Welfare Reform Bill: Further Consideration Stage

Executive Committee Business – in the Northern Ireland Assembly at 3:15 pm on 24 February 2015.

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Clause 10 (Responsibility for children and young persons)

Debate resumed on amendment Nos 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 26 and 27, which amendments were:

No 1: In page 4, line 38, at end insert



"(3A) Where an additional amount under subsection (2) can be awarded at two different rates, the lower rate shall be no less than two thirds of the higher rate.". — [Mr Agnew.]

No 2: In clause 26, page 13, line 14, at end insert



"(c) the production of explanatory documentation on sanctions to be given to the claimant prior to the imposition of a sanction.". — [Mr Attwood.]

No 3: In clause 27, page 13, line 36, at end insert



"(c) the production of explanatory documentation on sanctions to be given to the claimant prior to the imposition of a sanction.". — [Mr Attwood.]

No 4: In clause 30, page 15, line 20, at end insert



"( ) An authorised person under this section is a person exercising a function or functions of a public nature.


 


( ) Section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998 shall apply to an authorised person as defined under this section.". — [Mr Attwood.]

No 8: In clause 47, page 25, line 40, at end insert



"(c) the production of explanatory documentation on sanctions to be given to the claimant prior to the imposition of a sanction.". — [Mrs D Kelly.]

No 9: In clause 47, page 26, line 29, at end insert



"(c) the production of explanatory documentation on sanctions to be given to the claimant prior to the imposition of a sanction.". — [Mrs D Kelly.]

No 10: In clause 47, page 28, line 12, at end insert



"(c) the production of explanatory documentation on sanctions to be given to the claimant prior to the imposition of a sanction.". — [Mrs D Kelly.]

No 11: In clause 70, page 56, line 32, at end insert



"(6) Regulations may not provide for the reduction of an existing award where a claimant declines the offer of suitable alternative accommodation.". — [Mrs D Kelly.]

No 13: In clause 81, page 60, line 32, leave out subsection (3). — [Mr Storey (The Minister for Social Development).]

No 14: In clause 81, page 60, line 39, leave out paragraph (c) and insert



"(c) must provide for relevant medical evidence to be taken into account in assessing a person and may make provision about other matters which are, or are not, to be taken into account.". — [Mr Storey (The Minister for Social Development).]

No 15: In clause 89, page 64, line 24, at end insert



"(3A) A person entitled to personal independence payment shall receive the award no later than 16 weeks after the date on which a claim for it is made or treated as made.". — [Mr Agnew.]

No 16: After clause 103 insert



"Appeal in respect of sanction imposed under this Act


 


103A. After Article 15 of the Social Security (Northern Ireland) Order 1998 there is inserted?—


 


Appeal in connection with sanctions


 


15A. Where the amount of an award of any social security benefit is to be reduced as a consequence of any failure by a claimant which is sanctionable under the Welfare Reform Act (Northern Ireland) 2015?—


 


(a) a claimant is entitled to an appeal hearing within four weeks of the notice of sanction being issued; and


 


(b) the amount of any relevant award shall not be reduced before the appeal is decided.”". — [Mrs D Kelly.]

No 17: After clause 120 insert



"Duty to ensure access to independent advice


 


120A.—(1) The Department shall ensure that any person making a claim under this Act shall be entitled to have access to independent confidential advice and assistance provided free of charge in relation to making a claim under this Act.


 


(2) For the purposes of subsection (1) the Department must bring forward guidance on the independent confidential advice and assistance which is to be developed in consultation with the Northern Ireland Advice Services Consortium, within 3 months of the commencement of this section.". — [Mrs D Kelly.]

No 18: In clause 121, page 88, line 26, leave out "and" and insert



"(aa) the standards of advice and assistance provided under section 132B of the Welfare Reform Act (Northern Ireland) 2015; and". — [Mr Storey (The Minister for Social Development).]

No 20: In clause 130, page 92, line 26, after "housing benefit" insert "or universal credit". — [Mr Storey (The Minister for Social Development).]

No 21: In clause 131, page 93, line 39, at end insert



"(6A) Regulations may not provide for the reduction of an existing award where a claimant declines the offer of alternative accommodation.". — [Mrs D Kelly.]

No 22: After clause 132 insert



"Payments to persons suffering financial disadvantage


 


Payments to persons suffering financial disadvantage


 


132A.—(1) The purpose of this section is to enable the Department to make payments to persons who suffer financial disadvantage as a result of the changes to social security benefits and tax credits contained in this Act and the Welfare Reform Act 2012.


 


(2) The Department may by regulations make provision for the purpose mentioned in subsection (1).


 


(3) Regulations under this section may in particular make provision?—


 


(a) for determining whether a person has suffered financial disadvantage as a result of the changes mentioned in subsection (1) and, if so, the amount of that disadvantage;


 


(b) for determining eligibility for payments, including provision for payments to be made only in prescribed circumstances or only to persons who meet prescribed conditions;


 


(c) for determining?—


 


(i) the amount of payments;


 


(ii) the period or periods for or in respect of which payments are to be made;


 


(d) for claims for payments to be made in prescribed cases and in the prescribed form and manner and for the procedures to be followed in dealing with and disposing of such claims;


 


(e) for payments to be made in prescribed cases without any claim being made;


 


(f) imposing conditions on persons claiming or receiving payments, including conditions requiring them to provide to the Department such information as may be prescribed;


 


(g) for payments to cease to be made in prescribed circumstances;


 


(h) for the disclosure of information relating to payments in prescribed circumstances or to prescribed persons;


 


(i) for the recovery of payments by the Department in prescribed circumstances;


 


(j) requiring or authorising reviews (whether by the Department or by prescribed persons) of decisions made by the Department with respect to the making or recovery of payments;


 


(k) imposing functions on a statutory body other than the Department in connection with the administration of the regulations;


 


(l) for such other matters as appear to the Department to be necessary or appropriate in connection with the making of payments including provision creating criminal offences and provision amending or applying (with or without modification) any statutory provision.


 


(4) Payments are not to be regarded as a social security benefit; but regulations under this section may provide for any statutory provision relating to a social security benefit (or to such benefits generally) to apply with prescribed modifications in relation to payments.


 


(5) The Department shall, in respect of each financial year in which payments are made, prepare and lay before the Assembly a report on the payments made in that year.


 


(6) No regulations shall be made under this section unless a draft of the regulations has been laid before, and approved by resolution of, the Assembly.


 


(7) If regulations under this section impose functions on any statutory body other than the Department, the Department must consult that body before making the regulations.


 


(8) A power conferred by this section to make regulations includes power?—


 


(a) to make such incidental, supplementary, consequential or transitional provision as appears to the Department to be necessary or expedient for the purposes of those regulations;


 


(b) to provide for the Department to exercise a discretion in dealing with any matter.


 


(9) In this section?—


 


“prescribed” means prescribed by regulations under this section;


 


“payment” mean a payment under this section;


 


“statutory body” means a body established by or under a statutory provision.". — [Mr Storey (The Minister for Social Development).]

No 23: After clause 132 insert



"Duties of the Department


 


Duty to ensure availability of advice and assistance


 


132B. The Department must ensure that advice and assistance are made available free of charge to persons making a claim under this Act in connection with that claim.". — [Mr Storey (The Minister for Social Development).]

No 26: In clause 135, page 95, line 37, at end insert



"( ) section 132A (payments to persons suffering financial disadvantage);


 


( ) section 132B (duty to ensure availability of advice and assistance);


 


( ) section 132C (review of this Act);". — [Mr Storey (The Minister for Social Development).]

No 27: In schedule 1, page 99, leave out lines 3 to 7. — [Mrs D Kelly.]

Photo of Mickey Brady Mickey Brady Sinn Féin

Go raibh maith agat, a Cheann Comhairle. I reiterate the point I was making before lunch that it is my understanding — I think most people in the Assembly agree — that there was a five-party agreement on 19 December.

Again, it was my understanding that there was to be an implementation group that would take that forward. Obviously, some people have broken ranks. Maybe they are the slow learners; I am not too sure about that, but we will presume that that is the case. Possibly, there is just a lack of communication between certain elements of certain parties. One would have to draw that conclusion from what I have listened to in previous debates. We were told that debate was stifled; I would hate to see if it was not stifled, because it might last three days next time. I will try to be as short and to the point as I can be.

There was some misunderstanding with Mr Agnew this morning about the different funds. Amendment No 22 from the Social Development Minister deals with the supplementary payment fund. The purpose of that fund is to ensure that nobody loses out, including those who might have lost out under the unchanged Welfare Reform Bill, which was endorsed by some other parties. The supplementary payment fund will ensure that people get help and will not lose out.

Amendment No 14 from the Minister makes reference to relevant medical evidence. That is a very important issue, because, as someone who for many years did appeals, appropriate medical evidence was often not obtained until the day of the appeal. The provision of relevant medical evidence, as proposed in the amendment, will give decision makers the opportunity to make informed decisions, cut down the number of appeals, and ensure that people who are entitled to benefits get them. That is a very important issue.

One other amendment that I make reference to is amendment No 4. I find it strange, if not bizarre, that we have a party on my left that is talking about protecting the public from privatisation: that is what the amendment is about. Yet, back in 2007-08, when Margaret Ritchie was the Minister for Social Development, she rushed — and I mean rushed — the initial stages of welfare reform through the Assembly under accelerated passage.

We had asked for clause 16 to be deleted at the time, because it dealt with privatisation. We were told, "Oh no, it doesn't need to be deleted. It is not going to happen." Well, if it was not going to happen, why did you need it? A very short time afterwards, medical support services were privatised, and we have all seen the results of that. Mr Attwood, in one of his last acts as Minister, signed the contract that inflicted — and I use that word advisedly — Atos upon us in terms of the work capability assessment. So, it ill-behoves people to lecture us on what we have or have not achieved when they were the ones who introduced these kinds of issues.

Photo of Alex Attwood Alex Attwood Social Democratic and Labour Party

I will come back more substantially to the point that he made, but is the logic of your argument not to ensure that, if there are private contractors appointed, arising from welfare reform, they comply with the Human Rights Act (HRA)? That is what amendment No 4 does. So, taking the point you have made about ensuring that private contractors live up to the best standards, if they are going to be involved, should you not now conclude by supporting amendment No 4, which ensures that they will have to comply with the HRA?

Photo of Mickey Brady Mickey Brady Sinn Féin

I thank the Member for his intervention. Would Atos not have been subjected to that before you signed the contract? I would have assumed that to have been the case. Did you not check that with Atos beforehand? The argument we have, and continue to have, is why you need companies like Atos to come in. In four years, it got something like £300 billion from the British Government and shuffled off, and someone else has to do the job. We are yet to see what Capita may or may not be capable of.

Photo of Mickey Brady Mickey Brady Sinn Féin

No, I will not. I am trying to finish off here.

I think we should send out a positive message. A lot of negativity and misinformation have been sent out to the public, and there has been a lot of scaremongering. There are people out there who are vulnerable, suffer from disability, are unemployed or are working poor. Unfortunately, the message that some parties are sending out is that it is negative and a total mess. It is not. Obviously, the agreement is not everything that people wanted. We have done what we feel is the best deal that could have been done in the circumstances. It is much better than anything that was put forward over the last couple of years, I have to say. So, I think we should go forward with that positive message.

As a republican and member of Sinn Féin, my core value has been to protect the vulnerable. I have been doing it all my working life, and I will continue to do it. We as a party do that as part of our core values. That message needs to go out to the public. We need to put that message forward. This agreement is something that we fought long and hard for. Parties eventually agreed to it. There will be mitigation. We have neutralised the benefit cap. People go on about the bedroom tax, but we have neutralised those. We have ensured that people here do not suffer. If you talk to groups in England, in the voluntary sector or otherwise, you will know that they are extremely envious of what we have here. Disability groups are the same. People can pontificate, to use Mrs Kelly's phrase, all they want, but at the end of the day, as far as we are concerned, it is a good deal for the people that we represent, and we will continue to fight that corner for them.

Photo of Dolores Kelly Dolores Kelly Social Democratic and Labour Party

Mr Brady seems to be a wee bit agitated today. Perhaps it is to cover his blushes somewhat, because he stated publicly, as did Martin McGuinness, that Sinn Féin would "deploy a petition of concern" against the bedroom tax. He can girn all he likes here, but the fact is that it is in the Bill. Sinn Féin did not sign the petition of concern against the bedroom tax, and as yet, we have not seen all the regulations and accompanying mitigation flexibilities, which the Executive have yet to agree, in support of the Welfare Reform Bill going through —

Photo of Dolores Kelly Dolores Kelly Social Democratic and Labour Party

I will give way in just a second. There are just a couple of points that I do not want to forget. I am interested in hearing today from the Minister a commitment that affirmative approval from the Assembly will be required for the regulations, that he will ensure that there is a process for reviewing and monitoring the implications of the Welfare Reform Bill, and that he will ensure their compliance with the human rights legislation. I will give way to the Member.

Photo of Alex Maskey Alex Maskey Sinn Féin

I thank the Member for giving way. I know that she has a lot of ground to cover, but I will ask her this again. Is it not rather inconsistent, to say the least, particularly in the context of the Member's party agreeing this, that since last week the Member has been levelling criticism against the package that all the parties agreed on 19 December? I appreciate that the Member was not there, but her party leader was and other colleagues who are sitting in the Chamber now were with him when the party endorsed a four-party agreement. That made no reference whatsoever to a supplementary payment scheme or to a specific mechanism to address the issues on disabilities. They then signed on for a two-year sanction regime.

Is it not rather inconsistent for the Member to come forward now with amendments criticising the deal that was reached and that her party leader endorsed on 19 December, having endorsed a further, weaker deal on 17 December? I confirm, from Mickey Brady's point of view, that the Welfare Reform Bill is addressed through a range of mitigation mechanisms, which all the parties agreed in one shape or form to have in place. Those are being put in place, and I look forward to listening to the Minister this afternoon when he addresses all those amendments. I am confident that the Minister's message will be positive and will put further meat on the bones of the deal that was reached. I urge Mrs Kelly, even at this late stage, to go back to the drawing board with the five party leaders, who, it was agreed, formed the implementation group for the Stormont House Agreement. You cannot have your cake and eat it, which, unfortunately, that party is actually doing.

Photo of Mitchel McLaughlin Mitchel McLaughlin Speaker

Neither can you. You cannot have too long an intervention.

Photo of Dolores Kelly Dolores Kelly Social Democratic and Labour Party

Mr Speaker, I welcome your assessment of whether that was an intervention or a speech.

In the last debate, Mr Allister asked all the parties to commit to publishing the signed Stormont Castle agreement. We have yet to see it. For all I know, John O'Dowd was waving about his wife's shopping list on 'The View' the other week. I have yet to see the Stormont Castle agreement.

Photo of William Humphrey William Humphrey DUP

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I distinctly remember the First Minister making a contribution to the debate last week and saying that he had placed a copy of it in the Library. Perhaps the Member was not listening.

Photo of Dolores Kelly Dolores Kelly Social Democratic and Labour Party

Far be it from me not to listen to every word that comes from the mouth of the First Minister. I am afraid that I missed that particular point on that occasion.

The fact is that there is no signed Stormont Castle agreement; there is a Stormont House Agreement. Mickey Brady spent the last few minutes talking about parties being negative and scaremongering. Which party went on a Northern Ireland-wide roadshow of "Stop the Tory Cuts"? None other than Sinn Féin. Who scaremongered right across the North? Indeed, many of them still have "Stop the Tory Cuts" posters in their constituency office windows, whilst their four Executive Ministers energetically endorse and implement the Tory cuts agenda.

Photo of Jim Allister Jim Allister Traditional Unionist Voice

I was not party to any of these discussions, which some seem more willing to associate themselves with than others. The Member said that there is no Stormont Castle agreement subscribed to by all the parties, but the document placed in the Library opens with this sentence:

"This paper sets out the Executive party leaders' proposals to the UK Government".

Does that not include all five Executive parties?

Photo of Dolores Kelly Dolores Kelly Social Democratic and Labour Party

Thank you for that, Mr Allister. That is certainly how I interpret it, because there was no caveat read out in relation to that. That is where some people are very confused about the matter. The fact is that the bedroom tax is in the Bill. Sinn Féin will have to explain to its constituents why it did not live up to its manifesto commitments and to the commitments that it gave at its ard-fheis only last year; if it was in 2013, I stand to be corrected.

I move on to address the group 1 amendments that we have proposed, many of which deal with the issue of independent advice. I know that the Minister has given a commitment. The Minister well knows the value of agencies such as CAB and Advice NI and the many small independent advice clinics that we use routinely and regularly to help our constituents to make an application or to assist them in their appeal. There are, of course, very good and able staff in the Social Security Agency who give advice on pensions and on all types of benefit entitlement, but I believe that there is a particular role for the independent voluntary sector to play in the provision of such advice. I ask the Minister to consider that carefully. He well knows the policy intent behind our amendments, so we are interested in hearing from him if he can expand on that.

Some in the Social Security Agency are concerned that, if this were in the Bill, it would give an almost blank chequebook to the community and voluntary sector. I do not believe that that would be their rationale for supporting the call for an independent service provision. Many people have difficulties in accepting the independent advice of an agency and its ability to scrutinise itself. That is sometimes borne out by stories that we hear from England in particular, where targets have been set by the Department for Work and Pensions and sanctions have been imposed. As you know, there are horrendous stories of people being driven to the point of suicide as a consequence of having to deal with the social security system and benefit entitlement. We want to put in as many safety nets as possible for people seeking the right to independent advice.

It is not only about assisting them in completing their forms, advocating on their behalf and navigating their way through the maze; it is about helping people to be real advocates, with no axe to grind other than a person's self-interest and personal interest. From our point of view, it will be interesting to hear the Minister's commitment to that.

The other issue that we are concerned about is sanctions, and people's understanding of their nature, extent and type. Good, clear information must be provided. I know that in recent days, Mr Speaker — I think that it was processed through your office — there has been advice from the Human Rights Commission in relation to aspects of the Welfare Reform Bill. It is a matter of regret that, here and in GB, opportunities were not provided to the Human Rights Commission to ensure full compliance with best practice in international law.

There are concerns that, when a sanction is imposed, it is reasonable and proportionate and will not cause hardship to other family members. There is a necessity for anyone who is determining the nature of sanctions to ensure that the interests of the child are paramount. In other words, a sanction on a person in a household must not impact adversely on children. It is still a fact that, in the majority of households, men are regarded as the main earners. Therefore, under the auspices of universal credit, if most of the money is directed through men, and sanctions are imposed, how does that impact on the rights of women and children? I will be interested to hear how the Minister is going to ensure that all those points are taken care of: the regulations around the imposition of sanctions; the clarifications given; and good, upfront advice before the imposition of sanctions.

Mr Agnew, in his contribution, referred to timescales. There are also concerns around the timescales for hardship payments, the possibility of a big gap between the imposition of a sanction and an appeal, and what happens in the intervening period. There are concerns about whether a hardship payment will perhaps come three weeks too late for many people after their initial application.

Mr Agnew also referred to the concerns that were raised around the bedroom tax and the availability, as others mentioned, of suitable alternative accommodation here in Northern Ireland. I think that it is also recognised that, in Northern Ireland, we tend to have larger households and homes. I think that England, in terms of the square footage of a family home, is among the worst across Europe when it comes to the type of house or apartment that people are allowed to build. There has to be some local flexibilities and acceptance of local customs and practice.

Mr Speaker, it will come as no shock to you and many in the House that we are opposed to the bedroom tax. Mr Agnew tried to draw the Minister — I am sure that the Minister will reply — on his comments in the last debate about two alternative and reasonable offers. Our amendment refers to that, although Mr Brady and others were not that inclined to accept that as a concern and said that they had fully mitigated that. We know that the mitigation currently, I believe, lasts for six years. We want to know what happens beyond that.

The Minister will be very well aware of the necessity to build adequate alternative housing. None of this stands in isolation. We need to hear the Minister's holistic plans not only for the introduction of welfare reform but for meeting people's needs. There is also some concern about the types of job interview and work experience that some will be asked for. I think that it is already the practice that people with some disabilities are being placed in DWP offices because they cannot get employers to provide suitable work-based experience. I know that the Minister is not responsible for all that and that he will require assistance from the Minister for Employment and Learning, for example, in looking for vocational training. When we set that against the backdrop of the cuts to the DEL budget, you can see why we are raising concerns about a number of these matters.

I hope that that deals with a number of our amendments. The only new clause that we have proposed is in amendment No 16. That new clause deals with the appeals mechanism and seeks to have appeal hearings for claimants within four weeks. Again, that is based on what we are hearing about the experience in England, where some people are having to wait months for their appeals to be heard.

I would hope that the Minister has adequate resources at his disposal when he brings forward and implements the regulations to ensure that people do not find themselves in unnecessary hardship or humiliation. As we said before, it is, after all, people whom we are talking about. I would hope that all the rights of persons are protected and that we will not find situations in which people are subjected to degrading treatment.

Photo of Roy Beggs Roy Beggs UUP 3:45, 24 February 2015

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to comment at this stage of the Bill.

Amendment No 1 was previously discussed at Consideration Stage. It must be acknowledged that some local families with a disabled child will see a reduction in their support. Importantly, however, as has been said, some households will see an increase through the higher rate of child addition, as the new rate payable to severely disabled children will be very slightly higher than the current child tax credit equivalent. I understand that those who will receive a lower disability rate for universal credit could be significantly worse off. However, I trust that existing claimants will be supported through the transitional protections that are being built in.

As I have said previously, such an amendment will not only incur significant extra costs through increased benefits but could potentially require a new administration system. Does the proposer of the amendment know whether that is possible and what it would cost? Those are real issues, and you cannot make amendments without knowing the answers. We are setting legislation. I certainly believe that change is necessary and should be pursued at a Westminster level. I encourage all our MPs to pursue the matter there.

Amendment Nos 2, 3, 8 and 9 that have been tabled by the SDLP relate to the production of explanatory documents for sanctions. That sounds like a reasonable proposition. It makes sense to have such explanations in writing, not only to better inform claimants but as supporting evidence for the benefits advisers. It would also ensure that they would have to have clarity about the decisions that they were making and would have to stand over. That seems logical. I would be surprised, however, if the Social Security Agency was not already doing that. I ask the Minister to detail what the process is. However, we are minded to support that batch of amendments if we do not hear something significant.

Amendment No 4 seeks to ensure that section 6 of the Human Rights Act applies to persons who are carrying out the work that is delegated by the Department. I would be concerned that putting that requirement so explicitly into the Bill could potentially lead to all sorts of problems like delays and additional bureaucracy and administration costs. I will listen carefully to what others have to say.

We will not support amendment Nos 21 and 11. Whilst I understand what the SDLP is seeking to do and I have sympathy for some of its position, considering the smoke and mirrors that are being played out by some parties in the Chamber, the position of the Ulster Unionist Party is that people should live in accommodation that broadly matches their requirements. Reducing household running costs by simply reducing the space and the heating requirements would be another benefit that would follow on from that provision and more citizens would be able to be assisted through social housing support.

Much of our opposition to the proposed bedroom tax was based on the fact that suitable alternative accommodation was simply not available in Northern Ireland, so it is right that protection is being built in against a bedroom tax. We simply do not have the right number or right types of homes. All levels of social housing are oversubscribed, but, once this penalty comes into effect, I believe that smaller one- and two-bedroom homes will become even more difficult to acquire. To address that, we need more than platitudes from the Minister. We need the social housing development programme to be changed and rebalanced so that it matches the pressures on our housing stock.

We are not building anywhere near the required number of new homes. Our target of 2,000 new properties already falls well short of actual need. It is of concern that it looks as if we will not be able to build that number. We are told that budget pressures are to blame. There are budget pressures, but there are also budget choices. Look at what the Finance Minister has done: he sat back and watched feebly as Sinn Féin pressed ahead with its pet projects, such as the proposed relocation of DARD headquarters, without an independent Department of Finance and Personnel assessment of DARD's business case. Costs are already escalating for that. When you spend our limited capital funding in one area, money is not available in others. Look at the accommodation that is available in the East Londonderry constituency. Only 15 miles away —

Photo of Mitchel McLaughlin Mitchel McLaughlin Speaker

I remind the Member to come back to today's debate.

Photo of Roy Beggs Roy Beggs UUP

OK. Essentially, when we choose not to make money available for social houses and we choose to put money into other projects, we can build fewer homes. Why not use existing vacant office accommodation, spend less money on new builds for office accommodation and put more money into social housing? Choices are made when we spend public money. Much of the information on the bedroom tax and the Executive's mitigation package will come to light only through regulations. Nevertheless, we trust that the offers of alternative accommodation will be genuine and that someone might be faced with a reduction to their housing benefit only after the proper process has been followed. Of course, pensioners will be protected, and rightly so.

In future, if reasonable alternative accommodation is available, why should there not be other adjustments? By including this amendment, future options cannot be considered without new primary legislation. Why should others be forced to live in overcrowded conditions if suitable accommodation were to exist to meet the needs of all?

On first reading, I saw amendment Nos 13 and 14 as a tidying-up, technical issue, but when I reflected on them, I saw that something more significant could be afoot. I want the Minister to come back on this. At this time, the Ulster Unionist Party is unable to support the Minister's amendment Nos 13 and 14. I can see what the Department is trying to do, which is to move the duty to ensure medical evidence from primary legislation to the regulations. The problem is, of course — I have made this point on a number of occasions during these debates — that the Department has greater control of that and greater powers over the regulations, and the Assembly would have a lesser role. I have not heard a convincing argument as to why that change is needed. When the Minister is summing up, I would welcome his explanation, because I cannot see any reason why it cannot stay in the Bill.

I note the Minister's previous comments that departmental officials were working with colleagues in the Department of Health to review the GP contract. If that change is secured, I believe that the current wording in clause 81 should be no impediment to it.

I listened carefully to Mr Agnew on amendment No 15. Considering the fallout in Great Britain, where successful claimants have had to wait months on end — a ridiculous amount of time — the proposal for 16 weeks — almost four months — has some merit.

Surely our system can get the necessary information together after four months so that claimants can have a decision. I would like the Minister to comment on that, too.

We will not support amendment No 16. I agree that claimants should have the right to challenge sanctions but am totally opposed to the idea that they should continue to receive a full claim for up to a further four weeks. That money would also have to come out of our block grant, because we are deviating from the legislation applicable in other parts of the United Kingdom. I note that the amendment talks about:

"any failure ... which is sanctionable".

I assume that this might include major and deliberate fraud, which I would have thought would be sanctionable. How can it be justified for a claimant who has committed such an obvious act of deception to continue to receive up to another month's benefit?

We will support the duty for independent advice outlined in amendment Nos 17 and 23. I welcome the related assurance from the Minister on a more general duty. Still, it is important that there is good advice available to ensure that claimants maximise the benefits that they are entitled to.

Amendment No 22 is one of the most important amendments to the whole Bill, and it is disappointing on two fronts. First, it is regrettable that it has been tabled only at Further Consideration Stage rather than at an earlier stage, which means that we have no further opportunity for consideration and amendment. However, even more important is the lack of detail. We have what was agreed in the Stormont House talks, but, considering the games played in those, it is difficult to be reassured by anything that the DUP or Sinn Féin might say at present without first seeing it in black and white. Where are the draft regulations? It would have been helpful to publish them before now.

Previously, there were widely different estimates of the cost of the mitigation package, not least the changes to the administration of the universal credit system. Unfortunately, there was a lot of scaremongering and misinformation from the former, rather than the present, Minister in the run-up to these decisions finally being made, and that has hindered progress. The amendment has a number of very important aspects. On the whole, the original package of mitigation measures, whether it was for underoccupancy or changes to the administration of universal credit, has been fairly well discussed in public over the past 12 months. We reiterate, however, that unless there is a genuine effort to review our social housing stock, the projected decline in the cost of the underoccupancy penalty is unlikely, and the cost could well continue into the future.

We know that the Minister believes that the overall cost of the measures, including discretionary support, will reach a maximum of £134 million in 2018-19. We are told that it will begin to fall rapidly over the following years. Unfortunately, the Department has failed to detail exactly how and why it will fall, which must be a concern for us all. At £134 million for a single year, the cost will be greater than each of the yearly budgets for DCAL, the DOE and OFMDFM, and it will restrict the funding available for health, education, etc. There are choices to be made when spending money: when you spend it in one area, you are not able to spend it in another.

