Local Housing Allowance: Homeless Young People

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2020 Westminster Hall

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered local housing allowance rates for homeless young people.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Hollobone.

Clearly, we have a severe homelessness crisis. The number of people sleeping rough on the streets of England has increased by a huge 165% since 2010, and 103,000 young people were homeless or at risk in 2017-18. In my own city of Brighton and Hove, the scandal and tragedy of homelessness is acute. Vulnerable young people are being let down, left to sleep on sofas, in hostels and on our pavements, cold, frightened and desperately unsafe.

The Minister himself has said, in answers to questions in the House, that the causes of homelessness are numerous, varied and complex. He is right. In the short time we have today, I will address the specific problems caused to vulnerable young people by the significant gap between the cost of renting in the private sector and the local housing allowance rates provided to the young people who need support.

Private renting is expensive, but because there is not enough social housing, young people are forced into the private rented sector as the only alternative to homelessness. The House of Commons Library points to evidence that in many areas, especially areas of high housing demand such as Brighton and Hove, there is a growing gap between the lowest private rents and the amount of local housing allowance. Young people in Brighton and Hove have a particularly hard time because the amount of LHA is calculated by lumping our city in with other towns in the locality where the cost of housing is much lower. The amount of housing support is therefore artificially depressed, leaving young people in an even more desperate position.

Research by the Chartered Institute of Housing illustrates the dire situation for young people. In Brighton and Hove, 30% of properties should be available at or below the LHA rate, yet LHA is so much lower than local rents that only 10% of shared properties and only 5% of one-bedroom properties are affordable. Evidence is also provided by the National Audit Office, which in 2017 concluded that housing benefit changes were contributing to an increase in homelessness.

As hon. Members know, the Government have taken some action. This April, there will be a one-off, 1.7% increase in LHA rates. That sounds positive until we look at what that means for the figures. In Brighton, young people will receive only £5 extra a month. That is a kick in the teeth for homeless young people who are already more than £140 a month short of the average rent for a room in a shared house, as I will explain. Furthermore, because the increase is a percentage, it locks in the freeze of the past four years.

To illustrate the point, the charity Centrepoint analysed the new LHA rates for 2020-21 alongside the average rental costs for the 247 local authorities where rental data are available. It found that, from April, a room in a shared house would be affordable only in three of those 247 local authority areas for those in receipt of the shared accommodation rate. Rightly and urgently, homelessness charities are calling for the local housing allowance, including the shared accommodation rate, to be set at the 30th percentile of local rents, as it was until 2012. I hope that the Minister will push the Treasury for the restoration of that link to rents.

My more specific purpose in securing today’s debate, however, is to urge the Minister to champion two other actions that will cost the Treasury relatively little, but will have a massive impact on two groups of extremely vulnerable young people. The first group to need the Minister’s help is homeless young people under the age of 25 who are ready to move on, but who are trapped in hostels because they cannot find anywhere to rent on the shared accommodation rate. In effect, therefore, they are left locked into emergency accommodation, unable to find a safe place to live and unable to move on. Moreover, in the process, they prevent those in urgent need from finding shelter at the emergency accommodation.

Young people under the age of 25 make up fully 44% of those living in supported accommodation. They end up trapped in hostels, because our welfare system is rife with age discrimination. If I am over the age of 25 and previously spent three months in a hostel, I will be given a higher local housing allowance to help me find a place to live, but if I am under 25 and in exactly the same situation, I still receive the lowest rate. Young people entering a homeless hostel at the age of 18, therefore, will have to wait as long as seven years before they benefit from the rate that would help them to move forward.

Why have the Government turned their back on vulnerable young people who so clearly need support to find a home? Young people experiencing homelessness cannot rely on the bank of mum and dad and cannot move back into the family home to save up, yet they receive the lowest minimum wage and the lowest benefit rate.

In 2018, the charity Depaul UK looked at the shared rooms available in 40 local authority areas in England where official statistics showed that a total of 225 young people were sleeping rough on a single night. Across those 40 areas, only 57 rooms were found to be available for young people at or below the shared accommodation rate. Nine of those 225 young people sleeping rough were in Brighton and Hove, but the research found literally no rooms in our city that were available within the shared accommodation rate for young people claiming benefits.

In Brighton and Hove, the shared accommodation rate for homeless young people is just £360 per month. If we search on Rightmove for shared room rooms for that amount, I promise that all we get coming up on the website are parking spaces or garages. That is shameful. The average rent of a room in a shared house is £507 a month. That is a shortfall of more than £141 a month, leaving homeless under-25s unable to move out of a hostel and find somewhere safe to live. In the Prime Minister’s local authority, from April 2020 the monthly shortfall will be more than £236 a month. In the Minister’s own area of Colchester, the shortfall, as I am sure he knows, will be £153 for a homeless young person.

The Minister may ask why young homeless people need the exemption from the shared accommodation rate when the Government have introduced some measures intended to mitigate the impacts of LHA restrictions. For example, in answer to a recent written question, the Minister replied:

“For individuals who may require more support and whose circumstances may make it difficult for them to share accommodation, Discretionary Housing Payments are available.”

I urge the Minister, however, to consider the fact that discretionary housing payments, or DHPs, are not a sustainable solution. They are supposed to be a temporary measure until a household finds more affordable accommodation. Yet for homeless young people, affordable accommodation simply does not exist, due to the reduced rate of housing benefit that they receive.

Moreover, in order to access DHPs, young people need to approach their council or MP for support in applying, and many homeless young people at crisis point may simply not have the know-how or capacity to do that. Furthermore, the state already has the information needed to make a fair decision on providing extra support without forcing someone in that position to apply for discretionary and temporary help—the information is that being homeless and living in a hostel for three months is, in itself, qualification enough for needing more support, whatever age someone is.

