Clause 7 - Power to provide for payments
Age-Related Payments Bill
2:30 pm
Professor Steve Webb (Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Work & Pensions; Northavon, Liberal Democrat)
Important issues are still outstanding. The Committee will recall that it is the ''we really do not want to have to do so this all again'' clause. It allows the Government at any time to pass regulations to bring in a new scheme of payments related to age or other factors, unconnected to those in the rest of the Bill, to anyone over 60 years of age at any time in the future. The only safeguard in terms of scrutiny is an affirmative resolution having to be passed by both Houses.
The power is too sweeping for us to allow the clause to stand part of the Bill. I observed that the Government's thinking behind the payments is that they would be ad hoc. They used that phrase in a written answer to me. It is outrageous that we are being asked to give power to them to make unlimited ad hoc payments to pensioners whenever there is a problem. The Minister said that we needed the Bill quickly because there was a problem with council tax. We do not know whether the Government are anticipating future problems, such as elections. The idea that we give them a blank cheque to write unlimited amounts to people aged over 60 is unacceptable.
I have three further objections. Nothing in the clause caps the amount provided. The Bill deals with £500 million of taxpayers' money. Given that we had the best part of a day on the Floor of the House discussing it and will have more time on Report, at least that sum will have had a day and a half of scrutiny. However, if the clause is accepted, the Government could spend any number of billions of pounds inventing a completely new scheme of payments to the over-60s with only 90 minutes of parliamentary scrutiny.
It is incredible that some Departments are scrutinised to the nth degree for their expenditure of the odd million of pounds here and there, yet the Department for Work and Pensions can shower billions of pounds around with practically no parliamentary scrutiny. Clause 7 allows it a licence to do that. At the very least, there should be a limit on the scope of a scheme that can be introduced and we
should be able to return to it on Report by tabling an amendment. At the moment, the clause is a blank cheque.
My second objection is that it allows only inadequate scrutiny of a new regime. We decided that giving £100 to everyone was as simple as it gets. Yet even that was the subject of detailed scrutiny this morning and on Second Reading, as it will be when we return to the Bill on Report. Clause 7(2) allows the Government to introduce a scheme when not only age, but any other ''specified circumstances'' can be brought into play. A fiendishly complicated scheme could be introduced, yet we would only have 90 minutes to consider not only a huge amount of taxpayers' money, but that complex scheme itself. The scrutiny proposals under clause 7 are inadequate.
My third observation also relates to scrutiny. The Committee knows that the 90-minute affirmative procedure allows us to make no amendments. It is a yes or no, take it or leave it process. It is not as though we can say that we like the principle but not the detail. The Government could come up with a scheme that requires a vast amount of taxpayers' money. Those proposals might be far more detailed than the ones that we have discussed, which are to be contained in an Act of Parliament. But after only 90 minutes of scrutiny, the Government could then say, ''Take it or leave it. Lump it or not.'' That is an unacceptable way for the Department to approach the spending of taxpayers' money. We are unhappy that the clause found its way into the Bill.