Universal Credit
Baroness Sherlock Excerpts(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
The noble Baroness raises the important issue of evidence. Analysis shows that the Government’s interventions have supported the poorest working households, as a proportion of February income, the most, with those in the bottom 10% of the income distribution seeing no reduction in their income.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab) [V]
My Lords, because the £20 uplift was not extended to legacy benefits, an adult on universal credit is given £94 a week to live on but her neighbour on JSA or ESA gets just £74 a week. The Minister told the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham that there were no plans to change this, but she did not tell him why. Could she please explain to the House and the 2 million people on JSA and ESA why they do not deserve the same help when their food and bills cost every bit as much as those for people on universal credit?
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
I note the point that the noble Baroness makes and it is well made, but as I said, the Government’s position is that we have no plans to increase legacy benefits further. People on legacy benefits can transfer to universal credit and they can do a calculation before they transfer to make sure they will be better off.
Social Security (Up-rating of Benefits) Bill
Baroness Sherlock ExcerptsTuesday 27th October 2020
(3 years, 6 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Social Security (Up-rating of Benefits) Act 2020 View all Social Security (Up-rating of Benefits) Act 2020 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 136-I Marshalled list for Committee - (22 Oct 2020)
Baroness Janke (LD) [V]
My Lords, I too welcome the amendment of my noble friend Lord Addington. We are all interested to hear the Government’s thinking, particularly on the future of the triple lock. I am sure that we all welcome their commitment to the undertakings in their manifesto and are pleased to see the Bill. However, in recent months, a lot of doubt have been shared regarding the triple lock’s future. Some people have said to me that there seems to be an almost systematic picking at the seams of the triple lock. With the Chancellor under pressure due to the economic implications of the pandemic, we would like some reassurance from the Minister that the Government are committed to ensuring that the pension keeps its value.
The state pension is particularly important to give the poorest pensioners confidence. Everyone is suffering under the pandemic but there is no doubt that the poorest are suffering worst. We would like to know the Government’s thinking for the future. Will there be a commitment in the Bill to keep the 2.5%, as well as transparency and clarity to reassure those pensioners who are particularly dependent on the state pension? I look forward to the Minister’s reply.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for explaining what his amendment would do, and to other noble Lords who have spoken in pursuit of clarity. The noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, raised the issue of the uprating of pension credit and the standard minimum guarantee in particular. I will return to that in more detail when I move my Amendment 3 shortly.
The Bill is permissive rather than prescriptive. The Explanatory Notes say that it will
“allow the Government to meet its commitment to the Triple Lock.”
At Second Reading, the Minister was invited by many noble Lords to tell the House if it was indeed the Government’s intention to increase the state pension in line with the triple lock, but she simply repeated the formula that the Bill
“will allow the Government to maintain their manifesto commitment to the triple lock.”—[Official Report, 13/10/20; col. GC 309.]
Had she been able to go further, she might have obviated the need for much of the debate we are having at the moment.
The Minister was also asked at Second Reading whether the Government intended to stand by the manifesto commitment to the triple lock for the rest of this Parliament. As the noble Baroness, Lady Janke, pointed out, there have been various rumours and briefings swirling around that have cast some doubt on the future of the triple lock. But answer came there none.
I realise that the Minister is in a difficult position. She probably thinks it unreasonable of us to ask her to answer these questions because the decisions are not hers, but she speaks for the Government in this House. We are being asked to fast-track this Bill to enable the governing party to fulfil a manifesto commitment, although the Government will not tell us whether they are going to fulfil it. It does not seem unreasonable to ask for a bit more clarity. I look forward to her reply.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Stedman-Scott) (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for the first amendment and for clarifying the date to which he referred. His charm clearly works better than mine.
The purpose of the Bill is to allow the Secretary of State to increase the specified pensions and benefits for 2021-22. This then allows the Government to deliver their triple lock commitment. However, the actual rates of increase for each of these pensions and benefits are subject to the Secretary of State’s annual statutory uprating review. In presenting this urgent Bill, the Government have sought to replicate the powers given to the Secretary of State in the founding legislation, as was also the case in 2009.
