87p for many, but a Lamborghini for someone?

From April, working people will be able to cash in their pension savings for a lump sum when they retire.  The Liberal Democrat Pensions Minister Steve Webb says he wants to extend this to existing pensioners.

His plan would allow pensioners, if they wanted, to sell the annuities they had been required to buy under the old rules to the highest bidder. This would allow them a lump sum to spend on what they liked.  Mr Webb will probably be best remembered for saying that pensioners should be free to spend their pension savings on a Lamborghini if they wished. Most pensioners could only dream about this, but Mr Webb’s comment tells us who his policy us targeted at.

Although not being opposed in principle, I think scrapping the requirement to take out an annuity altogether is a potentially reckless and irresponsible move, leaving pensioners vulnerable to the financial sharks and end up with people running out of money.

However, a cynic might well believe that the promotion of this debate is simply a smokescreen to divert attention from a more serious pension issue.

In December the government announced the uprating of pensions and social security benefits for 2015-16. It said

‘……….the basic state pension for 2015-16 will increase by the value of the third element of the triple lock, 2.5%. Even at a time when earnings growth remains constrained, we will not repeat the mistakes of the past, such as the 75p rise in 2000.

From April 2015, the new basic state pension for a single person will be £115.95 a week, which is up by £2.85 a week, and we estimate that the basic state pension will be around 18% of average earnings—its highest comparative level for more than two decades. Thanks to the coalition commitment to the triple lock, a person on the full basic state pension will receive around £560 a year more in 2015-16 than if it had been uprated only by earnings during this Parliament. That commitment means that since coming to office, the coalition has increased the basic state pension by around £950 a year.’

But the government were then forced to admit that up to 1.6 million pensioners across the UK will see their state pension rise by just 87p, rather than £2.85 which ministers claimed.

The pensioners caught out are those who claim the Savings Credit element of pension credit, which is being cut. In Yorkshire and Humberside, more than 52,000 pensioners will be affected, including about 6000 in Sheffield.

Rather than being fair to a group of pensioners who have saved all their life to enjoy a little extra security in retirement, David Cameron and Nick Clegg have chosen to penalise these savers for their thriftiness.

I rather suspect that not one had a Lamborghini on their shopping list.

Bedroom Tax

David Cameron is to the Bedroom Tax (known officially as the Social Sector Size Criterion) what Margaret Thatcher was to the Poll Tax (known officially as the Community Charge).

The unfair Bedroom Tax hits about 500,000 households in total, including more than 46,000 families in Yorkshire and Humberside and nearly 6000 in Sheffield. Two thirds of the households affected include a person with a disability. The tax also hits 60,000 carers.

The Bedroom Tax works by restricting housing benefit to allow for one bedroom for each person or couple living as part of the household. The cut is a fixed percentage of the Housing Benefit eligible rent. This is 14% for one extra bedroom and 25% for two or more extra bedrooms.

Let us be clear. This tax has nothing to do with ‘persuading people to move to a smaller property to enable a bigger family to move in”.  Many social housing providers already had good, sensitive transfer schemes which have been under-mined by this Tax. The government actually assumed that the vast majority of affected households would be unable to move to a smaller home, which is why it was predicted to cost less.

As predicted, for the vast majority of those affected, there is nowhere smaller to which to move. Thus, the tax hits vulnerable people through no fault of their own. The average family is trapped and losing over £700 a year.

The government’s own independent evaluation[1] of the policy recently reported that just 4.5 per cent of affected tenants were able to move to smaller accommodation within the social sector. Ludicrously, most of those who were able to find smaller accommodation in the private sector had to pay higher rents, which is why the housing benefit bill has increased.

The Chief Executive of the National Housing Federation has described the policy as “an unfair, ill-planned disaster that is hurting our poorest families.”[2] The cut in housing benefit has been so significant – the difference between keeping the head above water and drowning – that 60 per cent of affected tenants were in arrears after just 6 months. Chasing these arrears is costing a fortune; and, now, social landlords are being blamed because arrears have increased.  There is widespread concern that those who are paying are making cuts to other household essentials or incurring other debts in order to pay the rent.

