My Lords, I do not want to delay this debate, which has been a very important one. This is the most important issue for me in the first 16 clauses. I share the frustration that has been reflected by powerful speeches from colleagues including my noble friend on the Front Bench, who made an excellent speech about the significance of the proposal in this group of amendments, particularly the breathing space provisions.
One of the reasons why this is so important is that debt, I think, is going to get worse, which is probably a realistic assumption to make for the next four or five years. I have spent my entire life working on the benefits, social security and social protection side of state provision. It is increasingly untenable that the calculation of means testing takes no account whatever of levels of benefit. People might well be applying for universal credit now, and being allowed work allowances and tapers that are appropriate to a clean sheet of paper, but no question is ever asked of decision-makers about to what extent the household debt behind the application affects the family circumstances—which affects child poverty, as the right reverend the Prelate Bishop of Newcastle just pointed out to some effect. This is the most important part of the Bill for me.
This also puzzles me because I come from Scotland and absolutely endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, said. For 10 years now, this system has been tried and tested there, and there is no doubt about the fact that it works. I know there are rumours that people in Scotland are particularly stingy and difficult when it comes to how they spend their money—particularly on the west coast of Scotland late on a Friday night—but it seems self-evident to me that
consultations with jurisdictions in other parts of the country are part of what we should be doing in a new devolved United Kingdom. I would have expected the department to go across the border to make urgent and active inquiries into exactly what ingredients in Scotland have made this successful.
Indeed, you can argue it the other way round: it is not a good thing to have this level of disparity across the United Kingdom when the body we are setting up is UK-wide. The best practice that Scotland has demonstrated is being ignored—almost wilfully, if I can put it as strongly as that—through the position the Government are taking. Both the cold calling and the breathing space provisions are popular things to do. The Government would not be attacked by anybody I would think of as reasonable on either of these two important subjects. I do not understand why the Government are not being a bit more responsive to the unanswerable claims made in powerful speeches earlier this afternoon. I think the Government will lose in this House if they do not make some amendments, and solutions have been offered.
I know Governments do not like tinkering with Long Titles. I was a Whip for long enough to learn that, and it is not something I would want to start doing a lot myself. But there is a case to be made for my noble friend’s point about the small change needed to shoehorn these two important subjects into consideration so that they can be addressed more directly—and, if I may say so, in a more adult way than we are doing at the moment by trying to look round corners and use smoke and mirrors—to achieve an objective that we all think is sensible.
My plea to the Minister, who is very good at responding to these things and considering them further, is that she carefully consider particularly the breathing space proposal. It will dog the rest of the Bill’s proceedings if the Government and the department do not offer a compromise that enables one or both of these important issues to be addressed more directly.