Universal Credit Bill

Lord Hendy Excerpts

2nd reading & Committee negatived & 3rd reading
Tuesday 22nd July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy (Lab)]

My Lords, it is an honour to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Browning. The retirement of the noble Baroness, Lady Bryan of Partick, is a loss to the House and a loss to me personally. On behalf of her adopted home in Scotland, she has made a significant contribution to devolution and constitutional affairs more generally, in spite of the fact that she is really a cockney sparrow. She has many friends here and I shall particularly miss her friendship and solidarity. I join with other Peers to welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Shawcross-Wolfson, and I look forward to her maiden speech, which will follow in a few minutes.

The Bill was introduced, of course, to cut government spending on welfare; that was the justification originally. That was and is not necessary. In the sixth-richest country in the world, there are many more ways of balancing the Government’s books than by cutting payments to the disabled. My noble friend the Minister says that these changes will encourage those who will lose benefit into work, and that work is the way out of poverty. I understand the sentiment, of course, but two factors must be borne in mind. First, there are not 750,000 vacant jobs waiting for disabled or partially disabled people to fill. Secondly, the jobs that may be available will not necessarily lift them out of poverty. The fact is that 31% of those on universal credit are in work, so low are the wages at the bottom end of the labour market. The proposed changes, as has been mentioned, cut the health element of universal credit for those claiming after April 2026 from £97 a week to £50 a week. That cut does not reflect diminished need but is irrespective of need. It is solely to save the Government money. That, I find unacceptable.

The proposed changes also appear to conflict with the United Kingdom’s obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights is supervised by a committee with that name, and it has said this:

“In its general comment No. 5 … on persons with disabilities, the Committee emphasized the importance of providing adequate income support to persons with disabilities who, owing to disability or disability-related factors, have temporarily lost, or received a reduction in, their income, have been denied employment opportunities or have a permanent disability … Benefits, whether in cash or in kind, must be adequate in amount and duration in order that everyone may realize his or her rights to family protection and assistance, an adequate standard of living and adequate access to health care, as contained in articles 10, 11 and 12 of the Covenant”.


Under the United Nations declaration, Article 28 provides:

“States Parties recognize the right of persons with disabilities to an adequate standard of living for themselves and their families, including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living conditions, and shall take appropriate steps to safeguard and promote the realization of this right without discrimination on the basis of disability”.


I will not read further for reasons of time. It seems to me that there is a significant risk here that the United Kingdom is or will become in breach of its international obligations.

In addition, eight out of nine new claimants who would currently qualify for full limited capability for work and work-related activity payments will not receive them because of the new fourfold, severe conditions criteria. I will leave others to develop the injustices of those. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the New Economics Foundation estimate that the effect of the Bill will be to put 50,000 more people into poverty, and those are people who are disabled and their families.

The removal of benefits from those who would otherwise be entitled to it is something that I cannot support. I know that my noble friend the Minister is not responsible for the proposal, but I hope that the Timms review will cause the Government to think again.

UK Poverty 2025

Lord Hendy Excerpts

Monday 10th March 2025 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Hendy]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the report UK Poverty 2025 published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation on 30 January, particularly with regard to in-work poverty.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Sherlock) (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government value the insights provided by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, and its recommendations will be taken into account in the ongoing work to develop a child poverty strategy. Supporting people into good work will always be the foundation of this Government’s approach to tackling poverty. Our proposals and plan to make work pay—including increases to the national living wage and the Get Britain Working White Paper—will increase the number of people in work, help them to progress, improve job security and raise living standards.

[Lord Hendy (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for her Answer. Some 68% of working-age adults in poverty and 50% of children in poverty live in a household with at least one wage earner; 38% of those on universal credit are in work; and half the working population of 32 million earn less than the UK median wage of £616 a week. It is plain that the problem is that wages in the United Kingdom are too low. Does the Minister agree that, in the absence of the mythical trickle-down effect, the only realistic way of increasing wages is near universal coverage of collective bargaining?

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My noble friend knows more about collective bargaining than anyone in this House, I suspect, and I thank him for that question. He is absolutely right to highlight the scandal of in-work poverty. We should not be in a position where somebody goes to work full-time and cannot support their family. The Government are absolutely determined to do something about this. Our strategy is about trying to get people into good jobs and keep them there, and that they develop in them. For that to work, we have to make sure that all the parties are involved.