This amendment would also apply the triple-lock formula to the pension credit standard minimum guarantee and to widows’ and widowers’ industrial death benefit for 2021-22. The triple-lock commitment does not apply to those benefits. By convention, the relevant widows’ and widowers’ benefits keep pace with the basic state pension.
In previous years the Government have sought to match the basic state pension cash increase in the pension credit standard minimum guarantee, where this increase has been higher than an amount generated by the increase in average earnings; that is the statutory minimum for uprating the standard minimum guarantee. As a result, the standard minimum guarantee for a single person is now nearly £10 a week higher than it would otherwise have been. For a couple, it is nearly £15 a week higher. The decision on how to uprate the standard minimum guarantee next April will be made during the Secretary of State’s uprating review and will be announced in November. These rates too will be subject to the Secretary of State’s statutory review in November.
The noble Baronesses, Lady Altmann and Lady Janke, asked whether the Government are going to honour their commitment to the triple lock and introduce the 2.5% element. As I have said, the Bill makes technical changes for 2020-21 which will ensure that state pensions can be uprated even though there has been no growth in earnings. This will allow the Government to maintain their manifesto commitment to the triple lock, including the 2.5% element.
The noble Baroness, Lady Janke, asked by how much the state pension will be increased this year. The Bill enables the Secretary of State to uprate state pensions in 2021-22. Every autumn, the rate of state pension increase is subject to the Secretary of State’s uprating review to which I have already referred. It would not be right to pre-empt the outcome of this review. The triple lock is a manifesto commitment under which the rate of the state pension will increase by the highest of the growth in earnings and prices, or 2.5%.
The noble Baronesses, Lady Altmann and Lady Sherlock, raised the uprating of pension credit. Without this Bill, the core component of pension credit—the standard minimum guarantee—will be frozen in 2021-22. The decision on how to uprate the standard minimum guarantee will be made during the Secretary of State’s uprating review. Your Lordships will have the opportunity to debate the uprating of the state pension, pension credit and other benefits when the draft order implementing the Secretary of State’s decision is brought before Parliament for approval in the normal way. I therefore ask the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge, for explaining his amendment to us. He is a strong advocate for this cause and I am very sympathetic to the position in which many pensioners find themselves. However, it is a difficult issue, which successive Governments have struggled to resolve.
Perhaps I may ask the Minister some specific questions. First, we have heard that 500,000 people living in other countries are affected in this way. Can the Minister confirm that figure? How much does she believe that it would now cost to change the rules?
Secondly, the noble Lord, Lord Randall, both today and at Second Reading, highlighted two particularly difficult sets of cases. The first was the position of veterans. Today, he mentioned Harry Penny, Roger Edwards, Patricia Coulthard and others, and I am still thinking about Anne Puckridge, whom he mentioned at Second Reading—the 95 year-old World War II veteran whose pension was frozen when she moved to Canada at the age of 76 to be near her family. It is hard to see the justice in those who fought for this country being denied the pensions that they earned simply because they moved abroad to be with their families in their later years and did not realise what would happen. Do the Government know how many veterans are in this position?
The noble Lord also mentioned at Second Reading the case of Monica Phillips, who emigrated to the UK in 1959 as part of the Windrush generation. After 37 years working here, she returned to Antigua to look after her mum and her pension was then frozen. Again, do the Government know how many of the Windrush generation are affected by this measure? Have they looked into it?
Thirdly, the noble Lord, Lord Randall, also raised today the issue of reciprocal agreements in the wake of Brexit. I have to say to him that I have pursued that issue for some time but have got precisely nowhere. All that Ministers will ever say is that they hope to get a deal, so the position will be as set out in the negotiating documents. However, I will be very interested to see whether he gets any more information than I have been able to obtain.
