Universal Credit

Lord Palmer of Childs Hill Excerpts

Thursday 7th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

The right reverend Prelate is absolutely right. Across government, we are putting a lot of work into tackling mental health, particularly post pandemic. We have a sustainable long-term approach to tackling poverty and, as I said earlier, supporting people on lower incomes. Perhaps I can say to the right reverend Prelate that, in 2021-22, there were 1.7 million fewer people in absolute poverty after housing costs than in 2009-10, including 400,000 fewer children.

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)]

My Lords, one group ignored by the Government in the Autumn Statement is unpaid carers. The Chancellor’s speech in the other place failed to mention the estimated 10.6 million people providing care, while the statement document itself mentions them only in relation to technical changes. In recent research by Carers UK, 60% of all carers said that they were worried about the impact of caring on their finances, while over a third of carers receiving carer’s allowance say they are struggling to afford the cost of food. Will the Minister look at reforming the rate of carer’s allowance and taking further steps to prevent eligibility restrictions acting as a barrier to employment?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

Indeed, the noble Lord raised an important point about carers, who play a vital role in our country. We are very alert to this; I will certainly take the point he raised back to the Treasury, but I am unable to comment on whether we can or cannot do it. In terms of carers, we have strong evidence that some carers would also like to take on some work if it is appropriate, so there is much work going on with job coaches, to encourage them to speak to carers to see whether it is possible for them to combine work as well as their caring responsibilities, if it is appropriate.

Department for Work and Pensions: AI

Lord Palmer of Childs Hill Excerpts

Tuesday 5th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I can reassure my noble friend that it will. I shall give a bit of granular detail: a 2021 DSIT report highlighted the potential impact of AI on the UK labour market, and this of course includes DWP. Automation is forecast to increase, rising from an estimated 7% to 30%, but I can reassure my noble friend that, with the changes, there will be a net gain. We have an average of about 900,000 employees per quarter moving from one job to another, so I can reassure my noble friend that my department’s employees will reduce, but there will be opportunities for those in AI.

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)]

My Lords, as the Minister said, the Government are rolling out massively complex new systems, with significant risk to claimants because they have not got their original systems in order. We hear constant reports of backlogs at the Future Pension Centre, payments for national insurance credits being lost within the system and more and more historic pension errors coming to light when it comes to things such as home responsibilities protection. Can the Minister update the House on the steps to get those existing systems in order and on what learning exercises will be carried out to ensure that no such errors will be carried forward on the new and potentially more powerful systems that he has outlined?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

We are certainly working very hard to look at and mitigate delays, and AI will over time be a game-changer for that. To manage and mitigate risk, we have produced a risk framework, in line with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. We are setting out AI governance and an approach to AI enablement which will be transformational.

Pensions Act 2004 and the Equality Act 2010 (Amendment) (Equal Treatment by Occupational Pension Schemes) Regulations 2023

Lord Palmer of Childs Hill Excerpts

Tuesday 14th November 2023 Grand Committee

These regulations will bring reassurance to members of defined-benefit occupational pension schemes, as well as to the pensions industry. All involved can be confident that nothing will change in practice with regard to the effects of the three judgments after 31 December 2023. I commend the regulations to the Committee and I beg to move.

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Viscount for his complete exposé of all the problems that have existed and how the Government are trying to rectify them. Our Benches agree with these SIs. There is no problem with them. I see other noble Lords have lots of notes; I know from experience that I can be brief knowing that they will deal with the minutiae. This seems to be more rules bringing old EU law into domestic legislation. These SIs raise broader points about discrimination in pensions, which is roughly the scope of the legislation. However, as usual, in bringing old EU laws into place we are missing the opportunity to make pledges to follow the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman’s recommendations. It reports conversations with WASPI—Women Against State Pension Inequality—women. I would appreciate it if the noble Viscount could comment on how that is going to be dealt with.

Will the noble Viscount give the committee an update on the LEAP—legal entitlement and administrative practices—exercise through which the Government are doing a corrections exercise for historic errors and underpayments to women? I understand that these processes are taking place, but I do not know quite how far they have gone or how quickly they are going or when the majority of cases will be dealt with. I hope that the noble Viscount can put a bit of meat on that and give us some timeframe for LEAP and WASPI women, which are two issues close to my heart.

[Baroness Drake (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare my interests set out in the register as a pension scheme trustee. I welcome these statutory instruments and thank the Minister for the clarity of his explanation of their history. The equal treatment by occupational pension scheme regulations before us maintain the protection of the right not to be discriminated against on the grounds of sexual orientation in relation to pension benefits, particularly survivor benefits, which would be lost on 31 December 2023 but for these regulations. That is a pretty compelling reason for welcoming them.

