Pensions Bill [Lords]

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

Conservative Members may not be able to understand the point my hon. Friend is making, but Labour Members clearly comprehend it. The Government have given us a target for when they will have paid off the structural deficit—we are into different territory. I was hoping that my hon. Friend might tease out from the Government how much of the overall changes they are making to the social security budget will bear on women compared with on men and women.

[Gregg McClymont]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that very important point. This all bears on the fact that, for all the talk, the Government do not understand the difference between a deficit and a national debt. That is pretty clear from our discussion so far.

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[Gregg McClymont]

To make the position clear to the hon. Gentleman, we are proposing savings of £20 billion. The Government are proposing savings of £30 billion. These savings will come into effect from 2016. No sensible Opposition or indeed Government would set out a spending plan for the next Parliament five years before it would come into effect. If the hon. Gentleman considers his position to be credible, the difficulties that the Liberal Democrats are facing become a little easier to understand.

[Mr Frank Field]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it goes beyond cheek for a Liberal Democrat to question what we might be saying to the electorate in the next Parliament when that party signed an agreement a year ago and is happily voting in support of the Government Bill tonight?

[Gregg McClymont]

My right hon. Friend again makes a telling point. The Liberal Democrats signed a pledge on tuition fees which they immediately went into government and trashed, yet they want the Labour party to tell them what the spending plans of a future Labour Government would be five years down the line. As my right hon. Friend says, that is pure cheek.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. It is a marked contrast to the start of the flexible new deal under the previous Government when providers went for weeks and weeks without people being referred. I am very encouraged by the start of the Work programme and by the response of providers, which are contractually obliged to provide minimum levels of support to people who are referred. As far as I can see, that is precisely what is happening: support is starting and is working well. There are courses, support and learning taking place up and down the country.

[Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

Should we hold out much hope for the Government’s Work programme if the Government are not successful in meeting their immigration target?

[Chris Grayling]

The right hon. Gentleman has raised the issue of migrant labour on many occasions. It is a challenge for Work programme providers to make sure they can deliver a work-ready work force to potential employers in areas such as his constituency to take advantage of the excellent opportunities that exist in companies such as the Contact Company, for example, which I visited recently. I strongly believe that if providers get local workers ready for the work force, they will be taken up eagerly by local employers.

Pensions Bill [Lords]

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Monday 20th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I recognise the hon. Lady’s concern, but life expectancy has risen among all groups. I recognise also that some groups in certain parts of the country have a lower life expectancy—in pockets of the country, definitely—given the type of work they have done. The point is that, in setting and looking at pensions as we have done historically, that is one thing; the other thing is to look at the people in those conditions and ask, “Why is that the case?”

Surely we need to deal with the issue through public health policy, through the way in which we educate people and through the work experience and training that they receive, rather than by trying to do so through differential pensions. Importantly, if we tried to deal with it through pensions, we would be in the invidious and almost terrible position of telling one group of people that they were retiring at a set age and another group, “You’re better than them, you retire at a later age.” That would be an inequality and would be unfair generally, so the hon. Lady is right that there is an issue, but it is not right to deal with it through the pensions age; it is right to deal with it through public health policy.

[Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

Given that the Secretary of State has told the House, and there is no reason to doubt him, that his proposals are based on fairness, it is reasonable to assume that before the Bill completes its passage we will see some changes to the way in which it treats women.

May I question the Secretary of State on a wider point, however? The Bill sets in motion measures not simply to equalise the state retirement pension age for men and women, but to increase it. Does he not accept, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North (Malcolm Wicks) has previously said, that people who enter the labour market early are usually those who live the shortest in retirement? Would it not be fairer for the Government to base eligibility for the state retirement pension not on a person’s age but on their contributory years?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I know that the right hon. Gentleman and the right hon. Member for Croydon North (Malcolm Wicks) have raised the issue in the past. I recognise their background, great experience and genuine sense of a need to try to figure out a solution. I am always willing to listen to argument and debate that, but my concerns are twofold: first, I am not certain that we have the data going back far enough to be able to make the calculation, although I might be wrong; and, secondly, I return to the point that in the past we have not done things in that way, because it is very difficult to set out differential pension retirement ages for different groups. We are going to equalise provision for women and men, but now the debate is about breaking them apart, and that would lead us into all sorts of debates about unequal retirement ages.

