State Pension: Age Increase

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Thursday 14th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, information will be coming forward. We are doing a pension review at the moment. Stage 1 is coming to an end and stage 2 is coming through. There is also a pensions Bill coming through, and when that comes through, all the details will be made available.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, why is it that those who are above the state pension age, whatever age it is, and still working and contributing to society are not required to pay national insurance? We are missing £1 billion-plus to the Treasury. National insurance is a tax; it does not pay for anything. It should be paid by all those who are working, irrespective of age.

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, of all the weeks when I am not going to start making up national insurance policy on the hoof, this is most definitely one of them. However, I hear what my noble friend says, and I will pass that along.

UNICEF: Child Poverty Rankings

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Wednesday 28th February 2024 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Rooker]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the position of the United Kingdom set out in the UNICEF’s Innocenti Report Card 18 Child Poverty in the Midst of Wealth.

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

My Lords, parental employment plays an important role in reducing the risk of child poverty, and there are 680,000 fewer children growing up in workless households compared with 2010. In 2023-24, we expect to spend around £124 billion through the welfare system on people of working age and children. With over 900,000 vacancies UK-wide, our focus is on supporting parents into, and to progress in, work, including through increasing the national living wage to £11.44 from April.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, the actual Answer to my Question should be “With shame”. Can the Minister explain why child poverty rate changes in the seven years from 2014 to 2021, adjusted for Covid, on page 27 of the UNICEF report card published two months ago, showed that in two-thirds of the rich nations child poverty rates went down, whereas in four of the worst five nations they were up by 10%? Worst of all, rated 39 out of 39, was the UK, where the poverty rate was up by 20%. Is it not time for an election?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

The Government like to read all reports and regard this one with a great deal of interest. However, our argument is that it is hard to give these findings much weight, due to the methodology used to create this ranking. Let me explain. International comparisons of poverty rates are difficult, due to differences in the frequency and timing of data collection and the approach taken to gather this data.

I shall go further. UNICEF’s ranking uses two measures: recent rates of relative child poverty and the percentage change in those rates over an arbitrary comparison period. There are issues with both measures. First, in considering recent child poverty rates, the latest OECD data shows that the UK has a relative poverty rate for nought to 17 year-olds comparable to large European countries. Secondly, UNICEF’s ranking compares relative poverty rates between 2012-14 and 2019-21.

Universal Credit

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Thursday 7th December 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Rooker]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what consideration they have given to the proposal from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Trussell Trust for an ‘Essentials Guarantee’ in Universal Credit.

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

My Lords, the department has taken note of the report and recommendations. We are aware of the continuing pressures people on lower incomes face. We will spend £276 billion through the welfare system in 2023-24 in Great Britain. From April 2024, benefits will increase by 6.7% and the national living wage will increase by 9.8% to £11.44. We are investing £1.2 billion in restoring local housing allowance rates, which ensure that 1.6 million low-income private renters gain, on average, £800 per year.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, I remind the Minister that, of the 6.2 million people on universal credit, 38% are in full-time work. Has he read the latest report from Barnardo’s on bed poverty, published only in September? The research showed that, due to the lack of an essentials guarantee, 900,000 children share a bed or sleep on the floor. Can he imagine the anxiety and tiredness that this creates? There is a lack of an essentials guarantee, which could be monitored by an independent body. It is not just a question of upping the benefits; there ought to be some serious effort put into this.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

Yes, absolutely. The noble Lord’s points chime with what I said earlier about the fact that we understand the pressures that some people are experiencing. The Government have demonstrated their commitment to supporting the most vulnerable by providing one of the largest support packages in Europe. Taken together, the Government are providing total support of £104 billion from 2022 to 2025 to help households. I am aware of the Barnardo’s report. What we are doing for the household support fund includes funding to enable local authorities to help people with the cost of essentials in houses, including food, energy and furniture.

Pension Funds: Investments and Tax Relief

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Thursday 29th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I hope I can answer a number of the points that my noble friend made. On her general push, she is right: there is a lot more we need to do to encourage pension funds to invest in net zero. The introduction of the TCFD reporting requirements for pension schemes was pioneering; these regulations are still relatively new and it would be premature to judge their effectiveness, but a lot more is happening in this space, as my noble friend will be aware. As well as the task force, we have a stewardship review, which will assess the effectiveness of the guidance, and alongside this the Financial Reporting Council, which works alongside the FCA, my department and the regulator.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

What legal authority do the Government have to attempt to create a de facto sovereign wealth fund by manipulating our pension assets? Unlike countries such as Norway, we do not have experience of running a sovereign wealth fund. I feel uneasy. I want the investment to be in this country—that makes sense—but doing it in the way it seems to be being done is fraught with difficulty. Will the Government take extra care over this attempt to manipulate pension funds, because we now have trustees with powers they did not have 30 years ago?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I do not know about manipulation of pension funds, but I can say that there are strong fiduciary duties on trustees. The noble Lord will know that in the green finance strategy, published in March, the Government committed to engaging with interested stakeholders on how we can continue to clarify fiduciary duty through a series of round tables and a working group of the Financial Markets Law Committee. I think it fair to say that many larger schemes consider climate change risk, which I think is the gist of his question, to be financially material; we have made this clear in guidance.

