Covid-19: Contracts and Public Inquiry

Debate between Ian Blackford and James Cartlidge

Wednesday 7th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)]

I beg to move,

That this House believes the Government has failed to give full details of the process behind the issuing of emergency covid-19 contracts; and therefore calls on the Government immediately to commence the covid-19 public inquiry, announced by the Prime Minister on 12 May 2021.

There have been many instances during this covid-19 pandemic when we have seen the very best in our society, from our frontline workers keeping food on supermarket shelves, to our extraordinary scientific community who have produced life-saving vaccines, to, of course, our NHS heroes who have been so deserving of the George Cross. The pandemic has also led to opportunism, greed, and covid profits being put above accountability. This Tory Government are guilty of funnelling covid cash from the frontline into the pockets of their rich friends. We are talking about endemic cronyism during a global pandemic, the misuse of funds, and covid profiteers raking in billions of pounds for services that have often been too substandard or irrelevant in the fight against the virus. Yes, Mr Speaker, it is billions of pounds that we are talking about—billions of pounds while millions in our society have been excluded from any help from the Government.

Today, the SNP is saying enough, no more dodgy dealings, no more undeclared meetings, and no more billion-pound contracts to friends. The Prime Minister promised an inquiry into the UK Government’s handling of the pandemic; it must start right now.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

I have the greatest respect for the right hon. Gentleman and I understand why he is bringing this debate forward, but he must realise that we have just had a week where his own country’s newspapers are full of headlines saying that Scotland is becoming the covid capital of Europe. Who is responsible for that?

[Ian Blackford]

We really should not be playing political football—[Laughter.] I have to say, Mr Speaker, that says it all. [Laughter.] They should just keep going, because, friends, we are talking about people who are getting a serious illness, we are talking about people who are getting long covid, we are talking about people who are going on ventilators, we are talking about people who are losing their lives, and that is the behaviour that we get from the Conservatives. They ought to be utterly, utterly ashamed of themselves.

When it comes to the covid numbers in Scotland, let me give those Members a reality check. The reason that covid numbers are rising so dramatically right across the United Kingdom—and we have seen the projections this morning of what is going to happen here over the coming weeks—is largely down to what has happened with the delta variant. My Government in Edinburgh told the Government in London that we had to lock the door on the delta variant. It is the UK Government who have been asleep at the wheel, so we take no lectures about our responsibilities when there is a Prime Minister who talks about letting the bodies pile high. We know where the blame lies and the blame lies at the door of No.10 Downing Street.

[James Cartlidge]

rose—

[Ian Blackford]

Last week, I raised an urgent question in this House on the misuse of covid funds—[Interruption.]

State Pension Age: Women

Debate between Ian Blackford and James Cartlidge

Wednesday 29th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Ian Blackford]

I know that many Members want to speak, so I will make some progress and let people in later.

This is about women who have paid national insurance in anticipation of receiving a pension and have been hit with the bombshell that their pension was being deferred—in some cases by up to six years—with only 15 months’ written notice. Members should dwell on that. They were looking forward to retirement, but they received a letter telling them that they were going to get as little as 15 months’ notice of an increase in their pension age. Can anybody on the Government Benches defend that? Will anybody stand up and tell the House and the public that giving someone 15 months’ written notice of an increase in their pension age is acceptable? Is anyone prepared to do that? If so, I will happily give way.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[James Cartlidge]

We recognise people’s concerns about the notice, but to rectify the situation requires public funds. In a previous debate, the right hon. Gentleman said that his party’s position was to pay for that from the surplus in the national insurance fund. Is that still his party’s policy?

[Ian Blackford]

Well, there we are. Given the opportunity to defend the indefensible, we again get spin. Let me make things absolutely crystal clear. The national insurance fund is sitting at a surplus in the region of £30 billion, and that surplus has been generated by the women who have paid national insurance. All that we have asked for is that the women be given what they are entitled to receive. A pension should be seen as a right, but the Government have changed the terms and conditions of that right without consulting those who have paid in for a pension. As many of the campaigners have said, “We paid in, you pay out.”

