UNICEF: Child Poverty Rankings

Debate between Lord Alton of Liverpool and Viscount Younger of Leckie

Wednesday 28th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I have given the Government’s view on this scorecard—and, by the way, it is a scorecard, not a report, we should be careful to say. But the noble Lord makes a good point. What I can say is that we are looking at a new type of measure: the Department for Work and Pensions is developing the below average resources statistics to provide a new additional measure of poverty, based on the approach proposed by the Social Metrics Commission, led by my noble friend Lady Stroud.

The noble Lord makes a very good point about children. It is very important to get the statistics accurate. The importance of children remains very much live in our minds.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, in addition to combating the financial disadvantage facing some 69 million children in the 43 wealthiest countries in the world, as identified in the UNICEF report referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, does the Minister agree that poverty can be about more than simply money? How do the Government measure the impact on the life chances of 2 million British children who have minimal contact with their fathers—69% of whom are in the low- income categories—in the households in which they live?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

Again, the noble Lord raises an important point about children, who are the subject of this Question. The latest statistics show that, between 2020-21 and 2021-22, the number of people on absolute low income was virtually unchanged, and absolute poverty rates after housing costs were stable for children and working-age adults, with strong earnings growth offsetting the impact of the withdrawal of the unprecedented levels of government support, protecting those in jobs, which were provided during the pandemic.

Mesothelioma Lump Sum Payments (Conditions and Amounts) (Amendment) Regulations 2023

Debate between Lord Alton of Liverpool and Viscount Younger of Leckie

Monday 6th March 2023 Grand Committee

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Viscount Younger of Leckie) (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak also to the Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers’ Compensation) (Payment of Claims) (Amendment) Regulations 2023. I am pleased to introduce these statutory instruments, which were laid before the House on 12 January 2023. These instruments will increase the value of lump sum awards payable under the Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers’ Compensation) Act 1979, and the diffuse mesothelioma scheme, which was established by the Child Maintenance and Other Payments Act 2008.

As many noble Lords will be aware, these two schemes are not included in the main social security benefits uprating procedure and their uprating is not a statutory requirement. However, through these statutory instruments, we will increase the amounts payable by the September 2022 consumer prices index of 10.1%. These new amounts will be paid to those who satisfy all the conditions of entitlement for the first time on or after 1 April 2023.

Many noble Lords will be aware of friends and close colleagues from your Lordships’ House who have lost their lives as a result of these dreadful diseases. We must remember the great impact that these diseases have on people and their families. The Government recognise the tremendous suffering that diseases such as mesothelioma and pneumoconiosis cause to those who are diagnosed. The conditions covered by these schemes can be debilitating and life limiting and often involve very long latency periods, with symptoms starting to show many years, often many decades, after exposure. Mesothelioma, for example, is an aggressive type of cancer strongly associated with exposure to asbestos and is usually terminal. Life expectancy from diagnosis is poor.

I will now outline the purpose of the two schemes we are debating. The Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers’ Compensation) Act 1979, which, for simplicity, I shall refer to as the 1979 scheme, provides a single lump sum compensation payment to individuals who suffer from one of the prescribed diseases covered by the scheme, including mesothelioma, pneumoconiosis and three other dust-related respiratory diseases. This scheme was designed to cover people who are unable to claim damages from employers because they have gone out of business and who have not brought any action against another party for damages. To be eligible, a claimant must be in receipt of industrial injuries disablement benefit for a disease covered by the 1979 scheme.

The 2008 mesothelioma lump sum payments scheme, which I will refer to as the 2008 scheme, was introduced to provide compensation to people who contracted diffuse mesothelioma but who are unable to claim compensation under the 1979 Act. This may be because they were self-employed or their exposure to asbestos was not due to their work. The 2008 scheme allows payments to be made quickly to people with diffuse mesothelioma at their time of greatest need. Under both schemes, a claim can be made by a dependant if the person with the disease has sadly died before being able to make a claim. These schemes aim to ensure that, where possible, the people who suffer from the diseases they cover receive compensation within their lifetime.