Commonwealth Countries: Reciprocal Pension Agreements

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Monday 1st March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

The UK Government have continued to honour their legal obligations in relation to uprating pensions overseas. While I realise this will be disappointing, we have no plans to change that policy at the moment.

[Lord Rooker (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I could not defend this policy when I was the Pensions Minister 20 years ago and I did not, but the Treasury would not move on it and this is a real problem. How is asking people to work around the world but freezing their pensions in 150 countries if they retire consistent with global Britain? It is absolutely unfair and incompatible with being an international nation, as we claim to be. I ask the Minister to think about her answers, because it seems she has given contradictory answers on Canada to the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, and the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes.

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

I am sorry, I do not agree that I have given contradictory answers. I say again that the Government have no plans to change their policy on this. When people retire to different countries, information about the impact on their pensions is made very clear to them.

Supporting Disadvantaged Families

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Thursday 12th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, has withdrawn her name, so I call the next speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Rooker.

[Lord Rooker (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, what is happening about the decline in the number of health visitors in respect of the youngest children in disadvantaged families? If the Government, as was said in the Statement, are taking a long-term holistic approach, why has there been no national health inequality strategy since 2010? Is this why life expectancy in England has stalled since 2010—something that has not happened since 1900, according to The Marmot Review 10 Years On?

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

There is an exam question to finish this session. I will need to ask my colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care to provide the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, with the information about health visitors and the other valid points that he raises.

Universal Credit: Managed Migration

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

My Lords, I am sorry. This is to allow Back-Benchers to ask questions. There are one or two more who wish to in the remainder of the 20 minutes.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

The Minister has taken more than half of the time allotted. I have only a simple question. I declare an interest: I was a member of Sub-Committee B of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which dealt with this matter late last year and early this year.

The hard stop came from the stakeholders, not the Opposition. I did not quite hear the answer to the question. When the pilot has taken place, there will be an assessment of and report on it—lessons to learn, what we expected or whatever. Will Parliament have the chance to debate that report before the transfer over to the full Monty for the 3 million? We have not had a specific answer to that question. That is the key, because nobody will take any notice of what we say otherwise.

[Baroness Buscombe]

The noble Lord is quite right. There is no question—it is quite right, absolutely right—that we should report once we have done the pilot, before regulations are laid to roll out the entire managed migration. I apologise to your Lordships if I failed to make that absolutely clear. I think the suggestion put forward by that committee that we have a pilot was right. It has taken us time to get it ready. We absolutely will report the results of the pilot in full.

Financial Guidance and Claims Bill [HL]

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Tuesday 24th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt, and I have listened to the whole debate, but how can a Government bring forward an amendment in the other place unless there is a vehicle sent from this place to allow them to do so? You cannot simply amend on the exchange like that without an amendment from this place.

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, I beg to differ. Despite the noble Lord’s extensive experience in another place, it is entirely possible for us to bring forward an amendment in the Commons to introduce such a ban.

As I was saying, we want to ban pensions cold calling because a private pension plan is often an individual’s most valuable asset. A ban will send a powerful message to consumers to put the phone down. My officials recently met a range of stakeholders to explore the details of the ban and are currently working on developing the details of the policy arrangements.

Pensions cold calling is also a complex area which we want to get right. Indeed, the recent discussion with stakeholders uncovered interesting questions around how to define existing relationships and express requests for information. The Government will continue to finalise these complex policy details and we intend to publish draft legislation for scrutiny in early 2018. Following this, we will legislate at the earliest opportunity. This gives us the opportunity to develop legislation which is more carefully targeted and allows us to make proper provision for enforcement which this current draft does not allow.

The Government have listened and want to work at pace to introduce a targeted response which will strengthen the arrangements already in place. However, the proposed approach in this amendment could delay implementation of any such ban. If this amendment were passed, the Government would first have to wait for the body to be set up. It is not expected to be set up and operational until October 2018. Then, recommendations would have to be made to the Secretary of State. No doubt, this would not be immediate because this body will have a huge amount of work to undertake when it is first set up. So it could be at least another year or two before any consideration could be made, prior to a recommendation being put to the Secretary of State to introduce such a ban. Then the Secretary of State would have to make and lay affirmative regulations.

The noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, said that we need protection now. If Amendment 2 were passed, there would be much more delay than if the Government were to wait.

State Pension

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Thursday 28th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Altmann]

My noble friend is absolutely right. The aim of the new state pension is that people will have a much clearer idea of how much they can get from the state pension without extensive means testing so that it is clear and safe for them to save as they can on top of it.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

What estimate have the Government made of the result of less means testing, which means less passporting to other benefits for those who were means tested, who presumably will not now receive those benefits? What is the overall saving to the Government in that respect?

[Baroness Altmann]

The estimates are that the new state pension will be cost-neutral for the first few decades. Therefore, the aim is that we can give people security and an understanding of what they will get from the state system, and that, as we roll out auto-enrolment to ensure that every worker will have a private pension, it is safe for those workers all around the country to save for their future so that they can supplement their own income.

State Pension Age

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Altmann]

The noble Baroness raises relevant points. I stress again that the review is not just about raising the state pension age but about considering the appropriate way to run state pension age policy. I encourage her to raise those issues with the reviewer.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

Did the Minister approve the wording of the press release that has been referred to, with the word “immediacy” in it?

[Baroness Altmann]

My Lords, the press release has been compiled by the department and the wording of the release has, of course, been approved.