But, David Cameron could not have done this on his own. Without Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats there would be no Bedroom Tax. Each time they’ve had a chance to make a difference, they’ve chosen to keep the Bedroom Tax in place.[3] No excuses, Mr Clegg.

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[1] www.gov.uk/government/publications/removal-of-the-spare-room-subsidy-interim-evaluation-report

[2] www.housing.org.uk/media/press-releases/more-than-half-of-families-hit-by-bedroom-tax-pushed-into-debt

[3] The Liberal Democrats voted for the legislation that created the Bedroom Tax, and even voted against amendments tabled by Labour that would have exempted people with disabilities whose homes had been specially adapted for them, or who could not find alternative accommodation where support services and suitable employment was locally available.

On 13 November 2013 Labour forced a vote in the House of Commons on a motion to abolish the Bedroom Tax. This was opposed by the Liberal Democrat front bench although Andrew George and Tim Farron rebelled to vote with Labour.

On 12 February 2014, MP Ian Lavery had a Ten Minute Rule Bill to abolish the bedroom tax and reform housing benefit. Ian Lavery said that those “who voted in favour of introducing this dreaded bedroom tax may have underestimated the human suffering that it would cause”. The Lib Dems had the chance to support this and vote with Labour, but they failed to do so.

Giving up?

Charities and voluntary organisations in every area do a great job supporting local communities. Yet I know, from talking to both volunteers and charity staff, that things are getting harder, not easier, under this government.

At the last general election, David Cameron put the voluntary sector at the heart of his offer to the British public in his flagship policy, the ‘Big Society’. But, when was the last time you heard any government minister talk about it? In truth, here we are four years later and the ‘Big Society’ is dead.

Austerity has hit the sector with many charities closing across the country unable to cope with the increase in demand for their services with falling donations and reduced budgets.  A poll revealed that a quarter have already been forced to cut frontline services and that one in six feared that they might have to close altogether because of public spending cuts and reduced donations.

At the same time, we’ve seen an unprecedented attack on charities and voluntary organisations.  Ministers have attacked Oxfam for being ‘overtly political’ and made threats to food bank charity, the Trussell Trust, for speaking out. Then, they introduced the Lobbying Act and changes to judicial review to try to gag charities standing up for the people they represent.

The ‘Big Society’ has been rocked by stories of cronyism, wasting public money and breaking funding guidelines. Several investigations, including by the independent National Audit Office, into the Big Society Network, David Cameron’s pet charity, have revealed the dodgy dealings in the Prime Minister’s office which forced the Cabinet Office to fund failing projects that were run by Conservative Party donors.

Charities play a vital role, not only in providing vital services which support local people and communities, but also in offering opportunities for people to volunteer, learn new skills or gain confidence, feel supported and valued.

David Cameron came to office hailing the Big Society. But we’ve now learnt his vision was a sham. We urgently need a new partnership with the voluntary sector which will see it flourish. 

A record of broken promises

David Cameron and Nick Clegg have failed every test and broken every promise they’ve made on the economy.

They promised we’d be all in this together but then they gave millionaires a huge tax cut. They promised people would be better off. But most people in South Yorkshire and North Derbyshire are not feeling the recovery. On average, working people are now £1,600 a year worse off than in 2010.

It’s this cost-of-living crisis why the Chancellor had to admit that his key promise – to balance the nation’s books by next year – now lies in tatters.

Because wages aren’t rising and too many are stuck in low-paid jobs, the tax revenues we need to get the deficit down aren’t coming in.

They don’t understand the fundamental link between the living standards of everyday working people and Britain’s ability to deal with the deficit. George Osborne has now borrowed a staggering £219 billion more than he said he would. Worse, the economy is set to slow down next year after forecasts for wages have been revised down again. Yet he still tries to claim that the economy is fixed and his plan is working. How out of touch can you get?

