Clause 26
Welfare Reform Bill
James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)
I remind the Committee that with this we are discussing amendment 112, in clause 27, page 14, line 4, at end add—
‘(10) Under no circumstances shall the Secretary of State allow any targets to be set which would increase the number or value of sanctions issued under this section.’.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston, Labour)
I hope to pick up from where we left off, but I am sure that hon. Members will remind me if I fail to address the issues that we were discussing before lunch. We were looking at the potential for target setting in the number of sanctions imposed by Jobcentre Plus. We accept that we do not have evidence that Ministers have set any targets for the number of sanctions to be imposed, but we have demonstrated that some Jobcentre Plus offices have interpreted that that is what went with the grain of Ministers’ intentions. I think that there is broad agreement that some of the behaviours in Jobcentre Plus offices in recent months are, as the hon. Member for Battersea has pointed out, issues to do with performance management and the way in which discretion and decision making are applied.
The tone that has been set has given rise to this situation. As I said this morning, its context is the benchmarking approach undertaken by Jobcentre Plus since at least the end of last year, according to the written answer I received from the agency’s chief executive. That has raised the concern in our minds that some Jobcentre Plus staff feel that, if they do not come close to or within those benchmarks, that will bring their approach to sanctioning into question, and that may well have dictated some of the behaviours that we have seen.
In practice, we can see the way in which this is playing out in the kinds of behaviours being displayed by Jobcentre Plus advisers. Some of them were referred to this morning by my hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield. I have been given information about the interesting case of a gentleman called George Jones—that is not his correct name, but I have been asked to protect his identity. He is an ex-offender who is claiming jobseeker’s allowance and undertaking activities set out in his jobseeker’s agreement, one of which was to attend a provision by an organisation called Calder UK once a week. He also attended the Foundation Training Company, which helps offenders find work. Foundation located a training course for him, which meant that he attended the Ability media centre for 16 hours a week while continuing to look for work. Because he was attending Ability, he was not able to attend Calder on a Thursday, but the Calder job coach was happy with that and accepted the reasons for George’s absence. None the less, the Calder agency continued to send letters to George. At the same time that all that was going on—George was being told by one bit of the system that it was okay for him to attend the course and not turn up on a Thursday, but he was receiving letters from another part asking him where on earth he was on Thursdays—he continued to sign on at the Department for Work and Pensions and the Jobcentre Plus staff who dealt with him raised no objections.
In mid-March, George attended a 13-week review at Jobcentre Plus of his job-seeking activities, and it is here that we get an indication of how a mindset might be seeping into some Jobcentre Plus officials. The jobcentre official accused George of failing to seek work and of being unavailable to work. It is reported that the official became aggressive and refused to listen to George’s account of what was happening or to examine the facts. Eventually, the official walked out of the interview, refusing to do anything to verify the information provided. In fact, he walked out and said to George, “I’m going to lunch.”
The next thing that happened in the middle of March was that George discovered that his benefit had been cut off. He received a letter on 30 March advising him that it had been cut off from the 12th until the 26th. It did not say anything specifically about that being a sanction. For the rest of the period, George attempted to explain the situation to the jobcentre, both in phone calls and through visits. He spoke to three different managers, without any assistance or guidance, and other agencies, including the police, helped negotiate with the DWP on George’s behalf as well. Finally, the Zacchaeus 2000 Trust, with which hon. Members will be familiar, was able to assist George with a small cash payment as he had had no money for three weeks. When we look at the behaviour of the official who was conducting the 13-week review, we can see that the climate means that at least some officials feel that the pressure is not to offer any tolerance or space. They simply take the facts at face value and apply sanctions. That is clearly a cause for concern.
I think we all feel—I picked this up from listening to the Minister this morning—that there needs to be a much more subtle and potentially discretionary judgmental approach taken to the application of sanctions. It is difficult to see how that can be the right approach in the context where any targets are set. If Ministers are confident that they never intended to set targets, they should have no difficulty with the amendment because it would simply say that that is something they would not seek to do.
