Social Security and Pensions

Debate between Karen Buck and Stephen Timms

Monday 6th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Ms Buck]

This freeze in local housing allowance, which is such a critical element of people’s income, is causing such hardship for hundreds of thousands of families. That is not only undermining living standards in the middle of a cost of living crisis, but leading to utterly perverse disparities between areas due to differences in rent inflation. The 30th percentile of rents in Bristol is £100 more than in Newbury, but the amount of housing support that those who live in Bristol can receive is £12.50 less than those who live in Newbury. To quote the Institute of Fiscal Studies again:

“the current approach makes little sense. It permanently bakes in historic information about differences in rents across the country, while entirely ignoring current information about those differences.”

We can see the real-world consequences playing out on our streets as rough sleeping soars and council homelessness units are stretched to breaking point.

[Sir Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I simply want to respond briefly to the intervention of the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham), who mentioned me in passing—inaccurately, I must say. He was wrong to say that benefits have been uprated in line with inflation. At the moment, the headline rate of benefits is the lowest in real terms for 40 years, following the repeated freezes we have had. Does my hon. Friend agree that the hon. Member for Gloucester ought to check the record?

[Ms Buck]

I totally agree with my right hon. Friend, who speaks with expertise on this issue.

The fact is that we have seen the implications of freezes in benefits. We are seeing it in soaring poverty, and we are seeing support for housing and childcare costs failing. Those things need to be based on real-world prices, not those obtained in the past. Universal credit and legacy benefits need to be uprated with general inflation—not just once in a while, but every year—if their value is not to be permanently eroded. It would be welcome if the Minister could commit to those basic principles at least.

Pension Schemes Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting)

Debate between Karen Buck and Stephen Timms

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 3rd November 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

I ask my right hon. Friend to confirm my understanding, which is that when we talk about diversity, we are not simply talking about it being a good thing to have a range of different experiences and backgrounds; all the evidence from across the commercial sector is that diversity increases performance because of the range of perspectives that it brings to bear.

[Stephen Timms]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. She and I took part in a debate on a similar issue around 10 years ago, on the Welfare Reform Bill. She is right on this point, and that is an argument that I want to come to in a moment.

I hope the approach that I am advocating will be applied to other pension trustee boards in the UK in due course, because according to a report on diversity published in March by the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association, which we used to call the National Association of Pension Funds, 83% of pension scheme trustees are male; 50% of chairs of trustee boards are over 60; a third of all trustees are over 60, while only 2.5% are under 30; 25% of pension schemes have trustee boards that are entirely male; and only 5% of schemes have a majority of female trustees. This is a particularly stark picture if we look at the make-up of pension scheme trustee boards at the moment.

As the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association comments:

“It seems clear that occupational pension scheme trustee boards have generally not implemented robust diversity policies as effectively as FTSE 100 boards”.

Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation and Liability for Housing Standards) Bill

Debate between Karen Buck and Stephen Timms

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 19th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ms Buck]

There are a number of issues in respect of supporting tenants that are outwith the scope of the Bill and on which I will continue to make representations, including retaliatory eviction. The reality is that local authorities are increasingly cash-strapped. That is one of the reasons that environmental health departments are not able to enforce. In an ideal world, local authorities would be able to fund advice services and tenancy liaison officers. I have seen some very good practice by tenancy liaison workers, including in Westminster, across the parties—when work is good, I am happy to acknowledge that. I am in absolute agreement with the right hon. Gentleman, however, that it is inadequate and patchy, which is exactly why we need to make sure that individual tenants can exercise a direct remedy in law when the other services we would all like to be in place are not up to the job.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on her Bill. On the role of local authorities, does she welcome, as I do, the Government’s recent decision to reauthorise Newham Council’s selective licensing scheme? She has rightly pointed out that it is a small minority of landlords who are the problem. Does she believe that local authorities more generally should have those selective licensing powers?

Homelessness Reduction Bill

Debate between Karen Buck and Stephen Timms

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Friday 27th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I agree with my hon. Friend on her support for the Bill. As I am sure she knows, last Sunday was Homelessness Sunday and I happened to be in her borough, although not her constituency. Attention was drawn to the large number of church-based night shelters of various kinds that operate all over the country to try to meet the rapidly growing need. Will she join me in commending those initiatives for their efforts?

