Heritage Railways and Tramways (Voluntary Work) Bill [HL]

Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 15th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this debate but, before I begin, I beg leave from your Lordships to mention another aspect of heritage that I had the great pleasure of engaging in yesterday evening, back home in Newport—in Caerleon in fact. The organisation BCA’37, run entirely by volunteers, ensures that the history of the Basque child refugees who came to Britain in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War is recorded and preserved. Caerleon has strong links to the organisation, as 30 children were placed in Pendragon House.

We have a series of events this week, with people from the Basque country joining us in south Wales to celebrate the 85th anniversary of the people of the UK, with no British Government support, welcoming 4,000 children—just one boatload—into the country. They were subsequently supported by volunteers and voluntary funds, and I am proudly wearing the badge that all the children wore as they came into the country. This exemplifies how volunteers are so important to our society. I was privileged to be part of that event last night, with colleagues from the Welsh Government and our Westminster representatives.

I add my congratulations to those already expressed to my noble friend Lord Faulkner of Worcester on bringing forward his Bill and on the instrumental role he has played in establishing the APPG on Heritage Rail, ensuring it becomes an active and meaningful parliamentary group on behalf of heritage railways, in line with his work as president of the Heritage Railway Association. The world movement began in Britain in 1951 when a group of enthusiasts, led by, among others, the author and co-founder of the Inland Waterways Association, Tom Rolt, saved the narrow-gauge Talyllyn Railway in mid-Wales from almost certain closure. The Talyllyn project was the first railway preservation scheme in the world; since then, the movement has gone from strength to strength in Britain. Clearly, I am proud that it began in Wales.

Today, the number of preserved or heritage railways in Britain runs well into three figures, thanks to the work of dedicated volunteers and paid staff. They provide a memorable attraction for around 13 million visitors per year, who take 18.6 million journeys covering 130 million miles, contributing about £400 million to the economy. Wales is lucky to be able to claim ownership of a very good number of these, including the Pontypool and Blaenavon Railway, just up the road from Newport on the edge of the Brecon Beacons. That has been a wonderful re-addition to our area and would not have been possible without an awful lot of hard work from volunteers, who have undertaken numerous projects to improve the visitor experience.

I have enjoyed many a trip from Furnace Sidings to Big Pit, where I take my own visitors to see this amazing Welsh coal mine that pays tribute to the heritage of our industrial past, where people such as my dear late stepfather toiled underground to build the wealth of our nations. I am sure this story of heritage railways is being replicated across the UK.

It is therefore concerning that the 2018 report on young persons’ involvement in heritage railways from the APPG on Heritage Rail, which my noble friend Lord Faulkner of Worcester chairs, found that the number of young, under-18 volunteers is only around 5%, that the number of young female volunteers is extremely small at 1% and that the outdated legislation in the form of the Employment of Women, Young Persons, and Children Act 1920 has become a significant constraint on recruiting young volunteers under 16. It is an indirect consequence, as so many things can be. The Office of Rail and Road has been helpful in confirming that it had no intention of enforcing the Act and provided clear guidance on how to approach the management of young people engaged in railway activities. Either way, as the report says:

“This not only prevents them benefiting from the experiences their parents and grandparents had, but risks losing them altogether to railways, as they find another outlet for their interests”—


as other noble Lords have mentioned—

“at a crucial stage in their lives and when exploring future employment.”

When the report was debated in 2019, my noble friend Lord Rosser said of my noble friend Lord Faulkner:

“When he becomes involved … he becomes involved big time, and he has a very impressive success rate in achieving and delivering the desired objectives.”—[Official Report, 5/6/19; col. 165.]


And here we are again, as my noble friend would have expected. I have little doubt that achieving and delivering the desired objectives will eventually be managed, whether it is through this Bill or by the Government’s hand. In this case, the objectives are twofold, with the ultimate goal being to encourage the engagement of young people with heritage railways, but a step in that direction would be to ensure that a law which predates heritage railways does not indirectly stop young people being able legally to volunteer on them. As we have heard during the debate, the Government committed to progressing this matter in a safe way, so I look forward to the Minister updating us on that. I can understand that there have been slightly more pressing issues at hand over the last three years—and over the last three weeks—but I hope the Government have given some thought to this. After all, they have made a commitment.

As keen as we all are to encourage youth volunteers, my caveat is that it is important that it is done safely. I am particularly keen to hear from the Minister what assessment has been made since that debate on any possible risks. I urge the Government to cease prevaricating any further and enable this barrier to be lifted.