Finally, I am concerned that any climate the ratcheting up of the likelihood of sanctions has created, whether by intention, misinterpretation or otherwise, will bear most harshly on the disadvantaged. All the evidence shows that they are the people—those with the most chaotic lifestyles, the disabled, those with learning difficulties, those with language difficulties, those from ethnic minority backgrounds and so on—who are most likely already to face a sanction. In a target regime, whether intended or accidental, the people who are likely to continue to be most vulnerable to facing a sanction will be the easy pickings. Therefore, we would like it to be overtly stated in the legislation that no such climate of targets to meet as many sanctions as are required will be implemented.
Chris Grayling (Minister of State (Employment), Work and Pensions; Epsom and Ewell, Conservative)
I have listened to the debate with a degree of surprise. I do not blame the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) because she is a new Member of Parliament, but I cannot believe the gall of the Opposition in what they say about the number of sanctions.
Let us start by considering the practical facts. The main reason for the increase in the number of sanctions over the past 12 months is a change in the way that failure to attend a mandatory interview is treated. Previously, such failures resulted in disentitlement if the claimant did not make contact within five days. In such cases, many claimants would then make a fresh claim to benefit, losing on average a few days a month. The approach did not provide a strong enough incentive to attend those important announcements.
Therefore, the previous Government thought long and hard and took a decision to change the system in the Welfare Reform Act 2009. If I am not mistaken, the Labour party was in power in 2009 and the 2009 Act was its policy. That legislation introduced a new sanction for failure to attend mandatory appointments, which was introduced from April 2010 by the previous Government. The key reason why there has been a big jump in the number of sanctions in the past year is because of a policy decision taken by the previous Government. We agree with that decision, but it was a direct result of decisions taken not by the right hon. Member for East Ham because he was not in that job at the time, but by his parliamentary colleagues.
To hear the faux accusation that somehow this is an evil decision taken by the current Government, is simply a travesty of the truth. This was a conscious policy decision taken by the previous Government and it has led to a significant increase in the number of sanctions. Under the new approach, if a claimant can demonstrate good cause, the benefit continues. However, where they cannot, a one-week sanction is imposed, which is increased to a two-week sanction for the second and subsequent failures. Where the customer does not return within five days, their case is closed. That is the reason for the increase in sanctions from 2010.
There is another point, in relation to which I should make an apology. It is certainly the case that we underestimated the extent to which 13 years of centralised, top-down target setting meant that people were so used to living in a target culture, they would replicate it, even without instruction from the top. I freely admit that, a few weeks ago, I discovered that a pretty loose set of policy indications that aimed to create a system that was firm but fair in treating claimants—a two-way contract, as we mentioned this morning—was, in a small number of cases, being turned into target setting, not across the country, but on a local level. The moment we discovered that, we took steps to stop it. None the less, a consequence—Opposition Members should be ashamed—is that for 13 years Jobcentre Plus and other public sector organisations were wrapped up in such a culture of target setting that it is now a huge change challenge to turn such organisations around, saying to them, “Actually, we want you to use your discretion.” It is a matter of great regret that we failed to understand the degree to which the previous Administration damaged those organisations. We are now seeking to put right that damage.
Stephen Timms (East Ham, Labour)
In due course, the Minister will learn some rather hard lessons about how large organisations such as Jobcentre Plus respond to the kind of things he will say to them. He told us—I am grateful—that he learned some weeks ago about the problem with targets being set. Which jobcentres applied those targets? As I asked this morning, did he inform the Secretary of State?
Chris Grayling (Minister of State (Employment), Work and Pensions; Epsom and Ewell, Conservative)
The answer is that I will not give the right hon. Gentleman a list of jobcentres—the targets were applied sporadically, and it would not be fair on those jobcentres to give a list, but a clear instruction was given. Yes, the Secretary of State was informed, but he was asked that question at pretty much the same time as I discovered what had been going on.
