Higher Education: Affordability and Quality

Lord Bishop of Leicester Excerpts

Thursday 2nd July 2026 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Leicester]

My Lords, I too am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, for initiating this debate. It is good to have the opportunity to contribute to thinking about the future affordability and quality of higher education. I do so as the Bishop of Leicester, but also with a close interest in the Cathedrals Group of Universities—14 universities whose distinctive history and mission speak directly to the themes before us: public service, social inclusion and the flourishing of local communities.

At its best, higher education is not simply an individual good but a common good. It forms professionals, nurtures civic responsibility and strengthens the social fabric of our nation. Many institutions across our system, including those in the cathedrals group, exemplify this tradition, with roots in civic purpose and long-standing commitment to education as a vehicle for service inclusion and human flourishing.

Historically, a number of these institutions were founded to train teachers for communities experiencing deprivation. That purpose continues to shape their work today: they now educate not only teachers but nurses, social workers, physiotherapists and paramedics—often in close partnership with schools, multi-academy trusts and health bodies. In my own diocese of Leicester, we see clearly how vital this local and regional role is. Our universities—that of Leicester, De Montford and Loughborough—are deeply embedded in place. They help to sustain public services, provide pathways for local people and act as anchors of opportunity within diverse communities.

This brings me to the importance of widening participation. This is not simply about entry into higher education but about ensuring success beyond it. It therefore requires sustained engagement, starting in schools, continuing through further education and extending into higher education and beyond. In many parts of the country, including areas of Leicester and beyond, the challenge is not only individual disadvantage but structural fragmentation. Too often, the system can feel disjointed, with schools, FE colleges and universities operating under different pressures, incentives and expectations. If we are serious about both quality and affordability, we must also be serious about coherence.

I argue that we need a more joined-up approach across the whole education sector, one that recognises the vital role of further education alongside higher education and the importance of strong, sustained partnerships with schools. A flourishing system is one in which learners can move with confidence along clear and supported pathways, whether academic, technical or vocational. Higher education institutions have a key role to play in this, but they cannot do it alone, particularly in the face of growing financial pressures.

Among these pressures are externally determined and potentially volatile costs, which continue to constrain universities’ ability to sustain the very activities we value most. One example is the increasing costs of pensions across the sector. The teachers’ pension scheme, in particular, has placed significant strain on university finances in recent years, with employer contributions at high levels. While a reduction is anticipated in 2027, this will not resolve the underlying challenge. The point is not to weaken pensions but to ensure that institutions have sufficient flexibility to manage these costs without undermining their broader mission. Without that flexibility, rising costs inevitably place pressure on staffing, investment and the range and quality of provision offered to students.

There is a moral dimension within all of this. If universities are less able to invest in partnerships with schools and further education, or to sustain provision in key professional areas such as supporting social good, the consequences will be felt not only in higher education but across our schools, our health service and our communities. If we fail to build a more coherent system linking schools—both FE and HE—into one flourishing system, then we risk leaving too many learners without clear and supported routes to flourishing.

I therefore urge the Government to take a broad and integrated view of higher education sustainability. Yes, we must consider funding levels and student experience. Yes, we must safeguard equality. But we must also address the structural pressures that sit beneath these debates, and we must strengthen the relationships across the whole education system. Universities know that they need to adapt and continually iterate their offer for a changing world. In order for this to be possible, greater flexibility for institutions and a stronger emphasis on partnership will be essential.

The universities of the Cathedrals Group remind us that higher education is not only an economic endeavour—

Sitting suspended.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Finlay of Llandaff) (CB)]

My Lords, we are resuming at 3.35 pm. That means that the debate was adjourned for 34 minutes. We will add injury time to the end time, so the new end time is 6.01 pm. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester has some time left. We will resume with his speech and then proceed with the speeches in order.

[The Lord Bishop of Leicester]

I thank the noble Baroness very much. I am not used to having quite such a dramatic effect when I speak—I did not realise that what I was saying was quite so inflammatory.

I will be brief. The universities of the Cathedrals Group remind us that higher education is not only an economic endeavour but a moral and social one. It is about the formation of people, the strengthening of communities and the pursuit of the common good. If we are serious about that vision then we must ensure that the structures surrounding our institutions—financial, organisational and relational—enable them to fulfil that purpose.

