Extreme Heat Preparedness

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

One of my neighbours said that to me only yesterday; he was just off to a hotter place. Of course, I remember the bloom of youth, and the summer of 1976 was wonderful and memorable in many ways. Let us not forget that many people, if they behave sensibly and reasonably, can enjoy those warm summer days that they dreamt of in the cold winter nights of November and December—but many people are vulnerable and need care, support and protection. That is the responsibility of the Government so, although I accept what my noble friend says, we should all be mindful that there is danger in excessive and exceptional heat. The Government, with the emergency services and others, are seeking to respond to it.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, surely the issue is that the current heatwave is yet another example of climate change; I am sure the Minister will agree on that. But the Government seem to be acting Janus-like to net zero. One face is the leadership of COP 26. The other is, for example, the Prime Minister’s positive support for a new coal mine in Cumbria and extending oil and gas licences in the North Sea. The International Energy Agency says that no new fossil fuel developments can proceed if net zero by 2050 is to be achieved. Which face of Janus will it be for the Government?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, there are several strands tied up in that question. We have some exceptional hot days in July. We must respond to that and are doing the immediate response. Then there is a separate strand when the noble Baroness talks about the longer-term threat of climate change. The party opposite was among those beating the tam-tam to remove from office my right honourable friend the Prime Minister, who has pushed through the strongest commitments and the most specific and active support for COP 26 by any Government in history. As for what the noble Baroness says about a coal mine, the Government remain absolutely committed to net zero. Does the noble Baroness not understand that we must balance the issues across the energy sector and the global economy caused by the illegal invasion of Ukraine? We must ensure that in the immediate future we have a diverse and resilient energy supply chain to withstand broader impact.

Elections Bill

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Committee stage
Thursday 17th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma (Con)]

My Lords, I did not want to be here either today, because of my fractured foot. The noble Lord, Lord Woolley, and I go back a long way, fighting on the same side on many things. However, I am worried that we are pulling everybody together and thinking that wanting to clean up the system is disenfranchising people.

I have worked so hard locally engaging with people, and the thing I hear back all the time is, “What’s the point of my vote when it’s not going to count?”, because they are not engaged—not, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, because they do not want to be, but because in cities like mine, they are not encouraged to be engaged. I have talked about those who cannot speak and understand English over and again in this Chamber, and I am talking about the many women I engage with every single week in my city. I really try hard to get them engaged in what is going on in their city because their rights are constantly being set aside.

I want our voting system to reflect these women’s desires too, just as the noble Lord and I have fought battles against everything else that is discriminatory. I want to remove this inability for them to believe that they matter. They do not matter because, most of the time, the decisions they want to make are made by people who tend to speak on their behalf because they are the only people who are engaging.

It is not just about the £180 million for me—it really is not. I am passionate that we have a system where every single vote counts, whether it is from the poor, white working class in my city or the women I am engaged with. I spoke with many of them about this Bill—before I did this to my foot—and said that I would listen carefully to what was being said. Often as not, I ask for clarification from the Government Front Bench because I want to know that what I am taking back to them will actually empower them and not take power away. A lot of the time, what they said to me was that they want to be the people who matter in this process. At this moment in time, they do not feel that they matter. For me, anything that tidies that up is a great thing.

I of course want young people to be engaged, but more important than the young people coming forward are the people who are there today—the women from my communities and the noble Lord’s communities, and the poor, working class—who do not feel engaged. If that means we have to have something that helps that process, I am all for it. Do not think for one minute I will not challenge my Front Bench if I do not agree with it, but I really want a system that enables us all to feel that we are part of a process where one vote matters. At the moment, there are plenty in my city who do not believe that.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, what a wonderful, emotional, eloquent contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Woolley. I have to say I totally agree. Here we are this afternoon debating the minutiae of the costs of voter ID, when the big issue we are failing to debate and come to terms with is the huge number of people in our country who should be able to vote but are not able to because they are not on the register. It is disproportionately and discriminatively against those from black communities, Asian communities and working-class communities. That is why the contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, was so powerful.

