Pension Protection Fund (Moratorium and Arrangements and Reconstructions for Companies in Financial Difficulty) (Amendment and Revocation) Regulations 2020

Baroness Sherlock Excerpts

Wednesday 21st October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her explanation of these regulations, and all noble Lords for their interesting contributions. I was also pleased to hear the Minister clarify the situation regarding the Pension Protection Fund (Moratorium and Arrangements and Reconstructions for Companies in Financial Difficulty) Regulations 2020—I will call them PPF No. 1, if that is okay—which we debated on 14 September. I understood from the Minister that the problem was that DCMS made regulations in August that, in effect, meant that the PPF No. 1 regulations no longer applied to charitable incorporated organisations.

I have just gone back to the proceedings of 9 October, when we debated the Charitable Incorporated Organisations (Insolvency and Dissolution) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2020. When she introduced them, the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, explained that her department had decided that it would simplify the moratorium regime, so it disapplied provisions that it felt were unnecessary, including Section A51 of the Insolvency Act 1986, which gives the power to make provision for regulations relating to pension schemes. Unfortunately, those were the very powers that the DWP had used to extend the PPF moratorium provisions to CIOs.

The noble Baroness, Lady Barran, went on to say that

“DCMS will bring forward legislation, when parliamentary time allows, to enable these provisions to apply to CIOs. In the meantime, we do not anticipate there being any practical impacts on stakeholders whatever.”—[Official Report, 9/10/20; col. 847.]

Were those the regulations that had the effect of excluding CIOs from some of the provisions of the PPF No. 1 regulations? If so, why did DCMS press on and let Parliament debate them 12 days ago, rather than repealing and replacing them? After all, the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, said that it already had to reissue them once, owing to a mistake in the version that was laid, so it presumably could have done so again. I realise the Minister might need to ask DCMS, but I would be grateful if she did. Could she then write to me? Also, where are we now? Is it the case that, right now, the provisions of PPF No. 1 do not apply to CIOs? How long will that last? What are the consequences of that gap?

However, we are debating the Pension Protection Fund (Moratorium and Arrangements and Reconstructions for Companies in Financial Difficulty) (Amendment and Revocation) Regulations 2020—or PPF No. 2 for my purposes. I understand that the PPF No. 2 regs are needed not because of that earlier difficulty, but because the Treasury has extended the remit of the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act to apply to most co-operative and community benefit societies, and to credit unions, so the regulations ensure that the PPF covers those bodies that are now within the scope of the moratorium provisions of the Insolvency Act. This is complicated further by the fact that the original version of the PPF No. 2 regulations contained an error due to an omission in the Treasury regulations, so this is now in fact PPF No. 2, version two.

I am grateful that I got to the bottom of these complications. I will not make an issue of it, but I wanted to get it on the record because it feels important to have an audit trail of how we ended up here. However, these episodes reveal, first, three steps of drafting problems, and secondly, a failure in interdepartmental communication. What steps can be taken to ensure that DWP, or indeed other departments, find out in good time if another department is laying legislation that impacts on their own powers or provisions? Have the Government reflected on whether they are investing adequately in ensuring that departments have the resources needed for the process of drafting and cross-checking secondary legislation, or indeed primary legislation?

However, we are happy to support these regulations, since it is of course important that the PPF can step in and use its powers in the interests of the pension schemes of co-ops, community benefit societies and credit unions. But I will ask a couple of questions, including on an issue that I think other noble Lords have touched on. The moratorium provisions and, therefore, the scope of the PPF, will apply to co-op and community benefit societies, with some exceptions. Could the Minister clarify what the exceptions are? How confident is she that all the bodies to which the moratorium provisions of the Insolvency Act apply are now definitely within the PPF’s scope? If any are not, or are found later not to be, what is their legal status?

Turning to broader questions, I will be very interested to hear the answer to the question raised by my noble friend Lady Drake. This is potentially a very serious issue. We need clarity as to how the regulator could act and which legislation takes precedence in the circumstances she described. It is essential that pension funds and pensioners can always benefit from the protection that Parliament thought it had afforded them.