Child Poverty

Lord Bishop of Leicester Excerpts

Thursday 18th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Leicester]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, on securing the debate and thank her for her tireless work in addressing child poverty. Like many others, I welcomed the publication of the Government’s child poverty strategy and was delighted by the Government’s decision to abolish the two-child limit on universal credit. Like others, I felt that the Government missed the opportunity to deliver some quick wins—measures that would not require legislation yet would make a tangible difference to children’s lives.

The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, already mentioned a number of these measures, but I wish to focus on just one: auto-enrolment for free school meals. On the face of it, it is a very modest proposal, yet it would have profound positive consequences for some of the disadvantaged children in the country. Around 250,000 children in England who are eligible for free school meals are not enrolled to receive it. That is approximately one in 10 of all those who should be benefiting from this scheme; in the north-east, it is one in five.

The entitlement exists, but it is not making its full potential impact. There is a substantial body of evidence, including a major cost-benefit analysis conducted by PwC for impacts on urban health, which demonstrated that free school meals improve concentration in the classroom, boost attendance, raise attainment and improve long-term health outcomes. Yet, some of the children most in need of this benefit are missing out. This is because under the present system, families must apply for free school meals. They must navigate forms, eligibility checks and, in many local authorities, repeat the process each time circumstances change. This creates administrative barriers, stigma and confusion, particularly for parents with limited digital access, for those for whom English is an additional language or for families in unstable or temporary accommodation.

I previously spoke in your Lordships’ House about the poverty-shame nexus—a mutually reinforcing relationship between material hardship and the emotional experience of shame. This is particularly relevant as, time and again, researchers have found that shame and stigma are among the biggest barriers that prevent parents from applying for free school meals.

This is not only a question of feeding hungry children, though that alone would be a good enough reason to introduce it. Free school meal eligibility is the gateway to pupil-premium funding, currently worth £1,515 per eligible primary school pupil and £1,075 at secondary level. When five local authorities introduced auto-enrolment in October 2023, they identified more than 2,500 additional eligible children in their first cohorts, with opt-out rates of less than 1%.

The question arises: why, if local authorities have piloted this measure, does it now require government action? Last year, the charity Feeding Britain convened a working group of 29 local authorities to examine this question. I commend its report to the Minister. In brief, however, this approach reaches only those families who already engage with their local authority for other welfare support, which, again, because of stigma, not all do.

Most importantly, the managed migration of families from legacy benefits on to universal credit will, over the next few years, substantially reduce the number of families applying to local authorities for housing benefit and similar payments, so the window of opportunity for local authorities to introduce auto-enrolment is closing. The working group’s proposal, which I commend to the House, is to build automatic registration into universal credit itself, extending the sort of mechanism that already exists for council tax support and for the NHS Healthy Start scheme.

I know that this Government are committed to social mobility, and education is at the heart of achieving this. Can the Minister explain, therefore, why this measure—one which would help direct resources more accurately to schools serving disadvantaged children, with no changes required to the pupil premium framework—was not included in the child poverty strategy?

Welfare Reforms and Youth Unemployment

Lord Bishop of Leicester Excerpts

Thursday 11th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Leicester]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Rainow, for securing this debate and to all taking part. Noble Lords may differ on the diagnosis but I think the whole House shares the same concern for the young people behind these figures.

I begin by noting that none of us likes to be labelled, and the use of acronyms to refer to people is even more disconcerting. Each young person is unique and precious, whatever their circumstances, and their dignity must be at the heart of our concerns. I also want to push back on the narrative which we often see in the media—that the rise in young people who are not in education, employment or training reflects a generation that has no appetite for work. The evidence simply does not bear that out.

Research by the Learning and Work Institute shows that the vast majority of young people who are not in education or training—84%—had clear career or educational aspirations. Only 6% said they did not want to find work. Nor is it a case of unrealistic aspirations. Only 4% said they were waiting for an opportunity in a specific sector, whereas 17% said they planned to find any job they could. Similarly, research by the King’s Trust showed that one in five young people who are not in education, employment or training are applying for jobs every single day. Almost one-third have applied for jobs they did not even want, out of sheer desperation to get a foothold on the labour market. One in six had been rejected from more than 50 positions, and more than half said they feel embarrassed about not having a job. That is not a picture of idleness. It speaks of a generation knocking on doors that are just not opening for them, because more than half of so-called entry-level vacancies now demand prior experience—on average, nearly three years of it.

