Lords Sitting of 27 April 1995

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Lichfield.

Pension Addition for Over-80s
Baroness Jeger Baroness Jeger asked Her Majesty's Government:
What plans they have to up-rate the 25 pence weekly old-age pension addition for over-80s introduced in 1971 and now, according to the CSO Retail Prices Index 1994, worth 2 pence.
The Minister of State, Department of Social Security (Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish): My Lords, we have no plans to up-rate the 25 pence age addition which is paid to all pensioners from the age of 80. We believe that help should be targeted at pensioners on low incomes, and we have concentrated resources on the higher pensioner premium in income support for those aged 80 or over.
Baroness Jeger: My Lords, perhaps I may declare a personal interest because recently I received a letter from the department concerned which gave me the splendid news that on my impending 80th birthday, my retirement pension would increase by 2 pence, which is taxable. In fact, it actually said that it would increase by 25 pence but, having done some research, I found that the value of 25 pence in 1971 is now 2 pence.
Does the noble Lord recall a Written Question which I asked on 13th March? He replied:
"If the age addition to retirement pension had been increased in line with prices … since its introduction in September 1971 it would currently be payable at a weekly rate … increasing to £1.60".— [Official Report, 13/3/95; col. WA 34.]
Surely the Government must agree that that would be an improvement on the present situation. There is a question of principle in this regard. I want the Minister to make clear whether the Government believe that there should be an age differential as regards pension payments. If they believe that that should be abandoned in favour of "targeting", as they call it, perhaps they should tell everybody over the age of 80 that they must manage in future without the 2 pence or on 2 pence, if it stays at that.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, I understand that when the noble Baroness reaches the age of 80, which I believe is in November, she will not be able to stand us all a drink in the Bishop's Bar on the basis of the 25 pence per week increase which she will receive. The main point is that we believe—and quite clearly, since 1971, governments of both parties have believed—that it is wiser to target extra resources on those elderly people who actually need them. For that reason, there is the higher pensioner premium for those pensioners who require income support. That is £25.15 per week for a single pensioner and £35.95 per week for couples.
Lord Clark of Kempston: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that for tax purposes, the allowance for the
1022
over-80s has been increased time and time again by this Government? In that way, they are helping the lower paid who are aged over 80.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, my noble friend is quite right to draw attention to the fact that there are special tax allowances for those aged over 80 who pay tax. Therefore, anybody aged over 80 who pays tax receives a higher personal allowance than someone aged under 80.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, does the noble Lord recall that the addition for the over-80s was introduced after an effective campaign led by the late and very much respected Airey Neave? In this 50th anniversary of the end of the last war, in which Mr. Airey Neave played such a significant part, would it not be fitting to honour his part in the war and his life by carrying on his work and increasing that supplement at this time?
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, I am sure that noble Lords on all sides of the House who remember Airey Neave do so with a great deal of affection, especially those who were his colleagues in the other place. We have had the war argument before and I have already had to give away £40 million on that one.
I return to the point which I made that if one is to use properly the resources which the taxpayer provides, it is fair and proper that they are used in a targeted way. That is why we have decided—and quite clearly the party opposite did so when it was in government—that the best way to do that is through pensioner premiums for those pensioners who receive income support.
Lord Marsh: My Lords, I am sure that most people will agree with the policy of targeting those benefits. But the inescapable logic is to stop paying those sums of money which are of no value to anybody. It is far better that those sums should be directed towards the targeting.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, as the total sum of money is £30 million, the noble Lord makes a valid point. However, I should say to him that it is a brave man or woman who would suggest to the House that the 25 pence should be removed, even though the noble Baroness, Lady Jeger, does not think that it is worth very much.
Lord Boardman: My Lords, does my noble friend recall that it was the Labour Party, whose members wish to increase those payments, which abolished the Christmas bonus when in government?
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, my noble friend makes a good point; indeed, the Labour Party's record on the matter is not all that terrific. Of course, anyone who listened carefully to my answer, in which I said that the 25 pence was from 1971 onwards, will realise that when the party opposite was in government, it came to the same sort of decisions to which we have come since 1979.
Lord Monkswell: My Lords, can the Minister advise the House of the administrative costs incurred in making such payments—in other words, of effectively notifying people that the payments will be coming and making the administrative changes as regards the payment itself? It

1023
does not seem to be a terribly sensible way of going about it to spend so much on administration for such a very small benefit.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, I am happy to say that we do not spend very much on the administration of the benefit because it is simply added automatically to the computer-assisted automatic payouts of the total pension to which the pensioner is entitled.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, is it not a fact that economic circumstances change over time and that, while the 25 pence, as it now is—or 2 pence in its devalued amount—was a worthwhile payment in 1971, governments over the years have done so much both as regards tax allowances for pensioners and also with the value of the pension itself that it is now no longer worth continuing with the supplement? Therefore, would it not be far better spent, as the noble Lord, Lord Marsh, suggested, on such things as extra disability allowances for pensioners; or, indeed, on any other social security purpose?
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, I agree with my noble friend. As I mentioned, the cost is £30 million a year. Moreover, to up-rate it to today's value would cost another £160 million a year. If I had £160 million a year extra to spend in the social security field, I might think that there were other priorities. The real increase in the income-related benefits to all pensioners since 1989 is now worth something like £1.2 billion.

Council Tax: Banding Appeals
3.16 p.m.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter Lord Boyd-Carpenter asked Her Majesty's Government:
How many appeals against decisions on banding for council tax purposes are still outstanding, and whether council tax payers face demands for payment on the basis of such bandings, and when it is anticipated that those appeals will be dealt with.
The Earl of Lindsay: My Lords, 76,106 of the 864,136 initial appeals lodged in England, 5,936 of the 53,948 lodged in Wales, and 12,090 of the 98,236 lodged in Scotland were outstanding at the end of March. All but a handful of those appeals are expected to be settled by the summer. Council tax bills for all dwellings, including those that are subject to appeal proceedings, are calculated on the basis of the bands shown in valuation lists. If a banding is subsequently found to have been too high, any excess payments are refunded or credited against future bills.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for that reply. However, is it not a fact that where an appeal is submitted, the tax payer is compelled to pay the full amount claimed and has to await
1024
a decision on his appeal? Further, is it not also a fact that those appeals are handled by the Inland Revenue which is being very dilatory in dealing with them?
The Earl of Lindsay: My Lords, if we allowed council tax payers to pay bills on the basis of the band that they claim rather than the band that they have been designated, it would open the floodgates to many opportunistic claims. It would also tempt people deliberately to delay making settlements. The appeals are heard by valuation tribunals which are independent bodies. Their impartiality has not been in doubt.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, will the noble Earl pay particular attention to appeals submitted from the borough of Basingtoke and Deane, which I understand is of particular interest to the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter? Further, will the noble Earl confirm that the percentage settled in the year 1994–95 is only 19 per cent. and that, therefore, 81 per cent. of claims are still outstanding? Will the noble Earl ask the Inland Revenue to get on with them?
The Earl of Lindsay: My Lords, as I said, it has nothing to do with the Inland Revenue. I cannot comment specifically on the settlement rate in Basingstoke and Deane. It is less a matter for the Government than for the valuation tribunals. I should stress that of the 23.5 million dwellings originally banded for tax, only 4 per cent. of bandings were disputed. We now have approximately 90 per cent. of those claims settled.

UK-US Relations
3.20 p.m.
Lord Molloy asked Lord Molloy asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they consider that the United Kingdom and the United States of America still have a "special relationship".
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Chalker of Wallasey): My Lords, the term "special relationship" is not one we use. But our relations with the United States remain very close. Defence, nuclear and intelligence matters and, of course, trade and investment are at the heart of the relationship and are greatly valued by both of us.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. Many people in other lands have been quite jealous of the relationship between the USA and the UK. There were, of course, not so much misunderstandings as minor disagreements with Mr. Winston Churchill and, later, with Mr. Clement Attlee. However, those matters were all resolved to the advantage of the UK and, indeed, America. Therefore, should we not keep the good relations going?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, I can inform the House that the relationship is not only of paramount importance but has gained in substance, as was evident during the Prime Minister's recent visit. Our trade relations have never been stronger. We invest more in one

1025
another's countries than anywhere else. We are indeed in a good relationship, but, of course, we must work at it to keep it that way.
Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone: My Lords, is it not the fact that we share a common language with the United States; that we have inherited with the United States the common law; that a large number of persons in the United States come from one or other of this group of islands and its different nations; and that the United States shares a land frontier with the largely English speaking nation of Canada with whom we have such a special relationship too?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, my noble and learned friend is absolutely right. It does not matter what area of business it is; our relations are clear and close. For instance, as regards the vexed issue we were discussing in your Lordships' House earlier this week, it is a US Under-Secretary who is at present in Rwanda and Burundi and who will share completely the results of that work with me on his return, as we would with the United States. If it is a matter of a much larger issue, we find ourselves sharing information, and we hope that that will continue for a long while to come.
Lord Thomson of Monifieth: My Lords, while I accept what the Minister says about relationships between the United Kingdom and the United States, does she not agree with the previous American ambassador to the United Kingdom that the relationships with the United States that matter in terms of a special relationship are those with the European Union, and that therefore it is Britain's position within the European Union, which could be a major and influential position, that matters in conducting our relationships with the United States?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, it is clear to those of us who work on these relationships that the relationship with Britain is important to the United States. The very fact that our position within the European Union attracts so much United States investment and interest in what we do is an added benefit, but the relationship is very much between the two of us, as well as with other countries in the European Union.
Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, following on from what the noble Lord, Lord Thomson of Monifieth, said about Mr. Raymond Seitz, the former US ambassador to Britain, and his statement at the end of his posting here that the special relationship with the US was dependent on Britain playing a positive role in Europe, is it not clear that the disarray in the Conservative Party on Europe, and the hostility towards Europe expressed by some members of the Cabinet, will damage the future of our special relationship?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, the noble Baroness's paraphrase of what Mr. Raymond Seitz said to the Pilgrims' meeting is a little generous in one sense; it was her own interpretation. I would just say this. We see an important European Union/US relationship because we know that we have a useful role to play on behalf of Europe, with our European partners, in North America. That is why so many people, including Sir Leon Brittan in a speech he is making today, are attracted by the debate
1026
on the possibility of a transatlantic free trade area and a useful role for Europe and North America working together. This party has a positive attitude to getting Europe right. Perhaps the noble Baroness will bring that to the notice of the 59 Labour MPs who voted against her party in the Maastricht debate.
Lord Acton: My Lords, I spend part of each year in the mid-western state of Iowa. Is the Minister aware, following on from what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, said, that masses of Americans are acutely conscious of the links of culture and history with this country and that they long, above all, to visit this country? Should not these matters also be borne in mind when assessing the relationship between the two countries?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, we very much welcome the visitors from the United States who, I think, will come in greater numbers this year than perhaps has been the case for some years past. As my noble and learned friend Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone said, it is the language and the long experience we have had together which make them want to come. They also want to understand the successes we are having, the successes of trade and of development. Also, many of them have money invested in US companies which have chosen to come to Britain above all other countries in Europe.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, would my noble friend not agree, despite her earlier answers, that our growing flirtation with the Western European Union risks making the USA rather less keen on its special relationship with us? If there is any danger of this, is not that growing flirtation both extremely ungrateful and absolute folly?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, it is a misnomer to call the relationship at which we have worked with the Western European Union over a long period a flirtation. That can lead to dangerous outcomes and we are not engaged in them. It is absolutely right that there should be a closer defence relationship between the nations of Europe. Some members of the Western European Union have never had as close a relationship as we have with the United States in NATO. One thing WEU can help us to do is complement the relationships we already have. I always need to remind the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, that the relationship is not a zero sum game; the closer our relationship with the United States and the closer our relationship with Europe, the more we add to the total of European/US relations.
Lord Eatwell: My Lords, does the Minister agree that an important part of that trading relationship is air travel? Will she tell the House whether the Government believe that negotiations on air travel arrangements between Britain and the United States should be a matter for the British Government or for the European Union?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, they are a matter for the British Government.
Lord Sherfield: My Lords, is it not the case that the United States has a special relationship with a whole number of countries, for example, with Japan and with

1027
Germany? These special relationships are different. Ours is particularly close and particularly deep. Is it not better not to talk about it too much?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, I have been careful in trying not to be special about anything the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, mentioned at the beginning. There is a great deal of work behind the scenes, week in, week out, at all levels of government and at all levels of business. Because we share the language, there is a great deal of understanding, but we should never take it for granted.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, will the noble Baroness make clear that while we have the greatest respect for the United States of Europe—
Noble Lords: Oh!
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: I meant to say the United States of America. Will the noble Baroness make it clear that we do not want to emulate the United States by joining a United States of Europe? I think I got it right that time. Will she underline what she has just said—that the Conservative Party, as well as, I hope, the Labour Party, do not favour a European superstate and will ensure the sovereign integrity of this country?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, that was a notable slip of the noble Lord's tongue. Knowing what he really meant to say, I can tell him that certainly there is no question of a United States of Europe. He has heard me say that on many occasions and I can repeat it firmly and without contradiction today. I believe that the member states of the European Union should learn to work together ever more closely. By our greater understanding we can help to prevent many of the problems which have bedevilled Europe, albeit thankfully, more than 50 years ago now.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, does the noble Baroness agree that we have special relationships with the United States and the British Commonwealth of nations and that acting together, the United Kingdom, many of the Commonwealth countries and the USA represent one of the best bastions of freedom and democracy ever created?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: Yes, my Lords.

Chief Officers of Police: Fixed Term Contracts
3.30 p.m.
Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank asked Her Majesty's Government:
What is their policy on fixed tens contracts for chief officers of police.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Blatch): My Lords, all new appointments to the ranks of chief constable and assistant chief constable after 1st April 1995 will be for fixed terms. Serving officers in those ranks may, by agreement with their police authority, move to a fixed-term appointment on or after 1st April.
1028
Appointments for fixed terms, especially for the top managers of an organisation, have important benefits for both the individual and the organisation and reflect established arrangements in other walks of life, including the public sector.
Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank: My Lords, will the Minister acknowledge that the Government's policy has received a serious setback with the refusal of the Chief Constable of Hampshire, a most distinguished police officer, to sign a short-term contract? Given what the Minister said about benefits, in what way does she believe his performance would be improved were he to do so?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I do not believe that there has been a setback. The Chief Constable of Hampshire has an absolute right under the arrangements to make the choice as to whether he wishes to sign up for a fixed-term appointment. He is perfectly free to exercise that choice. We have made it possible for him to do that, and he has done so. It is also important to note that that was a personal choice. Many of his chief officer colleagues will choose to participate in fixed-term contracts.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, Mr. Hoddinott is not only Chief Constable of Hampshire but also President of the Association of Chief Police Officers. Is the noble Baroness aware that in a letter which has been published in the press Mr. Hoddinott has drawn attention to the fact that he proposes to refuse the new contract on the constitutional grounds that it would fetter his independence from undue political interference? Is that not why we opposed this proposal so strongly when we discussed the Police and Magistrates' Courts Bill?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I have noted that Mr. Hoddinott is president of the association. I made the point that he acted in a personal capacity and that many of his chief officer colleagues will make a different choice. I also made it clear that there were benefits. It is worth recording that the association of which he is president agreed, in the Police Negotiating Board, to both fixed-term contracts and performance related pay.
To address a hypothetical situation, if an authority strayed into areas which were properly the preserve of the chief constable and interfered with his proper duties, there would have to be complicity between all the different representatives on the police authority—the elected members, magistrates and appointed members. That would be unthinkable.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, to follow the answer that the Minister has just given, is it not the case that the position adopted by the Association of Chief Police Officers, and by the Opposition at the time of the Police and Magistrates' Courts Bill, was that it was the combination of fixed-term contracts and performance related pay which presented the threat to the independence of Chief Police Officers? Secondly, is there not a curious contradiction between the Government's view that accountability of chief police officers is

1029
achieved by fixed-term contracts but accountability for the Director of the Prison Service is apparently now to be achieved by a month-by-month contract?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, it is worth recording that the Director of the Prison Service is also on a fixed-term contract and is accountable for his performance. Speaking from this Dispatch Box recently I explained the reason why, when that appointment was first made, accountability for performance was not put in place. It has now been put in place. I repeat, that it was the police authorities and the Association of Chief Police Officers who agreed that arrangement as part of the new pay structure for the police, within the Police Negotiation Board, and in fact made the recommendation themselves. Therefore, I am not sure that the comparison the noble Lord makes is a valid one.
Lord Geddes: My Lords, can my noble friend advise the House what restrictions, if any, exist on the renewal of such fixed-term contracts?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, there is absolutely none. When chief police officers or assistant chief police officers come to the end of fixed-term contracts they are entirely free to apply for reappointment.
Lord Knights: My Lords, if, as I believe is the position, performance related pay is to be part of the chief police officer's contract, can the Minister tell the House by what criteria his performance is to be measured and who will make the assessment? Bearing in mind the importance of his relationships not only with his police authority but also with many other bodies such as the councils within his area, the Crown Prosecution Service, Home Office officials and perhaps the Home Secretary himself, how is that aspect to be fed into the assessment of performance?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, the noble Lord, who has a great deal more experience of these matters than I have, knows that there is such a thing as the police plan. That will form the basis for the work of the police authority in the course of a year. At the end of the year, in negotiations between the police authority and the chief police officers themselves, a judgment will be made as to whether performance was good, bad or indifferent, and whether it was at the median level or above average. Up to 7.5 per cent. of salary is available for recognising outstanding performance above the norm.
Earl Russell: My Lords, will the noble Baroness agree that in showing such apparent indifference to the loss of a distinguished officer she risks sounding like the Australian Government which, on being told that one of its policemen had been eaten by cannibals, issued a statement saying that there were plenty more where he came from?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I am bound to answer a question with a question. What indifference have I shown, and what police officer have we lost?
Lord Monkswell: My Lords, the Minister advised the House that at the end of their short-term contracts chief
1030
police officers have to reapply for their own jobs. Can the Minister advise the House whether that is the mechanism by which Cabinet Ministers are reappointed?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, the performance of Cabinet Ministers is reviewed for reappointment every four or five years by the British electorate. That is how they are accountable. It is a very sharp accountability indeed.
When a chief police officer or assistant chief police officer comes to the end of a fixed-term contract—and it should be remembered that the contract is for up to 10 years for assistant chief police officers and up to seven years for chief police officers—there is an automatic review. It will be a matter for the officer concerned as to whether he wishes to be considered for further appointment. The post would have to be advertised and it would be for the authority to determine whether or not there should be a reappointment.

Civil Evidence Bill [H.L.]
3.35 p.m.
The Lord Chancellor (Lord Mackay of Clashfern): My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to provide for the admissibility of hearsay evidence and the proof of certain documentary evidence in civil proceedings and for connected purposes. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a first time.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read a first time, and to be printed.

Geneva Conventions (Amendment) Bill [H.L.]
Lord Archer of Weston-Super-Mare: My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to make provision for the amendment of the Geneva Conventions Act 1957 to enable effect to be given to certain international protocols done on the 10th day of June 1977, additional to the Geneva Conventions of 1949, and for connected purposes. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a first time.—(Lord Archer of Weston-Super-Mare.)
On Question, Bill read a first time, and to be printed.

Criminal Appeal Bill
Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and to be printed.

Jobseekers Bill
3.40 p.m.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now again resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now again resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES in the Chair.]
Clause 9 [Income and capital: general]:
Baroness Hollis of Heigham Baroness Hollis of Heigham moved Amendment No. 111:
Page 8, line 40, at end insert:
("( ) Where a person or the partner of a person is in receipt of earnings of a prescribed description, regulations under subsection (1) shall make provision—

(a) for a minimum weekly amount of those earnings to be disregarded in respect of the person and any partner of his ("the disregard"); and

(b) for the minimum disregard to be applied either weekly (as £10 per week in respect of a person or £20 per week in respect of a couple if both partners have earnings) or quarterly (as £130 per quarter in respect of a person or £260 per quarter in respect of a couple if both partners have earnings).").

The noble Baroness said: In moving Amendment No. 111 I speak also to Amendment No. 171 with which it is grouped.
These are probing amendments which seek to increase the disregard on part-time earnings which may be retained by someone on income support. At present a single person may retain £5 if he or she is on income support; and for a couple the sum is £10. The amendment seeks to explore the implications of raising that disregard from £5 to £10 for a single person and from £10 to £20 for a couple as recommended by the Government's social security advisory committee last year.
We are talking about those in part-time work. I refer to people who work for less than 24 hours a week who also receive income support. Their part-time earnings are deducted pound for pound but they are allowed to retain a modest element—at present £5 or £10. They then go on to income support. Obviously those with children who work more than 24 hours a week are entitled to family credit as an in-work benefit.
We all agree, as we stated in earlier discussions, that part-time work is a valuable way of remaining within the labour market. If we are honest, I believe that we would also agree that £5 for a single person or £10 for a couple is an inadequate incentive for a person on income support to go to work, with the additional costs of travel, clothing, perhaps bought food, and so on.
The Government—we give credit to them—have recognised that lack of incentive by rolling up a proportion of those part-time earnings into a back-to-work bonus when one moves off income support. That is obviously welcome. It will be much appreciated at the time. It comes into play if one moves off income support at 16 hours a week. However, we believe that that scheme is too far into the future and will not operate as the psychological carrot the Government believe that it will.
Our perspective is the same as that of the Government. We wish to encourage people to move into and stay in part-time work. We have the same goals as the Government. However, we believe that the right way to encourage people to do that is to increase the disregard
1032
while in part-time work. That is a simple but straightforward proposal. The principle is well established.
Our first argument is that in order to meet the Government's objective of encouraging those on income support to move into part-time work, we should increase the disregard that people can retain before having their net earnings reduced pound for pound.
The second argument is that the proposal is long overdue. In November 1975 the figure was £4. It was not up-rated to £5 until 1988. If the figure of £4 had remained, and had simply been inflation proofed, it would now be worth £16 a week. The £5 figure of November 1988 would now be worth between £7 and £8 a week. Both figures are a more realistic contribution to the additional cost of being in work.
It is the same as with capital rules. If the Government do not inflation proof, and therefore increase, the disregards each and every year, it amounts effectively to a cut. We say that government should rectify that anomaly and thereafter "RPI" it so that a disregard which government intended to be worth £5 in 1988 retains its value. Otherwise the figure will not act as the incentive for work for which we all hope. I beg to move.
Earl Russell: The noble Baroness is quite right about disregards. The Minister knows well my arguments about the matter; I shall not rehearse them again. The noble Baroness is also right about the need for up-rating. Up-rating of capital sums, disregards and savings limits, is done on an irregular basis. Since up-rating is almost of necessity done by regulation, it is extremely difficult for this Chamber to find an appropriate moment to address the issue. If the Minister does not want the general concern about regulations to become more intense, I hope that we shall see some of those capital limits up-rated in the next up-rating statement.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: The jobseeker's allowance will have common rules for contribution-based and income-based claimants. We have made clear that most claimants will have a £5 weekly disregard, while couples will benefit from a new £10 disregard.
The noble Baroness described the amendment as probing. I understand the attractions of the proposal. Indeed, I put it in the form of a probing amendment to the officials of the Department of Social Security when I joined, as I thought full of fresh ideas, discovering (to no one's surprise, I am sure) that most of the ideas had already been considered.
However, the problem with the proposal is that the costs are considerable. I shall come to them in a moment. It is difficult to quantify how many more people one would encourage—additional to those who are already doing some work while unemployed; and, of course, they do not need additional encouragement.
Increases in the disregard are costly and in incentive terms —because of the point that I have made about what is rather inelegantly called "dead weight"—they are a poor use of resources. It would be difficult not to align the disregard across JSA, housing benefit and council tax benefit. If the amount is raised by £5 per week the cost for that total disregard would be something like £90 million. If it were for JSA alone, the cost would be £25 million. I

1033
believe that there are better ways of spending that kind of money, if it were available, than the specific way that we are invited to consider.
We have looked at how to attract and encourage people back to work. One of the ways that we have chosen—the noble Baroness rightly referred to it—is the back-to-work bonus scheme. Through that scheme there will be clear water between out of work benefits and the financial advantage of full-time work. We believe that at least 150,000 people a year will receive payments under the scheme once the scheme is up and running. We shall come to that scheme later. Essentially, above the £5 disregard which anyone is allowed to earn while they are unemployed, half will be rolled up and retained up to a value of £1,000 so that when they go back to work they will receive that back-to-work bonus to help them. We shall discuss that scheme in a little while; I do not wish to go into more detail. However, I believe that that is an important add-on to the straightforward £5 disregard. We have already debated raising the hours which a partner can work from 16 to 24 without removing the entitlement to benefit.
I return to the point that I made in the middle of my remarks. The cost is quite considerable. For JSA only, the sum is £25 million. That would be quite difficult to hold to. One would have to align it across the system, which would cost £90 million. When I made the suggestion, I wondered whether that was the best use we could make of the £90 million. The £5 disregard strikes a balance in providing an incentive to do some work and the back-to-work bonus adds to the incentive without creating a disincentive to take full-time work. I hope that with that explanation the noble Baroness will realise, like me a few months ago, that what sounds a good idea involves problems of an expensive nature. The amount of up to £90 million could be better spent in other ways.
Earl Russell: I understand the Minister's difficulties with quantification. Quantifying the effects of the amendment would quickly sort the optimists from the pessimists, but the pessimists are not always right. Will the Minister try to improve his methods of quantification? While he is doing so, will he agree that the appropriate way to keep his options open is to up-rate in line with inflation?
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: It is extremely difficult to research behavioural aspects of such a matter. In any case, the noble Earl asks me to do the up-rating. I return to my original point: if the up-rating takes us to £16—a point made earlier—it would cost a considerable sum. I do not believe that that is the best use for the amount of money that we can find in the social security system.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: How does the Minister know that if he has not done the modelling referred to by the noble Earl, Lord Russell? If by increasing the bonus there were X number of additional people willing to work, and therefore not so dependent on income support, the proposal would pay for itself. But we do not know how that balance would work; we are speculating.
The present situation is that a single person working fewer than 24 hours per week is only allowed to retain £5 of that against the income support payment, if he is on low
1034
wages. That is £1 per day if he works a few hours every day. I believe that the cheapest single fare on the underground is £1 so if that person travels by underground to a job in London, as I understand it he will have to pay £2 a day just to work there. That is £10 a week on fares at the cheapest rate. That is to say nothing about appropriate clothes. The Minister is very "up front" and gung-ho about appropriate clothes, appearance and behaviour when confronting an employer. Where will the money be found for that from the £5? Where will the underground fare come from? Where will that person find the additional cost of buying a lunch, even from a sandwich shop, as opposed to having lunch at home? Why should anyone seek to work if all they can retain is £5 and, as a result, they are out of pocket?
If the Government assume that people are economically rational—and that is the basis of arguments about targeting, perversity and so on—they must assume that people sit down and say: "How much will it cost me to work? A minimum of £2 a day on underground fares and, say, a modest £1.50 in addition for lunch. I need to retain £15 a week even to be within reach of not being worse off. What am I allowed to retain? Only £5! Why, therefore, does it make sense for me to do what the Minister would like and seek work?"
I am sure that the Committee will regard my argument as unanswerable. I believe that it is. We do not know how many additional people would come into work as a result of the amendment. I believe that we would all agree that we need research and modelling. Only the department can do that.
It is odd that the Minister's enthusiasm for the proposal when he first came into office did not extend so far as seeking adequate information-based answers to allay his anxieties. He was easily deflected by merely being told that it would cost money.
The second government argument was the cost: £25 million for JSA; £90 million if we included housing benefit and council tax benefit. At Committee stage in the other place, the figure given to the Committee by the Minister, Ann Widdecombe, was £75 million. So the figure has increased by £15 million in as many weeks. The cost is £25 million for JSA. So far as I can see at the moment the budget on unemployment benefit is £1,260 million. We are talking about an additional £25 million. The Minister cannot tell me that that figure of £1,260 million is not rounded up, give or take £1 million here, £5 million or £10 million there. Of course it is. The Minister knows that the figure of £25 million on a total unemployment benefit of £1,260 million, before we come to the £16,000 million spent on income support, would be lost in the total equation. It is a rounded off figure by the department and we all know it.
The proposal would mean that the disregard would in future be RPI'd. Everyone in the House and in Parliament accepts that benefits should be RPI'd. Income support is raised each and every year; old age pensions are raised every year according to inflation. Why? If we did not do that, they would effectively be cut. When a disregard is not RPI'd, each and every year, effectively it is cut. So it is unfair because we are cutting the disregard. It is not expensive. The amount would be lost in the small print. So far as I can judge, it would help to encourage people to

1035
work who quite reasonably say that they cannot afford to go to work on an extra £1 a day. I repeat, that £1 will not even cover the cost of the single underground fare. I ask the Minister to comment.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: As all Members of the Committee know, the noble Baroness believes that all her arguments are unanswerable. That is usually the introduction when she replies to me. They may or may not be unanswerable, I believe that most are capable of an answer, but they certainly cost more money. I have not yet kept a tally of the additional expenditure which the noble Baroness would have imposed on the Treasury, if all her unanswerable amendments had been accepted by myself. The till would be ticking up substantially and that is where priorities arise.
I invite the noble Baroness to consider some of her unanswerable arguments and ask herself what priority she would give this proposal. Every suggestion of hers seems to have top priority. I made the point that while I saw some advantages, I was persuaded that if the money were available—which I confirm would be £75 million if up-rated since 1988—it would be better spent in other ways. One of the other ways in which we propose to spend the money is on proposals like the back-to-work bonus. Such suggestions are more sensible than an increase in the disregard.
I notice that the noble Baroness said that the proposal would pay for itself. I do not believe that it would. It would only do so to the extent that someone might take a little part-time work who did none at the time. The dead-weight—as I inelegantly described it—involves the £5 extra which someone already in work would have added to the present £5 disregard. That would cost the Exchequer exactly £5, because £5 more in benefit would have to be paid. So I am afraid that the one thing it would not do is to pay for itself.
The idea that the increase is needed to encourage people to take part-time work when they are unemployed does not hold much water because many people take part-time work. Many unemployed people see the benefits in the longer term of retaining a link with the labour market. I believe that the £5 disregard, which should stay where it is, in addition to the back-to-work bonus, which we will come to later, represents a positive way to encourage people back to work and to help them at the time when they go back to work. With that additional explanation, I hope the noble Baroness will withdraw her amendment.
Lord McCarthy: The Minister said that everything the noble Baroness suggested cost money. He does not know how much, but he is certain that we cannot afford it. If certain things happened, if the elasticities were in a certain direction, it would cost nothing at all. When the noble Lord first went to the department he had a good idea. He was put off by simulations, dead-weight arguments and knock-on effects. Statisticians always back people off with simulations, dead-weight arguments and knock-on effects. The only way to challenge them is by empirical experiment. If the noble Lord would do what we ask or accept the much more modest suggestion of the noble
1036
Earl, he may well discover that nothing at all would be lost. But he cannot find out merely by simulations, dead-weight analysis and knock-on effects.
4 p.m.
Earl Russell: The Minister is right when he says that one must count the costs. But if he is going to use his calculator, can he please try to use it correctly? The priorities must depend on the relationship between the costs and the savings. Calculating the savings is extremely difficult, and one may well get it wrong. However, will the Minister agree that a calculation made without the savings is certainly wrong?
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: Elasticity, I regret to tell the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, tends to pull in both directions, or sometimes in every direction if the elastic is not well held at one end. I have very little to add to the arguments I made. Savings costing is important as well. But the fact is that any logical look at this matter will reveal that the majority of people who would gain from this extra £5 disregard would already be in some form of part-time work. Therefore, if the intention of the amendment is to encourage them to take up part-time work, that encouragement does not seem to me to be needed.
The costs are important. We have increased costs in this field, and some of those increases are in the Bill. I had a number of ideas when I went to the department. We shall come to some of them later today. I believe that they offer better value for money than does this one. Not all one's ideas are good when one looks into matters deeply, although I realise that that is a view that I alone may hold and that the noble Baroness may not.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: The Minister may regret admitting that he thought that this was a good idea when he first replied since at a later stage we shall obviously wish to pursue the matter. He asks what are our priorities. I would have thought that our priorities are the same as those of the Government; namely, to encourage people back into work. The difference between us is that we believe the most effective way of doing so is to increase the demand for labour and not simply to coerce people into an over-stocked labour market.
Nonetheless, we want to encourage people back into work. One of the well tried and tested ways of doing so is for those who are currently unemployed to acquire a part-time job. They go into the labour market; they learn the skills; they are available to learn about the openings for longer hours and full-time work. We all accept that; it is common knowledge.
The Minister says that the costs would be excessive. I accept that the cost of £25 million on a total budget of £1,260 million would be additional in so far as it would be paid to people already in part-time work. But let us look at the priority; namely, bringing those who are unemployed into part-time work. Let us say that such a person is offered a part-time job paying £40 a week. He currently receives £46.50 a week as a single person over 25 on income support. He would currently lose £35 of that £40 in benefit. He would retain only £5 of it and

