Poverty

Baroness Stedman-Scott Excerpts

Thursday 14th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

My Lords, I draw your attention to my entry in the register of interests.

I am pleased to be able to take part in this debate, on which I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Bird. His call to action is welcome and refreshing, and his track record on this subject speaks for itself, because this is about a hand up, rather than a handout. I also pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, who will make her valedictory speech later. Her passion and commitment to education—as we have already heard, education could have a major impact on the causes of poverty—have been unrelenting, and we thank her for that.

I must add my congratulations to our Prime Minister, Theresa May, with whom I have worked in the past on social justice issues. My first-hand experience tells me that her commitment to tackling the root causes of poverty in the most effective way possible has a long history, and I hope it will result in a good destiny for those we are trying to help.

This is the nub of the issue. Many on the left and the right of politics were taken aback when the Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that the Labour Government’s child poverty strategy—albeit that they had the very best of intentions—had started to run into trouble as early as 2004-05. The key turning point was well before the recession, when poverty, unemployment and property repossessions all started to rise. That child poverty strategy, based very largely on income transfers, had in place measures and targets which enabled the Government to monitor their progress. It was through reporting on their own measures and targets that it became objectively clear that a new approach was needed.

This Government are in the process of bringing about the radical change needed to tackle poverty effectively. I would be very interested to hear about progress to achieve this from the Minister. It will come as no surprise to anybody in this House that I fervently believe that one of the best routes out of poverty is to have a job which pays a decent living. We also need to embed in the education system and its curriculum the fact that we want to prepare our young people for work. We need to teach young people to learn and to earn a living—and the earlier we start this, the better, because prevention is better and more cost effective than a cure.

I was thinking about two aspects of this change process in particular. First, I am a passionate believer in this Government’s shift of focus to life chances and regret that I was unable to speak in the very good debate on this subject led by my noble friend Lord Farmer in May of this year. I believe that the much-anticipated life chances strategy was to be unveiled straight after the referendum result. Of course, the Government have had one or two even more pressing priorities since then. Can my noble friend the Minister give us some indication of when we can expect to hear about this vital aspect of their agenda, as mentioned in the Queen’s Speech and, if I understand correctly, in the outgoing Prime Minister’s last Cabinet meeting?

Secondly, and related to this, the Welfare Reform and Work Act introduced new measures on educational attainment and employment so that progress, or indeed regress, could be tracked. Income-based measures have also been retained but targets were dropped because they cannot be guaranteed to drive effective action to improve life chances. I am of course summing up hours of expert debate in this Chamber, so I hope that noble Lords will bear with my somewhat crude synopsis.

It is vital that the impacts of government and other policy and wider socioeconomic developments can be accurately discerned through measurement. However, we cannot go from simple income measures to equally simple educational and employment measures and expect to gain a sufficiently rich picture of the actual state of the lives of the very many people who are struggling with the effects of poverty in this country today. We need to develop—and continue to develop—the best indicators in these broad areas as well as in issues such as family breakdown, lack of skills, drug and alcohol addiction, poor mental health and personal indebtedness. That is a long and certainly not exhaustive list of what is increasingly referred to as social metrics.

My noble friend Lady Stroud recently set up a Social Metrics Commission with the intention of having something that, as she said,

“incentivised the right behaviours for government, incentivised the right behaviours for people in disadvantaged backgrounds, and genuinely tracked a group of vulnerable people, that we were concerned about, and who without any other form of external intervention, were not going to move”.

I believe her aim is that the commission, which is wholly independent of government, should come up with an authoritative set of indicators which will act as challenges to policymakers as to where they should focus. Can the Minister inform the House of his view on the importance of developing such a set of metrics? Will this help to drive the paradigm shift which is surely needed, if the welcome words of our new Prime Minister are to translate into the necessary action to transform our society?

