Clause 15
Welfare Reform Bill
12:00 pm
Danny Alexander (Shadow Minister and Disability Spokesperson, Work & Pensions; Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey, Liberal Democrat)
It is a pleasure to welcome you to the Chair again, Mr. Hood. I look forward to serving under your chairmanship in what promises to be a lengthy but engagingly good-tempered sitting. I shall be brief, as much of what I wanted to raise was mentioned in the previous debate.
This is a probing amendment to ensure that the requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and the Human Rights Act 1998 will be taken into account in the Department’s contracting with private and voluntary organisations that are to be engaged to deliver much of the work involved in rolling out pathways to work, and so on.
As he did during our sitting on 19 October, in his reply to the previous debate the Minister gave some welcome reassurances on the Disability Discrimination Act and the disability equality duty, which comes into force later next month and which providers in the private and voluntary sector will have to take into account.
I ask the Minister to say something in this debate about the Human Rights Act, because much of what we are discussing has implications under that Act, not least in respect of benefit sanctions, but in other areas, too. What consideration has the Minister’s Department given to the human rights implications of the contracting out of public functions under clause 15?
In respect of the sanctions, the Minister made it clear that the Government have no immediate intention of giving providers the power to sanction that the clause allows for. That may well come about in due course in the circumstances that the Minister tried to describe in the previous debate—if not to my satisfaction, at least to his.
Will the Minister give an undertaking that an assessment will be made of the policy’s impact on human rights, on child poverty and on disability equality, so that the potential adverse impacts of giving those powers to contracted-out providers are taken into account before any decision is made on contracting out sanctions? I got the impression from the Minister’s remarks in the previous debate that he is keen to enter a substantial number of caveats before any decision is made to contract out benefit sanction or decision-making powers. Before any decision is made, a wide range of factors must be taken into account and I will add them to his list: human rights, child poverty, disability equality. I look forward to the hon. Gentleman’s response.