Polio: Pakistan and Afghanistan

Baroness Janke Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

I will take a moment to highlight the great news today: the historic announcement that the world has been certified free of type 3 of the wild poliovirus. That significant achievement should help reinvigorate the process and provide motivation for the final step. The noble Lord is right to highlight both the Global Fund and Gavi; we must continue to contribute to these funds and work together. We are pleased that the UK will host Gavi next year in London and Liverpool, where we are looking forward to demonstrating our continued commitment and galvanising the international community to do more.

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

My Lords, as the global polio eradication initiative winds down, what action are the Government taking to ensure that this transition does not undermine the achievements made so far?

[Baroness Sugg]

On World Polio Day, we should celebrate the success of the achievements so far—but, as I said, we must ensure that we continue on that. The transition point is very important. As was highlighted in the case of the Philippines, even 20 years after an outbreak we cannot be sure that it will not come back. So we must continue with the fight and continue with vaccinations and make sure that we reach the last, hardest-to-reach people—but we must ensure, as we transition, we hope, into a polio-free world, that it stays that way.

Schools: Free Sanitary Products

Baroness Janke Excerpts

Tuesday 21st May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

It is awful if a family cannot afford to buy these products. In relation to the previous question, asked by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, there are all sorts of issues around puberty and access to products. This scheme cuts across all those issues. Nobody has to be embarrassed because their parents cannot afford to pay—or, indeed, be too embarrassed to ask their parents to buy the products in the first place.

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

My Lords, is it not an absolute disgrace that many young girls do not come to school because they are too embarrassed as they cannot afford proper equipment? Is there not a case for introducing something earlier to provide resources for those young girls who come from poor families, cannot afford the equipment and are so embarrassed that they do not come to school as a result?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I have tried to relay that issue; I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, asked her Question in the first place precisely to addresses these issues too. These girls are embarrassed and some of them do not come to school because they cannot access these products.

Refugees

Baroness Janke Excerpts

Wednesday 20th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I certainly recognise the point that the right reverend Prelate makes about 35 days for universal credit, because the move-on period is 28 days but the post-grant appointment service contacts the refugee at the start of the 28 days. The early findings are actually very positive on this new initiative. The majority who attend appointments get benefits before the 28-day period and, actually, on the subject of the 35-day universal credit payment, the advance UC payment as well.

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that the number of rough sleepers whose last settled base was asylum accommodation has increased over the past three years? If the Government’s declared aim of ending rough sleeping is to be achieved, is it not essential that the move-on period be extended to 56 days, which is in line with homelessness legislation, which would give time for migrants to access financial support and for local authorities to take preventative steps?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

Our view is that elongating the move-on period does not necessarily solve the problem. What has been shown to be very effective is when the refugee is contacted right at the beginning of that period, so that the process of accessing universal credit or housing or other services can begin straightaway. Indeed, for universal credit, advance payments can be made ahead of 35 days.

Social Security (Contributions) (Rates, Limits and Thresholds Amendments and National Insurance Funds Payments) Regulations 2019

Baroness Janke Excerpts

Monday 11th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Lord Bates) (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak also to the Tax Credits and Guardian’s Allowance Up-rating Regulations 2019, and I will explain the changes that the two sets of draft regulations would bring.

These social security regulations make changes to the rates, limits and thresholds for national insurance contributions and make provision for a Treasury grant to be paid into the National Insurance Fund if required. These changes will take effect from 6 April 2019.

First, I will outline the changes to employee and employer national insurance contributions, referred to commonly as class 1 NICs. On class 1 primary NICs for employees, the lower earnings limit will rise in line with inflation from £116 to £118 a week, and the primary threshold will rise with inflation from £162 to £166 a week. The upper earnings limit is aligned with the UK’s income tax higher rate threshold, which will rise from £892 to £962 a week in 2019-20. On class 1 secondary NICs for employers, the secondary threshold will rise with inflation from £162 to £166 a week. The level at which employers of people under 21 and of apprentices under 25 start to pay employer NICs will rise from £892 to £962 a week.

I now move on to the self-employed, who pay class 2 and class 4 NICs. The rate of class 2 NICs will rise in line with inflation from £2.95 to £3 a week. The small profits threshold will rise from £6,205 to £6,365 a year. On class 4 NICs, the lower profits limits will rise with inflation from £8,424 to £8,632 a year. The upper profits limit, which is also aligned with the higher rate threshold, will rise from £46,350 to £50,000 a year.

Finally, class 3 contributions allow people to voluntarily top up their national insurance record. The rate for class 3 will increase in line with inflation from £14.65 to £15 a week.

