Household Support Fund

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Tuesday 30th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

To date, over £2 billion-worth of support has been allocated to local authorities in England via the household support fund to support those most in need. As I said, it is up to local councils to decide how it is disbursed. Local authorities in England are funded through the finance settlement to deliver local welfare provision.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, it would be deception of the worst order if the Government were to announce, as they have over the last few days, a £600 million uplift to upper-tier local authorities only then, a few days later, to pull the plug on £2 billion. The £10 million that goes to Sheffield has been crucial in maintaining the well-being of thousands of children. I appeal to the Minister to go back to his colleagues and ensure that there is no duplicity and that the most vulnerable can continue to get help from 1 April.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I hope I can provide some further reassurance to the House and to the noble Lord. He will know that the Government have announced initial measures for local authorities in England worth £600 million. This includes £500 million for new funding for councils with responsibility for adult and children’s social care, distributed through the social care grant.

Health: Migraines

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Tuesday 24th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I might be able to help the noble Baroness in some way. It is estimated that 190,000 migraine attacks occur every day in the UK. Over three-quarters of people who get migraine have at least one attack each month. Chronic migraine—it is a justified question—when a person gets a headache on 15 or more days a month, eight of them migraine, is less common but affects about two in 100 people.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I have a non-pecuniary interest to declare. All this discussion on the advice that employers clearly need surely leads us to believe that we need a national occupational health programme, which could save tens of billions of pounds. Does the Minister agree?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I will certainly reflect upon that and take it away, but I have given some idea as to the work we are doing with employers and—I say again—it is an incredibly important issue for all employers, particularly small businesses. There are 5.4 million or so of those in this country, for which there is little access to occupational health—something I could talk about another time—where advice needed for employees who suffer is better given.

Mesothelioma Lump Sum Payments (Conditions and Amounts) (Amendment) Regulations 2021

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Wednesday 10th February 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I chose to join the Grand Committee for the consideration of these regulations this afternoon in part because of the experience of friends and family members older than myself who have suffered from mesothelioma and pneumoconiosis. I also pay tribute to those who campaigned so hard for the 1979 Act and those who campaigned for the changes in 2008, including the deputy leader of Sheffield City Council, Councillor Terry Fox, who was president of the National Association of Colliery Overmen, Deputies and Shotfirers and led a very successful campaign leading up to the 2008 changes.

I really respect the Minister and appreciate her explanation of what has taken place and the Government’s reaction in relation to the Covid-19 pandemic. As she said at the end of her contribution, it is hard to get across to people who have not met anyone who has suffered from mesothelioma or pneumoconiosis just what a tragedy it is for the individual and their family, and the debilitating impact that these diseases have on the longevity, mobility and life chances of those suffering. It was not simply something that happened in the coal and steel industries. I remember, as a young man, that with Turner and Newall in Leeds, it took great campaigners, media appreciation and investigation to bring about change. That was also true of the Sheffield occupational health project, which today works in GP surgeries and does a first-rate job on a shoestring to ensure that it can work with primary care to help those who have those diseases. As the Minister spelled out, it also helps those unable to identify their specific employment as the cause, mainly because the workplace no longer exists, but for whom it is absolutely clear that their illness was associated with employment and that those living around that employment have been affected. That was why the 2008 change came in.

I am sorry that we did not build in automatic uprating in 1979 and 2008, but I am very glad that the Government have, like previous Governments, taken this on board. It is appreciated on behalf of all those currently suffering and those still being identified that the Government, despite disagreements elsewhere over welfare payments, have recognised the enormity of what people are suffering and stepped up to the plate.

Social Security (Up-rating of Benefits) Bill

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 13th October 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, first, I welcome the two newly ennobled Peers to our proceedings in this Room and congratulate them in advance on their maiden speeches. This is a unique occasion for newly ennobled Members of the House to make their maiden speeches in these newly formed proceedings, but it will be something to tell their grandchildren or others who fit into that category.

I am walking on very thin ice, and indeed not just on eggshells but on broken glass in terms of the short contribution I wish to make. Twenty years ago, I was in some conflict with the then Chancellor because I backed the stalwart but ageing battleship that was Barbara Castle and my good friend, the late Rodney Bickerstaffe, then the general secretary of Unison, in publicly advocating the double lock on the state pension, at a time when I know noble Lords will remember the Government were stumbling into a 75 pence a week increase and all the controversy around that. Here we are, some 20 years later with a triple lock, but in very different circumstances. Twenty years ago, pensioner poverty was rife, which is why we are talking about pension credit. It was a really big challenge to ensure that those who had given their lives during the war were not disadvantaged, and major steps were taken to put that right.

