HL Deb 12 June 2002 vol 636 cc352-66

8.35 p.m.

Consideration of amendments on Report resumed on Clause 10.

Lord Freeman

moved Amendment No. 35: Page 8, line 1, at end insert ", and in particular whether the application of the 16 hour rule can be flexibly interpreted for those disabled persons who remain at work during a period of treatment The noble Lord said: My Lords, the amendment concerns entitlement to working tax credit for disabled people. Clause 10(3)(b), to which my amendment is addressed, covers the category of disabled people; and paragraph (d), under the description "any other factors", covers the very broad range of options available to those who draft and interpret the regulations for entitlement to working tax credit for those who are disabled.

I support the Government's view that the working tax credit mechanism should be used as far as possible for disabled people, both those who are able to continue in work and come back to work. I understand that the final draft of the regulations dealing with entitlement has yet to be considered. It may therefore be appropriate to probe a little further what the Minister said in Grand Committee. It would be very helpful if the Minister could add to and amplify some of the comments made.

I am not suggesting for one moment that the 16-hour rule, which is fundamental to the definition of "qualifying remunerative work" in relation to, for example, disabled people, should be in any way amended or broached. But flexibility is provided for on the face of the Bill and it may be helpful if I probe a little further the flexibility, its interpretation and imposition.

I wish to stress that I am addressing the issue of people with short-term disability problems; not those suffering from long-term disability and inability to work anywhere close to the 16-hours per week. So I am not talking about those who would qualify for the longer term disability benefits together with the income disregards associated with that. I am dealing with short-term problems.

Perhaps I may give your Lordships an example. It may be that a course of treatment—I believe that certain categories of renal dialysis would fit this example—which might not last more than a few months, would enable a patient to work three days a week for one week, two days a week the next, perhaps even only one day the week after, and then a full week. So there may be for those who fall into the category of "disabled" but who are having treatment which lasts for a few months—but certainly not beyond six months— a rather irregular pattern of work.

I have two questions for the Minister in anticipation of looking at the regulations in greater detail when we come to them. First, what is the degree of flexibility in determining whether or not the 16-hour rule has been met, if not in the letter each week but certainly within the spirit as a result, perhaps, of averaging? Secondly, how can we communicate this welcome flexibility to the disabled and to the organisations which care for and help disabled people? Some foreknowledge of how the working tax credit system might work for the disabled would be of enormous help. I beg to move.

Earl Russell

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for putting down the amendment. It is an important point. It was raised at Second Reading by the noble Lord, Lord Rix. It is one which calls quite urgently for attention. The stress on therapeutic effect is valuable. The stress on short-term conditions is also valuable.

While the noble Lord, Lord Freeman, was speaking I was thinking, for example, of slipped discs. When one is suffering from a slipped disc, one may be quite incapable of working for a month, then capable of working perhaps a half a day or a quarter of the day for another month, and three-quarters of a day for a third month and then be perhaps fully fit afterwards. If one tries to telescope that process one ends up unfit to work. I remember being told by a doctor, "Either you accept this discipline or you have this condition for life". Fortunately my employers took a generous view of the matter and I was able to accept the condition; otherwise I might not be here now. There could be real value in the amendment.

When in Opposition the noble Baroness dealt with the Jobseekers Bill. She raised the question as to whether one had necessarily to go by the number of hours in deciding what was full-time work. I do not know whether that question is worth revisiting. I can see difficulties in the way of it. But I could see then what the Minister was after and why. I felt considerable sympathy and tried to support her where I could. The issue is worth thinking about.

Exactly how the principle would be applied will be difficult. The principle needs attention. Consultation with the disability organisations about how exactly it should be done and contact with the medical profession could be extremely valuable. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Freeman, for raising it.

Lord Higgins

My Lords, I support my noble friend. Clearly it is an important issue. As the noble Earl pointed out, it was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Rix, at Second Reading. Although his preoccupation over many years has been concerned with Mencap and so on, the issue may well affect other disabled people. It is particularly important in a period of treatment—it may be a temporary situation—but it would be inappropriate for the tax credit to be withdrawn during a period which is likely to be of a transitory nature. I very much hope that the noble Baroness will respond favourably.

