Youth Unemployment

Debate between Baroness Stedman-Scott and Baroness Sherlock

Thursday 11th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

I have just talked about what happens with young people who are hidden NEETs, as he describes. Let me turn to those who are NEET who we do know about—for example, those on sickness or disability benefits. The Government are determined to transform that. The noble Lord will have seen our Pathways to Work Green Paper, in which we describe wanting to create a new transition phase for young people from 18 to 21, such that, if they are looking to go on to sickness or disability benefits, we will treat them in a special way. We will support them from the beginning and give them the kind of help that they need. A lot of help is already out there; there is help for people with mental health and physical health issues. The bottom line is that almost everybody should be able to get a job. A small minority will not, but most will. Our job is to help them.

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

My Lords, KPMG and the Recruitment and Employment Confederation have launched their August 2025 jobs report. Permanent placements fell for the 17th consecutive month. The number of candidates looking for work has increased, fuelled by redundancies, fewer job openings and economic business threats. Merck has pulled the plug on a £1 billion research site, and the prospect of the Employment Rights Bill and its impact is sending economic shivers down the spines of business. At the end of the list, as the Minister has said, are young people who are struggling to enter the labour market for the first time. I am grateful for the explanation about the programmes that the Government are undertaking, but can the Minister tell us what work they are doing with employers—the only ones that can create jobs—to incentivise them to help young people and integrate them into their workforce?

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness commented on vacancies. She is very aware, as I am, of the facts of the economy and will know that vacancies have been declining steadily since spring 2022, when they reached a historic high. The decline in vacancies is a continuation of longer-term trends, but the noble Baroness is absolutely right: our job is to make sure that we give young people the chance to do this. She will know, for example, that employers who take on a young person under 21 or an apprentice under 25 are given complete relief on basic national insurance class 1 contributions until they hit £50,000. That makes a real difference. Above all, what will make a difference, if we want employers to take on young people, is to make them worth having. We have to skill them up, and give them the confidence to get out there and the ability to work in the workplace. That is what we are investing in now.

Child Poverty Strategy

Debate between Baroness Stedman-Scott and Baroness Sherlock

Wednesday 10th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, if I can persuade the Cross Benches and the Bishops to raise it, I will have a full house. I completely understand the wider point that my noble friend makes. There is an issue in this country for larger families who are facing poverty. However, perhaps I can reassure him by pointing out the impact of some of the things we are doing: for example, expanding free school meals to all children in households. Those meals go to each of the children in that household. We have tripled investment in breakfast clubs to over £30 million, which is worth another £450 to parents. The Healthy Start scheme supports over 356,000 children. We are extending the household support fund, bringing in a new crisis and resilience fund. All these things help families, and bigger families most of all. I hope that reassures him.

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

My Lords, I am not going to mention the two-child benefit cap. Can I say how pleased I am to see the Minister in her place? As always, I look forward to working with her. Can she reassure the House that the child poverty strategy will avoid a narrow focus on short-term income measures and instead promote long-term opportunity, resilience and self-reliance for families?

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her kind words. I am very grateful and I agree with her very much indeed on that—I am very glad to be here as well.

She makes a really important point. One of the reasons we have taken our time and been thoughtful about the child poverty strategy is that it cannot ever be just about income transfers. The strategy will be looking across four key themes. Increasing incomes is one of them, but so is reducing essential costs, increasing financial resilience for families and looking at better local support, especially in the early years. We must take action across all those if we are to find a way to tackle the scourge of child poverty in this country in a way that builds in structural improvements for the future. She makes an important point.

Sickness Benefits: In-person Interviews

Debate between Baroness Stedman-Scott and Baroness Sherlock

Wednesday 10th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is absolutely right: there is no doubt that there has been a growth in people claiming support and not being in work as a result of mental health conditions, but also because of other conditions as well. There are other clear patterns, such as musculoskeletal conditions and a range of other things. That is partly about changes in our population and about trends in society.

Our job is to invest in trying to tackle those early enough. One thing that the Government have done is invest money in putting mental health support into schools. In the case of young people, let us tackle those questions early. We consulted in the Green Paper about what we will do in future, but we have announced that we are going to have a youth guarantee. We have a Question tomorrow on youth unemployment. For those who are aged 18 to 21 and are perhaps heading for sickness and disability benefits, let us find a transition phase for them where we find out what the challenges are, figure out how we can support them and then, hopefully, get them on to a path. Sadly, some people will never be able to work, but, for many people, the evidence is that good work is good for their physical and mental health—we just need to help them get into it.