[Baroness Verma (Con)]

I am tired of this divisiveness that keeps coming up. We have been in this country for a very long time. The divisiveness that has been caused has been caused because we have refused to allow people to be fully engaged. I am going to stand here and say that over and over again. The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, can shake her head, but I have heard it over and over again that minority communities do not want to engage. They do, but unfortunately the systems do not always help them.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

I have found this absolutely fascinating—I genuinely have. This is not a rhetorical point. I understand that both the noble Baronesses opposite who have spoken have said they want integrity in the system. The noble Baroness has just said she feels passionate about a lack of engagement and obstacles to people’s engagement—an issue on which I suspect she finds common cause with the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, and everyone in the Committee. My question to the noble Baroness, because I really want to understand her position, is whether she feels that, at present, a significant bar to the engagement she seeks is coming from widespread voter fraud in the communities she is discussing. Is that the problem she feels is the stumbling block and is that why she is a supporter of the Government’s policy?

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, there was no intention on my part at all to create any division within our communities. I have spent a lifetime in mixed communities, trying to engage people from every background in the political process. That is the point that I was trying to make and I am sorry if the noble Baroness opposite perhaps misunderstood.

Here we are today, talking about the costs of voter ID, which the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, has eloquently said will create an even greater barrier to people being able to vote. At this point, I want to draw the attention of the Committee to the fact that I am an elected member of Kirklees Council and a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

I speak in support of the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman—of course I do. In many ways, she is absolutely right. Any changes in the way in which elections are administered will be an additional cost to already hard-pressed council finances. Returning officers have expressed their concern. They know that there is more to it than just creating the new eligible voter ID for those without it.

Additional costs are mentioned in the Explanatory Memorandum, helpfully. What it does not do is list them. I am going to draw the Committee’s attention to what some of the additional costs will be. As we have heard, there is the additional cost of creating a photographic voter ID card for those who do not have one, the cost of providing screens for voters who do not wish to remove their face covering in front of others, and the cost of additional equipment to make it easier for those with disabilities to vote in person. The latter is one part of the Bill that is positive. There is also the cost of additional polling clerks to check ID in busy polling stations—perhaps financial incentives will be required to encourage polling clerks to fulfil that role because they will now have to check the ID of every voter before they get their ballot paper. There is the cost of effectively communicating the change, and the hidden cost of more trained staff. And so it goes on.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, has said, the estimate is £180 million—a mere £3 per person. I say to her that, in my council area, that is £1 million a year—and £1 million does not half fill a lot of potholes. If I asked my electors back in Kirklees whether they would rather the council produced voter ID cards for people or filled potholes, I am fairly confident that I know what the answer would be.

Can the Minister confirm that the Government will meet all the additional costs of the changes that they want to make? Can he confirm, given that individual councils will have different additional expenditure based on their demographics, that any government grant will be divided to meet the cost of changes rather than on a formulaic basis? Do the Government believe that extra expenditure is value for money? The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, raised that issue and I have just given an example. Have the Government consulted with electors on whether they believe that these additional costs are value for money and can be considered a priority in these straitened times?

Schedule 3 relates to the changes proposed to postal voting. There is a very high cost to the requirement to reapply after three years. In my local authority, around 50,000 electors currently vote by post; the postage costs alone are very high. In England there are about 8 million postal voters, so the postage costs for writing out to existing postal voters for them to reapply and fill in the postal voter application would be about £4 million. Is that money well spent in the current circumstances?

Elections Bill

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 23rd February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I draw the House’s attention to my relevant interests as an elected councillor, and as someone who has been at the heart of elections, local and national, on every occasion for the past 40 years.

This Bill is a crude attempt to curtail our democracy. One of the ways that this is being done is through the requirement to produce photo ID at polling stations. Yesterday in your Lordships’ House, there were fervent arguments from the Conservative Benches that it was anti-democratic to require a security pass to vote in this House, yet this requirement is acceptable for ordinary folk wanting to cast their vote.

Our current elections process is far from perfect. There are significant problems with ensuring that everyone is registered to vote. In 2019, the Electoral Commission estimated that 17% of people, or one in six, are not on the register. For people from Asian and black heritage, that rises to one in four. In every general election I have had calls from people who have not been able to vote because they are not on the register for whatever reason.

One of the Bill’s aims should be to commit to increasing voter registration by giving elections officers adequate resources to do so, and to assure, for example, those fleeing from domestic violence that they can opt out of the public register. Where is the voter registration commitment in this Bill?

Of all the imperfections in our voting system, personation is not a significant one. Let us consider the practical implications of the voter ID proposal. Not everyone will have photo ID. Those who do not will not turn their mind to getting a so-called “free” card from their elections office in time. Some will forget to take it to vote, as the pilots demonstrated. Perhaps the Minister will explain how women who wear the burka are to vote when they will not be able to show their face if there are any men in the polling station. Are they to be disfranchised because of their faith?

