Anne McGuire (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Disabled People), Department for Work and Pensions; Stirling, Labour)

I beg to move amendment No. 55, in clause 19, page 15, line 36, leave out ‘employment and support’.

Jimmy Hood (Lanark & Hamilton East, Labour)

With this it will be convenient to discuss Government amendments Nos. 56 to 62

Anne McGuire (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Disabled People), Department for Work and Pensions; Stirling, Labour)

I hope that we do not need to spend too much time on the amendments. They ensure that the description of the contributory employment and support allowance in the clause, which deals with the relationship between ESA and statutory payments made by employers, is consistent with the description in the rest of the Bill so that we avoid any possible confusion. They tidy up the drafting, and I hope that the Committee will accept them in that spirit.

Anne McGuire (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Disabled People), Department for Work and Pensions; Stirling, Labour)

I beg to move amendment No. 63, in clause 19, page 16, line 13, at end insert—

‘( ) Except as regulations may provide, a person who is entitled to additional statutory paternity pay is not entitled to a contributory allowance in respect of a day that falls within the additional paternity pay period.

( ) Regulations may provide that—

(a) an amount equal to a person’s additional statutory paternity pay for a period shall be deducted from a contributory allowance in respect of the same period,

(b) a person shall only be entitled to a contributory allowance if there is a balance after the deduction, and

(c) if there is such a balance, a person shall be entitled to a contributory allowance at a weekly rate equal to it.’.

Jimmy Hood (Lanark & Hamilton East, Labour)

With this it will be convenient to discuss Government amendments Nos. 64 and 65.

Anne McGuire (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Disabled People), Department for Work and Pensions; Stirling, Labour)

The purpose of the amendments is to ensure that the contributory and support allowance treats the additional statutory paternity pay in the same way as other similar statutory payments made by employers, such as statutory maternity and adoption pay. The amendments set out in detail the relationship between the contributory employment and support allowance and statutory payments.

The additional statutory paternity pay is a new statutory payment paid by employers to employees which was introduced by the Work and FamiliesAct 2006. A decision on when the new scheme will be introduced is yet to be made, but we need to ensure that the ESA can take account of that. The regulations that we will make under the clause will provide that where a claimant is receiving one such payment from their employer, it will be deducted from the contributory employment and support allowance under the overlapping benefit rules. Those arrangements arethe same as those for incapacity benefit. I therefore ask the Committee to accept the amendment.

John Robertson (PPS (Dr Kim Howells, Minister of State), Foreign & Commonwealth Office; Glasgow North West, Labour)

I beg to move amendment No. 141, in clause 19, page 16,line 18, at end insert—

‘(6A) In relation to a claim for an employment and support allowance, regulations under this section may make provision for—

(a) an assessment to be made to identify all statutory entitlements and allowances to which a claimant is entitled;

(b) notification to a claimant of their statutory entitlements;

(c) advice to a claimant on how statutory entitlements may be claimed.’.

I welcome you back to the Chair, Mr. Hood, as everyone else has. It is a pleasure to have you here. Considering the time, I am sure that everyone is feeling hungry; I noticed that some Opposition Members were getting a bit tetchy, which may not be surprising. I am afraid, however, that I shall speak to the amendment at some length, as I have a number of points to make. Perhaps I will get through my introduction before we break either for dinner or for a Division in the House.

Tim Boswell (Shadow Minister, Work & Pensions; Daventry, Conservative)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

John Robertson (PPS (Dr Kim Howells, Minister of State), Foreign & Commonwealth Office; Glasgow North West, Labour)

You have got me there.

Tim Boswell (Shadow Minister, Work & Pensions; Daventry, Conservative)

This is a genuine effort to assist the hon. Gentleman. He will note that the amendment has been signed by members of the Committee from all political parties. I give him advance notice that we probably will not want to speak to it, unless there is some omission in his speech.