[Malcolm Wicks (Croydon North) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Frank Field]

rose—

[Mr Duncan Smith]

With respect, I recognise the right hon. Gentleman’s point, and I will take an intervention from his right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North, but this is a complicated and fraught area that we should not necessarily deal with in the Bill. Beyond it, I am willing to hear more.

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[Mr Duncan Smith]

I am going to make a little progress. We have more time, and I will give way to other Members later.

[Mr Frank Field]

Will the Secretary of State give way on this very point?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I wish to make a few points, then I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman again. I think I have been reasonably generous, and I plan to continue to be.

As I said earlier, if we delayed the change as the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) suggests, it would cost us something in the order of £10 billion. That would be an unfair financial burden, and it would be borne disproportionately by the next generation. In a country in which 11 million of us will live to be 100, we simply cannot go on paying the state pension at an age that was set early in the last century. We have to face up to that, and to the cost and affordability of state pensions, in all the changes that we make.

If the last Government had managed to get re-elected they would be facing much the same decisions. I recognise the need to implement the change fairly and manage the transition smoothly. I hear the specific concern about a relatively small number of women, and I have said that I will consider it. I say to my colleagues that I am willing to work to get the transition right, and we will. Some have called for us to delay the date of equalisation of the pension age, but I wish to be clear again that this matter is the challenge of our generation, and we must face it. That is why we are committed to the state pension age being equalised in 2018 and rising to 66 in 2020. That policy is enshrined in the Bill.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I repeat that the Bill that we have presented on Second Reading will retain the dates that we announced, but as I said earlier, I will quite happily discuss transitional announcements with anyone who wants to do so. I do not rule out discussions, but we plan to press ahead with the dates that I set out at the beginning of the process.

[Mr Frank Field]

The Secretary of State keeps insisting that he wishes to be fair, but the country increasingly thinks that he is being unfair to a particular group of women. The Opposition are not saying that his Department should not deliver the savings set out, but we are suggesting that they could be delivered in a different way. If he wishes to treat men and women equally, so that they make an equal sacrifice for the contribution that he has to make to the Exchequer, would it not be fairer to raise the state retirement age for both and women more quickly rather than collect £2 billion from a particular group of women?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I think I have already covered that ground. I recognise the right hon. Gentleman’s concern, but I will not repeat what I have already said, because I do not think the House would appreciate that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

The other policy that we will be introducing later in the summer is work academies, which will provide a mix of a short-term segment of training and a period of work experience, again designed to provide young people with a first foothold in the workplace and to give opportunities to those who do not have previous qualifications with a view to trying to get them into employment and build a lasting career.

[Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

May I congratulate the Minister on his statement today and on his announcement that the new Work programme comes into force around now? Does he accept, however, that at a time when there is a shortage of jobs, the new providers might well be placing in jobs those who find it easiest to get jobs anyway, and that we need a back-up scheme to ensure the involvement of those who find it most difficult to get jobs or who do not want to work? Will he keep his mind open about reintroducing at some stage the future jobs fund—not that he will do so under that name, but under a Tory name?

[Chris Grayling]

I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his comments. I do accept that there is a challenge in placing some people into work, which is why we have created a differential pricing structure to reflect the challenge of getting them into the workplace. The problem with the future jobs fund was the cost relative even to the outcome costs of other programmes run by the previous Government. Of course, in straitened financial times we have to seek not only what works in employment terms but what is affordable.

