Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill

Debate between Lord Davies of Brixton and Baroness Janke

Committee stage
Wednesday 17th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the proposers of these amendments for offering an opportunity to establish, as many have said today, some precision and clarity on the range and definition of the public bodies referred to in the Bill. The Minister has an opportunity to reassure us and many groups who fear the implications of this Bill.

In Amendment 22, we are talking about schools or nurseries. The Minister has said we are talking about procurement, but do the Government really intend that school governors should sit poring over the school meals procurement to see whether they are contravening the terms of this Bill in any way? Indeed, as the noble Lord, Lord Deben, said earlier, would they also contravene the terms of the Bill even in talking about it and taking advice?

Do the Government intend that charity commissioners and trustees should take into account the implications of this Bill, and perhaps face vexatious challenges to contest some of the decisions that they have already made? The fact that the definitions are so poor, as many people have said here today, will leave open legal action and vexatious possibilities of weaponising this legislation, by the whole scope that seems to be covered. But the Minister can reassure us today, or in writing, that the list of public bodies covered is, as the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, said, closely defined and clearly identifiable by those whom it affects.

Particularly concerning, as highlighted in Amendment 26, is the implication for charitable organisations delivering public functions in terms of overseas aid and humanitarian work. Often founded on moral principles, as the right reverend Prelate said, many of these organisations have foundations which relate to moral principles and values, which they take into account when taking their decisions, whether on procurement or on investment. I believe territorial considerations must also be key to the functioning of these groups and charities. I agree we need a clear definition, and I would also like to understand and be reassured by the Minister on the reason for the additional powers being given to Ministers.

On the last amendment on this list, we should really have a much better idea—I think the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, who said that we are swimming through a sticky pudding, was absolutely right. We are totally unclear about the terms and the scope of this Bill, and I hope that we may be reassured in the course of this Committee.

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

I have two questions relating to the issue of what constitutes a public body. My major interest in this Bill is Clauses 12 and 13, about local government pension schemes. It is interesting that it requires a separate section of this Bill to deal with local government pension schemes; that clearly indicates that these organisations are not public bodies. The Government’s commitment was in relation to public bodies and yet the Bill is being extended to these other organisations, which require their own section in the Bill, as they are clearly not covered by the general term “public bodies”. Perhaps the Minister could confirm or explain that particular point.

I have a different point relating to pension schemes. Some of these public bodies that we have been talking about have their own funded pension schemes, which are making investment and procurement decisions. As I understand it, because they are separate trusts, they are not themselves public bodies. But they belong to a public body and they are associated with the public body, so it is possible, within the bounds of trusts law, for those pension scheme trustee bodies to consider a decision that might potentially fall foul of this legislation. Therefore, we have the odd situation that the trustees can discuss these matters, but presumably the sponsoring organisation, which does count as a public body and is covered by the Bill, cannot discuss what the trustees whom they nominate should or should not be doing. There is a certain contradiction here, and again I invite the Minister to explain how that will operate in practice.

Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order 2024

Debate between Lord Davies of Brixton and Baroness Janke

Tuesday 27th February 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

My Lords, I feel obliged to make a contribution. As I said last year, if I was on “Mastermind” my specialist subject would be the GMP. I was waiting to pounce on the Minister if he missed anything out, but he provided a very comprehensive— I leave it to others to judge whether it was a clear—explanation of the system that applies.

The only thing I want to add is that, post 2016, retirees lose out on these increases and some of them are very angry about it. However, as the Minister indicated, they gain in other ways. The continued accrual post 2016 more than compensates for the loss of these increases—except, that is, for those who retired in the year 2016-17, because they did not get any additional accrual that counted towards their pension. I pointed that out at the time when the Act was going through but, as happens all too often, nobody listened.

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

I thank the Minister for his explanation, which was indeed very clear on a fairly complicated issue. We support this order but, at the same time, I would like to use this opportunity to raise some issues relating to pensions.

First, I welcome the Government’s support for retaining the triple lock. Although there has been a reduction of the numbers, there are still 1.7 million pensioners in poverty and the value of the state pension is still lower in the UK than in comparable countries.

