Pensions: British Citizens Overseas

Baroness Hooper Excerpts

Wednesday 24th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Altmann]

My Lords, the Department for Work and Pensions has not made any estimates of the costs of this uprating. External sources have suggested that the costs of partial uprating are estimated at around £200 million a year by 2020.

[Baroness Hooper (Con)]

My Lords, can my noble friend tell us what will happen to the some 400,000 pensioners living in European Union countries should the UK vote to leave the European Union? Will their pensions be frozen, either partially or totally?

[Baroness Altmann]

The issue of what will happen if this country leaves the European Union has not yet been decided, but if there are reciprocal agreements and legal obligations to uprate, pensions will be uprated.

Pensions: British Pensioners Overseas

Baroness Hooper Excerpts

Wednesday 11th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, bluntly, this is about money. The approach in this policy has been in place for 60 years —effectively, the current structure dates from 1955—and, as far as I am aware, during the discussion that we had on this during the passing of the Pensions Act 2014, both the Government and the Opposition confirmed that they had no desire to change current arrangements.

[Baroness Hooper (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Marlesford (Con)]

My Lords—

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

My Lords, I think that the House is signalling that it would like to hear from my noble friend Lady Hooper.

[Baroness Hooper]

My Lords, can my noble friend tell us about the situation for British pensioners in the overseas territories, such as the Falkland Islands, St Helena, Gibraltar and so on? Would it be possible for the scheme of partial uprating described by my noble friend Lady Benjamin to apply at least to the small number of pensioners who live in our overseas territories, which are, after all, a very special case?

[Lord Freud]

Of the 14 overseas territories, two are uprated—that is, Gibraltar and Bermuda, where we have bilateral agreements—but the other 12 are not. The reason that we cannot go ahead and treat them differently is that that would open the door for us having to do it elsewhere.

EU: Youth Unemployment (EUC Report)

Baroness Hooper Excerpts

Tuesday 17th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hooper (Con)]

My Lords, as a new member of the sub-committee last year, I was pleased to be able to discuss the choice of subject for the latest report and agreed wholeheartedly that the issue of youth unemployment was the one that caused the most concern, affecting the whole of Europe, and that it was vital for all our economies to tackle this issue anew in the wake of the economic crisis. The inquiry has justified this decision. A focus at EU level has been worth while, even though most of the causes and solutions have to be dealt with at local level, country by country and often at regional or local level in each country.

Today’s debate has also underlined the importance of the issue as well as the extent of the problem. I agree with much of what has already been said. The process of preparing the report has been fascinating. I, too, congratulate my noble friend the chairman on the way that she outlined the background to the report and the main facts and conveyed the flavour of the discussions and debates that took place in the committee as a result of the many excellent sessions when we took evidence from a wide variety of witnesses. I also thank the committee clerks and our expert for their support and advice. I am glad that my noble friend Lord Shipley and the noble Baroness, Lady Uddin, who were not members of the committee, feel that the report is sufficiently comprehensive and wide ranging. I hope that it will make a valuable contribution to illuminating thinking on the problem.

I wish to focus on two aspects. The first is the use and relevance of European Union funding. I draw attention to chapter 3, paragraph 48, which points out:

“EU funds are limited in comparison with the scale of the crisis”.

It therefore seems that it is of the utmost importance that funds are used effectively and efficiently, not to subsidise existing national approaches and national funding but to try something new and then to evaluate it in the way that we recommend in paragraph 52. Criticisms are sometimes made about the system for obtaining Brussels funding. There certainly are defects in the system, which is complex and slow. Much of this we can control ourselves, as applications for European Union funding, whether made by national or regional bodies or by the voluntary sector, start in this country. My experience as a Member of the European Parliament was helped by the fact that in those days we had single-member constituencies. Mine was Liverpool. The committee made a useful site visit to Liverpool, which has been referred to. It is detailed in appendix 4. My experience dates back to the establishment of the Social Fund in the early 1980s. There was an active voluntary sector in Liverpool—remember, this was just after the Toxteth riots—and I was already in contact with many organisations. There was also severe youth unemployment. It was before the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, did his stint at the European Commission. In fact the noble Lord, Lord Richard, was then looking after Social Fund issues. I was able to set up seminars, conferences and teach-ins which explained how to go about obtaining funding from the then new Social Fund. This was especially relevant for the voluntary sector. The result was that Liverpool projects received well over 50% of all the funding available to the whole country. Things have changed since then, but that proves the importance of the role of local bodies and decentralisation and that if people are well informed about how to deal with these applications, they can go ahead and achieve things. European Union funding may be available, but if we do not claim it, we will not get it.

