Oral Answers to Questions

Cat Smith Excerpts

Monday 13th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

My right hon. Friend is, as always, absolutely right. We must have a system that targets the most vulnerable in society, and it must also be fair to the taxpayer, because that is part of what underpins the confidence that the public have in our welfare state—and that is worth preserving.

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

T5. During the time for which the ombudsman’s report has been ongoing, 270,000 WASPI women have already passed away. How many more 1950s-born women in Lancashire will die before the Government finally act on the report’s recommendations?

[Mel Stride]

I have already replied to questions on that matter in this session. To reiterate, we are looking extremely carefully at what is a very complex report. It took the ombudsman five years or thereabouts to compile, and there will be no undue delay in our responding to it.

Carer’s Allowance

Cat Smith Excerpts

Monday 22nd April 2024 Westminster Hall

[Christina Rees (Neath) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 640062 relating to Carer’s Allowance.

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chair-personship, Ms Elliott. The petition was started by Alasdair Adam and has 13,914 signatures. It asks the Government to increase carer’s allowance to 35 hours a week at the minimum wage, and specifically to increase the amount of carer’s allowance to match pay for a full-time job. Unpaid carers eligible for carer’s allowance receive £76.75 a week to provide at least 35 hours of care to people in receipt of certain benefits, which is almost £300 less than what someone earning the national living wage would be entitled to. Many unpaid carers must give up work to provide care, and being a carer can also have a significant impact on wellbeing and lifestyle.

The Government responded:

“Carer’s Allowance is a benefit that provides some financial recognition that a carer may not be able to work full-time. It is part of a range of support based on individual needs, rather than a wage. The Government fully recognises the invaluable contribution that unpaid and family carers make in providing significant care and continuity of support to their loved ones. Unpaid carers play a vital role in the lives of their family and friends—and since 2010 we have increased Carer’s Allowance by almost £1200 a year.”

It is my honour to present this petition to highlight a grave concern that weighs heavily on the hearts of many across our nation. The inadequacy of carer’s allowance in the UK is a concern that affects the very fabric of our society. In a society that prides itself on compassion and support for those in need, it is disheartening to witness the struggles endured by countless caregivers who selflessly dedicate their lives to caring for loved ones. The carer’s allowance, intended to provide financial assistance to those unsung heroes, falls drastically short of meeting their needs.

First and foremost, let us acknowledge the monumental contributions of caregivers. They are the backbone of our communities, often sacrificing their livelihoods and personal aspirations to ensure the wellbeing of others. Their existence saves the taxpayer billions of pounds every year, yet despite their invaluable role, many caregivers find themselves living on the brink of poverty due to the inadequacy of carer’s allowance. One would be forgiven for thinking that carer’s allowance is some extra money for someone who pops in to check on an elderly neighbour. In the vast majority of cases, it is paid to someone who cares round the clock for a close relative.

During my research for this speech, I heard testimony from the petitioner Alasdair, as well as from carers Jacky and Katy from the We Care Campaign, which specifically advocates for unpaid carers. All three cared for close relatives—parents, a child and a partner respectively.

Alasdair spoke about the challenges of making ends meet in circumstances that are far from black and white. His carer’s allowance often needed to go on household items and supporting his father. Living month to month means that there is no money for unexpected outgoings.

Jacky told me about caring for her 28-year-old daughter. The role is 24/7. Although she is reluctant to use external carers, she is also prevented from drawing down direct payments to top up her carer’s allowance. Jacky’s money does not match that of her daughter’s personal independence payment, so she is often left without enough money for both of them to do things such as social activities and hobbies.

Katy cares for her husband who has motor neurone disease, plus her mother and mother-in-law who both have caring needs. Katy spoke of the challenge of making ends meet, surviving only because of her husband’s PIP and a small ill health-related pension. Despite caring for three people, Katy is allowed only one carer’s allowance payment as per the rules. The current allowance barely covers the basic cost of living, let alone the additional expenses incurred during the unpredictable challenges of caring for someone with disabilities or chronic illnesses.

From medical bills to specialised equipment and everyday essentials, the financial burden on caregivers is overwhelming. Many are forced to make impossible choices between putting food on the table and accessing services. Furthermore, the eligibility criteria for carer’s allowance are unduly restrictive, leaving out a significant proportion of caregivers who are equally deserving of support. The requirement for caregivers to provide at least 35 hours of care a week effectively excludes those who juggle caregiving responsibilities with part-time employment or other commitments. That arbitrary threshold denies assistance to individuals who are in dire need of financial relief. Perhaps the Minister will explain how the 35 hours of care criteria was arrived at.

The narrative surrounding carer’s allowance is often toxic, with carers being treated as undeserving at best and criminals at worst. The recent news coverage of people being fined or charged with benefit fraud because of accidental overpayments or honest mistakes, sometimes concerning as little as a few hundred pounds, throws a spotlight on it. Such action is neither fair nor proportional. Carer’s allowance is the lowest paid benefit of its kind. Those examples say something about the value put on carers and speak of a society and its Government that simply do not value care.

