Underoccupancy Charge: Carers

Debate between Lord Cormack and Lord Freud

Monday 10th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

The courts have gone through this in some detail now and found that it is reasonable for the Secretary of State to take the view that it is not practicable to provide a further exemption for an imprecise class of persons, and that the flexibility of the DHP scheme can be relied upon to provide the additional help.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

Does my noble friend not accept that this policy, which appears to be insensitively applied, does not sit happily with Conservative philosophy?

[Lord Freud]

We have aimed to get rid of some of the areas where people are just not taking part in the economic life of the country. One of the things that has been happening is that the proportion of people who have been outside the labour market and in social housing has dropped dramatically from a peak of 49% at the beginning of this Parliament to 41% now—the lowest-ever level. We need to look to help all people that we possibly can to take a full part in the economic life of this country.

Universal Credit: National Rollout

Debate between Lord Cormack and Lord Freud

Monday 28th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, the party opposite is not saying that universal credit is not the right transformation. Although it voted against various aspects, it is actually saying that it is the right way to go. The issue is how to introduce it. We are introducing it safely and securely, and we are doing that exactly for the kind of people to whom the noble Lord was referring. We are making sure that we do not produce shocks by introducing a new system on one day in the way, for instance, that tax credits were introduced and which was a failure. We are doing this slowly and securely.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, as this is such a profound change, would it not be sensible to have a Joint Committee of both Houses to monitor and supervise its introduction and development?

Health: Atos

Debate between Lord Cormack and Lord Freud

Monday 26th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

I am not aware of the fine print of that particular contract, as it was done under a previous Government. A proportion of the assessment centres—currently 31, I believe—are not on the ground floor and lifts must be used. If there is then an emergency, such as a fire, those people will have to go down the stairs, which is obviously not satisfactory. To the extent that people are concerned about that, we make other arrangements: they are visited on the ground floor, somewhere else or at home.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, did anyone prior to seeing the Order Paper know what Atos was?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, Atos is not an acronym in this case; it is the name of the company that does these assessments.

Credit Unions

Debate between Lord Cormack and Lord Freud

Thursday 19th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, we have a procurement function going on with the credit unions, which will start shortly, in terms of how they can modernise and improve. It may well be that there are contributions that are not financial but intellectual that the credit unions can add. We are currently having a series of working parties with the retail banks as we develop the requirements for universal credit and financial inclusion.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, I greatly welcome my noble friend’s commitment, but can we accelerate things? In this age of rapacious loan sharks, credit unions could be of real help to many people who are struggling on very low fixed incomes. Could we please have a little more expedition?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, the whole point of this exercise is to expedite the growth of the movement. There are currently 1 million members of credit unions. The target that we have set is to double that within five to seven years and to make credit unions self-sustaining, which they currently are not.

Health: Pneumoconiosis

Debate between Lord Cormack and Lord Freud

Wednesday 29th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, the 1979 and 2008 Acts were drawn very precisely to cover certain diseases. I am sure that noble Lords know that these range from asbestosis through mesothelioma, relevant silicosis and other illnesses contracted from cotton, clay, and so forth. The Acts that cover these diseases are very precise. Other industrial diseases are covered by the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council, and industrial benefits are based on those diseases.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, while strongly supporting the pleas made by noble Lords who come from Wales, could I, who represented many thousands of coal-miners in England, emphasise to my noble friend that the problem is by no means confined to the Principality, and that there are people in Staffordshire, Yorkshire and all over England who will want to hear what he says and who will hope for a positive result?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, if there are discrepancies between miners and quarrymen, I will go back and look at them. I was not aware that there were such discrepancies. I will look at them and take whatever measures are required.

Credit Unions

Debate between Lord Cormack and Lord Freud

Thursday 2nd February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, we have made clear that we are prepared to support this industry, but we are determined to support it in such a way that it becomes viable in the long term. We are attacking illegal loans, which are coming down a bit. There are various supports for poorer people, such as payday loans, rent-to-buy and home credit. It is a very complicated picture, but we are determined to push this new factor as hard as we can.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, my noble friend said that the aim is to double from 2 per cent to 4 per cent in between five and seven years. Can we not do better than that? Can we not have a more ambitious aim?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, it is very difficult to grow an industry from an organisational base that is not yet viable. We need to make sure that individual institutions are able to handle the growth that we want them to take on. That is not just about money; that is about trying to make the right changes to management and organisation. It is not an easy thing to do.