Those protections were originally secured through the EU framework directive for equal treatment and confirmed by our Supreme Court in the Walker case. They apply to occupational pension scheme benefits and to compensation to beneficiaries of pension schemes that enter the Pension Protection Fund.

My first thought was: gosh, the Government are taking things to the wire, time-wise, given that the House rises on 19 December. It does raise worrying concerns about what other pension protections for UK citizens, previously preserved by Section 4 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act, will be lost because of a failure, whether by intent or neglect, to meet the 31 December 2023 deadline for changes to domestic legislation to be made for them to be retained. What level of confidence can the Minister give the House that all protections of pension benefits for members and beneficiaries preserved by Section 4 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act are or will be captured in changes to domestic legislation prior to 31 December? Is it intended that some of those protections will not be preserved? If so, which are they?

These regulations also restate retained EU law on the right to equal pay between men and women where discrimination arises from the legislation on guaranteed minimum pensions by amendments to the Equality Act and the Pensions Act 2004, so the right continues to apply to occupational schemes and PPF payments. Very importantly—it is certainly close to my heart—the regulations retain the intent of the 2004 ECJ judgment of Allonby to nullify the requirement for a real-life opposite-sex comparator to demonstrate unequal treatment. Instead, a notional or statistical comparator can be used. That is such an important judgment and it demonstrates the value of the many ECJ judgments that contributed so importantly to progressing gender equality issues. As my noble friend was reflecting, so was I; I was actually a commissioner of the EOC, which supported the Allonby judgment at the time the ECJ pronounced its decision.

Unless the amendments to legislation are made by 31 December, this particular important protection is lost. Again, that is another compelling reason for welcoming these regulations. What level of confidence can the Minister give us that all rights to equal pay between men and women in the payment of pension benefits to members and beneficiaries, previously preserved by Section 4 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act, are or will be retained in changes to domestic legislation prior to 31 December? While welcoming what we can see, we are nervous about what we cannot see, so we seek assurances on that.

The regulations before us on PPF compensation are also necessary because again, under the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023, without them the more generous PPF compensation payment calculations, which flow from the 2018 Hampshire judgment from the European court, would be lost. So too would the effects of the further clarifying 2020 Hughes judgment in the High Court, which was to disapply the then-existing cap on PPF compensation to those below their scheme’s normal retirement age, when the employer became insolvent. The High Court considered that it constituted unlawful age discrimination. For the intent of these judgments to remain, the regulations before us are required by the deadline of 31 December 2023, and of course there is an obvious and compelling reason why they are welcome.

It is very fortunate that the Government decided as policy to retain the effects of these judgments. It would have been a pretty poor show had they not, given the impact on individuals—and particularly so, given that the PPF is currently well funded, so much so that it is reducing its levy. We are very dependent on government to identify those elements of retained EU law to be retained in domestic law. What assurance can the Minister give that every element of retained EU law that impinges on the eligibility of pension scheme members for PPF compensation and the level and value of that compensation will be retained in domestic law after December 2023?

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the three noble Lords who have spoken for their general support for these regulations. The noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, was right when she alluded to there being an element of complexity but, if I may say so, all four of us have seen through that complexity. I appreciate the general support. Nevertheless, I am very aware that a number of questions were raised and, as ever, I will do my best to answer them, in no particular order.

The noble Lord, Lord Palmer of Childs Hill, asked about the WASPI. I understand exactly why he raised that. He will probably expect the only answer that I can give: we are not able to comment on the status of the WASPI at the moment because, as he will be aware, there is an ombudsman investigation ongoing. He has probably heard me say that in the Chamber before; I wish I could say something different, but I am afraid I cannot go any further.

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)]

Does the Minister have any idea of when we might hear or when the judgment will allow us to say something?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I wish I could as well, but it would depend on when the ombudsman is ready to do so, and I am not aware of when that might happen. Of course, we can always ask, but it is fair to say that if we asked, I think we might know what the reply might be. However, that is a fair question.

I said that this was in no particular order. In answer to a question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, on why there is a reference to resolving ambiguity when these rights arose under EU law—that was towards the end of her speech—in the Pensions Protection Fund regulations, references to the compensation cap in the Pensions Act 2004 are removed by these regulations to reflect the decision in Hughes. I hope that makes sense.

The noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, asked whether I can confirm that the effect is to maintain the current position. Yes, the regulations reflect decisions of judgments relating to the current position.

I think the question that was asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, as well as the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, referred to the effect of the Northern Ireland regulations and whether they are the same as the GB regulations. The answer is yes, the effect of the Northern Ireland regulations is just the same as the GB regulations.