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

My Lords, can the Minister set out how increasing in-person assessments, which we on these Benches fully support, will help reduce fraud and error, thus protecting taxpayers’ money, while ensuring another thing that we on these Benches support—that those who can work, do, and those who cannot, get the support they need? Will the Minister encourage her colleagues and the Secretary of State at the DWP to take up the serious and mature offer made by the leader of the Opposition to work with the Government in order to help them cut and reduce benefits?

Autism Employment Review

Debate between Baroness Stedman-Scott and Baroness Sherlock

Monday 12th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

The noble Baroness makes a really good point. There are a number of different forms of support available to people with a range of disabilities or other conditions, if they come forward. Our job coaches have extensive training in a wide range of conditions to work with people who come in who need help, but there are also all kinds of schemes available. We can refer people to different kinds of help, to programmes where they can get voluntary support and work with whatever their particular needs are. We are trying to make our service out there increasingly tailored. There is not a generic range of barriers to employment. People often need quite specific understanding of what is getting in their way and help to overcome it. I hope that, in time, if the noble Baroness’s son ever comes to a jobcentre, he will find the help he needs, if, indeed, he needs it.

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

My Lords, I declare I have a great-nephew, Ollie, who is autistic and in a special school, and we love him to bits. Every grandparent, every parent, every great-aunt, worries about how their relative is going to get a job. I recently visited Project SEARCH run by the DFN Foundation, and I can tell the House that it has a 70% success rate of getting autistic young people into work, and 60% of them are in a full-time job. Are His Majesty’s Government going to set ambitious targets such as that, so that we get as many people into work as possible and they can lead productive lives? If the Minister would like a day out of the office, I will take her to Project SEARCH myself to see it in action.

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

Well, that is an offer I cannot refuse. When I used to work with families with children, there was a saying that every child deserves to have at least one adult unreasonably committed to their flourishing. In this House, I think those adults are particularly ever-present, and I can imagine that Ollie is not only being loved to bits but supported.

I completely agree with the noble Baroness. One of the challenges for us in supporting people who have disability barriers to work is that we have to have confidence that people can be supported and helped to get work, because if we do not believe they can, why should anyone else? If we do not believe it is possible, why should employers take a chance on people and why should individuals have confidence in themselves? We have seen great results with supported employment. Start where somebody is, look at the barriers, think about what they might be able to do and support them into it. Some people will be happy with supported employment. Either someone is at risk of falling out of a job or we can get them into it and, once they are in, can we help them to stay there? I would be delighted to go with the noble Baroness to visit that project but let us talk about this some more.

PIP Changes: Impact on Carer’s Allowance

Debate between Baroness Stedman-Scott and Baroness Sherlock

Monday 31st March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

My Lords, I am sure that all noble Lords will agree that carers provide vital services and support to those who desperately need them. The speculation, leaks and briefings have spread fear, anxiety and distress among the most vulnerable about cuts to benefits, particularly for carers. How will His Majesty’s Government ensure that clear, effective and timely communication gets to those who will lose benefits and those who will not? What help and assistance will be provided to those who have had the cruellest of times as a result of this rushed decision?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Sherlock) (Lab)]

My Lords, the one thing we can definitely agree on is that we support carers. We are grateful for the work they do. Society has reason to be grateful for the work they do. This Government have supported them. We have shown that by, for example, boosting the carer’s allowance earnings threshold by £45 a week to the highest level it has ever been since the benefit was created in the 1970s, benefiting more than 60,000 carers by 2029-30. The Government are making necessary changes to stem the rising costs and reform the focus of our sickness and disability benefits system. Those changes will affect some people on carer’s allowance.

The noble Baroness need not worry about reading leaks. All the details are set out in the Green Paper, which I commend to her as a good read for this evening, perhaps before she goes to bed. We are deliberately setting out to consult on how we can support those affected by any of the measures in it. I assure her that nothing will happen overnight. No one is going to lose their benefits overnight. Even when the new changes come in, nobody will lose their benefits until there has been a full and individual assessment of their personal circumstances.

UK Poverty 2025

Debate between Baroness Stedman-Scott and Baroness Sherlock

Monday 10th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for that question; I will certainly look into that and see what else the Government can do. There are a number of programmes, which are not always well known. For example, the holiday activities and food programme, which the noble Baroness will know about, provides in its broadest sense healthy meals, enriching activities and free childcare places for children from low-income families. Bringing together those schemes helps their health, well-being and learning. Also, the Government are committed to developing free school meals. The noble Baroness will know that from this April, free breakfast clubs will be rolled out. We have already picked the first 750 early adopters, which means that more than 180,000 children will begin to benefit—time together in schools learning, and also eating and being ready for the next day.

