Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Lord True and Baroness Hollis of Heigham
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, nobody, genuinely, is criticising the Minister. I would not want to be in her position at all and, frankly, I would not have been allowed to be in her position. What we have is the brazenness, if you like, of a manifesto commitment being used to wing a Bill through both Houses without adequate information. I know the Minister is absolutely doing her best, but with all respect she cannot answer the questions being put. We understood when we were doing the Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill that that was a framework Bill because it was bottom-up and everything was going to be tailored in response to what local authorities themselves wanted. We accepted that then, but there is no justification at all for the same process to be applied to this Bill. Frankly, it should not be happening, and it did not happen in previous times. The Cabinet should not have permitted the Bill to go forward until it was ready. It is not ready.
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, we just heard a speech from my noble friend Lord Lansley, who is not in his place. I think it is generally accepted across the House, given how many times we have heard my noble friend on the Front Bench address the House with extreme courtesy on this point, that it is quite clear that my noble friend wants to give the maximum amount of information to the House. We should not protest too much. During the 13 years I sat in the usual channels in opposition, the noble Baroness may not have been allowed to bring forward bits of legislation where the House would have chuntered, quite rightly, that it wanted to have more information before Report or whatever, but a large number of her colleagues were certainly allowed to. However, two wrongs do not make a right, so let us not target my noble friend on this point.
Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Lord True and Baroness Hollis of Heigham
Lord True
My Lords, I think the answer is yes.
I have listened with intense interest to the debate. I was not intending to intervene—I remind the House that I have interests as a leader of a London borough, and as a member of the leaders committee of London Councils—but, on looking at Clause 67(4), I point out that my local authority does not keep a housing revenue account. We are an exceptional authority, in that a former Liberal Democrat administration carried out a large-scale voluntary transfer, so we are entirely dependent on housing associations. We are not a housing authority. I became leader in a situation where a previous administration had transferred away our council stock.
It is with some diffidence that I intervene. I know that there is greater concern in London, as the noble Lord, Lord Tope, said, about some of the detailed impacts of these clauses and others, but I am aware that the Government and local authorities in the London area are having many discussions about how this will operate. I hope my noble friend will say that greater clarification is certainly needed before Report of such discussions and the details that will lie behind the Bill. Parliament really needs to have more insight into the details.
I wish to follow the comments of my noble friend Lord Porter about housing associations, although I would not perhaps put them in the characteristically sharp way that he did. I listened very carefully to the carefully scripted remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Best. I will look at his speech in Hansard tomorrow, but he appeared to say quite clearly, from a script, “Don’t look to the housing associations to make a contribution. We’re strapped for cash. We’ve got reserves, but we cannot afford to chip in, old boy, so it’s over to you”. Maybe I misinterpreted that, but I will look carefully at the record.
Of course, housing associations are vital and respected, and I welcome the partnerships that we have. Housing associations are going to the market and raising enormous amounts of money. One of my local associations raised some £100 million recently. At the same time, they are moving to separate from their close relationship—for many of them—with former local authorities. We were asked to relinquish our places on the local housing association board to facilitate the association’s financial advancement, which we were very happy to do in the broader interest of securing more finance for public resource and public investment in housing.
However, it is important that housing associations—I make no accusation in any particular way—remember that they own a public interest and must work with local authorities. They cannot be divorced from responding to the challenge that my noble friend Lord Porter put forward. It is important that we retain confidence that they are cognisant of their accountability locally. Looking at the amendment—I do not necessarily agree with it—how can we be sure that housing should be replaced in the same area? I was unable to be present at earlier discussions in Committee on this, but can I be guaranteed that my housing association will replace in my local authority area? By what accountability will that be delivered? I would like to hear the noble Lord, Lord Best, say, perhaps at a later stage, that housing associations will take all that into great consideration.