8.45 p.m.

Baroness Hollis of Heigham

My Lords, I hope very much that I shall be able to allay concerns. I was pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Freeman, said that he was not seeking to change the 16-hour rule. That has read-across implications on the supportive, permitted work which has replaced therapeutic earnings. One may end up possibly with more losers than gainers among people who might be in the 10 to 16-hour range if they have, for example, a severe learning disability. I am glad that he did not go down that route. I may be able to meet his concerns on his substantive point.

With the support of other Members of your Lordships' House, the noble Lord sought to provide that disabled people who are receiving medical treatment should be able to satisfy the remunerative work test even if they cannot always work at least 16 hours a week. He gave the example of someone with fluctuating hours being given renal dialysis.

The working tax credit will look at the hours that a person usually works. That does not mean that a person has to work 16 or more hours every single week. For example, being off work and in receipt of statutory sick pay, which can run for up to six months, will not mean that the person no longer qualifies for working tax credit. That is substantial. I use the genderised "his"; I am sure noble Lords will allow that. If his usual working hours were at least 16 hours a week before the onset of the illness, and provided he expects to return to work once he has recovered, he will continue to be eligible for working tax credit because his "usual" working hours will not have changed.

As I said on Amendment No. 6, whether or not an employee's hours have changed will tend to be governed by the arrangements between the employer and his employee. In other words, if the employer expects someone in the normal course of events to be working 15 hours a week but there is a period in that timescale when the hours are less but the arrangement still exists between employer and employee the working tax credit will continue to be paid under those circumstances.

Clearly if the situation continued beyond the statutory sick pay period one is getting into a very different situation relating to total incomes and total hours worked. But the situation in the example given by the noble Lord, Lord Freeman, is already met. Given that one can be on statutory sick pay for up to six months, it is more than generously covered. With that assurance I hope that he will feel able to withdraw the amendment.

Lord Freeman

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister. It spells out to your Lordships and on the record in clear terms how the matter should be interpreted. I am sure that will be welcomed by the organisations concerned. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 13 [Rate]:

Earl Russell

moved Amendment No. 36: Page 10, line 9, at end insert— () shall provide that the rate at which tax credit is withdrawn combined with the rate at which housing benefit and council tax benefit are withdrawn shall not exceed 75 per cent of any increase in a person's relevant income The noble Earl said: My Lords, at this stage Amendment No. 36 is only a probing amendment. But it deals with a problem which we must get right if the Bill is to have the effect we all hope that it will. It deals with the housing and council tax benefit tapers. The purport of the amendment is to ensure that deductions under those shall not be above 75 per cent. In all conscience, that is a large enough proportion of anyone's tax credit.

The housing benefit and council tax benefit tapers can be very steep on occasion. If one gives people a great deal of tax credit and then takes it all away again in reductions in housing benefit, one has simply gone in for the process which the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, used to describe as churning: one sent the money round in a circle and is no better at the end of it. Some of it always has to stick to the fingers of the people who have the sweat of treading out the corn. That cannot be helped.

At present I understand that the tapers for housing benefit and council tax benefit are 85 per cent which is fairly steep. That is laid down in legislation other than tax credits legislation. The Minister may well wish to raise this question. If those are to be altered, in what legislation should it be done? I should be a little disappointed if she were to say that we would have to wait for a general review of housing benefit. I know that such a thing is in contemplation. But I am inclined to say of housing benefit what Churchill said of democracy: that it is the worst system except for all the others.

Flaws in housing benefit have been talked about for a very long time. They are real and serious. But every time anyone comes up with an alternative to housing benefit, and we have a good, long, hard, serious look at it, it turns out that it is worse than the housing benefit system we have at present. If the Minister were to say that, I should take it as a reply that this was to be done at the Greek calends; and I should like to see it happen a little sooner than that.