Centrepoint, which works daily with young people aged 16 to 24 in that position, estimates that it would cost just £3.68 million a year for the Treasury to exempt such young people from the shared accommodation rate, giving them the higher one-bedroom rate and a chance to move on. That does not even take account of the savings that would accrue from providing stability—the cost of emergency accommodation is high, as is the cost to the state and the young person of the consequences of homelessness.

I appreciate that Ministers accept the logic of providing an exemption to the SAR to people in need, because they are able to find such funding for over-25s who are experiencing homelessness. All I am asking for today is that they will find it in their hearts and budgets to help younger homeless people too.

My second specific ask of the Minister relates to that group of young people who have left care. Care leavers deserve somewhere safe to call home. Many have experienced unspeakable trauma, and surely that is the least we can provide. Again, it is shocking that the local housing allowance received by care leavers drops on their 22nd birthday, putting them at risk of eviction and homelessness. When I say “drops”, I mean it literally plummets. In Brighton and Hove, there are about 300 care leavers aged between 17 and 21. On a care leaver’s 22nd birthday, what does the state do? It takes away £330 a month. In the Prime Minister’s area, a care leaver surviving in the private sector loses a whopping £437 a month. What a birthday gift to vulnerable young people who are on their own, having faced unimaginable trauma and difficulty.

The Government’s rationale for creating such instability, difficulty and risk for 22-year-old care leavers is not at all clear. Perhaps the Minister will explain. The policy seems strongly at odds with previous Government statements. For example, in 2016, the Government rightly accepted the moral obligation to provide care leavers with the support they need, stating:

“The government is passionate about improving the lives and life chances of care leavers. Young people leaving care constitute one of the most vulnerable groups in our society, and both government and wider society have a moral obligation to give them the support they need as they make the transition to adulthood and independent living.”

I could not agree more, and I urge the Minister simply to extend that understanding until a care leaver is 25.

Homelessness charities estimate that the number of care leavers aged 22 to 24 affected by the reduction in housing support is relatively small. The cost of extending their exemption from the low shared accommodation rate until the age of 25 would be in the region of £6 million. As with the previous ask for hostel leavers, it would save the Government money overall by reducing homelessness, distress and all the personal and financial costs associated with crisis management.

To try to demonstrate the genuine need for support for care leavers until the age of 25, I would like to tell the Minister about a case from my local area. A girl in both foster care and residential care was placed with foster carers from the age of 14; as a result, she built a solid relationship with the family she was finally placed with. She has learning difficulties, so any changes to her environment or living circumstances are destabilising. To her great credit, she found a job and established a good routine in the local area, and she maintained a tenancy on a bedsit. She was able to cover the rent between the LHA one-bed rate and her weekly wage. Since turning 22, she is in receipt of the lower shared room rate of local housing allowance. That means she does not have enough to cover the cost of rent each week from earnings and benefits. She is now at risk of homelessness.

It would cost just £3.7 million a year to give vulnerable homeless young people the chance to move on, and just £6 million to continue supporting care leavers with their housing costs until they are 25. That support would save the state money overall, because stable, supported young people could fulfil their potential rather than suffer in chaos and danger. Less than £10 million to make such a huge difference to young people’s lives is not a lot to ask. Will the Minister urgently meet with the homelessness charities and MPs to work on these specific asks ahead of the Budget—the critical moment? Will he use his influence with the Chancellor to provide that relatively small amount that would make a huge difference to young people in my constituency and right across the country?

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[Will Quince]

There is no question that the Government are committed to increasing the supply of social housing. Through the affordable homes programme to March 2022, we will deliver 250,000 new homes on a wide range of tenure. We will renew the affordable homes programme, building hundreds of thousands of new homes.

It is important to stress that, since 2010, we have delivered more than 464,000 new affordable homes, including 331,800 affordable homes for rent. As I said, I am working very closely with my counterparts at MHCLG on the interaction between housing supply and housing benefit. Until that supply is addressed, local housing allowance rates will continue to play a part. That is why we have increased LHA by 1.7%, in line with CPI. Of course, the ambition is to go further, and I personally would like to see it go back up to the 30th percentile. That comes, as I think I have said in response to written parliamentary questions, to the tune of about £1 billion. It is not a cheap intervention, so we have to address the supply issue alongside it.

The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion rightly raised the broad rental market area in Brighton. That is not an easy issue to address. There are 192 broad rental market areas and 960 local housing allowance rates, so looking at them is a considerable piece of work. I am doing that work, and it is important that we do so, but it cannot be done in one financial year. Unfortunately, since there are so many of these issues in all parts of the country, there are unintended consequences. However we draw the boundaries, there are winners and losers. I understand that there is an issue in Brighton at the moment. The same is true of Blackpool and, close to my constituency in Essex, of Jaywick, Frinton and Clacton. These issues do arise. I encourage the hon. Lady to write to me with the specifics—alternatively, I would be very happy to visit—so we can look at them in more detail.

I work very closely with Centrepoint, which is a wonderful charity. I have been on several visits and I intend to do far more. We have already done a considerable piece of work in this area. I can touch on the Government’s action on homelessness and local housing allowance, although I probably do not have enough time to go into the detail I would like. There have been considerable amelioration measures, such as discretionary housing payments, which we are increasing by a further £40 million this financial year to help local authorities support people where local housing allowance is not sufficient. Over the past three years we have also had targeted affordability funding; as I understand it, in the last financial year, that increased about 45% of shared accommodation rates by 3%. Nevertheless, I would like us to go further, and I think the steps we have taken to increase rates by CPI will make a difference.

The hon. Lady referred specifically to care leavers. We know that people leaving the care system can be particularly at risk of homelessness. We have provided £3.2 million per annum to 47 local authorities with the highest number of care leavers at risk of homelessness. That has led to a number of innovative ideas to support those leaving the care system into safe, secure and long-term housing. However, I understand the case put by Centrepoint, the hon. Lady and others about the rate. She suggested two items that would cost a little under £10 million. That is still a significant sum and would require Treasury approval. She may have got the impression that she is pushing against a half-open door. I am very sympathetic to that view, including in relation to those who have experience of homelessness. She asked me to commit to meeting charities and Members with specific interests in this area. I would of course be delighted to. Actually, I think a number of those meetings are already in train, but I will of course continue to do that.