The noble Baroness, Lady Drake, asked a very specific question about whether all protections are preserved, and if they are not, which ones would fall away after 31 December 2023. I think that falls into a number of questions she asked about timing, so I hope I can reassure her by saying that, on the timings leading up to 31 December 2023, I am not aware of any issues or concerns over the timing. I hope that gives some reassurance. However, to put a little more into the answer, the noble Baroness may be aware that the Government have decided to allow the Bauer judgment to sunset under the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act. This means that former employees whose employer becomes insolvent on or after the sunset date will not have an entitlement under that judgment. However, I reassure her that I am not aware of any other preserved under Section 4 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act, which I believe she raised.

The noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, asked whether the Northern Ireland regulations provide the same effect. The answer is yes—I think I have covered that.

The noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, asked whether anything will change from 1 January 2024 as regards protection provided by the decisions in Hampshire and Hughes, and yes, that is correct. For insolvencies after that date, the same rules will apply because of these regulations.

The noble Lord, Lord Palmer, raised a question about the LEAP exercise, and I hope I can give a slightly longer and more helpful answer in terms of where we are with that. He will know that the DWP became aware of the issue of state pensions underpayments —which was not addressed under previous Governments— in 2020 and took immediate action to investigate the extent of the problem. The Government have fully committed to ensuring that any historical errors are put right as quickly as possible where underpayments are identified, and the DWP will contact the individuals to inform them of the changes to their state pension amount and of any arrears payment that they will receive. My department in its annual report and accounts, particularly for the year 2022-23, published on 6 July 2023 updated figures relating to estimated expenditure and the number of cases affected. The overall number of customers to be reviewed is approximately 678,000; of those, we estimate that 170,000 customers will be affected. Between 11 January 2021 and 31 March 2023, 263,350 cases were reviewed. I can reassure the noble Lord that the department is on track to complete the exercise for category BL and category D by the end of 2023—to get into some granular detail on this. I think I understand that, and I hope the noble Lord will be reassured by it. For missed conversion cases, the exercise will run to late 2024—the end of next year.

The noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, asked a specific question about whether there was any opposition to retaining the Hampshire judgment. The answer is that there was very little opposition—hardly any, although I am not sure I can give her any more information on that—to retaining it from stakeholders. I think it was to do with the Hampshire judgment that the noble Baroness raised.

Carer’s Assistance (Carer Support Payment) (Scotland) Regulations 2023 (Consequential Modifications) Order 2023

Lord Palmer of Childs Hill Excerpts

Tuesday 14th November 2023 Grand Committee

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

My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to debate this order, which is the result of collaborative working between the UK Government and the Scottish Government and supports the Scottish Government’s decision to introduce carer support payment in Scotland.

The Scotland Act 2016 devolved responsibility for certain social security benefits and employment support to the Scottish Parliament. The introduction of carer support payment in Scotland under the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018 exercises this responsibility. This order is made under Section 104 of the Scotland Act 1998, which allows for necessary legislative amendments in consequence of any provision made by or under any Act of the Scottish Parliament. Scotland Act orders are a demonstration of devolution in action. I am pleased to say that this order is the result of close working between the Scotland Office and the Scottish Government, the Department for Work and Pensions, the Ministry of Defence, His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and Northern Ireland’s Department for Communities. I thank all involved for the collaborative approach taken to progress this order.

The order makes amendments to relevant social security legislation as a consequence of the Carer’s Assistance (Carer Support Payment) (Scotland) Regulations 2023, which were made on 25 October. I shall refer to these as the 2023 regulations. These regulations replace carer’s allowance with carer support payment for individuals ordinarily resident in Scotland. The 2023 regulations introduce carer support payment in Scotland in a phased approach from this month, beginning with a pilot in three local authority areas: Dundee City, Perth and Kinross and the Outer Hebrides or Western Isles. They have been chosen by the Scottish Government to take initial applications from carers across urban, rural and island communities in Scotland. Further local authority areas will be added to the pilot from spring 2024 and carer support payment will be available across the whole of Scotland by autumn 2024.

Carer support payment will initially operate in a broadly similar way to carer’s allowance. Like carer’s allowance, it will be an income replacement benefit—a payment of £76.75 per week for unpaid carers providing 35 hours or more of care a week to someone receiving certain disability benefits. However, there will be some differences, which I will spell out. First, carer support payment will have a shorter past presence test requiring claimants to have been present in the common travel area for 26 of the past 52 weeks. The requirement for carer’s allowance is to have been resident in Great Britain for 104 of the previous 156 weeks. Those good at maths will work out that that is two out of the past three years. Secondly, some students in full-time education will also be able to claim carer support payment, whereas people undertaking full-time education are not eligible for carer’s allowance, instead being supported through the educational maintenance system. The Scottish Government may choose to make further changes to this benefit in future.

I will now take a step back to consider how many people will be impacted by these changes. DWP is currently delivering carer’s allowance to around 120,000 unpaid carers in Scotland. Around 80,000 of them are currently receiving payments of carer’s allowance. A further 40,000 carers have an underlying entitlement to carer’s allowance enabling them to access additional amounts in other benefits, although they do not get paid carer’s allowance as they are paid other income replacement benefits.