Child Poverty Strategy

Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts

Monday 6th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

In 2019 the Government introduced new eligibility criteria for families on UC following a consultation. It is estimated that this will be more generous in its reach by 2022 in comparison with the legacy benefits system. Further to this, we included generous protections which mean that any family eligible for free schools meals transitioning to UC from a legacy benefit will continue to have access to a free school meal even if they move above the earnings threshold.

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

One of the important recommendations in the strategy was to ensure that the hidden poor and those with no voice, such as victims of modern slavery, the homeless and victims of child abuse, are not missed. Does the Minister support this recommendation for implementation within her department, and what steps are being taken to lift these groups out of poverty?

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

I am not able to make a commitment right now, but I know that the department is looking at all the recommendations and will respond to the Church in due course. I reiterate that we will be spending £64 billion on benefits to support people who are unable to work or who are on a low income. Another point I would like to make—I ask all noble Lords to help me on this—is that we urge people to check whether they are receiving all the benefits to which they are entitled and to be aware of the wider support this opens up, including help with transport, broadband and prescription costs.

Queen’s Speech

Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts

Tuesday 17th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, today’s debate covers some of the most important issues to a well-functioning society. I am delighted to be speaking to them on behalf of Her Majesty’s Official Opposition. 

Arguably, education, welfare, health and social care and public services are critical and central to the Government’s latest populist phrase, levelling up. That is why it is so regrettable that the measures announced in the Queen’s Speech do precious little to make a real difference—if any—in these areas.  

Schools and universities across the UK have been profoundly impacted by the pandemic. It is well documented that there is a disparity in this impact between schools in deprived areas and in the most affluent, yet despite the scale of the challenges schools are facing—indeed, the Sutton Trust found that one in three headteachers are using pupil premium funds to plug general budget gaps—this Government’s response is a desperately sparse Schools Bill.  

It is a gaping hole of a Bill and consists mostly of one-size-fits-all academisation—we do not have it in Wales, that is why I cannot say it—on which the data is lacking or mixed at best, and formal naming and shaming of truant children through imposing compulsory attendance registers for schools. It is narrow in scope with little ambition and sparse policy, with 32 clauses on the governance of academies and 15 clauses on funding arrangements. It gives it an ideological approach rather than looking at the evidence.

How many more times are the Government going to rearrange the classroom desks, hoping for a better outcome? Where is the wide-ranging, substantiated plan to support children’s pandemic recovery? Where are the proposals to improve teaching standards or tackle the absolute exodus of burnt-out school staff? Where is the vision to equip our students with the skills they will need in the industries of the future, in an ever more globalised and technologically advanced economy?

In stark contrast, Labour is ambitious for every single child and every single precious teacher. Our children’s recovery plan would train up to 6,500 new teachers and give them ongoing professional development. We should not settle for less than world-class standards of teaching. We would introduce breakfast clubs, as we have in Wales, so every child starts the day with a proper meal. We would have afterschool activities, so every child gets to learn and experience art, music, drama and sport, as enjoyed by pupils in the private sector on Wednesday afternoons. We would introduce mental health support in our schools, because every report tells us that children’s development has fallen behind in the pandemic.

There would be targeted and funded continued professional development for teachers, which is absolutely vital for the workforce. There would be extra investment, right from early years through to further education, to support those children at risk of falling behind, because attainment gaps open up early and they need tackling early. Gains made in the early part of this century imploded during the savage cuts to public services imposed by this Government over 12 long years. In order to address this appalling deficit, we would go further to lock in the gains of a recovery programme for the long term. To ensure that education readies pupils for a rapidly advancing world of work, we would provide professional careers advice and work experience for all.

In the Government’s plans, higher education fares no better than schools. Instead of introducing measures to alleviate universities’ challenging financial contexts or reduce the record high number of student complaints in 2021 about their courses to the OIA, the Government have seen fit to give struggling universities two baffling, and in places troubling, Bills.

The higher education Bill will consider minimum qualification requirements for student finance and a cap on student numbers. Both are vehemently opposed by universities. As well as its huge adverse impact on social mobility, which expert bodies such as the IFS have pointed to, it is coupled with a worse still carryover—the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill. Your Lordships may remember that my party in the other place voted against this Bill at Second Reading, such was our concern about its enabling of hate speech and the potential financial implications for universities. Culture-warmongering and wedge-issue politics, again unsupported by any evidence, simply do not deserve a place in any Queen’s Speech—not when so many real problems for higher education remain.