1037
the rest would he income support. He thinks about it and says, "No, I can't afford it. I can't afford the cost of the fares". It means that the Government are paying out his full allowance for income support (£46.50) instead of paying him just £10, because the rest would have been netted off his part-time earnings. The Minister cannot tell us what the net cost to JSA would be of such people coming into work. All he has given us—the noble Earl, Lord Russell, is absolutely right—is the gross cost of adding it in, assuming that most of that money would go to people already in work. What he has not done is look at the savings on those who are currently unemployed who would come into work and, as a result, to whom the Government would not have to pay the full income support amount because they would themselves contribute £20, £30 or £40 of that amount from their own earnings. Can the Minister give the figure for that? If he cannot, he has not addressed the central issue of the amendment.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: I do not know whether we shall make much progress in bridging the gap between us. It seems self-evident that if those people who are in part-time work at the moment and benefiting from the £5 disregard receive a further £5 disregard, then that must mean a loss to the Exchequer since they will be paid £5 more in benefit.
I am asked how many people may decide to start part-time work who do not work at the moment. That is difficult to quantify. But logic tells me (it may be that my logic is not very good) that that will be nothing like the same number as those already in part-time work who would receive what I suggested earlier was a deadweight payment.
It is a question of priorities. My right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced in his Budget something like £600 million of added incentives to help people back into work. That is a lot of money. We believe that that is the right priority, the right way to go. If the noble Baroness decides that this is more than a probing amendment and she wants to put it to the Committee, as one might begin to think from the eloquence of her argument, then I invite my noble friends to join me in the Lobby against the proposal and in favour of the proposals we shall debate later in the afternoon which involve encouraging and helping people at the point at which they return to work.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: I said that this was a probing amendment, and that is why I shall not put it to the vote. The Minister has finally conceded that his figures of £25 million and so on are utterly speculative. As he said, he is relying on logic because he does not have information to show what savings would be achieved in coaxing those who are currently unemployed into part-time work. That is what he said; he does not know. But we know that the amount will certainly be much less than £25 million, because £25 million is the gross cost without any savings set against it. I ask the Minister in all seriousness to ensure that when we return to this amendment on Report his department has done some proper work so that we are not asked to rely on the Minister's intuition, logic, speculation or hypothesis in the absence of hard
1038
information from which to see how much the true cost would be of doing something that was decent, fair, civilised and humane. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Burnham): I have to advise the Committee that if Amendment No. 112 is agreed to, I cannot call Amendments Nos. 113 and 114.
[Amendment No. 112 not moved.]
Lord Swinfen Lord Swinfen moved Amendment No. 113:
Page 9, line 4, at end insert ("which, in the ease of the income of a disabled person, shall include fees payable for sitting on a Disability Appeal Tribunal for no more than one day a week").
The noble Lord said: In moving this amendment I should also like to speak to Amendments Nos. 114, 115 and 120.
Amendment No. 113 is to ensure that payments made for sitting on a disability appeal tribunal are not taken into account as income. The amendment also relates to the anticipated movement of large numbers of people from incapacity benefit to jobseeker's allowance. Some of these disabled people may have received incapacity benefit at the same time as undertaking types of activity which are "exempt work" and therefore disregarded when entitlement to incapacity benefit is considered. Exempt work for incapacity benefit purposes includes duties undertaken as a member of a disability appeal tribunal or the disability living allowance advisory board, provided that this is not undertaken on more than one day a week.
In the case of sitting on a tribunal, both the activity involved in being a panel member for one day a week, and the fees that are payable are disregarded for the purposes of incapacity benefit. The reason for making this activity "exempt work" was to encourage people with experience of disability to use their expertise on a disability appeal tribunal. That expertise will still be required even if in one week the person is regarded as incapable and in the next is required to sign on for jobseeker's allowance.
I turn to Amendment No. 114. Some disabled people may have savings only because of a lump sum payment made in settlement of a personal injury—possibly the injury that disabled them—which takes them above the limit for the income-related jobseeker's allowance. People can have only £3,000 in savings before their benefit is affected by an assumed return on their capital; and £8,000 is the cut-off point above which no benefit is payable. This level of £8,000 has not been increased since 1990.
Personal injury payments can be distinguished from other kinds of capital in that they are payable for a specific purpose. Current income support rules also allow for the value of a trust fund and the right to receive payments from that fund to be disregarded as capital where such a fund is derived from a payment made in consequence of personal injury. Can my noble friend confirm if the intention is to carry over this provision into the income-related jobseeker's allowance?
Where there is no trust fund, compensation payments do count as capital and can therefore disqualify someone from weekly benefit, so that, for example, someone who was injured at work who had been awarded £15,000 in respect of this injury would only be entitled to six months' contributory jobseeker's allowance, after which time benefit would cease as his savings would take him above the limit. This amendment would allow all such payments to be disregarded, whether or not a trust is in existence. I understand that the Department of Social Security's research, in its Report No. 19, indicates that only around a third of a sample of claimants on invalidity benefit had savings, so it is likely that the public expenditure implications would be limited.
The other two amendments also concern income from capital. Prescribed income levels for disabled people should, in my view, take full account of the extra costs of daily living and the extra cost of job seeking that are incurred by disabled people. All payments of the disability living allowance and all payments of all disability premiums under the income support scheme should be paid in addition to any jobseeker's allowance. All payments from the independent living fund and any payments for personal care that in future may be paid by local authorities should all, in my view, be similarly disregarded in respect of limits imposed on income, and paid in addition to any jobseeker's allowance.
All capital earmarked for expenditure in respect of a person's disability, as I said earlier, should be disregarded. In the past, for example, savings of a mobility allowance to pay for a holiday or a Mutability car used to be disregarded under the old supplementary benefits scheme. That is no longer possible and some disabled people are consequently severely disadvantaged. I beg to move.
Earl Russell: I should like to support all three of the amendments to which I have put my name. In matters to do with disability it is very often the imagination we need to get through to, not the intellect. I have never forgotten the case of Senator John Glenn, as he subsequently became, who went to the moon in the very early days of those activities. He came down safely and almost immediately afterwards broke his leg falling over in his bath. It is said that when one is in the instant of an accident one may sometimes review all one's past life in a few seconds. I have never had that experience but a few days ago I had the experience of slipping very heavily in my bath. I was falling in such a way that I would have landed very heavily on my spine. Having been mentally conditioned by the Minister's calculator, I immediately started totting up in those few seconds, while I, in the event, recovered myself, all the extra expenses which would be needed to convert my house so that I could carry on living and, I hope, working. Before I had succeeded in recovery they had come to quite a large figure in a very short time.
The costs of disability are very real. If they can be met, in some cases one can continue working, one can continue paying income tax, and the Exchequer will benefit. The OPCS, as the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, has often argued in this Chamber, quite severely under-estimated the costs of disability. On the occasion
1040
I described that point was brought home to me very rapidly. Amendment No. 114, which deals with capital as a consequence of personal injury, is simply equitable. I hope the Minister will accept it.
The point about the disability appeal tribunal is an argument we have heard many times before. It is sheer common sense and a non-party matter. I hope the Minister will accept that amendment also.
4.15 p.m.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: We support these amendments. We all know that disabled people have on average lower incomes and higher costs. We explored that point particularly when we were dealing with the Social Security (Incapacity for Work) Bill. There are additional costs for heating, diet, laundry, clothing and adaptions. We also know from the research of organisations such as RADAR, the Disablement Income Group and the Disability Alliance that on average disabled people have only two-thirds of the income of non-disabled people while their additional living costs are likely to amount to £50 or £60 a week more. That is recognised in the extra disability premiums attached to income support. We hope therefore that this problem of the need for additional income because of the additional costs to be met through disability will be recognised in the JSA both in terms of income and capital disregards. We welcome the amendments.
Lord Rix: My name is not attached to this amendment. I only wish it were. Unfortunately, I use a shower bath and therefore I have not had the chance in the recent past to tot up the figures concerned with disability. But I do know that they are considerable. I support both the previous speakers in that regard.
I should like to point out something to the Minister on which he may care to reflect. In the recent past an amendment put forward by my noble friend Lord Freyberg in your Lordships' House with regard to war widows was agreed to. It was based, perhaps, on emotion, but it was also based on fairness. I am glad to say that your Lordships' House accepted the amendment, as did another place. I believe that fairness applies to Amendments Nos. 113, 114, 115 and 120. It could only redound to the credit of your Lordships' House and to the Government if they were to accept these amendments on behalf of disabled people.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: It is not often that the noble Earl, Lord Russell, in his amusing historical examples, gives a piece of history that is modern enough to be within my lifetime. If I am right, I do not actually think that Glenn did go to the moon. He may have been the first man to go around the earth. Indeed, he may not even have been that. It may have been a Russian. But he certainly was not the first man to go to the moon. If I am right about that, I am afraid that all my belief in the noble Earl's more distant historical stories will have been shattered. However, I am sure that I can forgive him one small slip of the memory in this case.
Amendment No. 113, moved by my noble friend Lord Swinfen, would allow people with a disability special treatment in JSA. It would mean that any fee received

1041
for sitting on a disability appeal tribunal would be ignored in calculating that person's entitlement to both contributory and income-based jobseeker's allowance.
I fully recognise the useful and important service which unemployed disabled people do by sitting on a disability appeal tribunal. However, I do not believe it is appropriate to ignore substantial income received by unemployed people who carry out any work while on benefit, however worth while the nature of the task. The current fee for a lay member of a tribunal is £113. That is a substantial sum which this amendment would allow the claimant to receive in addition to his full benefit entitlement.
Disregarding sums received by those sitting on disability appeal tribunals would lead to inequities between claimants with a disability and other claimants, many of whom could have justifiable, if different, claims for similar special treatments. Indeed, they may also sit on appeal tribunals. The basic principle is that JSA is there to support claimants while they are unemployed and looking for work. That principle is seriously undermined if claimants are able to top up their benefit with earnings which are considerable and which could reduce the incentive for them to move off benefit and back into employment.
There is already special provision in JSA for disabled people who undertake small amounts of work. They will be entitled to a £15 disregard on earnings. That is £10 more than the standard disregard, which we discussed earlier, and £5 more than the couple disregard of £10. In addition, under JSA, as I explained in the previous amendment, half of any amount above the disregard, which includes the £113 fee that I mentioned, will in fact be counted towards the build-up of a new back-to-work bonus. That in its turn will mean that people would be better off; they will get that money when they leave unemployment and find a job. Therefore they will get some of the money back at that point.
I hope that my noble friend accepts that I fully understand the point he makes and very much appreciate the work that people do on such tribunals. But I believe that it would not be right to discriminate—if I may say so—in favour of disabled people against other people in similar circumstances of unemployment or whatever who may sit on appeal tribunals.
I turn to Amendment No. 114, which seeks to allow any capital payment received as a result of a personal injury to be disregarded in assessing entitlement to benefit. I can assure my noble friend that there is no need for this amendment. It is our intention to model the arrangements for income-based jobseeker's allowance closely on the arrangements which apply in income support. Regulations already provide that any capital sums deriving from personal injury payments are disregarded if they are placed in trust. We intend to carry forward that principle in JSA.
The arrangements enable long-term provision to be made for people who have ongoing needs resulting from their injuries. As now, £10 per week of any discretionary income from the trust, plus any discretionary payments
1042
for items not covered by benefit, can be disregarded. Any other payments of income (by which I mean payments not out of a discretionary trust)—
Lord Swinfen: Perhaps I may interrupt my noble friend. He said that capital placed in trust would be disregarded. What is the position? Does the disabled person have to put that capital into trust himself? Some people are disabled in such a way that they cannot always handle their own affairs. Alternatively, can that capital be put in trust by someone else acting on their behalf? Or does it have to be put into trust by the person paying the damages for the injury?
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: That is a fairly detailed question but I would guess that the question of by whom the money is put into trust is of no importance. In fact, whether the person himself put it in or whether it was put in on his behalf, the position remains as I stated. So it does not matter.
I was dealing with other payments of income and I had just mentioned the example of payments not out of a discretionary trust. They will be taken into account. We believe that allowing people to benefit from discretionary income strikes the correct balance. It would clearly be a misuse of public funds to ignore significant income available in a system intended to help people whose resources are insufficient to meet their day-to-day needs.
We also believe that to ignore capital deriving from personal injury payments without any restriction would not necessarily encourage long-term provision. Clearly, if the person involved needs long-term care at any level, the sensible thing is to encourage provision to be made for the money to be available in the longer term through a trust. If that was not done, it would be administratively very difficult to separate that capital from any other capital that the person may hold.
Amendments Nos. 115 and 120 seek to allow any income or savings which can be directly attributable to meeting needs associated with a disability to be ignored in assessing entitlement to JSA.
We recognise that people with disabilities can incur increased living costs, which is why the disability premiums which currently apply in income support will be carried forward into income-based JSA. These are paid in recognition of the extra living expenses such as extra heating, special diets, more expensive travel, or laundry costs which people with disabilities can face. In addition, a higher £15 earnings disregard will be payable in recognition of the extra expenses that disabled people might incur while working.
However, income-based JSA, like income support, is intended to help people whose resources are insufficient to meet their day-to-day living expenses. It is only right that, in a system based on means, any income which is available to meet a person's needs should be taken into account, and that those with substantial capital resources should also have their benefit affected by this. As now, capital and most income other than earnings and occupational pensions will not affect entitlement to contributory JSA.
There will, nevertheless, be some exceptions. We intend, when calculating entitlement to benefit, to continue to disregard fully certain social security

1043
benefits paid to disabled people, whether to the claimant or his partner. This will include disability living allowance, attendance allowance and constant attendance allowance, which are intended to meet the special needs of disabled people. The first £10 a week of any charitable payment or war disablement pension will also be disregarded.
We also recognise the value which schemes such as Motability—which was mentioned by my noble friend—provide for disabled people. The rules that allow a vehicle to be provided in return for the assignment of any mobility component which a person receives will continue and, in this case, no capital or income will fall to be taken into account for the purpose of JSA.
I appreciate that perhaps I have given my noble friend a mixed bag of replies, some of which I am sure he will find more than satisfactory. I suspect that on the first amendment he may still not agree with me, but I hope that he understands my argument about equity with other people. I hope also that he accepts my assurances on the various points that I have tried to cover in my response to him.
Lord Swinfen: I feel that the whole Committee will be delighted to know that the noble Earl did not damage himself because we benefit very much from what he has to say, particularly the historical anecdotes that he brings out. He may be slightly wrong, as my noble friend suggests, on what happens within our own lifetime but on his own subject no one can better him.
As my noble friend said, he has produced a mixed bag of welcome and possibly not so welcome information in his reply. I shall digest it at greater leisure when I have had an opportunity to read it in the Official Report. It means that I may come back on one or two points at the next stage of the Bill. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 114 and 115 not moved.]
Clause 9 agreed to.
Clause 10 [Income and capital: income-based jobseeker's allowance]:
Baroness Hoilis of Heigham Baroness Hoilis of Heigham moved Amendment No. 116:
Page 9, line 9, at end insert ("of not less than £10,000").
The noble Baroness said: This argument is somewhat similar in nature to the earlier one about earnings disregard. This amendment applies to capital disregards. The £3,000 threshold of capital disregard was fixed in April 1988. If that were up-rated, it would now be worth £4,179 with RPI. The sum of £8,000 determined in 1990 would now be worth £10,119 if RPI-ed. Both figures would be considerably higher if, instead, they were earnings related.
This is a probing amendment. We want to tease out the Government's presumed objection to it. At the moment, one may retain capital up to £3,000. Thereafter, as a couple, capital between £3,000 and £8,000 is taken into account and a notional income attributed to it which is docked off—offset—against
1044
income support. Above that capital limit of £8,000, one is not entitled to income support and, therefore, presumably, JSA in its entirety.
Perhaps I may be allowed to make some obvious points. First, as we said earlier we accept and the Minister accepts the principle of up-rating in benefits generally. If that is not done, the worth of the benefit is cut by inflation each and every year. In other words, inflation should not be allowed to eat away at the intention of Parliament when it first fixed the limit. Not to index it is to cut it. Therefore, in all fairness, all such disregards should be RPI-ed each and every year, consistent with the benefits; otherwise, it is worth less and, by knock-on consequences, so is the benefit. Therefore, we undermine Parliament's original intention.
The second point is particular to the capital rules and does not apply to earnings. The Government have fixed a very high notional income attached to those savings. One pound a week in benefit is deducted for every £250 of savings one has over £3,000. I believe I am right in saying that that means that there is assumed to be a notional income from one's capital of over 20 per cent. Many of us would like to have a real income from capital of 20 per cent. Yet the most poor of our society who do not have generous savings and who are on income support are, quite notionally, assumed to have capital giving an income flow of 20 per cent. That bears no relation to the real world we inhabit. That is lost altogether if one has savings over £8,000. Therefore, the second reason for up-rating is to defer the point at which that very severe notional flow of income from savings takes people off benefit.
The third concern is that JSA, the contributory benefit in which savings are not taken into account, is being cut from 12 months to six months. Therefore the effect of that very high penal rate on savings is coming into account six months earlier than under present UB rules and savings will be eaten into much earlier. The consequence is that the Government are sending out to people on income support and those who might be eligible for JSA, a signal that it is not worth saving because if one does those savings are sharply penalised, not just in terms of the notional income one is supposedly drawing from it, but at the cut-off point at which one loses JSA. There is an even greater sense of unfairness when those savings have come not just by putting money away weekly into a policy or whatever, but when they have been awarded, say, as compensation for injury or redundancy. In other words, a payment made for a wrong done is then to be treated not as compensation, but as income on which one is expected to live.
I doubt whether there is anyone in this Committee who disagrees with the view that it is a great mistake, in terms of wider social policy, to wipe out people's modest savings. For example, savings in a rural area allow one to acquire a battered car in the absence of public transport with which to jobseek, acquire and then hold down a job. If those savings are wiped out then one does not have a chance of re-entering the world of work in sparsely populated rural areas. It is those savings which, as one approaches old age, will float one

1045
off the need for some charity hand-outs and allow one to buy the aids and adaptations which perhaps allow one to remain in the community rather than needing to go into Community Care. It is those savings, modest though they are, which will prevent an unemployed person from slipping into debt on water and fuel bills. All the evidence from the CABs shows that something like half of all unemployed people slip into debt from which it is almost impossible for many of them to recover. It is equally important for those who are losing their jobs in their later 50s and have virtually to exhaust their savings before they can get JSA. They are also only a year or two off retirement with no cushion whatever to take with them.
We are all living in an increasingly insecure society. Is it really wise for government to make it silly to save? That is what the Government's Jobseekers Bill does. If they were minded to indicate that they will accept these amendments the Bill will be a little less perverse than it is at the moment. I beg to move.
Lord Swinfen: When assessing the nominal or supposed income from capital, in what is that capital supposed to have been invested to produce the income suggested by the noble Baroness?
Earl Russell: On behalf of these Benches we support these amendments. I shall not attempt to gild the lily, but I now have authority to say something which I would like the Committee to know. If we are in a position to do so, we shall repeal this Bill. If the electorate should choose to put us in partnership with another party we shall endeavour to persuade that party, whichever it may be, that it should join in repealing this Bill. I hope that the Opposition will be able to join in this commitment.
I watched the Minister's face. I can see him reaching for his calculator, but before he does so, can he try to get it right this time? We need to know what this provision is going to cost. The figure in the financial memorandum is £270 million of which £220 million is attributable to the cutback in unemployment benefit. On that costing I have been entirely persuaded by the very able speech made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis of Heigham, at Second Reading. I hope that she is as successful with that speech at persuading the Treasury people in her own party, as she has been in persuading me. In the other part of the Bill there is a saving envisaged of £50 million. I am sure that the Minister understands why it will carry much greater expenses. The assumption that repealing it would be cost-neutral is very pessimistic, but it is the assumption on which I am acting because I am sometimes pessimistic as regards financial matters. I hope that we can get rid of the legislation at some time.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: That was an interesting intervention. Clearly, the Liberal Democrat Party have been deep in conclave for a day, a week or an hour—I am not entirely sure—to come to the conclusion that, given the opportunity, they will repeal this Bill. However, that should not stop us in our tracks from carrying on with consideration of the Bill.
1046
I never hear figures of costs from the Opposition concerning their amendments. They sometimes counter what I suggest may be the cost and give the Committee the impression that somehow or other their proposals will be "costless". I do not believe that that was the experience of the Treasury Ministers during the time of the last Labour Government.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: I am not sure if I offend the rules of the Committee by intervening, but I am sure that Members of the Committee will at least temporarily forgive me. I merely looked to the resources which the Minister has in the Box. There is usually nine, 10 or 11 staff and sometimes we have one or two and sometimes none. That may be why the Minister has better resources to carry out the costings than we have. Of course, we hope to enjoy those benefits ourselves in the not too distant future.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: I thought that the noble Baroness was going to suggest that I should sack the officials and in that way save money, but she was not quite making that jump. It will be an interesting policy if her party puts that forward as one way in which to find some of the additional money which the amendments before us promise.
I return to the amendment. As I said earlier, income-based JSA is intended to help unemployed people whose resources are insufficient to meet their day-to-day living expenses. It is only right that in any system based on need, capital or income which is available, including that of the claimant's family, is not ignored. In the case of a family, benefit is paid for the whole family, taking into account the resources and needs of the family as a whole.
Income-based jobseeker's allowance will closely model income support, as I have said on a number of occasions. The upper limit will be £8,000 and the lower will be £3,000. We believe that it is necessary to preserve alignments of benefits in order to avoid anomalies and inequities and to preserve incentives.
The present lower and upper capital limits strike a balance which allows people to maintain a cushion of savings to fall back on while expecting those with capital to use some of their resources towards their own living expenses before they have recourse to public funds. Part of that is called "saving for a rainy day". If the rainy day comes—and this is obviously one of them—it is right that the taxpayer should expect people to use their umbrella at least to some extent before calls are made on the taxpayers' resources. The capital limits are part and parcel of the fabric of the system and are designed to ensure that people who have some resources make some use of them before they can ask the taxpayer—the general community—to pay an income-related benefit.
Turning to the amendment which seeks to raise the capital limits to a lower limit of £5,000 and an upper limit of £10,000, the cost of implementing such provisions for income support alone—that is, for all income support, not only for unemployment benefit; I do not think that such provisions could be applied to one narrow group—would be £55 million.

1047
At the risk of hearing another story about calculators, my calculator has already totalled over £100 million of Opposition spending this afternoon—and it is only 4.40 p.m. I shudder to think what my calculator might show at the end of the day. As I said, it already shows well over £100 million in Opposition pledges. I am quite content for the Labour Party to promise such additional expenditure on these and other matters, but that bill will suddenly become very large and unsustainable when added to the current very large social security bill.
I believe that increasing the capital limits would represent poor targeting and add an extra £55 million to the social security budget. Our priority has been to maintain benefit levels and improve help for claimants who are most in need rather than increasing disregards for those who have some resources of their own.
I shall leave answers to the questions about "steps" until we reach Amendment No. 118, tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Russell. That is the time to discuss whether there should or should not be steps between the limits of £3,000 and £8,000. I hope that the noble Baroness will withdraw her amendment. I can see that she does not agree with my proposals. Perhaps that keeps some clear blue water—or should it be clear red water?—between our parties. It is evident that the Labour Party has not lost its taste for spending public money.
Baroness Williams of Crosby: Before we move away from Amendment No. 116, perhaps I may draw the Committee's attention to Amendment No. 117, which is linked with it and which relates to subsection (2). That subsection indicates that where a person is claiming an income-based jobseeker's allowance, it is not only his or her capital but that of,
"any member of that family",
which is to be taken into account. I can think of almost nothing more likely to break up families than that provision.
Let us imagine a family which includes a young person over the age of 18 who is living at home. Members of the Committee will know that that situation is much more common nowadays in our world of insecure employment than was the case 30 or 40 years ago. If that young person is unable to get a job and claims an income-based jobseeker's allowance, he or she will be told at the employment office that, unfortunately, they cannot receive the allowance because their mother has savings of more than the prescribed limit. The young person is therefore put into direct conflict with his or her mother, so far as I can tell, on the question of whether the mother will agree to her savings being reduced in order to allow the young person to claim the jobseeker's allowance. If I understand it correctly—perhaps I do not —that seems an absolutely lethal piece of wording and very strange from a Government who have repeatedly said that they believe in sustaining families and the unity of family life.
Perhaps I may give one more example, If a person seeks an income-based jobseeker's allowance within the category that has been so extensively discussed by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, and is incapacitated—but not so incapacitated as to receive an incapacity benefit— and is therefore unable to get either a job or a jobseeker's
1048
allowance, nobody else in the family can get that either although, by definition, that family is likely to be in considerable need. Given that it is impossible to put a figure on the costs of breaking up a family—as the Minister knows, they are extremely high, as are the costs when young people live alone—I wonder whether the Minister will give further consideration to this point because unless my interpretation of the subsection is wrong, it seems an incredibly unwise piece of wording.
4.45 p.m.
Baroness Seear: Perhaps both the Minister and the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, are too young to remember that under the National Assistance Act that is precisely what happened. Children and young people left home because of the way in which income was calculated on the basis of the family.
Lord Swinfen: On the same point, how is the claimant (who may not know the capital of other members of his family) going to tell officials about that? If he is unable to tell the officials, will that count against him and will he be refused any allowances? Or will the officials have power to look into the papers and records of relatives of a claimant—relatives from whom the claimant may be estranged? What would be the position of a claimant whose father had recently married for a second time and who did not get on well with his stepmother, which is quite often the case? A whole raft of unpleasant family situations could result.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: Members of the Committee seem to think that they have stumbled on something new. In fact, it has been a long-standing principle that the capital of family members is taken into account. I have pointed out that the way in which the benefit is calculated includes a claimant's family. If the claimant is a man, the capital of his spouse and children is taken into account because if he is claiming for himself he is claiming for them all. As I said, it has been a long-standing principle from which I do not dissent. It is only right that the capital of a family should be taken into account. I hope that that answers the question. The principle has existed for a long time. It is really the other half of the principle that when a claimant makes a claim he is doing so also for those members of the family who are dependent on him.
On the more general—
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: Perhaps the Minister will give way—
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: Perhaps I can carry on. It would be easier to answer the questions that have been put to me and then give way to the noble Baroness.
The position regarding young people is that the provisions do not apply if the claimant is over 19 and is still living at home, but they do apply to someone under 19.
Lord McCarthy: Would it be honest to say that the Minister would have completely answered our amendment if we were seeking to abolish the capital disregard? Most of the Minister's speech dealt with the fact that the capital disregard cannot be abolished. The

1049
noble Lord would substantially have answered our amendment if we were asking for a major increase in the real value of the capital disregard. However, what my noble friend Lady Hollis has been saying is that the capital disregard should be indexed. What is the Government's policy on that? The Minister was asked clearly several times whether the Government believe in indexing such provisions. Some are indexed; others are not. What is the Government's policy on indexing? Are we now seeing a policy of creeping non-indexation?
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: The Government review, but do not necessarily index, a number of payments in the social security field. We decide whether that is a sensible use of additional resources and whether it is the right way to target resources. I thought that I made the Government's position perfectly clear. We do not believe that increasing the limits is the best way to target resources in the system. We do not agree with the Opposition's view—I appreciate that the amendment is a bit of a cockshy—that the limits should be increased to £5,000 and £10,000. I have explained the cost of doing that and I have explained the Government's position. It is perfectly clear. I presume that the Opposition are pledging another £55 million of expenditure.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: I should like to make two points in reply. First, it is simply not clear to this side of the Committee that the Bill will save the public money. The Minister may well have been trying to calculate the cost every time we propose an amendment. Clearly, the new instruction from a desperate Tory Central Office is to try to put putative costs on probing amendments. Well, the Minister can enjoy himself, but the substance of our criticism of the Bill is that it is perverse. We suspect that the result of the Bill will be to put a married, or other, partner of somebody who is entitled to JSA out of work because of the effect of means testing. Nothing I have heard in this place or the other place has persuaded me that the Bill is not perverse at its very core. By introducing means testing early one pulls more people out of work early, therefore increasing the dependence of benefit of those people early and thus the taxpayers' bill increases.
So it is no use the Minister lecturing us on the cost of the Bill to taxpayers when its very core will increase public expenditure, and while in the process the Government have allowed employers so to push down wages through the abolition of wages councils that the cost of in-work benefits for those in work has doubled to the cost of us all. It ill becomes the Government to lecture us about costs when their social security policies are so perverse that they have added to the social security bill. We should be delighted to explore them in future, and start producing our own calculations of the cost to taxpayers at the cost of unemployed people.
My second point is specific to the issue of capital. The Minister made the point—I accept it—that savings are for a rainy day. "This is a rainy day", he says, "let them spend their savings". The difference is that under the Government's proposal almost all of those savings would be wiped out by the person having to live on them. The result is that they are then not available for
1050
those other contingencies which are entirely honourable, decent and respectable, such as acquiring some means of transport to seek a job. Those savings are not available for such items because those items are never covered by the social security system; in other words, if the social security system wipes out savings, which it should not do, those savings are not available for what they should be used for: that is, transport, and the means to enable one to remain in one's own home.
Finally, the Minister claimed that this expenditure puts clear blue water between us. I shall tell him what clear blue water it puts between us: it signals that the Government are so perverse and so shortsighted in their quest for short-term savings, at the expense of long-term savings, that they will penalise the savings and thrift of ordinary, hard working people who, very often through no fault of their own, find themselves unemployed. After six months, instead of 12, their thrift, their savings, are being penalised by the Government. If that is the clear blue water between us, I take pride in it. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Williams of Crosby: Before the amendment is withdrawn, perhaps I may take one moment of the Committee's time.
Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone: You cannot. The noble Baroness has asked leave to withdraw the amendment. That must be put to the House.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 117 to 120 not moved.]
Clause 10 agreed to.
Clause 11 [Trade disputes]:
Lord McCarthy Lord McCarthy moved Amendment No. 120A:
Page 9, line 22, at end insert ("and

(c) the person was eligible to vote in the ballot that authorised the stoppage of work,").

The noble Lord said: I want to speak also to Amendment No. 122 and support Amendment No. 121 tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Russell. I shall not move Amendment No. 123 which has been grouped with these amendments.
I was going to say that this is a probing amendment, except that a probing amendment is one—I take it— upon which one will be wondering to oneself what the Government are going to say. I rather think that I know what the Government will say, but I do not see how the Government can say that these amendments will cost any additional money because they represent what we are doing now and what the Government propose to stop doing. In fact, they will probably cost less and less money as we go on—as the Government believe— because they are all about strikes. They relate to what one might receive or might not receive if one goes on strike or becomes involved in strikes. We all know that the Government believe that strikes will disappear if, in fact, they have not already gone. So we do not have to worry about money.
The clause relates to disqualifications for benefit if one is involved in a trade dispute. We are trying to say that there has been a change in established practice, and Amendment No. 120A deals with the situation where the Government appear to be changing the position from

1051
what it was previously, when those involved in a trade dispute were of course not given unemployment benefit. Of course not, and we do not suggest that they should be. But if people were not directly interested in the outcome of the dispute they could appeal and perhaps provide themselves with some benefit.
In our amendment we say that that is a long-winded and much too wide a way of trying to decide whether people are involved in the dispute, and that it should be made clear on the face of the Bill that if people do not vote in a strike ballot it may be assumed that they are not directly involved in the strike. After all, the Government have now made it essential in law, as a result of Section 227 of the 1992 Consolidation Act, that anyone who is involved in a strike—anyone who may be called out on strike—will have to vote in the strike ballot to validate that strike.
Therefore, we have here a simple, straightforward way of bringing into effect what the intention, I should have thought, always was: to distinguish between those who are involved in a dispute and so may benefit from a dispute and are not entitled to unemployment benefit and those who may be laid off as a consequence of the dispute—laid off accidentally or directly, if the employer decides to discipline the strikers for any one of a range of reasons. We believe that there is a straightforward and easy way, without going through an appeal procedure, to distinguish between those who are involved directly and those who are not involved directly in a dispute, which is what appears on the face of the amendment.
Amendment No. 122 seeks to deal with a situation which changes the status quo, because we have changed to a weekly what I still call unemployment benefit and which the Government call a jobseeker's allowance. In the past anyone involved in a strike was not eligible for benefit for the days of the strike, but because we have here an allowance which works for a week, if one is on strike for a day one loses a week's benefit even if for the rest of the week when one is laid off one is not on strike. Nevertheless, because we have created a weekly benefit we say that the striker has to have a weekly disallowance or deduction.
We consider that most of those things are reasonable and that the Government should have an answer. It is in the hope that they have an answer, that I beg to move.
5 p.m.
Lord Rochester: I have sympathy with Amendment No. 120A. In Clause 11(1) it is already conceded that where there is a stoppage of work due to a trade dispute at a person's place of work, that person is not disentitled to jobseeker's allowance if he can prove that he has no direct interest in the dispute. On the face of it, it seems reasonable to suggest, as indeed the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, has done, that where a person is not eligible to vote in the strike ballot which is needed to validate or make legal the stoppage, he should equally not be disentitled to the allowance. I shall be interested to hear the Minister's response to that amendment.
1052
As regards Amendment No. 122, which is grouped with Amendment No. 120A, it is surely the case that when a person is involved in a trade dispute that person is disentitled to unemployment benefit only in respect of the day or days on which he was involved in it. I too should like to know why the jobseeker's allowance should be treated differently in that respect.
Lord Inglewood: Perhaps I may deal first with Amendment No. 120A. It has been a feature of benefit legislation since the National Insurance Act 1911 that benefit is not payable to people who are not employed because of a stoppage of work due to a trade dispute at the premises at which they are employed. Since 1911 the merits or otherwise of the issues involved in the dispute have been immaterial with regard to benefit entitlement, and the adjudication authorities are not required to take a view on those issues.
Amendment No. 120A would largely have the effect of distinguishing, for benefit purposes, between union members who are eligible to vote in a strike ballot and non-union members who are not. I appreciate that non-union members might find themselves unemployed as a result of a stoppage of work which they did not want to happen. The same could of course be said of those union members who voted against the stoppage. What should happen in relation to a strike not called by a union? This is really irrelevant. The crucial question must continue to be whether they are directly interested in the outcome of the dispute. That has been defined widely by the courts and it may be that that is what the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, seeks to redefine. For example, if the dispute is over pay, and if any pay rise won by the union would go to union and non-union members alike, then the non-union members are directly interested. It is a long-standing principle of benefit legislation that those who are directly interested in the outcome of a dispute should not be entitled to benefit, and I see no reason to depart from that principle.
I turn now to Amendment No. 122. We are all agreed that people who are unemployed because of involvement in a trade dispute at their place of work should not be entitled to benefit. The original National Insurance Act of 1911—which goes back to a Liberal Government— contained a provision to this effect. Equally, people who withdraw their labour in sympathy with a dispute elsewhere should not be entitled to benefit, and there has been specific provision to that effect since 1986. Clause 11 carries forward these provisions.
The clause is designed to operate in as straightforward a way as possible. If a person is involved in a dispute, or has come out in sympathy with one for any one day in a week, he is not entitled to JSA for the whole of the week. The reasons for any continuing unemployment in the rest of the week do not need to be considered.
In fact, the circumstances in which this amendment would make a practical difference would be very rare. The only circumstances I can conceive of where the amendments would make a difference would be where the jobseeker had been genuinely unemployed for six days and then taken up employment on the seventh, only immediately to come out on strike in furtherance of someone else's trade dispute. Alternatively, he might withdraw his labour for one day in the same