This campaign is at the heart of SNP policy. We have long fought for the Government to rectify the shambles and give the WASPI women the pensions they rightfully deserve. I speak on behalf of SNP Members when I say that we will never rest until justice is delivered for the women affected. The Government have failed time and time again to address the injustices of a lack of notice for the acceleration of the state pension age. There is an opportunity today for the Government to admit that effective notice was not given of an increase in pensionable age. The process of increasing pensionable age must be slowed down.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Blackford]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I hoped he would be backing me, and he has been resolute on this issue over a long period of time. He is absolutely right; we can find money on the magic money tree for Northern Ireland and, as I said in the Budget debate only last week, we found £70 billion for quantitative easing last year. A £70 billion cheque was written for the Bank of England to put into the financial markets, so do not tell us that the Government cannot find the money. Of course, the answer to the question is that the money is there because the national insurance fund is sitting on a surplus.

[James Cartlidge]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Ian Blackford]

I must make some progress. I will not take interventions for a while.

The moment has never been so opportune for Members on both sides of the House to come together to do the right thing and to call for this long-standing error to be corrected. Conservative Members made a pledge to the WASPI women as recently as June 2017. Scottish Tory Members—I will not name them, but they know who they are—signed the WASPI pledge before the general election and claimed to be prepared to act against party orders on the issue. There has been a deafening silence from them on this matter since the election, and the heckling has gone.

The House might be interested to know that, in the constituencies represented by Scottish Conservative Members of Parliament, a total of 84,000 women are affected by this Government’s legislative changes. I ask this question of the Scottish Tories, in a friendly spirit, particularly to those who supported the WASPI women during the campaign: will they have the courage to join us in the Lobby this afternoon, or will they turn their backs on the 84,000 WASPI women in their own constituencies?

I flag up to them page 62 of the Scottish Conservative manifesto, which states:

“We will also ensure that the state pension age reflects increases in life expectancy, while protecting each generation fairly.”

So, today, Scots Tories, do the right thing.

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[Ian Blackford]

Again, I am grateful for that intervention, and the hon. Gentleman is correct in what he says. This is yet another clear example of why there is absolutely no excuse for not collectively taking action today. We have a choice: we can recognise the injustices that the women have faced or we can sit on our hands and do nothing. This is about morality. It is about doing the right thing. The Minister can look up to the skies, but it is not going to remove the problem for him. I do not want to wait until the end of the debate and then get another 10 minutes of ignoring the reality of what is going on. We have had that for too long and it has to stop—it has to stop today.

The intent was there in the 1993 White Paper, but it was 2009 before any formal letters went out. Then we have the issue of phasing this in gradually. What we are dealing with is an increase in a woman’s pensionable age by three months for each calendar month that passes. It is simply scandalous that a woman’s pensionable age is increasing so rapidly. It is indefensible and it is not within the spirit outlined in the Government’s White Paper in 1993.

In October 2002, while giving evidence to a Select Committee, the DWP suggested that the role of the state was

“to provide clear and accurate information about what pensions will provide so that people will understand how much they can expect at retirement before it’s too late to do something about it.”

How does “before it’s too late to do something about it” equate with 15 months’ notice? How can the Minister, and how can anyone who is not going to support our motion today, support that lack of notice? It has gone quiet now, has it not?

[James Cartlidge]

The right hon. Gentleman has to find a way to pay for this and he did say that he would still use the national insurance fund. Ruth Kelly, the then Financial Secretary to the Treasury, said the following in 2003:

“The national insurance fund provides security for those contributory benefits. It is ring-fenced and cannot be used for other Government expenditure.”—[Official Report, 21 October 2003; Vol. 411, c. 231WH.]

[Ian Blackford]

The hon. Gentleman is going to have to do better. Of course this is ring-fenced—it is for pensions. Pay it out! That is what the Government are being asked to do. As I was saying, no formal communication took place until 2009 and the task was not completed until 2012. The DWP has to take responsibility for this failure to communicate and, crucially, for the lack of time that women have had to prepare for an increase in their state pension age. Rather than recognising that women deserved to be communicated with directly, the DWP issued leaflets headlined “Equality in state pension age”. Can anybody in this Chamber remember them? No, I do not recall seeing them either. That is no surprise, as DWP-commissioned research in 2004 highlighted that only 2% of respondents mentioned that they had been notified of changes to their pension age via a leaflet. That is the responsibility that the Government took to inform people. Frankly, it is an insult that the Government at the time thought that changes that affect a woman’s retirement age could be delivered with a leaflet. That was an abdication of responsibility and we have to take responsibility for that. We should all receive an annual statement from the DWP on our expected entitlement, just as we do from private pension providers.