The Government’s approach on social care goes alongside their failure on childcare. It is not fair and is unworkable, because the least able will pay the most. If your house is worth £150,000, you will lose almost everything while the wealthiest in society are protected. As for social care, on which the Government have not planned for any new legislation, I can assume only that they think the measures contained in the recent Health and Care Act are sufficient to deal with soaring care costs and a staggering staffing crisis. There is no mention of dentists, so critical to people’s quality of life, who are leaving the NHS in droves. This week is the Alzheimer’s Society’s Dementia Action Week, and the focus is on the theme of diagnosis. An acute diagnosis is the current state of our social care. Do the Government even mention the forgotten and undervalued millions of unpaid carers?

When it comes to welfare, Labour is on the side of working people. That is why we have set out our plans to reduce the taper rate when we replace universal credit, to allow those on low incomes to keep more of what they earn.

I regret having to give such a pessimistic speech, but I am afraid I have little positive to say about the Speech’s health Bills or, I should say, its solitary Bill. We do, however, welcome the long-overdue overhaul of the Mental Health Act.

After 12 years of Conservative underfunding, the NHS went into the pandemic with record waiting lists, 100,000 staff vacancies and 6 million people waiting for treatment. For any of this to work, the commitments are dependent on a sustainable workforce—our fantastic front-line staff, of whom there are simply too few right now. My dear late mother suffered greatly with mental health issues and we were entirely dependent on the wonderful NHS service we had available to us to support her in-patient and out-patient recovery; I dread to think what would be available to us now. Crucially, Labour wants to guarantee mental health treatment within a month for all who need it, and to place specialist mental health support in every school, resulting in over 1 million more people receiving support each year.

There is also the lack of a women’s health strategy, which was promised by the Government at the end of last year but has yet to appear. This is coupled with the latest announcement of the Government’s delay to restricting advertising on foods high in fat, salt or sugar. The department’s own impact assessment shows that these promotions result in additional spending for an average household—in an acute cost of living crisis.

I hope I have begun to shine a light on where the Government are falling far short on our public services. I must point out that, if their party had the last Labour Government’s record on the growth of the economy, there would be £40 billion more to spend on them, without having to resort to punishing tax rises.

In conclusion, I have spent my life as a public servant—as a teacher, a councillor and the leader of a council. I genuinely despair of the Government’s legislative plans for health and social care, education, welfare and public services. They are lacking in ambition and vision, and I would have hoped that, out of a total of nearly 40 Bills, we might have seen one Bill of true substance in at least one of these critical areas that are so crucial to a well-functioning society. As it is, it will fall to us parliamentarians to probe and push and negotiate our way to legislation that delivers real outcomes and some hope for the public. If that means sitting here in this House until the early hours of the morning to defend the indefensible, so be it. After too many years of a Conservative Government, it is our duty, and we will willingly fight for what is right and proper for the people of Britain. We will continue to seek Labour’s vision that this is the best place in which to grow up and to grow old.

Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2022

Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd March 2022 Lords Chamber

The impact of not uprating the benefits that we are talking about, and the pensions and so forth, will fall on diminishing demand in the most impoverished places in our country. The impact of that will be great: it will cause more shops to close, more pubs to close, more facilities to be ended. Councils will recover even less in rateable value and so forth. The impact is magnified by the failure to maintain the levels of income that my noble friends have described.

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, for the second time today I am substituting for my noble friend Lady Sherlock, whose expertise in these matters is well known to the House. I will do my best to convey our position.

When the Social Security (Uprating of Benefits) Bill, now Act, was debated in this place last year by my noble friend Lady Sherlock, she highlighted how the suspension of the earnings element of the triple lock for the upcoming tax year would impact millions. This point has been made several times since. I share her concerns, those of my noble friend Lord Davies, and the concerns of others who have spoken in tonight’s debate.

Over the last decade, this Government have failed pensioners. The last Labour Government reduced pensioner poverty by over a million people. In the 12 years since, the number and rate of pensioners living in poverty has soared. In 2010, 14% of pensioners, totalling 1.6 million, lived in poverty. In the year before the pandemic, it was 18%. Some areas are far worse than others. Here in London, over one in four pensioners lives in poverty, totalling almost 300,000 people. Other regions, such as the East Midlands, the north-east, the north-west and the West Midlands, have poverty rates of over 19% among the over-65s. Therefore, of course, the number of pensioners in debt has risen too, by over half a million since 2010, so far.

Things have got harder since these pre-pandemic numbers, and pensions are one part of this. Following the uprating order being made last week, the increase to state pensions and benefits signed into law is 3.1% from next month. The basic pension rises from £141.85 a week for a single pension or £226.85 for a couple. The full rate of the new state pension will rise to £185.15 a week but, with earnings rising at 8.3%, the Government keeping their manifesto promise and maintaining the triple lock would have meant that the basic state pension would instead be rising to £149 for individuals, £238.30 for couples, and the full rate of the new state pension to £194.50. For an individual on the basic state pension, this is a difference of approximately £370, almost £600 for a couple, and close to £485 for those on the full rate of the new state pension—even higher than the difference with the Bank of England’s CPI uplift that my noble friend has highlighted already, which is expected to peak around 7.25% in April 2022 when the uprating takes effect.

