Universal Credit
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts(2 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, for securing this debate.
I started by contemplating £20. What does that mean to different people in our society? Like the right reverend Prelate, I focused on food. I thought about the people in this Chamber and those who live around us here in Westminster. I looked at some of the restaurants around us here in Westminster. At the Corinthia London Hotel, just up the road, you can get a baked fig starter for £18. At the Ivy restaurant you can get a shepherd’s pie for £19.50. If you have lunch at the Ritz, you can get a veal sweetbread starter for £28.
Also visiting us here briefly at Westminster were people testifying to the Work and Pensions Committee, telling it what £20 meant to them. Anthony Lynam said that it means,
“do I go hungry, do my kids go hungry?”
Amina Nagawa said that already with the £20 she goes without food and her son cannot eat something nutritious. Gemma Widdowfield said that she would buy essentials on her credit card and just stack up the debt.
The right reverend Prelate talked about the need for structural change. We have a crisis of inequality in our society. £20 means the world to some people or a veal sweetbread starter to others. As the noble Lord, Lord Davies, just said, this involves not just individual households but whole communities. Citizens Advice assessed the community impact of this cut as the Government appear not to have done. It worked out that for each £1 of investment that the Government might put in their levelling-up fund, £1.80 was being taken from local economies targeted by the levelling-up fund, the poorest in our society.
We come back to food. We think about what people might be eating in Doncaster, Wigan or Merthyr Tydfil. If they are eating out at all, it might be spending £2 in the café for a pie and chips. They probably will not be eating out at all but shopping around in supermarkets to find the cheapest possible thing to put food into people’s mouths. The people dining at the Ritz and the Ivy are taking the food out of the mouths of the children who cannot eat now. Twenty pounds is not much, but taking it away as well is absolutely unconscionable.
Covid-19: Work-related Cases
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts(2 years, 12 months ago)
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Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]
My Lords, following on from the questions of the noble Baronesses, Lady Janke and Lady Wilcox, will the Minister acknowledge that of 52,000 proactive site visits over Covid, only 12,000 were conducted by trained inspectors? This is less than a quarter: the rest were handled by outsourced contractors. Will she acknowledge that ventilation was not on the script of those outsourced contractors? Given what we know about aerosol transmission and our increasing understanding of the problem of ventilation, does she agree that this is yet another example of where outsourcing to less experienced, skilled and trained staff has really damaged the quality of service that people have received?
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
I ask the noble Baroness to allow me to go back to the department to talk about her outsourcing points. I would be very surprised if we outsourced to people who were not up to the job, but I will write to her.
Child Poverty: Ethnicity
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts(3 years, 1 month ago)
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Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, for securing this debate and for so powerfully introducing it. The noble Lord referred to the lived experiences of systemic racism, something which has been built on centuries of discrimination, discrimination that very much continues, as powerfully testified by the noble Baroness, Lady Uddin.
In this debate, I feel that I need to respond to the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, particularly in the light of the fact that your Lordships’ House has recently spent a great deal of time and energy on the Domestic Abuse Bill. It is important that we do not send any kind of message that we need to continue families no matter what, given the damage that might be done to the individuals within them. We should acknowledge the impact of discrimination and poverty on the rate of family breakdown.
However, I want mostly to focus on two positive solutions. To ensure that I was taking a different approach from other noble Lords, I went to two research institutes in Sheffield. Both are associated with the University of Sheffield: SPERI, the Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute, and the Institute for Sustainable Food. I want to focus on one sentence in a report from SPERI in December 2020 on food vulnerability during Covid-19. The report said that
“it is important to revisit, once again, the heated debate around the role of food charities as frontline responses to a lack of economic access to food.”
That has been carefully phrased in the form of academic discourse, but I put it to the Committee that, in the context we are talking about, none of us should rest until the last foodbank closes because of a lack of demand.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, said, food poverty is poverty. The underlying problem is a lack of income. She also talked about maintaining the boost to universal credit; that is a start, and the Minister will be well aware that I would much prefer universal basic income, but we need to look at incomes.
Secondly, the Institute for Sustainable Food focuses on the local as the site of food security resilience. I would like to point here to a group in Sheffield called Kenwood Community Growers, which was set up at the start of the pandemic and has been supplying community kitchens in Sharrow and areas with a large BAME community. What are the Government doing to focus efforts towards local food production and local growing, with people being able to produce food for themselves and have access to land and the resources that they need? Our BAME communities have skills, talents and energy that need to be utilised, supported and encouraged.
Universal Credit (Transitional Provisions) (Claimants previously entitled to a severe disability premium) Amendment Regulations 2021
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts(3 years, 4 months ago)
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Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy. Her outline of the structural problems of universal credit was excellent and her testimony of the suffering in our communities was powerful.
I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, on her regret Motion and offer the Green group’s strong support for it. I also endorse all her asks in providing a basic, decent level of benefits.
