Covid-19: Over-60s

Baroness Eaton Excerpts

Monday 12th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

I understand the noble Baroness’s concern. However, both the High Court and the Court of Appeal have supported the actions of the DWP and, because that is being appealed, we are not able to comment on ongoing litigation.

[Baroness Eaton (Con) [V]]

My Lords, could my noble friend the Minister clarify the position for workers living with someone who is shielding or clinically extremely vulnerable? Do they now need to go back to work?

Universal Credit

Baroness Eaton Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stedman-Scott]

My answer to the right reverend Prelate is that I know of no intention to make it a permanent arrangement.

[Baroness Eaton (Con)]

My Lords, can my noble friend explain the measures that are in place to support claimants with their housing costs?

[Baroness Stedman-Scott]

We have increased the local housing allowance to cover the lowest 30th percentile of the local market, and alternative payment arrangements to landlords have been put in place. If claimants have great difficulties, they can speak to their work coach or client adviser, who, if there is a way to help them, will do their best to find it.

Universal Credit Fraud

Baroness Eaton Excerpts

Wednesday 10th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, I am amazed if the noble Lord seeks to rely too heavily on the BBC. I am grateful that he is asking me, acting as a Minister for the department. To date we have received around 42,000 fraud referrals from staff relating to potentially fraudulent advance claims, and there have been around 4.4 million claims for universal credit; I say that because it is important to put this in context. As my noble friend said, this equates to less than 1% of claims taking out a fraudulent advance. We are unable to break this down to jobcentre level, but we know that the majority of those claims, 55%, are in the north-west. However, we are seeing an increase in the north-east, 14%, and the Midlands, 12%. This is entirely unacceptable, of course, so we are looking at the whole system at the moment to see what we can do to improve the situation.

[Baroness Eaton (Con)]

Will my noble friend confirm that her department has prosecuted people for these offences and will continue to pursue fraudsters?

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, I absolutely agree with my noble friend. We have had one successful prosecution, and something like 1,420 other cases are live at the moment. I take this to heart, as this area is in my portfolio at the department. We are doing all we can to make sure that we up our game in taking on the whole issue of benefit fraud. Another key point is that universal credit is part of the process of reducing claimant fraud; unlike with the complex legacy system, where it was much more difficult for people to inform the DWP of changes of circumstances, people can now do that. They are in constant touch with their work coach. We also have real-time information. We know what people’s earnings are, so we are now far better able to tackle issues of fraud.

Disabled People

Baroness Eaton Excerpts

Thursday 28th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Eaton (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as found in the register. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Winchester, for bringing this important debate to this House today. I also thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London for her inspirational maiden speech.

Disability of varying kinds is a feature of the experience of many families, my own included. In every country this can bring challenges but also great joy. Some 15% of humanity lives with a disability. Many go about raising families, founding firms and stunning us with their sporting prowess and the quality of their scholarship and public service, not least in this House. Thousands, though, face extreme stigma in communities, economies and legal systems so weak or complex as to put them perpetually at risk. So while today we are focusing on challenges in Britain, I will, in passing, commend Ministers in the Department for International Development who in London next month will co-host the first ever Global Disability Summit. This imminent important gathering puts our deliberations today in their international context.

As the chairman of the charity Near Neighbours, which seeks to build community cohesion and integration in England’s towns and cities, I am sadly and increasingly aware of how exclusion and hate crime is becoming more widespread in parts of our society. Some families find it hard to give their children—especially their daughters—the chance to work, study, love or travel freely. Some in local neighbourhoods wish that others who live there “had never been born”. Meanwhile, others have religious or ethnic traditions that actively exclude members of their community who could make powerful contributions.

Over 60,000 families were impacted by race hate crime in 2016-17. In 2017 the Community Security Trust recorded 2,254 hate attacks on members of the Jewish community. This was a 10% increase on the previous year. Disabled Britons will recognise these trends. In the same two-year period of 2016-17, hate crime against disabled children rose by an astonishing 150%. Indeed, nearly 6,000 disabled people endured hate crime; sometimes an attack will be because of both their disability and their race or religion.

