argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Severe Disability Premium: Transfer to Universal Credit — House of Lords, 2019-05-07
Topic: Social Welfare
Peta Buscombe (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat in the form of a Statement the Answer given by my honourable friend the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work to an Urgent Question in another place on the transfer of the severe disability premium to universal credit. The Statement is as follows: "Universal credit is the biggest change of the welfare system since it was created. It is a modern, flexible, personalised benefit reflecting the rapidly changing world of work. When designing universal credit, a choice was made not to replicate every aspect of the disability provision in the legacy system. However, I want to make it very clear that our intention was that no money from this area would be taken out of the system. Universal credit was therefore designed with all the money from the old disability premiums recycled to target support for the most severely disabled Disabled people are some of the biggest beneficiaries of universal credit, with around 1 million disabled households having on average around £100 a month more on universal credit than they would have had on the legacy benefits. On Friday, the High Court handed down a judgment in relation to universal credit and the severe disability premium. The severe disability premium—SDP—is an additional premium payable with mean-tested benefits such as ESA. Universal credit is more targeted and support is focused on those who need it most. Transitional protection will be available for people who are moved on to universal credit from other benefits, provided their circumstances stay the same. We are pleased that the court recognises that it is for Ministers to frame the appropriate transitional arrangements for moving claimants on to universal credit, and we will consider all our options. This Government are committed to delivering a welfare system that supports disabled people".
Severe Disability Premium: Transfer to Universal Credit — House of Lords, 2019-05-07
Topic: Social Welfare
Peta Buscombe (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, as I have already said, Ministers are considering the judgment in detail and will make a decision about their response in due course. When designing universal credit, it was important to provide a simpler system, and a conscious choice was made not to replicate every aspect of disability provision in the legacy system, which contains seven different disability payments. These are difficult to deliver and prone to error, and they can be confusing for claimants. Therefore, we are replacing those seven complex and overlapping disability benefits Under the legacy benefit system, 500,000 disabled people did not claim what they were entitled to. Therefore, in terms of families losing out, about £2.4 billion of benefits went unclaimed in the legacy system as a whole. We have now moved to a much fairer system. For example, the rate per month under UC for claimants determined as having limited capability for work and work-related activity is more than twice the amount payable through the equivalent support group component of ESA. Under universal credit, it is now £336.20 per month per household, compared with £167.05 per month through the equivalent ESA support group. This means that around 1 million disabled households will gain an average of £100 more per month on universal credit than on legacy benefits.
Severe Disability Premium: Transfer to Universal Credit — House of Lords, 2019-05-07
Topic: Social Welfare
Peta Buscombe (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I make it clear that current severe disability premium claimants will receive transitional protection as part of the managed migration process. We now have transitional payments in place for severe disability premium claimants who have moved on to universal credit. As the noble Baroness well knows, we are now spending over £50 billion a year on benefits to support disabled people and those with health conditions, which is over £4 billion more than in 2010. We continue to evaluate the impact of our policies on this system. As the lead Minister for research at the Department for Work and Pensions, I am very clear that we make it our business to evaluate all the policies that we put in place.
Severe Disability Premium: Transfer to Universal Credit — House of Lords, 2019-05-07
Topic: Social Welfare
Peta Buscombe (Conservative, Centre-right): As the noble Baroness knows, the focus of this Urgent Question is the court case and severe disability payments. We put that block—if I can call it that—in place on 16 January, to stop those with a severe disability migrating, and to prevent any more people who are on severe disability premium naturally migrating to universal credit, because we recognise that there is an issue here However, to deal with the stock of SDP claimants who have already moved to UC following a change of circumstances, it has been agreed that claimants will be eligible for a transitional SDP payment if they meet the following criteria: that they were eligible for SDP before they claimed UC; that their UC award has not subsequently terminated; that they have not ceased to be entitled to one of the qualifying benefits for the SDP—the middle or higher rate care component of DLA, the PIP daily living component, the armed forces independence payment or AA; and that no one has become a carer for them. This is focused on that bespoke cohort of individuals the judgment relates to: those who live alone, without a carer.
