Covid-19: Work-related Cases

Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts

Monday 5th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

I am pleased to say that the Health and Safety Executive has had additional funding throughout the year along with enormous staff increases. This will continue to be worked on, and the HSE and the DWP continue to review and revise the resourcing arrangements as necessary.

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, may I press the Minister a little further on her previous reply? The TUC report found that there was likely to have been significant underreporting in the number of work-related Covid deaths, arguing that it was just not credible that only 2.5% of working-age Covid deaths were down to occupational exposure. Does she believe that funding cuts of 46% to the HSE over the past decade, notwithstanding the short-term fix of a one-off payment, have impacted on reporting under RIDDOR as well as affecting the process of investigation?

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

There have been cuts to the budget in the past. That has been rectified and an increased budget has been put in place, as has an increased resourcing budget. As of the end of April, it had 2,670 staff. There has been an extra £14.2 million available to the HSE on top of its regular government funding. Additional funding has enabled it to continue to inspect significantly more workplaces.

Scotland Act 2016 (Social Security) (Consequential Provision) (Miscellaneous Amendment) Regulations 2021

Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd June 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, we are here today because this statutory instrument will make consequential amendments to social security legislation in respect of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to prevent payments of DLA, PIP and AFIP overlapping with the Scottish Government’s child disability payment. The Scottish Government are introducing the CDP, which will replace the disability living allowance for children, currently delivered by the DWP. This new child disability payment will be open in pilot areas for applications from 26 July this year in Dundee City, Perth and Kinross and the Western Isles council.

This is the first application-based disability benefit to be introduced by the Scottish Government, and the pilot will be followed by a full national rollout in the autumn. Families currently getting DLA for children will be transferred automatically to the new Scottish system. People who currently get disability benefits from the DWP will have their awards transferred to the new Scottish system in stages after the new benefits are introduced. We believe that the work will be completed by 2025.

We entered the pandemic with too many people living in poverty, and this poverty is endemic in many parts of the UK, in all the nations and regions. The Scottish Labour shadow Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice and Social Security has raised several matters about this issue with the Cabinet Secretary Shona Robison MSP and has asked her to consider making progress on tackling child poverty in Scotland by doubling the Scottish child payment immediately as well as to mitigate the two-child limit in Scotland. Projections show that this would cost just 0.2% of the Scottish Government’s total budget. Further ideas expressed to reduce poverty include removing the full-time study rule in carer’s allowance and moving from the safe and secure transition of disability benefits to transforming eligibility and rate, together with using procurement to enforce the living wage and end zero-hours contracts, bringing housing costs down by capping rent rises, and requiring businesses that get public money to pay the living wage and end zero-hours contracts.

Can the Minister confirm that no one will lose money by stopping any overlap between the DLA, PIP, AFIP and the new child disability payment? Also, is the Minister confident that the 13-week CDP run-on payment will take place? What happens if it does not? Finally, when does the Minister expect the national rollout of CDP to take place? Most importantly, is the DWP ready for it?