Social Security (Up-rating of Benefits) Bill

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 13th October 2020 Grand Committee

[Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston (Non-Afl) (Maiden Speech)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the warm, albeit socially distanced, welcome that Members of this House have extended to me. It is an honour and a privilege to be here, but there is also a duty associated with our presence here.

It was a joy to have as my supporters the noble Lords, Lord King of Lothbury and Lord Owen. There were loyal friends to my late husband, Derek Scott. It was the closest I could get to him being there and sharing the occasion. I think he would have been proud of the three of us.

It would be amiss of me not to mention some of those who have gone before me. My old constituency of Birmingham Edgbaston has the proud record of having been represented by women for longer than any other constituency in the country. Dame Edith Pitt was elected in 1953 and was succeeded in 1966 by Dame Jill Knight, who entered this House in 1997 as Baroness Knight of Collingtree. She retired in 2016 after 50 years of parliamentary service. When I stepped down in 2017, I was succeeded by Preet Gill, the first woman Sikh Member of Parliament.

The last time I spoke in the other place I referred to Nancy Astor, the first woman to take her seat in Parliament, who, on leaving, reflected that she would miss this place more than the place would miss her. That is true for all of us, but some leave a deeper footprint than others. In 1938, Birmingham Edgbaston was represented by the then Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain. I have occasionally reflected on what he would have said had he been told that, 60 years later, his constituency would have been represented by a German woman socialist, born near Munich, and that it all came about by peaceful democratic means.

Last but not least, I come to this House after having shared a significant part of my life with my late husband, Derek Scott. He started public life as one of the first of the political special advisers to the late Lord Healey when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Callaghan Government, and served as Prime Minister Tony Blair’s economic adviser during the first term of the 1997 Labour Government. He foresaw many of the economic and political difficulties associated with the creation of the single European currency and the contradictions in the UK’s membership of the EU. He did not live to see the 2016 referendum, but his thinking and reasoning shaped many of the arguments.

I gave my first speech in the other place during a debate on social security. I told the House then that I entered politics in no small part because of my concerns about pension provisions in general and the unfair treatment of women in particular. In those days, it was not clear who owned the surpluses accumulated by occupational pension funds. I was about to write a PhD thesis at Birmingham University about the discretionary investment powers of pension fund trustees. I was ably supported in this endeavour by some excellent law teaching, which the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, reminded us about at the beginning. He was an absolutely brilliant company law teacher.

As I started this work, I met Jeff, now the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. He told me about the fate of pensioners of Lucas Industries. The company had accrued large surpluses, but, rather than increase the benefits paid to its pensioners, it raided the fund. A group of pensioners took the company to court. They not only lost their case but were told that if they appealed against his decision he would award costs against them. One day, I drove up to Fazeley, picked up the court papers and hoped to be at least able to incorporate their story in my PhD. Alas, the PhD was never completed. I became the university’s MP instead. The first committee I served on was on pre-legislative scrutiny of pension splitting on divorce, which the noble Lord, Lord Field of Birkenhead, may well remember, because I seem to recall he was the Pensions Minister at the time. Whenever challenged about my PhD, I say, “Never mind, I put it into law.”

That makes this Bill a very good occasion for me to be allowed to give my maiden speech. The Government are right to uprate certain benefits for the 2121-22 tax year, even if earnings do not increase. As several speakers have said, one year may not be sufficient, and there is a real question about the intergenerational fairness of some of our arrangements. However, I urge the Minister to make sure that whatever mechanisms we set up, people who pay their contributions have a right to know what they can expect and to have a level of certainty about the deal the state enters into with them. We should never forget about the poorest pensioners, but we should also not forget about women. At the time when I first entered politics women were handicapped by not being able to affect their pension entitlement other than through earned income. Some of that has changed but it is not sufficient, as the WASPI women would be the first to tell us.

I thank the Committee for listening to me and giving me the opportunity to take part in this debate.