We should be especially wary of stigmatising young people and suggesting they have a poor work ethic or a lack of realistic ambition, because the more that narrative takes hold, the more reluctant employers will be to take a chance on them. We will, in other words, perpetuate the problem which we want to solve.

If the problem is not a lack of work ethic then the solution is not necessarily tough love. It is, at least in part, confidence, coaching and a community that believes in them. I want to recommend a model that does precisely this: the Spear programme, run by the charity Resurgo and delivered through local churches. Spear began in 2003, at St Paul’s Church in Hammersmith, as a response to the unemployed young people on its own doorstep. It has since grown to some 18 centres across the country and works with over 1,000 young people each year, all of whom face multiple significant barriers to work—from mental health issues to criminal history and adverse childhood trauma. The programme involves six weeks of group work and one-to-one coaching that tackles the psychological barriers as much as the practical ones—confidence, mindset and resilience—alongside CV writing, interview practice and job search skills. It is followed by up to a year of ongoing support, as each young person moves into work or education and, crucially, stays there. Around three-quarters of those who complete the programme are in work or training a year later—a figure I am sure noble Lords will agree is remarkable.

What I want to draw out for the House from this model is the importance of a supportive community in helping marginalised young people into work and the importance of a trusted adult to journey with each young person. As Ministers build out the youth guarantee, I urge them to recognise that the availability of placements on its own is not enough for young people who face multiple barriers to work. Many young people need the intensive personalised confidence-building support of organisations such as Spear to provide for and help them as they seek to find placements. The positive ripple effects of these will be generational, passed down to their children, as well as being important for wider society as a whole.

Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill

Lord Bishop of Leicester Excerpts

2nd reading & Committee negatived & 3rd reading
Thursday 12th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Leicester]

My Lords, I warmly welcome the introduction of the Bill and the opportunity today to comment on it. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Teather, on her truly excellent maiden speech, and I look forward to the maiden contributions of the noble Baroness, Lady Antrobus, and the noble Lord, Lord Walker, as well as of other noble Lords.

I count myself very fortunate to have never experienced true poverty myself, but I have spent much of my working life living in communities where poverty was very real—both the absolute poverty of one of the poorest nations in Africa, where I worked for several years, and the relative poverty of inner-city Sheffield, where I was vicar for a decade before becoming Bishop of Leicester.

I have seen first-hand, therefore, that poverty is not just about material resources but also has a much wider psychosocial impact. Amartya Sen argued that poverty should be understood not as low income but as capability deprivation: the lack of real freedom or opportunities to live a life one has reason to value. Martha Nussbaum expanded Sen’s framework by proposing a list of central human capabilities—such as life, bodily health, imagination, emotion, affiliation, play, and control over one’s environment—which all societies should secure for every citizen as a matter of justice.

Added to this is what some have called the poverty-shame nexus: the mutually reinforcing relationship between material hardship and the emotional experience of shame. People in poverty can experience shame through various mechanisms: social stigma, being judged as lazy, undeserving, or morally inferior; institutional interactions—for example, public services that treat people disrespectfully; or cultural norms that define success and worth in material terms. Research has found that people internalise stigmatising narratives about poverty and, as a result, have lower self-esteem and self-worth, and avoid social interaction with others.

Universal credit and its system of sanctions arguably institutionalise the poverty-shame nexus. Although I accept that its introduction in 2013 brought a necessary simplification to welfare payments, I nevertheless believe that the system of sanctions in particular has an implicit moralising message. Claimants must continually prove that they deserve support because they are both “poor enough” and “trying hard enough”. I have spoken with people who describe the feeling of being “presumed guilty until you are innocent”, on the assumption that every person looking for help might be “cheating the system”.

It is my belief that the two-child limit to universal credit has only added to the poverty-shame nexus. The assumption would appear to be that if you are on universal credit and have more than two children you are somehow not being responsible. Yet I have three wonderful children—I am sure that many other noble Lords also have more than two children—and I confess that I did not make a financial calculation ahead of deciding to have a third child. I wonder how many of us did. Surely, then, we have a duty to lift the sense of shame from others, not reinforce it.

Bishops on this Bench have consistently opposed the two-child limit right from its introduction. Indeed, as has already been mentioned, the former Bishop of Durham introduced a Private Member’s Bill seeking to abolish the limit in 2022. For us, this is part of a much wider calling to combat poverty in all its forms, addressing its causes and wider effects. I know that noble Lords on all sides of this House share that concern. Our differences are more to do with how, rather than whether, it is done. Yet I dare to hope that, once this policy is changed, we can work together to find other areas whereby those who are caught in poverty are enabled to contribute their gifts and skills to wider society.

