Mesothelioma Bill [Lords]

Debate between Baroness Burt of Solihull and Kate Green

Monday 2nd December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Kate Green]

It is right to say that progress could have been faster and that more could have been done, but we should not overlook the fact that, over four decades, it is Labour Governments who have, until now, made the progress that has been made. As I have said, it was my noble Friend Lord McKenzie who began the process of consultation that has brought us to where we are today.

[Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)]

I am very supportive of the Bill, as I was of previous ones—my grandfather died of pneumoconiosis—but do the Opposition welcome the Bill and will they support it in the House tonight?

[Kate Green]

I am happy to answer that question, as I would have done during my speech. The Opposition welcome the progress that has been made, and we will not oppose the Bill this evening, because we share with the Minister and Members from both sides of the House a wish to process payments and get them to victims as quickly as we can. That is not, however, the same as saying that the Bill cannot be improved further. We believe that it can be improved, and I will outline some of our suggestions for how that might be achieved.

As I have said, the Bill has already passed through the House of Lords, and the work done in that place has undoubtedly improved it already. We will support the Bill on Second Reading, but it does not go quite as far as necessary in bringing justice for victims. We will therefore seek further improvements as the Bill continues its parliamentary passage. I want to make it very clear that we are not doing so to score political points or to delay the Bill unnecessarily. Everyone understands the importance of establishing a scheme and getting payments flowing as quickly as possible. However, this House will fail the victims of this terrible disease if we do not do the best we can to recognise their appalling suffering through a fair system of payments.

Victims have been left for years without any compensation, while the insurance industry has continued to benefit from billions of pounds in premiums. It certainly seems to the Opposition that the Government have not yet done everything that could be done and all that needs to be achieved, despite the progress that has been made and the undoubted good intentions of the Minister and his colleague in the House of Lords.

Amendment of the Law

Debate between Baroness Burt of Solihull and Kate Green

Thursday 22nd March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Kate Green]

It is of deep concern to me, as I am sure it is to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, that female unemployment is now the highest it has been in a quarter of a century and that it was female unemployment that rose most rapidly in the last quarter, considerably outstripping what is happening to men.

I find it difficult to understand the fairness or logic of introducing a higher tax threshold that lifts some low-paid workers out of tax while at the same time disincentivising many other low-paid workers who are seeing their tax credits frozen or lost altogether if they cannot reach sufficient hours, to the extent that work will become hardly worthwhile for them at all. I cannot see the logic of the Government telling pensioners that on the one hand they will give to them through the triple lock, which I welcome, but with the other hand they will take away from them by raising the threshold and bringing 230,000 of them into tax, while at the same time trying to take people in low-paid work out of tax.

I am struggling to understand how a Government who said that they wanted to be fair and to operate a system that was simple can have arrived at the decision they reached on child benefit, according to which a couple with an income just short of £100,000 will be able to keep all their child benefit but another couple where only one member of the household has an income, but it is in excess of £50,000, will not. How can that be fair? How can a system be simple when it starts to claw back at the rate of 1% for every £100? How will people know where they stand in relation to their child benefit entitlement, and where is the incentive to work more and earn more in such a context?

I am struggling to understand why a Government who want to be progressive, who say that that is their reason for moving away from universal child benefit, which I hugely regret—I want to put on record that I absolutely stand by universal child benefit—and who say that they think there needs to be more progressivity, as they see it, in the way they administer child benefit, then introduce less progressivity in income tax by cutting the top rate from 50p to 45p when, as the OBR has said, there is considerable uncertainty that such a measure will deliver the tax receipts that the Government seem to believe will be brought into the Exchequer. With respect, I think that the Chancellor was a little over-optimistic in his analysis of the OBR’s comments on the likely efficacy of that measure, and it is also unclear to business commentators that the measure will be good for our economy.

Let us be clear that our corporation tax, even before this Government took office, was by no means among the highest in the developed world. I am interested in how a Government who make great play of seeing small businesses as the future of increasing employment, who want to reduce corporation tax, who are on a downward trajectory in relation to it and who want to enable small businesses to employ more workers have failed to notice that the very smallest businesses are completely unaffected by the cut in corporation tax because they already have a tax rate of only 20%. What are the Government doing to support those businesses when what they would really like is effective measures on employers’ national insurance contributions, something that again the Government have managed to address only in a most limited way?

