Covid-19: People Living in Poverty

Lord Oates Excerpts

Thursday 30th April 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Oates (LD)]

My Lords, it is unlikely that we will know the full scale of the economic impact of Covid-19 for some time, but it is already clear that its consequences will be felt most profoundly by those on the lowest incomes and that many who have hitherto led relatively comfortable lives will be pushed into hardship and poverty.

It makes a mockery of parliamentary scrutiny that we have just one minute to speak on such an important subject, and it shows great disrespect on the part of the Government to those facing the most challenging circumstances in our country that they have not granted the time needed for a debate of this sort.

Given my limited time, I will focus on universal credit. Does the Minister recognise that, unless UC advance payments are shifted from loans to grants, a debt crisis will be imposed on already impoverished families? Will she urge her colleagues to announce that they will write off all advance payment loans during this period? Finally, will the Minister commit the Government to urgently scheduling a substantive debate on these issues, where they can be considered with the seriousness that they deserve?

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Lord Oates Excerpts

Wednesday 27th January 2016 Lords Chamber

Constructive opposition is not the exclusive prerogative of any opposition party on its own. Some procedural give and take would add value to collective opposition and would make the constructive opposition that we try to deploy in this House more effective. It is on that basis that, of the two amendments Amendment 45 is by far the most significant. I will be delighted if my noble friend presses it to a Division and I will follow her happily into the Lobbies.

[Lord Oates (LD)]

My Lords, I support the amendment of my noble friend Lady Manzoor. One day before I entered this House the Government were defeated on tax credits. The Government were very upset but conceded the issue. Except that they did not—they found another way to cut support for hard-working people on low incomes. It was a more obscure way and they hoped that we would not notice it and that their attempts to bully this House might make us kow-tow.

As my noble friends Lady Manzoor and Lord Kirkwood have set out, these changes to UC have similar impacts on the same people as the tax credit changes. The Liberal Democrats strongly supported universal credit in government because we believed that it would increase work incentives. I am sure that the Secretary of State will be as dismayed as we are that his UC policy is being so consistently undermined by the Chancellor. I am sorry that we are not there any more to help resist that but we shall do so in this Chamber. If we opposed the tax credit changes, it is beyond me why we would not oppose these changes.

The Government have no mandate for the changes—quite the contrary. The Conservative manifesto says that the aim of welfare reform should be to reward hard work and protect the vulnerable. The changes in regulations do the opposite. Not only do they have no mandate, their manifesto requires that they should oppose such changes.

It would be great if Peers on the Benches opposite were to support us—although that may be rather hopeful—but, if they are not willing to do so, they should not trouble themselves to make protestations to the public that they are on the side of the working poor. I await with interest to hear the position of the Official Opposition. I hope that Labour Peers will support us and that, if they were planning not to, they will reconsider. What is the point of all the controversy and antagonism that took place over the tax credits votes if, only three months later, we allow measures that impact on the same people in a similar way to go through? If Labour does not support us through the same opposition that it showed in the House of Commons, as my noble friend Lord Kirkwood pointed out, there will not be any point in it weeping tears of regret when the impact of these measures comes to be felt by the public. It will not be able to wash away its failure to stand with us tonight and to stand up for working people.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Lord Oates Excerpts

Monday 21st December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

I accept that that is a point about which noble Lords opposite are concerned, but I can only reiterate that we have reached these levels by using the basis of earnings. That is the basis.

[Lord Oates (LD)]

Is the Minister not, then, concerned about disposable income and the impact on children? He said that these Benches were concerned: are he and the Government not concerned?

[Lord Freud]

We are very concerned about the interests of children, and I will come on to that. Let me summarise the point that I will make later. The reason for this is that it is in the interests of children to be in a household where one or two adults are in work. All of the measures that we have suggest that they do better in life when that is the case.