There are some factors influencing poverty which we cannot measure but which, when they are missing, certainly have an impact on the poverty bottom line. I talk about financial poverty, but in my experience there are other poverties: there is a poverty of aspiration, where people just believe aspiration is for everyone else and not for them; there is a poverty of inspiration, and we have a responsibility to inspire people to believe that life can be better and that they can do it; and there is a poverty of determination—why should I bother? We should and must bother to make sure that we identify the causes of poverty and do something about it, so that people can really aspire to a better life.

Poverty Programmes: Audit

Baroness Stedman-Scott Excerpts

Wednesday 4th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

The key thing in tackling poverty is life chances—in the end, transforming people’s lives—not income transfers. To the extent that the extra support helps children in their early years and in their education, it will be of great value.

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

My Lords, now that universal credit is in every jobcentre in the country, how is it helping the poverty agenda?

[Lord Freud]

I am really pleased to confirm that universal credit is now a national programme right across the country. We have real evidence that it achieves its aims: 13% are more likely to be in work at the nine-month point than if they were on JSA. It is already a good benefit by international comparisons. Many more of those in work are looking to do more hours, and many more are looking to increase their earnings than would be the case if they were on JSA.

Under-occupancy Charge

Baroness Stedman-Scott Excerpts

Thursday 28th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

Yes, that is precisely the point. As far as we can tell, one reason that the Court of Appeal took this decision was to send the cases to join another set of cases that the Supreme Court will look at in March. The Supreme Court will, therefore, be able to take a view and reach a judgment across the piece on these issues and will do so relatively rapidly. So this is really by way of an interim legal position before we have something more definitive.

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

Can the Minister tell us how many cases the Government have won in relation to this policy?

[Lord Freud]

So far, we have had 10 cases in the High Court and we have won them all. We have just lost these last two in the Court of Appeal but we have won the five joined appeals in the Court of Appeal and those are the ones that are now going to the Supreme Court. So, until this last judgment, the legal system has accepted that the way that we ameliorate these hard cases using the discretionary housing payment is an appropriate way of providing the protections that I think all of us in this Chamber want to make sure are there.

Employment: Job Creation

Baroness Stedman-Scott Excerpts

Wednesday 16th December 2015 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Stedman-Scott]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many jobs have been created in the European Union compared to the United Kingdom in the past year.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Freud) (Con)]

My Lords, over 2014, the UK saw the largest employment growth of any EU country. The UK continues to perform strongly, and over the past year, employment rose a further 350,000. This has gone alongside a welcome improvement in the rest of the EU, which saw an annual employment rise of 1.8 million.

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

I thank the Minister for his response; I think that we will all be encouraged and pleased with the increase of employment levels across Europe. Can he tell us whether the recovery in employment rates across Europe will reduce inward EU migration into the UK?

[Lord Freud]

I think that it is a valuable development —to see improvement in the EU—because we have seen quite a large increase recently in the employment of EU nationals in the UK. Over the past year, for instance, it was 155,000, compared with 30,000 the previous year. So we would expect to see some of the pressure reduced, whereby people are pulled in because we have the jobs, as the jobs start to grow in the rest of the EU.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Baroness Stedman-Scott Excerpts

Tuesday 17th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

I congratulate my noble friend Lady Stroud, whom I have known and worked with for some time, on her maiden speech. We worked at the CSJ on Breakdown Britain and Breakthrough Britain, and I compliment her on identifying not just problems but the solutions that make a real difference to the lives of people. She is committed, knowledgeable and incisive regarding the issues and the solutions we need to put in place. This House will be the richer for her contribution and involvement. From all my dealings with her, the one thing I would say is that she is very good at challenging herself and her colleagues—and, I hope, the whole House—to do that which is best for those who need us most.