On the shared accommodation rate, our approach is based broadly on the principle that young single people in the private rented sector should have their housing benefit limited to the rate appropriate for shared accommodation, but the hon. Lady rightly made the point that there are exceptional circumstances and there need to be exceptions to policy. We already have a number of exceptions, as she pointed out, but where there are opportunities for us to go further and there is a clear evidence base for doing so, of course we will look at that.

An obvious example of other interventions is the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, which has enabled us to make great strides in the support that we can give to young people in particular. Many of them would not have been eligible under the previous system of priority need but now will be eligible on the basis of the duty to refer. The Act is making a huge difference, and I have no doubt that the hon. Lady knows that from speaking to her local authority, as I do to mine. We must ensure, through the MHCLG, that it is suitably resourced, but we know it is making a difference, including to young people. Importantly, the Act also places a duty on public bodies, including children’s services, youth offending institutions and youth offending teams, to ensure better partnership working. That is really important for ensuring that young people get the wraparound support they need.

The MHCLG is the lead on broader Government action on homelessness, but we very much support its efforts. The Government are committed to tackling homelessness and rough sleeping. As the hon. Lady will know, we committed in our manifesto to end rough sleeping by the end of this Parliament and to fully enforce the Homelessness Reduction Act.

There are a number of issues, including local housing allowance rates, that I would love to cover in more depth. As the hon. Lady rightly pointed out, we have an opportunity ahead of the fiscal event—the Budget—on 11 March to look at housing in the round. We are having conversations with the MHCLG and the Treasury to see how we can look at supply and the way that investment in supply—in particular supply of affordable homes and homes for social rent—would interact with our housing benefit bill. It pains me that we spend around 30% of our housing benefit bill on the private rented sector. It pains me even more that, because of LHA rates and other demand and supply issues, a percentage of that—I do not have a figure, but there is research to be done there—is spent on housing that I do not believe is of a standard that the taxpayer and the Government should fund or invest in.

In conclusion, I would be very happy indeed to work with the hon. Lady—

[Caroline Lucas]

Will the Minister give way?

[Will Quince]

Of course.

[Caroline Lucas]

I really appreciate the Minister’s response, and I would very much like to take him up on his offer of meeting him and his officials. I know that he is broadly on side. He pointed to supply, which is very important—we need more affordable housing, particularly for rent—but we also need immediate action. As he knows, discretionary payments are not a sustainable solution. They are for moments of crisis; they are not for an ongoing payment situation. Right now, there are not any mitigating circumstances for the particular groups that I and Centrepoint have identified, so I urge him again to take up those cases.

[Will Quince]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. As a Department, we set no timeframe or parameters for how long discretionary housing payments are available. We leave that up to local authorities. However, I very much take her point, and I thank her for the constructive way in which she has put the case for those two groups. There is a strong argument there, and I will have to take it away and work it up with officials, including by having conversations with Centrepoint and others.

We are committed to providing a strong safety net for those who need it. That is why we continue to spend more than £95 billion a year on working-age benefits, including around £23 billion to help people with their housing costs. We are meeting our manifesto commitment to end the benefit freeze and the freeze on local housing allowance rates. I hope the hon. Lady has got a sense of my passion on this issue and my desire to go further. That is why, as I have said a couple of times, work is under way between my Department and the MHCLG. Where there are opportunities to bring in Members from across the House and charities—charities have some really good ideas and quite reasonable requests of Government in this area, with strong cases—I am very happy to work with them.

Question put and agreed to.

Department for Education

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Tuesday 26th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Meg Hillier]

I am going to move on, in particular, to the issue of capital funding where sometimes reserves are built up for capital funding purposes.

Looking at what is happening in schools, I really want to give the lie to the argument that more money is going into schools than ever before. The Government say that, and we can look at it in cash terms, but we need to look at it in terms of per-pupil funding. The Department is estimating that over the 2015 spending review period, pupil numbers will rise by 3.9%, or 174,000, for primary school pupils and 10.3%, or 284,000 for secondary school pupils. Therefore, funding per pupil will, on average, rise only from £5,447 in 2015-16 to £5,519 in 2019-20—next year. That is a real-terms reduction once inflation is taken into account.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

The hon. Lady is making a very powerful case. Does she agree that these cuts are often hurting the most vulnerable people most? Headteachers in my constituency are really concerned about teaching for special educational needs, with heartbreaking stories about schools having to lose their SEN teachers because they simply cannot afford them any more. These cuts really are having massive effects on individuals as well.

[Meg Hillier]

The hon. Lady raises a significant point. In my own constituency, since 2011, special educational needs provision has been backed up by the local authority through other funds that are now being squeezed because of the other funding caps.

The other point I would make very firmly to the Secretary of State is that so much of what happens in our schools is not just reliant on the Department for Education. If there are cuts in other parts of government or reductions in spending, there is a real squeeze where schools are sometimes expected to fill the gap but without the funding. This needs to be looked at in the round. We on the Committee are repeatedly concerned about what we call cost-shunting, where a saving is made in one area but the costs fall on another. A teacher or a headteacher with children in front of them in a classroom has to deal with the reality of that, and they do so very ably but often with great difficulty.

It is not just the Public Accounts Committee or the National Audit Office that is concerned about per-pupil funding. In 2018, only last year, the Institute for Fiscal Studies concluded:

“Between 2009-10 and 2017-18, total school spending per pupil in England fell by about 8% in real terms”.

In October last year, the UK Statistics Authority wrote to the DFE complaining about its misleading use of statistics on school funding. So I hope that we have nailed the lie about the funding. We need to acknowledge where we are and then we can have a debate about how much we should be funding our schools by.