What is undeniable is that the cost of living has increased by far more than 3.1%, and the Government breaking their promise has made it harder for pensioners. This hit for pensioners comes on top of several other factors, either caused or not addressed by this Government, that have made life harder for those struggling to get by.

On a related note, the Government continue to act too slowly to repay state pension underpayments to over 100,000 older women, leaving many thousands of them without the pension they deserve and barely enough to live on. At any time, pensioners who have worked hard their entire life should expect to be paid what they are owed at the right time but, with compounding difficulties, the impact is even more severe.

The main thing making things harder for pensioners at this time is the cost of living crisis and energy prices. Age UK warned that rising energy prices will lead to some of the poorest pensioners, for whom the cold could be particularly dangerous, rationing their heating. There was no mention today by the Chancellor of energy prices for heating oil, for example, in the spring Statement—but then it is an unregulated sector of the energy market. Cold weather payments and the warm home discount scheme fail to reach those who need them because they are not claiming pension credit.

As a result, three-quarters of older people in the UK—almost 10 million people—are worried about this cost of living crisis. Over half of those surveyed by Age UK said they will have to heat their home less, a quarter said they would have to choose between heating their home and the food they buy if their energy bills continue to go up, and two in five are having to cut back. What can they do other than go into debt or simply not pay their bill?

What is more, the £20 uplift to universal credit being stopped will continue to impact couples where only one is at state pension age. There are around 1.3 million working pensioners who will be asked to pay the poorly thought-out health and social care levy. Pension credit is another area of concern, with 850,000 eligible families missing out on almost £2,000 per year on average, and the number of eligible couples falling dramatically between 2019 and 2020 from the number the Government told us to expect.

While I have drifted away from the pensions uprating, my point is that the Government’s broken promise is not just a broken promise but one more burden on millions of pensioners at a time when it is simply the last thing that they need. The consequences will not be small; they will be pensioners unable to heat their homes, struggling to put food on the table, and managing increased debt in their efforts to prevent that. While this order has already passed, this does not have to be the fate for pensioners. I recognise the Minister’s sincerity, as noted by my noble friend Lady Lister, but I hope she will follow by setting out the steps the Government will be taking to avoid these outcomes.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Stedman-Scott) (Con)]

My Lords, I would like to re-emphasise what happened today in the spring Statement. The Chancellor announced an additional £500 million for the household support fund from April 2022 to help households, including pensioners, with the cost of essentials such as food, clothing and utilities. This is in addition to the £500 million we have already provided since October, bringing the total funding to £1 billion. The Chancellor also announced a cut in fuel duty at 5p per litre. Customers will benefit from savings worth over £5 billion over the next year compared to uprating fuel duty in 2022-23. This will save average car drivers, many of whom are pensioners, around £100. I confirm that the Government will continue to keep the situation under review, recognising the high level of current uncertainty, including monitoring the ongoing impact of the Russia-Ukraine conflict on the economy, and will be ready to take further steps if needed to support households.

I thank all noble Lords for their contributions and the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Brixton, for moving the Motion. I also thank him for agreeing that this Motion could be debated after 9 March, when we debated the uprating order. A number of important points were raised, which I will now try to deal with. He made the point that averaging over time is no consolation. Uprating in April 2023 will take into account the rate of inflation this September, but we recognise the short-term pressures, which is why we have introduced a package worth more than £9 billion.

The noble Lord, Lord Davies, raised the issue of the cost of living and what the Government are doing to help pensioners. The Government spend more than £129 billion on pensioner benefits, which is 5.6% of GDP. In cash terms, from April, the full yearly amount of the basic state pension will be over £2,300 higher than in 2010. Over the last two years, the basic state and new state pension will have increased by more than 5.6%. Eligible pensioners will also receive support through free bus passes, free prescriptions, free TV licences, winter fuel payments, the warm home discount scheme, and cold weather payments.

The noble Lord asked about the opportunity to discuss the quinquennial review. I will write to the Government Actuary’s Department to see if it will do that with him. It is not something that is appropriate or sensible for me to do.

The noble Lord also raised the issue of the triple lock. We are not ending the triple lock. The suspension of the earnings link this year is a one-year response to exceptional circumstances and the Government remain committed to implementing the triple lock in the usual way for the remainder of the Parliament. I can confirm my Secretary of State’s statement on Monday evening that the triple lock will apply for the rest of this Parliament.