Access to Work Fund

Lord Bishop of Leicester Excerpts

Thursday 5th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Leicester]

My Lords, although I recognise that spending on Access to Work has increased in recent years and applaud the Government’s ambition to support more disabled people into work, this will most likely require more financial investment and more training of specialist staff. Therefore, have the Government assessed how their welfare reforms will affect demand for Access to Work and how the scheme can be strengthened to meet what may be an increased case load in coming years?

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

The right reverend Prelate raises a very important point. The Government hope there will be more demand for support. In reviewing Access to Work, we also have to review the whole landscape to look at how well supported employers are to be able to do the things they can do, which was the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Sterling. What is the right thing for an employer to do, what can the individual do themselves and what can the state do to help them directly?

One of the challenges in recent times is that, along with that growth, we are getting very different types of cases. Broadly speaking, when the scheme was much smaller, people traditionally applied for a piece of physical kit for a physical barrier. The biggest single case now is people needing help with mental health. There are also cases of people coming through with a range of learning conditions, which are quite complex to assess and need a lot more work. We are having to review that, alongside broader policies, but the right reverend Prelate makes an important point to connect them.

Child Poverty Strategy

Lord Bishop of Leicester Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, my noble friend raises an important point. I assure her that the strategy, when it was being developed, looked at all children. We want to recognise the impact of poverty on children, whether or not they made any choices—because, as children, they do not make choices—contributing to their circumstances. It is clear that some of the measures we are taking, for example in relation to benefits, will benefit only those families who are eligible for those benefits. For example, the two-child limit affects only those on universal credit. Universal credit is available to families only in circumstances where their immigration status permits it. However, there are safety nets in the system to protect children, and I would be happy to share that view with colleagues across government.

[The Lord Bishop of Leicester]

My Lords, like many others, I warmly welcome the child poverty strategy; there is much to commend it, such as—to pick one particular aspect—the expansion of free school meals for children. However, I have a question about auto-enrolment of children for free school meals. There is much evidence to show that auto-enrolment not only lifts children out of poverty but increases educational attainment and allows schools to ensure that they get the pupil premium needed. Can the Minister therefore tell us what barriers remain for the introduction of auto-enrolment?

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, I am happy to raise that with colleagues in the DfE, but I reassure the right reverend Prelate that a lot of work has been and is going on in relation to free school meals for children on universal credit, making sure—whether it ends up being auto-enrolment or whether it is about communication or identification—that we get this out to all children. Free school meals are really important and are crucial to children: not only do they get to eat but hungry children struggle to learn, so it is a win-win all round. We think this is an incredibly important measure and we want to make sure that it works.

Youth Unemployment

Lord Bishop of Leicester Excerpts

Thursday 5th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Baroness raises an important point. This is an opportunity for us to rethink how we can ensure the appropriate support, the appropriate information and understanding of employers about the way in which autistic people can make an enormously important contribution in the workplace, and the support of work coaches in DWP and others who are providing the advice to people about how to get into work. I will certainly undertake to look into this in more detail and take the wisdom of the noble Baroness, who I know has campaigned on this for many years.

[The Lord Bishop of Leicester]

I welcome the Government’s new initiatives in this area, particularly the youth guarantee. Can the Minister tell us how the Government are going to tackle the estimated 500,000 young people who are not in education, employment or training, and who are not claiming benefits either? Are we not at serious risk of a whole generation of young people not being able to use their gifts for the good of wider society?

Jobcentres: Staffing Levels

Lord Bishop of Leicester Excerpts

Thursday 23rd October 2025 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[The Lord Bishop of Leicester]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the staffing levels within Job Centres.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Sherlock) (Lab)]

My Lords, DWP monitors demand for jobcentre support on an ongoing basis and has well-established workforce planning systems to make sure that we have the right people in the right place at the right time. These systems help us to prioritise jobcentre activities where needed, protecting our most effective interventions and making sure that we maintain a constant focus on getting people into work, while remaining within funding limits and providing value for money.

