Welfare and Housing

May 2, 2017

Protecting Workers’ Pensions

Commitment: On 30 April, the Prime Minister announced that a Conservative Government will protect the pensions of workers against irresponsible behaviour by a minority of company bosses. 

•    A vote for Theresa May and your local Conservative candidate will secure the strong and stable leadership we need to lock in our economic progress, and make a positive difference to families across the country.

•    As part of our plan to build a stronger economy and deliver a more secure future for every family, we will protect the pensions of workers against irresponsible behavior by a minority of company bosses. We will also tighten the rules on pensions during company takeovers, and increase punishments for those caught mismanaging schemes.

•    Unlike a coalition of chaos and instability led by Jeremy Corbyn, only a Conservative Government can and will get on with the job of making life in the United Kingdom even better. That means we are prepared to intervene when markets are not working for hardworking families.

The Problem:

•    Working people save their money for security in retirement, which can be put at risk by irresponsible bosses, through no fault of their own. We will work to ensure families are more protected that ever before.

•    Responsible companies that manage their pension scheme in the right way can find their competitive position suffer. When the irresponsible behaviour of bosses puts pensions at risk, it’s bad for both workers and the market as a whole. 

Our Solution:

•    We will give The Pensions Regulator new powers to protect savers from irresponsible bosses, meaning pension holders will have greater security over their savings. These powers will enable them to:

o    Scrutinise takeovers, so families’ savings are not put at risk. The Pensions Regulator will have to be notified if a merger or acquisition is valued over a certain amount or if a certain number of people are members – building a stronger safety net for savers. The Pensions Regulator could then apply new conditions. If it was to find that people were still not being properly protected, it could be given new powers to block a takeover. 

o    Investigate unsustainable dividend payments, to ensure the security of workers’ pensions. The Pensions Regulator will be given new powers to investigate whether dividend payments are putting a pension scheme’s viability at risk. An investigation would be triggered when dividend payments put a pension scheme at risk.

o    Punish anyone who recklessly puts a pension scheme at risk. The Pensions Regulator would receive new powers to issue punitive fines to anyone found to have wilfully left a scheme under-resourced. If fines proved insufficient, the company directors in question could be struck off, and a new offence could be introduced to make it a criminal act for a company board to intentionally or recklessly put at risk the ability of a pension scheme to meet its obligations. 

 

Our Achievements:

•    We have delivered greater dignity and security for older people in retirement. Pensioners with a full basic State Pension will receive over £1,250 a year more in 2017/18 than at the start of the last Parliament. 

•    We’re helping people to save more for their pension, so they have more set aside when they retire. Automatic enrolment requires all employers to enrol eligible workers in a good quality workplace pension scheme – increasing the number of people saving into workplace pensions by 4.4 million since 2012. 

•    Our new State Pension benefits women and low earners, including those who have spent years at home raising a family. Over 75 per cent of women and over 70 per cent of men are set to gain from the new State Pension in the first 15 years with over 3 million receiving over £550 per year by 2030. 

 

Costing and funding:

•    N/A. All costs incurred by The Pensions Regulator will be paid for by the fines they issue. This is a similar funding system to other regulators, such as OFCOM.

 

What Labour would do

•    Jeremy Corbyn’s coalition of chaos would put our growing economy at grave risk and make pensioners worse off.  Corbyn’s plans for higher taxes, more waste and more debt would leave us all worse off – just like they did last time. 

•    Even Jeremy Corbyn’s own MPs think that his nonsensical policies would hit people’s pension pots. Former Labour shadow Chancellor Chris Leslie said that Jeremy Corbyn’s plans to take over key industry without any compensation ‘would hurt working people whose savings have been invested in those shares through their pensions’. 

Likely Labour position: This announcement misses the crucial issues facing pensioners – government cuts hitting the services they rely on and indecision over the future of the triple-lock guarantee. All this commitment will do is help wealthy savers who are already being looked after by this Tory government.

Rebuttal: This is the positive difference that only strong and stable leadership can make. Unlike a coalition of chaos and instability led by Jeremy Corbyn, only a Conservative Government can and will get on with the job of making life in the United Kingdom even better. And when it comes to pensions in general, Labour’s economic mismanagement hit older people hard when they were in government, and Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell’s reckless plans would do the same all over again.
 

Housing

•    Every vote for Theresa May and your local Conservative candidate will help secure the strong and stable leadership we need to lock in the economic progress we have made together. 

•    That will mean more homes get built, and more people can get secure housing they can afford. We’ve got housebuilding up again, after it fell to its lowest peacetime level since the 1920s in Labour’s recession and our government-backed schemes are helping more people own their home. Our action to tackle Labour’s deficit has kept mortgage rates at record lows, cutting the cost of owning a home.

