The comments made by Jo Stevens, the Shadow Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Secretary, on 22 April 2021.
The Prime Minister and his ministers made very public and vocal condemnation of the European Super League. The public would therefore expect the same message to have been delivered in any private meetings.
Downing Street should release the minutes in order to clear up any confusion and avoid accusations of hypocrisy.
The comments made by Ed Miliband, the Shadow Business Secretary, on 23 April 2021.
This is a huge victory in the fight for justice for the subpostmasters affected by this appalling decades-long scandal, in the face of inaction from government.
But there are so many other names to clear. For some who lost their homes and their reputations, it’s too late.
We’re pushing for a proper Inquiry with teeth to get the bottom of how this scandal can have happened – and who was responsible – to deliver the justice those impacted need and deserve. The Government’s inquiry risks being a whitewash.
The statement made by Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the House of Commons on 19 April 2021.
In November last year, I asked Lord Hill of Oareford CBE to carry out an independent review of the UK’s listing arrangements. Strong public markets are a vital component of the UK economy and the Government are committed to ensuring that the UK’s markets are as competitive as possible, and to supporting the many different companies that use markets to raise capital, including technology firms as mentioned in Lord Hill’s report.
At Budget last month, Lord Hill published his UK listing review1. It made 14 recommendations. Today, I am pleased to set out how the Government intend to take forward each of the recommendations made.
Seven of the recommendations are directed towards the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), our independent regulator. As the FCA set out in its public response on 3 March, it welcomes the report and intends to consider all the relevant recommendations carefully, including on free float, dual class share structures, and special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). It has committed to acting quickly where appropriate, including by publishing a consultation by the summer, and a specific consultation on SPACs before that.
Six key recommendations are directed towards HM Treasury (HMT), and I outline how we will be taking forward each recommendation, in turn, below.
First, I agree to present an annual “State of the City” report to Parliament (recommendation 1). I am grateful for the suggestions provided as to what this report could cover, and I believe this would benefit the UK’s capital markets. I will present the first of these reports in 2022.
Lord Hill recommended that HMT considers an additional “growth” or “competitiveness” objective for the FCA, as part of the future regulatory framework (FRF) review (recommendation 2). The first consultation on the FRF review closed on 19 February. This review seeks to ensure the UK’s regulatory framework is fit for our future outside the EU and the first consultation welcomed stakeholder views on the current set of statutory objectives. It also sought views on the future overall accountability framework for the FCA (and PRA). The Government are currently considering the 120 stakeholder responses received in relation to this consultation and will use these to inform a second consultation later this year. I will carefully consider this recommendation as part of that process.
Three of the recommendations, on reviewing the UK’s prospectus regime (recommendation 7), considering whether prospectuses drawn up under other jurisdictions’ rules can be used to facilitate secondary listings in the UK (recommendation 8) and facilitating the provision of forward-looking information by issuers in prospectuses (recommendation 9), all deal with the UK’s prospectus regime. Again, I strongly welcome this, and agree we need to consider reforms to ensure these documents are fit for purpose. I can confirm that the Government will bring forward a public consultation on the UK’s prospectus regime later this year.
Lord Hill also raised the issue of improving the efficiency of further capital raising by listed companies (recommendation 13). This is a highly technical area, and I agree that bringing together expertise specifically on this issue will be helpful to consider what more can be done to improve capital raising processes and I am happy to help convene such a group. My officials will be considering what form this will take over the coming weeks.
One of the recommendations, concerning how technology can be used to improve retail investor involvement in corporate actions and their undertaking of an appropriate stewardship role, is directed towards the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). As such, this recommendation will be taken forward by BEIS as part of its wider consideration of the findings from the Law Commission’s recent scoping study on intermediated securities. BEIS expects to announce a response to the study later this year.
Finally, Lord Hill concluded by drawing the Government’s attention to other issues raised with the review illustrating how the wider financial ecosystem may impact UK listings. I would like to thank Lord Hill for bringing these issues to my attention.
I would like to conclude by again thanking Lord Hill for his work, and I look forward to taking forward his recommendations.
The statement made by John Glen, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, in the House of Commons on 19 April 2021.
On 17 December 2020, I announced that the Treasury would set up a compensation scheme for bondholders who suffered losses after investing in London Capital & Finance (LCF) (HCWS678)[1]. This statement provides an update on the Government’s approach, including the details of the scheme and the next steps for bondholders.