In the time I have got—I do not want to take up colleagues’ time because I know that they have prepared hard for this debate—I want to touch on capital funding. I congratulate the Department and the permanent secretary on undertaking a stock conditions survey of the school estate. This is the first time that that has properly happened. It is quite shocking, really, that Governments, over time, have not done this. It is quite challenging because schools are under different ownerships. It is a good and welcome step, but of course, as the Secretary of State will know, it will throw up many issues for him. Some 60% of the school estate was built before 1976, which underlines, for those of us thinking of the schools in our constituencies, the amount of work involved. The National Audit Office estimates that £6.7 billion is needed to return all school buildings to satisfactory or better condition. They are not all to be fantastic and “all singing, all dancing” but just to be satisfactory or, in some cases, better. In 2015-16—the beginning of the spending review period—the DFE allocated £4.5 billion to capital funding, about half of which was spent on creating new school places. So there is a significant shortfall in what is needed and the amount of money that is being spent, and that has an ongoing impact.

Then there is the free schools agenda, where the Secretary of State is wedded to his manifesto commitment of 500 new free schools by 2020 from the 2017 base. I think that there will be just over 850 if that target is reached. We are concerned that those buildings are often not the best. Asbestos surveys are not often done. Local government treasurers tell me that they know of buildings in their own areas that have been sold at well over the odds. It is as though people see a blank cheque when the Government come along with their cheque book for a free school site: the price goes up. That is not good value for money, and it really does need looking at. I do not think that even those most wedded to the free schools principle would want to see money wasted. In my own constituency, where many secondary schools were rebuilt under the academies programme and we have fantastic buildings, it breaks my heart to see new schools opening in inadequate buildings without sports facilities, without proper access, and often with very little in the way of playground facilities. I do not have to time to go into all that, but I recommend to the Department the reports we have done on this, because it is a very big concern.

The biggest concern for me on capital funding is about asbestos. I have a very strong constituency link here. I have a constituent, Lucie Stephens, whose mother was a primary schoolteacher for 30 years and died from mesothelioma—the cancer that comes from exposure to asbestos. She should have been enjoying her retirement now, but instead she is not because she caught this disease from working in a school that had asbestos in it. We looked at this on the Public Accounts Committee. The Department for Education has reported that over 80% of the schools that have now responded to its survey have asbestos. It has estimated that it would cost at least £100 billion to replace the entire school estate—the only way, really, to eradicate asbestos from our school buildings—but in January this year, we found that nearly a quarter of schools had still not provided the information that the Department needs to understand the extent of asbestos in school buildings and how the risks will be managed. Three times now, the Department has had to go back with a different deadline to get those schools responding. The last deadline was 15 February—just over a week ago. Does the Minister have an update on that? We have suggested that it is perhaps time to name and shame those schools. I do not say that lightly, but it is a very serious issue for those concerned.

My big concern is that there is no real incentive for schools to acknowledge their asbestos and get the expensive surveys done without some understanding of where the money will then come from to resolve it. It is not something that will be urgent in every school, and some schools will last a bit longer without it. Clearly, there needs to be a long-term plan and everyone needs to know what it is. There must be a clear plan from central Government with a pot of funding that schools can bid for. As we have heard, reserves and capital funding are very squeezed—squeezed to nothing in many cases, and certainly not enough to pay for asbestos removal or for a new school building. I urge the Secretary of State to be the one who finally upgrades our school buildings so that they are all as good as those in my constituency and the one who does not allow bad free schools to open.

As I said, there are many other issues that many colleagues in all parts of the House will be raising—everything from early years through to higher education—and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response. There is a real issue about how we debate school funding, particularly in how we talk about the numbers. We need to make sure that we are actually talking about the same numbers, and then we can move on to a discussion about policy. Unless we get the maths right, we are talking at cross-purposes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I thank the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) for bringing forward this incredibly important debate. I want to emphasise and add my voice to the concerns that many Members on both sides of the House have raised about the financial pressures facing so many of our schools.

The reason I wanted to take part in this debate is that schools in my constituency are literally at desperation point—and we know why. Mainstream schools have seen their general budgets savaged by 8% real-terms cuts since 2010. So when Ministers say that they are spending more, we know that that is not true, per pupil in real terms. In fact, it is a thinly veiled attempt to gloss over very real, serious and damaging cuts. That is demonstrated by the stark results of a recent survey of approximately 2,000 headteachers. One of the questions put to them was, “Do you trust what the Department for Education says about overall school budgets and the financial situation of your school?” Shockingly, fewer than 1% gave the answer, “I trust what the DFE says about school budgets.” Ministers cannot ignore that, or the other shocking results such as 80% reporting that teachers in their schools were contributing their own money to buy resources for their pupils to use. In addition, 86% said that recruitment and retention of teachers is getting harder, and 87% disagreed with the statement, “Any additional revenue or cash received in the financial year 2018-19 has been greater than additional costs in the same period.”

All that evidence and those abstract figures are borne out by the reality in our schools up and down the country. Headteachers in Brighton are writing to me in desperate terms. They face sleepless nights because of the impact of the funding crisis on their ability to support pupils, particularly those with complex needs. Schools have to manage delayed education, health and care plans, as well as crippling pressures on local authority budgets. The LGA has identified a potential £1.6 billion deficit for special needs education, and yet the Government have responded with an inadequate £350 million. Head- teachers say that that is too little too late and does not even cover local authority high needs shortfalls, which simply exacerbate the problems with mainstream SEND.

For example, teachers in my constituency say that the very successful Every Child a Reader scheme for SEND children can no longer be funded because their schools simply do not have the money. I have had so many letters saying that schools are having to drop crucial counsellor services and so on. There is real concern. I am grateful that the Secretary of State has said that he will meet a delegation from Brighton to discuss this issue, but it goes right across the country.

