My Lords, I shall speak to government Amendments 89, 91, 101 and 102; I start with Amendments 89 and 91. I tabled these amendments because it has been clear that, despite all my attempts to reassure noble Lords at earlier stages, concerns continue to be raised as though DWP’s new recovery powers cou…
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Viscount for his support on these matters. Amendment 92 from the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, seeks to remove the requirement for banks to provide information to the DWP for the purposes of making a direct deduction order from benefit recipients. I am not sure wh…
My Lords, in moving government Amendment 41, I will speak also to government Amendments 42, 43, 64, 80, 90 and 111.
Under current devolution arrangements, DWP administers certain devolved benefits on behalf of the Scottish Government through agency agreements. These amendments will ensure that the …
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Viscount for his kind words. I, too, have enjoyed the engagement we have had across the House. It shows how the Lords can make a constructive contribution to the scrutiny of legislation.
The noble Lord, Lord Palmer, is quite right that we have a developed and de…
My Lords, I cannot help thinking that if one of us was in Santorini and the other one was here tabling amendments, I may have got the raw end of the deal—although it is possible that my noble friend’s husband might not agree with that.
The government amendments in this group contain a series of fur…
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, for that constructive response, and to other noble Lords for giving us the benefit of the doubt here. I can assure my noble friend Lord Davies that the government amendments were tabled a week ago, as is the requirement. If it gives him any e…
My Lords, given that every Labour Government in the last century have left office with unemployment higher than when they came in, will the Minister reconsider the Government’s opposition to those cross-party amendments to the Employment Rights Bill, achieved by substantial majorities in your Lordsh…
My Lords, given the emphasis being put on gold-star vocational qualifications, what are the Government doing to encourage local businesses to horizon-scan with regard to future skills requirements and work with local educational institutions, so that courses properly reflect the local jobs market an…
+6 more contributions in this session
LordsOral Questions11 September 20256 contributions
I thank the Minister for her Answer and for her work and her commitment to young people. Unemployment for those under 30 is rising steadily. HMRC data every month this year has shown falls in payrolled employment of young people, offset by a small rise in employment for those over 65. Given welfare …
My Lords, I pay tribute to my noble friend’s energy, commitment and drive on this issue. Would she talk to her new Secretary of State, whose team might then talk to the Chancellor, about examining how we might learn from the New Deal for Young People, which was introduced in 1998? The number of youn…
+4 more contributions in this session
LordsOral Questions10 September 20257 contributions
I thank the Minister for her Answer. This problem goes back a long time. I saw in the Times on 28 June that assessors in the department are apparently paid a bonus on interview numbers—the higher the number, the higher their bonus. This may or may not be reasonable but, at a time when there is a nee…
My Lords, I am all in favour of face-to-face interviews, but they would be made a lot easier if we had not seen the closure of many jobcentres prior to 2024. In the last round of closures around eight years ago, 11 Jobcentre Plus offices were shut in London alone. Many of those closures contravened …
+5 more contributions in this session
LordsOral Questions10 September 20258 contributions
I very much welcome what the Minister has said about producing a strategy and the actions in the face of economic difficulties that the Government have already taken, but does the Minister accept that further progress is going to be challenging, given the need to make the benefits bill fiscally sust…
My Lords, as the Government are considering their child poverty strategy, can I urge them, particularly in the light of the comments made by the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, about constraining the benefits bill, to retain the two-child benefit cap? This is a very important measure to en…
That the amendments for the Report stage be marshalled and considered in the following order: Clauses 1 to 7, Schedule 1, Clauses 8 to 70, Schedule 2, Clauses 71 to 75, Schedule 3, Clauses 76 to 78, Schedule 4, Clauses 79 to 92, Schedule 5, Clause 93, Schedule 6, Clauses 94 to 107, Title.