LCF was a Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) authorised firm which issued unregulated non-transferable debt securities, commonly known as “mini-bonds”, to investors and then speculatively invested the funds received in a number of underlying businesses. LCF went into administration in January 2019 and at the point of failure 11,625 bondholders had invested around £237 million.
This has been a very difficult time for LCF bondholders, many of whom are elderly and have lost their hard-earned savings. As I noted in my last statement, for some, this will have formed part of an investment portfolio, but for others, it will have represented a significant portion of their savings.
One of the key purposes of regulation is to ensure that investors have the right information to understand their risk. Within this system even a regulator doing everything right will not be able to, and should not be expected to, ensure a zero-failure regime. That is why statute has established the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), which is the compensation scheme for customers of failed financial services firms in the UK. Its scope is strictly limited and it is only able to pay out when a relevant regulated activity has been undertaken. The FSCS has considered LCF claims in detail and has been able to protect around 2,800 bondholders, paying out over £57 million in compensation.
It is an important point of principle that Government do not step in to pay compensation in respect of failed financial services firms that fall outside the FSCS. Doing so would create the wrong set of incentives for individuals and an unnecessary burden on the taxpayer. However, the situation regarding LCF is unique and exceptional. After considering the issues in detail, the Government have decided to establish a compensation scheme for LCF bondholders. The scheme I am announcing today appropriately balances the interests of both bondholders and the taxpayer and will ensure that all LCF bondholders receive a fair level of compensation in respect of the financial loss they have suffered.
LCF’s business model was highly unusual, both in its scale and structure. In particular, it was authorised by the FCA despite generating no income from regulated activities. This allowed LCF’s unregulated activity of selling mini-bonds to benefit from the “halo effect” of being issued by an authorised firm, helping LCF gain respectability and grow to an unprecedented scale before it failed, resulting in losses for thousands of bondholders.
A complex range of interconnected factors contributed to the scale of losses for LCF bondholders. Clearly individuals have responsibility for choosing investments that are suitable for their risk profile. The high interest rates on offer from LCF, particularly when compared with deposit accounts, should have prompted questions from potential bondholders about the risks. While some may have understood those risks and invested anyway, LCF’s disclosure materials and marketing strategy may have led others to believe they were investing in a product that was far safer than it was.
Bondholders have reported LCF using a range of dishonest tactics to persuade them to invest. For example, some novice investors have said they were encouraged to declare themselves to be sophisticated and experienced, thereby enabling them to access products that should have been out of reach. Furthermore, LCF appears to have adopted flawed investment and marketing strategies and paid high commissions of up to 25% to the sales agent.
Bondholders have been badly let down by LCF, but they have also been let down by the regulatory system that is designed to protect them. The independent investigation led by Dame Elizabeth Gloster[2], which the Government published at the end of last year, concluded that the FCA did not discharge its functions in respect of LCF in a manner which enabled it to effectively fulfil its statutory objectives during the relevant period.
While I have not seen evidence that would indicate that the regulatory failings at the FCA were the primary cause of the losses incurred by LCF bondholders, they are a significant factor that the Government have taken into account when deciding to establish this scheme. Indeed, the Government do not ordinarily step in to pay compensation to consumers in relation to allegations of fraud, investment losses, mis-selling or mis-buying of investments. I would, however, like to make it clear that neither the Government nor the FCA accept any legal liability for the failure of LCF or the losses incurred by its bondholders.
In these extraordinary circumstances, the Government have decided to establish a compensation scheme. However, it is imperative to avoid creating the misconception that Government will stand behind bad investments in future, even where FSCS protection does not apply. That would create a moral hazard for investors and potentially lead individuals to choose unsuitable investments, thinking the Government will provide compensation if things go wrong. The ultimate responsibility for choosing suitable investments must remain with individuals.
To avoid creating this misconception, and to take into account the wide range of factors that contributed to the losses that Government would not ordinarily compensate for, the Government will establish a scheme that provides 80% of LCF bondholders’ initial investment up to a maximum of £68,000. Where bondholders have received interest payments from LCF or distributions from the administrators, Smith & Williamson, these will be deducted from the amount of compensation payable. The scheme will be available to all LCF bondholders who have not already received compensation from the FSCS and represents 80% of the compensation they would have received had they been eligible for FSCS protection.