The next thing I would like an update on is: what has happened about the large number of pensioners who are entitled to pension credit but do not take it up? Some of us had frequent meetings with the Minister’s predecessor about this. There were many suggestions as to how awareness could be raised and the potential benefits of the scheme promoted among poorer pensioners. Can the Minister update us on what measures have been taken to improve take-up and what level of success the campaign has achieved to date?

We also welcome the measures to expand auto-enrolment by giving powers to end the lower earnings limit and increase the eligible age range. Can the Minister provide us with a progress report on the implementation of these measures? Are the Government planning to review the rate of contribution, which quite a few people say is too low?

Have the Government taken any action on the pensions gender gap? The average pension for a woman aged 65 is one-fifth of a 65 year-old man’s, and women receive £29,000 less in state pension than men over 20 years. This deficit is set to continue, with all else being equal, closing by only 3% by 2060. What is the Government’s response to the embedded unfairness in this system? Will the Minister tell us what progress has been made in the Government’s plans to streamline tax administration, perhaps to enable low-paid workers, who are typically women, to receive pensions tax relief on their contributions?

A lack of awareness of the value of pension assets and pension complexity, as well as the increasing number of online divorces, has led to many divorced women having no pension savings at all. Women’s pension rights are much harder hit than men’s by divorce, so has any progress been made to ensure the fair sharing of pension benefits after divorce? I look forward to the Minister’s response.

Public Service Pensions and Judicial Offices Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Davies of Brixton and Baroness Janke

3rd reading
Monday 6th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his courtesy and helpfulness during the passage of the Bill. It was very much a learning process for me as the first Bill to which I had given such a close and involved consideration. I learned lessons, one of which is to check which group a particular amendment is in and get it right. I thank the Minister, as well as the officials. We seem to be saying farewell, but I suspect that it is au revoir and that, in one way or another, we will be returning to these issues.

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

My Lords, I too thank the Minister; I thank him for the letter I received today, which answered the question that he referred to, as well as for his leadership and his open and engaging approach. He has ensured that we have had opportunities to be fully briefed on the Bill. As others have said, it is a very complex Bill, wide-ranging in scope, and has implications for millions of citizens, particularly public sector workers.

I also thank all noble Lords for their contributions. As the noble Lord, Lord Davies, said, I am sure that we have all learned a great deal from the Bill. I certainly know a lot more about public sector pensions than I did when we started out. I express my appreciation to the Bill team, for its expert help and support and, not least, its patience in explaining some of these complexities.

Noble Lords across the House have made valuable contributions; certainly, the judicial offices part of the Bill saw a very high-quality debate, with issues arising that apply not just to judicial offices but across the board, to public services and the holding of high office. Again, I thank colleagues for their co-operation. I believe that we have worked hard and well on this Bill.

Lastly, I put on record my thanks to Sarah Pughe in the Liberal Democrat Whips’ Office, for her work on the Bill, and for the professional support that she has given me throughout its passage.

Public Service Pensions and Judicial Offices Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Davies of Brixton and Baroness Janke

Report stage
Monday 29th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

My Lords, I do not have a current interest to declare, but it would be appropriate to mention that, until the end of August when I gave up the work, I was the paid adviser to a number of trade unions, advising them on this specific issue. It appears in the register of interests for another year, but I no longer have any direct interest.

I have three questions for the Minister. First, he foreshadowed at Second Reading that a raft of amendments was coming. I think it has been suggested that there will be further amendments; clearly not in this House, but there will be a further batch when the Bill is considered in the Commons, which will come back to us. Is this still the case?

Secondly, and more specifically, the Government have made proposals for changes to the cost control mechanism, for which primary legislation will be required. Is it envisaged that they will be made to this Bill or will a separate Bill come forward at a later stage? Before I make my third point, I first thank the Minister very much; he has been extremely open and informative. He has gone out of his way to make sure that we understand what these amendments are for, and I welcome that.

One of the amendments picks up a point I made in my Amendment 6 in Committee relating to the potential payment of remedial AVCs—a wonderful concept. My amendment was obviously very simple, and we now have a much more extensive and substantial change. It will be a complex issue and I recognise that it will be complex to administer. One of the problems we have is that there is a demand, but we have no way of telling how big it will be. The respective scheme advisory boards will have to look at and decide what proportionate and appropriate steps they need to take. I hope the Minister will indicate that they are prepared to facilitate that.