My noble friend Lord Horam talked about the need for a mandatory hammer, if you like, but with flexibility—talk softly but carry a big stick, as Teddy Roosevelt would have put it. I do not necessarily dissent from that. But my problem is that we are seeing a lot of negotiations going on, a lot of deals being cut, which, at the end of the day, we hope will respect local conditions and local authority. I want policy to be delivered by local conditions, not by the need to get figures for housing on a piece of paper in answer to a Written Parliamentary Question in the House of Commons. We want responsive, locally-led housing policy. So the more open those negotiations can be, the better. I do not like deals cut in quiet rooms with unelected officials, whether they are in City Hall or in the Treasury. So let us have a bit of flexibility and I am sure that my noble friend, by Report, will be able to shed a bit of light on what I hope will be the voluntary agreements that are emerging.
I want to cover one other point. The noble Lord, Lord Tope, spoke about London’s extraordinary diversity. Much of policy—this is implicit in the Bill, with the two-for-one and the one-for-one replacement—is dependent on and recognises a line on the map, which is the Greater London area boundary. I think that London is evolving in a strange way. Perhaps we are going back to the days when there was an LCC and an outer London. It may well be reflected in the way that votes are cast in the coming mayoral election. It is very difficult to define a single policy. I do not think that anyone in this House would say it would be easy to define a single policy for the whole of London, let alone the whole country. I worry about policy that is defined simply on the basis of a line on the map which is the edge of Greater London. There are travel-to-work areas. Look at the emerging Gatwick corridor. It might be quite legitimate to replace, even with a one-for-two policy. Is there anything wrong in replacing two houses just south of Sutton, if you like, or just outside the Sutton area, which could be for Sutton people, in the same travel-to-work area? I hope that that can be considered and that we will not allow a line on the map to dictate policy absolutely, particularly at the fringes of London.
Because of outer London’s changes and the high land values in certain places, we must look at new policies and new powers. It will have to be, in my submission, for local authorities to deal with some of the issues that arise. I will conclude with one example. In my own authority the Ministry of Defence has lately put up for sale a significant, large facility, Kneller Hall, which houses the Royal Military School of Music. It is very controversial. The rationale is money. The ministry says it wants to build houses, yes, but when probed, of course, it wants to build houses of maximum value for the Ministry of Defence and the Treasury. As I understand it—I have not had this confirmed—some of the land has already been sold to a developer before we are anywhere near a planning application. In those circumstances, do the Government not own a responsibility to play a part in this kind of policy?
The Government lecture local authorities—and we accept the responsibility—to do our best to provide affordable housing. But is there not, within the parameters of disposal of publicly-held property, a collective responsibility which the Government, government departments and government agencies should share, to put this aspect of public policy into their plans for disposals? I am straying a bit from the Bill—I was intending to bring it up in the planning stages of the Bill—so I do not expect the Minister to answer on that, but can we look, when we come to the planning area, at whether we could find ways of pressing public authorities more generally, through the planning process, to share some of the responsibilities that these clauses put upon local authorities?
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
Will the noble Lord expand on his first point, which concerned the situation of stock transfer authorities such as his own? I agreed with so much of what he said. Given that he has no high-value council property to enter into forced sales, as we have been discussing, to finance RTB for housing association tenants, his authority will, instead, be levied to fund it, in the absence of stock to sell. Has he made any estimate, in his budgets for the forthcoming year, of the scale of that levy and how it interacts with his ability to manage local authority finances?
Lord True
Clause 67(4) says that a determination may not be made in respect of a local housing authority that does not have a housing revenue account. So I think it would be better to ask the Minister, rather than a pitiful leader of a London authority, to clarify this point when she replies. But it is actually a detail in the larger question. My authority would be very happy to make any contribution towards housing. In fact, if the LSVT had not taken place, all our council housing would probably be high value in some of the places it used to be and the housing association that now sits on it, if that were us, would be having to sell off most of it.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
Yet some of us have been assured, as my noble friend says, that Clause 68(3) was drafted precisely to cover those authorities with stock transfer. In my county of Norfolk, Norwich has retained its council stock, there is limited retention in Great Yarmouth and King’s Lynn, and the other four authorities transferred their stock into housing associations. Are we saying that authorities such as Norwich are not only supposed to fund the RTB discounts for housing association tenants in their immediate locality but are also, on top of that, to cross-fund all those stock-transfer authorities so that they do not contribute to the right-to-buy discounts of housing association authorities?