The rates payable under the 1979 Act scheme are based on the disease sufferer’s assessed level of disablement and their age at the date of entitlement. The highest awards are made to individuals with the highest assessed level of disablement and those who become entitled to a payment at an earlier age.

All payments for diffuse mesothelioma under the 1979 Act scheme are automatically made at the 100% disablement rate—the highest rate of payment—reflecting the serious nature of the disease. Similarly, all payments for this condition under the 2008 scheme are made at the 100% disablement rate. The highest payments from both schemes are made to the youngest sufferers of the disease. Between April 2021 and March 2022, the latest financial year for which data is available, 3,080 awards were made across both schemes, totalling £44.7 million. Between 2022-23 and 2027-28, expenditure on these schemes is forecast to fall by 8% in real terms.

I will now touch on the legacy of Covid-19. As the Committee will be aware, the Covid-19 pandemic presented unprecedented challenges. I am mindful of the impact it has had on sufferers of respiratory diseases in particular. As my predecessor set out in last year’s debate, the department made the decision to suspend all face-to-face assessments between March 2020 and April 2021 to protect the health of our claimants, and of course our staff. Some assessments were further suspended beyond April 2021 due to the additional risks of undertaking them face to face. Inevitably, this has led to delays in some customer journeys for claims to industrial injuries disablement benefit and the lump-sum schemes.

In response, the department and its assessment provider, the Centre for Health and Disability Assessments, introduced several innovations to ensure that claims for IIDB, the 1979 scheme and the 2008 scheme continued to be processed as quickly as possible. We increased the use of paper-based assessments and introduced video assessments where appropriate. I am pleased to say that we continue to assess some customers via these routes where possible.

I will now touch on one specific, important and sensitive theme linked to these regulations, which is asbestos removal and schools. Tremendous strides have been made to restrict the use of asbestos and introduce safe environments for its handling in this country. However, the legacy of its widespread use, including in schools, is still with us today.

The Health and Safety Executive has a mature and comprehensive regulatory framework to ensure that the legacy asbestos risks in Great Britain are managed, which aligns with the best evidence currently available. Correct implementation of the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 not only ensures management of the risks of exposure but will eventually lead to the elimination of asbestos from the built environment. I understand that some noble Lords have previously raised the issue of asbestos in schools in these debates. I assure them, and this Committee, that the Government take the safety of children and those who work with them incredibly seriously.

The Department for Education is committed to working collaboratively with the regulator, the HSE, to support schools and duty holders. As part of this, the Department for Education published bespoke guidance on asbestos management for schools in 2020 and is working with the HSE and the sector to look at further ways to help them and to build on existing guidance and support. Well-maintained and safe school buildings are a priority for this Government. That is why over £13 billion has been allocated for improving school buildings since 2015, including £1.8 billion committed for the financial year 2022-23.

I will conclude on a positive and—I hope noble Lords will agree—hopeful note. While there is always a degree of uncertainty in predicting future disease incidence, current projections by the Health and Safety Executive suggest that total annual mesothelioma deaths in Great Britain are expected to decline in the coming decades. For males, a decline is projected over the course of this decade, and for females, deaths are projected to start falling shortly after. These figures offer some hope that, one day, no more families shall have to endure the suffering caused by these dreadful diseases.

Medical research into treatment options is ongoing, particularly in the field of immunotherapy. While these treatments are not currently curative, a recent trial has shown clear evidence of benefit to advanced mesothelioma patients, equivalent to an additional three to four months of life.

I am sure that all noble Lords here today will join me in recognising the continued importance of the compensation provided by the 1979 and 2008 schemes and the importance of maintaining the value of these payments at this time. I am pleased to say that these regulations were considered in the other place on 8 February 2023.

Finally, as part of my role today, I am required to confirm—which I am pleased to do—that these provisions are compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. I commend to the Committee the increase of the payment scales for these schemes and ask approval to implement them. I beg to move.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Viscount for the way in which he introduced these regulations. Just before we began, a group of us were recalling how we have discussed this year in, year out. We were also recalling some of his illustrious predecessors and others in all parts of the House who contributed to some of the changes that he has referred to.