However, here we are, on the back of numerous research projects, including by the Resolution Foundation, and the work of the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, who has done so much on this, facing a very different situation. I realise that while we must pass this legislation as quickly as possible—as we would expect to do, because we are only putting right an expectation and implementing what was in fact in the Government’s manifesto—we will have to reassess how we deal with this in the future.

I deferred my retirement pension, but I now take it. For Members who have other ways of supplementing their pensions and are in a comfortable position, if not rich, it is very difficult to address these issues without being accused of hypocrisy. But the situation in relation to the young versus the old in terms of the balance between the generations has changed dramatically. It is difficult to talk about this. I was on the BBC “Politics Live” programme with Professor Karol Sikora at the beginning of September. He made remarks along the lines I have just touched on in respect of what is happening to young people. An avalanche of abuse was poured on his head, but because, thank God, I do not do social media, it took a bit of time for it to reach me. However, people did, some of them not realising that I am in the same age bracket as those who were writing to me.

I understand this because there are people who are still extremely badly off in retirement, but there are real challenges. Today we learn that out of the half a million people who have, we have been notified, lost their jobs through to August, three out of five were between the ages of 16 and 24. Older people have at least been protected to some extent from 10 years of austerity by other benefits, but not younger people. While we must go ahead with this legislation, all major parties—difficult as it is—will have to reassess their policies in relation to fairness between and within the generations. That will have to be done sooner or later, not least because of the enormity of the increase in debt and the investment that have been needed because of Covid.

I know what the politics are; I am not foolish. Older people vote in substantial numbers compared to the young. The answer is that young people need to learn the bitter lesson that, if they do not vote, they pass power to others who do.

Pension Schemes Bill [HL]

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard) & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 30th June 2020 Lords Chamber

Therefore, whether or not the amendment is worded correctly—the concept of “fairness” is of course open to interpretation—we need to ensure that there is some kind of risk adjustment or long-term margin taken from those who wish to become non-members of a scheme, so that there is a buffer against future bad markets or unexpected changes in the parameters on which pension values are currently based for these schemes to become more sustainable in the long term. I look forward to my noble friend’s response and, possibly, reassurance.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I will not detain the House for very long. I draw attention to the interchange and interface between the insolvency legislation that has now passed into law, on which I spoke a short time ago, and this Bill. The reason for that is that we are at a moment of the trigger events being more likely than in our recent history. The noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, referred to the pension freedoms. It struck me as I was listening to the debate today how relevant that is because five years ago the then Chancellor decided to provide a stimulus to the economy as PPI out-payments were drawing to a close, and he did so with an understanding that that would not destroy the pension entitlement or, as provided in Amendment 32, the balance of fairness between generations.

I am supporting both Amendment 8, moved extremely well by my noble friend Lady Drake, and Amendment 32. Anything that puts people and the wider scheme at risk, including these CMP schemes, is dangerous not only to the individuals concerned but in the dislocation of something broader—that is, the commitment that I commenced when my noble friend Lady Drake, along with John Hills and the chair of the commission back in 2005, Adair Turner—the noble Lord, Lord Turner—proposed auto-enrolment.

We are at a moment when, following the withdrawal of the furlough schemes, we face enormous unemployment, great insecurity and risk. At this moment we need to be able to secure not just the present but the future, and that future has to be about those young people contributing, as has already been said in relation to Amendment 32, and the danger that those who find themselves in temporary need of funding will withdraw funds at a moment that is deeply inappropriate for the viability of the programme as a whole. I hope that the Minister will respond positively and, if not, that we will press Amendment 32 to a vote.

[Baroness Janke [V]]

My Lords, I support Amendment 8 but I will address my remarks to Amendment 32. The amendment seeks to ensure fairness for all members of CDC schemes, especially between different generations who may stand to gain or lose from future circumstances, as noble Lords have already referred to.

In Committee we debated this issue at length and a number of issues emerged. The Bill states that the scheme provides for intergenerational fairness among its members, specifically in connection with the amount of benefits paid to pensioners, proposed adjustments to annual benefits and cash-equivalent values provided to members wishing to transfer out of the scheme. A requirement of collective money purchase schemes requires outperformance or underperformance to be reflected in the benefits paid to all members. However, there is usually a reluctance to deliver pension cuts, as in the Netherlands example that the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, described in Committee: when the Government intervened temporarily to avoid a cut in pensions, younger members of the scheme lost out as pensions were kept higher than the scheme could afford.

