Child Poverty: Benefit Cap
Debate between Baroness Blower and Baroness Sherlock(1 month ago)
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Baroness Blower (Lab)
My Lords, I hope that the child poverty strategy group will urgently take advice in particular from teachers, who often find themselves at the forefront of attempting to alleviate the grinding poverty in which some of our children arrive in school, particularly because of the two-child cap.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My noble friend makes a very important point. I am very conscious that teachers are on the front line of this and that they see the day-to-day effects of the significant rise in child poverty we have seen in recent years. They are very much people who have things to say to us. That is why the strategy is being co-chaired by my boss, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, and my noble friend’s boss, the Secretary of State for Education. Child poverty is not restricted to a single aspect of anyone’s life. It has many different causes and many different solutions. We will work across government, as a joined-up Government, to tackle this properly.
European Social Charter
Debate between Baroness Blower and Baroness Sherlock(2 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, in signing a charter, the UK is indicating that it agrees with the contents as negotiated, but we can ratify it only when we know that we will be compliant with it, because to ratify a charter is to agree to be bound by its provisions. As I have indicated before, that would mean that the UK would need to make an assessment to be sure that it would in fact be compliant with the terms of the treaty before doing it. My noble friend will know that we have plans, including the employment rights Bill, which will change our position on some provisions in the revised charter, so we will certainly consider whether we can ratify the revised charter in the light of the Government’s reforms. On the collective complaints system, the UK has for some time held that it is among the majority of member states party to the European Social Charter who have not accepted that because we believe that the existing supervisory mechanisms are adequate.
Baroness Blower (Lab)
My Lords, Article 6.4 of the charter protects the right to strike. Under previous Governments, the UK built up an unenviable record of being in breach of its conformity every time that it was reviewed since 1984. Will the Government now take the opportunity of the forthcoming employment rights Bill to ensure that we are in conformity with the right to strike?
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, the Government have plans for reforming the whole landscape of employment. We value the important role that unions play in shaping employment rights, domestically and internationally, and we want to create a new partnership between businesses, trade unions and working people. That will include taking steps to strengthen the rights of UK workers and their representatives, such as repealing prohibitive restrictions. We will repeal the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act to remove barriers to effective collective action and strengthen rights. It is right that the Government do the things that we consider right for this country, but we will in due course look at whether the changes we have made put us in a position to consider ratifying the revised Social Charter and make a judgment at that point as to whether that is the right thing for Britain to do.