Welfare Reform Bill (Instruction)

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Monday 9th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

Let me add two brief comments to our debate today. The first is directed towards the Liberal Democrats, as I read in the papers that social mobility is an issue that the Deputy Prime Minister is going to take under his wing. I feel in a good mood, so may I offer them some advice? We in this House might know what social mobility means, but if my constituents are anything to go by, nobody out there knows what the hell the Government or the Liberal Democrats are going on about when they talk about social mobility. My constituents all understand the phrase “life chances” and whether the Government have a strategy in place to ensure that every child in this country has a chance to get a better job than their parents, but if we continue to talk about social mobility, they turn the volume down or switch off. Although I do not mind facing the electorate in such circumstances, the policy is too important to allow the Government or the Liberal Democrats to continue to go over the top, shouting language that neither supporters nor enemies can understand.

[Jenny Willott]

I completely understand what the right hon. Gentleman is saying. We would all agree that the phrase does not mean very much to most people, but given that it is the jargon that has been used for many years by Governments of all colours, can he suggest a phrase that would be more helpful and productive and that people would understand?

[Mr Field]

Quite honestly, when we resume debate on the Bill, I would favour the phrase “life chances and poverty” or calling the commission the poverty and life chances commission, because poverty is the aspect that we are trying to break.

That brings me to the second, perhaps slightly more substantial point that I would like to contribute to today’s debate. When the Prime Minister asked me to conduct and submit a report to him about the foundation years, there was concern on the Opposition Benches that the huge intellectual and political efforts and the resources that the Labour Government had put into trying to tackle and finally abolish child poverty might somehow be dissipated, as though that report would be used as some terrible smokescreen. What is so good about today’s debate is that the discussion has moved on from there. I cannot emphasise enough how much I welcome that. However, I want to suggest that building up the foundation years should become a goal, so that a first building block in any strategy would be for many more children to start their first day of education better able to benefit from that education, rather than have primary schools spending most of their efforts doing rescue work. That has not occurred before. If the Government are concerned with that objective, and also with Labour’s commitment to abolishing child poverty by 2020, initially, in the short run, there is no conflict.

I draw the House’s attention to a report commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation that was published a couple of years ago. It looked at what ways are open to the Government if they are serious about reducing the number of children in child poverty as Labour defined that in the 2010 Act. There is a medley of ways, but the one that held the greatest prospect for the quickest advances was building up high-quality child care. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) said, if that were in place, many more parents would make the effort to take themselves out of poverty.

In a not-so-recent letter to the Chancellor, I asked him whether he will make a decision soon on the recommendation in my report. I asked him not to increase automatically benefit rates for children, but to see whether some of that money, in some years, could be better spent on building up the foundation years, as we call them in my report. Clearly, if some of that money were transferred from future years into building up high-quality child care, and if we avoided cutting such provision, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston said, more children might be ready to benefit from their full-time education from their first day of school onwards. That is the best move the Government can make to reduce the number of children in poverty, year by year.

I rose to welcome the measure, which takes the debate forward. Hon. Members can get excited about it, but if the Government are serious about talking to our voters, they need to drop the term “social mobility” and come up with a phrase that we can all understand.

State Pension Reform

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Monday 4th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

As my hon. Friend says, people want certainty about the future. We have said that we must move rapidly in respect of those reaching the age of 66. However, the new mechanism is designed not just to make changes more automatic, but to provide notice periods. Young people will not have that certainty, because life expectancy is always changing, but as people approach the state pension age, we want to be able to give them more certainty. That is part of our plans.

[Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

It is difficult to think of any statement that could be more important than one that commits a Government to paying a state pension above means-tested assistance level. The importance of this statement—which I welcome—stems from the fact that the income of many pensioners is below that level. Even if we take into account those who do not claim means-tested help, a large price tag will be attached to this reform. Will the Minister consider the contribution made by taxpayers through pension tax relief, which favours the wealthy over those who earn least, as one way of financing it?

[Steve Webb]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his welcome for the proposed system. It will be financed on a cost-neutral basis within the system: we will spend less money on means-testing and, for instance, savings credit, we will withdraw some of the very small payments that we currently make to people who do not even live in this country, and we will remove some of the highest accruals for the highest earners. We therefore do not need to involve tax relief. As the right hon. Gentleman will know, the Government have refined the previous Government’s plans, so tax relief will be less concentrated on the highest earners, but we have no further plans to change tax relief.