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[James Cartlidge]

I think the hon. Lady is missing the point. I am not saying that to my WASPI campaigners. I am not full of righteous anger, so high on my high horse that my ears pop, like the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford). If we are to go out on a limb to that degree, we must have a credible policy. We must be able to say, “This is how we are going to pay for it.”

[Ian Blackford]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[James Cartlidge]

I do not think that I should give way again, but I will, because the hon. Gentleman was very generous to me. However, others wish to speak, so I shall wind up my speech immediately afterwards.

[Ian Blackford]

We have tabled a very straightforward motion that asks the Government to introduce mitigation measures. The hon. Gentleman has asked for costed proposals, but we gave him one last year in the Landman report, on deferring the increase in women’s pensionable age. It would have cost £8 billion. That is one option. We have done our work; the Government have not done theirs.

Debate on the Address

Debate between Ian Blackford and James Cartlidge

Wednesday 21st June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Ian Blackford]

I thank my friend for that intervention, and I agree with him. There is unfinished business, certainly for me, having been the pensions spokesman for the SNP in the last Parliament. We will not leave the WASPI women without a voice. It is utterly disgraceful that some of the worst-affected women were given 14 months’ written notice of an increase in their pensionable age. I have said before that, in this ridiculous situation, a woman born in February 1953 would have retired in January 2016 just shy of her 63rd birthday, but a woman born in February 1964 will not retire until July 2019, when she will be 65 and a half.

Quite simply, a two-and-a-half-year increase in a woman’s pensionable age over a one-year period is unacceptable. Cridland identified in his review of the state pension age that we should not be looking at an increase in pensionable age of more than one year in every 10 years. As I have often pointed out to the Government, there is a very easy solution, which is to reverse the Pensions Act 2011. The cost of doing so would be £8 billion, which is easily affordable given that there is a surplus of £30 billion in the national insurance fund.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman knows full well that the policy he has set out was shot to pieces when the permanent secretary of the Department for Work and Pensions confirmed that it is not even physically possible to use the surplus; and that in many years, the fund is in deficit. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that?

[Ian Blackford]

I think the WASPI women are due an apology from the hon. Gentleman, because we cannot get away from the fact that the Government Actuary’s Department has indicated that the surplus this year is £30 billion. For goodness’ sake, let us use the surplus in that fund to introduce mitigation for the WASPI women. It is the right thing to do.

I assure the Prime Minister that this issue will not go away. Let me commend Members from across the House, including Conservative Members, who want action to be taken. We cannot defend the fact that women were given only 14 months’ notice, in some cases. That was a failure of communication, and the rise in pensionable age was far too swift. We must address the issue in this Parliament. I confirm that the SNP will not lose sight of the issue; we will stand foursquare behind the WASPI women in the months to come.

State Pension Age: Women

Debate between Ian Blackford and James Cartlidge

Wednesday 30th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Ian Blackford]

Again, I find myself agreeing with the hon. Gentleman.

As a House, we must reflect on the situation in which there are still 1.2 million pensioners in this country living in poverty. I am ashamed when I hear Members of the House saying that we should examine the triple lock, because we should protect our pensioners. One thing on which I will give an absolute commitment is that if we had responsibility for pensions, the triple lock would be secured by the Scottish National party. Pensioners would be secured with the SNP.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Blackford]

My hon. Friend may well be right. The Government are of course hoping that with the passage of time this issue will go away, but it will not go away, because the women are angry. If they do not begin to recognise the need to do something, each and every Member of the House will have the WASPI women coming to their surgeries and demanding action. Not only will they be demanding action, but that will run the risk that this Government will be taken to court.

[James Cartlidge]

The hon. Gentleman is being generous in giving way. Is it still his policy to pay for this change from the national insurance surplus?