1053
circumstances, then immediately be made redundant and be unemployed for the rest of the week. Both are extremely unlikely scenarios.
The amendments would mean that where a week consists of six days of genuine unemployment and one day of unemployment due to a trade dispute, we had to pay six-sevenths of the weekly amount of JSA. That may be an unlikely situation, but I do not consider it an acceptable one. JSA is designed to be a weekly benefit, and any change to this would unnecessarily complicate its operation.
For the avoidance of doubt, it may be helpful to explain that anyone who is disentitled under Clause 11 will continue to be able to claim income support on behalf of any dependants he has.
The noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, said that they are probing amendments and I hope that in the light of the explanation that I have given him he will feel able to withdraw them.
Baroness Williams of Crosby: Before the Minister sits down, perhaps I may ask him to deal briefly with Amendment No. 121 to which I did not speak in order to save the time of the Committee. However, it refers to the specific case of a health and safety dispute where there may be very strong grounds for a dispute and where disentitlement to benefit seems to be a rather harsh penalty.
Lord Inglewood: I am delighted to be able to deal with that amendment because I do not believe that there is any fundamental problem in relation to it.
Amendment No. 121 suggests that that long-standing principle should not apply to disputes concerning health and safety. Of course I fully agree that health and safety are of paramount importance, but giving people what would in effect be a form of subsidy for strikes over health and safety would be an unfortunate and, as I hope to explain, unnecessary development.
Employees are, of course, free to take industrial action, as defined in Clause 31, over any issue, including health and safety; but the decision is theirs and there is no reason to afford them any special protection or privilege if they do so. Taking such action may well be only one among a number of options, including bringing their concerns to the attention of the Health and Safety Executive. Employees already have important rights in that area. For example, the Health and Safety Executive can issue prohibition orders to stop work at unsafe workplace sites.
I should stress that if employees leave the workplace and there is a stoppage of work because of a belief that to remain would expose them to serious and imminent danger that does not, in itself, constitute taking part in industrial action or being involved in a trade dispute and the Clause 11 disentitlement would not apply. Benefit is payable in temporary adverse conditions which stop work, even though the workers may still be employed. If there is a doubt about whether employees were acting in furtherance of a trade dispute, or whether they simply left the premises because of serious and imminent danger, the adjudication authorities would decide the
1054
facts in the usual way. But benefit should not be payable when cessation of work was a move in a trade dispute, whether or not health and safety was involved.
Earl Russell: Since the Minister has spoken at such length to Amendment No. 121, perhaps I may be allowed a few words in reply.
I am aware of the provisions of the Trade Union Reform and Employment Rights Act. The word in that legislation which does not occur in this amendment is "imminent". There are situations in which a belief is held sincerely, rightly or wrongly, that a process is, in its nature, unsafe. My amendment provides only for benefit to be available while the matter is under sub judice. It seems to me that where there is a genuine disagreement about whether a process is safe, it is perfectly proper for that to be resolved in the courts. A refusal of benefit in those circumstances may risk interfering with the rule of law.
Lord Inglewood: In the context of the circumstances which the noble Earl describes, where there is a serious situation which may lead to an immediate walkout—and I use the words in a lay sense—from the place of work, the appropriate action is to involve immediately the Health and Safety Executive. That is an extremely effective and immediate way in which to determine the nature of a problem about which there may be anxiety in the workplace.
Secondly, as I explained, if the employees are faced with a situation which they believe is so serious as to merit them having to depart from the place of work, that is outside the definition of a trade dispute and therefore falls within the circumstances that I described in my earlier comments.
Lord Rochester: Would it not be a good idea to clarify the situation by making an addition to the Bill and thus make that point absolutely clear?
Lord Inglewood: As I explained, when one has knowledge of the circumstances, the matter is clear. We can certainly reconsider the matter. However, the basic principle involved is one which is actually straightforward. I suspect that many of the problems about dealing with such legislation lie in the fact that there is so much of it in general. Putting such a provision on the face of the Bill would not necessarily mean that anyone will immediately be much the wiser. I hope that Members of the Committee understand my explanation.
Lord McCarthy: I believe that it is time to withdraw the amendment. Amendment No. 121, not having been moved has nevertheless been answered and further discussed. There is much that I could say about it, but I shall not. It is for those who did not move it to decide what they wish to do.
One of the points I was trying to make with Amendment No. 120A—and one which the Minister does not appear to have engaged in—is whether or not we accept that the direct interest definition is adequate and works well. Some say that it works, while others say that it does not. However, you have to appeal to approve it. You have to say that you have no direct

1055
interest. What we are looking for is something, so to speak, factually beyond debate. It is self-evident that a worker did not vote. There is no argument about it: either he voted or he did not. I agree that such a provision may benefit non-unionists; indeed, they are clear straightaway. But I am in favour of that. We are asking for something which is clear and unambiguous. You either vote or you do not. It is a matter of fact. It is not necessary to go somewhere to explain that you were not directly involved and either convince or fail to convince someone. That is the difference.
I turn now to Amendment No. 122. It is rather like the argument about the very small baby. The Minister kept saying that there are not many such people; indeed, Mrs. Widdecombe said the same thing in another place. However, there are a few people like that. There will be a few people who did not go on strike for a week and there will be people who were laid off for a week. Just because the Government, for their own convenience, changed the way that unemployment benefit is calculated so that it is calculated on a weekly basis, it does not seem to us fair to make the unemployed person or the person who was laid off suffer for what is an administrative convenience of the Government. Nevertheless, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 121 to 123 not moved.]
Clause 11 agreed to.
Clause 12 [Effect on other claimants]:
[Amendment No. 124 not moved.]
Clause 12 agreed to.
5.15 p.m.
Clause 13 [Severe hardship]:
Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde moved Amendment No. 125:
Page 11, line 19, leave out ("may") and insert ("shall").
The noble Baroness said: In moving the amendment I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 127, 130 and 133 and in support of Amendment No. 126. The amendments deal with Clause 13 of the Bill which is specific to young people under the age of 18 and the circumstances under which severe hardship allowance will be paid.
On Clause 13 hangs whether or not a young person between the ages of 16 and 18 will receive any allowance. Yet, as presently worded, the legislation does not even carry the normal elements of equity, balance or fairness. It puts the Secretary of State or, in reality, the employment officer, in a position of tremendous power as regards a young person who may well view such power as omnipotent. That young person is probably inexperienced, with no previous knowledge of claiming welfare benefit.
I wish to address the amendments individually. As presently worded, the clause gives the Secretary of State discretion to decide whether the circumstances are mandatory. Amendment No. 125 would make it a mandatory requirement in the circumstances set out in the Bill. It would provide a safety net for young,
1056
potentially vulnerable people in that age group who fall between the criteria of the Bill and who are not entitled either to welfare provision by way of jobseeker's allowance or to income support. Alternatively, to put it another way, as young people they could find themselves destitute, and for what? They have committed no offence. They will be penalised merely because of their age.
Even with the wording of the proposed amendment, the clause would not be an open-ended or risky arrangement for the Secretary of State. All the protections for the taxpayer and the welfare system are there in Clauses 2 and 3. And, indeed, Clause 4 is quite specific concerning the period of time for which benefit will be paid. I suggest that there is also the protection for the Secretary of State in that even "training" and "other assistance" will have such meaning as will be prescribed in the regulations which we have not yet seen.
What circumstances are likely to arise which would signify that a young person in that age group is suffering from severe hardship and should therefore qualify for payment? A young person would have no wage coming in, no benefit, and would probably be registered for training; but he or she may be one of the 15,600 young people who, last October, were waiting for the careers service to give them a course to attend. Alternatively, he may be among the 1,000 young people who have been waiting for over six months. Can Members of the Committee imagine that situation? Such young people are registered for a training course, but there is no course available. That group may well fall within the category under discussion.
Moreover, such young people may well be homeless and, for a whole host of all too-tragic reasons, not living at home. There may be family problems. There may even be unemployment in the family which has driven them to leave home. Indeed, there are many problems that young people of that age group can face. They are all hallmarks of a desperate situation for an extremely vulnerable and immature group. We read all too often of the experiences of those young people.
I should like to express my support for Amendment No. 126, but I turn now to Amendments Nos. 127 and 130 which are similar. They, in turn, would give a young person covered by Clause 13 the right of appeal—not the right of benefit, but the right of appeal—should the Secretary of State refuse to give a direction that this provision applies in his or her circumstances. I remind Members of the Committee that it is a part of the Bill that seeks to recognise that severe hardship can and does apply to that group of young people. Therefore, it is right and appropriate that the right to appeal should be placed within the clause.
We must remember that the young people seeking help under the clause will probably be doing so for the first time. They will be suffering hardship; it is probably their first encounter with the welfare system. They are highly likely to have no knowledge at all of the rules, their individual requirements and their responsibilities and even less likely, according to statistics I have been given, to have advice or representation when they make their applications.
In reality, those young people will be on their own. Yet similar evidence shows that awards of severe hardship allowance are more likely to be granted where a young person does have help, advice and representation. Without the right of appeal, the only real alternative is judicial review. That is difficult enough at the best of times. It is hard to imagine a 16 to 18 year-old even knowing about judicial review let alone having the wherewithal to take such proceedings. And, of course, if they did so, they would not qualify for severe hardship payment. That is an avenue that young people would not even know is open to them and, in reality, it is not.
We are dealing with key and serious issues. If the Secretary of State refuses or revokes the application there is no right of appeal, which means that the individual is penniless with no income. Indeed, there is no provision at all in that respect. I suggest that that makes it even more important for young people to have the right of appeal. I am sure that the Minister will agree that no government of whatever colour would wish to see such vulnerable, young people in a position which probably makes them destitute, penniless and even more at risk of the ills of society without an appeals system. I hope that the Minister will indicate acceptance of the amendment.
I now turn to Amendment No. 133. This will require regard to be given to the welfare of a young person in the event of a potential reduction in benefit. It is not intended to protect that small group of people who are always dragged up as examples to show that people are trying to get the most out of the benefit system or are trying to get out of their responsibilities as regards work and training. This amendment is aimed at the vast majority of young people who are genuine, who do not know the rules, who have difficulties and who need protection from the worst elements within society. I suggest that it is a reasonable and responsible amendment. It will ensure that an officer dealing with a young person will be required to have regard to the welfare of that young person in arriving at a decision. I suggest that therein lies the reasonableness of this amendment as regards the age group we are discussing.
I will give the Committee two examples of real young people. The first example is that of a 16 year-old with learning difficulties. Wirral youth services reported that that young person had left training due to a lack of support for his learning disability and difficulties with other trainees. He was homeless and estranged from his family because of his disability. He was also cut off from benefit. I do not believe—I cannot believe—that that is the intention of this Bill. If it is, the Bill has the potential to create a group of young people who have nowhere to go. We know where those young people all too often end up. We see them in our streets day after day.
The second example is of a young woman who was trying to come to terms with her life after having been subjected to abuse at home. She was forced to leave home and, as a result of her home difficulties and the emotional problems she experienced, she found it
1058
difficult to sustain her training place. I ask the Minister whether it is appropriate that in that case benefit should be cut. I am sure that cannot be the intention.
Generally there is a problem with young people who must juggle their appointments with housing services, if they are homeless, and their appointments with other services while trying to maintain attendance on a training course, as this Bill will require. I believe that problems may arise which were not foreseen when the Bill was drafted. If they were, the Bill is substantially deficient in this regard. The young people affected by this clause are acknowledged through their receipt of benefit to be facing severe hardship. Many are estranged from their families. Some are care leavers. A young person leaving care is entitled to only eight weeks' allowance before having to prove that he is in severe hardship. I suggest that that eight weeks' period is all too often inadequate to give that person the time to find somewhere to live, to find a training place and to establish a settled way of life. To reduce such a person's benefits because, supposedly, he cannot show just cause, is wrong, punitive and is certainly counter-productive as regards trying to help young people in the manner in which I would hope this Bill is intended to do. I beg to move.
Lord Henderson of Brompton: I break my silence to support the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, on these amendments. I am particularly interested in Amendments Nos. 125 and 127 which concern the right of appeal. I am sure that we have a special responsibility to our young people which the Government share. They can show that they share this responsibility if they will give to young people, if they want it, the right of appeal. That is the first point.
My second point concerns the amendment to Clause 14, Amendment No. 133, which states that,
"regard shall be had to the welfare of the young person concerned".
These people are quite properly called "young" people. They are not yet adults. They need that special regard. I shall say no more than that both the right of appeal and the special regard are necessary for these people who may otherwise, I regret, fall out with their families. Without the resources which they should properly receive from the state, they may enter undesirable activity, either criminal activity or begging. I strongly urge the Government to give these amendments serious consideration and, if possible, to accept them.
Earl Russell: I wish to support all the amendments in this group and to speak most particularly to Amendment No. 126 which is in my name. But, first, I wish to say a word about Amendment No. 133. That has slightly different language. It refers to our old friend, the "welfare" of the child, from the Children Act 1989. The use of that language in this place draws attention to the fact that we are seeing a real problem here as regards the age of majority. Some Members of the Committee may remember the case of the anorexic 16 year-old who was given forcible treatment. There was a great legal problem over whether she was to be treated as a child or an adult. That indicates a general weakness in the law of majority as it relates to 16 and 17 year-olds. In this case, when it comes to claiming benefit, they are

1059
children. When it comes to their parents asking for a child premium on their income support for them, then they are adults. It seems that they are getting the worst of both worlds here. I would like to see the law of majority looked at in a much more general way as it relates to 16 and 17 year-olds. In fact I think it is an appropriate subject for the attention of the Law Commission.
Amendment No. 126 deals with the burden of proof in cases of severe hardship. This is really quite frightening. I believe that when people are deprived of the right to means-tested benefits, which, after all, must presume that their means were pretty low in the first place, it ought to be a presumption that if those benefits are taken away, they will be in severe hardship. I admit there may be cases—one or two of which the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, referred to last Tuesday—where that might not be so, but it is perfectly fair to say that in those cases the burden of proof should rest on the Secretary of State. The treatment of this subject has suffered a certain amount of spill-over from the assumption made in adult cases that the single person can never be in hardship. I think for that reason there has been a good deal more resistance to the idea of hardship than there might otherwise have been. But if you are sleeping on it, the ground feels just as hard whether you are single or whether you are not.
Baroness Seear: It is harder.
Earl Russell: Perhaps my noble friend has a point there but I think that it will still be pretty hard in either case. I also think that a lot of the trouble that 16 and 17 year-olds have suffered as regards severe hardship comes from the complicated procedure in claiming. The Minister is new to this subject. I would ask him, therefore, to look at the speech made by his noble friend Lord Mottistone on 24th July 1991 which put this so well that I have never succeeded, or even attempted, to improve on it. I admit that the procedure is a little simpler than it was, but it is still difficult.
Speed is of the essence here. If you have been thrown out of your home because you have quarrelled with your mother's new boyfriend, which is a very common cause of this problem, you need food instantly. You are in a state of shock. You cannot go anywhere without money. Therefore, speed is important. Presumption in favour of the young person could help, because it would make speed easier to achieve.
Such a presumption would also make the questioning which inevitably occurs a little easier than it sometimes is. If you have dealt with a 16 year-old in a state of shock you recognise that the word "volatile" is appropriate. It is a word which is derived from the handling of explosives, and that is not necessarily an inappropriate analogy. Some of the questioning to discover the circumstances in which people have been thrown out by their parents tends to produce that volatile effect. There are cases—I have some details with me but I shall not quote them—in which the young person rushes off before the questioning is finished. That sense of hostility creates a problem that directs people into an
1060
occupation which pushes them into the underclass. Once you get there it is very difficult to get out. Then a whole life is wasted.
An assumption that the burden of proof rested on the Secretary of State would generate a much more appropriate atmosphere for the whole process. It would create some of the soothing effect that is needed. Then the officers, who I admit have to ask questions so long as the law remains roughly as it is, might stand a much better chance of finding out the truth.
5.30 p.m.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: We have had an interesting debate on a difficult subject involving a small number of youngsters who, the Government accept (by the legislation we already have in place), can be in a vulnerable position or in hardship.
I cannot accept all that has been said about the position of young people in the benefit system. As this is the first of a number of amendments relating to this issue, it may help if I begin my contribution by outlining how the present system works.
The Government believe that young people are better off in education, training and employment. I believe that that is common ground. In support of that view, we guarantee every 16 and 17 year-old who wants one a suitable youth training place with a wage or a training allowance. We shall spend £669 million on youth training and modern apprenticeships this year in England alone. That is a significant investment in the future of our young people and in the nation's economy. To give the Committee some idea of the number of people involved, in January this year 287,100 young people were in training in Great Britain.
The existence of that guarantee means that there is no reason why young people need to be unemployed. We do not wish to encourage dependence on benefit at such an early age, and 16 and 17 year-olds are therefore in general not entitled to claim benefits as unemployed people.
We recognise, of course, that there may always be those who, for one reason or another, face particular difficulties. We therefore make special provision for those circumstances. Certain young people, such as lone parents or those with a disability, are at present eligible, and will in future be eligible, to claim income support without having to be available for work. Certain others, such as those who are married and have a child, will be able to claim JSA on the same basis as an adult. In addition, all other 16 and 17 year-olds who are waiting for a suitable youth training place will be able to claim JSA if it appears to the Secretary of State that they would otherwise suffer severe hardship. That is the purpose of this clause, which carries forward existing arrangements.
In summary, we want to encourage young people to get the best possible start in the labour market by making the most of the opportunities available, while balancing that against the need to provide support for those who are genuinely vulnerable.
When assessing whether a 16 or 17 year-old is at risk of sever hardship a wide range of personal circumstances is considered, including health, vulnerability and the threat of homelessness; a point that may help the noble

1061
Earl. A degree of discretion is necessary to allow all the relevant circumstances of a particular case to be taken into account. Some of those circumstances cannot be foreseen and discretion is essential to ensure that only those 16 and 17 year-olds who need help through JSA receive it.
Decisions on severe hardship are made by specially trained officers acting on behalf of the Secretary of State. Every youngster who applies for a severe hardship payment is interviewed by a specially trained officer who will seek information to decide whether the young person is at risk of severe hardship. If the officer feels that a severe hardship direction is not appropriate, that has to be confirmed by a central unit with considerable expertise in this area.
A degree of discretion is necessary to allow all the relevant circumstances of a particular case to be taken into account. Some of those circumstances cannot be foreseen and discretion is essential to ensure that 16 and 17 year-olds who apply are dealt with properly and fairly. Given that these youngsters only claim JSA in exceptional circumstances, we believe that it is right that there should be such discretion as to whether or not to issue a direction.
Amendment No. 125 would limit the Secretary of State's discretion. The exercise of that discretion is more correctly defined by the use of "may" in the Bill rather than "shall", as suggested. It appears to me that the substitution proposed would be seen as reducing that discretion. Indeed, I suspect that that is the aim of the noble Baroness in moving the amendment. I do not believe that that would be sensible.
Amendment No. 126 seeks to switch the burden of proof with regard to severe hardship. At present the burden is on the claimant to satisfy the Secretary of State that he will suffer severe hardship. Under the amendment, the burden would be on the Secretary of State to show why severe hardship would not arise.
I have already explained that every 16 and 17 year-old who applies for a severe hardship payment is interviewed by a specially trained officer who will seek the necessary information to allow him to decide whether the young person is at risk of severe hardship. As I said, if the officer feels that a severe hardship direction is not appropriate, the decision has to be authorised by a central unit.
I believe that that represents a clear and fair system for young people. It is entirely reasonable to ask young people who want to claim benefit because of risk of severe hardship to provide satisfactory evidence that they are in fact at risk. It is not sensible to require the Secretary of State to prove a case in which it is the young person who has the necessary information. Consequently, I cannot accept that amendment.
The purpose of Amendments Nos. 127 and 130 is to provide a right of appeal to a social security appeal tribunal against any decision by the Secretary of State not to make a direction or to revoke one. Severe hardship is an exceptional route into JSA. Consequently, we do not propose to change the present approach, that these arrangements should not include the right of appeal to the SSAT against the Secretary of State's decision. I should, however, like to emphasise the safeguards which are built into the system.
1062
I have already mentioned some of those safeguards. There is the specially trained officer who interviews the 16 or 17 year-old and seeks information in order to help him decide whether the young person is indeed at risk of severe hardship. Those specially trained officers are very well aware of the potential difficulties which young people may suffer. Indeed, a direction enabling the young person to claim income support is issued in 85 per cent. of cases at present. In 1994 there were 132,535 claims for severe hardship payments. A large number of them were repeat claims. Of those claims, 112,241 were successful, representing 85 per cent. Therefore, clearly the officers responsible treat the matter very seriously and carefully.
I am sorry to repeat the point but I wish to reinforce it. I believe that the system in place meets many of the fears of Members on the Benches opposite. If the officer feels that a direction is not appropriate, that has to be authorised by a central unit which itself has considerable expertise in this area. If the young person feels that all the circumstances have not properly been taken into account, he can ask for his case to be considered again.
As with other amendments, I have to say that we do not propose to change the present approach. These are exceptional arrangements to deal with this small—but difficult to deal with—category of young people. We believe that the arrangements should not include an appeal against the Secretary of State's decision to a social security appeal tribunal.
The purpose of Amendment No. 133 is to provide that the welfare of 16 or 17 year-olds will be taken into account before any reduction in the rate of JSA under Clause 14 is applied.
I have already explained the safeguards that we built into the system. I shall add that it is our intention to make the rules clear to 16 to 17 year-olds when they draw up their jobseeker's agreement which, as my honourable friend the Minister for Employment in another place explained, will be specially tailored for young people. That, together with the safeguards that I have described, will ensure that no young person should unwittingly fall foul of the system. However, if people deliberately abuse the system it is right that there should be some penalty.
Accepting that those young people to whom we refer are vulnerable, it means that we must, as I believe that we do, continue to treat them carefully and sympathetically. But we cannot allow them to use their vulnerability and the exceptions made for them as an excuse—that is what we are talking about—for not taking up training places; or, if training places are taken up, not sticking with them. I do not believe that we should remove all sanctions from this group. Without the sanctions, we would omit what for a tiny minority is the only safeguard we have against them simply refusing every means of help.
Those youngsters in such a group, almost above all other groups of young people, need a training place and encouragement to stick with it if they are ever to break out of what must obviously be their very difficult circumstances. I do not believe that we do them any service by removing the modest penalty which is allowed to be imposed in the system—a 40 per cent. reduction for two weeks—for failure either to take up places after two choices, or to abandon places in training schemes after two attempts.

1063
I believe that it is an important issue. I hope that I have not taken too long in seeking to explain the safeguards we already have in the system that we operate at present. I appreciate that some noble Lords opposite would like to go further. Some noble Lords opposite would like the situation where people receive benefit even if they do not meet any of the qualifying conditions. I believe that that would a serious mistake.
This is a serious issue. I invite the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment. The noble Earl has an amendment on this issue. I understand that there is strong feeling on the matter. The noble Baroness may decide to divide the Comittee. In that case, I hope that my noble friends are convinced by my argument that we are doing the best we can by those young people, and, if a Division is called, that they will join me in the Lobby.
5.45 p.m.
Baroness Seear: Will the Minister clarify an important point in his speech that I raised, perhaps somewhat out of turn, at an earlier stage in the debate? At the heart of the programme is the desire to get these youngsters into training. I am entirely in agreement with that. We want to see far more people trained. Those youngsters who do not have a job need to obtain training rather than be pushed into, or sometimes to accept because they prefer it, a job which has no future, thereby perpetuating the situation.
The Minister made the point that at the centre of the proposal is the fact that there are training places and that those young people are expected to take training places. That is fine provided that the training place is right for the young person. Will the Minister explain how the appropriate training is worked out? From the point of view of the taxpayer, the trainer and the trainee, it is not satisfactory if those young persons are put into the wrong training. What is done to make sure that it is the right training?
Perhaps I may make this subsidiary point. In an earlier programme which a previous Government ran—I cannot remember whether Conservative or Labour—where there was appropriate training but it was not in the locality in which the young person lived it was possible to make provision for the young person identified for such training to be moved, and to have the expenses of the move paid in order that he obtain the proper training.
What steps are being taken to ensure that the training is right? It is a waste of money and time from everyone's point of view to give people the wrong training. Money spent on giving the right advice and instruction, finding training in the right place, and investing enough money to ensure that that training is undertaken is very worthwhile. Will the Minister explain where we stand on this? How is it done?
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: I am happy to explain to the noble Baroness how we set about ensuring that the training is reasonable.
The safeguards in the system on training start first with the careers service, which decides whether or not a training place is suitable for the young person. Under
1064
arrangements made under the Employment and Training Act 1973, as amended by the Trade Union Reform and Employment Rights Act 1993, the service is bound to provide impartial guidance to young people. The careers service will not offer the young person a training place unless it meets his or her needs, circumstances and ability. It will take into account anything which might limit the type of training which the young person might accept, including the young person's preference, aptitude, level of approved qualifications at which he aims, and the duration, proximity and availability of the training.
With JSA we are introducing a new system of internal review which may take place before a direction is revoked—I mentioned that earlier in my main contribution—on the ground that the young person has refused a suitable training place. The young person will be given the opportunity to request a re-examination of his case by the Employment Service before a direction is revoked. The service will consider all the circumstances carefully. If it finds in a young person's favour, the direction will not be revoked.
If the young person is in a training place and is not happy with his training, he has a number of courses of action. He can raise the matter with his training provider. I accept that it rather depends upon the complaint; he or she might not be the appropriate person with whom to raise the matter in some circumstances. But the young person can raise the matter with the TEC which arranges for the provision; or he can go to the careers service and raise his concerns about the training course and its suitability. Again, the matter will be looked into very carefully indeed. If it is found that there is a problem and that the course is not suitable, another place will be sought for the young person.
On the question of the quality of training, like everything else in life the quality of training will vary. There will be very good, mediocre and not so good. But that is the same with all education—dare I say? We want to make sure that none of it is downright bad and the TECs are obliged through their contracts to implement quality assurance arrangements according to standards set by the Secretary of State. Those standards (I am sorry to introduce some quite technical jargon) are known as the TEC Quality Assurance: Supplier Management requirements—needless to say, reduced to TQASMs, which apply uniformly to all TECs. TECs are also obliged, through their contracts, to take any action required as a result of the quality audits that they undertake on training. If they find problems they are obliged to take action.
I hope that those assurances will help the noble Baroness to understand that we take seriously the need to ensure that the training course is of a reasonable quality, and that it matches the needs, aptitude, and so on, of the youngster involved.
Baroness Seear: I thank the Minister. However, I raised the point that under previous administrations it was possible for provisions to be made for a youngster, if there was no appropriate training in the area in which

1065
he lived, to move in order to take the appropriate training elsewhere. Is it still possible for that to be considered?
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: I am not sure, I need to check. I would not like to give an answer off the top of my head, in case I was wrong. I am receiving indications that the answer is that the provisions still exist and a youngster in the circumstances outlined by the noble Baroness could receive help if he had to move.
Earl Russell: I recognise the Minister's sincerity. It is a pity that he believes everything he reads in the papers and that the only papers he reads emanate from the Department of Social Security. He is new to the subject; we have been here for quite a long while. Has he read the MORI report published by his own department in 1991? Has he read any of the series of reports from the Coalition on Young People and Social Security? Has he read the report of the Scottish Council for Single Homeless, or of Church Action on Poverty, or the series of reports from the citizens advice bureaux?
If what the Minister says is correct, why is it that he has been totally unable to make it clear to anyone else who has studied the subject? The number of expert reports we have had on it has become so large that I gave up counting a long time ago. The half century was up well before I stopped.
The Minister says that we are merely dealing with a small number of people. That is a real example of only believing the figures which come from his department. There are problems with the figures, as the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, knows. He has been extremely helpful in trying to do something about it. This year's returns from the careers service show that 6 per cent. of 16 and 17 year-olds are unemployed and the whereabouts and occupations of 6 per cent. are unknown. That makes a total of 12 per cent. I ask the Minister whether he has read the report published by South Glamorgan TEC on 16 and 17 year-olds not in education, training or employment. The figure varied from 16 per cent. to 23 per cent. of the age group. That is not a small number.
The Minister says that they would be better off in education, training or employment. So they would. The question is whether we are prepared to give them the choice between starvation and crime, if they are not.
It is also a question of whether training is available for them. The amount that the Government have spent on youth training has fallen. The number of places has fallen. At present, there are 15,000 16 and 17 year-olds waiting for a place. It is no good saying that they should be in training if the training is not there. It is no good if the training is in a place they cannot reach. Since the Government have not uprated the youth training allowance since 1988, it is no good telling youngsters to take training if they cannot live on the allowance.
The Minister mentioned discretion. He may exercise discretion but I am reminded of the remark of Edward Hyde in another place that it sounds as if discretion were but one remove from rage or fury. You cannot eat discretion.
Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde: I listened with interest to the Minister's reply on Amendment No. 125.
1066
I was astonished at some of his comments. It is no comfort to the small number of people—even if it is a very small number—that they are outside the provisions of the Bill. Those people are just as important as a large number. We cannot ignore and forget them. That brings social problems.
We all agree that young people are better off in training. There is no doubt about that. But what about the 15,500 people who were not in training last October and not in training today? What about the 1,000 who have been waiting for a training scheme for over six months and are still waiting? It is no use the Minister continually telling us about the amount spent by the Government on training. Alongside that and balancing it is the fact that throughout the United Kingdom the budget has been considerably reduced. There is no doubt about that.
Perhaps we may examine what the amendment would mean. The clause states:
"If it appears to the Secretary of State that a person has reached the age of 16 but not the age of 18, is not entitled to a jobseeker's allowance or to income support, and is registered for training but is not being provided with any training or other assistance "—
all of which will be defined in regulations, the content of which we do not yet know—
"and that severe hardship will result to him unless a jobseeker's allowance is paid to him, the Secretary of State may direct".
I suggest that in the prescribed circumstances defined in the Bill the Secretary of State shall direct, as suggested in the amendment. That is quite straightforward.
The Minister mentioned appeals and said, "Well, there were 132,000 last year and 85 per cent., 112,000, were allowed. Therefore, you should have total confidence in our system." I do not have confidence that there is such a person as a perfect employment officer, any more than there is a perfect human being who cannot make mistakes. We all make mistakes. We have seen that when appeals take place under various aspects of the law. The Child Support Agency is a good example of no appeal system being provided.
Perhaps we may consider the converse argument. If the number of applicants who succeed is so high and those turned down so few, then the number of appeals under the system which we provide will equally be few. It will be no great burden on the system. However, it will give the opportunity for a second look at a vulnerable group in our society. That is why the amendment has been put down—on the basis of equity, fairness and compassion for that small group.
The Minister says that it is not necessary to have regard for the welfare of a young person because that is exactly what the officer will do. If officers will do that in the course of their work, why not put it on the face of the Bill as a responsibility? "Have trust in me" does not always work. We have reams of statistics to prove it.
The Minister generously said that it is clear that we feel strongly about the aspects affecting young people on this side of the Committee. We do. On that basis, I seek the opinion of the Committee and commend Amendment No. 125.
5.58 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 125) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 61; Not-Contents, 101.

Division No. 1

CONTENTS

Addington, L.

Lawrence, L.

Airedale, L.

Longford, E.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Brookes, L.

McCarthy, L.

Carter, L.

McIntosh of Haringey, L.

Clinton-Davis, L.

McNair, L.

Cocks of Hartcliffe, L.

Masham of Ilton, B.

Craigavon, V.

Merlyn-Rees, L.

Darcy (de Knayth), B.

Monkswell, L.

Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde, B.

Morris of Castle Morris, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Nelson, E.

Dormand of Easington, L.

Oxford, Bp.

Eatwell, L.

Perry of Walton, L.

Falkland, V.

Richard, L.

Fitt, L.

Ritchie of Dundee, L.

Gladwin of Clee, L.

Rochester, L.

Graham of Edmonton, L.

Rodgers of Quarry Bank, L.

Russell, E. [Teller]

Halsbury, E.

Seear, B.

Hamwee, B.

Shepherd, L.

Hardinge, V.

Stoddart of Swindon, L.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Haskel, L. [Teller.]

Thomson of Monifieth, L.

Henderson of Brompton, L.

Tope, L.

Hollis of Heigham, B.

Tordoff, L.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Wharton, B.

Hylton, L.

White, B.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Wigoder, L.

Jeger, B.

Williams of Crosby, B.

Jenkins of Putney, L.

Williams of Elvel, L.

Kilbracken, L.

Winchilsea and Nottingham, E.

NOT-CONTENTS

Abinger, L.

Cumberlege, B.

Addison, V.

Davidson, V.

Aldington, L.

Denham, L.

Archer of Weston-Super-Mare, L.

Denton of Wakefield, B.

Dixon-Smith, L.

Ashbourne, L.

Downshire, M.

Astor of Hever, L.

Elton, L.

Balfour, E.

Flather, B.

Barnard, L.

Fraser of Carmyllie, L.

Beloff, L.

Gage, V.

Blaker, L.

Geddes, L.

Blatch, B.

Gisborough, L.

Blyth, L.

Goschen, V.

Boardman, L.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L.

Boyd-Carpenter, L.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Harding of Petherton, L.

Braine of Wheatley, L.

Harlech, L.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Henley, L.

Burnham, L.

Hogg, B.

Cadman, L.

HolmPatrick, L.

Caithness, E.

Howe, E.

Campbell of Croy, L.

Inglewood, L.

Carnegy of Lour, B.

Ironside, L.

Carnock, L.

Jeffreys, L.

Chalker of Wallasey, B.

Killearn, L.

Chesham, L.

Kingsland, L.

Clanwilliam, E.

Leigh, L.

Clark of Kempston, L.

Lindsay, E.

Colwyn, L.

Long, V. [Teller]

Cranborne, V. [Lord Privy Seal.]

Lucas, L.

Lyell, L.

Crickhowell, L.

McColl of Dulwich, L.

1068

McConnell, L.

Platt of Writtle, B.

Mackay of Ardbrecknish, L.

Prior, L.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Quinton, L.

Malmesbury, E.

Rawlings, B.

Marlesford, L.

Renton, L.

Melville, V.

Rodger of Earlsferry, L.

Mersey, V.

Seccombe, B.

Miller of Hendon, B.

Sharples, B.

Milverton, L.

Shaw of Northstead, L.

Montgomery of Alamein, V.

Shrewsbury, E.

Mottistone, L.

Stewartby, L.

Mountevans, L.

Stockton, E.

Munster, E.

Strathclyde, L. [Teller.]

Norfolk, D.

Sudeley, L.

Northesk, E.

Swansea, L.

Oppenheim-Barnes, B.

Thomas of Gwydir, L.

Orkney, E.

Trumpington, B.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Tugendhat, L.

Oxfuird, V.

Vivian, L.

Pearson of Rannoch, L.

Wakeham, L.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
6.6 p.m.
[Amendments Nos. 126 and 127 not moved.]
Earl Russell Earl Russell moved Amendment No. 127A:
Page 11, line 19, at end insert:
("( ) This section shall apply to any person who is pregnant and registered for Youth Training.").
The noble Earl said: This amendment relates to the list of exemptions and changes in the system of severe hardship payments. There are a lot of flaws in this system. I should like to speak to the group of amendments that addresses them. The first directs that a person who is pregnant and registered for youth training and is without other means of support shall be found to be suffering from severe hardship.
I hope that the Minister will not waste the Committee's time by telling us that women who are pregnant up to (I believe) the 29th week in these calculations are normally perfectly capable of work. That is common ground. The question is whether employers or training providers are prepared to employ them. A great many people have a great deal of prejudice against employing or training pregnant women. There was one case in Cardiff of a man who refused to employ a pregnant woman on the ground that it was unnatural. I do rather wonder how he got here! A great many of the cases of really acute hardship that we come across are the result of pregnancy. I remember one in particular of a woman living on the £15 a week bridging allowance who had only one skirt that she was capable of wearing. She had no chance at all of buying another. It must have been extremely difficult to keep it clean.
The next amendment deals with people who have completed a course of youth training or have lost a place through no fault of their own; for example through a training provider going bankrupt. I regret to say that that does happen. It is one of the central difficulties of the reliance on the supposedly guaranteed youth training place that, according to MORI, the median length of a youth training place is three months and the period of time for which a guarantee is supposed to be provided is two years. Clearly, there is a considerable shortfall.

