Contributions
1,152 recent contributions in Hansard
HANSARDAutism Employment: Buckland ReviewMy Lords, it is typical of the extent of the noble Lord’s strategic experience that he puts his finger on the question: how do we take best practice and turn it into something the…10 Sept 2024HANSARDAutism Employment: Buckland ReviewMy Lords, I confess that I do not have the details about what is being done about work experience, but we are developing the availability of supported employment, including for…10 Sept 2024HANSARDAutism Employment: Buckland ReviewMy Lords, we believe everyone should have an equal opportunity to work. In Labour’s Plan to Make Work Pay , we committed to raising awareness of neurodiversity in the workplace.…10 Sept 2024HANSARDAutism Employment: Buckland ReviewMy Lords, I confess that I have learned a lot about this in the last week. There is a huge range of schemes and support out there. For example, DWP has specialist coaches—people…10 Sept 2024HANSARDAutism Employment: Buckland ReviewMy Lords, my noble friend is absolutely right about the shockingly low level of employment of autistic people. It is shocking to find that only about 35% of autistic employees…10 Sept 2024HANSARDAutism Employment: Buckland ReviewMy Lords, obviously, having only just come into government, we have only just begun to look at this, but there are things in the report that the department was already doing that…10 Sept 2024HANSARDAutism Employment: Buckland ReviewI thank the noble Lord for that question, and I pay tribute to his many years of work with Motability, a scheme which has helped many people. He makes an important point. I…10 Sept 2024HANSARDPension CreditMy Lords, of course, the point is that most of the pensioners hit by this decision will not be the poor, among those who actually get money at the moment. But the noble Baroness…09 Sept 2024HANSARDPension CreditMy Lords, in answer to the first part of the Question, the numbers of people claiming pension credit were: in 2019-20, 1.49 million, in 2021, 1.41 million, and in 2021-22, 1.35…09 Sept 2024HANSARDPension CreditI thank my noble friend—for everything up to the “But”. The Government are having to take what is a difficult decision at this time for the very simple reason that we inherited a…09 Sept 2024HANSARDPension CreditIf only the Opposition had been as attentive when they were building up the deficit as they are now it is there. To be really straightforward, the Chancellor came in and looked at…09 Sept 2024HANSARDPension CreditMy Lords, the pressures were such that some of the money had to be found in this financial year, because a series of expenditure gaps came to light in this financial year. We have…09 Sept 2024HANSARDPension CreditThe noble Lord makes an important point and I am grateful to him for doing so. Certainly, a significant number of pensioners do claim pension credit—1.4 million have managed to…09 Sept 2024HANSARDPension CreditMy Lords, the noble Lord is talking about take-up. As I said, the best estimate of pension credit take-up as a whole is 63%: that is 63% of the number of people who could be…09 Sept 2024HANSARDPension CreditMy Lords, I have had lots of very interesting suggestions from, and conversations with, Members from around the House, who have variously suggested trying different thresholds and…09 Sept 2024HANSARDPension CreditI am grateful to the noble Lord. He will remember that the previous Government decided to do something similar with child benefit. They wanted to means-test it, but because they…09 Sept 2024HANSARDEuropean Social CharterMy Lords, the Prime Minister made our commitment to the Council of Europe clear at the Blenheim summit in July. The UK ratified the European Social Charter in 1962 and signed the…03 Sept 2024HANSARDEuropean Social CharterNice try. Just to clarify, I should say that I was not talking about resources in terms of ratification. To ratify a treaty is to agree to be bound by its provisions. If UK…03 Sept 2024HANSARDEuropean Social CharterMy Lords, in a sense we have indicated our support for the contents of the revised charter by signing it. Deciding to ratify it is a decision to be bound by its provisions, so it…03 Sept 2024HANSARDEuropean Social CharterMy Lords, the Government have plans for reforming the whole landscape of employment. We value the important role that unions play in shaping employment rights, domestically and…03 Sept 2024