Poverty in the United Kingdom

Debate between Baroness Watkins of Tavistock and Baroness Buscombe

Monday 17th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Buscombe]

Let me give the noble Lord an example: a couple with three children have to work only 24 hours per week between them—say, 12 hours each—to be in receipt of benefits equivalent to a salary of £35,000 per year plus housing support. Does the noble Lord think that is unfair?

[Baroness Watkins of Tavistock (CB)]

My Lords, I was delighted to hear that it is fairly simple to change the structure of universal credit. How quickly will the Government ensure that split payments are available for people who are potentially in a situation of financial abuse?

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, we do not need to change the system. Split payments are already available to those in need of them and who ask for them. We are talking to different stakeholders. The noble Baroness might have heard that only a few days ago, I spoke to Refuge and Women’s Aid about how this might work and whether split payments are the panacea—we do not believe they are—in supporting people who are suffering from domestic abuse. We are looking at a number of other ways that we can better support people, rather than just focusing on split payments.

Universal Credit

Debate between Baroness Watkins of Tavistock and Baroness Buscombe

Monday 26th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, the noble Baroness may know that during the test and learn phase, we will be working within a co-design phase for seven months on a number of projects with stakeholders from all parts of the welfare system to assist us in the kinds of questions that we need to ask. But we are also going to look at how Scotland implements this. Scotland has made its own decision, which it is entitled to make, to go ahead and implement split payments. We want to learn from Scotland, too, about how this can be done, what challenges there might be and how practical it will actually be when six benefits are being brought into one under UC.

[Baroness Watkins of Tavistock (CB)]

My Lords, if we are to learn from Scotland, is it not time that we decided how quickly we might learn from other countries? It seems to me that this will kick it into the long grass, rather than resolving the situation for split payments in England. Could the Minister please comment?

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, we should not do this in haste. The reality is that Scotland has proposed split payments and is going to implement them. We would much rather watch what Scotland is doing—this is known there. Meanwhile my colleague in another place, whom I have already referenced, is working with various stakeholders on how we can improve support for those victims of domestic abuse through the welfare system.

Domestic Abuse: Universal Credit Payments

Debate between Baroness Watkins of Tavistock and Baroness Buscombe

Tuesday 24th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, with regard to Scotland, the Scottish Government have discussed split payments with stakeholders and are now starting to think about developing their own policy. We will continue to watch and observe how that proceeds. But I have entirely understood what we are talking about today and I think it is really important to make clear that we want to simplify the system for everyone making claims under universal credit. It is important that we simplify the system. Noble Lords shake their heads, but we want to treat people in the normal way, whereby they have a joint approach, in most instances, to receipt of their income, to managing their household bills and to managing how they can cover their costs on a monthly basis—but with exceptions where people who are suffering abuse or any other kind of coercive action can ask for and will be given split payments as a matter of course.

[Baroness Watkins of Tavistock (CB)]

My Lords, will the Minister please answer two questions? First, is this purely because of cost savings, in that it may be more costly to deliver split payments? Secondly, what about preventing abuse in the first place? If women have their own money, it quite frequently prevents abuse.

[Baroness Buscombe]

On the latter point, I have to say that the charity Refuge has made it clear that it is not convinced that split payments help. In fact, they can exacerbate violence if the perpetrator of violence knows that their partner has her own pot of money. We have to be extremely careful about this: each individual case is different. This is nothing to do with cost savings. The reality, I know, is that this is all about the legacy. Noble Lords opposite prefer the legacy—the complex, difficult system that the party opposite preferred, which kept people trapped on welfare. It was much more complicated. We are simplifying this through universal credit, which is delivering a much simpler to understand system to support people into work and support them to manage their household finances.

Benefit Rate Freeze

Debate between Baroness Watkins of Tavistock and Baroness Buscombe

Monday 30th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Buscombe]

I certainly remember that well. It is completely right that we do all we can to support pensioners.

[Baroness Watkins of Tavistock (CB)]

My Lords, can the Minister comment on the intergenerational difference? Many pensioners pay 40p in the pound in tax and get significant rises because of the triple lock, whereas some of the poorest families who have been referred to recently are having their income reduced in relation to inflation?

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, it is true that the state pension and benefits for pensioners are exempt from the benefit freeze, but this is because they are generally for people who have permanently left the labour market, meaning they have less ability to increase their income. We are committed to the triple lock for the remainder of this Parliament, but pensioner poverty continues to stand at one of the lowest rates since comparable records began—and we want to keep it that way.