The noble Lord, Lord Davies, talked about using the National Insurance Fund to fund the triple-lock earnings increase, as did the noble Lord, Lord Sikka. The National Insurance Fund matches expected receipts to the predicted spending on contributory pensions and benefits over the medium term. There is no surplus in the fund that can simply be drawn on without consequences either for the ability to pay future liabilities or for the need for higher contributions in the future. It is therefore inaccurate to suggest that there is a surplus in the fund that can simply be drawn on. Increasing spending on today’s pensioners would pass the cost on to future generations of taxpayers.

The noble Lord, Lord Sikka, raised the point that the national insurance system is regressive. This is a matter for the Chancellor and the noble Lord has made his views on the subject very clear today.

The noble Lord also raised the issue of the cost of living, as did other noble Lords. Over the last two years we have delivered an increase of more than 5.6% to the basic and new state pension. As well as the winter fuel payment, pensioners receive a guarantee of pension credit and qualify automatically for the £140 rebate off their winter energy bill from suppliers participating in the warm home discount scheme. I will come to pension credit later in my remarks.

Older people can also benefit from the £9.1 billion that the Government will spend this year on extra measures to protect people from energy price spikes, such as the £200 energy rebate, the £150 council tax rebate and the £144 million discretionary fund available through local councils.

Pension credit came up so let me deal with that now. Pension credit would help people but, as noble Lords have said, people do not apply for it. We have to redouble our efforts to make sure that people apply for pension credit and receive it where it is due. We have undertaken a range of actions to raise awareness of pension credit, encourage pensioners to check their eligibility and make a claim. This includes the media day of action in June last year and we continue to use opportunities to promote pension credit, using proactive press activity and social media to reach potential recipients, their families and friends.

On Monday, the Minister for Pensions wrote a letter to editors of local newspapers across England, Scotland and Wales urging any readers who think they or a family member may be eligible to make a claim. There will be another day of action in June and the Pensions Minister will write to key stakeholders to seek their support for this. As well as these communication activities, we set up the pension credit working group with a range of stakeholders. It is tasked with identifying new practical initiatives that we can work on together to help pension credit take-up.

Over the last two months, more than 11 million pensioners in Great Britain will have received information about pension credit in the leaflet accompanying their annual uprating letter. It includes a prominent message that highlights that an award of pension credit not only tops up their state pension but can provide access to help with housing, heating and NHS costs and, for those over 75, a free TV licence.

Universal Credit (EAC Report)

Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd March 2022 Grand Committee

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, I am the substitute for my noble friend Lady Sherlock. I could not even begin to match her wide knowledge and experience of these matters, but I can match her determination in wanting to put things right. I welcome the many detailed contributions from your Lordships. I was particularly struck by the opening remarks from the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, who made salient point after point about the dire state of the many millions of people significantly affected by the cost of living crisis. Indeed, he gave the Government many sensible and strong points to follow, and I hope they listen to what he said. They would be wise to act upon his advice and that of his committee. His words were ably supported by the new chair of the committee, the noble Lord, Lord Bridges of Headley, who provided clear and concise key points and noted a lack of principles in this Government.

A lot has happened since the Economic Affairs Committee published the report we are debating back in July 2020. As a result, some of its content and recommendations have been superseded—in particular, retaining the £20 pandemic uplift, which has been cut, and reducing the taper rate, which went from 63% to 55% in the last Budget. I will return to these points, but let me address the content of the report itself first.

Much of the report and the issues that it found with universal credit still exist and continue to make life difficult for those eligible for it. As the name of the report says, universal credit is not working. Temporary and inadequate sticking plasters like the household support fund are no substitute for a proper social security system that offers security to families in hard times. I acknowledge that the Chancellor has doubled that fund in his Spring Statement today, but, disappointingly, he made no mention of universal credit.

Although my view and that of the Labour Benches is that universal credit should eventually be replaced, which the report does not agree with, I share the report’s overall conclusion that “substantial reform” is required in the first instance, as in its current state, the inflexible system is

“harming many, particularly the most vulnerable.”

A big part of this is about complexity. Universal credit was heralded—I remember seeing the TV documentaries with Iain Duncan Smith—as a simplified system, making it easier for claimants and the department alike. Instead, as the report notes, claimants do not know the support they will receive on a month-to-month basis, and the use of an arbitrary assessment date and pay date do the opposite.

Claimants are also on the end of significant shortfalls caused by the whole-month approach to any changes in circumstance, which in many cases will be out of their control and in no way reflects the lives of those in low-income households. A fair system would reflect the lives of those using it and be flexible enough to adapt.

