Pensions Bill

Lord Colwyn Excerpts

Wednesday 8th January 2014 Grand Committee

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Colwyn) (Con)]

My Lords, I have the usual announcement. If there is a Division in the Chamber while we are sitting, the Committee will adjourn as soon as the Division bells are rung and resume after 10 minutes or at such a time as we are all back in our seats.

Clause 5: Transitional rate of state pension

Amendment 22

Moved by

Occupational and Personal Pension Schemes (Automatic Enrolment) (Amendment) Regulations 2013

Lord Colwyn Excerpts

Wednesday 24th July 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My Lords, I first thank the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, and the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, for their support for these regulations. I am grateful to them for that.

In response to the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, in particular, I will say a little more about the market study into workplace pensions that the Office of Fair Trading launched in January. The aim of the study is to examine whether DC pensions are set up to deliver the best value for money for savers and to take a forward look at the impact of auto-enrolment. On 11 July, the OFT published an update on its progress. This included several areas it wishes to explore further, including the current level of governance over the performance of some schemes, which the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, raised; schemes with two-tier charging structures in which deferred members pay higher charges; and schemes that do not have a realistic prospect of reaching sufficient scale to generate value for their members. The OFT is also concerned about the way that charges are currently presented and about charges in older schemes that may not represent value for money.

The Government intend to publish a consultation in the autumn, following the publication of the OFT’s report and recommendations. Our consultation will cover a number of issues including a charge cap, active member discounts and extending the prohibition on consultancy charges to all qualifying schemes. These regulations are a first step in a wider move towards addressing the whole area of consultancy charges and their potential effect.

The noble Baroness, Lady Drake, stressed the importance of the FCA and TPR working together. The regulators have already set out how they will co-ordinate and exchange information. The FCA and TPR will jointly publish a document which sets out how regulation of work-based pensions operates in the autumn. This will better articulate the existing regulatory framework. The FCA is updating its pensions strategy and this will inform its business plan, to be published in the spring of 2014.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees]

My feeling is that the noble Baroness wishes to go on a bit longer. If she could finish in 60 seconds—

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I do not think that I can.

Mesothelioma Bill [HL]

Lord Colwyn Excerpts

Monday 10th June 2013 Grand Committee

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Colwyn)]

My Lords, as usual, if there is a Division in the Chamber while we are here, we will adjourn for 10 minutes and resume after that time.

Clause 4 : Payments

Amendment 16

Moved by

Mesothelioma Bill [HL]

Lord Colwyn Excerpts

Wednesday 5th June 2013 Grand Committee

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Colwyn)]

Does the noble Lord wish to withdraw the amendment?

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

I do not know whether the Minister has anything further to say.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Colwyn Excerpts

Tuesday 14th May 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Colwyn]

My Lords, among the many briefs that I received before and after the gracious Speech, there is one from the BMA indicating its initial response to a number of proposals in the Queen’s Speech that impact on health and healthcare. While welcoming the Care Bill, which has been promised for some time, I am not sure whether the House would have tolerated any more healthcare legislation. However, I am aware of the recent statements in the popular press claiming that soaring charges have caused a fifth of people to give up going to their dentist, that as many as 500,000 patients have been wrongly told they must pay privately for treatment, and that the surge in the sales of dental kits in pharmacies is risking 200,000 DIY dentists harming themselves. I do not recognise these problems, but they must be addressed. I hope that your Lordships will allow some brief comments about the current general dental services, which provide free treatment for all children and nearly one-third of adult patients and have enabled 1.25 million more people to see an NHS dentist than in May 2010.

Having worked as a dental surgeon for more than 40 years, and declaring that interest, I welcome the progress that the Government have made in piloting a new NHS dental contract in line with the undertaking that was given in the coalition agreement. September 2011 saw the beginning of piloting of a new contract, based on registration, capitation and quality, with a focus on the quality of clinical outcomes and on promoting a preventive approach to oral health. Seventy practices were involved.

Building on this work, the Government recently embarked on a further stage of piloting, involving a larger number of dental practices. There are now 98 practices taking part, testing how the different elements of a proposed contract can work together most effectively to deliver the Department of Health’s goals of improved access to dental services and improved oral health. So far, the feedback from staff and patients taking part in the pilots has been largely positive, and I hope that it will not be too much longer before the department is in a position to begin discussions with the profession on the details of the new contact. I commend the Government for taking the time to get these reforms right.