•    But that’s all at risk from Jeremy Corbyn and a coalition of chaos, who would put our growing economy at risk and make it harder for people to get good housing.

Theresa May and the Conservatives will lock in the economic progress we have made so we build the houses our country needs

•    We have got the country building again after Labour’s recession. Thanks to our strong economy, we have delivered 189,650 net additional homes across England in 2015-16, up 11 per cent on the year before. 

•    Our Government-backed schemes are helping more people to buy a home of their own. We are supporting people into homeownership. Since 2010, over 362,000 households have been able to buy a property through Government backed schemes like Help to Buy and the reinvigorated Right to Buy.  

•    We are building more affordable homes – making the dream of homeownership a reality for more people. We have delivered more than 313,000 affordable homes since April 2010 and are committed to delivering 400,000 affordable housing starts by 2020-21. Three times as much council housing has so far been built under the Conservatives, than in all of the 13 years combined of the last Labour Government. 

That’s all at risk from a coalition of chaos with Jeremy Corbyn and all the other parties putting our economy at risk and making it harder for people to get good housing

•    The other parties would put the economy at risk – meaning fewer homes would get built. Last time Labour crashed the economy housebuilding fell to its lowest peacetime level since the 1920s and the number of first-time buyers fell by 55 per cent. 

•    All the other parties will make it more difficult for you to own a home of your own. Jeremy Corbyn says Labour will ‘end Right to Buy’. The Liberal Democrats, Greens and SNP all support Labour’s policy and would make it more difficult for people to buy their home.  

•    The other parties want to introduce new taxes – which would hit homeowners. Labour would introduce a new tax on your home with Jeremy Corbyn’s plans for a Land Value Tax and Tim Farron has his own plans for a ‘tax system that flushes out land’. 

Q: Isn’t the number of newly built affordable houses at its lowest for 24 years? 
We have delivered more affordable homes in the last six years than in the last six years of Labour Government. Our invest investment of £9.4 billion to deliver over 400,000 affordable housing starts by March 2021 will allow us to continue to fix the broken housing market Labour left behind. 

 

 

 

April 30, 2017

Today the Prime Minister announced that our Conservative manifesto will include new measures to protect the pensions of workers against irresponsible behaviour by a minority of company bosses. Under Theresa May’s plans, the Pensions Regulator will be given new powers to stop company takeovers that threaten the security of workplace pensions. We will also increase punishments for those found to be mismanaging schemes.
 
Safeguarding pensions to ensure dignity in retirement is about security for families, and it’s another example of the choice in this election. Strong and stable leadership under Theresa May that delivers for Britain – or a coalition of chaos led by Jeremy Corbyn, which can’t get the right deal for Brexit, and risks our growing economy with higher taxes, fewer jobs, more waste, and more debt.
 

 

GENERAL ELECTION ANNOUNCED FOR JUNE 8, 2017

 

July 13, 2016

Building a Britain that works for everyone
Yesterday, the Prime Minister set out her vision to build a United Kingdom that works for every one of us. Speaking outside Downing Street, she said:

I have just been to Buckingham Palace, where Her Majesty the Queen has asked me to form a new government. 

And I accepted. In David Cameron, I follow in the footsteps of a great, modern Prime Minister. 

Under David’s leadership, the Government stabilised the economy, reduced the budget deficit, and helped more people into work than ever before. 

But David’s true legacy is not about the economy, but about social justice. From the introduction of same sex marriage to taking people on low wages out of income tax altogether, David Cameron has led a One Nation Government, and it is in that spirit that I also plan to lead. 

Because not everybody knows this, but the full title of my party is the Conservative and Unionist Party. 

And that word unionist is very important to me. It means we believe in the union, the precious, precious bond between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. 

But it means something else that is just as important. It means we believe in a union, not just between the nations of the United Kingdom, but between all of our citizens. 

Every one of us, whoever we are, and wherever we’re from. 

That means fighting against the burning injustice that if you’re born poor you will die on average nine years earlier than others. 

If you’re black you’re treated more harshly by the criminal justice system than if you’re white. 

If you’re a white working class boy you are less likely than anybody else in Britain to go to university. 

If you’re at a state school, you’re less likely to reach the top professions than if you are educated privately. 

If you’re a woman, you will earn less than a man. 

If you suffer from mental health problems, there’s not enough help to hand. 

If you’re young, you will find it harder than ever before to own your own home. 

But the mission to make Britain a country that works for everyone means more than fighting these injustices. 