As well as reflecting any changes in circumstances, the Government have said that their intention was for payments to reflect work, but this is not the reality. The report notes—as did the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth—that many new claimants have no experience of monthly pay. Having no flexibility in payment schemes different from this is detrimental to claimants, who are being forced to accommodate the system rather than the other way around. This principle extends to single household payments. As the report highlights, this simply does not reflect reality, but more pressingly it is an enabler for financial coercion and domestic abuse by making it more difficult for sufferers of these terrible situations to escape.

But the most damaging design flaw is the five-week wait. We know that the Government are aware of this as they have taken steps to mitigate it, but they have not gone far enough. Taking an advanced payment—one of the Government’s favourite tactics to make it look as if they are doing something when they are really doing nothing—means claimants choosing between a shortage now or later. This has left claimants, particularly those in vulnerable groups, disproportionately in limbo, with increasing debt, poverty and anxiety. Also, it is a minimum five-week wait. Some people are waiting even longer—and, even if everything goes to plan, in this time many people are referred to food banks as they struggle with debt, rent arrears and the mental health issues that arise from or are exacerbated by the uncertainty.

Moving on from design issues, there is of course the question of the adequacy of awards. Since the report was published, the then newly introduced £20 weekly uplift has been scrapped—in October last year. That was the second cut to benefits in six months, which, given the numerous other issues with the system and the cost of living crisis, was the last thing that claimants needed and will have achieved little beyond making the wide range of difficulties faced by claimants harder.

It is welcome that the Chancellor followed Labour’s lead and reduced the work allowance taper rate at the last Budget, but that is the equivalent of bailing water from a sinking ship with a spoon. Over one in four people on universal credit have no work requirements because they are unable to work due to a disability or a caring responsibility—a group for which lowering the taper rate provides nothing.

The committee’s report also highlighted the use of universal credit to collect other debts, which claimants are often unaware of, from recipients including

“£6 billion of historic tax credit debt”.

How can the Government look at this and think it is anything other than entirely against the principles of the system? You cannot have social security that offers no security.

Ultimately, I think that drifting away from the set of principles that would constitute a working social security is where universal credit has gone wrong, regardless of how this point has been reached. My noble friend Lady Lister expertly noted that, in the longer term, a review of the adequacy of benefits is needed. She has a detailed understanding of the causes of poverty and has provided many solutions for the Government in her academic work, if only they were willing to listen and learn.

The committee set out eight key principles that it set the report’s conclusions and recommendations against, derived from evidence taken during the inquiry, and which it considers reforms should be shaped by. I hope that very few in this place disagree with a set of principles that includes dignity and respect, providing adequate income, security and stability, reflecting lived experience, and being fair and flexible. But what is clear from both the committee’s inquiry and the experiences of claimants that we hear regularly is that the system we currently have in place does not reflect these principles closely enough. So I sincerely hope that the Government will turn to them as a guide and enact the serious reform that universal credit requires.

Social Security System

Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

As I have said many times—this subject comes up regularly—a benefits structure that adjusts automatically to family size is unsustainable. We recognise that some claimants are not able to make the same choices about the number of children in their family, and we have exceptions to protect certain groups. We continue to take action to help families with the cost of living. At the moment, as I have said before, there are no plans to change the two-child limit.

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

The Covid Realities report shows that the support for low-income families simply is not enough to manage on, even before the cost of living crisis hit. Does the Minister recognise that introducing a windfall tax would provide funding for immediate support and help families? What are the Government going to do to stop yet more of our children falling into poverty?

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

Clearly, the Opposition Benches and others have asked for a windfall tax. As far as I know, the Government do not intend to impose a windfall tax—the energy companies are already taxed more than others. On the point the noble Baroness raises about children and helping them, there is nothing more I can add to what I have said already. However, I ask her please to take it from me that the Government are doing their very best to support families.

International Women’s Day

Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts

Thursday 3rd March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

I am very pleased to say that we recognise that the ability to speak English is key to helping refugees integrate into life in England. It is absolutely fundamental to them being able to work and to have a productive life. That is why the Home Office is working closely with other departments to ensure that mainstream English language provision meets the needs of refugees. The Home Office provides £850 for each individual resettled in the country to help them develop their English.

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, the Association of British Insurers has reported that on this International Women’s Day there remain key areas where action can and should be taken to ensure gender parity in the world of work by reducing gender pay and seniority gaps, and in society by addressing gender pensions gaps and inequality. Can the Minister tell us how the Government, through their policies and legislation, intend to plug these serious gaps for women in work and in our wider society?