I will now go on to explain the effect this order will have and the provision it will make. This order will ensure that those receiving carer support payment in Scotland are treated the same as those receiving carer’s allowance. The order ensures that carer support payment is a qualifying benefit for the Christmas bonus. It ensures that those eligible for carer support payment are treated as qualifying carers and are eligible to receive the additional amount for carers in an award of state pension credit. It ensures that recipients are not disadvantaged in relation to compensatory payments as part of the HMRC tax-free childcare scheme. The order also ensures that it is not possible for any one person to receive both carer’s allowance and carer support payment at the same time. Similarly, no more than one person would be able to receive a carer’s benefit for care provided to a single individual. There are some benefits, administered by Veterans UK, that overlap with carer support payment; this order makes provision to ensure that an individual cannot receive these overlapping benefits at the same time.

The order makes equivalent provision in Northern Ireland in respect of those policy areas that are transferred to Northern Ireland. This is because, when a claimant moves to Northern Ireland they will continue to receive carer support payment for 13 weeks from the date they move while they apply for carer’s allowance. In that time, their carer support payment benefit will continue to attract the related entitlements. The 13-week run of support will also be available when carers move from Scotland to elsewhere in the UK.

In summary, this order makes amendments to UK legislation to support the introduction of carer support payment in Scotland. It ensures that the new Scottish benefit is able to operate effectively and that its recipients are treated equitably. I commend the order to the Committee and beg to move.

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)]

My Lords, I once again thank the noble Viscount for the detail of what the statutory instrument does and does not do. It seems to me that it purely ensures that the carer support payment in Scotland is treated the same as carer’s allowance. That seems to be a good idea. I cannot see why anyone could disagree. It also seeks to ensure that there is no double claiming by playing one set of regulations off against another set. I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm my understanding of that is correct because, if it is correct, it seems very sensible. Could he come back to Parliament or write about how these regulations are being observed and give examples of success or failure? I think that to some extent his final comments cover this. I think he was referring to what had happened in the past. I am looking forward to an ongoing report about how these new regulations will help and to examples of success or failure. They need to be monitored in some way. I hope the Minister will be able to oblige as the situation evolves.

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, as we have heard, this order relates to people who will be eligible for the new carer support payment, which is replacing carer’s allowance in Scotland. As the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, indicated, it covers two issues, one around benefit entitlement and the other around trying to avoid duplicate or overlapping benefits.

First, the order aims to ensure that people who get carer support payment are treated in the same way as those receiving carer’s allowance when it comes to entitlement to reserved benefits.

Three reserve benefits are named in the order, and the Minister referenced them in his opening speech: the Christmas bonus, the additional amount for qualifying carers on pension credit, and compensatory payments due in quite complicated circumstances under the HMRC tax-free childcare scheme. Is that a comprehensive list? Are there any other payments to which someone on carer’s allowance could be entitled which were not mentioned here or indeed in the order?

Employment and Support Allowance

Lord Palmer of Childs Hill Excerpts

Wednesday 18th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

That is exactly what we are doing. We have been recruiting at pace more experts for the jobcentres and, as the noble Baroness will know, are consulting on the conditionalities and descriptors. It is quite right that we engage with the public and other stakeholders to make sure that we get this right. She will know that the WCA focus is a more rapid matter compared to the National Disability Strategy, which is a much more long-term thing. We are taking this very seriously; she is quite right to point this out, but a lot is going on and it will lead to results.

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)]

My Lords, to follow on from various other questioners, the jobcentre work coaches will make referrals to the new programme, which the Minister has referred to. There is then initial assessment and then they receive wraparound support. All this sounds very good on paper, but how even-handed will the training and monitoring of these people, who will be assessing people’s future, be across the UK?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I am not sure about the definition of “even-handed”, but I reassure the noble Lord that it includes training the experts in the jobcentres in dealing with the individuals they are looking at with a great deal of empathy and sympathy. We know that one in four people who are disabled wish to come into work; it is a question of making sure that the assessment is correctly done, that the individuals concerned buy into it and that employers are engaged in taking them on.

State Pensions: Canada Free Trade Agreement

Lord Palmer of Childs Hill Excerpts

Wednesday 18th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I am certainly very aware—this perhaps adds to the Answer I gave to the noble Lord, Lord Thomas—that the Department for Work and Pensions has received requests for a reciprocal social security agreement from Canada in recent years, including 2020, 2021 and, indeed, this very year. The choice of moving to another country—let us say, Canada—is very much a personal choice and it is not for the Government to encourage or discourage pensioners in moving overseas. I am sure they do so for reasons other than necessarily to do with pensions; it could be to do with family or returning to a country of birth. But, I say again, the Government have no plans to change the policy.