Many noble Lords may have seen a photo that was shared widely on social media yesterday. It showed a queue for a food bank in the snow in Glasgow. People were so desperate to get the basics of life that they endured those conditions. It is very clear that our economic and welfare systems have utterly failed.
The Minister may be aware of the McKinsey & Co report that came out this week. It made an interesting international comparison and showed that countries with minimal welfare provision, such as the US and the UK, have had to pay out huge amounts more in the conditions of the pandemic. We are, of course, in an age of shock and can only expect more shocks. Not providing basic, decent benefits on a regular basis ends up costing a great deal indeed.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, for making the case for a simpler benefits system. She highlighted the difficulties in what you might call the “old regime” of a mix of benefits. We also heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, about the incredible complexity that disabled people face with the severe disability premium, which we are addressing today. The noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, laid out very clearly the case for a universal basic income. I have one direct question for the Minister, to which I would really appreciate an answer: are the Government finally considering this obvious, simple, clear, fair solution that means that no one falls through the gaps?
The noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, referred to some personal accounts and experiences and I should like to do the same. I have an account from someone who suffered a traumatic brain injury and spent a year in hospital. It is posted on the North Staffordshire Green Party website—I will tweet out the link. This is a long story, but it is the kind of experience that many people with a severe disability premium payment would have gone through. This man received the disability living allowance in 2004, not after the original application but after being forced to go through an appeal process. The payment was awarded for life. A decade later, that was replaced by the personal independence payment and the man had to reapply. I will now quote a few of his own words because we should listen to these experts from experience. He said:
“We entered a small dimly lit room with a young male assessor. He told me he had worked in mental health for several years to which I replied—good, you’ll be able to understand my brain injury. I left the assessment extremely tired but rather dazed … It was only a few weeks later when the award letter arrived, I realised why I was feeling dazed—everything in the assessment conclusion letter was a blatant lie—I wasn’t bothered that I had been declined—I felt demoralised and degraded. I revealed to the assessor some of my most intimate moments. As I was reading the assessment I felt as though I had been contradicted with some of the information being made up. It was this moment I realised I had been interrogated not assessed. This sent my mental state of mind tumbling into an abyss of depression—you can appeal, I was told. How can you appeal blatant lies, I thought; and did not appeal.”
Many Members of your Lordships’ House will be well aware that recipients of the severe disability premium have been through experiences such as that, often again and again. Yet we are subjecting them to the level of complexity that the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, outlined.
The payments exist because our society is discriminatory, as it does not exist in ways that meet peoples’ needs without their requiring the special extra payments because of their disability. As I pointed out at Second Reading of the Financial Services Bill, if we make a society that works for those who are vulnerable, we make a society that works well for everybody. All of us are only one accident, one medical emergency, one crisis away from needing payments like this. Knowing that those payments are there—reliably, certainly and sufficient—is vital to us all.
Chemicals (Health and Safety) and Genetically Modified Organisms (Contained Use) (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts(3 years, 6 months ago)
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Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann. I share her concerns about the Health and Safety Executive’s resourcing—something that there has been considerable public concern about in the context of Covid-19 and the many other threats that we see, particularly to workplace and public safety.
I feel that I should warn the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, who will follow me in this debate—as she did in the debate on the previous statutory instrument, where she made a particularly excellent contribution—that I plan to be brief. I have two brief sets of questions.
My first question relates to the Explanatory Memorandum to the statutory instrument that this statutory instrument amends. It states:
“Each Administration of GB will continue to be able to make its own decisions about the release of GMOs in its territory. The existing processes for each Administration reaching its own decisions at national level will continue as now.”
I am aware that, as we speak, the internal market Bill is still the subject of debate and negotiation, we might say, in the Chamber, but I wonder whether the Minister can tell me how the rights to control the release of genetically modified organisms and the sale of products containing genetically modified organisms will relate to that Bill and the rules being made around it. Also, of course, there is the inevitable complication of how this will affect products going between Northern Ireland and Great Britain.
Also, that Explanatory Memorandum talks about the release of genetically modified organisms. Of course, no one can control the spread of genetically modified organisms and the genes that they contain; it is worth highlighting that point given that we share extensive borders. No Administration on these islands can control the spread of those genes or, potentially, those organisms.
Briefly, my second point addresses the biocidal products side of this statutory instrument. I note in particular research published last month in the peer-reviewed Science of the Total Environment journal that refers to the insecticides part of this statutory instrument. This research showed that two products—fipronil and imidacloprid—widely used in flea treatments for domestic animals, particularly dogs and cats, were showing up in very high levels in our rivers. Fipronil showed up in 99% of samples in 20 rivers, and in one case it was measured at 38 times the safe level. Are the Government looking at this issue, and indeed many other broader issues, as a matter of urgency?
One issue that is increasingly being thrown up by the science is what is known as the cocktail effect: the potential impact that the mixing of different chemicals, and interactions between antimicrobial resistance and different chemicals, might have on antimicrobial resistance, on human bodies and on the environment in general. It is very much rising up the agenda.
