Torsten Bell MP: speeches

Speeches

• 4 Mar 2025 · Investment: Newcastle Upon Tyne East and Wallsend · Hansard source

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  This is an important question when, shockingly, household incomes in the north-east hardly grew over the long 14 years of the previous Conservative Government. We need to raise public and private investment, which is why we are working with the north-east combined authority on its local growth plan. The Office for Investment is working particularly closely with the north-east, alongside Liverpool, on developing local growth opportunities.

• 4 Mar 2025 · Investment: Newcastle Upon Tyne East and Wallsend · Hansard source

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  I have spent far too much of my life talking to the now Energy Secretary, but my hon. Friend is right to highlight the potential of green energy supply chains in her constituency and across the north-east. This is a Government committed to securing economic gains alongside energy security from the energy transition —in stark contrast to the previous Government, who thought the net zero transition was something on which to create dividing lines, not jobs.

• 3 Mar 2025 · Independent Schools: VAT and Business Rates Relief · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Lewell-Buck, for this debate secured not by an hon. Member, as is often the case, but by public petitioners, including some who are present in the Public Gallery. The public paying attention to an issue is good grounds for it being debated. I also thank the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) for introducing the debate—also, for closing it shortly—and all hon. Members who have spoken during it. There are lots of things that are not common ground on this issue, as I will come on to, but I will start by noting that we are all motivated by the same determination to support the aspirations of every parent in the UK to get the best education for their children. In that context, we should all congratulate the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) on her good news and agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) that we all know people who have made a wide range of decisions about the educational choices for their children and that no one here is judging other parents’ choices. The best education for children is also what motivates the Government to break down barriers to opportunity to ensure that every child has access to high-quality education—and every child includes the 94% of children who attend state schools. The reforms to VAT and business rates that we are debating will raise about £1.8 billion a year; I will come on to the questions about the costing shortly. That will help to improve state education. In the autumn Budget, the Government announced a £2.3 billion increase to the core schools budget, and it is to deliver such commitments—not for any other purpose—that we have made the tough but necessary decisions that we are debating today. The hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston (Neil O’Brien) called for even larger increases in spending on schools, but it was noteworthy that he did not set out the means by which such increases would be paid for. I will briefly outline the policy changes that the Government are making, before turning to the important issues that hon. Members have raised during the debate. Since 1 January, education services provided by private schools have been subject to VAT. While private schools are now required to charge VAT, they are also able, as has been discussed, to recover the VAT that they incur when purchasing goods and services. The Government are also legislating to remove the eligibility for charitable rate relief from private schools that are charities in England. This is intended to take effect in England from April; it is already the case in Scotland and is being taken forward in Wales. As I have said, the goal of those changes is to provide additional funding for the state education sector. However, I fully recognise that they will increase the cost for some parents and carers who have chosen a private education for their children. This change is necessary, but I am not hiding from the reality that any rise in costs is unwelcome for those affected by them.

• 3 Mar 2025 · Independent Schools: VAT and Business Rates Relief · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. I might be a bit more sympathetic to Conservative Members focusing on this change if I saw them supporting any of the revenue measures that we have had to take to start turning around public services and improving the public finances. They oppose this measure, they oppose changes on national insurance, and they oppose cuts to the winter fuel payment and the rest. Now, I will make some progress. On the timing of implementation, as my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Alison Taylor) pointed out, this change was clearly signposted in Labour’s manifesto. Also, His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs is working hard to support schools through this change by providing bespoke support to schools alongside comprehensive guidance on how they can register for VAT. A dedicated mailbox for queries has also been made available to schools and their tax representatives. Several hon. Members have discussed the impact that the changes will have on pupils and their families, and on state schools and private schools more widely. Many Members have understandably returned to questions that were addressed in the tax information and impact note, or to the Government’s response to the consultation that was conducted between July and September last year. The issue of costings was raised by the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Richard Tice). The underlying methodologies used were certified by the independent Office for Budget Responsibility, and the costings take into account exactly the issues that he raised about behavioural responses. On the issue of pupils moving schools or sectors, we recognise that there will be some movement of that kind. However, we believe that the number of students who will switch to the state sector represents less than 0.5% of all UK state pupils, so we are confident that the state sector will be able to accommodate any change. The hon. Member for Farnham and Bordon (Gregory Stafford) raised the issue of school closures. The evidence suggests that around 50 private schools close each year during normal business. Although we would expect some additional closures, we have not seen any evidence to revise our view that the overall number of extra closures will be modest—perhaps something in the order of 100 schools over three years. We also recognise the concerns that have been raised about the impact on pupils with special educational needs, including by the hon. Member for South West Hertfordshire (Mr Mohindra). That is why we will ensure that those pupils with the most acute additional needs, whose needs can be met only in private schools, will be unaffected. For example, in England, where attendance at a private school is required by a child’s EHCP, that child’s parents or carers will not pay VAT and councils supporting them will be able to reclaim the VAT. In Wales, post-16 provision of this kind is funded by the Welsh Government rather than by councils. They cannot reclaim VAT in the same way, so ringfenced funding will be provided until 2028-29, when responsibility will pass to local authorities. More broadly, we are committed to transforming the system of supporting children and young people with SEN, because it is badly needed, as the hon. Members for Esher and Walton (Monica Harding) and for Tiverton and Minehead (Rachel Gilmour) clearly set out. The Budget announced a £1 billion uplift to high needs funding in 2025-26, providing additional support for more than 1 million children in the state sector with special educational needs and disabilities. The hon. Members for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton) and for Windsor (Jack Rankin) raised the issue of service families, but I fear they downplayed the increase of more than 12% in the continuity of education allowance from the Ministry of Defence. The issue of faith schools was also raised. They are an important part of our educational landscape, but the argument that private faith schools should be exempt from these changes is not compelling. An exemption would reduce the revenue available for pupils in state schools, including those of faith, and would be inconsistent with this Government’s strong view that a state education is suitable for children of all faiths and for children of no faith.