Around 97% of all LCF bondholders invested less than £85,000 and therefore will not reach the compensation cap under either the Government scheme or the FSCS. The Government expect to pay out around £120 million in compensation in total and the scheme to have paid all bondholders within six months of securing the necessary primary legislation, which the Government will bring forward as soon as parliamentary time allows.
Bondholders do not need to do anything at this stage and Government will provide further details on how the scheme will operate in due course. The scheme will be simple and straightforward to navigate. Bondholders will not need to use a claims management company, solicitor or any other organisation to help them claim.
I am mindful that some individuals may be anxious to receive their compensation and I urge bondholders to be vigilant to the risk of scammers posing as services to help them claim. To reiterate, the scheme has not opened yet and bondholders should await further announcements from the Government on next steps.
One of the challenges highlighted by Dame Elizabeth Gloster’s report is that, despite exhibiting many of the characteristics of other regulated financial services activities, the issuance of mini-bonds is not currently a regulated activity. The Government are committed to ensuring the financial services sector is well regulated and consumers are adequately protected, and the Treasury is therefore today launching a consultation on proposals to bring the issuance of mini-bonds into FCA regulation. This consultation is the culmination of a review into the regulation of mini-bonds that I announced in May 2019 and delivers on one of the recommendations made in Dame Elizabeth Gloster’s report.
In addition, the FCA is continuing its work to address the recommendations in Dame Elizabeth Gloster’s report, including through its ongoing transformation programme. A number of important steps have already been taken and I welcome the FCA’s commitment to report publicly on the progress of these vital reforms.
Finally, I wish to reiterate my sympathy for LCF bondholders. I hope the compensation offered by the Government scheme will offer some relief to the distress and hardship suffered and provide closure on this difficult matter.
The speech made by Jo Stevens, the Labour MP for Cardiff Central, in the House of Commons on 19 April 2021.
I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of parts of his statement. This is a watershed moment for our national game, and this statement is welcomed, as is the chair of the review, but it is short on detail and on the urgency that this situation merits; fans will have noted that. The Secretary of State tweeted last night extolling the virtues of the football pyramid, but if anything exposed the Government’s lack of understanding of our broken football system, that tweet summed it up. Tory trickle-down economics does not work, and it especially does not work in football.
Football governance is broken, football finance is broken and football fans, whichever club we support, are ignored. The hedge fund owners and billionaires who treat football clubs like any of their other commodities have no care for the history of our football, for the role it plays in villages, towns and cities up and down our country, and especially for the fans who are the beating heart of it. They should understand their role as custodians, rather than cartel chiefs. The future of our national game and all our clubs depends on it.
Labour has repeatedly called for the reform of the governance and finances of football by the Government. Government intervention is needed to fix this broken system. That is why we pledged in all four of our manifestos going back to 2010 to take action, and it is why I and the shadow Sports Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern), repeatedly urged the Government to get on with their promised fan-led review of football—a promise that they made in 2019. It is nearly a year since our letter to the Sports Minister offering support and help with 16 questions that the review should focus on. We know that Members across the House have supported reform for the past 11 years of Conservative-led Governments, so it is time for the Government to get off the subs bench and show some leadership on the pitch, because we need reform of football.
It is not as if there has been a blockage in Parliament preventing the Government from taking action to sort out the problems. Former Conservative Sports Minister, the hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant), has said:
“no one is speaking for the football world with the independence and authority needed to address the big issues.”—[Official Report, 26 January 2021; Vol. 688, c. 207.]
She is right. The former Conservative Chair of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins), has said:
“We should have long ago reformed the governance of football”.
He is right as well. The current Conservative Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Solihull (Julian Knight), has said:
“What’s needed is a fan-led review of football with real teeth and here we have more evidence to strengthen the case for it.”
I welcome the review, but why the long delay? Why create the vacuum that has allowed these super-league proposals the space and ability to become a reality? Eleven years have been wasted when a small amount of Government time could have been found to bring primary legislation to the House to sort out the problems. Instead, it has been all punditry and no progress on the pitch, and in that time, clubs and fans have suffered disasters. Fans in Bury know only too well the importance of reforming the way in which football is governed, and supporters in Liverpool, Edinburgh, Manchester, my city of Cardiff, Portsmouth and most football towns and cities have seen the damage done to clubs when profit outstrips the role of supporters in our game.