[Ian Blackford]

I will come on to cover that point, but the fact remains that the national insurance fund will be sitting with a surplus of close to £30 billion by the end of this decade. There will be £30 billion of contributions in the national insurance fund. There is no question but that the Government can afford to do this: there is a surplus. The national insurance fund has to retain two months’ cash flow, but that can still be done by putting in place what we are asking the House to do today, which is—as in the Landman report—to push back the increase in women’s pensionable age and to make sure that the women worst affected get recompense and fairness.

Autumn Statement Distributional Analysis, Universal Credit and ESA

Debate between Ian Blackford and James Cartlidge

Wednesday 16th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)]

The UK Government must commit to protecting disadvantaged people from the impact of future budget cuts in their autumn statement. Post-Brexit, it is essential, that with the risks to economy and with inflation rising and set to rise further, the Government act now.

Analysis by the IFS is the latest sign that the UK leaving the EU is having a negative impact on the UK economy even before article 50 is triggered. The IFS said that “virtually all” forecasters revised down their predications for growth and revised up their expectations for inflation in the years ahead. The collapse in the value of the pound, combined with potential rises in inflation, will hit the poorest and the most disadvantaged in society hardest. It will mean more of their income will have to be spent on day-to-day costs and living standards will push people into poverty.

[James Cartlidge]

If the hon. Gentleman is so concerned about the disadvantaged, will he explain why it has been reported that the Scottish Government will defer, until April 2020, taking powers from the UK Government to administer the welfare system?

[Ian Blackford]

I expected this issue to be raised, given press speculation. Let me tell the hon. Gentleman the facts of the matter: with the powers coming to us, we will control 15% of welfare spending in Scotland. We have to put in place the mechanisms for us to deliver fairness with the revenues we have at our disposal. We certainly would not punish the poorest in our society in the way that this Government have, and we certainly would not be punishing the Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign women, who are not getting their just rights when they have had only a year’s notice. What I would be saying to this Government is, “Give us the powers over welfare so that we can protect the people in Scotland.” When we have put in place the mechanisms to allow us to look after people, we will certainly be doing a better job than the Government are doing today.

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[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

I applaud the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) for his great passion. He speaks very eloquently. I could not resist intervening on him about the currency because I think that the key economic challenge for the country involves rebalancing. Every aspect of what we are debating today is affected by the sustainability of our growth.

I want to focus on two key points. The first is why I support the move to a universal credit system in principle, based on my experience of running a small business. The second is that, when we talk about distributional analysis, we need an analysis of the intergenerational impacts of any changes. We have to start talking about all benefits in the system, not just those that are paid out to those of working age.

Last year, we had a number of debates about tax credits at the time when the changes were meant to be coming through. I spoke about this several times, and I said then—I say it again now—that tax credits were one of the greatest mistakes in the history of the welfare state, bringing in a £30 billion means-tested in-work benefit for healthy working people to make them completely dependent and to nationalise the income of the country for political purposes. I say that not out of ideology but out of experience.

My experience of running a small business taught me about the problems of the people who are trapped on the rough edges of the welfare state. I had a member of staff who told me that she did not want a pay rise because she would lose too much in tax credits. More commonly, people working 16 or 24 hours a week told me that they did not want to work any more hours. I heard that many times, and other business owners have told me exactly the same thing. People should be encouraged to make the most of the talents they were born with, and we should not have a system that stymies that aim or disincentivises people from making the most of their talents.

What I particularly welcome about universal credit is the fact that it smooths out the rough edges by being more generous in terms of childcare and support. I am sure we all agree that we want people who are unemployed to move off benefits and into work, but we never talk about people who are on in-work benefits needing to work harder to get off those benefits. To me, however, it should be the goal of our economic system to reduce dependency and help people to maximise their income from real employment. The other part of the system that I welcome is the extra support that it will give, not just to get people into work but to get people who work part time to work more hours. That is very much to be commended.

It is quite extraordinary that, for the first time ever, pensioners are now better off than the working-age population, once housing costs have been taken into account. This is something that we need to talk about, because 68% of benefits are paid out to pensioners. The point about housing costs is incredibly important.

[Ian Blackford]

Does the hon. Gentleman not recognise that a pension is not a benefit? People who have paid national insurance have an entitlement to a state pension, which they have paid for.