The alternative strategy is to raise the minimum wage, expand free childcare for working parents, scrap the bedroom tax and cut business rates for small firms, and reverse the £3 billion a year tax cut this government has given to the top one per cent of earners. That would balance the books in a fairer way.

Changing stamp duty to help people on middle and low incomes is welcome, but most of all we also need to get more homes built.

David Cameron, Nick Clegg and George Osborne promised to eliminate the deficit by 2015. But with less money coming in because of their wrong economic decisions, they’ve broken their promise, failed their own economic test. Its hardworking people who are paying the price. It’s time for an economic recovery for the many, not just a few.

Keep it simple

The latest statistics on waste management and re-cycling have just been published, so most of the media have been carrying stories about local performance. Are we re-cycling more or sending less to landfill than we did last year? How does our community compare to others?

In truth, we’ve done a lot, but there’s a lot more to do. We can see that plastic litter and waste plagues local neighbourhoods, as well as some of our finest countryside, and is particularly damaging to our marine ecosystems.

The amount of litter on British beaches last year was at its highest level in twenty years. Despite all the messages to dispose of waste safely and securely, the number of plastic bags littering the coastline has actually increased by more than 20% since 1996.

Lightweight plastic bags are the worst of all. They tend to shred and get entangled in recycling and re-processing equipment, contaminating and reducing the value of recyclable materials, like paper and cardboard. Reducing the use of plastic bags has to be part of a coherent waste management strategy with a focus on preventing plastic from entering the waste stream in the first place.

Last month, the European Commission adopted a proposal that requires Member States to reduce their use of lightweight plastic carrier bags. It’s up to each country to choose the measures they find most appropriate, including charges, national reduction targets or a ban under certain conditions.

However, this government’s plastic bags policy is an unscientific mess.  It seems determined to ignore the initiatives that have worked elsewhere.  In Wales, the introduction of a charge for all single-use bags in 2010 has had a dramatic impact. Within three years, there had already been a near 80% cut in the number of plastic bags being used.

For some reason, this government is trying to use the future promise of innovation to justify a rushed and flawed policy proposal to allow an exemption for biodegradable bags if a charging scheme is introduced. It makes no sense.

As soon as possible, we should introduce a simple universal plastic bag charge that will dramatically cut plastic waste and litter. 

An end to warm words?

We’ve had our first winter nights where the temperature has dropped below freezing.

About 13 million pensioners are receiving their letters advising that their Winter Fuel Payment (WFP) of £200 (£300 for a household with someone aged 80 or over) will be paid shortly.

I’m delighted that David Cameron resisted the pressure from his own back-benchers to do away with the WFP, although disappointed that he decided to give tax breaks to millionaires rather than updating the WFP with inflation. Energy bills have actually increased significantly more than inflation. Partly in recognition of that, for the winters 2008/2009 to 2010/2011, additional payments worth £50 (or £100 for the 80+ households) were made alongside the standard WFP. Cameron and Clegg cancelled these after 2010/2011.

Of course, paying additional sums towards fuel bills was only one part of the last government’s energy affordability strategy. The plan was to secure sustainably warm homes. It had to combine investing in more energy efficient homes and more efficient fuel technologies as well as supporting bills for those least able to afford them.

Poor energy efficiency is the single biggest reason why so many households are in fuel poverty. A household in the least energy efficient home is currently paying, on average, £965 a year more and is five times more likely to be in fuel poverty than a household with average levels of energy efficiency.

The Warm Front programme saw more than 2 million homes get significantly improved insulation and energy efficiency. In addition, the Decent Homes Programme not only improved insulation standards, but also saw more than a million homes get new energy efficient heating systems. For me, ‘Warmth up; bills down’ was a winning formula.

However, Messrs Cameron and Clegg have managed to replace a warm homes’ programme with a warm words’ policy. They replaced highly successful programmes with ‘The Green Deal’, which has managed to benefit just 2581 households in the last 2 years?  

So, it’s a case of fuel bills up, households in fuel poverty up and action to improve energy efficiency, dramatically down.

