Clause
45Consequential
amendments of subordinate
legislation Question
proposed, That the clause stand part of the
Bill.
Mr.
Harper: I want to make just one brief comment on clause
45— [Interruption.] I hope that the Minister
for Employment and Welfare Reform will stop
groaning. The
first part of the clause concerns consequential amendments to
subordinate legislation. Subsection (1)
says: “The
Secretary of State may by regulations made by statutory instrument make
such provision amending or revoking any instrument made under any other
Act before the passing of this Act as appears to the Secretary of State
to be appropriate in consequence of any provision of this Act, other
than a provision contained in Part 2.”
I want to probe why it is felt
appropriate to have powers to make consequential amendments to
subordinate legislation for parts 1, 3 and 4 of the Bill, but not part
2. We had a good debate on the right to control in part 2, and I can
see no good reason why it was excluded. Perhaps the Minister can
explain that to the
Committee.
The
Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform (Mr. Tony
McNulty): Separate provision is made for the right to
control under clause
36.
Mr.
Harper: That is a good explanation—and a quick one.
On that basis, I am
content. Question
put and agreed
to. Clause
45 accordingly ordered to stand part of the
Bill. Clause
46 ordered to stand part of the
Bill. Schedule
7 agreed
to. Clauses
47 to 50 ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
New
Clause
1Ambit
of appeals under section 20 of the 1991
Act ‘(1) Section 20 of the
Child Support Act 1991 (c. 48) (appeals to appeal tribunals) is amended
as follows. (2) Subsection 7(b)
(appeal tribunals not to take into account any circumstances not
obtaining at the time when the Secretary of State made the decision or
imposed the requirement) is omitted.’.—(Mr.
Harper.) Brought
up, and read the First
time.
Mr.
Harper: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second
time. The
purpose of the new clause, which we have discussed with Gingerbread,
would enable child support appeal tribunals, when considering child
support appeals, to consider all matters up to the date of the hearing.
The present position under section 20(7)(b) is that a tribunal is not
allowed to take into account any circumstances that did not exist at
the time when the decision under appeal was made. That rule effectively
came through from social security
legislation. The
reason why child maintenance appeals are problematic is partly that it
takes so long for cases to be determined by a tribunal after an appeal.
The information supplied to me by Gingerbread—it was obtained
from the Department for Work and Pensions; the Minister may or may not
be able to confirm its accuracy—suggests that it takes about 33
weeks. On average, 11 weeks elapse between the submission of an appeal
to the Child Support Agency and the passing of the papers to the
Tribunals Service. Once the papers are received by the Tribunals
Service, on average just under 22 weeks elapses. The problem, which can
affect both the parent with care and the non-resident parent, is that
circumstances often change before the appeal is
heard. To
provide a specific example, after the decision has been made
someone’s income or job circumstances could change and the
appeal tribunal would then be making a decision based on a set of facts
that no longer exists. That can take place over 33 weeks, which is the
best part of a year. In respect of child maintenance it would be much
better if the appeal tribunal could look at the present position and
reach a decision about the level of child maintenance with some
finality. This
is a relatively simple point and it is worth testing the Minister on
whether the Government think that it has any merit in child maintenance
cases. I am not suggesting that we adopt the process for social
security benefit cases—effectively, that is where the idea stems
from—but we should certainly do so for child maintenance cases.
With the delay in the system, it makes sense for the appeal tribunal to
be able to take into account all the relevant information up to the
date of the appeal, so that it can make a better decision that is more
likely to be final; otherwise, the process may need to be repeated
because the information has changed. That streamlining measure would
help both the parent with care and the non-resident parent get
to some form of closure. Will the Minister think about this
matter?
Paul
Rowen: I understand why the hon. Gentleman tabled the
amendment. He has done so because of the long time it takes to hear
appeals. However, in seeking to deal with one problem he would be
creating another.