Does the right hon. Gentleman now regret creating in government such a target-driven culture, which could lead an organisation to believe that the only response was a target? Does he understand the degree of damage that was done by the way his Administration approached the management of big organisations in that time? There was no sense of devolution of power and responsibility in the front line, and no sense of judgment—it was target, target, target and close control, close control, close control, to the extent that I now find Jobcentre Plus staff pleasantly surprised to discover that they have discretion to judge what is right and wrong.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston, Labour)
As the Minister noted, I am a new Member of Parliament, so I have no personal responsibility for the effectiveness or otherwise of the target-setting regime that existed before last year. However, I point out that the points target-based approach, which rewarded Jobcentre Plus advisers for getting people into employment, saw for example a surge in lone-parenting employment, from 44% to 57%. As someone who was in no way implicated in setting targets under the previous Government, I thought it was an effective driver of good Jobcentre Plus behaviour.
Chris Grayling (Minister of State (Employment), Work and Pensions; Epsom and Ewell, Conservative)
I rather disagree with the hon. Lady. The imposition of centralised targets throughout government—not simply in Jobcentre Plus—created perverse decision making in the organisations, removed professional discretion and ended up with public services running less effectively than they should otherwise have done.
I would be happy to accept the amendments if we could insert “Labour” before “Secretary of State”. That party brought the culture of targets to government and that party did to our public services the damage that will take us far too long to sort out. We are dealing with a difficult legacy, which should not have taken its current form. We are making changes as quickly as we can. I could not possibly accept a set of amendments designed, fundamentally, to rectify a situation created by the party proposing those amendments.
Stephen Timms (East Ham, Labour)
That is a disappointing response from the Minister and, I am afraid, simply draws attention to his present lack of understanding—sadly, although I know he has only been in the job for a year—of how large organisations operate and how they respond to the kind of directives that he will undoubtedly issue, in the same way that his predecessors did.
The Minister has I think made clear his objection to having such targets—that is implied in what he said, and I take it that he does so object. He leaves us with a bit of a mystery, because the statement from his Department a few days after that article in The Guardian said:
“A few weeks ago ministers discovered that their message to be clearer about conditionality had been misinterpreted by a small number of Jobcentre Plus offices”—
I am not quite sure why the Minister cannot tell us which offices—and the Minister said that he told the Secretary of State at that time. Why the Secretary of State then went on television to describe the allegations as “claptrap” remains somewhat unclear. It would have been helpful to have had some illumination of what exactly went on. Ministers ought to communicate such information to each other a bit more readily than seems to have happened on that occasion.
The episode illuminates how readily intentions that sound perfectly well and honourable in Committee could go badly wrong. From what the various whistleblowers have said, there was clearly a culture change—one of them said last summer. That is when it happened. There was not simply a change of legislation—although there was a change of legislation, as the Minister has rightly said—but a culture change that led to the targets being set by some jobcentres.
The truth is that Ministers unfortunately have to plan for the eventuality that things go wrong, such as people with mental health problems being sanctioned inappropriately. So Ministers should not simply tell us that, because everything has changed as a result of the general election, none of those things will go wrong in future. They will go wrong again. The Minister would do better to recognise that reality rather than pretending that everything has now changed, because such things happen.
The planning assumption needs to be that such things will go wrong. The Minister will not do well to operate on the hoping-for-the-best basis that if he says, “All will be well,” it will be. He needs to plan on the basis that things will go wrong. I am afraid that some very vulnerable people will lose out severely as a result.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover, Conservative)
The Minister seems to be saying that things did not go wrong. It seems that the previous Government implemented a policy and that jobcentre workers followed that policy. That might be erroneous, but, nevertheless, it seems that the policy came from the previous Government. Does the right hon. Member for East Ham regret that? If so, will he condemn the policy?
Stephen Timms (East Ham, Labour)
No, it is perfectly true that the legislation changed. The problem subsequently arose, however, in some jobcentres that, in my view, responded to what they thought they were being told by Ministers. The new culture that was introduced last summer led to some jobcentres, some regions, or whoever it was—we have not been able to establish exactly how the problem occurred—setting targets for sanctions. That was the problem, and it gave rise to the difficulties that have been exposed. Ministers need to recognise that such problems happen in large organisations such as Jobcentre Plus, and they need to plan on that basis. Ministers need to address things to avoid those problems occurring in the future, as they undoubtedly will unless steps are taken to avoid them.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover, Conservative)
Again, the right hon. Gentleman will forgive me, but the Minister has clearly said that he thinks that the target culture was part of the problem. Giving people at the front line more discretion will enable more humanity, understanding and compassion to get such decisions right.
