Financial Services Bill

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 24th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Coussins (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I support Amendment 11 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, and I remind the House of my interest as an ambassador and former president of the Money Advice Trust.

Although Clause 34 may be seen as a relatively small part of the Bill, we have had a great deal of discussion on it during the passage of the Bill—a sign of how important SDRPs are. Throughout the process, I and other noble Lords have been keen to secure clarity over the timetable for introducing SDRPs.

I thank the Minister for his positive and constructive engagement on this issue and for meeting me and the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, to discuss the timings for the introduction of SDRPs. Like the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, I am also grateful to the Minister for his letter yesterday, which provided further clarity on this timetable.

In Committee, the Government did not accept my amendment to include a specific date by which SDRPs should be implemented. I was pleased nevertheless to hear the Minister confirm that the complex and detailed process to prepare for implementation seemed to be entirely compatible with the end date I was proposing—albeit pretty tightly.

So I hope the Minister will be able to confirm that on the record this evening, by specifying the various stages of the Treasury’s intended timetable for laying the regulations and reassuring the House that SDRPs are genuinely intended to have a commencement date before May 2024. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, I join in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, on his amendments in Committee and again here on Report. He has clearly found a mechanism for engaging very fruitfully with the Government, and therefore we all have the benefit of a letter that lays out some of the important and significant elements of statutory debt repayment plans; for that, I am grateful.

I join with the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, in being rather perturbed—I think the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, was as well—that the implementation date is 2024. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, said that it was towards the end of 2024. I advise the Government not then to use terms such as “at pace”, which they use extensively in the Financial Services Bill—usually to argue that there is no time for a statutory instrument to be approved by Parliament, which takes a matter of weeks.

I am rather troubled and it suggests that the Government might want to think of some kind of stopgap to deal with the very significant number of people who will find themselves with debt problems as we come to the end of furlough. People will find that they have been moved into permanent redundancy and that other jobs are hard to obtain, and a lot of young people coming out of university courses will not find the usual opportunities.

We are going to go through a very rough period where quite a number of people will find themselves loaded down with private debt, not because they have behaved inappropriately in any way but because the way events have hit them. They will need some additional support and rescue, rather than just the schemes that are in place. The SDRPs would almost certainly have been ideal for many of them. So I hope the Government will look at the events that are going to force a lot of people into a very difficult position.

Amendment 12, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, would do what I think Amendment 55 in Committee was intended to do. This time I think it would do it. It is designed to enhance opportunities for people who have signed up to SDRPs to pay off their debts early at a discount. It will need some structure and engagement from social enterprise groups and perhaps even the Government providing some measure of support, because seed funding will be needed to get a scheme such as this off the ground. I hope that the Government will think some of that through. It seems the kind of scheme that would enable people to get back into the financial mainstream more quickly, which is surely something we want to achieve. Again, the need for that will be more acute because of the extraordinary number of people who will find themselves in debt as a consequence of Covid. I do not think it actually requires legislation, so I am glad that the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, will choose not to move it.

These two amendments highlight the need for some serious thinking on how the Government can best support people who will come out of Covid and find themselves in fairly difficult circumstances. When we work with people who have debt problems, a fundamental issue usually has to be dealt with that has led them into that corner. Sometimes it is to do with lifestyle choices, but very often it might be mental health issues or family breakdown. The group who will find themselves in problems because of the impact of Covid do not fall into that category. Therefore, with a proper helping hand at the right time, they could quickly and easily be returned to a position where they are no longer financially excluded or in financial difficulties. That is absolutely necessary if we are to see the recovery that we all hope for. I hope the Government will look at these amendments and continue to build on them, rather than consider them concluded because Report has passed.

European Council

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

Monday 26th June 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

We intend to treat EU citizens with settled status in the same way as if they were UK citizens for the purpose of not just healthcare but education, benefits and pensions, and we intend to protect the current healthcare arrangements for EU citizens who are ordinarily resident in the UK before the specified date. We will also continue to export and uprate the state pension and provide associated healthcare cover within the EU. We want, subject to negotiations, to continue to participate in the European health insurance card scheme, and we will try to achieve that.

[Baroness Coussins (CB)]

My Lords, will the noble Baroness agree that when it comes to jobs requiring foreign language skills, the UK is highly dependent on other EU nationals? For example, over a third of public service interpreters who work in the National Health Service and the criminal justice system are from other EU countries, as are 35% of language teachers and 85% of language assistants in our schools. Therefore, while the possibility that EU nationals already here might now be able to remain is welcome, does the noble Baroness agree that future recruitment of EU citizens needed for their language skills also needs to be safeguarded and prioritised through whatever new immigration regime emerges from these negotiations?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I know that this issue is very dear to the noble Baroness’s heart and to many of us in this House. Of course, we want to continue to attract the bright and the best. As I mentioned, later on there will be plenty of opportunity for noble Lords to discuss the future immigration system, which her question alludes to. It will of course be implemented in primary legislation, so there will be plenty of opportunities for noble Lords to have an input. We also want and intend to continue to recognise professional qualifications obtained in the EU 27 prior to the UK’s withdrawal from the EU and vice versa. We will certainly keep those issues in mind, because we want to ensure that we continue to attract the bright and the best from the EU.

Brexit: Horizon 2020 and Erasmus

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

Thursday 7th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

Of course the Government and I entirely understand the concerns of the sector. We have a world-class higher education sector and we want to support it and make sure that it is able to maintain its footing as the best in the world. That is why we will work extremely closely with the sector throughout the coming months and years to make sure that we provide the support, its voice is heard, and we do all we can to maintain it.

[Baroness Coussins (CB)]

My Lords—

[Lord Sutherland of Houndwood (CB)]

My Lords—

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[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)]

My Lords, it is the turn of either the Cross Benches or the Conservative Benches. We will go to the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, and I hope we can get in a Conservative next.

[Baroness Coussins]

Thank you. Will the Minister acknowledge the vital importance of the Erasmus programme for the funding of the third-year abroad element of modern language degrees, especially when the shortage of MFL teachers will be even more acute because of the Government’s EBacc target? How will the Government plug the Erasmus gap both for outgoing UK students and for the incoming Erasmus students from the EU who supply our schools with foreign language assistants?

Small and Medium-sized Enterprises: Foreign Languages

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

Thursday 28th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wilcox]

Right—information on the Export Communications Review, along with all other UKTI services, will be available at Olympic business-related events. Details of the help that will be available have already gone out. We certainly wish to use the opportunity to make sure that people from our small and medium-sized businesses meet as many people from foreign businesses as possible. We are very fortunate in this country in having a multicultural society—I think that in London alone more than 300 languages are spoken. Very often it is just a case of making sure that small and medium-sized businesses realise that there are agencies that can provide their employees with the languages that they need. It is not just a matter of a requirement to learn a language; understanding the culture of the country that you are going to is also important. The French that you speak needs to be not just the French that you learnt at school but the language of the culture. UK Trade and Investment goes into small businesses with a subsidised programme to help them understand how to take their products forward by making sure that they are aware of the culture of the country they are visiting.

[Baroness Coussins]

My Lords, does the Minister recognise the success of language NVQs in preparing students for using languages at work, especially in the SME sector? Will she undertake to meet her DfE colleagues to tell them how much UK businesses value these language NVQs and ask that these qualifications continue to count towards a school’s performance points for the EBacc after 2013?

[Baroness Wilcox]

I will certainly take up that suggestion from the noble Baroness.