Pension Schemes Bill — House of Lords, 2015-02-05
Topic: Social Welfare
Patricia Hollis (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I am grateful to all of those who have taken part. It was really helpful to try to tease out some of the very serious issues. They are serious. All of us are concerned about a rising benefit bill, particularly where there are cuts across other objectives such as the health service, education and whatever. We also want to support those services These proposals were imposed on the DWP. My sympathies are entirely with the DWP, which is trying to sort out the mess created by an open-handed gesture from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, which has not been thought through for its implications for means-tested benefits. That is the problem which is apparent today, from everything that we have heard. We still do not know half the answers. I am quite sure that the DWP and DWP Ministers are doing their honourable and decent best to try to make some sense out of a tangle and mess that has been dumped on them by HMT. I am not blaming any Minister personally, but that is what has happened. HMT’s pension freedoms absolutely tear up the rulebook, particularly on DWP capital, which is there to protect all of us in terms of benefit expenditure. It is only after yesterday evening that we are beginning to get some detailed information. We have been pressing for this for five weeks in this House, let alone down at the other end I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Lipsey, who teased out further problems with the interaction between social care and pensions. I look forward to the letter that he so rightly asked for being in the Library The noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain, absolutely rightly emphasised the need for clarity. She is so right, but how can you have clarity when you have not fully sorted the policy problems behind what you are trying to explain to people? That is why we have come back with a very anodyne amendment, but behind it is the charge that the policy has not been fully sorted. I therefore hope that the actor writing that pamphlet will ensure that the policy is sorted. I am not saying that the noble Lord, Lord Newby, gave the game away, as that sounds too frivolous, but he made the point that you cannot align ISAs with pensions, because that does not work, and you cannot align pensions with ISAs, because that does not work for people over the age of 50. So he is stuck and we are all stuck because, as far as I can tell, nobody at HM Treasury took on board the very real skills and experience of the people at the DWP who have to operate the service in practice. Talk about silo government—although we are all guilty of that; I am not saying that we are whiter than white when obviously we are not. However, here is something that will affect hundreds of thousands of people, and the two departments have not got their act together. The DWP is trying to make rules which are not rules but simply arbitrary decisions, and I am confident that at least some of them will be tested by judicial review over the years This is a mess but I hope that this amendment, which I will of course withdraw given the undertakings that the Minister has given today, will at least send a signal, as the most reverend Primate said, and give us the chance to get the policy clear so that the leaflets can be clear. Frankly, in order for that to happen the DWP at the highest level has to talk to the Treasury at the highest level and come up with something which is decent, fair, transparent, consistent and simple, if it can. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.