The Welfare Reform Bill yesterday entered the first day of report stage in the House of  Lords after much debate during a 17-day Grand Committee stage, which ended on 28 November. The Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) also published its legislative scrutiny report on the Bill.

The first debate was on an amendment moved by Lady Meacher that would allow claimants to choose more frequent benefit payments than those envisaged by the government, whose aim is to encourage:

“out-of-work households to budget on a monthly rather than a fortnightly basis in the belief that it will better prepare people for
the reality of working life.”

Proponents of the amendment argued that the low paid workers are mainly paid weekly or fortnightly, and that a move to monthly payments would place intolerable strains on teh budgeting abilities of the poor. The amendment was defeated by two votes.

An attempt to protect the level of disability additions for children, led by Lady Grey-Thompson was defeated by a similar margin.

The final debate centred on government plans for council tax benefit. Lady Hollis introduced an amendment that sought to retain a universal system of council tax benefit, thereby blocking government plans to give a fixed-rate grant to local authorities from which they will design their own council tax rebate scheme. The amendment was defeated by 30 votes.

Human rights

The JCHR report warns that elements of the Welfare Reform Bill could be in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

It believes there is a risk that the conditionality and sanction provisions in the Bill – which could involve withdrawing benefits for up to
three years from claimants if they fail to meet certain requirements – might in some circumstances lead to destitution, contrary to Article 3 of the European ECHR, which outlaws inhuman or degrading treatment.

It also recommends allowing additional discretion to exempt disabled people facing exceptional hardship from the benefit cap and from the provisions concerning under-occupation of social housing, and suggests a trial period for certain measures.