[The Lord Bishop of Leicester]

I thank the Minister for her response. A recent BBC article suggested that capacity has been created in jobcentres only by reducing the number and length of appointments. One work coach they spoke to said that having only 10 minutes with clients means

“you’re just being a benefits policeman”,

and some work coaches feel that they are not able to provide the necessary support, in particular to help disabled people into work. Are the Government confident of being able to improve the employment rate for people with disabilities?

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, our jobcentres provide a professional, targeted service. DWP recently conducted a thorough review of jobcentre activity, to look at ways in which we can respond to demand without having a negative impact on outcomes for claimants, or indeed on benefit expenditure or fraud and error. After the review, the department introduced a series of operational changes, the aim of which was to maintain consistency in jobcentres across the country.

However, consistency is not the same as uniformity. It cannot be sensible to have the same regime for a 20 year-old who has not worked ever since leaving school, a 40 year-old who is recovering from a serious illness, and a 60 year-old who is working in a job but not earning quite enough to escape from the demands of the jobcentre. So we are exploring ways to adapt the length, frequency and channels for appointments so they are better tailored to the needs of the individual. That way, we will be able to protect the interventions that are most effective but also try to make sure that we direct the resources where they are most needed. We now have additional work coaches working specifically on our programmes to support people with health conditions and disabilities, and we have committed to spending £1 billion by the end of the decade, investing in those very customers.

Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill

Lord Bishop of Leicester Excerpts

3rd reading
Thursday 23rd October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Vaux of Harrowden (CB)]

My Lords, this Bill is important, creating a wide range of powers for the Cabinet Office and DWP to deal with fraud and error. Until recently, it received very little attention in this House, being in Grand Committee. A small group of noble Lords have worked on it as it has gone through the stages in this House and it has been a great pleasure to work with all of them, across all parties.

I want to repeat what I said before: first, that the Bill as introduced was a much better Bill than its previous incarnation under the last Government. I am extremely grateful to both Ministers for that; they listened and acted on the concerns raised at that time and reflected many of them in the Bill as it was tabled originally. The same is true of the opposition team; I think they also heard those concerns, and it has been a pleasure that they have been so supportive of many of the changes made to strengthen the safeguards around the powers.

Equally, the engagement from the Ministers and their officials has been exemplary throughout the passage of the Bill. It has been a very good example of how this House works best and I am very grateful to all of them. They have been not only extremely generous with their time but very constructive in their engagement. Documents, such as the draft code of practice, have been published in good time, which I think most noble Lords would agree is not always the case. The detailed document that showed how the Bill would work alongside other legislation was a lot of work for somebody but incredibly helpful in enabling all of us to understand this better. As the noble Viscount, Lord Younger, just said, special mention is merited for whoever produced the famous flowcharts.

I am also grateful to all those who supported me in my efforts to strengthen the safeguards around these new powers, in particular, the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, the noble Viscount, Lord Younger of Leckie, the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, and the noble Lord, Lord Palmer of Childs Hill, as well as the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, and others. Having said that, we were not able to find agreement on everything, as we saw on Tuesday. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, that I remain keen to see whether we can find a constructive solution to those remaining issues that would work for us all. I stand ready to work with her and her team to that end before we get into ping-pong. I am not trying to thwart the intent of the Bill and have tried throughout to reflect as closely as possible what the Government say they really need. I really hope that we can find something mutually agreeable during the next stages.

[The Lord Bishop of Leicester]

My Lords, I support this Bill and add my thanks to all those who have engaged so thoroughly in its detail. It has been an important learning experience for me in the processes of your Lordships’ House, an experience that I hope I can bring to bear on other business in this place.

In addition, I want to speak briefly to the amendments brought forward on Report by the noble Lord, Lord Verdirame, the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, myself and the noble Baroness, Lady Finn. Unfortunately, neither the noble Lord nor the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, are in their place today; they have asked me to speak on their behalf. We did not push our amendment to a Division because of the assurances given to us by the Minister, and I thank her for those assurances given on Report with regard to overpayment, in particular the commitments to review communications with those with debts and to explore ways of improving the clarity and timing of those communications. Therefore, is the Minister prepared to either write to the whole House or commit to giving a Written Statement to Parliament, setting out the outcome of this review in due course?

Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill

Lord Bishop of Leicester Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 21st October 2025 Lords Chamber

I hope that my noble friend the Minister can give us some assurances along the lines suggested by the noble Lord, which would mean that he does not feel it necessary to press the amendment.