I understand that under the Bill the taper would be reduced so that it got only to 90 per cent of withdrawal. That would mean that one was only 10p better off for every £1 of tax credit. That is not a very magnificent result of really quite generous expenditure.

The Minister tore my amendment to pieces in Committee by saying that it would lead to a deduction rate of 125 per cent, to which I replied that I had said when I introduced it that I had never had any intention of pressing it. I say the same about this amendment. I am not certain of the exact costs of the amendment. But I have an estimate from Shelter, a source worthy of some attention, that only about 5 or 6 per cent of all the families covered by the tax credit would be tapered out of the tax credit at the same time as they were being tapered out of housing benefit and council tax benefit. If the Government could estimate the cost of the amendment, I should find that extremely helpful. We shall have to return to this issue at some stage.

It is suggested that changing tax credits every April will alter also everybody's housing benefit. The fear has been expressed that that could produce a serious bunching of work at housing benefit offices. As they are heavily worked most of the time, a massive increase in work in one week could have an unhelpful effect. I do not purport to know the answers but we must find some. If the Minister can help, I should warmly welcome it. I beg to move.

Lord Higgins

My Lords, my recollection is that we have long been promised a review of housing benefit. Perhaps the Minister can remind us of the present situation. I have previously expressed concern at the way in which housing benefit is administered, given the variety of different forms that local authorities employ. None of my attempts to encourage the Government to sort out that matter has been successful. Can the Minister say whether there is a still variety of housing benefit forms? That would clearly impact on the noble Earl's amendment because presumably local authorities would have to co-operate in any such exercise.

I heard on the radio this morning the latest report that something like one-third of housing benefit payments are not made on time. If that is so, perhaps the Minister could say so. We are envisaging the amendment against an unsatisfactory housing benefit scene.

As to the difficult issue of tapers, I am not clear about the implications of the marginal deduction rate not exceeding 75 per cent for housing benefit, council tax benefit and tax credit all taken together. My understanding is that that would mean a substantial reduction in the marginal rate, which would be imposed on the benefits individually. No doubt the Minister will clarify that point. The situation is not satisfactory and there should be a general review of housing benefit as soon as possible.

Baroness Hollis of Heigham

My Lords, I shall resist the temptation to talk about housing benefit structures generally. I take the noble Lord's criticism of housing benefit administration. He is undoubtedly right. I should be surprised if there is much difference between us in our concerns about the inadequacies of housing benefit administration in many local authorities. We have just issued a set of key performance standards for good administration, backed by a programme of inspection and active support—including help teams, which are almost like shock teams. They go into local authorities and work with them to improve their performance. We are trying to pick up on smaller items, such as mail redirects, which have been discussed on the Floor of the House more generally.

Much as it hurts me to do so, I must disappoint the noble Earl, Lord Russell. It is almost impossible to resolve the housing benefit tapers issue with the current structure of housing benefit interlocked with rent structures as they impact on other benefits. If the housing benefit structure is not changed, the choice is between steep, sharp and short tapers and long, gradual tapers in which the MDRs go much further up the income scale. That is what one is stuck with in any system based on the withdrawal of housing benefit.

There is a continuing review of housing benefit. How much of that can be completed in advance of housing rent restructuring—which in terms perhaps implies some readjustment of the housing stock—is a big and long-term question.

One of the problems of targeting benefits according to financial need is that if all the benefits are on the same taper, that produces a sharp cliff edge. If the benefits are on different tapers, that produces fluctuating MDRs according to which benefits coincide as they get withdrawn—which adds to the complexity for the recipient.

The amount of overlap between those on housing benefit and those on tax credits is much smaller than one would have expected a priori. I suspect that that is because many pensioners are not in the system and they are great users of housing benefit. Only around 5 per cent of people on tax credits will be on the housing benefit taper. To put it another way, only 10 per cent of housing benefit recipients are also on the tax credit taper. High deduction rates, although unacceptable, affect only a relatively small proportion of recipients.