We are in a global pandemic and the owners of the six clubs behind this proposal think that now is the time to ride roughshod over their fans and endanger the future of football, on the back of a year when fans have been at the heart of supporting communities up and down the country. What a contrast! These proposals have been carved out behind closed doors without consultation with fans or players, and they have at their heart a plan that is anti-football—a super league from which teams can never be relegated and in which they are always guaranteed a place because of their wealth. That represents a fundamental attack on the integrity of sporting competitions.
It is very rare that an issue unites football fans and organisations across the rivalries and divides, but this super league proposal has managed to do just that. From supporters trusts and groups, including the Football Supporters’ Association, to the Professional Footballers’ Association, the Football Association, UEFA, the Premier League, the League Managers Association and the European Clubs Association—I could go on—it has been universally rejected as the greedy, obscene and selfish proposal that it is.
Let us act urgently. It is already too late for some clubs and their supporters, so I ask the Secretary of State when the review will be launched, what the terms of reference will be, who will take part and when it will report. What exactly will the Government do to stop the European super league decimating our national game? They should explore every option, and I hope that they will, whether that is a super-tax on revenue or investigating whether the proposal breaches the clear rules that govern markets and competition in this country.
For football fans up and down the country, our message is clear: Labour stands ready to do whatever it takes to stop this plan, and I hope that the Government will make exactly the same commitment.
The speech made by Oliver Dowden, the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, in the House of Commons on 19 April 2021.
With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I should like to make a statement. Football is in our national DNA. We invented it, we helped to export it around the world, and it has been at the heart of British life for over a century. Football clubs, of course, are not just businesses but define communities across the country, so along with almost every Member of the House, I suspect, I was appalled by the announcement made late last night that a handful of clubs are proposing to form their own breakaway European league.
These six clubs announced that decision without any consultation with football authorities or with Government. Worst of all, they did it without any dialogue whatsoever with their own fans. It was a tone-deaf proposal, but the owners of those clubs will not have been able to ignore the near universal roar of outrage from all parts of the football community over the past 24 hours.
This move goes against the very spirit of the game. This is a sport where a team such as Leicester City can ascend from league one to the premier league title in under a decade, earning the right to go toe to toe against European heavyweights in the champions league. Instead, a small handful of owners want to create a closed shop of elite clubs at the top of the game—a league based on wealth and brand recognition rather than merit. We will not stand by and watch football be cravenly stripped of the things that make millions across the country love it.
As a Conservative, I believe passionately in defending our nation’s institutions and our rich heritage. They are central to our identity and help to build a sense of solidarity between people of every generation and every background. Just as the Government would not hesitate to act when other treasured areas of our national life are under threat, nor will we hesitate to protect one of our greatest national institutions: football.
This is, of course, for football authorities to handle first, and today I have met with the Premier League, the Football Association and the president of UEFA, while the Sports Minister has had another series of meetings with the Football Supporters’ Association. The football authorities have robust rules in place to deal with this, and I know from my conversations with them today that they are rightly considering a wide range of sanctions and measures to stop this move in its tracks. My message to them was clear: they have our full backing. However, be in no doubt that if they cannot act, we will.
We will put everything on the table to prevent this from happening. We are examining every option, from governance reform to competition law and mechanisms that allow football to take place. Put simply, we will review everything that the Government do to support these clubs to play. I have discussed those options with the Prime Minister this morning, and we are working at pace across Government and with the football authorities. I reassure this House of a very robust response. We will do whatever it takes to protect our national game.
However, it is clearer than ever that we need a proper examination of the long-term future of football. To many fans in this country, the game is now almost unrecognisable from a few decades ago. Season after season, year after year, football fans demonstrate unwavering loyalty and passion by sticking by their clubs, but their loyalty is being abused by a small number of individuals who wield an incredible amount of power and influence. If the past year has taught us anything, it is that football is nothing without its fans. These owners should remember that they are only temporary custodians of their clubs, and they forget fans at their peril. That is why, over the past few months, I have been meeting with fans and representative organisations to develop our proposals for a fan-led review. I had always been clear that I did not want to launch this until football had returned to normal following the pandemic. Sadly, these clubs have made it clear that I have no choice. They have decided to put money before fans, so today I have been left with no choice but to formally trigger the launch of our fan-led review of football.
