Financial Guidance and Claims Bill [HL]

Debate between Earl of Listowel and Lord Haskel

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 19th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Haskel (Lab)]

My Lords, I served on the ad hoc committee, and I would like to add one point. One thing that came out loud and clear when we were working on the committee is that people’s financial lives are very complicated. Everything is interrelated. People do not actually differentiate between their pensions, their debts or their mortgage—the whole gamut of things. I support the noble Baroness’s amendment because it describes more accurately the way in which people view their financial lives. They want advice on the totality, not just on one particular aspect, because they see it all as being interrelated. That is why I think this is probably a good amendment.

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, I hope the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, will not mind my taking this opportunity, which was probably taken at Second Reading, to pay tribute to the work of organisations in this area, particularly to Toynbee Hall and the late Earl Attlee, who was a trustee of Toynbee Hall. When my father left university at Oxbridge, he went and lived in Toynbee Hall in the 1930s and learned a bit about what it was like living in that area at that time. It shaped Clement Attlee’s view of the world, of course, so perhaps the welfare state that we have now is partly due to the work of Toynbee Hall. It gives advice to care leaders, and the noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, has spoken of the evidence that it gave him. It is organisations like that which have been providing support and advice to vulnerable families and individuals over many years that we really need to celebrate and give credit to.

Welfare Reform Bill

Debate between Earl of Listowel and Lord Haskel

Wednesday 26th October 2011 Grand Committee

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Haskel)]

Is the noble Earl going to be very long?

[The Earl of Listowel]

Anna Freud demonstrated in her life’s work how complex child development is and how professionals working with children had to recognise that complexity. I am to some degree reassured by what the Minister has said, but there is great complexity here. Particularly in childcare, we have a very mixed provision and shortages in many areas. There may be things that we can think about before the Report stage that would be helpful in terms of future thinking—for instance, the work of the family information services might complement the work of Jobcentre Plus advisers, helping them to understand what is available in their local area.