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

My Lords, the personal independence payment is a benefit for disabled people as well as for those with long-term illnesses, including those who are in work, and it helps with extra living costs. Have the Government formally assessed the impact of any planned changes to PIP on in-work disability poverty? Can the Minister confirm whether freezing PIP will increase poverty levels among this group?

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness has been around the game long enough to know that no matter how she tempts me to comment on speculation out there in the papers, if I did that I would at the very least be sacked, if not actually transported. So I hope she will bear with me when I say that the Government will always be aware of and consider the impact of their actions on people across society.

Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers’ Compensation) (Payment of Claims) (Amendment) Regulations 2025

Debate between Baroness Stedman-Scott and Baroness Sherlock

Monday 3rd March 2025 Grand Committee

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

My Lords, I have stood where the Minister is standing on many occasions to bring forward SIs on this subject. I have always been horrified by the impact and the effects on people’s lives, and by early deaths that have come so quickly after diagnosis.

However, quite recently, a letter dropped into my letterbox at home from a legal firm in the north of England, advising me that the lady I had employed as my first PA, 43 years ago, had contracted mesothelioma. That made it a little more personal to me. I was then asked whether I could remember the names of other people I employed at that time, whether I knew where they were and whether I could give a rundown of the buildings that we worked in, in those early days. I did my best to do that, and that put me in touch with this lady, who ended up as the deputy director of HR at the John Radcliffe Hospital—a very able person. She is now coming to terms with what will happen in her life. That has made me more committed to understanding and supporting efforts to help them.

I thank the Minister for her clear outline of the purpose of these two statutory instruments. These regulations seek to increase the value of the one-off lump sum payments made under the two compensation schemes—the Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers’ Compensation) Act 1979 and the Child Maintenance and Other Payments Act 2008—by 1.7%, in line with the inflation rate. Although we acknowledge that these increases are a positive step forward, particularly for those living with life-threatening conditions due to past exposure to hazardous substances, we must consider whether these adjustments are truly sufficient in the light of the immediate and long-term needs of the affected individuals.

The compensation schemes in question provide vital support to individuals who have suffered as a result of working in hazardous environments, particularly from asbestos exposure. Under the 1979 Act, lump sum payments are made to those affected by dust-related issues, while the 2008 Act compensates individuals diagnosed with diffuse mesothelioma, including those who may not be eligible under the 1979 Act. These instruments propose to increase the sum by 1.7%. Although this increase offers some relief to those affected by asbestos-related diseases, it is important to ask whether this adjustment adequately meets the ongoing and growing needs of individuals whose lives have been irrevocably impacted by these conditions.

The previous Conservative Government consistently supported, and made increases to, these lump sum payments during their last Administration. Can the Minister commit to further increases in the payments in the future? I am sure she will.

His Majesty’s Opposition agree with these measures, but one concern that arises is the long-term sustainability of the compensation schemes. The draft regulations predict a gradual decline in long-term cost, as fatalities due to asbestos exposure stabilise. However, it is important to recognise that asbestos-related diseases continue to have a significant impact on individuals and families, and the effects of exposure can endure for generations.

I ask the Minister how the Government plan to ensure that the funds required to support these individuals will remain available as we see a decline in the number of claims over time. What steps are being taken to ensure that the national insurance and compensation systems can continue to meet the needs of those who continue to suffer from asbestos-related diseases?

Furthermore, the Government propose that the increase will apply only to claims where the individual first fulfilled the conditions of entitlement on or after 1 April 2025. This raises an important point for consideration. By setting this deadline, there is a risk that individuals currently in the middle of their claim process may miss out on the increase, potentially placing an added burden on those who are already in vulnerable situations. I ask the Minister how this decision was made, and whether there is any flexibility built into the process to accommodate those who may be affected in the interim.

The uprating of the compensation scheme is a necessary and welcome action, but we must recognise that these increases may not be sufficient to address the full extent of the challenges faced by those affected by asbestos-related diseases. I hope that the Government will ensure that the long-term sustainability of these schemes is maintained, and that they will remain attentive to the needs of those who continue to suffer as a result of past industrial practices. We on these Benches absolutely support the uplift.

