Tax Credits (Income Thresholds and Determination of Rates) (Amendment) Regulations 2015

Lord Bishop of Southwark Excerpts

Monday 26th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Campbell of Surbiton (CB)]

My Lords—

[The Lord Bishop of Southwark]

My Lords—

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, perhaps I may suggest, given the very large number of noble Lords who want to speak, that for the benefit of the House they keep their contributions brief and to the point, so that we can get as many people in as possible. Furthermore, if we can go around the House, as we do at Question Time, it will help create a sense of balance in our debate, which I am sure noble Lords will appreciate. I hope the right reverend Prelate will excuse me—because normally he would take precedence—but I have indicated to the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell of Surbiton, that she might speak next. I hope that he will understand why I wish to do so.

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[The Lord Bishop of Southwark]

My Lords, I support the amendment to the Motion as tabled by the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of Portsmouth, in the hope that it will indeed give space for further reflection and reconsideration of the tax credit proposals. I believe that it has the potential to do that.

First, I want to record my appreciation for the welcome rhetoric in recent months from members of the Government saying that employment, not least hard work, merits fair pay and some recognition in the national minimum wage. It is this, rather than buttressing from the state, that should provide the income of working people. It follows from this that rising wages and salaries will, of their own accord, not least from the Government’s own national living wage proposals, reduce the use of tax credits in due course without the introduction of the draft regulations before us.

The diocese which it is my calling and privilege to serve covers most of south London and east Surrey—I have the honour of several of your Lordships living within it. It is a large and populous area, encompassing significant pockets of urban deprivation alongside considerable wealth. The unsustainable cost pressures in the property rental market, as well as rapidly rising house prices, already threaten the balance of many communities. I fear that the introduction of these regulations will push a significant number of hard-working although low-earning families to breaking point. A reduction in the threshold for families’ earnings before credits are withdrawn from £6,420 to £3,850 is a very dramatic change, which will adversely affect all but the poorest members of the communities we serve. Families that strive, struggle, aspire and hope to advance their well-being will be thrown back, since few have the sort of margin between income and expenditure to cushion them from the blow that is coming. In the London Borough of Southwark alone, whose 50th anniversary was commemorated in my cathedral this past weekend, it is estimated that some 20,000 families are in receipt of tax credits and, further, that even making allowance for the mitigating factors being introduced by the Government, some 4,000 will remain worse off by these changes. That is in just one London borough.

The sort of wage rises that would mitigate this and the extra hours worked to catch up will be taken away by the loss in other benefits, even if there were enough hours in the day. The rise in personal allowances which benefits a far wider group of people, including Members in this Chamber, will not compensate for this shortfall. By these regulations, we are in fact asking parents to make their children bear a significant adjustment in their economic circumstances—an adjustment that some children will not understand, which in itself will be an added stress to their families. We risk stripping our fellow citizens of their dignity by these provisions, even though the Government’s stated intention with a whole range of economic and fiscal measures is to do the opposite. We should take this opportunity to counsel Her Majesty’s Government not to seek to add to the burdens of those working hard for their families, and to reconsider in detail the impact of these regulations and the need for more fully worked-out transitional arrangements. I therefore support the regret Motion as tabled by the right reverend Prelate.

[Baroness O'Loan (CB)]

Before right reverend Prelate sits down, could I just ask him why, if he believes that this will cause such difficulty, harm and distress to so many children and their parents in our community, he is telling us to vote for this Motion?

[The Lord Bishop of Southwark]

I was persuaded by listening to the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, explaining the other day the constitutional differences that exist between the two Chambers .

[Baroness Thomas of Winchester (LD)]

My Lords, there seem to be two strands to this emotive phrase “constitutional crisis”, which is what I would like to address. The first is that this House should not vote down a statutory instrument—certainly not one that has been through the House of Commons. But there is no Standing Order which lays this down, and the Parliament Acts are silent on the primacy of the Commons over statutory instruments. Yes, it is taking a very rare step, but the footpath is there, even if it is rather overgrown. In this House, we do not look to Erskine May so much as the Companion to the Standing Orders, which is where we find that this House has an unfettered right over statutory instruments. If an instrument is not approved by this House, there is nothing to stop the Government immediately bringing another instrument to both Houses with a minor change. It is time we stopped being bullied over how we consider statutory instruments.

The other strand of the so-called constitutional crisis involves the primacy of the House of Commons over financial matters. Here, I echo what the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, said. The parent Act from which this instrument comes was not certified by the Speaker as a money Bill, and if this House is entitled to debate the statutory instrument at all—which it is—then it is entitled to approve or to decline to approve it. It is not a question of courtesy; this is what we do and what Parliament has decreed. We would be failing all those affected by this measure if we simply pulled a duvet over our faces and turned our backs to the wall while saying it was none of our business.

If the Government had wanted to avoid this situation, why on earth did they not introduce a very short tax credits amendment Bill? Then we could have debated it in the usual way, with none of this intolerable pressure. If this House had sent back an unacceptable amendment, the Commons could have invoked financial privilege and that would have been that, but we might have found a way to tweak such a Bill that would have found favour with all those Conservative Members who have been calling for just that.

If the Bill route had been taken, we might have had a much more informative impact assessment, which could have told us what was likely to happen to those low-paid workers affected when the tax credit changes happen next April, instead of being told that by 2020 there may not be quite so many losers. We surely know that not all the thousands of employers up and down the country will pay the new living wage immediately to all part-time workers for the same number of hours to make up the shortfall. As it is, for the Government to decide to make a very controversial change by way of an unamendable statutory instrument, and then to bully members of this House into passing it by telling us that we are provoking a constitutional crisis if we do not agree to it, is surely quite unacceptable. We should stand up for what we believe to be morally right. The spirit of 1911 is being invoked, but at least Lloyd George wanted to take from the rich to pay the poor. George Osborne seems to want to do the opposite.