The review will be chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) and will be a root-and-branch examination of football in this country. It will cover the financial sustainability of the men’s and women’s game, governance and regulation and the merits of an independent regulator. Crucially, in the light of this weekend’s proposal, it will also consider how fans can have an even greater say in the oversight of the game and the models that might best achieve that.
We are the people’s Government. We are unequivocally on the side of fans, and their voices have to be heard when it comes to the future of our national game. It starts with fans, and it ends with fans. In the meantime, we have thrown our full weight behind the football authorities and stand ready to do whatever is necessary to represent fans and protect their interests. I commend this statement to the House.
The speech made by Patricia Gibson, the SNP MP for North Ayrshire and Arran, in the House of Commons on 19 April 2021.
I am delighted to have secured this important debate on the gender pension gap, which stands at a shameful 40.3%—more than double the gender pay gap of 17.3%. That is truly shocking, and I hope that the debate will both highlight this terrible inequality and perhaps persuade the UK Government to take some fairly straightforward measures to address it if they are truly committed to pension justice and equality.
We are all aware of the justifications for women’s state pension age being raised, but equalising state pension ages is very different from pension equality. We could simply throw our hands in the air and exclaim that women have always had lower pensions than men, and that is just the way it is, but it need not be this way. It is simply unacceptable that all types of pension provision—whether state pensions, workplace pensions or private pensions—inherently discriminate against women. If they choose to do so, the UK Government could tackle this and thereby tackle the poverty that too many women face in old age. This can wait no longer, as an increasing proportion of women are simply not able to rely on their partner’s income in retirement, and nor should they be required to.
David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)
I congratulate my hon. Friend most sincerely on securing the debate. The average woman in her 20s in the UK will have to work almost 40 years longer than her male counterpart to build up the same pension. Indeed, a female saver can expect to have £100,000 less in retirement savings thanks to time taken out of the workplace to raise children. In the previous debate, the Government spoke an awful lot about levelling up. Does she agree that, if the Government are serious about levelling up, the first thing they could do is tackle the injustice of the gender pension gap?
Patricia Gibson
Absolutely. I know that the Minister will be listening intently, and I hope he will take away the reasonable and straightforward suggestions that I will make this evening, so that we can truly level up in the way that the Government say they want to.
Women born in the 1950s—WASPI women, or Women Against State Pension Inequality—have suffered hugely as their state pension age was accelerated, giving them insufficient time to prepare for retirement. Despite the clamour of outrage, the Government have refused to do anything to address the hardship caused to the women affected. I wish I could say that that policy decision was the only one that targets women in retirement. I wish this was the only measure I could find that has transformed retirement into a time of financial uncertainty and fiscal pressure for women. Sadly, it is a mere continuation of policy choices that have contributed to—indeed, exacerbated—the gender pension gap under which too many women now labour.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The hon. Lady, myself and others in this Chamber have supported the WASPI women the whole way through. Does she agree that there is not only a legal obligation but a moral obligation to deliver for them and that the WASPI women in our constituencies who have contacted us deserve to know that the battle has not ended for them?
Patricia Gibson
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. It is impossible, in all conscience, to have any debate about pensions and not mention the plight and difficulties into which the WASPI women have been thrust. Indeed, it would be remiss not to mention them and to pay tribute to the dignified campaign that they have fought and continue to fight.
Let us take pension credit as an example. The uptake of pension credit is only around 60%—a matter that I have raised repeatedly over the years in the House, urging the UK Government to do more to improve uptake. Doing so could play an important part in helping to close the gender pension gap, since women are much more likely to need to rely on pension credit, which is additional support for the poorest pensioners, as their lifetime earnings tend to be lower than men’s. However, the so-called triple lock on state pensions does not apply to pension credit. This means that the poorest pensioners, who tend to be women, do not have the same income protection as those pensioners who are better off.
