HL Deb 26 March 1987 vol 486 cc311-22

4.38 p.m.

Lord Hesketh rose to move, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 16th March be approved. [15th Report from the Joint Committee.]

The noble Lord said: My Lords, it may be convenient if I speak also to the Motion that the draft Supplementary Benefit (Requirements and Resources) Amendment and Uprating Regulations 1987, which were laid before this House on 16th March, be approved.

The first set of regulations deals principally with supplementary benefit for people in residential care and nursing homes, while the second contains a number of unconnected items. I propose to deal with the regulations in that order. I turn first to the regulations, which deal in the main with supplementary benefit paid to people in residential care homes and nursing homes. I would remind noble Lords that payments for all supplementary benefit claimants in homes or in lodgings are subject to national limits introduced in 1985. The most important feature of these regulations is to raise certain of these limits so that higher charges can be met.

We have recently completed a review of the limits based on a sample survey of local charges and studies conducted by a number of research bodies. We have also taken account of representations from a wide range of individuals and organisations including Members of both Houses.

On the basis of this information we are satisfied that the limits allow reasonable charges to be met in most types of establishment. The evidence supported an increase, however, in four specific areas. The regulations, therefore, provide for the limit to rise in residential care homes for elderly people by £5 to £130 a week. These homes form by far the majority of residential care homes and I am sure your Lordships will welcome this increase which means that elderly people will have £20 a week more than they had two years ago to meet their fees.

Noble Lords will recall that in July last year we introduced a special limit of £140 for very dependent or blind elderly people. This change was welcomed at the time and has indeed proved very successful in helping those most in need. The regulations increase this limit by £5 to £145.

In studying the evidence of the review, we were particularly impressed by the strong case made on behalf of younger physically handicapped people. Your Lordships will need no reminding that this group often needs special care which is expensive to provide. These representations are confirmed by our other evidence which indicated that average costs are very close to the current limit, so it is to be raised by £10 to £190. Extra help will also be given to people in nursing homes. The basic limit, which applies to most elderly people, will be raised by £5 to £175, representing an increase of no less than one-quarter over the 1985 level.

I now come to some other changes affecting people in homes. Residential care and nursing homes have always provided a variety of services for their residents as part of their caring role. It has always been the Government's assumption that charges should cover the full range of personal services and amenities, and the national limits have been set against this background. However, following legal advice, it now seems that residents in homes may be entitled to claim additional weekly amounts for items such as heating and laundry which should, in our view, be provided and charged for by homes as part of their normal service. This loophole has resulted in the unsatisfactory situation where some home-owners are charging separately for such services and the law allows such additional charges to be met over and above the limits. The resultant increases in benefit generally find their way to the home-owner and not the claimant.

This was never intended and in order to restore the policy intention the regulation removes entitlement to additional amounts for people in homes for heating, extra baths, laundry, domestic assistance, attendance and special diets. However, a further amendment will still allow these separate charges to be included as part of the homes' charge and met in full as long as the total charge falls within the appropriate limit. Claimants already receiving the additional amounts will have their total entitlement protected at the point of change.

I should like to make it clear that this change will not affect the payment of extra amounts for heating in respect of the normal home of a claimant who is only temporarily in a residential care or nursing home, nor will it affect ordinary lodgers or hostel dwellers. Apart from these main changes the regulations contain some minor technical amendments. These clarify the treatment of residential accommodation provided by a local authority—normally known as part III accommodation—and incorporate a measure of flexibility in response to the variety of such accommodation now available.

When making changes in the past, we have protected the benefit of existing claimants at the point of transition. A further change in the regulations amends the rules on this transitional protection as they apply to people in homes. In July last year, we made a special provision for people in homes whose benefit was transitionally protected and they were allowed up to £10 extra towards increases in fees. However, the regulation as drafted does not relate the additional benefit to entitlement on a particular day and this will result in unintentional gains for some claimants followed by losses at future upratings. The amendment restores the policy intention by specifying that the extra benefit is in relation to entitlement on a particular day, which is for most claimants 28th July 1986.

