Jim Murphy (Minister of State (Work), Department for Work and Pensions; Renfrewshire East, Labour)

I beg to move amendment No. 67, in page 26, line 11, at end insert—

‘( ) For the purposes of subsection (1) a person must be treated as entitled to housing benefit or council tax benefit by virtue of the general conditions of entitlement if—

(a) he is not so entitled to that benefit at the time he or his partner ceases to be entitled to the prescribed benefit as mentioned in subsection (1)(b), and

(b) his entitlement to housing benefit or council tax benefit (as the case may be) ceased during the prescribed period before that time.’.

I am delighted formally and belatedly to welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Amess, this early evening in London.

Jeremy Hunt (Shadow Minister (the Disabled), Work & Pensions; South West Surrey, Conservative)

Has the Minister noticed that the sun is about to set over the shoulders of the hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (Gordon Banks)?

Jim Murphy (Minister of State (Work), Department for Work and Pensions; Renfrewshire East, Labour)

I would have noticed, of course, but my hon. Friend the Member for Ochil and South Perthshire is in Belfast today, so it would have been pretty difficult. I notice if I turn around that the sun is in fact setting behind my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr. Brown). Of course, the sun always shines in Dumfries. The sun may be shining in Belfast, but it may set a little later there because of its latitudinal position.

We now come to the substance of the Bill—the extended payment schemes on housing benefit and council tax benefit. Clauses 29 and 30 are technical, as is the amendment. With your indulgence, Mr. Amess, I shall rewind our proceedings—almost halfway—to clause 15 to confirm formally to the Committee that a request was made for the paperwork on private and voluntary providers, and that all 240 pages are in the Library. They will also be placed on the DWP website. After careful consideration, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary and I decided to make them available unedited. All paperwork that was made available to potential private and voluntary sector contractors and providers is now available to all members of the Committee and, by extension, all Members of this House and of another place. Thank you, Mr. Amess, for your indulgence in allowing me to share that with the Committee.

The extended payment scheme in the amendment and in the clause is aimed at providing additional housing benefit and council tax benefit support for people coming off prescribed benefits for work-related reasons. The structure of the scheme is similar to existing  schemes, with the detailed entitlement conditions described in secondary legislation, thus providing the flexibility to keep the schemes under review.

Under the current schemes, the housing benefit and/or council tax benefit claim has to be ended before an extended payment can be made. Once the extended payment ends, a person has to make a new claim if they think that they might be entitled to housing benefit or council tax benefit. The purpose of the amendment is to preserve a feature of the current extended payment scheme. For ease of reference, I shall refer to it solely as housing benefit, although the same rules will apply for council tax benefit.

The amendment is concerned with certain people whose housing benefit stops, for example because they have moved out of their home to start work in another local authority area. They would not usually receive an extended payment, because their entitlement to housing benefit would have ended before they ceased to be entitled to a qualifying benefit for the extended payment. The subsequent ending of the qualifying benefit for work-related reasons, one of the basic conditions for the entitlement to extended payment, would have no effect as the housing benefit claim would have already been closed. The current scheme allows a grace period if the move takes place in the week the person takes up employment or in the preceding week, and the powers in the clause must be amended to allow that to continue.

The proposed amendment would give the Secretary of State the power to prescribe in regulations a period before the cessation of qualifying benefit, during which the person would be treated as being entitled to housing benefit or council tax benefit. The intention is that the period should be the same as that in the current schemes, making special provision for cases in which housing benefit and/or council tax benefit ceases due to a person moving out of their home in the week that they take up employment or in the preceding week.

I have no idea whether you are minded to have a clause stand part debate on this important but technical issue, Mr. Amess. However, given my comments, I hope that both amendment No. 67 and the clause will be included in the Bill.