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[James Cartlidge]

That is a very fair point. Our voters say, “Well, I’ve paid in so I should get it,” but that is not the case for the winter fuel allowance—as the hon. Gentleman knows, millionaires get that along with everybody else—the free TV licence or the Christmas bonus. Although the state pension is based on paying in, it is a pay-as-you-go system. The fact is that the current young working generation are paying in but they might not receive the triple lock. Also, we know for certain that many of them will still be paying their housing costs when they retire. We know that 94% of home-owning pensioners own their property outright. They have no housing costs. The young working generation are probably paying for the defined benefit pensions of those who are fortunate to receive them, and for the state pension of those who have the triple lock. They are also paying for those who possibly do not even have housing costs, yet they themselves will have housing costs perhaps well into their retirement. We are reaching a critical point here.

[Ian Blackford]

I am conscious that we should not be diverted from the topic, but the key point here is that the national insurance fund is currently running at a surplus that, according to the Government’s own figures, is due to increase. It is not the case that pensioners are taking their income from others. They have paid their national insurance contributions, which fund the amount that is paid out to pensioners.

[James Cartlidge]

It is a pay-as-you-go system, but the key to this is the triple lock. The hon. Gentleman is welcome to read the report on intergenerational payments produced by the Work and Pensions Committee. It has my name on it, although I have to say that I approved it having been on the Committee for only 15 minutes. I did not contribute to it, but I welcome all of it. It makes the point that we have a pay-as-you-go system and that the younger people currently paying in might not benefit from the present generosity, particularly in relation to the triple lock, which is unaffordable and unsustainable.

This is primarily a political question. During the leadership hustings, I asked the final two contestants the same question. I said, “Given the situation of many young people, is it morally defensible to continue to protect pensioner benefits?” The answer that both contestants gave me—quite rightly, given that we are a democracy and that we have elections—was that our manifesto had pledged to protect those benefits. However, as the shadow Chancellor has said—I am certainly not trying to pray him in aid—we also pledged to wipe out the deficit. That pledge is now coming home to roost. We are protecting so many budgets and forcing so many disproportionate cuts on others because of this huge cost which we will not touch, and I think we have to talk about it. This has to be done in a cross-party way. We all know the political reality of this situation. I am not naive, and I know the political price that can be paid if these things are not done correctly, but from canvassing in my constituency, I know that the older voters understand this point. They are as concerned about it as anybody else. We have to start talking about how the whole benefits system—not just the one for working-age people—can be reformed.

I very much welcome the speech made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith), and I welcome what has happened with universal credit. It will smooth out some of the perverse incentives created by the tax credit system, and it will encourage people to make the most of their talents and reduce their benefit dependency. Just as we had radical reform on in-work benefits, we must now start to think about what will happen to those who are retired and who will live longer and longer, so that we can all live in a happy, one nation situation in which all the generations get a fair deal.

Savings (Government Contributions) Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Ian Blackford and James Cartlidge

Tuesday 25th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Ian Blackford]

Q There was this debate about moving from “exempt, exempt, taxed” to “taxed, exempt, exempt”, which was taken off the table. Was this not really just a back-door way for the previous Chancellor to bring forward this policy?

David Wren: I do not think I could comment on what the previous Chancellor was thinking when he introduced this. This is a “taxed, exempt, exempt” product. When I said earlier that it was difficult for me to work out whether I should open a lifetime ISA or pay into my pension, it is for exactly that reason: it is the difference between the money being exempt when I take it out, hopefully, at 60, versus paying tax on a pension at 60. Having both products in the market is incredibly complicated. Explaining the concept of “taxed, exempt, exempt” or “exempt, exempt, taxed” to someone is challenging. The Institute for Fiscal Studies wrote a very good study earlier in the year, in March-time, in which they talked about how this worked for different investments, but it is a thick document, and it requires a dark room and a lot of peace and quiet to really get into the detail.

Tom McPhail: We did some client research early this year on entry; everybody was under 40 and did not own a house. However, they were all Hargreaves Lansdown customers, so I cannot claim that this is representative of the population as a whole. Having said that, 14% of them said that they would look to use the lifetime ISA to save for a property, and 68% were looking to save for their future, so there was an emphasis on the longer term there.