I am thinking particularly of the late Lord Newton of Braintree, who was a Secretary of State. He was a great supporter when I moved amendments in your Lordships’ House seeking to change the Criminal Justice Bill and to bring about what then became a full-scale Act of Parliament, the Mesothelioma Act. The noble Lord, Lord Freud, was decisive in making that happen. He also once shared in this Committee how his father had died of mesothelioma. On this side of the Committee, I think of Lord McKenzie of Luton, who died at the end of 2021. It will seem a strange debate without his voice. His attention to granular detail was extraordinary and his knowledge of pneumoconiosis and mesothelioma admirable, demonstrating the very best of your Lordships’ House.

The noble Viscount referred to the removal of asbestos from schools, which I was very pleased to hear about. It has been a recurring theme that we have raised in these Committees over the years. On a hopeful note, he said that mesothelioma might be plateauing. I will come back to the data a bit later. He also talked about advances in medical treatments. He will know that the Mesothelioma Act was specifically about providing government funding toward the work of the British Lung Foundation and others on the causes and consequences of mesothelioma and on looking for cures. Can the noble Viscount tell us more about whether that funding is being sustained and what progress is being made in that area?

One of the things that has struck me is the number of noble Lords who have shared personal stories of loved ones, family or friends who have died of this disease, which, over the distance, has claimed more than 30,000 lives. That is the same number of deaths still estimated to be caused globally every year. As I have done on previous occasions, I pay tribute to John Flanagan and the Liverpool-based charity, the Merseyside Asbestos Victims Support Group, for keeping a candle lit for all those afflicted by mesothelioma. In 2020, I noted that people in Liverpool are more than 18% more likely to die of mesothelioma. I know that we will hear from my noble friend Lord Wigley and the noble Lord, Lord Jones, during our proceedings; we have heard from them previously about the situation in Wales. However, this disease is no respecter of geographical boundaries or class. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Allan of Hallam, and I were discussing this just before the Committee met. We were talking about some of those who have talked about the loss of loved ones.

My noble friend Lord Freyberg talked in the House about his sister, a journalist, who had died of mesothelioma. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, talked about his sister, who had simply been washing overalls and had died of mesothelioma. The noble Lord, Lord Giddens, told us about his wife, who had died of mesothelioma. We also heard from the noble Lord, Admiral Lord West, the story of how young men training for the Navy played snowballs with asbestos. Indeed, Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, described how his father, Admiral Hunt, had also died of mesothelioma. So this is not something that is remote. It is something we know about, but sometimes it is regarded almost as having Cinderella status.

Trading Relations: USA, EU and China

Debate between Lord Alton of Liverpool and Viscount Younger of Leckie

Monday 7th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, what does the noble Viscount say about having a trade deficit with the People’s Republic of China of some £40 billion, when China is upgraded by the Government themselves as being a threat to the security interests of the United Kingdom, and about spending some £10 billion—the size of our entire overseas aid and development budget —on items associated with Covid, not least 1 billion lateral flow tests, bought from the People’s Republic of China? Is it not time that we increased our own manufacturing capacity to ensure that such items could be made in the United Kingdom by British workers? Surely we must see that the lack of resilience and too much dependency at a time like this, given what has happened with Ukraine and Russia, is not something that this country should follow.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I always listen carefully to the noble Lord. He makes some good points. I start by saying that 61,000 jobs in this country are reliant on Chinese companies. However, human rights are a major issue; I hope that chimes with the remarks made on many occasions in this Chamber in providing evidence of the extent of China’s efforts to silence and repress the Uighurs and other minorities. It is important that we create a balance between continuing trade with China and the fact that we are not looking at forming an FTA with China at present.