Support for carers should go well beyond carer’s allowance. Stakeholders such as care charities and think-tanks have told me of diminishing support for carers during recent years, citing the lack of availability of respite care and training opportunities as examples of a crumbling support network. It is suggested that any reform should centre on providing support for carers to remain in work where possible. That would involve financial support and flexibility in how carer’s allowance is paid to avoid a threshold cliff edge. In addition, the threshold needs to be raised and tied to the periodic uprating of any minimum or living wage.

Across the UK, 600 carers a day give up work without having a choice. In December 2022, Carers UK highlighted that the earnings limit for carer’s allowance is not keeping pace with the national living wage. It stated:

“Over the last four years, the number of hours carers have been able to work alongside receiving Carer’s Allowance has shrunk from just under 15 hours a week in 2019 to roughly 13 hours and 20 minutes from…April 2023. This represents a loss of 1 hour 40 minutes a week. Over a year this amounts to a loss of 12 days of paid work.”

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

I congratulate my Petitions Committee colleague on presenting the petition so clearly. She talked about the carer’s allowance not meeting the costs. Is she aware, as I am from my constituents, that the cost of living crisis and things such as food prices going up are actually making that acutely difficult, perhaps more difficult now than it was a few years ago?

[Christina Rees]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, with which I completely agree. This debate can only highlight the plight of unpaid carers.

Although carers can work any amount of hours, they must not exceed the earnings limit, which effectively limits the hours that they can work. It is important to understand that the problem of in-work support is one of implementation, not legislation. Laws exist that provide the framework for support for carers in employment, but all too often we see examples where that support is simply not implemented properly at an employer level. That said, the policy for carer’s allowance needs to be far more inclusive; caring is not just about older people. The 21-hour rule on study is arbitrary and discriminatory. Financial support should be stronger, clearer and less at the discretion of grant decision makers. There is also no clarity on who is responsible for any policy failure at a civil service or a ministerial level; it is everyone and no one.

Work must be done to end the postcode lottery and level up the services available in poorer areas. There are stark inequalities across the different regions in how the carer’s assessment for young carers is delivered. There are huge disparities in whether or not a GP surgery provides information on support for carers, and there is a significant gap between the number of people who identify as carers and those registered as a carer with their GP.

We need to answer the question: what is carer’s allowance for? A recent survey reported that 48% of those in receipt of it say that it does not make the difference that it should. Any reforms must examine the level of carer’s allowance so that it better reflects the level of financial impact of caring responsibilities, increase the earnings limit and tie it to national living wage increases, and review the 21-hour study rule. We need to aggregate the total number of caring hours if someone is caring for more than one person, so that their allowance reflects accurately their caring responsibilities, and explore the option of a sliding scale of payments depending on the level of caring responsibilities, supporting those who wish to stay in work. The reforms must also modernise carer’s allowance processes to guard against accidental overpayments and treat honest mistakes compassionately, fairly and proportionately, and provide an additional payment for carers of state pension age. Such reforms would help to bridge the gap between the current state of things and how we might wish them to be.

Carer’s allowance fails to adequately address the long-term implications of caregiving for the mental and physical wellbeing of caregivers. The emotional toll of caring for a loved one can be profound, leading to increased stress, anxiety and burnout. Without sufficient support, caregivers risk their own health and wellbeing, perpetuating a cycle of hardship and suffering. We cannot turn a blind eye to the injustices faced by caregivers across our nation. It is incumbent on us as a society to rectify those inadequacies and provide meaningful support to those who dedicate their lives to caring for others.

Although I appreciate the difficulties and dangers of paying carers a minimum wage, we must demand a carer’s allowance that reflects the true value of caregiving. We need a fair and dignified allowance that alleviates financial hardship and recognises the invaluable contributions of caregivers to our society. Let us stand in solidarity with caregivers and advocate for meaningful change. I urge the Government and policymakers to reform carer’s allowance and reinvigorate all support to ensure that it serves its intended purpose of providing genuine help for those who need it most. Together we can build a more compassionate and inclusive society where caregivers are valued, respected and adequately supported.

Oral Answers to Questions

Cat Smith Excerpts

Monday 4th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Laura Trott]

Let me reassure my right hon. Friend and her constituents that asylum seekers are given no recourse to public funds. They are given payment for their food and shelter, but they are unable to claim benefits. Pensioners in her constituency will receive a state pension, if they qualify, which for the first time is worth on average more than £200 per week or over £10,000 a year. Pensioners who have not built up sufficient contributions may be eligible for pension credits, worth on average £3,500 per year, to top up their income. They are also eligible to receive the cost of living payment, if they ever receive pension credit, and the pensioner cost of living payment.

