Social Security (Up-rating of Benefits) Bill — House of Lords, 2021-10-13
Topic: Macroeconomics
Julie Smith (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, talked about a Trojan horse. With the Trojan horse bearing the Greeks, at least those in Troy thought they were getting something that was beneficial. With this Bill, I am wondering what the benefit could possibly be to anybody The Minister and the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, suggested that the Bill is about fairness, but I suggest that there is something rather more insidious here. The Bill is allegedly to make a change for a year. The same has been said about overseas aid. The same person, perhaps, has been drafting memos to Ministers saying that this is all because of Covid and is for just one year. However, for those people who will lose the uplift for this one year, just like for those people overseas who will lose the benefits of overseas aid "for just this one year", this does not feel fair. It feels incredibly painful My real concern is this: how can anybody be sure that this so-called one-off proposal is one-off? As the Minister has already told the House, it is not exactly a one-off because the Government had a one-off change last year, when they said that they wanted to change in order to be more generous. I am not quite sure in what way they were being generous last year. As I understand it, the triple lock has three elements. The earnings component was negative last year and inflation was at 0.5%, but the 2.5% uplift would have been in place anyway, so I am not sure why any change was required. Perhaps the proposals for 2022-23 are indeed a one-off All the reasons that the Secretary of State has given for the proposals relate to Covid. They all seem to suggest that the potential rise in wages or earnings of around 8% is because of the return to work from furlough and the end of the Covid arrangements. In that sense, the Secretary of State might be right. She said that the rate of increase in earnings is "unprecedented" and a "distorted reflection of earnings growth."—[Official Report, Commons, 7/9/21; col. 185.] How has she come up with this assertion? Is she sure of it? Can the Minister explain to the House whether the Secretary of State has done this analysis herself or engaged somebody else to analyse how far the increase in earnings in 2021 is associated with Covid? Could it not be that some of the rise in earnings is because of Brexit? After all, many of the EU nationals working in the United Kingdom before Covid, which just about coincided with Brexit and began just before the end of the transition period, have not come back to work here, and employers are now being urged to increase wages, particularly for those who drive heavy goods vehicles, for example. That is not about Covid. It is about the long-term consequences of Brexit. Nobody can claim that that is the impact of a year If those consequences are indeed for the medium to long term, can the Minister explain to the House what preparations the Government are making for the scenario in which earnings continue to rise in what the Secretary of State might think of as "unprecedented" or "distorted" ways? What safety and security can she give to pensioners who thought they were supported by the triple lock that they will not be told next year, yet again, "This is another anomaly and we just have to make a change for just another year"? Once a precedent has been set, the danger is that it becomes a tradition and never changes Of course, that does not happen the other way round. On the temporary uplift in universal credit, the Government said, "Oh, we’ve got to take that away because it was only temporary". I believe that the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, will talk about this in more detail later in the debate, but I add my support to anybody in your Lordships’ House and elsewhere who will make a case for keeping the £20 uplift because taking money away from people—particularly the most vulnerable in society—is far more difficult than if you never gave them that £20 in the first place Many of the people who have benefited from the £20 uplift were not on universal credit before the start of the current crisis. They have had to go and seek universal credit only since the start of the pandemic. It is very easy for the Secretary of State to say, "They can work a little bit longer; they can do more hours." But they might already be working as many hours as are legally possible. They need the support, and we should think about being generous I have a few questions for the Minister. There is not an impact assessment on these proposals, because we are told it is just for one year, so an impact assessment is not required. It may not be required, but it would be good practice, and it would help many of us making these decisions to understand what the impact is going to be. Perhaps the impact will not be as great as some of us fear. If pensioners who are concerned about the loss of the triple lock could be reassured, surely that would be in even the Government’s interest. So, could the Minister explain why there is not going to be an impact assessment and whether it would not be a good idea to have one The triple lock, a very good policy brought in by the coalition—originally a Liberal Democrat proposal—was so good that the Conservatives put it in their manifesto for 2019. So it is a government pledge. Members of your Lordships’ House, if asked to support the triple lock, would presumably feel honour bound under the Salisbury/Addison convention to support it. How can we then be asked to turn away from it? Why should we? As a Member of the Opposition Benches, I could think it is great that a Government are not delivering on their manifesto pledges; as a Liberal Democrat, I know all too well the difficulties that can face a political party that turns away from its manifesto pledges. But as a Member of your Lordships’ House—somebody who is tasked with legislating on behalf of the most vulnerable—surely it is incumbent on me, and every Member of your Lordships’ House, not to play politics but to think about the implications of turning our back on this pledge I understand that 8% might be too much to increase pensions by this year, but perhaps a middle way could be found. Could the Minister please think about that, take it back to her department, talk to the Secretary of State and consider whether a slightly better proposal could be brought back and whether amendments could be brought forward in Committee? If the Government do not bring amendments, the Opposition Benches will and perhaps some Members of her own Benches will as well.