Social Security (Up-rating of Benefits) Bill

Baroness Stowell of Beeston Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 13th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great privilege to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, a renowned expert in this field, as indeed are many other noble Lords participating in today’s debate, unlike myself. Some of her points were very interesting. Clearly, she approached this argument from a position of expertise based on wide financial and economic knowledge. My contribution will be very much principle-based, but from listening to her, there is some common ground between us, although what I have to say is rather different.

My noble friend the Minister made a strong case for suspending the pension triple lock for one year only. The key argument for me is one of fairness, something which pensioners will recognise too if they look at this from the perspective of their own experience. However, I share with the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, the view that this should be a suspension for one year only, and I would certainly seek my noble friend’s confirmation that this is not a step towards permanently breaking the triple lock.

I make this point particularly on behalf of the over-75s—the silent generation, as they are described by researchers—and on behalf of older baby-boomers. When people comment on this who are not necessarily as informed and expert as the noble Baroness and many others here today, reference is made to what is seen as recent generosity to pensioners by way of pension payments. What gets overlooked is that older pensioners contributed a lot throughout their working lives.



These pensioners faced and overcame many challenges. I am talking not about the war but about growing up in an era when being poor meant that you went without or, maybe later, having to bring up a family on a three-day week. I am talking about the kind of people who did not enjoy free university education either. Although they may have bought their homes, which have gone up in value during the past few decades, before the 1980s getting a mortgage was probably harder than it is today. My point is that they got through all that without the advantage of the kind of benefits which are available today or were put in place after 1997 and caused among a lot of people a real sense of unfairness.

I agree with others that we need to make sure that our pensions and benefits system keeps pace with the changing world, which should include reviewing pensions policy as today’s younger boomers get older—but on that I would defer very much to the experts who will contribute to today’s debate. However, if we work on the general principle of fairness and that contribution is important to the legitimacy of the welfare system and to people’s willingness to keep paying in even at times in their life when they are not in receipt of benefits, we should also recognise the experience of today’s older pensioners.

As I have said, I am sure that many noble Lords can and will make a better economic case than me to justify the point that I am making, and some noble Lords may want to have an economic argument to claim that I am wrong, but I think that older pensioners, especially at a time when we are suspending the triple lock, need to hear us recognised not just what they have contributed in financial terms but that they have coped in situations without the kind of support that families and younger people receive now. Just to be clear, I am not arguing for a return to the past nor am I calling for us all to get nostalgic; the world is a very different place now and today’s challenges are different. However, it might give older pensioners some confidence in the future that they are not going to see and yet hope for their children and grandchildren if we parliamentarians argue that there are lessons about financial management, getting our priorities right and making choices which they taught us and we must not forget. Indeed, they need and want us to promote those lessons as principles which remain as valid today as they have always been. I say all this because I think these are things which we know and sometimes take for granted, but that does not mean that they are not points that are worth restating and which people need to hear us say.

To pursue the principle of fairness, I want to ask my noble friend the Minister a question about working-age people. I know that she, like me, believes that it must always pay people to get work: work must always pay and it must always be the best option. As we come out of a phase where people have got used to support such as furlough, when people may need to take on extra hours because of the end of the temporary uplift in universal credit and when we face rising energy costs and other cost of living increases, what is the Government’s position on reviewing and changing the universal credit taper rate so that people can enjoy greater returns for more hours at work?

Social Security (Up-rating of Benefits) Bill

Baroness Stowell of Beeston Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 26th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

My Lords, it is always a privilege to speak in your Lordships’ House, even at 11 o’clock at night. I am a great admirer of my noble friend Lady Stroud, and I am even a great admirer of my noble friend Lord Freud. I should say for the Hansard writers that I am saying that with a smile—he knows that I have a great fondness for him. They are both hugely knowledgeable and great experts in policy in this area, and I know that they have given a huge amount of practical support to people in need in lots of different contexts. They are recognised for that, and rightly so. It therefore gives me no pleasure to disagree with them today, but I do, on both the substance and the practical application of their amendment.