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

Over the summer, I held events in villages across Wyre in my constituency. I was approached by many pensioners who are suffering because of the cost of living crisis; pension credit is just not plugging the gap. At my “Chat with Cat” event in Pilling, a constituent asked me why 400,000 more pensioners are living in poverty than when Labour left office. Will the Minister answer that question?

[Laura Trott]

There are 200,000 fewer pensioners in absolute poverty than when Labour left office.

Oral Answers to Questions

Cat Smith Excerpts

Monday 19th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Guy Opperman]

With great respect, I think we do publish data on all aspects of the Department for Work and Pensions’ programmes, and I addressed this matter in great detail in front of the right hon. Gentleman and the Select Committee recently.

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

10. What steps his Department is taking to tackle in-work poverty.

[Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

17. What steps his Department is taking to tackle in-work poverty.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mel Stride)]

In-work progression is the best way of improving the earnings potential of those who are in work, which is why we are bringing hundreds of thousands more people into the kind of support that will develop that.

[Cat Smith]

I wonder whether the Secretary of State can support me with some casework that I am working on at the moment. My constituent is working a minimum wage job and tells me that she is frightened about what will happen. She is 68 years old, but due to errors in the state pension, she is not receiving that yet, and we are finding that there are permanent backlog pressures with the Pension Service. Can the Secretary of State help me get my 68-year-old constituent out of the in-work poverty bracket and receiving her state pension? I am happy to share the details of the case with the Secretary of State.

[Mel Stride]

If the hon. Lady would like to share those details with me, I will make sure that I and the Minister for Pensions, the hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott) will have a close look at the case she raises.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mims Davies]

The Government are supporting the private Member’s Bill that aims to streamline CMS enforcement processes. The CMS will not hesitate to use robust enforcement measures where someone is consistently refusing to meet their obligation towards their children. I am happy to look at that case and ask my colleague in the Lords to look at it.

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

Why is statutory sick pay in this country so much lower than European comparators?

[Tom Pursglove]

I would be happy to meet the hon. Lady to discuss the issue of statutory sick pay, and, of course, we always keep these matters under review.

Oral Answers to Questions

Cat Smith Excerpts

Monday 6th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Guy Opperman]

The hon. Gentleman is right. I agree with him; there is life in the old dog yet, as they say. It is important that we continue to make the case that employment for the over-50s should be supported by all employers.

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

6. What assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the fall in the level of single-parent employment between 2019 and 2022.

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

15. What assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the fall in the level of single-parent employment between 2019 and 2022.

[Cat Smith]

On Friday, I visited my local citizens advice bureau at its new offices on George Street in Lancaster, where I heard at first hand of the challenges that single parents are having with the amount of the childcare element of universal credit being capped at the level set in 2005 and with its being paid in arrears. What steps has the Minister taken to ensure that benefits go up in line with the cost of childcare and to look at paying this element up front?

[Mims Davies]

I thank the hon. Lady for that question. The UC childcare element can be used to top up a claimant’s eligible free childcare hours if more hours are worked and more childcare is required. We also use the flexible support fund to support those up-front costs, as we heard earlier. However, I would like to take this opportunity to talk about employers; this is not solely about what the Government can do on our own to help lone parents. Job design, the opportunity to progress and flexible work are really important too, as is the opportunity to return and progress. We cannot do this on our own.

Oral Answers to Questions

Cat Smith Excerpts

Monday 23rd January 2023 Commons Chamber

[John Mc Nally (Falkirk) (SNP)]

18. What recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of Government support for pensioners in the context of increases in the cost of living.

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

20. What recent assessment he has made of the impact of inflation on pensioners.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Laura Trott)]

The Government have provided a record amount of support for pensioners this winter. More than 8 million households have received a £300 cost of living payment in addition to other support. Both the state pension and pension credit will be uprated from April by 10.1% in line with inflation. That means that for the first time the full amount of the new state pension will be more than £10,000 per year.

--- Later in debate ---

[Laura Trott]

May I remind the hon. Gentleman that under the Conservatives, absolute pensioner poverty has gone down and the state pension has gone up. This Government do deliver and will continue to deliver for pensioners across the United Kingdom.

[Cat Smith]

Around 1,800 pensioner households in Lancaster and Fleetwood are eligible for but do not claim pension credit. With the rising cost of living, many more pensioners are struggling, so will the Minister lend her support to my campaign to encourage my constituents to check on older friends and relatives to see whether they are eligible for pension credit, and to support them to apply if they are eligible?

[Laura Trott]

I pay tribute to the work that the hon. Lady is doing in her constituency to boost take-up of pension credit. I would love to work with her and all across the House on this important topic that we are all focused on.