Much of the extra cost, contrary to what some in the Chamber or in the media would claim, does not equate to higher benefits in Northern Ireland. Much of it allows, for instance, for the additional administrative schemes. There is, for example, the personal independence payment (PIP) medical evidence package, and rightly so, as I think that it would be a good investment. Nevertheless, it will cost several million pounds in each of the next five years. However, it will not mean a higher rate of benefit for individual claimants. It will instead mean that some of the particular circumstances — such as our epidemic rates of poor mental health — are properly considered in the assessment process.

Photo of Mervyn Storey Mervyn Storey DUP 4:00, 24 February 2015

I thank the Member for giving way. I have listened to what he has said. Is it not the case that, at some point, you have to make a decision? On the one hand, the Member says that it is a good investment to deal with the issue of medical reports, yet, on the other hand, he says that the money would be better spent on doing other things. I refer to what a number of Members have said, not only in this debate but in previous ones, which is that there was a five-party, five-leader agreement. Had the Member spoken to him, his party leader would have been able to tell him that considerable time was spent on this.

The Member has also asked why we do not see the regulations. My staff have spent hours and hours of work on what happened prior to, during and after the Stormont House discussions. In fact, when those discussions were going on, a huge amount of time was spent on getting figures and looking at different scenarios. Included in those discussions was his party leader. We then came to an agreement. At what point does the Member recognise that we either have a deal and so move on or we unpick that deal, say, "No, we did a bad deal" and do something else?

Photo of Roy Beggs Roy Beggs UUP

The Minister misses the point that I have been making. I have been supportive of some of the expenditure that is occurring, but other Members are over-egging the pudding by saying that there will be almost no benefit changes and that everybody will be protected. There will be changes, and, ultimately, in the new benefit system, some people will not be as well off. Therefore, all this money — the £134 million in 2018-19 — will not go directly on additional benefit. It will go, and, in my opinion, correctly, towards some of the supportive measures that are being built in to try to protect people. However, that money may well go on administrative costs rather than on benefits. That is the reasoning behind some of my comments.

I return to the medical evidence package. Ideally, there should be sharing of medical evidence. It should be the norm among medical professionals that they are willing to share evidence as part of their basic contract so that there will be no additional cost to the public purse. At some point in the future, it would be good if we did not have to pay that and that it was deemed to be part of a GP or consultant's contract of employment. I hope that that will be the case, but we will have to wait.

I acknowledge that the compensation approach to the personal independence payment will have a significant extra cost. However, we should recognise this at least: the costs will not be open-ended. What is proposed is the so-called option A, meaning that the Department will have an even greater incentive to ensure that appeals are carried out in a timely manner.

Another important element is the supplementary payment fund, which is £125 million over a five-year period. I believe that that was thought up within a couple of hours. Some parties in the Chamber now claim that it will cover each and every reduction, and not just existing claimants but new ones. That is quite a claim to make for a fund that will average £25 million a year. I do not think that the figures add up for those making such a claim. I assume that much of the fund will go to supporting people who are impacted on by the limitations on contribution-based employment support allowance (ESA).

I ask the Minister to address, once and for all, those claims from Sinn Féin and to give us some feedback. Who will be eligible for support under this fund, and, specifically, can he confirm whether he will offer total protection to new claimants so that they will not be worse off than they currently would be if they were to apply, as some are claiming?

Finally, we will be opposing amendment No 27 for the reasons that we spelt out at Consideration Stage. If we in Northern Ireland were the only part of the UK to remove the ability to apply the residence test, we could face significant additional costs. We alone in the UK could become a magnet for those willing to travel within the EU because of an enhanced Northern Ireland benefits system, and regulations would not be restricted on residency grounds. We would see our block grant, which would affect our health budget and our education budget, cut to pay for this suggested deviation from the legislation applying in the rest of the UK. No one knows what the costs for such an alteration to this primary legislation would be. There are already huge pressures in the National Health Service in Northern Ireland, and schools are facing budget cuts, although some of the final figures have yet to emerge. I will go as far as to say that it would be irresponsible to make the changes that are proposed in amendment No 27 and that that would adversely affect the citizens of Northern Ireland.

Photo of Stewart Dickson Stewart Dickson Alliance

Once again, I start by recognising the concerns raised by Mr Agnew earlier today in the debate. It is understandable that he did so, because he was not party to that five-party agreement. Indeed, the Minister has explained to us, at least in part, that it was worked through in exceptional detail and costed. I think that that is the challenge to Mr Agnew and the amendments that he is proposing. They remain not costed, and, therefore, they have to, in my view, fall outside today's consideration.

Photo of Steven Agnew Steven Agnew Green

I appreciate the Member giving way. Does that apply to all the amendments? For example, does it apply to the amendment that proposes having draft affirmative instead of confirmatory? In my opinion, that would not have costs, nor even would the 16-week time limit on giving the decision on a PIP claim, presuming that the systems are in place.

Photo of Stewart Dickson Stewart Dickson Alliance

We await to hear what the Minister has to say about the cost effects of all the proposals that have been made today, either by Mr Agnew or by the SDLP. Certainly, I am prepared to give and accept a degree of latitude in terms of what Mr Agnew is saying by comparison with those who, whether or not they made a signature on a piece of paper, can well be described as being signed up to a five-leader agreement.

I think that we do have to support the passage of this Bill through Further Consideration Stage and support the agreed amendments tabled by the Department. It is important to see that progress has been made in the past few weeks after what can only be described as two and a half years of deadlock, meaning that we can finally move towards the passing of legislation that will deliver the mitigation and move forward with that Stormont House Agreement. It is an agreement that was hard-won after negotiations between five parties, whether at Stormont Castle or at Stormont House. It is an agreement that meant serious compromise between those who have signs saying "No Tory Tax Cuts" in their widows and those who have tea and buns in the back garden of 10 Downing Street. That is the reality. That is where the compromise is, and that is where we have moved in relation to this Bill. The agreement has also meant that Northern Ireland has been able to secure welfare reform with mitigating measures that Wales or Scotland have not.

We must also remember that the agreement was not just about welfare reform but included other issues that have been stalling progress, many that are still to be worked through and resolved. We are moving to deal with issues like the legacy of the Troubles, flags and corporation tax.

To undermine the mitigated welfare reform agreement is to undermine the process and the progress that is being made in Northern Ireland as a whole. Therefore, throughout this difficult process, my party has kept its discipline and kept its word to the spirit of those agreements because we know that it is the responsible thing to do. It causes me a great deal of dismay to see the opposite from the SDLP; a party that seems to be melting like snow off a ditch in front of our eyes, with dispute after dispute. It is a party with a leader who is incapable of exercising authority, whether it is over local councillors or those who sign up to agreements and then seem to want to amend them, and amend them, and amend them, and amend them.

This is the same party that, today, has brought forward another raft of amendments upon which they will build an electioneering platform, but one on which the foundation is very shaky indeed. Meanwhile, other more responsible parties such as ours must do, and have done, the heavy lifting in what is neither a popular nor a thankful task but a necessary one to move things forward not only in relation to welfare reform mitigated but also to move Northern Ireland forward.

Bit by bit, the SDLP and others are seeking to add cost and weight to the Bill, which they know cannot be afforded, and make promises that cannot be kept. The SDLP U-turn is further accompanied by its own congratulatory fanfare in which it is a party that is protecting the vulnerable against a supposed heartless Executive. This question has to be asked: if it cannot make agreements with other parties, what chances are there for it keeping promises to the electorate?

Turning to the amendments that the Department has put forward, I am pleased to see that further mitigation measures are being brought forward on the basis on which the Executive have agreed. Amendment No 22 will allow for payments to those suffering disadvantage as a result of the reforms. Furthermore, without being over-prescriptive, the amendment provides the means for regulations in an area, as well as safeguards, to ensure that the spirit of protection for the most vulnerable is upheld in the final product.

I welcome amendment No 23, which will ensure that advice and assistance is made available free of charge to prospective claimants in connection with their claim. That has also come about as a result of compromise and consultation on the basis set forward by the Stormont House and Stormont Castle agreements. It is in stark contrast to the methods of others.

In many regards, the Department has a mammoth task in front of it to implement the reforms. We must now move towards bringing the regulations forward. That is where the real meat will be in how we can actually deliver on the agreement. We have agreed to that. We have got mitigating measures. It is now time to stop the grandstanding and move on.

Photo of Fra McCann Fra McCann Sinn Féin 4:15, 24 February 2015

Go raibh míle maith agat, a Cheann Comhairle. I support the amendments put forward by the Minister, and I oppose those in the names of Steven Agnew and the SDLP. I am sure you will be glad to hear that I do not intend to speak for long, as I believe that all that needs to be said was said when the five party leaders signed an agreement on 19 December, which, I believe, protects the most vulnerable in our society from benefit loss. That was a far different agreement from the one agreed two days before. It was an agreement —

Photo of Mitchel McLaughlin Mitchel McLaughlin Speaker

Can you speak into the microphone?

Photo of Fra McCann Fra McCann Sinn Féin

I am just coming to the amendments. Sorry.

It was an agreement that excluded much of what was achieved on 19 December. You have to ask yourself what is it that the SDLP wants to achieve through its amendments? Is it to make things better for people? The answer must be no, given that it signed up for much less on 17 December, which is something that it still refuses to admit to people.

Let us take the amendments and clauses on sanctions. Had it been from any other party, I might have said, "Well, they are sincere on this matter", but the Attwood sanctions brought in during the last mandate, have, from 2011, seen over 80,000 people being reported for sanctions and 28,000 people actually sanctioned. Why did they not ask for people who fell foul of those sanctions to receive documentation? I would prefer it if sanctions were not being implemented. In fact, this party is on record as having that position when we argued against the Attwood sanctions, but we were part of a five-party agreement, which we have stood by. Did we get everything we wanted? No, we did not. Would I have liked to have got more in the agreement? Yes, I would.

What we got was an agreement that mitigates the worst excesses of welfare reform. We argued against the three-year sanction and were able to get it reduced to 18 months. What makes this debate difficult is that the SDLP agreed to a two-year sanction and then thought that it could pull the wool over people's eyes by supporting the six-month proposal from Steven Agnew.

Let us look at the proposed amendments. Amendment No 2, which is to clause 26, page 13, line 14, is on the provision of explanatory documentation and sanctions. Amendment No 3 is to clause 27, page 13, line 36, and it is my understanding that claimants will be made aware in writing of when sanctions will be applied. Through amendment No 3, the SDLP has again sought to amend clause 26, again seeking documentation. It is my understanding that, if someone is sanctioned, they will be given notification of the sanction. The same goes for amendment No 8, which is to clause 47, page 25, line 40; amendment No 9, which is to clause 47, page 26, line 29; and amendment No 10, which is to clause 47, page 28, line 12. Notification will be supplied to people of the sanctions that they face.

Amendment No 4 is to clause 30, which is under the heading "Delegation and contracting out". Sinn Féin has always been opposed to the privitisation of public services. I am again surprised that the SDLP raised that matter, given its record in the last mandate of privatising medical services, which saw Atos arrive on the scene and saw the hated work capability assessment being put in place. That has led to tens of thousands of people losing their incapacity benefit and employment and support allowance. We have also seen the SDLP implement the local housing allowance, which, on its watch, led to thousands of the most vulnerable losing out on housing benefit in the first stages of welfare reform.

My colleague Mickey Brady touched on Steven Agnew's amendments. I think that he echoed what I would have said, so I will not bore people by repeating his words, but I will stress again that Mr Agnew has had many opportunities to raise those issues and has not. It is his right to try to amend what he likes, but it is our right to highlight his inconsistencies as we see them.

I support the amendments in the name of the Minister and oppose the other amendments.

Photo of Alex Attwood Alex Attwood Social Democratic and Labour Party

First of all, Mr Speaker, I apologise that I was not here when I was called during topical questions yesterday. I was on my way to the Hart inquiry in Banbridge, where Margaret McGuckian, one of the group's leaders, was giving her evidence. I realised that at 12.03 pm yesterday, but that was after the 12.00 noon deadline. So, apologies for missing that question. That is the background to all that.

I said at Consideration Stage:

"there is a new broom in DSD".— [Official Report, Vol 101, No 9, p4, col 1].

Mr Beggs, I think, was probably acknowledging that early in his contribution, before the Minister replied to him. I am not sure whether he will be of the same view following that last exchange. The issue today is this: if there is a new broom in DSD, will there be new thinking?

Photo of Mervyn Storey Mervyn Storey DUP

Is it "if" now?

Photo of Alex Attwood Alex Attwood Social Democratic and Labour Party

I think there is a new broom, but the consequence of a new broom is that there should be new thinking, or will we just have more of the old dust thrown up in people's eyes?

Photo of Alex Attwood Alex Attwood Social Democratic and Labour Party

Far from it. I say to all Ministers that you have to demonstrate sooner or later whether you are just in government or are in power. I think that there is an opportunity today, despite some of the chat across the Chamber, which I will respond to in due course.

I was struck by the Member from East Antrim's comment that the SDLP amendments are about adding "cost and weight" to welfare reform. I say to the Member that the weight is not from us. The weight that we are relying upon is the statutory advice of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission. Perhaps you want to dismiss the SDLP today, but you are under a legal obligation to listen to the Human Rights Commission's statutory advice. Our thinking on many of these amendments relies on that of the Human Rights Commission, which, Mr Speaker, sent you a paper that you then — I point out to the Member for East Antrim — circulated to the parties after Consideration Stage.

What is the Human Rights Commission? It was set up by the Good Friday Agreement — let us remember that — because of the law, order and justice issues around which our conflict revolved. The wisdom of the Good Friday Agreement consisted in resolving the issues of law, order and justice, which is what the Patten report, the criminal justice review, the Human Rights Commission and the Equality Commission were meant to do. It created an architecture that ensured that issues of law, justice and rights were properly managed, unlike in the past.

We established the Human Rights Commission, which, in its briefing in advance of Further Consideration Stage, said:

"The following statutory advice is submitted to members of the Assembly on the issue of the Welfare Reform Bill."

This is not made up by the SDLP; this is statutory advice given to the House. If there is weight to what we say, it is the weight of the Human Rights Commission, and Members should acknowledge that rather than play games with good advice given to each party in this House, which, clearly, people to my left will ignore during the debate.

The Commission goes further and says that it bases its position on the full range of internationally accepted human rights standards, including the European Convention on Human Rights, as incorporated by the Human Rights Act 1998, something that Mr Brady may wish to reflect on, given that he did not accept an intervention from me earlier on the very point that we should build into the Welfare Reform Bill certainty that private contractors will comply with the Human Rights Act 1998. The commission then details eight or nine other conventions that inform the advice of the Human Rights Commission. The irony is this: the amendments proposed by Mr Agnew and by the SDLP at Consideration Stage are consistent with that advice, even though we did not then have the value of the statutory advice of the Human Rights Commission. It also informs many of those amendments now.

The question that falls to Members has not been fully answered by the other parties. It has been answered by Mr Stewart Dickson, who said that he is not going down the road of adding extra weight to this Bill, even though it is the advice of the Human Rights Commission. The issue for the Chamber, whatever the claims and counterclaims over Stormont House, and I will come back to that, is this: are we are going to hear the advice of the Human Rights Commission?

[Interruption.]

I will give way to the Member if he has something to say. He said something from a sedentary position that he is not prepared to say on his feet. Putting that aside, the question is whether we heed and pass into law the statutory advice of the Human Rights Commission, which all of us established in 1998 through the Good Friday Agreement and the Northern Ireland Act.

The other amendments, Mr Speaker, come from the advice sector. Two that relate to advice, assistance and information are a matter of taking their advice and trying to pass it into law. Are we or are we not, Mr Speaker, and, through you, Minister, going to have a new broom or old dust? We have to make that call over the next period. In my view, if people could extricate themselves from the straitjacket, which is how they seem to view Stormont House, many of these amendments might be acceptable. I think that it was Mr Brady who said that.

Photo of Alex Attwood Alex Attwood Social Democratic and Labour Party

I will shortly. If he could get out of the straitjacket of Stormont House, he might wear a different suit when it comes to contributing and voting on these amendments.

Photo of Mickey Brady Mickey Brady Sinn Féin

I thank the Member for giving way. You mentioned human rights. There was an Ad Hoc Committee on Conformity with Equality Requirements, as you may or may not remember, of which I was a member; it was the first time that it had been invoked in the Assembly. Your concern about human rights is laudable, but when your leader and you were participating in those negotiations, were you not accepting that the agreements that were reached were not human rights-proofed, or are you saying that you signed up to an agreement that you were not happy with and that you now want to bring in amendments to ensure that it is human rights-proofed? It seems to be a peculiar way of doing things; it is kind of putting the cart before the horse.

Photo of Alex Attwood Alex Attwood Social Democratic and Labour Party 4:30, 24 February 2015

In any piece of legislation that goes before the Assembly, the Minister has to declare that it is human rights-compliant. I had to do it, Mr Storey has to do it and all Sinn Féin's Ministers have to do it; they have to declare that it is human rights-compliant. I would have expected Mr Brady, as somebody who has been involved in the passage of many Bills through the House, to have read, I think, the back page of any Bill that he might have been involved in to satisfy himself that the answer to his question is in the Bill.

My point is —

Photo of Mickey Brady Mickey Brady Sinn Féin

What is your point?

Photo of Alex Attwood Alex Attwood Social Democratic and Labour Party

I do not want to repeat my point, but the point is that the Human Rights Commission is saying, "Here are additional mechanisms to build into the legislation", based on its right to give us statutory advice. It believes that that is completely consistent with human rights standards and can enhance protections. That is the point. I would like to think that, if people freed themselves from the constraints of the normal debate in this place, they would, based on what the advice sector or the human rights sector is saying, endorse amendments from the SDLP or Mr Agnew.

I will respond to other points that have been made by other Members when I go through the various amendments. The Minister might want to correct me on this; I may well be speaking out of turn. At Consideration Stage, we did not move the amendments that were on the Marshalled List at the time in respect of advice and assistance; I think that they are now amendment Nos 17 and 23. As the Minister knows, as I, as a previous Minister, know, and as other people in the House know, one of the devices of making good law is not to move in order to have some further conversations with other parties or the Minister to come to a better outcome. That is why we did not move the amendment in respect of advice and assistance at Consideration Stage. I got a sense that the Minister's mind was more open than might have been anticipated in that regard. Consequently, there have been useful conversations with the Minister, and they have made some advance. It is for the Minister to talk about the advance in his thinking, but, in anticipation of it, he has tabled an amendment in respect of advice to claimants.

Maybe I am breaching confidence here; if the Minister indicates that I am on the wrong side, I will restrain myself. When the Minister said to me and Mrs Kelly that he was minded to bring forward an amendment in the terms that are on the Marshalled List today, my immediate reply was that the word "independent" was missing. Whilst people can take advice from the advice sector, the word "independent" being missing is a major deficit. I know that it is not the intention of the Minister, but it could lead to the potential, especially in a situation where there could be more austerity from London over the next number of years, for the statutory right to give advice to fall to the Department. In that moment, in order to ensure that it lives up to the statutory right to give advice, the independent sector is diminished and diluted. That is at the core of the discussion and the decision that the House has to make in respect of the amendments regarding independent advice and assistance or advice as set out in the amendment from the Minister.

I urge the House, given the need to protect the independent advice sector, to accept the SDLP amendment. In doing so, I rely on a number of arguments. First, if you look at the evidence that the Social Development Committee took from the independent advice sector in 2013 and check the Hansard record of a debate in the Chamber in 2013, you can see that it was unanimously viewed that the independent advice sector was highly valued and very important in ensuring that those who sought advice were given all the advice that they required. Given that that was the very strong view of the Social Development Committee and the unanimous view of the Chamber when a motion on advice-giving was tabled, I think that the Chamber, its Members from all constituencies and all its parties know the value of independent advice. We have said it to ourselves and to that sector about the role that it plays. The background to our amendment is what the Chamber has endorsed and what the Committee acknowledged when it took evidence from the independent advice sector.

I make the point that the law should, in particular, refer to independent advice and assistance because of some of the experience that we have had in recent times when it has come to the Department working with other agencies in order to give advice. As the Minister will be aware, the Social Security Agency has conducted a financial support service trial that involved the agency, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Public Health Agency. It was an effort to build up the advice being given to people from a certain client background. I have read that report over the last number of days, and I would rely on it when it comes to why we believe that the independent advice amendment should be supported.

The Minister will be aware of what the trial concluded. On the subject of measurement of success criteria, the FSS evaluation report and letter states:

"The analysis against the success criteria show that the first two criteria were not met, with no claimants taking up the signposting opportunity to speak to the advice sector on generalist advice and only minimal taking up of specialist advice".

The Minister's own report says that. Even though there was a pilot being run across DARD, the Social Security Agency and others, whereby enhanced advice was being given to claimants, what did they have to do? They had to signpost those claimants to go off to the independent sector because they did not have the in-house capacity to give them all the advice that they needed when it came to managing all their affairs. What was the consequence when people were signposted to speak to the advice sector on generalist advice? It was that no claimants — not one — took up the opportunity. At the same time, there was only minimal take-up of specialist advice.

I put it to the Minister that, when it comes to the issue of a statutory right, if it ends up that the statutory right concentrates its focus in respect of the life of the Social Security Agency, then you might replicate the hard experience of this pilot, where it is clear that the SSA, for all its capacity, was not able to give all the advice to a claimant that was necessary and that the claimant therefore had to be signposted to generalist and specialist independent advice-giving agencies. What happened? The claimant did not go there.

The argument that I make to the Minister is that, if we are to recognise — I think that he recognises this — that there is a need to give advice to claimants, given the general circumstances and the particular context of welfare reform and universal credit and the hard experience of that pilot — the report is from May 2014, so it is very recent experience — it is the independent sector that needs to be in the Bill. That by no means precludes in-house advice, but advice on the basis of that evidence must, in my view, be in law, referencing the independent sector as well as in-house sectors. I urge the Minister to consider those points over the next couple of hours before a vote is taken.

The Minister will be aware that the report outlines all the signposting of claimants across the range of their needs. I cannot fully recall the figures, but a very significant portion of those who were being given advice under the pilot — I think that it was 46% — and then had to be signposted to generalist and specialist advice agencies did not go there. I also have to say that there was good experience in the SSA/DARD pilot, and I do not want to diminish that in any shape or form. Nonetheless, there is real evidence that the balance of the argument lies in putting access to the independent sector in the Bill. In general, I refer Members to all my comments about the advice sector at Consideration Stage.

I will conclude my point on these amendments by saying that 1,493 claimants out of 2,758 FSS interviewees — that is over 50% and is probably 56% — were signposted to generalist or specialist advice-giving agencies. The report outlines who they were in terms of personal budgeting, money management, debt advice, the Housing Rights Service, improving benefit take-up and so on, yet the experience is that virtually none of the people who were signposted to any of those agencies went there. We should learn from that by making our amendment to the Bill.

As you might have gathered, there is no particular order to this. I will move on to amendment No 27 to schedule 1. Once again, this advice comes from the Human Rights Commission. If I may, I will read into the record its statutory advice to the House for work-related requirements and schedule 1:

"Schedule 1, paragraph 7 provides a power to make regulations for claimants who assert a right to reside to automatically be treated as falling within the ‘all work related requirements’. Based on the regulations subsequently published for the scheme in Britain this will mean most European Union migrant workers having to actively seek 35 hours a week regardless of their circumstances. In effect, for example, a Polish claimant losing work who has a child under 12 months, caring for a severely disabled person or who has health problems, will be required to seek work 35 hours while her counterpart from Northern Ireland will be placed in the no work related requirements. Moreover, concessions which allow people in limited work categories to seek self-employment route back to work without facing the ‘minimum income floor’ will also not be open to EU migrants. This concession is provided to claimants in the ‘all work requirements’."

This is the critical paragraph:

"These provisions are discriminatory and arguably contrary to European law which provides that EU migrant workers should be provided with the same social and tax advantages as UK workers. The issue has yet to be legally tested in Britain as the roll out of Universal credit in pilot areas has precluded EU migrant workers. The Commission recommends that this clause should not be enacted."

Here we have the Human Rights Commission saying that, whilst the Minister has endorsed the human rights compliance of the Bill:

"These provisions are discriminatory and arguably contrary to European law" in respect of schedule 1, paragraph 7. Given the scale of those words and the fact that it has not been legally tested in Britain because there has been no universal credit pilot for EU migrant workers, it seems to me that a precautionary approach informed by the Human Rights Commission is the right one. For that reason, we make this recommendation in respect of schedule 1.

Amendment No 4 deals with private contractors, and I will respond to the earlier comments from the Sinn Féin Benches. If it is the case, as Mr Brady outlined, that he opposes the privatisation of work in relation to welfare — I presume that he means welfare in this instance but also more generally — and if that is the point of principle, Sinn Féin should have tabled an amendment to force a vote in the Chamber on that point of principle. Mr Brady said that Sinn Féin opposed the use of private contractors, so it follows that it would table an amendment, but Sinn Féin has been silent.

I say this because I was rereading Hansard from the time when I brought welfare reform legislation through the Chamber. What I said on those occasions and say it again now is that Mr Brady is probably second to none in the Chamber in his understanding of welfare operation and practice. I do not think that anybody would dispute that. I did not dispute that in 2010 and 2011 when bringing legislation through the Chamber as Minister for Social Development, and I do not dispute it now. He has a wealth of knowledge. That, by the way, is no endorsement of Mr Brady when it comes to events that might arise in Newry and Armagh, where it is game on —

Photo of Mickey Brady Mickey Brady Sinn Féin

Is that what is meant by "damned by faint praise"?

Photo of Alex Attwood Alex Attwood Social Democratic and Labour Party

If I were to damn you, Mr Brady, you would know that it was not by faint praise. Whilst I wish every candidate well, I know that Justin McNulty will win well.

Putting that aside, I will not second-guess Mr Brady when it comes to his knowledge of welfare. Indeed, he is right to call me to account on Atos. I was the Minister, so, if, on my watch, something did not work, went belly up, was not quite right or ended up with a private contractor getting out of a contact because of the way things were done, you are right to call me to account. It should be exactly the same for every other former Minister. It will be no reassurance to Mr Brady — officials in DSD will confirm this — that I struggled with that contract being made. In my time at DSD, I looked at ways in which I could go through it, get round it or go over it, and I was not able to do so. I did not go in the direction of Atos with any enthusiasm. In fact, it was quite the contrary. I tried to find ways to deal with the issue. Did I anticipate that Atos would potentially end up in the hole that it ended up in? Yes, I did, but I was not able in the circumstances at the time to do what, left to my own devices, I might have done.

I have to say to Mr Brady that there were no petitions of concern presented to us or any other party in respect of any aspect of welfare reform legislation at that time. If Mr Brady reads the Hansard reports of debates on welfare reform in June 2010, he will see that he said that his party would not seek a Division. That was in June 2010. Mr Brady said in the Chamber that he would not seek a Division on the welfare reform legislation that I was bringing through the House at that time. You may want to criticise me over Atos or the welfare regime that was working itself through at that time, but Mr Brady and Sinn Féin on the Floor said that they were not even going to cause a Division —

Photo of Alex Attwood Alex Attwood Social Democratic and Labour Party

I will in a second.

They were not even going to cause a Division, never mind table a petition of concern against all of that. Therefore, if there is history around welfare reform, it is history that applies to more than one individual or one party.

As everybody in the House knows — whether they admit it or not, Hansard confirms it — I repeatedly put down markers in the Chamber about what was happening in May and June of 2010 and in November 2010 when I came back to the House to tell it about the scale of what Iain Duncan Smith, as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, was about to deploy around universal credit and welfare reform. Members including Mr Brady and Ms Ní Chuilín said that, when it came to those issues, I, as Minister, was on the same page as them.

Photo of Alex Maskey Alex Maskey Sinn Féin

I thank the Member for giving way. It is unfortunate that we should end up spending half of the day talking about what happened a number of years ago, but it is important to put on record what happened. The Member referred to Sinn Féin's position in a previous mandate, when he was involved with welfare legislation, as his predecessor had been. That is fair enough. I always understand the difficulties that all Ministers will occasionally find themselves in, but, if the Member wants to quote Hansard, it is important to quote all of it. It needs to be clearly stated — I would like the former Minister to acknowledge this — that the Sinn Féin members of the Social Development Committee at the time — Fra McCann, Carál Ní Chuilín and Mickey Brady — were very vociferous in their opposition to key aspects of the welfare reform legislation that was being put through. They expressly placed their objections on the record, both in the Chamber and in Committee.