1069
We very often come across people who have completed a youth training course and are waiting for another, and for whom there is not one available; all that they can get is the ridiculous £15 bridging allowance which has not been up-rated since 1988. The noble Lord, Lord Henley, when he was Minister, said he thought that MORI had got it wrong, and that the figure of three months for the median length of youth training courses was not correct. I put down a Question to ask what the correct figure was. I got the answer that the Government did not know. If they do not know, how can they deny the claim of MORI that is based upon a piece of research commissioned by the Government themselves?
The third of these exception cases concerns people who want to enlist in the Armed Forces. Any country that wishes to defend itself must have armed forces, and in any country where there are armed forces it must be possible to enlist in them. It is clear enough that somebody who wishes to enlist in the Armed Forces does not seek a life of unemployment and benefit dependency. It is an occupation in which a good deal of training and hard work occur. In particular, the Army recruits by means of a limited series of enlistment days on which people can join up. If one wants to enlist one has to wait for the next enlistment day. A great many of the gross cases of hardship that have arisen have concerned people who have put themselves down to enlist in the Army and the period of time before the next enlistment day has been too short for them to undertake a youth training course. No trainer will take them on because they cannot complete the course. Their claim to severe hardship payment has not been recognised. I admit that the situation is better than it used to be. However, the last case in this category of which I heard emerged last week, and I was distressed to know that it was still going on. If the Government were to accept this amendment, which they could well do within the basic principles of their policy, this situation could never arise again. Amendment No. 127C is about as mild an amendment as can be. If the Government do not accept it, they will need a very good reason. I beg to move.
6.15 p.m.
Lord Swinfen: I support this group of amendments, and in particular the first one. It is absolutely essential that a pregnant woman is able to feed herself properly for her own health and that of her unborn child. If she is not able to feed herself properly she may create problems for herself and perhaps greater health problems for the rest of the child's life, which may last 70, 80 or 90 years. The pure economics are such that from the point of view of the public purse it is an investment to pay a severe hardship allowance to the mother so as to make a considerably greater saving to the National Health Service for the rest of the child's life.
I also support Amendment No. 127C too. Quite obviously, the Army needs a certain number of people at each intake for the training programme to be viable. Therefore, until they are ready to start a new intake they cannot enlist an individual. Obviously, that individual is
1070
desperate to get a particular job. He will probably have been accepted and is only biding his time until he is allowed to start work.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: I am grateful to the noble Earl for his explanation of the three amendments. His purpose in tabling the first amendment is to make special provision in JSA for pregnant 16 and 17 year-olds. I can well understand his concerns. I welcome this opportunity to look at the issue and explain to your Lordships what will happen under our proposals. The amendment before the Committee seeks to provide that, if a pregnant 16 or 17 year-old who is registered for youth training makes a claim for JSA, a direction to allow her to claim JSA should automatically be made without it being necessary for her to prove that there is a risk of severe hardship. I understand the thinking behind such a proposal, but I believe that it is inappropriate to make such special condition.
Perhaps I may explain the position to your Lordships so that the arguments on both sides are understood. I appreciate that the noble Earl does not need my explanation because he knows about it. Pregnant 16 and 17 year-olds are able to claim income support for the period starting 11 weeks before the expected week of confinement, and ending seven weeks after the confinement, without having to be registered for training or having to be available for, or actively seeking, employment. That is provided for in income support regulations and will continue to be so after the introduction of JSA. Outside that period, in which they may claim income support, pregnant 16 and 17 year-olds—just like other 16 and 17 year-olds—will be able to claim if they will otherwise suffer severe hardship. To do that, they must apply for a direction under Clause 13. Indeed, that direction will be issued if it appears to the Secretary of State that the conditions discussed earlier in Clause 13(1) are satisfied. The guidance in the severe hardship directions makes clear that all relevant circumstances must be taken into account. This guidance, which is publicly available, deals specifically with pregnancy. It states that, if a young person is pregnant, a note of any health problems should be taken and consideration given as to whether they may increase the risk of severe hardship. I hope that that helps to explain why I cannot accept Amendment No. 127A.
I deal next with Amendment No. 127B. By this amendment the noble Earl seeks to make special provision for 16 and 17 year-olds whose training places come to an end, or who have left such a place with good cause. I understand the point that is made. I hope that I can offer him some reassurance that young people in that position will not be left stranded. If such a young person re-registers for training and is at risk of severe hardship, he will be able to seek a direction. If he is not at risk of severe hardship, a direction will not be issued. I do not believe that it would be right to make special provision for this group of young people. Of course, when they come back on to the scheme, the training providers and the careers service will take immediate steps to try to find them another training scheme in order to replace the one that they have had to leave for whatever reason. The noble Earl mentioned the

1071
bankruptcy of the training provider as one such case. Clearly, that would be a case where efforts would be made immediately to try to find the young person another training course. But that young person would not fall to be paid money unless a direction was given on the ground that he was at risk of severe hardship.
I deal next with Amendment No. 127C. I do not believe that there is any disagreement between us on the importance of the Armed Forces and the career opportunities that they provide to many young people. This amendment seeks to provide that a direction should automatically be made for those youngsters who are waiting for an enlistment date to join the Armed Forces without it being necessary for them to prove that there is a risk of severe hardship. I confirm that it is our intention to ensure that that happens. I believe that this amendment was tabled only on Tuesday. As with many matters dealing with social security legislation, it is slightly more complicated than it may appear at first sight. Arrangements for recruitment to the Armed Forces are undergoing some changes at present. This is an example of why it is appropriate to deal with matters in secondary legislation. The complexity and variability of this issue is quite considerable. I appreciate the noble Earl's concern and that he will want to have a more detailed assurance once I have had the chance to consider the points that he has made and looked into the issue. Perhaps if he is content to leave this amendment at that, I shall reflect on what he says and take the opportunity to look into what I understand is a complicated issue and see whether there is indeed a problem.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: Before my noble friend sits down, is he aware that to many of us, and certainly to me, the previous amendment seems to be the only sensible one of the lot.
Earl Russell: I am grateful for that small mercy. I am also extremely grateful to the Minister for an even smaller but very genuine mercy. It is the first chink of light that I have seen on any amendment on this subject since 1988 and I must welcome it. I had been just about to say that I began to suspect that if I tabled an amendment to the effect that the Government should go into the next election with an advantage of 100 seats, the Government would resist it, and not for the right reasons either.
I asked the Minister not to repeat the argument about pregnant women being able to take training. That is not because I was not prepared to listen to it—I have listened to that argument at least 20 times already and not one syllable has changed in it since 1988, so it does indeed need updating—but because it was not relevant to the point at issue. The point at issue is not whether pregnant women can take youth training. Most of them can do so and, if they can get it, good luck to them. The point is that it is very difficult for them to get it. Before I decide what to do about this amendment, I should like to ask the Minister at least to address that point. I have been trying to get the Government to address that
1072
question since we debated the Social Security Bill of 1989. Before leaving the subject, I should like to have my first answer.
In the case of the person whose youth training course is complete, I do not understand why the Minister does not think that severe hardship is automatic. If you have no income other than a £15 bridging allowance, I simply do not understand how it is possible not to be experiencing severe hardship. I am in genuine difficulty with that and again I should like to be helped.
A young person may be on his own. Once again I must remind the Minister that in the MORI sample 65 per cent. of 16 and 17 year-olds who were living away from home were doing so because their parents had thrown them out and they could not go back if they wanted. In the Centrepoint sample taken last year, that was true of 86 per cent. of the sample. If you are in that situation, you are completely self-supporting. You have no work and no benefit. It is no good just waiting awhile to see whether something will turn up in a few weeks. Most of us cannot live for several weeks without eating. So there has to be something available instantly and it can only be available instantly if it is a right. Again, I should be very grateful if that argument could be addressed before I decide what to do with the amendment.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: The noble Earl raises a number of issues. I hope that I noted them all in order to cover them in my reply. Sometimes it is difficult to give more than a general answer. Neither of us has the young person concerned in front of him to look at all the circumstances. First of all, I do not have any evidence one way or the other on the noble Earl's question about the difficulty of a young woman obtaining youth training if she is pregnant, but I shall certainly look into that matter.
Earl Russell: Can the Minister guarantee to have that information before we discuss this matter in the next session?
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: No, I cannot guarantee that. I suspect that it is the kind of information that is quite difficult to obtain. The reason why a youngster is not on youth training may not be the kind of information that is collected centrally. We may know the numbers of those who are having trouble getting on to a youth training scheme but not the reasons. By the law of nature, a youngster in that situation who cannot get a youth training scheme may very quickly fall out of the necessity to look for one, having arrived at 11 weeks before the expected date of confinement. It might be a fairly moving target, but I shall look at it—or look at the point about the resources that the young person may have.
As I have introduced some hilarity into the proceedings, perhaps I may move on from that to the point that the young person may have a partner who is still with her, as opposed to a partner who is not with her any more. That person may well have an income and, I accept, may well be on JSA, but may also be on a training scheme and so on. The youngster may have supportive parents—but the noble Earl rather snookered

1073
me on that argument by narrowing it down even further to people who were living away from home because of a threat of physical and sexual abuse at home.
There are circumstances in which 16 year-olds are in those conditions, and those would be some of the factors that could be taken into account in deciding whether they are entitled to jobseeker's allowance.
Earl Russell: I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. I did not say that this was necessarily a matter of physical or sexual abuse. I said that this was a category of people whose parents had thrown them out. I did not go into the reasons. There are a great variety of them.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: If the noble Earl wants to move on, I think one has to look into the reasons why the youngster is not at home. Those are the kind of matters that are taken into account. But there has to be some reason why they are living away from home—either they are estranged from their parents, in physical or moral danger or perhaps there is a risk to their physical or mental health. There are a number of factors. It is difficult to say without an almost dry-run case in front of us and the people who make those decisions. I like to think that I am good at some things, though the Committee may not think so. But the one thing that I know I am not is a trained employment officer; someone trained in the kind of work that is undertaken in order to make such judgments. I do my best to try to illustrate the factors that such an officer takes into account and I have indicated some of them. On that judgment he decides whether or not the youngster in front of him is in the category of either vulnerable or in severe hardship. It is on that basis that the awards outside the periods pre- and post- the confinement are given.
I do not think that I can be any more helpful to the noble Earl than I have tried to be.
Lord Monkswell: Perhaps I may ask the Minister to elucidate the matter a little more. As I understand it, the amendment refers to a 16 or 17 year-old who is pregnant. Almost by definition that refers to a single female. The Minister shakes his head but I cannot imagine that men get pregnant - but never mind that.
The Minister raised the point of such a person having a partner. I can see the logic of that point of view. But, we have been talking about a single person who is pregnant. The Government have raised the issue of a partner. Am I to understand that if a 16 or 17 year-old pregnant person has a partner who is also 16 or 17 years old and unemployed, the social security system will provide for the couple?
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: I am not sure that I was expressing surprise about the fact that the person pregnant would be female. But clearly there are three or four categories that may come into play thereafter; I can think of three. The person may be alone because the father has simply pushed off or is not known or whatever it may be; the persons may be a couple who are not married; or they may be married. So there are at least three broad categories which would be encompassed. In a way it depends in the second and third case on the partner and what the partner's
1074
eligibility is for benefit or, indeed, if the partner or husband—to cover both of them—is in work. That will depend on their age. They may well be in a training scheme. I do not think I can go any further than that. I have explained what I meant by the different circumstances in which the young person might find herself.
If I may revert to the question about training, I am advised that we certainly do not have any knowledge or information about any particular difficulties. A research programme is currently being conducted on early leavers which is due to produce its results in the summer. It may be that it will throw up some information on the points made by the noble Earl. I shall try to put to the back of my mind the noble Earl's interest—I do not mean to say "to the back of my mind" but "in the back of my mind—in this issue so that I can draw his attention to yet another publication on this subject.
6.30 p.m.
Earl Russell: I thank the Minister, especially for that concluding remark. I shall touch briefly on the point about partners. A number of them have partners. The commonest category is other 16 and 17 year-olds in exactly the same difficulties. If the Minister really wanted to do one thing to encourage family life it might be by recognising a hardship category of cohabiting or married fathers—two 16 and 17 year-olds living together with a child. That really could be constructive.
I do not think that we shall get much further tonight. However, before we have our return fixture at the next stage, perhaps I may ask the Minister to try to familiarise himself with some of the immense wealth of learning and research on this subject which is done outside the walls of the Department of Social Security, especially on the point of difficulty of pregnant women getting training. Perhaps he will consult the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux which has a very large number of such cases. Perhaps he will also remember that if the Government really do change their policy on this point it will do a great deal to ease the pressure on parliamentary time. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 127B to 127E not moved.]
Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde moved Amendment No. 128:
Page 11, line 27, after ("failed") insert ("without good cause").
The noble Baroness said: In moving this amendment I wish to speak also to Amendment No. 129. This is a straightforward amendment. It provides that the question of good cause must be considered before a young person loses his severe hardship allowance for failing to pursue an opportunity for training or employment or rejecting an offer of assistance, training or employment. The principle of good cause is not a new one to this Bill. It is specifically provided for in Clause 14. We welcome that. We think it is appropriate that it should appear in Clause 13, which is a much more punitive clause affecting young people than Clause 14.
The amendment is modest. It would place a statutory requirement on the Secretary of State to consider a 16 or 17 year-old's reasons for failing to pursue an opportunity for training or employment or other assistance, or rejecting such an offer, before a direction is revoked. In another place the Minister of State for Employment has, I gather, already announced a new review procedure to be followed before the Secretary of State will revoke a direction. If that is to take place, we shall welcome it. We also think it assists us in asking the Committee to support the amendment.
It will be a general requirement. It will allow a dialogue with the young person and allow him or her to establish where there has been good cause. For instance, a young person in the South-East obtained a training place on youth training through a training agency. The young person had arthritis but was nevertheless employed as a shop assistant, which involved standing up all day from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. five days a week. She was required to meet her own travelling expenses, which is normal. That left her with £3.50 a week for all her necessities. The training agency understandably acknowledged that the placement was not suitable. The system worked—"good cause" under this amendment. The amendment seeks to introduce into Clause 13 that good cause will be taken into account just as it is in Clause 14. I beg to move.
Baroness Williams of Crosby: In rising to support the amendments I wish to ask one or two questions. As the Minister will recognise, the position is one in which a direction may be revoked if the young person concerned decides not to take up an offer of training or employment or rejects such an offer. I wish to pursue with the Minister the issue of good cause.
The Secretary of State—probably in most cases in the person of an official in his department—when he comes to consider the revocation of a direction will have before him certain facts. Without the addition of the words "with good cause" those facts will be limited to the actual physical facts of the case. He will not be required to produce the arguments that may arise—they may be in good faith arguments—for having rejected or refused to pursue an opportunity of employment or of training.
I would be less concerned about this failure to mention the words "good cause" if we had not at an earlier stage, when we were talking about availability for work and actively seeking work, failed to amend the Bill to list a series of requirements which apply to people with specific positions —for example, people with religious objections to working on Sunday, people with learning difficulties, people with difficulties with the language, and so on. What that means is that in the case of a 16 to 18 year-old whose severe hardship allowance may be removed he or she will not have the safeguard that would have been provided by that earlier amendment.
In that case "with good cause" must in effect stand for apparently those reasonable conditions that the Minister in responding agreed were reasonable conditions—ones to be taken seriously into account. But they would not even appear on the Minister's desk as something he or she had to bear in mind unless the words "with good cause" applied. Speaking as someone who, like Ministers
1076
themselves, has been involved in the discretionary judgment that has to be made, the absence of the words "with good cause" simply means that the arguments that might be legitimately advanced by the claimant will not need to be advanced when that case is put in the Minister's Red Box for final judgment.
I wish to make one other point and then, because of the shortage of time, I shall not pursue the matter further. As my noble friend Lady Seear pointed out, the truth of the matter is that some training schemes do not deserve those words. I say that having spent some part of last year looking at training schemes in my capacity as chairman of my party's employment commission. Some training places are simply a joke. Some are excellent. What we are doing at the moment is removing that best known of all market responses to a bad product—the right to be able to withdraw one's custom. That is a very troubling thing to do. The phrase "without good cause" will allow young claimants to be able to urge that they had good reason to refuse the product. Of all things, a Conservative government should sustain the customer's right to say, "I am sorry, the product was no good".
Lord Swinfen: In my own mind I am quite certain that the Government have the intention that no direction should be revoked without good cause. That is the intention. However, those words should be on the face of the Bill. To take the example which the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, gave of a young person with arthritis having to give up her training place, the vast majority of people in this country do not understand that some severe arthritic conditions can afflict very young people. Most of us consider arthritis to be a disease of the elderly. However, it can strike, sometimes in its most severe form, among the young of this sort of age. In my work with the John Grooms Association for Disabled People I have come across it on more than one occasion.
A young, inexperienced person dealing with a young teenager who came back to say that they had given up their job, would not understand about arthritis and could recommend revocation of the direction without really going into the facts. This provision is a safeguard. In my own mind I know that it is intended to be there, but it should be written into the Bill. Without it, the ordinary person in the street will not have any opportunity to come hack and say that their case had not been properly dealt with.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: The purpose of these amendments is to provide that a direction may be revoked under Clause 13(3) (b) only if the 16 or 17 year-old has refused or failed to pursue training without good cause. Young people wishing to claim JSA on severe hardship grounds, because that is what we are talking about, must register with the careers service. As a result, most will be quickly offered and accept suitable training or other assistance. If a 16 or 17 year-old receiving JSA on severe hardship grounds fails to take up such opportunities and thereby fails to remove himself from severe hardship, then it is surely right that his direction should be revoked. That is why Clause 13 gives the Secretary of State the power to revoke the direction if it appears to him that the 16 or 17 year-old has failed to pursue or has rejected training places or other assistance.

1077
I recognise that some Members of the Committee are concerned that this system must be operated fairly. I can assure your Lordships that young people will be able to reject unsuitable opportunities. As my honourable friend the Minister for Employment made clear on more than one occasion in another place, the Government recognise that young people may not always be completely clear as to their vocational needs and aspirations. That is why we intend that those newly covered by the Government's youth training guarantee should be allowed, without penalty, to turn down one offer of training or to leave one training place early for any reason whatsoever. The regulations will provide that if they turn down two suitable training places or leave two such places early, or a combination of those, they will receive a penalty of a 40 per cent. reduction in the personal rate of JSA for two weeks. I addressed the reasons why I think that is correct policy in my original speech on this clause.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. He said that the distinction between his reply and the wording on the face of the Bill was "suitable training". Is the Minister saying that he would be prepared to sponsor or accept an amendment from us as regards subsection (3)(b)? It would then read:
"it appears to him that the person concerned—

(i) has failed to pursue an opportunity of obtaining suitable training or other assistance … or

(ii) has rejected an offer of suitable training or other assistance".

Will the Minister accept such an amendment? Those were the words the Minister used which seem to take up the point made by his noble friend Lord Swinfen of "good cause" or "suitability". As the Minister used that word to gloss the words of the Bill, will he either accept our amendment or move one of his own to make the matter clear? In that event some of our fears will be allayed.
6.45 p.m.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: That is a good try by the noble Baroness. If she re-reads my superior speech this afternoon she will be wanting me to qualify the training with a lot of other adjectives or whatever they are. I am sorry, I am concentrating on the Bill and not on the grammar. She will want a number of other descriptions of the training. I have already mentioned "suitable".
In reply to the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, I referred to the quality controls which are in the Bill. I believe that we could go on at length on this matter, but perhaps I may try to continue my remarks. I hope to be able to persuade the Committee that we do not need any description such as "without good cause" or "suitable" or "reasonable" or any other words like that. As I said, if a youngster receives a penalty and subsequently returns to the guarantee, a reduction will be applied on each occasion when a suitable training place is turned down or one such place left early. That will apply similarly to other returners to guarantee.
Perhaps I may now turn to the safeguards in the system. I have already mentioned some of them. There is a risk that we repeat ourselves quite a good deal. I make no apology because I appreciate that this is a serious point and I should try seriously to address it.
1078
The careers service will decide whether or not a training place is suitable for that young person. They are bound, under arrangements which I described earlier, to provide impartial guidance to young people. They will not offer a young person a training place unless it meets his or her needs, circumstances or ability. They will take into account anything else which might limit the type of training which the young person can accept, including their preferences, aptitude, level of approved qualification and so on.
In the example which the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, read out, I must say that the Machiavelli in me watched carefully to see if she read out the last sentence and I acknowledge that indeed she did. The example that she gave was a justifiably worrying example. The last sentence of the example states that the training agency acknowledged that the placement was not suitable. I hope that that is the kind of conclusion to which we shall come.
Baroness Seear: The Minister gives the impression that the people making these judgments are perfect. I am most certainly not perfect and even the noble Lord is not. On occasions we all make mistakes. It is because we do that people must have safeguards in being able to say that there was just cause why what has been decided is wrong. It is against the minority decisions which are wrongly made that we need to have this safeguard. They may simply not have taken into account some aspect of the personality or physique of the youngster concerned when the judgment was made. The judgment may be wrong. The law has to recognise that we can all get it wrong.
Lord Swinfen: The Minister told the Committee how the system will operate and what the process is likely to be. In my view he has not answered the amendment. He has given no reason to the Committee why the words "without good cause" should not appear on the face of the Bill. There are many Acts of Parliament where similar words appear. They have gone through this House and the other place. I can see no reason why these words cannot be on the face of the Bill.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: I hate to tell the Committee, but I am only halfway through my observations on this matter. If my noble friend will give me the opportunity and then examine the point I am putting in its entirety, he may see why those words are not necessary. Dare I say to the noble Baroness who made the first intervention that the same applies to her? However, I should like to put on record some of the safeguards that exist because I appreciate that we are not perfect. I certainly would not like to test in the Division Lobbies the question of whether I was perfect. Indeed, I might not even manage to get all of my noble friends into the same Lobby as myself!
I should now like to return to the amendment, having picked up the point about the CAB. That was an example of where it was acknowledged that the person was wrongly placed. I hope that that will happen rarely, but I accept that, in the real world, it will happen on occasions. With JSA, we are introducing a new system of internal review which may take place before a direction is revoked on the ground that the young person has refused a suitable training place. The young person will be given the opportunity to request a re-examination of his case by the

1079
Employment Service before a direction is revoked. The service will consider all the circumstances of the case carefully. If it finds in the young person's favour, the direction will not be revoked.
If a young person is in a training place and is not happy with his trainer—I have already mentioned this, but will have to do so again because I have been asked about it—a number of courses of action are open to him. He can raise the question with his training provider. I concede, however, that the nature of his complaint may be such that the training provider may not be the best person with whom to do that. Failing that, the young person can raise the matter with the TEC which is, after all, responsible for ensuring that the places are provided, or he can raise the matter with the careers service. Again, the facts of the case will have to be looked into carefully and, if appropriate, the young person will have to be found another place.
But if the young person does leave a training place early and feels that he had good cause for doing so, he will be able to put his side of the case to the Employment Service. The circumstances of the case will be re-examined, and, where good cause is established, a certificate will be issued by the Secretary of State and a copy given to the young person. If he reapplies for severe hardship under JSA, the certificate will entitle him to receive the full amount. If, however, he does not have a certificate when he applies for a new direction, he will receive the reduced amount of benefit. But if he later gets a certificate, he can apply for a review, under the Social Security Administration Act, in order to get back the amount of the reduction already made.
I believe that, taken together, the youth training guarantee, backed up by the sanctions, safeguards and protections that I have described now and previously, represent a fair and balanced package of measures for young people. Therefore, I do not believe that we need to put any qualifying words into the Bill—whether they be those suggested by the noble Baroness in this amendment or any others that she may prefer from the contributions that have been made. I do not think that we need to add such words to the Bill. With that explanation, I hope that the Committee and the noble Baroness will accept that there are safeguards, that they work, and that we do not need to put other words on the face of the Bill.
Baroness Williams of Crosby: Before we conclude this debate, perhaps I may ask the Minister about one point. He has dealt to some extent with some of our concerns, particularly with regard to the consideration that will be given by the Employment Service to objections raised by a young person about the hardship allowance being withdrawn.
However, I was interested that the Minister did not deal with the point that I tried to make about a difference in approach if the case goes all the way up to the Minister. If the words "without good cause" are included, the Minister will be obliged to consider whether there has been good reason for a young person leaving a training place. The Minister's arguments have essentially been that the Employment Service is judge and jury in its own cause. Many of us have great respect for the Employment Service—I certainly do—but to be judge and jury in one's own cause does not meet the point that was made by my
1080
noble friend Lady Seear about the minority of cases which are not satisfactorily resolved. Therefore, I have to join the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, in saying that it is beyond my comprehension why those words cannot be included in the Bill if the provisions are as thorough and objective as the Minster has just argued.
Lord McCarthy: I am glad that we have now listened to the whole of the Minister's answer, but if he will not put something into the Bill, could he take something out of it or even think about doing so? What is so worrying about the Minister's refusal to include such provisions in the Bill is that the Bill states that such directions may be given,
"If it appears to the Secretary of State"
or to a member of the Employment Service. I repeat that the words are "If it appears". The Minister says that many other things, such as suitability, will be taken into account, but that is below the line because the Bill simply states:
"If it appears to the Secretary of State".
Cannot we have something slightly more reassuring for the applicant than those words?
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: I am not entirely sure that I understand that point. I cannot think of who else it must appear to other than the person having to make the decision. In most cases, that will be the official at the Department of Employment.
Lord McCarthy: The point is that it should appear to someone else besides the Minister. Most importantly, it should appear fair to the applicant. That is why the conditions and circumstances which the Minister actually takes into account should appear on the face of the Bill.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: The circumstances will be many and varied and I do not think that they can all appear on the face of the Bill because the question will depend rather upon the applicant and his aptitude, ability and circumstances. The case that we were considering related to disability and arthritis. However, it is also a question of the kind of training place that is provided. A place that is suitable for one person may not be suitable for another. It is a question of judgment.
I think that the system contains checks and balances that will ensure that in the limited number of circumstances where a young person refuses or leaves not only the first place but also a second place, he or she will have received plenty of warning about the consequences of that action. Indeed, I not only "think" that; I am confident that that will be the case. If the issue goes right up to ministerial level, Minsters will have to take all the same judgments into account as the officer, but will take a second look at the case. I am not sure to what extent things will get that far, but that sometimes happens through ministerial correspondence, as the noble Baroness will recall. One does have an opportunity to look at cases and one can ask questions if one is unhappy.

1081
However, I think that that is a slightly different argument from the question of whether we need to add those words to the Bill. I am honestly not going to go to the stake on whether we need some qualifying words—
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: Oh!
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: Don't be too keen! I shall reflect on the points that have been made about this issue—
Baroness Seear: Does not the Minister understand and accept that, with the best will in the world, the employment officer may misinterpret what he is being told? He may think, "This chap is just belly-aching" whereas the chap had appendicitis. A perfectly legitimate mistake would be made, but in the end it could be shown that the claimant had appendicitis and therefore had "good cause".
Earl Russell: Before the Minister replies, may I ask him whether he has ever heard of what is known in the London Borough of Brent as "Stonebridge syndrome"? Stonebridge is the most undesirable council estate in Brent. If Brent does not want to house somebody it offers him a place in Stonebridge and can then say that he has refused it. That has been known to happen with training places.
I also wanted to say that occasionally one finds something happening in the past which could have happened yesterday. In 1610, in another place, a Member was discussing a case at the court of King Cambyses in Persia. His Ministers were asked, "What law have you got for what you are doing?" They replied, "None at all, but we have a law that the King may do whatever he likes". Our complaint is that that law is still in force.
7 p.m.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: I shall attempt to answer those two points. If the noble Earl has any evidence that there is the equivalent in the training system of the kind of council estate he mentioned —that there are a number of training places so awful that no one in his right mind will accept them—I hope he will let me know, because that is in no way within the meaning of the Bill or the desires of Ministers. So I hope that his example is not true. However, if there are such examples, I need to know.
I am not sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, used a good example because for me the proof of the pudding would be on the operating table. The mistake that had been made would be quickly realised, and the youngster could make the point.
Baroness Seear: He may have a grumbling appendix.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: It was quite a long time ago, I grant, but I remember what it was like to have a grumbling appendix. It seemed to object, in particular, to bananas. It put me off bananas for life. I understand the points being made, although I am not sure that I understand what significance adding those words, or the clever intervention of the noble Baroness with regard to some other words, would have to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, about the matter reaching the Minister.
1082
I do not expect that the Committee will divide on this matter. I am prepared, without any commitment, to say that I shall reflect on the points made in the debate—as I reflect on all points, of course—with special interest, and consider what has been said.
Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde: My noble friend has just said to me that that is a victory. I shall believe that when it happens. I listened to the appendix case, and I suppose a reality is better than an assumption. I can remember as a trade union officer being called into a factory on behalf of someone who had lost his job. The manager had asked him to go to a printing machine and he said that he could not because he had a rupture. I negotiated for him and got back his job on condition that he had a medical examination. He said, "I had better come clean. I haven't really. I just didn't want to go on that machine". I told him that he had a week to get one.
I have listened to the debate with great interest. I thank noble Lords who have been so generous in their support of the amendment. I heard what the Minister said. I noted carefully many statements that I would have challenged, but I take a great deal of comfort from his last point. I was concerned when he said that he would not go to the stake over this matter. To go along while being dragged screaming is never a satisfactory conclusion. He said that he would like to think about the matter, and I grasp that offer with both hands. I am happy to discuss it with him before we return to the issue on Report. On the basis of the Minister giving an undertaking that he will consider the matter—an offer which I should like to accept in the spirit in which I am sure it is intended—I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 129 and 130 not moved.]
Lord Inglewood: I beg to move that the House do now resume. I suggest that the Committee stage begin again not before 8 p.m.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

Life Imprisonment: Information to Prisoners
7.4 p.m.
The Earl of Longford The Earl of Longford rose to ask Her Majesty's Government why the Home Secretary has informed certain prisoners that they are to remain in prison for the rest of their lives.
The noble Earl said: My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who are to take part in the debate, especially the right reverend Prelate, because I am sure that he will underline the fine message in favour of penal reform delivered recently by the right reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury. I have my usual sympathy for the Minister, whose sensitive soul is tortured by the moral dilemma of defending something

1083
that is indefensible. I think that I shall say that again and again. However, she cannot help it. There it is. It is her job.
The idea of life meaning life was first propounded publicly by the Home Secretary last December. It was of course unprecedented, despite some contradictory answers on that point given to me later by the Minister, and it was understood to mean that these unfortunate prisoners would remain in prison until they died. That was the public's impression, and it was the impression created on the prisoners, one of whom had to be placed under 24-hour guard lest she commit suicide. There is no doubt that the intention was to create that impression.
The decision was criticised sharply later by, for example, the noble and learned Lord Donaldson, the former Master of the Rolls, in a radio talk early in the New Year, when he pointed out that no Home Secretary had the right to bind his successors. He said that it was cruel to say to Myra Hindley—he mentioned Myra Hindley in particular—that she had no hope of ever coming out. I know that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donaldson, would have liked to be with us tonight. No doubt he would have spoken along the same lines.
That was how the matter was left until it was debated here. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, extracted from the Government the admission—about three months after the original announcement—that Mr. Howard could not bind his successors. That point was cleared up. In the meantime it had caused a great deal of unnecessary pain—pain which was no doubt unwelcome to the Minister, but it was pain all right.
Having disposed of the disingenuous tactics used in making the announcement, we come to the issue. There are a number of people serving life imprisonment. My noble friend Lord McIntosh has obtained details, but I know one of them very well—Myra Hindley. I first visited her in prison in 1968. I know another prisoner in this category also. Those are not the only prisoners serving a life sentence for murder whom I know well. I am in touch with about 10, I suppose, out of the 2,400 at present serving life sentences.
Let us take the case of Myra Hindley. We all remember that she was involved in horrible crimes. She was a girl infatuated with her accomplice, a man who has been in a special hospital for many years, She has always agreed that it is only right and proper that she should serve many years in prison. She has now been in prison for nearly 29 years.
When Myra Hindley was first sentenced, the Lord Chief Justice recommended 25 years, but later, Ministers secretly, or without conveying the decision to the public, decided that she should serve 30 years. Later still, the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, who was Home Secretary at the time, decided that life should mean life. That decision was not conveyed to the public. For whatever reason, it was kept dark. At any rate, that was the infamous decision reached at that time. Now, Mr. Howard, whether willingly or because he was forced as a result of various judicial decisions, announced that life would mean life.
We can consider the matter on its merits. If I take that particular case—my noble friend Lord McIntosh may tell us about others—there is someone who, by no conceivable stretch of the imagination is a danger to the public. It is years since the then chairman of the Parole Board told me that she was no danger. Since then, she has been twice recommended for parole by the local review committee, so there is no question of danger, but Mr. Howard has insisted that, however virtuous she becomes, she should stay in prison for the rest of her life. I can only describe that as an evil decision.
We may ask what is the explanation for that. I am afraid that there is only one possible explanation. Mr. Howard is a very intelligent man and for all I know, he may be an excellent man in his private life. This Government are the most unpopular government in history. We all know that they are many, many points behind the Labour Party in the polls and they are about to receive a crushing defeat in the local elections. This immensely unpopular Government are making frantic endeavours to endear themselves to the cruder elements of the public.
One must admit that they have been assisted by the tabloid press. I take the Sun as an example. I should say that Myra Hindley has recently broken her hip and is now in prison hospital, having had an operation. The Sun, which is undoubtedly close to Mr. Howard in its thinking, pointed out that, although I would probably be sympathetic, everyone else would wish that she had broken her neck. That is the kind of tabloid expression of opinion which has built up hatred towards that person over the years. The Sun calls her a monster and is begging her to write an article for it. That is the tabloid support for Mr. Howard's policies.
Therefore, we have that policy. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Donaldson, says it is cruel to remove all hope from prisoners. That has never been done before. It is totally anti-Christian, which should shock the noble Baroness, who is a good Christian. It takes us half-way back to capital punishment.
To be fair for once to Mr. Howard, I believe that he is now against capital punishment. Earlier he was in favour of it but he is now against it. That is in his favour. But his policy takes us back to the debates in this House in 1957, when I heard the Lord Chief Justice of the time say about one man who had been convicted of murder that such a man should be destroyed. That is the attitude of those who say that some prisoners should remain in prison for life. Some people believe that some sins cannot be forgiven and that such a person should be destroyed. I shall not ask the noble Baroness again whether she can reconcile that with her conscience because I believe that that is unfair. She has a tender conscience and that would be an occasion of mortal sin. But I put on record that I believe that that policy is fiendish. I hope that, when a Labour Government take power or even when a different Home Secretary takes over, that policy will be forgotten and repudiated as far as it ever can be.
7.15 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Lichfield: My Lords, I understand that it has always been possible to keep a person in prison for the rest of his or her life within our system. I, for one, accept that there is a need for society to