Polling clerks will be turning voters away, when those voters will rightly feel that their inalienable right has been removed. Just at a time when we need a system that encourages more people to take part, it seems that the aim of this tawdry Bill is to make it more difficult to vote.

The Minister will no doubt suggest that those who do not want photo ID can apply for a postal vote. That argument will indicate just how little the Government understand about how some voters, often but not only women, have their postal vote used by someone else.

On the change to first past the post for mayoral and police commissioner elections, the Minister said earlier that the Government were getting rid of the supplementary vote system because such systems are confusing. Yet only this last week, the Conservative Members of your Lordships’ House used the supplementary vote system to elect a new Member to their ranks. Was it that confusing for Members of the Conservative Benches?

[A noble Lord]

Probably.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

Maybe that is what has induced this change: it was too confusing for elections to your Lordships’ House.

This Bill is thoroughly anti-democratic. Only a Government determined to seek to control elections would propose that the independence of the Electoral Commission should end. In a most unusual step, the commission has written to the Minister as follows:

“It is our firm and shared view that the introduction of a Strategy and Policy Statement—enabling the Government to guide the work of the Commission—is inconsistent with the role that an independent electoral commission plays in a healthy democracy. This independence is fundamental to maintaining confidence and legitimacy in our electoral system … If made law, these provisions will enable a government in the future to influence the Commission’s operational functions and decision-making. This includes its oversight and enforcement of the political finance regime, but also the advice and guidance it provides to electoral administrators, parties and campaigners, and its work on voter registration.”


This is a thoroughly anti-democratic Bill, and in some of its provisions dangerously so. It discredits our reputation as a torch bearer of democracy and therefore cannot be supported by those of us who love our democracy.

Homes: Affordability

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Thursday 28th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bird, for instigating this debate and for his very powerful introduction to so many vital issues, poverty being at the heart of it all. I will address my remarks to the affordability of housing. I hope the noble Lord thinks that will help the debate; I will just focus on that part, because it is so wide-reaching. I have long had very considerable concerns about the quality and cost of housing for many families who have come directly to my attention in my roles as a councillor in Kirklees in West Yorkshire and as a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

The noble Lord, Lord Bird, has focused the attention of this debate on the impact of the reduction in universal credit—which is still a reality for the majority of those who claim benefits, despite the changes announced in the Budget yesterday—the end of the furlough scheme and the rise in fuel prices. He is absolutely right to be very concerned about the impact that that triple combination of issues will have. There are other issues he mentioned only in passing, such as the rise in food prices and, for some folk whose housing is not affordable, the taxation increases through national insurance contributions. All those will make it so much harder for people who have only just enough to pay their housing costs, be that mortgage or rent.

The noble Lord, Lord Bird, gave us some assessment of the numbers of people already in rent arrears and under threat of becoming homeless as a result. This is a result of deep-seated problems that have been enhanced by the economic effects of the pandemic. This afternoon, I will draw the attention of the House to the challenges of affordability that exist now and existed before the pandemic.

The Government are very keen on promoting so-called “affordable housing”. In the Budget announcement yesterday, the Chancellor allocated £11.5 billion to provide affordable housing. In broad terms, affordable housing means housing that is provided at around 80% of the market level. But for many renters this remains unaffordable, even for those on middle incomes, let alone those on low incomes, as the Affordable Housing Commission reported last year.

The phrase “affordable housing”, as currently defined, is completely misleading and should be challenged—as I do at every opportunity. Worse still, so-called affordable homes are affordable only once. The Government could, and in my view should, require affordable housing to be affordable in perpetuity. Will the Minister agree to investigate that suggestion and let me know the outcome of any ideas that come forward?

The rented sector is so unaffordable that the Government expend considerable sums on housing benefit—the forecast is that £30.3 billion will be spent this year. The House of Commons report states that 25% of this will be for tenants in local authority housing, 38% for housing association tenants, and 37% for private sector tenants. According to a report by Shelter last year, there are 1.4 million tenants in the private rented sector who rely on housing benefit or have it as part of their universal credit.