We are very committed: do we want an era of partnership that sees employers, unions and government working together in co-operation and through negotiation? For example, we are going to start by establishing a new fair pay agreement in the adult social care sector, consulting on how it will work, learning from economies where it has worked effectively, and then assessing to what extent those kinds of agreements could benefit other sectors and tackle labour market challenges. We all have to do this together. Work should be the way out of poverty, but it will take action to make sure that it is.

European Social Charter

Lord Hendy Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd September 2024 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Hendy]

To ask His Majesty’s Government whether they plan to ratify the Additional Protocol to the European Social Charter to establish a system of collective complaints; and what plans they have to ratify the Revised European Social Charter 1996.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Sherlock) (Lab)]

My Lords, the Prime Minister made our commitment to the Council of Europe clear at the Blenheim summit in July. The UK ratified the European Social Charter in 1962 and signed the revised Social Charter in 1997. It is important that the UK is compliant with any new obligations before ratifying a treaty. It is therefore right to consider whether domestic law and practice, including government reforms, are compatible with the revised charter and additional protocol.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hendy (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Minister for her Answer. The fact that the 1996 charter was signed in 1997 by the United Kingdom does not resolve the issue that the United Kingdom has not ratified the 1996 charter. Since 2014, the Council of Europe has been trying to reinvigorate the European Social Charter process through the Council of Ministers meeting that she mentioned and the high-level conference on the European Social Charter in July. I wonder whether she will agree that it is vital that the United Kingdom not only supports, but is seen to support and lead, efforts to reinvigorate the European Social Charter.

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, in signing a charter, the UK is indicating that it agrees with the contents as negotiated, but we can ratify it only when we know that we will be compliant with it, because to ratify a charter is to agree to be bound by its provisions. As I have indicated before, that would mean that the UK would need to make an assessment to be sure that it would in fact be compliant with the terms of the treaty before doing it. My noble friend will know that we have plans, including the employment rights Bill, which will change our position on some provisions in the revised charter, so we will certainly consider whether we can ratify the revised charter in the light of the Government’s reforms. On the collective complaints system, the UK has for some time held that it is among the majority of member states party to the European Social Charter who have not accepted that because we believe that the existing supervisory mechanisms are adequate.

Workers (Economic Affairs Committee Report)

Lord Hendy Excerpts

Thursday 8th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy (Lab)]

My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Bridges, on securing this debate and on his speech, and the Economic Affairs Committee on its report. A number of factors were identified for the remarkable and increasing exodus from work. One was long-term sickness. Among other things, the report cited an ONS survey that found that 10% of those who were economically inactive gave as a reason mental ill-health and stress, about which my noble friend Lord Layard has spoken. A trade union general secretary pointed to the “intensification of work demands”. The report cites a survey that found that only 58% of UK workers aged 50 to 64 liked their job, compared with 74% in the USA and 73% in Germany.

I suggest that one critical factor in the “Great British mystery” cited by the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, and amplified in his question, “Where have all the good jobs gone?”, is that pay, terms and conditions in the United Kingdom have become so bad that those who can are opting out or being invalided out. Taking pay alone, according to the ONS, median pay in November 2023 was £2,299 per calendar month, or £27,588 per annum. By definition, half the UK’s workforce earns even less. True, half the workforce earns more—the pay of FTSE 100 CEOs is about 116 times that of the median worker, up from 11 times in 1980—but the well paid are few in number. The fact is that only 25% of our wage earners earn more than £42,300 a year, and one-quarter of the workforce earns less than £16,068 per annum. The real value of average weekly earnings, including bonus, was the same in November last year as it was in March 2007.

Consider, as an example, the food sector. The workers who grew or caught our food, processed it, sold it in shops and supermarkets, and transported and delivered it were hailed as heroes during the pandemic, but that praise did not enhance their living standards. The Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union recently published a report, Foodworkers on the Breadline, which showed that over 60% of its members did not have wages high enough to cover their basic needs, 88% had reduced their heating, and 60% had reduced their food consumption to cope. The other side of that equation is captured by the UN Trade and Development Report at the end of last year, which stated:

“The last few years of commodity price volatility have coincided with a period of record profit growth by global energy and food traders. In the area of food trading, the four companies that conservatively account for about 70 per cent of the global food market share registered a dramatic rise in profits during 2021-2022”.


Nearly half the population of the United Kingdom are workers: 32 million out of 67 million. In its report UK Poverty 2024 from a couple of weeks ago, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation tells us that 14.4 million people were living in poverty in 2021-22, and that nearly 3.8 million people experienced destitution—a 148% increase in just over five years. That included 1 million children—nearly three times as many as in 2017. Low pay is a principal contributor. Two-thirds of working-age adults in poverty lived in a household where someone was in work. More people in work are reliant on benefits than those who are not in work.

