UNICEF: Child Poverty Rankings
Debate between Viscount Younger of Leckie and Lord Rooker(8 months, 3 weeks ago)
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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
Debate between Viscount Younger of Leckie and Lord Rooker(11 months, 2 weeks ago)
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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
Debate between Viscount Younger of Leckie and Lord Rooker(1 year, 4 months ago)
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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.
Trading Relations: USA, EU and China
Debate between Viscount Younger of Leckie and Lord Rooker
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
I understand that the target date tied in with Diwali rather neatly, but I am sure that the noble Lord, with all his experience, will tell me that it is right to have a date that people can work towards. India is a huge prize for this country. It is a dynamic, fast-growing trade partner and offers a terrific opportunity to deepen our already strong relationship, which was worth £29.6 billion in the four quarters to the end of quarter 2 in 2022. However, there is a lot of work to be done on this deal. It is right to have a deadline but we certainly need to work hard on the deal.
Lord Rooker (Lab)
Can the Minister give any details of work that the Government have undertaken, or ensured that others undertake, to ensure that no products coming into this country from China contain cotton grown in Xinjiang? During our debates earlier in the year, two Ministers stood at that Dispatch Box and agreed to check products containing cotton, such as mattresses and nurses’ uniforms, to see whether the cotton was grown in Xinjiang. You can do that from the product. What have the Government done about that, because they have never reported any results?
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
The noble Lord makes a good point. The Government are committed to tackling Uighur forced labour in our supply chains and are taking robust action. Over the past year, we have introduced new guidance on the risks of doing business in Xinjiang, introduced enhanced export controls and announced the introduction of financial penalties under the Modern Slavery Act. These followed the Government’s announcement in September 2020 of an ambitious package of changes to the Modern Slavery Act.
Pensions Tax Relief: Employment and Retention
Debate between Viscount Younger of Leckie and Lord Rooker
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
Again, I will take the message back to the department. I reassure the noble Baroness that we are taking action to support NHS staff, including those at the top end. The Department of Health and Social Care has commissioned NHS England to develop a long-term workforce plan. This will look at all aspects, including pay at the senior end, as well as the other aspects that have cropped up this afternoon in terms of how we can reward and keep our very best senior people.
Lord Rooker (Lab)
Is it still the case, as it was when I was at the DSS from 1999 to 2001, that when Ministers were given any information whatever about pensions— any options, anything at all—they were always given a 30-year timeframe? That meant that there were no surprises of the detailed decisions that might be taken. Along with this Question and the one that is going to follow, there is probably a good case for looking at how our pensions are funded, both private and public, in this country.
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
I do not think that there was a question there—but, again, it is a matter that I shall reflect on and certainly pass back to the department.
Health Taxes
Debate between Viscount Younger of Leckie and Lord Rooker
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
I thank my noble friend. His question allows me to bring in an answer to a question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, as well. Over the past decade, the Government have made significant steps towards making England smoke free by 2030. We have continued to provide funding to local authorities and stop-smoking services via the public health grant. We have also provided additional resources as part of the NHS long-term plan. To answer my noble friend’s question, the Government are carefully considering the recommendation set out in the independent Khan review.
Lord Rooker (Lab)
Is the Minister aware that in the decade following 2010 life expectancy in the UK stalled for the first time in 120 years? When does he expect people to be able to start living a bit longer?
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
It is a continuing initiative and a continuing battle to fight obesity. It is a really important issue and a cross-government initiative. I mentioned already the holiday, activities and food programme, but also bring in education, as this is also a matter of educating parents. All in all, we need to continue to do our very best to lower levels of obesity not just in adults but particularly in children.
Homeless People: Prevention of Deaths
Debate between Viscount Younger of Leckie and Lord Rooker(5 years, 1 month ago)
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Viscount Younger of Leckie
The noble Earl makes a good point. It is very important that we have skilled people on the ground, because the only way to help people is to go to them individually, find out what their problems are and help them. To answer the noble Earl’s question, the number of households in temporary accommodation has increased by 5%. Good work is being done to take people off the streets and put them into temporary accommodation. The figure is actually 84,740—up from 80,720 at the end of March last year. It is small progress, but at least it is progress.
Lord Rooker (Lab)
I do not have anything to declare, other than the period of 2003-05 when I had ministerial responsibility for this area. I inherited from my noble friend Lady Armstrong the scheme put together by Louise Casey that, between 1997 and 2010, led to the virtual elimination of rough sleeping in a very technical, measured, practical way, which I saw working at first hand over those couple of years. Can the Minister say whether all the new things he has just read out, with extra money for this, that and the other, will put the resource level back to what it was in 2010?
Viscount Younger of Leckie
I do not believe so. I take note of what the noble Lord said about his experience, but I do think that, putting aside these tragic deaths, because that is the focus of the Question, the rough sleeping initiative is showing some success in terms of homelessness itself. As I said, in 2018, the annual rough sleeping snapshot recorded a 19% reduction in rough sleeping since 2017, but as I also said, there is much work to be done. This is a really serious issue and we can see it ourselves outside Westminster tube and beyond.