Oral Answers to Questions

Cat Smith Excerpts

Monday 5th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Tom Pursglove]

I am hugely grateful to my hon. Friend, who is of course a distinguished former Minister for disabled people and whose views on these matters I listen to incredibly carefully. We announced in “Shaping future support: the health and disability green paper” that we will test a new severe disability group, so that those with severe and lifelong conditions can benefit from a simplified process to access PIP, employment and support allowance and universal credit without needing to go through a face-to-face assessment or frequent reassessments. We will consider the test results, once they are complete, to influence thinking on the next stages of this work.

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

18. What steps his Department is taking to support pensioners with increases in the cost of living.

[Sir David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)]

22. What steps his Department is taking to support pensioners with increases in the cost of living.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Laura Trott)]

All pensioner households are in the process of receiving an extra £300 to help them cover the rising cost of energy this winter. For those in receipt of pension credit, the second cost of living payment of £324 was issued in November.

[Cat Smith]

Rural pensioners face additional challenges to the cost of living crisis, and I have recently heard from constituents in the villages of Forton and Winmarleigh who are still waiting for information from the Government on the payment of the alternative fuel payment scheme, as they are off grid. Additionally, the removal of the Bay Plus Megarider bus ticket has increased the price of bus tickets, which may not directly affect those pensioners, but where they are supporting adult children and school-age children in their households, it is impacting on their family budgets. What steps are the Government taking to support pensioners who live in rural parts?

[Laura Trott]

I recognise a lot of the challenges that the hon. Lady mentions, and this is why we are giving pensioners £850, and people on pension credit £1,500, to get through this winter.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mel Stride]

The hon. Lady will know that the level of 25% she refers to has been decreasing through time; it was 40% not that long ago, then 30% and now it is 25%. It was paused altogether during the pandemic, and the experience then was that debt started to increase among claimants, in many cases in a way that was not helpful to the claimant. It is an important principle that, where people are in debt, we work with them to make sure we get them out of debt through time, but I accept that we need to do that with great care, hence the various elements of the process that I described earlier.

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

What measures are the Government taking to speed up repayments to the 200,000 pensioners who have yet to be compensated for the historical underpayments in the state pension?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Laura Trott)]

We have hired more than 1,000 people to look at that. It was a mistake and we are working as hard as we can to rectify it as quickly as possible.

Oral Answers to Questions

Cat Smith Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mims Davies]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising this issue. There are currently over 1.2 million vacancies. On jobs and vacancies, Opposition Members do not appear to understand that people are better off in work than they are on benefits. Let us get to the point: there are key sectors in this country that need people. To tackle this challenge, we at the Department for Work and Pensions are stepping up, with Way to Work bringing people into our jobcentres and helping claimants to change their lives.

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

While the Secretary of State was enjoying our warm Lancashire hospitality in Blackpool this weekend, just a few miles up the coast in Fleetwood, my constituent Patricia was emailing me as her MP. She is a disabled pensioner and says:

“The state pension does not keep up with rises in cost of living or inflation…Fuel costs are crippling, as I don’t move and feel the cold but we have to be careful with the heating. I need carers but their costs rise faster than the annual increase.”

What does the Secretary of State have to say to my constituent?

[Guy Opperman]

I urge the hon. Lady’s constituent to contact her local authority to see whether there is local authority access to funds. As of April, there will be £9.1 billion of energy support from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities fund. There is also pension credit and efforts are being made on a whole host of levels. I have listed three clear examples of access to cash for individuals such as her constituent.

Cost of Living Increases: Pensioners

Cat Smith Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

Thank you for calling me so early in the debate, Mr Deputy Speaker. I want to begin by talking about energy bills and putting on record my thanks to Helen and Joanna at the North Lancashire citizens advice bureau, whom I spoke to today specifically about energy bills for my older constituents. I thank them and all the other staff at the CAB, who support my constituents right across Lancaster and Fleetwood on a whole matter of issues, as people often feel they have nowhere else to go.

On energy bills, one thing that has not been mentioned much is something that affects my rural constituents. I have been approached in the past couple of weeks by a couple in the Ellel area of Lancaster who have turned off their oil-fired heating as there is no price cap on heating oil and with the prices of oil trebling they have been left particularly vulnerable. Often such people are in poorly insulated houses off the grid, and I call on the Minister to do something to support rural pensioners who are feeling this acutely.

These issues are not just being faced in the rural areas of my constituency. A pensioner I was speaking to on Russell Grange Lane in Fleetwood, a much more urban area, is struggling with the rising energy bills. By way of an example, let me say that she lives alone and is receiving the state pension, and her gas bill has risen recently from £85 a month to £114 a month. That is an increase of 34%, but her pension is going to rise by only 3.1%, or about £5.50. She is really concerned about how she is going to be able to afford food, as food prices are going up, and whether she is going to be able to make ends meet. Pensioners spend twice as much of their money on energy bills as the under-30s, so this is a cost felt acutely by pensioners.