This issue is so difficult because so many people assume that their pension is determined by what they pay in national insurance contributions rather than where they live when they retire. Therefore, can the Minister assure the Committee that the position is now made abundantly clear to all pensioners, especially as they approach pension age? I look forward to her reply.
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
My Lords, I turn to the amendment to Clause 1 tabled by my noble friend Lord Randall of Uxbridge. As he is aware, it would in practice have no effect because it simply commits the Government to uprating UK state pensions, as they do now.
However, my noble friend spoke passionately at Second Reading, and again with great passion and commitment today. He eloquently shared with us the case studies of people impacted by the lack of reciprocal arrangements and the freezing of pensions. The long-standing policy of successive Governments for over 70 years has been that UK state pensions are payable worldwide and are uprated in countries overseas where there is a legal requirement to do so—for example, in countries where the UK has a reciprocal agreement that requires uprating. I look forward to the debate on the issue but, first, I would like to make some points about our reciprocal agreements with other countries.
The UK has reciprocal agreements with several countries, and most of these require uprating. There are only two reciprocal agreements which do not allow for uprating: those with Canada and New Zealand. A similar agreement existed with Australia until early 2001, when the Australian Government withdrew from it. Unlike the UK, Canada and New Zealand have residence-based state pensions. The reciprocal agreements with them broadly allow for periods of residence, employment or contributions in one country to be considered as periods of residence, et cetera, in the other for the purposes of entitlement to a state pension.
The systems in New Zealand and Canada are also means-tested to some extent. For example, New Zealand takes overseas pensions fully into account in its superannuation schemes. New Zealand law also requires that notional income is calculated if a pensioner does not claim his or her state pension from an overseas country. This means that any future state pension increases would be taken into account and the moneys would go to the respective Treasuries, so pensioners on the lowest incomes are unlikely to benefit from increases in their UK state pension. It might also mean an increased tax bill for some overseas residents and the loss of their welfare benefits in their chosen country of residence. This Government believe that our responsibility is to pensioners living in this country, rather than effectively making payments to other Treasuries.
The agreements with Canada and New Zealand were negotiated and agreed some time ago. The pattern of the UK’s reciprocal agreements with other countries is historic. It is based in part on Commonwealth ties but also on the political context at the time of concluding the agreement. That gives rise to inconsistencies. For example, we have an agreement with some Caribbean countries, such as Jamaica, but not with others. The agreement with Jamaica requires uprating. It has been suggested by some that uprating could form part of discussions on future free trade agreements—for example, with Australia and Canada. However, state pensions are not in scope of free trade agreements.
There are no plans to change the policy on uprating UK state pensions overseas. The Government have not entered into a new reciprocal social security agreement since 1992, as my noble friend Lord Randall referred to, and have no plans to enter into new agreements.
The noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, asked about the number of pensioners living in frozen-rate countries. It is approximately 500,000. I regret that I do not have any numbers for veterans.
My noble friend Lord Randall raised, as did other noble Lords, the question of a moral obligation to rectify this anomaly. The policy on this issue is long-standing, as I have already said, and one of successive Governments. It has been in place for some 70 years and, although I know this will disappoint noble Lords, there are no plans to change it.
My noble friend and the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, talked about the impacts on the Windrush generation. UK state pensions are payable worldwide to eligible people based on their NI record. I regret to tell the noble Baroness that we do not know the number of people affected among the Windrush community.
My noble friend Lord Randall asked about pensioners who are resident overseas who have paid their NI contributions, so pensions payable abroad should be fully indexed. The rate of contribution paid is never earned entitlement to the indexation of pensions payable abroad. This reflects the fact that the UK scheme is primarily designed for those living in the UK.
My noble friend Lord Randall raised the issue of consistency across countries, and a particular point about Canada. Canada has a bilateral agreement with the UK that does not cover uprating. The UK sought a reciprocal agreement with Canada that included uprating, but this was rejected as legislation prevented Canada paying its pensions overseas.