LordsOral Questions8 September 202510 contributions
I thank the Minister for her response, although I point out, in the interests of balance, that unemployment is rising while job vacancies are falling fast. In fact, graduate vacancies have now dropped to their lowest level since 2018, with some 40% of our graduates either in low-skilled jobs or unem…
My Lords, the Minister just said that salaries are increasing, but starting salaries are at their weakest in years, according to the KPMG and Recruitment and Employment Confederation report from yesterday. I quote:
“Shrinking demand for staff and concerns around payroll costs dampened rates of star…
My Lords, on top of the usual joys of a debate such as this, we are blessed today by the unusual combination of a maiden and a valedictory. I look forward very much to the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Shawcross-Wolfson, but I am very much touched with sadness that we will hear the valed…
My Lords, I thank the Minister for outlining the details of the Bill with her usual clarity. It is regrettable that we have only a Second Reading of this Bill, with no further stages, as there is so much up for debate and so much progress which it is imperative to make, and which is simply now not b…
My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend Lady Crawley for her powerful introduction to this short debate and to all noble Lords for their contributions. What a lot of expertise there is in the room for a short debate. I have to say that RoSPA has made a very wise choice in bringing my noble f…
My Lords, it is generally accepted that the abolition of the two-child limit and, many would argue, the benefit cap must be, in the words of the Children’s Commissioner, “the foundation” of the much-anticipated child poverty strategy. Does my noble friend therefore agree with charities in the field …
I apologise to your Lordships for not being in as often as I would like; I have had some health issues, but I have been watching the proceedings of your Lordships’ House and the other place on television. Given everything that the Minister has just said could be brought forward, does she think she w…
My Lords, I thank both noble Lords for their contributions. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, for the tone of her contribution. She and I may sometimes disagree on analysis and solutions, but we both recognise the system is flawed and want to find ways of making it better, and I am gra…
I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Browning. The House has benefited, as have I personally, many times, from her expertise and the care with which she expresses what she does. I commend her on what she has done personally and express my regret that the pressure on her and so many other c…
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, for introducing Amendment 122D and the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, for his contribution. It is worth saying at the outset that the noble Baroness’s comments ran quite wide, encompassing some of the broader issues that we discussed in previous debates on …
I have been talking to the banks about everything but this is one of the less complicated parts. We are simply talking about the cost of making a deduction order. Banks are used to making deduction orders in relation to the Child Maintenance Service. On that, we agreed a fee and the banks can deduct…
My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their comments and questions. I will speak first to Amendment 92. The amendment would undermine the policy intent of this part of the Bill, so we cannot accept it. The DWP leads investigations into social security matters and, as a result, our staff are better posit…
The expectation is that we will be dealing with different kinds of crime. We are talking about serious and organised crime, where we will go out looking for evidence. We believe we do need these powers. If there is another argument behind that I am happy to write to the noble Lord. I have explained …
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to this short debate and I welcome the Committee to Part 2 of the PAFER Bill. We are on to the DWP and it will be a joy to travel in this ship together with my happy fellow travellers. Before answering the specifics of the amendment, I want to r…
I see where the noble Lord is going with this and I am happy to pick up the conversation outside. I do not think that the distinction is big enough for it to be a problem, because the reality is that a reasonable suspicion is not just a hunch: it has to be based on an objective test, it requires up-…
My Lords, is that the number of cases that were identified because there was enough evidence and people were arrested, or does she believe that that is an estimate of the total amount of organised fraud in the system?
It is clear that the DWP does not want to see that data, but it will be telling the banks to trawl for the data. The Minister says that they already have the data, and that they would not be trawling for a government-mandated outcome before the DWP told them to do it. As the Minister was about to sa…
My Lords, when asked in the other place about progress in implementing the Buckland Review of Autism Employment, my honourable friend Alison McGovern said that she preferred the term “neurodiversity” as it is “more inclusive”. Neurodiversity is very broad, whereas autism is a specific condition. Wil…
My Lords, first, I have an autistic grandson. He is at a very difficult period of life. I know from old that the Minister has a deep feeling for and understanding of the problems of it. The noble Lord, Lord Touhig, and I have worked together for many years and there are two things I want to make qui…