[Ms Buck]

I am happy to do that. Stunningly good work is being done by volunteers, churches and other faith communities on homelessness. At Christmas I went to the Crisis centre at the City of Westminster College in my constituency and met volunteers, some of whom have been going to Crisis for 20 years to provide the support that is given over the difficult holiday period. We should congratulate those people, whether it is their job or a voluntary commitment, who put so much into helping the homeless.

The fact remains that fundamental problems are pushing in the opposite direction to the Bill. On welfare reform, the House of Commons Library briefing confirms that, this year alone, £2.7 billion less will be spent on housing support than would have been the case on trends from 2010 and that £5 billion has been taken out altogether since 2010. Unfortunately, that puts the £48 million contribution to the Bill into rather alarming context. Of course, the delay in universal credit payments is driving more and more tenants into arrears, which in turn is making private landlords—the default option for many homeless people—less likely to let. I see no signs of that problem reducing. In fact, the trend is likely to go in the opposite direction. The hon. Member for Harrow East said that we should judge the Bill on its merits, and I am happy to do that, but we cannot ignore the wider context.

As the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) reminded us, this is fundamentally about people. It is not just about money and the legal framework; it is fundamentally about those at the sharp end. In the last few weeks, I have dealt with many cases of people either homeless or at risk of homelessness. This week, I heard from a young mother of two children, 20 years resident in my constituency, who was made homeless from the private rented sector. Her sick parents, for whom she provides care, live in the constituency. She had to wait until the bailiffs came before she could be rehoused, and she has now been rehoused in north London, over an hour away from her support network and sharing a single room with her two children. That is the reality of homelessness.

Even more acute was a case that came to me just before Christmas. It goes to the heart of the challenge, particularly of single homelessness. With the House’s permission, I will read a few lines from the letter that came in from a young man who was kicked out of home for reasons that I will not share with the House but which are very profound and difficult and which I understand:

“After I was kicked out, I was forced to live in a friend’s car through the winter of 2016. One night when I was sleeping the car was broken into… the people held a knife to my neck and took everything I owned in the world, even my only shoes. I slept on a park bench in Victoria until a stranger told me about a hostel… I was given a place 3 days later… In the meantime, I went back to sleep at the park, which I found very unfair.”

Unfortunately, at the hostel, he was subject to an attack and robbery, and so the hostel place broke down. When he finally came to me the week before Christmas, he had been sleeping rough for the whole year. His letter finishes:

“I don’t want to be robbed or killed… 2016 has been the worst year of my life. I have wanted to kill myself so many times… You hear about people being killed on the road every day, and I know if I don’t get help, I will be the next to be killed.”

That boy is 19 years old. He will be scarred by that experience for the rest of his life. The mother of the two young children will also be scarred. Homelessness scars people’s lives, even after they have been found somewhere to live. If the Bill can do anything for that 19-year-old boy, I will happily support it, but the test of the Bill, for that mother and her children and for that 19-year-old boy, and indeed for the hon. Member for Harrow East, is whether it can exist in a context of support and financial backing that seeks to deal with the drivers of homelessness, whether housing supply, the failures of universal credit or the impact of welfare reform. If it does not, welcome though the provisions will be, we will unfortunately find ourselves back here again, in a year or two, facing yet more increases in homelessness and yet more individual lives scarred by this terrible scourge of modern life.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Debate between Karen Buck and Stephen Timms

Monday 20th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

Returning to my right hon. Friend’s commitment to amend unfairnesses in the Bill, will he confirm that one of his amendments might tackle the obscenity of a woman who has been raped having to prove to the Department for Work and Pensions that she has been raped in order to be able to claim tax credits in future?

[Stephen Timms]

We will have to hear from the Government how they envisage that part of their proposal working, but I can well understand the concern that my hon. Friend raises.

Let me turn to the individual measures in the Bill, starting with the benefit cap. We support the principle that work should always pay and that people should be better off in work than on benefits. That is why our manifesto supported a household benefit cap and the idea that it should be lower in areas where there are lower housing costs.