Peers inflicted more humiliation on the government today. But ministers have vowed to overturn all the amendments in the Commons
10.00am: Welcome to day 11 of the welfare reform bill live blog.
We are back again for the bill's third reading of the bill in the House of Lords, where peers have the opportunity to "clarify and make further undiscussed amendments" before it is sent back to the House of Commons. The third reading in the chamber is the final chance for the Lords to change the wording of the bill.
As you'll recall, the government has been defeated six times over amendments to the bill, a record thought to be unprecedented in modern times. Peers will discuss those amendments again this afternoon, though the government is adamant it will overturn all the amendments in the Commons.
The amendments are:
? Amendment 12: Protecting housing benefit for social tenants deemed to have un-needed spare rooms
? Amendment 36a: Protecting young disabled people's eligibility for contributory Employment Support Allowance (ESA)
? Amendment 38: Raising two 24 months the proposed 12-month limit on claiming contributory ESA.
? Amendment 38a: Exempting cancer patients from the contributory ESA limits
? Amendment 59: Excluding child benefit from the �26,000 household benefit cap.
? Amendment 62c: Dropping the proposal to charge single parents for using the Child Support Agency.
It is believed crossbenchers and Labour will also try to force a vote on a further amendment seeking to reduce the amount of money paid to children currently on the lower rates of disability living allowance. A separate amendment to reverse this was defeated by just two votes in the Lords in December.
We'll be examining those amendments again today, and tracking attempts to persuade ministers to accommodate changes before the bill returns to the Commons tomorrow.
11.26am: The new amendment most likely to spark drama in the Lords this afternoon seeks to reintroduce a vote on protecting benefit payments to children on lower rates of disability living allowance (DLA).
The amendment (number 1 on the official list) was, in an earlier form, defeated in the Lords in December by just two votes.
It is submitted again by the crossbenchers Baroness Meacher and Baroness Grey-Thompson, and is supported by the Labour peer Baroness Wilkins.
The disability researcher Jenny Morris has this excellent analysis of the government's proposal on her blog.
Jenny (who tweets at @jennifermor) explains:
At the moment, children in receipt of Disability Living Allowance, whose parents earn a low income or are out of work, receive a "disability addition" worth �53.62 p.w. Children in receipt of higher rate DLA receive an additional �21 p.w. on top of this. Under the new Universal Credit system, the government proposes that children in receipt of the higher-rate DLA will receive a total disability addition of �77 while children in receipt of medium and lower rates of DLA will only receive �26.75.
As Jenny points out, the government has admitted that approximately 100,000 children will be affected by the change.
Ministers say benefit payments to children have outpaced those to adults in recent years, and need to be realigned. More contentiously, as Jenny points out, they have argued that the higher child rates fail to prepare disabled youngsters for the "difficult" drop in income when they reach adulthood.
Jenny argues:
In other words, disabled children should get used to living in poverty in childhood as that is what awaits them as they move into adulthood.
The shift to a more targeted approach, focusing benefits only on the most disabled, is a constant theme of government welfare reform, Jenny points out.
Another of the government's justifications for changes to the 'disability addition' for disabled children is that it is targeting help to those who are most 'severely disabled'. This is part and parcel of the residualisation of the welfare state ? the process by which it is becoming something that only those in the greatest need can look to receive help from. This is not a social security system on which we can all rely at times of misfortune and need, something in which therefore we all have stake. Instead it is a benefit system which ? like social housing has become ? is only available to the most marginalised of social groups.
The amendment itself proposes:
Clause 10, Page 4, line 36, after "disabled" insert "such additional amount to be paid at either a higher rate, or a lower rate, which shall be no less than two-thirds of the higher rate as may be prescribed".
In other words, it proposes that the disability addition for children on lower rate of DLA should be no less than two-thirds of the �77 proposed for disabled children on higher rate DLA under Universal Credit.
Essentially, the amendment seeks to ameliorate, as far as is possible, the impact of the changes on disabled children's benefits.
12.47pm: There's been some excellent blogging and tweeting around the welfare reform bill in recent days.
I was struck by this piece by Lisa Egan (@lisybabe) on why she joined the Occupy protests against the bill in London at the weekend. (It's also a very useful guide to some of the the various bits of this wide-ranging bill.) Lisa writes:
The government is selling these reforms as being about weeding out fraud. As you can see from the four cuts I've listed, that's not the case. The cuts are about removing support from people who really need it: and I will be one of them.
Lisa, who has a condition called osteoegenesis imperfecta, goes on to explain how the disability living allowance cuts wil affect her. It's powerful stuff. Read on.