The PPF’s position was raised by several noble Lords, including the noble Baronesses, Lady Ritchie and Lady McIntosh. Given the state of the economy and the risks to so many employers, what assessment has the department made of the strength and stability of the PPF and its ability to deal with what is coming down the track? What mechanisms are there for keeping that under careful and constant review? How will Parliament be kept informed? Noble Lords have asked about this whenever we have had the opportunity. Can the Minister think about how best she can give Parliament the ongoing assurance needed that the PPF will be able to do its job? It is incredibly important to pension funds and pensioners across the land that this agency works, and Parliament needs some assurance on that. I look forward to her reply.

Pension Scams

Baroness Sherlock Excerpts

Wednesday 14th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

I take my noble friend’s point. The contribution that he has made just heightens the need for us to have more dialogue on this with the Minister for Pensions. However, as I have already said, the Government are taking further legislative action through the Pension Schemes Bill to enable regulations to be made prescribing conditions that, if not met, will limit an individual’s statutory right to transfer.

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, the FCA acknowledges the increasing role of online platforms, including social media, in promoting harmful information to consumers, including from pension scammers. However, the cold-calling ban that came into effect last year does not cover online activity, and scammers can get around the ban by first building relationships with consumers so that they then consent to a cold call. How will the Government update the law to keep pace with this very fast-moving digital environment, since it is clearly increasing consumer vulnerability to scams?

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

I can confirm that the Government are well aware of this issue. I referred earlier to Project Bloom, which brings together government departments, regulators, enforcement agencies and industry representatives to share information and co-ordinate actions that will deal with situations such as this. I can confirm that we, particularly the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, are already engaging with technology companies.

Social Security (Up-rating of Benefits) Bill

Baroness Sherlock Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 13th October 2020 Grand Committee

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, this has been an interesting debate and it is a real pleasure to have had two maiden speakers with us today. My noble friend Lord Blunkett is quite right when he says that they will certainly have a tale to tell those who come after them, if only that they made their maiden speeches in a Perspex cubicle; no one could accuse them of being in this for the glamour.

The noble Lord, Lord Field of Birkenhead, spoke movingly about modern slavery as well on the issues for which he is best known. He has a track record that goes back many decades in the field of social security and poverty, subjects that are dear to my own heart, and I look forward to joining him in future debates on those topics. Having heard of the range of issues and debates that have motivated the noble Baroness, Lady Stuart of Edgbaston, I look forward to hearing more from her, too, in the years ahead. Like her, I abandoned my PhD when I came into this House, and I never really got over it either. As mine was in theology, how that is relevant to a Bill about social security uprating is less immediately obvious than it is with hers. I look forward to getting to know both noble Lords in person at some point.

It is a sign of how bad things are that we have this Bill at all. It is needed only because earnings are falling. That simple fact speaks to a wave of anxiety crashing across the UK, as families face falling incomes as a result of being furloughed or having their hours cut, and that is on top of the growing number of those who are losing their jobs, as today’s employment figures show. But the Bill is necessary, as the Minister has explained since, when earnings are negative, there is otherwise no legal power to increase the state pension or the other benefits listed. The last Labour Government had a similar problem following the global financial crisis and brought forward similar legislation, so we on these Benches support this move.

However, some important questions have been raised that need to be answered. First, the Bill is permissive rather than prescriptive. The Explanatory Notes to the Bill say that it will

“allow the Government to meet its commitment to the Triple Lock.”

First, can the Minister tell the House if the Government do indeed intend to increase the state pension under the triple lock? Secondly, are they still committed to the triple lock for the rest of this Parliament, an issue raised by my noble friends Lady Drake and Lord Foulkes? There have been rumours and briefings to the contrary, so it would be good to know. Since the Conservatives sought election on the promise of the triple lock, it is not unreasonable for the public to want to know if they intend to stand by that manifesto promise or not.

