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Welfare Reform Bill suffers three heavy defeats in the House of Lords amidst success of the Spartacus Report campaign
The government suffered an extraordinary threefold defeat on its Welfare Reform Bill in the House of Lords last night (11 January 2012), as campaigners and peers combined successfully to oppose cuts that would hit sick, vulnerable and disabled people particularly badly.
With a few exceptions, the Liberal Democrats voted with the government as they generally have throughout the divisions in the Lords on the welfare bill, but their support was overwhelmed by a big turnout from Labour and crossbenchers. Crossbenchers Lord Patel and Baroness Meacher, and Labour peer Baroness Lister, were among those who fought an expert rearguard action against the coalition, with a few Liberal Democrats also rebelling. Crossbenchers have also been furiously lobbied by disability campaigners arguing that they should not be made to suffer for the economic crisis.
The votes are a huge triumph for Sue Marsh, Dr Sarah Campbell, Kaliya Franklin, and other disabled activists and researchers who, this Monday, published the ‘Responsible Reform’ report (#SpartacusReport). This research document caused an Internet sensation with their #spartacusreport campaign, as it galvanised charities, NGOs, politicians from all parties, churches, medical professionals and public figures into lobbying for a substantial rethink on welfare reform. Peers and MPs were subsequently inundated with pleas to stop welfare and disability cuts this morning, with thousands of copies of the report exposing the sham of the government’s consultation on Disability Living Allowance (DLA) being sent on to decision-makers and policy experts. The Catholic Archbishop of Southwark, Peter Smith, also expressed serious concern.
Plans to means-test employment and support allowance (ESA) payments for disabled people after only a year were rejected by peers. The means test would have applied to cancer patients and stroke survivors, and was denounced by Lord Patel, a crossbencher and former President of the Royal College of Obstetricians, as an immoral attack on the sick, the vulnerable and the poor. “If we are going to rob the poor to pay the rich, then we enter into a different form of morality,” He also said: “I am sympathetic to cutting the deficit, but I am highly sympathetic to sick and vulnerable people not being subjected to something that will make their lives even more miserable.”
The government was defeated by 224 votes to 186, even though Lord Freud, the welfare minister, claimed that the cost of the amendment would be £1.6bn spread over five years. The other defeats were over plans to time-limit ESA for those undergoing cancer treatment, and to restrict access to ESA for young people with disabilities or illness. Lord Freud countered that the 365-day time limit was not arbitrary and was similar to limits imposed in France, Ireland and Spain, and struck a “reasonable balance between the needs of sick, disabled people claiming benefit and those who have to contribute towards the cost”.
The defeats do not augur well for the government’s chances in future votes in the Lords on the bill, which includes housing benefit caps. The bill is at report stage before returning to the Commons.
In addition to last night’s humiliating defeat, the Conservative Mayor of London has been revealed to have opposed disability cuts; major charities, the TUC, the thinktank Ekklesia and others are calling for a legislative pause; and both the Scottish Government and the Welsh Assembly are declining to pass the traditional consent legislation for the UK parliament on the Welfare Reform Bill.
The House of Commons has the power to reverse the Lords amendments. Royal Assent is currently timed for March 2012.
First LegalAware Blog Cabin of 2012
2012 seemed to start suddenly, with the media deciding which stories they wished to pursue.
One of the stories ‘selected’ by mainstream media was the removal of breast implants in England. The story is essentially this. There have been an increasing number of reports over the safety of breast implants manufactured and supplied by the French company Poly Implant Prothèse (PIP). These implants have been alleged to have a potential rupture failure rate of 7%, and to have been manufactured (for cost cutting reasons) using industrial as opposed to medical grade silicone, amongst other materials. Mike Farrell, in his ‘Law Blog One‘, an interesting blog which has now reached its first anniversary, considered the situation both in terms of breach of contract and in terms of common negligence. Outside the scope of his discussion was when a defendant might run a concurrent claim under contract and tort in litigation, but the discussion was indeed an interesting one. The discussion could be expanded, pardon the pun, with a due consideration of remedies, including damages.
The media decided not to cover the #SpartacusReport, a Report looking at the views of disabled stakeholders looking at the proposed reforms of welfare system in the Welfare Reform Bill. Various excuses were offered by anchors in the news as to why this was not newsworthy, despite trending for most of the day on Twitter, compared to Anthony Worrell Thompson’s shoplifting offence, including there had been no celebrity endorsement. Sue Marsh showed limitless energy in rebutting every negativity during the day, including finding the support of comedians, and did a remarkably impressive day of campaigning, with Kaliya Franklin of ‘Broken of Britain’. Due entirely to independently-funded research, the authors of the Report have alleged serious failings in the development of proportionate policy for disabled citizens, partly on the way information has been provided to the legislature. Yesterday was extremely liberating in terms of the sharing of information on Twitter, despite a media blackout of the Report on the mainstream TV news, as Susan Archiband elegantly described in her blogpost yesterday on ‘Twitterland’.
In a sense, it sometimes feels as if the law is protecting sometimes the wrong sort of defendant. Access to justie was a recent theme of the Guardian’s blog on #Leveson, for example.
Their live blog reported yesterday (9 January 2012) the following:
4.19pm: Leveson says he is attracted to the idea of speedy and cheap resolution of disputes between members of the public and newspapers.
Mohan replies: “I think swifter access to justice is an interesting point and a mediating arm of the PCC [could help with that].”
He says he would be in favour of a “kite-marking system” on newspapers that might have a knock-on effect on advertising rates.
There has been much criticism from #Leveson that people who have most access-to-justice are the ones that have “deep pockets”. In a different end of law, according to a detailed blogpost, a leading American lawyer, Vince Megna, has protested against fee-limiting arrangements introduced in the US law. Megna apparently is a familiar figure in the US profession, widely known as the “lemon law” king. Lemon law, as he helpfully explains on his website, is “the body of law that offers protection to owners of motor vehicles with recurring mechanical or other problems that are not resolved within a reasonable time by the dealer or manufacturer”.