Finally, we are correcting an error in regulations which means that at present the whole of the income from a mortgage protection insurance policy for mortgage interest payments is disregarded during the first 16 weeks of a claim. We always intended that only 50 per cent. should be disregarded, because only 50 per cent. of the mortgage interest payment is included in the supplementary benefit assessment.

I now turn to the amendments made in the second set of regulations affecting the treatment of resources for supplementary benefit purposes. The major change is to introduce special provision for the treatment of local authority custodianship allowances. Noble Lords may be aware that there is now a scheme whereby the courts can award the custody of a child to a caring family where there is still contact with the natural parent and so adoption is not appropriate. Local authorities can pay custodianship allowances to such families and may do so particularly where the child was previously boarded out with the family.

We do not of course treat boarded-out children as part of the assessment unit for supplementary benefit purposes and do not take account of the fostering fees. But a child taken into custodianship clearly should be seen as part of the family, just as an adopted child is. We intend therefore that supplementary benefit should be payable for such a child, as it is for an adopted child. And where there is an allowance from the local authority, we shall treat it in the same way as an adoption allowance; that is, disregard the amount of the allowance which is over and above the child's supplementary benefit requirements. Thus we shall ensure that we do not disadvantage a family by taking the balance of the allowance into account against their supplementary benefit entitlement.

Two further changes will affect people in education and training. The supplementary benefit regulations currently provide for students to be treated as possessing the full maintenance grant, whether or not they do, in fact, have an award. The vast majority of students cannot in any event obtain supplementary benefit except in the long vacation and so this provision does not change their position. Students who do not receive a maintenance grant may have a parental covenant for an equivalent amount to a grant disregarded in the same way as a grant during the summer if they claim benefit. For nearly all students, this works perfectly well.

But where a student is being supported by a working partner and the partner becomes unemployed, these rules have the unintended result that the couple's joint benefit entitlement is reduced or even wiped out entirely. We have no wish to penalise claimants in these circumstances and so the draft regulations provide instead that the only income a student should be assumed to receive is the assessed parental contribution to an award. In considering a covenant made to a non-grant-aided student, we shall disregard the appropriate standard rate of grant at the London, away from home other than in London, or "at home" rate.

The second change is to restore our policy on training allowances paid by the Manpower Services Commission which have always been taken into account in full in assessing supplementary benefit entitlement when a trainee claims benefit to top up his income. A commissioner's decision has recently held that adult dependency additions paid with training allowance carry a £4 disregard even though the allowance itself is to be taken into account in full. This is inequitable as between one trainee and another and we propose to restore the original intention. However, the few trainees already getting a disregard in these circumstances will not be affected.

Finally, there are two more provisions in these regulations. First, we are providing that statutory maternity pay, when it is introduced on 6th April, will be treated as an income that is taken fully into account for supplementary benefit purposes. Secondly, we are making certain that extra statutory payments, which are made from time to time by the Secretary of State to compensate for defects in regulations until the law can be changed to achieve the policy intention, will be treated for supplementary benefit purposes in exactly the same way as the benefit they replace. For instance, if the benefit being replaced would not have been taken into account against supplementary benefit entitlement, nor will the extra statutory payment.

I trust that noble Lords will recognise that the regulations now before them have a very largely beneficial effect. In the two instances where a disregard is to be wholly or partly removed, this is merely to restore the clearly expressed intention in each case. I commend the regulations to the House.

Moved, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 16th March be approved. [15th Report from the Joint Committee.]—(Lord Hesketh.)

Baroness Jeger

My Lords, some of these regulations are largely technical; others raise more important points of principle. However, I can assure your Lordships that I shall absent myself from that temptation and deal only with one or two points on which I hope it may be possible to have an answer, if not today, then by correspondence later.