When the previous Minister put the legislation through by way of accelerated passage, we did not have the requisite numbers to table a petition of concern, as the Member knows. Hansard shows that Minister Ritchie and her party colleagues were very clear that accelerated passage was needed to make sure that the legislation was put forward in the interests of maintaining the principle of parity. If the Member wants to keep referring to Hansard, he should recall all of Hansard. We should move on to the legislation that we are currently dealing with.

Photo of Alex Attwood Alex Attwood Social Democratic and Labour Party

I was replying to Mr Maskey's colleague, which I was entitled to do. If we are not going to talk about the past, perhaps Mr Maskey will scold Mr Brady, because he brought up the past.

Photo of Mitchel McLaughlin Mitchel McLaughlin Speaker

There were remarks directed at you relating to your tenure as Minister. You were entitled to respond, and I gave you the space to do so. However, I invite you to bring it up to date now.

Photo of Alex Attwood Alex Attwood Social Democratic and Labour Party

The only other point that I will make about that time is that, as Hansard will confirm, my argument was this: let us stretch parity. Those are the words that I used. I went further and said that, if we were going to look at the issue of parity, we should do so in a discerning and not a reactionary way. I recall, as Hansard will confirm, that Ms Ní Chuilín complimented me and said that my approach — to stretch parity — was the right one.

I move back to the amendment on private contractors. The Member for East Antrim has left, but this is the one part of the Human Rights Commission's submission, which runs to 20 or 30 paragraphs, in which an amendment is drafted for the consideration of Members. It gave advice in respect of many aspects of welfare reform. This is the one where it went further and drafted an amendment. We reworded that amendment because the Bill Office indicated that there might be some issues about it. What the amendment states — we tried to reflect this as faithfully as we could, consistent with the advice of the Bill Office — is:

"The Commission advises that, for the avoidance of any doubt, the Bill makes clear that those private contractors are subject to the jurisdiction of the Human Rights Act 1998. The Commission proposes that a new clause should be inserted after clause 30. It may read: 31. - (1) Authorised persons under section 30 shall be taken to be exercising a function of a public nature. (2) In subsection 1 'functions of a public nature' has the same meaning as in section 6(3) of the Human Rights Act 1998 (acts of public authorities)."

We have taken those words and slightly adjusted them in order to meet the approval of the Bill Office — they might even meet the approval of the House — and to probe that issue. It may be that, when the Minister replies, he will be able to say that, actually, it is taken care of in some other subsection of that clause. I cannot see it there, but I am prepared to be convinced that what is in that draft clause captures what the Human Rights Commission recommends in respect of private contractors.

The reason why it is so crucial that we have absolute certainty in respect of this is partly the point made by Mr Brady about what the private contractors do or do not do when it comes to the treatment of claimants, but it is more than that. It is that we all know that the Tory dogma on the delivery of public service is to put more and more public services in the hands of private contractors. The House will remember how private contractors were appointed to manage the DEL Steps to Work contracts in the summer or early autumn of 2009. When DEL awarded training contracts to a private contractor that happened not to be resident in Northern Ireland, that private contractor — one of the biggest private contractors in Britain — had one member of staff and one mobile telephone in Northern Ireland. Then it was given a number of weeks by DEL and DFP to satisfy DEL and DWP that it could deliver the contract. How did it do that? By subcontracting the work to Northern Ireland contractors and taking 15% or so of the overall cost.

Photo of Fra McCann Fra McCann Sinn Féin

It happened a couple of months ago.

Photo of Alex Attwood Alex Attwood Social Democratic and Labour Party

And it is still happening, so we need to be very wise when it comes to any legislation that is generalist in its content but gives opportunities to private contractors to get business on behalf of the state. Mr McCann whispered in my ear there that it happened a number of months ago in respect of private contractors and how they conduct themselves in the delivery of public services. There is a lot of bad experience when it comes to private contractors across the delivery of public services in Britain and, increasingly, in Northern Ireland. What the Human Rights Commission is doing, as I understand it, is trying to build it into law that private contractors should be required to comply with the relevant sections of the Human Rights Act, because the private contractor is fulfilling a function of a public nature.

The Human Rights Commission has brought this to the attention of the House because of a court case back in 2002: R v Leonard Cheshire Foundation. This is what Lord Justice WoolfLord Woolf, as he then was — said. The case revolved around claimants who were elderly and in a nursing home:

"who challenged the foundation’s decision to close it after they had been there more than seventeen years. The Court of Appeal held that the foundation was not a functional public authority under Human Rights Act s 6, because its contract to provide housing to residents funded by the council did not involve any public functions."

Lord Woolf said that it was:

"not standing in the shoes of the local authorities",

But he added:

"in their contracts with private housing providers, local authorities ought to require the providers to respect the residents’ Convention rights."

What the Human Rights Commission is arguing, as I understand it, is this: let us create certainty that any contracts that the Social Security Agency enters into with private providers or government must require the providers to respect the resident's convention rights. The Minister may yet be able to convince me that this is in the clause. It is certainly not in the words of the clause. It may be there implicitly, but we need to have certainty. I urge the Minister that the best way to create certainty is to have those words in the contract.

I want to move on to the bedroom tax and amendment Nos 11 and 20. I will start by reminding the Minister what he said at Consideration Stage in respect of then clause 69. He will know what I am going to say. He was asked on the Floor:

"In the short term, the critical question is this: if someone decides that there is a significant change in a tenant's personal circumstances and there is suitable alternative accommodation, and the tenant says that they do not wish to move from their three-bedroom house, will they be subject to the bedroom tax?" — [Official Report, Vol 101, No 9, p25, col 2].

The Minister replied:

"That will be dependent on how we develop the scheme. I have heard a lot of comment in the last 24 hours that people want us to be definitive about every individual single issue." — [Official Report, Vol 101, No 9, p25, col 2].

Yes, we do want you to be definitive about every single issue.

"There is no doubt about what will happen. There will be those who, for their own political reasons ... will bring out examples and say, 'You said there wasn't going to be this. Well, here is the evidence.' Let us remember that we are dealing with a complex situation and with families who face a variety of challenging and complex circumstances. Not everybody's family is as unified as we would like them to be. Families today are more diverse. I say this on a personal basis ... I cannot give this House a blank cheque so that, in every set of circumstances in relation to all the issues that we are dealing with, every one of them will be dealt with in exactly the same way ... I ask the Member to give us the indulgence to ensure that we are in a position to develop the scheme. Officials are doing that, and I hope to be in a position to see the proposals relatively soon." — [Official Report, Vol 101, No 9, p25, col 2].

My question to the Minister was:

"if someone decides that there is a significant change in a tenant's ... circumstances and there is suitable alternative accommodation, and the tenant says that they do not wish to move from their three-bedroom house, will they be subject to the bedroom tax?" — [Official Report, Vol 101, No 9, p25, col 2].

That is the question that has to be answered today. Earlier in the debate, Mr Maskey had said:

"what we have at this time is an agreement for the next number of years under which no one will have to pay the burden of that bedroom tax. That, I think, is one of the most important messages that should come from this Chamber yesterday and today ... People out there who are suffering through wondering whether they are going to have to pay additional rent or move out of their house now know as a result of this five-party agreement that they will not have to suffer that." — [Official Report, Vol 101, No 9, p14, col 1].

Mr Maskey was unambiguous that:

"People ... who are suffering through wondering whether they are going to have to pay additional rent or move out of their house now know as a result of this five-party agreement that they will not have to suffer that." — [Official Report, Vol 101, No 9, p14, col 1].

However, the Minister seemed to be somewhat more uncertain. Therefore, the amendment that we have on the Marshalled List is to probe that potential difference. This is the question that I have to ask the Minister: in the event that there is a person who somebody decides has changed personal circumstances and there is alternative suitable accommodation, will they receive the bedroom tax given that they are in an over-accommodation situation, as London might describe it, or will they not receive the bedroom tax? What is the answer?

If somebody has suitable alternative accommodation, their personal circumstances have changed and they say that they are not leaving the house, will they be subject to the bedroom tax? Will they be put in an impossible situation where, to avoid the bedroom tax, they are obliged to take up the alternative offer of accommodation? If that is the case, I say to the Minister that it appears to me that, having closed the bedroom tax through the front door, we will now have it through the back door. There will be a category of tenant who may disagree with the assessment of their personal circumstances and about suitable alternative accommodation, and because they will not receive the bedroom tax in those circumstances, they will have to pay part of the rent from their own resources or will have no alternative but to say, "I have to get out of my property". Mr Maskey is not here to speak for himself, but I do not think that that is what he understands about mitigation in the bedroom tax on a pound-for-pound basis for any person, be they a current or a future tenant. Are we saying to people that, irrespective of the bedroom tax, there will be circumstances where they will have to vacate their properties? We need absolute clarity on that.

In the current circumstances with the bedroom tax and the lack of smaller social housing units, in the context of segregated housing in many parts of this part of Ireland, not least in Belfast, and as the new regime is rolled out and the discretionary fund and the mitigation of the bedroom tax are implemented, we believe that the policy position should be the creation of certainty for tenants now. That certainty is that they will not be required to vacate their properties, even if somebody makes the judgement that their personal circumstance have changed and that suitable alternative accommodation exists. You have to give that upfront certainty now, otherwise doubts will creep in that the Stormont House deal, which, on a pound-for-pound basis, mitigated the bedroom tax, is not all that it appears on whatever piece of paper that outcome is recorded. I urge the Minister to give that reassurance by endorsing our amendments, which have that policy consequence.

Of course, there are wider reasons why the Minister might want to adopt that policy position. It seems to me that the Tories so often look at people's accommodation as a house and not as a home. During the Consideration Stage debate, I recorded a conversation that Reg Empey and I had with Chris Grayling, who was a junior Minister in DWP when Mr Empey was the Minister for Employment and Learning, about why somebody in a social house had to vacate it. He argued that, if somebody in a privately owned property has to give up the ownership of that house because of financial difficulties, it was only fair that somebody next door, who was a social tenant and in receipt of housing support, should have to give their home up as well. That was the logic of Chris Grayling's argument, and I thought that that was a strange value that verged on the offensive.

I say to the Minister that, given the policy position of the current context, we should view where people live not as their house but their home. In viewing it as a home, we need to give every possible protection to them in their security of tenure. That will mean that, when it comes to someone living in a house, even where their personal circumstances may have changed and suitable alternative accommodation may be available, any move has to be with the tenant's consent. Where future treatment of that tenant is concerned, it cannot be imposed either through the back door or the front door through paying the bedroom tax or not. We urge the Minister to adopt that approach.

May I deal, briefly, Mr Speaker, with amendment Nos 2, 3, 8, 9, 10 and 11? This is in respect of basic information being given to sanctions. I listened to what Mr Brady said in this regard and about how he understood that all the matters that were addressed in those amendments were being catered for under the new welfare reform regime. I await the Minister's comments in that regard.

Again, this amendment was drafted by the Advice Services Consortium; it was not drafted by wise people in the SDLP. The Member for East Antrim seems to have some doubt in that regard. I will come back to his comments in a second. On this amendment, the Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action (NICVA), which has a view on welfare reform, as people know, and the Advice Services Consortium said:

"On any occasion when a decision is taken to enforce a benefit sanction on a claimant, the following steps should be followed: Th relevant statutory agency/agencies must provide the claimant with a clear, easy-to-understand written explanation detailing why this decision has been taken Claimants must be given a 1-month window in which they can commence a formal challenge against the sanction, during which time any sanction will not commence and the benefit will continue as normal; In their written explanation, the statutory agency must inform the claimant of the availability of independent advice, and provide details of independent advice centres in their area."

If the Minister can satisfy on those three questions, the amendment might not be moved; however, we will look for explicit reassurance in his answers to those three questions.

I will move on and ask a number of questions on the substantive amendment from the Minister in respect of the new fund. He might not be in a position to answer all these questions now, but, in the fullness of time, I ask for answers to be given one way or the other.

First, there is some discussion about making the medical advice for PIP a mandatory service, whereby GPs and consultants, in their contractual arrangements with government, would be under a mandatory requirement to provide medical advice. That is a good advance, and it is a good outcome that money is being provided to enable claimants to get independent medical advice. However, to harden that outcome, will the Minister advise whether there is any proposal or thinking in respect of making it a mandatory requirement on GPs and consultants, in their contract with services with the state?

Secondly, —

Photo of Mickey Brady Mickey Brady Sinn Féin

It is my understanding that the IB113, which is the form that the Department sends out to a GP, is part of a contractual arrangement. It is different if somebody goes to a doctor and says, "I need a note". The IB113 is a form, issued by the Department, that doctors fill in. That is the case, as far as I am aware. I have checked it in the past, and that is what I have been told. It is part of the contractual agreement, but that is the only form that they have to fill in. What we are talking about in respect of medical evidence having primacy may well be a different thing from a consultant. So, I think that you might have difficulty in getting consultants to agree that as part of their contractual arrangement. Some other financial arrangement may have to be addressed.

Photo of Alex Attwood Alex Attwood Social Democratic and Labour Party

As I indicated earlier, I will certainly defer to the Member's knowledge of the operation of this, but he will also confirm, from his knowledge as a political representative and as a welfare worker in the Newry area, that the written evidence that comes from doctors and consultants can be of a very mixed pedigree. Some will write a short, indecipherable note; others will write a substantial report. So, I think that there is probably a need to standardise. There is, I think, somewhere in the system, thinking that you can create systems whereby GP or consultant medical evidence can be part of a contract, but it should also be done in a standardised way.

What is the point in government allocating whatever tens of millions of pounds each year to provide medical evidence if you end up with some indecipherable note from a GP or consultant. I say that without criticising doctors, because we have to be very careful not to criticise doctors these days. Also, my writing is indecipherable; you only have to go and speak to the staff in my office to understand that. The point is this: is there some thinking about how to standardise and build into the architecture of the relationship at a contractual level between the state and doctors?

Secondly, going back to the amendment that the SDLP tabled at Consideration Stage in respect of people who have a condition that arises from an incident involving a state agency or a terror organisation — what is known as a conflict-related event — is there any fresh thinking about how to manage people who move from DLA to PIP in those circumstances? I think that there was a very strong view at Stormont House and in the Chamber that we should deal with that.

Thirdly, the Minister indicated previously that there would be some further work done on the welfare cap commission. There is some indication that there have been discussions with DWP and Treasury in that regard. Can you indicate where we are with that piece of work, the draft terms of reference and when it might be taken forward? As you know from our previous submissions, we think that the welfare cap and the benefits cap will become harder issues over the next period of time, and very quickly if the Tories get elected. I think that you will see, as they did in June 2011, that they will move very quickly to make further interventions in the overall benefit spend and the overall individual benefit entitlement. Yesterday, the commentary from London was on the back of the Prime Minister's commitments to our senior citizens — proper commitments in many incidences — to give them guarantees on benefits and other assistance. The immediate question and implication was that the strain was going to fall further on the welfare budget and welfare claimants, because, as the Tories move to protect one sector of our society, there is an equal and opposite effect and impact on another sector of our society. The commentary in London yesterday was that, on the far side of those guarantees, there will be more pain for those on welfare. That is why we think that the proposals for a welfare cap commission will be very important.

I conclude by making these points. I checked with the leadership of the Alliance Party and the leadership of the Ulster Unionist Party. There were a lot of conversations in Stormont House and Stormont Castle about the Budget, welfare and all the other matters. However, checking with the leadership of the other parties, what is claimed did or did not happen on 17 December is not consistent with what they say happened on 17 December. If I am going to rely on people, I would rely on those people. Could I also say that —

Photo of Mark Durkan Mark Durkan Social Democratic and Labour Party 5:15, 24 February 2015

I thank the Member for giving way. I was listening intently to the Member and wondering whether he was saying that there is a three-party agreement that there was no four-party agreement?

[Laughter.]

Photo of Alex Attwood Alex Attwood Social Democratic and Labour Party

The Durkans always have a turn of phrase, and that is certainly another example of it.

The real issue is whether there was a two-party deal. That is the issue. You can take this whatever way you want, and you can rely on it, or you may not want to rely on it. Of course, Mr Robinson made claims long before Stormont House, long before Stormont Castle and long before these negotiations. In fact, in April 2014, he claimed that there was agreement in 2013, not between five, four or three parties but at OFMDFM level. Mr Robinson said:

"After a long period of negotiation – and I was directly involved in those negotiations because it ended up, as most of the problems do, on Martin’s desk and on mine – we agreed a package with Sinn Fein at OFMDFM level ... I think it was about May 8 [2013]; Sinn Fein held their meeting of party colleagues in what they hoped would be an endorsement of that negotiated package. I was called in on a Saturday afternoon by Martin who had come down to tell me that he had been unable to get the package through their party organisation."

That package had no supplementary payment fund or any money to go off and get medical evidence, and it did not even have guarantees about the bedroom tax, which may or may not be unravelling, for future tenants; it had cover only for current tenants. To be fully accurate: Mr McGuinness is furious about Mr Robinson's claims:

"I think it was a big mistake for him to [do that]. Quite clearly some of the things that he said in relation to the discussions that took place between himself and myself ... on the issue of welfare cuts bear no reality to what happened at the time."

Let us park everything that happened in May 2013, to take up Mr Maskey's point, and what the parties were and were not prepared to sign up to. We should take some strength from the fact that, whilst we differed on it at times, the package that came out did so because people held the line on welfare. They held the line in the first instance when petitions of concern were tabled in respect of the bedroom tax and the overall Bill, some of which were endorsed by one but not all the parties. It was then taken through the Ad Hoc Committee, which was, Mr Brady, an SDLP proposal. Mr Durkan MP proposed to the SDLP that we should use that mechanism to interrogate the legislation, and it served the Assembly well.

I also welcome the journey that the DUP and other parties went on to work up a bigger and better package, one that I would like other jurisdictions in these islands to remodel in their own image and for their own needs. If there is strength in what came out of the five-party agreement, it will hopefully have application for welfare claimants wherever they may be on these islands.

I ask the Minister to confirm what Mr Maskey said or did not say: is the bedroom tax neutralised? On the basis of what you said the last day, some doubt and uncertainty hang over the Chamber this afternoon.

Photo of Chris Lyttle Chris Lyttle Alliance

I start by saying that Mr Attwood and Mr Durkan might want to reflect on the accusations that they have made about the validity of multiparty agreements on this issue, given the SDLP's inability to get one-party agreement on any issue at this time.

My Alliance Party colleague Stewart Dickson set out the general Alliance Party position at this stage of the Welfare Reform Bill and the rationale for opposing amendments.

A Member:

Will the Member give way?

Photo of Chris Lyttle Chris Lyttle Alliance

I want to make some progress.

I take the opportunity to return to the amendments concerned with ensuring access to independent advice services. At Consideration Stage, I sought assurances from the Minister as to how he would ensure adequate access and resourcing for independent advice services in lieu of a statutory duty to ensure access to them. I was grateful for his response in his winding-up speech. He set out the current provision for independent advice services through the DSD advice services strategy, Opening Doors, and confirmed a budget of around £4·5 million for advice services in Northern Ireland.

I have a few additional questions for the Minister, and I hope that he will be able to respond. Will he go into more detail as to how exactly that £4·5 million budget is being distributed and what outcomes are being achieved through it? He knows that, at the previous stage, I raised my concern that the East Belfast Independent Advice Centre, which receives, as far as I am aware, a mere £40,000 from DSD, achieves significant outcomes for that investment. In the overall scheme of £4·5 million, that seems a very small investment. It would be good to know how the greater part of that £4·5 million is being distributed and what type of outcomes are being achieved as a result.

The Minister also spoke of how responsibility for independent advice services would transfer to councils. I would be grateful if he would go into more detail on how councils will be able to distribute and maximise these resources in an even better way than is the case currently. He gave a commitment and an assurance that work with independent advice services would be intensified, and he acknowledged the case that I made for the excellent work of the East Belfast Independent Advice Centre. He commended its work, which I am grateful for, and he referred to the huge amounts that it is able to draw down on behalf of some of the most vulnerable. Indeed, he said that this efficiency was a model that could be transferred to the rest of Northern Ireland.

I remind the Minster that the East Belfast Independent Advice Centre, and many other advice centres of its kind, achieve these outcomes on a relative shoestring, and it appears that that shoestring could be getting shorter. I mentioned that the centre gets a mere £40,000 from DSD, and my understanding is that gets only £30,000 from the council, yet it returns millions of pounds in benefit entitlement and assistance to the people of Northern Ireland. I ask him again to be more specific about how exactly the work to support those important services will be intensified and improved.

Photo of Steven Agnew Steven Agnew Green

I thank the Member for giving way. He will be aware that two amendments are tabled: amendment No 17 was tabled by the SDLP and countersigned by the Green Party, and there is an amendment from the Minister. For me, the essential difference between the two is that the Minister's amendment does not cite independent advice, which the Member has mentioned a number of times in his contribution. Is he concerned about the Minister's amendment?

Photo of Chris Lyttle Chris Lyttle Alliance

I thank the Member for his intervention. I agree with the spirit of the concern that he raises, and I hope that the Minister will be able to clarify why his assurances to intensify support for independent advice services mean that his amendment should be supported in lieu of the amendment that clearly states the duty on independent services.

The Minister, in his response to the debate on the Bill's previous stage, raised a concern that placing a statutory duty on independent advice services might hamper their independent nature. I am not sure that I agree with that, and perhaps the Minister would care to elaborate. Regardless of a duty or otherwise, it is essential that we get firm and clear assurances from the Minister that his Department and the Executive will adequately resource independent advice services so that they can continue to achieve excellent outcomes for our community. I have asked for assurances on how he believes the transfer to councils of the responsibility for independent advice services will be a more efficient and more helpful way to support and deliver those services.

I welcome the Minister's assurances, but I would be grateful for greater clarity on the key question of how that £4·5 million is being distributed and utilised. Perhaps the Minister can go into more detail on how the Social Security Agency is performing against its existing targets for benefit uptake, given that, as Mr Agnew stated today, the Minister proposes an amendment that makes no specific reference to independent advice services. There are concerns that the support would go not to independent advice services but to statutory advice services. It would be good if the Minister could speak to how statutory services such as the Social Security Agency are performing against their targets for benefit uptake.

I also ask the Minister what specific plans he has for that intensification of support and work in conjunction with the independent advice services. Can he confirm again that adequate resources will be given to the successful, efficient and essential independent advice centres that exist in our community, such as the East Belfast Independent Advice Centre?

Photo of Jim Allister Jim Allister Traditional Unionist Voice 5:30, 24 February 2015

Whereas my contribution, content-wise, is unlikely to be like that of either of the previous two Members to speak, I assure the House that its duration is more likely to be akin to Mr Lyttle's than Mr Attwood's.

Photo of John McCallister John McCallister UUP

Give us an hour, Jim.

Photo of Jim Allister Jim Allister Traditional Unionist Voice

Do not tempt me.

I want to focus primarily on amendment No 22, which the Minister has tabled. Its opening words unveil that it is all about making payments:

"to persons who suffer financial disadvantage as a result of the changes to social security benefits and tax credits contained in this Act and the Welfare Reform Act 2012."

There we have it. The clause, with akin clauses, is about effectively nullifying the import of welfare reform in Northern Ireland. The spin-off of that is the cost that will flow from it. Strangely, in the House today, we have hardly heard a word about how that will be funded and what it will cost. It seems that tonight, on BBC's 'Spotlight', that question may be asked, but it has not really been asked in the House, and this is a House that is supposed to have control over and an interest in the public finances of Northern Ireland. The reason that it is not asked is the embarrassing answer, which is that the cost will be £564 million over the next six years. That is not money that will drop like pennies from heaven, nor is it money that is coming on some white charger; that is money that is coming out of the very heart of essential expenditure in Northern Ireland. It is coming out of the block grant. No one is giving us any extra money. The money is coming out of the money that currently is spread over our schools, hospitals, roads and other vital services.

To fund amendment No 22 and others, we are going to diminish that vital coterie of money, and we will do it in a way that will have inevitable adverse consequences for the people who pay their taxes, go out to work, get out of their bed in the morning and make a contribution to society. We are going to use the money that pays for the hospitals for us all, the schools for us all and all the other vital services to deliver the deal that was done between the DUP and Sinn Féin on welfare reform in order to nullify the effective impact of welfare reform.

Welfare reform, whatever one thinks about it, had certain component parts, one of which was incentivising work. At the stroke of a pen, we are going to liquidate that idea in Northern Ireland through the supplementary funding and through making sure that no one gets less. It is not just, I beg to suggest, for six years. Think the matter through. Over those six years, take the benefit cap, for example, for which some of the money will be used. At present, 6,600 families in Northern Ireland receive more than £26,000 net in benefits a year, which equates to earnings of £33,000 or £34,000. On average, those 6,600 families receive £30,700, equating to earnings of over £40,000 a year. It may be, depending on what happens in the general election, that the benefit cap in GB will fall to £23,000. Think of the differential that will exist in six years' time, even on the issue of benefit caps, between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom, and then ask yourself the question —

(Mr Deputy Speaker [Mr Dallat] in the Chair)

Photo of Jim Allister Jim Allister Traditional Unionist Voice

In a moment.

Ask yourself whether there is any prospect of reverting to the status quo at that point. Of course there is not.

Through the amendment, the Minister is asking us to sign that blank cheque away into the future and maintain that differential, which, with an ever-widening gap, will get greater. It is not just £564 million over six years; that is but the first down payment of it. The Member I am about to give way to comes from a party that, I suspect, in six years' time, will be campaigning avidly for the retention of all the supplementary payments, and how dare anyone suggest that we might just come into line with what we can afford?

Photo of Mickey Brady Mickey Brady Sinn Féin

I thank the Member for giving way. I did not realise that he had brought his crystal ball with him today.

You are castigating people on benefits, and I have previously heard you talk about handouts as if the Social Security Agency was some sort of charitable institution. I would like to make two points. First, a single person running a household is on £72·40 a week, which is going up to £73·10, and you suggest that people actually choose to do that. The second point is that, when we talk about the health service and various other things, there are unforeseen consequences. If vulnerable people are not protected, surely that will put more pressure on the health service and on all the other statutory agencies. That seems a reasonable point.

Photo of Jim Allister Jim Allister Traditional Unionist Voice

I am not suggesting for one moment that everyone on benefits is a sponger — by no means. There are people on benefits through absolutely no fault of their own, through disability or through genuine inability to find work. In west Belfast, for example, 880 families get in excess of £26,000 a year in benefits, in contrast to constituencies like mine, where something in the order of 250 families are on that level of benefit. No one, surely, could suggest that there is not a culture of benefits and a work-shyness in some areas that feeds the mentality that the state owes them in perpetuity. That is the import of the amendment.

Photo of Alex Maskey Alex Maskey Sinn Féin

I thank the Member for giving way. Will he not accept that the rate of drawdown of benefits is completely commensurate with the levels of deprivation and the unemployment statistics that are available for each constituency? Rather than singling one constituency out, the converse of your argument is, in my opinion, that we should create more investment and give more jobs and support to people on benefits. The more support we can give to those communities and individuals, the less likely they are to need to avail themselves of benefits, especially if we create employment for them in those constituencies — it is not just West Belfast; it is every constituency — commensurate with the levels of deprivation and unemployment.

Photo of Jim Allister Jim Allister Traditional Unionist Voice

Let me remind the Member that more jobs have been created by Invest NI in his constituency in recent years than in mine. I am sure that there are people with a benefits culture in my constituency, but I also know that there is a very definite attachment to a work ethic that gets people out of their bed in the morning to go out and work. If you remove any incentive to work then, of course, you will perpetuate that situation.

Northern Ireland has the highest level of economic inactivity in the whole of the United Kingdom. These amendments will do nothing to address that. And so, when the House hears the Enterprise Minister and the Minister for Employment and Learning lauding their determination to build a better, brighter economic future, which is all very desirable, and at the same time does nothing to incentivise people into work — indeed, quite the opposite — one has to ask why the House is pulling in two utterly contradictory directions. That is the problem here.

Of course, this is the product of the fact that a deal had to be done, because there was something far more important than incentivising people into work and far more important than building a prosperous economic future. It was about keeping these precious institutions going. That was the compulsion of the moment that drove the Stormont Castle agreement. Now, whether in truth it is an agreement between two parties or five parties and whether some are forgetful and unsure about what they agreed, I do not know. I was not there, so I cannot help the House. But I know what I read, and I have read annex A of the Stormont Castle agreement.