In addition to this gender penalty, the very lowest earners, who we know tend to be women—I keep saying it because it bears repeating—are excluded from building credit on their state pension. Those who have a job earning below the lower earnings threshold get no credit for their state pension at all, and that applies even if a person has more than one job. This exclusion disproportionately hits women hard as they are more likely to be in part-time work. When the Minister gets to his feet, I hope that he will explain why this stubborn inflexibility in the national insurance system has not been addressed and when we can expect this pitfall—that is what it is—to be removed, as it contributes to the impoverishment of women in retirement. The lower earnings threshold should be abolished so that all workers can claim credit for state pension, no matter the level of their earnings.
The gender pension gap is exacerbated in all sorts of sneaky and labyrinthine ways, some of which most women do not know about due to the arcane nature of the system. The UK Government could fix many of these problems almost at a stroke; why this has not happened is curious.
For example, even if a woman is not currently in paid work, if she claims child benefit for a child under 12, she will get national insurance credit towards her state pension, and is treated as though she has contributed to national insurance while she claims that child benefit, when her state pension is calculated. Even if her partner’s earnings deem her ineligible for child benefit, she needs to apply in order to get national insurance credit. Who knew?
If a woman finds out subsequently about this rather silly and pointless method of gender discrimination—well, too bad. She cannot backdate her claim. In addition, research has shown that huge numbers of women simply do not know how child benefit claims affect their state pension calculation. And who could blame them? It would be fairly simple for the UK Government to address this by allowing all women who are looking after their children to claim state pension credit. Why not? What is the obstacle to this change, which could play a part in reducing the shameful gender pension gap?
Let me turn to the issue of temporarily leaving the workforce to look after children adversely impacting on a woman’s pension. Workplace pensions discriminate against women, who tend to earn less and to have interrupted careers, meaning that they are active in the workplace for fewer years than men. This means that their workplace pensions are lower, as well as their state pensions. This could be mitigated if the Government introduced a family carer’s top-up, whereby the Government would pay the equivalent of the employer’s contribution—at least at the level of minimum wage—into women’s pensions if they are taking time out as carers. This would equate to around £820 per year and would boost pension outcomes for women by 20% if they took 10 years out of the workforce to undertake caring responsibilities and return to the workforce thereafter. Importantly, research shows that this could close half the pension wealth gap that is created by taking time out of work to care for others—so far, so good.
It was always traditionally the case that women were forced to leave company pensions if they married or switched to part-time working. I have lost count of the number of WASPI women who have told me that they were forced out of occupational pension provisions when they married. However, we know that women also tended to be less likely even to be offered an occupational pension in the first place due to the types of jobs women traditionally did. Again, we have inherent bias against women’s workplace pensions.
We also need to remember that some workplace pensions do not aggregate women’s pensions following maternity leave. Not merging periods of pension service means that women have a reduced pension when they retire, relative to their male counterparts. Surely it cannot be beyond the wit of this Government to regulate pension provision so that women’s pension rights can be preserved whilst caring responsibilities are attended to?
If this litany of how women get a raw pension deal and suffer institutional bias seems to be long, I am afraid it is set to become longer still, because we have not yet considered auto-enrolment. This much-heralded programme to ensure all employers provide workplace pensions leaves out, ignores and simply does not take into account millions of women.
How can that be? It is actually very simple. Those who earn less than £10,000—again, disproportionately women of course—do not benefit from auto-enrolment and therefore do not benefit from their employer’s pension contribution. Again, it does not matter if someone has two part-time jobs, because if each pays below £10,000, they miss out on auto-enrolment and the employer’s contribution to the pension.
New research from the Pensions Policy Institute shows that almost half of single mothers are currently ineligible for auto-enrolment—almost half. Does the Minister think that is acceptable? What will he do to persuade his Government to remove the £10,000 earnings limit for auto-enrolment so that the threshold can be reduced to the very first pound earned? When one considers the part that that measure alone could play in helping to reduce the gender pay gap, I can think of no good reason not to do it.
If that was not bad enough, those who are auto-enrolled into their workplace pension are often forced to pay an additional 25% for their pensions if they earn between £10,000 and £12,000. Again, that situation tends to affect women disproportionately and is due to the type of pension an employer may use, which operates on a net pay basis. That means that the employee has to pay extra to their pension provider instead of receiving the tax relief they could have in a different type of pension scheme, such as a relief at source scheme. Sadly, it seems that most employers use the net pay scheme, so contributions are collected before tax.