Helen told me that we are now in the worst situation since she joined the CAB in 1992. She said that in most cases there was almost nothing they could do to help clients whose benefits or pensions are not enough to live off and that they could only refer them for emergency food parcels. They have then exhausted that limited charitable help available. That is probably reflected right across the country. I do not think that Lancaster and Fleetwood is particularly unique in experiencing that. What has changed in the six years I have represented the constituency is the number of pensioners approaching me to say how much they are struggling. I have noticed that increasing in the past couple of years and, in particular, in the past couple of weeks. A man approached me in Macbeth Road to tell me that he felt utterly betrayed by the breaking of the triple lock on pensions and how it means that his pension will not keep up with rising costs. People feel like this not just about energy costs and pensions, but about, for example, the betrayal on the TV licence for the over-75s, which was a point raised recently with me by a constituent from Agnew Road.

With almost one in five pensioners living in poverty—of course, that will be many more if this Government do not take action—I will continue to support my constituents as best as I can, as will my local food banks, the citizens advice bureaux, churches and charities such as Age UK Lancashire. I will do things such as promote the awareness of pension credit. With around 850,000 older people currently missing out on that benefit, many of them will be in my Lancaster and Fleetwood constituency, and I will do what I can to raise awareness.

As Martin Lewis said on television yesterday, we can only do so much to try to teach people to save money if the amounts are getting smaller, bills are going up and petrol prices are rising, because the rest, frankly, is politics. I wanted to speak in this evening’s debate to highlight the fact that this effect has been felt right across my constituency, from the urban Warren area of Fleetwood right through to rural areas in Ellel just outside Lancaster, which makes me think that it is probably being felt right across the country. We now need Government action to tackle pensioner poverty, which is acute and real.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Elections Bill (Fourth sitting)

Cat Smith Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 16th September 2021 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Shall I bring in other members of the Committee? Patrick Grady, would you like to ask a question? [Interruption.] Oh, hang on.

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

Q I apologise to our witness. I am afraid I had some lift troubles, trying to get down to the first floor. I thank you for your time before the Committee. Will you outline anything that you feel could have been included in the legislation, or that could be amended, to strengthen the integrity of the ballot?

Gavin Millar: I am sorry—I am having trouble hearing.

[Cat Smith]

I will try repeating my question. Is there anything that you feel is missing from the legislation that would strengthen elections, or anything that is amendable that needs to be tightened up?

Gavin Millar: As the Committee probably knows, there is a widely held view that what we have at the moment is a complicated mass of disparate election law provisions in statutes that have been enacted over many years, often containing historical provisions that have just stayed in them down the decades. The mass of that legislative material is difficult and confusing for election administrators—lawyers, judges, candidates and agents.

Accordingly, there is a widely held view that the way to tackle election law now would be to sweep that current body of law aside and modernise it, applying appropriate consolidating provisions in the existing law, into a single, simpler set of statutory rules. The Law Commission said this a few years ago, I have said it and others have said it often. It is disappointing that, in approaching the legislation, the Government have chosen to introduce another rather ad hoc set of disparate provisions that are unrelated, rather than the whole amazing, simplifying rewrite that is required. I suppose that is the first point, in terms of where we are. There is a case—[Inaudible]—to tackle the urgent problems in the electoral system, but with the exception of part 6 of the Bill, which deals with information to be included with electronic material, nothing that it tackles could conceivably be regarded as an urgent problem of the sort that ought to take priority.

The Bill ignores the other most urgent problem in our system, which is the lack of an effective regulatory and enforcement regime to ensure that foreign money and dark money do not enter our political system through donations to political parties. I would say that that is now an election law issue, because in reality there is non-stop campaigning by political parties between the short and long election campaigns, which can be funded by large and inadequately regulated donations. There is the risk not only of money coming into the system that should not be there, but of the level playing field that we have always striven to achieve in our election law during the narrower periods of elections being lost in the intervening periods. It is disappointing that nothing in the legislation addresses those problems.

[Cat Smith]

Q Thank you. I have one follow-up question. The legislation impacts on third-party campaigners, and you have already said that the regulations for elections run across many different pieces of legislation. We do not have that single set of rules for participation. Do you think that the changes to third-party campaigners strike the right balance between engaging third-party campaigners in the democratic process and transparency in terms of the source of political money?

Gavin Millar: There is no doubt that once you have got into the process of regulating non-party expenditure in elections, some very difficult questions arise. Traditionally, those difficult questions have arisen in our system in relation to non-candidate expenditure in constituencies or local government wards—whatever it is—during the election campaign. Local campaigners, non-governmental organisations and so on and so forth can spend some money to campaign, but it is heavily capped. Of course, we are now into the territory where national campaigning is capped and regulated, and the current laws in relation to that are incredibly complicated, very difficult to follow and understand, and very difficult to apply, even for the courts.

