Building Safety Bill

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Baroness Finlay of Llandaff

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Report stage
Tuesday 29th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, and others. I had the privilege to be on the Select Committee on National Policy for the Built Environment, which reported six years ago with Building Better Places. We had extensive evidence from Public Health England on the impacts of the built environment on health. That built on the work done by Michael Marmot on the social determinants of health and the evidence of the cost to the nation of poor housing. In our report, we recommended that those working in housing should take account of the health impacts of their decisions. The relevant paragraph of the government response to our report said:

“The Government recognises the importance of considering health as part of the planning process and believes health impacts should be considered as part of the wider policy environment.”


The plea that we heard from the noble Lords, Lord Crisp and Lord Bethell, to integrate these factors and consider them at every stage has been supported by the evidence for many years. I hope that the Government will listen to the evidence that they themselves took on board in responding to our report.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I added my name to the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, in Committee but was unable to speak to it, so I welcome the opportunity to add a brief footnote to the excellent speech that he made a few moments ago. I do so having been responsible for building control under the Thatcher and Major Administrations.

No one could object to the aspirations behind the amendment and the Healthy Homes Act campaign and I hope that the Minister will be able to respond sympathetically. I understand that so far the Government have objected to the proposal on the grounds that this is a matter for planning rather than for building regulations. The boundary between the two is inevitably not clearly marked and many people think that, if they have planning consent, that is the end of their interface with the local authority.

I have just one suggestion to make. The Minister may take the view that some of the objectives in the TCPA brief fall on the planning side rather than the building regulations side. I quote from its manifesto, which says that homes should

“be built to design out crime and be secure … all new homes should … provide access to sustainable transport and walkable services, including green infrastructure and play space”

and should have a minimum liveable space. Those all seem to be entirely reasonable requests. If my noble friend takes that view and believes that they are not appropriate to this Bill, can he give an assurance that they will be incorporated into the next planning Bill so that we can get to the same destination, albeit via a different route?

National Health Service: Pensions

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Baroness Finlay of Llandaff

Monday 10th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

It is important that noble Lords understand the background to the changes. One of the most expensive tax reliefs is pension tax relief. It costs £50 billion per year—roughly half the budget of the NHS. Two-thirds of that goes to additional, or higher-rate, taxpayers. The reforms introduced over the last two Parliaments were aimed at targeting the relief more effectively and saving £6 billion that could be redirected towards other priorities. Less than 1% of taxpayers will be affected by the taper of £40,000 that was introduced, and more than 95% of those approaching pension age will not be affected by the lifetime allowance.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a past president of the BMA, and as someone with an NHS pension whose husband does not stand to gain particularly by my death; so be it. Do the Government recognise the seriousness of the situation, given the open letter from the BMA to the Prime Minister published in the Financial Times today? The 50:50 suggestion that came from the Secretary of State is not the solution to the problem. Clinical services are already being severely jeopardised by consultants who drop their additional sessions; waiting lists are therefore already rising and those facing retirement have decided to carry on with leaving the NHS, thereby worsening our workforce problems.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

We join the noble Baroness’s husband in wishing her a very long life. So far as the issue she raises is concerned, the BMA asked us to introduce this flexibility earlier this year. The chair of the BMA council said:

“This is a step in the right direction”.


The Secretary of State is willing to discuss other models for pension flexibility; we very much hope that, if we make these changes, high-earning clinicians will be able to attend to more patients while saving for their retirements without incurring significant tax charges.

Financial Guidance and Claims Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Baroness Finlay of Llandaff

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

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, for his very important comments in introducing these amendments. He has covered some issues that I was going to cover in relation to my amendment, which is next. I wonder whether he feels my amendment covers some of the things he is concerned about, because care leavers are just one group in vulnerable circumstances—we all know that—but there are other groups as well. I have a slight concern that once we start to put lots of different lists in the Bill, somebody will be left out. I will explain why our amendment is worded as it is and I am very grateful for the support from his Benches, but I raise that as a question.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

My Lords, in response to the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, about the propulsion available to the co-pilot, it remains the same: the journey may be a little shorter and therefore the destination may be reached more quickly.