Jobseekers (Back to Work Schemes) Act 2013 (Remedial) Order 2019
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts(3 years, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her introduction to this order, and I offer my thanks to all the members of staff who have made this Committee possible with all their hard work.
Today, we are addressing an order that rights a legal wrong, and an illegality, that was committed twice by the Government. The Joint Committee on Human Rights tells us that, finally, the illegal government acts started under the Jobseeker’s Allowance (Employment, Skills and Enterprise Scheme) Regulations 2011 are righted by this order, almost a decade after the issue arose. On the narrow point of today’s debate, I can only be guided by the committee’s expertise, and I thank it for its comprehensive report. I therefore support the order.
That it has taken a decade to provide full remedy for an illegality in a regulation is, I suggest, something we might reflect on in other work around the House, from the Agriculture Bill and the Medicines and Medical Devices Bill to the immigration Bill next week, in all of which cases the Government seek to provide only a skeletal framework of their intentions, promising to fill them in later with regulation. I fear there will be decades of work in cleaning up the results.
The Minister said that she expected it would take 12 months to identify and recompense the affected individuals. I can only hope that that is delivered, given that what is happening with the Windrush scheme is not encouraging. Can she say what progress reports the House can expect over that 12 months? It would be good to have progress reports to see how this is going forward.
Today’s Committee provides a chance also to reflect on some of the broader issues, as noble Lords already have. I associate myself with the strong concerns about universal credit and sanctions expressed by both the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles of Berkhamsted, and the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, in particular the five-week wait, the impact on child poverty and mental health, and the huge damage done to lives by sanctions.
It is also worth taking this opportunity to reflect on the importance of human rights legislation as a balancing force for an individual against the overweening and potentially overwhelming power of the state. Some 5,000 individuals are affected in this case, on the account of the Minister. Anyone might need to use human rights legislation; I doubt that either the young graduate or the HGV driver with whom this whole saga started ever expected to make personal use of human rights legislation, yet, in choosing to bravely stand up, this mechanism was available to them to ensure that the state was not allowed to force them into illegal temporary slavery—for workfare applied illegally can be described only as that.
Secondly, in the context of Covid-19 and the potential economic situation we face in the coming years, it is important to reflect on the damage done by forced work being imposed on people. Let us not forget that a Department for Work and Pensions analysis in 2013 found:
“There is little evidence that workfare increases the likelihood of finding work. It can even reduce employment chances by limiting the time available for job search and by failing to provide the skills and experience valued by employers.”
Over the past decade, we have seen many such schemes and heard horror stories such as the mandatory work activity and community work placement, and various localised trailblazer schemes for young people. They have been withdrawn. There was of course significant community backlash against companies participating in many of these schemes, but campaigners suggest that a more disguised, less visible form of workfare continues. Can the Minister inform the Committee, either now or perhaps by letter, how many people are now in work placements arranged by the Government? I do not include the word “voluntary” in that question, for we all know that there are wide degrees of voluntariness. I also ask the Minister to report to us on the use of “skills conditionality”—claimants being forced to attend a skills training provider, further education college or other adviser with potential benefit sanctions for non-participation.
These are issues that are close to my heart, because over the years I have seen so much damage done by such forced activities. In Ashton-under-Lyne, outside a jobcentre that was then known as being particularly harsh, I met a young woman who had been sanctioned for failing to complete an unpaid work placement. She suffered from agoraphobia, and would have had to take a long bus journey to the placement: she simply could not do that. She also suffered from acute uncontrolled diabetes, and she was reliant on feeding herself from a food bank. I dread to think where that young woman might be now. I think of a woman I met at a WASPI demonstration in support of women born in the 1950s affected by the increase in the pension age for women. She had been an office manager for decades, and was insulted and deeply disturbed by being forced by this system to go on a one-day course on how to write a CV.
We had companies that benefited significantly financially from these placements, and communities where large numbers of these placements meant that the income into the community from what should have been waged work was significantly reduced. As we face the potential significant rise in unemployment, it is important that we do not forget what damage was done by blaming individuals for the state of society, that we do not see any return to the disastrous and utterly appalling “strivers versus skivers” rhetoric that caused so much social division and heartache. We also need to focus on how this “job or activity at any cost” approach causes broader damage. There is lots of focus on all sides of politics on our productivity problem. I would question what we mean by productivity, particularly in the service and care sectors: when it comes to people-to-people contact, what constitutes productivity? There is also the question of people ending up in the right job, the optimum job for them and for society. Forcing people quickly into a new job that is a bad fit, with sanctions and the threat of starvation or having to seek the charity of a food bank, is in no one’s interest, yet that is the entire way our system is slanted.
That is where we come to trust: trusting individuals to know what is best for them, giving them the space, time and resources to develop their human potential, grow their experiences and find the way they can best contribute to society. It will not surprise the Minister to learn that I will briefly mention universal basic income. As a society and community, we should be helping people to find their way in the world, providing support through advice on study, careers guidance and practical support in making choices. But the best person to find the way forward, to identify the skills and experience they need, is the individual concerned. Giving them the space, time and security to do that through an unconditional payment that meets their basic needs is, I suggest, the way forward.
