China: Market Economy Status

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Monday 9th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Price]

My noble friend is right that it would be good to see the United Kingdom exporting more services to China. The good news is that we have now moved to number four with China in our goods exports, and China is currently the seventh-largest market for our goods and services exports. However, we believe that as the Chinese economy develops into more of a service economy, we will indeed be able to do more.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, first, I welcome the noble Lord to his new position, and on behalf of everyone, I think, I congratulate the new Mayor of London—London will play such an important role. Will the Minister welcome today’s relaunch of the “Stronger in” campaign? We look forward to working to make sure that we stay in the Union, for this and other agreements.

[Lord Price]

The noble Baroness supports my own position: that the UK is stronger inside the EU. We have more trade agreements between the UK and the rest of the world than the United States and Canada together. We believe in free trade and, in our current position, we are best placed to access the world through free trade through the agreements that we have with the EU.

Queen’s Speech

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Tuesday 10th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, the Queen’s Speech demonstrated the Government being dragged, I am afraid reluctantly, into helping consumers to get a fair deal, whether from their elected representatives, from service providers or from business. Our ambitions, by contrast, are greater. It was Labour—indeed, in this House—which saw an extension of the ombudsman scheme from estate agents to letting agents. It was a Labour Government who introduced the legal services and financial services ombudsmen, and regulators’ consumer panels.

However, there is more to do. We must support consumers, the poor and disadvantaged, by repealing those parts of the lobbying Act that gag rather than enhance the work of those who give voice to the voiceless, and by improving the Government’s apology for a statutory register of lobbyists—of which, incidentally, we have failed to see anything so far. Labour, by contrast, would put power in the hands of consumers, be they tenants, borrowers or people troubled by nuisance calls.

Take “generation rent”, where the number of private renters, now 9 million, has surpassed those in social housing for the first time. Private tenants face an insecurity that few of us would tolerate. They are 10 times more likely to move home per year than homeowners, and a third of them moved last year. Yet surely they deserve the same stability as homeowners. So Labour will legislate to make three-year tenancies with predicable rents the norm. This is not rent control; I am old enough to remember that. This is about certainty and fairness.

Tenants are now paying £1,000 a year more than when this Government came into office. That is great for letting agents, but what is unfair is not letting agents’ legitimate business but double charging, when both landlord and tenant pay for the same service. More than 90% of letting agents impose charges on tenants on top of deposits and rent in advance, and charge them high fees for simple tasks such as renewing a contract. Labour will ban letting agents’ fees for tenants, which will save families up to £500.

I congratulate my honourable friends in the other place, Stella Creasy, Hilary Benn and Emma Reynolds, whose efforts on this got the Consumer Minister in the Commons to announce just yesterday that the Government will amend the Consumer Rights Bill to force letting agents to display their fees, with a civil penalty of up to £5,000 to be paid by any agent who fails to do that. That is a welcome move. However, landlords, not tenants, choose the letting agents, so there is still nothing a tenant can do even if the letting agent is double charging.

Movement for Change’s “Home Sweet Home” campaign in Brighton saw tenants who were stuck with broken back doors, broken bedroom windows, or no hot water or heating over Christmas. Such conditions are unacceptable. In addition, we want landlords to put smoke alarms in all rented houses, and we want to reduce deaths from carbon monoxide poisoning. Can the Minister say what the Government’s response is to Consumer Safety International’s call for alternatives to carbon monoxide detector sensors where they have proved unreliable?

We must raise the standards of letting agents. Anyone can set up as an agent, including people with no qualification in landlord and tenant law and, more seriously, people with convictions or even those on the sex offenders’ register. There is not even a requirement for clients’ money to be kept in separate accounts. As I said, thanks to this House we have legislated to require agents to belong to an ombudsman, but the Government held back from enabling repeated poor behaviour to lead to a letting agent being struck off. Will they rethink their refusal over that?

Because individual consumers have little bargaining power when up against business, we will seek to improve the carried-over Consumer Rights Bill, not simply to codify rights but to enhance such rights, to allow for collective redress where consumer law has been breached and to make retailers and service providers signpost access to an ombudsman. Our aim is for consumers to have information, advocacy and redress across all markets. That is good for shoppers but also good for business, as it drives up standards.

Small businesses are already seen as consumers in some areas. The legal services and financial services ombudsmen treat microbusinesses as consumers, as do Ofcom and Ofgem. However, the Government have failed to treat small businesses as consumers in the Consumer Rights Bill, despite calls from the FSB. Will the Government continue to rule out such rights for small businesses?

It is also hard to understand why the Consumer Rights Bill omitted the EU directive on alternative dispute resolution, despite the fact that it has been sitting on the Government’s desk for two years and needs to be introduced next year. Its tardiness will make it difficult for businesses to have time to prepare, to sign up to an ombudsman and to train their staff. Will the Minister tell us when we will see plans to implement the directive and explain why ADR should not be compulsory?

The Government have failed to do much to help charities. They promised that the big society would play a part in the provision of services, but a quarter of public sector outsourcing went to offshore companies, squeezing out UK companies and UK charities. Furthermore, we have only a draft protection of charities Bill in the Queen’s Speech, which means that the Charity Commission is unlikely to get its strengthened powers this Session. We will undertake to work to ensure that voters—in the recall of MPs Bill—get a proper say, that consumers get a better deal, and that charities are helped to do their work.