Clause 68(3)(b) says that the Secretary of State may,
“treat the housing as being likely to become vacant whenever it would have been likely to become vacant if it had not been disposed of”.
The whole point of that, we were assured—I am sure the Minister will clarify this for us—was precisely so that stock-transfer authorities were levied in lieu of the fact that they do not have stock to sell, which local authorities that retain their stock may be in a position to do.
Lord Kerslake
My Lords, there is a fairly simple explanation for this. An authority that has already transferred its stock, as the noble Lord, Lord True, has talked about, is in a good position, because it will not pay the levy. If, on the other hand, an authority would like, in the future, to transfer its stock, it will still pay the levy. I have an amendment later which seeks to remove that particular provision. It seems quite extraordinary that an authority cannot, in the future, transfer stock, but if it has transferred it, it will escape any levy. That seems to me to be an imbalance that we need to address.
Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Lord True and Baroness Hollis of Heigham
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, I apologise: council duties earlier this week led me to miss the extremely interesting discussions about the relationship between starter homes and affordability. I hope that I will be able to make a contribution to that at Report, because clearly there are issues there. I also missed the early stages this morning, but I have listened with tremendous interest all day, as always, to your Lordships on these questions. Clearly, there are issues that need further discussion. What I heard from the earlier extremely extensive intervention from my noble friend on the Front Bench was that she was open to reflect on all the things that noble Lords have been saying.
The noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, with all his authority on the Cross Benches, made the fundamental point, which we have to bear in mind, that this is a manifesto commitment. That was almost the first thing that the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, came in with. So this House has a duty, in my submission, starting from that point, to look at practicalities and ways forward here, some of which have been put before us in these interesting amendments.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, I accept the point about the manifesto commitment—we came in in 1997 in the same way. But what we then did was, where possible, to go for a White Paper to flesh out the details of how it would be done and used the responses to that White Paper to shape the regulations behind the drafting of the Bills. Would the noble Lord agree that that is the most appropriate way forward in this case?
Lord True
My Lords, I respect the noble Baroness. We have heard from her many times today and if she would allow me to pursue my remarks I will try to pick up on that point among others. I have been patient. As a general principle—I have said this many times in your Lordships’ House—policy-making should be progressive. We should have Green Papers, White Papers and so on. But that practice was eliminated in the years when Mr Tony Blair was Prime Minister of this country; it disappeared. So I will not take strictures on that point. Perhaps we could form an alliance and move back, but we are dealing with the situation that we have now.
We do have an artificial market at the moment. I would not choose this particular instrument if I was selecting the first XI to bat for England in solving the housing problem. But we have an artificial market at the moment, parts of which are caused by matters we do not address—for example, the growth in population. The biggest distorter is the London market, because there has been an exceptional rise in London’s population. Currently there is no planned instrument to address or control the problem, and that will lead to continuing high pressures on housing.
Another distortion in the market, generally supported across the parties, is the artificial depression of interest rates. If you depress the cost of acquiring or holding a good, the capital value of that good will increase. At the moment we have an artificial situation in which low interest rates relate to capital costs. The problem then for young people who are trying to save for a deposit or acquire a house at a time when capital values are high is that they have had to live during a period in which, for a time, there have been, effectively, negative interest rates for savers. Now there are minimal interest rates for savers. It is extremely difficult in the exceptional and artificial market that we have now for young people to save. I do not want to follow the interesting and reasonable points that have been made about people with high capital assets, but it is not easy to save for a deposit when prices are moving away.
So it is perfectly logical and understandable that the Government wish to look at an instrument of this kind that would help people seeking to be first-time buyers. It may not be perfect. In exceptional local authority areas where capital values are high I would like to see further discussions about exceptions and so on, but it is not unreasonable that an instrument of this kind should be considered. The fact that it may be a skin graft when perhaps the market needs heart surgery is not necessarily material because skin grafts are important and useful and do help certain people.
Your Lordships have reservations of different kinds and I am interested in the arguments that have been put forward. I do not agree with those who say that we do not need this instrument. There is nothing in it which threatens the existence of other instruments that have been commended, some of which also cause distortions in the market. So we should go on in a constructive way, look at this proposal—which was put before the British people and voted for—and, for all its imperfections, see if we can make it better. Maybe some of the suggestions made today will contribute to that, maybe they will not—but that is what your Lordships’ House is here to do.
Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Lord True and Baroness Hollis of Heigham
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
There should, of course, be no problem over landlords repossessing genuinely abandoned property. As I was saying, Crisis estimates that there are 1,750 such cases every year. We want a procedure to ensure that the property has genuinely been abandoned, rather than the process being exploited by rogue landlords to cut corners to regain possession when they should not.
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, I declare an interest as leader of a local authority. I have not so far intervened in this Committee and I apologise for the fact that, as we are setting a budget this evening, I will have to abandon the Committee almost as soon as I have arrived.
One of the features of that budget is that we are not going to be setting any new burdens or tasks for the local authority, because we all know the relevant circumstances. I have sympathy for some of the concerns expressed in Committee, and I acknowledge that at present this appears to be a relatively small problem, numerically, although some of the undertone of the conversation suggests that it might be abused and that there will be a lot more of it if this power goes on to the statute book. Local authorities are not investigative bodies; we are not private detectives. I will think about what the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, has put forward but it slightly worries me that if the local authority is put in the position of being the body certifying, by definition, that people cannot be found, it potentially places, even in a limited number of cases, quite a strain and responsibility on that authority. Later in this part, the authority would become a party to any legal proceedings, because it would be challenged on whether it had given a proper certification. While I understand, therefore, where the noble Lord, and others who have spoken, are coming from, I would want to understand much more clearly what burdens, requirements and responsibilities on local authorities it might lead to if this were to go on the statute book.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
Under the provisions for universal credit—it is something that I regret very much, although it is a structure that I very much support—you are not allowed as a social landlord to start alternative payment arrangements in which there is direct payment to the landlord until there is at least six weeks’ non-payment of rent. It looks to me as though a private landlord can start possession behaviour faster than a social landlord can seek direct payment of rent to the landlord.
Lord True
My Lords, I do not want to intervene on the Minister, but Clause 56(1)(a) states:
“The unpaid rent condition is met if … at least eight consecutive weeks’ rent is unpaid”.
I follow what the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, said. Clause 57(6) states—perhaps officials could note this—that the,
“first warning notice may be given even if the unpaid rent condition is not yet met”,
In construing the clause, the landlord could think, “Five or six weeks have gone by and I have not had any rent, so I am going to send out a warning notice without waiting for the eight weeks”. That is how I would read the Bill.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]
Debate between Lord True and Baroness Hollis of Heigham
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, I have not so far participated in this Committee and apologise to the House for that. I have just not been able to be here either for Second Reading or the first day of Committee. I declare an interest as leader of a London borough. Actually, I am rather pleased that London does not feature in the Bill in respect of the potential ideas for centralising power in London away from the boroughs. I hope we will not see any of that stuff come forward in another place at a later stage without any opportunity for debating it in your Lordships’ House. I am not going to go into the broader subjects, but I have read the debates very carefully and I find it dangerously easy to restrain my enthusiasm for imposing models on people. Very important points have been raised so far in this Committee.
