Clause 2
Welfare Reform Bill
4:30 pm
John Robertson (PPS (Dr Kim Howells, Minister of State), Foreign & Commonwealth Office; Glasgow North West, Labour)
May I, too, welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Hood? I know that your words of wisdom about temptation will be taken on board by every Member, even myself. There are three kinds of MP in the Room today—the good, the bad and the weak. I might be weak, but I am never bad, so I shall do my best to adhere to your instructions.
I tabled my amendments in order to probe the Government and to tease out some more information from them. Clause 2(1) deals with the amount of contributory allowance. The amount of the contributory ESA is not set out in the Bill, but will be set out in regulations. Page 42 of the Green Paper states that the additional amount for the work-related activity group
“will fix the total received by a claimant at a rate above the current long-term rate”.
In respect of the support group it continues:
“After the assessment phase, they...will receive more money than they do now.”
It is important that while we are asking people to take part voluntarily, we look after them to ensure that they are not worse off and that we protect the most vulnerable at all times. Under the IB scheme, additional amounts can be paid if conditions are met. They are age-related and adult dependent additions. The intention is that the ESA will not contain those additions.
To ensure that people on ESA are not worse off than on the current scheme and taking the statements in the Green Paper to mean that no one will lose out financially, the amount of contributory allowance must be at least equal to the stated rate of the IB scheme, including any additions to which they will be entitled; otherwise, the effect will be to push more people into the means-tested element of ESA. That might be the Government’s wish and unless someone has come up with a better way of assessing whether people need allowances, I appreciate that we must go down the road of means-testing. I hope that the Minister can assure me that the effect on those who most need help will be considered individually.
In conclusion, these amendments are small but the amount of money that people receive in cases of hardship must be looked at and taken care of. These are probing amendments because I want to hear from the Minister that the Government will always consider the people who most need help.