School Exclusion: Timpson Review — House of Lords, 2019-05-07
Topic: Education
Theodore Agnew (Conservative, Centre-right): I will respond to the noble Lords, Lord Bassam and Lord Storey. On permanent exclusions, last year 85% of schools had none at all, so it is important to put the issue in some perspective. But we are not complacent in any way—that is why we commissioned Timpson last year to undertake his review. That flows into the issue of off-rolling, which greatly concerned both noble Lords. The term has crept into usage only in the past two or three years, and when we initially commissioned Edward Timpson to undertake his review it was not in common usage, but he has expanded the report to deal with it. It is important to reassure noble Lords that off-rolling is an unlawful practice, so it is not something that a school can do legitimately. We are focusing on this partly through the changes to the Ofsted inspection framework, for example, which will come in in September, which will ramp up the inspection process to ensure that such things are not going on. Ofsted will look at children who have left the school roll and interrogate the school as to why they have left and where they are.
School Exclusion: Timpson Review — House of Lords, 2019-05-07
Topic: Education
Theodore Agnew (Conservative, Centre-right): I am not aware of any specific data, but from this September, with the new Ofsted inspection framework, it will be very clear in any inspection that the issue will be under the spotlight in a way that is not the case at the moment. As we know, Ofsted has quite a lot of power to change behaviours in the system, so I am optimistic that we will see a change in behaviour. I also think that the public debate about off-rolling has changed behaviours already in those schools where it may or may not have been going on. One of the Timpson recommendations also asks us to look at the convoluted and complicated system of coding of attendance, which allows a lot of opacity—that will also help On funding, we are very aware that funding is tight in the system, but it is important to place on record that we have increased SEND funding from £5 billion in 2013 to £6.3 billion in the current year, and we have opened 42 AP free schools since the free school programme began.
School Exclusion: Timpson Review — House of Lords, 2019-05-07
Topic: Education
Kenneth Baker (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I warmly welcome the Timpson report and the reaction to it that we have heard from the Minister tonight. I hope that it will lead to a significant reduction in the number of pupils who are excluded—or off-rolled or home educated or sent to PRUs—which has grown far too much in the past few years It is very welcome to see that the consultation process that the Minister announced is so wide, and I am glad that he is in charge—he is the Minister in the department who is driving this policy, and we should be grateful for that. In the consultation process, I hope that he will ask the head teacher who excludes to meet with the local authority and the parents to determine a plan for the education of the student who is being excluded, and to review that plan, and for Ofsted to examine it in its inspections The Minister should also not exclude the possibility of some financial support for parents when they have to take on the responsibility of educating their children. One cost that should certainly be paid for by the school is for the examinations that the student takes. Those cost about £300 to £400 per set of examinations and, as those now have to be announced, that is the very least that should be provided for them In general, I warmly support the report. This is a major step forward in the education system.
School Exclusion: Timpson Review — House of Lords, 2019-05-07
Topic: Education
Theodore Agnew (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my noble friend Lord Baker for his supportive comments, and I agree with everything that he said. There are 30 recommendations in the Timpson report, and we are broadly supportive of all of them. However, Timpson stresses that we need to be careful about how we implement any of his recommendations and that we should have careful consultation with key stakeholders, parents in particular, on how we take matters forward. For example, by making permanent exclusions more difficult, we do not want to push the problem into another bucket such as off-rolling or misuse of the different attendance codes. But we all share the objective that we want to reduce the problem in the system.
School Exclusion: Timpson Review — House of Lords, 2019-05-07
Topic: Education
Theodore Agnew (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I do not have a specific answer to those questions at the moment. I am happy to write to the noble Lord. The Tom Bennett behaviour initiative will be available to the whole school system. The idea is that we will have behaviour support networks available to all schools; that is why, again, it will not be rolled out until next year.
School Exclusion: Timpson Review — House of Lords, 2019-05-07
Topic: Education
Theodore Agnew (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, to answer the noble Earl’s question on teacher training, we are increasing awareness of the training available on such things as having mental health leads in schools. We have also committed to a programme of training 200 psychiatrists and psychotherapists to go into the school system. We are very aware that we need to increase the skillsets available to schools to deal with the wide range of issues confronting them. I understand the noble Earl’s concerns about Ofsted as an institution. We are trying to create a cultural change here, but I am optimistic that the new framework will move some way to addressing his concerns. We have done a lot. For example, when my right honourable friend became the Secretary of State for Education, he did a joint video with the Chief Inspector of Schools to try to get the message through on issues such as workload and looking at data. It is a piece of work that we will have to continue.