I will take one of the measures — and I am not picking on lone parents, by any means. There are lone parents who do a phenomenal job raising their kids and providing for them, who want to push them on and see them succeed. Yet I read in this that one of the items of agreement is that:

"Lone parents will not be sanctioned for refusing offers of work or training if they cite a lack of childcare provision as the sole reason".

Could it be more lax? You do not have to prove that there is a lack of childcare provision, you just have to be cute enough to cite it as the sole reason. If you cite it as the sole reason for refusing an offer of work, that is all right, then: carry on living off the state. That causes many people who go out to work — yes, many lone parents who go out to work, who make the effort — to ask, "Why do I bother?".

That is the problem with the approach to all of this. We are effectively saying to many people, "Why do you bother? We are creating this benefits utopia where you will not be incentivised into work and you will not be punished for not doing what you would be punished for elsewhere in the United Kingdom. Instead, you will be sustained at the level of benefits hitherto applicable".

Photo of Alex Attwood Alex Attwood Social Democratic and Labour Party

First, many people will find your comments offensive and verging on demonisation. Secondly, it has been established practice through many welfare reform Bills, because of the very poor childcare facilities in Northern Ireland, which is worse than Britain when it comes to affordable and accessible childcare, that the lack of affordable, accessible childcare is good cause. Thirdly, will you read into the record all of the statistical profile of west Belfast — the fact that people die younger, face much greater health challenges and have bigger families? Indeed, by every criterion of social disadvantage, west Belfast is ill served by the narrow-minded comments you have just made.

Photo of Jim Allister Jim Allister Traditional Unionist Voice

I am sure that we could all expound the "Poor me" philosophy, but the state does not owe any of us a living. We contribute to the state, we pay our taxes and our National Insurance and, in return, we are entitled to expect to be sustained to a level. That is the essential genius of the welfare state: throughout the state, you pay in the same and are guaranteed the same back. Not any more in Northern Ireland. We are abandoning that premise at Sinn Féin's behest to get this deal. I simply make the point that I do not think that it sits comfortably with or pulls in the same direction as rebuilding and rebalancing the economy in this part of the United Kingdom; rather, it perpetuates that which ensures that we are not going to achieve those laudable objectives.

Photo of John McCallister John McCallister UUP 5:45, 24 February 2015

I will probably follow on from some of Mr Allister's points, and I will speak mainly to amendment No 22. A couple of issues arise, and I want to come to both of them and take up Mr Attwood's intervention at some point as well.

If we look at this in the mix, we see that £565 million is going to it over a six-year period. Are we just protecting the welfare that we have had? Are we not doing any welfare reform? In that case, we come to the point that Mr Attwood made in an intervention on Mr Allister. If he wants to read into the record some of the stats for west Belfast, I am happy to give way and let him do that. If west Belfast is as bad as that under the current welfare system, surely you would want to reform it. That would be the essence of it.

At Consideration Stage, the Minister reiterated in his reply that we want work to pay. Mr Allister made the point about 6,500 families being on in excess of the £26,000 cap and some on an average of £30,000-plus. That is more than a Sinn Féin MLA takes home in their pay packet; it is more than many families get. To give some idea of that amount of money, to get to £30,000, you would need to be on a £40,000 salary. That is a significant income. We can look at some of the people who might get trapped on welfare alongside some average private-sector wages. An average hairdresser in the UK earns £11,000, a waiter or a member of bar staff earns £8,000, a window cleaner earns £13,000 and a chef earns £18,000.

Photo of John McCallister John McCallister UUP

I will in a second.

Yet, we are seriously suggesting that we should pay people in excess of £30,000 in benefit. I do not see how you will incentivise people when the other side of the Government wants to do corporation tax and get more people into work.

I am happy to give way.

Photo of Phil Flanagan Phil Flanagan Sinn Féin

I thank the Member for giving way. He said that the average salary for an individual was about £24,000 or £25,000, and he compared that with the small number of families with an income from the Social Security Agency of over £30,000. He is not comparing like with like; he is comparing one individual with a salary with a family that has maybe a number of children taking in benefits.

My main point is this: I fundamentally agree with you when you say that we need to incentivise people and we need to make work pay. You then cited somebody earning £8,000 a year. Are you telling me that, because one section of people who work are paid £8,000 a year, which is far less than what you need to live on, people who are unable to work due to the fact that they cannot find a job, they have a serious disability or their children have serious disabilities that require constant care should be forced to live in poverty too? Incentivising people to work or making work pay is not about cutting the dole or disability benefits; it is about making work pay by paying people a proper wage for doing a job.

Standing up and reading into the record people who are paid £8,000, £11,000 or £12,000 a year for work is not the solution. If you want to talk about making work pay, then pay people a living wage for the job that they do. Making work pay is not going to work by cutting people's benefits.

Photo of John McCallister John McCallister UUP

I am grateful to the Member for that intervention. I am on record here as supporting companies that can afford to pay the living wage; I would like to see them do that. The Prime Minister is on record as saying that Britain needs a pay rise, and I agree. I have made the point before in the Chamber that in many places in our welfare system we have used the tax credit system to subsidise low pay. That is not a direction of travel that we should be on; nor should we be using public funding to do that.

I agree with the Member on that, but I disagree with him on this —

Photo of John McCallister John McCallister UUP

I just want to finish the point. He talked about comparing an individual's income with that of a family. I am happy to do that. A family of two partners living together, both of whom are on the Northern Ireland average wage of £19,000, have a family income of £38,000. By the time they pay their tax they are less well off than the family on benefits that receives the £30,700 that Mr Allister spoke about. That is what I am saying. That is not a system that we, as an Assembly, should be supporting. At some point, this will go down the line, whether it is next year or the year after or when the six years run out and we will be so out of kilter with the rest of the UK. Can we continue to afford it?

Photo of John McCallister John McCallister UUP

Yes, certainly.

Photo of Steven Agnew Steven Agnew Green

Is the family with two workers on £19,000 a year receiving child benefit or support for childcare through working tax credit or childcare vouchers?

Photo of John McCallister John McCallister UUP

They could well be, because I have not said whether they have a family. I am simply making the point that at that stage they are, on paper, less well off than the family on benefits. That is not a position that, I suspect, even the Minister would want to take.

Photo of John McCallister John McCallister UUP

Yes, I am sorry; I should have given way earlier.

Photo of Mickey Brady Mickey Brady Sinn Féin

I did not realise that it was Mr McCallister talking; I thought that I was listening to Iain Duncan Smith. Very simply, you need to put in context this notion of people getting £30,000. Even the Tories accept that benefit is at subsistence level; it is the lowest income that you can have. It is interesting that we are talking about incentivising people to work; there is a report out today that shows that five companies here in the North were paying below the minimum wage, as were 70 companies in Britain — and those are only the ones that they found out about.

I go back to my earlier point about the Social Security Agency being some sort of benevolent fund that gives people money. The reason that families get that amount of money is because they have large numbers of children and they may also have large numbers, unfortunately for them, of disabled children. They have disability living allowance (DLA) and all of that. Freud and his ilk tried to sell it in the House of Lords by talking about £26,000 and £35,000 gross. It is all nonsense; it is subsistence level benefit, and you need to get that into your head. People are not well off on benefits.

The underlying principle of welfare reform is to get people back to work. Nobody disagrees with that; it is better to be working than on benefit. Last year, there were 64,000 people unemployed and 4,000 jobs; it does not make a very good equation.

Photo of John McCallister John McCallister UUP

If £30,000 is subsistence level, should we not all be contributing to Sinn Féin MLAs? Will we not need to make sure that Mickey Brady gets elected to Westminster in May to get him up to a £67,000 salary? You cannot argue that £30,000, if that is an average, is subsistence level. I entirely accept some of your points about families. The number of children that families have is a choice and a matter for them, but you cannot argue about the figure of £30,000, which will keep on rising. At what level do you suggest we or the Minister should set the cap? Should it be £30,000, £35,000 or £40,000?

Photo of Dolores Kelly Dolores Kelly Social Democratic and Labour Party

I thank the Member for giving way. Fundamentally, we have to agree on what type of society we wish to create and whether we want to have a fair society that protects the most vulnerable and the marginalised. I do not often hear the Member criticise the amounts of money that are paid out to the farming community — many members of which, although they may well have low incomes, are asset rich but are still subsidised with public money — nor indeed the companies that get money from Invest NI grants. If the Member had tempered his remarks right across all those recipients of public-sector money, rather than attacking only those people who find themselves unable to work because of family circumstances or the lack of employment in areas where they live, I might actually have had more respect for what he has to say.

Photo of John McCallister John McCallister UUP

I thank Mrs Kelly for her remarks. I am not attacking any individual: I happened to say that we, this Assembly and Executive, need to decide what type of society we want. I agree entirely with her on that, but that has not been quite clear in this debate and from others in this Assembly. On one hand, we are going to fire £565 million at topping up benefits for the next six years. Your argument and those of your colleague Mr Attwood were about the state of West Belfast. This Government have been in office now for eight years. This Administration has been in office for eight years, so why is West Belfast so bad? Sinn Féin is a party that has been in control of West Belfast, with an intermittent period of the SDLP — if you add in Gerry Fitt, they have been in charge of West Belfast since 1966. We are still told that it is one of the most deprived constituencies in the United Kingdom. You have to ask why.

If we are really serious about making work pay — and, to be fair to the Minister, I believe that he probably is committed to that, but I am not sure whether he can get some of his main colleagues in Sinn Féin over the line — the last thing that we as a society want to do is trap people in poverty and on benefits. Work has to pay. Work is actually good for people. It is good for your mental health. That is why we should encourage people into work.

That is why, when we look at the commitments in amendment No 22 and why we are spending this, we have to look at and set the other context. Mr Attwood's intervention to Mr Allister was about what else we should be doing. Should we not use some of this money to look at skills in those areas and to bring investment in? Should we not look at health inequality instead? He mentioned health inequalities and life expectancies — a key issue in his constituency, which has a remarkably lower life expectancy than somewhere like South Belfast. Why then are we cutting funding to the Public Health Agency? Why then are we not addressing that? Why are we not looking at that? You could actually find that we increase inequalities in society through this measure.

When we cut corporation tax — Sinn Féin is supportive of that, and that is fine — who are the families and people who will most benefit from that? Will they be the least-well-educated people in society? No. All the evidence suggests that if you cut corporation tax, those with the best education will benefit most. We are driving forward a bigger state of inequality in society. I do not think that that is something that we should support.

Sinn Féin seems to be advocating that we effectively turn welfare reform on its head, trapping more people in poverty, instead of looking at how we get early intervention. We have talked for years about that. How do we really make early intervention work? How do we upstream the interventions and stop families getting into difficulties and being trapped; generations of people who have never worked or held a job? That is not something that we as an Assembly, the Minister or his Executive colleagues should support.

Photo of John McCallister John McCallister UUP

I will in a second. We are looking at things like pupil premiums. We had the chance to do stuff when we had Barnett consequentials from free school meals in England. It just seemed to drift into the general Budget. We could have targeted that in the areas of worst need. <BR/>I agree entirely with the point on childcare provision because, as the father of three young children, I know the cost of childcare. I know the difficulty of getting childcare. We need to address that, but the childcare strategy is in disarray, and no money is being allocated to it. I would like to have seen or heard more detail on that from the Minister.

Photo of Stewart Dickson Stewart Dickson Alliance 6:00, 24 February 2015

What I am hearing from Mr McCallister and Mr Allister is that they would like us to push people over the edge into the most brutal area of Tory cuts. That makes the difference between Mr Attwood and me in the debate that we had this afternoon pale into insignificance. At least we are both agreed on the sum that should be spent. The disagreement is over how it might be spent, and what we should do with it in future. We have at least flushed out two Members who simply want to push everybody over the edge into incredible poverty.

Mr McCallister referred to how we might get people into employment and the type of learning and training that we should provide. Perhaps if we are in disagreement over whether people should be pushed off the edge or encouraged into employment, would he at least agree that squandering £1 million on poor teacher training and investing that £1 million in better education that will deliver better students, better teachers and better people for jobs is a way forward?

Photo of John Dallat John Dallat Social Democratic and Labour Party

Order, please. The Member strayed well off the debate. I ask all Members to be careful.

Photo of John McCallister John McCallister UUP

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I agree with the Member's point on teacher training.

I do not think that Mr Allister or I were suggesting that we push people off the edge and into poverty. If the Member is saying that that is what we are suggesting, the only difference between us is that we are talking about doing it today, and he wants to do it in six years' time when the money runs out.

Is he telling me that it is £565 million for the next six years, when we will review it, and, if we need to throw another £560 million at it to keep these amendments alive, we will do it, and another £560 million for the five or six years after that? Is that what he is saying? It comes back to the debate on whether or not the bedroom tax is being implemented.

The only reason there is a difference between me and him over the Bill is because he wants to stay in the Executive, and I am happy to be away from it. To be fair to him, he is acting like a responsible member of the Government and sticking to his agreement — unlike others — but at least he is sticking to it, and that is the only difference. He is putting off the inevitable.

If I picked the Member up correctly, the questions that Mr Allister and I are raising are quite legitimate: namely, what is the long-term plan? There is a divergence in the Chamber and the Executive on where these amendments are taking us and on economic policy.

Am I seeing a coherent, collective government at one, wanting to make work pay and with a strategy to grow the economy and build a private sector that can create jobs and wealth and get people out, or are we seeing the Sinn Féin and SDLP approach of trapping people in poverty and limiting that social mobility whereby people have to stay in poverty and trapped on welfare in constituencies like West Belfast?

We have moved away from the idea of social and physical mobility in Northern Ireland, when education was a great way out of poverty. When Sinn Féin talks about using education, driving down inequalities in education and tackling disadvantage, where does that tie in with what is in the Bill and the amendments? Does that make sense? Is that linked up? I am not seeing the joined-upness of the Executive approach. I very much regret that, because we are putting in a considerable amount of resource while cutting our skills budget and training, and taking away the very things that could create wealth and jobs and get people out of poverty.

In an intervention, Mr Maskey challenged the idea that there are 800 families in West Belfast on £30,000 compared with 250 in North Antrim. What are the differences in those constituencies? Why are we not using this money to address inequalities in education, health, training and skills and trying to break the generational cycle of people being trapped in poverty and benefit dependency? I do not see that in the amendments.

Photo of Phil Flanagan Phil Flanagan Sinn Féin

I thank the Member for giving way. He talks about ending benefit dependency. We all agree with that: we all want people to move into work, if they are able to work. However, the Member's solution to ending benefit dependency is to take people off benefits and give them nothing. Does he have an alternative apart from cutting their dole and cutting the disability payments of people who need them? Do you just want to take them off benefits, give them nothing and forget about them?

Photo of John McCallister John McCallister UUP

I am happy for the Member to read Hansard. At no point have I suggested, or tabled any amendments to suggest, that we should scrap our welfare system. I recognise that there are people who need welfare, and I recognise that there are people who have such profound disabilities that they will never be able to work. It is right, proper and good that we have a safety net that catches people, because the last thing any of us want is to go back to a situation in which the cracks in the pavement are so wide that too many people are falling through them. However, there are some who are caught between not being able to afford childcare and others who get a job but lose their benefits at such a rate that it is not worth their while working. Does he not accept that there are people trapped on welfare? <BR/>I am not convinced that the solution is to write what is, effectively, a blank cheque for £565 million at present — but who knows whether we will have to keep writing these cheques? — on the strength of a not terribly detailed amendment on how the money will be spent. Mr Beggs asked whether we would hit the highest total of £130 million in 2018-19. Why would we expect that figure to fall after that? What will change? Mr Attwood, you wanted to make an intervention. Sorry, I had to remind you there.

Photo of Alex Attwood Alex Attwood Social Democratic and Labour Party

I am not quite sure how to reply to that. Part of me says that, clearly, you are about to run for the Conservative Party in South Down in the forthcoming election, because Chris Grayling would have been impressed by that sort of contribution. Could you deal with some of the facts? One in 10 of our people, for example, is on disability benefit, which is twice the number in Britain. That is the consequence of historical inequality working through in the lives of people in terms of their health and experience.

In north and west Belfast, where much of the conflict was concentrated, people were traumatised physically and mentally. If you were to acknowledge those points, we could have a proper discussion. Instead, you throw out grandiose claims about how people in west Belfast are trapped in poverty. Look at the profile and then draw conclusions about why people are in the situation that they are in. The best way for you to understand is to come and visit west Belfast, and I invite you to do that between now and Final Stage.

Photo of John McCallister John McCallister UUP

I am happy to take the Member up on his very kind invitation to visit west Belfast. The points at the start of his intervention were about the legacy of the Troubles and mental health problems. Let us face it: the largest proportion of disability we have is in mental health. His point about legacy issues was well made.

I take his point on that, but is he seriously telling me that he could not take me to anybody in west Belfast whom he thinks could not get a job? Whether there are jobs there for them to go to, I do not see where Sinn Féin and the SDLP want to create that social mobility so that people get out, get a job and work. I can also assure him that I have no intention of running for the Conservative Party in South Down.

At the very core welfare reform was making work pay. If we cannot do that, or if we have watered down welfare reform so much with this £560 million, have Sinn Féin and the SDLP managed to turn the Bill on its head? Is work now not going to pay, or are we going to keep topping up? Where will the off switch be for that £560 million? Perhaps someone like Mr Attwood will get up and say whether he sees us needing another £560 million after 2021.

Photo of Patsy McGlone Patsy McGlone Social Democratic and Labour Party

Thanks very much, Mr McCallister, for giving way. I have heard the idea perpetuated ad nauseam about benefits dependency, as if people had won the lotto when they went on benefits, be it ESA or whatever. It is important to read into the record that the young people whom we need to get into meaningful, paid jobs, where there is a skills deficit et al, are not on the sick. They are claiming JSA. Just so that people know, up to the age of 24 or 25, you get £57·35 a week. If you are over 25, you get £72·40 a week. If anybody tells me that that is an incentive to stay at home, I must be living in cloud cuckoo land. It is an incentive to get a job, so the challenge is to create jobs, attract jobs here and make sure that young people are skilled up to move into those jobs. I really do not subscribe to this dependency culture thing, as if people have won the lotto when they claim JSA. They have not. I have them in my office, as I am sure other Members do. They are trying to get by week to week. That notion reflects mentality out there of the 'The Sun' and the Tories. We have to inject some degree of reality into the debate.

Photo of John McCallister John McCallister UUP

There are two things to say on that. If you are on £70-odd a week for 50 weeks, that is £3,500 a year. It is a long way shy of the £30,000 that 6,500 families are on. The very point that I have been making throughout is the point that Mr McGlone seems to have missed. There are people who are on jobseeker's allowance whom we want to get into work and skill up. We are not going to do that by gutting our skills budget, by having a row over St Mary's and Stranmillis or by having no idea of where the Government's economic policy is going.

If you look at the amendments, including the open-ended amendment No 22 that sets out where the policy is going, the way that you are going to change that and go where Mr McGlone wants you to go is by investing in your skills and by raising the standard of every school. You have to come back to the question of why the constituencies with the worst profiles have been the same for 30 and 40 years. What are we not doing? If our original welfare system was so good, we would not be having this debate, and we would not have constituencies that are failing the people who live in them. They have no ability to get education. The schools are not good enough. Health inequalities are there. I am simply pointing out to you that gutting budgets such as those for health, for education and for employment and learning to pay for amendment No 22 may not add up to a coherent, consistent policy for growing an economy. That is the point that I am making.

I know that we have a terrible problem with youth unemployment. Thankfully, our overall unemployment levels have dropped, but gutting those budgets to do this may not be the best way of helping people. That is something that I look forward to hearing about in the Minister's response. Throughout all of this, that has been the part that has worried me the most. Where is the joined-upness of government to create, grow and build an economy, give people skills and create jobs for them to go into and get off benefits?

Photo of Phil Flanagan Phil Flanagan Sinn Féin 6:15, 24 February 2015

I thank the Member for giving way again. He talks once more about making work pay and lauds the fact that our unemployment figures have gone down. However, if he actually drills down into the details, what he will see is that, while employment statistics may well have gone down, what are filling the gap are low-pay, part-time jobs, zero-hour contracts and complete underemployment. People are still living in poverty. Work is not paying for the vast majority of our people. Trying to get people to come off benefits and go into a job that will further reinforce a life of poverty for them is not a sustainable alternative.

If you want radical changes to the welfare system here, you need to create jobs that pay people to come off benefits. Nobody wants to live on £72 a week. You cannot live on £72 a week. People have accepted that you cannot live on much higher wages. That is why there are benefits, such as the family tax credits and child tax credits, to top people up and subsidise them to work in low-pay jobs. What we need is the creation of jobs that pay people to come off benefits rather than forcing them off benefits through a range of punitive sanctions and taking disability payments off people who genuinely need them.

Photo of John McCallister John McCallister UUP

As usual, I am grateful to Mr Flanagan. In an earlier intervention, he suggested that £30,000 was the subsistence level. I accept his point that £72 a week would be a very low subsistence level if you are struggling on £30,000. In a way, I am encouraged slightly that the Member is starting to see some of the arguments that I have been making: that you need to look at welfare reform in the round of your other policies around the economy. Are you going to grow? Are you going to create skills? What about issues around the living wage and minimum wage? How do we encourage companies that can afford to pay the living wage to do so? What do we do? What about the public sector? We are entering into a phase in which we are borrowing £700 million to pay off 20,000 public-sector workers. You are in agreement with that. You have signed up for that. It is fine to sign up and agree to that, but I have simply been trying to articulate the point that those two halves are not quite adding up to a whole.

I am just not seeing where the joined-upness of the Executive is coming from. That is the problem. Your economic strategies and policies should be linking in with what you are doing on welfare. You would hope that it might be easier to start to fill the gap at a time when the economy has returned to growth, but I am not convinced that we are going to find it. Every time that I have asked Ministers, particularly the Finance Minister, about public-sector reform and welfare reform, I am told, "We are literally doing both of them only because the Tories are making us do them. We are not doing it because we think that it is the right thing to do. We are not doing it because we have a better plan".

We could have changed welfare if we had wanted to. We could have done something different. We could have tackled this a number of years ago. When Mr Attwood was Social Development Minister, he could have done something different. He could have invented something different in welfare, but there is no policy-driven agenda here. We are only doing it because we are being forced to do it due to the economic realities that we are in. You have to come back to the principle of this, which is that work should pay. You cannot have families on benefits who are significantly better off than a working family with an above average salary.

Photo of Mervyn Storey Mervyn Storey DUP

I will endeavour to make progress in responding to much of what has been said in the House this afternoon. If I am not responsive to Members, I will come back to them with more information. Reference was made earlier to a new broom in the cupboard. It looks as though it may still be dusty. I have heard of Dusty Bin. I do not know whether I am Dusty Storey. Clearly, I have some work to do to convince the Member that we can make any difference and do not just accept what is given to us by others and implement it.

I want to comment on what was said by the last Member who spoke. What he has to remember, and what we all, unfortunately, have to face up to, are not just the economic realities we face but the political realities. I would like to be standing here as a Minister in a Government of which my party had absolute and total control, and that it was a party in government that was making decisions so that, on every occasion and in every policy we brought to the House, there was a opportunity to have a clear focus and no tension between any of the policies. The political reality for me and for us all is to be found in the current arrangements in Northern Ireland. I can assure the Member that if he thinks it is difficult and challenging to find agreement within NI21, he can try finding agreement between five parties in a mandatory coalition. That has been the challenge and the difficulty.

It would be easy to be populist and pick on particular statistics and certain figures, highlight them, not be completely accurate in how we highlight them and to say all of that. That is all very easy to do, but is more difficult when you have to deal with the day-to-day issues that I have been given in my responsibilities to govern and lead on the introduction of welfare reform.

I make those comments, but I want to say something else. I return to the point — we can so easily miss it; and I repeat it because I believe it — that, in all that I do and am endeavouring to do, I always, every day, keep in my mind that this is still about people. It is very easy to use statistics about this constituency and that constituency. I will not accuse those in my constituency who are in receipt of benefits above the £26,000 of doing anything less than making application to the system as it exists, because that is something they are entitled to do. However, I would also say this: let us remember that, over the last 10 years, my Department has proactively moved on the issue of benefit fraud. Let us remember that, 10 years ago, benefit fraud was running at somewhere in the region of 2% or £61 million a year, and the last figures show us that that has now been reduced to 0·3%. If anybody thinks that the Department and the welfare system are some sort of easy touches, I think that they also need to realise that this is action that we are taking as a Department in conjunction with Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs.

I want to move on to the substantive issues in front of us: the amendments and the Further Consideration Stage of the Welfare Reform Bill. Amendment No 1 deals with the responsibility for children and young persons. Clause 10 provides for an amount to be included in the calculation of a universal credit award for claimants who are responsible for children or qualifying young people. An additional amount will be paid if the dependent child or qualifying young person is disabled, which is consistent with universal credit's objectives of simplicity and affordability.

At Consideration Stage, we discussed how that element of universal credit will replace child tax credit and take over its role as the main source of extra support for children in low-income families that are in and out of work. I also explained that universal credit is a simplification of the current benefit system and will, therefore, not replicate the range of complex premiums that are currently paid to disabled adults and children. The money saved from abolishing the three premiums will be recycled and used to target support to those disabled people with the greatest need.

The universal credit rate payable to severely disabled children will be higher than the current child tax credit equivalent, but the lower rate of universal credit disabled child element will be less than the lower rate of child tax credits. There are, however, other provisions within the universal credit that complement that policy intention. There is, for example, a higher earnings disregard for those working parents who are in receipt of a disabled child element. Any household in receipt of disability living allowance or working tax credits will be excluded from the benefit cap. We know that there is a range of exclusions from the benefit cap. So, while it is easy to quote the 6,500 who are in receipt of the benefit cap, let us remember that it equates to 470 households. That is how many are affected. We, other than those who are looking for cheap publicity and a cheap headline in the 'Belfast Telegraph', need to keep that in mind when we are dealing with this issue.

There are other provisions in the universal credit, which we outlined. Existing claimants moving on to universal credit will have their award protected by the transitional protection. That will ensure that current benefit claimants will not receive less as a result of their move to universal credit where circumstances remain the same.

The amendment on the different rates — the lower rate should be no less than two thirds of the higher rate — seeks to retain the current position under tax credits where the disabled child element equates to two thirds of the severely disabled child element. The policy intent is to create a simple, streamlined system and to realign arrangements for disabled children when they reach the age of 18 with those of disabled adults. That is not a savings exercise but a reorganisation of what is there. The money released as a result of those adjustments will be reinvested in support for the most severely disabled people. To accept that amendment would reduce the amount of money available for the more severely disabled people and would, I think, be a clear breach of parity. I think that there would be potential consequences with that. We have rehearsed those in the past as far as the breach of parity is concerned. For those reasons, I urge Members to reject amendment No 1.

I will turn now to amendment Nos 2, 3, 8, 9 and 10 to clauses 26, 27 and 47, dealing with sanctions. The proposed amendments that relate to clauses 26, 27 and 47 are to do with providing the claimant with explanatory documentation on sanctions prior to imposing those sanctions. As part of their claimant commitment, claimants will be made aware of how and when sanctions will be applied. The claimant commitment is a record of a claimant's responsibilities and sets out the conditions an individual must comply with, as well as the consequences of non-compliance. Where the consequences of non-compliance are a sanction, the claimant commitment will set out clearly what the sanction will be. Claimants will be required to sign their claimant commitment, and they will be given a copy of the signed document. The claimant, therefore, has explanatory documentation on sanctions from the outset. If a sanction becomes appropriate, the claimant will also be given notification that it is to be applied.

The benefit regime has to work with a wide range of claimants, and the documentation that is made available to them is continually under review. The Social Security Agency is committed to ensuring that claimants have as much information as possible before any sanction is applied. That is to ensure that claimants understand the reasons for the sanction and so that the claimant can provide any relevant information before the sanction is applied. We also want to ensure that the information is in a format that makes it easy for the claimant to understand.

I sometimes get concerned when Members come to the House and almost paint a picture of the Social Security Agency having no heart, having no thought, being uncaring and simply wanting to follow a very dry process; that the agency is all about the system and not about the individual. I want to ensure that that is not what we have in the Social Security Agency. I do not believe that that is what we have. However, do I think that everything is perfect and that, in every situation and in every circumstance, we always get it right? No, I do not, but I do not accept, nor do I recognise, the picture being painted of the system as it currently is. I hope that I have reassured Members that amendment Nos 2, 3, 8, 9 and 10 are not necessary and, for those reasons, should be rejected.