• 3 Mar 2025 · Independent Schools: VAT and Business Rates Relief · Hansard source

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  I recognise the description of the status quo as the right hon. Gentleman describes it, but I reiterate my view and the Government’s view that a state education is suitable for all families of all faiths. A public petition has decided that we should have today’s debate. On those grounds alone, it is right that we have had it. I recognise many of the points that hon. Members have raised, even if I have attempted to set out why the Government believe that in some cases they are overdone. As we rightly debate the impact of these policies, we must recognise the reason that they have been made: the priority that we must attach to providing extra resources for our state schools—resources that I have not heard a huge number of suggestions for replacing today. These are schools where 94% of our children are educated, and where this Government will deliver an education system fit for all.

• 12 Feb 2025 · Support for Pensioners · Hansard source

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  I am loath to do this, but the honest answer is no—it is far too small a reduction. Absolutely poverty should be falling every year, very significantly. We should really only need to debate relative poverty measures because, in a growing economy, we should all be taking it for granted that absolute poverty is falling. I hope that we can agree on two things: first—I think we do agree on this—that we must do better, and secondly, and more positively, that there are lessons to learn from what has worked over the last quarter of a century. While we are on a positive note, I can agree with the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Dame Harriett Baldwin) about the importance of community groups that support our pensioners, through Ageing Well in Swansea and, I am sure, lots of other devices around the country. I am not under any illusions—even if I was, I could no longer be after the last hour and a quarter—about hon. Members’ views on the Government’s decision to target winter fuel payments at those on the lowest incomes. I will not rehearse all the arguments for that policy, but our dire fiscal inheritance is no secret. We owe it to the country—to all generations, young and old—to put that right, and that has involved wider tough decisions on tax and spending. I say gently to Members who oppose not just the targeting of winter fuel payments, but every tax rise proposed, that that has consequences. If they oppose every tough choice, they propose leaving our public finances on an unsustainable footing, and leaving our public services in a state that far too often lets down those who rely on them, not least pensioners. Although we can no longer justify paying winter fuel payments to all pensioners, it is, as all Members have said, important that we do more to make sure pensioners receive the support they are entitled to. In recent months, we have run the biggest ever pension credit take-up campaign, because, although around 1.4 million pensioners currently receive pension credit, too many are missing out. I urge all pensioners to check whether they are entitled to support. The right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) mentioned the complexity of the pension credit form. I have considered that, and there is more that we can do to simplify it. All I would say is that in our messaging to pensioners, we should be clear that most of the questions do not need to be answered by the people filling in the form. Currently, 90% fill in the form online or over the phone, and the average time taken to fill it in online is 16 minutes.

• 12 Feb 2025 · Support for Pensioners · Hansard source

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  I want to make a bit progress, and then I will take some more interventions. I will be updating Members later this month on the impact of the campaign so far. The hon. Member for South West Devon asked about constituency-level data on winter fuel payments. We will be publishing that in the usual way in September. The hon. Member for Wokingham (Clive Jones) asked about the DWP and councils working closely together to drive pension credit uptake. He was completely right to do so. I will write to him on the specific point he raised, because it is not true, but on the generality, he is completely right that the onus is on the DWP to work with councils, and on councils to work with the DWP. Wider support is also available for pensioners: direct financial help through cold weather payments in England and Wales, and help with energy bills through the warm home discount, which we expect to benefit over 3 million households, including over 1 million pensioners, this winter. The right hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Steve Barclay) and several others raised the need for energy efficiency in homes. They were completely right to do so, but I note very gently that there was a 90% fall in energy efficiency installations in the early years of the previous Government. Someone wanted to “cut the green”—and that was the result. We are trying to do better than the previous Government did on that front. We are committed to maintaining the triple lock on the state pension throughout this Parliament. The hon. Member for South West Devon rightly noted that that was introduced under the previous Government.