CDC schemes are required to agree a pension target rather than a firm outcome, and the expectation of pensioners may be different in the event of the underperformance of investments over time. So unless pensions were to be cut, which is a decision that is largely avoided, younger members of the scheme could lose out in the interests of existing pensioners. In the instance of a large number of people choosing to cash in their pensions, as others have said, there is a risk to new and younger entrants to the scheme, particularly if the value of the scheme is significantly reduced.

Our Amendment 32 seeks to press the Government into being more explicit and much clearer in their commitment to fairness across the board to all members of the scheme by requiring the trustees to make an assessment of the fairness of the scheme. The amendment addresses the interests of transparency and fairness and the welfare of all members of the scheme, and I support them.

Automatic Enrolment (Offshore Employment) (Amendment) Order 2020

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Tuesday 19th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, as my Braille watch does not have the facility of timing my speech down to the half minute, I shall be as brief as possible. I welcome these instruments, not least for the signal they send in terms of the continuing commitment to auto-enrolment. My noble friend Lady Drake may not remember that, along with John Hills and the chair of the commission, Adair Turner, back in 2005 she presented the initial findings, and my job was to persuade Tony Blair and Gordon Brown that auto-enrolment was the kind of long-term policy that gives Government a good name rather than a bad one. I was particularly pleased that, after the passage of the 2008 Act, although it took an extremely long time, the coalition Government were then able to pick this up and continue with it. That is why it is important to pick up on the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, who ingeniously managed to bring in the important issue of people working in the voluntary, not-for-profit and charitable sectors that will apply more broadly in terms of the impact of Covid-19 on a much wider group of sectors than the ones we are dealing with today. I want also to reinforce the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann—I seem to be supporting Conservative and well as Labour Peers today—about the anomalies that exist.

However, my main point is in the years ahead, while we protect the state pensions of people who are unemployed and moving in and out of work, it is clear that auto-enrolment will be a crucial part of maintaining income for the future, and therefore we need to find ingenious ways of ensuring that that entitlement will continue, as very large numbers of people move from furlough into unemployment, perhaps on a long-term basis.

Improving Lives: Green Paper

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

It is clear that many people who happen to have a disability have immense talents and valuable skills, which employers should want to tap; they will miss out if they do not. We already offer some support—for instance, Access to Work—and we are increasing that spending. The consultation will ask employers what they need from government to help them recruit and train disabled people.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, it would be unfair to use the old joke, “This is déjà vu all over again”, because this is a welcome initiative. I have just two quick points to make. The Minister knows a great deal about this. Perhaps he will accept that trashing the past rather than learning from it is not helpful. This is not an entirely new era. In 2005, as he well knows, the Department of Health and the Department for Work and Pensions jointly appointed Professor Carol Black. All the things that came out in the report he has mentioned flowed from that initiative. While it takes a great deal of time to implement good policy, as we are all painfully aware, there has been a great deal of it; for instance, the Employers Network for Equality & Inclusion has 2,500 employers already engaged. A new business leaders’ group is not required. What is required is to build on what is there, to build on the experience of the pathways and the talking therapies, and to ensure that what we all say—and we do all say it—about joined-up policy is put into practice.

[Lord Freud]

My right honourable friend in the other place, the Secretary of State, took some pleasure in quoting James Purnell from 2008 about the objectives here, illustrating that they are the same. We must acknowledge the continuity there has been in this difficult area and, in particular, give thanks to Dame Carol Black, who I have worked with now for many years and who has done an extraordinary job in trying to get these two networks together. We are building on many years of work but, like everyone else, I acknowledge that it is hard pounding—it takes a long time to get this right.

Housing: Under-occupancy

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Monday 17th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, the problem with the previous question is that the bedroom tax does not apply to the retired. It is actually the retired—well represented in your Lordships’ House—who have more accommodation available than younger people bringing up families, where their home should be their castle. Does the Minister concur that, if we were looking in that area, it would be an incentive to older people to downsize, not younger people with families?

[Lord Freud]

The policy is clearly directed at people who have a spare room. These tend not to be people with families; in many cases, they are empty nesters. They would be a typical group—people who have had a larger place but some of the people living in it have then moved on and they now have spare rooms. There is a point in time at which one should address the issue to get the downsizing. This policy looks to make sure that that time is during working age and not later.

