Social Security and Pensions

Debate between Stephen Timms and Karen Buck

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 Stephen Timms and Karen Buck

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”.