John Robertson (PPS (Dr Kim Howells, Minister of State), Foreign & Commonwealth Office; Glasgow North West, Labour)

I did notice that the amendment, which I move on behalf of myself and my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr. Brown), has attracted several names. The hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey, whom we now call the Liberal one, has put his name to it, as has his missing friend the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Laws) and the hon. Member for Daventry. I like to think that that is not because I am moving it, but because it has much merit and covers a great deal of information that all Members feel that the Government should take on board and address. Having said that, it is a probing amendment, on which I seek answers and some fears to be allayed.

I particularly want to know what more Jobcentre Plus will do to inform all ESA claimants of all relevant benefits for which they are eligible when assessing their claims. Macmillan, Citizens Advice and the Disability Benefits Consortium have all raised similar concerns with me and support the amendment, as do Opposition Members. I want to ensure that ESA applicants are informed of all the relevant benefits, particularly disability benefits, for which they are eligible when they make their ESA claim at Jobcentre Plus.

Why introduce such a duty on Jobcentre Plus? People with cancer need more financial support. There is a wealth of evidence that cancer leads to a significant fall in income and imposes considerable additional costs on people. For example, Macmillan Cancer Support found that, among the under-55s, seven out of 10 suffer a loss in household income with an average fall of 50 per cent. The lack of information about benefits cause people with cancer to miss out. The National Audit Office found that 77 per cent. of cancer patients are not given information about available financial support.

The benefit advisers at Macmillan Cancer Support report that Jobcentre Plus staff rarely inform cancer patients about disability and carer service benefits, even when their entitlement to incapacity benefit demonstrates a potential eligibility for disability benefits. The scripts used by Jobcentre Plus call centres do not inform claimants about disability benefits. The onus is usually on the claimants to inquire whether they are entitled to them.  As a result of the lack of information, too many cancer patients are missing out on vital disability benefits that cannot be backdated. They also miss out on extra income support, housing benefit and other entitlements that can result from a successful claim for disability living allowance.

Let me give an example. In September 2006, a cancer patient aged 38 visited Jobcentre Plus at Wythenshawe to find out what she was entitled to. She was told that, because she was receiving statutory sick pay, she would not be entitled to any benefits. She approached Macmillan immediately afterwards and was helped to claim disability living allowance that also entitled her to income support and help with housing costs and council tax. Misinformation about benefits also causes cancer patients to miss out. Advisers at the Macmillan helpline have identified the lack of information or misinformation by Jobcentre Plus as a major theme among its cases.

People need all the information available the first time that they contact Jobcentre Plus. I welcomed the Minister’s remarks to the Committee on 17 October that claimants would receive face-to-face benefits advice on their first work-focused interview eight weeks after their claim starts. However, having such advice at that point in the process would mean that people who were entitled to additional benefits would have already missed out on much-needed money, which in most cases cannot be backdated.

Furthermore, those in the support group will not attend work-focused interviews at all so, under the current proposals, they will have not have access to any of the benefits advice. Is that so, and what does the Under-Secretary intend to do to stop it happening? Ministers have recognised the Government’s need to do more to improve benefits awareness and take-up, and both Ministers have said repeatedly that more needs to be done to improve awareness and the take-up of benefits. For example, the issue was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mrs. Cryer).

John Robertson (PPS (Dr Kim Howells, Minister of State), Foreign & Commonwealth Office; Glasgow North West, Labour)

Because I have lost my place, I shall start again from the beginning. I know that everyone was riveted by what I was about to say. I was in the process of going through various reasons for the amendment.

Adam Afriyie (Windsor, Conservative)

I welcome the amendment, especially on the basis that it is a catch-all amendment. It will catch not just claimants with terminal cancer but claimants with any terminal disease. Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that the intention is to catch all claimants with a terminal illness?

John Robertson (PPS (Dr Kim Howells, Minister of State), Foreign & Commonwealth Office; Glasgow North West, Labour)

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and the answer is in the affirmative. However, the amendment was tabled not just for that reason but for many others.

