The Welfare Reform Act 2007 (c.5) is an Act

Act of Parliament

An Act of Parliament is a statute enacted as primary legislation by a national or sub-national parliament. In the Republic of Ireland the term Act of the Oireachtas is used, and in the United States the term Act of Congress is used.In Commonwealth countries, the term is used both in a narrow...

 of the Parliament of the United Kingdom

Parliament of the United Kingdom

The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...

 which alters the British social security system. A number of sections come into force two months after royal assent and the first commencement order made under the Act specified that section 31 came into force on 1 November 2007.

The green paper

The green paper is available as a .pdf document from the links at the end of the article.

The Government's objectives for the Act, as stated in the green paper

Green paper

In the Commonwealth, the Republic of Ireland and the United States a green paper is a tentative government report of a proposal without any commitment to action; the first step in changing the law...

 were to:

• Reach 80% employment amongst all people of working age (it was just shy of 75% when the paper was released).
• To reduce the numbers claiming incapacity benefit by 1 million (from 2.7 million at the time). This was later stated to be achieved "within a decade"
• To help 300,000 lone parents back into work.
• To increase the number of older workers, aged fifty or over, in work by 1 million.

Provisions, aims and criticisms of the Act

The Act is wide-ranging and affects a large swathe of the population, particularly those dependent on housing benefit and those suffering from physical and mental ill health and disability.

Changes to provision of Housing Benefit

The Local Housing Allowance

Local Housing Allowance

Local Housing Allowance was introduced on 7 April 2008 to provide Housing Benefit entitlement for tenants renting private sector accommodation in England and Wales. The LHA system introduced significant changes to the way Housing Benefit levels are restricted and how benefit is paid...

 method of assessing benefit will be applied across the de-regulated private rented sector

Private rented sector

The Private Rented Sector is a classification of UK housing tenure as described by the Department for Communities and Local Government, a UK government department that has amongst its remit the monitoring of the UK housing stock.Other classifications are:...

 nationwide.

Currently housing benefit is sent directly to landlords, not the tenants. The Act will change this so that rent money is paid to the tenant who will then be expected to pay this to the landlord. One of the stated motivations for this change is that it will give tenants an appreciation of the sums involved in their benefit claims and this will foster greater social responsibility. Criticism of this change has focused on vulnerable people such as drug addicted people (who may find the temptation of finding alternative uses for the money too great to withstand) and those with mental health problems (who may find the new responsibility difficult or impossible to fulfil).

The Act also introduces a housing benefit sanction for those who are found guilty of anti-social behaviour

Anti-social behaviour

Anti-social behaviour is behaviour that lacks consideration for others and that may cause damage to society, whether intentionally or through negligence, as opposed to pro-social behaviour, behaviour that helps or benefits society...

; benefit can be withdrawn and/or the tenants can be evicted.

Abolition of Incapacity Benefit

The Act replaces Incapacity Benefit

Incapacity benefit

Incapacity Benefit is a United Kingdom state benefit that is paid to those below the State Pension age who cannot work because of illness or disability and have made National Insurance contributions. It is administered by Jobcentre Plus...

 with a new benefit, Employment and Support Allowance

Employment and Support Allowance

Employment and Support Allowance is a UK Government State Benefit which replaced new claims for Incapacity Benefit and Income Support on the basis of incapacity for work for most claimants from 27 October 2008. Initially, claimants already receiving Incapacity Benefit continued to receive it as...

. The new benefit will require that regular effort is made by (non-exempted) claimants to seek work or take part in work-related assessments and regularly meet with an advisor. Those failing to do so may see a reduction of their benefit.

The medicals carried out to see who is eligible for the benefit will be made more stringent.

Criticism of the changes has been broad. Charities working with vulnerable people have welcomed the Government's pledge to assist the disabled into work but are concerned that there is a lack of funding for this support and that, in the end, there will be more coercion than help. Critics are broadly in agreement that employers remain very wary of taking on disabled or mentally ill people and much more needs to be done to change this.

Older people and single mothers

The stated aims of the legislation were to increase the numbers of older people (50+) and single mothers in employment - two groups that face particular difficulties in returning to work.

External links

• The Welfare Reform Act 2007, as amended from the National Archives.
• The Welfare Reform Act 2007, as originally enacted from the National Archives.
• Explanatory notes to the Welfare Reform Act 2007.

Structure

The links in this section include only primary documents relating to the debate within Parliament.

They are carefully laid out in the following manner; they are firstly ordered chronologically and then bulleted according to document type:

• Headings
  • Hansard transcriptions of debates.
    • Parliamentary briefing documents and other primary sources.