Chinese Products and Companies: Human Rights Violations

Debate between Lord Alton of Liverpool and Viscount Younger of Leckie

Tuesday 20th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, and in so doing declare my interests as the vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Uighurs and patron of the Coalition for Genocide Response.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

My Lords, in 2020, China was the UK’s third largest import market, and in 2019, more than 60,000 UK VAT-registered businesses imported goods from China worth about £46.4 billion. We want a positive and constructive trade relationship with China, but we will not sacrifice our values in doing so. In January, the Foreign Secretary announced a comprehensive package of measures to help ensure that no UK organisations are complicit in the serious human rights violations being perpetrated against the Uighurs and other minorities in Xinjiang.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, given what the Minister just said, why has Hikvision, the Chinese company banned in the United States, which makes the surveillance cameras used to oppress Uighurs in Xinjiang, where the House of Commons has determined that a genocide is under way, and which has installed CCTV cameras all over the United Kingdom, not been banned here? Will he say what the cost of the 1 billion lateral flow tests that this country bought from China was, whether slave labour in China was used to produce them and why they could not have been produced in the United Kingdom?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

That was a series of questions from the noble Lord, and I start by applauding his persistence on this important subject. On his questions relating to the US, I shall have to write to him, but I may be helpful to him by saying that ensuring a tough response to modern slavery, which is part of what we are trying to do here, remains a great priority of this Government. The Government have already committed to strengthening the landmark transparency provisions contained in the Modern Slavery Act 2015, following the transparency and supply chains consultation.

Trade Bill

Debate between Lord Alton of Liverpool and Viscount Younger of Leckie

Consideration of Commons amendments & Ping Pong (Hansard) & Ping Pong (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 2nd February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord. I know he made a very passionate and emotive speech earlier. The purpose now is to press his amendment, should he choose to do so.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

I am also exercising my right of reply at the end of debate, and I am drawing my remarks to a conclusion.

Two heroes of mine from the Nazi period have been referred to in this debate. One was a man called Maximilian Kolbe, who was taken to Auschwitz and executed there. He said that

“beyond the … hecatombs of extermination camps, there are two irreconcilable enemies in the depth of every soul … what use are the victories on the battlefield”—

in other words, what use are all the privileges we enjoy—

“if we ourselves are defeated in our innermost personal selves?”

The other person was Dietrich Bonhoeffer, executed by the Nazis, who said:

“Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”


I commend Motion C1 to your Lordships’ House; this is our chance to speak and to act. I would like to test the opinion of the House.

Trade Bill

Debate between Lord Alton of Liverpool and Viscount Younger of Leckie

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords & Report: 1st sitting & Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Monday 7th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

My Lords, we have had a very long debate, and it is now my job to address the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Alton.

I have listened very carefully to the speech of the noble Lord, and noted that he has raised the subject of genocide—a heinous crime—more than 300 times, which is remarkable. I applaud his persistence and I wish that I could be the Minister to provide an answer—perhaps the 301st—that gives the necessary satisfaction to him, and to other distinguished noble Lords who have taken part in this very interesting debate. There have been some very moving and passionate speeches and we have had quotes from around the houses, ranging from Robbie Burns to—I should mention this—the very great, late Lord Sacks.

I do not advocate repeating the points made so eloquently by my noble friend Lord Grimstone in a previous group, so my remarks—I hope that the House will forgive me—are necessarily short. I will, however, quickly re-emphasise that the Government share wholeheartedly the concerns underpinning this amendment. My noble friend Lord Cormack referred to global Britain, as did a number of other Peers. The UK has also long supported the promotion of our values globally, and remains committed to its international obligations. We are clear that more trade does not have to come at the expense of human rights. This includes clauses in our trade agreements with many developing and emerging markets: suspensive powers in our trade preferences regime and recourse to trade levers through our sanctions policy.

The UK has played a leading international role in holding China to account for abuses, in particular those reported as taking place against the Uighur Muslims—which, again, was a theme during the debate this evening. We have led joint statements at the UN’s human rights bodies and underlined our concern directly to the Chinese authorities at senior levels. We have also repeatedly urged businesses that are involved in investing in Xinjiang or which have parts of their supply chain in the region, to conduct appropriate due diligence to satisfy themselves that their activities do not support any human rights violations or abuses. We have reinforced this message through engagement with businesses, industry groups and other stakeholders. Under the Modern Slavery Act the UK became the first country in the world to require businesses to report on how they are tackling modern slavery in their operations and supply chains.

