Pensions Commission
Debate between Lord Beamish and Baroness Sherlock(1 week, 1 day ago)
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Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
The noble Lord raises an excellent point. In fact, we have seen a significant drop. In the 1990s, roughly half of people who were self-employed were saving for a pension; it is now under 20%. There are more self-employed people now and there are different kinds of self-employment. However, there is no question that that is a big dip. The Pensions Commission found that, of those whose only income comes from self-employment, only 4% were saving for a pension. One of the key tasks for the Pensions Commission is specifically to look at and recommend to government what to do about all those who are undersaving, including people who are self-employed. I am grateful to the noble Lord for raising that.
Lord Beamish (Lab)
My Lords, I too welcome my noble friend back to her rightful position. She talked about people working hard to save for their pensions. They include pensioners who worked at Nissan in the north-east. Many now find themselves in very dire straits, because for those who accumulated in a pension scheme before 1997, the pension trustees and company are no longer increasing it along with inflation, so those pensioners are now finding the value of their pensions diminishing. Is this something that the Government could look at?
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
I am grateful—I will never be so appreciated ever again, so I am really going to enjoy this session. My noble friend raises an important point. In a sense, it is up to individual schemes what their rules are for indexing their pensions. The minimum legal requirements for indexation have to be appropriate for all DB pension schemes, because they have to strike a balance between what members need and what the employer can afford. In the end, as he will know, the strongest guarantee is a good, strong sponsoring employer. However, there are two things that may help. One is, as he may be aware from the Bill, that the Government have changed the rules to allow a wider range of well-funded schemes to release any surplus that is there, with the agreement of trustees, which could be used to go towards paying for indexation, for example, if affordable and appropriate. At the other end of the scheme, the Government took action in that Bill to look at giving indexation to those who end up in the PPF or FAS for benefits earned before 1997. That will at least help.
“Get Britain Working” White Paper
Debate between Lord Beamish and Baroness Sherlock(1 year, 8 months ago)
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Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
As I said earlier, we have been very grateful that business and business organisations have made it clear that they do want to work with us on this, because there is a clear area of common interest. There are currently over 800,000 vacancies in the economy and businesses need to be able to recruit people, but they cannot do so.
On the broader point, I try not to play the political pantomime game on the Front Bench, but I have to say to the noble Lord that if we had not had the economic crash we did, we would not have to take the measures we have done. We did not want to take them, but we have to repair the economy and our public services, and get our economy growing again, and this Government will do what it takes.
Lord Beamish (Lab)
My Lords, the community and voluntary sector plays a key part in getting people into work, not only offering placements but actively working with groups that are difficult to reach. Does my noble friend agree that a lot of those voluntary and community groups are pushed out of this space because they are small and cannot bid for the contracts put forward by the DWP? That is an area she could look at, to ensure that groups such as the Just for Women Centre in County Durham, which does great work, can actually get those contracts.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My noble friend knows that the way to my heart is to mention County Durham. I should probably declare an interest, although it is so old that it is not an interest. Once upon a time I contracted with the then DWP to run employment programmes for single parents. That was about 100 years ago, so it is probably too old to be there now.
In response to my noble friend’s question, he is absolutely right that it is very hard for small voluntary organisations to bid for national contracts, yet they can often reach people that central government will never be able to. We have heard examples from around the House today. One of my hopes is that the more we can localise things, the easier it will be to involve a range of partners from an area, and people will know who the good players in their area are. Furthermore, the issues are different in different areas; as the noble Baroness, Lady Gohir, explained, some areas may have a large Muslim or Bangladeshi community, and in other areas there may be large numbers of young people and single parents. Under this system, each area will have a better sense of what its problems are and which partners can be worked with. The aim of the trailblazer areas is to see what difference that system can make.