Income Equality and Sustainability

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 6th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, this pandemic has hit the less well-off the hardest, both in terms of the mortality rates and in the suffering of those affected by the lockdown. In the depth of this crisis, we have an opportunity to sweep away vested interest and entrenched ways that have got in the way of fairness and simplicity and to come out of it with a system that is much better for the less well-off and much fairer for us as a society. As my noble friend Lord Balfe said, it is simply ridiculous that we should continue to allow people who earn vast sums of money to get away with not making a proper contribution to the national income, whether they be individuals, corporations such as Google or Chinese traders who avoid paying VAT.

The inefficiencies of the system, as outlined by my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham, also need attention. There is a great opportunity here to make things better by taking advantage of the situation which we have, unfortunately, been presented with. I do not know whether the most reverend Primate’s suggestion of upping the living wage or of a universal basic income would work best, but something must be done to make sure that we no longer have a society in which a substantial number of people live below poverty levels. It simply will not do.