Thirdly, the Bill gives the Secretary of State uprating discretion for just one year, a point flagged by the noble Baroness, Lady Stuart, the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, and others. The pandemic may continue to create challenges in how we calculate upratings because of earnings volatility. At one stage, the Government were sure that wages would bounce back from the fall caused by furlough and short hours and that we would see a significant one-off jump in earnings in 2021, as suggested by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, and the noble Lord, Lord Shipley. The latest growth figures from the Bank of England are rather less optimistic, but the fact is that we do not know. Can the Minister tell the Committee: did Ministers consider some sort of smoothing process such as applying the principles of the lock over two years instead of one, or will we find ourselves back here at the same time next year? It would be good to know that the Government are doing some longer-term thinking on this issue.

The issue of pensioner poverty has been mentioned by various noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord Addington, Lord Bourne, and others, along with the position of women, spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Janke. The number of poor pensioners had fallen significantly, largely due to the introduction of pension credit, but this is now a fresh cause for concern. Government figures show that 1.9 million pensioners are living in relative poverty. Are the Government as committed to pension credit as they are to the state pension, a point flagged up by my noble friend Lady Drake? If the answer is yes, are they therefore committing to an increase in the standard minimum guarantee in pension credit under the triple lock as well? If they do not, the benefit of the increase in the state pension could be enjoyed in full by many Members of this House, but not by the poorest pensioners in the land who face having it clawed back from pension credit.

The issue of take-up was raised by the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, and others. Pension credit is a vital safety net for poorer pensioners, and it is a passport to other benefits like housing benefit, council tax benefit and now free television licences for those aged over 75. But the last published figures show that only six in 10 of those eligible are claiming it and only 70% of the total amount of pension credit that could be taken having been claimed. A senior DWP official told the Select Committee in the other place

“In the UK, 16 per cent of pensioners are in poverty … if all those pensioners claimed pension credit, housing benefit and the council tax reduction, especially the council tax reduction, that would reduce the 16 per cent to almost zero.”


What do the Government plan to do to increase the take-up of pension credit and those benefits to which it is a gateway?

Just as the case for pensioners was made passionately by my noble friend Lord Foulkes, the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, and others, so too the value of working age and children’s benefits has been pressed by many noble Lords. I do not want to get into the middle of an intergenerational war because there are a lot of issues at play here: poverty, fairness within and between generations, the interaction of public provision and private savings, the respective roles of tax and benefits and, I would add, the importance of not doing anything to undermine the contributory nature of our social security system. But the underlying problem is that, because of years of cuts, our system was creaking when this pandemic hit, as my noble friend Lady Lister demonstrated very clearly. Many people claiming benefits for the first time have been shocked to find out how low they are. I have had people who have lost their jobs ask me how they are meant to live on £95 a week universal credit. I sympathise, but then I have to tell them that if they were getting income support or ESA, they would be getting just £74 a week and that if the Chancellor goes ahead and scraps the universal credit top-up, and if they have not found a job by next April, their benefit will be cut by £20 a week, which will have a huge effect, as noted by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans, the noble Lord, Lord Field, and others. I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Drake for highlighting the fact that, thanks to the benefit cap, 124,000 families on universal credit are not getting the full £20 a week increase and thousands more will see their benefits fall as the grace period runs out.

The Secretary of State has discretion on uprating most working-age benefits. After years of freezes and below-inflation rises, last year they were uprated by CPI, except of course for the bereavement support payment, a payment flagged up by the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann. Along with her, I have regularly urged the Minister to look afresh at the Government’s reforms to bereavement support. We are awaiting the September figure for CPI, and that will be the usual measure, but the August 12-month CPI rate was 0.2%, down from 1% in July. The largest contribution to that fall came from recreation, culture and falling prices in restaurants and cafes arising from “Eat out to help out”, followed by air fares and clothing prices. These are irrelevant to benefit claimants. They cannot afford to eat out even with Rishi’s help, and they are certainly not flying anywhere. If the CPI is zero, would Ministers really freeze benefits once again? If the CPI is as low as 0.2%, will the Secretary of State use her discretion to support those of working age in the way she is using it to support pensioners? However, I accept that those are matters for another day, and I hope that the Minister can tell us when that day will come.