It is heart-breaking how the patterns of hate crime facing disabled people have come to mirror—and at moments surpass—those faced by other communities more generally. Hate crime against disabled people can be controlling and can involve very close carers or family members as perpetrators. Crimes can involve money, sex and access to housing. They include open abuse in the street or in seeking work. They are hard to record, not least because victims prefer to report to third parties rather than to the police. Typically, they increase in frequency and severity.

Beyond this are the subtle and repeated exclusions. There have been legal cases where hospitality for disabled people in temples and other places of worship has been felt to have been compromised. Discussion of disabilities arising from genetic conditions is often almost impossible, especially in certain cities such as Bradford, where I live. I even noticed that, in Roman Catholic canon law, until 1983 epilepsy was a block to ordination—and it is unclear today whether physical disability or historic mental illness remain so. The upshot can be isolation, alienation and other unwanted challenges where they ought not to be easily accepted.

I am aware that the Home Office has a hate crime action plan. I am also aware of pioneers, such as Boston’s Ruderman Family Foundation, which has given very large funds across America and Israel to make the activities and architecture of synagogues and charities fully accessible. But might we do more? The trick, it seems to me, is how we combine civic energy and resources right across government. I would be especially pleased to hear from the Minister whether she might be able to explore how the lessons of the work of the Ruderman Foundation and those like it might be replicated here. I would be delighted also if she might consider inquiring how the Government’s recent integration strategy, the new Carers Action Plan and successful Disability Confident campaign might be more fully harnessed to mitigate some of the risks that I have described. These programmes are laudable on their own but might benefit additionally from being more actively linked.

If the challenges that disabled people face are as harsh as I have described, often arising from complex and cross-cutting issues, our response must be equally fleet of foot. Disabled people in all our families deserve it.

Mental Health at Work

Baroness Eaton Excerpts

Wednesday 1st November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, I entirely agree with the noble Lord’s response to the review. It is very important that we encourage all across the public and private sectors to take up the very important recommendations made in it. The Prime Minister said that vital to this priority is the need to have a comprehensive cross-government plan which transforms how we deal with mental illness, not only in our hospitals and crisis centres but in our classrooms, on our shop floors and in our communities. It involves everyone in society. All of these issues will impact on overall well-being, occupational health and the ability to work.

[Baroness Eaton (Con)]

My Lords, we know that work can be extremely helpful to those with mental health conditions. Can my noble friend tell me what is being done to support people with these conditions to get back to work?

Child Support: Unpaid Maintenance

Baroness Eaton Excerpts

Thursday 30th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I would be more than happy to accept the noble Baroness’s assessment that this is withering and the figures are astronomical if we were talking about figures that related to the children who are likely to benefit today. A lot of this £3.9 billion—sorry, £3.8 billion; there are different figures according to different things—goes back a very long way to the 1993 scheme. Some of it goes back before the reforms introduced in 2003 by the Government of whom the noble Baroness was a member, and some of it goes back before 2008. If the noble Baroness thinks about the number of years that have passed, she will realise that those children are now grown up and will not benefit from recovering that money. It is very sad that absent parents have behaved badly. The only people who have lost out—as the noble Baroness put it—are those children. However, we are concerned about the children of today and to make sure that matters operate properly now, and that the money owed by absent parents, where the department has a role in trying to enforce that, gets paid to the caring parent so that the appropriate children benefit. I am terribly sorry but a lot of that £3.9 billion is in effect lost, as the noble Baroness said, to those children who are no longer children now.

[Baroness Eaton (Con)]

My Lords, financial arrears are often symptomatic of an adversarial approach to collecting child maintenance. How is the new child maintenance system encouraging parents to set up family-based arrangements, and what success is it having?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that question. I am not going to go into what we are doing about arrears. However, I shall talk about the 2012 scheme of child maintenance. By bringing in more simplified methods of calculation, we are helping parents to sort these matters out. We are also encouraging parents to sort these things out themselves without necessarily using the department. We are now at a stage where in nine out of 10 cases parents are paying towards the child maintenance that they owe, and paying the appropriate amount. Therefore, we are making progress but there are still some who are not doing what they can.

Universal Credit

Baroness Eaton Excerpts

Wednesday 21st December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Eaton (Con)]

My Lords, I join other colleagues in thanking my noble friend Lord Farmer for providing the opportunity for this debate, and I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Macpherson of Earl’s Court, on his excellent contribution to our debate this afternoon.