I suppose the broad considerations are that we should, in a democracy, encourage and facilitate non-party campaigning of either form, but including national campaigns, to the extent that we can, if it does not unbalance the level playing field across the piece, because that contributes to the democratic process. There are a great many NGOs, charities and third-party campaigners that are not directly party political or campaigning on a range of issues, but may be campaigning on just one issue. It enhances our democracy to enable them to participate, which is going to cost money—they will have to spend money on that—provided that it does not cross the line of unbalancing a level playing field. It is a difficult balance to strike.

One of the features of the legislation that is very difficult is clause 25. It tackles third-party campaigning where it crosses a particular line, which is what is known in the legislation as a joint campaigning arrangement, where the third party or third parties can be shown, as a matter of fact, to have a plan or an arrangement to campaign together. That is an incredibly difficult concept. There have been a couple of cases where the courts have struggled with this, and I do not find the drafting in the Bill very easy, particularly clause 25.

It will be very difficult for campaigners, who might be caught by a suggestion that that is what they are doing, to know whether they are on the right or the wrong side of the line. If they are deemed to be on the wrong side of the line, and a court or a commission says that there is planned co-ordinated expenditure involving more than one non-party campaigner and a political party, that will dramatically reduce the amount that they will be able to spend. They will have to go through the whole process of declaring all the participants in that arrangement, and their available spend will be reduced accordingly. It may be that there are cases where it is justified in having that end result, but you should not have unclear law that leaves people in doubt as to what they can and cannot do and what is and is not a joint campaigning arrangement.

At the moment, that is very unclear in our law and has not been properly resolved by the courts. I would not suggest rushing into the provisions of clause 25. If that part of the Bill is going to go through Parliament, there should be very careful scrutiny of exactly what it is intended to catch and what it is not intended to catch, and of what the consequences are for third-party campaigners who engage in that sort joint campaigning with a political party. I am just not sure that that is there at the moment. That is the problem. Therefore it will tend to risk encouraging that active participation that I said was so important in a democracy.

[Cat Smith]

Q Under clause 25, the Minister would also have the power to add or remove categories of campaigners from being permitted to campaign in elections. Do you have some concern about that?

Gavin Millar: Yes, I am concerned that this part of a strand in our law that is developing, which gives powers to Government and to the Executive to fill in gaps in legislation and take legally binding decisions outwith the legislation. It is very undesirable. It means that nobody knows in advance what the law is going to achieve and how it will work. It reduces parliamentary scrutiny.

Everything that is going to be there that will affect non-party campaigning should be in the primary legislation. It should be simple, clear and easy to understand, and it should be justified in terms of what it is trying to achieve in preventing the skewing of the level playing field. It should be absolutely clear what the consequences are for third-party campaigners, many of whom I advise at election time and in between elections. They are very confused by this. They find it very difficult to know what they can and cannot do, what crosses a particular line and what does not cross it, and what their maxima are for spending. You do not need to be a lawyer to realise that that is undesirable in a democracy, with an activity of such importance.

[The Chair]

Minister?

--- Later in debate ---

[Chloe Smith]

It is very helpful that you close with the point that it must be specified through guidance, because that is indeed what the intention is. It is also what one of our witnesses yesterday agreed was where much of the work should be done.

[Cat Smith]

Q Fazilet, welcome to the Committee and thank you very much for the contributions you have made so far. I have a couple of questions.

You opened your remarks by describing how you felt that the legislation is turning back the clock, particularly for voters who are blind or partially sighted. If I understood correctly, that is because the 1983 Act wording would be rescinded and there would be much more flexibility for local authorities to have potentially quite different ways of supporting blind and partially sighted voters. That would create something of a postcode lottery. What would the challenges then be for voters with a disability or impairment who have perhaps moved house to a different local authority area and might then get a different level of service or a different system to facilitate their needs? Would that be an additional barrier to voting for disabled people?

Fazilet Hadi: I like the words in the Representation of the People Act 1983, “prescribed equipment”. Obviously, guidance can say at any point what that prescribed equipment is for. There might be prescribed equipment for people with other impairments. It is not just tactile devices; it could be adjustable tables or pens that people can grip.

The Government signed up to the UN convention on the rights of persons with disabilities, which says that there must be full participation in political and public life for disabled people. It specifies that there must be materials, facilities and procedures that are fully accessible and appropriate. It specifies that there must be a secret ballot. It specifies that there must be assistance from whoever the disabled person chooses. The Human Rights Act 1998 talks about the right to vote and how we all need to have the ability to express our opinion through voting. The Equality Act 2010 puts a public sector equality duty on the Government and local government––any government––to think about what they are doing to promote the interests of, and make reasonable adjustments for, disabled people and others. We have all these laws and a stated intention that this Bill should make things better for participation by disabled people, but it cannot be better for the equipment to be different in different polling stations. For me as an elector, it is about not knowing exactly what I am entitled to, so that I can try to enforce it if I do not get it. Leaving arrangements to the 152 local authorities in England, and I do not know how many in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, is totally unacceptable.

