Credit Unions

Lord Bishop of Liverpool Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, I am happy to confirm to my noble friend that Ministers expect the post office network to play a central role in enabling credit unions to reach more families. Part of the funding, which I have already mentioned, is going towards projects related to that end—projects that are in the capable hands of my noble friend Lord Freud. He is running with that project; it is in safe hands and the Post Office is central to it.

[The Lord Bishop of Liverpool]

My Lords, is the Minister aware of the commission into personal debt that was chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths of Fforestfach? I declare an interest as a member of that commission. Will the Minister consider the proposals and recommendations of the commission, in particular, the proposal to set up a community finance trust that would assist community finance projects such as credit unions?

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, I am happy to look at any suggestions for furthering the development of credit unions and similar savings channels. I am grateful to the right reverend Prelate for drawing my attention to those recommendations.

IMF and World Bank: Appointment Procedures

Lord Bishop of Liverpool Excerpts

Wednesday 1st December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sassoon]

I can only restate the position of the Government: these appointments should be made regardless of nationality or gender.

[The Lord Bishop of Liverpool]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that many of the beneficiaries of the World Bank feel that the leadership of both the World Bank and the IMF are out of touch with the complexity of the issues facing the developing world, especially when it comes to land rights?

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, I am grateful to the right reverend Prelate for reminding us of what part of the important role of the World Bank is. Indeed, since we are talking about governance arrangements, it is important that there is a commitment to arriving at a new formula for the World Bank shareholding by 2015 that will properly reflect the development mandate of that organisation.

Comprehensive Spending Review

Lord Bishop of Liverpool Excerpts

Wednesday 20th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Higgins]

My Lords—

[The Lord Bishop of Blackburn]

My Lords, very many of us are eager to see the big society, with its vision of neighbourliness, prevail. Neighbourliness requires a particular care for children, who are a gift and not a commodity, and for poorer families. Given that many children and poorer families will be badly affected by the reduction in benefits, can the Minister tell us where this lost support may be found in the future for children and poorer families?

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, I am grateful to the right reverend Prelate for drawing our attention to the question of children, which I shall come back to. In respect of his question about poorer families, I draw the House’s attention to the new section at the back of the document, which for the first time lays out the effect on the deciles and quintiles of the population of all the measures that we have taken in the spending review and the Budget. It confirms the fairness of the overall construct—namely, that those who can afford to pay more will do so and that the poorest in society are protected.

The spending review will provide additional support to the most disadvantaged children at every stage, particularly in education, and will support social mobility. As I said when repeating the Statement, free early years education will be extended to 15 hours and care will be given to the most disadvantaged two year-olds. Critically, we will introduce a £2.5 billion pupil premium. There will be more generous maintenance provision and a scholarship fund of £150 million to underpin higher education funding for disadvantaged children. The entire spending review has taken fully into account the needs of children, particularly in education. The coalition Government have taken action to protect families. Overall, there is no measurable impact on child poverty from all the model changes for the next two years.