These reforms have transformed the commissioning of dental services. Although dentists have been largely supportive of the shift to central commissioning by NHS England, there are concerns that the transition to the new structures has not gone as smoothly as it might. Dentists do not know who to engage with in the 27 NHS England area teams and the teams have yet to develop a consistent approach for working with local dental committees, which are a valuable source of up-to-date local information. Additionally, there is concern that local professional networks are not being allocated the funding necessary to enable them to provide the detailed clinical advice that NHS England’s dental commissioners will require from them. There are also worries that currently Public Health England has an insufficient number of consultants in dental public health to deliver on the aims set out in the public health outcomes framework. All of these teething troubles will need to be addressed if the Government want the NHS reforms to deliver real improvements to the population’s oral health.

At the end of last month, it was announced that NHS England is setting up a task group to look at how to improve dental services and outcomes for hard-to-reach groups. This is a very welcome initiative. The British Dental Association recently published a report on the future of salaried primary dental care services, the part of the NHS that provides dental care to special care patients who present challenges that can prevent them being treated in general practice. This report highlighted a series of issues, including a lack of funding, inadequate provision of facilities and a predicted increase in demand for this service, which will need to be overcome if the needs of these patients are to continue to be met. I hope that this is one of the issues that NHS England will be able to address as a matter of urgency, perhaps through the new task group.

Recent changes to decontamination requirements have also been welcomed by dentists. The new requirements, which include an extension to the shelf life of wrapped instruments, will continue to ensure patient safety while making more reasonable demands of dental practices. Dentists have also welcomed the Department of Health’s recent confirmation that a full review of the guidance will take place by the end of 2014, and I hope that the Minister will soon be in a position to say when this review is going to commence.

I would like to draw the Minister’s attention to the ongoing issue of the annual shortage of foundation training places for UK dental graduates. I appreciate that this is an extremely difficult issue to resolve, but it cannot be right that this year 185 applicants, many of whom will have studied in UK dental schools at a cost to the public purse in the region of £155,000 each, will have to endure months of anxiety that their career in dentistry is over before it has even started on account of there being insufficient foundation training places available. Without this training, it will not be possible for any of these students to take up jobs providing NHS dentistry after they graduate. I know that the Minister will do all he can for each of these students, and I expect that places will be found for many of them in the coming months. I hope that it will also be possible to find a long-term solution to this issue, so that future dental students will be spared deep uncertainty at a time when all of their attention should be focused on doing as well as possible in their final exams.

In conclusion, I shall make some comments on the statutory regulation of the practitioners of herbal medicine which was briefly discussed in Grand Committee on 24 April in a Question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch. Recently two herbalists working in the Prime Minister’s constituency wrote to ask whether he would,

“kindly intercede on our behalf with the Department of Health to find out what is happening with our promised statutory regulation”.

His reply stated that,

“the Department of Health expects to consult on draft legislation to establish a statutory register of people who are authorised to supply unlicensed herbal medicines and for legislation to be in place by 2013”.

After a series of consultations, the Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley, announced in February 2011 that he had decided to ask the Health and Care Professions Council to establish a statutory register for practitioners supplying unlicensed herbal medicines. Nothing has happened.

It is rumoured that the Minister now concerned with this regulation, Dr Dan Poulter, is set on making an announcement on regulation without properly consulting representatives from the herbal medicines profession, who now believe that the 2011 decision is about to be reversed. The move to statutory regulation has been endorsed by the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology, by two Department of Health-sponsored steering groups under independent chairs and by the overwhelming majority of the public, who responded in huge numbers to two public consultations. My noble friend has been very helpful with meetings, letters and general advice. I hope that he will be able to update noble Lords on the current situation and confirm that representatives from his department will do all they can to meet in order to discuss and enable this long-promised legislation.

Welfare Reform Bill

Lord Colwyn Excerpts

Thursday 6th October 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Williamson of Horton]

My Lords, I support the amendment proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis—not perhaps with quite the same vehemence, but I definitely support it. In fact, I am getting into the habit of supporting the noble Baroness; that may not continue, but for the moment it seems to be well established on my part.

Those of us who strongly support the introduction of the universal credit recognise that the clause we are discussing is the most important one of the whole operation. That is because there can be nothing more important than deciding and making clear what it is by reference to which the award is to be calculated. This is the part of the Bill that says what the award is to be calculated by reference to. At the moment, the current text is “housing”. That is open to quite a bit of discussion and dispute until we are absolutely clear about what is going to happen on council tax.