Stephen Timms (East Ham, Labour)
But large organisations such as Jobcentre Plus will always have targets. That is the nature of large organisations. The hon. Gentleman heard me this morning reading out how people in jobcentres have responded to the targets they have been set. I am simply making the point that Jobcentre Plus needs to be managed in light of how things work, not by pretending, “Oh, everything has miraculously changed. Those problems won’t arise because Ministers say they won’t arise.” I am afraid they will.
Chris Grayling (Minister of State (Employment), Work and Pensions; Epsom and Ewell, Conservative)
Does the shadow Minister not accept—he may be struggling to understand this concept—that Jobcentre Plus staff were surprised and pleased that they now have discretion and are not locked in by centralised targets? That is what I have found. Does he not understand the degree to which imposing diktat from the Secretary of State’s office shapes the behaviour of an organisation, which leads to the consequences we have seen?
Stephen Timms (East Ham, Labour)
But the Minister’s difficulty is that those targets have been in place since the election. That is how Jobcentre Plus has responded to the new Ministers. He needs to recognise that and not pretend that problems will not happen in future, because they will. Whoever runs Jobcentre Plus, and it is an organisation for which I have high regard, there will be targets. There is no point in pretending that targets will not be there any more, because they certainly will.
George Hollingbery (Meon Valley, Conservative)
Looking carefully at amendment 111, I am puzzled. It would apparently prevent the Secretary of State from allowing targets to be set, at the same time that, according to the shadow Minister, it is in the very nature of such an organisation as Jobcentre Plus that it sets targets. The amendment specifically refers to targets that would increase sanctions under the clause, but there must be a wide range of targets that we would not think were desirable, so why are they not specified? Is it not right that an organisation such as Jobcentre Plus might have a target that resulted in improvements—for example, to be more careful about how it interprets existing legislation to ensure that people who should be sanctioned are sanctioned? Ultimately, the amendment makes little or no sense. It is internally contradictory.
Stephen Timms (East Ham, Labour)
Certainly, Jobcentre Plus will have targets, and it is absolutely right that it should have. The Minister gives the impression that he does not want any targets. I cannot imagine that he believes that. The managers in Jobcentre Plus will rightly have put targets in place to manage the organisation successfully, as it is very large.
The point of our amendment is simply to assert that targets should not refer to the number of sanctions. It is a reflection of what has gone on in some jobcentres over the past few months. All of us in Committee, including the Minister, would agree that such sanctions should not have been set; the amendment is a device to ensure that they will not be so in future. However, I do not intend to push it to a vote.
I say to the Minister that, as we move on to the changes set out clauses 26 and 27, he will need to have his eyes open about what the provisions will open up in practice. We will hear more disturbing stories about how some policies are implemented. The Minister needs to plan on that basis and to do what he can to avoid repeats of this particularly disreputable episode. I fear that similar ones might happen in the future. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Stephen Timms (East Ham, Labour)
I beg to move amendment 114, in clause 26, page 13, line 8, at end insert—
‘(9) Where only one member of a couple attracts a sanction under this section, regulations must make provision for the second member of the couple to continue to receive an appropriate share, except in such circumstances as may be prescribed.’.
James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 115, in clause 27, page 14, line 4, at end insert—
‘(10) Where only one member of a couple attracts a sanction under this section, regulations must make provision for the second member of the couple to continue to receive an appropriate share, except in such circumstances as may be prescribed.’.
Stephen Timms (East Ham, Labour)
With universal credit being applied to households rather than individuals, there is a worry that sanctions will have a detrimental effect on families as a whole, in that they might end up facing severe financial penalties for the actions of one individual. The Royal National Institute for Deaf People has made that point. It has stated:
“We do not believe that this is a fair way of enforcing sanctions, and believe that only the individual transgressor should face a penalty under such circumstances.”
The difficulties are exacerbated by the fact that with universal credit all the benefits are in one place and that everything is assessed at household rather than individual level. I hope that the Minister will give us some reassurance about how sanctions will be applied in the universal credit where a couple rather than a single person is affected.