I shall confine myself to this amendment, as is proper. I am not part of the little posse that came in to support my noble friend’s amendment, but I am glad to see that they are here. My own authority has been involved in discussions with the LGA proposals to look towards wider bond issues. But there are practical issues that need to be addressed, particularly in the difficult areas of things we all love and are potentially enthusiastic about, whether it is music or sport. It can be easy sometimes for that enthusiasm to run away a little. I can think of a number of local authorities not too far distant from my own where enthusiasm for the theatre has ended up with them having to underwrite substantial costs. So we need to proceed in this area with caution, but I hope that my noble friend will be able to respond positively, because caution is one thing and “no” is another. It should be possible to unleash the enthusiasm of local people. Do we not all believe in localism, as my noble friends have argued? Perhaps when she replies, my noble friend might offer to have discussions with my noble friend Lady Wheatcroft and others and representatives of local authorities and see whether, in the course of the passage of the legislation, she will give a positive commitment to considering this creative and interesting idea, albeit with corners that need to be probed—although perhaps not as many as some other aspects of the Bill. It is a very good and welcome thing that my noble friend has brought this forward.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
In one sense, one very much welcomes the proposal of powers that we used to have rather more freely, in recourse to raising bonds through the municipal public works board. I myself used to buy bonds from Derby and all the rest of it, and people put them to appropriate use for their savings. I am certainly not opposed to the principle at all, but I am not clear on something—and perhaps the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, can help me on this point. The mayor will have a levy over and beyond, presumably, the council tax precept run by the combined authority. What powers the mayor will have vis-à-vis the combined authority may differ with each bespoke arrangement. What does the noble Baroness expect to be funded by a bond as opposed to a levy? The levy clearly falls on all, and all have access to those services, whereas a bond would be a voluntary subscription for an additional service which, none the less, would be enjoyed by all but possibly at a fee to fund the additional interest rate over and beyond the levy. I am slightly confused about how those two things would run in parallel. Clearly, in the past what would happen is that Derby would decide to seek £10 million through a loan on capital expenditure and fund it through the interest payments through the levy on it. In other words, part of the revenue expenditure would go to fund that bond. How does the noble Baroness envisage that working in this new financial structure?
Local Government Finance Bill
Debate between Lord True and Baroness Hollis of Heigham(11 years, 10 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Lord True
My Lords, I associate myself with my noble friend’s remarks, although perhaps not his final point. Those who have heard me take part in these debates will know that I, too, regret very much that the benefit was not included in the universal credit. I think there is very wide agreement in the House on that but, as my noble friend has pointed out, that is not what Parliament has determined, and we must address the situation that we find ourselves in.
As my noble friend Lord Tope also said, there is an expectation for local authorities to deliver reductions in public spending. As I have often said in your Lordships’ House, the state is overspending by roughly £14 million an hour and it is legitimate to ask local authorities to consider playing a part in addressing that problem. We are doing so and, as I have said before in these debates, I would have preferred the Bill to not be too prescriptive in this area.
I agree with the first part of this amendment, that:
“Nothing … shall prevent billing authorities retaining the provisions of the … council tax benefit scheme”.
My problem with the amendment is that it asks your Lordships’ House to make a frontal assault on the principle of deficit reduction. The second part of the amendment effectively gives a put option to any local authority in this country, including the prosperous, leafy authorities that the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, referred to, such as West Oxfordshire, Westminster and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.
If the House passed this amendment, the Government would suddenly have to pick up the costs of Westminster, West Oxfordshire and the royal borough, which are prepared to sustain the existing scheme out of their own resources. This amendment says that your Lordships’ House should ask Her Majesty’s Treasury to pick up those costs, which those boroughs are prepared to meet. Similarly, any local authority in this country, rich or poor, would be able to ask for resources from the Treasury, and the whole effect of seeking to make a reduction in the welfare budget in this area could be negated. That is the fatal flaw in this amendment.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
I am puzzled by the noble Lord’s remark. He says that if this amendment were carried, it would mean that prosperous authorities such as Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and some of the inner London boroughs we have mentioned—Wandsworth, Westminster and so on—would be getting moneys from the national scheme that they do not need because they are ready to fund it themselves. Of course, given the council tax rebate scheme, they could still fund it themselves from the 90% grant, but is it not the case that under the transitional arrangements they will be entitled to apply for money they do not need, which they will no doubt keep and which will go to their reserves? In fact, the very thing that he is deploring about this amendment is going to be embodied in the transitional grant arrangements.
Lord True
The noble Baroness presents another possible wrong to defend the particular wrong that I am addressing.
I am sorry that I was slow coming into the Chamber when the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, started his speech; I heard it on the monitor and I agreed with many of the things he said about the timing of this announcement, which is also implicit in what the noble Baroness has said. But I return to the fundamental point that if your Lordships pass this amendment, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea can ask the Treasury to go on funding the scheme as it now is. The noble Baroness thought it was absurd that those leafy boroughs should be funded, and I rather agree.