The regulations also make provision for a Treasury grant of up to 5% of forecasted annual benefit expenditure to be paid into the National Insurance Fund, if needed, during 2019-20. A similar provision will be made in respect of the Northern Ireland National Insurance Fund. I trust that this is a useful overview of the changes we are making to bring rates of support and contributions to the Exchequer in line with inflation.

I now turn to the Tax Credits and Guardian’s Allowance Up-rating Regulations. As noble Lords may know, the Government are committed to a welfare system that is fair to the taxpayer while maintaining our protection for the most vulnerable in society. To put the regulations in context, the Welfare Reform and Work Act legislated to freeze the majority of working-age benefits, including child tax credit and working tax credit, for four years—that is, up to 2020. This helped to put our welfare system on a sustainable long-term path. Specifically exempt from the freeze were the disability elements of the child tax credit and working tax credit. The guardian’s allowance was also not affected.

As per previous years, we are now legislating to ensure that the guardian’s allowance and the disability elements of child tax credit and working tax credit increase in line with the consumer prices index, which had inflation at 2.4% in the year to September 2018. Therefore, alongside our commitment to fiscal discipline through such measures in the Act, the Government are equally committed to protecting those who are most in need of it.

In practice, the regulations mean that we maintain the level of support for families with disabled children in receipt of child tax credit and disabled workers in receipt of working tax credit. They also sustain the level of support for children whose parents are absent or deceased. Increases to these rates are part of the Government’s wider commitment to supporting the most vulnerable people in our society.

This proposed legislation makes changes to the rates, limits and thresholds for national insurance contributions, makes provision for a Treasury grant, and ensures that guardian’s allowance and the disability elements of working tax credit and child tax credit keep their value in relation to prices. I hope noble Lords will join me in supporting these regulations, which I commend to the House.

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

I thank the Minister for his introduction to the orders. The freezing of working age benefits means that tax credits increase benefits only for workers and children who are disabled. This excludes a whole range of benefits which are crucial to many of the poorest people and families. The Resolution Foundation states that the four-year freeze on working age benefits has been,

“one of the most vivid examples of austerity in recent years as it represents a … real-terms cash loss for millions of low-income families”.

Among the poorest families, the average single parent will be £710 worse off, which amounts to between 3% and 7% of their income. The freeze looks set to cost working-age families £4.4 billion in 2019-20.

I noticed from the Explanatory Memorandum that no consultation was thought to be needed. Last year when these orders went through, the Minister was asked about an impact assessment on child poverty but he said that there was no need as this was done when the freeze was announced. However, we are now entering the fourth year of the benefits freeze. Is it not time an impact assessment was made in relation to the most vulnerable and poorest groups? This is particularly important, first, because the circumstances of these groups need to be taken into account when the migration to universal credit takes place and, secondly, in the light of the evidence of so many reports—for example, by the Resolution Foundation, the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, the Trussell Trust and many others—which draw attention to the poverty and suffering being caused to people and working families at the lower end of incomes.

Does the Minister consider that disabled workers who benefit under the second statutory instrument will be at risk when the Government migrate them to universal credit? Will the Government look at the risk of that process to this vulnerable group? Will they use the forthcoming test-and-learn pilot of managed migration to trial a system where benefit claimants are moved automatically to universal credit so that their income is protected?

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, I too thank the Minister for that introduction. As we have heard, the purpose of the first set of regulations is to make changes to the rates, limits and thresholds for national insurance contributions and provide for a Treasury grant to be paid if necessary. Given the impact of inflation on household incomes, coupled with the poor wage growth over the last decade, we are of course supportive of measures that will ensure that NICs thresholds increase in line with inflation.

But I want to spend a bit longer on the second of these measures, whose purpose, as we have heard, is to uprate the guardian’s allowance and the few elements of tax credits fortunate enough to have escaped the brutal benefit freeze which has been applied across the board—that is, the disability elements for families with disabled children who get child tax credit and disabled workers in receipt of working tax credit. These are to be uprated by CPI, the 12-month measure which was 2.4% to last September. Obviously, that increase is welcome but, as we have heard, it does not cover all the major elements of child tax credit or working tax credit. It does not cover the single parent, couple or 30-hour elements of working tax credit or the child or family element of child tax credit, which is the bulk of the money—all these are frozen. Many of the people who get the tax credits that are being uprated are also in receipt of other benefits such as child benefit, JSA, ESA or housing support, which are frozen as well. This is really quite damaging.