The other area of the report which I wish to underline is skills mismatch and careers advice. On the former, the statistics have already been quoted by my noble friend Lady O’Cathain. She also emphasised the extent of the problem. Chapter 5 covers the ground very clearly. However, a number of our witnesses commented on the poor quality of careers advice at schools and universities. Indeed, my noble friend Lord Liverpool has just made a valuable contribution on this. It has always been a concern of mine. I attended a recent meeting in the City of London at which the issue of youth unemployment was raised as a major concern for the leading companies that were represented there. They also pinpointed the need for better careers advice as part of a solution. The role of school governors was discussed, and it was felt that more could and should be done to encourage business and industry to become more involved. In this context, it was suggested that middle management, as well as governors, could act as mentors to encourage school leavers to consider careers of which their careers advice teacher might have no experience. It was even suggested that this could form part of the key performance indicators programme, which struck me as a good idea.

The whole issue struck a chord with me because the Education Reform Act 1988—which, as the then Lords Education Minister, I took through your Lordships’ House—was the legislation which first encouraged business and industry to become more involved in the governance of their local schools and universities. Clearly, legislation alone is not enough and there is a need to persevere in encouraging this to happen so that young people have contact with and advice from potential employers in their area. It is also important to be aware of what other European Union countries are doing to tackle unemployment and to share good practice. To be able to do this is an important element and benefit of our membership of the European Union.

For the many other matters that I would wish to refer to, I feel that I must leave the report to speak for itself. I commend it to your Lordships.

Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill

Baroness Hooper Excerpts

Wednesday 10th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

My Lords, I, too, support the amendment. I will make two points, picking up on what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, has said.

First, if both spouses are in agreement, consummation is not a necessary part of marriage. You can perfectly well have a platonic marriage throughout the entire period of that marriage. Consequently, that point goes. Secondly, the Government have opened the door. Okay, it was a deal done in the House of Commons, but the door is actually open under Clause 14, which states that:

“The Secretary of State must arrange … for the operation and future of the Civil Partnership Act 2004 in England and Wales to be reviewed, and … for a report on the outcome of the review”,

but that,

“Subsection (1) does not prevent the review from also dealing with other matters relating to civil partnership”.

That absolutely opens the door for the amendment that the noble Baroness has put forward. I find it very difficult to understand why it cannot at least be considered.

[Baroness Hooper]

My Lords, as an example of the category of person that the amendment is intended to cover, I support it.

Having lived for some 30 years in a shared household with my sister—a jointly owned home, with shared management and payment of household overheads, and the commitment of a happy family relationship, sharing everything but sex—it is therefore disappointing to find that the ties of blood and family love are less important than other bonds, and that the concept of equality does not cover this.

Sadly, my sister died three years ago so I gain nothing personally from this, but others can. I therefore fully support all that the noble Baroness has said in moving this amendment so clearly and helpfully, and I trust that your Lordships will give it very sympathetic consideration.

[Lord Alli]

My Lords, I listened carefully in Committee to the arguments why sisters, brothers, fathers, sons, mothers and daughters should be allowed to have civil partnerships, and I will try to address some of the issues raised by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick.

First, on the development of civil partnerships in terms of religious organisations, I set out in Committee why I believe that the gap between where we are today and same-sex marriage is too big for many churches to make in one step. I believe that I will see a day in the not too distant future when civil partnerships will be celebrated in churches. If we were to broaden civil partnerships beyond the scope that they have today, we will endanger that.