[Lorely Burt]

What we are doing for small businesses, which will alleviate many administrative difficulties, is introducing measures such as cash accounting on cash flow, so we are working hard to help them in every way we can. We are also amalgamating national insurance with the other forms of tax paid so that only one lot of tax is collected.

[Kate Green]

It is not that everything the Government are doing is necessarily bad, but overall it is woefully insufficient in relation to business and not what the smallest businesses have been talking to me—or I suspect to the hon. Lady in her constituency—about. They have been talking about employers’ national insurance contributions, business rates and their concerns about the rise in VAT, which means that there is pressure on their turnover, but in the Chancellor’s statement yesterday the Government had nothing to say about any of those issues.

I should like to say a little about welfare and pensions. On welfare, I share with many of my right hon. and hon. Friends the deep concern that, after £18 billion of social security and tax credit cuts already from this Government, the lowest-income households in this country now face a further £10 billion of cuts. That will mean a hit on disability benefits and on the benefits that enable people to reach basic living standards. When the Government publish on people’s tax statements, as they say they will, a breakdown of where their spending has gone, I hope that they show in great detail who the losers are from that welfare spending. A broad-brush statement, “This is what is spent on welfare,” will not tell people that carers, the disabled and people raising children are actually the losers, so I hope that such information appears on the tax statements that the Government produce.

Finally, the Government propose to keep the state pension age under review in line with rising longevity. That, too, is a measure that will deliver greater inequality, because it will penalise most of all the poorest, who already have poorer health outcomes and poorer life expectancy, and those doing manual and hard, physical jobs. So buried in the detail there is considerable injustice, unfairness and inconsistency, and I shall vote against the Budget on Monday.

Independent Debt Advice

Debate between Baroness Burt of Solihull and Kate Green

Tuesday 8th February 2011 Westminster Hall

[Lorely Burt]

Despite the heckling from a sedentary position, I will continue.

In 2009-10, citizens advice bureaux experienced a 23% rise in demand for their services. Of the queries that they dealt with, 150,000 were about quite complex debt problems, as outlined by the hon. Member for Makerfield. It is estimated that the loss of the financial inclusion fund reduces the debt advice capacity of citizens advice bureaux by 40% to 50%. So I am looking forward to hearing from the Minister today about what steps are being taken, particularly in relation to the national money advice service and how that service will help people and make up the shortfall.

[Kate Green]

Will the hon. Lady give way on that point?

[Lorely Burt]

If the hon. Lady will forgive me, I will not give way.

So how will the citizens advice bureaux replace that loss of support, because as I said we have faced such losses before? In relation to Birmingham, I am hopeful that the Minister will have some good news.

I also wanted to pick up on what the hon. Member for Makerfield said about debt management companies. I am absolutely delighted—as I am sure she is—that the licences of a number of debt management companies were withdrawn by the OFT. I think that 42 companies in all had their licences withdrawn. Those companies can lead to a spiral of debt. Some debt management companies operate free of charge to the recipient. They do that because they are able to be paid by the creditors. It is much better if those who stand to gain pay, rather than those who stand to lose.

The spiral of debt that comes with companies that charge up front is clear. Two months’ repayments are made up front, the company promises to get creditors off people’s backs, but often that does not happen and six months later the company says, “We’re very sorry, but we can’t do anything for you now. We think you should file for bankruptcy.” They then charge for bankruptcy, and the spiral continues.

Low-income Households

Debate between Baroness Burt of Solihull and Kate Green

Tuesday 14th September 2010 Westminster Hall

[Lorely Burt]

I am not sure that what I am saying is not relevant. I shall discuss the effects of the reductions that we will make, but I contest the hon. Lady’s claim that many of them are not fair. Well researched though her presentation was, there are things that she cannot know—a great deal is still to come from the Government.

Much of what has been presented has been based on speculation, and there is a great deal of scaremongering at present. Clearly, as the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr Field) said, people are afraid. The time to become afraid is when we see what the Government are proposing. They are trying hard to make their proposals as fair as possible.

I want to make a second point about why we are doing this—it is the legacy. The hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster said that we must take a grip of the existing situation. That would apply whatever party were in government. I am declining the invitation of the hon. Member for Westminster North because I want to talk about the issues that she wants to me to raise. She mentioned the report of the Institute for Fiscal Studies. I do not claim to be an expert, but it was selective in what it chose to raise, and it ignores some of the major parts of the Budget, including changes to tax credits, the increase in income tax personal allowance and freezes on council tax. It does not take account of the choices on which measures in previous Labour Budgets to continue and which to reverse, or the effect of future Budgets.

