Pensions: Draw-down Charges

Debate between Lord Campbell-Savours and Lord Freud

Tuesday 9th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, we have a marketplace and it is fair to give it a chance to develop. At the moment, according to the FT and Which?, the annual charges applied to decumulation pots are somewhere between 0.25% and, for high-end performers, 1%. For the set-up, the charge is somewhere between £70 and £300. As we start to gather this evidence and assess it, we will know whether we need to intervene.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

Is the noble Lord’s ministerial colleague, sitting at his side, equally in favour of this watching approach?

[Lord Freud]

I think the noble Lord will be able to see a quote saying exactly that: she is monitoring this very closely.

Universal Credit

Debate between Lord Campbell-Savours and Lord Freud

Monday 24th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

It is very important that local areas look after the more vulnerable people, and one of the most important elements that we are introducing alongside universal credit and supplementing it is universal support delivered locally. That produces a partnership where we can get all the resources that people need to become independent and take responsibility for their own lives and get them into a place where that can be done. We have 11 formal trials of universal support going on now.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister was asked by my noble friend Lady Lister about what the Government were going to do about housing costs. Does he believe that housing rents in the United Kingdom are now too high?

[Lord Freud]

Excuse me, I just missed that. The housing what were too high?

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Rents.

[Lord Freud]

Thank you. We have borne down on rents in the local housing allowance rates and have seen rents come down—I do not know if that was as a direct result, but they have come down at the same time. I have some statistics that I will send to the noble Lord.

Housing: Inherited Social Housing Tenancies

Debate between Lord Campbell-Savours and Lord Freud

Monday 24th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

The Minister says that he is seeing a large number of local authorities. Is he actually meeting people who have been affected by this tax? If he has, where has he met them—in what part of the country, in what boroughs? Perhaps he might tell us when. Also, he refers to 400,000 houses built since the last election in 2010—he mentioned 400,000 in his brief, which he read to the House. How many of those were started under the previous Labour Government? It was the Minister who was playing politics with the stats.

[Lord Freud]

I do not have to hand the number of starts. All I can say is that the number of completions in that last year—the handover year—was the lowest level of building in peacetime since the 1920s, which is a pretty shameful performance from a Government who saw a very long boom. I would like to be able to answer the question, but if I am not allowed to I will not.

Housing: Underoccupancy Charge

Debate between Lord Campbell-Savours and Lord Freud

Tuesday 28th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

One of the fundamental objectives of providing discretionary housing payments is to make sure that where there are significant adaptations in homes for disabled people there will be discretionary housing payments for those people.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

Has the Minister ever stopped to consider the personal distress caused to families who are forced to move because they cannot afford higher rents?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, we naturally look at these policies with a view to their impact. At a time of very scarce housing, we are under huge pressure to find appropriate homes for people. Everyone takes decisions to move to reflect their circumstances. It is no different in the social sector than elsewhere.

Food: Food Banks

Debate between Lord Campbell-Savours and Lord Freud

Tuesday 2nd July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

My Lord, as I said, it is difficult to make causal connections. The Trussell Trust has said that one reason why people have come to it is benefit delays. I checked through the figures and in the period of that increase the number of delays that we had had reduced. It went up by four percentage points over the past three years, and our delays now stand at 90%. It is difficult to know which came first, the supply or the demand.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, what is a supply-led food bank?

[Lord Freud]

If that sounded like jargon, I apologise. I meant that food from a food bank—the supply—is a free good, and by definition there is an almost infinite demand for a free good.

Employment: Sickness Absence

Debate between Lord Campbell-Savours and Lord Freud

Wednesday 25th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

One of the things that the sickness absence review did was to look at the mismatch in what people were trying to do. The worst of the mismatches was that GPs were signing people off on their sick notes because they could not do a particular job, while the work capability assessment later looked at whether they could do any job. It is those mismatches that we need to stop and sort out.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

I suffer from ankylosing spondylitis, which the noble Lord will know is a long-term disease. Does he have any provisional views on the recommendations in the report on physiotherapy services?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, I think I tried to deal with this a little earlier. There is inadequate support across a whole range of occupational health therapies, including physiotherapy. We are taking our time to do this properly, but one of the important implications is the question of what provision is needed for people who are of working age and in danger of going out of the workforce. We seem to have far too little provision generally, and we will probably need to bulk it up.

Energy: Winter Fuel Payment

Debate between Lord Campbell-Savours and Lord Freud

Monday 19th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, I am grateful to be told where my sympathies are but the reality is that about 500,000 people would be affected and the saving would be about £40 million a year. It would be expensive and difficult to do and, therefore, on its own, it would not be a good idea. That does not suggest where my sympathies are at all.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Would not this proposal actually penalise low-income group, basic-rate taxpayers?

[Lord Freud]

I am sorry—I missed the point of that question. Will the noble Lord repeat it?

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Would not the proposal penalise low-income group, basic-rate, elderly taxpayers?

[Lord Freud]

No, I do not think so. This is just a universal benefit that is paid on a simple basis to households that need it. Older people above 80 receive rather more than those below that age.

Benefits: EU Nationals

Debate between Lord Campbell-Savours and Lord Freud

Monday 7th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, amazingly, we do not have those data, but that is clearly not the present Government’s problem as we are looking to get those data. Our concern is that, if we let in benefit tourists in the way the Commission is looking for us to do, the costs of doing that could be up to £2.5 billion a year. Noble Lords will be absolutely aware that we have many better ways of spending that money on people who are in this country and who have been making a contribution to this country.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

When are the Government going to comment on the uprating? A lot of people out there in the country will want to know.

[Lord Freud]

I have already made my position on that absolutely clear.