Amendment No 4 relates to clause 30 — delegation and contracting out. This issue has exercised a number of Members and, therefore, it is right for me to spend some time dealing with it. This clause allows for the contracted providers in the private and voluntary sectors to exercise functions of the Department, or of the Department for Employment and Learning, in the area of work-related requirements. These providers should be acting as agents of the Department or of DEL. The Department, using the power to impose work preparation requirements under clause 16, may require claimants to participate in the work programmes, such as the Steps to Work or the Into Employment programmes. It is envisaged that contracted providers will be permitted to exercise such functions so as to deliver work programmes such as these.

In reliance on clause 30, the Steps to Work programme or the Into Employment programme providers will be authorised to carry out the functions of the Department or of DEL under clauses 13 to 25 that relate to work-related and connected requirements. These functions are of a public nature, and that applies whether they are exercised by the Department or by an authorised person. An authorised person would be required to provide the service in a way that is compatible with the convention rights as set out in section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998.

I also add that, during the parliamentary debate on the passage of the Human Rights Act in 1998, statements by the then Home Secretary and the then Lord Chancellor made it clear that persons or bodies delivering privatised or contracted-out public services were intended to be brought within the scope of the Act by the "public function" provision in section 6(3)(b). It is not considered necessary to include the proposed amendment to clause 30 to specify that a person authorised under this clause is exercising the functions of a public nature and that section 6 of the Human Rights Act will apply to those persons. In a case where it is alleged that a contractor has acted contrary to the Human Rights Act, a person may bring a claim against the Department. I wish to point out that delegation and contracting-out functions do not apply to the sanctioning and hardship payment decisions. Those decisions will be taken by staff in the Social Security Agency.

A point was made earlier about the Ad Hoc Committee. We need to remind ourselves that the Assembly established the Ad Hoc Committee specifically to examine human rights aspects of the Bill. The report of the Committee failed to identify any specific breaches of human rights with the Bill as it was then introduced. It should also be noted that, prior to the Bill's being introduced, it has to be compliant with all the other elements of legislation. I do not find it frustrating; it is part of the job, but I have to keep repeating the same thing over and over again. I am well aware of the comments in relation to human rights, and I have no intention of, in any way, trying to create a situation whereby this Bill gives some powers to contractors or people out there that would not be compliant with the Convention on Human Rights, as I have already stated.

The Member wants me to give way. I said that I was not going to do that, but I will.

Photo of Alex Attwood Alex Attwood Social Democratic and Labour Party 6:30, 24 February 2015

You are very generous, and I appreciate you giving way. First, could you lodge in the Library the references that you have just made to comments made by the Lord Chancellor and Home Secretary in Westminster? Secondly, can you confirm whether you got legal advice on this issue or are you satisfied with the reassurances that have emanated from London? Thirdly, I do not think that this issue has actually arisen before, certainly not on the Floor of the House, so I do not think that it is a matter of repeating again and again. It is a matter of putting on record something that the Human Rights Commission thinks should be on record.

Photo of Mervyn Storey Mervyn Storey DUP

In relation to the first question, yes, I am quite happy to place that in the Library. On your second question, the Member knows that the chief legal adviser to the Executive, the Attorney General, has seen the provisions of the Bill, and therefore my answer is yes, we have legal advice. Sorry, I did not get the third question that the Member asked; does he want to ask me again?

Photo of Alex Attwood Alex Attwood Social Democratic and Labour Party

This matter has been raised by the Human Rights Commission in recent days, so it is not something that has been raised again and again or that you have had to reassure us of again and again.

Photo of Mervyn Storey Mervyn Storey DUP

Yes, I am aware that is the case. I want to reassure Members on that issue. The Member is always worried that, lurking somewhere in the dark cupboard that I came out of as the new broom, is DWP, which is pulling my strings and telling me what I should do and not do. That is not the case. However, I reassure the Member that I have a good working relationship with DWP. Indeed, I was in London last week to further enhance that relationship, and I continue to work with our colleagues in DWP.

So, on the basis of what I have said, I trust that that gives some reassurance to Members in regard to my comments about amendment No 4. It is not necessary, and therefore I ask Members not to accept it.

I turn to amendment No 11, which is on clause 70. As Members are now aware, clause 70 introduces the size criteria into the calculation of the housing benefit for working-age tenants in the social housing sector. Members will also be aware that we dedicated a lot of time to this particular measure during Consideration Stage. I consider it worth repeating that I fully recognise that this measure represents a major change for social-sector tenants. However, in protecting people and communities from the worst aspects of the social size criteria, I need to ensure that we make best use of our limited social housing stock and that we do not take any action that may hinder or even discourage mobility. The Executive have already agreed to create a separate fund, which will mitigate the impact of this measure by protecting existing and future tenants from any reduction in their housing benefit, unless there is a significant change in their personal circumstances or they are offered suitable alternative accommodation. It is the same as I said before; my terminologies have not changed. The Member wanted me to clarify that. I consider this to be the best way forward for our citizens who will be impacted by the measure.

I think it should also be noted that there was also a technical necessity to have clause 69. It is so that we can make the calculation of the payments that will be made. That also has to be borne in mind. It is not just a simple matter that this brings in the bedroom tax by the front door but that it somehow brings in the bedroom tax in by the back door. Serious consideration was given to the removal of clause 69, but it was believed that that could not be done. Given that it could not be done, we have had to resort to what we have agreed is the way to deal with it.

The point that has been made that we are dealing with homes is not lost on me. There is a difference between dealing with homes and dealing with houses. We are dealing with homes, and I trust that, as we work through the scheme and the way in which it will be operated, we will ensure that it deals with homes as opposed to houses.

Photo of Steven Agnew Steven Agnew Green

I thank the Minister for giving way. He has repeated his words from the previous stage, and I am grateful to him for doing so because I have quoted them. I have paraphrased what he said as being a phased introduction of the bedroom tax, which will apply only when suitable alternative accommodation is available or there is a significant change in circumstances. Will he confirm that that is an accurate paraphrasing of what is happening? Will he also speak to the exemptions that were proposed, which were supposedly negotiated under the previous Minister? Will they be included or are they now gone?

Photo of Mervyn Storey Mervyn Storey DUP

Let me outline the sequencing of how it is envisaged that the mitigation scheme will be implemented. Maybe that will give Members some reassurance and a bit more information. Once the social size criteria restriction is introduced and the claimant residing in either a Housing Executive or housing association property is identified as underoccupying that property, the amount of housing benefit that has been made in payment will be reduced. The mitigation measures will, however, ensure that claimants do not see any difference in the amount of financial assistance that they receive to meet their housing costs. It will be only after that point that an offer of suitable alternative accommodation will be made and only when an appropriate-sized dwelling becomes available. Under the terms of the Stormont House Agreement, my Department is working on the detail of this mitigation measure, and the scheme details will be brought to the Executive in the very near future. I trust that that gives some reassurance to Members.

A Member mentioned the scheme regulations that will flow from the enabling clause and asked what they will be subject to in the House. They will be subject to the draft affirmative process, which means that the regulations will be laid in draft and cannot be made unless agreed to by the Assembly: in other words, they will be subject to debate in the House. That needs to be underscored and underlined.

Photo of Roy Beggs Roy Beggs UUP

The Minister explained the situation whereby someone who is in an existing Housing Executive property has been assessed as having excess bedrooms and so on. Will he clarify what the position will be for someone who is seeking to take up a new tenancy, particularly given the lack of one- and two-bedroom housing accommodation, which means that there may be difficulty in their finding suitable accommodation?

Photo of Mervyn Storey Mervyn Storey DUP 6:45, 24 February 2015

If the Member was listening to what I said earlier, he heard that we have agreed to create a separate fund that will mitigate the impact of this measure by protecting existing and future tenants from any reduction in their housing benefit. I have said that repeatedly, and it will be in Hansard.

The other difficulty that we have in all of this is this: I have no doubt that, because of the unique nature of their creation, there will be some difficult circumstances. I cannot stand here and say that it will happen in every set of circumstances, because you could bring me a raft of different circumstances. What I can say is that this is the remit that we have been given to implement the scheme, and every effort will be made to ensure that, when we bring the scheme to the Executive, we will have endeavoured to cover all those issues in a way that meets the policy intent. I have set it out and made it very clear that the policy intent is that, as far as the scheme is concerned, the fund will mitigate the impact of the measure by protecting existing and future tenants. I cannot be any clearer than that.

Photo of Alex Attwood Alex Attwood Social Democratic and Labour Party

I thank the Minister for giving way. That is very clear. If a tenant's housing benefit is reduced because of underoccupation, the mitigation is on a pound-for-pound basis. If that tenant is then offered suitable accommodation on two or three occasions, let us say, and declines, is the mitigation withdrawn?

Photo of Mervyn Storey Mervyn Storey DUP

The Member has answered his own question: it is all in the term "suitable accommodation". We will not go out to create a situation in order to find people in circumstances that enable us to justify what we are doing; we will work in a pragmatic, practical way. Let us remember that the line is "suitable accommodation". If we have not found suitable accommodation, there will be no requirement or need for us to remove the benefit.

Let me move on to amendment Nos 13 and 14, which relate to clause 81, "Ability to carry out daily living activities or mobility activities". Clause 81 was amended at Consideration Stage to ensure that relevant medical evidence was taken account of during an assessment for personal independence payment. I have now tabled amendment Nos 13 and 14, which are mainly technical, but they are required so that the clause is still workable. Let me explain the rationale. The structure of clause 81 is that all questions are to be determined in accordance with regulations. Subsection (3) requires those questions to be determined on the basis of an assessment and the matters to be taken into account in that assessment to be prescribed. The new provision that account must be taken of medical evidence in that process contradicts the general provision in subsection (1) and, more specifically, subsection (3)(c), which states that the matters to be taken into account in making the assessment will be set out in regulations.

To be consistent with the structure of that clause, I have tabled the amendments to revise the wording so that the regulations must provide for medical evidence to be taken into account in assessing a person for personal independence payment. The existing clause 81(3)(c) then needs to be restricted to prescribing matters other than medical evidence. I hope that that gives some explanation to Mr Beggs and, I think, Mr Swann. I trust that they are content that the changes are in keeping with the intention of their original amendment —

Photo of Mervyn Storey Mervyn Storey DUP

— that relevant medical evidence will be taken into account in assessing a person for personal independence payment.

Photo of Roy Beggs Roy Beggs UUP

Will the Minister clarify what is wrong with clause 81(3) remaining in the Bill? That does not preclude regulations implementing the effect of it being determined elsewhere. I still do not understand why that subsection has to be removed from the Bill rather than prescribed in regulations. Will the Minister explain?

Photo of Mervyn Storey Mervyn Storey DUP

As I said, the existing clause 81(3)(c) needs to be restricted to prescribing matters other than medical evidence. I am happy to give the Member a more detailed answer when I have consulted my colleagues in the Department.

There was a technical reason behind feeling that it was necessary when we amended the clause at Consideration Stage, and we felt that it was relevant for us to ensure that we got consistency in how we dealt with the regulations. I am happy to give the Member further information following today's debate, if he is content with that. I would —

Photo of Roy Beggs Roy Beggs UUP

Will the Member give way?

Photo of Roy Beggs Roy Beggs UUP

I would much prefer to have it before the change in legislation occurs.

Photo of Mervyn Storey Mervyn Storey DUP

I will endeavour to have it before I conclude. I will ask my officials to make the information available. Members will sometimes have to accept that I do not have all the answers. I am happy to say that we will get you that answer before we conclude, and that can inform how you vote when you go through the Lobby. That is probably the best way in which to deal with it.

Amendment No 15 is to clause 89, "Claims, awards and information". The amendment would set a maximum timescale for processing a claim to personal independence payment, and perhaps it will assist the House if I take a step back and reiterate what clause 89 does. Clause 89 sets out conditions for claims, awards and information for personal independence payment. The clause provides that a payment of personal independence payment cannot be backdated beyond the date on which a claim is made or treated as made; that awards of personal independence payment will normally be for a specified fixed period, after which a new claim must be made; and that information gathered in the process of determining a claim to personal independence payment is to be treated as information relating to social security. Amendment No 15 would place a requirement on the Department to ensure that, where a person is entitled to personal independence payment, the award will be received no later than 16 weeks from the date of claim.

The amendment is unworkable for a number of reasons. Targets for benefit clearance times are an operational matter, and it would not be appropriate or practical to legislate for that in statute, given the individual nature of each case and the evidence requirements necessary to determine claims. In addition, within the personal independence payment, customer journey claimants need to be allowed time to complete the forms and/or gather evidence that they wish to submit in support of their application, and consultations may need to be rearranged at the claimant's request.

Many factors need to be taken into account to determine the individual personal independence payment journey for each claimant, such as how quickly after the initial data-gathering stage claimants return their PIP part 2 form; whether or not they need extra time for the completion of that form; and whether or not the decision-maker needs to request additional medical evidence as part of the further medical evidence flexibility, which is applicable only in Northern Ireland. Although timescales are in place for parts of that process, some flexibility has to be built in to support claimants throughout their customer journey. Therefore, it would be highly unusual to specify an operational clearance target in legislation. Such an objective is usually spelt out in the Social Security Agency's balanced scorecard. That allows a degree of flexibility to revise the target if necessary, depending on circumstances that may impact on the evidence-gathering, assessment and decision-making processes. An appropriate clearance target for processing personal independence payment claims will be set in due course. For those reasons, it would be not be appropriate to set a maximum timescale in legislation for processing a claim for personal independence payment, and I therefore urge members to reject amendment No 15.

I now turn to amendment No 16, a new clause that covers appeals in connection with sanctions. The amendment proposes to insert new clause 103A on appeal in connection with sanctions. The amendment would add article 15A to the Social Security (Northern Ireland) Order 1998 to provide for a claimant to be entitled to an appeal hearing within four weeks of the notice of a sanction being issued and for benefit not to be reduced before the appeal is decided. Should a reduction not be applied and the benefit payments continued in full, the claimant may never have reason to appeal the decision. That, in effect, would remove my Department's ability to reduce a person's benefit as a consequence of a failure on their part that would otherwise be sanctionable under the Act. The time within which an appeal is to be made is one month. A claimant could therefore appeal the decision after the expiry of the four-week period during which the amendment requires an appeal tribunal hearing to take place. Current procedures require a party to the proceedings to be given 14 days' notice of the time and place of the appeal hearing unless that person agrees otherwise. The appeal having to be lodged, scheduled for hearing and determined within four weeks would not only put immense pressure on the Appeals Service but would be detrimental to other appeals in the system and make it almost impossible for them to be dealt with. For those reasons, I urge Members to reject the amendment.

I turn to amendment Nos 17 and 23, which propose new clauses, and amendment No 18 to clause 121 and deal with the duty to ensure the availability of advice and assistance. I know that this has given rise to considerable debate. I want to work our way through this, and I trust that I will be of help to Members as to how we get to an agreed position. Members will no doubt remember the debate we had at Consideration Stage on the provision of advice to claimants on making a claim under the Act. There were several issues raised in relation to advice. I gave assurances that I would give the matter further thought in advance of today's Further Consideration Stage.

During that debate, Mr Lyttle, who, unfortunately, is not present in the Chamber, inquired what progress the Social Security Agency was making towards its targets for benefit uptake. He made reference to that again today. I am pleased to report that we are well on the way to achieving the targets. Members will know that Maximising Incomes and Outcomes is a three-year plan to improve the uptake of benefits with a high-level target to secure at least £30 million in additional benefits for a minimum of 10,000 people by 2016. The final evaluation of the year 1 programme for 2013-14 is now complete, and the high-level outcomes are very positive, with £14·2 million awarded in additional benefits and 4,266 people benefiting.

Photo of Patsy McGlone Patsy McGlone Social Democratic and Labour Party

I thank the Minister for giving way. I seek assurances from him that people from minority ethnic communities in the North, who may have linguistic difficulties and the like, will be provided for in any advice that the Minister may recommend as a consequence.

Photo of Mervyn Storey Mervyn Storey DUP

It is still the situation that we make information available in other languages. We make every effort to ensure that the benefit uptake programme reflects the diverse needs of our community. We can always revisit that and do more, but I think that what we do at the moment through Maximising Incomes and Outcomes is sufficient.

I bring you to a figure that I think is helpful to Members. Mr Lyttle referred to targets and where we were.

When you think of what we have done in regards to the uptake benefit programme, it equates to 47% of the three-year financial target and 43% of the three-year claimant target being met in the first year. This gives some indication of the progress being made. We need to go even further in terms of how we use that programme.

During Consideration Stage, Members will recall that I was reluctant to accept the need for advice to be enshrined in legislation. I said then that I believed that the Department currently has effective mechanisms to ensure that appropriate advice is available. However, I have had time to reflect on the issues discussed during the debate and to discuss the concerns of Members opposite who spoke to me on the subject. Taking all those matters into account, I have tabled an amendment that I hope will provide additional assurance to the Assembly on reporting on advice in the context of the provisions contained in the Act.

I will take a couple of minutes to deal with amendment Nos 17, 18 and 23. I will then come back to the issue of the independent advice sector and make some comment in relation to that.

I will address amendment Nos 17, 18 and 23 together as they all relate to advice. My proposed amendment No 23 will insert new clause 132B, which creates a duty on the Department to ensure the availability of advice and assistance to anyone making a claim under the Act in connection with that claim. Clause 121 already requires the Social Security Agency to report on the standards of decision-making and payment accuracy and on the operation of sanctions for universal credit, jobseeker's allowance, income support and employment and support allowance.

My proposed amendment No 18 adds a requirement to report on the standards of advice and assistance provided under section 132B in the annual report that is endorsed by the social security joint standards committee. I have also spoken to Members about their concerns. I think Mr Swann raised the concern about young people who are more affected by the sanctions. Through the provision of advice to those young people and their active involvement in the claimant commitment process, we will endeavour to ensure that they understand the conditions for receiving benefit. Therefore, I trust that they will avoid the possibility of unwarranted and avoidable sanctions. It is only right that we place that on record in the House in response to the comments made by Mr Swann.

Amendment No 17 introduces clause 120A. That, in effect, does the same as the amendments I have tabled. However, it also requires guidance to be produced within three months, in consultation with the Northern Ireland Advice Services Consortium.

As I am sure that you are aware, the advice sector currently uses the blue volumes and the decision makers' guide in answering claimants' concerns, and it will continue to avail itself of those resources for the new benefits under the Welfare Reform Act. That information will be available in advance of the implementation of the benefits.

I value the work carried out by the advice sector. I have endeavoured, since coming into office, to continue to build on the working relationship with the consortium and all those involved in the advice sector. Members will be aware of what we said previously in relation to the use of the term "independence". I could say a whole lot about that word, but I am going to resist putting it on the record of the House — and it has nothing to do with welfare reform.

I am prepared to give serious consideration to a separate, distinct contract being developed with the independent advice sector that would continue during the implementation phase of welfare reform. I am happy to have discussions with the Members who raised this issue to flesh out what that would be in reality. It should be remembered that we work under a contract with the sector, and I think that it would be helpful if we had some further discussion on the issue. I reiterate what I am saying, which is that I am prepared to give serious consideration to a separate, distinct contract that would be developed with the independent advice sector and that would continue during the implementation phase of this round of welfare reform. I will leave that for Members to reflect on.

Before I move on to amendment No 20, I will return to the clarification on amendment Nos 13 and 14. I am glad that a relevant piece of paper has been handed to me with the answer. I will give that answer to the Member who asked the question; he will be glad that he does not have to wait any longer. The technical amendments to clause 81 were tabled in response to the discussions at Consideration Stage and on the basis of legal advice from the Office of the Legislative Counsel (OLC) to ensure that the policy intent that all relevant medical evidence is taken into account when carrying out PIP assessment is consistent throughout the legislation. So, further legal advice was sought from the Office of the Legislative Counsel.

Photo of Alex Attwood Alex Attwood Social Democratic and Labour Party

I want to recognise, first of all, that the Minister has travelled some distance on advice, although, to let him down gently, I do not think that the gap will be sufficiently bridged. Beyond the comments that he made about a separate, distinct contract being developed with the independent sector and for advice giving on welfare reform, what is his general view about sustaining the independent advice sector generally?

Photo of Mervyn Storey Mervyn Storey DUP

I am confident that, in the future, we will have an independent advice sector. If evidence had been brought to me over the last number of weeks and months that, somehow, it was not working the way that it was intended to, I would want to look at how we could change it. It is always an evolving situation because of the duties, requirements and pressures that are brought to bear on the sector. As we are seeing through this process, we are going through a process of change. The independent sector obviously has to adapt to that change and to accommodate how it deals with the issues.

I can genuinely say that I have not seen anything since I came into the Department that indicates to me that there is anything other than a willingness on my Department's part and from me, as the Minister now responsible for it, to continue to work in a proactive way with the independent advice sector and to enhance that relationship. That is what I want to be about. I cannot surely be accused of being mangy when it comes to funding — although I am sure that every organisation that comes through my door looking for funding would like more — because I think that the £4·5 million or £4·7 million that we give is some reflection of how we value the work that that sector carries out. I trust that that helps the Member on that issue.

I want to move on to amendment No 20, which relates to clause 130. Clause 130 amends article 30A of the Rates (Northern Ireland) Order 1977, which is an existing enabling power that allows the Department of Finance and Personnel to make whatever regulations are necessary to provide support schemes for domestic ratepayers. Clause 130 will allow that power to be extended to replace the rates element of housing benefit when it ceases.

The delayed introduction of welfare reform has enabled DFP to use the time provided to develop and consult on two options for a longer-term final rate rebate scheme for working-age claimants, both of which are, to varying extents, reliant on universal credit. The consultation period ended on 16 February 2015.

In devising the new scheme, DFP is targeting its policy towards those who are least able to pay rates, in harmony with welfare reform principles, and to make work pay, while simplifying the rules and providing value for money. The best way to do this is to avail ourselves of the rules, information and calculations for the purposes of universal credit. On that basis, I have tabled an amendment to clause 130 that will allow DFP regulations for rates to correspond with universal credit statutory provisions in a similar way to the current provision in relation to housing benefit corresponding to income-related benefits. I therefore ask Members to accept amendment No 20.

Amendment No 21 relates to clause 131 on discretionary support. I thank the member of the Committee for Social Development Mickey Brady for very accurately picking up the issue on this particular amendment. I want to point out that clause 131 deals with discretionary support and not the discretionary housing payments, as the proposed amendment suggests. Discretionary support and clause 131 relate to the social fund replacement, and, therefore, this amendment, I contend, is technically incorrect and, for those reasons, should be rejected. That should clarify the issue in relation to amendment No 21 and clause 131 on discretionary support.

I turn now to amendment No 22 and new clause 132A on payments to persons suffering financial disadvantage. This amendment provides me with the opportunity to come to the Assembly with some further detail on the schemes that this enabling clause will allow my Department to develop, and to outline the main terms of the agreement reached at Stormont Castle and later incorporated into the Stormont House Agreement. We should remind ourselves that the Stormont Castle agreement was later incorporated into the Stormont House Agreement.

The two schemes covered by this enabling clause are the disability protection scheme and the supplementary payment scheme. The need for those schemes was agreed by the parties at Stormont Castle. My Department is developing detailed proposals on how the schemes could provide support for those who have been adversely impacted by the changes to the welfare system.

Photo of Mike Nesbitt Mike Nesbitt UUP

I thank the Minister for giving way. I just want to put it into the record that the Stormont Castle agreement, which I do not believe exists, was not read into the Stormont House Agreement.

Photo of Mervyn Storey Mervyn Storey DUP

Well, Mr Deputy Speaker, here I have in my hand a copy of the Stormont Castle agreement. This paper is based on the agreement of the five parties in Stormont Castle for their submission to the Government and represents the practical outworking of the five-party agreement. Now, I think that that needs to be understood by the Members who agreed to it; I think that they need to realise what it is they have agreed to. The Member doubts my word, but I am sure that he had a copy of this the same as anybody else. It says very clearly that this paper is based on the agreement of the five parties in Stormont for their submission to the Government and represents the practical outworking of that five-party agreement.

Photo of Mike Nesbitt Mike Nesbitt UUP

Again, I thank the Minister for giving way. Would he be surprised that the copy that I have of the document that he calls the "Stormont Castle agreement" is similar to the one that he has except for three words that do not appear on my copy? Those three words are "Stormont", "castle" and "agreement".

Photo of Mervyn Storey Mervyn Storey DUP 7:15, 24 February 2015

Well, I think that we are really dancing on the head of a pin now. Is the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party really trying to tell me that there were three or four versions of the front page of this produced? I will be honest: I was not the brightest bulb in the box when I was at school. I was not the sharpest pencil, either, but I am bright enough and able enough to read the Executive approval for agreement reached in Stormont Castle. Is that not good enough to underline the issue? I leave that for whatever the Member wants to use this particular issue for.

I want to set out for Members now the reason we need the clause, which is an enabling clause to bring to fruition and reality the two schemes that are covered by it.

Over the next number of weeks, I am planning to bring these proposals to the Executive for their agreement. Following that, officials will provide a briefing to the Committee for Social Development and, later, the detailed proposals will be issued for public consultation. Whilst I am unable to provide the Assembly with the detail of the eligibility criteria and levels of payment for individual schemes because they have not yet been agreed by the Executive, I would like to say something about the overall purpose and structure of the schemes.

The disability protection scheme will provide support for those adversely impacted by the introduction of the reassessment process for existing DLA claims to the new personal independence payment benefit. That reassessment process is expected to involve up to 120,000 claimants over a four-year period. The Executive parties recognise the real difficulties that process could present for many existing DLA claimants as they make the transition to the new benefit.

The disability protection scheme will have three core elements. The first involves making a financial payment to those DLA claimants who are unsuccessful in their claim for personal independence payment and who subsequently appeal the disallowance decision to the independent appeals service. The Executive have agreed that a financial payment should be made to those claimants and continue until the appeals service has made a decision on the claimant's appeal.

The second element provides support for those claimants who receive a lower level of payment under the personal independence payment than they had been receiving under DLA. This will involve a financial payment that will continue for a specified period depending on the date when the claimant is reassessed for personal independence payment.

The third element of the disability protection scheme is being developed to address concerns that the functional disability criteria being used to assess claimants for the personal independence payment may not take account of the specific circumstances in Northern Ireland. The Executive recognise that for the vast majority of people currently receiving high- or medium-level DLA payments, the reassessment process will not be an issue and those claimants should move to personal independence payment with little difficulty.

I wish to assure the House that my officials are working with the Victims and Survivors Service to put in place specific arrangements to ensure that the most seriously injured victims and survivors of the Troubles are not to be retraumatised as part of the reassessment process. I have worked with and met the Victims and Survivors Service and gave the assurance that my officials will continue to work with them because this is an issue of priority and importance.

Concerns were expressed by some parties that some victims or survivors on DLA with disabilities that were Troubles-related may not qualify for personal independence payment. If there is any impact in such cases, it is likely to be on those claimants who are receiving the low-rate mobility or care of DLA. In those cases, the Executive have agreed a mechanism that should be put in place that would enable claimants whose disability is Troubles-related and who do not qualify for personal independence payment to apply to my Department for the PIP-style payment.

The Executive acknowledged arguments that there may be other disability groups for whom PIP functional disability descriptors do not apply. It was agreed, as part of the consultation exercise on the disability protection scheme, that my Department could consider the inclusion of such groups for a similar PIP-type payment. Such payments would be made only when it could be demonstrated that the mobility and care needs for their disability is Northern Ireland-specific and is not already covered by the functional disability criteria used by the assessment process.

The second scheme that the enabling clause will provide for is the supplementary payment scheme. That scheme is also being introduced to provide support for those claimants who are adversely impacted by the changes to welfare. The main claimant groups being considered for inclusion in the scheme are families with or without dependants, claimants who are long-term sick and lose their benefit and disabled people who would previously have received additional payments due to their income levels.

The Executive gave my officials specific guidance on the development of the supplementary payment scheme. An initial framework for the operation of the scheme has been developed, and I am giving consideration to those proposals and hope to bring forward a detailed scheme to the Executive in the coming weeks.