I was explaining why we have to put duties on Jobcentre Plus, and I had given four reasons. I said that some of my colleagues had made contributions in the House. My hon. Friend the Member for Keighley spoke during the Second Reading debate on 24 July. In response, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions stated that he would

“reflect on what my hon. Friend has said and see whether there is anything more that we can do...it is our responsibility to ensure that people are at least aware of the various entitlements that might be available to them.”—[Official Report, 24 July 2006;Vol. 449, c. 622.]

Ministers have responded positively to recent parliamentary questions on the issue from several MPs including the hon. Member for Billericay (Mr. Baron) and my hon. Friends the Members for Stroud (Mr. Drew), for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman) and for Calder Valley (Chris McCafferty). Most recently, in a Westminster Hall debate on benefits for cancer patients, my hon. Friend the Minister stated:

“I recognise that we need to improve benefit awareness.”—[Official Report, Westminster Hall, 10 October 2006; Vol. 50,c. 450WH.]

In addition, 156 MPs from all parties signed early-day motion 1553 on Macmillan’s Better Deal for Cancer Patients campaign, which includes a call for the Government to use effective referral mechanisms to inform all cancer patients about their eligibility for financial benefits.

Given cross-party support and repeated ministerial commitments to improve the current system, the supporting groups and I believe that the Welfare Reform Bill provides a clear opportunity to explain how that will be done. We believe that a key part of the solution is ensuring that employment and support allowance claimants are told about all benefit entitlements when they first claim. I ask again whether Jobcentre Plus ensures that ESA claimants are informed about other relevant benefits to which they are entitled. The Jobcentre Plus booklet “Our service standards”, which is dated January 2006, states:

“We aim to provide accurate and appropriate information and advice to help you ... understand which working-age benefits you may be able to claim”.

Staff are supposed to

“direct you to the right person or organisation if we cannot help”.

However, in reality, that does not appear to happen. Let me give another example. The current customer management system script used by Jobcentre Plus call centres does not include questions that would enable call centre operatives to identify claimants who may be entitled to disability living allowance or attendance allowance. Nor does it include any prompts to give information about those benefits or to refer claimants to advice services for further information about them or for a full benefits check. Some claimants are asked whether they are receiving DLA or AA, but those who say that they are not are neither asked further questions to establish eligibility nor given any further benefit information. The situation is similar for working tax credit and child tax credit. I believe that there is scope to change the scripts so that at least the customer can be made aware of those benefits and tax  credits. Although I accept that that does not happen 100 per cent. of the time, once is too often, in my opinion.

New duties and procedures are needed to trigger staff to inform claimants about the full range of benefits to which they are entitled and then to signpost them to the appropriate sources of support if Jobcentre Plus cannot help. Writing an awareness and signposting role into the scripts used by contacts and centre staff is one way in which benefits awareness and take-up could be improved. Further changes could include a DWP benefits inquiry line, which could be one of the main places to which claimants are referred for a more in-depth assessment of their disability benefits entitlement and help with form filling, which is something that many claimants have problems with.

Jobcentre Plus could also use resources such as UK Advice Finder to signpost claimants to other organisations that provide specialist benefits services. Although that would not be a one-stop shop approach, it would be an improvement on the current reality faced by people with cancer or any other disability who find themselves with such problems.

Citizens Advice also raised a few points about passporting and, in particular, access to help with health costs. That merits discussion here. The ability to pay for prescriptions is linked to the ability to manage a health condition, which in turn contributes to a person’s ability to undertake work. Will new claimants receiving the contributory rate of ESA be passported to the same benefits and have access to the same grants and loans as current claimants receiving income support with a disability premium?

Citizens Advice is concerned that replacing the current income support and disability premium with a contribution-based employment support allowance will disadvantage people receiving that form of ESA. It would seem that they either would be able to access help with health costs through passporting or might only be able to do so through the low-income scheme, which requires completion of a 16-page form. The Select Committee on Health recommended in its report on NHS charges in July 2006 that the DWP and the Department of Health work together to extend health charge exemptions from means-tested benefits so that the low-income scheme can be abolished.