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)]

My Lords, I hear what the Minister says, but the APPG on frozen pensions said in its report in 2020 that 80% of people retiring to Commonwealth countries—Canada, New Zealand and Australia, together with various Caribbean countries—were unaware that their UK pensions would be frozen. Can the Minister tell us what steps the Government have taken since then to publicise their likely predicament? I inform this House that the Government’s website contains no more than a passing reference to this and, like all passing references, it is in brackets. Can we at least remove the brackets and put it in bold type?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

My Lords, whether there are brackets or not, obviously I will need to go back and check myself what the website says. As I say, people move abroad for many reasons and, before they do so, I am certain that they look at all the pros and cons. It is also their responsibility to take advice and make an informed decision before they move. However, I hope it gives some reassurance that there is information—I hope it is not limited—on GOV.UK as to what the effect of going abroad will be on entitlement to UK state pensions. That is, as I say, just one factor that people will be bearing in mind when making that decision, difficult or otherwise, to move from the UK.

Work Capability Assessment Consultation

Lord Palmer of Childs Hill Excerpts

Tuesday 5th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement and for advance sight of it. The way we support sick and disabled people in this country is of huge importance, both to the millions directly affected and their families and to our country as a whole, and it says something about who we are as a nation. Labour believes passionately that everyone who can should be able to access a decent job, with all the financial and other benefits that brings. That is why we have been so concerned at the Government’s failure to address the disability employment gap over such a long time. Nobody should be shut out of the workplace when, with the right help and support, they could be working.

We are now in a position where an astonishing 2.6 million people are out of work as a result of long- term sickness—the highest number ever, and up almost half a million since the pandemic. This is a serious problem for individuals and a challenge for our country. The Government have been warned for many years now that benefit assessments are not fit for purpose and, crucially, that unless we have a proper plan to support sick and disabled people, even more people will end up stuck out of work when they do not need or want to be.

So what can be done? Our approach has been to set out some serious plans in this area: to transform back-to-work help by personalising employment support and tackling the huge backlogs in our NHS and social care; by offering an “into work guarantee” so that people can try work without worrying about losing their benefits—something that has had widespread support both from the voluntary sector and within Parliament; to make sure that employment support meets local needs by devolving appropriately to local areas; and to make sure that, when disabled people get a job, they get the support they need when they need it, not several months down the line.

By contrast, this consultation is rather small in scope. The Statement seems to suggest that the Government have decided that the main problem is that too many people who undergo a work capability assessment are classed in the higher rate, and therefore the only way to solve that is to change the criteria. We will look at the outcome of this consultation carefully but let me ask a few questions of the Minister now.

Is the sole intention of this exercise to reduce the number of people who are classed as having limited capability for work and work-related activity? If so, by how many? Is there a target? The Statement says that the current situation

“is excluding significant numbers of people from receiving employment support”.

Will the Minister tell the House whether DWP could choose to offer employment support now to people who are deemed LCWRA?

If in future more of these millions of people were classed as simply having limited capability for work, rather than in the higher area, would that make any other difference to them, as opposed to just getting employment support? Might it affect how much money they were given to live on while they were waiting to get a job? Can the Minister tell us how these proposals will address the total inadequacy of decision-making, which causes untold stress and wastes millions of pounds?

The Minister pointed out that the Government have longer-term plans. The Health and Disability White Paper outlined plans to abolish the work capability assessment altogether and replace it with a single assessment, which will be the PIP—the personal independence payment assessment. I do not want to be mean, but PIP is hardly a model of good practice: 80% of PIP decisions get overturned at tribunal, and only 2% are down to new evidence. In any case, these plans are way in the future, beyond this Parliament. If the proposals contained in this consultation will not come in until 2025, when will we possibly see the plans that will not even be considered until after the next election? Will the Minister give us some idea of when, if his Government were returned to power—I accept that it is an “if”—they would expect to see those plans come to fruition?

We need a big plan now to help sick and disabled people who want to get back to work—after all, the backlog for Access to Work payments has trebled to 25,000 since the pandemic. Where are the proposals to bring that down? Where is the plan to slash the waiting lists for those who are struggling with anxiety and depression, which is keeping them out of the workplace? Where are the plans to give help to carers to support their sick and disabled loved ones so they can get back to work?

I understand what the Minister is trying to do, but the truth is that this is tinkering around the edges of a system which is failing sick and disabled people. It is not providing the help they need and, in the meantime, our NHS and social care, on which sick and disabled people depend more than anyone, is being run into the ground. We need more than this and we need it soon.

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)]

My Lords, what a mixed message there is in this Statement. The first page of the Statement that the Minister so kindly read says how successful the Government have been in getting people back to work and in the next part it tells us how we need to get more people into work. If ever a message was mixed, that is it. It is not a good story, and the fact that it needs consultation shows that. With all this so-called success, the Statement says that the policies are, in its words, “holding back human potential” so let us have the old idea of consultation.