Removing compulsion to the dictates of the state and bureaucracy, and providing instead individual freedom and choice, is something that might find significant support even on the Government Benches.
Pension Schemes Bill [HL]
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle ExcerptsTuesday 30th June 2020
(4 years ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Pension Schemes Act 2021 View all Pension Schemes Act 2021 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 104-I Marshalled list for Report - (25 Jun 2020)
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)
We will move on because we cannot hear the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. We will perhaps try to get her back later. I call the noble Baroness, Lady Janke.
Lord Blencathra (Con) [V]
My Lords, I will speak to this group and pass observations briefly on other issues raised by the Delegated Powers Committee that are covered by other amendments, so that I do not have to speak again and take up the time of the House.
I begin by saying how nice it is to see my noble friend and roommate Lord Naseby back in the Chamber. I also see that we share the same non-barber. In contradiction to the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, I want pensioners, not youngsters, on my pension board.
As chair of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, I give a very warm welcome to these concessions from the Government in Clauses 11 to 17 and Clause 25. As noble Lords will know, our report was highly critical of a number of delegated powers in the Bill, and it would be churlish of me not to acknowledge that the Government, and particularly my noble friend the Minister, have listened to quite a bit of what we recommended. I am sure that the whole committee would be delighted if the Minister would go one step further and accept our remaining recommendations, but that might be a bridge too far for her.
The government amendments to Clauses 11 to 17 now mean that all regulations, and not just the first ones, made under the provisions will have to be affirmative. We said in our report that the Government had failed to justify the first-time affirmative regime. We accept that there will be measures where the first regulation is major and should be affirmative and that subsequent ones might be just little tweaks where the negative procedure might be appropriate. However, that is not always the case, and we see a growing tendency among government departments, in addition to bunging highly inappropriate Henry VIII clauses into every Bill, to use this ploy of applying the first-time affirmative procedure and then the negative procedure for all subsequent regulations. The subsequent regulations here could be as important as the first regulation and I thank the Minister for making the change. The same reasoning applies to Clause 124, and I regret that the Government will not make that affirmative too.
We all accept that speed is often essential, but there is an alternative to the negative procedure which is just as speedy: the made affirmative procedure, whereby the Government lay the regulation, it comes into force immediately and then Parliament has 40 days to confirm it. That is a far better procedure than the Opposition having to put down a Motion against a negative resolution. This procedure would deal also with the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, on the negative procedure. I pay tribute to my illustrious predecessor, my noble friend Lady Fookes, as chair of the Delegated Powers Committee. Today, she made very telling points on the made affirmative procedure and first-time affirmatives.
I welcome the government amendment to Clause 25 too. We generally deplore Henry VIII powers, and for very good reasons: they deprive Parliament of the opportunity to scrutinise properly legislation that should go through all the procedures applied to Bills and Acts of Parliament. It is quite wrong to use the negative procedure, where there is no discussion whatsoever, for Henry VIII powers. At least with the affirmative procedure there is 90 minutes of debate.
As for the government amendment to Clause 47, we said:
“The fact that the Government have not yet worked out how multiple-employer collective money purchase schemes should be regulated has led to very wide powers being conferred by clause 47(3) to (5). Subsection (3) confers a power on the Secretary of State to make further provision in regulations about multiple-employer collective money purchase schemes. Although specific things are mentioned in subsection (3) as to what the powers may be used for. These are not exhaustive of the things which may be dealt in the regulations.”
We therefore recommended that the delegation of powers was inappropriate.
My noble friend the Minister’s amendment goes some way to flesh out the details of the plans, but we are still concerned that they give extensive powers to the Secretary of State. I was going to award the department and my noble friend eight out of 10, but in view of her generosity of spirit, graciousness and courtesy today, I will upgrade that to nine out of 10. While I would have liked all our recommendations to have been accepted, I congratulate the department and my noble friend for moving on so many of them when other Ministers and departments have obstinately refused to budge on anything.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle [V]
I thank your Lordships’ House for allowing me to speak. I apologise for the earlier confusion. I also apologise in particular to the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, for upsetting the rhythm of his speech. I thank him and other noble Lords for providing an introduction to Amendment 33. I must pay tribute to the campaign group ShareAction, which has done a lot of work on the amendment. I know that it has informed other noble Lords about it.
I moved the amendment in Committee. In response, the Minister pointed to the consultation on the future of trusteeship, which concluded that, due to a lack of consensus on how to address the issue, it would look at setting up, and is setting up, an industry working group to look at the diversity of pension boards. While this is welcome, we need the data to inform that work. I ask the Minister to consider incorporating this into future versions of the Bill.
A further development has happened since we last debated the Bill. There has of course been a great upswelling of frustration and understandable anger, represented by the Black Lives Matters movement. The issue of ensuring that all voices in our society are heard and have decision-making powers is particularly pressing. I urge Members of your Lordships’ House to consider it.