School Exclusion: Timpson Review — House of Lords, 2019-05-07
Topic: Education
Theodore Agnew (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, without sounding complacent, I think it is important to give some perspective to the current exclusion rate. It is about the same as it was 10 years ago; it improved but it has got worse in the last three years. I do not want to paint a picture of there being a crisis. I accept that we are concerned, and we are doing something about it, but it would be wrong to suggest that there is a crisis. Regarding attendance, we have made quite a lot of improvement. The persistent absence rates have dropped quite a lot. Looking again at a 10-year ranking, in 2006-07, 24.9% of secondary schools had persistent absence of more than 10%; that is now down to just under 14% of secondary schools, and that is while raising the bar to make it a harder judgment. So attendance is improving. I do not have the specific information on Charlie Taylor’s work; I am happy to write to the noble Baroness. The Tom Bennett review will be in a similar vein, showing schools best practice and how to manage children in these situations.
School Exclusion: Timpson Review — House of Lords, 2019-05-07
Topic: Education
Theodore Agnew (Conservative, Centre-right): The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, asks about the difference between permanent and fixed-term exclusions. She is right; I have been quoting the figures for permanent exclusions, because that is the final sanction that exists for a school.
School Exclusion: Timpson Review — House of Lords, 2019-05-07
Topic: Education
Theodore Agnew (Conservative, Centre-right): I accept that there is a ladder of escalation, which starts with sanctions that gradually move up in their impact. I disagree slightly with the noble Baroness on the strength of the recommendations in the Timpson report. For me, the stand-out recommendation is number 14: "DfE should make schools responsible for the children they exclude and accountable for their educational outcomes" This has the potential to be a very powerful change, but Timpson has cautioned us to be careful in how we implement it, because of the adverse behaviours that it might create.
School Exclusion: Timpson Review — House of Lords, 2019-05-07
Topic: Social Welfare
Theodore Agnew (Conservative, Centre-right): Again, I would like to provide a certain amount of moderation. This is not to be complacent but, for example, about 10 years ago, children with a statement were three times more likely to be excluded compared to being 1.6 times more likely to be excluded in 2016-17. The picture is not quite as bleak as the noble Lord—
School Exclusion: Timpson Review — House of Lords, 2019-05-07
Topic: Education
Theodore Agnew (Conservative, Centre-right): The noble Lord will be aware of the training programme we have rolled out over the last three years. We are very focused on this and the number of people trained to identify dyslexia, dyspraxia and so on in the school system has increased dramatically over the last three years.
School Exclusion: Timpson Review — House of Lords, 2019-05-07
Topic: Education
Theodore Agnew (Conservative, Centre-right): The noble Lord is right: this is an immensely complex area. Trying to unpick it and come up with a coherent way of dealing with all the issues that spring from it is very difficult. For example, Afro-Caribbean children have a substantially higher chance of being excluded than white working-class children, but we are not clear why. That is just one example On children understanding the values of our society, that is why we have worked so hard on the relationship and sex education legislation; we were able to bring that through with the support of this House very recently. That will help to reinforce the values that children should learn. Equally, we are trying to tackle that with the work we are now doing on the consultation on home education and children who are not in school. All these things conflate and our job is to try to bring together a package of initiatives that will improve the outcomes for these very vulnerable children.
School Exclusion: Timpson Review — House of Lords, 2019-05-07
Topic: Social Welfare
Alastair Cooke (Conservative, Centre-right): Will greater support and guidance be available to the parents of children excluded or in danger of being excluded under the initiatives that are to follow the Timpson review? Does my noble friend agree with the noble Lord, Lord Storey, that the decline of the youth service in certain areas has perhaps contributed to the problems that now exist?
School Exclusion: Timpson Review — House of Lords, 2019-05-07
Topic: Education
Theodore Agnew (Conservative, Centre-right): There will certainly be more guidance—for example, for parents considering home schooling. We very much need to uprate the guidance so that they understand the implications of that. As for the youth service, we are doing all we can to try to improve the advice available to young people. For example, a great deal of effort is going in through the Careers & Enterprise Company to try to show them the pathways into skills; the uprating of apprenticeships will give them a higher profile; and T-levels will also help. These are all aimed at children who are less sure of the path into a secure career.