The solution
to the problem is to ensure that CMEC, the new body, deals with such
matters a lot quicker than the Child Support Agency currently does. The
information that a court or an appeal tribunal has to deal with cannot
be constantly changing. There must be a fixed reference point at which
all information is put before a tribunal, at which point that becomes
the information that the tribunal is dealing with. I suggest to the
hon. Gentleman and the Minister that the solution to the
problem—and there is a problem—is not to allow late
information, but to tackle the time it takes to consider appeals
through the
tribunal.
Kitty
Ussher: For the first time I agree with what the hon.
Member for Rochdale has said. It is nice, as we enter the final stages
of consideration of the Bill, that there should be some harmony in the
Committee. If
the appeal system is taking too long, that is a matter for the judicial
system. I agree with the hon. Member for Forest of Dean that we need to
try to sort out the length of time the process takes, although I do not
recognise the figures he used. Presumably, the lower the number of
errors made by CMEC, the lower the number of appeals, and therefore the
less likely this situation is to occur. We can judge from the
verifiable figures that the CSA is producing that the amount of
maintenance that it is collecting was rising over £1
billion last year. The number of unprocessed applications has fallen
dramatically to 55,000—that is still too high, although it used
to be 280,000—so we hope that things are moving in the right
direction. There
are two immediate problems with the new clause. It could cause more
delays because the tribunal would have to look at more information,
which fluctuated over time. Therefore, we could get into the perverse
situation in which the tribunal was taking so long that there was more
new information. That would be costly for the taxpayer—more so
than if the decision making on the award remained with the commission.
If the tribunal took new information into account and made a decision,
it is worrying that the non-resident parent would lose their right of
appeal, whereas if the decision rests with CMEC, there is a right of
appeal. Therefore it is right and proper to follow the design of the
social security legislation and leave the decisions with CMEC, which
can be appealed on a point of law only, to a tribunal with a snapshot
of the situation at that time.
12.15
pm If
there is new information, it is still the commission’s right to
withdraw the hearing so that the appeal lapses, and to simply revise
the award based on that new information in parallel with an appeal
process concerned with a point of law. In a sense, it becomes
hypothetical whether the underlying decision has been changed. It
raises an interesting question but we cannot accept the new
clause.
Mr.
Harper: Will the Minister furnish the Committee with the
information about delays that I told her about, which was supplied to
Gingerbread by the Department for Work and Pensions and covered child
support appeals between April and December 2008? It was 11 weeks
between the appeal by the CSA and the papers going to the Tribunals
Service and just under 22 weeks’ clearance time for an appeal by
the Tribunals Service. The Minister
said that she did not recognise the numbers, and I accept that they may
not be accurate. Can she furnish the Committee with accurate
information?
Kitty
Ussher: Not off the top of my head, but I will write to
the Committee before Report to clarify those
data.
Mr.
Harper: I am grateful to the Minister for pledging to
share that information. It will be helpful. The hon. Member for
Rochdale, in his outbreak of harmony, was correct; it would be better
if both the CSA and CMEC were swifter.
[Interruption.] I thought that the Minister had
finished.
The
Chairman: Order. Yes, she did finish and this is the
response to the Minister.
Mr.
Harper: I thought that was what had happened. Thank you
for clarifying that, Mr. Hood. The Minister was good to set
things out. It would be beneficial if CMEC made more accurate decisions
in the first place and fewer were appealed. If CMEC and the Tribunals
Service dealt with appealed decisions more swiftly, the problems would
be minimised. We do not have the power to do that by tabling new
clauses, but doing so has enabled the hon. Member for Rochdale to make
his points and I support him.
When the
Minister supplies us with the information, it will be helpful to see
what the delays are. The Minister’s best argument—and why
I will not press the new clause to a Division—was about how
taking decision making away from CMEC would effectively remove the
right to appeal. On reflection, I think that the Minister has made a
good point. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by
leave, withdrawn.