In the short time I have, I want to say a few words about sixth-form funding. There are so many areas of concern in education funding, but the pressures on post-16 funding are huge. I have two fantastic sixth-form colleges in my constituency—Brighton Hove and Sussex Sixth-form College, or BHASVIC, and Varndean—and an amazing FE college, the MET. They all feel massively under pressure because they do not have enough funding. Those concerns are, again, backed up by the statistics. London Economics found that in real terms, sixth-form colleges received £1,380 less per student in 2016-17 than in 2010-11. That is a 22% decline in funding. The IFS was also clear, saying that funding per student aged 16 to 18 has seen the “biggest squeeze” at all stages of education for young people in recent years.

At the same time, costs have risen. Students’ needs have become more complex, and the Government are asking more of schools and colleges. The purchasing power of sixth-form funding has been greatly diminished as a result. A recent funding impact survey by the Sixth Form Colleges Association makes shocking reading. It found that 50% of schools and colleges have dropped courses in modern foreign languages as a result of funding pressures; 34% have dropped STEM courses; a huge 67% have reduced student support services or extracurricular activities, with significant cuts to mental health support, employability skills and careers advice; and 77% are teaching students in larger class sizes.

The only way to address the funding crisis in 16-to-18 education is to raise the rate paid per student. Sixth forms can respond to the Treasury’s “something for something” mantra. An increase to the funding rate of at least £760 per student would have specific outcomes. It is the amount needed to provide student support services at the required level, to protect subjects at risk of being dropped, such as modern foreign languages, and to increase vital extracurricular activities such as work experience and university visits. I will conclude by echoing what others have said: these cuts are hugely counter- productive because they mount up and will mean bigger cuts in the future.

Universal Credit Roll-out

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 18th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

I have given way numerous time already, probably a multiple of the number of times the shadow Secretary of State gave way. I do not want the House to miss this point: universal credit represents a generation-changing culture shift in how welfare is delivered and how people are helped, creating a system that allows people to break free from dependency, take control of their lives and move into work. Our analysis shows that 250,000 more people will be in employment as a result of universal credit when it is fully rolled out. Universal credit is picking up from a deeply flawed system and striving to solve problems that were previously thought unsolvable.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

If the Secretary of State’s intention really is not to cause hardship and distress, why will he not get rid of that automatic six-week wait? Many people still do not know about it. Many do not know to go to their MP to seek solutions. Get rid of it. What he is talking about is a loan, which has to be paid back over six months and which many people are not eligible for. The point is that the way the system is designed is making people fall into hardship, and it is deliberate. It is not an accident. It is absolutely an integral part of the design. Change it.

[Mr Gauke]

I will come back to the six-week period.

We have to remember that we have inherited an old system, in which complexity and bureaucracy often served to stifle the independence, limit the choices and constrain the outlook of its claimants. The disincentives in the legacy system to work or earn more have been removed, along with the complex hours rules and cliff edges.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I apologise, but I am about to conclude.

Universal credit is the single biggest change to the welfare system. Those who care about it know that it is capable of dramatically changing lives for the better. My party should be proud of it. I will therefore not support the motion because it intends to stop the roll-out and damage universal credit for short-term political reasons. We should resist that, ask the Secretary of State to make the changes, but not stall the roll-out because universal credit changes lives and delivers an improved quality of life to thousands of people.

[Caroline Lucas]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I hear that political journalists are tweeting that the Government do not plan to take part in the vote later. That would be a show of contempt for the Chamber and our constituents throughout the country. Is there nothing you can do to prevent the Government from opting out of the Chamber’s democratic procedures?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

The tweets of political journalists are certainly not a matter for the Chair. I class that as rumour, which is not a matter for the Chair. What the Government decide to do is a matter for them, but we have several hours of debate ahead. That is the important point for the Chamber to note.

Universal Basic Income

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 14th September 2016 Westminster Hall

[Ronnie Cowan]

I take on board the hon. Lady’s comments. My concern about that idea is that it would entail a change to just one aspect of what we are trying to achieve. It is a very important aspect of what we are trying to achieve, but it would not fulfil the requirements of everybody who relies on welfare.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. A basic income has long been Green party policy, so I am very glad to hear him talk of it. Does he agree that as well as making the very strong case that he is making for a basic income on the grounds that our welfare system is not working, there is also a case to be made for it on the grounds that increasing automation will create a huge revolution in the way that work is done? There are estimates that by 2025 we could be losing a third of the jobs in the UK retail sector. For that reason too, we need to look outside the box and explore this idea in a lot more detail.

[Ronnie Cowan]

Yes, we are going there. I believe that it is called the “gig economy”, in which people share jobs and try to find a better work-life balance. People do not want to have to put in all those hours of work in simply to make money if it is not within them that they want to spend all that money. That chasing of the capitalist dream is hopefully something that is confined to the past.

If we genuinely want to create a more effective system of state support, we need to be prepared to address the difficult questions. Part of the challenge will be to bring together the patchwork of individuals and organisations that have expressed an interest in pushing forward the UBI agenda. Groups such as Citizen’s Basic Income Network Scotland and the Citizen’s Income Trust have helped me to outline what options are open to us in defining a basic income.

It is argued that the benefits of introducing a basic income include: reducing poverty and boosting employment; providing a safety net from which no citizen will be excluded; and creating a platform upon which all people are able to build their lives. More generally, it could be argued that a basic income would bring about increased social cohesion and mark the end of incentives that discourage work and saving.

In the time available to me today, I can only touch on the wide range of questions that will need to be answered in order to implement such a scheme. Who will be eligible for basic income? What will be the rate of payment? Over what timeframe will it be implemented? Most important, can the affordability of such a scheme be demonstrated? Having clear answers to these questions is vital, but that will not be enough; we will also need the political will to make changes.

The Irish Government published a Green Paper on a basic income as far back as 2002. It concluded that a basic income would have a substantial positive impact on the distribution of income in Ireland and would reduce poverty in a more effective way than the existing welfare system, but 14 years later the concept has not managed to evolve into a fully formed Government policy.