As many Members will know, the rate of benefit is calculated according to the local housing allowance, which is referenced to local market rents. During the pandemic, the LHA level was reset at the 30th percentile. This is the maximum that can be claimed. In theory, it is enough to ensure that housing benefit covers the cost of renting a typical house large enough to meet the needs of the household. If all the rent is to be covered by housing benefit, this means that the only houses available in the private rented sector are those falling at 30%, or below, of local market rents. If there are more families and individuals requiring a property within that first 30% than there are rented properties available, then people reliant on housing benefit to help with their rent find that they have to pay above that rate in order to get somewhere to live.

I will illustrate this with examples from my own hometown, of Cleckheaton. Here, the local housing allowance for a two-bed property is £103.56 per week. I know that will be a surprise to many people who live in London, but that is what it is in my part of West Yorkshire. This is the maximum a family can receive in housing benefit. Yesterday, I did a search to find potential properties. I failed to find any at or below £103.56. There was a two-bed Victorian terrace in a row of back-to-backs—literally two up, two down—at £106 a week, the lowest rent I could find; this house was in a terrace, with no garden or frontage, giving straight on to the street. There were other two-bed Victorian terraced properties at £114 and £137 a week. The result is that families who are desperate for somewhere to live, and whose income means that they depend on housing benefit, end up renting a property costing more than the local housing allowance. The extra that has to be found—even if it is £3 a week, let alone £11 or £24—comes at the expense of their other living costs, such as food, heating and travel. It is one of the reasons why so many families have had to turn to food banks and why, as we heard, so many are in arrears and in danger of losing their homes.

The problem I have described is of course magnified in cities such as London, where housing costs are many times those in the example I have given. Here, the difference in the rate of local housing allowance and the rent that has to be paid is so high that families are in very difficult financial circumstances.

All that I have described predates the additional financial strain on household finances as a result of Covid. Earlier this year, housing charities called on the Government to tackle rising rent arrears. A report by Crisis, Shelter and, I think, Citizens Advice estimated that at least half a million households had rent arrears so large that they were in danger of being made homeless. Of these, 300,000 households have dependent children. If they are made homeless, the local authority has a duty to find accommodation.

The challenge for local authorities in rehousing those who have become homeless is an almost impossible one, as the stock of housing in the public sector has seriously diminished. In the Kirklees Council district, so-called council housing is around half of what it was 20 years ago; it has fallen from 46,000 houses to about 23,000, the last time I looked. Rents in that sector—social rents—are significantly lower, at an average of about £70 a week. These rent levels are covered in total by housing benefit where needed, at a significantly lower cost to the public purse. The question for the Government is this: why are they failing to fund the construction of significantly more houses at social rent? This would not only meet the needs of the million or more people currently on council house waiting lists but could be achieved at a much more reduced level of public funding —public subsidy for housing benefit and construction—than any other way. I just despair, really.

I have focused my remarks so far on those who rent their home, but there is a growing challenge for young people who want to buy a house, as for many it is totally unaffordable. The solution is not simply setting numbers of houses to be built as targets, as developers simply build the houses that give them the biggest profit. The Government need to move away from setting targets of numbers of units built and turn their attention to the type of unit and location, to enable young people to get on the housing ladder. There is a great challenge here for policymakers, in providing homes to rent that are genuinely within the means of renters who depend on housing benefit—or the universal credit part of that—and in enabling the construction of large numbers of homes that are within the financial means of first-time buyers.

I have asked a lot of questions, which I hope the Minister will respond to. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bird, for this debate, which has enabled us to raise issues of housing affordability and poverty. We do not talk enough about these issues. With those remarks, I look forward to the rest of the debate and to the Minister’s response.

Covid-19 (Public Services Committee Report)

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Thursday 22nd July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pinnock (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I draw the attention of the House to my relevant interests recorded in the register as a member of Kirklees council and as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. As a member of the Select Committee, I too wish to praise the leadership of the committee by the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong.

My abiding memory from the witnesses who gave oral evidence to the committee was of the dedication of all those involved in providing public services. Service providers rose to the multiple challenges posed by the pandemic and overwhelmingly put first the needs of the people they served. As we know, some of them literally gave their all. I pay tribute to all those in public service for their heroic actions during this continuing pandemic.

As we have already heard, this is a wide-ranging report and I wish to focus my comments on the response of services provided by local government. What struck me most in listening to the witnesses was that staff were energised by the challenge of continuing to provide services in a different way. They were almost always motivated to continue providing the best services they could and determined to find ways round the barriers rather than be intimidated by them. The result, we heard, was that innovative practices were introduced. Some were the result of government initiatives and funding. As we have already heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, 15,000 rough sleepers were rehoused in hotel accommodation very quickly thanks to a government grant and local government action. This was a significant success and one that had other benefits for homeless people.

