Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Lord Oates Excerpts

Monday 21st December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

The amounts in the operations are of course much greater than in the charity. Maybe I am overinfluenced by some of my personal history on what people are paid in the commercial world, but the £100,000 to £200,000 bracket in a charitable context for what is now a substantial operation does not seem completely out. You can take two views on charities: either people should work for them for nothing and any money is wrong or you have to attract the very best people. I would think that if you are in that market, those sums are reasonable. That is the best I can do on that issue.

[Lord Oates (LD)]

Would the Minister accept that there are people in the public sector who run very significant operations, but the Prime Minister and others in the Government have said it is not acceptable for them to be paid more than the prime ministerial salary? How does this differ, given that, as my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, have pointed out, 60% of the funding for this charity is provided by Her Majesty’s Government?

[Lord Freud]

I should have made clear before that that is not departmental money; it is users’ money that we transfer. That is the reason that the salaries are set by Motability and not by government. Government does get itself into quite a lot of problems because there are areas of commercial endeavour where salaries, bluntly, are much higher than the Prime Minister’s salary. There is a different set of rates in the outside world. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, is not going to let this one go and I will watch him—from a distance—to see how far he gets on this.

Finally, the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, asked where we are. It is too early to tell the full picture. This started on a control basis only in July 2015, so I do not have a reliable figure for him. I remind noble Lords that customers who return their vehicle in good condition will get the benefit of up to £2,000-worth of support from Motability, which will in practice allow many to continue to be mobile through purchasing a used car.