1085
be able to repudiate horrific crimes with sufficient severity and without resorting to capital punishment. However, I wish to add that the Christian tradition and other traditions are not only about peace and forgiveness but are also about justice, reparation and repentance. Therefore, in some cases a life sentence may have to mean what it says; that is, life-long imprisonment.
On the other hand, there is the profoundly important consideration underlined by the noble Earl, Lord Longford, that nobody is irredeemably evil. People can and do change. That can be for a wide range of reasons which may include remorse, maturity, growth in insight, ageing, the influence of other people, and personal and spiritual change. The mystery of personality of whatever kind is that it can change. Therefore, it is surely a near-fatal blow to any person, however heinous his crime, to be told that however deeply and seriously he repents, and whatever real and lasting transformation is achieved, there can never be any hope of a fresh life outside prison.
However severely society needs to repudiate a terrible crime, as the noble Earl has already pinpointed, should there not always be some hope of eventual rehabilitation following both just punishment and true repentance? To lose hope is to lose a key part of our humanity.
One of the prison chaplains with whom I have contact reminded me recently that a declared purpose of the prison system is not only to punish crime but also to nurture that precious virtue of hope which can be a catalyst both to personal change and future rehabilitation.
My most serious anxiety is that the disclosure of a sentence lasting for the rest of a natural human life could eradicate hope. It is no wonder that, as the noble Earl told us, one lady needed a 24-hour guard to prevent her from committing suicide.
At another time the noble Earl, Lord Longford, has quoted a well-known saying of Augustine that we hate the sin but love the sinner. I want to argue that in a civilised society, we must not only hate the sin but also maintain hope for the sinner.
Finally, although I am a layman in these matters, I understand that for all prisoners serving life sentences the Home Secretary has an important ministerial power; that is, the power to review each case when the prisoner in question has been in custody for 25 years. Indeed, I understand that the Home Secretary has further powers to review the case every five years after that first 25-year review. May we be assured that the Home Secretary will exercise those powers for the 17 people about whom we are concerned? Further, when the Home Secretary undertakes his review, will he take account not only of considerations of retribution and deterrence but also of evidence of contrition, change, and, therefore, the hope of rehabilitation?
Let us hate the sin but let us not give up all hope or, importantly, allow the prisoners to give up hope for the sinners themselves.
7.18 p.m.
Lord Monson: My Lords, I agree with a great deal of what the right reverend Prelate said. But the first objection to informing people that they are to be kept in prison literally to the end of their lives, even if they are by that
1086
time enfeebled and utterly harmless, is pragmatic and utilitarian. If there is to be no remission whatever for good behaviour, there can be no incentive to co-operate or to behave well, and no disincentive, should the prisoner be so inclined, to refrain from murdering or causing grievous bodily harm to a prisoner or prison officer, given that the penalties for so doing are minor compared with the prospect of spending another 50 or 60 years in prison come what may. In other words, the decision would seem to be prejudicial to the maintenance of good order and discipline.
The second objection—which refers back to what both the noble Earl and the right reverend Prelate said—is a moral one, if that does not sound too pompous. To rule that prisoners, however well they behave and however much they repent and try to atone for their dreadful crimes, can never be released under any circumstances is actually more cruel than inflicting the death penalty. At least the death penalty fulfils one of the main criteria for a just punishment; namely, that it should follow as quickly as possible upon the crime. I refer, of course, to the relatively speedy and efficient former English procedure and not what we have recently seen in the United States of America.
In contrast, by continuing to punish people possibly 50 or 60 years after the event you are in effect punishing a totally different individual, physically, mentally and emotionally, from the one who originally perpetrated the crime. After all, that was one of the objections—although by no means the only one—to instigating war crimes trials 50, 51 or 52 years after the events in question.
When the whole issue of the death penalty was being debated in the 1960s, liberal-minded friends and acquaintances used to say that, even for those guilty of the most heinous murders, they opposed the death penalty. Instead, they favoured locking up those individuals for life and "throwing away the key", to use a phrase that was greatly in vogue at the time. They imagined that they were being humane but actually they were being squeamish which is a very different kettle of fish: humane they were not.
I return to the main issue. The Government will undoubtedly argue that there are two categories of prisoner who can never be released in any circumstances, even after perhaps 50 or 60 years. The first category consists of those deemed to be chronically homicidal and hence perpetually dangerous. What? Even if they have become bedridden, three-quarters blind or so crippled with arthritis that they can scarcely move? I suggest that the words "never released" in that case should be replaced with "not released until they are physically harmless." Further, once those prisoners have served the term of years which a trial judge originally deemed necessary to satisfy the requirements of retribution and deterrence, their status should revert from that of prisoner to one of what one might call "preventive detainee", rather like someone compulsorily detained in a mental hospital, with correspondingly improved conditions and amenities subject, of course, to the requirement of security. After all, the period of years which they have served as pure punishment has elapsed by that time.

1087
The second category of prisoner and the one, I believe, upon which the noble Earl was mainly concentrating—the non-dangerous types, by which I mean people who were once dangerous but who are no longer so—consists of those the Government dare not release for fear of public opinion and consequent adverse electoral consequences, even though they have served fully the period recommended by a trial judge as being sufficient to satisfy the requirements of retribution and deterrence.
The Government have only themselves to blame in that respect. It is their absurd insistence on retaining so called "life" as the only sentence for murder that is responsible for their dilemma. Far from reassuring members of the public, so called "life" arouses their suspicions. First, the general public are firmly of the impression that life equals, in practice, nine years. I believe that it was true at one time that that was the average period of imprisonment served by life prisoners when capital punishment was in operation and only those reprieved were, by definition, serving life imprisonment. That is no longer the case.
Then, and more importantly, there is the quite understandable confusion between what might be termed gross and net sentences. On one day people read in the newspapers that a judge has sentenced a bank robber who has shot and wounded, for example, two security guards and a police officer to 22 years' imprisonment. The very next day they may read in the newspapers that the same judge has sentenced a murderer to life with a recommendation that he serve not less than 20 years. The public is understandably outraged, imagining that the murderer got off more lightly than the bank robber. Of course, he did not. The murderer's sentence is tantamount to 40 years gross; but the public can hardly be expected to grasp that fact.
If, instead, the law were altered so that judges could impose gross sentences ranging from, let us say, three or four years—or possibly even less—for a mercy killing; five to 12 years, but possibly more in the worst cases, for domestic murders; 25 to 45 years for ruthless, professional criminals who prefer to shoot their way out of a robbery; and the really dramatic, headline grabbing sentences of 50, 60 or 70 years' imprisonment for ultra-heinous crimes, happily perpetrated on average no more than once every 10 years—for example, deliberate child murders, or for murderers who blow up a passenger aircraft—members of the public would be largely satisfied, though not wholly, I grant. Those who are rightly sentenced to very long, determinate terms, unless they happen already to be middle-aged (and not many fall into that category) will be able to see a light, however faint, at the end of the tunnel, and will improve their behaviour accordingly.
7.26 p.m.
Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank: My Lords, I was tempted to remain seated and, therefore, to allow the Minister rather longer to reply. That is because I believe the issues behind the Question have been very well expressed in the course of tonight's short debate. The noble Earl, Lord Longford, said that what we needed was clarification as to whether the words really did mean what they said, or whether it has now been very plainly
1088
conceded that the present Home Secretary could not bind his successor. We need to be sure which is the case. However, even if the second interpretation is correct, I have to say that the intention is in the wish. The present Home Secretary expressed the view that some prisoners should remain in prison for the rest of their lives. Whether that is possible constitutionally does not take away the fact that he made the statement and that that is his own clear preference.
The right reverend Prelate talked about justice, repentance and reparation. He said that no one is irredeemably evil. I believe that that is a sentiment which many of us who may not be as close to the Church as is the right reverend Prelate would indeed share. I do not believe that anyone in this House today, or on other occasions, could deny that the idea of redemption must have its place in our penal system. If prisoners are to remain in prison for the rest of their lives, the opportunity for redemption is totally excluded.
The noble Lord, Lord Monson, was most thoughtful and persuasive. I listened to him with the greatest of care. We should be immensely grateful, as always, to the noble Earl, Lord Longford, for probing so acutely into a dark comer of government penal policy. Over very many years, the noble Earl has defied popular criticism—and, if I may say so, some ridicule—in the causes that he has espoused. However, he has always been brave and nine times out of ten—if I am allowed to make that slight amendment—he has been right. I certainly believe that he is right on the issue under discussion.
In his usual sincere but subtle way, the noble Earl said, in effect, although I must not put words into his mouth, that the Minister should not be held responsible for the sins of the Home Secretary. Indeed, some of those, if you like, "sins of report", were committed during that famous speech at the Conservative Conference in 1993 before the noble Baroness was a Minister in the department. Therefore, one cannot hold the noble Baroness responsible for them. However, some of those sentences were expressed in a more austere way (I recall that "austere" is one of the Home Secretary's favourite words for applying to prisons to which he wants to condemn some people forever), in the Home Secretary's speech during the Debate on the Address on 18th November last in another place.
As the noble Earl, Lord Longford, said, it is impossible—and one has to make that point now—to separate the issue, its presentation and the sentiments behind it from the whole thrust of the policies of the present Home Secretary. The noble Earl, Lord Longford, referred to those policies as appealing to cruder elements. That was a restrained way of saying what I would say; namely, that there has been a great deal of saloon bar populism in much of what the Home Secretary has said. Of course a Home Secretary who is a member of a Cabinet in a government which is responsible to an elected Parliament must take account of public opinion on this, as on other issues. But it is the role of Ministers to lead and not follow. I am afraid that in so many respects the present Home Secretary has chosen to follow and not to make a case for policies which substantially address the issues

1089
before the country. I remember the phrase used in the debate on 18th November last to which I have already referred, when he said:
"My task is to provide our country with the system of criminal justice for which it yearns".—[Official Report, Commons, 18/11/94; col. 239.]
He did not refer to the most effective system of criminal justice, or the morally right system of criminal justice, but the system of criminal justice "for which it yearns".
In a different context I was interested to see the recent consultation document on strengthening punishment in the community, which stated at paragraph 2.6,
"The present arrangements suffer from the drawback that probation and supervision orders do not appear to the public to offer sufficient punishment … Probation supervision is still widely regarded as a soft option. Although in many cases this perception may be misconceived, it must be addressed".
The usual way of dealing with a misconceived perception is to confront and to change it. However, I am afraid that is not the case with this Home Secretary in penal matters. His rule appears to me to be a case of, "Give me a misconceived perception and I will yield to it". That is, in my view, the background to the matters which we are discussing this evening.
The Minister missed the debate on training for the probation service that was held in this House a short time ago. However, I think she will know that the whole House, across all parties, was deeply distressed by the Home Secretary's proposals. No doubt the popular press would applaud ex-military policemen strutting their stuff with men on probation. However, that would not be a policy but an emotional spasm and that would be no way of dealing with the situation which this House fully recognised in the debate which was held only a short time ago.
As I say, I believe these issues form a background to the matter we are discussing this evening. However, there is another matter which it would perhaps be satisfactory to examine on a different occasion, and that is to consider what is the role of the Home Secretary on matters which otherwise might be thought to be appropriate to the judges and the courts. The Home Secretary has made a feature of the separation of the day-to-day responsibility of the Prison Service from the responsibility of the Home Secretary. In the debate on the matter Members of this House had doubts about whether that separation was effective. However, it is part of the Home Secretary's view —and let us take it on its merits—that there are strategic responsibilities which are his and day-to-day responsibilities which can be hived off to the director of the Prison Service.
If that is indeed the case, surely the Home Secretary should be drawing a clear line between the strategic issues of policy governing our penal policy, and leaving it to the judges and the courts to make these decisions. If the Home Secretary is afraid of what the popular newspapers will say about him if he fails to act in the way that he has been doing, the easiest route would be to say, "These are not matters appropriate to a Minister in a Government who is bound to be subject to strong day-to-day pressures. In some way they should be removed from ministerial responsibility altogether".
1090
The Home Secretary has set his own performance targets and has boasted about them. He believes that to have more and more people in prison is a measure of success. If the Minister doubts that, I refer her to paragraph 3 of page 12 of the Central Office press release of 6th October 1993, in which the Home Secretary said very plainly that more people in prison could be a measure of the success of his policies.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I notice that from his first quotation to his second quotation the noble Lord has made some interesting changes. I would ask the noble Lord to tell the House—because he is making this a very public statement—when and where he saw or heard my right honourable friend the Home Secretary saying, "More and more prisoners is a sign of success".
Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank: My Lords, if I have summarised the Home Secretary's views inadequately, let me clarify the matter. I quote from the press release:
"This may mean that more people will go to prison. I do not flinch from that. We shall no longer judge the success of our system of justice by a fall in our prison population".
If one is not going to judge the success of the system by a fall in the prison population, it is not unreasonable to believe that one will judge it by an increase in the prison population. I shall not give way for a moment. This is a matter of opinion. The noble Baroness can express a different opinion when she replies to the debate. I would be happy to submit it to the judgment of laymen that most people would read that paragraph as I have expressed it.
I recognise the moral dilemma of the Minister. I do not wish in any way to be unfair to her. I know that she must defend the Home Secretary. But, if he meant what he said when he used the words that he did—let me put it that way —about numbers, then I think that perhaps he judges his own performance not only by numbers but by how many of those who are in prison now will stay in prison forever. That is a poor measure of success for a Home Secretary and it would be good if the Minister was able at least gently to dissociate herself from some of the harsher aspects of it.
7.36 p.m.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Longford is, as always, to be congratulated on his persistence in raising these humanitarian issues of penal policy before your Lordships' House. If we take his Question literally, it could be interpreted in a relatively minor sense as regards,
"why the Home Secretary has informed certain prisoners that they are to remain in prison for the rest of their lives".
The Question could be thought to be about the notification to prisoners rather than about the principle of whether prisoners should serve what I think is called "whole life". I shall dispose of that, I believe, secondary issue as quickly as I can because my noble friend and subsequent speakers have all talked about the more important issue of whether it is right for prisoners to be in prison for all of their lives.
I am grateful to the Minister for the replies she has given to me in recent months on the notification procedures which the Home Secretary announced at the end of last year. She has told me that the process of

1091
notification for general prisons as opposed to psychiatric prisons or secure hospitals should have been completed by now I believe and that 15—or it may now be 17—prisoners have been notified of the tariff which has been allocated by the Home Secretary.
I, personally, do not object to the process of notification. If one is to have a tariff, it is proper that those who are subject to that tariff should be told openly what the tariff is rather than be kept in the dark. As regards that secondary issue, I have no difficulty with the decisions of the Home Secretary. But, of course, the issue is much more profound than that. The issue concerns not whether notification is a good thing but whether a whole life—in other words, staying in prison until one dies—is a proper instrument of penal policy, or indeed a proper concept for a humane society to adopt. The response of noble Lords to my noble friend's Question and his characteristically passionate and morally based speech indicate that there is something profoundly wrong about telling people that they are going to stay in prison for the rest of their lives.
Of course there are other considerations, and above all the consideration of danger to the public. Nobody will say that those who continue to be a danger to the public because they have uncontrollable homicidal tendencies should be released into the community. The public anxiety on the matter is entirely justified. However, those are not the people serving in ordinary prisons. They are people who have, perhaps physically based, psychiatric problems which mean that they are not detained for deterrence but for their own safety and the safety of people around them. In effect, they are detained, as the noble Lord, Lord Monson, suggested in secure hospitals rather than in prison. Let us put that aspect on one side.
The protection of the public does, of course, require that there should be people in places like Broadmoor who will never be released during the term of their natural lives, even when they become enfeebled. That is not what we are debating tonight. We are dealing with the issue of those who are capable of repentance and change. As a non-Christian I believe with the Christians that we are all capable of repentance and of change.
We are debating a system which has been adopted by the Home Secretary. First, he has decided that he, the politician, Member of Parliament and Home Secretary, has the right to change the tariff which has been determined by the trial judge and the Lord Chief Justice. Not surprisingly, in recent years such changes have always involved an increase in the tariff rather than a decrease. Secondly, the Home Secretary will tell people who are of sound mind and capable of repentance that they will never be released. I suggest that that is morally wrong and cannot be defended either in terms of humanity or, as the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers, made clear, in terms of the way prisons are run.
If people are to be restrained or confined, there has to be some sanction upon them. The noble Lord, Lord Monson, very effectively made the point that the sanction has to include the prospect of some reward at the end of a period of imprisonment. If the period of imprisonment is for life with no prospect of anything else, then the whole relationship between the prisoner and the institution in which he is confined changes. It becomes a relationship
1092
without hope, as the right reverend Prelate said, and a relationship which is destructive, not only for the prisoner and the institution but for all other prisoners who are confined in the same institution.
It is not a dereliction from our concern for public safety that leads me to say that I agree with my noble friend and all those who have spoken. It cannot be right for us to decide, and above all for politicians to decide, that prisoners serving mandatory life sentences should never be released.
7.44 p.m.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I know that the noble Earl, Lord Longford, speaks very much from the heart on these matters. I understand his concern about those prisoners who have been informed in recent months that previous Ministers have considered that the nature of their crimes demands that they should remain in prison for the rest of their lives—in other words, a whole life tariff has been set. I know that a number of noble Lords, including some who have spoken during this evening's debate, share that concern.
The issue here is a simple one. Is it right that in some cases a life sentence should mean just that? The Government's view is that it is entirely proper that in the very worst cases the extreme rigour of the law should be allowed to take its course. Indeed, we believe that there would be outrage in the community if some murderers were to be released into the community.
As I explained to your Lordships' House in response to the Starred Question of the noble Earl, Lord Longford, on 20th March, the sentence of imprisonment for life imposed by the courts affords sufficient legal authority to detain a person so sentenced for the remainder of his or her natural life. However, the imposition of a life sentence does not mean in practice that all murderers will be incarcerated for life. Far from it. In the vast majority of cases it has always been considered right that the extreme rigour of the law should be mitigated.
Perhaps I may give the current figures. Of 2,500 murderers serving mandatory life sentences, there are 16 people for whom a life sentence has been said to mean life and whose tariffs have been disclosed to them.
The period which must be served to satisfy the requirements of retribution and deterrence is fixed by the Secretary of State only after very careful consideration of the case, including, very importantly, the views of the judiciary—the trial judge and the Lord Chief Justice. I can assure your Lordships that it is not a decision that is taken likely. The tariff in a particular case will be tailored to reflect the specifics of that case. In a small number of instances the horrific nature of the crime may require that the period must be the whole of the murderer's life. We cannot escape from the fact that where the gravity of an offence is such that it can only be reflected by detaining the offender for the rest of his life a life sentence will, and indeed should, mean life.
When discussing this issue, it is important that we give a thought to those victims—innocent men, women and children —who received a life sentence and for whom

1093
there was no opportunity to consider parole or release, victims who were cruelly cut down by those who are the subject of this debate.
As your Lordships are aware, the prisoners who have been informed that previous Ministers set a whole life tariff in their cases have been offered an opportunity to make representations against that decision. No decisions have yet been made by current Ministers to confirm or vary those tariffs. I informed the House on 24th January in a Written Answer to a Question from the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, that such disclosure had been made in 15 cases. Your Lordships will wish to be aware that a further two prisoners have now been told that whole life tariffs had previously been set in their cases. Should somebody do their arithmetic and think that I have made a mistake, a prisoner has died in prison, which accounts for the missing case.
That is part of the exercise which has been embarked on as a result of the Doody judgment, a judgment with which this House is familiar. That judgment has resulted in important changes to procedures. There is now much more openness, a change which I believe your Lordships welcome as a very positive development.
It is that requirement for greater openness which means that, if it is right that whole life tariffs should be set in some cases—and I have made clear that it is the Government's view that that is the case—then we have no choice but to tell the prisoners concerned. I wholly appreciate that such prisoners may feel that they have no further hope of release.
I remind the House, however, that, even if whole life tariffs are set as a result of the current exercise, that is not the end of the matter. In reply to a point made by the right reverend Prelate, the Lord Bishop of Lichfield, I can say that all such cases will, as a matter of course, be reviewed at intervals to consider whether the whole life tariff should be converted to a tariff of a shorter period. In addition to the standard ministerial review of all mandatory life cases at the 10-year point, a further review will take place when the prisoner has been in custody for 25 years and, where appropriate, will normally take place at five-yearly intervals thereafter.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, perhaps I may intervene. I cannot understand the point of a review if the prisoner is in prison only because of the original crime. How can the horror of that original crime be mitigated by further reviews? It is meaningless.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I suspect that at the end of the day we shall have to agree to differ. However, the specific responsibility of the Home Secretary of the day is to consider whether retribution and deterrence have been properly met by the serving of the sentence. As my right honourable friend the Home Secretary has made clear, such reviews will be confined to the considerations of retribution and deterrence. I believe that the right reverend Prelate would see that as some limitation; but those are the limitations on my right honourable friend.
I know that such consideration falls short of the type of review that some have in mind—that is, a review which would take account of a prisoner's progress during sentence—but it is the only review which we believe appropriate.
1094
Once the Home Secretary of the day believes that the requirements of retribution and deterrence have been met, it is then a matter for the Parole Board to make judgments about behavioural patterns, risks assessments, and so on, to determine when a prisoner should be released. Behaviour subsequent to the offence can do nothing to change the seriousness with which such events must be viewed and the retribution which should follow it, so far as concerns the Home Secretary's consideration.
The noble Lord, Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank, not for the first time, personalised much of what he said. Much that he said missed the point of the debate. It is not the present Home Secretary who brought about the mandatory life sentence. That has been with us for a long time. My right honourable friend is responsible for making the system more open, for ensuring that those prisoners who are subject to whole life tariffs—they have not at this stage been levied by my right honourable friend but by previous Home Secretaries—have all information available to them, including all information relating to their sentence from the Lord Chief Justice and the trial judges. When the prisoners are in receipt of that information, they can indeed appeal to the Home Secretary to reconsider their tariff.
I believe that that openness is welcomed. I believe it is right that people should have that information. It provides at least a glimmer of hope that, first, the person knows the full information and, secondly, that he or she knows the process by which the case will be reviewed.
The noble Lord, Lord Rodgers, grossly distorted what my right honourable friend has said—again not for the first time. When my right honourable friend refers to prisons, he believes that, for some, prison works. However, my right honourable friend has a robust programme of community sentencing. Where it is appropriate for people to serve their sentences in the community, he believes strongly in that, too. Therefore whether the numbers of people in prison are rising or falling is not the measurement of whether the judicial system works. The measures are the effectiveness of prison sentence where it is appropriate, and the effectiveness of non-custodial sentence where that is appropriate.
In conclusion, I would say that it is in the Government's view vital, both as a matter of principle and in order to maintain public confidence in the criminal justice system, that the punishment should fit the crime. There will be few crimes which merit incarceration for life; but, for those that do, this Government will not flinch from ensuring that the perpetrators do indeed remain in prison for life.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn during pleasure until eight o'clock.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
[The Sitting was suspended from 7.54 to 8 p.m.]

Jobseekers Bill
House again in Committee on Clause 13.
Earl Russell Earl Russell moved Amendment No. 131:
Page 11, line 43, leave out ("such meaning as may be prescribed") and insert ("the same meaning as in section 2 of the Employment and Training Act 1973.").
The noble Earl said: We are now hack again with training Humpty Dumpty. The Bill states that "training" has:
"such meaning as may be prescribed".
The Government state in their memorandum to the Delegated Powers Scrutiny Committee that their intention is that "training" should have the meaning it has in Section 2 of the Employment and Training Act 1973. That meaning is perfectly acceptable to me. Why have the Government not put it in the Bill? I beg to move.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: I listened with interest to the brief speech of the noble Earl who mentioned Humpty Dumpty. I thought that he was going to talk about "The Yeomen of the Guard" which I had the pleasure of seeing on Monday. I hope that I can explain why the provision is arranged the way it is.
As my noble friend explained in the debate on Clause 3, it is our intention to bring forward regulations to define training and other assistance for 16 and 17 year-olds. Our intention is that the definition for "training" will be certain training provided for the youngsters pursuant to arrangements made under Section 2 of the Employment and Training Act 1973. The definition of "other assistance" will be certain other assistance provided for them pursuant to arrangements made under Section 2 of the Employment and Training Act. I know that the noble Earl is not keen on regulations, but I think that this time he is teasing me about what was and was not put into the Bill in this case.
Over the past 15 years the Government have brought about significant reforms and changes in training and other provision for young people. We continue to do so. Modern apprenticeships in particular will provide training for young people to at least National Vocational Qualification level 3. They are a serious reform of our training system and will make a significant contribution to improving the nation's competitiveness.
I believe that the noble Earl recognises the strength of the reforms and I hope he also recognises the seriousness of our intentions. It is important that we maintain forward momentum in order to keep our competitiveness in global markets. That means having flexibility to take account of future developments. Like many matters in social security legislation, the definitions are not entirely straightforward. That is illustrated by the fact that even the noble Earl's amendment is technically deficient. I am sure that he is aware that a wide range of training is provided under Section 2 of the Employment and Training Act. His amendment embraces it all, although only a small part of it—principally youth training and modem apprenticeships—forms the basis of the Government's youth training guarantee. I am sure that the noble Earl would not wish us, any more than we do, to be able to fulfil the guarantee by offering young people pre-retirement training for example.
1096
I believe that we must specify certain training only in that regard and the training may change over time. I believe that regulations are the best way to achieve that level of detail.
No doubt the noble Earl will tell me that it is unimportant that his attempted draft is technically defective and that we or he could bring forward a correct version. I sympathise and to that extent I am sure that he could get round the problem that I have just raised. However, I do not believe that it is as simple as that, for the reasons I have demonstrated. There are differences that we must be able to reflect in the future; changes will be made and even different arrangements within the United Kingdom. We must ensure that the legislation provides for them. I believe that the matter is best left to secondary legislation to deal with and I hope that on that basis the noble Earl will withdraw his amendment.
Earl Russell: I thank the Minister for his reply. I admit that it was not my intention to provide for post-retirement or pre-retirement training. Then I thought for a moment about the state of the labour market and asked, why not? I thought for a moment longer and decided that you cannot retire until you have had work. The Minister appreciates that I have misgivings about the legislation because it enables future governments to change the meaning of "training" in any way they like. However, I have made the points before and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 13 agreed to.
Clause 14 [Reduced payments]:
[Amendments Nos. 132 to 134 not moved.]
Clause 14 agreed to.
Clause 15 agreed to.
Clause 16 [Circumstances in which a jobseeker's allowance is not payable]:
[Amendment No. 135 not moved.]
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (The Viscount of Oxfuird): I must advise the Committee that if Amendment No. 136 is agreed to I cannot call Amendments Nos. 137 to 142, due to pre-emption.
[Amendments Nos. 136 to 138 not moved.]
Baroness Hollis of Heigham Baroness Hollis of Heigham moved Amendment No. 139:
Page 13, line 44, leave out ("week") and insert ("day").
The noble Baroness said: I should like to move Amendment No. 139 and speak to Amendments Nos. 140, 141, 145, 146 and 147. This set of amendments concerns the period of disqualification. That is after a determination has been made by the adjudication officer. Amendments Nos. 139 and 140 deal with our anxiety that the minimum should not be one week but one day and the maximum not 26 weeks but four weeks. Amendment No. 140 is triggered by the problems of giving up or refusing a training course or failing to follow a jobseeker's direction.
Under the Bill, disqualification for up to 26 weeks may follow where a person has failed to observe a jobseeker's agreement and subsequent directions, where he fails to attend a training course or has lost or refused work without good cause. We on our side believe that the sanctions turn a jobseeker's agreement into a coercive

1097
policy. Presumably, a person who has failed to abide by the jobseeker's agreement or failed to follow a direction can have the benefit restored if he goes on to comply with the agreement and can remedy the situation. However, if the benefit deduction occurred for something that happened in the past, it cannot subsequently be rectified. Nothing that the claimant can do will permit the benefit to be restored. The problem particularly arises on the issue of training schemes.
In the past only a few such schemes carried sanctions with them. Now, all do. Even though the course itself may last for as abbreviated a period as, say, four weeks, the claimant can nonetheless have benefit sanction imposed for up to six months for failing to attend. Despite the Minister's honeyed words earlier about the courses being "suitable", "relevant", "appropriate" and "quality", as we all know, some of those courses are of poor quality and are deemed irrelevant.
We argue that a penalty of up to 26 weeks' sanction of benefit is grossly disproportionate to the alleged offence. It is a fine of six months' income. Forgive us if we believe, or fear, that this is a back-door method of protecting the TECs, which cannot win their clients in the market-place—as the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby, put it so persuasively earlier in the debate—and therefore have to do it essentially by workfare-type sanctions.
Turning to Amendment No. 146, a similar problem arises when people voluntarily leave employment. From 1911 to 1986 (75 years) society decided that it could adequately protect the National Insurance Fund by six weeks' disqualification. In 1986, the maximum disqualification period was extended to 13 weeks, and in 1988 to 26 weeks. In other words, the Government are saying that since coming to power they have had to quadruple the period of time during which someone suffers disqualification from benefit because so many voluntarily leave work—at a time of such acute unemployment. To coin a cliché, it beggars belief.
There may be good reason for people leaving employment. We all know of situations where there has been a severe reduction in pay or a worsening of hours and conditions, which nonetheless have not been accepted by the Employment Service as good cause. I am a little familiar with the arrangements that have affected local government since the introduction of compulsory competitive tendering. For example, cleaners' pay was cut from £3.75 an hour to £2.45 an hour; hours of work were put up from 37 to 40; there was no holiday pay and no sickness pay. Yet someone leaving that job was deemed to have left it without good cause.
As we explored in previous amendments, not only is benefit suspension extensive; not only is it applicable to new alleged offences; and not only is it disproportionate to the offence, but also the right to hardship payments has been restricted. Together, this cluster of amendments would limit the penalty to what is still a deeply unpleasant, though perhaps not so life-threatening a sanction as those that are currently in the Bill. If the alleged offence is repeated without good cause, there is nothing to stop a reimposition of the benefit penalty. But there is at least a chance for a turn in direction if that benefit penalty was imposed with good cause.
Behind the amendment is a wider concern about the effect of poverty on the families involved. The strain on families trying to live on reduced benefit is unbelievable. We know that families go without food; children go to school in the winter in canvas plimsolls with holes in them; we see disconnection of electricity; we see families trying to eat cold food through the winter; we see debts from which they never recover. Children play truant; they leave school; they leave home; marriages break down; the wife returns to her parents and the husband goes into a clinical depression.
I sometimes wonder, when the Government seem so free and easy with their proposals to impose no income for six months and then provide hardship payments for vulnerable families of only 60 per cent. of benefit, whether they have even the faintest idea of what it is like to live for six months either without benefit or on only 60 per cent. of benefit. I wonder how those same Ministers would feel if they could not give their children three meals a day because of a penalty imposed on them by us? I beg to move.
8.15 p.m.
Lord Inglewood: Perhaps I may begin with some remarks about Amendments Nos. 139 and 145.
The overwhelming majority of people who become unemployed make every effort to find work at the earliest possible opportunity. Experience shows, however, that a small minority seek to abuse the benefits system. Benefit sanctions exist to protect the taxpayer and the National Insurance Fund contributor from subsidising people who have no good reason to be or to remain unemployed. They do that by influencing the behaviour of people who claim benefit or are thinking of claiming benefit. They also have an important role in reinforcing incentives for unemployed people to take the right steps to get back into work.
Both these amendments would reduce the minimum length of sanction from one week to one day, as was explained. Amendment No. 139 applies to the minimum length of a fixed-length sanction which can be prescribed for actions such as failing to carry out a jobseeker's direction or refusing to attend a prescribed course or programme.
Amendment No. 145 applies to the minimum length of sanctions that are determined by an adjudication officer for action such as leaving employment voluntarily without just cause; losing employment through misconduct; and refusing an offer of employment without good cause.
I appreciate that the shortest length of sanction that an adjudication officer can currently impose is one day. We believe that that is so short as to be meaningless. When an adjudication officer decides that a claimant has broken one of the benefit rules in this clause and has failed to show just cause or good cause for his actions, the result should be a sanction that will effectively deter claimants from acting in the same way, even when the minimum sanction is appropriate. JSA will be payable in respect of one week. It follows that the minimum length of sanction should also be one week.