As regards nursing homes and other residential care homes, we welcome the increased allowance. Most of us who know good homes realise how expensive it is to look after elderly people and especially those in need of special care and attention. However, I do not feel that we can let this welcome news go by without mention of the fact that there are many homes which are not satisfactory. The Audit Commission in its report of last December expressed grave concern at the burgeoning of small and unsatisfactory backstreet homes which are being subsidised, in effect, from the supplementary benefit of people staying there. In such places they get less than value for money, whereas good homes are often more expensive than even the revised allowances to keep in a satisfactory state.

With the increase in bringing people out of hospital and into community care, it becomes easier for people to take in what one might almost call lodgers, claim a supplementary benefit and then not give them the attention they need. There is one particular loophole in control which occurs when a so-called home has fewer than four people. In that case, it does not have to be registered and it does not have to be inspected. Anyone interested in getting a fair income can collect three elderly, handicapped people, tuck them upstairs in the top back room, collect supplementary benefit and yet never be registered or inspected.

While we welcome these increases, I hope that the Government will also pay a bit more attention, to inspection. We recognise that there is a register and that homes are supposed to be inspected at least once or twice a year. However, I understand from local authorities with which I am in touch that they find it very difficult to provide staff to do such inspections as often as they would like. Therefore, I hope that the Government will try to assist local authorities in carrying out their inspection duties and perhaps look once again at the rule with regard to a maximum of three people being able to collect social security benefit without any inspection of accommodation.

Turning to the next set of regulations, we welcome most of them. I am especially glad about the changes with regard to students. I recognise the difficulties in that connection. However, one area in which I think there needs to be a little more generosity is where students do not receive from their parents the grant at which parents are assessed to contribute. That matter causes a great deal of hardship, especially in families where a student may be estranged from the parents. There are some cases where there can be exemptions. However, my student friends wish that there were many more exemptions. It is imaginary in many cases to consider that parents are handing over the assessed grant to students. Such students have no option but to seek other ways of getting by, which are not always very satisfactory.

The other point I wish to raise on the second group of regulations concerns children leaving school at Easter. We have discussed this matter before in your Lordships' House. There seems to me to be a very unsatisfactory situation here. I understand that if a child leaves school at Easter and takes exams in June or whenever they are given by coming back just for the purpose of examination, that child is not entitled to supplementary benefit until after the date of examination. There is therefore a gap of several weeks in support for that child.

On the other hand if the child decides not to be bothered with examinations and leaves at Easter, he or she can then get supplementary benefit straight away. That seems to me to be an encouragement for children from low income families to leave at Easter and have nothing to do with exams. I have read carefully the report of the Social Security Advisory Committee. It says at paragraph 18 of Cmnd. 106: The danger in the Government's proposal is that rather than encourage young people not to leave school it may encourage them not to enter for examinations at all". The report then calculates that a child who enters for examinations would only get child benefit of about £135. However, if the same child left at Easter, turned his back on exams and had nothing to do with them, he would then collect £350 in supplementary benefit for the same period. That seems to me to be rather a big difference and to be a disincentive for children to stay on at school and take exams.

I appreciate that the whole question of education and support of 16 to 18 year-olds is not strictly one for the noble Lord who is dealing with this debate. However, as the question of supplementary benefit relating to school-leavers is involved in the orders, I very much hope that he will bring to the attention of his friends in other places the need to look at the whole question of educational support for the 16 to 18 year-olds, whether that support comes from supplementary benefit or from grants from education sources and therefore from the funds of other departments. I leave our anxieties with him and I look forward to hearing from him.

5 p.m.

Lord Banks

My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord for his explanation of these two sets of regulations. The noble Baroness, Lady Jeger, referred to Easter leavers. As I understand it, Easter leavers are not covered by either of these sets of regulations. However, they have been considered together in the report of the Social Security Advisory Committee and I believe that they are dealt with in negative orders. Therefore, perhaps I may say a brief word about them.