At the moment, jobseeker’s allowance is paid at a reduced rate during sanction periods where only one member of a joint-claim couple is sanctioned, and in those cases the jobseeker’s allowance is paid to the person who has not been sanctioned. The guidance sets out details of how that is calculated. I am keen to hear from the Minister whether the same arrangement will be put in place in the universal credit or whether there is a real danger of both members of a couple being entirely without support because one member incurs a sanction.
Chris Grayling (Minister of State (Employment), Work and Pensions; Epsom and Ewell, Conservative)
The amendments seek to ensure that, as the shadow Minister said, where one member of a couple is sanctioned the couple’s universal credit award is not reduced to below the appropriate amount for the compliant member of the couple, except in prescribed circumstances. That is an important issue and the right hon. Gentleman is sensible to raise it.
Let me reassure the Committee: if one member of a couple is sanctioned, the compliant member will be left with an appropriate amount of universal credit. Sanctionable amounts will be set by reference to the standard allowance that will be included in a claimant’s universal credit maximum amount. Since the standard allowance for couple claimants will be more than, but not double, that of a single claimant, we may set different sanctionable rates for failures by one member of a couple compared with a failure by an individual. We are carefully considering what the rate should be, but I give the Committee an absolute assurance that where only one member of a couple is sanctioned, the household award will not be reduced by more than the single person standard allowance. That means that where the household receives its maximum universal credit amount, the sanctioned award will still include an identifiable amount to support the basic living costs of the compliant member.
Furthermore, any additional amounts included in the award for housing or children would not be affected by a sanction. Where a household’s award is less than its maximum amount, due to its level of income or savings, a sanction could reduce the universal credit to less than the additional amounts for children and housing, including the maximum amount, and the Committee will remember that I explained this morning how and why that might happen. In such cases, claimants will have access to income or savings to support those costs. I hope that that gives the right hon. Gentleman the reassurance he sought and that he will withdraw the amendment.
Stephen Timms (East Ham, Labour)
I am grateful for that reassurance and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Stephen Timms (East Ham, Labour)
I beg to move amendment 81, in clause 26, page 13, line 8, at end insert—
‘(10) Regulations must provide for the lifting or termination of sanctions if the claimant enters employment.’.
James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 84, in clause 27, page 14, line 4, at end insert—
‘(11) Regulations must provide for the lifting or termination of sanctions if the claimant enters employment.’.
Stephen Timms (East Ham, Labour)
Most people would assume that when somebody gets a job, any sanction that had been imposed on them prior to that and by which they were affected immediately before taking up their job would end. The amendments are intended to ensure that that is the case. As the Bill stands, however, that is not the case. As I understand it, the current intention is that if somebody is sanctioned and then gets a job, but subsequently loses that job, the sanction on them immediately before going into work would apply to them again. It strikes me that it would be better, not least to increase the attractiveness of being in a job, to let the sanction lapse once somebody goes into employment. I suppose that there might be a problem with people getting a job for a very short time just to escape the sanction and then leaving that job in order to go back on benefits, so there might have to be some prescribed period, but to say that the sanction that they go into work with effectively stays with them, in abeyance, throughout their time in work and then comes back into life at the moment when they lose their job seems to be a puzzling arrangement and one that I would not have thought the Minister would want in the Bill. I hope that, on reflection, he will consider that the amendment would improve the situation.
Will the Minister explain whether the sanction might apply—presumably it could—while people are in work? Depending on what the sanction was, could it continue after the person has gone into work? There is the separate question about the sanction coming back to life if they subsequently lose their job, but it strikes me as entirely possible that a sanction might apply and be effective while the person is working, particularly given that that person is likely to be receiving universal credit while in work. That has given rise to some significant concern among the organisations that have been looking at the measures, and I would be grateful if the Minister will consider whether our amendments would improve the Bill.
Chris Grayling (Minister of State (Employment), Work and Pensions; Epsom and Ewell, Conservative)
I start by reassuring the right hon. Gentleman that the flexibility he seeks is already included in the regulation-making powers for clauses 26 and 27, which both provide for powers that would bring sanctions to an end in certain circumstances. For example, clause 26 provides for the higher-level sanctions: subsection (4)(a) allows us to make regulations to reduce the sanctionable amount to zero and subsection (8)(c) allows us to make regulations to terminate or suspend a sanction. These powers are mirrored in clause 27. We are carefully considering the circumstances where it may be necessary to use those powers. Our expectation is that we will lift sanctions only in a very narrow range of circumstances, for example, where a claimant moves into the no work-related requirements group due to severe illness.