If you’re from an ordinary working class family, life is much harder than many people in Westminster realise. 

You have a job but you don’t always have job security. 

You have your own home, but you worry about paying the mortgage. 

You can just about manage, but you worry about the cost of living and getting your kids into a good school. 

If you’re one of those families, if you’re just managing, I want to address you directly. 

I know you’re working around the clock, I know you’re doing your best, and I know that sometimes life can be a struggle. 

The Government I lead will be driven not by the interests of the privileged few, but by yours. 

We will do everything we can to give you more control over your lives. 

When we take the big calls, we’ll think not of the powerful but you. 

When we pass new laws, we’ll listen not to the mighty but to you. 

When it comes to taxes, we’ll prioritise not the wealthy but you. 

When it comes to opportunity, we won’t entrench the advantages of the fortunate few. 

We will do everything we can to help anybody, whatever your background, to go as far as your talents will take you. 

We are living through an important moment in our country’s history. 

Following the referendum, we face a time of great national change. 

And I know, because we’re Great Britain, that we will rise to the challenge. 

As we leave the European Union, we will forge a bold new positive role for ourselves in the world. 

And we will make Britain a country that works not for a privileged few but for every one of us. 

That will be the mission of the government I lead, and together we will build a better Britain.

 

14 June, 2016

Children and Social Work Bill

On 14 June 2016, the Children and Social Work Bill received its second reading in the House of Lords. 

•    No parent could imagine that their child would grow up to sleep on the streets or languish in a prison cell. But for children in care, this is still all too often the appalling future that lies in store. We need to give these children the chance of a better life. 

•    First, all children need a loving home, so we will tip the balance in favour of adoption where that is the right thing for the child. Second, we will reform the social work profession by setting new, demanding standards that we will expect every social worker to meet. Third, we need to give far more effective support to those leaving care so we will introduce the first care leavers’ covenant.

•    This delivers on our commitment to extend opportunity to everyone, making sure every single child gets the best start in life.

The Bill will do this by:

•    Changing the law on adoption to provide more children with stable and loving homes. Where adoption is in the best interests of the child, we will make sure they are matched quickly with carers who are right for them, so they receive love and care until their eighteenth birthday and into adulthood.

•    Giving children leaving care the best start to their adult life. For the first time we will set out local authorities’ responsibility to act as ‘corporate parents’ to support children in care and as they move into adult life. These include publishing the services that looked after children and care leavers are entitled to and extending the right to a Personal Adviser, who supports care leavers, up to the age of 25. 

•    Creating a new, specialist regulator for social work. The new body will set standards for training and accreditation for both children and family and adult services social workers – raising the status and standard of the profession to provide the best care to some of the most vulnerable in our society.

Key point:

•    Children’s services actually got worse under Labour. In 2009, the Audit Commission found that children’s services had deteriorated between 2005 and 2008. 

 

Q: Why is Government wasting time and money setting up a specialist regulator when it disbanded the General Social Care Council (GSCC) four years ago?
The new body will have a wider remit than the GSCC, in particular in relation to post-qualifying training, accreditation and continuing professional development. Establishing a specialist regulator illustrates the importance we place on social work, and will enable a relentless focus on raising the quality of social work, education, training and practice in both children’s and adult’s social work. 

Child protection: keeping our children safe
Helping social workers protect the most vulnerable in our society 

•    Introducing a new body to raise the quality and status of social work. It will set standards for training and set a new accreditation system for children and family social workers. All social workers will be assessed against the Chief Social Worker for Children and Families knowledge and skills statements by the end of this Parliament (DfE Press Release, 14 January 2016). 

•    Expectations for social workers have been made clearer, so they have a better understanding of how to support vulnerable children. We have published clear guidelines, defining the expectations of social workers working with our most vulnerable children, young people and families, so they can get the support they need (DfE, 19 November 2015).

•    Changing the law on adoption so vulnerable children are given long-term stability. Where adoption is in the best interests of the child, we will make sure they are matched quickly with carers who are right for them, so they receive love and care until into adulthood (DfE, Adoption: A Vision for Change, March 2016). 

•    Creating Regional Adoption Agencies to make it easier to place children with a loving family and spread best practice in the sector. We are providing £16 million by 2018 to support the creation of Regional Adoption Agencies. This will allow the adoption system to operate at scale, developing best practice and with a larger pool of potential adopters for each child (DfE, Adoption: A Vision for Change, March 2016). 

•    We have raised the status of social care and are attracting the best graduates to the profession. We are expanding Frontline, a two-year leadership programme that offers high-achieving graduates and career changers the opportunity become social workers, and Step up to Social Work, training 3,000 graduates over the next five years (DfE Press Release, 14 January 2016).