My noble friend Lord Randall and other noble Lords raised the issue of the Government’s moral duty to uprate state pensions overseas. The decision to move abroad is voluntary and remains a personal choice, dependent on the circumstances of the individual. For a number of years, advice has been provided to the public that the UK state pension is not uprated overseas except where there is a legal requirement to do so.
Given that the amendment states that any uprating order made under the Bill would uprate abroad in cases where there was already a legal requirement to do so, I urge my noble friend to withdraw it because it has no practical effect, given that the Government are already required to do that in law. However, I welcome the opportunity he has presented to debate the broader issue of uprating overseas.
Baroness Sherlock
“(2C) No draft order laid before Parliament under subsection (2A) may be made in the form of the draft unless the Secretary of State has laid before Parliament—(a) a report containing an assessment of the existing levels of pensioner poverty in each of the regions and nations of Great Britain, and(b) a statement outlining the expected impact of the draft order on pensioners with the lowest incomes.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would prevent a draft order under inserted subsection (2A) from being made unless the Secretary of State has published a report outlining current levels of pensioner poverty across the regions and nations of Great Britain and a statement outlining the expected impact of the Government’s chosen policy option on these poverty levels.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I made it clear at Second Reading that we support this Bill, and I have no wish to delay its implementation, so Amendment 3 is a probing amendment. I have tabled it to make sure that we get a chance to address the issue of pensioner poverty, which was raised by many noble Lords at Second Reading but did not get a substantive response, no doubt because time was tight. Fortunately, we have all the time in the world in Committee.
The number of poor pensioners had fallen significantly, largely down to the introduction of pension credit, but it is now a cause for concern again. The Government’s own figures show that 1.9 million pensioners are living in relative poverty, so this is something that we should all be concerned about. People who have worked all their lives should not be worrying in old age about how to make ends meet.
There are broader policy concerns too, such as the evidence showing that people on lower incomes have lower life expectancy and fewer years of healthy life after retirement. That is bad for the individual, but it is also bad for the state. Research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has shown that these health inequalities have an effect on state spending, leading to higher costs to the NHS and social care services. Has the Minister read the interesting recent report based on research commissioned from Loughborough University by Independent Age which suggests that the underclaiming of pension credit is costing the Government roughly £4 billion a year in increased NHS and social care costs? What does she make of that?
Taking pensioner poverty seriously means that when Ministers talk about their plans for the triple lock for the state pension, they should also be ready to talk about their plans for uprating the standard minimum guarantee in pension credit. That is the reason this amendment suggests that the uprating should be accompanied by a report on the implications for poverty. If pension credit is not uprated by an equivalent amount to the triple lock, the benefit of the increase in the state pension enabled by this Bill will be enjoyed in full, as I have said before, by many Members of this House, but not by the poorest pensioners, who will have it clawed back from pension credit.
Pension credit is key to tackling poverty because as well as topping up weekly income for poor pensioners it can be a passport to other benefits—housing benefit, council tax reduction, the cold weather payment and now the free TV licence for the over-75s. That could be worth up to £7,000 for some pensioners. Do not take my word for it. In giving evidence to the Scottish Social Security Committee on 23 January, a senior DWP official said
“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.”
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)
My Lords, I have received no requests to speak after the Minister. I call the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken to these amendments. As the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, said, if the Government will the ending or reducing of pensioner poverty, they must also will the means. I am not sure that we have heard that today—in fact, I am quite confident that we have not.
Other noble Lords made some very good points. The noble Baroness, Lady Janke, made some important points about the need to understand the impact of the triple lock on poverty. I agree very much about the need to look at particular issues faced by women facing poverty in retirement. The noble Lord, Lord Addington, is absolutely right that, if we do not have adequate data, we will not address the right questions. What is not measured is never going to be accurately addressed.
I thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans for his continued advocacy for those on low incomes at all ages. I wholeheartedly endorse his call for the uplift on universal credit to be extended beyond April, and I ask that this also be extended to legacy benefits. Poor workers often become poor pensioners, so all we are doing at the moment is pushing the problem even further back.
