House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) (Abolition of By-Elections) Bill [HL]

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 7th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, I defer to my noble friend’s greater understanding of these issues. However, it is not the case that an indirectly elected House that represented the nations and regions of this country would not be a powerful House. If my noble friend wishes himself to go and spend time in a university, he needs to go and study the operation of the Bundesrat in Germany, which is a substantially powerful institution, because it represents the elected state Governments of the Federal Republic of Germany. If my noble friend’s concern is about having a stronger second Chamber, any of these options would lead to a substantially stronger second Chamber than we have at the moment, and that would of necessity take power away from the House of Commons, which would be a very good thing.

These are issues which we should be debating as a country, and which the public wish to see debated, because they want to see more substantial power brought to them. It is a particular issue in the Midlands and the north of this country, where the sense of alienation is greatest and, I might add, if you look at the statistics, those regions are least well represented even within this nominated House. Eight per cent of the Members of your Lordships’ House come from the north of England; 15% of the population comes from the north. London and the south-east are almost twice overrepresented in this House if you compare the number of Members of this House with the population of those regions.

There are fundamental problems with the operation of this House, which will not be dealt with—I say with great respect to the noble Lord, Lord Cormack—by minute, incremental reforms. They require fundamental reform. The Brexit crisis that we are now going through puts fundamental constitutional reform on the agenda. The time is right to address it now and not to engage in tinkering reforms of this kind, which will simply entrench a nominated House.

[Lord Low of Dalston (CB)]

Instead of addressing us at some length on the rationale for his amendment, could the noble Lord possibly answer an important question about the process or the mechanism by which it would operate? As I read the amendment, it says that whenever a vacancy occurs by reason of the death—or, I suppose, the resignation—of a hereditary Peer, the whole panoply of a general election has to be mobilised to fill this one vacancy. Is that really what the noble Lord’s amendment suggests?

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, this is such a well-crafted amendment that it would make a fundamental reform of this House unavoidable, which was the original purpose of the undertakings given by my noble and learned friend Lord Irvine of Lairg during the passage of the 1999 Act. He saw at the time, and we agreed, that this would be a poisoned pill in the composition of the current House of Lords that would make the creation of a democratic House unavoidable. That, alas, has not happened in the last 20 years. I greatly regret it and I accept some measure of responsibility for the fact that the Government of which I was apart did not succeed in carrying through its proposals for a fully elected House. But I am afraid that the party opposite did not succeed in it, and that the noble Lords on the Liberal Democrat Benches, who claim to be most powerfully in favour of these reforms, also failed when they were in government. So in different ways, all the parties in this House have failed.

That failure, and the failure of wider constitutional reform of which it is a part, is a substantial part of the reason why we are going through the current Brexit crisis. We need to address it, and I would much rather do so by fundamental changes and improvements to the constitution of the United Kingdom than by wrenching this country out of the European Union.

These issues cannot be ducked, and we certainly cannot sweep them under the carpet with tiny, incremental changes of the kind which my noble friend Lord Grocott is proposing, so I beg to move.

House of Lords Reform: Elected Second Chamber

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I am not sure on what evidence the noble Lord makes that final statement. He is quite right that in the Parliament before this there was a majority of 388 on Second Reading for the Bill that he referred to—partly, perhaps, because I wound up that debate. Sadly, it was not possible to progress with a programme Motion, partly because of some dissent in my own party—I would not call them rebel reactionaries, as I think the noble Lord did—but, had the Labour Party joined the Government in the Lobbies, that programme Motion would have been passed. So I think the responsibility needs to be shared.

The noble Lord was right to remind the House that there is some discontent in the other place about the role of your Lordships’ House. There was a debate last week in the other place on the abolition of your Lordships’ House and some disobliging remarks were made. It was the view of one Member of Parliament that,

“it is about time the Commons decided who is an appropriate Member of the second Chamber … Select Committees are the obvious bodies to interview them”.

Another said:

“My final point is that whatever money we save from the House of Lords should be given to MPs—not in pay but to run our offices”.—[Official Report, Commons, 18/6/18; col. 13WH.]


But I do not believe that there is a public appetite for the abolition of the second Chamber.

[Lord Low of Dalston (CB)]

My Lords, I do not favour election, but does the Minister not agree that it might constitute a worthwhile advance if Members of this House were still to be appointed, possibly by an appointments commission, but greatly strengthened by a system of nominations from the different branches of civil society, such as the law, medicine, the arts, sport, education, the armed services, business, trade unions, the third sector, and so on?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I agree that all those professions and interests should be represented in your Lordships’ House and that the Cross Benches have a good representation of those interests. I think there is a quota of Peers allocated each year to HOLAC in order to appoint more Cross-Bench Peers. All this is against a background of the Prime Minister exercising restraint on political appointments. The recent Dissolution Honours List was the smallest since 1979—and here I warmly welcome my noble friend Lord Haselhurst.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) (Abolition of By-Elections) Bill [HL]

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Friday 23rd March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

That the House do now resume.