I start, briefly, with the substance. As my noble friend Lord Freud just said, we do not know what the Chancellor will be announcing tomorrow. I know that we have seen quite a bit trailed over the past few days in the media, but we do not know the sum total of what he will announce to alleviate pressure on families faced with rising energy costs and increases in the cost of living. If he is able to do anything with regard to universal credit, I would much rather he changed the taper rate, so that working more hours is clearly advantageous when the temporary £20 uplift comes to an end. I do not support the temporary uplift becoming permanent for various reasons.

But that is irrelevant, because it is not relevant to this Bill. With the best will in the world, it is not a question for us to answer, at least not in this context. That brings me to the practice which my noble friends are applying in order to force this issue into play. My noble friend the Leader has already set out the constitutional and conventional reasons why this approach is outside our standard procedures, and I will not repeat them, but I very much endorse all that she said, and I certainly accept the advice of the clerks. I should add that I am not one of her predecessors who ever had to face the situation she is facing today, but I have been in the Chamber in the past when a similar situation occurred, and I have had my own encounters with this House on matters to do with social security and so on, so this is not an unfamiliar situation.

Having said all that, I want to add a couple of points which I urge my noble friends Lady Stroud and Lord Freud to consider between now and Report Even though I know that they are both hugely principled, and are pursuing their cause with great sincerity, not everyone looking at what is being attempted will see it in that way. I think my noble friends are suggesting that we break our rules because Mr Speaker did not break his own when this Bill was in the other place and he was considering amendments proposed by Members of the Commons.

I am not familiar with all the detail of the goings-on in the other place, but I am aware that this Mr Speaker made a commitment when he was elected that he would be impartial and uphold the rules and conventions of the Commons. This was welcomed by that House and the Government, because it came after a very turbulent period of rules and conventions being ignored by his predecessor as Mr Speaker and by many Members of that House.

Since then, not only does the other place have a new Speaker but there has been a general election, the result of which is many new and re-elected MPs who now have the greater confidence of their electorate. The Prime Minister and the Government overlook this fact and act too often as though they are still facing the same disruptive and obstructive House of Commons pre-2019. I urge him and his ministerial team to reconsider their approach when they are engaging with the House of Commons in particular.

Even though there has been all that change down the other end of the corridor since December 2019, the House of Lords is still the same. We have not faced the electorate; we have not changed. Irrespective of what the Government think about this House, or what some noble Lords think about the Government, we have a responsibility to maintain public confidence in Parliament. Some people outside Parliament might agree with my noble friends on what they are proposing in terms of the substance on universal credit; some of them might agree with me, but what would probably unite all of them is the view that the House of Lords has no place in dictating to the House of Commons—that they elected—what its MPs should do and when.

So let us see what the Chancellor has to say tomorrow, but whatever action he takes, I really hope that my noble friends, whom I am fond of as well as have huge respect for, will not return on Report with a similar amendment to this. Because however well-intentioned and noble their cause, we have no legitimacy engaging in this matter at this time and in this way.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

I will be very brief, given the hour. As I said, I am chair of Feeding Britain, and I would like to briefly report from the front line, so to speak, on the effect of the stopping of the £20. I totally agree with the noble Lord, Lord Freud, and the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, that this needs to be put before the other House so that there can be a vote on it.

Our experience at Feeding Britain has suggested that the £20 increase in universal credit was responsible for a drop in the number of people needing to use food banks this year—it was 17% lower than before the pandemic. Of course, we also had the school meals campaign by Marcus Rashford and various other people but, since then, in the three weeks since the increase was removed, our social supermarkets, which are affordable food projects, have started to show signs of distress.

Some of those who used to shop monthly for low-cost food, and for whom membership represented a nice insurance policy, are now there every week, if not more. Some who used to use a debit card are now using credit cards. Some of those who used to rely only on our option of low-cost food now also want help with gas and electricity. Some cannot even afford their membership fees, which are as little as £3. They are instead going without the food or having to use food banks. People are really clinging by their fingertips to avoid that nightmare scenario.

I very much agree with the noble Lord, Lord Freud, that we need skills and ways to help people try to avoid the traps that they are in, which is what our social supermarkets do. Being poor is not only an expensive thing to do in this country; it is also very hard work as you spend your life drifting from one office to another trying to find someone who can help you sort out your problems with rent, food, schools et cetera. I am very glad that this House is bringing this amendment forward, because if we do not do it, who will?