In response to the amendment in Committee, the Minister stressed that she wanted the pensions dashboard to focus on the provision of basic information. That is why the amendment has been amended so that it does not refer to this information being on the pensions dashboard, but rather that it would simply be reported. Information on diversity could be published elsewhere. That might be on the Pensions Regulator’s website, or as an annexe to its planned SIP repository.
Other noble Lords have referred to the level of inequality in our society and the lack of diversity. I will finish by reflecting on what the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, said, and the fact that a 2016 survey showed that on average 83% of pension boards are male and that a quarter are all male. That reflects another crucial disparity: we all know that there is a very large pay gap between men and women, but the pensions pay gap, at 40%, is double the pay gap. These inequalities have to be tackled in our society along with levels of inequality and poverty. We have had a lot of discussions about intergenerational fairness, but we must not forget that there are already a lot of people at pension age now who really are struggling to get by in this difficult world.
I thank your Lordships’ House for the debate that we have had thus far and I look forward to further debates.
Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD) [V]
My Lords, like other noble Lords, I appreciate the government amendments to make regulations by the affirmative procedure. Having thanked the Minister for that, I will move on to speak on noble Lords’ amendments.
Amendment 2, in the name of my noble friend Lord Sharkey, would delete reference to negative procedure regulations being used to change the rules around fit and proper persons. It has been laid out how that might change who becomes a fit and proper person. My question is: would it also affect who might not become a fit and proper person and potentially elaborate further if it is found that people are doing things that should disqualify them? I sense that that might be a possibility. Although, under Clause 11(3)(b), regulators can take into account other such matters as they consider appropriate—I presume that that can be in the negative sense as well as the positive—it would be useful to know whether such powers in other areas as well as this are, in general, used. I detect that regulators are often reluctant to go beyond things that they can specifically point to in regulations. If that is the case, maybe the Minister has an excuse to have these powers. That is the area that I am interested in, but it would certainly be a much more significant move for this to be made by the affirmative, rather than the negative, procedure.
The noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, has tabled an amendment about data that I support, but like her I think that it is probably best to have just one debate on data. I will make my intervention on that later.
I also support the intention of Amendment 33 on diversity. I recognise, as the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, did, that it links to the wider issue of how trustees are appointed and where from. Many trustee appointments will link back to present or former workforces and therefore carry through any historical lack of diversity for quite a long time. Despite the fact that there might be costs to professional trustees, I still think that there should be scope to ensure that there are more additional independent external trustees, without necessarily going to people who are so embroiled in the making of regulations. It should be possible to find objective people who are not necessarily charging the equivalent of full professional rates.
Finally, my Amendment 45 is a simple one that says that regulations may not create a regulator. That might not be the intention, but Clause 51(3)(a) says that regulations may
“confer a discretion on a person”.
A discretion to do what: to allow, not allow or approve certain things? What kind of things and what kind of person? That could be wide enough to allow or disallow the doing of things regarded as being a regulator, yet there are none of the constraints in the Bill that would normally appear in such circumstances. I therefore seek some clarification about what “discretion” means and what powers it might conceal or cover.
“( ) require information to be published relating to actions taken by the scheme with regard to how scheme investments take environmental, social, and governance factors into account.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment adds requirements for reporting on broader environmental and social issues. It does not require it to be included on the dashboards, but it could be published elsewhere.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle [V]
My Lords, I rise—at least metaphorically—to speak to Amendment 34. I will also refer to Amendments 73 and 79, to which I have attached my name. I pay tribute to the Minister, who has been very generous with her time on those two later amendments addressing the climate emergency. Her department has paid a great deal of attention to them; this is an area on which progress has been made, which is appreciated. It is a positive sign.
However, Amendment 34 addresses the fact that the climate emergency is only one of the critical factors facing our society today. “Environmental, social, and governance” is one of those buzz-phrases that does not exactly trip off the tongue. It means this: how does a company perform as a steward of the natural world and as a part of the society from which it makes, hopefully, its profits? What is its impact on its employees, suppliers, customers and the community in which it operates? We are talking about systems thinking of the kind that lies behind the sustainable development goals, to which this Government and most others around the world have signed up. It means having a decent life within the physical limits of this one fragile planet.
You might say that that is a pretty good goal that we should write into pensions legislation anyway. Even if you do not think that it is something this legislation should try to achieve, if you consider the narrower situation of the direction and risks of investments, there is increasing awareness in the investment community that environmental, social and governance issues are also a very good measure of risk. In some of the great financial and natural disasters of recent times, such as the BP Deepwater Horizon oil well blow-out in 2010 that had such enormous environmental impacts and the Volkswagen “Dieselgate” scandal, we have seen a problem with a company’s actions, but with a narrow focus on the climate emergency and not considering other factors that proved to be a real issue.
On the technicalities of this amendment, I stress that it has taken on board the Minister’s comments in Committee. The amendment then suggested that this information be included in the pensions dashboard; it now proposes that it could be included elsewhere when supplied to the Pensions Regulator—perhaps on its website or the SIP repository.