The tiered element of the cap means that we estimate that roughly three-quarters of capped households will live outside of London, with around 24% in London. It has been set at a level that also recognises that housing constitutes one of the biggest costs for households. For example, in London, housing benefit awards are on average £3,000 a year more than they are elsewhere in the country. Even in the south-east, the average housing costs are only around half those for London, so we think it right that the benefit cap take those differences into account. I say to the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, that that might account for the difference between the regional proposal and this two-tier proposal.

On the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, on savings versus costs, the Treasury-led scoring process and the estimated savings are agreed by both the Treasury and the Office for Budget Responsibility, which felt them to be a robust and fair estimate of the policy change. On the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Manzoor, about where people would go, interestingly, under the current cap—if that is an indicator—very few capped households have moved house and generally those who moved did so only a short distance, so the double hit that concerned the noble Baroness is a relatively small issue. Again in answer to her, the impact assessment sets out that 59% of capped households will be those of female lone parents. There are about 1.25 million lone parents in employment in the UK, so combining parenting with childcare is possible. Those doing 16 hours work a week and receiving working tax credits will be exempt from the cap. Later, under UC, the measure will be 16 hours at minimum wage.

We believe that introducing this tiered level will build on the success of the cap and do more to improve work incentives throughout the country while promoting greater fairness. Again in answer to a question from the noble Baroness, we set out the impact of the cap on protected groups in our impact assessment. On the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, I am not utterly convinced that she believes in what the Opposition Front Bench says: that work is the solution for people. However, work remains the best route out of poverty. We know that around 75% of poor people left poverty altogether where the parents moved into employment. One of the genuine points that I agree with is the danger of a cul-de-sac. The present legacy system has that wrinkle in it because it traps people at the 16-hour point. One thing we are now beginning to see in universal credit in the north-west is the freeing of benefit recipients from that particular cul-de-sac.

Amendment 74, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, provides that the application of the cap may not reduce any welfare benefit where that would result in a breach of a person’s convention rights within the meaning of the Human Rights Act 1998. I will not go through the sterling work of my noble friend Lord Blencathra, who was utterly masterful on the legal aspects and certainly taught me a lot. However, I can say that the Government are of the view that the Bill is compliant with the European Convention on Human Rights, so this amendment is unnecessary.

On the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, on the poverty impact, clearly we do not comment on leaked internal documents which may or may not be part of the iterative policy process. One of the real issues behind that is that any assessment of child poverty must not be purely static but should take into account the dynamic effects of the cap.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Lord Oates Excerpts

Monday 21st December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

The amounts in the operations are of course much greater than in the charity. Maybe I am overinfluenced by some of my personal history on what people are paid in the commercial world, but the £100,000 to £200,000 bracket in a charitable context for what is now a substantial operation does not seem completely out. You can take two views on charities: either people should work for them for nothing and any money is wrong or you have to attract the very best people. I would think that if you are in that market, those sums are reasonable. That is the best I can do on that issue.

[Lord Oates (LD)]

Would the Minister accept that there are people in the public sector who run very significant operations, but the Prime Minister and others in the Government have said it is not acceptable for them to be paid more than the prime ministerial salary? How does this differ, given that, as my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, have pointed out, 60% of the funding for this charity is provided by Her Majesty’s Government?

[Lord Freud]

I should have made clear before that that is not departmental money; it is users’ money that we transfer. That is the reason that the salaries are set by Motability and not by government. Government does get itself into quite a lot of problems because there are areas of commercial endeavour where salaries, bluntly, are much higher than the Prime Minister’s salary. There is a different set of rates in the outside world. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, is not going to let this one go and I will watch him—from a distance—to see how far he gets on this.

Finally, the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, asked where we are. It is too early to tell the full picture. This started on a control basis only in July 2015, so I do not have a reliable figure for him. I remind noble Lords that customers who return their vehicle in good condition will get the benefit of up to £2,000-worth of support from Motability, which will in practice allow many to continue to be mobile through purchasing a used car.