Financial Services and Markets Bill

Debate between Harriett Baldwin and Stephen Timms

Report stage
Wednesday 7th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sir Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I agree with the case that the hon. Lady is making—indeed, I have signed her new clause. I wonder whether she has seen the report produced by the Work and Pensions Committee in September, which expressed concern about stepping across the advice-guidance boundary and constraining the ability of pension schemes and employers to give people helpful, sensible support as they make their choices about what to do with their pension savings. Would her new clause help in that regard?

[Harriett Baldwin]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for signing the new clause, and for his Committee’s excellent report. He is right to suggest that the workplace is one of the best places for people to be given these nudges, and for employers to explore that boundary between advice and guidance.

Our constituents are craving advice of this kind, especially during this cost of living crisis. They want more guidance from their financial institutions. They are turning to online sources of often unregulated information to help them navigate their finances. They are finding the process complex and confusing. They are choosing investments that are often very high risk and not suited to them at all, such as meme stocks, crypto or spread betting.

It should not need to be this way, because the technology exists for financial services and fintech firms to guide people towards making better financial choices and following good mainstream investment opportunities, but MiFID-originated legislation is getting in the way. My new clause would enable the Treasury to introduce, with great urgency, the necessary legislation to allow regulated financial services firms to offer UK households personalised guidance. It is a great opportunity to unlock investment in our country, it will help our constituents to earn more, and it will allow innovation. Financial technology will help our constituents to level up their own economic futures. I am therefore delighted that the Economic Secretary has agreed today to look into this as a matter of urgency.

Welfare Reform Bill

Debate between Harriett Baldwin and Stephen Timms

Monday 13th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way on this extremely important issue. Is his solution the same as that of the groups he mentioned earlier—to put more money into child care?

[Stephen Timms]

No: our solution is the one in new clause 2, which we are debating. The priority should be to maintain the support currently being received by people working more than 16 hours a week. I understand why the Government say that they cannot simply find more money for supporting child care, but what will be disastrous is what appears to be the Government’s intention to give a lot more people support from the same cash-limited sum of money. If that proceeds, a very large number of people for whom work pays at the moment will find that work no longer pays.

[Harriett Baldwin]

Does the right hon. Gentleman welcome the proposals that would allow people to move into work of up to 16 hours—the mini jobs?

--- Later in debate ---

[Harriett Baldwin]

On the important subject of free school meals, is the right hon. Gentleman suggesting that the taper would begin immediately someone went into work, or would it come into play once the earnings disregard had moved out of the way, and if so, what would be the cost of his proposals?

[Stephen Timms]

The point is that it is a zero-cost proposal; I am simply suggesting that the funding would be provided through the mechanism that I have described. It would be tapered away, along with the rest of universal credit, and would sit naturally on top of existing payments, so that there would be just an additional payment in respect of school meals, where appropriate, which would then be tapered away once the disregard had been exhausted. The budgetary cost would be exactly the same.

We have exactly the same issue with free prescriptions. The current system provides them to people on benefits and to some people with low incomes through the HC2 form, but once again, we have heard nothing from the Government about what will happen under universal credit. Our new clause 4 addresses that.

By the way, it is perhaps worth making the point in passing that the number of pupils receiving free school meals is an important indicator for education policy as well. The pupil premium depends on the number of people receiving free school meals. The fact that we have no idea at all who will be entitled to free school meals under the Government’s proposals will create serious problems with that, too.

Welfare Reform Bill

Debate between Harriett Baldwin and Stephen Timms

Wednesday 9th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

That feature of the proposals will mean that, as a fine simply for having £16,000 in the bank, people will lose all their tax credits, which could amount to £5,000 a year. Surely that is not right.

[Harriett Baldwin]

The right hon. Gentleman probably also supports the proposition that I should continue to receive child benefit. We need to make these decisions, and they need to focus on certain levels of savings.

Passported benefits, on the other hand, are something that we will need to discuss in great detail. I hope that the Committee will do that, because things such as free school meals, which at the moment are passported in with other benefits, are also a trigger for early years payments for schools and the pupil premium. It will therefore be particularly important to have clarity about how free school meals are going to work in the future. Personally, I would favour putting that in with the universal credit, where it would be affected by the same withdrawal rates.

Another good point that has been raised in the debate was about entrepreneurs. We must ensure that people do not hear from the benefits system a message against entrepreneurial behaviour. The Committee needs to look closely at how the imputed income of new business start-ups will be treated for benefit purposes.

We have heard allegations that the Bill has been rushed. I disagree. We are talking today about changes that will not even come into effect until 2013. However, I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South West (Paul Uppal) that they cannot come soon enough, although I know that a major computer system needs to be changed. I welcome the measures in the Bill and I look forward to supporting its Second Reading.