The fact that there are so many speakers for a debate which is last business before the Christmas Recess is a clear indication of the interest members have in UC and the very high regard they have for the Minister. When my noble friend Lord Freud began his work on universal credit, I am sure he had clear in his mind the end product. I am sure he did not envisage the very difficult, challenging and sometimes painful path he would need to take to achieve the positive position we are in today. I know all Members of the House hold him in high esteem, not only for his clear far-sightedness but also for the gracious and patient way he has dealt with the barrage of questions, and sometimes even open hostility, he has received from some quarters.

We have heard from some Members of the remaining challenges that we face with UC. As the 16th speaker in the debate, I know that much detail has already been given and comments made, so I will not hold the House up by adding and repeating things. However, I would like to say that I was brought up in a household that believed very strongly in a work ethic, equally strongly in supporting those who suffer disadvantage, for whatever reason, and in the value of the welfare state as a safety net. The previous welfare system did not encourage a work ethic and did not work efficiently or effectively as a safety net.

One of the many aspects of the old system that I thought was dreadful was the fact that savings had to be run down fast if benefit was to be paid in full, as the system assumed that a ludicrous rate of interest was being paid on them. The system encouraged fraud. On some calculations, 200,000 more people were claiming tax credits as lone parents than actually existed. One of the groups most hit was childless adults under the age of 25, who were not entitled to working tax credits. NEETs aged 16 to 25 were included in this group. In my previous roles in local government, I worked with others on the plight of NEETs. The welfare system did little to help this vulnerable group.

Universal credit is revolutionising the welfare system by making work pay. It is already transforming lives, with those on universal credit moving into work significantly faster and working longer than under the old system. For the first time we are not only helping people into work but helping people while at work with personalised support. My noble friend Lord Freud believes passionately in this reform, into which he has personally invested much time and effort. We all owe him a debt of gratitude and wish him a relaxing and very fulfilling future.

Housing: Underoccupancy Charge

Baroness Eaton Excerpts

Wednesday 20th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

This is now a long-standing policy of this Government, to make sure that we tie in the availability of social housing to those who need it. People tend to forget the numbers who are on waiting lists or are in overcrowded accommodation and that this policy of matching available stock to people’s requirements improves their outcomes.

[Baroness Eaton (Con)]

Can my noble friend the Minister tell us what is happening in health and well-being in this country?

[Lord Freud]

We have run a well-being survey since 2012, published by the ONS. I am pleased to report that, on all four key measures of well-being, there has been an improvement every year since the survey started almost four years ago; that is, in life satisfaction, finding activity worthwhile, happiness, and reduction of anxiety.

Social Housing Sector

Baroness Eaton Excerpts

Thursday 14th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

The measure will come in in 2018 and there will be regulations within that timescale. As I said, we have this major review—the first really substantial review—and we have been working on that for more than a year now. That will inform our whole policy approach to what is a very important sector, and I hope it will put it on a much sounder footing than it has been.

[Baroness Eaton (Con)]

Could my noble friend tell us the terms of reference and the remit for this review?

[Lord Freud]

We are collecting evidence about the size of the sector, who it supports, where the funding flows are coming from and how it is supported. There are various support sources, including the Supporting People fund and RR. We look to publish this report later this year.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Baroness Eaton Excerpts

Tuesday 17th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Eaton (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a former chairman and current vice-president of the Local Government Association. Getting people into work and reforming welfare are two of the key priorities of this Government, building on the successes achieved over the past five years. In the previous Parliament, 1.9 million jobs were created, an average of 1,000 new jobs per day, more than in the rest of the European Union combined. Each of these new jobs represents a transformation in people’s lives, giving families more security, boosting the self-esteem of young people employed for the first time and providing renewed hope for the long-term unemployed. This successful record in relation to job creation is no accident. It is the product of hard work by people in every part of the country. It is thanks also to the Government’s long-term economic plan. However impressive this record is, it is not enough. The Government have set themselves the bold aim of achieving full employment, and this Bill introduces a duty on them to report to Parliament on the progress being made on this, which I welcome.