For today, I welcome this Bill. It is important to ensure that the Government can fulfil their promise to pensioners. For them to do that, the Bill is necessary and we are pleased to support it. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

Covid-19: Over-60s

Baroness Sherlock Excerpts

Monday 12th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

My understanding is that if somebody’s job has gone—and I take what the noble Lord says about the creative industries—they can apply for universal credit. They will get the support of a work coach, who will help them in the next phase of their journey, in working out what work they could do and what transferable skills they have, and then turning every stone to make sure that they secure alternative employment.

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, just as unemployment started to rise, the Government decided to reinstate conditionality and sanctions. From what the Minister has just said, is she really saying that if somebody who is clinically extremely vulnerable—on grounds of either age or condition—or who lives with someone like that, refuses to take a job, because they think they would put themselves or their partner at risk, the Government would sanction them and take away some of their benefits? Is she really saying that?

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

I respond by saying to the noble Baroness that the work coaches are exercising caution and compassion when considering sanctions. Only if there is no good reason for somebody to turn down an opportunity will sanctions be applied.

Covid-19: Low-income Families

Baroness Sherlock Excerpts

Thursday 8th October 2020 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Sherlock]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on (1) low-income families with children, and (2) the support provided to them by the social security system.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Stedman-Scott) (Con)]

A direct assessment of Covid-19’s impact on low-income families with children has not been made. However, we are monitoring several data sources, including Her Majesty’s Treasury’s recent distribution analysis of Covid-19’s impact on working households. The Treasury analysis has shown that the Government’s unprecedented support package, including job retention, self-employment protection schemes and an additional £9 billion to strengthen the welfare system, has supported the poorest working households the most, with those in the bottom 10% seeing no income reduction.

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, the Government may not make an assessment but I am seriously worried by mounting evidence from Action for Children, CPAG and the Trussell Trust of parents struggling to pay the bills and to feed their kids in this pandemic. We could help by lifting the benefit cap and the two-child limit and topping up legacy benefits, but Ministers have said no and now the Chancellor is threatening to scrap the £20 a week he put on universal credit. I have two simple questions. Does the Minister accept the evidence that a growing number of parents are struggling financially? If she does, what are the Government going to do about it?

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

I take the noble Baroness’s point well. I assure her that we are considering all evaluations—the Trussell Trust, Joseph Rowntree and Action for Children, as well as Understanding Society, the Covid-19 survey and the opinions and lifestyle survey by the Office for National Statistics. I am sure this question will come up many times today, so I say that the £20 UC increase was put in for one year only. As my colleague the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in the other place said, dialogue is continuing with HMT on this, and the Prime Minister confirmed yesterday that it is under constant review.

Pension Protection Fund (Moratorium and Arrangements and Reconstructions for Companies in Financial Difficulty) Regulations 2020

Baroness Sherlock Excerpts

Monday 14th September 2020 Grand Committee

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for her explanation of these regulations and for her time in advance of today. I am grateful, too, to all noble Lords who have spoken, and I will be interested to hear answers to the many excellent questions from the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, and many other noble Lords.

These are tough times. The UK is in recession, the economy shrank by a fifth between April and June, employers are facing unprecedented challenges, unemployment is sky high and there are widespread predictions of large-scale job losses coming down the track as the furlough scheme is wound down. Given those conditions, Labour supported measures in the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act to help struggling businesses stay open, but it is crucial that when companies face financial difficulty, interventions are made in a way which protects the pension schemes. I pay tribute to my noble friend Lady Drake and all who worked with her in pursuing amendments to the Act when it was a Bill to protect pension schemes and strengthen the position of the PPF. We are seeing the fruit of that work start to emerge here today.

I can confirm that we welcome the regulations. If a company ends up in a moratorium situation or facing a restructuring, it must be right for the PPF to be able to exercise the creditor rights of a trustee of a DB scheme. That is essential to protect the interests of the members of a scheme, but also the interests of all those who pay in to the PPF or may one day need to call on it. The most appropriate benchmark for assessing those measures is surely the powers that the PPF has now in relation to insolvency events.

My noble friend Lady Drake has previously given excellent examples such as the case of Arcadia of how the PPF can act to protect members and in doing so protect the lifeboat itself. Ministers were pressed to mirror what happens in an insolvency in the moratorium, with the triggering of an assessment and all that flows from that, but they chose not to do it, so the concerns articulated today by my noble friend Lady Drake, the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, the noble Lord, Lord Flight, and others deserve good answers.