The Executive parties also reached agreement at Stormont Castle on a number of other welfare-related issues. Those were included in a paragraph within the body of the Stormont House Agreement. The detail of that agreement is set out at annex A to the document. At Stormont Castle, the five parties also agreed that a Northern Ireland-specific package of measures should be implemented to mitigate some of the most harmful impacts of the changes to the benefits system.

The package of measures included a series of payment flexibilities under universal credit; a change in the sanction regime in Northern Ireland for claimants to reduce the maximum period that someone could lose the benefits for to 18 months; a fund to ensure that medical reports are taken into account for claimants of the personal independence payment who are to receive an adverse benefit decision; a scheme to ensure tenants in social housing are not financially impacted following the introduction of the criteria to determine levels of housing benefit payments in social housing, commonly referred to as the bedroom tax; a mechanism to determine levels of housing benefit that exist for private sector tenants; and a scheme that will provide emergency financial support for people who have an emergency in their lives. The new discretionary support service is intended not only to support some of the most vulnerable groups in our society but to provide support for low income families to access when that support is needed.

The scope of the agreement on welfare at Stormont Castle shows an Executive that are committed to addressing the real challenges arising from —

Photo of Alex Maskey Alex Maskey Sinn Féin

I thank the Minister for giving way, because I know that he is about to finish. He has already taken an intervention from the Ulster Unionist Party leader, Mr Mike Nesbitt. I am not sure whether Mr Nesbitt was saying that he did or did not make an agreement, but you mentioned the specific reference to the welfare agreement that was reached at Stormont Castle and found its way into the Stormont House Agreement. We heard an appalling intervention that seemed to suggest something entirely different from the reality. At the round-table meeting with the Secretary of State and Minister Flanagan, Mr Nesbitt, in his winding-up remarks, made a very clear response to the final paper, which was tabled to all the parties. Mr Nesbitt made the point that the paper, which you referred to and which contained the welfare changes:

"proves that we have got positive momentum after 18 months. The Ulster Unionist Party executive will decide on this, but with positive wind from myself."

Do you acknowledge that those were the comments from the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party at that meeting, which acknowledged the paper that he seems to be disabusing here?

Photo of Mervyn Storey Mervyn Storey DUP

I thank the Chair of the Committee for rehearsing and reinforcing the comments that I made. He has set them in the context of accuracy, which is what is needed, and I appreciate what he said.

I want to say something else about the scope. Over the last number of weeks, I have heard much about the scope of the Stormont Castle agreement on welfare reform. What that shows is an Executive committed to addressing the real challenges arising from welfare changes. It was not about any one party rolling over or another policy winning the arguments; it was about political parties recognising the importance of reaching an agreement that was, given the available funding, deliverable and affordable.

At Stormont Castle, the parties agreed the framework for the welfare changes and some of the detail on the key measures. I now plan to bring more of the operational detail for the different schemes to the Executive for agreement. That work is nearly completed, and my plan is that the details will be out for public consultation in March, with subordinate legislation being brought to the Assembly in late spring. I hope that my comments provide the Assembly with the context for this amendment, and I ask the House to support my amendments.

In bringing my remarks to a conclusion, I want to address amendment No 26, which relates to clause 135. It adds the commencement of the new clauses tabled to those commencing on Royal Assent. The clauses are 132A, payments to persons suffering financial disadvantage; 132B, duty to ensure the availability of advice and assistance; and 132C, the review of the Act. I urge Members to accept amendment No 26.

Amendment No 27 proposes to remove paragraph 7 from schedule 1. Paragraph 7 would give the Department the power to make regulations specifying the work-related requirements for claimants asserting a right to reside in the United Kingdom on the basis that they are EU jobseekers under EU treaties. By way of background, I should explain that people coming to the UK from EU countries do not have unrestricted access to UK social security benefits and tax credits. Since 2004, access to most benefits for EU nationals has depended on whether they have a right to reside here. For most benefits, the right to reside requirement is part of the habitual residence test.

Since 2006, all EU nationals have had the right to reside in the UK for three months without the requirement to be financially self-sufficient. However, access to benefits during that three-month period will not satisfy the right to reside test. EU nationals may also have a right to reside straightaway as a jobseeker, if they can show that they are looking for work and have a genuine chance of being engaged in work. Family members of jobseekers also have a right to reside.

To have a right to reside as a jobseeker, a person needs to be registered with a jobs and benefits office and a social security office, and signing on as an individual for and seeking work. A person with a right to reside as a jobseeker may claim income-related jobseeker's allowance, which can give entitlement to housing benefit. Although the power itself, under schedule 1, paragraph 7, is quite wide, we wish to exercise it only in relation to EU jobseekers: those who retain worker status because they become involuntarily unemployed and, therefore, need to seek employment to continue to retain that status.

EU claimants who come to the UK to seek work, and those who retain worker status because they become unemployed, will not benefit from the exemptions from conditionality clauses 19, 20 and 21, because that would prevent us verifying whether they can claim entitlement to universal credit based on a right to reside under EU law. The regulations will enable us to check that an EU jobseeker is in fact searching for work and available for work, as they would, therefore, continue to meet the right to reside test and to be eligible for universal credit. That is because it is a social assistance and not payable to EU nationals without a right to reside.

The crucial point is that we will exercise the power only to enable us to check whether an EU claimant continues to enjoy a right to reside as a jobseeker. Without the power to verify whether a claimant is seeking work, we would be unable to verify whether they continue to have a right to reside under EU law.

Although we have a legal duty to provide support to people who come to Northern Ireland, in line with national and international obligations, it is also necessary to protect the taxpayer and the benefit system. There is a need to make sure that the rules that apply when people from outside come here do not allow them to take inappropriate advantage of the benefit system. Without that provision in the Bill, the Department would be unable to check whether an EU national with worker status meets the right-to-reside test. I hope that I have assured Members that we will be exercising the power only to enable us to check whether an EU claimant continues to enjoy a right to reside as a jobseeker under EU law.

To accept amendment No 27 would be a clear breach of parity. As I have stated previously, that would have implications for Northern Ireland's block grant. For those reasons, I urge Members to reject amendment No 27.

I conclude my remarks on the first group.

Photo of Mitchel McLaughlin Mitchel McLaughlin Speaker 7:30, 24 February 2015

The Minister and many Members have patiently contributed to the debate for a number of hours. Therefore, before we move to conclude the debate, I propose that the sitting be suspended until 7.45 pm.

The sitting was suspended at 7.31 pm and resumed at 7.46 pm.

(Mr Deputy Speaker [Mr Dallat] in the Chair)

Photo of Steven Agnew Steven Agnew Green

It has obviously been quite a long debate on this group, and I will do my best to paraphrase the debate rather than cover each individual point. I will try to do so as speedily as I can.

I will make a general point. A couple of references were made throughout the discussions about my and the Green Party's entitlement to bring forward amendments as we were not signatories to the Stormont House Agreement. There is obviously disagreement among the parties that were signatories to it, but I will let those parties fight that out and make no comment on each of the individual party statements to it, except to say that, from my party's point of view, we did not sign the Stormont House Agreement and, indeed, from the outset, we were very clear that it should have been a public process, not a private behind-closed-doors one. Had that been the case, we would have had less opportunity for the post-agreement bickering that we have seen during the debate today. I am proud to say that my party did not sign up to the Stormont House Agreement and to the commitment to cut 20,000 public-sector jobs, and we did not do so for the promise of cutting corporation tax, which will result in a further cut to public spending that, we believe, will do harm to the people of Northern Ireland and to the public services that we rely on.

The Minister spoke at length and in detail on each of the amendments. I will not comment on each of them, except to say that I feel vindicated by the Minister's response in relation to the bedroom tax. There were those who, after the last stage of the debate, called me a scaremonger and said that it was irresponsible of me to suggest that the bedroom tax would be implemented in Northern Ireland. I believe that I was responsible. I said that it would be phased. I said that there would be mitigation measures, but I put in the public domain — certainly circulated further and wider — the Minister's statement that he made under the circumstances in which the bedroom tax would be applied. I said that it would be a phased agreement, and the Minister appears to be in agreement with that. For those who said that the bedroom tax will not and would not be applied in Northern Ireland, I think that that assertion has been shown to be false.

To go back to the Stormont House Agreement, those who, despite agreeing to the phased introduction of the bedroom tax, said that they had stopped it, said that it would not be introduced and said that nobody would be worse off under the Welfare Reform Bill, that was irresponsible, because it has no basis in fact.

There was considerable debate by Mr Allister and Mr McCallister — neither of whom is in his place — about the proposed benefit cap. They are anguished that we are not to impose a benefit cap in Northern Ireland or, at least, that those affected by it will receive the transition payments through the supplementary payments. I hope that I have used that term correctly for Mr Brady. I ask those Members: what is their objection to those who receive that level of benefit? Is it that each individual benefit is too much? Whether it is housing benefit, DLA, JSA or ESA, presumably the claimants are assessed for each of those benefits and, cumulatively, what they require for subsistence amounts to the sums mentioned. Six thousand six hundred people receive sums over the benefit cap. However, the Minister corrected those Members and said that the benefits cap would apply to a much smaller figure once we took out the exemptions. Do those Members disagree with the exemptions that have been agreed? Do they disagree with the nature of our benefits system, the assumption that people receive benefits based on their need?

Mr McCallister gave the example of a couple both of whom earn £19,000. That couple will still be entitled to child benefit if they have children and, if they have children with disabilities, they will rightly still be entitled to DLA, so it is not a fair comparison. If we compare a family in work that has children with disabilities with similar families out of work, that is a fair comparison. However, to say that two individuals working, who may not have children, will have one income; whereas people on benefits, who may have four or five children — we do not know their personal circumstances — where each child has a disability, have another income is not fair. We assess based on need; that is a fundamental principle that we should stick to. To place an artificial cap on benefits is the wrong way to go about it.

If those Members believe that our benefits system is too generous, let them tell me which benefit is too generous. Unfortunately, they are not here. However, I ask them to come back and say which benefit is too generous. Is it DLA, or PIP as it will become; jobseeker's allowance, or universal credit as it will become; or is it housing benefit? That is how they should tackle this issue. To impose an artificial cap says that, even where there is need, we will deny families subsistence because we want to implement this artificial cap that could leave families in need and existing below subsistence level. That is, if we take the avenue that those Members propose.

In his contribution, Mr Lyttle focused on the importance of free, and indeed, independent, advice, using the East Belfast Independent Advice Centre as his example. He was certainly interested to hear from the Minister whether he would be reassured by the Minister's amendment or the amendment tabled by the SDLP and countersigned by the Green Party. I am encouraged that the Minister has given his commitment to the independent advice sector, but what I did not hear in his contribution was any reason to object to amendment No 17, tabled in the name of the SDLP and the Green Party. For that reason, I certainly intend to favour it over the Minister's amendment. However, I welcome the Minister's commitment to the independent advice sector, to further conversation on how it can be sustained, and to discussion with Members who have raised concerns on how those concerns can be addressed.

Mr Attwood spoke at length about the importance of the contribution of the Human Rights Commission and its submission to the House on welfare reform. I would not hope to paraphrase his contribution. He was explicit in his support for the Human Rights Commission and, to use the term that he used, the weight that it lent to this debate and, indeed, to the amendments that were tabled by the Green Party and by the SDLP.

He also spoke on the bedroom tax and, again, teased out with the Minister the example in which someone's personal circumstances change and they are deemed to be in underoccupancy. He asked whether the bedroom tax would apply where suitable alternative accommodation was available. I think that the Minister gave a clear answer, and we are left in no doubt that, where suitable alternative accommodation exists, the bedroom tax will kick in at that stage. In my view — I cannot see how you can perceive it any differently — somebody who is required to either take a reduction in their benefits or move house to smaller accommodation is worse off under this Bill. Undoubtedly, there will be some people — we do not know how many — who will be affected by this Bill and affected by the bedroom tax in Northern Ireland who will be worse off under these proposals.

There could have been, and, arguably, there should have been, the opportunity for the parties that negotiated the £565 million mitigation to celebrate that and, indeed, for the likes of me to welcome that mitigation, but they went further and said that no one would be worse off under this Bill and said that they had stopped the bedroom tax. It is my duty, as one of the few Members on the opposition Benches and who represents a party outside of the Executive to point out the inaccuracy, at best, of those statements. I do not believe that they serve the people of Northern Ireland well. I think that they give the wrong impression as to what will be passed through the House if and when the Welfare Reform Bill passes its Final Stage.

Fra McCann said that his contribution would be short, and he spelt it out. This was a deal done on the Stormont House Agreement. He said that he believes that it should be adhered to, and, as I said, there is conflict between the signatory parties to the Stormont House Agreement. He went on to attack the SDLP. I will let those parties have that debate. I was not involved in those negotiations; I did not sign up to the agreement. I do not know who said what, who signed what or when they signed it. I know that I do not like the Stormont House Agreement, and I know that I put forward amendments to this Bill on the basis of the Welfare Reform Bill alone and the impact that I believe it will have. I ask that Members judge the amendments in their own right, but I recognise that Members will vote according to agreements that were negotiated as part of the Stormont House Agreement.

Photo of Steven Agnew Steven Agnew Green

I certainly will.

Photo of Fra McCann Fra McCann Sinn Féin

I understand, and I say again that it is your right as a Member of the House to bring amendments to the Bill. If you get support for it, that is well and good. My understanding was that Sinn Féin approached you about possibly signing up to the petition of concern to bring the Bill down. You said that you could not do it, but I think that you said that you would do it for the bedroom tax but not all of the rest of the elements. That was my understanding. Secondly, when the Bill was being scrutinised in Committee, did you ever think of going and putting to it the Green Party position or your own opposition?

Did you try to have any input to the Ad Hoc Committee to put your concerns to it? You seem to have waited until the last minute when the glare of publicity is on it to bring these matters forward.

Photo of Steven Agnew Steven Agnew Green 8:00, 24 February 2015

I thank the Member for his intervention. One thing that I have learned is, if I go into a meeting with Alex Maskey, to bring a tape recorder. The simple fact is that that is an inaccurate summary, and Mr Maskey gave it before. To be fair, that is who I had the meeting with.

Photo of Steven Agnew Steven Agnew Green

I will give way in a second. I agreed to sign petitions of concern on the bedroom tax. At no point did I ever refuse or was I unwilling to sign a petition of concern to bring down the Bill. The negotiations between our two parties stopped when Sinn Féin made it clear that the Welfare Reform Bill was going nowhere. I continued to work on amendments on my own, but the simple fact was that Sinn Féin gave a commitment that the Welfare Reform Bill was not going to pass through the House. The Stormont House Agreement changed that. As soon as the Stormont House Agreement was passed, and it was clear that we were coming back to the Bill, I went back to working on those amendments and sought to make the best of the Bill. I will give way to Mr Brady.

Photo of John Dallat John Dallat Social Democratic and Labour Party

Order. I apologise; it is nothing personal. I remind Members to make their remarks through the Chair and, more importantly, to stay close to a microphone because you cannot be heard.

Photo of Mickey Brady Mickey Brady Sinn Féin

I thank the Member for giving way. I want to make a point about the bilateral meeting. I was with Mr Maskey, so you do not need a tape recorder, because I have a fairly good recollection. One item that was discussed from your point of view was the bedroom tax — nothing else — so, with respect, I still think that I have a reasonably good memory.

Photo of Steven Agnew Steven Agnew Green

We will have to agree to disagree on that one, because my recollection is that we discussed a number of amendments and, indeed, if I remember rightly, possibly nine petitions of concern. We did not progress those. As I said, the Member's party made it clear that the Bill was going nowhere.

The Member asked whether I went to the Committee. I know that I am good, I am not a bad MLA, I put in amendments, and I try my best. I am on the Committee for Enterprise, Trade and Investment and the Standards and Privileges Committee. I am one representative for my party. My party is a voluntary-run organisation. It does not have the wealth of Sinn Féin. It does not have research companies working on its behalf. It has a single Member. It has no staff whatsoever, other than the staff whom I employ to do my work and to serve my constituents. I have sought as best I can to amend the Bill and to work on it. Indeed, my legislative team — that is, Ross Brown — has worked tirelessly throughout the Bill to bring forward our amendments. I am proud of the work that we have done.

Sinn Féin is the party in power here, along with the DUP. If it can stand over what is here today, that is fine, and it is for them to do so, but to tell people that they have stopped the bedroom tax, when we hear today that it is to be phased in, is misleading at best. I think that Sinn Féin should stand over what it has done rather than what it said it was going to do, because the two things are ultimately not the same.

Photo of Mervyn Storey Mervyn Storey DUP

Will the Member give way?

Photo of Mervyn Storey Mervyn Storey DUP

The Member should not take the reason why I have not accepted his amendment as a reflection in any way of the changes to the Bill that he sought to bring about in all good faith. The Member knows that we tried to find some accommodation when that was possible. I accept the fact that, as a single Member in the House, he works hard to try to do the job of Members: to scrutinise legislation. Whatever the spat between you and the Members opposite, that is an issue for yourselves, but, as far as I am concerned, I want the Member to be assured that it is not because he happens to be in the Green Party or because he happens to be a single representative. I trust that I have endeavoured to give the rationale for why we did not accept his amendment. It is no reflection on the hard work that he and his member of staff have done on the issue.

Photo of John Dallat John Dallat Social Democratic and Labour Party

Order, please. May I correct the Minister? This is not a spat between the pair of them; I am involved, and all remarks must be made through the Chair.

Photo of Steven Agnew Steven Agnew Green

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I thank the Minister for his intervention. I hope that, throughout the debate, I have never challenged his sincerity. He has put his view on public record and debated the amendments, and I do not think that, at any time, he has tried to speak out of two sides of his mouth or anything like that. He has played it straight, and I respect him for that. Undoubtedly, we disagree on some of the amendments, and there will be Divisions, but we will have had an honest and open debate. I have objected when people made promises that they did not keep, in which case they should explain why, or made statements. I was attacked, albeit on social media, by Sinn Féin Members and supporters for saying that the bedroom tax would be implemented. I stand by that. Indeed, I have been vindicated today by the Minister's statement, which repeated what he said at Consideration Stage. In that regard, my truck is certainly not with the Minister. Whilst I disagree that it is at the heart of democracy, I do so with the respect and honesty that he has also shown, and with integrity.

Stewart Dickson's view is that his party is one of the parties sticking responsibly to the Stormont House Agreement. This goes back to the debate and the arguing between the signatories to that agreement. I cannot comment beyond referencing Mr Dickson's comments that he feels that the SDLP has done a U-turn. That is between those two parties and the other signatories to the agreement.

I pay tribute to Roy Beggs, in that I thought that he made an honest contribution.

Photo of Robin Swann Robin Swann UUP

[Inaudible.]

Photo of Steven Agnew Steven Agnew Green

I apologise if I offend the Member by suggesting that he would be anything other than honest. He spelt out his party's views on the bedroom tax and said that his party's issue with it is in cases where there is no suitable accommodation. I think that people have seen that the bedroom tax is unpopular and said that it will not be implemented when, in reality, it will. He supports the agreed position that it will be phased in. I disagree with him, and, in an ideal world, we would have been debating the merits of the bedroom tax.

Photo of Roy Beggs Roy Beggs UUP

Will the Member give way?

Photo of Roy Beggs Roy Beggs UUP

Does the Member recognise that there will be an issue with some three-bedroom houses? From constituency work over the past number of years, I am aware of a single male who is relatively young and has been left in a three-bedroom house. Meanwhile, we have families on waiting lists. Does he think that that is appropriate and that there should be no pressure on such an individual to downsize rather than drawing additional funds from our limited budget?

Photo of Steven Agnew Steven Agnew Green

I do not know the circumstances of the individual. I do not think that it would be reasonable for such a person, who could be working, to lose their job. At the previous stage, when I proposed an amendment that people be given a year to find work rather than being uprooted from their home, Mr Attwood made a point about the difference between a house and a home. I do not know whether that individual would have to move out of the community to accept suitable accommodation. The issue could be that they have lost their job. Another possible change of circumstance is a relationship break-up. If someone's partner and children leave, and they are left alone in a large house, should they be kicked further by having to move out?

I thought that a reasonable amendment at Consideration Stage would have been to give people the opportunity to get back on their feet and to find work or accommodation that they deem suitable. I disagree fundamentally with the principle of the bedroom tax. Others just disagree with the practical application, given the lack of one- and two-bedroom houses, but I disagree with uprooting people because they have become unemployed or their relationship has broken down, and I disagree that we should just look at the size of the unit that they occupy. It is a home, and ultimately the solution is better investment in public housing, not simply moving those in public housing around to fit a perceived public good.

Another interesting point raised, I think by Mr Beggs, concerned how much of the £565 million would be spent on administration. Undoubtedly, the supplementary scheme, however it is implemented and whoever receives the benefit of it, will have to be administered.

I was coming to the figures anyway, but this is a good point at which to address them. Those who have said that no one will be worse off under welfare reform have either ignored the figures or the figures have changed in ways that I cannot understand. I have not heard anything to help me understand them. Before the Stormont House Agreement, the lower estimate of the impact of the welfare cuts, which came from the Minister for Social Development, was £115 million. The higher estimate was £250 million, and that figure came from NICVA. At one point, the First Minister said that, if we did not implement welfare reform, the impact would be up to £1 billion a year. I never knew where that figure came from. That, however, was the range of figures. Now we are told to accept that £94 million a year is enough to ensure that no one is worse off, and, as Mr Beggs correctly highlighted, that is before we take into account the administration of the supplementary payment scheme. How much will that take out of the £94 million a year on average? How can we make the commitment that no one will be worse off and everyone will receive transition payments to bring them back to the level that they would have been at had we not implemented welfare reform?

That bring me — I have gone in reverse order — to Mickey Brady's contribution. This is where I got annoyed in the debate. Mr Brady and I met a group of people with disabilities, and he told them that no one would be worse off. After he left, they asked me whether I agreed; I had to tell them that I did not.

Photo of Steven Agnew Steven Agnew Green

I will give way in a second. I had to tell them that I disagreed for two reasons. First, because of the transition itself, and we have seen from PIP payments in GB that delays could result in people going without during that transition. Secondly, I said that I did not believe that the £565 million over six years was enough. Sinn Féin, before the Stormont House Agreement, did not use the Minister's figure of £115 million for the cost of welfare cuts, let alone the figure of £90 million. In fact, until quite late in the day, it was using the figure of £560 million, on which Mr Maskey was challenged by Stephen Nolan.

Photo of John Dallat John Dallat Social Democratic and Labour Party

Order. At the mention of that, I have to intervene. May I be helpful, not just to Mr Agnew, but to others who follow? We are now on to the winding-up speech and, although the Member is entitled to comment on what others have said, I ask him to focus on the amendments because of the lateness of the hour and the need to avoid opening up the debate again with interventions.

Photo of Steven Agnew Steven Agnew Green

I will take the Deputy Speaker's advice. With his indulgence, I will try to finish the point. It relates to amendment No 22, which is about enabling the Department to make supplementary payments and the impact of those supplementary payments.

Photo of Steven Agnew Steven Agnew Green

I will give way in one second.

My argument is that I could not tell anyone that they will not be worse off under the Bill. The bedroom tax, which we have discussed, will impact on a number of people. We will see how many. I also believe that the transition mechanism and the fund for supplementary payments are insufficient to guarantee that no one will be worse off.

Photo of Mickey Brady Mickey Brady Sinn Féin

I thank the Member for giving way. I do not really like making a habit of correcting you, but you did not quote what I actually said to the north-west disability forum. I said — if you had been listening, you probably would have heard it — that anyone on benefits under our control will not be worse off. We do not control tax credits or child benefit; HMRC does. With respect, if you are going to quote me, try to be accurate, please.

Photo of Steven Agnew Steven Agnew Green

I thank the Member for his intervention. The bedroom tax is very much under our control. The Member earlier tried to undermine me and my knowledge of the benefits system. I accept that I used an inaccurate term, but he suggested that I had a weak knowledge of the benefits system because I am not on the Committee and have not worked on it for as long as he has. Given his vast experience on the Social Development Committee and as a welfare worker prior to being an MLA, how embarrassing it must have been that someone with as little knowledge as me had to correct him and his party by restating the Minister's statement on how the bedroom tax will be implemented, despite the assurances from him and his party and his contradiction of me on that point.

I conclude simply by saying that I continue to believe in the amendments that I have tabled. The only way to stop the bedroom tax, as some have promised to do, is to support amendment Nos 11 and 21.

Question put, That amendment No 1 be made. The Assembly divided:

<SPAN STYLE="font-style:italic;"> Ayes 13; Noes 71

AYES

Mr Agnew, Mr Attwood, Mr D Bradley, Mr Byrne, Mr Eastwood, Mrs D Kelly, Dr McDonnell, Mr McGlone, Mrs McKevitt, Mr McKinney, Mr A Maginness, Mr Ramsey, Mr Rogers

Tellers for the Ayes: Mr Agnew, Mr A Maginness

NOES

Mr Anderson, Mr Beggs, Mr Bell, Mr Boylan, Ms Boyle, Ms P Bradley, Mr Brady, Mr Buchanan, Mrs Cameron, Mrs Cochrane, Mr Craig, Mr Cree, Mr Dickson, Mrs Dobson, Mr Douglas, Mr Dunne, Mr Easton, Mr Elliott, Dr Farry, Ms Fearon, Mr Flanagan, Mr Ford, Mrs Foster, Mr Frew, Mr Gardiner, Mr Girvan, Mr Givan, Mr Hamilton, Mr Hazzard, Mr Humphrey, Mr Irwin, Mr G Kelly, Mr Kinahan, Mr Lunn, Mr Lynch, Mr McAleer, Mr McCallister, Mr F McCann, Ms J McCann, Mr McCartney, Mr McCausland, Ms McCorley, Mr B McCrea, Mr I McCrea, Mr McElduff, Ms McGahan, Mr M McGuinness, Mr D McIlveen, Miss M McIlveen, Mr McKay, Mr McMullan, Mr McQuillan, Mr Maskey, Mr Milne, Mr Moutray, Mr Nesbitt, Ms Ní Chuilín, Mr Ó hOisín, Mr Ó Muilleoir, Mr O'Dowd, Mrs O'Neill, Mrs Overend, Mr Poots, Mr G Robinson, Mr P Robinson, Mr Ross, Ms Ruane, Mr Spratt, Mr Storey, Mr Swann, Mr Weir

Tellers for the Noes: Mr McQuillan, Mr G Robinson

Question accordingly negatived.

Photo of John Dallat John Dallat Social Democratic and Labour Party

Order. I encourage Members please to be seated. Can I also encourage Members to put away their mobile phones?

Clause 26 (Higher-level sanctions)

Amendment No 2 not moved.

Clause 27 (Other sanctions)

Amendment No 3 not moved.

Clause 30 (Delegation and contracting out)

Amendment No 4 not moved.

The Report of the remainder of this day’s sitting will be published on 25 February 2015.

Clause 44 (Assembly control)

Photo of John Dallat John Dallat Social Democratic and Labour Party 8:30, 24 February 2015

We now come to the second group of amendments for debate. With amendment No 5, it will be convenient to debate amendment Nos 6 and 7, 12, 19, 24 and 25. The amendments relate to Assembly control, reports and technical matters. Members should note that amendment No 7 is consequential to amendment Nos 5 and 6. Amendment No 19 is mutually exclusive with amendment No 24.

I call Mr Steven Agnew to move amendment No 5 and address the other amendments in the group.

[Interruption.]

Can I appeal to the Members leaving to leave quietly and for others to take their seats?

Photo of Alex Maskey Alex Maskey Sinn Féin

On a point of order, a LeasCheann Comhairle. I had to leave the Chamber a few minutes ago at the end of the last section. I heard Mr Agnew — I think that I quote him accurately — saying that the next time that we go to a meeting with Alex Maskey, we need "to bring a tape recorder". I find that deeply personally offensive. I ask the Member to reflect on that remark. It does no justice to the Member, and it certainly does no justice to me. For the record, let me make it clear that at no time have I sought to misrepresent Mr Agnew.

I made it clear on a number of occasions that, in the bilateral meetings that I conducted, I led on behalf of Sinn Féin, with Mr Agnew along with other parties. The only commitment that Mr Agnew was able to make, to his credit, was to support a POC on the bedroom tax. That remains his position, and that is fair enough. At no other point in any of the bilateral meetings that I conducted with him and Mr Ross Brown did Mr Agnew feel able to commit to any other objection to the Bill. He said that he would consider a range of matters, but at no time did he make any commitment other than the one on the bedroom tax. I have never suggested anything different. I have made it clear that that was the one commitment he made —

Photo of John Dallat John Dallat Social Democratic and Labour Party

Order. The Member has made his point, and it is on the record.