Employment: Job Creation

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, will the Minister reflect on the paradox that if more people are being assessed more rigorously as being eligible and fit for work, even with disabilities—he and I agree on that—there is a certain irony in using the increase in the volume cost of the personal independence payment as a reason for taking away that PIP from those who have been judged to be so disabled that they are entitled to additional support, some of which will eventually enable them to take work? Is it not therefore a completely cost-ineffective means of dealing with the challenge of increased PIP to reduce the number of people who are eligible for it?

[Lord Freud]

We carried out a survey of a representative sample of about 400 people, with, I think, 95% accuracy. We found that the vast bulk of people in the categories that we are talking about did not have extra costs apart from the aids and appliances they were using. Some of those aids and appliances were, for instance, a bed. We found that extra costs were not applied to these particular measures.

Amendment of the Law

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Monday 23rd March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

First, I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling) on not just an excellent speech, but the tremendous work he did in those difficult three years alongside the then Prime Minister. When the world gathered in April 2009, applauding the then Prime Minister and then Chancellor for the work they had done on pulling people together, no one could have thought that the absurdity would exist where the last Labour Government were blamed for the sub-prime mortgage collapse in the United States and the collapse of the financial institutions across the world.

For 30 seconds, I just want to pay tribute to those who have been instrumental in anything that I have been able to do in my public life and in this House, starting with my wonderful family and my closest friends. They were somewhere in the Gallery when I made my maiden speech, and two are here from Canada in the Gallery tonight. Without our family and friends we could never do what we achieve, and so often they take the brunt of the rough and not the smooth in politics. I, of course, want to thank the workers, who are often forgotten in our democracy but who make it possible for us to be here in our political parties, for their dedicated work. I thank the voters and the people of Brightside, of Hillsborough and of Sheffield. I also wish to pay tribute to my colleagues in the House, including my right hon. Friends the Members for Edinburgh South West and for Blackburn (Mr Straw), who served in Cabinet with me. My right hon. Friend gave 36 years of dedicated service in and out of this House, and he deserves a great deal of credit for it.

My first Budget was Nigel Lawson’s of March 1988 and it was seminal in my life because my dog, Ted, was violently sick halfway through. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner), in a very loud voice, in only the way he could, pronounced, “Someone should clear up this dog’s breakfast.” I was not sure whether he was referring to what the dog or the Chancellor had delivered. That Budget certainly had a detrimental impact which I hope this Budget will not achieve.

I wish to make three quick points. I have already commended my right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West for what he said about what happened through those difficult times. We do not just have to believe him; we can believe what Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England, said in a speech made on 28 January in Dublin. In his second point about why our economy had managed to come through and bounce back, he said that we had a fiscal system that allowed budget deficits to rise during a downturn. It is self-evident that that is the case and it needs to be done, but it is not self-evident, in all the rhetoric we have heard over the past five years, that anyone on the Government Benches has fully understood what saved us from complete calamity—it certainly was not austerity. It has not been austerity in Greece, Spain, France or Italy that has saved those countries; what has been instrumental has been what was implemented by the Federal Reserve in the United States and by the Bank of England here: quantitative easing—printing money, as my mother called it. It eased the unfortunate—in the long term—bubble in house prices, rather than the investment in business for which it was intended, but it did make a significant difference in terms of allowing us to return to growth and to have sufficient money in the economy.

Paradoxically, the payment protection insurance mis-selling scheme also did that. The PPI repayments have amounted to £20 billion of money going into families and into local economies that people have spent. If a political party had announced that it was going to give, in a Budget, just before an election, £20 billion to selected families across the country, people would have had a fit. Yet that has made a significant impact on what has happened.

We will not and cannot allow a doubling of the pain in the next Parliament to take us backwards, with the unthinkable becoming the unachievable. That is clearly what would happen if the unfair changes and the unfair further additional austerity measures were to be implemented—and, of course, we do not know about many of them. Should the Conservatives be the lead or majority party, they will be implementing further cuts, on top of the 50%-plus of austerity measures that the coalition has already signed up to. We know about the 10% cut in the budgets in schools, because the Prime Minister has announced it. We know about the enormous cuts already in the pipeline in further education, with a 24% cut in adult skills funding. We know about the proposed budget changes already for welfare. We know what is happening in local government, with the most deprived areas taking the biggest hit. We know that if these austerity measures go any further, there will be a massive hit on those least able to take it. This is a crucial moment, when we decide whether we go backwards or forwards to a Britain we are proud of.