The noble Earl was right that where people have tax credits withdrawn alongside housing benefit and council tax benefit, there is a marginal deduction rate of more than 90 per cent. If working tax credit were not taken into account, that would result in an MDR of 125 per cent, which is even worse.

The amendment addresses not just the tax system but also national insurance. There is a whole series of tapers. Taking the amendment at face value, reducing the combined tax credit, housing benefit and council tax taper for existing recipients to something less than 75 per cent would mean reducing the HB/CTB taper to 60 per cent, which would be at significant cost. Reducing the HB taper to 45 per cent and the CTB taper to 15 per cent would cost £520 million in 2003–04, rising thereafter, and would bring a further 100, 000 on to housing benefit—a high-cost response to benefit a modest number of people. That is partly because of the relatively small overlap, which would still produce high MDRs. The cost would be half a billion pounds, and recipients would still have MDRs of 75 per cent or more, which would not go far to meeting the problem.

Reducing the HB taper may not be particularly well focused on moving people into work. Currently, only around 50 per cent of people on the HB taper have any earnings. Those without earnings have other sources of capital or income or are in receipt of other benefits. I shall probably be shot for saying this, but because HB is such a high cost but variable benefit across the country, it is like an iceberg that keeps emerging to wreck the taper or MDR effects of a whole series of benefits. Whatever the benefit, suddenly in comes the housing benefit taper. Because it can he a high-value benefit on a regional basis, it is not one that can be played around with lightly without having serious, if not catastrophic, effects on people's ability to manage their finances or which alternatively may render them homeless.

We may be stuck on this. All that I can say is that, ultimately, most people's response to the new tax credits will not be to work out their MDRs—some may do so—but to recognise the better-buy package of going into work, compared with not being in work, and the extra money that they will get for extra hours worked, compared with not being in work.

However unhappy I am about the taper as regards housing benefit—this is where I am so proud of this benefit—what I am pleased about is that, in just the same way as working tax credits were a significant improvement on the generosity of family credit, so the new tax credits are a significant increase in generosity on the existing tax credit system. So, although high MDRs will remain—and I honestly cannot see a way through without a major overhaul of the housing benefit structure—it has to be remembered that this still affects a relatively small percentage of people, although it is difficult for them. Secondly, even so, those recipients of high MDRs will still be considerably better off than they would be under the present system. At the end of the day, I hope that that will help to reconcile them to the fact that housing benefit is an area where, certainly in this Bill, we cannot play around with the tapers.

9 p.m.

Earl Russell

My Lords, I cannot help admitting to being disappointed, but it is no use railing at the Minister for the facts of the case. I am afraid that I found much of what she said abominably persuasive. But we cannot leave the matter there.

The point that surprised me most in her remarks was the low proportion of people on housing benefit and in receipt of the tax credit who are actually in work. But we should not assume that that will remain permanently the case. In fact, I imagine that it might have been part of the object of the Bill that it should not remain permanently the case. One should not be too fatalistic and abandon people to a perpetual life on benefit. I know that that is more the Minister's language than mine, but there are cases where it is true and valid, and this might be one of them.

It is all very well saying that we must have a review of housing benefit, but if we say that before we have any idea of what type of change we want to introduce we are putting the cart before the horse. We could well end up—as is often the case if one goes in for change just because there has to be a change—with something a great deal worse than we started with. It is the most dangerous way of undertaking political change that I know.

So perhaps the points made by the Minister that we really need to be thinking about are those relating to the housing stock. It is extremely maldistributed. The Minister talked about the danger, if this amendment were adopted and we had a gentler taper, of housing benefit creeping up the middle-class scale. But, of course, that is happening already. I am told that in the London Borough of Kingston a newly appointed police constable is on housing benefit. Whether that problem should be solved by the Home Office or by the Department for Work and Pensions is a matter on which I imagine interdepartmental exchanges may already be taking place. Certainly, something should be done about it. It is not what one expects to see. It is not the way to get the kind of police force we need.

