Universal Credit: Two-child Limit

Lord Londesborough Excerpts

Wednesday 9th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

If the noble Lord is referring to the two-child limit, he will be aware that the policy was introduced not by a Labour Government but by a Conservative Government, and it is not a policy we would have introduced. We are working our way through the entire landscape we inherited. In tackling child poverty, we are setting out not to save money but to make children’s lives better. We understand that poverty is not just about one thing. Look at the things we have already done. We have announced a fair repayment rate to try to make sure that being in debt to the Government does not drive you further into poverty. Some 100,000 children will be lifted out of poverty by extending free school meals to all those on universal credit. We have raised the minimum wage by so much that an average full-time worker on the national living wage will get a pay rise of £1,400 a year on average. We are looking at the full range, and we have already taken steps to try to make the lives of our citizens better, particularly of our children. The child poverty strategy is not about money; it is designed to make children’s lives better, and I commend it to him.

[Lord Londesborough (CB)]

My Lords, is there any evidence that the two-child benefit cap has contributed to the rapid decline in our total fertility rates? In its latest Fiscal Risk and Sustainability report, the OBR highlights this as one of the UK’s daunting challenges—and, notably, the shrinking of our future workforce in an ageing society. What policies, if any, are the Government considering to address this disturbing decline in birth rates?

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

The noble Lord raises a really important point. I am not aware of any evidence connecting those but, if he is, I would be interested in it. I periodically survey the global evidence. If the noble Lord has looked into this, he may know that a declining birth rate is a common problem in many developed economies. A number of different countries have tried different strategies to tackle it, but they have been remarkably unsuccessful. So I am not aware of evidence of clear policies that Governments can use to tackle this.

It is my personal view that women have children for all kinds of reasons. While it is possible to remove barriers, it is never about just a single thing. It will be about things like childcare, so the Government are investing heavily in providing childcare for working families to make it possible for families to do that. It is about making sure that work pays enough to support a family, so we are investing in the minimum wage. We are doing a number of different things, but this is a House full of expertise and if any noble Lord has good ideas or evidence on this, I am open to it.

Workers (Economic Affairs Committee Report)

Lord Londesborough Excerpts

Thursday 8th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Londesborough (CB)]

My Lords, first, I congratulate members of the Economic Affairs Committee on producing such a topical and insightful report on one of the key constraints on our economic growth. I should declare that, although I now sit on this committee, I sadly cannot claim any credit for this report as it came out a month before I joined.

My experience as an entrepreneur, employer and SME adviser tells me that labour supply remains a huge issue—both qualitatively and quantitatively—and continues to depress both our GDP and our productivity. I will focus on just two connected areas today: the health and fitness of our workforce, and its productivity. The committee’s report highlighted back in 2022 that ill health was rising and was one of the key factors contributing to increased inactivity. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Bridges, pointed out, much of the rise in sickness-related inactivity was apparently among those who were already inactive.

The multiple intersecting reasons for inactivity make statistical analysis particularly challenging. On top of that, the new data from the Labour Force Survey carries its own health warning: it is experimental so we have no historical trends based on this new mode of data collection. As we have heard, the latest survey suggests that an already dire situation has got much worse. The 2.5 million figure for long-term sick among working-age people, reported in 2022, has grown by another 300,000. How much of this increase is down to historical underreporting? How much of it is due to a continued deterioration in our health? This distinction is important.

While the long-term sickness figures are shocking, they should not come as a surprise, as NHS waiting lists for treatment have doubled, from 4 million to almost 8 million, in the space of just five years, and this factor alone was bound to impact on our workforce. In addition, employers report that NHS waiting lists are also impacting the productivity of those who are in employment but waiting for treatment. Can I therefore ask the Minister: do we have any reliable updated data on how many economically active have been taken out of the workforce due to ill health in each of the years 2020 to 2023 and how many long-term sick were able to rejoin the workforce in each of those years? Breaking down those numbers by health condition or disability would be very helpful. These numbers are crucial to help the NHS apply its resources in a more targeted way, to help more of the sick to return to work, whether full-time or part-time, but without joined-up health and employment data, such a strategy will misfire.

Let me provide one example—the condition of migraine, which I raised in a Question to the Minister last year. The cost to the economy through working days lost due to migraine is estimated at between £5 billion and £10 billion per annum, yet the NHS spends just £150 million per annum on treating a condition that impacts 10 million people across the UK, the majority of whom are of working age. That is a mismatch—an economic as well as a health own goal.

Numerous studies have also shown that economic inactivity is bad for your health—none more so than for the hundreds of thousands of those who are off work suffering from poor mental health, where inactivity hits them not just financially but in terms of anxiety, self-esteem and general well-being, as the noble Lord, Lord Layard, so eloquently explained. Studies have shown that, for the 64 to 75 age group, working part-time or full-time is better for your health than retirement, in terms of mental and physical health. That is even more relevant to an ageing population such as the UK’s, as we need some of this cohort to return to the workplace. Perhaps I could hold up this House’s workforce, with your Lordships’ average age of 72, as a shining example of the benefits of an extended working life.

I was tempted to amend the report’s title to “Where Has All the Workers’ Productivity Gone?”, because demographic and health trends tell us that it will be very difficult to grow a workforce beyond the current 33 million who are active other than through immigration. The only sustainable way to grow out of economic stagnation is by addressing worker productivity. Output per hour lags Germany and France by 12% to 15% and the US by 18% to 20%. The UK’s productivity has been a long-standing problem ever since the financial crisis of 2008, since which an historic average of 2.3% annual improvement has slowed to a miserly 0.5%. That remains the economy’s qualitative problem. I do not have time to address the so-called productivity puzzle other than to point out that the declining health of our nation is strongly correlated to our poor productivity rates. While it is true that we do not have enough people in work, it is also true that those who are economically active are not active enough.

Health: Migraines

Lord Londesborough Excerpts

Tuesday 24th October 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Londesborough]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what is their estimate of the number of people who suffer from migraines; and what assessment they have made of the consequential impact on the workforce.

[Lord Londesborough (CB)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, and declare an interest as a migraineur.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Viscount Younger of Leckie) (Con)]

My Lords, NHS England estimates that 10 million people live with migraine in the UK, and that 3 million workdays are lost every year due to migraine-related absenteeism, which costs almost £4.4 billion. The Government are focused on supporting people with health conditions, including migraine, to remain and thrive at work through initiatives such as the Disability Confident scheme and the expanding access to quality occupational health provision and through evidence-based NICE guidance, which supports healthcare professionals and commissioners.

[Lord Londesborough (CB)]

I am very grateful to the Minister for his response to a Question that was last asked in this House in 1961. Fast forward 60 years, and the NHS devotes less than £200 million a year to treating a condition that, as the Minister says, affects 10 million people in the UK—many undiagnosed—and which costs us, according to my figures, backed up by the Migraine Trust, some £10 billion per annum. That figure comes from adding the fiscal and health burdens to the widespread loss of productivity across the economy. Given the slow and limited access to effective treatments, the lack of GP training and a shortage of neurologists, does the Minister agree that this invisible disability deserves much greater priority and resourcing across the NHS?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I first congratulate the noble Lord for highlighting an important matter that has eluded the acute collective mind of your Lordships’ House at Questions for far too long. To add to what the noble Lord was saying, the House may know that migraine is the third most common disease in the world, behind dental caries and tension-type headaches. To answer his Question, I reassure the noble Lord that migraine and neurological conditions more generally are taken very seriously by the NHS. The Getting it Right First Time programme’s national specialty report on neurology makes specific recommendations on migraine care and is complemented by the NHS RightCare headache and migraine toolkit.