However, if the relief at source scheme were used, women would benefit from an additional £8,000 in their pensions over their working lives. We have, quite frankly, a disgraceful situation in which women, who are most in need of help in building up their pension pots, are forced to pay more, usually without knowledge of how they are being financially penalised. If we want pension equality, why are the Government not legislating so that employers and pension providers ensure workers are enrolled into schemes that will qualify for tax relief?
If, after all that, a woman finds herself widowed, her late husband’s life annuity will probably not provide her with any income, meaning that after the shock of being widowed many women are thrown into poverty, financially unprotected. Similarly, if a woman is divorced, she may find herself in poverty in retirement. Indeed, she is more likely to do so. It seems clear that there are institutional, inherent, ingrained and unfair barriers to women being able properly and fairly to build up a pension pot that will offer them protection from poverty in their later years.
The obstacles, problems and barriers have been set out clearly tonight, and the Minister has been listening to the potential solutions. I urge him to respond to each barrier and to indicate what his Government will do to address the shocking and unacceptable gender pension gap that exposes women to poverty and hardship in their later years, because it does not have to be this way.
The speech made by Michelle Donelan, the Universities Minister, on 21 April 2021.
Good afternoon and thank you for inviting me here today to speak about the vital role we can all play as we overcome Covid-19.
I regret that we cannot be together today, that instead we are speaking through screens in a manner that has become familiar to us all by now. This pandemic has forced us all to adapt – and adapt fast in order to keep students learning during this historic pandemic.
So, I want to start by thanking everyone across our universities and higher education institutions for all that you have done across the last year. And with our fantastic vaccine roll-out, we can see the light at the end of the tunnel.
But levelling-up Britain cannot wait. We need to double down on eliminating equality gaps in higher education today.
Those of you that know me will know just how passionate I am about social mobility – and Covid-19 has not diluted that one bit.
I want to be clear that as Universities Minister, this is my top priority.
That means making sure access and participation in higher education is open to all that have the ability and desire.
It means making sure those who grow up in the most disadvantaged households have the same opportunities to go to university as their peers – and succeed when they are there.
It also means that they should be just as likely to study courses with good graduate outcomes and complete those courses.
That is why when I first heard of TASO, I was truly excited to hear about the evidence it is gathering to bolster these efforts.
I support TASO’s mission to develop that strong evidence around effective approaches to access, student success and progression to good quality employment and further study.
Because we all know that evidence-led policy and practice in university access and successful participation is at the very heart of levelling up and providing equality of opportunity.
And we know that we need to measure what matters, not just what is easy to measure.
It is easy to get people on to courses by making unconditional courses, without considering whether they are academically suitable; or to reduce the attainment gap by grade inflation and offering more firsts. But let me be candid: that does not and will not deliver effective change and we need to seriously question these practices.
It is more difficult, but much more meaningful, to improve access by working closely with schools and pupils to raise academic performance, and to drive improvement in outcomes by giving all students the support that they need to succeed, whatever their background. So, I hope that this conference can be a watershed moment in establishing what works for higher education – and as TASO develops a clearer understanding of what works in access and participation.
Already I’m pleased to see how far TASO has come since the Department for Education’s Social Mobility Action Plan committed to an Evidence and Impact Exchange for widening access and successful participation in Higher Education back in 2017.
Since its launch in 2019, both under Susannah’s [Susannah Hume – interim Director] and now Omar’s leadership, TASO has been quick to make an impact, gathering and synthesing evidence, and leading projects in a range of key areas and understanding impacts on different groups of learners. I know from speaking to vice chancellors how valuable this work is already, with good practice being shared around the sector.
Many of you will by now know that I was the first in my family to go to university. I know first-hand how it can change lives, because it changed mine, and I can confidently say I would not be speaking to you today had I not graduated. My mission to bring about real social mobility is shared across this Government – and with the sector, we want to enable every person to fulfil their potential.
To do so, we must together ensure that work on access and participation focuses on delivering real social mobility. We need to equip students will the tools they need to make the right choices for them and their futures, including making sure they can get onto and succeed in high quality courses that are valued by employers.
The hard truth is that at times some students are tempted onto courses that offer them nothing come graduation. The fact is that at times some students will pay thousands of pounds for a degree that leads them nowhere.