1099
I now turn to Amendment No. 140. This amendment would stipulate in primary legislation that the maximum period of fixed-length sanction should be four weeks. can certainly assure the Committee that this is the Government's intention for the regulations that will establish the period of sanction for those circumstances relating to employment and training provisions. We believe it right to set a clear penalty, so that unemployed people will be in no doubt as to the consequences if they reject our help and assistance without good cause. I must emphasise the words "without good cause". They are the key to the triggering off of the penalty. But we must retain the flexibility to revise this period should it prove insufficient in providing the proper incentives for taking up government assistance. For those reasons, I urge the Committee to reject this amendment.
Amendment No. 146 sets a maximum period of 13 weeks for sanctions for leaving voluntarily, for misconduct or refusal of employment and is unacceptable. Our experience in the 1980s showed that maximum periods of disqualification of both six and 13 weeks were simply not effective in discouraging people from making themselves unemployed. Returning to 13 weeks as a maximum would send all the wrong signals to unemployed people. We would, I am sure, see again more people leaving jobs of their own accord or refusing them for no good reason if they were offered.
It is important to recognise that a sanction of 26 weeks is not the norm. Where adjudication officers find that there are mitigating circumstances, they do not impose the maximum sanction—and quite rightly. Only 25 per cent. of cases of leaving voluntarily attract a maximum sanction. Only 40 per cent. of misconduct cases do. That gives a clear indication that adjudication officers weigh up the complex range of circumstances behind any decision to leave a job.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: Will the Minister tell us what is the average disqualification period?
Lord Inglewood: I am afraid that I do not have that information immediately to hand, but I will give the figure shortly if it is available.
In this context, if one looks back at subsection (6) of the clause, it is clear that this is not triggered by any occasion of leaving, and so on. It must, in the case of subsection (b), be someone who left employment without just cause. Otherwise, the good cause test is triggered again.
The noble Baroness made reference to workfare. It is terribly important that we put our position on this matter on the record. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Employment said in another place that workfare will not be imposed if that word is used in the sense that it implies the state acting as employer of last resort with benefit paid as a surrogate wage. The Minister of State for Employment made quite clear to the Employment Select Committee in November that there are no plans to introduce universal compulsory work schemes of this type. We want to have people doing things that will enable them then to enter real jobs. I was asked by the noble Baroness about the average figure to which I referred earlier. I am afraid that I do not have the average figure here, but I will willingly write to her and provide it.
1100
Finally, a suggestion was made that in some way or other these provisions were intended to assist the TECs which would otherwise be unable to fill up their places on employment schemes. I should like to put on record unequivocally that that is not so. I hope that those comments will reassure the Committee and that your Lordships will feel able to oppose these amendments.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: The Minister said that it was in the Government's mind that there should be a maximum of four weeks' sanction for those who left employment or refused or left a training course without good cause. That is nowhere to be found on the face of the Bill. How do the Government expect their mind to be transposed into practice? Is it to be done by regulation and, if so, is it to be by negative or affirmative procedure?
Lord Inglewood: The proposal is to carry forward the existing arrangements where they apply. It will be done by regulation, as is made clear in Clause 16(2). The noble Baroness will know that the provisions that deal in particular with transitional regulations are to be found in Clause 33 of the Bill. Because they are transitional arrangements they will be dealt with by the affirmative procedure.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: Obviously, I am being very stupid. Clause 16(2) does not mention four weeks. It provides:
"If the circumstances are any of those mentioned in subsection (5) the period for which the allowance is not to be payable shall be such period (of at least one week but not more than 26 weeks) as may be prescribed."
The Minister said that it is in the Government's mind to confine it to four weeks on certain conditions and that it will follow existing practice. How will that be ensured?
Lord Inglewood: I apologise to the noble Baroness for not making myself clear. That will be specified in regulation.
Baroness Seear: The noble Lord said that he would provide the average figure. Would it not be better if he provided the median figure which would give a more accurate impression?
Lord Inglewood: Since the noble Baroness is being so statistically literate, I shall certainly do that.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: I wonder whether the Minister does have this information. The matter was pressed in the Commons and the Minister could not answer. I do not believe that it has been forthcoming. The noble Baroness is absolutely right in saying that what is important is what happens on the ground in practice, as opposed to minimum and maximum penalties.
I shall study the answer of the Minister and, if appropriate, perhaps return to it at Report stage. With the leave of the Committee, I should like to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 140 to 149 not moved.]
Lord McCarthy Lord McCarthy moved Amendment No. 150:
Page 14, line 10, leave out paragraph (a).
The noble Lord said: In moving Amendment No. 150 1 shall speak also to Amendment No. 158. The object of the two amendments is simple: to abolish the jobseeker's direction. The jobseeker's direction is oddly named. One might have thought that the direction would be given by the jobseeker. However the jobseeker receives the direction. It would be better called the jobseeker's additional burden. It is something more that the jobseeker has to do. If there is anyone who does not know by now what a jobseeker is, he is someone who used to be unemployed. We do not now have any unemployed people; they are all jobseekers who are trying to make themselves active and available. This idea may spread. We may have old age pensioners who are dependant-seekers, looking for people on whom they can be dependent. We may have sick people who are health-seekers, trying to stop eating unhealthy food. If they eat enough healthy food they may qualify for some benefit. We may have widows who perhaps can be spouse-seekers, trying to find ways to get off the parish. However, so far it is only the unemployed who have been turned into seekers after activity. If they are available and active enough they get some benefit, except under Clause 16. The purpose of Clause 16 is that, however active the seeker and whether or not he qualifies under every other regulation, he can still be caught. The main way that the Bill catches him is that he is given a jobseekers' direction.
We have the same objections to the jobseekers' direction as we have to most of the rest of the Bill. In effect, it is all in regulation; in other words, we do not know what the jobseeker will be directed to do. We are not told what will be in the direction, only that if he refuses it or fails to carry out any reasonable direction having regard to the circumstances on the face of the Bill, he will suffer loss of benefit.
We all know the general nature of the jobseeker's direction. On the face of the Bill, the purpose is to assist and improve the chances of employment. But we also know that the department has had something similar to the jobseeker's direction before there were jobseekers. In the days when we still had unemployment there was something called jobsearch assistance. We know that from the evidence submitted by the CABs about individual claimants who were put on endless restart programmes. In particular, one claimant in London was told, "The trouble with you is that you will not change direction". That is very apt, because in future if he does not change direction he will get a jobseeker's direction, will he not? He will have to change direction. A Berkshire claimant, an Afro-Caribbean, was repeatedly sent to low-paid manual jobs when he thought that he had excellent 0 and A-level qualifications and might be sent to other jobs. In future he will be given a direction. Of course, if one is given a direction and one does not carry it out there will be loss of benefit. The presumption is that one will have to enter some kind of appeal process to try to persuade the adjudication officer that the direction given is not adequate or appropriate.
We say that this is not necessary. It is now half past eight. We have debated for a long time the many ways in which the Bill is more than sufficiently coercive in placing further impositions upon a person who was once
1102
unemployed but is now a jobseeker. There is no need whatever for jobseeker's directions, and that is why I move this amendment.
Earl Russell: I listened with great amusement to the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy. When he talks about spouse-seekers, I have one little piece of advice for him:
"Beware of widders, Sammy !"
It is a matter of shame to me that my name is not added to this amendment. It is the result purely of an oversight. Almost certainly the oversight is mine. In spite of the absence of my name, this is probably the most important issue left in the remainder of the Bill. The jobseeker's direction is, I think, the most arbitrary power that I have ever seen conferred in English law, if indeed it is conferred. It has not yet happened. It gives to one person almost total control over the life of another. It gives them the power to direct those people to do all sorts of different things (most of which we probably have not yet imagined) on pain of total loss of benefit. It is a penalty which in my book is rather worse than imprisonment. What would we have said if the Bill had introduced a power to imprison the jobseeker if he did not obey the direction? I can reassure the Committee that I should have resisted a power to imprison the jobseeker, but I think that I would not have been quite so shocked as I am by a power to disentitle. The power to disentitle leaves the person to rot away slowly. That is the crueller of the two.
I know that the Minister will invoke "reasonable" and the adjudication officer. I shall not dwell on the point that we do not yet know the criteria of "reasonable". They will only come in the regulations. I shall dwell on the fact that the adjudication officer, on present figures, is 22.4 weeks away. That is 22.4 weeks before one gets the next little amount of money. It is a bit steep. It raises the question of what will be regarded as good cause for not taking up a job offer.
I want to ask a question of the Minister. It needs an answer at some stage before the Bill is put through. Will it be good cause to refuse a job that the travelling is too long and too difficult? There are many jobs—such as the one that I mentioned recently near Cardiff, where a man ceased to go to his job because his workmate had left his job and could not give him a lift there—which are too far for people reasonably to be expected to go.
Secondly, will it be a good reason for refusing a job that the work-related expenses form too high a proportion of the wages to make it worth a person's while? In my local Jobcentre, advertisements for plumbers or electricians almost always say "own tools essential". That condition can create genuine problems. Moreover, it can often happen, even in London, that the costs of travel are so great as to be prohibitive. Is that to be a reasonable ground for refusing a job? Those questions need answers.
In general, we on these Benches tend to believe that people are usually, but not invariably, the best judges of their own interests. People are usually the best judges of their own family interests. There may be reasons inside the internal dynamics of a family why one type of job, circumstances or hours in particular are simply not viable. For example, it may break down the whole of the care

1103
arrangements. We do not know whether the employment officer will be interested in that point. He may very well not be interested.
This is the kind of arbitrary power which, in my opinion, nobody ever ought to have over another. In fact it comes remarkably close to forced labour. That is something which I did not think we would ever see in English law. I am very sorry to see it put before this Chamber.
Lord Swinfen: Between now and the next stage of the Bill, I hope that my noble friends on the Front Bench will ponder very seriously the wording "without good cause" in this subsection and compare it with the Government's arguments made on Amendments Nos. 128 and 129. They have drafted this clause. I do not see why an amendment similar to the previous amendment should not be brought forward by the Government themselves at the next stage.
8.30 p.m.
Baroness Williams of Crosby: I want to raise one other issue on this amendment. I wholly share the consternation advanced so eloquently by my noble friend Lord Russell. I too find it extraordinary that directions of this kind should be able to be given by one human being to another, not least by someone employed in the public service to a citizen, and a rather disadvantaged citizen.
The issue is a separate one. I should be most grateful if Ministers would respond to it. One cannot help wondering whether one purpose of the Bill is to lead to a dramatic reduction in the figures for statistical unemployment. Obviously, if people are disallowed benefit in large numbers, the effect will be to remove them from the register of people who are seeking work. I suppose that following the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, we should now call everyone a frustrated jobseeker instead of an unemployed person. But, whatever the word used, I take it that the statistics will reflect something. I wonder what they will reflect. I suspect it will be something more and more removed from the actual realities of unemployment. As the Minister knows, the statistics have already been changed many times.
My question therefore is this. Since it is important for the nation to have some idea of the real level of unemployment, in view of the legislation that is now being passed, which will make it increasingly difficult for someone without work to count as unemployed (they will count as something else), will the Government consider shifting the basis of raising statistics on those without work to assist them with labour censuses, such as those in the United States, which allow people to answer questions such as, "Are you seeking work?", "Are you able to find work and how long have you been seeking it?" and so forth? I fear the basis towards which we are now moving and what it will increasingly mean for whatever statistics are offered. I should also like to ask whether there is to be a monthly figure for those still seeking jobs who have not been placed but who are not on benefit as well as those who are. I should like to press the Minister on that because the statistical question is an important one from the point of view of drawing up economic policy. I am not at all
1104
clear what proposals are now being made for advancing employment statistics in any reasonable and transparent way.
Lord Inglewood: My noble friend Lord Swinfen, the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, the noble Earl, Lord Russell, and the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby, raised a number of important points. I shall do my best to give them answers which I hope they will find satisfactory.
These amendments would seriously undermine the necessary powers to ensure that unemployed people take the right steps. Unless their actions actually called into question their availability for employment or whether they were actively seeking work, unemployed people could ignore, with impunity, any reasonable direction given to them by Employment Service staff. That is not acceptable. Unemployed people must make every effort to get back to work and for those who do not, it is right that we should require them to take action to do so. That is what these provisions are about—enabling activity to be required of unemployed people where appropriate in order to increase their chances of getting a job.
As mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, for many years there has been a provision whereby Employment Service staff can instruct unemployed people to take certain steps to get a job. The official recommendation to take such steps carried with it the threat of a benefit sanction if the claimant failed to take action. However, the provision is difficult to use because recommendation must relate to a specific type of employment in the locality. We are following in JSA that same approach but extending it. We plan to make sure that Employment Service staff can use this provision more widely across the range of actions that unemployed people may need to consider to increase their prospects of getting a job.
Jobseeker's directions will be specific to individuals. It may help the Committee if I read out from the Bill Clause 16(10) (b), which talks about the jobseeker's direction. It defines its terms of reference. The noble Earl was particularly concerned about the extent to which it might be possible. It reads:
"Jobseeker's direction' means the direction in writing given by an employment officer with a view to achieving one or both of the following"—
I should like to emphasise this point—
"assisting the claimant to find employment [and] improving the claimant's prospects of being employed".
That seems a very important element of the jobseeker's direction. It defines its purpose.
The directions will underscore the approach of actively seeking work. For example, the Employment Service officer might specify that the jobseeker should follow up specific job advertisements, that he might register with an employment agency, that he joins a job club or that he attends a suitable course. The Employment Service will, I am sure, never need to issue a direction to the vast majority of genuine jobseekers who will be happy to take such steps on the advice of the Employment Service. But for those who wish to avoid such help the consequences will be clear: loss of benefit for two weeks—as prescribed in the regulations—rising to four weeks if the jobseeker refuses consequently to carry out a subsequent direction.

1105
Of course there must and will be proper safeguards for individuals who fail to carry out a direction. It is important to be clear. The trigger for potential sanctions is only when a failure takes place without due cause. It was the noble Earl who raised the question of the definition of what "good cause" might be. Currently, there is a considerable body of case law defining good cause. It is the Government's intention that this should be to some extent defined in regulations to provide a non-exhaustive list of the types of matters that adjudication officers should take into account in making this determination.
A decision to impose a sanction will only be taken by an independent adjudication officer, not the Employment Service officer who has issued the direction in the first place.
Earl Russell: I should be grateful for clarification. The two courses I mentioned have hitherto been good. Will they continue to be so?
Lord Inglewood: It is my understanding that they will be.
Lord McCarthy: If I understand the Minister correctly, he seems to be saying that the employment officer will decide in the first instance that the direction has not been complied with. That will then go to the adjudication officer. It is the adjudication officer who will decide that that is the case. Where does the individual go to appeal against the decision of the adjudication officer who is the first person, the Minister says, to take the substantive decision? There seems to be no appeal at all.
Lord Inglewood: The Employment Service officer has to operate within the terms of the law in deciding, first, whether to impose a direction. Secondly, after a direction has been imposed, he has to be the first gate to see whether in his judgment the breach that may have occurred was one which occurred without good cause. Then, as the noble Lord says, the matter is passed to the adjudication officer. It is worth emphasising in this context that there is no question of any kind of disqualification from benefit until after the adjudication officer has looked at the matter.
Lord Swinfen: Will the passing of the matter to the adjudication officer mean that the jobseeker will have an opportunity to see the adjudication officer face to face, or will it be a purely paper exercise from which he is excluded?
Baroness Williams of Crosby: Before the Minister replies to that question, perhaps I may seek his guidance on another part of subsection (10), which is the issue of,
"such other person as may be designated for the purposes of this section".
If in giving a direction the employment officer has the kind of power we have been discussing, the extension of this power to some other person as may be designated, who presumably might be someone on a short-term contract, raises yet further disturbing issues.
Lord McCarthy: With respect, I was attempting to get the Minister to answer a question of mine. He has not yet answered it. If it is now being said to be the case that in this instance the benefit is not stopped until one gets to
1106
the adjudication officer, that is strange indeed, because in other cases the Government did stop the benefit. They stopped the benefit from the point when the employment officer took the decision. If it is the case that there is no real decision—and that is the answer—until one gets to the adjudication officer, then there is no appeal from the adjudication officer. The only way the adjudication officer could act as an appeal is if the decision were taken prior to him being involved. How do the Government reconcile all this?
Lord Inglewood: I should like to go back over what I said before. When the Employment Service officer makes a jobseeker's direction he has to do so within the terms of the law. If that is broken he has to determine in his mind, according to the criteria to which I have already alluded, whether or not that breach has been made without good cause. It is only if he believes that the breach has been made without good cause that the matter is sent to the adjudication officer. The crucial point here is that it is on the basis of the decision of the adjudication officer whether or not a disqualification occurs. To that extent he is the first person in the chain, but he is not the first person for the purposes of appeal which is against the decision of the adjudication officer and which lies to the Social Security Appeal Tribunal. That appeal is the first time that, as it were, there has been a second opinion on the matter of whether the disqualification is appropriate but it is not the first decision that is made about the central criterion behind his decision—that is to say, whether the breach has occurred. So the failure to follow the direction has occurred without good cause.
Lord McCarthy: How do the Government justify the fact—I am not suggesting that they should go back on this—that benefit is not cancelled in this isolated instance until we get to the adjudication officer, whereas in every other case it is?
Lord Inglewood: The answer to that question is straightforward. In these instances there is a valid jobseeker's agreement in place and therefore an entitlement to benefit. The entitlement exists. Because the entitlement exists, the presumption is, until proved otherwise, that benefit is payable. That is the way the system works in this regard. That compares with arguments about availability for work and actively seeking work where we have not reached a position where an entitlement has been established.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: We pursued this point from the other end on a previous Committee day. We tried to get the fining and disqualification from benefit on the actively seeking work clause, which takes place before the judgment is made, aligned with what the Minister in another place very belatedly conceded should apply to those situations where people voluntarily leave work, possibly without good cause, or whatever—misconduct and voluntarily leaving work. It was conceded, I understand, because the length of time it took—given the sensitivity and the difficulty of some of the relevant evidence—was up to 20 weeks. Even the Government in their embarrassment did not believe that someone could realistically live for 20 weeks without benefit while they decided whether the charge or the doubt was well founded. Given that the Government have accepted the

1107
point in that regard, what we would be expected to be told by the Government is why a similar system—whereby one is not punished until the offence is proved—should not apply to those who may or may not be actively seeking work.
Lord Inglewood: I come back to the point with which I started. The distinction between what we are discussing now and what we discussed on previous occasions is that we are talking about sanctions in respect of an action that has taken place, or is alleged to have taken place, after entitlement to benefit has been established. That is why in these instances, if there is an allegation of breach, the matter is carried forward in the way I have described.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: That cannot be right. I take the point that where someone voluntarily leaves work or where there is misconduct there is a notion of an offence that has been committed in the past and, as the noble Lord says, an entitlement to benefit has been established. But the same is true for someone on JSA in respect of whom, say, two months or three months on, it may occur to the employment officer, particularly if he has not yet met his target for referrals of doubt, that he is not actively seeking work as energetically as he should and therefore, though an entitlement has been established in the past in exactly the same way as my noble friend outlined, it is suspended and cannot be reinstated until after the tribunal or discussion has taken place. What we are trying to establish is that the parallels between leaving work on the ground of misconduct or voluntarily leaving work are identical to the problems associated with actively seeking work. In both cases an entitlement has been established. In one, apparently, the offence has occurred and one would have thought that benefit would have been withheld, but instead it continues. In the other case, which is merely a doubt, and one does not know whether an offence has or has not been committed, the individual is being fined in advance of that doubt being established as valid. We still believe that that is monstrously perverse.
Lord McCarthy: In the terms of the Minister's defence, both individuals mentioned by my noble friend have a jobseeker's agreement. Therefore, contractually they were in exactly the same position.
Lord Inglewood: To say that they have a jobseeker's agreement cannot be true because we do not yet have a jobseeker's agreement. As we discussed on Tuesday, the point about the jobseeker's agreement, as the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, commented, is that there is not a contract. Therefore we are not talking here about any kind of contractual relationship. I come back to the point that I have made on two previous occasions, There is a distinction between cases where there is an entitlement already in place and those where there is a doubt as to whether an entitlement exists at all.
Earl Russell: May I now safely deem the Minister to have sat down?
Lord Inglewood: Not quite. I wish to reply to the noble Earl. He raised a very good point and one which
1108
it is proper that we should answer. It was the question of whether, in determining good cause, we take into account such matters as travelling time. The answer to that is yes. It will be taken into account if it is appropriate in the circumstances to do so. The other point the noble Earl raised was about having to provide tools. That is one of the reasons behind the back-to-work bonus. It will provide a lump sum of money which will enable the person the noble Earl describes to do the things which he quite rightly says need to be done to get the job.
Earl Russell: I am very grateful to the Minister for that answer. Before we are through with this matter I hope that he can tell us a little about the jobfinder's grant, which sounds like a good idea. There was one sentence early in the Minister's first reply which nearly took my breath away. I believe that I have got his words right. He said that this was one of the necessary powers to ensure that unemployed people take the right steps. What arrogance! How do they know what are the right steps? Is it not really the voice of the nanny state and that the state knows best; and that the state's judgment of what is the right step for people to take is necessarily better than that of the person taking the judgment?
Before that can be true we need to hope for rather higher standards of adjudication. According to the report of the chief adjudicating officer, 41 per cent. of sample decisions last year were found to be defective. The chief reason given for poor standards of decision-making was insufficient evidence. Voluntary leaving cases were most likely to be made without sufficient evidence. Do the Government believe that they know what are the right steps when that is the standard of the evidence from which their knowledge comes? Do they really believe that they know exactly what jobs people can and cannot do better than they can ever know themselves?
There are certain jobs which, if I were directed to take them, my wife would burst out laughing so loud that I would not dare go near them. She would be quite right and the employment officer who directed me to take them would be quite wrong. Nor is it fair on employers to force people into jobs in which they are almost certain to make really bad mistakes. They could even be jobs on which the safety of other people depends. We shall be soon having alcoholics forced to take jobs as bus drivers and then we shall be told that that is one of the right steps.
Before we are through with this matter, I shall be grateful to the Minister for a reply to the question asked by my noble friend Lady Williams of Crosby about the unemployment statistics. Are we going to continue having a claimant count? If so, is there going to be a clearly separate count, presumably based on the labour force survey, which will be quoted as the figures of the unemployed or are we going to be asked to believe that the statistics of those drawing the jobseeker's allowance are actually the statistics of the unemployed? I can assure the Committee that they are not going to be.

1109
One last word about unsuitability for jobs. A man from Balliol with a first in Greats went into the Army and was discharged after one week for mental insufficiency. We shall get more cases like that.
Lord Inglewood: The noble Earl again raises a number of important points. He began by saying that this is an unwarranted piece of activity by the nanny state in order to arrogate to itself the right to direct people in this regard. I understand the point he is making, but does he really believe that it is going to be right in reality? The whole concept at the core of the jobseeker's agreement is to try to ensure that the jobseeker and the Employment Service—which has a degree of expertise which, however jaundiced the view one might have about the state, the jobseekers themselves do not have—plan together to try to ensure that they can agree a series of steps which will be of help to the jobseeker.
The noble Earl gave some examples which rather spoilt his case because in many ways they were so extreme as to undercut a good point which he was trying to make. In the real world, given that there is expertise in the Employment Service, it seems to us that this is a sensible way of trying to help the person concerned to try to get a job by enabling him to tap in to an expertise which undeniably is there. The noble Earl said that the exercise of this power—I have attempted to explain how it is to be exercised in a legal context—will lead to the dramatically disadvantageous conclusions that he described. I come back to the point I was making a few moments ago. The whole matter is triggered off where there is no good cause on the part of the jobseeker. Quite apart from the fact that the Employment Service, as a matter of practice, endeavours to behave sensibly with people when trying to help them with their jobseeking activities, if it does something which is ridiculous it will give the jobseeker good cause to do something different. In that event it seems to us that much of the concern that the noble Earl expressed is reduced.
A number of other points have been raised. The noble Earl made a number of comments about the poor performance, as I believe he described it in shorthand, in sending papers to adjudication. It is precisely because the Employment Service wishes to improve on its performance in sending documents to adjudication that its annual performance agreement has been achieved. We have already discussed it. It is not a target for disqualification, but for the Employment Service to try to do better as regards the matters to which the noble Earl referred than it has done hitherto.
There are two other matters. The first was the jobfinder's grant. That aims to encourage people who have been out of work for more than two years to take a job by paying them a grant to help cover any additional expenses that they incur on account of taking a job. I hope that that helps to define the matter for the noble Earl.
The noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby, asked about the Government changing the basis for calculating the unemployment figures. The Government publish figures based both on the labour force survey, which contains the criteria to which the noble Baroness referred, and on those claiming benefit. We publish both
1110
and we shall continue to do so. I hope that that will enable the noble Earl and others to see exactly how things are progressing.
Earl Russell: The Minister asked me a question and I owe him an answer. He asked me whether I believe that is the way it will be in the real world. Yes, sometimes, I do. If it were one case in 10,000 I believe that that would be too many. When the Minister says "good cause", he means a cause which appears to the adjudication officer to be good. As long as the evidence available to the adjudication officer is defective, his decision cannot be any better than the evidence available to him.
We are all trying to look into a crystal ball when we ask how many times it will be like that. On the basis that I am looking into a crystal ball and that that is a highly dangerous activity, my estimate would be that it will happen in the region of 10 cases out of every 100—and that is a great deal too many.
9 p.m.
Lord Inglewood: The noble Earl has looked into his crystal ball, but I want to put on record that the kind of prognostication which the noble Earl has produced would not he acceptable to the Employment Service. Our aspirations are to do much better than that.
Earl Russell: Can the Minister tell me when my last prognostication about a government measure coming from the Department of Social Security was wrong?
Lord McCarthy: Unless the Minister wishes to reply to that, perhaps I may reply to the amendment. I do not want to curtail the debate because I am afraid that I have no alternative but to seek to withdraw the amendment. I thank all those who have participated in the debate—and all those who have participated, with, of course, the exception of the Minister, have agreed with the amendment.
I agree with everything that the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, said. The noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, has an absolutely unanswerable case. If we can have "good cause" here, why can we not have "good cause" in relation to disabilities? The Government have no answer to that. All that they can do is not answer the point, which is exactly what the Minister did. Although he did not answer our case, we shall return to it.
I agree with all the points made by the noble Earl, Lord Russell, with the exception of two. I do not agree that it is worse to have no money and to starve than to be in prison—but that is probably just something personal to me, particularly given what we know about some of Her Majesty's prisons. I would prefer to be outside looking in rather than inside looking out.
I do not believe that the amendment deals with the problem of forced labour. It is this amendment and the next one put together which relate to forced labour, and we shall be coming to that point.
Therefore, I now turn to what the Minister said. I have to say once again that we have not had an answer. We shall not continue with our arguments now because it is much better if the Minister goes away, talks to his

1111
friends in the Box and tries to put an answer together. There must be a better answer, because the question is simple: why is it that failure to obey a jobseeker's directive by a person who has a jobseeker's agreement—let us look forward into 1996 or 1997, when the thing is up and running—does not result in an immediate cut in benefit, whereas if somebody who has a jobseeker's agreement—they will all have them in the end—is suddenly found to be not actively seeking work he will be subject to an instant cut in benefit? That is the question to which the Minister must find an answer, because we have not yet had one.
Finally, not only have we heard no answers, but the Minister has not dealt with the point that the provisions are not necessary. The Government do not like this to be mentioned, but there was a long period from sometime in the 1940s until the late 1960s or early 1970s when we had no jobseeker's agreements—people then were "unemployed", except that there were none. When there was a sufficiently high level of demand, less than 1 per cent. or 2 per cent. of our fellow citizens lay about not having a job. Everybody got jobs. I had 20 jobs in three years—
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: All at the same time?
Lord McCarthy: I got the sack from half of them. There was a time when there was a demand for labour in the economy and when we did not have to drive people into ever-increasing levels of activity—"wider still and wider shall thy availability be set, God who made the active make thee more active yet". That is what the Government believe—because there are no jobs and they have to keep driving people into further and further extremes of activity in order to pretend that there are jobs. We shall return to these issues on Report, but, in the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Brougham and Vaux): Before calling Amendment No. 151, I must advise the Committee that, if Amendment No. 151 is agreed to, I cannot call Amendments Nos. 152 and 152A.
Lord McCarthy Lord McCarthy moved Amendment No. 151:
Page 14, leave out lines 13 to 19.
The noble Lord said: We come back now to forced labour. The noble Earl, Lord Russell, has tabled Amendment No. 152, with which my amendment is grouped, but, although agreeing with it, I shall leave that amendment to the noble Earl. The Government's amendment, Amendment No. 152A, is also grouped with Amendment No. 151 and, if I understand that amendment—I may not—it makes the situation marginally worse, although not significantly worse because, God knows, it is bad enough.
We are seeking to delete what I call the "compulsory training clause". The provision states that if, without good cause, you fail to avail yourself of a reasonable opportunity of a place on a training scheme, if you give up such a place, if you fail to attend or so on and so forth, you will lose your allowance. I daresay that when we get to
1112
Report stage the Government will table an amendment to say that if you go on a course and fail to get a pass mark, you will lose your jobseeker's allowance.
Until I became involved in the Bill, I was not aware of how far this practice had gone, but we believe that quasi-compulsion has already gone a very long way. Attendance on an approved training programme is compulsory. That is all right because so far the only approved training programmes are YT and there are not many. Restart interviews are compulsory. They have been compulsory since January 1991. In other words, if you do not attend one of your compulsory Restart interviews, you lose allowance because you are not "seeking". Job plan workshops are compulsory, and have been compulsory since January 1992. Workwise and Worklink are compulsory. For some reason they have different names in Scotland and in England; God knows why. So, we already have built into the system a series of compulsory attendances. If the jobseeker does not do those things regularly as specified—as increasingly specified—he will lose his allowance. As a result, we are told that a 40 per cent. reduction in benefits is imposed on many workers who have been two years on the unemployment register, and there has been a significant increase in the number of disallowances.
In 1993–94, there were 15,699 reduced benefit disallowances. There were of course other things happening, but we believe that as a consequence of the increased compulsion, and the specification of what unemployed workers had to do, those disallowances rose to 40,438. They more than doubled in that short period. Yet the Government propose a major extension of compulsion. The Government now say that failure to go on an employment programme, which is not even necessarily training, could be a reason for disallowance. Training for work will be made compulsory. Attendance at job clubs could be compulsory. The intention is to make it compulsory.
What is the evidence that we need ever greater compulsion? What is the evidence of abuse? What is the evidence that workers, without that level of compulsion, in the 1980s and 1990s will not seek work, whereas in the 1940s, 1950s, the 1960s and the 1970s they did seek work? There is no such evidence. There is no such evidence in the CBI survey, the ESRC surveys, the OPCS surveys or the Department of Employment's own 1992 Employment in Britain study. None of those surveys suggests that there is an outbreak of an unusual number of workers who do not want to be active, to be available, and who do not want to work.
If there were, we know that the Government would be quoting the evidence at us, night after night in these debates, but there is no evidence. Therefore we say that there is no case for a compulsory movement of this kind. We say that this direction, together with the direction about which we talked on the previous amendment, constitutes something close, as the noble Earl said, to a compulsory work state. That is where we have reached, and that is why I beg to move.
Lord Inglewood: I shall speak to Amendment No. 151 and government amendment No. 152A. The kind of circumstances which Amendment No. 151 seeks to

1113
delete have long been a feature of unemployment benefit legislation under different governments. Those circumstances are currently set out in Section 28(1) of the Social Security and Benefits Act, and indeed the Government's Amendment No. 152A seeks to make the correspondence with Section 28 even clearer. Both sides of the Committee, I think we can agree, have accepted the importance of sanctions in this area.
The amendment would reduce our ability to ensure that unemployed people take appropriate steps to assist their return to employment. Jobseekers could refuse to take advantage of the help offered through employment and training programmes. The vast majority of jobseekers, of course, welcome and make full use of such assistance. Sanctions would never be applied to those people. Experience shows, however, that a small minority does persist in refusing the help offered, without taking other sensible steps. For them, of course sanctions are important.
The noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, talked about the increase in disallowances. The important point is that no one need be disallowed. It is jobseekers' actions which trigger off a change in their circumstances. Job plan workshops and restart courses, for example, will both be prescribed in regulations. People who refuse to attend or complete those mandatory courses without good cause, will therefore be denied JSA for a fixed period of two weeks, rising to four weeks for subsequent refusals. The Government believe that it is right for there to be a disincentive for rejecting provision which is designed to help motivate and prepare unemployed people, especially long-term unemployed people, for their return to the labour market.
I should like to reiterate and refer to the points that I made about workfare in the previous debate. The noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, referred also to employment programmes. I want to put on record that the test of an employment programme is that its predominant purpose is to assist the jobseeker to get back to work.
I shall turn now to government Amendment No. 152A which relates to the sanction that applies when people without good cause refuse or fail to apply for, or to accept, a place on a prescribed training scheme or employment programme. It is designed merely to carry forward all the circumstances relating to training schemes or employment programmes set out in Section 28(1) (f) of the Social Security and Benefits Act 1992.
It was always the intention that all the circumstances relating to schemes and programmes set out in the current legislation should be carried forward into ISA. This amendment makes that clear in relation to failure to apply for a training place.
The amendment also makes it clear that the place must be notified to an applicant by an employment officer, which brings the provision into line with Clause 16(6) (c) in relation to refusal or failure to apply for an employment opportunity. I commend that amendment to the Committee.
Baroness Williams of Crosby: I was interested in what the Minister said in relation to Amendment No. 152A where the Government recognise the importance of notifying the jobseeker that a vacancy has arisen. I
1114
wonder whether he now sees the logic of applying that to the situation of warning people in writing about the possibility of their benefit being disallowed. It seems to me that the argument in both cases is in favour of notifying people who may otherwise not realise what is happening.
I shall not move Amendment No. 152 with regard to "suitable" training places but I wonder whether the Minister will say anything about that. Earlier, the Minister dealt with a situation where no suitable training place is available. Is the fact that a training place is available sufficient to meet the conditions?
Lord Inglewood: I am afraid that I did not hear the last point made by the noble Baroness.
Baroness Williams of Crosby: There is reference to a training place on the face of the Bill. Therefore, at least in theory, if a number of training places are available in a particular region, which are still vacant, although it may be that they in no way match the various qualities or capabilities of the person seeking a job, that person could be held responsible for not having taken up that vacant training place.
Lord Inglewood: We come back again to our old friend "good cause". Under those circumstances it seems to me that there is no doubt that the person would have good cause in not pursuing the matter further. Amendment No. 152 would prevent any sanction being imposed unless the place in question was "suitable". The word "suitable" would apparently not be defined further and we do not believe that it adds anything to the provision. As I explained, where some aspect of the training is unreasonable the claimant could argue that he had good cause for his actions. I hope that that answers the noble Baroness's question.
Lord Lyell: Perhaps my noble friend will assist me as to the word "notify" in Amendment No. I52A. Is there a set procedure to follow so that the applicant is notified of any vacancies? I believe that Amendment No. 152A does not change the current climate.
Lord Inglewood: I can confirm to my noble friend that that is the case. To notify somebody implies that they are actually seized of the information which one is trying to transfer to him.
Lord McCarthy: It is quite disgraceful. I should like the Minister to go away and produce evidence. As far as I know there is no evidence whatever that a significant element of compulsion has been a permanent feature of employment administration. Looking at my list, all of the areas in which compulsion operates at present, with the possible exception of YT, were invented by the noble Lord, Lord Young, when he was at the Department of Employment. The continuous cycle of restart and restart was invented by the noble Lord, or he told the department to invent it. There were job clubs and more job clubs. All those provisions were invented in the 1980s, as are the proposals now to extend all that to job plan and workstart. It is a form of busybodying and interference in the problems of the unemployed. That goes back to this Government and no further. Unless I am given absolutely convincing evidence, I

1115
would argue that the element of compulsion starts with this Government. It is a monstrous libel not merely on Labour governments but also on previous Conservative governments to say that there has been a long tradition of compulsion in the Employment Service.
Apart from that, the Minister appears to have no argument at all. He certainly does not try to explain the rising number of disallowances. In fact, he says that there need not be those disallowances. However, the fact is that the number of disallowances has more than doubled in a very short period. The most notable event that has taken place in the Employment Service is a move to compulsion. As a result, there are more disallowances. The Minister has afforded me absolutely no explanation or apology for that. Indeed, he says that somehow it justifies the Government continuing with their actions. Therefore, although it is twenty past nine at night, I cannot agree to withdraw the amendment. I shall divide the Committee.
9.20 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 151) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 18; Not-Contents, 41.

