Free School Lunches and Milk, and School and Early Years Finance (Amendments Relating to Universal Credit) (England) Regulations 2018

Debate between Baroness Lister of Burtersett and Lord Polak

Tuesday 20th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very pleased to follow the noble Lord, Lord Freud, because it fits well with what I want to say—but first I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Bassam for his powerful introduction.

The Government have prayed in aid the report of the Social Security Advisory Committee to suggest that there is not a problem about work incentives. Last week in Oral Questions the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, said that when SSAC looked at the issue it found that there was no rigorous research evidence to show that the provision of passported benefits acted as a work disincentive. I am not sure whether the Ministers have read the report—I have it here; it is a right door- stopper—but it actually says that very little is known, which is slightly different.

However, the response to SSAC from the coalition Government was interesting. It said in its introduction to the report:

“The coalition Government endorses the SSAC’s view that the design of passported benefits under Universal Credit can have a key impact on incentives to work ... SSAC notes that there is mixed evidence about the impact of passported benefits on work incentives. However, it is important to highlight that the responses gathered in the review focus on the impact of passported benefits within the current benefits and tax credit system rather than the impact under Universal Credit. This is an important distinction as, currently, at the point some passported benefits are withdrawn, recipients often receive an increase in working tax credits that helps compensate for the loss of the value of the passported benefits”.


Quite—as my noble friend Lady Sherlock pointed out. But this was ignored by the Secretary of State when last week he told the House of Commons that there had always been a cliff edge. He seemed to interpret that as meaning “meal or no meal”.

SSAC’s fears have been borne out by the analysis by Professor Jonathan Bradshaw and Dr Antonia Keung, the Children’s Society and the Child Poverty Action Group—I declare an interest as its honorary president—which has already been referred to. I look to that report also to address a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Lexden. We have always known that what is happening currently is an interim arrangement, that is true, but the SSAC report was six years ago, in 2012. It is not surprising that some noble Lords have forgotten about that, because it was a long time ago.

However, the Government also said then that they would consult on new criteria that year to put in place the new system in October 2013. We have had to wait six years. What took them so long? I suspect that it was because they could not find a way round the cliff- edge problem, because SSAC repeatedly drew attention to the fact that if you go down the route of introducing an income threshold it creates a cliff-edge problem. It did not have an answer to it because there is no answer if you are not prepared to pay for free school meals for all those on universal credit. As has already been said, that undermines the foundational principle of universal credit. Perhaps that is why the noble Lord, Lord Freud—who did so much work on that benefit—is so concerned.

Yes, the Government made this clear in 2012—but the living standards landscape is very different from what it was then. For example, we did not know then that there was going to be a two-child limit on benefits for families. We did not know then that universal credit was going to be subjected to cut after cut. The CPAG has suggested that the average loss for working families on universal credit will be more than £400 a year. We did not know then that working age benefits were going to be frozen. Child benefit is particularly relevant here. Professor Jonathan Bradshaw kindly did some calculations for me—I am not very good at calculations—and calculated that for a two-child family child benefit is worth £2.66 a week less than it was in 2012 when the Government first suggested that they were not going to give it to everyone on universal credit. It is £5.44 less if we go back to 2010. That is in the context of the Resolution Foundation pointing out that for a two-child-plus family, child benefit is less generous than at any point since it was fully introduced in 1979. So, as they say, when the facts change, perhaps the policy should change as well.

Many of these matters come down to how things work in practice, so perhaps I may ask a few practical questions. We know that the earnings of people at the lower end of the labour market fluctuate repeatedly. The Government have addressed how they are going to estimate what those earnings are, but if they are going to be recalculated every month—as in the briefing referred to by the right reverend Prelate from the representatives of the Children’s Society—this will be an absolute nightmare. I cannot see any reference to what will happen to people on zero-hours contracts or self-employed people. Can the Minister explain how their earnings will be calculated?

On the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, have the Government given any consideration to decoupling free school meals eligibility from pupil premium eligibility? As I understand it, it is the latter that costs so much, not free school meals. So it would be possible to pay for free school meals for everyone on universal credit at not a huge extra cost and treat the pupil premium separately.

Finally—I hope this is not too cheeky—when the Minister responds, will he respond to what has actually been said here today? Last week in Oral Questions I got the sense that officials had expected us to say the same things that had been said in the House of Commons the day before. We did not, but that was what the response was to.

I say the same to the noble Lord, Lord Patten. My noble friend Lord Bassam made it very clear what he was talking about. He produced facts from the Children’s Commissioner which showed that the facts that the Government have been presenting over and over again—that 50,000 children will be better off—are fake facts, to quote a certain President. So let us get our facts right and address what people are saying in this House rather than what we expect them to say.

[Lord Polak (Con)]

My Lords, I also pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Bassam. His words about his experiences and circumstances as a child were very moving. However, change is often difficult to deliver. As George Bernard Shaw said, progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.

The introduction of universal credit transforms the benefits system by making work pay. At the same time, public resources can be targeted at the families most in need, and that must include setting a threshold for free school meals.

I was particularly struck by the contribution to the debate in the Commons by my honourable friend the vice-chairman of the Conservative party Maria Caulfield. She too talked about her experiences of being brought up in a working-class background where there was no hope and no ambition for working-class kids other than a future life on benefits. Universal credit, I am sure noble Lords will agree, will help such families and such individuals. I will not repeat the arguments made and the reply to the Labour smears of last week; suffice it to say that as a result of the changes we are told—facts—that 50,000 extra children will get free school meals by 2022. I have called them facts; we cannot call them facts because only in 2022 will we know the real facts on any of the projections, but those will be as a result of changes brought about by the Government. As Maria went on to say last week, what some Labour Members did was to spread fear in a political, point-scoring way and use working-class families, shamefully, as a political football. That was clear. It was clear if you read what was in the press.

I was absolutely sure that it must be right that free school meals are intended for the most disadvantaged families on low incomes. Thus, targeting taxpayers’ money at those most in need is the right thing to do. I support the Government’s position, which is good for all, and I remind those who will not accept change of the words of the late Harold Wilson:

“He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery”.