I realise that the corporate governance Bill was handled by BEIS and the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, is a DWP Minister, but leaving aside the fact that she speaks for the Government, her department has responsibility for the PPF, so I should like to know how the DWP has looked at the implications of these regulations and the PPF in the round. How will Ministers give effect to the concession won by my noble friend Lady Drake and others in relation to monitoring the new processes and taking powers to make regulations to change the definitions of moratorium debt, and what role does her department have in the judgments made on that?

Secondly, what assessment has the DWP made of the potential risk to the PPF of the difference between its position in a moratorium versus an insolvency when it comes to voting rights and creditor standing? Thirdly, what assessment has the DWP made of the potential risk to the PPF, highlighted by my noble friend Lady Drake, of the new moratorium arrangements being gamed by lenders wanting super-priority status at the expense of the pension scheme? Crucially, given the state of the economy and the risks to so many employers, what assessment has the DWP made of the strength and stability of the PPF and its ability to deal with what is coming down the track?

This is a period of unprecedented challenge. It is right for the Government to do what they can to keep companies afloat and jobs alive, but the DWP also has a responsibility to ensure that the framework put in place to protect workers’ pensions does not let them down. If that is not done properly, it could jeopardise not only individual retirement plans but put the PPF lifeboat at risk, add extra burdens to levy payers and potentially risk the whole DWP strategy to drive up long-term savings.

We support the regulations, but the way they are done matters and the stakes are high. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

Kickstart Scheme

Baroness Sherlock Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab) [V]]

[Inaudible.]—young people not in full-time education or employment. We have been urging government to introduce an equivalent to the last Labour Government’s Future Jobs Fund, which was shown to be so effective in getting young people into jobs, so we welcome the Kickstart Scheme, but it must offer a route to real jobs for those most in need. How will the Minister ensure that these are genuinely new, additional jobs? How will she ensure the scheme is taken up by employers of all sizes in all regions of the UK?

Jobseekers (Back to Work Schemes) Act 2013 (Remedial) Order 2019

Baroness Sherlock Excerpts

Thursday 3rd September 2020 Grand Committee

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her introduction to the order and all noble Lords who have spoken. With apologies for length, I shall read into the record the events that brought us here today, because we have to learn from them.

In 2009, the Labour Government launched the Future Jobs Fund, which created subsidised jobs for 18 to 24 year-olds on benefits to help them avoid the risk of long-term unemployment. Official government evaluation later found this to be a highly effective programme, with participants significantly more likely to get jobs than those who did not get involved.

Sadly, the coalition Government abolished it in 2010 to save money. They also abolished Labour’s New Deal programmes and created the Work Programme. Research later found that the Work Programme was actually less effective than doing nothing, so it was itself abolished in 2015. Part of that programme was a requirement for some claimants to do unpaid work in return for their benefits. Caitlin Reilly, a graduate who had already done a paid work placement at a museum and was volunteering there to boost her chances of getting a permanent job, was told to leave that and undertake a work placement, which turned out to be working without pay in Poundland for five hours a day sweeping floors and stacking shelves. Work experience schemes have their place, but not workfare, whereby claimants are forced to act as free labour, displacing proper jobs. Reilly launched a legal challenge and the case eventually reached the Court of Appeal, which quashed the 2011 regulations on which the scheme depended, a view upheld by the Supreme Court.

Rather than reimburse those who had been unlawfully sanctioned, the Government then repealed the 2011 regulations and introduced the Jobseekers (Back to Work Schemes) Act 2013, which retrospectively made their sanctions legal. It also validated the parallel 2011 regulations. I remember that very well. I remember the 2013 Act being rushed through Parliament—I have been in my job for ever and ever—at breakneck speed, to huge protests from the Constitution Committee and from the House. I remember the Second Reading debate, when the then Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Freud, faced an onslaught of criticism, including from the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, who pointed out that the Bill

“breaches the fundamental constitutional principle that penalties should not be imposed on persons by reason of conduct that was lawful at the time of their action”.—[Official Report, 21/3/13; col. 739.]