I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, will say later in the debate on this group of amendments that some of the amendments relate to Northern Ireland and that pension Bills have previously been left to the Assembly. I would appreciate it if the Minister would address that in her response. I would also appreciate a response on the fact that, while the climate emergency is one of the critical issues we face, we are in an age of shocks. There are many others: the nature crisis, the social emergency and the big impacts some of our largest companies are having around the world, as we see in the protests and extreme distress in garment factories in countries such as Bangladesh, India and Cambodia. Pension investors should be able to take account of these issues.
I suggest to your Lordships’ House and the Minister that taking account of the climate emergency is a necessary condition in this Bill, but for the Bill to be sufficient for the 21st century, we also need to include the broader environmental, social and governance issues. I beg to move.
Baroness Janke [V]
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, for her speech and her amendment. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, for her work on this issue and the Minister for all her work in achieving the government amendments on this important matter. While I recognise the major progress that has been made, I shall speak in support of Amendments 72 and 74, which are signed by my noble friend Lord Sharkey and myself. I shall speak also in support of Amendments 73 and 79 from the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayman, Lady Jones and Lady Bennett. I had also intended to sign these amendments and I apologise for not doing so.
In Amendments 72 and 74, the intention is to strengthen the obligation to ensure that the regulations of the scheme reflect the importance of the issue. Replacing “may” with “must” in the amendments to the Pensions Act strengthens the requirement on trustees to ensure that there is effective governance of the scheme with respect to the effects on climate change.
Amendment 73 strengthens the regulations and adds to our Amendments 72 and 74 by ensuring that relevant information in relation to climate change must be considered as part of the regulations.
Amendment 79 aims to ensure that the regulations place an obligation on trustees or fund managers to report on and publish how they have taken into account relevant treaties and other government commitments on climate change. The improvements to the Bill already made are very much welcomed, and we support these amendments today in the spirit of strengthening them. It has been well documented that more and more savers are keen that their savings should serve to strengthen ethical policies, particularly on climate change. As a result, they require more transparency on how their savings are invested.
Pension funds have huge economic power and must play their part in meeting our 2050 targets. UK pension funds hold more than £1.6 trillion in assets. The size and influence of pension schemes means they have a vital role to play in ensuring that the UK meets its climate commitments. It is essential that the Bill enables that to happen.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)
I have received no requests from any noble Lord to speak after the Minister, so I call the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle [V]
I thank the Minister for her answer. Amendment 78 refers to this covering not just the effects of assets but of climate. I will leave it to others to assess the technical details of that, but I have a specific question for her. She referred to the need for larger funds to report on ESG matters. She does not have to give me an answer now, but I wonder whether there will be also a requirement to publish that, so that it is easily accessible by the public and can be publicised.
This has been a very productive and useful group of amendments. I am sure that the House will join me in paying tribute to the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayman and Lady Jones of Whitchurch. They have clearly done an enormous amount of work, some of which I have seen first hand, to get the Government to this point.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, made a very important point when she said that your Lordships’ House would love not to have to challenge the Government, Bill by Bill, to see the climate emergency recognised in legislation and government action. In this aspect, it is crucial to look at the Committee on Climate Change progress report to Parliament from last week. The Minister made reference to the 43% cut in our territorial emissions of climate change gases. That report highlights the impact of consumption emissions, and the reduction is considerably lower when that is factored in.
The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, said that we want to see best practice become standard practice. There is an acknowledgement that that has to be legislated for and cannot just be assumed. The noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, referred to elements of the Bill still being permissive and not directive. I am sure that that is an issue that the House will return to again and again when we come to the Agriculture Bill. We need to see direction to all to act, because the climate emergency and the biodiversity crisis, along with so many other factors, such as the state of our economy and society, impact on all.
The noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, referred to Britain’s international role. Understandably, with the impact of Covid-19, attention has swung away from our crucial global role in COP 26. I therefore suggest to the House that everything we do should hold that in consideration. We are in a position where we need to be a global leader, and the world needs us to be a global leader.
In conclusion, it is not my intention to push Amendment 34 to a vote. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Universal Credit: Court of Appeal Judgment
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts(4 years ago)
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Baroness Stedman-Scott [V]
I completely agree with my noble friend. We would never have coped with the increase in demand in universal credit claimants had we not had the digital UC system.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]
My Lords, the problem has been evident for years, so the Government have yet to explain why they kept fighting to defend this “unlawful” and “unfair” system, in the words of the judge. Crucially, would the Minister accept that whenever you have a conditional payment scheme, some people will unfairly miss out? No system can be “agile and flexible”, in her words, to ensure that everyone has a fair, secure payment. Only a universal basic income would do that.
Baroness Stedman-Scott [V]
The noble Baroness makes a good point. We have never, ever suggested that the universal credit system is 100% perfect, but it has absolutely delivered in terms of paying the increased numbers we have. She has raised universal basic income on previous occasions. Our position has not changed: we have no plans to bring it in because it would disincentivise people to look for work and the cost would be astronomical.