Flexible and home working usually require that the employee has adequate access to space and technology to safely work. This is even more the case for someone with a disability. Will the Minister say whether the Government will also commit to extra funding for the aids, adaptions and technology required to take up work- from-home opportunities?

The Minister, in rereading the Statement, is suggesting removing descriptors. Will the Government also review additional descriptors, which can impact on someone’s ability to work? At the moment, fatigue is not a descriptor. However, we know that this is a significant symptom for people with long Covid, MS and pain conditions. Sitting at a desk—we know all about sitting on the Benches here in the Lords—for long periods, even for people who do not need to leave their house, may be no less fatiguing. Will the Minister consult to make sure a safety net is kept in place?

I am concerned about the consultation on substantial risk. We know that, for many people, engagement with the DWP can create anxiety and worsen their mental health. In doing his review, will the Minister take the opportunity to get his own house in order and make employment support a positive experience and not one that has, sadly, seen so many people come to harm and even take their own lives?

Finally, in the real world, when somebody comes before someone at the Department for Work and Pensions, how consistent will the DWP be in treating them in the way they should be treated? I am worried about the balance between helping people into work and forcing people—and I do mean forcing—to give up on support for those least fortunate in society.

Reducing Parental Conflict

Lord Palmer of Childs Hill Excerpts

Thursday 20th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

It certainly remains work in progress. As the noble Baroness said, the reducing parental conflict programme was initiated in 2017 in response to two key pieces of evidence, one of which was the number of children who live in coupled families reporting conflict, which in 2020 was as much as 12%. We have three further evaluation reports coming out. They are enormous—I have seen them. This granular detail will be coming out shortly. It shows, for example, that 90% of those parents who have gone through it have a satisfaction rate, meaning that there is already some valuable information about its success.

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)]

My Lords, I am not reassured by what the Minister said about how this is being rolled out. Is there adequate support for people without easy access to digital services? We seem to have an academic exercise. The Minister said it is being rolled out through local authorities. He will know that most local authorities have straitened financial circumstances at the moment. Does the Minister have evidence that they are actually doing something to give face-to-face support to families with these problems?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

Very much so. The noble Lord may know that we had a first challenge fund, and we now have a second challenge fund with eight interesting initiatives as part of RPC. For example, one of the challenge funds is looking at the digital side. This has a particular focus on ensuring that those who are not particularly digitally aware can be. The results of that will come out in due course, but I hope that answers directly the noble Lord’s question.

Pensions (Extension of Automatic Enrolment) (No. 2) Bill

Lord Palmer of Childs Hill Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 14th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the knowledgeable noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, for bringing this Private Member’s Bill to the House and the usual cast of knowledgeable speakers we have in every pensions debate—the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, the noble Lord, Lord Davies, and, in due course, the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock. It is very much déjà vu; we come back to this again and again. I also thank the Minister for mentioning this morning my mild contribution to the Child Support (Enforcement) Bill. We are always grateful for acknowledgement of our modest support and information, and the Minister was particularly helpful on that issue. I was not in my place because I did not know that we were going to make speeches.

I support this Private Member’s Bill to amend the Pensions Act 2008 to give the Secretary of State powers, as has been said, to extend pensions automatic enrolment to workers from age 18 rather than, as now, only 22 and to increase contributions so that pensions savings are based on all earnings up to just over £50,000 per annum rather than only over the lower earnings limit, referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, of £6,240 per year. It is great that this Bill is being progressed. I would like to pin down the Minister on a timetable—when will the changes take place? Even if they cannot be made immediately, we need a firm timetable so that people can plan. The whole idea of pensions is to plan for the future, and having no fixed timetable is not useful to those looking to do so.

When I was a local councillor, I had advice cases galore. One of the nicest things about coming to this House is that those advice cases almost dry up. However, earlier this year by accident I got an advice case, relevant to this debate, from a woman who was a nurse for many years. She retired, took a pension and then came back to work. On her payslip every month, there was a pension deduction; so, when she retired a second time, she looked for the secondary pension that she had contributed to and found, to her amazement and mine—I checked this with our Minister at the time—that the money had been deducted but had not gone to a pension at all. She should have been aware of it, but she was not, as on the payslip there was a deduction for a pension. After my and others’ intervention, the end product was a return of contributions rather than a pension. The relevance of this very rare advice case is that, when contributions are deducted, everyone will be auto-enrolled and therefore that deducted money would be a pension scheme.