We need to guard against encouraging more and more students onto courses which do not provide good graduate outcomes, because it is self-evident that this does not provide real social mobility and serves only to entrench inequality. It will be obvious to those listening today that there is a direct link between success at university and prior attainment at school.
That is why our school reforms are raising standards of attainment for all – and why we are asking universities to take on a more direct role in raising attainment in schools. But our work does not stop at school.
We need to develop a society where training, re-training and learning throughout your life is second nature. We all need to stop thinking about education as something you tick off and move on from and start thinking about it as something we can draw from throughout our lives. There has been a need to do this long before Covid-19, because as we all know these are long-term structural issues.
That is why the Prime Minister has announced plans to introduce a Lifelong Loan Entitlement as part of the Lifetime Skills Guarantee.
This will give people the opportunity to train, retrain and upskill throughout their lives to respond to changing skills needs and employment patterns. It will have a massive, transformative impact on post-18 study, delivering greater parity between further and higher education.
And it will do what it says on the tin. Introduced from 2025, the Lifelong Loan Entitlement will provide individuals with a loan entitlement to the equivalent of four years of post-18 education to use over their lifetime. These steps will make it easier for students to navigate the options available, create a more streamlined funding system and encourage provision to better meet the needs of people, employers and the economy.
Flexibility is the name of the game today and will continue to be as the future unfolds. That is why it is been so important for people to be able to develop new life-changing skills as the economy changes. Equally important, though, is giving people the flexibility to study when they want and how they want.
This new loan entitlement means people can space out their studies, transfer credits between FE and HE institutions, and take up more part-time study. As part of the pathway towards the Lifelong Loan Entitlement, we will stimulate the provision of high-quality higher technical education and introduce pilots to incentivise more flexible and modular provision.
We will consult on the detail and scope of the Lifelong Loan Entitlement this year to make sure that it works as effectively as possible. Where necessary, we will put forward legislation in this parliament.
What is clear already though is that modular education will need to be front and centre of any changes we make. This modular education will be at the heart of our Lifelong Learning Entitlement, revolutionising our education offer – both in higher and further education.
Why? Because we need a real alternative to the traditional three-year degree, that remains out of grasp of too many. Because it is hard – if not impossible – to take three years out of full-time employment when you have a mortgage, children or caring responsibilities.
Think for a minute about your friends and family, and those who have not been able to take up a place at university because of existing commitments. Those who, by doing the right things for their families, are held back from making a better life for themselves. We are a Government that will always back people who want to make a better life for themselves.
But right now we are seeing entrants to part-time study falling. The number of entrants to part-time study at English Higher Education providers fell steeply after 2012 and continued to decline at a slower pace.
So, I want all institutions, staff, and students to know that I will be taking action to incentivise more flexible and modular provision. From 2022, we will be trialling loan-funded access to tuition fees for certain modules at a number of institutions across England.
What we learn from this trial will inform our approach to lifelong learning, and is a key step towards our delivery of the Lifelong Loan Entitlement, as well as supporting some students to participate on shorter modular courses in England as early as 2022. But I can say today that this is real, transformative change. Change that will make us a fairer society, change that will make us a high-skilled society.
This starts now because we have a choice today between carrying on with business as usual, or making bold, brave changes that mean we can be even prouder of our universities. But perhaps more importantly, we will make changes that benefit students for generations to come. I look forward to working with you to make this a reality. Thank you.
The comments made by Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, on 22 April 2021.
The UK has shown that it’s possible to slash emissions while growing the economy, which makes question of reaching net zero not so much technical as political.
If we actually want to stop climate change, then this must be the year in which we get serious about doing so. Because the 2020s will be remembered either as the decade in which world leaders united to turn the tide, or as a failure.
So let’s come to Kunming in October and Glasgow in November armed with ambitious targets and the plans required to reach them. And let the history books show that it was this generation of leaders that possessed the will to preserve our planet for generations to come.
The comments made by Sarah Jones, the Shadow Minister for Policing and Fire, on 21 April 2021.
I am grateful to the Lords for voting to protect leaseholders from being forced to pay huge sums for fire safety repairs.
Each time that we vote on these amendments, the hopes of leaseholders across the country are raised, but we will not stop pushing the Government to act.
The vote provides the Government with yet another opportunity to do the right thing when the Bill returns to the Commons. If the Government decide not to, they will again betray leaseholders up and down the country.