Birmingham Commonwealth Games Bill [HL]
Debate between Viscount Younger of Leckie and Lord Rooker(5 years, 4 months ago)
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Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
My Lords, if I may be excused the pun, the baton in this relay has been passed to me, although I note that we are not half way around the track yet. I was happy that the noble Lord, Lord Addington, addressed Amendment 10, although I hope he will forgive me if I wait to see who else might speak to that amendment and reply accordingly. I shall keep my remarks on Amendment 9 relatively brief, picking up on the spirit of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker.
Amendment 9 seeks to introduce a number of requirements for the organising committee to report on its activities. I would argue that it is not necessary to list such requirements in the Bill—a point I picked up from the mood of the Committee this afternoon anyway. Unlike the London 2012 or Glasgow 2014 Organising Committees, the Birmingham 2022 Organising Committee is a non-departmental public body and is already subject to a number of controls and transparency requirements. In an earlier debate my noble friend Lord Moynihan mentioned the importance of transparency and of course he is absolutely right. To illustrate the point, the organising committee has entered into a management agreement with the department. This sets out the organising committee’s governance structure and, in section 4, the reporting schedule and information which must be sent to DCMS on a regular basis. By regular, I mean monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly and biannual reports or face-to-face meetings between senior figures. A copy of the management agreement is available on GOV.UK. The organising committee must publish an annual report of its activities, together with its audited resource accounts, after the end of each financial year. These must be laid in Parliament and made available online, in accordance with public body guidance. The first report will be published this September, and annually thereafter.
To ensure delivery against these requirements, the organising committee has a dedicated compliance manager and chief legal officer. In addition, DCMS has an official responsible for sponsorship of the OC, to ensure that it meets its assurance and accountability obligations. The Games is also part of the Government’s major projects portfolio and is subject to scrutiny by the Infrastructure and Projects Authority, which publishes annually on all such projects. The Commonwealth Games will be included in the next annual report, due this month, and a copy will be placed in the Library of both Houses. I remind noble Lords, as was said earlier, that come 27 July 2022 the Games will have been delivered within a four-and-a-half-year window, rather than the typical seven years.
As was mentioned earlier, there is a balance to be struck: we must ensure both that we have transparency and scrutiny of public money and that the organising committee can move at the pace required to deliver a project of this scale to this immovable deadline. I hope I have reassured noble Lords that we already have the right governance, reporting and scrutiny in place to oversee and assure the successful delivery of the Games and to deal effectively with any issues that arise, without further requirements being added to the Bill.
On the question of public engagement, the OC and Birmingham City Council are committed to regular resident and business engagement. Public consultation drop-ins were hosted last month for the Alexander Stadium redevelopment, which I think the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, alluded to—it may have been one of those events that he attended—and there is a programme of ongoing monthly Perry Barr resident meetings. The OC has hosted eight regional business briefings, with more than 1,000 representatives attending. Games partners, by which I mean all stakeholders with responsibility for delivering the Games, have also met environmental groups to inform the development of the OC’s Games-wide sustainability plans.
Games partners are already engaging with relevant local authorities on Games plans and the leader of Birmingham City Council and the Mayor of the West Midlands both sit on the strategic board, the most senior decision-making body for the Games. A lead officer group has also been established, bringing together officials from local authorities across the West Midlands. The group will support co-ordination, communication and decision-making in relation to the Games. Further to this, I reassure noble Lords that the Government will carefully consider who will be best placed and how to report on the impact of the Games following the 11 days of sport. It is the Government’s ambition that the positive effects of the Games will be lasting ones for Birmingham and the West Midlands region. I hope that, with that rather detailed response, the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.
Office for Students
Debate between Viscount Younger of Leckie and Lord Rooker
Viscount Younger of Leckie
I think the noble Baroness and I have had an exchange on the make-up of the Office for Students before. It is important that the members of the panel represent a broad range of areas within the higher education sector, and indeed the further education sector. I reassure her that there are some representatives covering further education. However, I also reassure her that that issue will be borne in mind when further and final appointments are made.
Lord Rooker (Lab)
My experience in six government departments over 12 years—true, it was at a low level, as a Minister of State—and in a non-ministerial department for four years subsequently was that the Civil Service was meticulous in ensuring that Ministers followed the rules. That was also my experience with a range of independent committees, Permanent Secretaries and chief executives. My question is—I have only read the press reports on this—what are the lessons to be learned? Will there be any changes to the Ministerial Code? It seems to me that the Ministerial Code should cover this, which it clearly does not, because we still have a Minister in post. The issue here is not the code for appointments, but that the Ministerial Code has clearly been breached, if not in the letter then certainly in the spirit.
Viscount Younger of Leckie
I think I have made it clear to the House—and I shall make it clear to the noble Lord—that lessons are being learned. We will respond to the views of the Commissioner for Public Appointments on this process. It may well be that we look at the Ministerial Code, but I cannot confirm that. We have already said that lessons need to be learned regarding the mistake that was made in not declaring that that this was an interim appointment for the student representative.