As other noble Lords mentioned, the Bill also introduces a duty on the Government to report to Parliament on progress towards another key aim: the achievement of 3 million apprenticeships in England. Over the past five years, the number of apprenticeships has reached record levels—2.2 million—but there is clearly more to be done. I strongly welcome the Government’s ambitions in this area, and I know that local government will be keen to play its part in meeting this target. Indeed, councils are currently leading the way in providing apprenticeship opportunities for young people in their local areas. By way of illustration, I will highlight just one example that I am aware of. Kent County Council, via the Kent Apprenticeship Programme, offers grants of up to £2,000 to businesses which take on a young person aged 18 to 24 who has previously been claiming out-of-work benefit.

The Government’s commitment to create 3 million new apprenticeships over the course of this Parliament has received universal support. It is absolutely right that we are prioritising apprenticeships, which provide a high-quality, accessible alternative for young people who are not pursuing the academic route. By championing apprenticeships, the Government are working in partnership with employers and further education providers to invest in the workforce of tomorrow. This is essential to the future success of our economy. Apprenticeships are also key to solving long-term unemployment. They provide a path for young people into work, a route out of benefits and a path to self-sufficiency and success.

As with all opportunities for young people, we must make sure that apprenticeships are accessible to those who are vulnerable or who need extra support to unlock their potential. We know that some young people will need additional support to transition effectively into work and become financially independent. Another group of particular concern is young people who have been in care. We know that these young people typically have much poorer outcomes than their peers. Multiple care placements too often lead to a disrupted education, which in turn means that they leave school without the necessary qualifications. Some 84% of children in care leave school without good GCSEs. In addition, many have emotional and mental health problems.

The Prime Minister used his party conference speech to restate his commitment to improving outcomes for children in care. As he said, the state has a responsibility, as their corporate parent, to provide them with opportunities by improving standards in our schools and performance in social services. We also need to think about what happens after a looked-after child becomes a young adult. The previous Government took some important steps forward, including the welcome introduction of Staying Put, which enables young people in foster care to remain with their foster families until the age of 21. We know that this has had a positive impact. But of course more needs to be done to help care leavers realise their ambitions and become independent.

The charity Barnardo’s has put forward a number of suggestions for improving access to apprenticeships for care leavers. There are two points that are worth consideration. The first is that we know some young people are not ready to start an apprenticeship straightaway. They may not have the academic qualifications they need, such as GCSEs in English and maths, or they may lack other skills needed for the workplace. What we must not do is to give up on these young people or write them off as unable to move into employment. Rather, we need to find the right pathways into work. Traineeships are an important way forward in this respect. The Government rightly identified that they can provide a useful transition between school and an apprenticeship or other forms of training or work. However, it is very important that these traineeships lead to paid work. I hope that Ministers will consider how we can ensure that traineeships provide an effective part of the solution to improving employment prospects for young people furthest from the workplace.

The other suggestion from Barnardo’s concerns young people who have the skills to do an apprenticeship but need support to complete it successfully. Let us consider, for instance, a care leaver who has qualifications but lacks what we often term “life skills” as a result of suffering trauma. For these young people, extra support either in the workplace or outside it is vital to boost their confidence and make sure that they stay on track. The challenge, of course, is that this kind of support has cost implications. I would welcome a discussion with the Minister to explore options for some kind of support fund for apprentices with additional needs.

In eight minutes, it is impossible to refer to all aspects of the Bill but, finally, I want to touch on the admittedly difficult issue of restricting child tax credit to two or fewer children. It is important that we understand that this Government have a mandate to reduce the welfare bill and that they need to be fair to the many working families whose budgets have to accommodate the cost of every additional child. In 2012, the average number of dependent children in families in the UK was 1.7. Limiting support through tax credits to two children is proportionate. Families on benefit should have to make the same financial decisions as families supporting themselves solely through work.

It is important to see this measure in the round. Child benefit will see no incursions, and the additional 15 hours of free childcare for working parents of three and four year-olds is worth £2,500 per child. I am relieved that the Government will treat multiple births as single births but with a child element for each sibling where there were previously fewer than two children in the household. I believe that the Government will be consulting on further exemptions, so obviously flexibility seems to be the order of the day.

Achieving full employment and ensuring that those in work are rewarded are key to securing a just society and a prosperous economy. These are the two central ambitions of the Bill and, as such, it has my strong and enthusiastic support.