Photo of Alex Maskey Alex Maskey Sinn Féin

A LeasCheann Comhairle, I want to put it on the record, and I ask the Member to reflect on it, because it is very regrettable that he made that remark. It does not represent anything that I have ever said about the Member.

Photo of Steven Agnew Steven Agnew Green

I beg to move amendment No 5:

In page 21, line 17, leave out sub-paragraphs (iv) to (vi).

The following amendments stood on the Marshalled List:

No 6: In page 21, line 22, leave out sub-paragraphs (ix) to (xi). — [Mr Agnew.]

No 7: In page 21, line 29, at end insert

<BR/>

&quot;(3A) Regulations to which this subsection applies shall not be made unless a draft of the regulations has been laid before and approved by a resolution of the Assembly.


 


(3B) Subsection (3A) applies to regulations under any of the following alone or with other regulations?—


 


(a) section 9(2) and (3) (standard allowance);


 


(b) section 10(3) and (4) (children and young persons element);


 


(c) section 11 (housing costs element);


 


(d) section 19(2)(d) (claimants subject to no work-related requirements);


 


(e) sections 26 and 27 (sanctions);


 


(f) section 28 (hardship payments).&quot;. — [Mr Agnew.]

No 12: In clause 78, page 59, line 6, leave out &quot;making personal independence payments&quot; and insert &quot;personal independence payment&quot;. — [Mr Storey (The Minister for Social Development).]

No 19: After clause 121 insert



&quot;Duty to report on operation of this Act


 


121A.—(1) The Department must, not later than 3 years after this Act receives Royal Assent, publish an independent report on the operation of this Act.


 


(2) The Department must lay the report before the Assembly.&quot;. — [Mr Agnew.]

No 24: After clause 132 insert



&quot;Duty to report on operation of this Act


 


132C.—(1) The Department must, not later than 3 years after this Act receives Royal Assent, publish a report on the operation of this Act.


 


(2) The Department must lay the report before the Assembly.&quot;. — [Mr Storey (The Minister for Social Development).]

No 25: After clause 132 insert



&quot;Review


 


132D. The Northern Ireland Joint Standards Committee for the Social Security Agency and Child Maintenance Service shall monitor the standards and quality of decision making with regard to the sanctions defined under this Act and report to the Social Security Agency and Child Maintenance Service on an annual basis.&quot;. — [Mr Attwood.]

Amendment Nos 5, 6 and 7 should be taken together, and I urge Members, if they are to support them, to do so as a whole as they rely on each other to achieve the objective. Amendment No 7 lists the regulations as they relate to universal credit: standard allowance; children and young persons element; housing cost element; claimants subject to no work-related requirements; sanctions; and hardship payments. The intention of the amendments is to ensure that, for each of those key aspects of universal credit, draft legislation is laid before the Assembly and debated before being implemented.

Collectively, the amendments would remove the current confirmatory arrangement and replace it with a draft affirmative one. As the Minister said at the previous stage, that is not the usual convention for social security payments, but, given the significant changes, it is important that the regulations come before the House before being implemented. Not only would it give the Assembly an opportunity to debate them before their introduction but it would be difficult, should they be introduced prior to confirmation by the Assembly, to remove them. My question to the Minister is this: if the Assembly did not agree to the regulations under the confirmatory procedure, how would that leave the application of universal credit? It is my view that they should be agreed in advance and not be subject to confirmative resolution after regulations have been made and, indeed, implemented.

I will move on to amendment Nos 19 and 24. As the Minister mentioned in the debate on the previous group, we had discussions on the duty to report. I welcome the fact that the Minister has tabled an amendment. The single difference between the two amendments is the word "independent", and we had a similar debate on the previous group. I welcome the Minister's commitment to reviewing the Welfare Reform Act three years after it receives Royal Assent, but it is my view that the review should be independent. At the previous stage, I tabled an amendment that gave more detail on what I would like to be in such a report. In seeking to meet the Minister halfway, I have removed the "vulnerable groups" stipulation, and I leave the terms of reference to the Department, but I feel that it is important to keep the word "independent". The Department and the Executive have a clear policy intent in introducing the Welfare Reform Bill. It should be an outside body that reports on its impact, its effectiveness and its implementation.

Amendment No 25, tabled by the SDLP, proposes that the joint standards committee monitor the standards and quality of decision-making on sanctions. I think that the amendment is sound. I will wait to hear the rationale from the proposer and the Minister's response, but, at this time, I am minded to support it.

I think that I am right in saying that the only other amendment is amendment No 12, which seems to be a simple rewording.

I do not see any policy change there, although, again, we will wait to hear the Minister's rationale.

(Mr Speaker in the Chair)

To summarise briefly, my amendments are important, as they would bring further Assembly scrutiny of regulations and of the Bill, should it pass Final Stage, in the form of an independent report. This is a major piece of legislation, and it has taken a long time to get here. Many have concerns about it, and it is right that the greatest scrutiny possible be given to the implementation of the Bill itself, to the regulations that come from it, to how effective it is and to what its effect is.

Photo of Alex Maskey Alex Maskey Sinn Féin

Go raibh maith agat, a LeasCheann Comhairle. Given the lateness of the hour and your encouragement to Members at the beginning of the debate on this group of amendments to stick to the amendments and to try not to speak for too long, I will make only a few remarks.

The second group concerns the issue of Assembly control over future regulations and so on, and the question of the reporting of the operation of the Act and how it is working out. The first three amendments are superfluous, given that the arrangements that will be put in place will enhance considerably and significantly the Assembly's control over the regulations in the time ahead. Obviously, some of the details of that have still to be worked out.

The main point that I want to make is that, in all our discussions on the Welfare Reform Bill since it was introduced some time ago, one of Sinn Féin's most major and significant concerns has been the ideology behind it from the Tories in London. I think that "nasty agenda" was the terminology used by their coalition partners in Westminster. There is an ideologically driven agenda that is about slashing public services and targeting the most vulnerable in our society. I do not need to rehearse all those categories.

Some people subscribe to that ideology politically, but I think that most Members in the Chamber do not really. The package that has been agreed and negotiated and that we are still working our way through is largely a measure of the fact that most of the parties in the Chamber want to do their best for the people we collectively represent. We recognise that there are a lot of people out there who are vulnerable and need support, and that is really what the Stormont House Agreement is all about.

One of the key issues for Sinn Féin was always around the enabling aspect of the Welfare Reform Bill. We always cited as one of our key objectives neutralising some of the worst aspects of the Bill, including some of the enabling aspects. What we have tried to do in our deliberations is adhere to the key concept of supporting the most vulnerable in our society and protecting the people out there in that category whom, as I said, all the parties in the House represent to some degree or other.

We have sought a package and a deal that gives us belt and braces to protect those most vulnerable people. For the record, no one in Sinn Féin ever said that no one would ever lose out as the result of the Welfare Reform Bill. There are aspects of the welfare agenda that are with us today, even before this Bill becomes an Act. There will be people who will fall foul of aspects of the legislation, because it comes from Westminster. The Minister, Mervyn Storey, has already made it very clear that there are elements of the welfare programme over which the Executive and the Assembly have absolutely no control or authority. That is the first thing that has to be said. There are things for which no one in the House can be held responsible, such as tax credits and so on and so forth. No matter how they vote, no Members or parties can be accused of deliberately misleading the public or the House. There are aspects of welfare legislation that are outside the control and authority of the Assembly and the Executive. It is important that people have the honesty to acknowledge that.

We have tried with others, and we certainly are not on our own in that. I would argue and make it very clear that this party stands on a solid record of campaigning and lobbying very hard. We mobilised, marshalled opinion and engaged with all the sectors, from the Churches right through to the community and voluntary sector and everybody else in between. We went to London and met Lord Freud. Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams along with others, including the First Minister, raised the matter directly with David Cameron in Downing Street. As I said, we have put tens of thousands of leaflets and bulletins around every one of our constituencies to highlight the issue. Often, we did that when we were being slated by others who were telling us that there was nothing more that we could do, that we could not get another penny, that the benefits system is generous enough and that we could not do anything for these people because we would be taking it from somebody else's budget.

I make it very clear on behalf of Sinn Féin again in the Chamber that we see the key pillars of any society that is compassionate and wants to look after the most vulnerable as being health, education and welfare. They have to be the cornerstones of a system that looks after the people out there who need good health and who need a good education to make themselves the most productive contributors to our society that they can be and help their human well-being. Welfare has to be a system that is compassionate and caring and supports people who fall foul of illness or have the problem of not being able to get a job.

Every Member knows full well that there are a lot of people in our society who are on a low income. We all know about the zero-hour contracts and the people who are vulnerable out there who are ill, sick or long-term unemployed. We know all about that. Those who want to want to support people in that category want to try to make sure that we have the best welfare system that we can get. That is what we are trying to do here.

Are we starting off with the best welfare system today? No, we are certainly not. There has been an ongoing attack on the welfare system for several years. This is not the first Welfare Reform Bill that has gone through the Assembly. There was one in 2007, and that enabled other measures to be introduced in the House that Members have had to suck up, so to speak, on behalf of the people out there we all represent. In recent years, all the parties in the Chamber have had to accept statutory regulations coming through the Assembly that they could not prevent or stop and that were detrimental to the people we represent. Sinn Féin was struck very hard by that, and we focused on that when we had any discussion on the Welfare Reform Bill and the welfare cuts agenda. We are very clear that we are opposed to those cuts and have resolutely opposed them.

At the end of the day, we went into the negotiations before Christmas, and I am very pleased that we had what you would call a five-party agreement. Let us not even worry or confuse or bother ourselves about the technicalities around a four-party agreement or a five-party agreement. We had a five-party agreement, and I am glad that we had that. That meant that the five parties committed the Executive and the Assembly to do so much more for people than had been agreed up to December. Before December, we had a package of mitigation measures that were available to the House two years ago but that we did not avail ourselves of. Post the Stormont House Agreement, there is now money on the table for people who, thankfully, will be able to retain it in their pockets.

We have talked about the people who are the most vulnerable out there and have engaged with civic society. Every Member and every party in the House talks about the most vulnerable. Let me make it clear: when we look at a tin, and it says "the most vulnerable" on that tin, those are the people we are determined to support. Those are the people we were working for and on behalf of. I am very pleased that the Executive and the five parties in the House agreed that there was a package that we could deliver for the people out there.

It is very interesting that, months ago — Mr Agnew referred to it earlier — everybody challenged us against the veracity of the Department's figures. We are now working on the Department's figures, and we are still told that we are wrong. You cannot have it two ways: either the Department's figures are right or they are wrong. All that I can say is this: the five parties sat down and knuckled down to get a way forward on welfare and came up with a package that keeps more or less £600 million in people's pockets over the next number of years. That should be welcomed by people in here and not criticised. It was not on offer before December; that is very clear.

I want to make a point, because I have heard all the amendments and I have read all the amendments. Like the Minister, I have heard a lot of discussion and debate over the last couple of weeks. I quoted Mr Nesbitt, who was there when the parties were brought together to look at the final package and to take it at 11·00 am on 23 December. I see amendments from the SDLP. Obviously, the last couple were withdrawn. Alasdair McDonnell, on behalf of the SDLP, said that he was "very pleased" with the finance and the welfare package. You are very pleased with a package, then, all of a sudden, every day after that you bad-mouth it. Mr McDonnell was also at that meeting with the Secretary or State, Theresa Villiers, and Charlie Flanagan, an Tánaiste. He made the point that he did not think that the deal was comprehensive enough across a range of issues; he mentioned outstanding matters and all the rest of it, which we totally agreed with. However, he also said that the SDLP would welcome the paper and that they would not bad-mouth it. In the last couple of debates, all they have done is bad-mouth it. As I said earlier, you try to have your cake and eat it. You accepted the deal; you were party to negotiating it. I would have thought that you would be pleased to able to say that you were party to negotiating a deal that allows that amount of money to remain in people's pockets.

To conclude my remarks, because this group —

Photo of Alex Maskey Alex Maskey Sinn Féin

No, thank you. It is getting late, and I am doing what the Ceann Comhairle has asked me to do.

I move now to control. I have made it clear that the Assembly will have greater authority over the regulations coming forward in the future. It is enabling, and we have a lot of work to do yet. The Minister will acknowledge and confirm that his party and the other parties should be operating through the party leaders' group, because that is the implementation of the Stormont House Agreement. Some people signed on to an agreement; then they signed on to the fact that their party leaders would act with the other party leaders and become the implementation group for the Stormont House Agreement; and, since then, they have virtually walked away from it. That is a shameful position for any party leader to adopt. It lacks integrity, but that is the reality that we are in. Therefore we have these sham debates and sham arguments with people trying to score political points off others and scaring the life out of people in our community. Those people should not be frightened; they should not be worried; they should feel that the parties are prepared to work for them and to support them to the best of our ability.

The Minister has outlined the various schemes, and he has made it clear that the detail of the schemes has yet to be worked out. They will go to public consultation; they will come back to the Assembly; and they will go through the Executive. Where there are major concerns, people will have the right to bring them to the Executive. I am pleased with that, because it allows us some other means of protection for the people we represent.

Sinn Féin has been trying to get legislation in place, with appropriate amendments, to make sure that the regulations will be subject to greater scrutiny, accountability and authority from the Executive. We have also been trying to make sure that the various guidelines are put in place to operate all the statutory regulations as they go forward and to ensure a significant package of mitigation measures. That is how we are trying, in the round, to tackle the welfare cuts agenda that is coming from London.

People who want to attack Sinn Féin or somebody else forget the little thing that this is a Bill coming from London; it is being imposed on us by London. I will repeat this ad nauseam if I need to: I am very pleased that we got a five-party agreement that goes a long way to protect the most vulnerable. If that is rolling over, I am happy to be a roll-over

[Interruption.]

It is allowing money to be kept in the pockets of the people who are most vulnerable — the people you all talk about, but then you want to make a joke about. Mr McNarry wants to make a joke from a sedentary position. You have not been in the debate.

Photo of Alex Maskey Alex Maskey Sinn Féin

No, I would not, because you could not take the time or interest to come to the Chamber to discuss this issue for months, never mind over the past couple of weeks.

Photo of Mitchel McLaughlin Mitchel McLaughlin Speaker

Let us confine ourselves to the discussion.

Photo of Alex Maskey Alex Maskey Sinn Féin

The Member is obviously not concerned enough to come into the Chamber to debate the issue —

[Interruption.]

Photo of Alex Maskey Alex Maskey Sinn Féin

— so he will not be eating into my time.

We support the Minister's amendments, because we think that they add the requirement for important reports to be introduced and for other important measures as part of an overall programme to protect the most vulnerable. We oppose amendment Nos 5, 6, 7, 19 and 25.

Photo of Alex Attwood Alex Attwood Social Democratic and Labour Party

I will, if I am permitted, make some wider comments towards the end of my contribution. First of all, because I did not do this at Consideration Stage, I thank the Bill Office and the staff in the Assembly for all the work that they have done on this. A lot of this stuff tends to be done at the eleventh hour and even past the eleventh hour, and the people in the Bill Office and the Assembly generally were always willing and helpful and tried to find resolutions to problems rather than find problems. Some people take a different approach.

To exhaust an analogy, I say to the Minister that there may be a new broom, but I am afraid that there is an old handle stuck to it. As I said the last time, maybe even between now and 11.00 pm or whenever the debate concludes I might conclude something different.

I agree with Mr Maskey on one thing: I do not think that politicians in the Assembly across the parties are indifferent to the needs of people and the needs of people in need. I may dissent and differ from Mr Allister and Mr McCallister's contributions, which veered towards that at times. I do not think that that was their intention, but, in some of their language, that seemed to be the case. The SDLP's view of the purpose of all of this and all of the amendments is that it is about dealing with people in need. I speak from memory, so this may be inaccurate, but there is £70 billion in tax that should be claimed by HMRC, and it has 350 people going after those who are avoiding paying their tax of £70 billion; there are 3,500 people in the welfare system going after a tiny amount of claim fraud in welfare. When it comes to our priorities, yes, we should crack down on welfare fraud and benefit fraud, but, when you look at those figures and see how much time and resources are invested in going after welfare claimants compared with the time, money and resources invested going after the tax cheats, the corporate tax evasion and all of that, you begin to wonder where people's priorities lie.

We will support the amendments tabled by Mr Agnew. The reason we are supporting the amendments on positive resolution and independent reports and extra function being given to the joint standards committee is to try to ensure that the people in need have the maximum protection. One of the ways and mechanisms to ensure maximum protection is to have the maximum oversight in the Chamber of regulations, reports in respect of the work of the Department and the powers of the joint standards committee. We are backing all those amendments so that the Chamber and the Department and the joint standards committee have the wherewithal to properly interrogate welfare regulations and welfare practice to ensure that there is maximum protection.

The reason for all of that, if I could take just one minute, is to go back to Mr Allister's comments. Why? Because Mr Allister failed to read into the record the fact that, when it comes to children living in low-income families, the figure is 40% in West Belfast — the worst constituency in the North. North Antrim is 18·4%. When it comes to people claiming housing benefit, the figure is 21·6% in West Belfast — the second worst constituency in the North.

Photo of Alex Attwood Alex Attwood Social Democratic and Labour Party

I will shortly.

North Antrim has 9·5%, and 9·5% is not good enough either.

Do not let Mr Allister point the finger at a culture of dependency in my constituency when that is its culture of life. The percentage of people claiming income support is 9·7% in West Belfast and 3% in North Antrim. The percentage of those claiming benefits is 50·5% in West Belfast and 38·3% in North Antrim. It is not for me to tell another Member how to do his business in his constituency, but when nearly 40% of people in his constituency are claiming benefits, maybe he should begin to ask questions. Unemployment is 9·4% in West Belfast, 4·8% in North Antrim and so on.

Critically, as of 31 March 2014, the greatest differences, with prevalence rates being higher in West Belfast than the Northern Ireland average, were for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes mellitus, coronary heart disease and hypertension. It goes on and on, and it is published every month by the Assembly for the profile of disadvantage and deprivation. How dare Mr Allister point the finger when their life experience is informed by those figures, when those people have to live those lives, this year and this decade and decade after decade in this part of Ireland, compounded by the error of partition? How dare Mr Allister point the finger at any of those people?

Photo of David McNarry David McNarry UKIP 9:00, 24 February 2015

I appreciate the Member giving way. I wonder whether, for clarification, the Member could explain to others outside the West Belfast constituency why the percentages that he quotes exist. An explanation would do quite a lot of good and would help those who sit outside West Belfast. Is it the failure of its representatives over these long years? Why are those percentages being quoted, and why are they so obviously different from those in other parts of Northern Ireland?

Photo of Alex Attwood Alex Attwood Social Democratic and Labour Party

There are many answers to that, and I will give one or two, if I may. One reason is the history of this part of this country since partition. The people of west Belfast were subject to discrimination. I remind people that this is not Catholic west Belfast; this is all of west Belfast, in which there is still a significant minority that comes from a different political tradition to the one that I represent. If you have a situation in which, in this part of Ireland, long-term male Catholic unemployment is virtually unchanged decades after fair employment, where increasing numbers of Protestant male adults experience the same long-term, generational unemployment whereby nobody in a family — children, parents or grandparents — works, what do you do to remedy that? You invest to deal with that disadvantage. That means that you do not put FDI into south and east Belfast but protect industrial sites in west Belfast and try to move into those areas.

Photo of Mitchel McLaughlin Mitchel McLaughlin Speaker

Let us remind ourselves that we are discussing the Further Consideration Stage of the Welfare Reform Bill. It is appropriate that Mr Attwood should respond to another Member's comments during the debate. However, I think that you have done that quite significantly, comprehensively and effectively, and I ask you to come back to the debate. The hour is getting late, and we should focus on the issues that have to be decided this evening.

Photo of Alex Attwood Alex Attwood Social Democratic and Labour Party

I take the lead from you, Mr Speaker. However, if the Member wants to have a further conversation about that, I am more than willing to do so.

I will deal with amendment No 25, which is a new clause. I remind the Minister of what he said on 11 February at Consideration Stage. When it came to the work of the joint standards committee, he made the point that its work:

"specifically includes the accuracy of decisions on sanctions."

The Minister will remember making that point, and he will also recall my reply:

"'Accuracy' is a very precise term, and I am sure that, somewhere, some lawyer has defined it. "

In my view, accuracy is a technical word that is not about the character of the decisions being made. It is just box ticking when it comes to decisions that were made. The Minister then added, when that point was made:

"I take what the Member has said about this. Will he allow me the opportunity to take away those comments that he has made specifically on this issue and to give further thought to what he has said?" — [Official Report, Vol 101, No 9, p66, col 2].

My question to the Minister is this: what further thought has he given to what was said on that day? I refer the Minister to the meeting of the joint standards committee held on 23 September 2014. This is very current, and I refer to it because, in my view, our concern that the joint standards committee cannot look at the decision-making is corroborated by the report, which says:

"The balanced scorecard target for 2014-15 is to achieve 97% cash value accuracy by 31 March 2014 for both old and new rules combined. The sample size for the monitoring year 2014-15 has been confirmed by departmental statisticians as 546 in total for both schemes (312 for new rules and 234 for old rules). The monitoring is based upon a confidence level of 95% with a tolerance level of +/- 2·45%. This quarter, the division monitored 46 cases for cash value accuracy".

I have to say to the Minister that the entire record of that meeting is about checking accuracy; it is not about interrogating decision-making. I do not, at this late hour, intend to go into any more detail, but there are reams of this stuff.

The joint standards committee does a very good job of looking at the accuracy of people with the responsibility to maintain accuracy in the Social Security Agency. It does good work checking that homework, and I do not take away from that. I have no doubt that it maximises its mandate, but, from looking at the record of meetings — that is only one typical example — it seems that it is all about accuracy and not about interrogating decision-making. That is why we re-tabled our amendment to monitor the quality of decision-making on sanctions. I do not intend to rehearse all of the arguments and concerns about sanctions. The point is that the JSC needs to have the explicit power in law to dig under the profile of accuracy to which I referred in order to see whether the decision-making is of the quality required. It is easy to conduct a quantitative exercise by looking at facts and figures. We need a qualitative exercise that interrogates those facts and figures to ensure that, when it comes to sanctions, it is doing what it should.

I will conclude with one or two brief comments in response to comments made by Mr Maskey. On the last occasion, I said to the Minister and the leader of the DUP that, when we gave a press conference after Stormont House, just a few yards from here, our position was crystal clear, and we have not varied from it: we will implement as fully and faithfully as we can that which is strong in the Stormont House Agreement and try to rectify what is weak. We are right in that. In the last couple of days, there was a meeting in this Building of the party leaders. We differ from all other parties on how to implement the proposals for dealing with the past. We want to protect the authority of Patten and the accountability mechanisms of the Policing Board. Others seem to think otherwise when it comes to the appointment of senior staff and so on and so forth. Where we think that things can be done better or are weak, we will work to rectify them. We have always maintained that argument, and we are not going to change. It is crucial that we do that, because, as I said on the previous occasion, there are parts, including those on dealing with the past, that are less about truth and accountability and more about protecting the vested interests of the people in command and control of state organisations and terror groups that were active in the past. On the basis of our political values and the ethics that we uphold, we will dissent from all of that. We are not dissidents, but we value the right to dissent. If there are things in the Stormont House Agreement that we have to dissent from to make the weak better, that is what we will do.

The problem with the debate is that people have decided that they want to live in a political straitjacket known as the Stormont House Agreement, when people outside in the advice sector and from the Human Rights Commission are saying, "There are things that you can do to enhance this". On the previous day, we had petitions of concern, and, today, in the absence of petitions of concern but with the same outcome, we are voting down the best advice from the people with the best authority in this part of the world whom we should not second-guess. In fact, we should embrace and endorse what they say and put it into the primary law. Forgive me, Mr Maskey, but we will implement what is strong and try to —

Photo of Alex Attwood Alex Attwood Social Democratic and Labour Party

— rectify what is weak.

[Interruption.]

Sorry, I was going to give way.

Photo of Alex Maskey Alex Maskey Sinn Féin

I made this point earlier, but this is simply a case of having your cake and eating it.

Photo of Alex Attwood Alex Attwood Social Democratic and Labour Party

In the context of a debate about welfare and given the scale of the benefit cuts and changes that have been proposed, comments that reduce good arguments and good authority to being about having your cake and eating it are not helpful. If there is advice from outside the Chamber, you might want to describe it as having your cake and eating it; I would describe it as taking best advice from people who are well qualified to give it. Given that we have had some good conversations with the Minister, I regret that some useful opportunities to enhance where we are seem to have been declined in the past few hours.

Photo of Mitchel McLaughlin Mitchel McLaughlin Speaker

Thank you. I call Mr —

[Interruption.]

Photo of Alex Maskey Alex Maskey Sinn Féin

I thank the Member for giving way. Let me make this point very clearly: I did not, in any way, suggest anything about the advice sector. There are people there whom I have worked with for many years and people whom I value. I was referring to the SDLP having its cake and eating it.

Photo of Mitchel McLaughlin Mitchel McLaughlin Speaker

Mr Attwood, to clarify, did you conclude your remarks, or did I misunderstand you?

Photo of Alex Attwood Alex Attwood Social Democratic and Labour Party

I was concluding, but I am prepared to give way.

Photo of Mitchel McLaughlin Mitchel McLaughlin Speaker

No, if you have concluded, you cannot do that. I call Mr Roy Beggs. Thank you.

Photo of Roy Beggs Roy Beggs UUP

Given the lateness of the hour, I will try to conclude with remarks that are specifically on the amendments.

The matters in amendment Nos 5 and 6 were discussed at Consideration Stage. However, I realise that Mr Agnew is at least trying to focus his attention more specifically this time around. My party's concerns at Consideration Stage on just how much of the Bill is simply enabling legislation remain. Although I welcomed the Minister's explicit commitment to work with the Committee, we will have to wait some time to make a fair assessment of that. However, it certainly does no harm to raise the issue once again in order to maximise oversight of the regulations.

Amendment Nos 5 and 6 specifically seek to change the Assembly procedure for some of the most important regulations, including those on the standard allowance, housing costs and sanctions. It is crucial that those be properly reviewed, but there is a very real danger that the proposed changes could again result in a stalemate in the Assembly. That has to be recognised by all. Public services have already been hit with a penalty of some £100 million, as Sinn Féin walked itself into a corner, only to later change direction as our Budget process faced a crash a few weeks ago.

In addition, we will be hit with penalties of tens of millions of pounds in the new financial year beginning 2015-16. That will be happening unless we bring about change and implement changes. We simply cannot afford further delay.

These amendments, whilst they may be well meaning, could result in deadlock, which will mean further fines. We cannot afford that, as such fines would again adversely affect public services. Just look at what happened during this financial year where, mid-year, we had to claw back, through a number of Departments, and pull money back into the centre. That certainly has adversely affected my constituents, and I would not wish to see it happening again.

We note the commitment of the Minister to review the Act within three years. The Ulster Unionists are satisfied that the Department should have the ability to carry that out without having to bring in an independent organisation.

The final amendment I will address is in regard to giving the joint standards committee an enhanced role. I believe that the standard of decision-making in relation to sanctions is already monitored by the committee. If that is the case, why would the Department be reluctant to see this legislated for? I look forward to hear what the Minister will say in that regard. That concludes my comments on this section of the Bill.

Photo of Stewart Dickson Stewart Dickson Alliance 9:15, 24 February 2015

I also will be brief. I support the amendments put forward by the Department in group 2. I particularly welcome amendment No 24, which will place a duty on the Department to publish a report on the operation of this legislation within three years of Royal Assent. This provides us with a further guarantee with regard to the implementation and the propriety of that implementation.

We have heard much today and in the previous debate about those who wished to deny that which they supported in the Stormont Castle agreement or the Stormont House Agreement. At one stage, the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party claimed that he had brokered the entire deal, particularly in respect of welfare reform, but that all seems to have been forgotten.

What is not to be forgotten in all of this are the most vulnerable in society, and that is what we are attempting to do here with these mitigating factors. We are also trying to do something a great deal more than that. Not only are we here to protect the most vulnerable in society but to build our economy, including our corporation tax; to deliver jobs and get people out of the poverty they are in; to tackle the issue of west Belfast once and for all; and to deal with the health inequalities and the employment inequalities for every citizen in Northern Ireland. That is what I believe we have been elected here to do.