The consequences of inequality are well documented, in terms of misery, hopelessness, mental and physical ill-health, homelessness, diminished life expectancy, increased perinatal mortality, damage to children’s education, increase in crime, and anti-social behaviour—see the brilliant work of Professor Sir Michael Marmot and that of Professors Wilkinson and Pickett.

I suggest that the major factor behind this state of affairs is the collapse of collective bargaining in the United Kingdom. From the Second World War until the 1980s, the terms and conditions of around 85% of British workers were negotiated between unions and employers. Since then, collective bargaining coverage has been driven down to less than 25% today, so three-quarters of our workers—some 24 million of them—have no collective say over their terms and conditions, and next to none are in a position to negotiate individually. This lack of voice leads to both low pay and alienation.

International law, including the International Labour Organization, mandates the promotion of collective bargaining. The OECD annually recommends it in its employment outlook. Even the EU has now finally recognised the importance of collective bargaining. Its directive on national adequate wages requires member states to have an action plan to ensure that at least 80% of workers are covered by a collective agreement. I commend the course adopted by Sir Winston Churchill, who, as President of the Board of Trade in 1909, introduced a legislative scheme of compulsory sectoral collective bargaining to combat low pay, which became wages councils. The Labour Party is committed to a similar model in the form of fair pay agreements. Will the Minister say whether the present Government will fulfil their duty to promote collective bargaining and low pay?

Engineered Stone and Silicosis

Lord Hendy Excerpts

Monday 15th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

It is certainly not mine.

[Lord Hendy (Lab)]

My Lords, one of the problems with silicosis is that it is not necessarily diagnosed by doctors and recorded on death certificates. That is because it is not a well-recognised condition apart from among experts. This means that deaths as a consequence of chronic obstructive pul—

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Hendy (Lab)]

Noble Lords know what word I mean: COPD. Deaths that are consequent on COPD do not necessarily record silicosis. Do His Majesty’s Government support the recommendations of the APPG on respiratory diseases, particularly the need for an industry awareness campaign on silicosis?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

Yes, the noble Lord makes some very good points. I reassure him that the current HSE silica intervention continues to raise awareness of the requirement to adequately control exposure to RCS, for those in the construction sector and those providing materials for construction, such as brick manufacturers and stone fabricators. These campaigns will continue through 2024.

Covid-19: Work-related Cases

Lord Hendy Excerpts

Monday 5th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

RIDDOR provides an important source of intelligence about occupational exposure to coronavirus in the workplace but is not the only source of intelligence that the HSE relies on. In addition to RIDDOR in the reporting of occupational cases of Covid-19, Public Health England is the lead government body for monitoring infection rates and the scale and spread of infections more widely, both in the community and in workplace settings. The HSE has worked and will continue to work closely with Public Health England throughout the pandemic.

[Lord Hendy (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that underreporting may be a consequence of HSE advice? Regulation 9 requires a case of Covid in the workforce to be reported if

“attributed to an occupational exposure”.

The HSE advice is that employers

“do not need to conduct extensive enquiries in seeking to determine whether a COVID-19 infection is work-related. The judgement should be made on the basis of the information available.”

That advice surely misleads. The regulation requires some investigation, at least into whether the worker, her colleagues or the safety rep attributes Covid to work.

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

The Health and Safety Executive guidance, with advice from the Government Legal Department, does not exclude the reporting of cases of workers whose job involves dealing with the public. RIDDOR places a duty to report on the employer, and they must make a judgment based on the information they have. The Health and Safety Executive has never publicly stated that Regulation 9(b) or its supporting guidance has been misapplied.

Extreme Poverty

Lord Hendy Excerpts

Tuesday 15th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

Tackling poverty, as I said, is an absolute commitment and a priority for this Government. The noble Baroness raises the issue of the £20 uplift, and I can only confirm that the £20 uplift is in place until April 2021. Discussions between our department, the Treasury and others are ongoing, and a decision will be made in due course.

[Lord Hendy (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, before the impact of lockdown, in 2018, the United Nations special rapporteur on extreme poverty found that 14 million people in the United Kingdom were below the poverty line, 9 million of them in households where at least one person worked. Wages need to be increased to reduce poverty. To this end, and to increase demand, the OECD and the ILO advocate the promotion of collective bargaining. Does the Minister agree with them? If so, what steps to restore collective bargaining in the United Kingdom will the Government take to enable the voice of workers to be heard in the determination of wages?