Covid-19: People Living in Poverty
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts(4 years, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the number of people who will be (1) living in poverty, or (2) unable to meet their basic needs, as a result of COVID-19; and what steps they are taking to support such people.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I thank everyone who has put their name down to speak in this debate and apologise that the time available is so short. I hope this is something that the Procedure Committee will look at.
In the two weeks since we have returned from recess, your Lordships’ House has heard many times about the massive, far-reaching schemes that the Government have introduced in response to the Covid-19 epidemic, as we did in this morning’s government response to my Oral Question about growth dependency. Most of these schemes were introduced when both Houses were in recess, but we have now had opportunities to subject them to scrutiny and to share concerns that noble Lords and MPs have been hearing from members of the public, many of them desperate and frightened, who have pointed to the holes that the rules of the schemes have left many in. I am sure that in this debate we will hear many more case studies.
In the other place, my honourable friend Caroline Lucas has been pointing out how the scheme for the self-employed has left out those who took pay in the form of dividends, those whose self-employment was recent, and those who were self-employed part-time. I have been contacted by many—identified by #newstartersfurlough —who started a job after 28 February, and so their employers are not able to apply for the 80% wage subsidy for them. Can the Minister tell me how many people the Government know, or estimate, are in those two groups that are missing out on help?
There are also, no doubt, huge numbers of people who were on the minimum wage—which is not sufficient to live on, as the Living Wage Foundation makes clear—and are now on 80% of an already inadequate income, their employer failing to top up the Government’s furlough payments even if, as in the case of giant multinational companies, they could well afford to do so. Can the Minister tell me how many are so affected?
I acknowledge that gaps, such as those in the self-employed and new starter schemes, were inevitable, particularly given the speed with which these schemes had to be established. However, we might want to think about having prepared schemes for times of crisis in future. Perhaps, rather than abolishing these schemes when possible, the Minister could commit the Government to look at mothballing them and having the computer systems and legal frameworks held on standby. We live in an age of shocks—climatic, financial and health; we cannot know when the next one will strike, only that it will. Putting resilience—the ability to deal with them and to ensure that households are able to deal with them—at the centre of every government policy is essential.
For the immediate future, it is important that we know how large the gaps are—something that only the Government can establish. I hope the Government already have plans to adapt the existing schemes and slash the numbers falling through the gaps. That is one way in which the Minister could perhaps answer the second part of my Question, about how they plan to help those now without adequate, or even any, income. However many patches are laid over the gaps in these schemes, some people will always fall through; that is the nature of conditionality. If one of the conditions is having to apply, that is one way in which significant numbers will always miss out. I cite the example of pension credit, for which it is estimated that 15% of eligible pensioners do not apply, leaving them living—by definition—on tiny incomes.
I can already safely speculate that the Minister will say, “Ah, but there’s universal credit”—and yes, there is. On other occasions, your Lordships’ House has heard of its many limits, horrors and inadequacies, and I am not aiming to restart that debate today. At least with all sanctions suspended—as I understand it; perhaps the Minister can confirm that—some of its worst horrors, of people being left absolutely penniless through no avoidable fault of their own, are not currently occurring. I hope the Minister will also acknowledge that its level will not meet the commitments of many people who, suddenly and entirely unpredictably, have only it to rely on. I hope that the Minister will tell us today that the Government plan to make the ending of universal credit sanctions a permanent state of affairs. Taking away an already inadequate level of income and leaving people penniless for months or years is no way for a society to treat anybody.
Again, we have the problem of conditionality—rules being applied that some are unable to meet. In recent years, we have seen the level of conditionality in social security tightened, and tightened again. We have seen our politics dominated by the disgraceful and false distinction between so-called strivers and skivers, perhaps falling to its greatest depths with a former Chancellor’s obsession with the setting of people’s window blinds. That conditionality has led many to miss out on money they desperately need and should have a right to. In the age of Covid-19, that cannot be allowed to continue. That is why, as I pre-warned the Minister, I ask her whether the Government are considering a universal basic income—a payment going to every member of this society as part of the answer to the second part of my Question. Only an unconditional, universal payment can ensure that no member of our society is left penniless, in a Dickensian world of want and misery.
I have to tell the House that I am not co-ordinating this call with the First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, who yesterday told her House that Covid-19 makes
“the case for a universal basic income stronger than ever”
and that she would be putting that to our Prime Minister. That coincidence reflects calls from an increasing number of directions, party political and not, for a universal basic income. An unconditional regular payment at an adequate level, going to every woman, man and child in our society, could ensure that no one is left in poverty or unable to meet their basic needs. Surely, in a society that has the capacity to deliver it, that is a basic condition to call it decent and to fit the categorisation of a human rights-respecting society.
I hope that no Member of your Lordships’ House would deny the right to life, yet we do not currently guarantee the means to deliver life: for people to put food on the table and keep a roof over their head. Charity, particularly in the form of food banks, has increasingly been left to struggle to provide that most fundamental human necessity. In the age of Covid-19, of course, that is even more difficult.