I should very much like to see the eligibility for supplementary benefit beginning immediately after the conclusion of the summer examination period. I am aware that there are difficulties so far as that is concerned. The most important difficulty is the argument that there may be many short-term claims from people who, after examinations, claim supplementary benefit and then in fact return to school in the autumn. I should have thought that it ought to be possible to devise a system whereby it was not possible to return in the autumn if you have once been on supplementary benefit. At any rate, I hope, with the Social Services Advisory Committee, that further thought can be given to the possibility of making the conclusion of the examination period the point at which eligibility starts.

As to the two sets of regulations, if I may take them in the order in which the noble Lord took them and deal first with the Supplementary Benefit (Resources) Amendment Regulations 1987, I wish to make the same point that has been made by the noble Baroness, Lady Jeger. I am not happy about Regulation 4 dealing with the parental contribution of students. As I understand it, the regulation says that they shall be deemed to be in receipt of the parental contribution for supplementary benefit purposes if one has been specified by the education authorities. However, as the noble Baroness said, they do not always get it. I wonder whether it is right in these circumstances to say that they shall be deemed to be in receipt of it automatically. Of course what is really required is an overhaul of the whole system of student grants.

Only one of the provisions in this set of regulations was singled out for comment by the Social Security Advisory Committee. That was the regulation dealing with custodianship, which is a recent concept. As the noble Lord explained, local authority payments to custodians are to be treated—disregarded, in fact—in the same way for supplementary benefit as similar payments in the case of adoption or fostering. I certainly welcome that.

I welcome the provision which has been made with regard to lump sums. However, I note that there is some complaint that this puts custodians who receive payments from liable relatives at a disadvantage compared with those who receive them from local authorities. What is the Government's view about that? Is there any parallel with adoption or fostering cases?

Turning to the Supplementary Benefit (Requirements and Resources) Amendment and Uprating Regulations 1987, I am concerned about Regulations 2(c) and 6. These are the two regulations which provide for the gradual reduction in transitional protection afforded to certain boarders—in the one case from July 1986 and in the other case from April 1987. As I understand it—the noble Lord will correct me if I am wrong—if someone is at present in receipt of an amount which is higher than the new maximum he will continue to receive that; but as in the course of time the maximum is increased there will be no corresponding increase in the transitional amount until the transitional amount level is reached. If the maximum is raised in step with inflation, then when the maximum reaches the protected level the real value of the excess originally protected will have been eroded. Thus the benefit will be reducing in value over the years.

In the case of Regulation 6 the extra costs for particular services—again, as the noble Lord explained—are to be included in the basic charge, subject to the maximum. Any current excess is protected but gradually eliminated. This will mean that, unless the real value of the maximum is increased to take account of the fact that these charges are to be included within the maximum, the claimants will suffer a charge which will not be met by supplementary benefit. Will not that place some of them in a very difficult situation?

Have the new rates been increased? I did not quite catch that from what the noble Lord said, though he may well have dealt with it in his opening remarks. Have the new maxima been increased more than just to take account of inflation in view of the fact that the maxima now have to cover these additional payments which they did not have to do previously? It would seem to be a matter for some concern.

It has been represented to me that the limit for people living in residential care or nursing homes still has no special regard for the needs of very physically frail and elderly people and those suffering from senile dementia. Am I correct in thinking that people who are physically disabled and below pensionable age have a maximum—I believe this is what the noble Lord said—of £190 if in residential care and £230 if in a nursing home, as opposed to £135 and £170 for those above pensionable age? When you take into account these cases of the physically disabled and people suffering from senile dementia, that does not seem to be right. I should be most grateful if the noble Lord could throw some light on that situation.

Lord Boyd-Carpenter

My Lords, these regulations are of some importance to some of the most harassed and unhappy sections of our population. It is right that your Lordships' House should spend a little time discussing them and exercising its rights under the affirmative procedure.

My noble friend began by saying that these regulations were, on balance and on the whole, beneficial. Can he help the House to appreciate the extent to which that is so by indicating the net financial effect of them when put into effect? In other words, by how much will they increase public expenditure overall? Can my noble friend give the House that information?