New Clause
2Disability
living allowance: mobility
component ‘(1) Section 73 of
the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992 (c. 4) (the
mobility component) is amended as
follows. (2) In subsection (1),
after paragraph (b)
insert— “(ba) he
falls within subsection (2A);
or”. (3) In subsection
(1A)(a), after “(b)”, insert “,
(ba)”. (4) After
subsection (2),
insert— “(2A) A
person falls within this subsection
if— (a) he is blind;
and (b) he satisfies such other
conditions as may be
prescribed.”. (5) In
subsection (5), after “(2)(a)”, insert “or
subsection (2A)(a)”. (6)
In subsection (11)(a), after “(b)”, insert “,
(ba)”.’.—(John
Robertson.) Brought
up, and read the First
time. John
Robertson (Glasgow, North-West) (Lab): I beg to move, That
the clause be read a Second
time. The
new clause is self-explanatory and needs little introduction, but the
clarity and familiarity of the issue should not obscure the justness of
the case and the need to right a long-standing wrong. The new clause
would amend the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992 to
enable a blind person to qualify for the higher rate mobility component
of the disability living allowance, which that Act excludes them from
unless
they are also physically unable to walk. It is easy to see why that
exclusion does not make sense, and more than 300 MPs have signed up to
support this change. There is also overwhelming support among the
general public, with more than 90 per cent. of people believing that
those who are blind should be eligible for the higher rate of mobility
component. The groundswell behind the new clause is down to the work of
the Royal National Institute of Blind People, and I pay tribute to its
campaigning on this issue and many others, and on its work across the
board as a charity. I have worked on welfare reform issues for a number
of years, and it has never failed to impress me. This
anomaly—the way in which the DLA works—from the 1992 Act
must surely have been a mistake and an unintended consequence that such
Committees must root out. They were probably difficult times back in
1991 when the issue was first discussed, but that is no excuse for
successive Governments’ not righting the wrong. Despite facing
some of the biggest, and often most insurmountable, barriers to
independent mobility, blind people were denied the higher rate of
mobility support, which was limited to those who face physical barriers
to getting around. That means a difference of £29 a week for a
blind person on the lower rate of mobility component, or more than
£1,500 a year. There is no good reason for discriminating
between someone who faces physical barriers of mobility and someone who
is unable to move around safely and independently owing to
blindness.
The case of
one of my constituents, Mr. Alan McDonald, highlights the
paradox. He has been blind from birth and faces huge hurdles to getting
around. He is unable to use public transport because of difficulties
getting on and off buses and trains, and either he needs to spend other
benefits, which are meant to provide other support, on taxis, or he is
forced to rely on his sister for lifts to where he needs to go.
Otherwise, he stays at home. His blindness is not his only barrier to
mobility. He is currently awaiting a second kidney transplant and will,
in a few months’ time, undergo surgery for hardening of the
arteries. Despite all those difficulties, he has been told on several
occasions that he simply cannot qualify for the higher rate because he
is physically able to walk. The barriers that he faces are just as
great as those for someone who is not able to walk, however, and it is
nonsensical to pretend otherwise. Blind people like him feel
justifiably angry about this discriminatory and unfair treatment by the
DLA system.
Equality is
not the only reason why we need to make this change, however. Without
the freedom that independent movement brings, it is all too easy for
blind people to become isolated and excluded from society and the
leisure and activities that they value. It also affects them at the
most basic level, preventing access to essential public services such
as
hospitals. That
exclusion is also played out in employment. Two thirds of working-age
people with sight loss are not in work, and a Leonard Cheshire
Disability report in 2003 found that visually impaired people are the
group that is most adversely affected in that respect. Yet, that group
is denied additional assistance. If we are serious about
improving the employment rate for disabled people, surely we need at
least to ensure they can get to an interview in the first
place. At the RNIB
lobby of Parliament in October, the Minister with responsibility for
disabled people spoke in very positive terms about “how”
and “when”, rather than “if”, blind people
would be given access to that component. I understand that costing and
conditions for eligibility have been carried out by the Department, and
I suggest that the new clause, and the Bill, offer the perfect response
to both questions that the Minister raised.
I remind
Members that about 26,000 people in the UK have no useful sight for
orientation purposes, and I would challenge anyone to say that such
people do not face some of the most significant barriers to getting
around. It is time that the mobility component of DLA lived up to its
name, and it is time for us to live up to blind people’s
expectations.
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