Amendments 9 and 10 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, would alter the strategic functional matters relating to financial education. I thank all those who have contributed to this debate for highlighting once again the important issue of financial education. We had a good debate on this issue in Committee and I believe we agreed on both sides that financial education is extremely important at all stages of life—a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer. A key role of the new body will be to improve people’s financial capability and help them make better financial decisions, and to identify any gaps that there may be at the moment in the provision of such advice and guidance.

The financial education element of the strategic function is targeting a specific area of need, which is to ensure that children and young people are supported at an early age on how to manage their finances, for example, by learning the benefits of budgeting and saving. More specifically, the new body will have a co-ordinating role to match funders with providers of financial education projects and initiatives aimed at children, and will ensure that these are targeted where evidence has shown them to be more effective. This falls within the wider strategic financial capability work of the body and should form part of the national strategy, which we expect it to deliver.

As I explained in Committee, the Money Advice Service has been undertaking that role. It is one aspect that respondents to the Government’s consultations have overwhelmingly agreed it is important for the new body to continue working on. MAS’s work under the financial capability strategy focuses specifically on improving people’s capability, which they need to make key decisions, such as those presented in this amendment. We expect the new body will carry forward and improve the work under the umbrella of the new SFGB. I stress that this does not mean that the new body will not be providing financial education for adults. As I have explained, this is a key role of the body in improving financial capability, as it is for MAS now. For example, MAS currently runs a pilot on adult numeracy with National Numeracy through the What Works Fund. Also, through the work with the Financial Advice Working Group, it is creating a simple portal for employers linking to the MAS website and exploring partnerships for helping employees with money management. Finally, through the financial capability strategy, MAS works with the National Association of Student Money Advisers to test and improve the model for financial education for younger adults. We expect the body to continue and build on work in this space.

Moving to the specific amendments, Amendment 9 would alter this function so that a strategy for the provision of financial education is extended to care leavers. I thank the noble Lord for raising this point. It was also an issue raised by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, in Committee. As I highlighted to the noble Earl at that point, the Government agree and we expect the new body to consider further initiatives to support care leavers as well as other young people from marginalised backgrounds—for example, those leaving youth detention or those with learning difficulties.

As we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, Amendment 11 refers to vulnerable people and I absolutely agree with her: care leavers are vulnerable people. I hope my noble friend will say a little more about how we plan to help vulnerable people, including care leavers, when we debate Amendment 11.

Amendment 10 would make provision specifically for adults contemplating difficult financial decisions, such as mortgages, pensions and vehicle finance plans. As I said in Committee in response to the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, and the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, this is the role of the SFGB as a whole as it delivers money and pension guidance and debt advice. Also, the strategic function under Clause 2(7)(a) already gives the body a specific responsibility to work to improve the,

“financial capability of members of the public”,

including in these areas. To give the new body a requirement to advise the Secretary of State on explicit issues, worthy as these may be, is unwise. The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, said that one could either agree or disagree with the point I have just made. I happen to agree with it—he may disagree with it—but there are problems in focusing on specific issues. There are several topics that the body may wish to look into as part of its strategic function and choosing a few could risk limiting its ability to look more widely at the sector and have regard to emerging issues in the future. For those reasons, I hope the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.

High-Cost Credit and Debt Management

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Baroness Finlay of Llandaff

Monday 10th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

Will the Minister confirm that the FCA will ensure that the companies it looks at do not participate in any of the forwarding on of contact details of vulnerable people who comprise the “suckers’ lists” that have been exposed, which deliberately target people who are very vulnerable, often with a degree of impaired mental capacity, who are entrapped because of their situation? Many of these people have failed to untick the box saying that their details can be handed on and therefore inadvertently have complied with the compiling of such lists.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble Baroness has put her finger on the problem: many of these so-called cold calls are not cold calls at all. They are called warm calls in that, perhaps inadvertently, people have ticked a box on a website which has enabled that site to contact them at a later date or, even worse, to share their details with other providers. I hope that the FCA can pick up on this as it goes through the authorisation process. As I said in response to the initial Question, the FCA is reviewing the consumer credit rules in relation to cold calling at the moment and I will ensure that it takes on the very valid point that the noble Baroness has just made.