The majority who expressed a preference did so for stocks and shares investing, rather than looking to cash, so there was a weighting—a sense that people were seeing this as a longer-term savings product, rather than a short-term cash product, in contrast to something like the help to buy ISA. This suggested to us that they were seeing it as being closer to a pension than a help to buy ISA. Clearly, there was a bit of both going on in there in the mix.

On your point about taxation, clearly we have different personnel at the helm now, so perhaps priorities and agendas have changed, but I think that it is worth reiterating that all the reasons why pension taxation was examined in the first place are still there and are unresolved.

[James Cartlidge]

Q I want to carry on with this point about complexity, because it seems to me that you are using the word “complexity” where others might use the word “flexibility”, dare I say. As we discussed with the previous witnesses, it is surely not unreasonable for a young family to be entirely focused on buying property, particularly if they live in areas that are very expensive. Perhaps they are on a short-hold tenancy with less security, and so on. Therefore, when presented with a savings option, they will want to opt for a deposit.

I take your point about help to buy ISAs, but they are going in two years, we understand. Do you accept that the flexibility that comes from a pseudo-pension product that could be used for a mid-life event—in other words, buying a house—is what makes LISAs unique, unlike auto-enrolment? There is a big market for this, and there are a lot of people who would welcome that choice.

Tom McPhail: We think there are other and better ways of addressing that problem that would be simpler and more sympathetic to investors’ needs. We support the auto-enrolment agenda, and we think it is important to get as many of the people you have just talked about as possible into an arrangement where they are saving for their retirement. Some of them may choose to opt out of a pension and eschew the benefit of an employer contribution, and to save into an ISA instead. For some, that might be a logical, rational and appropriate decision to make. That would, of course, mean that they were not saving for retirement in the most tax-efficient way available to them. In fact, potentially, they would not be saving for retirement at all, if they had opted out of a pension to achieve that goal.

One of the risks is that the lifetime ISA will subvert the pension-saving agenda. It is critical that pension providers and human resources managers—anyone involved in pensions—are communicating effectively around those trade-offs, the risks of giving up the benefits of the employer contribution, and the long-term consequences of that.

The help to buy product gave people taxpayer support in buying a house. There was actually relatively little wrong with it. It was there as a vehicle for saving in the short term, to build up a cash pot specifically to buy a house. The idea of trying to have your cake and eat it—of trying to save up for a house and for retirement within one product—that is where the complexity comes from, and that is where you are trying to do two things with one bag of money. If you use it to buy your house, it is not a savings product anymore.

We have already talked about eligibility for the lifetime ISA, and the fact that most self-employed people—for whom this could be a really good idea—are not eligible because of the age restriction. So I agree with you, but I am not sure that we are going about this in the best way.

David Wren: We really like the help to buy ISA; it is clear and unambiguous. Are you saving for a house? Are you a first-time buyer? Put money in. It is cash, and there is no confusion about whether you are also saving for your pension at the same time, because that is not a feature of the product. It is a really nice, neat product, which says, “Here’s what I do; here’s how I help you; and the Government will provide you with some help to buy your first house.” It is a shame that it will be removed in 2019. It has been very successful, and something like 250,000 were opened in the first six months of the product. That kind of really clear labelling and signposting that others have talked about is something that help to buy really had, and that the lifetime ISA risks not having.

Savings (Government Contributions) Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Ian Blackford and James Cartlidge

Tuesday 25th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Ian Blackford]

Maybe something like an insurance wrapper could give the kind of benefits that you are talking about—people losing their job and benefits and what they could get. There are things you could do perhaps to auto-enrolment that would give the kind of opportunities for people that we are talking about.

Ed Boyd: There is a number of ways you could do it. We have not yet got to the point to say, “This is specifically how you should do it.” We are at the stage of saying that maybe your question implies that there is an opportunity to do insurance wrappers or auto-enrol. There are a few different approaches that you could take. That is definitely one you would look at; I think that is what we would say.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

Q I just wanted to ask you about the interaction with debt. You are talking about people who will potentially have payday loans or whatever. First, will there be legal protection for the savings that they have in respect of those lenders? On the other hand, it may well be the case that the most sensible thing for them to do with their savings, once they get bonuses et cetera, is to pay off some of their debt, especially if it is at a very high annual percentage rate. I wondered what sort of advice there would be.