Amendment of the Law

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Tuesday 29th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

It is not a specific group in the sense that they were targeted. That policy is part of trying to get the pensionable age up first to 65, and then to 66.

[Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

The House will be pleased that the Government want to move to a standard pension of about £140 a week, but how will that be paid for? Will it be by pooling the contributions of those who have already paid under the national insurance and state earnings-related pension schemes? If so, how many will lose out, and what sort of message would that send to people about saving?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

First, we will publish the Green Paper very shortly. We are finalising it, so I do not want to get into the full detail now, but I promise the right hon. Gentleman that we will answer all such questions. Less means-testing is the key. I leave him with that thought, but I will tantalise him not much longer: there is some really good stuff coming in the Green Paper, and I am sure he will find every reason to support it, given that he has been so positive about pensions for many years.

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[Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

Labour Members have already expressed the deep anxiety that is felt in not just Labour households but many households in the country about what the future holds for them. At the end of my short contribution, I shall return to a refrain that the Chancellor used at quite an early stage in his introduction of measures intended to rebalance the economy. We all know that we are experiencing immensely difficult times, but the Chancellor told us that we were all in it together. The question to which I intend to return is this: are we sharing those sacrifices fairly or not? However, I also intend to describe the challenges that the economic situation has posed both to the country and to the political parties.

Let me deal first with the question of national debt. Given that we hope to win the next election, I want to consider the position that we will inherit if we are entrusted with power by the voters on that occasion. Comment has already been made about the size of the national debt when the Government came to office. It was £760 billion then. We are told that we are now experiencing an extreme programme of cuts the like of which we have never seen before, and that at the end of this Parliament the national debt will stand at £1,400 billion. In other words, it will have doubled.

Our views cannot entirely be explained away by the fact that we disagree with the Government’s policy of allowing unemployment to rise and the effects that that will have on Exchequer costs and revenues. Already, a third of the money that we borrow each year is to service our debt. The level of our long-term interest rates is therefore crucial and fundamental to our survival. It is difficult to see how we can come out at the other side as a great industrial and trading country if we lose our current rating and costs rise.

I have three more points to make, one to my own side and two to the Government. This is the first. Before the last election, we had a clearer view of our cuts programme. At this stage of a Parliament it is easy to blame the other side and to oppose all cuts, but the next election may be closely contested. We will have to account for our behaviour in this Parliament, and my plea to my party’s Front Benchers is that we regain the clarity that existed before the last general election about where we would cut, where we would not cut, and where we would fight cuts.

My second point concerns inflation. Although what we have is not wage-induced inflation but inflation that is imported, the Bank of England has been directed to reduce inflation to below 2%. The Government’s current strategy for growth is based on a tough fiscal stance and a loose monetary policy. My worry is that in abiding by that inflation target, we might encourage the Bank of England to drive up interest rates in a vain attempt to control inflation. We know that that policy will not work, but it might satisfy those who feel that we should make more of an effort to reach the 2% target. It is impossible for Governments, once they have set themselves such targets, ever to abandon them, but this Government need to take such action if they are to safeguard future growth.

My last point is the one about our all being in it together. I have never known a Parliament in which the changes came so fast and were plainly so important, and I have no clear view on who is getting off lightly and who is not. A few weeks ago, in a letter to the Prime Minister, I wrote that I would be very surprised if I were the only person in the country who wanted all of us to be in this together but wondered whether we were. I suggested that he set up, in public, a committee whose remit was to examine that very question: are we all in it together?

If we are concerned about families, we should bear in mind that families, both rich and poor, have taken a significant beating from the Government. Obviously, however, my concern is not only with them but with the poor in general. I do not believe that any Minister on the Treasury Bench could stand up and tell us honestly that we are all in this together, and I consider that appalling. I think that the Government ought to take measures enabling us all to be better informed about the question on the occasion of our next major debate.