Automatic enrolment is a genuine success story. It has not got to the end yet, as pointed out by noble Lords, but making these changes to auto-enrolment, which were recommended in the 2017 independent AE review, and extending its scope will mean that more people have an adequate income in retirement. As has been mentioned, broadening auto-enrolment will be of particular benefit to under-pensioned groups: women, ethnic minorities, younger people, multiple job holders and gig economy workers. The Government committed to bring forward these changes in the mid-2020s, so it is welcome to see that they are serious about hitting this target by backing this Bill and finding parliamentary time to allow these reforms to take place.

However, I echo the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Davies. I still cannot get my mind around why we have a succession of Private Members’ Bills—this is not the only one—to bring forward legislation, rather than the Government bringing forward a more comprehensive Bill on pensions. But this is the way it is being done and I heartily support it.

Pensions Dashboards (Amendment) Regulations 2023

Lord Palmer of Childs Hill Excerpts

Wednesday 12th July 2023 Grand Committee

Will my noble friend comment, or perhaps write to us, on the status of the corrections made as part of the big exercise within the state pension system to identify and correct state pension entitlements, particularly of women? I know it is a significant exercise but any update would be welcome, as that needs to feed into the dashboard too.

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for bringing this statutory instrument to the Grand Committee. I have read the November debate and I look forward to a further detailed disposition from the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, with her usual forensic care. I will therefore not go into great detail; I am glad she will be winding up.

Can the Minister give me some reassurance? Compared to many others, I am coming new to this brief. Having looked through the regulations I see that there are no longer any binding interim dates, just one big deadline in 2026. Does the Minister not see how hard it will be to get busy pension schemes—commercial pension schemes—to prioritise this over their other day-to-day work? Other noble Lords have made the point about data being ready for dashboards. How much time will these pension schemes give to this, given that there are no interim dates and just one big date in 2026?

It seems to me that the issue is deadlines, and there is a need for the Government and pension schemes to nudge people to make sure that all details are up to date on the various pots so that they can pull that through to the dashboard when it is launched.

In a debate on 8 June, the Government elaborated on the need for dashboards to change the way people plan for retirement, and the Minister said that more time was needed to deliver this complex build. Paragraph 7.4 of the Explanatory Memorandum includes explanations. I have never seen so many explanations for why something has not happened:

“The technical solution has not been sufficiently tested, more work is needed to set up adequate support for industry with their connection journey and there is still work to do to finalise the necessary supporting guidance and standards”,


and so on. It is the biggest list of excuses for delay that I have come across for some time.

Other noble Lords have mentioned guidance in passing. Does the Minister believe that guidance will be sufficient to concentrate minds on the issue? I am not sure that guidance will be sufficient in many cases.

There are some small points, but I am not sure how they are addressed. I may have missed that somewhere, so I hope the Minister can provide me with an answer. For instance, how are widows’ and widowers’ rights to the pensions of their husband, wife or partner being dealt with? I had a similar case: I have a modest council pension pot and I asked what happens when I die; does my wife receive a contribution? That was six months ago and I still have not had a reply, and it is being dealt with by one of the very large pension funds. I would like some reassurance that these dashboards are not going to make the situation even worse.

In theory, pensions mainly apply to older people, although people seem to take them much earlier nowadays. It worries me that the whole idea of the dashboard is based on a knowledge and working use of IT. It may surprise noble Lords to learn that a lot of people do not use IT; many people just use their mobile phones to make calls. The whole principle of the dashboard and the way in which people access information is based on being able to operate an IT system. I have doubts because, even if the people concerned are not old now, as they get older and less able, when they will really want to know, they will be fiddling around not knowing how to get into the dashboard. Will we end up with big companies such as Aviva taking over pension schemes? I have no problems with Aviva. It seems to have taken over an awful lot, although it does quite well, but I am worried that many of the smaller pension funds will opt out.

Page 2 of the valuable impact assessment that was produced gives three options: do nothing, an alternative to legislation, and—the preferred option—the Government legislating. After reading all this, I wondered whether the first option, to do nothing, might have been safer, but we have to move forward.

We need to be careful, but we must say when this will happen, and the guidance has to be accepted by the pension funds so that they know when to do something, rather than waiting until October 2026 and saying, “Gosh, we have to do this by tomorrow”. My first point was that we need some interim dates to focus minds on this issue otherwise, as we were here a year ago and were here before then, we will be here again with another list of excuses, as detailed on this document.

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his introduction to these regulations and all noble Lords who have spoken. It is very nice to welcome the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, to the pensions dashboard crew; we look forward to having discussions with him on the later iterations of this project, which one sincerely hopes will not come to pass.

We have been very supportive of the pensions dashboard. Therefore, we agree with the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, that it is deeply regrettable that we are in this place and that the Pensions Dashboard Programme needed to be reset. I accept that my noble friend Lady Drake is right: if the digital architecture was not going to be ready to enable pension schemes to connect before the first deadline, which is the end of next month, it is clearly better to pause and get it right. After all, the dashboard service will enable access to trillions of pounds of assets and accrued benefits belonging to working people. It has to be secure as well as fit for purpose.