Division No. 2

CONTENTS

Airedale, L.

Lawrence, L.

Carter, L. [Teller.]

McCarthy, L.

Cocks of Hartcliffe, L.

McNair, L.

Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde B.

MonKswell, L.

Redesdale, L.

Desai, L.

Ritchie of Dundee, L.

Falkland, V.

Russell, E.

Farrington of Ribbleton, B.

Seear, B.

Graham of Edmonton, L.

Williams of Crosby, B. [Teller]

Hollis of Heigham, B.

NOT-CONTENTS

Abinger, L.

Inglewood, L.

Addison, V.

Kingsland, L.

Annaly, L.

Leigh, L.

Balfour, E.

Lindsay, E.

Blaker, L.

Long, V. [Teller.]

Blatch, B.

Lucas, L.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Lyell, L.

McCollofDulwich, L.

Carnegy of Lour, B.

Mackay of Ardbrecknish, L.

Carnock, L.

Mackay of Clashfern, L. [Lord Chancellor]

Craigmyle, L.

Marlesford, L.

Cranborne, V. [Lord Privy Seal.]

Miller of Hendon, B.

Northbourne, L.

Denham, L.

Rawlings, B.

Dixon-Smith, L.

Renton, L.

Downshire, M.

Rodger of Earlsfeny, L.

Ferrers, E.

Seccombe, B.

Goschen, V.

Shrewsbury, E.

Henley, L.

Skidelsky, L.

HolmPatrick, L.

Strathclyde, L. [Teller.]

Howe, E.

Trumpington, B.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
9.28 p.m.
[Amendment No. 152 not moved.]
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: As Amendment No. 152A is grouped with the previous one and the previous one was defeated, I think that by the convention and Standing Orders of this Chamber this amendment now falls. The Minister gave no indication when speaking that this was separate from the others. We voted on the first amendment in the group and that fell; therefore the entire group falls.
Earl Russell: I do not think that is correct. The rule is that, if it is consequential upon the first amendment, then it is also carried or defeated as the case may be. I do not think that this is consequential and I do not think either the noble Baroness or the Minister would wish to think that their amendments were consequential upon each other. I think the Standing Order which prevails is that it is always open to—
The Deputy Chairman of Committees: I said that if Amendment No. 151 were agreed to I could not call Amendments Nos. 152 or 152A. Therefore I can now call Amendment No. 152A.
Lord Inglewood Lord Inglewood moved Amendment No. 152A:
Page 14, line 16, leave out ("refused or") and insert ("after a place on such a scheme or programme has been notified to him by an employment officer as vacant or about to become vacant, refused or failed to apply for it or to accept it when offered to him:
( )")
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendments Nos. 153 and 154 not moved.]
9.30 p.m.
Lord Carter Lord Carter moved Amendment No. 155:
Page 15, line 2, at end insert
("( ) prescribe circumstances in which a person is to be regarded as having good cause if he leaves employment to take up caring responsibilities.").
The noble Lord said: With Amendment No. 155 we come to the important question of carers and their connection with the jobseeker's allowance. The purpose of the amendment is to ensure that a person who leaves work because of caring responsibilities will not be treated as having voluntarily left work without just cause and hence disqualified from JSA. The wording may not be perfect, but I believe that the Committee will understand the purpose of the amendment.
I remind the Committee that only last Friday the other place discussed the Carers (Recognition and Services) Bill, a Private Member's Bill which I believe the Government support. In that debate (at col. 426 of Commons Hansard for 21st April) it was pointed out that an estimated 1.5 million carers provide care for 20 hours a week or more and that that caring army of 1.5 million people is a larger labour force in our welfare society than the entire labour force of the National Health Service and the social services departments combined. If the Minister refers in his reply to the public expenditure arguments we should remember the billions of pounds that are saved for the public purse by carers.
I turn now to the detail of the amendment. Many carers are forced to leave work because of the pressure of their caring responsibilities at home. The fear is that, without clear guarantees, those carers may be deemed to have voluntarily left employment and then may be disqualified from JSA. Many people with caring responsibilities try to combine paid work with caring. An estimated 13 per cent. of all individuals in paid employment also have a caring responsibility. There are an estimated 3 million worker carers in the UK. Many working carers are excluded from the figure which was mentioned in the other place or are subsumed in that figure. Many of those working carers face intolerable stresses and strains in trying to combine their paid work with caring. Eventually, the strain can become too much and carers may be forced reluctantly to give up work altogether.
A survey by Caring Costs, an organisation which campaigns for an independent income for carers, showed that 53 per cent. of carers had given up work to care for a relation at home; 50 per cent. of carers who were still working experience increased stress as a result of their caring responsibilities; 28 per cent. said that the quality of their work had also suffered; and 40 per cent. were unsure whether they could combine paid work with caring.
Some carers who give up work to care will still want to be considered as jobseekers, but their claim may be affected if they are considered to have:
"voluntarily left … employment without just cause".
The purpose of the amendment is to find out from the Government whether their claim would be affected.
I am advised that the Carers National Association already receives telephone calls from carers who have been told that they have "left work voluntarily". However, as all the evidence illustrates, there is often no choice for carers who leave work either because they can no longer bear the strain of combining work and caring or their relation's care needs have increased. One has only to think of people caring for relations with Alzheimer's disease, motor neurone disease or other such conditions, to recognise that.
We believe that the Government should give some guarantee that a person who leaves work because of caring responsibilities will not be treated as voluntarily leaving work without just cause. The Carers National Association and Caring Costs have quoted a number of cases which I do not have time to quote but which illustrate extremely well the anxiety which exists on this matter. I hope that when the Minister replies he will be able to give a satisfactory response. I beg to move.
Lord Swinfen: My noble friend may care to reflect on the fact that, if the Committee agrees the amendment, there will be 12 occurrences in this clause alone of the expressions "without good cause" or "without just cause", I 1 of which he himself has drafted.
I strongly support the amendment, bearing in mind the current idea of moving people out of hospital as quickly as possible. Very often a relation at home may have to leave work in order to care for the person
1118
discharged. He or she may need care for some weeks. Once the period of caring is over, the individual will wish to return to work.
For instance, a schizophrenic, or someone who has a debilitating or disabling disease which occurs from time to time with greater or lesser severity, may need imtermittent care. Again, the carer may find that he has to move in and out of work to care for that relation. Another individual may have to care at home for a terminally ill relation, perhaps for an unknown period. It may be wiser to give up the job; alternatively, the firm for which the individual works may not wish him to continue on permanent unpaid leave and may have to get someone else in. The amendment, or some similarly worded provision, is essential.
Lord Inglewood: I appreciate the purpose underlying the amendment, but I can assure the noble Baroness that the amendment is not necessary.
The concepts of good cause and just cause in relation to sanctions are well established. No sanction applies to refusing employment if the claimant had good cause for doing so, and no sanction applies to leaving a job voluntarily if the claimant had just cause for doing so.
The amendment would enable regulations under Clause 16(8) to prescribe circumstances in which a claimant has good cause for leaving employment to take up caring responsibilities. As the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, pointed out, and it is worth reminding the Committee, in leaving voluntarily cases the claimant has to show just cause, rather than good cause, in order to escape a sanction. This has always been a tougher test under Governments from both sides of this House.
It may be sensible to refer only to just cause here. Guidance on just cause is at present contained in case law and the chief adjudication officer's guidance to adjudication officers. Claimants should avoid unnecessarily becoming a charge on the national insurance fund, and should normally seek to secure new employment before leaving their existing job. It has, however, long been recognised that a person's personal or domestic circumstances may become so urgent as to provide just cause for leaving without any regard to the question of other employment. That can, of course, include a sudden need to care for a close relation where there is no one else in the household to undertake the duty. An adjudication officer should consider each case on its merits, but case law already makes it clear that caring responsibilities can constitute just cause for leaving a job. When they do so, the claimant is not subject to a benefit sanction for leaving.
It is important that I point out that those responsibilities may in themselves cause doubts about the claimant's availability for work. People who are not available at all or who have substantial caring commitments are of course not in the labour market and cannot be eligible for JSA; the appropriate benefit for them will be invalid care allowance. There will, however, be other people whose caring responsibilities cause them to restrict the number of hours of work that they can do, but who can still play an effective part in the labour market.

1119
The present rules on restricted availability make no special provision for people in this position. I am, however, pleased to say that for JSA we shall allow people with caring responsibilities to restrict the number of hours for which they are available to less than the normal expectation of a minimum of 40 per week.
Given that explanation, I hope that the noble Lord will agree to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Carter: Before I do so, the Minister used the phrase that the adjudication officer has to be satisfied that,
"there is no one else in the household to undertake the duty",
of care and responsibility. There were cases referred to in another place. Indeed, there was a television programme about the large number of children who act as carers. The responsibilities that they carry at times are quite horrifying.
Will the Minister confirm that the phrase "no one else in the household" will not be taken to mean that if there is a child of 10 or 12 in the household—and there are carers as young as that—the person should lose JSA?
Lord Inglewood: Under those circumstances they would not be included in the household.
Lord Carter: That is extremely helpful. We have it on the record. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord McCarthy Lord McCarthy moved Amendment No. 156:
Page 15, line 3, leave out subsection (9).
The noble Lord said: Amendments Nos. 156 and 156A are grouped together, the first is ours and the second is in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Russell. I shall have to comment on both because in a sense they could be said to go in different directions, although both could go together.
Our Amendment No. 156 is to leave out subsection (9) which states:
"Subject to any regulations under subsection (8), in determining whether a person has, or does not have, good cause or (as the case may be) just cause for any act or omission, any matter relating to the level of remuneration in the employment in question shall be disregarded".
In other words, no applicant or would-be beneficiary could refuse the job on the grounds that the money is too low, however low it may be. We wish to take that out, it is quite unnecessary and I shall say why in a moment.
Presumably the noble Earl's amendment leaves that in and I am not sure what would happen if we were able to omit the subsection. The legislation provides that,
"the level of remuneration in the employment in question shall be disregarded".
Nevertheless, the noble Earl's amendment proposes that:
"regard shall be given, in the light of employment opportunities, to the person's education, training and experience".
I am happy to accept Amendment No. 156A if the Government reject Amendment No. 156, with which I am dealing. If subsection (9) were left in the Bill, as I understand it there is no limit to the kind of offer which could be made to an unemployed person, a jobseeker,
1120
which he could turn down on the grounds of the rate of pay and I accept that it is beyond the prescribed period. However, that cannot be right. It must be wrong to say that a person cannot turn down a job with an hourly rate below that of the JSA or lower than the hourly rate of the hardship allowance, if we work it out, or the lowest rate of income support, or any rate at all. What about a rate of 5p an hour? That cannot be right. Surely the Government do not mean that the level of remuneration after the prescribed period can be totally disregarded in deciding whether or not the offer of a job is reasonable. I beg to move.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees: In calling Amendment No. 156 I should have reminded the Committee that if that amendment is agreed to, I cannot call Amendments Nos. 156A or 157.
Earl Russell: I hasten to reassure the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, that it is purely a matter of inadvertence that my name is not to his amendment. I intend to support it now. I do not intend to move Amendment No. 156A which I believe we agree is simply appalling.
Amendment No. 156 has got it right. First, the Government frequently tell us that they believe in a free market, but if there is to be any kind of free market one cannot have captive labour. That is what we have here. If labour is to be forced to take jobs at wages however low the employers choose to put them, we are preventing a free market from operating. That seems to me rather a mistake. If there is to be a lack of freedom in the market, it ought to apply to both sides, not just one.
Secondly, the Government are pickling a financial rod for their own back. We have a system of in-work benefits which is right, but it creates an incentive for the employer to push wages lower and lower in the hope that in-work benefits will make up the difference. It creates an invitation for the employer to free-load on the state. In a competitive world, people are subject to these pressures and may occasionally respond to them. The Government may find that this provision costs them a great deal more than they think it will. That is rather unwise.
Finally, even if the Minister cannot go any further, I hope that he can give us an assurance that people will not be required to take jobs which pay commission only. If you are looking for a job and you find work in, let us say, telesales, you may be under a very heavy pressure of commission incentive payments. One really ought not to force people to sweat their hearts out for a return of, if they are lucky, £1 or £2 a week, in a country which prides itself on some sort of freedom, both economic and political. I hope to hear that the Minister agrees.
9.45 p.m.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: I speak from knowledge of a part of the country, Lancashire, where there is a very high incidence of low pay. Low pay is determined by government in terms of the need to supplement people's incomes.
In coastal resorts such as Blackpool advertisements are frequently seen for jobs in which, for a 40-hour week, people are offered less than £100. A case was

1121
cited today at a council meeting of a job requiring a mature person with experience, for a 40-hour week, offering £70. This sort of instance is bound to multiply if people are forced into such jobs.
I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that there comes a point where such jobs amount to slave labour. If the Minister argues that that will not be the case, he must then indicate what safeguard there is, what financial hurdle there is below which the jobseeker cannot be required to go.
In a reply at Question Time the other day, the Minister said (I believe these were his words) that there was no relationship between the income that people obtain from the jobs that are available and their ability to sustain their specific family circumstances. But surely it is essential that employers do not exploit people. As the noble Earl, Lord Russell, said, the situation is that people are now being forced into employment. In some parts of the country people will be particularly vulnerable. Sections of people are unemployed through no fault of their own but because the industry in which they work is one that has not yet recovered from the recession. An example is the construction industry. I hope that the Minister will be able to indicate that the Government accept the level that is set within this amendment as an absolute minimum.
Lord Inglewood: This amendment, as was described, would remove Clause 16(9) which states that, except as prescribed, the level of remuneration cannot constitute a reason for matters such as turning down a job offer or leaving a job voluntarily. It would enable an adjudication officer to take the level of remuneration into account, determining for example whether a claimant had a good cause for refusing particular employment.
In fact, the Bill simply carries forward current provisions. The Benefits Act already provides that the level of remuneration cannot normally be adduced as good cause for refusing a job. The Government introduced this provision following the radical overhaul in 1988 of the benefits available to people in full-time work. Those benefits—family credit, housing benefit, council tax benefit, disability working allowance—enabled the great majority of people to be better off in work than remaining unemployed. Ministers provided worked examples to the committee in another place which clearly demonstrate that that is so.
This amendment seems to ignore the effect of in-work benefits. It is illogical for someone to be able to rely solely on the level of pay in a job as the reason for refusing to take it. Levels of pay take no account of family circumstances. In-work benefits do. The amendment would allow people with large families to trap themselves in unemployment indefinitely.
The 1994 IFS study showed no evidence that family credit influences wage levels. It helps over half a million families a week and has improved incentives significantly. That does not mean that we claim that the level of pay is completely irrelevant. The Bill contains two separate safeguards. First, we are carrying forward the concept of the permitted period. We believe that newly-unemployed people should be given a reasonable
1122
chance to return to their former type of work. Therefore, the Bill provides that people with a usual occupation have a permitted period of up to 13 weeks during which they cannot only refuse any other type of work, but also work in their usual occupation that pays less than they used to receive. Secondly, we have written into the Bill that the refusal of employment sanction can operate only if the job has been notified to the claimant by the employment officer. Ministers have made it quite clear that the Employment Service will not set out to offer people inappropriate jobs.
It is also the case that claimants cannot expect to hold out indefinitely for a level of pay that may simply be unrealistic, given their length of unemployment. As time goes on they will need to lower their expectations or they may be trapped in unemployment indefinitely. I hope and believe that these safeguards offer adequate protection. For those reasons I must oppose this amendment.
Lord McCarthy: Because it is late at night, or perhaps because the Minister has lost a piece of paper, what has been said is appalling. He has not given any answer. To refer back to 1988 is not a justification. What he means is that it has been going on for a long time, and it is dreadful. If it is said that there is no limit on what an unemployed person can say he will not accept after the prescribed period, that is appalling. To say that it has been going on since 1988 is no justification. We may as well say that we have been shooting them since 1988. If I hear him right, I think he says as much.
The Minister said that the benefits Act could not normally take levels of pay into account; in other words, exceptionally it did. Therefore, awful though it has been since 1988, it is not as awful as it is going to be. As I understand it, the clause says that it "shall be" disregarded, not "normally" disregarded. The Minister also talks about family circumstances and in-work benefit. What does that have to do with it? If he said that if there was sufficient in-work benefit and suitable family circumstances it would not be taken into account, he would not have much of a case but he would have a bit of a case. But the clause says "shall be disregarded", whether one has family or any other circumstances.
The fact is that they do not have any answer but they have no shame. One can think of dozens of examples. For example, one may have kids who are employed as waiters and are paid nothing but scruffy tips. Is that perfectly all right? If that happens and somebody says that he will not just be a waiter and get scruffy old tips, will he be told that he will have no JSA? Kids knock on my door to sell me pieces of rubbish. I have to buy it because they look so pathetic. Is that all right? I do not know whether or not they get any money, but as long as they get a farthing that will do. If they do not take that job they will have no JSA. This situation is absolutely appalling, and we will come back to this matter on Report. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 156A not moved.]
Baroness Hollis of Heigham Baroness Hollis of Heigham moved Amendment No. 157:
Page 15, line 6, at end insert ("; provided that the level of remuneration is at least equivalent to the level of jobseeker's allowance payable")
The noble Baroness said: Amendment No. 157 pursues the same issue. However, in this case, to use a favourite phrase of the Government, the amendment is more precisely targeted on the issue of the interface with JSA allowances. It is not unreasonable to ask people, as part of a jobseeker's agreement, for what wage they are willing to work. We accept that that is a relevant piece of information. What is not reasonable is to deny people jobseeker's allowance on the grounds that the wage for which they are willing to work would make them worse off than they would be if they were on benefit.
The Government have repeatedly said—we heard it again on the last amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy—that the level of pay is not a good reason for refusing work. I can only ask the Minister, given the examples quoted by my noble friends Lady Farrington and Lord McCarthy, what world they live in. What world do they live in? We are not talking about unrealistic pay expectations. Nobody is saying that it is reasonable to say, "I will only work for £20,000 a year" and that that is a reason for not accepting any job which pays less. The Government are telling us that it is entirely reasonable to accept a job which, by the Government's definition, pays below the poverty line—and a very low poverty line it is.
I accept—the Minister reminded us of it earlier tonight—that for those with children there is the in-work bonus of family credit. It is obviously right that those with children, who therefore need a higher income than those without children, should not thereby be priced out of the labour market. But, what we are doing there is helping them not by subsidising their wages (which would be quite improper) but subsidising the additional cost of having children, just as we do with child benefit, because that is a social responsibility. We are not asking them to price themselves out of the market in competition with single men and women.
We know that the Minister will tell us about the proposed piloting in some places of in-work benefit for childless people. We have already expressed reservations on that. But, at the moment, those without children (both single people and couples) have the alternative of income support and related benefits to low waged work. But they will not have it any more—not after this Bill has been passed. Wages have been falling, and the abolition of the wages councils has removed the checks on that, along with the growth of part-time jobs, commission-only jobs and the pay of those under 25. We know, and my noble friend Baroness Dean reminded the Committee of it much earlier, that 1 million people now earn less than £2.50 an hour. We know that 300,000 people earn less than £1.50 an hour. A Manchester study last year showed that 50 per cent. of all jobs advertised in the local Jobcentres—I repeat 50 per cent.—paid less than £100 a week. Across the country, a third of those jobs advertised in Jobcentres paid less than £57 a week, which is the point at which one starts to pay the national insurance contribution.
On top of that is the fact that rents, council tax, fuel costs and the like have not been falling while wages have been falling. So, those very low wages for those with children have had to be topped up with additional payments from housing benefit and council tax benefit. But at least until now income support served as a basic floor below which wages could not descend because the choice remained with the unemployed whether to accept a job or income support. It was a threshold below which wages could not fall.
If people are required to work for wages below income support and associated benefits, especially if you ensure the prospect that wages will be topped up by the state, the situation becomes very simple: employers can pitch wages wherever they wish, knowing that the state will pick up the bill and subsidise their wages for them. The Minister shakes his head but that is absolutely right. That is why it is so pernicious. At the same time that the Minister is privatising public responsibilities and passing them on to business, such as sickness and related problems, the Government are nationalising what should be a private or commercial responsibility; namely, the payment of wages. It is quite remarkable.
Why do the Government believe that the cost of in-work benefits has doubled in the past four years and now stands at £2.4 billion? One in 50 of the workforce now claims in-work benefits such as family credit. One in seven of those in catering, cleaning and hairdressing—the old wages council industries—now claim family credit. With the abolition of wages council industries those jobs no longer pay a living wage. It is quite remarkable. Here are the Government seeking to save £140 million in cuts in JSA while at the same time transposing costs onto other in-work benefits such as family credit, which will cost us all as taxpayers infinitely more than the Government will save in their costs through the Jobseekers Bill. They are willing to throw public money at employers to allow them to cut wages where they will. Instead of a problem of a dependency on benefits out of work, we will have created a new problem of dependency on benefits in work.
This policy of the Government's can only be justified on two grounds: first, where the employer really needs to face additional costs or needs subsidy to take on particular groups of working people. He may need help with aids for the physically handicapped. He may need help with a recognition of low productivity for those with learning disabilities. He may need a bonus to coax the long-term unemployed into work. We accept that there can be special circumstances and we do not object to that.
The second reason is to lower wage levels to increase the total supply of jobs available and thus take more people off social security. Is this second reason valid? There is no evidence for that and much evidence to the contrary. All that happens is labour substitution. No more people are employed but cheaper people may be employed, as has happened with compulsory competitive tendering. Because they are dissatisfied with work and pay conditions, there is a rapid turnover and there is no incentive to train them or keep them. Indeed, the Low Pay Unit found that employment in hotels actually fell after the wages councils were

1125
abolished. Overall, the number of jobs covered by the former wages councils has fallen by 18,000 between September 1993 and March 1994.
The argument of labour substitution and increased competition does not generate more jobs. It simply generates more profits for employers to distribute to shareholders and in options. All the evidence from Europe is that without a minimum wage to underpin the job market the Government are throwing taxpayers' money at the employer as an invitation for him to put wages where he will, knowing that the taxpayer will pick up the rest of the bill. If this week, this month and this year we are cutting JSA, the next Bill we will have to pass, because the Government will require it, is one to cap in-work benefits, which will have escalated, much to the Government's surprise, because of the workings of this one.
We object because the Bill will either push up DSS benefits or, if one cannot claim those benefits because of the 16 or 24-hour rule, it will require the single person or the couple to live well below the poverty level. Neither of those options—desperate poverty or a wage bill subsidised by the taxpayer—is acceptable. Of a pernicious Bill, this is one of the most pernicious aspects of the entire jobseeker's allowance. I beg to move.
10 p.m.
Earl Russell: When the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, was replying to the last amendment and was talking about being compelled on pain of losing JSA to live on scruffy tips, I was very much encouraged to see the Minister shake his head. Perhaps I may invite him to put on record the reasons why he shook his head and whether those will cover the question of commission only, about which I asked him.
The point that the noble Baroness made about the lower earnings limit in national insurance is particularly important. Just as in-work benefits without a floor under wages are a financial laxity for any government, so forcing people to take jobs which pay below the lower earnings limit for national insurance is a financial swollen throat so bad that it is impossible to swallow.
When we looked at the statement about the Public Sector Borrowing Requirement last month, it was interesting to note that what was falling short was not spending rising faster than expected, but revenues not rising as fast as expected. I have a Question for Written Answer asking under what headings that shortfall happened. The point which the noble Baroness has made prompts me to ask the Minister whether he will look at the Answer to that Question and see how much of the shortfall is in national insurance. How much of that shortfall is the direct result of government policy?
Lord Inglewood: It seems to us that the amendment is based on the belief that the Bill is designed to force people into work that would leave them worse off than staying unemployed. In fact, as I described before, the Bill simply carries forward the current provisions under Section 28(5) of the Benefits Act which I have already mentioned.
1126
We have heard a considerable amount of hypothesis from the noble Baroness opposite. I wish to reiterate what I said during the debate on the previous amendment that the 1994 IFS study showed no evidence that family credit influences wage levels. That is important because it cuts at the basis of a very great deal of what the noble Baroness argued for. Equally—
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: The reason that family credit affects wage levels is that the person with children may very well be in competition with someone who can turn to income support. At present where that is not the case their wages will be pushed down and family credit will have to pick up the strain.
Lord Inglewood: I do not accept that. Let us have some economics from our side of the Committee. If we are to pay people they have to earn it and that can only be done with competitive business. That is the key to ensuring that we get a decent standard of living throughout the country which is as high as we can possibly make it. When one considers take-home pay in this country and the cost of living is taken into account, take-home pay in the United Kingdom is among the highest in Europe. The take-home pay for the bottom 10 per cent. of full-time wage distribution is now 23 per cent. higher in real terms for a single man than in 1979. It fell by 1 per cent. under Labour. The important point here is that we must have an effective labour market.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: What about the bottom 10 per cent.?
Lord Inglewood: Perhaps I may continue. We must have an effective labour market because that is what will achieve the desired improvement in our economic performance. That is one of the fundamental principles behind the Bill. Let us not forget that we have to go back and look at the context in which this matter is set. We are talking about Clause 16(9). A great deal of what has been referred to by Members of the Committee in talking about pay flows much wider than pay and goes to the very heart of the job itself. If the circumstances described are sufficiently severe to fall within the scope of good cause and just cause, then it is perfectly reasonable for the person concerned to refuse the job.
As I said earlier, one cannot expect to continue looking indefinitely for a job doing the kind of thing originally wanted, at the level of pay desired. One must widen the job search.
Lord McCarthy: Is the noble Lord saying that, despite what is on the face of the Bill about totally disregarding pay after the permitted period, somehow he has found somewhere in the Bill where one can say, "I shall not take a job because the money is too low"?
Lord Inglewood: No. The kinds of things which were being described went much further than that, did they not? If it is unreasonable for someone to take that job then the good cause/just cause provisions come into play.
Lord McCarthy: This whole arrangement, which is insupportable, must be an arrangement which does not include pay because pay has been taken out. But there cannot be a whole arrangement if pay has been taken out.
Lord Inglewood: Pay is the amount of money that we are talking about, but there are also the terms and conditions of the job. Some of the examples that have been given may have had a bearing on pay, such as if someone is working on a commission-only basis, but it is not merely a question of pay. Other matters are involved—
Lord McCarthy: So is the noble Lord saying that you can refuse a job because it is too dark and too smelly and because you cannot get your bike in, but you cannot refuse a job because the pay is bad?
Lord Inglewood: No. The noble Lord seems deliberately to be misunderstanding the point that I was making. As I made clear in responding to the previous amendment, the Employment Service will not set out to offer people inappropriate jobs. If the job is inappropriate, it is perfectly in order for the person concerned to refuse it.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: Will the Minister clarify one point? If you are a single person or a couple without children and therefore do not qualify for family credit and no in-work additional top-up will be available, is it appropriate to refuse a job which pays you less than you are currently living on when on JSA? Yes or no?
Lord Inglewood: No, I am not going to give a straight answer to that—
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: We bet you're not!
Lord Inglewood:—because a whole variety of other circumstances have a bearing on the matter.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: What other circumstances would have a bearing on a pay level which is below income support?
Lord Inglewood: The noble Baroness refers to a series of hypothetical situations and is giving incomplete examples—
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: No!
Lord Inglewood: Yes you are! Like the amendments that we have just been discussing, this amendment ignores the effect of in-work benefits and the safeguards that are contained in the Bill which I have already described at some length. For that reason, I urge your Lordships to oppose it.
Earl Russell: Now that the Minister has sat down, this is a point of considerable importance and I think that we are entitled to ask for clarification. The Minister said that the Employment Service will not make people take inappropriate jobs. That must mean jobs which appear to the Employment Service to be inappropriate. The Employment Service, like the rest of us, is not infallible. If the Employment Service is going to judge appropriateness, we need to understand the criteria that
1128
it will use. Is it or is it not the case that one could refuse to take a job because the pay is too low or, in a commission-only case, because there is no pay at all?
I should like to ask the Minister one other question which would enable me not to speak to my other amendment. It relates to part-time work. A person may be required to take a job which lasts for fewer than 40 hours a week. How many fewer? I understand that the present law specifies 24 hours. Is that going to remain the case or is it not?
I have another point of considerable importance on which I should like to dwell for a moment while the process of osmosis takes place. Many people may be penalised for refusing to take part-time jobs which pay a very small amount of money because of benefit penalties which are a very great deal greater than the amount of money that they would have received from the job. That appears to me to be a rather excessive punishment and, whenever the Minister is in a position to do so, I should be extremely grateful if he could reply to my questions.
Lord Inglewood: The effect of current regulations is that people are not subject to sanction for refusing an offer of employment or for neglecting to avail themselves of a reasonable opportunity of employment if the employment concerned is for fewer than 24 hours a week. I can assure the Committee that the Government intend to continue that broad approach. People who refuse work that takes up fewer than 24 hours a week will not normally be subject to sanction. I hope that that gives a general reply to the noble Earl's question.
Turning to the other matters, the Employment Service operates in a reasonable manner—that is axiomatic to the debate—and, as I have already mentioned, it is not going to bring forward jobs which it considers inappropriate.
We have discussed many hypothetical examples which have not been fully fleshed out. While we may disagree about what would be inappropriate or reasonable, without having a full description of such cases it will not be constructive for me to try to give the Committee any lead about it. I dare say that in certain respects there is an unbridgeable gulf between us. Nonetheless, I urge the Committee to reject the amendment.
10.15 p.m.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: I have two points to raise. First, the Minister seems to think that he has said something significant when he dismisses an argument as being hypothetical, or dealing with a hypothesis. What the Minster calls a hypothesis is what we are trying to predict will be the consequences of the legislation. To refuse to discuss that is to take his legislation out of the real world and away from the people it will affect, and to deal with it—if I may use the term perhaps inappropriately—in an academic sense.
This is a Bill which will affect real people. We seek to predict some of the consequences of the legislation. Whenever we do so, the Minister, in desperation, uses the word "hypothetical". Of course it is hypothetical. It must be hypothetical because the Bill is not yet law, thank God! But when it is, it will affect real people. It will not be hypothetical. We fear that many of the things