The other thing one has to accept is that surely there is somewhere between no saving from council tax benefit, which is the potential position if this amendment were passed and every local authority put that upon the Treasury, and the extent of saving, the problems of which we have heard described; there must be some amount that can be saved under this heading, because I believe—I do not have the figures before me—that spending on council tax benefit doubled during the Administration of the party opposite. I do not accept that there cannot be reductions. Therefore, because of the technical flaw in the second part of the amendment and because I think that there is scope for making reductions, I cannot support the amendment if it is put to a Division.
Local Government Finance Bill
Debate between Lord True and Baroness Hollis of Heigham(11 years, 10 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Lord True
My Lords, I do not know whether my noble friend intends to support this but I think that if she did it would be very odd. We have just heard from her a clear statement of the direction of travel in which the Government wish to go. She sees 50% as the minimum and we are going further. Given the state of the economy that we have inherited and still have—and there has been agreement across the House on many things during the course of the Bill—limiting, in effect, the discretion of any Government in the future in this way in respect of local government finance would probably not be, if I may borrow the word, a prudent step. Therefore, if the party opposite presses this amendment, I certainly hope that my noble friends will not be gulled into that Division Lobby.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
In that case, what does localism mean if its revenues are available for raiding by central government when it chooses?
Lord True
My Lords, I have made a general statement of principle about public finance. I do not think that anyone who has heard my contributions to debates on this or other Bills relating to localism would doubt that I am very strongly committed to it. I would like the direction of travel to be as my noble friend has indicated. I am simply saying that ring-fencing local authority provision for ever in this manner does not seem an appropriate way to tie the hands of any future Chancellor from whatever party.
Local Government Finance Bill
Debate between Lord True and Baroness Hollis of Heigham(12 years, 1 month ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
I support my noble friend’s amendment. I am confident that the Minister will not reproduce the rather unwise remarks that we sometimes get on the Floor of the House that in seeking to cut the deficit you cannot afford to spend money on social care. There are sources of finance that could be available to government—any Government, including mine, which could and perhaps should have done this as well so I am not making a partisan point—which would adequately fund the Dilnot proposals on pension tax relief, about which some of us know something and others know relatively little. I may be in the second group.
At the moment pension tax relief is £30 billion and the difference between the standard rate and the higher rate is £7 billion. In the past we weaned the country off mortgage tax relief, first by bringing it down from higher rate to standard rate—that was done by a Conservative Government; the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, I think, but it may have been the noble Lord, Lord Lawson—and subsequently it was abolished altogether. The point about this is that in all our thinking about funding people’s long-term savings and their ability to cope with long-term care and so on, we think there is something called work and something called retirement, and that you should save from the one and transfer it to the other. We have to start thinking much more about people’s longevity, which is a good sign, and moving money from work to early retirement and from early retirement to later retirement; there are three categories.
If you were to ring-fence the money that is currently spent on higher rate tax relief down to lower rate tax relief, which is enjoyed by higher rate taxpayers on their way in, even though they pay only lower rate tax on the way out, it would be redistributed within the pensioner community from younger pensioners in their 60s and 70s to that same group of pensioners as they age into their 80s and 90s. For what it is worth, it would also redistribute, to some degree, from the better off to the poorer. As far as I am concerned, it would hit every winning duck that we want to hit: we would make pension tax relief fair; we would redistribute within the pension community in a ring-fenced way; we would redistribute from the better off to the poorer; and we would, I am sure, be able to commend it to the public in terms of fairness, because most people will be postponing income they might have got in their 60s and 70s to be able to have it in their 80s and 90s.
Before the Minister says that we cannot possibly do anything about this given the deficit—and I realise that this is for HMRC and the Chief Secretary and so on to think about—I would like to put this into play because I would be very sorry indeed if the proposal coming out next week was put into the long grass on the grounds that there can be no funding available and therefore we have to struggle on from an interim ad hoc base, as we are doing at the moment. There is a way if there is political will, and I am quite sure it is the sort of proposition that could command support right around the House and from all political parties. It would be fair, decent and affordable and it would give people security.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, I am giving only my own views at the moment. I have not sought the views of my Front Bench on this. I am coming out of the pensions world on this and my concern about the unfairness in pension tax relief and the way that we could link this to the funding for long-term care that my noble friend has mentioned. But certainly not; they are my views.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
I have not put them to the Labour Party Front Bench.