I very much agree with what was said by the noble Baroness opposite about some of these residential homes. It may be that she has a good point in referring to the fact that those that accommodate four or fewer people are not subject to inspection. The amounts of public money involved, even in the smaller homes, are substantial. The amount of human misery which if the homes are inadequate can arise in them is substantial. It seems to me a pity that the good reputation of many of these residential homes should be undermined by the existence in certain areas, of which all of us are aware, of those thoroughly below standard.

I should be interested to hear from my noble friend what action the Government propose to take to ensure that local authorities carry out their duty to inspect properly those homes accommodating four people or more and whether consideration can be given to extending this sphere of responsibility to those below that figure.

There is another, but small, point which intrigued me. In the case of residential homes provision is made in these regulations for incorporating in the total payments made the cost at the moment charged, in a separate and supplementary way, in respect of certain extras. One of these extras is described as extra baths. Can my noble friend explain exactly what is meant by extra baths? Is there a quota of baths? Is a citizen entitled to X number of baths in a week and is an extra charge made if he or she has one or two more? It seems a curious expression as included in the regulations. It would be helpful to have a clear indication of when a number of baths becomes extra.

Finally, I was very impressed by the point made by the noble Baroness opposite about Easter leavers. If it is really the case that a financial incentive is being given to young people to leave school at Easter and return simply to take the exams without remaining at school, that would appear to be a case in which the social security system is working in a manner which is wholly adverse to the education system. That cannot be right. It may be that there is some misunderstanding. I should be glad to hear whether my noble friend accepts that that is, or can be, the position. If it is, perhaps he will tell the House what the Government propose to do about it.

Baroness Turner of Camden

My Lords, I should like to reinforce what the noble Lord, Lord Banks, said about elderly people. I remember that last year we had in your Lordships' House a debate for which I received a briefing from the National Council for Voluntary Organisations. I was very impressed by the information given to me in connection with the care of elderly people. At that time—six or seven months ago—the figure of £125 was clearly regarded as totally inadequate. Now we have an additional £5 to care for elderly people. I feel that there is a case for looking at this again because it is not adequate in the light of the kind of services that have to be provided in looking after people who are elderly and frail and who need special care, and so on.

I welcome the fact that the case of young disabled people has been given special attention and that extra money has been made available for them. That is very good. However, I think that something extra should be done so far as concerns the very elderly.

I should also like to ask the Government whether they intend to take seriously the recommendations of the committee in its report issued as Cmnd. No. 106 and the suggestion that the whole structure of state support for 16 to 18 year-olds needs to be reviewed and rationalised. Although it may not be totally apposite in connection with these regulations, I should like to think that we shall look at this issue in a radical way in line with the recommendations that have been made in the report.

Lord Hesketh

My Lords, we have had an interesting debate this afternoon and a very large number of points have been raised. I shall try to respond to as many of them as possible but if I do not cover any particular point I shall write to the noble Lord or the noble Baroness who made it.

I stress first of all that the provisions of the regulations which affect people in residential care and nursing homes represent extra help for thousands of elderly and disabled people. They reaffirm the Government's commitment to maintain reasonable and realistic limits and I hope that they will be welcomed from all sides.

If there was one thread that ran through the words of every Member of this House who has spoken in the debate, it was a concern that the Government should be doing something to maintain standards in homes of residential care. I can assure your Lordships that this matter is taken very seriously by the Government and I shall certainly draw to the attention of my honourable friend the Secretary of State the great concern that has been shown here this afternoon.

During the passage of the legislation, consideration was given to fixing a lower minimum but it was felt that the registration system was devised essentially for larger establishments. This measure of course has regard to the small homes that the noble Baroness, Lady Jeger, mentioned initially. It would not be suitable for the domestic style of care that the very small home can provide. It was also thought desirable that the authority's efforts should not be diverted from the larger groups of dependent people. A line had to be drawn somewhere and it was decided to leave it where it had previously been in practice.