The right hon. Gentleman is right to say that there is an element of common sense to apply. His amendment states:
“Regulations must provide for the lifting or termination of sanctions”.
My worry is that there will be circumstances in which we do not want to do that. There is a world of difference between someone who receives an extended sanction, then gets into employment, stays there for a number of years and subsequently loses their job long after they have clearly demonstrated that they have a substantial and ongoing employment record and someone who simply takes a job for a few days and then says, “Please lift my sanction,” which might otherwise have lasted for six months. It is not as simple as saying that regulations must provide for the lifting or termination of sanctions because there will be circumstances where entering employment does not, should not and would not make that logical.
Stephen Timms (East Ham, Labour)
Can the Minister reassure us that somebody who has been in work for one year would not expect to have a sanction they were suffering before they went into work come back again after a year of employment?
Chris Grayling (Minister of State (Employment), Work and Pensions; Epsom and Ewell, Conservative)
I am reluctant to give the right hon. Gentleman a number now, because our general approach should be and will be that if someone receives a sanction it is something that they should experience; it should not simply disappear as a result of a single change in circumstances. We will want to look clearly at where there is a change in health, for example: if someone comes back and needs employment and support allowance because they are seriously ill or have acquired a severe disability, that is a different set of circumstances. We will certainly look at whether there is an appropriate period after which somebody can be deemed to have been in work sufficiently long that we did not need to reapply a sanction. It is not something that I would seek to do lightly, nor something that I would seek to prescribe in too much detail. Again, I look to the discretion of front-line staff to decide circumstances where it may be appropriate to do so.
The right hon. Gentleman should assume that the default approach set out in the Bill is that a sanction will be a sanction will be a sanction, regardless of the circumstances, except in unusual cases where there has clearly been such a significant and material change of circumstances that it makes sense for the sanction not to be applied in the way that was originally envisaged. From a practical point of view, for the purposes of the Bill, the powers exist to do what he suggests we should do. He makes a sensible point about someone who has been in work for a lengthy period and I can give him an assurance that that is something that we will consider carefully when putting together the regulations. What I cannot give him is an undertaking that I will put a time limit on it because I think that would be wrong.
Generally speaking, I think that the same principle applies throughout our system—people do not get off an offence because it does not come up for a number of years—but of course there will be a common-sense point at which we say that it is not logical to reapply a sanction long after the event. We will look at that question when forming the regulations. Generally speaking, it will require a material change of circumstances such as a change in someone’s health before we would make a change, but I do not rule out what the right hon. Gentleman has described. I hope that he will accept that the elements I have just set out allow us to do what he wishes anyway, but I am not prepared to accept a “must” element, because it would be very easy for someone to enter short-term employment, lose the sanction and then move on from that. That would not be right.
Stephen Timms (East Ham, Labour)
I am encouraged by what the Minister says. I think he accepts the common-sense point, as he described it, that once someone has been in a job for a reasonable period it does not make much sense, should they lose that job, for a long-forgotten sanction suddenly to burst into life again. I am grateful for the assurance on the existing powers. I encourage him to develop the regulations to that effect, and I look forward to seeing them in due course. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Jane Ellison (Battersea, Conservative)
With the Committee’s indulgence, I will take the opportunity to put down a marker against future regulations and the administration of this part of the sanctions regime policy. As I do about all areas of public policy, I feel strongly—indeed, I raised the issue during Health questions recently—that we should look beyond the postal system and make increased use of mobile communications when corresponding with individuals about important matters. It is important that a sanctions regime is delivered through modern methods of communication, especially when the penalties and the impact on someone’s life can be severe if they do not receive a letter or know what is going on around them.