Occasionally, all of us in politics need to reflect that when we legislate in haste, we may repent at leisure. Reilly and others went back to court and, in a case that went right up to the Court of Appeal, the 2013 Act was in turn ruled unlawful because it had interfered with ongoing legal proceedings challenging benefits sanctions by retrospectively validating those sanctions.

In 2018, the Government laid a remedial order to fix things. Third time lucky? Alas not. As we have heard, following an intervention by a tribunal judge, that order was itself deemed to be at risk of challenge as it did not cover both sets of 2011 regulations. It was withdrawn, and last September this revised remedial order was laid.

Fourth time lucky, the Government have finally landed in the right place. We welcome this remedial order, which will restore the right to a fair hearing for all affected claimants, but there are some really important questions the Minister needs to answer. I recognise that she was not in post at the time, but the Government need somehow to explain to Parliament what they have learned from this mess.

First, can she remind us what will happen to the individuals affected by the order and how many of them there are? In the Commons, the Minister mentioned 5,000 people. I was not clear whether that is 5,000 people whose benefits were sanctioned and had appealed, and what stage that had got to. How many of those are likely to be recompensed and will DWP proactively try to locate them all?

Secondly, in the seven years it has taken to get this far, what have we learned? The Minister mentioned in her introduction a need to learn lessons about communicating better, but can she tell us whether a full lessons-learned exercise has been done on this case? Have Ministers asked what could have been done to avoid these various breaches of the law happening in the first place? What actions could have resolved it sooner? Have they reviewed whether it was right to spend so much time and public money appealing the decisions all the way, or should they have acknowledged and fixed the mistake earlier? Have they asked what drove the later errors? Was it money? Was it political intransigence or determination?

How does this play in the light of the worrying noises from the top of this Government threatening the whole principle of judicial review, misleadingly presenting it as the courts interfering with Parliament, rather than what it is—the courts upholding the requirement that the Government conduct themselves in accordance with the laws passed by Parliament?

Rather than just digging in and fighting citizens in the courts—including, in this case, by taking away the rights of others to appeal—could DWP better learn what systemic change might be needed to improve the system? What have the Government learned about how they use sanctions and their impact on claimants? I heard the very moving comments from the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, and others. I am very grateful to them and others on the committee for the work they are doing in this area.

We knew the problems back in 2013. At a Second Reading debate, my late and much missed friend Lady Hollis reminded the Minister that the DWP’s own research showed that between half and two-thirds of those sanctioned did not know that it could happen, and when it did, they did not know why. In some cases, because they had other deductions from benefits, they did not even realise that they were being sanctioned, so it obviously had no impact on their jobseeking behaviour. I will not say any more on this, as others have covered it, but I will be very interested in the Minister’s response to that.

That takes me to my final question: what lessons have the Government learned for employment support policy? Do they now value enablement and encouragement over punishment? Will they learn from the past?

Perhaps ironically, we are debating this order the day after the Kickstart Scheme opens to bids—a scheme offering six-month work placements to unemployed 18 to 24 year-olds on benefits. However, the Future Jobs Fund was so successful because the Labour Government got the culture right from the start and because it was collaborative. Will the Government learn lessons from the Future Jobs Fund, and from all the events we have debated today, to ensure both that Kickstart works well and that the DWP is focused less on enforcing conditionality—especially in the middle of a pandemic with enormous fallout for unemployment —and more on supporting people into long-lasting employment? I hope that is a goal we can all share. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

Children Living in Poverty

Baroness Sherlock Excerpts

Wednesday 15th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stedman-Scott]

There is clear evidence of the important role of work in reducing child poverty. I acknowledge that we are in very difficult circumstances, but the Government are doing everything they can to ensure that people can be supported through this difficult time. Huge amounts of support are available. We have a £30 billion plan to support, protect and create jobs, and a £2 billion Kickstart scheme; we are doubling the number of work coaches; there is an expanded youth offer; the work and health programme is being expanded; and we are increasing participation in our sector-based work academies. In addition, there is £150 million to boost the Flexible Support Fund to make sure that people can be given support—and this money will filter into the lives of children.

