Housing: Spare Room Subsidy

Debate between Lord Freud and Lord Shipley

Tuesday 22nd December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

We have approached helping people who are hard cases through the discretionary housing payment route, which has been found sound in the courts. The reason for that is that local areas are best placed to determine how best to help people in their own areas. They are doing it in a variety of ways, but that reflects their views on how best to do it in their areas.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I wonder whether the Minister would be prepared to admit that the policy has not worked well. The evaluation by his own department has confirmed that it is creating hardship for many and has failed to get enough smaller housing units built for those who want to downsize. In the evaluation, three-quarters of those affected are now spending less on food and half are spending less on heating. Will the Minister agree that it would have been better not to apply the policy to existing tenants?

[Lord Freud]

This policy is about making sure that people who are living in oversized accommodation take the decision either to downsize or find the funds to run the extra rooms. That is how this policy works, and we can see in this study that people are now making adjustments. There are substantial moves in various areas in terms of downsizing and finding work between the interim report and this final report.

Pensions: British Pensioners Overseas

Debate between Lord Freud and Lord Shipley

Wednesday 11th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

The noble Lord will be very pleased to know that we now have a system, which has been introduced reasonably recently, of checking that rather more regularly than it used to be done.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, could I add to my noble friend’s example of Australia that of Canada, which uprates the pensions of its pensioners who are living in the United Kingdom? Given also that in some countries in the Caribbean pensioners from the UK have uprated pensions whereas in other countries in the Caribbean they do not, does the Minister not agree that it really is time to get this sorted out and that the partial pensions uplift route is the way to go?

[Lord Freud]

The reason for those differences in Caribbean countries and elsewhere is that we have historic bilateral agreements. Interestingly, to pick the Canadian example, no Canadian pensions were paid in the rest of the world when we were looking to do a bilateral in the 1960s. That is the reason that we do not have one today with the Canadians.

Pensions: Britons Living Abroad

Debate between Lord Freud and Lord Shipley

Wednesday 9th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what help they will give to British pensioners living abroad whose United Kingdom state pensions are not uprated annually.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Freud)]

My Lords, we have no plans to make any changes to the current arrangements that allow for the exportability and uprating of UK state pensions. The UK state pension is payable worldwide but is uprated outside the UK only when there is a legal requirement or reciprocal agreement to do so.

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that there are some 500,000 UK pensioners in the USA and the European Union whose pensions are uprated, and a further 500,000 in the rest of the world, notably in Commonwealth countries such as Australia, New Zealand and Canada, where their pensions are not uprated? Many people in those latter countries now receive only £10 a week. Given that we are the only country in the OECD that discriminates in that way, does the Minister think that this situation is just?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, the figures for non-frozen pensioners are 610,000 and for frozen pensioners 550,000. The difference in payment is currently between £57 for the non-frozen and £32.70 for the frozen. I am satisfied, as are the courts, that what we have is objective and justifiable in this area.