You mentioned universal credit, where there is quite an important point. The thing that is really good here is that you are getting people into a habit but this is initially clearly for short-term savings, which I think will actually incentivise them more on the realisation that it can help them. It is a matter of how it interacts with the debt dynamic, because a lot of them will be in that area.

Joseph Surtees: That is a very good point because there is a very specific point here about the risk that these accounts are under if somebody who has one either goes insolvent or does not go insolvent but falls into debt. That will mean they are at risk both of having the money taken during insolvency proceedings or taken by a third-party debt order. In the same way that was done with pensions under the Welfare Reform and Pensions Act 1999, where there was a wraparound of pension savings, it would be useful to have a think about whether the bonus, or even all the money in the account, should be protected if somebody begins to go insolvent, or is threatened by insolvency or their creditors.

On the second point, this is an ongoing conundrum. I know you are seeing Martin Lewis later and he will probably have a slightly different view on this. All of the research and lived experience of organisations such as ours show that, while it is crucial to pay back your debts, people also need some savings or fall-back for sudden shocks. That does not only do their financial position well; it does their mental health position incredibly well. It has been proven by the work of the single financial statement that you can save while paying back debt. Yes, in terms of a purely rational decision, occasionally people saving instead of repaying debt may not be 100% the best thing to do but, in terms of the common-sense best thing to do, I think it should be allowed.

Ed Boyd: Likewise, if someone has a significant level of debt and we say, “We think you should save the full amount because you have just moved into work. You’re working 18 hours at the national living wage on universal credit,” for example—the advice needs to be tailored case by case. That is why I think the training experience of work coaches as they engage with these people is going to be absolutely crucial. You can say, “This is what the advice should be,” but the people who are advising people face to face and saying, “These are your options in terms of savings, paying off debt” are absolutely crucial. It will be really important to get that interface right.

This links with a programme that is being rolled out by the Department for Work and Pensions called universal support, which is the idea that when somebody comes into a jobcentre, they will not just get advice—“This is a job you can go for and we’ll try to push you into that”—but we will try to understand the root causes of why they are out of work. Debt is often one of those causes, so making sure that people have appropriate support for debt is really important.

I do not think I can say this is how it should happen in every situation. Building up savings is important, but you would not encourage someone to save the maximum amount in their scheme they could if they were paying off lots of debs separately. You would encourage them, if they have some spare capacity in terms of income, to use that to pay off the debt as part of the repayment plan. The interface with the work coach becomes very important to make sure that the advice is right.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Cartlidge]

Q When this measure was originally brought in, the point was made by the previous Chancellor about the lack of consensus for the big, overarching reform, so these sorts of reforms were proposed. I do not think anyone disputes that they are not a complete answer. Of course, another part of it is Help to Save. You talked about many low-income savers. I just wonder what you think the impact will be of Help to Save on those on the really low incomes, who we want to see saving more.

Calum Bennie: We do a quarterly survey called the disposable income index survey and we look at people across the UK, and it is quite clear that particularly the 18 to 25 group are really struggling financially. About a quarter of them are spending more than their income. That is not to say that they are all in debt, because they may have other savings or family support to fall back on. Anything that can be done for them to help with a house purchase, which for young people today is a horrendous situation that they are faced with, compared with what many in this room faced when they were first buying their first house—they need all the help they can get, so Help to Save and the ISA are a boon for them.

[Ian Blackford]

Q You talk about some issues that people have with investing in pensions. Why do you think that is? You described pensions as “broke”. Can you just expand upon what you mean by that?

Calum Bennie: I said that for many people, pensions are broke. The reasons could be manifold. People I talk to have experienced problems, and their parents have had problems with pensions. They were saving in a pension and whatever has happened to it—maybe the company has gone bust, or something like that—they have not got the pension that they thought they would get. For many, final salary schemes have disappeared. The pension age has gone up. Women have perhaps been affected by the age going up quite recently, which they had not expected. It could be all those issues. Pensions have been tinkered with for quite a long time. The amount you could save and the lifetime limit had gone up, and now it has come down. Tax relief is being looked at. It is for all these reasons that some people feel, “I am just not comfortable with saving in a pension.”