Penny, who writes the Penny's Points blog, makes some powerful points about the psychological effects of being labelled by the media and politicians as a benefits "scrounger". Here's an extract:
So what happens to us when we are bombarded every day for months and months with these issues surrounding benefits and sickness and disability?
When you are called a scrounger even though you know you're not?
When you hear of more and more disabled being abused in the street?
When you are told again and again that surely you are capable of doing 'some' work.
When you have to prove again and again that you really are sick/disabled.
When you become conditioned to expect the dreaded brown envelope?
When no one appears to be listening to you?
Do you find yourself acting differently?
Maybe just that little bit more disabled when you go out or even when you are indoors?
Is your hard-fought-for independence now a noose around your neck in case her next door thinks just because you can walk to the car today you are faking it?
Are you scared to do things that you were actually proud of yourself for still being able to do before all this?
Do you look at yourself and question if you are entitled to the support you get?
Thanks to my colleague Clare Horton, who runs the Society daily blog and the Guardian's social care network for spotting that one.
Clare also spotted this tweet, in a similar vein, by Naomi Jacobs (@naomi_jacobs):
Just had a v nasty lecture about 'scroungers' from someone because they saw my walking frame. Nice society we live in. Well done, DWP.
The formidable Declan Gaffney brilliantly takes us back to basics on the benefit cap proposals, and explains why, when it comes down to it, support for the cap in principle (which all parties assert as a matter of routine) rests on a fundamental, widespread and shabby political dishonesty:
Whether they are government ministers spouting inanities about 'fairness', Lib Dem critical friends seeking exemptions of some benefits from the cap or members of the opposition saying they support the cap in principle and want to ensure its success, their positions all derive from backroom discussion about the ignorance of the public and how best to exploit it or adapt to it.
The only truly honest proponents of the benefit cap are those who are too uninformed or too far out of the loop to be party to the backroom consensus: the only truly honest critics are those who refuse to say they support it in principle.
Follow Declan on Twitter at @djmgaffneyw4
Last but not least, here's a useful guide to today's amendments by the Labour Representation Committee on the Ekklesia website.
Please send me links and tweets with your recommendations.
3.08pm: The Lords is filling up now: we are now onto the third reading of the welfare reform bill.
The first amendment to be discussed will be one everyone is waiting for: the crossbench amendment which protects, to some extent, the additional payments currently made to children on lower rates of disability living allowance (DLA).
As I reported earlier the amendment seeks to ameliorate the effects of the government's proposals on 100,000 disabled children.
3.17pm: Baroness Meacher introduces the amendment. It's a less radical version of the one introduced at report stage, which was defeated by two votes.
She says the government's proposal will create a "cliff edge" between children on higher rate and children on the lower rate. The gap amounts to �1,300 a year, she claims. She says:
Four in every day disabled children are living in poverty so loss of income really does matter.
Shrinking the gap between higher rate and lower rate payments will help parents with essential services and care for children, from clothing to swimming lessons. She says she understands the pressure ministers are under from the Treasury. But she calls the government's proposals:
Short term fixes.
She says the amendment is seeking to ameliorate the unnaceptable impact of the proposed cuts. She asks:
Would there not be merit in leaving the higher rate at �77 so we can keep the basic level at two thirds, something like �50?
3.29pm: Baroness Wilkins, a Labour peer, points out that the �1,400 a year lost by children on lower rates amounts to a year's heating bills for a household.
If every there was robbing poor Peter to pay poor Paul surely the Treasury is able to ...find this money from the shoulders of those who would not notice the loss of �1,400 at all.
She adds:
Does the prime minister really wish to leave this as his legacy for disabled children?
Baroness Browning says the raises the notion of "disability lite". She's making the point that making artificial divisions between severely disabled and less severely disabled is often difficult.
3.40pm: Lord Wigley says as someone who lost two severely handicapped boys he knows know the cost of disability to the family.
He says the Children's Society estimates that 40% of children already live in poverty. The cuts would save the public purse millions but it would be unfair to take it from the worst off.
What will be effect of taking �200m off those who are already near to poverty? Surely, my lords that is not acceptable?
Lord Newton, a Tory peer promises an "ambivalent speech". He's rebelled before on the bill.
He supports the concerns behing the amendments.
I do think the government need to listen to and take heed and come forward with proposals that address these concerns.
But he says setting benefit rates in primary legisation is not a sensible thing to do. He would prefer ministers to decide the rates in regulations. He wants a "positive response from the minister" before he decides which way to vote.
3.49pm: Lord Peston says the question the amendment speaks to is an ethical one, that should not be treated in economic and financial terms alone.