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

The noble Baroness raises a really important point. I point out that the gender pay gap has fallen significantly under this Government, there are 1.9 million more women in work since 2010, and a higher percentage of women are on FTSE 350 company boards than ever before. In my role as Minister for Women I have been working with the Women’s Business Council—this issue is very important to it—and the Alison Rose review. I would be very happy to have a meeting with the noble Baroness and share more details.

Mesothelioma Lump Sum Payments (Conditions and Amounts) (Amendment) Regulations 2022

Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd February 2022 Grand Committee

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for her presentation of the uprating of benefits to sufferers of mesothelioma and pneumoconiosis and for her description of the measures that the Government have taken to address some of the needs of these sufferers during the pandemic.

However, I feel that the key issue here is whether the Government really consider a 3.1% increase in any way adequate, with inflation predicted to reach 7.25% by the time people receive the uplift—the Bank of England expects inflation to peak at 7.25% in April and to average around 6.2% over the course of 2022. According to the latest DWP statistics, in the year from October 2020 to September 2021, £39 million was paid out through the pneumoconiosis scheme and £8.4 million through the mesothelioma scheme. There were 220 and 30 claimants respectively in September 2021. These figures show that uprating the payments by 3.1% rather than 6.2% risks a real-terms cut of £1.2 million for pneumoconiosis claimants and £260,000 for mesothelioma claimants—a hugely unfair cut during a national cost-of-living crisis. I wonder how people will cope with this crisis of funding, particularly if they are severely ill.

There has been a 56% increase in the cost of energy, as we heard in an earlier debate. Not being able to afford heating is particularly punitive for sick people and further penalises them in relation to healthy people. What special measures will the Government introduce to support people who are sick, often gravely ill and dependent on care? How will people afford the necessary care in the financial crisis ahead? How will their families manage? This is particularly important as many lung diseases are diagnosed only when beyond treatment, with many sufferers having only a short time to live and a high need of care.

The Minister mentioned the fact that the Government have put more money into research on the causes of and cures for lung disease. However, lung disease accounts for 20% of all deaths yet research funding lags well behind other better-known diseases. I hope that this might change in light of the current circumstances. The British Lung Foundation campaigns for more research and supports sufferers and families. I pay tribute to its work but given the fact that the diseases are caused by dust, which is present still in large numbers of buildings—many containing vast amounts of asbestos—are we really taking adequate action to address these unhealthy circumstances? It is particularly distressing that so many sufferers are mystified as to how they contracted such a fatal condition. More research on lung diseases is needed, as the Minister said, and I hope that that might attract more funding as a result of the pandemic, when lung disease has been such a major killer.

The Health and Safety Executive estimates that occupational lung disease accounts for 12,000 deaths a year—still. This is not a disease of the past, as many people seem to think. I will therefore put the following questions in conclusion. What additional support will the Government provide in the light of the inadequacy of this uprating to support sufferers of mesothelioma and pneumoconiosis and their families? What is the Government’s position on automatic uprating to give confidence to sufferers and families, which is urgently needed in the light of economic uncertainty? Will the Government look again at equal treatment for sufferers and families to reassure them that the families will not suffer? Will she raise with the Government the need to ensure more realistic funding for research into lung disease? I look forward to her response.

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing these regulations to the Committee and I am pleased to hear her references to additional support for people during the Covid-19 pandemic, which may otherwise have left them severely disadvantaged. However, more can always be done.

We have heard that the Government have decided to increase the amounts set out in the mesothelioma lump sum payments regulations by 3.1%, the rate of inflation as measured in September 2021 by the CPI. I will not repeat the figures quoted by the noble Baroness, Lady Janke, but I concur with her points regarding the gaps between this uprating and the exponential increases in the cost of living. This is an extremely vulnerable group of people in our society. I urge the Minister to look again.

Current high death rates among males aged 70 and above reflect the fact that this generation had the greatest potential for asbestos exposure in younger working life during the period of peak asbestos use in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Death rates among those under 65 have now been falling for some time. The most recent deaths in this younger age group are among the generation who started working life during the 1970s or later, when asbestos exposures were starting to be much more tightly controlled.

These kinds of diseases are a result of our industrial past and today I am proud to put in the official record the name of one south Wales miner who toiled underground man and boy to bring wealth and prosperity to the whole UK from the 1950s to the 1980s, until the year-long miners’ strike put paid to future employment for him and many like him. He was my dear late stepfather, Terrence John Howells, who luckily escaped the wrath of lung disease but was taken early by ischemic heart disease after a lifetime of working hard in the harshest of conditions underground, his face and hands covered in blue scars that were the permanent reminders of the toll that that industry left upon its workers.