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, the Minister keeps mentioning work, but TUC research found that the number of poor children in working households rose by 38% between 2010 and 2018—and that was before Covid. Yet poverty was mentioned just twice in last week’s summer statement document: in the title of an IMF body and in the list of abbreviations at the end. We keep making suggestions, such as sorting out universal credit, increasing legacy benefits and ending the two-child limit, but they are all rejected. Can the Minister assure the House that the Government are taking working poverty seriously and tell us what their plans are to stop more of our kids growing up scarred by poverty?

[Baroness Stedman-Scott]

I assure the whole House that the Government take in-work poverty really seriously. Our plan is to build an economy that will support work, as we have said many times. Universal credit is designed to help people to move into work faster, although that can be challenging in the current circumstances. We have also set up the In-Work Progression Commission. As I have said before, people put forward ideas all the time and they are taken to the department. I assure the noble Baroness that we are taking this seriously. We might not be answering at the speed that she would like, but we are very genuine and sincere.

Pension Schemes Bill [HL]

Baroness Sherlock Excerpts

3rd reading & 3rd reading (Hansard) & 3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 15th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Stedman-Scott) (Con)]

My Lords, before we move to the technicalities of closing our debates on the Bill in this House and it moves for consideration in the other place, I want to take a moment to reflect on the Bill and its passage through your Lordships’ House.

This is important legislation that will benefit members of the public and will help people plan for their future. As I said at Second Reading, the Bill will have a far-reaching impact for people saving into pensions for their retirement. It ensures that reckless bosses cannot gamble with people’s savings; it transforms the way people get information about their retirement savings; and it introduces a whole new type of pension to the market.

It is clear from the excellent contributions and speeches made as the Bill progressed through this House that many of your Lordships agreed with its principles. Contributions and questions from all sides have been thorough and searching. I would not have expected anything different.

The Government listened to your Lordships’ arguments and concerns as the Bill progressed and made a number of amendments both in Committee and on Report— 73 in total, which I think you will agree have strengthened the Bill. We recognised the concerns of the DPRRC and this House in respect of delegated powers; we listened to your thoughts about a public dashboard; we introduced measures in respect of climate reporting and the Paris Agreement; and we have responded to the threat of scams by tightening the rules on transfers.

Your Lordships made further amendments to the Bill on Report concerning intergenerational fairness, consumer protection and scheme funding. We will look at these carefully along with the strong arguments made in support of them as the Bill progresses in the other place.

I thank all those who have engaged on the Floor of the House and in the many meetings that we have had outside, which I hope you found helpful. I thank my noble friends Lord Howe and Lady Scott for all the help and support they have given me throughout this process. This was my first Bill, and they have helped enormously to keep me on the straight and narrow. I thank the Whips office, the House staff, my private office, led by Vanessa Drury, and all those involved in helping us through the hybrid proceedings. These have been very testing times for everyone, and the fact that we are here at all bears testimony to the work they have put in.

Finally, I want to thank the Bill team and all the officials across DWP. I thank them for the extensive engagement programme that they helped me with. I thank Jo Gibson, Jane Woolley, Mike Jewell and Debbie Bullen—to name but four—but there are many support people behind them, and I would not want to miss anybody out in trying to name them all. They have put in incredibly long hours to support my noble friends and me during debates, to facilitate briefing meetings, and to provide the updates, letters and briefings that noble Lords have received. They have done this at a time of great uncertainty, with many teams reduced to help support front-line services. I hope that they will manage to get some well-deserved time away over the summer.

On that note, I thank you all again for your patience and support. I beg to move that the Bill do now pass.

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for those remarks and concur with them. We have agreed on so much about this Bill: we support the new CDC pension schemes; we all want to see financial technology harnessed to benefit consumers and to make the financial markets work more efficiently; and we are keen to work constructively with the Government to bring innovations such as the dashboard to fruition.

Where we have differed is on the extent of the protections needed to mitigate the risk of consumer detriment and poor outcomes. We still believe that the weight of evidence is with our arguments, as are reports from various regulators. I hope that by the time the Bill is debated in another place, the reasoning behind our Report amendments on the head start for the public dashboard, on the risks of dashboard transactions and on questions of fairness will find favour.