Photo of William Humphrey William Humphrey DUP

I am grateful to the Member for giving way. As a Belfast representative, I am only too glad to see investment coming to Northern Ireland and, in particular, to this city. I must say that I am amazed. Many of the people Mr Attwood made reference to in west Belfast live in the greater Shankill area. I have to say that, when jobs come to Belfast, whether they come to west Belfast, east Belfast or south Belfast — Members seem to be complaining about direct investment in south and east Belfast — it is the people of Belfast and the Belfast basin who benefit from those jobs coming to the city. Does the Member agree?

Photo of Stewart Dickson Stewart Dickson Alliance

I agree with the Member. This community, this society, and this Assembly need to move on from the type of debate we have been having and remember where people are in terms of jobs, employment and opportunities. I should not miss the opportunity to mention the people in east Antrim who, many years ago, had excellent opportunities for employment but who today struggle like everyone else across Northern Ireland to have employment.

I will be very brief, Mr Speaker. We support the Department's amendments in group 2 and encourage the House to press on with this legislation; allow us to monitor it over time; deal with it; and deliver for everyone in Northern Ireland, including the most vulnerable, thereby allowing them to have an opportunity to receive the appropriate benefits, and encourage a society that will drive forward and deliver jobs.

Photo of Mitchel McLaughlin Mitchel McLaughlin Speaker

Thank you very much. You have no idea how happy I am to come to the Minister for Social Development so quickly —

[Laughter.]

Photo of Mervyn Storey Mervyn Storey DUP

You do not know how happy I am that you have called me. I want to be brief. However, it is important that there are certain things that we place on the record of the House, when others, as I know the Member for West Belfast will want to interrogate me, regardless of whether I say that I am a handle, a broom or Dusty. It does not matter what it is.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for calling me in relation to these amendments. Amendment Nos 5, 6 and 7 refer to clause 44, which relates to Assembly control. Clause 44 provides for the procedure by which the Northern Ireland Assembly can control the making of regulations. Amendment Nos 5 and 6 would remove the regulations on the amounts for the standard allowance; children and young people's element; housing costs element; claimants subject to no work-related requirements; sanctions; and hardship payments. From the list of regulations subject to the confirmatory procedure, amendment No 7 would result in the regulations on those aspects being subject to the draft affirmative procedure.

As I said two weeks ago at Consideration Stage, Assembly controls for universal credit regulations will, in the main, follow the more common form of control, that is, the negative resolution procedure. That follows the conventional approach to delegated legislation in this area. However, regulations that introduce new concepts into the benefits system will be subject to the confirmatory procedure in the first instance. That will ensure a debate on any areas of concern. It will also maintain the flexibility to amend the legislation quickly in the future to respond to changes without making disproportionate demands on the legislature. If the amounts payable in universal credit were subject to the affirmative procedure, that would apply to the first set of regulations only. As a general rule, the affirmative procedure would be applied to regulations that are unique to Northern Ireland, that is, they are not parity-based, outside social security, provide for something controversial or deal with financial assistance, such as the discretionary support scheme.

I propose that the form of Assembly control to be applied to regulations remain as drafted in the Bill, as that will enable subordinate legislation to make timely progress. That means that the first set of regulations, which introduces major policy changes, will be made using the confirmatory procedure.

The alternative approach suggested by the amendments for the payment amounts — affirmative — which provides for debate and discussion before the regulations come into effect is rarely applied to social security legislation, as it could lead to significant delays in implementation, bearing in mind the need to implement welfare reform legislation as quickly as possible to avoid additional financial burdens in relation to the issue of fines, which, I remind Members, has not gone away in its entirety. That is something that we need to keep a focus on. In light of that, I urge Members to reject amendment Nos 5, 6 and 7.

Clause 78 was added following an amendment tabled by the Ulster Unionist Party and accepted following debate at Consideration Stage. It makes provision for a pilot scheme to be carried out in advance of the personal independence payment going live in Northern Ireland. It is important that the administration of new benefits be well planned and managed to avoid the sort of backlog and delivery uncertainties that occurred in Great Britain when PIP was implemented. I trust that the pilot will provide the assurance that the Northern Ireland PIP customer journey and associated processes are robust; help to inform plans for the roll-out of PIP in Northern Ireland; and provide further information on outcomes.

Participation in the pilot will be entirely voluntary and will not impact on a person’s current DLA award or future PIP reassessment, and there will be no actual PIP payment. The tabled amendment clarifies that there will be no PIP payments made as a result of the pilot. I urge Members to accept the amendment.

I now come to amendment Nos 19 and 24. At Consideration Stage, several amendments were tabled in relation to reporting on the implementation of the Act and on setting up a dedicated welfare reform committee of the Assembly, following the example of the Scottish Government.

The Scottish Welfare Reform Committee was established on 25 January 2012. Its role is to keep under review the passage of the UK Welfare Reform Act 2012 and to monitor its implementation as it affects welfare provision in Scotland, and to consider relevant Scottish legislation and other consequential amendments. Members should bear in mind that social security legislation is not a devolved matter in Scotland. Social security legislation for Scotland is made through Parliament by the UK Government, and, therefore, it does not have the same level of scrutiny that is afforded to our legislation and carried out by our Social Development Committee and the Assembly.

Devolved responsibility for social security legislation to the Assembly means that Northern Ireland has the opportunity to make different arrangements from those pertaining elsewhere in Great Britain. Therefore, we are in a very different situation from Scotland. Of course, we are constrained by the principle of parity and the fact that we depend on a shared IT system, but, provided that we are prepared to fund any additional costs that arise as a result of doing things differently, Northern Ireland can legislate in a manner that takes into account our regional issues. I believe that the Assembly's scrutiny of the Bill demonstrates that we are already fully engaged in that regard.

Whilst the Bill has been contentious, mostly because of the scale of the reforms being proposed, Members should reflect that the Bill, as and when it becomes law, will be only one legislative instrument amongst a vast number of statutory instruments pertaining in the field of social security. I consider that to separate out the Bill for particular scrutiny by establishing specific Committee structures would undermine the overarching role that the Committee for Social Development has in the wider social security arena.

Another issue raised during the debate at Consideration Stage related to the reporting of the implementation of the Act. I assured Mr Agnew that I would consider it further, and, having discussed it with him, I have tabled amendment No 24, which commits the Department to publishing and laying a report on the operation of the Act within three years of Royal Assent. I note that the Member has tabled amendment No 19, which is similar to mine, with the only difference being the word "independent" again. On the issue of independence, I reiterate that the Department already has significant checks and balances to ensure its objectivity and gathers sufficient data to report on the Bill without the need for the additional cost of producing an independent report. I made comments on that during the previous debate.

Over the past two years, my Department has published a series of impact studies on each of the major reforms, and I can assure Members that that programme of research will continue as we move through the implementation process. Any reports on welfare reform produced by my Department will use data produced by the Northern Ireland Research and Statistics Agency, which, as Members are aware, is governed by the national rules on the use of official statistics. As part of the future research programme in DSD, officials are considering how best to assess the longer-term impact of the changes to the welfare system. It is expected that any study of that will need to involve a number of other Departments, particularly on issues such as poverty and public health.

I believe that the important point with these amendments is that the Assembly will put in place a statutory duty for a report to be produced on the impact of welfare reform and that Members will have the opportunity to debate the content of those reports. I am sure that the Assembly will wish to be assured that any such report is comprehensive and is based on robust information sources. I am not convinced by the argument that by putting into statute the term "independent" in front of the report will ensure that the Assembly receives a report that meets that criteria. I will certainly wish to involve independent experts in helping shape the overall evaluation strategy for welfare reform, and, indeed, my Department may commission some independent groups to carry out some research.

The Bill as drafted already contains various reporting requirements, such as to publish reports on the operation of assessments for personal independence payment. That is in clause 90. It also requires reports on the standards of decision-making and payment accuracy and on the operation of sanctions for universal credit, jobseeker's allowance, income support and employment and support allowance. That is in clause 121. I will consider, in conjunction with my officials, how best any composite report can reflect the views that have been expressed. While I know that Members will not be completely satisfied with that, I hope that the assurances that I have given will at least go some way to placing on record my commitment and that of my Department as to how we will deal with those issues.

I will turn to amendment No 25, which is new clause 132D.

The Member mentioned that I was giving this more thought. In a sense, I want to revisit the issue. The new clause provides that the standards and quality of decision-making on sanctions will be monitored by the social security joint standards committee on an annual basis. It also provides for the committee to report on the standards and quality of decision-making on sanctions.

What needs to be rehearsed at this juncture is that the JSC is tasked with reporting on standards of decision-making — that is payment accuracy. The technical accuracy refers to payments, which are clearly a mathematical calculation. However, the JSC also looks at standards of decision-making. However, in light of what the Member has said about his concerns, I am happy, as a result of his comments on the reports that have already been carried out and the issues that he highlighted, to undertake a review of the working of the process over the next number of months to satisfy myself that we can attain high standards of decision-making and to look not only at the accuracy of those decision-making processes but at the standards, including the quality of those decisions. While that may not change the view of the Member, I trust that he will take what is offered in good faith, and it will give me satisfaction and assurance that this is not just a cold paper exercise but has validity and importance.

In conclusion, I place on record my thanks and appreciation to all those who have taken part today. I want to say this: I worked extremely hard to ensure that there was no need for petitions of concern today. I have endeavoured over the last period — maybe not as extensively as Members would have wished but within the time constraints that have been placed on me — to do what could be done at Further Consideration Stage. I also thank the Chair, Deputy Chair and members of the Social Development Committee for their contributions to today's proceedings. I look forward to continuing to work with the Committee through what will be a long process. It is not the case that, once the Bill has been passed and given Royal Assent, Members can take their ease. I also thank my officials for all their hard work over many hours and the many documents that they have produced for me and others, including the Committee, which have provided all the relevant information to the Assembly and is available for others. I place my appreciation of their hard work on record.

Photo of Steven Agnew Steven Agnew Green 9:30, 24 February 2015

Given the late hour, I will try to be brief. I will conclude by thanking the Bill Office for their work on the amendments, both at Consideration Stage and Further Consideration Stage. As mentioned by Mr Attwood, the way in which we do legislation here means that there is a short period to work on such amendments. Certainly, there was not a single amendment that I could not bring forward due to lack of time, thanks to the hard work of the Bill Office.

It will be those outside the Chamber who will judge who, in the overall debate today, has been genuine and upfront about the changes being put through by the Assembly. The Stormont House Agreement was raised on numerous occasions. Parties will also be judged by those outside the Chamber on their role during and since the Stormont House negotiations.

I will speak very briefly on the amendments. I welcome the Minister's tabling of an amendment to report within three years of Royal Assent. I intend to move my amendment with the word "independent". We will agree to disagree on that, but I appreciate that he has sought to meet me halfway on the proposal that I tabled at Consideration Stage. That should be acknowledged. It is important that such significant legislation be reported on. An independent report would give the public more confidence. I suspect that outside agencies will produce reports on the Welfare Reform Act anyway, so it will be interesting to see how the Department takes forward the reporting process, subject to the outcome of the votes after the debate.

The Minister has given a commitment to Mr Attwood and the SDLP should their amendment not be passed. The Minister is well aware of my concerns and those of many others about the sanctions regime and how it will be implemented. It is important that we remain vigilant. The sanctions regime has the potential to drive people into severe destitution and reliance on food banks. Whilst I disagree with the system, it should be applied correctly and fairly; it should not be used as a way of cutting the welfare bill. I welcome the Minister's commitment on those issues and to ensuring the accuracy and standards of the sanctions regime.

That concludes my remarks on the group 2 amendments. I thank all those who contributed to the debate and gave consideration to my amendments and all the others that were debated today.

Question, That amendment No 5 be made, put and negatived.

Amendment No 6 not moved.

Photo of Mitchel McLaughlin Mitchel McLaughlin Speaker

I will not call amendment No 7 as it is consequential to amendment Nos 5 and 6, the first of which was not made and the second of which was not moved.

Clause 47 (Sanctions)

Amendment Nos 8 to 10 not moved.

Clause 70 (Housing benefit: determination of appropriate maximum)

Amendment No 11 proposed:

In page 56, line 32, at end insert

<BR/>

&quot;(6) Regulations may not provide for the reduction of an existing award where a claimant declines the offer of suitable alternative accommodation.&quot;. — [Mr Attwood.]

Question put, That amendment No 11 be made. The Assembly divided:

<SPAN STYLE="font-style:italic;"> Ayes 12; Noes 69

AYES

Mr Agnew, Mr Attwood, Mr D Bradley, Mr Eastwood, Mrs D Kelly, Dr McDonnell, Mr McGlone, Mrs McKevitt, Mr McKinney, Mr A Maginness, Mr Ramsey, Mr Rogers

Tellers for the Ayes: Mr McGlone, Mrs McKevitt

NOES

Mr Anderson, Mr Beggs, Mr Bell, Mr Boylan, Ms Boyle, Ms P Bradley, Mr Brady, Mr Buchanan, Mrs Cameron, Mrs Cochrane, Mr Craig, Mr Cree, Mr Dickson, Mrs Dobson, Mr Douglas, Mr Dunne, Mr Easton, Mr Elliott, Dr Farry, Ms Fearon, Mr Flanagan, Mrs Foster, Mr Frew, Mr Gardiner, Mr Girvan, Mr Givan, Mr Hamilton, Mr Hazzard, Mr Humphrey, Mr Irwin, Mr G Kelly, Mr Kinahan, Mr Lynch, Mr McAleer, Mr McCallister, Mr F McCann, Ms J McCann, Mr McCartney, Mr McCausland, Ms McCorley, Mr B McCrea, Mr I McCrea, Mr McElduff, Ms McGahan, Mr M McGuinness, Mr D McIlveen, Miss M McIlveen, Mr McKay, Mr McMullan, Mr McQuillan, Mr Maskey, Mr Milne, Mr Moutray, Mr Nesbitt, Ms Ní Chuilín, Mr Ó hOisín, Mr Ó Muilleoir, Mr O'Dowd, Mrs O'Neill, Mrs Overend, Mr Poots, Mr G Robinson, Mr P Robinson, Mr Ross, Ms Ruane, Mr Spratt, Mr Storey, Mr Swann, Mr Weir

Tellers for the Noes: Mr McQuillan, Mr G Robinson

Question accordingly negatived.

Clause 78 (Pilot scheme)

Amendment No 12 made:

In page 59, line 6, leave out &quot;making personal independence payments&quot; and insert &quot;personal independence payment&quot;. — [Mr Storey (The Minister for Social Development).]

Clause 81 (Ability to carry out daily living activities or mobility activities)

Amendment No 13 made:

In page 60, line 32, leave out subsection (3). — [Mr Storey (The Minister for Social Development).]

Photo of Mitchel McLaughlin Mitchel McLaughlin Speaker

Amendment No 14 has already been debated and is consequential to amendment No 13, which was made.

Amendment No 14 made:

In page 60, line 39, leave out paragraph (c) and insert

<BR/>

&quot;(c) must provide for relevant medical evidence to be taken into account in assessing a person and may make provision about other matters which are, or are not, to be taken into account.&quot;. — [Mr Storey (The Minister for Social Development).]

Clause 89 (Claims, awards and information)

Amendment No 15 proposed:

In page 64, line 24, at end insert



&quot;(3A) A person entitled to personal independence payment shall receive the award no later than 16 weeks after the date on which a claim for it is made or treated as made.&quot;. — [Mr Agnew.]

Photo of Mitchel McLaughlin Mitchel McLaughlin Speaker

I have been advised by the party Whips, in accordance with Standing Order 27(1A)(b), that there is agreement that we can dispense with the three-minute rule and move straight to the Division.

Question put, That amendment No 15 be made. The Assembly divided:

<SPAN STYLE="font-style:italic;"> Ayes 12; Noes 69

AYES

Mr Agnew, Mr Attwood, Mr D Bradley, Mr Eastwood, Mrs D Kelly, Dr McDonnell, Mr McGlone, Mrs McKevitt, Mr McKinney, Mr A Maginness, Mr Ramsey, Mr Rogers

Tellers for the Ayes: Mr Agnew, Mr A Maginness

NOES

Mr Anderson, Mr Beggs, Mr Bell, Mr Boylan, Ms Boyle, Ms P Bradley, Mr Brady, Mr Buchanan, Mrs Cameron, Mrs Cochrane, Mr Craig, Mr Cree, Mr Dickson, Mrs Dobson, Mr Douglas, Mr Dunne, Mr Easton, Mr Elliott, Dr Farry, Ms Fearon, Mr Flanagan, Mrs Foster, Mr Frew, Mr Gardiner, Mr Girvan, Mr Givan, Mr Hamilton, Mr Hazzard, Mr Humphrey, Mr Irwin, Mr G Kelly, Mr Kinahan, Mr Lynch, Mr McAleer, Mr McCallister, Mr F McCann, Ms J McCann, Mr McCartney, Mr McCausland, Ms McCorley, Mr B McCrea, Mr I McCrea, Mr McElduff, Ms McGahan, Mr M McGuinness, Mr D McIlveen, Miss M McIlveen, Mr McKay, Mr McMullan, Mr McQuillan, Mr Maskey, Mr Milne, Mr Moutray, Mr Nesbitt, Ms Ní Chuilín, Mr Ó hOisín, Mr Ó Muilleoir, Mr O'Dowd, Mrs O'Neill, Mrs Overend, Mr Poots, Mr G Robinson, Mr P Robinson, Mr Ross, Ms Ruane, Mr Spratt, Mr Storey, Mr Swann, Mr Weir

Tellers for the Noes: Mr McQuillan, Mr G Robinson

Question accordingly negatived.

New Clause

Amendment No 16 not moved.

New Clause

Amendment No 17 proposed:

After clause 120 insert

<BR/>

&quot;Duty to ensure access to independent advice


 


120A.—(1) The Department shall ensure that any person making a claim under this Act shall be entitled to have access to independent confidential advice and assistance provided free of charge in relation to making a claim under this Act.


 


(2) For the purposes of subsection (1) the Department must bring forward guidance on the independent confidential advice and assistance which is to be developed in consultation with the Northern Ireland Advice Services Consortium, within 3 months of the commencement of this section.&quot;. — [Mr Attwood.]

Question put, That amendment No 17 be made. The Assembly divided:

Ayes 21; Noes 59

AYES

Mr Agnew, Mr Attwood, Mr Beggs, Mr D Bradley, Mr Cree, Mrs Dobson, Mr Eastwood, Mr Elliott, Mr Gardiner, Mrs D Kelly, Mr Kinahan, Dr McDonnell, Mr McGlone, Mrs McKevitt, Mr McKinney, Mr A Maginness, Mr Nesbitt, Mrs Overend, Mr Ramsey, Mr Rogers, Mr Swann

Tellers for the Ayes: Mr A Maginness, Mr McGlone

NOES

Mr Anderson, Mr Bell, Mr Boylan, Ms Boyle, Ms P Bradley, Mr Brady, Mr Buchanan, Mrs Cameron, Mrs Cochrane, Mr Craig, Mr Dickson, Mr Douglas, Mr Dunne, Mr Easton, Ms Fearon, Mr Flanagan, Mrs Foster, Mr Frew, Mr Girvan, Mr Givan, Mr Hamilton, Mr Hazzard, Mr Humphrey, Mr Irwin, Mr G Kelly, Mr Lynch, Mr McAleer, Mr McCallister, Mr F McCann, Ms J McCann, Mr McCartney, Mr McCausland, Ms McCorley, Mr B McCrea, Mr I McCrea, Mr McElduff, Ms McGahan, Mr M McGuinness, Mr D McIlveen, Miss M McIlveen, Mr McKay, Mr McMullan, Mr McQuillan, Mr Maskey, Mr Milne, Mr Moutray, Ms Ní Chuilín, Mr Ó hOisín, Mr Ó Muilleoir, Mr O'Dowd, Mrs O'Neill, Mr Poots, Mr G Robinson, Mr P Robinson, Mr Ross, Ms Ruane, Mr Spratt, Mr Storey, Mr Weir

Tellers for the Noes: Mr McQuillan, Mr G Robinson

Question accordingly negatived.

Clause 121 (Reports by Department)

Amendment No 18 made:

In page 88, line 26, leave out &quot;and&quot; and insert



&quot;(aa) the standards of advice and assistance provided under section 132B of the Welfare Reform Act (Northern Ireland) 2015; and&quot;. — [Mr Storey (The Minister for Social Development).]

New Clause

Amendment No 19 proposed:

After clause 121 insert



&quot;Duty to report on operation of this Act


 


121A.—(1) The Department must, not later than 3 years after this Act receives Royal Assent, publish an independent report on the operation of this Act.


 


(2) The Department must lay the report before the Assembly.&quot;. — [Mr Agnew.]

Question put, That amendment No 19 be made. The Assembly divided:

Ayes 12; Noes 69

AYES

Mr Agnew, Mr Attwood, Mr D Bradley, Mr Eastwood, Mrs D Kelly, Dr McDonnell, Mr McGlone, Mrs McKevitt, Mr McKinney, Mr A Maginness, Mr Ramsey, Mr Rogers

Tellers for the Ayes: Mr Agnew, Mr A Maginness

NOES

Mr Anderson, Mr Beggs, Mr Bell, Mr Boylan, Ms Boyle, Ms P Bradley, Mr Brady, Mr Buchanan, Mrs Cameron, Mrs Cochrane, Mr Craig, Mr Cree, Mr Dickson, Mrs Dobson, Mr Douglas, Mr Dunne, Mr Easton, Mr Elliott, Dr Farry, Ms Fearon, Mr Flanagan, Mrs Foster, Mr Frew, Mr Gardiner, Mr Girvan, Mr Givan, Mr Hamilton, Mr Hazzard, Mr Humphrey, Mr Irwin, Mr G Kelly, Mr Kinahan, Mr Lynch, Mr McAleer, Mr McCallister, Mr F McCann, Ms J McCann, Mr McCartney, Mr McCausland, Ms McCorley, Mr B McCrea, Mr I McCrea, Mr McElduff, Ms McGahan, Mr M McGuinness, Mr D McIlveen, Miss M McIlveen, Mr McKay, Mr McMullan, Mr McQuillan, Mr Maskey, Mr Milne, Mr Moutray, Mr Nesbitt, Ms Ní Chuilín, Mr Ó hOisín, Mr Ó Muilleoir, Mr O'Dowd, Mrs O'Neill, Mrs Overend, Mr Poots, Mr G Robinson, Mr P Robinson, Mr Ross, Ms Ruane, Mr Spratt, Mr Storey, Mr Swann, Mr Weir

Tellers for the Noes: Mr McQuillan, Mr G Robinson

Question accordingly negatived.

Clause 130 (Rate relief schemes: application of housing benefit law)

Amendment No 20 made:

In page 92, line 26, after &quot;housing benefit&quot; insert &quot;or universal credit&quot;. — [Mr Storey (The Minister for Social Development).]

Clause 131 (Discretionary support)

Photo of Mitchel McLaughlin Mitchel McLaughlin Speaker

Amendment No 21 has already been debated. I call Mr Alex Attwood to move the amendment formally.

Photo of Alex Attwood Alex Attwood Social Democratic and Labour Party

I thought that that amendment was consequential to the previous one. If it was not, I will move it.

Photo of Mitchel McLaughlin Mitchel McLaughlin Speaker

Can I tell you a lie?

[Laughter.]

Amendment No 21 proposed:

In page 93, line 39, at end insert

<BR/>

&quot;(6A) Regulations may not provide for the reduction of an existing award where a claimant declines the offer of alternative accommodation.&quot;. — [Mr Attwood.]

Question, That amendment No 21 be made, put and negatived.

New Clause

Amendment No 22 made:

After clause 132 insert



&quot;Payments to persons suffering financial disadvantage


 


Payments to persons suffering financial disadvantage


 


132A.—(1) The purpose of this section is to enable the Department to make payments to persons who suffer financial disadvantage as a result of the changes to social security benefits and tax credits contained in this Act and the Welfare Reform Act 2012.


 


(2) The Department may by regulations make provision for the purpose mentioned in subsection (1).


 


(3) Regulations under this section may in particular make provision —


 


(a) for determining whether a person has suffered financial disadvantage as a result of the changes mentioned in subsection (1) and, if so, the amount of that disadvantage;


 


(b) for determining eligibility for payments, including provision for payments to be made only in prescribed circumstances or only to persons who meet prescribed conditions;


 


(c) for determining —


 


(i) the amount of payments;


 


(ii) the period or periods for or in respect of which payments are to be made;


 


(d) for claims for payments to be made in prescribed cases and in the prescribed form and manner and for the procedures to be followed in dealing with and disposing of such claims;


 


(e) for payments to be made in prescribed cases without any claim being made;


 


(f) imposing conditions on persons claiming or receiving payments, including conditions requiring them to provide to the Department such information as may be prescribed;


 


(g) for payments to cease to be made in prescribed circumstances;


 


(h) for the disclosure of information relating to payments in prescribed circumstances or to prescribed persons;


 


(i) for the recovery of payments by the Department in prescribed circumstances;


 


(j) requiring or authorising reviews (whether by the Department or by prescribed persons) of decisions made by the Department with respect to the making or recovery of payments;


 


(k) imposing functions on a statutory body other than the Department in connection with the administration of the regulations;


 


(l) for such other matters as appear to the Department to be necessary or appropriate in connection with the making of payments including provision creating criminal offences and provision amending or applying (with or without modification) any statutory provision.


 


(4) Payments are not to be regarded as a social security benefit; but regulations under this section may provide for any statutory provision relating to a social security benefit (or to such benefits generally) to apply with prescribed modifications in relation to payments.


 


(5) The Department shall, in respect of each financial year in which payments are made, prepare and lay before the Assembly a report on the payments made in that year.


 


(6) No regulations shall be made under this section unless a draft of the regulations has been laid before, and approved by resolution of, the Assembly.


 


(7) If regulations under this section impose functions on any statutory body other than the Department, the Department must consult that body before making the regulations.


 


(8) A power conferred by this section to make regulations includes power —


 


(a) to make such incidental, supplementary, consequential or transitional provision as appears to the Department to be necessary or expedient for the purposes of those regulations;


 


(b) to provide for the Department to exercise a discretion in dealing with any matter.


 


(9) In this section?—


 


“prescribed” means prescribed by regulations under this section;


 


“payment” mean a payment under this section;


 


“statutory body” means a body established by or under a statutory provision.&quot;. — [Mr Storey (The Minister for Social Development).]

New Clause

Photo of Mitchel McLaughlin Mitchel McLaughlin Speaker

Amendment No 23 is mutually exclusive with amendment No 17, which has not been made.

Amendment No 23 made:

After clause 132 insert

<BR/>

&quot;Duties of the Department


 


Duty to ensure availability of advice and assistance


 


132B. The Department must ensure that advice and assistance are made available free of charge to persons making a claim under this Act in connection with that claim.&quot;. — [Mr Storey (The Minister for Social Development).]

New Clause

Photo of Mitchel McLaughlin Mitchel McLaughlin Speaker

Amendment No 24 is mutually exclusive with amendment No 19, which has not been made.

Amendment No 24 made:

After clause 132 insert

<BR/>

&quot;Duty to report on operation of this Act


 


132C.—(1) The Department must, not later than 3 years after this Act receives Royal Assent, publish a report on the operation of this Act.


 


(2) The Department must lay the report before the Assembly.&quot;. — [Mr Storey (The Minister for Social Development).]

New Clause

Amendment No 25 not moved.

Clause 135 (Commencement)

Photo of Mitchel McLaughlin Mitchel McLaughlin Speaker

Amendment No 26 is consequential to amendment Nos 22, 23 and 24.

Amendment No 26 made:

In clause 135, page 95, line 37, at end insert

<BR/>

&quot;( ) section 132A (payments to persons suffering financial disadvantage);


 


( ) section 132B (duty to ensure availability of advice and assistance);


 


( ) section 132C (review of this Act);&quot;. — [Mr Storey (The Minister for Social Development).]

Schedule 1 (Universal credit: supplementary regulation-making powers)

Amendment No 27 not moved.

Photo of Mitchel McLaughlin Mitchel McLaughlin Speaker

That concludes the Further Consideration Stage of the Welfare Reform Bill, and the Bill stands referred to the Speaker.