I support the principles behind this welfare Bill. While I am sure that it will have been quoted many times, I fully support the objective of doing all we can to move our country and the individuals in it from a low-wage, high-tax and high-welfare society to a higher-wage, lower-tax, lower-welfare economy. This principle will ensure that work always pays more than a life on benefits and that support is focused on the most vulnerable in a way that they need. We must not miss the point that the system must be fair, as my noble friend Lord Blencathra explained, to all those who have put in and those who receive the help they need. I do not mean being fair to one group at the expense of another; I mean basic fairness.

We heard about China tonight. I am thankful that we live in a democracy that allows everybody in this House to stand up and say exactly how they see the situation. People listen, and some people’s views may well be changed, but we need to make sure we work together to get the best of this Bill for those who need it most.

I will focus on apprenticeships. Clause 2 introduces a duty to report annually on the progress being made towards the Government’s ambitious target of 3 million apprenticeships being started in England during this Parliament. That figure is ambitious, but we have to be ambitious for the people we want to take part in apprenticeships. However, our ambitions must not stop at the quantity of apprenticeships; we must also consider their quality.

It is encouraging to know that in development are more than 140 Trailblazer groups, involving more than 1,300 employers and 187 published approved apprenticeship standards. Of these, more than 60 are higher and degree apprenticeships, and more than 160 are new, approved English apprenticeship standards. Provisional data show that during the last Parliament, there were 2.3 million apprenticeship starts, of which more than 600,000—26%—were taken by 16 to 18 year-olds. We need to build capacity for more 16 to 18 year-olds in approved apprenticeships.

For me, apprenticeships have three benefits: for the participants, for the employers and for the economy. I will talk about the participants. Apprenticeships are part of the journey of people who want and need to make a successful transition from education to employment. I have spoken many times in this House about the need to take young people on a journey and support them. Apprenticeships introduce young people in particular to the world of work. They do not just produce work experience but, most important, they provide real experience of the world of work and give young people the necessary skills.

Research by London Economics shows that the lifetime benefits associated with apprenticeships at Levels 2 and 3 are significant: between £48,000 and £74,000 for Level 2, and between £77,000 and £117,000 for Level 3. Higher apprentices can earn up to £150,000 more, on average, over their lifetime than those with just vocational qualifications. I am a great believer in evaluating programmes. In 2014 an apprenticeship evaluation showed that 89% of apprentices were satisfied with their apprenticeship; 85% said that their ability to do the job had improved; and 83% said that their career prospects had improved. Apprenticeships are good for apprentices. Nine out of 10 of all apprenticeship completers—88%—are in either full or part-time employment, seven out of 10 with the same employer.

Secondly, apprenticeships are good for employers. According to the 2014 apprenticeship evaluation, 82% of employers were satisfied with the programme, while 70% reported that apprenticeships had improved the quality of their product or service. That is an excellent basis on which to build to ensure that quality as well as quantity is maintained. I fully accept that larger employers have the capacity and infrastructure to accommodate and support apprenticeships. I am pleased at the number of SMEs that are giving such opportunities, but sometimes they do not have the capacity and infrastructure to do as well as they want. Are we doing enough to support SMEs to make sure that they play their full role and give young people the opportunities that they should? I would also like to encourage the whole public sector to open their minds more to providing apprenticeship roles.

Thirdly, the economy as a whole benefits from apprenticeships, as people are upskilled and make a good transition from education to employment and understand how they can play their full role in the business. That helps our economy to continue to grow.

In summary, we have a welfare Bill that aims to ensure that we do better for people. I am sure we will have a big debate about the rights and wrongs of that, but let us not only have the debate but find some really good solutions, so that many who start their journey can, with our support, complete it and reach a good destination. Apprenticeships are a key, fundamental part of that journey, and quality is important. None of these things will happen unless employers, particularly SMEs, are able to deliver good quality apprenticeships and, as a result, a good economy.

I look forward to the continuing debate and, with some trepidation, to the continuing challenge. But I hope that the hearts of every one of us will beat in concert, and at the end of the day we will do the right thing for the people whom we in this House are here to serve.