United Kingdom: Future Demographic Trends

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, I join others in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, for securing this debate. Although he concentrated on population size, I note that this debate is taking place on the very day of the publication of the Filkin report, Ready for Ageing?, which is very apt. I will concentrate more on that. I also congratulate him because it is less than 24 hours since we heard that a 76 year-old was to take up perhaps the most demanding international job in the world. In congratulating Pope Francis, let us hope that he also serves to remind us that 76 is the new 35.

I also very much take up the point of the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, that we should celebrate this. As she spoke, of course, my noble friend Lord Healey was in his place, the oldest Member of your Lordships’ House. He is not now in his place—I have to confess that he is my hero—but what a wonderful reminder he is of what ageing does.

I take the opportunity to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, and the members of his committee, as well as Professor Howard Glennerster and Jonathan Portes, who advised them. They have produced much food for thought and undertaken much of the work necessary for what I hope will be a cross-party response to the tasks ahead.

The report notes that we are “woefully underprepared” for the social and economic challenges presented by an ageing society. However, the report begins by drawing a route map. I will not try to better its assessment, but will simply emphasise a few points. First, of course, this issue requires not simply cross-party consensus but a cross-generational consensus. That means listening to the young and listening to the old, and involving them all in the development of new policies and provision. We should not be doing things for or on behalf of the ageing, but with and alongside them.

The issue of fairness between generations is key, as is the issue of responding to disparity between classes. It is an old story that, as one takes the Jubilee Line eastwards from Westminster station, life expectancy drops a year as each station passes. We have to be careful, therefore, not to rank people simply by their numerical age, given that needs, whether for social or medical care, fall for almost everyone in the last six months of their life, virtually regardless of their age of death. We must not allow inequalities present during working lives to continue into pensioner poverty. We need to consider the needs of those who will die younger than average, just as much as the needs of those who will head towards their century.

We also need a range of responses, encouraging self-help via healthy lifestyles, savings, investment and insurance, as well as delivering socially the responses we need. As was mentioned, that includes building more homes, social and medical care, and other support systems. With regard to self-help, we need to encourage insurance and investment, but this means rebuilding trust in the industry, as mentioned in the Filkin report. The Government rejected amendments that we tabled both to the Financial Services Bill and to the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill to require those who hold and manage money on behalf of others to have a fiduciary duty towards those investors or beneficiaries. Until that is law, people will be reluctant to take on complicated financial products through lack of confidence. The Government also defeated our attempt to require the financial industry to adopt a code of conduct. We hope they will think again about this.

The situation is much the same with letting, managing and estate agents, who might have an important role in helping older people downsize or move. However, without robust regulation of these, we risk another era of mis-selling or of poor service to this group. Only last week the Government resisted my amendments on requiring an ombudsman for some of these agents, although I am pleased to say that they were defeated. Will the Minister indicate whether they are now willing to accept that requirement? It would be an important safeguard if older people are to downsize and to be able to move to more suitable accommodation.

I will turn to another aspect of self-help: keeping healthy and fit. We know that good diet, exercise and keeping to moderate drinking is part of this. Will the Government explain, which they did not quite do this morning, why, when every medical body considers that minimum unit pricing for alcohol is key to reducing harmful consumption, they are going to listen to the drinks industry instead and bow to its demands to be allowed to peddle cheap booze?

When I hear the drinks industry claim that it is concerned with the older and the poor who have fewer pounds in their pocket, I simply rage. Older people are very vulnerable to alcohol misuse, especially if they are coping with loneliness, depression or bereavement. To pretend it helps them by giving them access to cheap units of alcohol is irresponsible in the extreme. Therefore, in the development of policies to assist our ageing population, can the Minister assure us that the health and well-being of the nation will be put ahead of the industries’ interests, be that the banking industry or the brewers?

This is not just a matter for the individuals concerned. Society and the Government have a key role to play. Charities want to help but are facing severe financial constraints and find already that the demands on them now, let alone in the future, are more than they can respond to. Reverting to the alcohol issue, Alcohol Concern has lost all its government funding, undermining its initiatives on older people’s drinking, among other problems. Will the Government outline what will be done to assist all the relevant charities in the coming years?

We need more homes, with homelessness having increased by 11% between 2010 and 2011. Perhaps we could hear what plans the Government have to increase the housing stock, and particularly the stock appropriate for an older population.

This Sunday marks the 50th anniversary of the death of William Beveridge. It is interesting to ask what he would say to us today of these challenges. He would probably suggest that, for the development of a good society, we need a national debate, including women, and all Britons, but perhaps especially the black and ethnic minority groups, and also that we need more devolution. He would probably suggest that we reinvigorate community development, especially given the decline of religious activity, the more varied family formations and the increase in family break-up. He would probably urge us to think about better use of land and transfer of ownership to make better use of it for the changing population. However, I am sure that he would also talk about consistency in programme development. We cannot keep reforming and hope that anything of value will ensue.

The answer to the Question that the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, raised today is, according to the Filkin report:

“The Cabinet has not assessed the implications of an ageing society holistically, and has left it to Departments … The Government have not looked at ageing from the point of view of the public nor considered how policies may need to change to equip people better to address longer lives”.

Let us hope that the Government will take this to heart and will now begin to work with this rather different viewfinder.