Perhaps my most frustrating experience in the service of my party was serving on the policy working group on housing. We had many good ideas, but we could not put it all together. A real problem was created by the initial success of the policy of the sale of council houses. I remember Frank Field's book, Losing Out, published in 1989, in which he pointed out that only the people who were in effect unsuccessful were remaining in council estates—which were therefore becoming much more undesirable places to live and much harder places from which to become employed and were much greater poverty traps in themselves. So the apparent success of a policy has left a very big problem behind it. This may be one of the problems from which to start. I suppose that even on the Front Bench one must be allowed, if one is not committing anyone to anything, to think aloud sometimes.

The geographical distribution of work is another issue that we need to think about. I do not know whether the Minister was in the Chamber when my noble friend Lord Greaves raised the problem of houses in Burnley and Oldham, which are going almost literally for a song. No one can be found to buy them because there is no work anywhere near them. Then you listen to my honourable friend Mr Rendel complaining that he is not going to have the whole of Berkshire concreted over in order that people should find work in Newbury. There is a maldistribution. It may be that getting the work to the houses is in some places rather more practical than getting the houses to the work. It means a lot less concrete and far fewer ruins—all of which might be commended.

We need a general review of housing policy, not merely of housing benefit. Reviewing housing benefit without reviewing housing is a sure way to get into another set of figures. Looking at public expenditure figures on housing over the past 20 or 30 years is quite revealing. I do not have the figures to hand. but I think that that is because my hand cannot reach low enough down! If the Minister wants to tell me the figures, I shall be glad to hear them. It is certainly the area where public spending has dropped fastest. As always, economy turns out to be a very, very expensive habit. I remember one of my colleagues remarking that Charles I was not rich enough to afford economies. We are in danger of getting into that situation.

However, I shall clearly get nowhere by pursuing the amendment by itself. I hope that there will be discussions not only within the Department for Work and Pensions but also on an interdepartmental basis about how any future housing policy and any future housing benefit policy should interlock. If these matters are not worked out jointly, neither will work. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Amendment No. 37 not moved.]

Clause 14 [Initial decisions]:

The Deputy Chairman (Viscount Allenby of Megiddo)

My Lords, Clause 14, Amendment No. 38: the noble Lord, Lord Higgins.

Lord Higgins

My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 38 standing in my name—I believe that I am right in saying that we should be debating Amendment No. 38A.

Noble Lords

Amendment No. 38.

Lord Higgins

My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 38. I apologise for the confusion.

Baroness Hollis of Heigham

My Lords, perhaps I can help the noble Lord. My understanding is that Amendment No. 38 has already been debated and therefore needs formally not to be moved. We have moved on to Amendments Nos. 38A and 43 dealing with initial and final decisions.

Lord Higgins

My Lords, that is what I understood. I thank the noble Baroness. I think that we are in agreement. We are now on Amendment No. 38A, as I understand it, not having moved Amendment No. 38.

[Amendment No. 38 not moved.]

Lord Higgins

moved Amendment No. 38A: Page 10, line 22, at end insert— () The Board shall not require the person or persons making a claim to provide information which is already in possession of the Board The noble Lord said: My Lords, I should explain that Amendment No. 38A is effectively in place of Amendment No. 43, which was wrongly drafted.

The amendment suggests that the Inland Revenue should not require information already in the board's possession. We discussed this matter in Grand Committee on 23rd May. My noble friend Lord Saatchi moved the amendment, then I intervened to complain about Inland Revenue form P161, which demands a reply from individuals to provide information that it already holds. That undoubtedly happens from time to time. The amendment seeks to ensure that it does not, particularly in regard of tax credits.

