Universal Credit

Lord Cashman Excerpts

Thursday 23rd November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his support. He is quite right about the noble Baroness opposite, who, of course, knows so much about this system and the whole system of social security—and I pay tribute to her for that. But the reality is, I genuinely feel, that these attacks are unjustified, as my noble friend said. Indeed, I think that he referred to the “Money Box” programme with Paul Lewis, which stated that 100,000 people would not receive something over Christmas. That is so wrong. We are looking to “Money Box” at the moment to correct that and apologise. I have always put a lot of trust in that programme, but now I say loudly and clearly to Paul Lewis that the jury is out. I look forward to him responding in a far more positive way, because it is simply not true and is continually adding to the scaremongering.

We are hearing about people who are afraid to go on universal credit now, and that is appalling. We need to get behind the system, and we are doing everything that we can to make it work. We are trying to transform people’s lives and get them out of that system of being trapped in appalling welfare dependency, with no confidence and isolation in their lives. We want to transform their lives and we are doing everything that we can to do that.

[Lord Cashman (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. After our last exchanges I dropped her a note because I think that I was rather unfair on her in my intervention. Would she accept with all sincerity that we welcome the changes? As I said in my contribution in our debate, I urge the Government to go further—because the negative cases that you see us representing are not imagined. As I said, again in my contribution, they have been brought to our attention by NGOs such as Scope, Shelter, Crisis, St Mungo’s, the Residential Landlords Association and London Councils. While it is wonderful that she visited the London Bridge centre, I encourage her to visit others. Does she agree with me that we are truly representing those cases that are brought to our attention—which, as I said in my contribution, were brought to me by the MP Jim Fitzpatrick?

[Baroness Buscombe]

I very much welcome the letter from the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, although, unfortunately, it has not arrived. However, I look forward to reading it when it does. I am very grateful to him. I was not feeling terribly well last week, and probably looked pained because I was worrying more about responding to an important debate than about what the noble Lord had to say—although I took very much on board what he was saying.

This is serious, of course, and we want to be clear that every single case that any noble Lord may hear about they should please send in to us. We will do our best to try to sort it, because we want the system to work. We are looking at a number of things; this is not the end of the road for our thinking through the system, as I have already said. For example, as my right honourable friend the Secretary of State in the other place made clear earlier today, we are looking at the taper rate. I know that is something that has exercised noble Lords. The Government are committed to ensuring that universal credit supports people into work but, as the Chancellor set out in his Budget, the taper rate will be kept under review and the Government will continue to consider the case for further changes. That is one example. In every other way, where we can, we will certainly look at how we can improve.

The noble Lord made reference to St Mungo’s, from which we had a response saying:

“We have been calling for a new strategy to tackle homelessness. I welcome the opportunity to work with the taskforce to end the national scandal of rough sleeping altogether. We are also pleased to see a number of changes to Universal Credit that St Mungo’s had been calling for, particularly the removal of the 7 day waiting period and extension of the repayment period for advances to 12 months”.


We have had terrific support, including from Citizens Advice, with which we are working very closely.

Occupational Pensions: Survivor Benefits

Lord Cashman Excerpts

Monday 13th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Altmann]

My noble friend will know that the specific differences in treatment between male and female scheme members for the purpose of survivor benefits in public service pension schemes for service prior to 1988 were held to be lawful in 2011. This judgment was made in the Cockburn case, which specifically discussed a widower whose partner was a member of the National Health Service Pension Scheme. The judgment effectively said that there was in that case,

“an objective and reasonable justification”,

not to make retrospective changes in relation to new policy being introduced.

Benefits for widows were introduced much earlier than for widowers. The Social Security Act 1975 first imposed obligations on contracted-out schemes to provide a surviving female with a survivor pension. In those days it was usual for the man to be the partner who was working, with a dependent female partner. A female worker with a dependent husband was not the social norm. The scheme funding would have been based on the expectation that a female member would not have a dependent survivor, whereas the male would have a dependent survivor.

[Lord Cashman (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that this issue of equality should have been dealt with prior to the Civil Partnership Act and the same-sex marriage Act? People who survive their partners are having to cope at the time of death with appalling inequality, which should be unacceptable. Will the Minister act with expertise and expedite this matter urgently?

[Baroness Altmann]

My Lords, the Government are very sympathetic to the principles of equality and if we were confident that equalising these benefits would be straightforward, affordable and sustainable we would be happy to support more equalisation. But we have to think carefully before imposing on schemes retrospective costs which could not have been taken into account in past funding assumptions. We are absolutely committed to tackling discrimination in all its forms and creating a fairer society for everyone, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity, but the benefits people receive—