The pandemic has pushed many consumers into digital engagement far faster than they may naturally have adapted to it. While that has kept our economy and society functioning, it has also exposed some consumers to greater risk of detriment. We might not see any consequential increase in the number scams until later in the year, but that means that the provisions in this Bill will be timely and welcome. More risks will emerge, including new ones as a result of Covid, so I urge Ministers to keep the House informed as regulators scan the landscape and the Financial Ombudsman monitors new kinds of complaint. Although they are not covered in this Bill, we wait with interest to see how the Government will regulate the newly emerging superfunds, given the economic impact of Covid.

Pensions are very long term, and it will take decades for the full effects of public policy decisions by any Government to be seen. That is why it is so desirable that pensions policy be built on the foundations of political consensus, and it is why I am grateful for the significant concessions that have been given during the passage of this Bill.

I pay tribute to my noble friend Lady Drake, whose expertise and determination underpinned our campaign for the Government to commit to a public dashboard and have it operating from the start. I am grateful for support from across the House for that and for all the shared support for moves to secure commitments on governance, including ensuring that dashboard services will be regulated by the FCA. It was great to see cross-party working on climate issues, led by my noble friend Lady Jones of Whitchurch and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, result in an agreed position with government and the first ever reference to climate change in domestic pensions legislation. I am grateful to the Minister for yielding to pressure from many quarters for amendments on transfers and on delegated legislation.

This is a better Bill than the one which entered the House, and I give thanks to all who made that possible. I thank my noble friend Lord McKenzie of Luton, but I am sad that it will be my last time sharing the Front Bench with him. He has given so much to this House and to our country in his decades of public service. I look forward to his continued contributions from the Back Benches.

I am a grateful to Dan Harris of our staff team, who has done sterling work on this Bill and is a joy to work with, as are all my colleagues who joined in during our proceedings. I am grateful to House officials and the broadcast teams. I am very grateful to the Bill team and all the officials who have met us repeatedly and patiently answered our many questions. I am grateful, too, to colleagues across the House for intelligent and thoughtful debates. I am grateful also to the Ministers: to the noble Earl, Lord Howe, for his gentle engagement and to the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, for her co-operative spirit and her willingness to engage and to concede. This may have been her first Bill; I am sure that it will not be the last. I look forward to joining in and occasionally doing battle yet again.

We did the Committee stage of this Bill before Covid, crammed into the Moses Room with not a hint of social distancing. We did the Report stage in hybrid mode. To be honest, I will never get to love voting on my phone or get used to making passionate speeches to my iPad, but it has shown that this process can work. We have thoroughly scrutinised a vital and highly technical Bill, and we have made it better than it was. That is the job of the House of Lords in a nutshell. I am so glad we can still do it.

[Lord Sharkey (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing the very important new amendments concerning transfer rights. In Committee, the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, and I attempted to do, perhaps rather clumsily, what they do rather elegantly. We live in a time when scams are increasing, people are desperate for any return, online propositions are everywhere and can seem very tempting, and your money—occasionally all your money—is easy and quick to lose. These amendments will not solve those problems, but they will prove a valuable addition to the guidance armoury and to the better protection of consumers, and I welcome them.

My noble friend Lady Janke led the debate from these Benches with real insight and conviction. It is a pity that she cannot be with us today as the Bill concludes its passage through the House. She has asked me to thank, on her behalf, all the Members who have taken part in what has been a constructive and congenial process. She has particularly asked me to congratulate the Minister and her officials on their apparently unlimited patience, their evident willingness to listen and their responsiveness. I join my noble friend Lady Janke in her remarks, especially as concerns the Minister’s patience and forbearance. The Minister’s character determined the character of our discussions. I also thank all Members who joined in those discussions, especially my noble friend Lady Bowles and the noble Baronesses, Lady Drake, Lady Sherlock and Lady Altmann. Their expertise was evident throughout and greatly added to the value of the debate. I believe that, collectively, we have made a good Bill better.