This amendment seeks to give the High Court of England and Wales powers to revoke trade agreements where the court holds that another signatory to the relevant agreement has committed genocide. I was grateful to my noble friend Lord Lansley, who not only alluded to this in the last group but—as I know, though I came in slightly late—in this group too. He made some very helpful and interesting points. I listened carefully to all the speeches but, despite the very strong arguments that were presented by the noble Baronesses, Lady Kennedy and Lady Smith, and a few other noble Lords, the Government have serious concerns about this approach, some of which were touched on in the previous groups, as my noble friend Lord Grimstone iterated most strongly in his remarks.

The key point is that this would strike at the heart of the separation of powers in Britain’s constitutional system, allowing the High Court to frustrate trade agreements entered into by the Government and ratified after parliamentary scrutiny. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, raised a point about the separation of powers and the role of the courts. The Government’s position has consistently been that only a competent court should make determinations of genocide, and this does not entail the courts having the power to revoke trade agreements. State genocide is very difficult to prove in the judicial context—the evidential threshold is very high, and proceedings tend to be long and costly but the amendment would make it simple to bring vexatious allegations of genocide to the court as a means of putting political and international pressure on the Government.

Perhaps I may take up a point raised, in part, by my noble friend Lord Cormack. I remind the House, a bit like a long-playing record, that the Bill focuses on continuity agreements, but I would like to say a word about our approach to free trade agreements. We do not see a choice between securing growth and investment for the UK and supporting human rights. Our experience is that political freedom and the rule of law are vital underpinnings for both prosperity and stability, and that by having a strong economic relationship with partners, we are able to have open discussions on a range of very difficult issues, including human rights. Despite our varying approach to agreements with partners, we will always have open discussions on a range of issues, including human rights.

As my noble friend Lord Grimstone said earlier, we have provided extensive information to Parliament on our negotiations, including publishing our objectives and economic scoping assessments prior to negotiations beginning. We continue to engage closely with the relevant scrutiny committees—namely, the International Trade Committee in the House of Commons and the International Agreements Sub-Committee in the House of Lords.

Just before I conclude, I want to say something about China, because many references were made to that country. I say at the outset—as noble Lords would expect me to say—that China is an important economic partner for the UK. UK/China trade is currently worth approximately £76 billion. China is our fourth-largest trading partner, the sixth-largest export market and the third-largest import market. Currently, we have no plans to commence free trade agreement negotiations with China. Having recently concluded an agreement with Japan, our current priorities, as my noble friend Lord Grimstone has said on many occasions, are the US, Australia and New Zealand, as economies more similar to our own. Looking ahead—again, as my noble friend has said—we are committed to seeking accession to the CPTPP.

I do not want to delay the House any longer and the hour is late. In the light of the legal difficulties and unintended consequences, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Viscount for his response to the debate. He would not expect me, though, to accept the tenor of his arguments, nor would the House expect me to speak at any length at the conclusion of this debate, because I know, as the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, was right to remind us, that we would like to move to a vote.

Let me make just two points. Anyone who doubts the point of the House of Lords should read the speeches tomorrow in Hansard, because it has been a remarkable debate on all sides. Good, constructive points have been made, and people have quite rightly said no amendment is going to be perfect and any amendment can be refined and improved. That is the purpose of this place—it is the point of our existence. If we send this amendment to the House of Commons, it can continue to be worked on and those issues can easily be addressed.

During the debate, a number of noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, and the noble Lord, Lord Polak, mentioned Rwanda. I visited the genocide sites in Rwanda; I went to a place called Murambi, where 56,000 people had been killed. I saw the skeletons of pregnant women with their children in what had been a college but had been turned into a memorial for victims of that violence. The noble Lord, Lord Hague of Richmond, as William Hague, our Foreign Secretary, spoke at the 20th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, and he said:

“It is not enough to remember; we have a responsibility to act.”


It is not enough to remember. We have a responsibility to act.

During the Second World War, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a renowned theologian, defied Hitler and the Reich. He was sentenced to death and executed. He famously said:

“Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”


Now is the time to act. I would like to test the opinion of the House.