Increasingly, and across all branches of Government, we are not really keeping up with modern social trends and habits. We have all met constituents who said that they did not receive critical letters that made a big difference to their lives. Royal Mail admits that on its figures, around 280,000 letters a week are lost—that is more than 14 million letters a year. In many cases, those who come to my surgery and say that they did not receive letters are telling the truth. Some say that they do not open letters, but that is another problem altogether.
My area is about the No. 1 postcode in the UK for identity fraud, which the police largely put down to post being stolen from communal hallways and areas that do not have individual post boxes. The other postcodes in the top 20 for identity fraud are generally also urban areas that suffer from the same sorts of issues. As I said, I would like to put down a marker and suggest that we look more closely at changing the way we communicate with people. There are more than 70 million mobile phones in the UK, and changing rental habits mean that the length of tenure in both council and private stock is declining, but many young people will have the same mobile phone number and e-mail address for much longer than they stay at the same postal address. We need to catch up a little with where the modern world is going.
As well as the problem of shared hallways and the lack of private post boxes, I am acutely aware that we must consider the nature of the accommodation lived in by some of those people about whom the Committee has been talking, who may find themselves more readily drawn into the sanctions regime. They are vulnerable people who perhaps live in hostels, bed and breakfasts, or housing association accommodation designed for ex-offenders and vulnerable adults—generally not places where people can rely on getting post through private mail boxes. Some of those situations might be patchy at best, and I would not wish people to become vulnerable to an escalating sanctions regime because they are not aware that a process has begun. I hope the Minister will respond to that point.
I have spoken about this matter in relation to a number of other areas of public policy. No one is contemplating our going down the route of registered post, because the same problems are associated with that, but we are moving into a different era and we must look at greater use of mobile technology. That is common in the private sector and delivers all sorts of things from tickets to services. It might be cheaper, but I am particularly interested in communications that are effective in delivering critical messages that could make an important difference to someone’s life in a way that is as reliable as humanly possible.
Karen Buck (Westminster North, Labour)
I congratulate the hon. Lady on her contribution to this important issue, and I will add a few words. My constituency shares with hers the characteristic of having the highest levels of multiple occupation in the country, so I am very aware of the problems that she describes. Indeed, I know of a number of cases in which sanctions and disbenefiting were imposed because correspondence went missing. For instance, all the houses on two large estates that had been the subject of regeneration programmes were given fresh addresses, being changed from blocks to streets. To this day, DWP and other agencies send letters to addresses that no longer exist and then subject people to sanctions and other penalties because the correspondence does not arrive.
I support what the hon. Lady says, and I hope that the Minister will be sympathetic, but I stress that it is disproportionately the people in the private rented sector, and sometimes other sectors, who have the greatest difficulty with mail who also have the greatest difficulty with internet access, and sometimes with being able to afford reliable forms of mobile communication. It is very much a question of looking at local circumstances and building in safeguards on forms of communication, rather than looking for alternatives, as we will in later debates on welfare advice, in those constituencies and boroughs that are likely to have the biggest problem.
Chris Grayling (Minister of State (Employment), Work and Pensions; Epsom and Ewell, Conservative)
My hon. Friend the Member for Battersea and the hon. Member for Westminster North make an important and sensible point. I am open to considering the matter carefully and I am happy to take from this debate a request to Jobcentre Plus to consider it. I see no obvious reason why we should not seek to adapt what we do, within a sensible time frame, to reflect the issues that they raise.
It is clearly in everybody’s best interests that the message gets home and that we improve our communication techniques. As the Committee will know, we already do some work with online technology, but I shall take away what my hon. Friend said and write to her with more information about what has been done. I shall also write to the hon. Member for Westminster North. I am happy to see whether further steps can be taken to ensure that the message is brought home.
Reference was made during the debate to the appeals process. I highlight a note that I wrote for the Committee about appeal rights in relation to claimant responsibilities. We discussed appeal rights relating to claimant responsibilities at our sitting on 5 April, when the hon. Member for Glasgow East asked a number of specific questions. I thought it might be helpful to put down on paper information about the appeals process and its statutory basis for those who are not fully aware of the facts. We shall obviously have to answer questions that may arise, but I hope that the information will be useful, particularly the explanation of how we intend it to operate alongside universal credit. With that, I urge that the clause stand part of the Bill.