He says ethical philosophers would be appalled by the burdens of the cuts should fall on the most vulnerable groups on society. He adds:
The government should simply not be going down this path. The minister should be ashamed of himself for trying to defend this unethical behaviour.
Baroness Howe, a crossbencher, asks the minister to give serious consideration to a compromise though she would prefer the amendment to be passed in full. She says there is "widespread support" for the amendment across all the benches.
Baroness Finlay points out that according to the Family Fund charity, 64% of families who it gave financial support to had a child on lower rate DLA.
3.54pm: Baroness Howarth says the government needs to "take the long view". She warns the minister:
If you take the short term view many of these families will fall into more disarray than they are already in.
She argues that if we are a civilised society, "appropriate funding" for disabled children is "absolutely crucial". The finance is crucial to underpin the care, love and continuity that disabled children desperately need.
4.04pm: Lord German, a Lib Dem peer, says there are concerns about levels of payments to disabled children. But like Lord Newton, he believes that the best way to work out the best levels of benefit in regulations.
Baroness Hollis rejects the notion that the amendment should be dealt with in regulations.
It is not about fixing a sum "in concrete or aspic" but establishing "a principle of proportionality" by which lower rate DLA recipients would get 2/3 of whatever sum higher rate recipients receive.
4.10pm: Lord McKenzie, the shadow welfare minister, says if the house passes the amendment it will put down a clear marker about proportionality, and prevent one group of disabled children being "played off" against another.
Lower rate recipients would see a cut of �27 a week or �1,300 a year under these proposals, he says.
He quotes the UK's children's commissioners who have warned that many more disabled children will be pushed into poverty.
4.33pm: Lord Freud responds to peers who have politely suggested that as a minister he has to be seen to agree with many of the terrible policies he has to propose but must surely, as a decent man, privately oppose.
He makes it clear he really does believe in everything he says. Cue Lordly laughter.
Freud suggests he has no worries that the proposed cuts will plunge more disabled children into poverty. He says that the impact on disabled children of the benefit reforms will be
Negligible
He says that under universal credit families with a disabled child would receive �8,000 a year in benefits on average. Baroness Hollins points out that those families currently receive �9,500.
Lord Freud responds that it is not a heavy cut. It would incentivise parents to go out to work.
A peer interjects:
How can a single mother with a severely disabled child go out to work?
Lord Freud says he will "commit to having a very close look" at peers concerns over whether the government is getting the dividing line right between higher and lower payments.
I will review this dividing line and look at this very closely and when we come to the regulations on this I will report back on exactly what we are finding.
But he is adamant that financial constraints mean that they have to push through the proposals.
He suggests that the extra costs of the six amendments passed by the Lords is �5bn. This amendment alone would be �200m - though he doesn't say whether this is in one year or over four years.
Freud says he is grateful for the house for consistently supporting universal credit and he asks the house to support him again.
4.41pm: Crossbencher Baroness Meacher says there are hundreds of thousand of families desperate about cuts to disabled children's benefits. The pressure of this is difficult to ignore.
She says while she respects Lord Freud's work, the job of the house is to ameliorate the worst effects of legislation.
She accepts that Freud has offered to revisit the amendment. But she has concerns that the Treasury will not understand the enormity of the issue unless the Lords sends a clear signal. So she goes to a vote.
I owe it to the families out there to test the opinion of the house
So, more drama in the Lords. Will it be defeat number seven for the government?
4.54pm: Defeat for the government! Content 246 Not content 230
That's yet another humiliation for the government. That's now seven defeats on the welfare reform bill in the Lords. This sends a very clear message to ministers when the bill returns to the Commons tomorrow.
But will they listen?
More reaction and analysis soon.
5.51pm: The Lords have now returned to welfare reform bill business, but the chamber is a lot emptier now, which suggests many peers have felt they have done their bit for today, although I'm hearing there may be another vote later.
Here's some reaction:
humphreycushion tweets
Dear government, the Lords and your country are trying to tell you something
Meanwhile, Hephaestus7 strikes a note of caution:
In spite of the gov't suffering 7 defeats on #WRB, I'm worried that the rule of 'privilege' could be used tomorrow 2 overturn the amendments
I spoke to a Labour Lords insider who said:
Seven defeats [for the government] is unprecented. You could say that if you consider the Lib Dem, Tory and Crossbench rebellions, the government has lost the House of Lords on this.
That's plausible. But will the government listen?
6.03pm: There is speculation that the Lords may go to another vote later this evening, on amendment 14, a Labour amendment which notes that the bill currently has no requirement for the government to publish a child poverty strategy.