Pneumoconiosis, in particular—also known as dust or black lung—was another industrial disease known as a silent killer, clogging and destroying the tissue of lungs and robbing thousands of men in particular of their futures. It was more prevalent in south Wales than anywhere else in the UK because of the young age at which mining was embarked on there. It ensured that families would see their fathers, husbands, brothers and sons fade through slow and painful illness. These compensation measures we are discussing must never be spoken about without remembering the context of the suffering of so many families and the consequences of these dreadful industrial diseases.

As well as reflecting on our industrial past and what people gave and endured in working in heavy industry, we must also reflect on the negligence towards health and safety matters. We need a strong Health and Safety Executive, but the number of health and safety inspectors has dropped by a third under this Government. There were 1,495 inspectors with the Health and Safety Executive in 2009-10, but just 978 in 2017-18, after falling every year in a row. Funding was slashed from £239 million to £136 million over the same period. Can the Minister tell us how confident she is that the HSE is sufficiently well resourced both to manage the risks to employees as we move out of the pandemic and to be mindful of the health risks we may encounter in the future, so that future generations will be better protected than my dear stepfather and his comrades were in their working lives?

In her speech on this matter last year my noble friend Lady Sherlock raised several important issues with the Minister that remain unaddressed a year later, so I will reiterate them on her behalf. There is a lack of parity between the levels of compensation being offered to sufferers and to their dependants, and we look forward to hearing a restatement of the Government’s rationale for this decision. Similarly, will she address the impact of disparity on women, who are often the dependants? Is there a cost estimate of providing equal payments? I look forward to the Minister’s response to these questions.

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

My Lords, as the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, reminded us of her relative, I start by saying that this is about people—people who contracted the disease through no fault of their own. We must be mindful of that. I remember that Lord Kirkwood, from the Liberal Benches, lost his dear wife to this. We must remember that this is about people.

The noble Baroness, Lady Janke, asked whether the 3.1% increase was adequate. The CPI in the year to September is the latest figure that the Secretary of State can use for the uprating review to allow her to meet the DWP’s hard IT deadlines. Using a consistent period for uprating each year means that, over time, the index balances out. As to whether it is adequate, certain disability benefits, including the industrial injuries benefits, are being uprated by the rate of the consumer prices index in September, which was 3.1%. This increase matches the increasing industrial injuries disablement benefit, to which the 1979 Act scheme is linked, as the lump-sum schemes we are debating today provide compensation payments to people who have become disabled through these debilitating diseases. We believe that it is appropriate to uprate the payments in line with other disability benefits.

Both noble Baronesses asked what the Government are doing to help with the cost of living. We have raised the national living wage, given nearly 2 million families an extra £1,000 a year through our cut to the universal credit taper and increased work allowances, frozen fuel duty for the 12th year running and invested £200 million in successful holiday activity, and will maintain the energy price cap to at least the end of 2022 to protect millions of people and ensure they pay a fair price for their energy—in spite of the rising cost of wholesale energy.

LGBT International Rights

Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts

Monday 12th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg (Con)]

I agree with my noble friend: it is right that sports bodies have the discretion to set their own rules on these issues.

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, like my noble friend Lord Browne of Ladyton, I have issues with the regime in Poland. I welcome the Minister’s recent answer, but can I press her slightly further to confirm whether the UK Government, with allies, are exploring any further steps to support the LGBT population of Poland?

[Baroness Sugg (Con)]

My Lords, we are working closely with allies to support the LGBT community in Poland. Recently, we have seen concerning reports of local councils and regional administrations in Poland making themselves free of LGBT ideology. We are also working with all our allies to make it clear that we oppose all forms of discrimination and are committed to protecting and promoting the rights and freedoms of LGBT people in Poland.

Environmental Protection (Plastic Straws, Cotton Buds and Stirrers) (England) Regulations 2020

Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts

Friday 10th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab) [V]]

The ban on these items was initiated by the former Prime Minister at a Commonwealth summit over two years ago—a long time coming but at least it is here now, at an increasingly serious and difficult time for the UK. Can the Minister say what estimate his department has made of the increase in plastic waste as a result of the pandemic? Is the department still committed to eliminating avoidable plastic waste? Why are we still waiting for the introduction of a deposit return scheme for drinks containers to incentivise people to recycle more plastic? Since the pandemic began, single-use has increased, exploited by some companies, which claim that it shows single-use, and often single-use plastic, to be the safest option. The science does not back that up; the virus can live on single-use surfaces as well.

The Welsh Government are currently consulting to restrict single-use, hard-to-recycle and commonly littered plastics and help move Wales towards a circular economy. We have often been at the forefront of these things. The longstanding commitment is outlined in Beyond Recycling. Today, I support the speedy introduction of these regulations for England and argue for a review of the regulations after 12 months.