Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill

Debate between Lord Young of Norwood Green and Lord Newby

Wednesday 11th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, Clauses 152 to 154 give Her Majesty’s Treasury powers to make UK-wide regulations with regard to public sector exit payments. Amendments 77 to 80 seek to address concerns raised by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee that these powers are framed more broadly than is required for the stated policy intent. The Government are grateful to the DPRRC for its scrutiny of the Bill.

Since the Government have now consulted on the detailed use of the powers, we are able to narrow their scope to match our settled intentions for implementation. This intention is that exit payments may only be recovered within a year of exit from the employment or office in respect of which the payment was made. None the less, in order for the regime to work effectively, it is crucial that we retain sufficient flexibility in the powers to enable the regulations to deliver the policy intent. This flexibility may include the types of exit payments that can be recovered to circumvent any potential for avoidance by using new or novel types of payment. Regulations will also set out prescribed circumstances for recovery, so that subsectors can be adequately defined and in order to accommodate changes in the machinery of government. Both flexibilities will be subject to the overriding requirement of return to the public sector within a year.

Further to the DPRRC’s most recent report, I can also announce today that the Government intend to bring further amendments at Third Reading to enable the first set of the secondary regulations to be made by the affirmative procedure. This first use will be the substantive one, which establishes the exit payment recovery regime. Further regulations which make minor and technical changes, for example to the list of bodies covered by the regulations, will be made by the negative resolution procedure. I should take the opportunity to say that we have also published draft regulations which will provide a further indication of how these powers are intended to be used.

Amendment 81 is a minor and technical amendment to ensure that the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body falls under the scope of Scottish exit payment regulations. The body has the duty to ensure that the Scottish Parliament is provided with the property, staff and services required. It controls its own remuneration, and the Government and Scottish Government always intended for it to fall within the Scottish exit payment regime.

Finally, Amendments 82 and 83 are further minor and technical amendments to correct potential ambiguity in the drafting of Clause 159. I beg to move.

[Lord Young of Norwood Green]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his introduction to the amendments. He will be pleased to know that at this time of night we do not wish to pick holes in them. We think that they address an understandable concern, which I suppose became apparent in the NHS reorganisation that we thought we would never see where people disappeared out of one door and came back through another. It is right that a hole is being plugged that needs to be plugged. I welcome the point made about flexibility to prevent any avoidance tactics and the assurance that some of the important further amendments will be the subject of affirmative resolution. We are happy to support them.

Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill

Debate between Lord Young of Norwood Green and Lord Newby

Monday 26th January 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord Young of Norwood Green]

My Lords, after that forensic double examination, I cannot help reflecting that I am glad I am not responding. I support the amendment because it raises a significant issue. I also want to add the point that here are a Government who say that the best thing we can do is to encourage people to get into work, and I think that that is right; people who are locked out of the employment market, for whatever reason, face a real challenge. So these are people who are determined to work, which is what the Government want them to do, and determined to make a contribution not only for themselves but for their families, yet they are being penalised. The case being made is a valid one. We recognise by the nature of the contributions that this is quite a complex issue, so I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Lord Newby (LD)]

Such expectation, my Lords. I know that the question of NI eligibility raised by the amendment is one about which the noble Baroness is deeply concerned and has been for some time; this is not the first time the issue has been raised in your Lordships’ House by her and others. I hope that I can reassure them that the Government are already actively considering this matter, and I look forward to working further with her on this outside the debates on the Bill, to see how best it can be addressed. We are in no sense claiming that this is not a valid issue.

I know that officials from a range of government departments have already been in discussion with interested parties, including the noble Baroness, over recent months, and this work has been considering the evidence base around the matter of national insurance eligibility. As the noble Baroness is aware, it remains a work in progress and we believe that we do not yet know enough to make a sensible legislative change at this point. There are many complex issues regarding the scale of the problem and how to address it.

The noble Baroness raised the figure of 200,000 people who might be affected by the problems that she has so graphically described, but these figures do not align with DWP analysis, which suggests that 50,000 individuals are affected and that the group is disproportionately made up of under-25 year-olds. The noble Baroness laughs but the DWP is not coming up with a low figure for the sake of frustrating her; that is its best view. That is why we need to do more work on the issue.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, Clauses 149 to 151 give Her Majesty’s Treasury powers to make UK-wide regulations with regard to public sector exit payments. Amendments 68A to 68N and 101A will provide Scottish Ministers with equivalent powers to make regulations to recover exit payments made by relevant bodies in Scotland. They do not enable Scottish Ministers to make regulations affecting payments made elsewhere in the UK. I can confirm that that the Scottish Government have seen these amendments in draft and are content with them. I beg to move.