On reading the debate I was somewhat puzzled by the Minister's reply. The amendment states that the board shall not ask for information it already possesses. The Minister rejected the amendment on the grounds that the Inland Revenue did not yet have a great deal of the information it would need, which is the mirror image of my amendment. She said, It takes time for the income tax system to get all that information. Employers must return details".—[Official Report, 23/5/02; col. CWH 150.] and so on. She argued that, as a result, people would not receive their tax credits on time. That is all fascinating, but it has nothing to do with the amendment, and that is true of the general thrust of the Minister's reply on that occasion.

She pointed out that under Clause 17 the Inland Revenue will send claimants details that it already holds, which is to be welcomed and will no doubt assist in filling in the form, but that is not the point. I merely suggest that if information is already available—a national insurance number or whatever it may be—the board should not ask for it again when its records should show that the information is available on the official record. The amendment still has substance. The Minister's reply in Committee is not really relevant to its rejection. I beg to move.

Earl Russell

My Lords, I know that a body corporate has a legal personality, but it does not necessarily have a physical personality. Information known to one part is not necessarily known to another part. One part of a body corporate is not necessarily culpable for the behaviour of another part. Within my college I occasionally have to explain to people that I am not personally to blame for the behaviour of a warden of a hall of residence. Information in the possession of one part of a college is not necessarily in the possession of another part of the college.

So it is not always possible to be certain what information is in the board's possession. At times it may not be possible to access the information at great speed. There have been times when I knew some information existed within my own papers, but I found it much quicker to come here and look it up than to find it in my papers. Although the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, is after something extremely desirable, he may for once have been a little utopian.

Baroness Hollis of Heigham

My Lords, I am sorry if the noble Lord did not find my answer helpful, illuminating or relevant to the amendment. In that case, I am puzzled as to why he did not pursue me harder at the time. Perhaps he was busy doing other things.

I can see where the noble Lord is coming from and why the amendment appears to have a shallow logic. I put three problems to him. First, the Inland Revenue has information on individuals, but these claims are joint claims. Someone has to collate the information. Because tax credits are based on joint household income, it is right that both parties who are jointly and severally liable for the correct information need to cosign the form and provide the information.

A partner may not even be paying tax because his earnings are so modest. He may not be known to the Inland Revenue in that capacity, but his earnings will still come into play in terms of household income and therefore we need that information.

That is the first point. We are dealing with household income, not individual income. The Inland Revenue may be able to match partners, but if they are of different names the Revenue would have to do it by reference to address. There would then be added complications of working out whether those two people represented a cohabiting household for Inland Revenue purposes. The Inland Revenue will also not know whether they have children. I could go on about a series of complexities for some time as the imagination catches hold.

The second point is the one that I tried to pursue with the noble Lord at the time. When a claim is made, the Inland Revenue will have only partial information. Claims may be made at the beginning of the financial year, but even so, a lot of my information about books and royalties comes in several months late. I suspect that the same applies to the noble Earl, Lord Russell, and to the wife of the noble Lord, Lord Higgins. As the Inland Revenue will possess only partial information for the individual, it is probably safer on the initial claim for working tax credit to ask the individual or the couple to fill in a complete across-the-waterfront form about their income rather than presuming that the Inland Revenue has some information that it may or may not have, according to the efficiency of banks and other savings bodies in providing it.

The third point is that this is not as big a problem as the noble Lord seems to think. Only on the first claim for working tax credit are we dealing with piecemeal information. Thereafter, the basis will normally be the preceding year's income, which is reflected in tax forms. The applicant will be asked to confirm only that the figures are still valid for them. Payments in subsequent years will be made only as part of the end of year reconciling process. The problem should he fairly minuscule after the initial year.

For those three reasons—that we are dealing with joint claims, not individual claims, which is the information that the tax system has; that the Inland Revenue will have only partial information about income at any point in time; and that after the initial year the amount of work involved is minimal, because the previous year's income figure is simply being uprated or confirmed—I hope that the noble Lord will think that this reply is slightly more relevant and helpful, if not more persuasive, than the previous one.

Lord Higgins

My Lords, two thirds of the reply was more relevant. The other third is the noble Baroness's previous reply, which was not relevant. She was also rather more persuasive this time.

