UK Poverty 2025
Debate between Baroness Sherlock and Lord Hendy(1 month ago)
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Lord Hendy
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the report UK Poverty 2025 published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation on 30 January, particularly with regard to in-work poverty.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Sherlock) (Lab)
My Lords, the Government value the insights provided by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, and its recommendations will be taken into account in the ongoing work to develop a child poverty strategy. Supporting people into good work will always be the foundation of this Government’s approach to tackling poverty. Our proposals and plan to make work pay—including increases to the national living wage and the Get Britain Working White Paper—will increase the number of people in work, help them to progress, improve job security and raise living standards.
Lord Hendy (Lab)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend for her Answer. Some 68% of working-age adults in poverty and 50% of children in poverty live in a household with at least one wage earner; 38% of those on universal credit are in work; and half the working population of 32 million earn less than the UK median wage of £616 a week. It is plain that the problem is that wages in the United Kingdom are too low. Does the Minister agree that, in the absence of the mythical trickle-down effect, the only realistic way of increasing wages is near universal coverage of collective bargaining?
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My noble friend knows more about collective bargaining than anyone in this House, I suspect, and I thank him for that question. He is absolutely right to highlight the scandal of in-work poverty. We should not be in a position where somebody goes to work full-time and cannot support their family. The Government are absolutely determined to do something about this. Our strategy is about trying to get people into good jobs and keep them there, and that they develop in them. For that to work, we have to make sure that all the parties are involved.
We are very committed: do we want an era of partnership that sees employers, unions and government working together in co-operation and through negotiation? For example, we are going to start by establishing a new fair pay agreement in the adult social care sector, consulting on how it will work, learning from economies where it has worked effectively, and then assessing to what extent those kinds of agreements could benefit other sectors and tackle labour market challenges. We all have to do this together. Work should be the way out of poverty, but it will take action to make sure that it is.
European Social Charter
Debate between Baroness Sherlock and Lord Hendy(7 months, 1 week ago)
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Lord Hendy
To ask His Majesty’s Government whether they plan to ratify the Additional Protocol to the European Social Charter to establish a system of collective complaints; and what plans they have to ratify the Revised European Social Charter 1996.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Sherlock) (Lab)
My Lords, the Prime Minister made our commitment to the Council of Europe clear at the Blenheim summit in July. The UK ratified the European Social Charter in 1962 and signed the revised Social Charter in 1997. It is important that the UK is compliant with any new obligations before ratifying a treaty. It is therefore right to consider whether domestic law and practice, including government reforms, are compatible with the revised charter and additional protocol.
Lord Hendy (Lab)
I am grateful to the Minister for her Answer. The fact that the 1996 charter was signed in 1997 by the United Kingdom does not resolve the issue that the United Kingdom has not ratified the 1996 charter. Since 2014, the Council of Europe has been trying to reinvigorate the European Social Charter process through the Council of Ministers meeting that she mentioned and the high-level conference on the European Social Charter in July. I wonder whether she will agree that it is vital that the United Kingdom not only supports, but is seen to support and lead, efforts to reinvigorate the European Social Charter.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, in signing a charter, the UK is indicating that it agrees with the contents as negotiated, but we can ratify it only when we know that we will be compliant with it, because to ratify a charter is to agree to be bound by its provisions. As I have indicated before, that would mean that the UK would need to make an assessment to be sure that it would in fact be compliant with the terms of the treaty before doing it. My noble friend will know that we have plans, including the employment rights Bill, which will change our position on some provisions in the revised charter, so we will certainly consider whether we can ratify the revised charter in the light of the Government’s reforms. On the collective complaints system, the UK has for some time held that it is among the majority of member states party to the European Social Charter who have not accepted that because we believe that the existing supervisory mechanisms are adequate.