[Lord Young of Norwood Green]

I see no reason to oppose the amendments.

Insurance Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Young of Norwood Green and Lord Newby

Thursday 8th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments 5 to 9 and manuscript Amendment 10A, which has been tabled in substitution for Amendment 10. The amendments respond to representations made to the committee that Clause 12 on fraudulent claims in consumer group insurance should be extended to group insurance contracts in the non-consumer context. My noble friend Lady Noakes tabled amendments on this point in Committee. The Government supported this change in principle but were unable to support the specific amendments suggested by my noble friend. As such, her amendments were withdrawn on the basis that the issue would be taken away and considered further.

We have now had the opportunity to consider the amendments needed to the Bill in order to effect this change. Clause 12 currently provides that where a member of a group consumer insurance contract makes a fraudulent claim, the insurer has a remedy against the fraudulent group member but the remaining members of the group policy are protected. Amendments 4 and 5 extend the application of Clause 12 to the non-consumer context, and indeed in respect of contracts that cover both consumers and non-consumers as group members under the same policy. Amendments 6 and 7 correct a small error in Clause 12(3) that was spotted when drafting the main amendment to the clause.

Amendments 8, 9 and 10A deal with contracting out. In the consumer context, an insurer will not be able to put a consumer group member in a worse position than they would be in under Clause 12. In the non-consumer context, an insurer will have to comply with the transparency requirements if they wish to put a group member in a worse position. These provisions are consistent with the contracting-out provisions generally, and are a necessary consequence of extending Clause 12 to non-consumers. I should explain that the only difference between Amendment 10A and Amendment 10, which it replaces, is that the various cross-references to other sections have been corrected.

I believe that these amendments fully address the desire of the committee, particularly my noble friend Lady Noakes, and a number of the committee’s witnesses to extend the application of Clause 12 to the non-consumer context. These are uncontroversial amendments and I hope therefore that noble Lords can support them. I beg to move.

[Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)]

My Lords, I thought it would be appropriate for us to say that we support these amendments. It is a good example of Parliament working to improve a valuable service industry, enhancing its position globally. That is important because the UK is a world leader in this. It is not a subject that I profess a great deal of knowledge about but I cannot help having a slight ironic feeling. My late father, who was a very successful insurance agent, would have been pleased to hear my contribution, brief though it is.

National Minimum Wage Regulations 1999 (Amendment) Regulations 2010

Debate between Lord Young of Norwood Green and Lord Newby

Monday 19th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Norwood Green]

My Lords, I welcome the Minister’s support for the previous Government’s proposals and what appears to be a Damascene conversion to the cause of the minimum wage. However, I do not wish to be churlish. The relevant adult rate was also proposed by the previous Government, and so I welcome it. The challenge for the Government in announcing 50,000 new apprenticeships is to create apprenticeships for 16 to 18 year-olds, which we always regarded as a key target area. I would welcome confirmation that the Government will not embrace the view of Mr Christopher Chope in the other place who proposed a Private Member’s Bill which would allow people to be paid below the minimum wage. I would welcome confirmation from the Government that they will not support that approach. Other than that, I welcome and support this statutory instrument.

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, we welcome these proposals. Unlike our view on the measure we discussed earlier, where we considered that the Government’s plan to protect and support people on low incomes was poor, we believe that the minimum wage is an unambiguous success. It is interesting to recall that when the minimum wage was being proposed siren voices suggested that hundreds of thousands of people would be put out of work as a result. That did not happen at all. All that happened was that hundreds of thousands of people were paid a decent wage instead of an indecent wage. That has undoubtedly helped to make society fairer.

It is therefore extremely welcome that the Government have approved and implemented the recommendations of the Low Pay Commission. The commission now clearly has bipartisan, or tripartisan, support and is almost beyond reproach in terms of a body assisting government to come to sensible conclusions. I seek an assurance from the Minister that this support this year for the Low Pay Commission and its work is likely to inform the Government’s view going forward and we can expect next year and in subsequent years that when the commission comes forward with its report the Government will approve it, as they have done this year. We are happy to support this statutory instrument.