1129
we have predicted will come to pass, therefore I hope that the Minister will not regard the word "hypothesis" as taking the argument one step further, but will try instead to address the issue.
We accept entirely that there may be people, and there were people, with children who can accept a wage that may be below, say, income support level, because it will be topped up by family credit. The Minister said that is not a real problem, because there are in-work benefits. But the case I put to him excluded such people. I am talking about a single person, or a couple, without children, not entitled to any in-work benefits such as family credit. Is the Minister saying that as part of the JSA such people should accept a job which pays below JSA level, knowing that they will be worse off? We must push the Minister on that point. Will a single person, or a couple, who will not receive a family credit in-work benefit be required to accept a job that pays less than the JSA? Should such people willingly make themselves financially worse off?
Will the Minister please answer that simple question? It is not difficult. It was asked in the other place on many occasions. The Minister well knows what the question is. So far the Minister has regularly ducked, weaved and failed to answer it. We, and the people outside, are entitled to that explanation. Are they expected to work at a wage below the poverty level of income support, knowing that it cannot be topped up by family credit if they do not have children?
Lord Inglewood: I merely reiterate what I said before. No one should be allowed to hold out indefinitely for a given level of pay. The noble Baroness gives examples which she says are not hypothetical, and yet they are hypothetical because we are not changing current provision. She has not given a concrete example from the current arrangements. We do not believe it appropriate to insert minimum wage levels in this provision. It is clear that there is a gulf between us.
Lord Swinfen: I do not know whether my noble friend is aware that in the selling of cars in the motor industry there are a number of jobs with no salary, just commission. At certain times there is little likelihood of commission, because the newest person in will be the most junior who will not have built up a client base of his own. There will also be the temptation for employers to take on people at salaries lower than the state will pay.
I am sure that my noble friend realises that no one will be willing to accept a job paying less than the state will pay on benefit, because the person probably cannot afford it. He may well have a mortgage and commitments of one kind or another, all of which need to be taken into account. There are questions arising not just from the car industry but in other industries where the commission can be hefty, but it may be many months before one earns commission.
Lord Inglewood: The point about in-work benefits is that they are designed to make people better off than they would be if they were dependent wholly on the state. That is a crucial characteristic which cuts across the argument which my noble friend is making in that
1130
regard. As I said, we do not believe that it is appropriate to insert into this provision a minimum wage level. Therefore, that gulf exists between us.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: Will the Minister please tell us to which in-work benefits a single person or a childless couple may be entitled, apart from housing and council tax benefits?
Lord Swinfen: Perhaps my noble friend will agree to consider this matter between now and the next stage. I am sure that Members on all sides of the Committee wish him to do that. He does not have to commit himself to anything but surely he will agree to consider the matter with his advisers.
Lord Inglewood: I shall certainly give the matter consideration but our position is very clear. We do not believe that it is appropriate to include in the Bill any form of minimum remuneration level.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: Will the Minister answer my question? Which benefits are available to a single person or a childless couple? Which benefits does the Minister have in mind?
Lord Inglewood: Very few people in that category are worse off in work, but we have plans to pilot a new benefit for that group, as the noble Baroness knows.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: I know that there may be pilot schemes in some areas but other people outside those areas will not be eligible for that benefit. Will the Minister please answer my question? To which benefits will a single person or a childless couple in work be entitled?
Lord Inglewood: I have already replied to the noble Baroness.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: The Minister has done many things but he has not replied. At the end of this debate the Minister is accepting that he has no answer. From a sedentary position the other Minister says that he has an answer but we do not like it. The answer that we have been given is that a single person or a childless couple shall be required, may be required, or can be required to accept a wage for a job which is below the jobseekers' allowance. The Minister then says that to his surprise we do not like that answer.
The two Ministers should be ashamed of that answer. It is all right for us because we are all here. But the Ministers are saying that people out there without children may be required to work for a wage which even the Government recognise is below poverty levels and below income support levels. They then have the gall to say that there is a difference between us and that we are being unreasonable in failing to accept those answers.
That is truly, truly pernicious. I would use stronger language but parliamentary conventions prevent my doing so. I should be surprised if Members of the Committee can sleep comfortably tonight if they are willing to allow people to work for a wage below income support levels. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham Baroness Hollis of Heigham moved Amendment No. 157A:
Page 15, line 7, at end insert:
("() "employment" means employment of 24 hours or more per week in either employed earners employment or self-employment.").
The noble Baroness said: The amendment was referred to by the noble Earl, Lord Russell, earlier, even though it was not grouped with his amendment. It relates to the 24-hour rule. We would like assurances from the Minister regarding two situations. First, we would like to know whether those currently unemployed and seeking full-time work but who refuse part-time work will be sanctioned if they refuse part-time work of under 24 hours. Secondly, if someone gives up part-time work of under 24 hours, we would like to know whether he or she can be sanctioned. The Minister said that we are dealing in hypotheticals. Perhaps I may tell him about a case reported by the CAB. It concerns an unemployed man in his late 50s in Yorkshire who was doing a paper round for £5 a week which he was allowed to keep without jeopardising benefit because it was part of the disregard of income support. The man gave up the paper round because of bad weather during the winter. He had his benefit sanctioned by £18.30 for giving up a £5 a week newspaper round. That was a genuine case produced by the CAB; it is not a hypothetical one. It relates to something that already happens.
If the Government propose to sanction people for giving up part-time work, such people would be very wise not to accept that work. In the process they may fail to do what Members on both sides of the Committee wish them to do; namely, to regain access to the labour market. Therefore, can the Minister reassure us that those currently unemployed and seeking full-time work but who refuse work of under 24 hours' duration will not be sanctioned and that those currently in part-time work of under 24 hours will also not be sanctioned if they stop such work. I beg to move.
Lord Inglewood: As I explained previously, the effect of current regulations is that people are not subject to sanction for refusing an offer of employment or for neglecting to avail themselves of a reasonable opportunity of employment if the employment concerned is for fewer than 24 hours a week. I can assure the noble Baroness that the Government intend to continue that broad approach. People who refuse work of less than 24 hours a week will not normally be subject to sanctions.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: In view of the Minister's response, I am happy to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 158 and 159 not moved.]
Clause 16, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 17 [Exemptions from section 16]:
[Amendments Nos. 160 to 164 not moved.]
Clause 17 agreed to.
Clause 18 agreed to.
Lord Northbourne Lord Northbourne moved Amendment No. 164A:
After Clause 18, insert the following new clause:
("Carers of children under the age of two
For the purposes of this Act no person who is a mother nursing her child or a parent with the main caring responsibility for a child under two years of age shall be required to seek for, or to accept, employment other than the employment of caring for his or her child in order to qualify for the jobseekers allowance.").
The noble Lord said: I must apologise to Members of the Committee for the fact that I was not able to be present at Second Reading. However, I believe that the amendment, which is a probing amendment, raises a point of importance about which we need to have information regarding the Government's intentions.
There is substantial and increasing evidence to show that the quality of parenting in the first two years of a child's life is extremely important for emotional stability and for the child's sense of self-worth. Without them, children tend to have problems when they go to school and they also have problems with their personal relationships. That can, and very often does, lead to disruptive behaviour, problems of truanting, juvenile crime and so on; and, indeed, poor job prospects in the future. Therefore, it is very costly to the state and to society for children not to have an appropriate start in life.
There is also growing evidence that bonding between a child and its mother or surrogate mother, which may include the father, takes place in the first weeks of a child's life. The sense of predictability, security and love which a bonded relationship with a parent, or with a surrogate parent, gives to a child is fundamental to that child's successful rearing. All but the best childcare is a poor substitute for the latter; but the best childcare can, of course, be an appropriate substitute.
Caring for a one year-old or a two year-old child is a tough job. Giving each child a good start in life is surely an enormously important job for society and yet many mothers and fathers want to do it. This amendment does not force any mother or father to stay at home and look after their child; it merely enables them to do so without suffering a penalty if they want to do so. This amendment is gender neutral although I have taken the risk of suggesting that breast feeding would probably be undertaken by the mother. It would be perverse if this Government, who claim to care about children and about families, were to prevent parents, through economic sanctions, from giving their children the parenting they need through the functioning of this legislation. I beg to move.
10.30 p.m.
Baroness Williams of Crosby: I rise to support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, for reasons additional to those he has already given, which I share. This is a group of jobseekers for whom it is particularly difficult to meet the directions that may be associated with a jobseeker's agreement. Any mother of a young child knows how difficult it is to move by public transport from one area to another carrying or dragging young children after one. The person concerned may not easily be able to get care from other quarters. It is often difficult to arrange

1133
childcare to meet the requirements of a job, especially if childcare or nursery arrangements simply do not fit in with the hours of that job. It is difficult to take night work and it is difficult to take weekend work. There are many difficulties that arise for parents of young children in this regard.
In addition to the arguments put forward so eloquently by the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, there is a whole set of other arguments as regards parents of young children and their problems with meeting directions under a jobseeker's agreement, unless we have a full assurance from the Minister that no such directions will be made that are incompatible with caring for children of a young age. I do not think that it will be easy to do that. Therefore I suggest that the Government might want to look sympathetically at this amendment and the spirit in which it has been moved.
Lord Carter: There is a point as regards this amendment which we can discuss. It would be helpful if the Minister can clarify this when he replies. I think I am correct in saying that the current position is that a mother with a working partner, or no partner, is given 24 hours' notice in which to take up a job offer, and therefore would have to have the childcare lined up in preparation for being offered a job, and she could well be asked about this by the Employment Service adviser. This would be particularly unsatisfactory with regard to a child under two years of age, as the mother or the responsible parent may not have a trusted child minder or a relative with whom to leave such a young child at 24 hours' notice. It would be helpful if the Minister could reply to that point.
Lord Inglewood: Let me assure the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, who is prominent in this field as vice chairman of the all-parliamentary group on parenting, and has been very much involved in establishing the Parenting Forum for parenting, education and support, that we recognise the role people with caring responsibilities can play in the labour market and that we have taken this into account in drawing up the JSA proposals. I cannot stress strongly enough, however, that JSA is for jobseekers and it is important that all unemployed people claiming JSA can fulfil the labour market conditions. This is an underlying principle of any unemployment benefit. In order to receive JSA, jobseekers will have to be able and willing to participate in the labour market.
In order to receive JSA, claimants will have to be available for and actively seeking employment. For the first time we are introducing an easement of the availability rule for jobseekers with caring responsibilities. We will set out in regulations that people with caring responsibilities will be able to restrict the hours of their availability because of these responsibilities. Carers will also, as will all jobseekers, be able to place restrictions on their availability, in terms of the location or type of work, provided that they still retain reasonable prospects of securing employment. I think that goes a long way to answering the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Carter.
1134
It is essential that jobseekers should actively look for employment while they are in receipt of JSA. We recognise that all jobseekers are individuals and should be treated as such. Each individual will have different circumstances and it is important to reflect in legislation that different steps may be appropriate and reasonable in different situations. That applies to carers as it does to others.
Perhaps I may reassure noble Lords about our intention that, as now, a determination as to whether someone has met the actively seeking employment condition must be taken with regard to all the circumstances of the case, including caring responsibilities. One has to be actively seeking work, but in a way which may be different from the general case because of the caring responsibilities.
I should like to reassure the Committee that we value very highly the contribution made by parents who choose to devote their time to raising their children. We encourage flexible working patterns that enable parents to raise their children and participate in the labour market.
There is a wide range of benefits available for parents with caring responsibilities for very young children, including statutory maternity pay, child benefit and income support for lone parents. Let me make it clear that, where a lone parent claims income support, he or she will not be required to be available for or actively seeking work. Where a couple have children and one or both of the partners works, family credit is available for families with earnings below a certain level. These benefits recognise that families with children face additional costs compared with other families.
I hope that that reassures the noble Lord and that he will withdraw the amendment.
Lord Carter: Before the noble Lord decides what to do with the amendment, can the Minister answer directly the question that I put to him? Is it the case that a mother with a working partner or no partner has to have a child minder lined up so that if she is offered a job she can take it up at 24 hours' notice?
Lord Inglewood: Yes, it is.
Lord Northbourne: I am grateful to the noble Lord for that reply. I wonder whether the noble Lord has ever tried looking after a one year-old child alone. Does he suggest that that is not a job?
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: That is hypothetical.
Lord Inglewood: I believe that we can say with confidence that it is not; after all, we are all here. This is a matter of the definition of "actively seeking work" and being "available for work" which we went into at some length on a previous occasion. I do not say that because the noble Lord was not present.
Lord Northbourne: In that case, I think the noble Lord is saying that one has to be seeking paid work. Therefore, the effect of the scheme will be that the parent will have to seek paid work away from the home

1135
and then somebody else will seek the job of being the carer. That seems to me to be remarkably daft and certainly not in the best interests of the child.
Lord Inglewood: The key point about the JSA is that the first priority of the jobseeker is to get a job. JSA is for jobseekers. It is important that all those who claim JSA, including those with care responsibilities, are available for and actively seeking employment. For those who do not want to seek employment there is the income support system, which stands in parallel. That is the important distinction here. This Bill relates to people who want to seek work. In the "available for work" and "actively seeking work" conditions, special provisions are being introduced for carers.
Lord Northbourne: I am grateful to the noble Lord. I suggest that looking after a one year-old child is employment. However, I should like to consider the legislation and possibly to bring the matter back at the next stage. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Schedule 1 [Supplementary Provisions]:
Lord Swinfen Lord Swinfen had given notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 165:
Page 32, line 40, at end insert:
("( ) for occupational or personal pensions to be disregarded, in the case of a disabled person.").
The noble Lord said: As it is late, I shall leave this matter until the next stage.
[Amendment No, 165 not moved.]
[Amendments Nos. 166 and 167 not moved.]
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish moved Amendment No. 167A:
Page 33, line 5, at end insert:
("Claims yet to be determined and suspended payments
.—(1) In such circumstances as may be prescribed, a claimant may be treated as being entitled to an income-based jobseeker's allowance before his claim for a jobseeker's allowance has been determined.
(2) In such circumstances as may be prescribed, an income-based jobseeker's allowance shall be payable to a claimant even though payment to him of a jobseeker's allowance has been suspended by virtue of regulations under section 5(1) (n) of the Administration Act.
(3) A jobseeker's allowance shall only be payable by virtue of sub-paragraph (1) or (2) if the claimant has complied with such requirements as to the provision of information as may be prescribed for the purposes of this paragraph.
(4) Regulations may make provision for a jobseeker's allowance payable by virtue of sub-paragraph (1) or (2) to be—

(a) payable at a prescribed rate;

(b) payable for a prescribed period;

(c) treated as being a contribution-based jobseeker's allowance for the purposes of section 5 of this Act.

(5) Regulations may make provision—

(a) for the recovery, by prescribed means and in prescribed circumstances, of the whole or part of any amount paid by virtue of sub-paragraph (1) or (2);

(b) for the whole or part of any amount paid by virtue of sub-paragraph (1) to be treated, if an award is made on the claim referred to there, as having been paid on account of the jobseeker's allowance awarded;

1136

(c) for the whole or part of any amount paid by virtue of sub-paragraph (2) to be treated, if the suspension referred to there is lifted, as having been paid on account of the suspended allowance.").

The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 167A makes good a deficiency in the Bill. The Bill as it currently stands allows hardship payments to be made only once a decision has actually been made on whether the claimant meets the labour market conditions. As we have discussed on a number of occasions, we wish to extend protection to vulnerable groups during the decision-making process by making hardship payments available to them pending a decision on their entitlement, and to all claimants if the decision-making process lasts more than two weeks.
The amendment allows for reduced-rate income-based JSA to be paid to claimants during all or part of the adjudication process. At the beginning of the claim that will be where the adjudication officer is deciding on whether the claimant is available for work or actively seeking work, or on the terms of a jobseeker's agreement.
If the claim is already running, subparagraph (2) allows for payments to be made if a question arises during a claim over the claimant's availability for work, or on whether he is actively seeking work and benefit has been suspended.
The amendment fulfils our commitment to make provision for hardship payments during the decision-making process. I recognise that our intentions for the use of the regulation-making powers do not go so far as some noble Lords would like, but I hope that they will nevertheless support the amendment which will be used to regulate for payments to all claimants in vulnerable groups throughout the period of adjudication, and to other claimants after the initial two weeks. I beg to move.
Baroness Williams of Crosby: I ask only one question. The amendment goes a little way towards meeting some of the points raised. Can he say a few words on subsection (5) (a) which provides,
"for the recovery, by prescribed means and in prescribed circumstances"?
Is it widely envisaged that these sums will be recovered subsequent to the claimant receiving work?
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: I discussed the matter in relation to an earlier amendment. I said that the question of recovery did not have a very good history. It is difficult to administer. At the time I believe that I suggested—I cannot remember the terms—that we should not pay on account and try to claw it back.
It is difficult to administer. It is not easy. We do not like to do that if we can possibly avoid it.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Carter Lord Carter moved Amendment No. 168:
Page 33, line 19, leave out ("or not responsible").
The noble Lord said: This is a simple probe. It would be helpful if the Minister can assist us. The purpose of the amendment is to seek an answer from the Government. The income support regulations were amended, under the equivalent power in Section 137 of

1137
the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act, so as to treat the parent in receipt of child benefit as being responsible for the child and no one else being so responsible. That means that the other parent who is not "responsible" cannot obtain benefit for the child during any period—I refer to school holidays, the sickness of the responsible parent, or other circumstances which all of us as parents can envisage—that he or she has the child living with him or her because the "responsible" parent is unable to look after the child.
It would be helpful to hear whether our understanding of the situation is correct. I beg to move.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: I am happy to explain this provision. It is not new. It carries forward provisions currently contained in Section 137(2) (m) of the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992. As in many areas of this Bill, we intend to make the same use of the power as is currently made in income support.
The regulations will largely cover those cases where a child or young person spends part of the week with each parent. In these cases, income-based JSA in respect of the child will normally be paid in full to the partner receiving child benefit, regardless of the number of days the child or young person spends with each parent. I believe that this is the right approach.
I am sure that most of the Members of the Committee will agree that it is not appropriate for the department to get deeply involved in the private affairs of people to whom it pays benefit. It is the responsibility of the adults concerned to share the benefit between them if they wish to do so.
The alternative would be for us to try to split the benefit to take account of the number of days the child spends with each parent. This was the procedure under supplementary benefit and was, I am advised, an administrative nightmare. In some cases benefit had to be adjusted every week.
I believe that this power provides for a sensible treatment of these difficult cases. It recognises that the parents involved must be responsible for caring for the child or children, and must reach agreement over the financial arrangements for doing so. I hope that with that explanation the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.
Lord Carter: I shall read what the Minister said. I do not think that it meets the real problems I described. However, I understand the point the Minister made about administrative problems. I wish to read what the Minister said. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 169 not moved.]
Schedule 1, as amended, agreed to.
10.45 p.m.
Clauses 19 to 22 agreed to.
Clause 23 [The back to work bonus]:
Lord Swinfen Lord Swinfen moved Amendment No. 170:
Page 18, line 47, after ("allowance") insert (", incapacity benefit, severe disablement allowance, invalid care allowance").
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 170 and at the same time speak to Amendment No. 173, with which are grouped Amendments Nos. 174 and 175. The first of the amendments seeks to extend the back-to-work bonus to more people than those who are in receipt of the jobseeker's allowance, particularly to disabled people and carers.
Under current rules, people can work part-time and claim benefit and some of their earnings can be ignored. Most people can keep up to £5 per week or £10 per couple before their benefit is reduced. People with a disability premium can keep up to £15 per week. The jobseekers White Paper indicated that the back-to-work bonus is designed to provide incentives for, and ease the transition into, full-time work of people who are or who have been on jobseeker's allowance or income support. Based on every pound of earnings someone has above the £5 limit, a claimant can build up a credit of 50 pence which will be payable in a lump sum up to a maximum of £1,000 when the claimant moves into employment of 16 hours or more each week or when their partner moves into employment of more than 24 hours a week. Someone can qualify for a back-to-work bonus once they have been employed for three months. The amendment suggests extending the provisions to people on incapacity benefit, severe disablement allowance and invalid care allowance.
The purpose of Amendment No. 173 is to extend the employer's national insurance holiday to people who are out of work as a result of incapacity for work or caring responsibilities. The Bill includes provision for a one-year national insurance holiday for employers recruiting someone who has been unemployed for at least two years as part of a package of work incentives. The amendment seeks to extend the provision to carers and disabled people not—I emphasise "not"—signing on as available for work but claiming invalid care allowance or incapacity benefits. Surely, the case for tackling the employment disadvantage faced by disabled people is equally as pressing to the long-term unemployed. I beg to move.
Lord Carter: I wish to speak to Amendments Nos. 174 and 175 in the names of myself and my noble friend Lady Hollis. The amendments deal with the extension of the national insurance holiday for employers to former carers as well as the long-term unemployed. The arguments are much the same as those advanced by the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen. The purpose is to extend to former carers as well as the long-term unemployed the national insurance holiday for employers. That can be done by linking the scheme to periods of receipt of the invalid care allowance (ICA) and not just the jobseeker's allowance.
The carers who are entitled to ICA will not appear as registered unemployed because they are exempted from signing on. As the rules stand, therefore, we feel that many former carers will miss out on the scheme. I understand that the Government have expressed sympathy with the issue. They suggested that the problem is of administration rather than principle and I believe that the Minister for Social Security and Disabled People, Mr. William Hague, has said that he

1139
will look into the issue. Without going through all the statistics, it would be helpful if the Minister could tell the Committee how far the consideration has gone.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: I wish to address Amendment No. 170 first. The main participants in the scheme will be unemployed people on jobseeker's allowance and lone parents on income support. Disabled people on income support will be able to participate and any earnings above the £15 disregard will count towards the scheme. Any disabled person who claims jobseeker's allowance and makes himself available for work can also benefit from the scheme.
However, we do not see a case at this stage for extending the scheme to the other benefits proposed in the amendment. This new initiative is about helping people who are in the labour market and who need help to get into a job. People who are receiving incapacity benefit and SDA are claiming those benefits on the basis that they are incapable of work. If they are able to undertake therapeutic work, their earnings disregard is the not inconsiderable sum of £44 a week.
Turning to Amendments Nos. 173, 174 and 175, the clause already contains a power to extend by regulations the scope of the national insurance holiday to include people receiving the benefits referred to in these amendments.
The national insurance holiday is intended to provide an incentive to all employers to provide job opportunities for the long-term unemployed. It is essentially aimed at making more attractive to employers those people who may have become demotivated by their inability to find work. This means that it is aimed at helping back into work people who have been capable of work but have not been able to find it rather than those who have been incapable of work.
On Amendments Nos. 174 and 175, we considered whether ex-carers who received income support throughout the qualifying period should be able to qualify for the NI holiday. Carers may be distinguished from people receiving an incapacity benefit in that they were capable of work and would have been in a job but for the caring. We acknowledge that, and I am therefore pleased to tell the Committee that we intend that ex-carers who have received income support should fall within the scope of the national insurance holiday.
Lord Swinfen: I thank my noble friend for his reply, which I shall consider when I read it in Hansard later. I may return to this matter. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No, 171 not moved.]
Lord Swinfen Lord Swinfen moved Amendment No. 171A:
Page 19, line 15, at end insert:
("( ) the amount of a bonus to take account of the travel to work distances of persons who may be entitled to a bonus;").
The noble Lord said: The purpose of this amendment is to confirm that the regulations made under this clause provide for the amount of the back-to-work bonus to take into account travel-to-work distances and to ask what are the Government's intentions in that regard.
The issue of travel-to-work distance arises most acutely in respect of jobs in rural areas. In the absence of jobs in their immediate vicinity, rural jobseekers have to contend with serious practical difficulties in terms of time and cost in travelling to would-be job opportunities.
I was encouraged by the remarks of my noble friend Lord Inglewood and what my noble friend Lady Trumpington is signalling at the moment on Amendment No. 150.1 beg to move.
Lord Carter: Perhaps it will help the noble Baroness if I tell her that I have a three-page brief here and I want to read every word of it!
The response to Amendment No. 150 appeared to indicate that the travel-to-work problem will be taken into account. This is particularly acute, as we know, in rural areas because of the lack of transport, the distance from jobs and so forth. Therefore I hope that the Minister will be able to give us a satisfactory answer. And I hope that that pleases the noble Baroness.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: I have a much longer brief than that, because initially we were not very sure what my noble friend meant by his amendment. Happily, I now know and I shall try to answer him.
Of course I understand that unemployed people may hesitate to take up work that involves a significant travelling distance and expense. However, I believe that the bonus scheme will help claimants to take jobs which are some distance from home. It can, for example, be difficult to meet the cost of a new season ticket before receiving the first wage packet. The bonus will provide a lump sum to help the claimant with that initial expense. That scheme, in tandem with the other incentives such as housing benefit and council tax benefit run-on, ought to provide financial security at the beginning of a new job. I do not believe that we should go further than that and relate the level of bonus payments to the distance that the claimant has to travel.
The bonus scheme will provide clear incentives to people to take work while on benefit and will encourage them to move off benefit. It will give them cash at that difficult point of transition. I hope that my noble friend can therefore withdraw his amendment.
Lord Swinfen: I indeed beg leave to withdraw the amendment. I reserve my right to return to the matter at a later stage.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 23 agreed to.
Clause 24 [Employment of long-term unemployed: deductions by employers]:
[Amendments Nos. 172 to 174 not moved.]
Lord McCarthy Lord McCarthy moved Amendment No. 174A:
Page 19, line 47, leave out ("two years") and insert ("one year").
The noble Lord said: We come now to the only other good clause in the Bill; namely, on the employment of the long-term unemployed. It is significant that when something is done for them, they are called "the unemployed". They are not "long-term jobseekers". Thank God for that!
The object of our amendment is to make the provision even better than it is. The object of Clause 24 is a worthy one; namely, to reduce national insurance obligations to employers who take on any of the half million unemployed who have been unemployed for more than two years. The amendment aims to go further and reduce it to one year so that one million workers will be covered by the amendment rather than the half-million covered by the Bill. The reason why we are doing this is quite simple. This is the only part of the Bill that does something for the unemployed. It is true that it is not job creation, which the Government used to do in the early 'eighties, but is job redistribution and preference. It favours the long-term unemployed as against the non-long-term unemployed. On the whole, we are dealing with men without qualifications. Their unemployment rate is twice as high. Many of them are over 50 and have no spouse who works. They have been unemployed for a very long time. All we can do for them if we do not pass this amendment is pray. I beg to move.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: The proposed national insurance holiday for employers—which I am pleased to hear the noble Lord welcomes—is an incentive to them to take on people who have been long-term unemployed. We chose two years as the qualifying period simply to focus help on this particular group, who obviously find themselves in an even more difficult position than, say, the one-year or one-and-a-half-year unemployed. The deadweight costs will be less than extending the scheme to those who have been out of work for one year. A considerable number of people find work between the one and two-year positions. The amendments would increase the scope of the scheme by including people who have been unemployed for between one and two years.
This can be done in two ways. If we stayed within the £45 million earmarked for this, the holiday would last for only eight weeks. I do not think that that would be very effective. If we did it the other way and simply paid for the reduction to one year, it would cost about £200 million. That is more than we judge we can afford to put into this particular scheme. We want to use the £45 million to concentrate on the two-year-long unemployed. In a number of previous debates the Benches opposite and I have agreed that those people are in the most difficult position of all. I therefore believe it is right that we should target this reasonable benefit on that particularly difficult group. While I appreciate that the noble Lord would like to be much more generous, I hope he accepts that perhaps the importance of targeting overrides that.
Lord McCarthy: I do not expect anything else at this time of night, or at any other time. We shall have to have a Labour government and then we will do far more. I seek leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 174B and 175 not moved.]
Clause 24 agreed to.
Clause 25 agreed to.
Clause 26 [Pilot Schemes]:
[Amendments Nos.l75A to 177B not moved.]
Clause 26 agreed to.
11 p.m.
On Question, Whether Clause 27 shall stand part of the Bill?
Earl Russell: I have made no attempt to claim my ration of time but I have not become a Trappist monk. This is the Motion on which I want to raise a few points.
Clause 27 came in without a consultation process. We do not yet understand it. It replaces what used to be a government statutory duty to provide resettlement units. It replaces it with a discretionary power to fund resettlement places. I know that this is connected with the transfer of units, but there is no necessary reason why the Schedule 5 funding, on which resettlement units presently depend, should stop.
There is certainly a fear of it. An article in Inside Housing of January this year states:
"No one is suggesting funding will be immediately withdrawn. The agency is officially keen to stress that there will be cash in the future. But some agency sources claim the Government will quickly cut spending on resettlement, and then scrap it altogether. The move threatens more than 200 projects in the long term".
That is why I am trying to replace this clause with an amendment that would continue a duty in a form which I hope is reasonably satisfactory to the Government. I shall ask them—because it relates to the whole matter of Clause 27—to think a little more about the effect of the Bill on the homeless.
Take, for example, Clause 6(3), referring to a person's appearance. One cannot expect the homeless to keep to that requirement in the way that others might. I hope that that is understood by the Government. My noble friend Lady Seear once referred to the homeless who have to sleep rough being required to turn up to look for work in clothes in which a noble Lord would not garden. I hope that the homeless are not going to be judged not to be actively seeking work if that happens.
The requirement to find accommodation, which is imposed on the homeless when they are claiming, is extremely discouraging when there is no accommodation to find. In fact, there are too many cases of people faced with that condition who simply give up looking. One example is that of a man who had been 30 years in the Army, and was clearly used to work, who said:
"They interviewed me and made me sign a 'Back to Work' plan which said 'Find accommodation'. I gave up signing and survived on hand-outs for a while, then I got a portering job. It wasn't easy, getting up at 5.30 every morning and going to the station to clean myself up for work".
One in five of those who are actually roofless have no income, which suggests that the benefit system is missing them already. Under this Bill I believe that it will miss them a great deal more. Until it is possible to have deposits on the Social Fund when you open new leases, it will be very hard to get out of that situation.

1143
We have a problem which is already bad and which this Bill exacerbates. There should be some process of consultation before this clause, which was not debated in the other place, passes into law without anybody thinking about it.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: If we accept the noble Earl's argument it would mean that the provisions in Schedule 5 of the Supplementary Benefit Act 1976 would remain. They require the Secretary of State to provide directly run resettlement units. There are now only two such units remaining—one in Glasgow (outside Glasgow, in fact) and one in Leeds. Neither are housed in suitable buildings. We intend that both those units will be closed by April 1996 and be replaced by more suitable facilities.
Through the good works of the Resettlement Agency, our policy over a number of years has been to disengage from the direct management of resettlement units. We do not believe that we should be in the business of managing such units. That policy has been widely welcomed, not least by the organisations which provide resettlement places. There are now more places available to people who need resettlement and there has been a huge improvement in their quality.
In 1989 we set up the agency with the main aim of disengaging the Government from the running of those resettlement units. Eight units have been replaced by more modern facilities. Eleven former units are now managed by voluntary organisations and the two remaining units, with the enactment of this clause, will also be replaced by better and more modern facilities. The agency currently provides or funds over 4,100 beds, makes grants to almost 100 separate organisations and over 200 projects and we spent around £22 million on grants to voluntary organisations and local authorities in the last financial year.
I think that perhaps the noble Earl has missed the significance of the phrase "without a settled way of life". The help given by the agency and the voluntary bodies that I mentioned goes beyond the confines of homelessness.
The aim of resettlement is not limited to securing temporary or permanent accommodation. We require organisations not only to provide accommodation but to help individuals to cope with permanent accommodation. Various forms of help are offered—training in life skills and helping to secure health care. I can understand why the noble Earl has put down an amendment to probe what we are doing but I can assure him that the situation we envisage in the future under the new system, with the voluntary bodies, local authorities and others providing this kind of work, will be better than what we have had heretofore with the department trying to do it with its own hand. I am sorry for my abbreviated reply. I hope that that assures the noble Earl.
Earl Russell: I am very grateful for that reply. I shall not debate it now but I should be grateful if the Minister could answer two questions. Can he tell me that Schedule 5 funding will continue? Can he tell me that
1144
the full rigour of this Bill, and especially the appearance clause, will not be applied to the homeless as it is to the others?
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: I think I can assure the noble Earl on both points. As far as I understand the second one, anything to do with looks or clothes does not come into it when it comes to the organisations to which we shall be paying grant taking in people who need the kind of resettlement help they provide. As to the noble Earl's first question, we shall continue to do the work we have set our hand to do so far as concerns paying grants to these voluntary organisations.
Earl Russell: I thank the Minister warmly.
Clause 27 agreed to.
[Amendment No. 178 not moved.]
Clause 28 agreed to.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish moved Amendment No. 178A:
After Clause 28, insert the following new clause:
Insolvency
(".—(1) In section 71 of the Administration Act (overpayments), after subsection (10) insert—
"(10A) Where—

(a) a jobseeker's allowance is payable to a person from whom any amount is recoverable as mentioned in subsection (8) above; and

(b) that person is subject to a bankruptcy order,

a sum deducted from that benefit under that subsection shall not be treated as income of his for the purposes of the Insolvency Act 1986.
(10B) Where—

(a) a jobseeker's allowance is payable to a person from whom any amount is recoverable as mentioned in subsection (8) above; and

(b) the estate of that person is sequestrated,

a sum deducted from that benefit under that subsection shall not be treated as income of his for the purposes of the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 1985."
(2) In section 78 of the Administration Act (recovery of social fund awards), after subsection (3) insert—
"(3A) Where—

(a) a jobseeker's allowance is payable to a person from whom an award is recoverable under subsection (3) above; and

(b) that person is subject to a bankruptcy order,

a sum deducted from that benefit under subsection (2) above shall not be treated as income of his for the purposes of the Insolvency Act 1986.
(3B) Where—

(a) a jobseeker's allowance is payable to a person from whom an award is recoverable under subsection (3) above; and

(b) the estate of that person is sequestrated,

a sum deducted from that benefit under subsection (2) above shall not be treated as income of his for the purposes of the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 1985.".").
The noble Lord said: This new clause will enable the recovery of overpayments of social security from jobseeker's allowance paid to bankrupt people. The clause provides that any such amounts deducted from jobseeker's allowance payable to a bankrupt person are not treated as income for the purposes of the Insolvency Act 1986 and the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 1985. Thus creditors would be prevented from accessing these sums.
The Government consider that it is not right to stop recovering overpayments of benefit and social fund loans from current benefit just because a person has been declared bankrupt. The clause also ensures that there is equity between bankrupt persons and other people who have money deducted from their benefit for the same reasons. Without these procedures persons who are bankrupt will be more favourably treated than others receiving benefit. Nevertheless, there are maximum limits on the rates of deductions which can be made from income-related benefit to prevent hardship arising. I commend the amendment to the Committee.
Lord Carter: Can the Minister confirm that in effect this makes the Government a preferential creditor in the situation?
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: The Government would not be a preferential creditor in regard to any other assets but they can continue to take off the benefits still being paid what that person owes them due to a social fund payment or some other overpayment.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
On Question, Whether Clause 29 shall stand part of the Bill?
Baroness Williams of Crosby: I wish to ask a question on this issue. It is so late that I can do no more than ask a very broad question and give notice that we shall take this matter up at later stages of the Bill. When one reads Clause 29 one is bound to say that, added to what is already a chilling Bill, one now sees provision for inspectors. It is very difficult to see quite what inspectors are meant to do. According to Clause 29, they are supposed,
"to examine, either alone or (if he thinks fit)"—
presumably, the inspector thinks fit and not the person being investigated—
"any matters arising under this Act on which he may reasonably require information".
In certain circumstances, they would have access to private dwelling houses. In all other provisions they will have access to any premises liable to inspection. The issue about dwellinghouses arises if it is thought that there is a trade or business being conducted in them, but they do not have to have any evidence to bear out why they think that. I find the whole of Clause 29 profoundly disturbing. At this stage I can only ask the Minister the purpose of this inspection and what the inspectors are meant to be doing.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: Powers of inspection have existed in social security law for a long time, with the use of inspectors a key part in protecting the benefits system from abuse. In the main, Clause 29 carries forward provisions which have existed for many years. Will the noble Baroness accept that I shall study what she has said and write to her in as much detail as I can about the issues she has raised and copy the letter to the Leaders of the other parties?
Clause 29 agreed to.
Clause 30 [Offences]:
[Amendment No. 179 not moved.]
Clause 30 agreed to.
Clause 31 [Interpretation]:
[Amendment No. 180 not moved.]
[Amendment No. 181 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]
[Amendment No. 182 not moved.]
Clause 31 agreed to.
Clause 32 [Regulations and orders]:
[Amendment No. 183 not moved.]
Clause 32 agreed to.
Clauses 33 to 35 agreed to.
Clause 36 [Transitional provisions]:
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish moved Amendments Nos. 183A to 183F:
Page 30, line 9, leave out ("by virtue of regulations under") and insert ("under regulations made by virtue of').
Page 30, line 11, leave out from ("allowance") to end of line 12 and insert ("(a "transitional allowance")—

(i) of such a kind,

(ii) for such period,

(iii) of such an amount, and

(iv) subject to such conditions,

as may be determined in accordance with the regulations;").
Page 30, line 12, at end insert:
("(bb) for a person's continuing entitlement to a transitional allowance to be determined by reference to such provision as may be made by the regulations;").
Page 30, line 13, leave out from ("a") to end of line 14 and insert ("transitional allowance").
Page 30, line 15, leave out from ("a") to end of line 16 and insert ("transitional allowance").
Page 30, line 29, leave out from ("that") to ("allowance") in line 31, and insert ("the rate of a contribution-based transitional").
The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 183A is a purely technical amendment and its purpose is simply to correct an inaccuracy in the drafting. Before I go to the others, it is our normal practice to make transitional arrangements to protect existing claimants when changes are made to the benefits system. We intend to apply that principle to people in receipt of unemployment benefit and income support at the point of change to the jobseeker's allowance.
Amendments Nos. 183B, 183D and 183E ensure that the term "transitional allowance" is used with reference to payments of jobseeker's allowance made under the transitional arrangements. We consider that this improves the clarity of the drafting by clearly identifying where the payment of jobseeker's allowance is made. Amendment No. 183F similarly provides that, where a person meets the conditions for contribution-based JSA, then any payment under the

1147
transitional arrangements shall be "contribution-based transitional allowances". These amendments provide for the regulations to be tailored to meet the transitional arrangements to bring these proposals into effect. I beg to move.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: On this side of the Committee we had prepared a 20-minute speech on these very technical amendments, but given the extreme lateness of the hour we shall reserve our right to comment on them.
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Clause 36, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 37 [Short title, commencement, extent etc.]
[Amendment No. 184 not moved.]
Clause 37 agreed to.
Schedule 2 agreed to.
Remaining schedule agreed to.
House resumed; Bill reported with amendments.
House adjourned at a quarter past eleven o'clock.