Friday 2 March 2018

Minimum Wage Update

The introduction of a National Minimum Wage (NMW) was a flagship policy of the Blair government in 1998. It benefitted at least 1.5 million low-paid workers. It has recently been acknowledged as the most important and successful social policy initiative of the last thirty years.
The implementation of a NMW was opposed by the Conservatives, who asserted that it would mean extra costs for businesses and would cause unemployment. The Liberal Democrats argued for regional minimum wages (RMW), which would have meant lower rates in Yorkshire than in London.
More recently, 3500 employers have guaranteed a Living Wage, independently calculated to a level believed to be the minimum amount individuals require to get by. This is about £45pwk (£100+ in London) higher than NMW.
The NMW rates are reviewed each year by the Low Pay Commission, which makes recommendations for change to the government. Enforcement can either be by the individual employee, under the Employ-ment Rights Act 1996 or by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC).
In 2013, new rules were introduced to "name and shame" employers who were paying less than the minimum wage.
Last year, the taxman (HMRC) found that nearly 100,000 individuals – a record high - were paid below the NMW by more than 2600 employers. This was 69% up on the previous year. The increase is almost entirely attributable to an increase in the number of proactive, ‘targeted’ investigations conducted by HMRC, as opposed to investigations arising from a worker complaint. But, due to a lack of resources, HMRC only investigate a fraction of jobs at risk of underpayment. So, a large number of underpaid jobs are likely to go undetected every year.
Then, recent research by the excellent staff of the House of Commons Library has found that unpaid overtime and travel time between jobs as well as deductions for uniforms pushed the underpaid group to between one and two million people.
Underpaid workers are more likely to be women than men, part-time rather than full-time, and employed in the private rather than the public sector. It affects workers of all ages.
Workers are entitled to the minimum wage whenever they are working, not just during their contracted hours. The most common causes of underpayment are failure to pay workers travelling between jobs, deducting money from pay for uniforms and not paying for overtime. A good, but shocking, example of this was came when an investigation in to Sports Direct revealed that workers were made to wait, unpaid, for a security check at the end of shifts.
The latest NMW rates should be announced soon for implementation from April.

Wednesday 28 February 2018

Housing for older people: we need a new national strategy to get this right

It’s not just "generation rent" that is struggling; the government must do more to support the elderly in finding a comfortable home for later life
From issues of affordability and social housing to the discussion over where best to build more homes, housing policy is never far from the centre of the political debate.
While a great deal of attention is often given to steps to help young people in the housing market, with a growing ageing population there must also be a focus on ensuring that we can support older people to live comfortably in later life.
By making sure we have the right measures in place and the housing on offer is suitable to the hugely varied needs of older people, we can not only go some way to easing pressures in the wider housing sector but also help to address another of the great challenges of our time—how to look after the ageing population and reduce demands on a social care system that is already under pressure.
The Communities and Local Government Select Committee, of which I am Chair, has just published a new report on precisely these issues. Underpinning our recommendations is a call for a national strategy for older people’s housing to bring together and improve policy in an area that has been too disparate and disjointed for too long. A key aspect of this is increasing the supply of new homes for older people.
National and local planning policy should be coordinated to encourage the construction of more of all types of housing for older people. Just as you would expect in any other age group, the needs and preferences of those in later years is very varied so we should make sure this is reflected in the type of accommodation on offer.
Extra care, retirement, sheltered and accessible housing across the social and private sectors is needed. We heard evidence of a shortfall in supply of specialist homes for older people in the face of significant demand. This limits the housing options available to older people and the opportunity to derive the health and wellbeing benefits linked to specialist homes.
An amendment to the National Planning Policy Framework to emphasise the key importance of the provision of housing for older people in both local authority plan making and decision taking would send a strong and much-needed message.
To help with delivery at a local level, councils should also be required to publish a strategy explaining how they intend to meet older residents’ housing needs and identify a target proportion of new housing to be developed for this purpose and identify suitable well-connected sites for it.
Reforms to the planning classification of specialist housing would reduce the level of planning obligations required from developers and act as an incentive to build more of these age-appropriate homes. The Committee heard that the level of planning obligations—which require the negative impact of a development to be mitigated—is increased as a result of the communal areas which are a feature of specialist housing. This is impeding the delivery of homes.
Encouraging planning authorities to facilitate and developers to build more homes would have a large and lasting effect for generations, but the committee is also calling for smaller practical steps that would make a huge difference to older people, especially those who would like to remain in their own homes.
The government should restore funding to the FirstStop Advice Service to run an expanded telephone operation giving a valuable holistic service for older people so they can be properly informed and make the best decisions about where and how they want to live.
This would give advice on everything from heating and care options to adaptations and moving home.
Another measure that would have a real everyday impact would be the expansion of Home Improvement Agencies to ensure there is at least one in each local authority area. Most older people would prefer to stay in their homes, and proper support from handypeople and a “trusted trader” scheme could have a significant role to play in providing small repairs, general maintenance and ensuring that they could stay comfortable, safe and healthy.
We would hope ministers will now take our recommendations seriously as the government brings forward its green paper on social care later in the year. Ensuring the right kind of housing is in place can help reduce the need for home or residential care, relieving pressure on the health service and helping older people stay healthy and live independently in their homes.
This article was first published in Prospect magazine on February 27th 2018.
https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/housing-for-older-people-we-need-a-new-national-strategy-to-get-this-right

Monday 26 February 2018

I wouldn't bet on it

Some of our high streets – in large village, as well as towns and cities – now seem to be over-run with betting shops.
This is big business. The difference between the amount betting companies take from punters and the amount they pay out was a record £13.8 billion last year, up 65% from £8.36 billion in 2008/09. No-one would be surprised if a government focused on the potential tax take from gambling rather than the damage being done to individuals and families.
The Gambling Commission says that more than 2 million people are either problem gamblers or at risk of addiction. The number of gambling addicts in the UK has increased by 30% to 430,000 since 2012.
A recent report found that the total cost to the taxpayer of problem gambling, including through mental health services, police intervention and homelessness, is probably more than £1 billion a year. Yet the voluntary levy for education, research and treatment raised just £8.6m.
But, it isn’t the odd flutter on the dogs, horses, football or even elections which explains the proliferation of betting shops and that is causing most concern to observers.
The biggest problem is the fixed odds betting terminals (FOBTs) – the infernal machines sometimes described as‘the crack cocaine of gambling’ – that can so quickly consume the wage packet before the household bills are paid and food put on the table.
The government has been conducting a consultation which, amongst other things, is considering a reduction in the maximum stake which can be made on each bet.
A new study, using the betting companies’ own data, has found that more than 30% of sessions with a £20 stake resulted in losses greater than £100, and 6% gave losses greater than £500. With a £50 stake, more than 9 in 10 sessions ended with a loss of more than £100 and in nearly 8 out of 10 sessions the losses were greater than £500. However, sessions with a maximum stake of £2 delivered no losses of more than £100.
The betting companies have been lobbying hard to prevent a proposal to cut the maximum stake to £2, arguing that the tax loss to the government would be dramatic and that government shouldn’t interfere in individual’s freedoms to gamble if they want to.
Now a think tank report says that the possible loss of tax revenue, from cutting the maximum stake to £2, would be far lower than the industry has previously claimed. And, when we consider the cost to individuals, families and communities, and the cost to the taxpayer caused by problem gambling and gambling addiction, the civil liberties’ argument simply doesn’t stack up.
The government should now impose a £2 maximum stake on FOBTs and it should require a proper compulsory levy on the betting companies to fund education, research and treatment for problem gambling.
But, will this government do the right thing? I wouldn’t bet on it.