Innovations were also sparked by practitioners from different services and organisations, such as NHS community services and local government social care working more closely together and with local and national charities and voluntary groups. They described how they felt empowered by the challenges of the pandemic to pay less heed to existing service guidance and just find a better way of doing their job.

One of the examples in the report is of social care and the NHS in the Leicestershire area establishing what they call their “care home cell” to ensure co-ordination. That is an example of dependence on already very good working relationships across the organisations. The importance of effective personal relationships was repeated by other witnesses.

It was also vital in another strong theme that emerged: the importance of local, place-based services. Time and again we heard evidence about topdown control being less effective than local solutions. For instance, as someone in the Local Government Association described it:

“Guidance came out in dribs and drabs. One of my [local authority] colleagues said it was like trying to construct a piece of Ikea furniture with a piece missing and the instructions being posted daily in bits and pieces.”


Another example of topdown instruction not being as effective came from my own local authority. Early in the pandemic there was a significant outbreak in a meat processing factory in Kirklees. The central data provided was so poor that the council’s public health director asked the council’s digital service to provide the data in a more meaningful and accurate way. This was successfully achieved.

However, it was clear from the witnesses that local services of all kinds were in a fragile state following years of austerity. Age UK wrote that the pandemic had revealed the

“true extent of the impact that underfunding, structural issues and market instability have had on the system’s ability to respond”.

Local government was described as much less resilient as a result of very significant funding cuts.

One of the lessons was best described by users. They said that where providers have listened to them and then changed their practice as result, their needs were much more effectively met and there was a reduction in duplication. This co-production—codesign— was much the best way forward for users who gave evidence.

This is a valuable report; I have touched on just a small part of its deliberations and conclusions but to me the lessons are clear. First, we should reduce central control and have much more local, place-based definition of service provision. Secondly, we should enable coproductions to flourish. Thirdly, we should recognise the enormous contribution of people and personal relationships in innovating and overcoming adversity, and value those people. Finally, underfunding services on which our society relies cannot continue if care for the more vulnerable among us is important to society as a whole. The challenge for the Government is how these vital lessons are to be at the forefront of their thinking and funding decisions. I hope the Minister will explain how the Government intend to respond to these very significant challenges.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Brougham and Vaux) (Con)]

I call the next speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, and remind noble Lords that the time limit for speeches is six minutes.

Spending Review 2020

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Thursday 3rd December 2020 Grand Committee

[Baroness Pinnock (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I remind the Grand Committee of my relevant interests as a councillor and a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

The Government have a much-vaunted aim in the levelling-up agenda. Councils are key to this. Sadly, however, there is no sign of that happening in this spending review. The headline figure of a rise of 4.4% in councils’ spending power hides the fact that more than half of that is as a result of the expectation that councils will ask council tax payers to pay 3% extra as a social care precept. This sticking plaster for adult social care was introduced in 2015. All told, this means that council tax payers’ bills will rise 13% above inflation to shore up escalating social care demands. This is a regressive tax that hits the poor hardest and raises least in the poorest areas of the country, thus expanding inequalities. Perhaps the Minister can explain how this can be part of the levelling-up agenda.

Further discrimination against the poorest towns can be found in the distribution of the Towns Fund, which has resulted in the most needy towns, as defined by the Secretary of State’s own criteria, being refused funding so that other towns selected by Ministers can benefit. These two factors together illustrate that levelling up demands more than capital investment: social capital requires investment, too.

Public Services: Update

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Wednesday 29th April 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker]

I again call the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

Following on from the noble Lord, Lord Laming, I want to explore the needs of local authorities a bit further. Councils of all political persuasions are very concerned about the considerable shortfall in the funding they need—for example, to prevent the failure of private sector social care provision. Will the Minister join me in urging the Government to meet this large and urgent need for additional funding—over and above, I have to say, what has already been provided to local government during this crisis?

[Lord True]

My Lords, I might be new in the game, but I am afraid that I cannot urge the Government because I am no longer on the Back Benches. I can say that the Government understand the critical importance of local authorities in confronting this problem. I will certainly make sure that the noble Baroness’s points are heard and understood by the Chancellor. As I said, I cannot anticipate what financial provision he will make for the future.