This amendment would force them to do it. It states
Page 109, line 4, at end insert?
"( ) Nothing in subsections (1) to (5) have the effect of changing the requirement in the Child Poverty Act 2010 for the Secretary of State to publish and lay before Parliament a UK Child Poverty Strategy and to describe the progress that he considers necessary?
(a) to meet each of the targets in sections 3 to 6 of that Act in order to reach these targets by the end of the target year; and
(b) the progress he intends to make in the period covered by the Strategy to ensure that so far as possible children do not experience socio-economic disadvantage."
It suspect that is a long shot.
6.12pm: The voting on amendment one (the government's seventh defeat) has now been published. Here's the official breakdown of the 246 peers who voted for it:
Bishops 2
Conservative 2
Crossbench 61
Labour 168
Lib Dem 7
Other 6
The two Tories who rebelled were Lord Swinfen, and Lord Campbell of Alloway.
The Lib Dems who voted against the government were:
Lord Avebury
Lord Carlile
Baroness Doocey
Baroness Linklater
Lord Smith of Clifton
Baroness Tonge
The breakdown suggests a medium-sized Lib Dem rebellion, by the standards of this bill.
It also shows the Labour whipping operation was again successful, although strangely, a Labour peer voted with the government: Lord Leitch.
6.23pm: Lord McKenzie is now moving amendment 14. He wonders if the the government will publish updates to the Child Poverty strategy.
Baroness Lister rises to argue that the child poverty targets are important in enabling us to know what progress the government is making on this target and what progress it intends to make.
Lord Freud says the secretary of state will still have a duty to set out a strategy every three years, with details of how it will it will be met, and the govenrment will do it
He says:
The government remains commited to eradicating child poverty
He says he cannot accept the amendment. He calls it "unneccessary and unhelpful."
6.29pm: Lord McKenzie says that on amendment 14 he is "minded not to press the matter this evening". He acccepts Lord Freud's assurance that the government is not trying to change the nature of the Child Poverty act.
That means no more votes tonight.
6.33pm: The Children's Society has put out a statement on the government's defeat tonight:
Enver Solomon, Policy Director at The Children's Society, said:
"The Lords have shown their support for disabled children and sent a strong message to the government not to remove this vital lifeline.
"The Lords have voted to prevent cuts of up to �1,400 for as many as 100,000 disabled children each year. This could have a massive impact on day-to-day living for families with disabled children, including buying essentials like food and clothes.
"Our analysis shows that 40 per cent of disabled children live in poverty, a far higher proportion than other children. Poverty from an early age could have a devastating effect on the lives of so many disabled children.
"Their well-being is of vital importance and the Lords have shown their commitment to that by defeating the government."
You can read the report on which it bases its claim that 40% of disabled children live in poverty here.
6.55pm: More response to that seventh defeat for the government in the Lords.
Labour's Lord Bassam (@SteveTheQuip) tweets:
Worst run of Govt defeats for Govt in Lords since General election.Given they have political majority of 70 that is quite an achievement.
He adds:
Minister could not assure the House he would protect disabled children from cuts. That's why Govt lost.
A wry tweet from Declan Gaffney, (@djmgaffneyw4) reflecting on the media's tendency to focus its reporting of the bill on the benefit cap.
I make it 4 defeats on disability, 1 on HB, 1 CSA & 1 cap. Will we see that pattern reflected in coverage of #wrb? #enoughaboutthecapalready
6.58pm: The Department for Work and Pensions has confirmed that, yes, it will seek to overturn this evening's defeat in the Commons:
A DWP spokesperson said:
"The present system of disability support is a tangled mess of premiums and add-ons which is highly prone to error and baffling for people to understand.
"Under our reforms, support will be focused on the most severely disabled people. It will create a simpler and fairer system and transitional protection will ensure that people will not receive less as a result of their move to Universal Credit - where circumstances remain the same."
7.33pm: That's it for Day 11 of the welfare reform live blog, in which we saw the government suffer its seventh defeat in the Lords, this time over proposals to cut benefit payments for disabled children on lower rate disability living allowance.
You can see the Hansard account of this afternoon's debates here.
The bill returns to the Commons on Wednesday, where the government has threatened to overturn all the defeats.
That may result in "ping pong" as the bill goes back and forth between the Commons and the Lords. Lord Freud, the welfare minister, intimated as much tonight when he said:
I don't think we have seen the last of this Bill.
Thanks for all your comments and tweets today.
We'll be back in the morning with full coverage of the day's events.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/blog/2012/jan/31/welfare-poverty
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