We should not allow an occasion like this to pass without establishing for the record that this is not the way that Parliament traditionally goes about doing this business. The reason that social security benefits and tax credits are indexed to inflation is so that they keep their value. Before 2011, they were linked to the RPI or Rossi, a variant on RPI. When the Government decided to shift that and link them to CPI, it saved the Treasury a lot of money; of course, it cost the same amount to those who were on the benefits. That shift was strongly contested, but at least it retained the aim of ensuring that the value of the benefits stayed at the level determined by Parliament. When the Government made the switch, they claimed it was because CPI was a better measure. But the report published last month by the Economic Affairs Committee of this House pointed out that the Government are not above inflation-measure shopping. For example, when the Treasury is paying out benefits and tax credits, it uses CPI; when consumers are paying student loan repayments or facing increased rail fares, it uses RPI. The coalition Government ditched even CPI, limiting most working age tax credits and benefits to a 1% annual increase from 2013-14. The current Government went further still and froze those tax credits and benefits at their 2015-16 levels until 2020.

Role of Women in Public Life

Baroness Janke Excerpts

Monday 5th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

My Lords, it is a great privilege to join colleagues today in a debate commemorating 100 years since women were first enabled to vote. I pay tribute to all those women who campaigned, struggled and suffered, whether physically or mentally, but who refused to give up the fight for votes for women. I thank them for their courage, fortitude and determination to achieve a basic and fundamental right for women. I also thank all Members who highlighted the contributions and records of particular women throughout this long and important campaign.

Although 100 years is a long time, attitudes and mindsets have been very slow to change, as other noble Lords have said. The battles that the suffragettes and campaigners fought were to counter beliefs that women were intellectually inferior, incapable of understanding such things as politics, and downright dangerous if allowed to vote. Yet these same arguments are used today in discussions about extending the vote to 16 and 17 year-olds. I believe that they are as untrue today as they were then. Young people are not only capable of understanding and evaluating arguments but have to do so much more than perhaps their parents and grandparents did. As school curriculums have changed and learning has been transformed, both in method and substance, it is essential that proper education be provided so that our young people are enabled to be active, interested and sceptical citizens of the 21st century.

Education in citizenship in this country is patchy and variable in quality. How can such important subjects as how we are governed, our democratic rights and how we exercise these rights be considered optional? There has been much discussion on the failure of democracy and disenchantment among young people, yet they are the future and should have the chance to participate in an active way, to be consulted and to deliver their verdict through the ballot box. On the 100th anniversary of the granting of women’s franchise it seems timely to be considering extending democratic rights, including full education on government and citizenship, to 16 and 17 year-olds. I hope that the Government will be listening and will at least soon enable a consultation and public debate on the subject.

Coming back to women’s rights, there have been significant achievements. Many of us here today will have real-life experience of times when low status and even lower expectations were the norm for women. I can remember when I was growing up that the view was held by some that educating girls in anything other than basic skills and domestic tasks was a waste of time. Girls had to demonstrate much higher levels of ability to study science subjects and to be considered capable of higher education. Indeed, I knew many who did not challenge this and left school at 15 to go to work. My own mother, who was a widow, understood that sometimes, as happened to her, women had to manage alone and bring up their children without the support of a man, and that earning sufficient money was possible only with an education.

However, in 2016, 59% of all undergraduates were women and now they lead the way in high achievement. We have the Equal Pay Act and other rights for women, including maternity leave and pension entitlement. But after 100 years of progress, as other noble Lords have said, only 34% of MPs and 26% of Lords are women. It seems scarcely believable that only since 1958 have women been Members of this House. Equally, 60% of FTSE companies have failed to meet the 25% target for female representatives on their boards—and, despite the Equal Pay Act, the gender pay gap is still widening: it was 18.1% in 2016 and 18.4% in 2017.

Unsurprisingly, the historic gender pay gap results in a pension pay gap across every occupation. A report published in January 2018 from Aegon demonstrates that the pension pay gap gets worse as women get older. At 50, the average female pension is worth £56,116, and the average male pension is worth £112,789. A woman would have to find a contribution of £360 a month to gain equality with a man.

A recent IFS report says that for every £1 a man receives, a woman receives £32. Nearly a quarter of single female pensioners live in poverty. Women suffer as a result of the gender pay gap; they are not treated equally, so pension contributions are also unequal. Women suffer even at the end of their lives for having taken breaks in their career to have and bring up children. They are often in low-paid jobs with little pension, and are more likely to be part-time workers with limited entitlement. The OECD reports that the UK has the lowest state pension of any developed country as a percentage of earnings. There is also a high dependence on private pensions, where women receive much less than men. So I hope that, as part of the legacy of 100 years of women’s franchise, a revisiting of women’s pension rights—including the 1950s WASPI women, as described by the noble Baronesses, Lady Bakewell and Lady Donaghy—will pave the way for fair treatment of women and will provide all women with a pension they can live on.

The sacrifice made by so many campaigners places a responsibility on us all. We must step up the fight for equality of representation, reinvigorate our democracy and extend participation, and battle as the suffragettes did to end the injustice still suffered by so many women throughout their lives.