You can have your say about this. Read more at

http://www.yourbritain.org.uk/agenda-2015/policy-review/policy-review/an-end-to-cold-homes-labour-s-energy-efficiency-green-paper

Cuts? What cuts?

A Ipsos Mori survey in July found that nearly two-thirds (63 per cent) of local residents said that local authority budget reductions have not made a noticeable difference to services[1]. Conservative ministers think this provides a justification for further cuts in government grant to councils and an insistence that further cuts in expenditure and services should be made.

Consultants PWC found that almost half the people it surveyed were unaware of any reductions in local council services in their area.[2] However, PWC had the insight to say ‘To some extent, this is a testament to the success of local authorities to date in focussing on internal efficiencies while protecting the frontline’.

Of course, it may be the case that the cuts to date have not impacted on half the population. Maybe their family does not include one of

• ·         the more than 500,000 elderly people who have completely lost their home care support, or
• ·         the rest of the elderly or someone with disabilities who have had a massive hike in fees for their home care, or
• ·         the vast majority of young people who have completely lost their youth service, or
• ·         those who used the more than 600 libraries that have already closed, or
• ·         the young parents who were supported by one of the nearly 700 Sure Start centres which, despite David Cameron’s promise otherwise, have closed since 2010.

I could go on.  However, it’s important to note that less than half of the cuts announced to date by the government have yet been implemented. Further, last week, the Chancellor said more big cuts would be required from next year.

Now, the totally independent National Audit Office has produced a report[3] which confirms, amongst other things, that

• ·         between 2010/11 and 2015/16, government grant to local councils has been cut by 37%. The cut is even bigger for councils in South Yorkshire.
• ·         a 46% cut in planning and economic development over the same period
• ·         between 2013/14 and 2014/15, there was a 40% cut in spending on adult social care

·        The NAO says, if health and schools spending is to be protected, that inevitably means that transport, highways’ maintenance, culture (libraries, museums, theatres) and consumer protection (eg trading standards) are going to be badly hit in the next couple of years.

Don’t say you haven’t been warned.

Complex failure

No-one can have failed to have been shocked by the revelations about the extent of child sexual abuse over the last few months.

I chair the all-party Communities and Local Government Committee in the House of Commons. Our job is to scrutinise and report on the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), its agencies and local government.

We have a particular interest in reviewing policy – formulation and implementation – taking and analysing the evidence on what works and what doesn’t, and then drawing conclusions and making recommendations for improvement.

It is in that context that we have been taking evidence on the local government aspects of the failure to protect so many children. We have just published our first report[1]. We heard alarming evidence that the organised child sexual exploitation at Rotherham is prevalent across England. Rotherham is not an outlier.

In leadership, governance and accountability terms, what most concerned us was that it was the press which stimulated action in Rotherham, not the Council’s own system of challenge or scrutiny, nor external inspections. Therefore, we were clear that it is essential that councils across the country are busily reviewing whether their own scrutiny, governance, and leadership is fit and ready to identify and combat child sexual exploitation in their communities.

Serious questions also need to be asked of Ofsted. Repeated Ofsted inspections in Rotherham failed to lift the lid on the Council’s shameful inability to tackle child sexual exploitation. As a Committee, we will want to question Ofsted about their inspection regime and ask why their inspections were so ineffective in Rotherham.

As I write, Ofsted has just reported that children’s services remain inadequate in Rotherham[2]. I have little doubt that, over the coming months, Ofsted will find that services in other councils that it had previously rated as good will be found wanting.

And, Ofsted has just published a wider-ranging report[3] which states that child sexual exploitation has not been treated as the priority that events in Rotherham and elsewhere suggested it should have been.

We all have to come to terms with the fact that vulnerable children in every community are at risk of sexual exploitation and abuse. 

We all have a role to play in preventing it and taking action to bring to account those who abuse children or fail to keep them safe.