A study in 1985 by the department's social services inspectorate showed that authorities were hard pressed in processing new registrations and inspecting existing homes that had to be registered. We are keeping a close eye on the situation of very small homes and will bear them in mind when we take stock of registration arrangements. It should be noted that any change in the minimum number for registration will require primary legislation and there is no early prospect of that.

I ought to say to the noble Baroness that a large number of homes start out very small and then wish to become bigger. If they wish to become bigger they have to see the adjudicating officer and in that way there is an incentive to ensure that in those cases they meet the standards that we all hope for and require.

The noble Baroness also brought up the point about children who leave school at Easter. That issue is not part of the regulations that we are debating. The relevant regulations were not opposed at the time that they were discussed in your Lordships' House. I should be happy to write to the noble Baroness on that point.

Lord Boyd-Carpenter

My Lords, will my noble friend allow me to intervene on that point? It may be that we are wrong in raising this matter on these regulations, but can he perhaps indicate whether the Government are concerned about it?

Lord Hesketh

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his interjection. I shall come to the Government's proposals on that point when I reply to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Banks, who also brought up that matter.

The noble Baroness raised a point concerning parental contributions and grants. We feel that it would be quite wrong for benefits to compensate in any way for an unpaid parental contribution to a student award.

The noble Lord, Lord Banks, referred to the problem of student grants. The Secretary of State for Education and Science is conducting a thoroughgoing review of student support under the chairmanship of my honourable friend Mr. George Walden. The review team is examining all the options for student support and one of the principal aims is to devise a system which will enable students to he removed from dependence on benefits.

The noble Lord, Lord Banks, brought up the question of those who were physically handicapped and the higher limit applicable. We have always made it clear that a distinction must be made between the younger physically disabled, many of whom might be very young and perhaps have multiple handicaps, and those people who simply become frail with the passage of time. A special limit of £145 gives a substantially increased measure of help to the very dependent elderly.

The noble Lord also brought up the matter of custodianship allowances and the payments that should be disregarded from liable relatives. The underlying principle concerning liability of relatives, which has been accepted by successive governments, is that it is for parents to maintain their children where those parents make payments to a custodian of the child, whether direct or via a local authority. They will therefore be taken fully into account. We share the SSAC's view that social security arrangements should not undermine the purpose of custodianship provisions and we believe that the regulations achieve that end by treating local authority custodianship payments as generously as adoption allowances.

The noble Lord brought up the subject of transitional protection. The aim of transitional protection is to protect the claimant from hardship of cash loss in benefit.

My noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter raised a subject which I feel I should have investigated more closely; namely, baths. I do not have an answer for him but I shall write to him as I am as interested as he is in trying to get to the root of this matter. He also asked about the financial effect of these measures. The additional help for people in homes will cost an extra £7 million in a financial year.

The noble Baroness, Lady Turner, made a number of valuable points, one of which was that the limits for residential care homes were too low. Our review showed that the limits allowed reasonable charges to be met. The noble Baroness also brought up the point of Easter school-leavers—I am sorry I must apologise to her; in fact it was my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter who raised that point a second time. The Government believe that until they have completed their education, children should be dependent upon their parents. We do not think that education is complete until examinations have been taken. Certainly we do not think that the benefit system should encourage children to leave school and claim unemployment benefit when they are still studying for their examinations.

The point was raised that the structure of state support for 16 to 18 year-olds needs reviewing. It is relevant to the question of Easter school-leavers, although not connected with the regulations, that we shall continue to monitor support for 16 to 18 year-olds when the new income support scheme comes into operation in April next year.

I hope that I have been able to answer some of the questions that have been raised this afternoon. I have indeed been very grateful for them. The regulations that are before your Lordships today contain varied measures. They are essentially beneficial and I trust that the House will approve them.

On Question, Motion agreed to.