[Lord Low of Dalston (CB)]

My Lords, the business list for today indicates that after we have received the reply to the Urgent Question, the House will move into Committee on the conscientious objection Bill. As we have made good progress on the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, I suggest that we keep going on that to see whether we can get through the rest of that business today, rather than move on to the Committee of another Bill.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I understand the appetite to make progress on the Bill that we have been discussing. There have been discussions through the usual channels, including with the sponsor of the Bill, and it has been decided to split the day half and half between the Bill we have just been discussing and the conscientious objection Bill. I think that the House ought to stick to the arrangement agreed through the usual channels.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The Government will not be making time for the Bill. Its progress on a Friday is something that will need to be discussed with the Chief Whip.

[Lord Low of Dalston]

My Lords, that is why I proposed that we should keep going on this Bill. We have made good progress on it and, as the noble Lord has indicated, there is no assurance of getting further time for it. I accept that an agreement has been reached through the usual channels but the House is sovereign on these matters and I would like to put it to the House that, after we have heard the Answer to the UQ—

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. Although I personally have every sympathy for the Bill of my noble friend Lord Grocott, and I would like to hear whether he feels that there is a way of getting it through the House, the second Bill raises some very significant ethical issues which it is important to discuss. The conscientious objection Bill is not a trivial measure and it is right and proper that we discuss it in Committee, as arranged by the usual channels.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Morris of Bolton) (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Low of Dalston]

I accede to what has been said: the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, has reached an agreement through the usual channels. The House has sent a strong signal today that it wants to see further time made available for the noble Lord, Lord Grocott. In the hope that that request will be acceded to, I will not press the point that we take further time in Committee today on the noble Lord’s Bill.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees]

I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Low, for being so eager to resume the House.

Universal Credit

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Thursday 16th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Low of Dalston (CB)]

My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, on securing this debate at such a timely juncture, and on introducing it with her customary authority. Everybody says that universal credit is a good idea in theory. If successfully implemented as originally conceived, it would bring six existing benefits together in a single system and ensure that work always paid. But in practice it has been dogged by nothing but problems. Implementation has been subject to severe delays, and it is now running some five years behind. It has been beset by IT problems, cost overruns and write-offs, and the Treasury has substantially eroded the value of the new benefit by cutting costs, in particular by raising the taper rate—the rate at which earnings are clawed back—from 55p to 65p in the pound; it was only slightly reduced, to 63p, in last year’s Autumn Statement. As is plain to see, rollout, and the time people have to wait before payment, is giving rise to major problems.

I want to talk about the impact on disabled people. I suspect I shall be making a good many of the points that the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, did not have time to make, so if he has discussions later with the Minister, I wonder whether I might possibly join those discussions.

To begin with, a number of design and implementation faults have caused problems for disabled people in accessing payments. There are concerns that processes and systems are inaccessible. Universal credit is normally claimed online, and Citizens Advice has found that people are struggling with the application process, including difficulties with the online system. The online application process must be made accessible, including the provision of information that is easy to understand. Disabled people should also be given the opportunity to make their claim in person and have access to appropriate support.

As for the financial impact, Citizens Advice estimates that 68% of households claiming universal credit will have an adult with a disability or long-term health condition. In her 2012 report Holes in the Safety Net, the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, found that 450,000 disabled people would be worse off under universal credit. Certain groups would be particularly affected: 100,000 disabled children would lose up to £28 a week, and 230,000 severely disabled people who do not have another adult to assist them could lose between £28 and £58 a week. Up to 116,000 disabled people who work could be at risk of losing £40 a week.

The reality was made clear by a disability activist who wrote to me saying:

“One aspect of the universal credit system which to date no one has mentioned is the fact that when making a new claim for universal credit, severely disabled people lose £78.35 a week. This is due to the fact that two of the three disability premiums that were available under employment and support allowance are no longer available under universal credit. Under ESA there were three disability premiums. A basic disability premium of £32.55 a week is still available, but a severe disability premium, currently £62.45 a week payable to people receiving the mid or high-care component of DLA or PIP, and an enhanced disability premium, currently £15.90 a week payable to those in receipt of the highest rate of care component, are no longer available.”


She cited the case of a disabled man with severe mental health problems who stood to lose £77.75 a week. The stress occasioned by this potential reduction in his income, together with the hassle of the application process, had led him to make two attempts on his life.

The Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016 also saw a £30 a week cut in employment and support allowance for those in the work-related activity group. That was a particularly controversial cut. Despite much urging from the disability community, there is no sign of it being reversed. This cut is mirrored in universal credit by the removal of the limited capability for work component, also worth £30 a week. In many cases, this is likely to mean that for those disabled people in low-paid jobs, work will no longer pay, while for those not in work, it will be increasingly difficult to make ends meet.

The Disability Benefits Consortium, which represents 80 disability charities, is urging the Government to halt the rollout of universal credit for any further disabled claimants and urgently engage with disability organisations and disabled people to see how the dire consequences of universal credit for disabled people can be ameliorated. I earnestly beg the Government to heed its call.