Poverty Programmes: Audit

Debate between Baroness Stedman-Scott and Lord Freud

Wednesday 4th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

The key thing in tackling poverty is life chances—in the end, transforming people’s lives—not income transfers. To the extent that the extra support helps children in their early years and in their education, it will be of great value.

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

My Lords, now that universal credit is in every jobcentre in the country, how is it helping the poverty agenda?

[Lord Freud]

I am really pleased to confirm that universal credit is now a national programme right across the country. We have real evidence that it achieves its aims: 13% are more likely to be in work at the nine-month point than if they were on JSA. It is already a good benefit by international comparisons. Many more of those in work are looking to do more hours, and many more are looking to increase their earnings than would be the case if they were on JSA.

Under-occupancy Charge

Debate between Baroness Stedman-Scott and Lord Freud

Thursday 28th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

Yes, that is precisely the point. As far as we can tell, one reason that the Court of Appeal took this decision was to send the cases to join another set of cases that the Supreme Court will look at in March. The Supreme Court will, therefore, be able to take a view and reach a judgment across the piece on these issues and will do so relatively rapidly. So this is really by way of an interim legal position before we have something more definitive.

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

Can the Minister tell us how many cases the Government have won in relation to this policy?

[Lord Freud]

So far, we have had 10 cases in the High Court and we have won them all. We have just lost these last two in the Court of Appeal but we have won the five joined appeals in the Court of Appeal and those are the ones that are now going to the Supreme Court. So, until this last judgment, the legal system has accepted that the way that we ameliorate these hard cases using the discretionary housing payment is an appropriate way of providing the protections that I think all of us in this Chamber want to make sure are there.

Employment: Job Creation

Debate between Baroness Stedman-Scott and Lord Freud

Wednesday 16th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stedman-Scott]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many jobs have been created in the European Union compared to the United Kingdom in the past year.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Freud) (Con)]

My Lords, over 2014, the UK saw the largest employment growth of any EU country. The UK continues to perform strongly, and over the past year, employment rose a further 350,000. This has gone alongside a welcome improvement in the rest of the EU, which saw an annual employment rise of 1.8 million.

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

I thank the Minister for his response; I think that we will all be encouraged and pleased with the increase of employment levels across Europe. Can he tell us whether the recovery in employment rates across Europe will reduce inward EU migration into the UK?

[Lord Freud]

I think that it is a valuable development —to see improvement in the EU—because we have seen quite a large increase recently in the employment of EU nationals in the UK. Over the past year, for instance, it was 155,000, compared with 30,000 the previous year. So we would expect to see some of the pressure reduced, whereby people are pulled in because we have the jobs, as the jobs start to grow in the rest of the EU.