We do not believe that it is the Government’s intention to disadvantage future claimants of contribution-based ESA and would therefore appreciate clarification from the Under-Secretary on the aspect of the Bill before us. I appreciate that I have gone on at length, but feel that the points that I have raised are important and look forward to her reply.

Anne McGuire (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Disabled People), Department for Work and Pensions; Stirling, Labour)

I hope that I can give my hon. Friend some reassurance on his points. He is obviously right to raise the issue of information on benefits and I am happy to say to him that the DWP already provides a range of information on benefits and statutory entitlements and on how to claim them. We do that through a range of methods. Obviously, our website provides eligibility information. We provide also a range of literature such as booklets and leaflets, which are available to customers in many locations including advice agencies. I shall come on to that soon. They are available in different formats including in Braille.

Customers can access advice by contacting their local office or Jobcentre Plus direct or their benefit delivery centre. I do not know whether my hon. Friend has been in to one recently, but the new Jobcentre Plus facilities have direct access telephone lines at no cost to the customer, and people can access the benefit delivery centre easily. When notifying customers of benefit decisions, we also ensure that there is information on a range of other benefits. Information on employment and support allowance will be available at the first interview under the new arrangements, so that people can make informed choices. We must ensure that information is available at the right time and in the right place.

I say to my hon. Friend that I am not sure whether a statutory duty would add anything to the requirement that we place on Jobcentre Plus to provide information to those people who contact it. I assure him that my hon. Friend the Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform, Ministers in Departments such as the Department of Health and I meet Macmillan Cancer Support and other charities that highlight the issue of benefits information. We are working with them closely to consider how we improve access to information.

Adam Afriyie (Windsor, Conservative)

I appreciate the comments on and intentions towards ensuring that people with terminal illnesses receive information. There is one group of people with terminal illnesses that does not receive information; notification is not triggered by the local authorities or by the Department for Work and Pensions. One of my colleagues has raised the matter in the House. However, will the Government introduce an amendment requiring that people with terminal illnesses are notified of the benefits that they can receive? One or two groups are not notified, and there is no requirement for them to be notified.

Anne McGuire (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Disabled People), Department for Work and Pensions; Stirling, Labour)

I do not want to go too far down the track of other benefits. I am not sure of the benefits to which the hon. Gentleman alludes; however, we work hard with the Department of Health and with charities such as Macmillan to consider ways in which information can be presented. That includes information prescriptions, so that when a patient is given a terminal diagnosis, they have information in front of them. It is a sensitive area, and Macmillan and the Government realise that at the traumatic point in a person’s life when they are given the diagnosis, they do not want the next discussion with a doctor to be about their entitlement to disability living allowance and attendance allowance. The matter must be dealt with sensitively, and we must also appreciate that people may not know that they have a terminal diagnosis. For many reasons, the diagnosis may be withheld from them.

We constantly consider ways in which we can make information available, through websites, citizens advice bureaux, and advice agencies such as local authorities, social services and carers organisations. We are not complacent. We recognise that we must continue to ensure that we improve the ways in which benefit advice, particularly disability-related benefits such as DLA and AA, can be delivered. It will be at the forefront of our minds when we consider the ESA and the first interviews at the beginning of the process. In light of those reassurances, I hope that my hon. Friend will withdraw his amendment.

John Robertson (PPS (Dr Kim Howells, Minister of State), Foreign & Commonwealth Office; Glasgow North West, Labour)

I thank my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary for her statement, but I have a couple of reservations. Having a bank of information does not guarantee that it is getting out to the person who needs it. As a result of that I ask what checks and balances can be put in place to ensure that everything is above board and people can see that questions are being asked properly. I fully take on board my hon. Friend’s point that people who find out that they have a terminal illness might not ask the right questions. I would expect those dealing with such people to take their problems on board.

I reserve the right, if I do not get answers to my questions, to return to the matter on Report. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.