Clamping down on online child abuse  

•    Protecting children from online pornography. We have launched a public consultation to require age verification for access to pornographic content online. To protect children, companies profiting from online pornography will be legally obliged to make sure material is only accessed by those over 18 and sanctions will be imposed on those who fail to comply (DCMS, 16 February 2016).

•    Online child abuse is being identified and investigated, protecting children from online predators. A new joint National Crime Agency/GCHQ unit was created to tackle paedophiles on the ‘dark net’ to tackle child sexual exploitation online (Number 10 Press Release, 11 December 2014).

Preventing abuse and making sure professionals are held accountable 

•    Preventing children from being exposed to harm and reassuring parents. Under Sarah’s Law, the Child Sex Offender Disclosure Scheme, parents are able to ask police if someone with access to their child has committed child sexual offences to help prevent any harm (Hansard, 1 September 2014).

•    Extending the new criminal offence of wilful neglect. As part of our response to reports by Alexis Jay, Ann Coffey MP and Louise Casey, the professionals we charge with protecting our children – council staff, police officers and social workers – could face five years in prison if they turn a blind eye to child abuse (Prime Minister’s Office Press Release, 3 March 2015). 

•    Launching child abuse whistleblowing helpline. A new national helpline run by the NSPCC and funded by £500,000 from the Government this financial year, is being set-up to encourage employees to report malpractice without the fear of victimisation (Home Office, 13 February 2016). 
 

Child protection: Labour’s failures

•    Labour failed to provide leadership on social work, putting children’s lives in danger. The Labour-led select committee found the ‘lack of a coherent and prestigious national profile for the social work profession’ to be ‘the most important failing’ of Labour’s child safety policy (House of Commons Children, Schools and Families Select Committee, Seventh Report, Session 2008-09, 20 July 2009, p. 3). 

•    Social workers were overloaded with bureaucracy, meaning they spent less time with those who needed their support. In 2009 UNISON claimed that social workers spent 80 per cent of their time doing paperwork, meaning they could only spend one fifth of their time with children and families who needed their support (The Guardian, 3 August 2009).  
•    Labour failed to publish reports into childcare failures, meaning mistakes were repeated. The few Serious Case Reviews they did publish were left unreadable by important information being blotted-out (Michael Gove speech to the NSPCC, 12 November 2013).
•    Children’s services actually got worse under Labour. In 2009, the Audit Commission found that children’s services had deteriorated between 2005 and 2008 and quarter of councils were providing inadequate or minimal services for young people (The Guardian, 5 March 2009). 
•    The lack of co-ordination between the Criminal Records Bureau and the Department for Education put children at risk. The system put in place to prevent sex offenders from getting  jobs in schools (‘List 99’) was shown to be ineffective in 2006 when cases came to light where potentially dangerous individuals were employed (Daily Telegraph, 14 January 2006). 
•    Labour’s unwieldy child protection database was heavily criticised for confusion over who was responsible for vetting users and policing the system. Labour’s plan to put the details of every child in the country on a database accessible to 333,000 people were criticised by a wide range of child protection and civil liberties groups, mainly for privacy, security and child protection reasons. Conservatives scrapped the database (The Guardian, 4 March 2004, link; BBC News Online, 27 November 2007; Tim Loughton MP, Hansard, 22 July 2010, Col. 30WS).

•    Labour left an adoption system characterised by delays and low levels of adoptions. In 2011, the lowest number of children – just 3,100 – found new homes through adoption since 2001 and the average wait between a child coming in to care and being adopted was 22 months. The system particularly failed black and ethnic minority children who had to wait for 30 months (DfE, Adoption: A Vision for Change, March 2016). 

 

April 6, 2016

Today, a major package of reforms to tax, pensions and savings come into effect which will help provide financial security for working people and deliver dignity in retirement for pensioners.

Today’s reform of the State Pension is the most significant since its inception. Millions stand to gain from these changes, including women and the self-employed, who so often lost out in the past.

 At the same time, today’s income tax changes mean that basic rate taxpayers are paying more than £900 less than they were in 2010. There’s also action today to boost saving – with our new personal savings allowance lifting 17 million people out of paying any tax at all on money they’re putting away for their futures. And because we are determined to back the next generation, from today the jobs tax on young apprentices will be abolished altogether.

The changes we see today are what a modern, compassionate Conservative government is all about. We’re backing hard work and aspiration, allowing people to keep more of their own money, supporting savers and giving the next generation a step up.

 

March 31, 2016

We are building more homes and making use surplus of public sector land.