[Cat Smith]

Q I have heard representations from various different disability charities and advocacy groups representing disabled people about the accessibility challenges of local authority buildings. Part of this legislation relates to voter ID. You have mentioned that you have some concerns about that. Putting those concerns slightly to one side, do you have any concerns about the barriers that would be faced by disabled voters in trying to access the free voter ID that would be administered by local authorities—not the polling stations, but the free ID cards?

Fazilet Hadi: Huge concerns. If we think about who does not have a driving licence or a passport, who does not have a blue badge or a bus pass or a railcard, we are asking those people who have obviously found it unsurmountable for various reasons—those reasons could be cognitive, sensory, digital exclusion; all sorts of reasons—to apply for a card. We are asking the most disadvantaged people in our community, who have not got one of those other cards, to go and apply for a card. It just does not make any sense. These are the people who are least likely to apply for a card. If they could apply for cards and that was easy for them, they would have one of these other cards. I just feel the proposal is completely impracticable.

If we really want the people who are really struggling to vote to come and vote—the people who do not have any of these cards—you can imagine how many challenges that section of the community has, and applying for a voting card would not come anywhere near the top of their to-do list.

[Cat Smith]

Thank you.

[Patrick Grady]

Q Thank you, Fazilet, that is really very helpful. I have quite a technical question about the wording in the legislation and what the Government propose. What they propose to do is to take out the wording that currently exists about prescribing devices for eligible voters who are blind or partially sighted, and to replace it with a more general paragraph about supplying, as you already mentioned,

“such equipment as it is reasonable…for the purposes of enabling or making it easier for, relevant persons”.

Relevant persons would include blind or partially sighted people, but also people with other disabilities or impairments or difficulties.

Is there any reason why you could not just have both? You could keep the specific provisions, perhaps updating them so we are not limiting this to one specific piece of advice, and making a bit of a tweak so that we talk more generally about equipment that might change over time with technology, but keep those provisions and add in the extra requirement for a wider group of voters who might have difficulty accessing the polling stations. Do you see any incompatibility with that approach?

Fazilet Hadi: No, there is no incompatibility. My main point would be that if there is prescribed equipment—that is not just for blind people; if there is prescribed equipment for wheelchair users or people with dexterity problems—let that be prescribed, so that we get consistency across the board, but let us have an additional provision about how all reasonable adjustments should be made, which is actually just repeating the duty in the Equality Act, because electoral officers are discharging a public function anyway. I do not mind that being repeated, but I do not think we should be confusing prescribing equipment for whichever impairment group needs it with the duty to make reasonable adjustments. They can live together quite harmoniously—I agree.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

We will now hear oral evidence.

[Cat Smith]

On a point of order, Ms Rees. A motion to approve an instruction has been laid by the Government and will be heard on the Floor of the House on Monday, regarding expanding the Elections Bill to include electoral voting systems, specifically in terms of mayoralties within England and police and crime commissioners. Would it be in order to ask questions of Dr Renwick about electoral systems, given that they are not currently in the scope of the Bill?

[The Chair]

My understanding is that matter is not currently in the scope of the Bill. I am aware that the motion is on the Order Paper for Monday.

[Cat Smith]

Further to that point of order, is it possible for the Committee to take evidence on electoral systems at any future scheduled evidence sessions that would take place after Monday, when such systems presumably would become part of the Bill?

[The Chair]

If it is possible to have a supplementary programme motion, then that could be added, but that is not a matter for me. That is usually done through the usual channels.

[Cat Smith]

Thank you, Ms Rees.

[The Chair]

Q I welcome Dr Alan Renwick, deputy director of the constitution unit at University College London. Thank you very much for joining us. We have until 4.15 pm for this session. Please could you introduce yourself?

Dr Renwick: I am Alan Renwick from the constitution unit at University College London and I lead our work on elections and referendums, and some of our recent work on the structure and functioning of the Union.

[Cat Smith]

Q Dr Renwick, thank you so much for your time this afternoon. May I begin by asking you about the Electoral Commission? The legislation proposes some changes to the way the Electoral Commission is managed, in terms of the Government setting out a strategic document to direct the work of the commission. It also proposes slight changes to the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission by adding a new Minister to a committee that already has a Government bias. Do you have any examples of how electoral commissions work in other democracies and the level of Government interference over regulators?

Dr Renwick: The principle for a good electoral commission is that it should be independent from the Government. The details of how that works in countries around the world depend a great deal on political culture; it is not just a matter of institutions. I would not attempt to draw a tight parallel between how things work in other countries and how things should work in this country. For example, some countries might have a procedure for appointing members of an electoral commission that might look quite political on the surface, but in practice, given the conventions in that country, it may be properly neutral and protect the commission’s independence. The key thing is how to ensure the independence of the Electoral Commission, alongside the appropriate accountability, in the context of the UK. I am afraid that the Bill’s proposals seem wholly contrary to the principle of independence of the commission.