The Minister started her response by saying that she shares our concerns about pensioner poverty, although I notice that she cherry-picked her measures, citing material deprivation and absolute poverty but not the standard measure of relative poverty. If I am honest, I found her response very disappointing. She gave us reasons why the Government are doing good things on private pensions and the state reform, but most of my speech and what other noble Lords spoke about was how to address pensioner poverty in the short term by looking at things such as pension credit. She simply did not do that. I asked a number of questions and made a number of suggestions, none of which got a response at all.
I find this very disappointing because I have a lot of respect for the Minister; I believe her when she says that she will take these issues back to the department, but, in the end, as a House, we are not simply here to say things to the Minister and for her then to say them to her colleagues. When does the message come back the other way? We are one of the Houses of Parliament; it is reasonable to expect someone to come to the House, defend the decisions that their department is taking and tell us why they are not going to follow through.
If we were not in a hybrid state, I would be getting up and saying, “Could I ask the Minister to respond on that?” I cannot, and, therefore, I am constrained by the circumstances, and there is no way to pursue this. However, I ask the Minister to think very hard about how she will go about telling this House what the department has to say and how it is going to respond to our questions If not, I will look for other opportunities to do this on a regular basis and will keep on until we hear something that actually answers our questions. However, in the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 3.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)
Even in the hybrid House, the Minister can respond to a final set of questions.
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, and all noble Lords, that I have taken on board the ideas that have been put forward about pension credit: the campaign, and the importance of how it can lift people out of poverty and improve their lives. I will go back to the department, then return and answer the questions asked by the noble Baroness. I will always make that undertaking and will never shy away from answering questions, but I would rather get the right answers rather than give a wrong one and create another little tsunami on pension credit. If the noble Baroness can accept that, I will be grateful.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab) [V]
I am very grateful to the Minister for coming back on this. I will look out for those responses, and for the opportunity to discuss them on the Floor of this House. I thank her for her intervention, for addressing the questions and for her constant willingness to talk to us. These things make our debates much better.
Pension Credit
Baroness Sherlock Excerpts(3 years, 6 months ago)
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Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
The noble Baroness raises a very important point about the reasons why people do not claim pension credit. Some believe that they are not eligible; others think that they have too many savings; others think that there is a stigma to it; and others think that they might get only a small amount, so it is just not worth the effort. The noble Baroness raises valid points about the vulnerable; we must do all we can to make sure that those people are aware of pension credit and that they make a claim where appropriate.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab) [V]
My Lords, the take-up campaign launched in February, which has been mentioned, does not seem to have had much of an effect. The government website said that its main feature was a video to be shown in 800 GP surgeries and some post offices. However, once the pandemic hit, the chance of its target audience being in GPs’ surgeries and post offices went through the floor. So did the DWP refocus its work in the light of the pandemic, or is it planning a fresh campaign—and how much money is it putting behind it?
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
The noble Baroness raises a valid point about the impact of Covid on GPs’ surgeries and post offices, and that people were not able to access the information. At the moment there are no plans for a new campaign. We are working with stakeholders, who again are absolutely swamped by the impact of Covid, to ensure that the message gets out. Once I have gone back and spoken to the department, I will come back to the noble Baroness with a written response, as I will to the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, and the noble Baroness, Lady Watkins.
Pension Protection Fund (Moratorium and Arrangements and Reconstructions for Companies in Financial Difficulty) (Amendment and Revocation) Regulations 2020
Baroness Sherlock Excerpts(3 years, 6 months ago)
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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(3 years, 6 months ago)
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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 ExcerptsTuesday 13th October 2020
(3 years, 6 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Social Security (Up-rating of Benefits) Act 2020 View all Social Security (Up-rating of Benefits) Act 2020 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Committee of the whole House Amendments as at 1 October 2020 (PDF) - (1 Oct 2020)
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(3 years, 6 months ago)
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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(3 years, 6 months ago)
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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(3 years, 7 months ago)
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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(3 years, 7 months ago)
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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?