The debate on the effect of Government policy is legitimate, and all parties must be prepared to discuss that, but with respect, the debate is happening too soon. The way in which the vast majority of changes to Department for Work and Pensions policy and savings in the welfare budget will be implemented will not become clear until after the departmental spending review in October. Any debate before then is bound to be based on media speculation, of which we have had sufficient.

One reason for the consultation on departmental spending is to ensure that the difficult decisions are not made lightly, and that any cuts are made in a way that protects those on the lowest incomes. Alongside the cuts is a radical programme of core Liberal Democrat policies specifically targeted at people on low incomes—the income tax pledge, the pupil premium and the re-linking of the basic state pension to earnings. However, in the coming weeks and months, the Government must ensure that they focus on ensuring that those groups most likely to be on low incomes are protected, specifically disabled people, older people, young people and people who are long-term unemployed.

[Kate Green]

It is absolutely right to want to protect the most vulnerable, and I am grateful to the hon. Lady for mentioning the disabled, but are we not already seeing increasing numbers of disabled people going through the new work capability test for employment and support allowance and being found to be ineligible for that benefit, and being pushed on to the lower level of jobseeker’s allowance? Can we expect that position to become even more of a problem as existing incapacity benefit claimants are put through the test and perhaps experience the same outcome? Is that not a cause for concern, particularly when there is an exceptionally high number of appeals against work capability tests, many of which are proving successful?

[Lorely Burt]

The hon. Lady makes an important point, but the issues to which she refers began under a Labour Government, which she supported. We must be sure that the tests that are imposed on people are absolutely fair.

Several hon. Members mentioned housing benefit. The proposals have not yet been fully created, and it is not yet possible to say what impact they will have on low-income households. However, any cap on maximum local housing allowance payments must ensure that those with large families are not unfairly discriminated against, and I hope the Minister will speak about that.

I shall conclude on a slightly more positive note, by mentioning some of the positive changes for low-income households. On the income tax threshold, we have increased the personal allowance by £1,000, so 880,000 people will come out of tax altogether and 23 million other taxpayers will benefit by £170 million a year.

We have discussed the child element of tax credits, and some hard decisions have been made so that the poorest families will benefit much more than those who can afford to bear the burden. In addition, the coalition Government will increase the personal allowance to £10,000 per annum, which the Liberal Democrats pledged in their manifesto, and will lift the poorest 3 million people out of income tax altogether.

The Government are consulting on the pupil premium to determine the exact figure for it. It will attach additional funding to children from low-income households and will dramatically improve the life chances of children from families that fell into a poverty cycle under the last Government.

With the re-linking of pensions to earnings, pensioners will finally receive a fair deal with no more 2p—or whatever it was—increases in their pension. Under the triple lock proposed by the Liberal Democrats, the basic state pension will rise in line with prices or inflation, or by 2.5% a year, whichever is highest.

The consultation is taking place. The theory and principle to which we adhere is that savings may be made on benefits through large-scale simplification. The consultation paper proposes a universal credit to replace the main three forms of benefit support—jobseeker’s allowance, employment support and income support—as well as other sorts of benefit. We will allow a uniform taper rate so that when people find work, benefits will be withdrawn in line with earnings. I agree that the previous Labour Government tried hard to resolve the poverty trap, and the taper may be a solution to ensure that it will always be profitable to go to work.

The division between rich and poor increased under the previous Labour Government. Throwing money at the problem has not provided the solutions that they and everyone wanted. I hope that in the dire financial straits facing the country, the present Government will be imaginative in creating a fairer way of ensuring that people achieve prosperity and work in the best possible way.

Finance Bill

Debate between Baroness Burt of Solihull and Kate Green

Tuesday 6th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Lorely Burt]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. The other point that I want to make is that the purchases that represent more disproportionately a part of the income of lower-paid people tend to be zero-rated.

[Kate Green]

It is clear that this is the story that we are going to hear again and again: we are going to be told that the items that the poorest need to buy are zero-rated, so the VAT rise does not hurt them. How can the hon. Lady say that essentials for families, such as saucepans and clothes for work, are items that the poorest do not have to find the money for? This is a regressive tax.

[Lorely Burt]

The hon. Lady misunderstands me. I understand that people have to buy all those capital items, and I know that this is going to be regressive in that respect. [Hon. Members: “Oh!”] There is no question or doubt about that. I said to the House a moment ago that nobody likes the idea of having to increase VAT.