I am intrigued by her point that Clause 17 will set out the details of all the family circumstances and income that are currently held by the Revenue and the claimant must then check the notice and correct any details that need correction. If we are working on a household situation, I assume that the Revenue will send out all the details that it has on both individuals and ask them to correct it jointly. That may lead to some surprises for one partner or the other. However, that is a separate point.

I shall think about the noble Baroness's reply. I gave an example in Grand Committee to show that the Revenue seems inclined—I put it no more strongly than that—to ask for information that it clearly ought to have had in the first instance. Subject to that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Amendment No. 39 not moved.]

Clause 16 [Other revised decisions]:

[Amendments Nos. 40 and 41 not moved.]

Clause 17 [Final notice]:

[Amendments Nos. 42 to 53 not moved.]

Lord Higgins

moved Amendment No. 54: Page 12, line 36, at end insert— (8A) Where the person is, or persons are, within paragraph (a) or (b) of subsection (8), the Board must decide again whether the award was correct and, if not, may decide to amend or revoke it; but a decision must not be made under this subsection—

  1. (a) before a statement has been made in response to provision included in the notice by virtue of subsection (8), or
  2. (b) if that has not happened by the date specified for the purposes of that subsection, before that date."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, there are a considerable number of other amendments linked with this one. We have had a series of discussions about what I have called restructuring amendments. The Grand Committee agreed to categorise them to simplify our discussions. This group of amendments comes into what we then described as category four, which was designed to split Clause 17, separating provisions on the notice on the end of year statement from the decisions that the board makes after the year end.

If I understand correctly, this series of government amendments were not foreseen, but are not of the same kind as the previous ones. They are effectively simplifying amendments rather than being crucial to the operation of the Bill. Some of the previous government amendments that we considered were designed to ensure that the Bill worked. No doubt the noble Baroness can clarify that for us. I look forward with interest to her reply. I beg to move.

Baroness Hollis of Heigham

My Lords, the noble Lord is quite right. We have already discussed amendments tabled by the noble Lord to reverse the changes made by "category 3" of the Government's amendments. That category of amendments made various improvements to Clause 17. In the process, it made Clause 17 too unwieldy and, therefore, as the noble Lord rightly said, "category 4" was produced, which is designed basically to restructure Clause 17 into two clauses: Clause 17 will deal with notices, and Clause 18 will deal with "Decisions after final notice".

Perhaps I may retrace my steps and point out to the House that, originally, Clause 17 covered both aspects of the process of finalising awards at the end of the year: first, the process of issuing notices to claimants. Claimants will then confirm that the information held by the board is correct—or, if it is not correct, will provide up-to-date information; and, secondly, the subsequent decisions about claimants' entitlement made by the board on the basis of the information that it holds, once claimants have been given the opportunity to confirm or correct that information.

However, now that Clause 17 has been split, it covers only the first of those two aspects of the end-of-year process—the issuing of notices to claimants so that they can check the validity of the information. The second aspect—the making by the board of final decisions about entitlement—is now covered by Clause 18. Although there is no change in substance, the drafting reflects the new restructuring processes. I wonder whether I need say any more. Indeed, the noble Lord was exactly right in his description. I hope, therefore, that he will feel able to withdraw his amendment. I believe that the Bill will now be clearer to those who read it as a result of these changes.

Lord Higgins

My Lords, I entirely agree with the Minister. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Amendments Nos. 55 and 56 not moved.]

Clause 18 [Decisions after final notice]:

[Amendment No. 57 not moved.]

Clause 19 [Power to enquire into awards]:

[Amendments Nos. 58 to 73 not moved.]

Clause 20 [Decisions on discovery]:

[Amendments Nos. 74 to 85 not moved.]

Clause 22 [Information etc. requirements: supplementary]:

[Amendments Nos. 86 and 87 not moved.]

Lord Bassam of Brighton

My Lords, I beg to move that further consideration on Report be now adjourned.

House adjourned at twenty-three minutes past nine o'clock.