We have got the country building again with the number of new homes up twenty five per cent over the last year.

We are releasing enough surplus public sector land for at least 160,000 new homes, which is being matched by local authorities, and directly commissioning thousands of new affordable homes. By doubling the housing budget and investing £20 billion we will deliver on our ambition to create a million new homeowners.

Supporting people who work hard achieve their dreams of buying their own home is a key part of our long term plan to provide economic security for working people at every stage of their life.

 

There is coverage of changes to council tax today.

We have given councils the certainty to plan ahead with our historic four-year funding deal and have prioritised care for the elderly with a £3.5 billion social care funding package.

 These changes will mean council tax will still be lower in real terms in 2019/20 than in 2009/10.  We are helping to keep household bills down with excessive council tax increases still subject to local referendum. Even with this year's increase, council tax will still be lower than the average 6.2 per cent annual increase under Labour.

 We have been working to keep council tax down, giving hardworking people greater financial security.

 

October 30, 2015

Tax Credits

Under Labour spending on tax credits more than trebled in real terms in ten years. The original system cost £4 billion in its first full year, reaching £30 billion in 2015. As former Labour Chancellor Alistair Darling has said tax credits were ‘subsidising lower wages in a way that was never intended’.

 

On 26 October 2015, unelected opposition peers voted against Summer Budget tax credit changes. 

• The unelected Labour and Liberal Democrat lords defeated a financial matter passed by the elected House of Commons. As the Prime Minister and Chancellor have said, this raises constitutional issues that need to be dealt with. Constitutional convention has been broken. As Vernon Bogdanor has said ‘only the elected chamber should be able to decide on matters of finance and taxation. The Lords have now broken this convention’. 

• However, it has happened; and what we must address are the consequences of that. We said we would listen, and that’s precisely what we intend to do. We believe we can achieve the same goal of reforming tax credits, saving the money we need to save to secure our economy, while at the same time helping in the transition.

• That’s what we intend to do at the Autumn Statement. We are determined to deliver the lower welfare, higher wage economy that we were elected to deliver and the British people want to see.

 

We are doing this by:

• Building a lower welfare, lower tax, higher wage society. We want to move Britain from a high-welfare, high-tax, low-wage economy to a lower-welfare, lower-tax and higher-wage one. That’s why we’ve introduced a new National Living Wage which will boost someone on the minimum wage’s pay by nearly £1,000 next year and £5,000 across the Parliament; we’re cutting income tax by raising the Personal Allowance with the typical income taxpayer now paying over £800 less than they did in 2010; and we’ll continue to reform tax credits, saving the money we need to save to secure our economy, while at the same time helping in the transition.

• We are setting up a review to examine how best to protect the ability of elected governments to secure their business in Parliament. The review will consider in particular how to secure the decisive role of the elected House of Commons in relation to its primacy on financial matters and secondary legislation. It will be led by Lord Strathclyde, supported by a small panel of experts.

 

The Chancellor will come forward with plans at the Autumn Statement to help with the transition. We can achieve the same goal of reforming tax credits, securing the money we need to ensure our economy is safe, and at the same time helping in the transition to these changes. What matters is the destination – our plans to build a lower welfare, lower tax, higher wage society are not only right, they have the backing of the British people. 

 

August 24, 2015

Work and Pensions Secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, today delivered a speech on the next stage of welfare reform.

We can see the impact our reforms have made already, with two million more people in work and the number of workless households at a record low. But we must not stop there.

Work can help keep people healthy as well as help promote recovery if someone falls ill. So it is right that we look at how the system supports people who are sick or disabled and helps them into work. That is why we are providing new funding of £60 million in 2017, rising to £100 million a year by 2020, for additional support to help claimants into work and have established Fit for Work – a free service which helps employees stay in or return to work.

A decent society should always recognise that some people are unable to work as a result of physical or mental ill health – or both. It is right that we protect these most vulnerable people in our society. But as part of our One Nation approach, we want to ensure everyone has the opportunity to transform their lives for the better by getting into work.

 

 

June 1, 2015

Right to Buy

More council housing has been built since 2010 than in the previous 13 years. However, it is important that councils make the best use of their assets and manage their housing stock as efficiently as possible. So it is right that as high value council homes become empty they should be sold to fund new affordable house building in the same area. 

The proposals in the Queen’s Speech will do that and more, extending Right to Buy level discounts to over a million housing association tenants,  with the homes sold replaced on a one-for-one basis. 

This is part of our wider efforts to help anyone who works hard and wants to own their own home achieve their dream, with over 200,000 households helped into home ownership through Government schemes since 2010.