Documents

• Leading up to legislation
  • Lords - debate on 2001 Queen's Speech which included proposals for welfare reform - 25 June 2001
  • Commons - debate on Welfare Reform and Incapacity Benefit (pressure is increasing for the release of a Green Paper) - 22 November 2005
• Green Paper
  • The Green Paper: The new deal for welfare: Empowering people to work. (PDF)
  • Commons - debate on the Welfare Reform Green Paper - 24 January 2006
    • House of Commons Work and Pensions Committee - Incapacity Benefits and Pathways to Work - Volume II: Oral and Written Evidence - 26 April 2006
    • Inquiry into Incapacity Benefits and Pathways to Work (PDF)
• Bill: Commons Second Reading
  • Commons - second reading - 24 July 2006
    • Mind (mental health charity) - parliamentary briefing - second reading (PDF).
    • Disability Consortium (comprising RNIB, RNID, MENCAP, Scope and others) - parliamentary briefing - Second Reading - 24 July 2006
    • Age Concern parliamentary briefing - 24 July 2006 (PDF)
    • Citizen's Advice Bureau - parliamentary briefing - Second reading: House of Commons - 5 January 2007
  • Lords - debate on the Queen's Speech which included proposals for welfare reform - 21 November 2006
• Committee
  • Committee Stage - 28-30 November 2006
• Bill: Commons Third reading
  • Commons - debate on clause 3 'assessment of limited capability for work' - 9 January 2007
  • Commons - debate on clause 7 'participation on work-focused interviews - 9 January 2007
  • Commons - debate on clause 8 'limited capability for work' - 9 January 2007
  • Commons - debate on clause 29 'local housing allowance' - 9 January 2007
  • Commons - debate on clause 35 'supply of information by rent officers' - 9 January 2007
• Lords - First Reading
  • Lords - first reading - 10 January 2007
    • Northern Ireland Assembly - debate - 23 January 2007
      • The assembly debates the motion "That this Assembly expresses deep concern about the implications of the Welfare Reform Bill, particularly the introduction of a new coercive regime into benefit administration, and its impact on a number of vulnerable groups, including neurological patients." The motion passes.
• Lords - Second Reading
  • Lords - second reading - 29 January 2007
    • Citizen's Advice Bureau - parliamentary briefing - Second reading: House of Lords - 2 February 2007
    • Macmillan Cancer Support - Parliamentary briefing - 14 February 2007
  • Lords - 5 March 2007
    • The Freud Report: ‘Reducing Dependency, Increasing Opportunity: options for the future of welfare to work,’ - 5 March 2007
• Lords Report Stage - 19 March 2007
  • Lords - clause 1 'employment support allowance'
  • Lords - clause 10 'work focused health related assessments'
  • Lords - clause 25 'parliamentary control'
    • Citizen's Advice Bureau parliamentary briefing - Report stage: House of Lords - 23 March 2007
• Bill: Lords Third Reading - 27 March 2007
  • Lords - clause 11 'work focused health related assessments'
  • Commons - Lords amendment no.1 - 2 May 2007

• Undated: Barnardos' response to welfare new deal (PDF)

Press: Opinion pieces and editorials

• Once Labour was proud to be the party of the poor. Now it's the party of perpetual poverty... - Melanie Phillips
  Melanie Phillips
  Melanie Phillips is a British journalist and author. She began her career on the left of the political spectrum, writing for such publications as The Guardian and New Statesman. In the 1990s she moved to the right, and she now writes for the Daily Mail newspaper, covering political and social...
  
   - The Daily Mail - January 4, 2006.
  • "Tinkering with the system won't solve it; watering down the tinkering turns pusillanimity into a joke."
• No more talk of scroungers. It's a victory for civilisation. - Polly Toynbee
  Polly Toynbee
  Polly Toynbee is a British journalist and writer, and has been a columnist for The Guardian newspaper since 1998. She is a social democrat and broadly supports the Labour Party, while urging it in many areas to be more left-wing...
  
  , The Guardian
  The Guardian
  The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
  
   - January 10, 2006.
  • "Now No 10 is in danger of sounding tougher than the Tories who have just demanded incapacity benefits should not be slashed."
• A shocking failure of courage and realism that continues to damage our society. - The Daily Telegraph
  The Daily Telegraph
  The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
  
   - January 25, 2006.
  • "a shocking failure of the British body politic, a failure of courage and realism. And it continues to be profoundly damaging to the character of British society."
• A doleful tale from which no one benefits - Libby Purves
  Libby Purves
  Libby Purves OBE is a British radio presenter, journalist and author. A diplomat's daughter, she was educated at convent schools in Israel, Bangkok, South Africa and France, and then Beechwood Sacred Heart School in Tunbridge Wells.Purves won a scholarship to St Anne's College, Oxford, where she...
  
   - The Times
  The Times
  The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
  
  - March 6, 2007.
  • "those who brandish carrots and sticks and hair-clippers must understand that often their enemy is a fatalistic state of mind which, though unhelpful, is explicable."