My noble friend Lady Drake is often a Cassandra on these matters; she sees these problems coming. My problem is not that the Government should pause and reset, if that is necessary; it is that they need to stop pretending that everything is fine, until the moment when it is suddenly not fine. That is a bit of a habit in government: “Is everything fine?” “Yes, yes, yes. Oh, no, it has all fallen apart, but will be fine again with a new deadline”. We somehow need to find a way of discussing things in politics that allows a grown-up approach to understanding when projects will be difficult. There is an overconfidence on the part of the Government such that, when everyone raises problems, Ministers are sent out with a brief that says, “No, it will all be fine; there is nothing to see here”, until it falls over.

I do not expect the Minister to solve that problem overnight, but I commend this to the Government as an opportunity to think again about how we handle big projects—and, in particular, how Parliament can have some accountability for them. An awful lot of money is at stake here—private, commercial and public. There ought to be some decent accountability over it.

Clearly, people such as my noble friend Lady Drake—indeed, many on these Benches—cautioned the Government that they were underestimating the complexity of delivering the dashboard and being overoptimistic about the speed, but we want a dashboard to work. I am with the noble Lords who are raising challenges about the reasons. We have had some helpful briefings, and some slightly less helpful official ministerial Statements, but the truth is that it is hard to know what exactly has gone wrong and why it was not picked up earlier.

The Minister told us the reason, saying

“the technical solution has not been sufficiently tested and there is still work to do to finalise the necessary supporting documentation and to get the necessary systems in place to support industry with the connection process”.

A cynic would say that, basically, that means that it was all fine apart from the technology, the paperwork and the systems. That is not an explanation of what went wrong. It is a little like when my washing machine breaks and a helpful friend will say, “What’s wrong with it?” and I reply, “It’s not working. It’s not washing clothes—I don’t know”. We need more than that. I know that the Minister is keen to have his officials talk to us, but there needs to be some process of public openness and accountability when things go wrong, so that there is the ability to hold to account and understand. However, here we are, with this reset.

As we have heard, the original timetable was hardwired into secondary legislation, hence the need for the instrument. As the Minister explained, it amends the 2022 regulations to remove the staging profile, staging deadlines and connection window and insert instead a common requirement for all schemes to connect to dashboards by 31 October 2026. The new approach is described like this in paragraph 11.1 of the Explanatory Memorandum:

“Through this instrument, the Department for Work and Pensions is retaining the policy of compulsory connection by a set date and intends to encourage a staged approach set out in guidance, rather than mandated in Regulations”.


Therefore, the answer to the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, is that there will be interim dates in the guidance, but they will be suggested interim dates. It is not yet quite clear what that will mean in practice. Trustees and managers will need to have regard to such guidance but as I understand it—the Minister can clarify it—that would not necessarily mean that they are obliged to comply with the suggested dates, or presumably they would be not suggested dates but mandated ones.

That raises some key questions. With a single compulsory connection deadline, is there not an obvious risk of a backlog of schemes still waiting to connect as we get close to 31 October 2026? What action will the DWP take if there is evidence of back-ending by schemes or of backlogs building up? That is not just our concern. Dr Yvonne Braun, a director of the Association of British Insurers, said:

“Our members have indicated they’re willing and able to continue to comply with a voluntary timetable, although it would have been our preference that these remained a regulatory requirement to prevent a last-minute rush of firms connecting to the system. We ask that government keeps this under review and considers making the staggered dates a regulatory requirement again if it should become clear that the wider industry is not taking the same approach”.


What is the Government’s response to that?

Although the timetable in the guidance will not be mandatory, we know that scheme trustees or managers must have regard to it, as not doing so would be a breach of the 2022 regulations. They will also be expected to demonstrate how they have had regard to it. However, as my noble friend Lady Drake said, the language of the Explanatory Memorandum is much more about encouragement. Paragraph 7.6 refers to MaPS and TPR communicating with

“trustees and managers of schemes in scope to encourage connection ahead of the single connection deadline, in line with the connection dates set out in guidance”.

It is not clear to me where the line lies between compulsory and voluntary when it comes to guidance. Can the Minister clarify that?

Can the Minister explain what “have regard to” means in practice? Is there an established meaning of this in law? It is a phrase that comes up, so can he help us on that? A crucial question is what would count as not having regard to the guidance. For example, suppose a scheme manager reads the guidance carefully and develops a plan to connect just in time for October 2026, and she is confident her scheme will be ready by then, does that count as having sufficient regard? Suppose lots of others do the same thing, and they all get to that point but cannot connect because there are too many of them and the system cannot manage it, are they in breach of the law? Have they failed then to have due regard to the guidance? What is their position?