Welfare Reform Bill

Debate between Lord Cormack and Lord Freud

Wednesday 14th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

That is exactly what we need to ensure and that is exactly what we are discussing with the banking groups. Specific banking support is exactly the issue that we need to get right.

[Lord Cormack]

My noble friend is trying to be helpful and I appreciate that very much. Is he saying that this amount of money that is earmarked for paying the rent will be used for paying the rent and for nothing else, and that, unless he is assured that he has the product that will deliver that, he will not move in this direction?

[Lord Freud]

I am saying that we are working really hard with the banks and the banking community to make sure that we have an escrow arrangement of that nature, and we are doing this at several levels. We can have a general agreement, which I shall discuss with the banks as a whole, to provide a generalised protection. However, I am quite interested in getting particular banking products that will provide a simple bank account and elaborating on what could be a new level of support for some of the poorest people in our community. We have a one-off chance with universal credit to ramp up support for the poorer people in our community, and we are putting a lot of energy into achieving that. I have talked about this before. It is one of the hidden gains that we can get out of the introduction of this new system. Rather than people living on drips of money from here and there, we can really start to help them, supporting them in managing their finances and getting true independence. This is a core part of what we are going to be doing with universal credit, and part of that relates to housing. Housing will be a major part of people’s total income stream. We are not doing this for fun or to annoy anyone; this is absolutely part of what we are trying to do with universal credit.

I need to deal with one other point—the issue of safeguards raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister. We are concerned about the safety and welfare of claimants and, where we have a concern, we need to put direct payments in place. There are vulnerable groups who are not able to manage the potential freedoms, and for them we will make sure that we go on with existing arrangements for direct payments.

We have commissioned a consortium led by Professor Paul Hickman—I am sorry, but this is a bit of an announcement late at night—from the Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research at Sheffield Hallam University to evaluate the effects of direct payments to claimants in the six demonstration project areas, which I shall announce soon. The other key team members are Dr Kesia Reeve, Peter Kemp of the Oxford Institute of Social Policy, and Stephen Finlay from Ipsos MORI, names that I know that the noble Lord, Lord Best, approves of. That will give us a cumulative understanding of the impacts of direct payments and inform the detail of delivery under universal credit.

Research published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation in 2007, Paying Housing Benefit to Claimants, on both private and social tenants’ experiences of and their hypothetical attitude toward the management of their own housing benefit confirms that a significant proportion of social tenants have the potential to manage their own housing benefit payments. We will also have an advisory group for the demonstration projects and a wide range of local government, money advice, voluntary sector and other external stakeholders who will be invited to join that group.

We had a slight exchange about what “choice” means and we have been teasing each other about the imbalance of power when you have choice. It concerns us that while there is theoretical choice today, only 5 per cent of people take it. As it stands, tenant choice does not go far enough, which is why I am concerned about it. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Best, will accept that we are making incredible efforts here to be transformative and not to undermine the housing sector, and on that basis will feel that there is enough going on for him to withdraw this amendment.

Unemployment: Young People

Debate between Lord Cormack and Lord Freud

Monday 28th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, the point about the involvement of small and medium-sized enterprises is a very good one. Last week, we announced a subsidy to enable small and medium-sized enterprises to take on an extra 20,000 apprenticeships with an incentive of £1,500 a time. One of the issues with SMEs is that they need to have comfort that they can go on employing an apprentice for a long time. That is the key issue to get SMEs back into this particular support.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, as there is a real danger of a generation growing up without hope, would my noble friend discuss with his ministerial colleagues the desirability of having some form of national social service which all young people can undertake when they leave school?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, we are, as a priority, looking at how to help youngsters back into the workplace. That is what our youth contract, which was announced on Friday, is about. It is about trying to do the important things, which are work experience, apprenticeships and getting people work through a subsidy to employers.