Youth Unemployment

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Wednesday 16th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Byrne]

Let me respond to that point in substance in a moment, and I will invite the hon. Gentleman to intervene again. Right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House will want to ensure that we draw the right lessons from the past 13 years, as they have a critical bearing on the programme that we want the Government to put in place for the future.

There are real differences between Government and Opposition about the macro-economic approach that we should take. We also share some values. Many of us share a passion to attack poverty in all its manifestations. We believe that the poverty of some impoverishes us all, not only because it affects the chances of many to lead the life that they would choose, but because it denies many the chances, opportunities, free range and scope to contribute to our country’s progress. I happen to think that the Secretary of State shares that belief, about which I feel passionately, as my constituency has the second highest unemployment in the country and, as this morning’s figures confirm, the highest youth unemployment. I do not have to go far to see wasted talent—I see it, and think about it, when I go to work every day. That inspires the passion with which many of us think carefully about the programme that the country needs to get youth unemployment back down.

[Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

If we are looking back on our period of stewardship and offering the Government lessons, does my right hon. Friend conclude, as I do, that one of our errors was not to introduce the future jobs fund earlier and put more resources into that than into the new deal?

[Mr Byrne]

We have learned many lessons from the future jobs fund, and there are many successes on which we can build. I will turn to that question in substance when I dwell on what we should learn from the past 10 years.

The key point, which my right hon. Friend underlines, is that the right strategy for the Government during the recession and the worst financial crisis since the 1930s, was not to sit by and do nothing, or to watch as unemployment went through 3 million not once but twice, but to act, to save jobs, to keep people in their homes, and to keep businesses moving.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Monday 14th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

My hon. Friend knows very well that the issue of fiscal incentives is one for the Chancellor, and I will certainly pass his comments on to the Chancellor and the Prime Minister. When it comes to the benefits system, Members of all parties should recognise the invidious position that even though we know children and elderly people do better where families with two parents work together for them, the system is driving couples apart. That surely cannot be right, and I hope that the matter will unite Members on both sides of the House, as I am sure the right hon. Member for Birkenhead does.

[Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

Does the Secretary of State accept that perhaps the most significant social security reform that he could introduce, if we are concerned with the safe nurturing of children, would be the elimination of the penalty against couples?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I agree that that is an objective that we want to work towards. Clearly, any such change has financial implications, as the right hon. Gentleman knows. As I said, the good thing about universal credit is that it starts the process of eradicating the couple penalty, particularly for people on low incomes. I pay tribute to him, because he has gone on about this for longer than anybody else—perhaps everybody is now listening. He is absolutely right that we must surely not force couples apart, but help them to stay together.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Monday 22nd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I certainly praise the work that has been done in Blackpool, and I praise my hon. Friend’s work in supporting that activity. Not many people understand the scale of the social challenge in Blackpool, and the work that is done by organisations such as the one in his constituency is extremely important. I very much hope that the framework that we are creating for the Work programme will give local authorities and local organisations the scope to work alongside providers to deliver local solutions to some of the problems. I have no doubt that social enterprise should be and will be part of that. Local authorities can help to make that happen.

[Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

Does the Minister accept that there is considerable support on the Labour Benches for the point that my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) raised? Does he accept that if we are to protect social enterprises, and if they are to play a greater part in welfare reform, that will require almost a total change in attitude from the big providers? Birkenhead had one of the best organisations—A&P Group—but it did not win the larger contract, and did not want to, and the large provider had no interest in making sure it survived. It was a huge loss to young people in the area who, until then, had had a Rolls-Royce service.

[Chris Grayling]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for highlighting such an important point. I have been very clear to people who are bidding for the Work programme that we expect them to demonstrate their ability to assemble a consortium or organisations with the specialist skills to help the hard-to-help groups. Many of those organisations are in the voluntary sector or the social enterprise sectors. If they do not demonstrate that ability and if they do not have those networks, they will not get the contracts. It is as simple as that.