between the two.

1 can assure the noble Baroness that the Government maintain close contact with the citizens' advice bureaux service. At national level representatives have frequent meetings with my ministerial colleagues and locally many of our local office managers sit on the management committees of the bureaux. We therefore are well aware of their interest in the whole question of take-up of benefits and have indeed discussed the issue with them on a number of occasions.

There are two general points that I should like to make. First, I can assure the noble Lords who have made particular suggestions for improving information about the availability of benefits and take-up of benefits that we shall consider their ideas and suggestions most seriously. That includes the suggestion made by the noble Baroness, Lady Jeger, about extra information in pension books. Secondly, there is no doubt that the Government can and do play an important role in promoting take-up of the different benefits available. However, I do not wish to let this opportunity pass without paying tribute to the many voluntary organisations that also make a contribution. They perform a valuable function in providing people with the information that they need and in encouraging them to claim the benefits to which they may be entitled. I include in this of course the National Association of Citizens' Advice Bureaux.

For our part we make use of whatever media are best suited to conveying our messages. The noble Baroness, Lady Seear, mentioned television, and of course television is only one of many media which we consider when deciding how best to advertise benefits. There are times when the press and the radio both at local and national level provide a more effective means of getting our message across. I do not think that an immediate television campaign to inform people in detail of available benefits would be a feasible proposition. We take a great deal of advice and will continue to do so.

Nevertheless, I recognise the fact that not everyone claims all the benefits to which they may be entitled. The noble Baroness, Lady Seear, gave us a sad example of that. I have to say that what she said simply bears out the facts. Surely it is not too much to ask of people, if they are in doubt—and I readily admit that I do not know every permutation of every benefit—to go to their local office and ask what they are entitled to. They will find those who work there—and I say this deliberately—sympathetic, knowledgeable and helpful. I certainly wish to add my tribute to those tributes paid by the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, to people who certainly do not receive the bouquets that they so often deserve, and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jeger, said, who quite often are working in difficult surroundings.

With regard to those people who are mentally handicapped or confused in any way, mentioned by my noble friend Lord Bauer and the noble Lord, Lord Rea, I hope that perhaps people may remember that in this House there have been several occasions on which I have urged friends, voluntary bodies, relations, social workers of course, and others to help those people claim what is rightfully theirs. I do not believe that television is always the answer to those particular groups.

The noble Lord, Lord Rea, acknowledged that doctors cannot have detailed knowledge. Surely advice is best left to the experts. The local offices of the DHSS are available for advice. There is a generally available leaflet called Which Benefit? That information may be helpful to the noble Baroness, Lady Jeger. The leaflet is a catalogue of what is available.

The reasons for non-take up of benefit are highly complex. There is certainly evidence to suggest that some people who are in very short-term need or who live in reasonably well off households simply do not bother to claim benefit because they would rather not do so. The noble Baroness, Lady Jeger, quoted a figure of £2 billion in benefits unclaimed. That is an exaggeration. The broad picture is that about £570 million supplementary benefit, £45 million in one-parent benefit and £55 million in family income supplement were unclaimed in 1983–84. Those are the available estimates. The exceptionally severe weather payment figures are not yet available and I shall have to write to the noble Baroness on that point.

We have been given some grounds for encouragement by the latest established estimates for take-up of supplementary benefit. In reply to the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Jeger, our inquiries show that the individual amounts of unclaimed entitlements are relatively small. For the supplementary benefit population as a whole, the amount by value which was claimed was 89 per cent. in 1983. Of those pensioners who do not claim, some 60 per cent. have an entitlement to less than £3 per week. The unclaimed average for pensioners is about £3.40 per week.

What steps do we take to inform people about the benefits available? What part can we play to improve the take-up of benefits? On the national level, we ensure a wide distribution of leaflets, claim forms and information sheets. Many of the forms and leaflets have been redesigned to make them more easily understood and many have been interpreted for use by ethnic minority claimants. We have received a number of awards for clarity and plain English. I must sometimes blow the DHSS trumpet!

As well as a wide general distribution of leaflets, we try to ensure that as many potential beneficiaries as possible are also approached on a more targeted basis. We therefore routinely issue supplementary benefit claim forms to all retirement pensioners, widows, unemployed claimants and sickness benefit claimants, who are the groups most likely to have an entitlement to that benefit.

We make families aware of the existence of family income supplement by means of an insert in the child benefit book. To encourage people to deal with social security matters in the privacy of their homes, we have extended the postal procedure to cover all supplementary benefit claims. But, as I said, publicity is often most effective at the local level, and that is where many of our local offices show considerable initiative. I have some excellent examples, but the hour is late.

I am sure that some of your Lordships who are here will appreciate that nearly half of our local offices have appointed local information officers, benefit information officers or publicity information officers who complement the work co-ordinated in all regions by those officers whom we call RINOs, not because they are thick-skinned, but because the initials stand for regional information officers. I have appreciated their helpfulness in the gleaning and giving of information and have many times seen evidence of the invaluable functions that they perform.

I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, whom I am sorry not to have heard speaking in this debate, will echo that tribute to the RINOs. In turn, I want to put on record my appreciation of his endeavours to promote awareness of the benefit system through his regular programme on Granada Television, "This is your Right", which is now of some 17 years' standing. How is that for a plug for the noble Lord?

We continue to encourage staff to co-operate with local radio and television stations. We also encourage local offices to co-operate with responsible and well-organised local authority campaigns, to send representatives to meetings and to give talks to people who come into contact with potential benefit claimants.

Almost every region can point to offices that have mounted information displays of varying degrees of sophistication. One important innovation is our nationwide Freefone service which gives free public access to experienced staff who can give advice to inquirers on a wide range of social security matters. The 600,000 calls in the past year are a measure of its effectiveness. We know that many people are discouraged by the sheer complexity of the current system, but we do our best.

We shall continue to do our best. We shall take and follow advice. However, I think that your Lordships will agree that at the end of the day one can take a horse to the water but one cannot make it drink.

House adjourned at fifteen minutes before eleven o'clock.