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords for their contributions and their support for these regulations. I always find that this is one of the most moving debates we have in any year, and it gives us an opportunity to remember those who have lost their lives. My noble friend Lady Donaghy described her sister-in-law and her trade union colleague. There are also new cases: I was so sorry to hear about the employee of the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott. One of the reasons why we come back here year after year is in order to honour those who have died because of things that were no fault of their own—in most cases simply going to work or caring for others whom they loved.

I loved to hear my noble friend Lord Jones, whom I thank for his inordinately kind words about me. It is a real privilege every year to hear him. I commend him for his faithfulness: he comes here every year to bear witness to what happened to the slate men, the quarrymen and the miners of his homeland of Wales, and to what they suffered. I love the fact that he reminds us every time that the only reason why these things were attacked in the workplace was that trade unions organised and defended people there, and made sure that we had proper legislation, so that people were not being sent into dangerous places and expected just to put up with it. I thank him once again for reminding us what happened at Hebden Bridge and Blaenau Ffestiniog, and so on. We must never forget that history; otherwise, we will be condemned to repeat it.

I will try to work though some of the questions that were asked. I commend my noble friend Lady Donaghy on chairing the mesothelioma oversight committee. I am not surprised that the noble Baroness, Lady Janke, has not heard of it. It is typical of my noble friend Lady Donaghy that she does incredibly important work in the background, and always points away from herself, never towards herself. This is another example, and I thank her for the work that she does. In this, as in so much else, I am grateful to her.

I will try to go through as many of the cases as I can. My noble friend Lord Jones asked how many cases of mesothelioma there are a year, and for a breakdown. We publish data on mesothelioma deaths in Great Britain, and I will send him a link so that he can see the breakdown of that. Unfortunately, mesothelioma is usually rapidly fatal following the onset of symptoms, but that means that annual deaths give a pretty clear indication of what is happening with the disease. Breakdowns are available by age, by last occupation and by geographical area—that is, where the person was living when they died. The statistics also include analysis of the relative frequency of different occupations recorded on mesothelioma death certificates, which is probably more useful as an indication of what happened in the past rather than of where we are going in the future—or, indeed, of numbers for particular occupations. It is a pattern.

State Pension: Age Increase

Debate between Baroness Stedman-Scott and Baroness Sherlock

Thursday 14th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, of all the weeks when I am not going to start making up national insurance policy on the hoof, this is most definitely one of them. However, I hear what my noble friend says, and I will pass that along.

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

My Lords, what assessment have the Government made of the impact on employment, particularly for older people, of increasing NI contributions for employers, bearing in mind that the winter fuel payment has been withdrawn?

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, to separate those two out, the Treasury has published documentation on GOV.UK relating to the Budget and an impact assessment of different aspects of the Budget. On the question of the winter fuel payment, the noble Baroness will know that the vast majority of people who will be entitled to it are being encouraged, if necessary, to apply for pension credit or other benefits. For most of the rest, many of them will not be in employment and will not intend to be in employment. The winter fuel payment is aimed at people of pension age, so I do not see the connection between the winter fuel payment and national insurance, but if the noble Baroness wants to speak to me about it afterwards, I am happy to talk to her.

Pension Credit

Debate between Baroness Stedman-Scott and Baroness Sherlock

Monday 4th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stedman-Scott]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure every pensioner who is eligible for Pension Credit receives it.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Sherlock) (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government want all eligible pensioners to apply for pension credit. The Government have written to pensioners providing advice about claiming pension credit following the change to the winter fuel payment, alongside a range of other creative media campaigns. We are engaging directly with pensioners as well as with stakeholders, including devolved Governments, councils and charities, in a joint effort to raise awareness through our combined networks and channels.

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

I say to the noble Lord: feel free. Having run a pension credit campaign, I can understand what the Minister is undertaking. Do the Government intend to guarantee that the DWP has the capacity to deal with what could well be a rapid uptake of applications for pension credit—with all the extra administration needed to process the claims —after this Government’s shameful decision to deprive pensioners who need it most of their winter fuel payment?

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, on that final point, which, obviously, I cannot let go, the poorest pensioners are protected because those on pension credit will still have access to the winter fuel payment.

On the bulk of the noble Baroness’s question, we continue to operate good service levels. Around 500 additional staff have now been brought in to support processing during the recent surge in pension credit claims. Processing times may increase; we have advised customers who apply that it could take nine weeks to process their claims. However, anyone who applies before the deadline of 21 December can have their application backdated, which means not only that they will get winter fuel payments but that they may well get pension credit on top of that.