Universal Credit

Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist Excerpts

Thursday 9th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Donaghy (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler of Enfield, for initiating this debate. She was so comprehensive that I do not think I will use all my time, so as not to repeat her.

I want to make a couple of points, if I may, in reply to the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton. Somebody who was born on the day the old benefits disappeared and UC arrived has probably celebrated their 10th birthday by now, so I wonder how long that argument will be played out in this Chamber. I congratulate the noble Baroness on her stalwart defence but, really, it is getting a bit thin and memories of how bad the old system was are fading. I am the first to accept that it was a bad system; I just do not think that this is a particularly good one. I agree with the noble Baroness that it came into its own during the pandemic, however.

I slightly resent—this is not against the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, or anybody individually—the fact that, if the benefits were adequate, we would not be having this discussion about a £20 uplift. If the benefits were decent, people would not be struggling. We are not talking about people falling into poverty here; we are talking about people falling deeper into poverty so that they cannot even afford the basics.

I want to say a little about the impact on actors, writers and other creative workers, who are often ignored in these debates. Some 65% of Equity members rely on universal credit and other welfare to stay in the industry. Removing the £20 uplift would mean 53% of them experiencing financial hardship, with 41% unable to meet housing and other essential costs. These figures were taken from a recent impact survey; I thank Equity for its excellent briefing. It joined 100 other organisations across the UK that wrote to urge the Government to abandon their plans. Only 9% of its actors and creative workers had received a grant or other funding from Arts Councils, and more than 40%

“have not received help from the Self Employed Income Support Scheme”.

Of equal concern is the reintroduction of the minimum income floor. These moves will risk an exodus of talent from our world-leading creative industry, already clobbered by the Brexit legacy. Obviously, there will be time in future to discuss the minimum income floor and Brexit, but families will receive significantly less help from the social security system now than they would have a decade ago. The loss of the £20 uplift will take the main rate of out-of-work support down to its lowest level in real terms since 1990.

I am aware that the chairs of the relevant House of Commons Select Committees have written to the Government to ask for the uplift to be made permanent. As the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, has already said, six former Conservative Work and Pensions Secretaries have urged the Chancellor to make the uplift permanent. If they cannot change the Government’s mind, I begin to despair. Why will they not publish the impact assessment mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler? If—

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I hate to interrupt a good speech but the noble Baroness is almost a minute over the suggested speaking time.

Poverty: Metrics

Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

My Lords, I join other noble Lords in congratulating my noble friend Lady Stroud, both on her work within the Social Metrics Commission and on securing this debate on a subject which is clearly of deep personal interest to noble Lords on all sides of the House.

Like many, I was shocked by the UN’s November report. However, I am critical both of the way Professor Alston explored just one side of the evidence and the extraordinary political nature of his language: for example, his conclusions that,

“poverty is a political choice”,

and that this Government were guilty of outsourcing the British tradition of compassion of poverty and mutual concern. The Government have done many things to restore dignity through work, to raise the poorest out of the tax system and to introduce a living wage. Where the intent was honourable but the implementation flawed, such as with universal credit, these remain work in progress. The Government have not been not too proud to admit when they get things wrong. Of course, the report also contained valid observations, and indeed it encouraged the Government to introduce a single measure of poverty and of food security. Therefore I, too, wholeheartedly welcome the Social Metrics Commission’s attempt to bring a whole new approach to measuring poverty.

Poverty has been defined as,

“not having the resources to participate to some acceptable degree in society, to avoid shame as well as destitution”.

However, measuring the extent of poverty is much harder, and the old benchmark of those living on less than 60% of contemporary median income, ignoring as it did, assets, skills and liabilities, meant that it was never fit for purpose. We can address the issues that lie behind the statistics only if we can measure whatever it is about the household budget, on both sides of the balance sheet, which puts families into poverty. These can be myriad: childcare costs; inability to budget; household debt; costs relating to any form of addiction; and, most worryingly, disability, as we have heard.

The most heartening finding is that, through this new measure, around 2.7 million people are living at less than 10% below the poverty line, meaning that relatively small changes in their circumstances could make them able to rise above it. Sadly, the converse is also true of the 2.5 million who are less than 10% above the poverty line.

This research to find a relevant contemporary measurement of poverty, supported by the work that the Legatum Institute undertakes in identifying pathways from poverty to prosperity, provides crucial support for the development of policy by a Government committed to creating a country in which no one and no community is left behind. At least this new measurement will enable us to hold them to account.

Personal Independence Payments

Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, the important thing to remember about PIP, which is what we are discussing today, is that, as I made clear in one of my earlier responses, we are looking not at specific conditions but at how those specific conditions or medical conditions affect their ability to live an independent life and then, as the noble Baroness said earlier, to make sure that the benefit goes to meet their extra costs.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

Can the Minister confirm that this Government are investing more in mental health than ever before?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I can give that assurance. As I made quite clear in my earlier remarks, we have seen a growth in the support for people with disabilities and for those with mental health problems. As I said, we spend something in the region of £50 billion a year supporting people with disabilities and health conditions, and we are investing more in mental health than ever before.