Independence and accountability matter. It is absolutely right that there should be parliamentary accountability, and there is already a great deal of it. The Electoral Commission is, of course, accountable to the Speaker’s Committee; the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee scrutinises the commission’s work a great deal; and it is also accountable to the Scottish Parliament and the Senedd. I do not think that there is a deficit of accountability of the commission at present.

As for independence, I think that it requires, quite simply, that Parliament lay out the remit of the Electoral Commission, and that must happen through primary legislation, so that Parliament can properly scrutinise and amend that remit. It is not a matter that is written in Government and subject to much more limited parliamentary scrutiny or opportunity for amendment. Parliament should lay down the remit for the commission, which should then get on with delivering that—subject to appropriate scrutiny, as already exists. The idea of having an additional strategy and policy statement written by Ministers, without the appropriate degree of scrutiny, flies in the face of the principle of independence, and therefore seems to be wholly inappropriate.

[Cat Smith]

Q You said that the Electoral Commission is also accountable to the Welsh Senedd and the Scottish Parliament; it is also funded by both those Parliaments. Could you say what consideration the Committee should give to any change due to a strategy and policy statement driven by a UK Parliament, and what tensions that could potentially create within the Union?

Dr Renwick: It could potentially create very great tensions. The proposal would clearly require a legislative consent motion in order to be compatible with the Sewel convention. The Counsel General—the Minister in the Welsh Government—has already indicated that he does not recommend that a legislative consent motion be passed on this matter, and I presume the Scottish Parliament will do the same.

This part of the Bill envisages that Ministers in the UK Government, subject to affirmative procedure, would be able to specify guidelines for devolved matters and that Scottish and Welsh Ministers would only be consulted—and, indeed, would only potentially be notified—in the case of amendments to the statement. That seems wholly contrary to the principles of devolution that have been established, and I cannot see any justification for it. The Sewel convention indicates that Westminster will normally not legislate in matters that have been devolved. There is nothing abnormal here, there is nothing unusual and nothing has changed since these matters were devolved to Scotland and Wales—those devolution changes did not take place very long ago—so it seems very problematic.

That also heightens an issue that already exists with the governance of the Electoral Commission: the commissioners themselves are all appointed on the recommendation of the House of Commons, and that on the recommendation of the Speaker’s Committee. The Speaker’s Committee has, in recent appointments of commissioners with responsibility for Scotland and Wales, either consulted the Presiding Officer or the Llywydd, or included a representative of those people in the committee responsible for shortlisting, but that has been entirely at its discretion.

There is a need to review the arrangements for governance of the Electoral Commission in light of the recent devolutions of electoral matters in those areas. The last serious review of this question, conducted by the Committee on Standards in Public Life in 2007, said at that time that the current governance arrangements were appropriate because those matters were not devolved. These matters have been devolved now, and therefore there is a need for a review.

My impression is that this point has not been thought about terribly much. I do not detect that either the Scottish Government or the Welsh Government have done much detailed thinking on this, but some consideration is needed of how to ensure that the Scottish Parliament and the Senedd are properly represented in these processes.

One final point I should make in this area is one that has been made by others: the fact that the Speaker’s Committee has a majority from a single party is simply indefensible against the principle of independence of electoral processes. That has never happened before—it did not happen when there were large majorities for Governments in the early 2000s; at that time there was no majority for that party in the Speaker’s Committee—but it has been allowed to happen now, which suggests that conventional constraints on the improper exercise of power are not working, to be honest. Legislative action is needed to ensure that there is never a single party majority on the Speaker’s Committee.

[Chloe Smith]

Q Thank you very much for joining us, Dr Renwick; it is very good to have your expertise. May I make use of that expertise with a relatively simple starting question? Clause 14 deals with membership of the Speaker’s Committee, and every so often we hear a misrepresentation—I think I just heard the hon. Lady from the Opposition doing this—suggesting that there will be an extra Minister of the Crown added to the Speaker’s Committee. Could you help us to confirm that concurrent powers, which is what clause 14 contains and which, as you will recall, comes in the history of having made a transfer of functions order before, mean that this will be a question of a substitute Minister—essentially a junior when the senior is too busy?

Dr Renwick: I am not a lawyer, so I wondered when I looked at those words exactly what they meant, but if they mean what you have described them as meaning, they do not trouble me. It was always the intent of the PPERA legislation passed in 2000 that the Minister with responsibility for elections and the Minister with responsibility for local government should be members of the Speaker’s Committee, and if the change is simply intended to ensure that the Minister who has responsibility for elections can participate, but there are only two Ministers participating, then that change does not seem to me problematic.