Social Security (Up-rating of Benefits) Bill — House of Lords, 2021-10-26
Topic: Social Welfare
Margot Aline (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, these amendments raise important issues about the impact of the Bill on poverty. I simply want to raise a point about the measure of poverty that should be used At Second Reading, in her response to the debate the Minister referred to a fall in pensioner poverty since 2009-10 as measured by the so-called absolute poverty measure, and she did so again earlier this evening. In fact, it is not a measure of absolute poverty as such but is better described as an anchored measure which measures any change by adjusting the 2010-11 poverty line for inflation. In contrast, the House of Commons Library briefing, using the relative poverty measure, recorded an increase in pensioner poverty from an historic low of 13% in 2011-12 to 18% in 2019-20, as my noble friend Lady Sherlock said. With reference to Amendment 8, single female poverty is higher than the overall figure—a point already made However, the Minister was dismissive of the use of a relative measure, stating: "The Government believe that absolute poverty is a better measure of living standards than relative poverty, which can provide counterintuitive results".—[Official Report, 13/10/21; col. 1885.] Criticisms of the relative poverty measure as potentially counterintuitive have tended to focus on when it is used for short-term, year-on-year comparisons, but, in this case, we are talking about a rise in relative poverty over a period of eight years, which surely should have triggered some alarm bells in the department. Relevant here is a recent Work and Pensions Committee report. Although its focus was on measuring child poverty, what it has to say is relevant also to pensioner poverty. It states: "The Secretary of State is of course right to say that a relative measure can, in the short term, produce counter-intuitive results—but it has great value for assessing long term trends. We are concerned to see Ministers focusing on a single measure, rather than drawing on the rich information offered by DWP’s own set of income-based measures, which combines relative, ‘absolute’ and broader material deprivation statistics … Ministers should reaffirm their commitment to measuring poverty through all four measures" Similarly, I have a Written Answer from the Minister’s predecessor, dated May 2018, which states: "No one measure of poverty is able to fully capture the concept of a low standard of living in all economic circumstances." Yet increasingly, Ministers use the so-called absolute measure, as if it is the only appropriate measure. Will the Minister reaffirm that commitment as called for by the Work and Pensions Committee? After all, I remind her that, when he was leader of the Conservative Party, David Cameron explained: "We need to think of poverty in relative terms—the fact that some people lack those things that others in society take for granted. So I want this message to go out loud and clear: the Conservative Party recognises, will measure and will act on relative poverty." Can the Minister explain why that is no longer the case? What has changed, other than that the Government’s record on poverty looks worse using the relative poverty measure that Mr Cameron championed?