Air Quality (Taxis and Private Hire Vehicles Database) (England and Wales) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-04-11
Topic: Environment
Charlotte Vere (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to this short debate. I am very pleased that I had the Question on air pollution earlier this week. It was a bit of a heads-up as to what might be heading in my direction going beyond the remit of the SI today—as is always the case Taking the questions in order, I will go first to those from the noble Lord, Lord Adonis. It is a pleasure to have him join an SI debate—and a non-Brexit one at that—and I welcome the important questions he has raised. "Regulatory triage assessment" is, yes, a very government type of term. It is similar to an impact assessment, but rather than looking at the impact outside government it looks at the impact inside government, in this case on the licensing authorities, the amount of work they will have to do and the cost of it.
Air Quality (Taxis and Private Hire Vehicles Database) (England and Wales) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-04-11
Topic: Environment
Charlotte Vere (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the noble Lord for his intervention. I was not saying that the local authority would have the information, but one would certainly expect it—particularly if it was a larger one—to be in contact with its local fleets of taxis and PHVs to understand the more general working practices. Each of these charging clean air zones will have been set up after local consultation. I expect that is one of the issues which the local fleets would have put into the consultation. We are not minded to provide national guidance at the moment, although obviously that may change in the future. For the time being, we believe that this should be a local decision and that it should be up to the local licensing authorities to come up with a reasonable solution for what works in their areas Security of data is obviously an important issue. Because of the powers in the Environment Act 1975, under which this is set up, the data can only be shared for the purpose of enforcing air quality measures. The Act limits the information that can be provided to the minimum necessary to identify the vehicle as a taxi or PHV and does not cover any personal data about the licence holder I believe I have covered pretty much everything.
Air Quality (Taxis and Private Hire Vehicles Database) (England and Wales) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-04-11
Topic: Environment
Charlotte Vere (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the noble Lord for his kind words. I do not have that information and I am not entirely sure that it exists. If it does, I will certainly write to him, with a copy to all noble Lords. It would be interesting information for all of them to have. Finally, I turn to the environment Bill and the clean air strategy that we have published. We will look to the Bill to provide the legislative underpinning for how we will be creating a stronger and more coherent framework of targets for all the issues relating to air pollution. I look forward to debating the Bill in your Lordships’ House as soon as possible. I commend the regulations to the House.
National Policy Statement for Water Resources Infrastructure 2018 — House of Lords, 2019-04-11
Topic: Environment
John Eric Gardiner (Conservative, Centre-right): My noble friend has engaged in something that clearly is part of the reason why we need to be thinking about a range of things. The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, in quizzing my perhaps imprecise language, pointed to the need for a balance of work that will need to be done. I live in Suffolk—Cambridgeshire, Suffolk and many parts of the east are dry and will have increases in population. Part of the responsibility, working collaboratively across the piece, is to ensure that in building these houses we ensure resilience of water supply. This is precisely why a lot of work is going into this. A lot of work needs to be done in increasing supply and reducing demand My noble friend raises an issue that is an enormous part of the challenge. We need to supply more houses in some of the driest parts of the country. That is why I deliberately stressed in setting out the challenges that we may need to use a range of options to deal with the elements in different parts of the country. I do not want to go into desalination, because I probably do not know enough about it. However, one can imagine that there may eventually be parts of the country where this is a viable or commercial option. For the future, with a growing population—we know that there could be another 4 million in England by the end of the decade—we will need to find more water and reduce demand. My noble friend raises an absolutely acute point, certainly in relation to Cambridgeshire I want to emphasise a point that came up in our debate last November. When decisions are made at the national level, the Planning Act 2008 and regulations made under it set out the consultation requirements for development consent order applications, which include extensive pre-application consultation and engagement with those affected by the proposals. Furthermore, members of the public can participate in the examination process by registering their interest, thus ensuring that local views can be heard. I think that we would all agree with that The national policy statement is an essential piece of work to ensure that our nation has sufficient water supply and that we use it wisely. It forms part of a wider framework, which will deliver on our goals in the 25-year environment plan. Our current estimate is that up to three nationally significant projects—all reservoirs—are likely to come forward in the next five to 10 years to provide sufficient infrastructure. Looking to 2050 and beyond, more are likely to be required I look forward to hearing from noble Lords on these essential matters. I can assure your Lordships that the Government and their agencies are working on this matter with rigour. A number of questions may be posed and I will endeavour to answer as many as I can. However, the Government and I are most interested in assessing your Lordships’ further commentary on this matter so that we can use parliamentary scrutiny to the best benefit. I beg to move.