King’s Speech (4th Day)

Lord Palmer of Childs Hill Excerpts

Monday 22nd July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)]

My Lords, I will concentrate on aspects of work and pensions that are in the gracious Speech and those that are sadly missing from it.

I hope that the Minister, not necessarily a Minister from work and pensions, gives some reassurance on plans to end the two-child benefit cap. Figures show that 100,000 more children were affected over the past year. I think it immoral, and the DWP has just published figures showing quite how damaging the impact is. I was slightly reassured this morning when I received a copy of a letter from Ministers in the Department for Work and Pensions, headed “child poverty strategy plan”—but it makes no mention whatever of the two-child benefit cap.

The last Government limited universal credit or child tax credit to a family’s first two children. Third and subsequent children born after April 2017 are not eligible. There are now 1.6 million disadvantaged children caught by this ill-advised cap. I suppose the aim was to reduce large families claiming benefit, but can the Government say whether this stopped us having larger families? I believe the intention was to deter poor families from having more children than they could afford. Is there any evidence that this cap succeeded?

It has certainly increased child poverty. Removal of the cap is the most effective way to get children out of poverty. About half the affected families have three children, while a fifth have five or more children. I hope the Government scrap the cap, which will help reduce child poverty at a stroke. The real answer is to remove the cap completely, because it is the children who suffer. On a technical point, will the Government develop a digital equivalent of the NCC1 paper form from the DWP?

Can the Minister comment on the plight of WASPI women? We call for the ombudsman’s recommendations to be implemented before the Government’s problem disappears through more deaths of the women affected. It is unfair for the Government to say that these women were told it was going to happen. We are told that they were thus forewarned, but many have no recollection of being told. How were they told that they were not going to get their pension when they thought they would? I am reminded of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, when Arthur found the notice that he was meant to see displayed in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet in a disused lavatory. These women did not know that they were not going to receive this pension. There is no purpose in having an ombudsman if the Government pick and choose which decisions they abide by.

The King’s Speech includes a Bill on pension schemes. I look forward to examining it in due course. I hope that, in clear terms, it provides: a firm commitment to press ahead with the pensions dashboard described by the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, and not let it be subject to further delays; a firm commitment to implement the 2017 reforms to automatic enrolment, applying the 8% mandatory contribution from the first pound and enrolling from age 18 rather than 22, and to provide a timetable, given that the last Government said they would do so by the mid-2020s; and a timetable to increase mandatory contributions from 8% to a more realistic level such as 12%. Automatic enrolment is vital to millions of people on modest incomes and, without a big step forward, they will either retire poor or have to work beyond their ever-increasing pension age.

The Minister will have seen the latest research from the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which shows that the nation’s poorest pensioners have fallen behind other pensioners in the last decade. Although pension credit has been fully uprated, thousands of the poorest pensioners fail to claim what they are entitled to. Can the Minister tell us what further steps the Government will be taking to tackle non-take-up of pension credit, and in particular whether the department is making full use of local authority data on housing benefit claims by pensioners that could be used to support a pension credit claim. The data is already there.

The Labour manifesto did not mention the word “carer”—the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, mentioned this—and neither did the King’s Speech. The Government need to remember that caring is not just about the social care sector but about the thousands of acts of unpaid care that happen every day. Finally, do the Government recognise their responsibilities to their people in a caring and civilised society?