[1] http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/communities-and-local-government-committee/news/child-sexual-exploitation-in-rotherham-report/

[2] http://www.itv.com/news/2014-11-19/child-services-in-rotherham-remain-inadequate-ofsted-finds/

[3] http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/resources/sexual-exploitation-of-children-it-couldnt-happen-here-could-it

The criminals’ friends

Last week, I wrote about how I simply didn’t understand the logic of those MPs – mainly Conservative MPs and the UKIP MP – who are implacably opposed to the European Arrest Warrant, seemingly just because they hate the EU[1].

It is clear that opting out of the European Arrest Warrant would make it much harder to deport foreign criminals. It would also make it more difficult for us to bring British citizens who have committed crimes abroad back to our country to face justice.

When I wrote that, I hadn’t realised quite how incompetent this government is in dealing with foreign criminals. That was until I’d got round to reading the latest National Audit Office (NAO) report [2].

Fewer foreign criminals have been deported each and every year under Cameron and Clegg than was the case in 2010. Last year, there were 375 fewer deportations, a drop of 7% [3]. And, even more worryingly, fewer deportation orders were being served.

In 2010, there were 143 days between a deportation order and the offender leaving the country, but last year it increased to 187 days. Why?

NAO found that more than a third of failed removals were due to poor processing. They included failures to fill in the forms, to get the necessary papers and even to book the plane tickets that were needed. It is extraordinary that the government is trying to take credit for cutting bureaucracy and public expenditure without drawing attention to the shambles it is creating by doing so.

More foreign criminals have disappeared, too. About 190 absconded last year, and there has been a 6% increase since 2010. Most concerning, 58 highly dangerous foreign criminals that have gone missing over the last 4 years. Yet according to the NAO report, there are only 11 staff working on 700 cases, 10 of whom are very junior.

It’s difficult to avoid the conclusion that some of our representatives have no interest in arresting UK criminals who have fled abroad and then bringing them to justice, and little interest in efficiently and effectively deporting foreign criminals who have been convicted here.

Aren’t they the criminals’ friends?

[1] http://clivebettsmp.blogspot.co.uk/  Tuesday, 11 November 2014

[2] Managing and removing foreign national offenders http://www.nao.org.uk/report/managing-and-removing-foreign-national-offenders/

[3] Home Office Immigration Statistics, April-June 2014, Removals tables: rv_01_q, rv_07_q, rv_08

Bring criminals to justice

There are around 3,600 organised crime groups active in the EU, involved in drugs, human trafficking, online child exploitation and theft. Cross-border crime is a reality and we need 21st century tools to deal with it.

We read far too often of criminals who have escaped the UK to live in the warmer parts of southern Europe, where they live the life of Riley, whilst waving two fingers at their victims at home.

Last year, 14 British citizens were brought back to Britain under a European Arrest Warrant. This Warrant allows criminals from any EU country to be arrested abroad. Some recent high profile examples have been

-Fugitive teacher Jeremy Forrest, who fled to France with a schoolgirl, was extradited back to England

- The UK was able to quickly extradite from Italy a fugitive bomber, Hussain Osman, who had attempted to carry out a terror attack in London.

- Jason McKay was extradited from Poland within two weeks for murdering his partner. Under the old extradition arrangements, it would have taken several years to get him back to face justice for a murdered woman

I find it amazing that anyone wants to make it easier for foreign criminals to come to the UK to evade justice and also create a huge amount of extra bureaucracy and cost in trying to catch criminals who escape across Europe.

Last year, more than 1,000 foreign criminals were deported under the European Arrest Warrant. These were issued most often for drug trafficking, murder, fraud, child sex offences and rape. We need to cooperate with partners in Europe to ensure people who have committed these serious crimes do not get away with it.

Opting out of the European Arrest Warrant would make it much harder to deport foreign criminals and would also make it more difficult for us to bring British citizens who have committed crimes abroad back to our country to face justice.

I have to say that I simply don’t understand the logic of those MPs – a minority of Conservative MPs and the UKIP MP – who are implacably opposed to the European Arrest Warrant, seemingly just because they hate the EU.