Employment and Support Allowance (Work-Related Activity) Regulations 2011

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part for the support for the general principle of what we are trying to do here. This is a component of a very large change, with quite a few moving parts. I note the accusation of the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, that the only person who has all the moving parts in their head is me. We are slowly getting it out, and this is one element of that process. As I said at the start, those people who are disabled and cannot work will get unconditional support, but we have an obligation to support large numbers of people who could get into the labour market. Many disabled people are in the labour market—not enough, but I think that the figure is around 40 per cent of those who are disabled. The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, is very fond of quoting my work, which always makes me blush with embarrassed pride. I also said in the report to which he referred that if the Government do not engage with these people, it is a dereliction of duty. One of the things that we are trying to tackle here is to stop that dereliction and help these people get back to work. I emphasise that what we are talking about is not getting people to work and sanctioning them for not working; this is about work-related activity. We are talking not about the intensive requirements of taking a job but about preparing for that process. I shall try to deal with the enormous number of questions. I am not sure that I will be able to answer all of them, just because of time and volume. One of the issues that noble Lords have raised is training. The training that we offer will provide much greater emphasis on the need for personalisation and flexibility, which my noble friends Lord German and Lady Thomas were concerned about. There are new demands on staff to do with flexibility. We will provide the products and tools to support the front line in diagnosing customer need precisely. As to decision-maker expertise and who takes these decisions, staff receive extensive training so that they are able to make decisions. They have access to comprehensive, up-to-date, clear procedures and guidance for ESA decision-making, which includes how to handle difficult situations and provide customer care. The delivery of that learning is supported by Atos Healthcare. My noble friend Lord German was concerned about how good cause would be defined. If it is too specific, it would restrict the ability of decision-makers to take into account the circumstances of individuals. However, examples of good cause include such things as caring responsibilities, attendance at court or at funerals, acute personal illness, and the availability and affordability of childcare. My noble friend raised a specific point about the parents of schoolchildren when they go through the 13-year barrier. The power to set the activity must be reasonable in the circumstances of each customer. The adviser will need to consider all the circumstances of lone parents with children aged between 13 and 16 before requiring work-related activity after school. The other key issue that my noble friend Lord German raised was that of checks and balances before any sanctioning. I remind noble Lords that the sanctioning regime here is not the tougher one that we are talking about with JSA. It is a sanctioning regime that says that some of claimants’ money will be reduced until they comply. It is a very different and much softer sanctions regime generally. Within the legal framework the adviser must reconsider the action plan at the request of the customer, if the customer feels that it is no longer appropriate. The adviser may then postpone the work-related activity that had been agreed. Clearly, when we talk about fluctuating conditions, this is exactly the kind of area where they apply. Differential pricing was raised by both my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie. I am almost reluctant to get into the detail of this; the reasons why particular groups have different prices are very detailed. The blunt answer is that we have never priced people precisely. It has not been done. We have created some categories and we will learn, as the process rolls through, how those prices really work. We had to start somewhere. We had to get some broad categories that were definable, and which we could record and analyse to get this differentiation. It is clear that it would be very tough in many cases to get the people who have been on incapacity benefit for a long time and then moved into the ESA category into work. For some it would be easier but for many it would be tougher. By and large, we have aimed to achieve price differentiation which reflects reality. I expect that that system will become much more sophisticated as it moves along. I am hopeful that we can start to apply differential pricing to groups of people who we know fall into difficult categories, and that this will help us to tackle the most difficult problems. People coming out of prison is an area where I would like to see funding focused to address the problems involved. We can debate exact pricing all day long but another factor is involved, as noble Lords will be well aware. The DEL-AME switch, on which this process is based, is acutely complex. It is a pretty simple thing to describe in theory but I do not encourage any of your Lordships to negotiate it in detail with the DWP and the Treasury. It is a very complicated matter, which it would be counterproductive to describe in detail. The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, asked a specific question about reassessment. I assure him that after the prognosis of three months or six months is made, another work capability assessment is undertaken before someone moves into the JSA category. The category on which you enter the programme is the one on which you stay. In other words, the providers have every incentive to move someone through the whole process.