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[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Davies. I warmly congratulate the hon. Member for Inverclyde (Ronnie Cowan) on securing this important debate. I want to raise three particular areas that I think we should examine, given that the conditions of the 21st century demand that we investigate basic income in more detail.

First, as the hon. Gentleman powerfully set out, our social security system is no longer fit for purpose and requires fundamental reform. Through my constituency surgeries, I see at first hand just how badly the system is failing. The combined impact of bureaucratic complexity and a brutal, punitive sanctions regime that almost seems designed to humiliate those that need help the most can be absolutely catastrophic for vulnerable families and individuals. We simply cannot go on tinkering with a model of social security that was designed to meet the economic and social conditions of the 1950s. However, it is absolutely crucial that any move to a basic income protects and increases the income of the poorest and those who are unable to work on account of disability. A universal payment for all must not undermine additional help for those who need it most.

Secondly, fundamental changes to our economy and labour market are working together to make work itself increasingly precarious. Well-paid jobs on permanent contracts have dwindled, while short-term, zero-hours contracts and bogus self-employment are rife. Alongside a genuine national living wage, a basic income would provide a vital buffer against this new age of insecurity and an escape route for those caught in the trap between a complex, punitive and quite simply outdated social security system and low-paid, insecure and all too often exploitative employment.

Thirdly, a basic income would give people more control over their working, caring and personal lives. That is especially important for women, who despite the growing number of stay-at-home fathers continue to do most of the heavy lifting of child and elder care without payment, but it is also about having the opportunity to contribute more time and effort to our local communities by doing things we might simply want to do. There is far more work that needs to be done than that which is simply parcelled up into what we call jobs. We only have to look around our local communities to see railings that need painting, older people who need visiting and allotments that people would love to tend, but we cannot necessarily do many of those things—they are in some ways important economic activities—because right now we are penalised for doing so.

We must not get carried away—basic income must not be seen as some kind of panacea for all our problems, but it could play a key part in rebalancing towards more satisfying lives and a more sustainable economy. I very much welcome today’s debate, and the growing interest across the political spectrum in an idea that my party has fought for over many years. It is heartening to see the invaluable work being done by groups such as Compass, the Royal Society of Arts, the Fabians and the Institute for Public Policy Research, as well as by long-standing advocates such as the Citizen’s Income Trust. It is refreshing to hear Members from other political parties talk positively about an idea that treats people on the basis of the best in them, not the worst.

We do not have all the answers yet—of course not. Getting to a meaningful basic income from where we are now presents major challenges. I think 34 MPs signed my cross-party early-day motion, which calls on the Government to fund and commission further research into the various basic income models, looking at their feasibility and how the challenge of moving to a basic income might be met. I hope that we can build on that number and that between us we can generate universal support for an idea whose time has definitely come.

I point to the progress being made in other countries. In Finland, the coalition Government have announced a €20 million experiment that will test two or possibly three basic income models over the next two years, involving up to 180,000 citizens. Green councillors in the Dutch city of Utrecht are also planning a basic income pilot, as is the Canadian province of Ontario. In New Zealand, the opposition Labour party is actively considering basic income as a means to combat the possibility of higher structural unemployment. In a sense, the UK would just be catching up by doing its own research into this. I mentioned a whole range of different independent organisations that are doing research, but it would be most helpful if the Government commissioned some research and did some pilots of their own. A lot of the figures that we need to investigate on how best to make this a serious policy proposal are figures that the Government have but the rest of us do not. I make a plea to the Minister to look seriously at this proposal and to use some of the resources at his disposal to invest in a pilot and some more research, because I genuinely think this is an idea whose time has come.

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[Damian Hinds]

I am grateful for the clarification.

A universal basic income or similar systems that guarantee a minimum income to all have been debated and discussed at some length across the world. This debate has been stimulating and important, and discussing UBI and similar concepts, such as the negative income tax, which was a popular subject for academic debate before UBI, is an engaging activity. Any system that promises protection and, to quote the recent report from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Compass,

“freedom of choice for individuals between work and leisure”

is bound to sound appealing. It is difficult to argue with a utopian system that enables individuals to choose whether to work or to engage in leisure activities, alongside all the other valuable things that people do, such as voluntary work and caring.

However, as the Compass report suggested, the big issue with UBI is not whether it is desirable but whether it feasible. Would it be affordable, and could it be introduced in a way that prevented losses among the poorest sections in society? The hon. Member for Inverclyde said we should not turn our back on laudable aims. I could not agree more, but laudable aims are not enough. When Jack Kennedy said he wanted to put a man on the moon, he knew that just willing it would not make it happen. It had to be technically feasible.

The Citizen’s Income Trust, which the hon. Gentleman cited, and the RSA claim to have developed cost-neutral models for a scheme, but less highlighted is the fact that they could do so only by collecting huge amounts of additional tax. I can confirm that that is not everybody’s definition of cost-neutral. As the JRF and Compass report found, the additional tax revenue required to deliver a sustainable UBI would be as much as £160 billion. Such a system is clearly unaffordable, even if we assume that the introduction of a UBI would not affect individual behaviour in the labour market and that nobody would give up paid work as a result of its introduction. That assumption, of course, goes against common sense. It goes against trials that have happened in other countries, which have been referred to, and the principles of this Government and all recent Governments that I know of.

[Caroline Lucas]

I have got the Compass figures in front of me. The report says that the net cost of the hybrid model that Compass proposes would be about £8 billion a year. That is a significant sum, to be sure, but it is not impossible if we are talking about a revolution in the way that work is organised. The problem with many of the contributions this afternoon is that it has been assumed that we go on as we are now and suddenly graft a citizens’ income on top of it. I think the way work is going to look in the future will be very different; therefore we need to look at bolder ideas.

[Damian Hinds]

I think the hon. Lady has the relevant page in front of her; I do not, but I have it nearby. From memory, if she casts her eye about three lines further up above the £8.2 billion figure, she will find another figure for what the impact on income tax will be. That is where the total effect, which is so much greater, is laid out.