[The Lord Bishop of Leicester]

My Lords, I am pleased to have added my name to this amendment. As this is the first time that I have spoken at this stage, I want to thank the Ministers for their careful consideration of the concerns raised by noble Lords, as well as all those who have engaged with such diligence on this matter. For the record, this is an important Bill. Attempts to commit fraud will not stop as a result of this Bill—that will never be possible—but it will be far harder for those making these attempts, and that is absolutely right, as is the ability to recover overpayments.

The principles behind this amendment are fairness in the face of the various reasons for an overpayment being made, including error by the department, and affordability, ensuring that those already in poverty are not pushed further into it. Let us remember who will bear the brunt of these new powers: people who are reliant on benefits, which independent research suggests are already insufficient to meet people’s basic needs. With the requirement to pay off their debts via universal credit deductions of up to 15% of the standard allowance, there is a real risk that many will, I fear, be pushed even deeper into poverty.

It is not a trivial number of people who will be affected. According to a DWP Freedom of Information Act response in 2023-24, nearly 900,000 new overpayment debts were entered on DWP’s debt management system, nearly 80% of which were recorded as caused by official error. The amendment before us offers a constructive path to stop people being pushed into even more precarious circumstances. By introducing a clear limit on how far back overpayment recovery can go, it would bring predictability and restraint to the process. People should not live in fear that an administrative slip-up made a decade ago will suddenly resurface as a bill they cannot hope to pay. Other areas of law recognise the principle of limitation periods and so should we here. Equally, by requiring an affordability assessment, the amendment would ensure that any repayment plans are fair, sustainable and consistent with human dignity. This is for the good of the individuals but also of the Government. If the state appears heavy-handed then confidence in the integrity of our welfare system, which is the thrust of this whole Bill, is undermined.

The amendment would not weaken the fight against fraud. It does not seek to excuse dishonesty or to diminish accountability. It seeks to uphold the Government’s stated objective of ensuring that recovery of overpayments is done in a fair and affordable way. I urge the Minister to take these concerns into account, in particular the suggestions of the noble Lord, Lord Verdirame, on how these concerns can be addressed practically. I, like others, will not be pushing for a Division on this matter, but I seek real reassurance from the Government.

[Baroness Finn (Con)]

My Lords, I speak in strong support of this amendment, so ably tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Verdirame, and supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester, and to which I am pleased to have added my name.

The amendment speaks across so many of the principles that have underpinned our debates and the position that we on these Benches have adopted throughout Committee and Report—fairness, proportionality, transparency and responsibility. This amendment is about finding this balance and ensuring that the recovery of overpaid public funds is carried out in a way that is both effective and humane.

We have been clear from the outset that we support the core objectives of this Bill. Public money that has been wrongly paid out, whether through error or fraud, must be recovered. We owe that duty to the taxpayer and the integrity of our public finances. Equally, it is a duty of government to ensure that such recovery is done in a way that is fair, measured and responsible, does not impose unnecessary hardship, recognises the realities of individual circumstances and upholds confidence in the system.

This amendment embodies precisely that balance. It would establish clear and necessary safeguards before deductions are made from a person’s benefits. It would require that the liable person be notified of the rate and the basis of deduction, and, crucially, that they be given the opportunity to make representations about affordability. It would insist that deductions should proceed only where the Secretary of State is satisfied that recovery will not cause hardship in meeting essential living expenses and that the process is fair in all circumstances, including where the overpayment may have arisen through official delay or error. Sensibly, it seeks to sets a six-year limit for recovery, in line with the limitation period that applies through the courts. In other words, this amendment would ensure that the state exercises its right to recover the money in a way that is just, proportionate and accountable, and would align the recovery of overpayments through benefit deductions with the very same principles of fairness and restraint that we have already built into Schedule 5 in relation to deductions from bank accounts.

Throughout our scrutiny of this legislation, we have repeatedly emphasised that good governance is not simply about having the power to act but about exercising that power responsibly. This amendment reflects that philosophy perfectly. It strikes the right equilibrium between fiscal responsibility and social justice and between protecting the taxpayer and those who may already be in vulnerable situations. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Verdirame, for bringing forward this thoughtful and well-crafted proposal. It would strengthen the Bill, give legislative effect to the principles of transparency, fairness and proportionality, and ensure that, in pursuing the legitimate goal of recovering public funds, we do so in a manner that remains worthy of public trust. This is a measured, sensible and responsible amendment and we are very pleased to support it. I hope the Minister will give welcome assurances on it.