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

I too thank the Minister for his time and for the engagement he has provided throughout the Bill, particularly regarding these amendments. Considering the scale, complexity and magnitude of the Bill, together with the millions who will be affected by it, I understand that these amendments try to cover a variety of contexts and circumstances to provide a comprehensive remedy to the previous discrimination. I recognise that the whole range of contexts and circumstances means that many will require fine detail. I hope these will, in many ways, support the millions of public sector workers who have suffered discrimination as a result of earlier circumstances.

We will see later some of the specific issues we raised in Committee. I hope the Minister can assure us that these amendments have taken account of those. We will explore that later.

Social Security (Up-rating of Benefits) Bill

Debate between Lord Davies of Brixton and Baroness Janke

Report stage
Tuesday 2nd November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann. As I made clear earlier, I am in favour of a somewhat greater increase, but I am glad to have whatever is available. I want to make two additional points.

First, there is a lack of trust in the Government. The one way in which they could assuage that lack of trust is by accepting the noble Baroness’s amendment. They really need to explain to us what the downside is of accepting the amendment. One can understand that they do not want to do it, but they need to tell us the disadvantages of adopting the approach.

My second point is a sort of response to the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross. Characterising this as between generations is a category mistake. It is between people on low incomes and people on high incomes; it is between people without much money and people with wealth. That is the redistribution required. To characterise it in terms of generations is simply wrong.

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

My Lords, I again thank the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, for all her work on this issue and the comprehensive briefing that she produced—it must have taken her a very long time, but it was extremely interesting. The issue of the uplift is cogently challenged by her presentation. I know that support for the triple lock has been from all parties in this House, but we are told that it must be suspended for another year in view of the anomalous rise in average weekly earnings, as presented by the Secretary of State in the other place. As the noble Baroness said, there was little scrutiny there. Not only that, but since the Bill went through the other place, lots of developments have occurred, such as a massive increase in energy prices, pressures on supply chains and inflation predictions, which together seem a strong reason for reconsideration of the decision taken. Having signed the amendment, I too will support it today and hope that it succeeds for that reason.

Social Security (Up-rating of Benefits) Bill

Debate between Lord Davies of Brixton and Baroness Janke

Committee stage
Tuesday 26th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

My Lords, I just want to add that we have a complete lack of information on these proposals. As a matter of law, when the regulations come, they have to be accompanied by a report from the Government Actuary. In effect, we are making the decision now—the regulations are just a carry-on of the Act—and it is really unfortunate that we do not have before us the information that Parliament has decided should be available to us when we deal with these regulations.

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, for her amendments and for the information she has drawn to our attention. I share her concern at the lack of impact assessments of the proposed uplift on the most affected groups. The increasing pensioner poverty that we are all aware of and the poor take-up of pension credits, which are important as a passport to other benefits, are matters we are all extremely concerned about. I agree that pension increases are fast outstripped by rising costs, and I certainly fear a winter crisis, with increased energy prices and their effect on those who most need heat to keep their homes healthy and warm.

We heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, about how poor pensioners do not want to claim food —they do not want free food, they would rather starve than do that—and I believe that that is certainly an element in the uptake of pension credit. Again, we all worry that we are going to see more and more food banks and people unable to feed themselves as costs rise. The noble Baroness, Lady Drake, raised the whole issue of regional poverty and inequality. Certainly, when you look at the statistics across the regions, they are quite breath-taking. I believe we need much more information, as the noble Lord, Lord Davies, said, particularly about regional inequality. I wonder why we do not have this information when the Government have such a strong levelling-up agenda. How will they address these issues without adequate information on which to base decisions?

My amendment in this group highlights the unfairness experienced by many women as result of the pension gender gap. I will point out the current situation. The average pension pot for a woman aged 65 is one-fifth of that of a 65 year-old man. Women receive £29,000 less state pension than men over 20 years and this deficit is set to continue, closing by only 3% by 2060. Many women are wholly dependent on the state pension and as a result of this situation, we should take a particular interest in conducting impact assessments on the uprating of pensions on poverty. I support the measures proposed in this group and look forward to the Minister’s response.