DWP Data

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Tuesday 21st July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend, from his time on the Select Committee, knows the significance of such information. He is absolutely right, and we should not make assumptions about such data.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

Does the Minister recognise that accusing Opposition Members of scaremongering is hugely insulting to those constituents who have contacted us because they are deeply worried about this matter? Does she recognise that, to them, it looks as though the Government are hiding this information, reinforcing concerns that this is a punitive regime designed to hurt people who are disabled? The Government have already rushed out 17 written ministerial statements today, the last day that the House sits before the recess. Why will the Minister not add a statement on this matter?

[Priti Patel]

Contrary to the hon. Lady’s point, we will be the first to publish this information. I say again for the record—not for the second, third or even the fourth time—the data are coming. They will be published, and we have nothing to hide.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Monday 20th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I have already given way to the hon. Gentleman, so I will make some progress. He is more than welcome to try to intervene later, but I want to move on to the next aspect of the Bill. I stand by the fact that the cap will now be more likely to be equal. It will not be absolutely equal because there are variable incomes, as he knows.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I will give way to the hon. Lady, because I have not yet done so.

[Caroline Lucas]

On the level of the cap, the cost of living for my constituents is very similar to that in London, yet they will have to make do with a much lower cap. Moreover, the Bill will allow the Secretary of State to reduce the cap over time without having to come back to Parliament to seek any kind of agreement. Why is he essentially playing politics with poverty?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The hon. Lady’s question is rather mixed; I thought that she was asking me to impose an even stricter cap on her constituency, with a lower level. The reality is that none of this is absolutely perfect, but we believe that it will reset the balance, which is better than just leaving a single figure at a lower level and making London suffer more than the rest.

As the Chancellor set out in the Budget, the benefits system has to be put on a more sustainable footing, but in a way that protects the most vulnerable. That brings me to the second principle of the Bill, which is sustainability. In 1980 working-age welfare accounted for 8% of all public spending, but by 2010 it had risen to nearly 13%, which is over £200 billion, or almost £8,000 for every household. Nine in 10 families with children were eligible for tax credits when we came into government. It is clear from what we heard last week that many Opposition Members have still not learnt anything from some of the mistakes made during Labour’s 13 years in government. They have not weaned themselves off the addiction to paying for more and more debt with somebody else’s money. They are still not credible when it comes to managing the public finances.

As a result of our reforms, five in 10 families with children will be eligible for tax credits, bringing greater balance to the welfare budget. However, it is also clear in the Bill that we have been careful to ensure that the changes are fair. We are protecting the most vulnerable in society, including the elderly and disabled. Where possible, we are introducing changes only for new claimants so that those who have planned on the basis of what is currently available are not affected.

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[Stephen Timms]

There do need to be some safeguards in place, as I have been spelling out. Indeed, the Government themselves have recognised the need for a fund to protect people in exceptional circumstances. We welcome the extra £150 million for the fund for discretionary housing payments to help mitigate the worst impacts, but it will not be enough. Many local authorities have already exhausted their funds, which are vital in preventing those affected from becoming homeless. With the cap now lower, there will be more demand for discretionary help. We will therefore want to amend the Bill to require the Social Security Advisory Committee to review the funding for discretionary housing payments each year to make sure that sufficient resources are available.

[Caroline Lucas]

The right hon. Gentleman has talked a lot about child poverty. The benefit cap, according to the Government’s own figures, will push a further 40,000 extra children into poverty, yet he is talking about some amendments around the edges. Will he explain how much extra child poverty is acceptable to Labour Front Benchers?

[Stephen Timms]

As the hon. Lady well knows, the big impact on child poverty will come from the huge cuts in working tax credits and other changes not in this Bill but elsewhere. I hope that she will join us in fighting very strongly against those changes when the House has the chance to do so.

Child Poverty

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I am happy to work with my hon. Friend on this. I agree with her about poor health outcomes, which often involve mental health issues. Some of those are swept up within the work that we are already doing. We will bring forward further proposals on how we can improve outcomes for people with mental health conditions by getting them to treatment much quicker. I am happy to discuss those matters, in line with the areas that I spoke about earlier.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

In a recent answer to me, the Secretary of State admitted that the proportion of the social security budget spent on 18 to 21-year-olds on jobseeker’s allowance in receipt of housing benefit is just 0.1%. When he enacts his nasty and punitive policy to remove that entitlement, what will happen to those people and their 2,400 dependent children? Does he simply not care that they are going to be thrown into greater poverty and homelessness?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

No. All those young people will always be supported by this Government. We are talking about getting the balance right between those who need support and can be supported by their families and those who have genuine and serious long-term difficulties. Part of the process I have announced today is to identify those families earlier. Universal credit helps enormously in identifying the families with debt problems, housing problems, and drug and alcohol problems. Getting to them and dealing with those problems is far better than the tokenism that the hon. Lady seems to be involved in.

Child Poverty

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Thursday 25th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Indeed I do. My hon. Friend—whom I welcome to the House—is exactly right. We must work harder to ensure that the circumstances of families with deep-rooted and deep-seated problems are turned around, and that they can obtain work and become independent, rather than depending on what the Government do.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

When the Secretary of State received the confidential Government assessment marked “sensitive”, which warned him that reducing the benefit cap could plunge up to 40,000 more children into poverty, did he stop to think about the consequences, or is he sticking to his insulting idea that people want to be on benefits, despite the reality that most people want to work but the decently paid work they need simply is not there?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I have never believed that people want to be on benefits; I actually believe the vast majority of people on benefits want to do something about that and change their lives. Everything I do is about trying to do that: every policy we have is aimed at getting the economy right and helping people get back into work.

Housing Benefit (Abolition of Social Sector Size Criteria)

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 17th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

My hon. Friend tabled a motion to exempt the 60,000 carers affected by the bedroom tax, but the Government blocked it, which was an unwise and disappointing decision.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

The hon. Lady is making a powerful case. Does she agree that as well as being cruel and unfair the policy is simply not working on its own terms, because the properties are not there? In Brighton, 88% of those affected have not been able to move because there is nowhere for them to move to. Four hundred households are in arrears, and in over half of those homes there are people with disabilities.