This is the clause in the Bill that beneficiaries may actually read; they will want to know how their award is calculated, and council tax is an essential element. If they are told, as appears to be the case, that the level of benefit and the calculation of council tax is to be based on everyone else in their locality, whether they are pensioners, disability sufferers and so on, that will give rise to quite a lot of concern about the complexity of the arrangements that are apparently being proposed. I am concerned about that.

Those like me who have a child with a disability know that it is extremely important that, as far as possible, we should find some form of independent living for them. It is extremely important on the social plane. These people are considerably affected by how the universal credit is going to relate to housing and council tax costs. The standard rate will not prove so difficult, but this element of housing and council tax will be controversial. They will feel worried about it—I think that some are worrying about it already—and that is liable to reflect on the universal credit, which I strongly support.

I hope that the Minister will look favourably at the battery of comments on the issue of council tax which, if we follow what is set out in the consultation paper, seems to be complicated to an amazing degree. That is why I support the clarity of the amendment brought forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Colwyn)]

My Lords, I wonder if we could hear from the noble Lord, Lord Newton, who is feeling invisible and has asked to speak from a sitting position.

[Lord Newton of Braintree]

My Lords, I have said that I will stand up if I can, but it is easier for me to sit down. I wanted everyone else to speak first in order not to frighten the Government Whip, but we are one short of a full house and I want to make it clear that this is indeed a full house, as it were, regarding worries about this issue. I had some rather less coherent concerns when I first read that this was to be excluded. Maybe the Minister has some wonderful answers that I cannot predict; I am just glad that I am not in his position. I think that we have had a devastating critique of this proposal, and I will take some persuading that it makes any sense. I chair a mental health trust and should declare that interest. I have some affinity with the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, over her concerns on that front, but that is not what I want to spend my time on, nor do I want to repeat points. I have some questions, though.

If this is to be based on the allocation of a capped sum to every local authority, someone is going to have to devise a formula for the division of that sum. I look to the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, because of his local authority experience, and there are other noble Lords with similar experiences. Devising a formula for allocations between local authorities is the nearest thing to a magic art that anyone has ever devised. I once had ministerial responsibility for one aspect of it, and the fact is that I understood what my officials were telling me about this formula only for three minutes after they had explained it to me. In any event, there were said to be only two people in the country who actually understood it. Are we going to have to have another of those formulae, and what will that cost?

We are being told, if I hear the noble Baroness aright and the Minister does not have an answer, that every local authority in the country is going to have to invent its own social security system. That is what we are talking about. Unless they get together in Essex or wherever it may be, then Braintree will have its own social security system, as will Chelmsford and Norwich. How much is that going to cost? “Is it sane?”, I ask, and hope for an answer. We are also told that in a world in which the existence of separate tapers has been one of the problems, and the aim is to get a consistent single-taper approach, we are now leaving a second alongside the main one. I can hardly believe my ears.

There is a practical question relating to the allocations point. Someone referred to factory closures. I had a lot of them in Braintree in the early 1980s. Courtaulds was one of the biggest local employers in the textile industry. It did me a lot of political damage but, leaving that aside, obviously it sent up the number of people on benefits, including whatever council tax benefit was in those days. The same thing will probably happen up in Fylde due to British Aerospace’s intention to close its factories. However, there may be places where great new factories are being built. Is this going to bring windfall benefits? If there is a factory closure, everyone else in the area on council tax benefit has to have their benefit cut to pay for the new arrivals on to the benefit. If a factory opens or Tesco takes on 400 people, either the council or every council tax benefit beneficiary gets a bonus. These questions need thinking through and need answers.

Lastly, there is the question of appeals. If I hear the noble Baroness right, they are going to remain national. Who do the complainants go to? Is it the social security chapter of the Tribunals Service, which I know something about? If so, the judges of the Tribunals Service will need to be tutored on and informed about hundreds of different benefit systems and they will not be able to deploy their tribunal judiciary in the way they would at the moment. You will not be able to send someone who knows about Suffolk—you will not even be able to send someone who knows about Ipswich—to Norwich, let alone to somewhere distant or to London. At the moment, the aim is to deploy these judges with efficiency, bearing in mind that we are talking about the national systems that they know. Have these questions been addressed in the department? Have they been answered? Can the Minister answer them today? I live in hope.

--- Later in debate ---

Amendment 12 withdrawn.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Colwyn)]

My Lords, discussions at this end of the Table suggest that it might be convenient to take a short break. I suggest that we adjourn for 10 minutes, but first I will take the business to a convenient point.

Amendments 13 to 15 not moved.