Finally, today, much of the debate around Covid-19 is about ways out of the lockdown and this debate must look forward to that period. Initial government schemes to provide people with cash have been extended and are likely to be extended again but, at some time in the not too distant future, they will start to be unwound. Inevitably, that will mean that more gaps appear in the safety net, more people will not meet the changed criteria, or their circumstances will change, and they will be left in poverty without the means to meet their basic needs.
I am, and will remain, a proponent of a permanent universal basic income. One possibility for the intermediate period, to ensure that no one is left to the vagaries of conditionality and needing to rely on the stretched resources of charity and voluntary help, is a “recovery basic income”. I am aware of two such worked-through proposals, one from the UBI Lab Network, the other from Malcolm Torry of the Citizen’s Basic Income Trust and the London School of Economics. Again, I have shared these with the noble Baroness and, time allowing, I hope she might offer some thoughts on both the principle of a recovery basic income and the proposals—and maybe even on a general universal basic income. I also look forward to hearing the thoughts of the many other noble Lords taking part in this debate.
Pension Schemes Bill [HL]
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle ExcerptsWednesday 26th February 2020
(4 years, 4 months ago)
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Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Altmann and Lady Hayman, for their powerful, comprehensive introductions to this group. I shall try not to repeat what they said, which covered much of the ground that I would have covered. I shall speak specifically to Amendments 36, 67A, 67B and 97, which are tabled in my name, and to Amendment 52, to which I have attached my name. Just to make life even simpler for novice amenders like me, Amendments 67A and 67B were previously Amendments 55 and 56. For simplicity for anyone who is looking at the old paperwork, Amendment 55, now Amendment 67A, refers to environmental and social governance, and Amendment 56, now Amendment 67B, asks for the views of beneficiaries to be taken into account. I hope that makes things clearer.
The noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, said that she believes people believe in the climate change crisis. I would go somewhat further and say that I know there is a climate emergency and I think the world knows there is a climate emergency and has acknowledged that through international declarations. I also stress the point that both noble Baronesses referred to previously: that as host of COP26, we have a particular responsibility to lead the world this year in measures such as this.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, said, Amendment 36 essentially mirrors Amendment 28. The drafting is different, as is the insertion point. I will leave it to those who know a great deal more about legal details than I do to work out which might be preferable. However, proposed new subsection (6B) goes further, because as well as having a statement of investment principles—principles are great, but what matters is what is actually happening—it requires the most recent version of the implementation statement, which states how the SIP is being implemented, and the most recent version of the statement of the chair, who is accountable for what is happening. Will the Minister consider this as a possibility?
Amendment 67A covers much the same ground as Amendment 52, which was focused on the climate emergency, but goes further by talking about environmental, social and governance factors. I am not sure how many noble Lords were at the Fairtrade Fortnight event down the corridor, but I am sure it was not just the really delicious tea, coffee and hot chocolate that produced a packed room. There is grave concern about poverty, hunger, access to education and the situation of women and girls around the world, and the way in which investment can make a difference. This amendment seeks to ensure knowledge about what people’s money is doing to address those issues; it is broader than looking at just the climate emergency.
Further to that, the world is having a major conference on biodiversity and addressing the nature crisis, the accompanying crisis to climate change. We cannot afford to simply look at the climate emergency on its own. We have to look at the broader framework. The world is doing this through the globally agreed framework of the sustainable development goals. ESG is a way of asking whether we are addressing those goals. People will have the choice; as other noble Baronesses have said, we are not mandating what happens but trying to ensure that people have a choice and know where their money goes.
Amendment 67B closely relates to Amendment 92. There is rightly a lot of focus these days on transparency in decision-making and how people know that decisions are made. I quote the Pensions Minister, who said that pension schemes,
“ought to be thinking about the assets which help drive new investment in important sectors of the economy … which deliver the sustainable employment, communities and environments which all of us wish to enjoy”.
However, I refer back to the advice from the Law Commission to trustees that they,
“may not impose their own ethical views on their beneficiaries”.
I would argue that the legislation as currently drafted puts trustees in a difficult position, because they are not allowed to impose their own views but there is no mechanism directing where the choices should be made from. If we provide a mechanism by which schemes are directed to consult their beneficiaries, that will provide the guidance that the trustees need.
We seem to have been going for a very long while. I hope that this covers the main points of the amendment I have put forward. I look forward to the contributions from others who have put forward amendments, and to the Minister’s response.
Baroness Stedman-Scott
I am advised that we need to get that information from the FCA; when we do, we will give it to all members of the Committee. I hope that that is acceptable.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle
I apologise, but this seems to be the logical point at which to do this. I echo the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, and request to also get a copy of that. Further to that, if there are already plans to have a central index of SIPPs and that system already exists, including the implementation and chair statements would surely be a very small administrative burden. Could the Minister consider whether that is possible? She can answer now or in the future.