[Rachel Reeves]

I shall come on to statistics for one local authority to make exactly the same point.

Jobs and Work

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 11th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Umunna]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I was not aware of that, but I am sure the Business Secretary has heard what he said and will no doubt ensure that his Department looks into those two firms.

We have to build on the national minimum wage. Many Members, for example my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery), have argued for us to do so. It is currently £6.31 and is due to increase to £6.50 in October, but that is just 53% of median hourly earnings. We want to set—this in part relates to the point raised by the hon. Member for Dover—a more stretching target for the minimum wage for each Parliament, within the Low Pay Commission framework, to increase it faster than average earnings, while retaining capacity to take account of shocks to the economy. We would also give local authorities new powers of inspection and enforcement of the minimum wage, alongside central Government, to ensure it is enforced properly. We would also increase fines for non-payment to £50,000.

A number of measures are contained in the small business, enterprise and employment Bill. We are told, among other things, that the Bill will strengthen UK employment law by tackling national minimum wage abuses. It does not appear, however, that the Government will come close to matching our commitments to strengthen the national minimum wage. There will be no stretching target, no enhanced role for local authorities and much lower fines than we envisage. We will be pushing the Government to adopt our package during the passage of the Bill.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I am glad to hear that the hon. Gentleman is talking about moving towards something that might eventually look like a national living wage. He will recall that it was the Greens on the London Assembly who made the Living Wage Commission a possibility. Will he also consider, as inequality is such a major issue, maximum pay ratios between the highest and lowest paid in companies?

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[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I have tabled a reasoned amendment to the Gracious Speech because I do not believe that the legislative programme set out for this Session of Parliament puts us on track to either a stable economy or a fairer society, or for that matter a world of better quality jobs. That amendment calls for fair pay for work through a national living wage and maximum pay ratios. It calls for an end to the privatisation of public services and much else besides, but the focus of my comments today will be on the Infrastructure Bill, because one of the main benefits of that Bill is supposed to be job creation.

Of course we need more jobs, but high-carbon investment in new roads and shale gas is not the way to deliver that. There are far more job opportunities in a zero-carbon economy than in the fossil-fuelled economy that it replaces. Indeed, there are already more jobs in the green economy than in the motor and telecom sectors combined. The renewable energy industry in the UK today is a case in point, and supports over 100,000 jobs. That is not a fantasy, eyebrow-raising assumption. It is what we have today: actual jobs all across the UK—and that is without even taking into account future potential.

In 2013 approximately 14,000 full-time jobs were associated with the nation’s solar PV sector alone. That is pretty impressive, especially given that there were an estimated 10,000 job losses in the solar industry as a direct result of the coalition’s cack-handed cuts to feed-in tariffs. These losses have been partially offset by continued job creation in the wind industry: again, many of these will be despite anti-jobs, anti-investment policies from the coalition.

Solar is the most popular energy technology in the UK. Solar PV is also a way for individuals and communities to generate their own clean power, reducing dependence on the big six energy companies, and cutting energy bills. In April this year, two schools in Brighton switched on their solar panels.

[Mr Thomas]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Caroline Lucas]

I am sorry, but there is not time.

As I was saying, in April this year two schools in Brighton switched on their solar panels, while Brighton Energy Cooperative is in the process of raising funds from local people for its fifth large PV system. Yet the Government are now cutting support for large-scale solar, harming jobs and denying communities the opportunity to generate their own power from solar farms in the future.

Commenting on the UK slipping down the ranks of the renewable energy country attractiveness index for the second time in a row, to sixth place, Ernst and Young’s head of environmental finance says:

“Policy tinkering and conflicting signals once again become too much for investors and developers to handle.”

In other words, this Government’s policies are anti-jobs and anti-business, as well as anti-safe as far as the climate for our children and grandchildren is concerned.

The “global race” we hear so much about is getting more competitive. By early 2013, 138 countries had renewable energy targets. This Government are blocking such targets. Some 20 countries had renewable heating and cooling targets, too; we do not. Compared with other countries’ industrial strategies and coherent policy and incentive frameworks for home-grown renewables, the UK is looking pretty poor.

So what sort of policies would we be seeing if we had a pro-jobs Government who were serious about these opportunities and willing to stand up to the vested interests of the fossil-fuel industry, whose business plans are incompatible with a safe climate? We would see the confirming and strengthening of the fourth carbon budget. We would see the ditching of the irrational crusade against a binding 2030 renewable energy target. We would be giving the green investment bank powers to borrow now in order to leverage in the large proportion of private sector investment that is needed for the UK’s low-carbon economy to flourish. And we would be redirecting at least some of the billons of fossil fuel subsidies into renewable energy. We need a just transition—I particularly welcome the work that many unions have been doing on exactly how we will re-skill workers currently employed in high-carbon sectors—but it needs to happen fast. The point I want to illustrate is that the supposed conflict between tackling climate change and creating jobs is simply a political construct that suits incumbent fossil-fuel interests and very few others.

With thousands of people dying every winter because they cannot afford to heat their homes, energy-efficiency should be the No. 1 infrastructure priority for the UK. Hundreds of Brighton residents have written to me in support of the Energy Bill Revolution campaign, which calls for the Treasury to recycle carbon taxes into a national programme of energy-efficiency to ensure that homes need much less energy to heat, so that we have lower bills, carbon savings and, significantly, huge job-creation potential. We could add to that list NHS savings and, fundamentally, an end to people dying prematurely of the cold in winter. A report by Cambridge Econometrics last year found that a nationwide programme to super-insulate 600,000 UK homes a year would create more jobs than any alternative investment or tax break the UK could possibly put in place. So, this Gracious Speech is going in the wrong direction in terms of the economy, the environment and, crucially, jobs.