• 12 Feb 2025 · Support for Pensioners · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Dame Siobhain. Supporting pensioners in the 2020s is about more than opposing every tough choice that the Government have to make. It means directly raising pensioner incomes via the state pension and pension credit, but it also requires us to reform our private pension system, grow our economy and rescue our public services—

• 12 Feb 2025 · Support for Pensioners · Hansard source

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  No. That is why this Government are investing £22 billion in the English NHS this year and next, with consequentials for the Welsh and Scottish Governments. The hon. Member for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East (Seamus Logan)—

• 12 Feb 2025 · Support for Pensioners · Hansard source

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  It is the average.

• 12 Feb 2025 · Support for Pensioners · Hansard source

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  We will be maintaining the triple lock throughout this Parliament, as promised in our manifesto. In April, the basic and new state pensions will increase by 4.1% and 12 million pensioners will see a concrete increase—whether Members believe it or not—of up to £470. Several Members mentioned the need for long-term planning. That commitment to the triple lock means that spending on the state pension is forecast to rise by over £31 billion this Parliament. At the individual level, that translates into the new state pension being on track to rise by up to £1,900 a year, and the basic state pension —the pension that is relevant to those who hit the state pension age before 2016—by £1,500. But the last 15 years tell us that we need to do more for pensioners.

• 12 Feb 2025 · Support for Pensioners · Hansard source

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  No. The hon. Member for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East rightly says that society will be judged on how it treats its pensioners, particularly with regard to the NHS, but in Scotland we have now seen five new NHS recovery plans announced in four years. That is not a tribute to our older generations. Supporting pensioners in the 2020s is about more than opposing every tough choice—

• 12 Feb 2025 · Support for Pensioners · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under you, Dame Siobhain, in a debate on such an important topic. We owe thanks to the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Blake Stephenson) for securing it, and I thank everybody who has contributed to it. Recent years have been difficult for pensioners. They, along with the rest of Britain, have had to wrestle with a cost of living crisis, inflation in double digits for the first time in four decades, food prices rising even faster, and energy bills that have shot up—as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) mentioned, before he mentioned that he is approaching a significant birthday. The debate is focused on whether it is 40 or 50, but we will celebrate whatever it is, as well as celebrating his form-filling success. Everyone who has spoken in the debate will have spoken to constituents about the challenges posed by the cost of living crisis. I have certainly spoken to some of the 17,000 pensioners in Swansea West. This is an important debate and, as well as responding to the points that Members have raised, I will cover: what lessons we can learn from the past, celebrating some things that have worked and recognising where they have not; what the Government are doing today to support pensioners, covering lots of the points raised by Members; and, briefly, our future priorities, as requested by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for South West Devon (Rebecca Smith). First, I will address the good news. In the 1990s, pensioner poverty was rampant. Almost 30% of UK pensioners were living in relative poverty. The old and the young—children—bore the brunt of the rise in poverty in the 1980s and early 1990s, but under the last Labour Government, not only did rates of pensioner poverty fall, but they had halved by the 2010 election. That did not happen by accident. Policy—including the introduction of pension credit, which we have discussed today—drove lots of that change, especially for women and older pensioners, and higher private pensions and employment rates further boosted pension incomes. But no one, of any party, thought that it was job done at that point, and I am sure that none of us thinks that today, not least because, in recent years, progress on pensioner poverty has stalled and relative pensioner poverty has risen by 300,000 since 2010. Even though today the UK has a lower rate of relative poverty among pensioners than the OECD average, the fact remains that, as Members have said, pensioner poverty is still too high. It is 16% in Wales, and it is especially high for renters. Almost 40% of all pensioners in poverty are renters, and with growing numbers of private renters, the challenge looks likely to grow, reinforcing the point that the hon. Members for South West Devon and for Mid Bedfordshire made about the need for long-term planning. There is another lesson from the last decade and a half: when growth stalls, the reductions in absolute pensioner poverty that we all used to take for granted slow or even grind to a halt, so growth matters for pensioners as it does for workers.

• 12 Feb 2025 · Support for Pensioners · Hansard source

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  That argument is made a lot. All I would say is that all of us should want all pensioners to receive the benefits they are entitled to and to drive pension credit take-up. We are confident that this policy will deliver significant savings, and the costings put into the Budget in the autumn take into account an increase in pension credit take-up. For most pensioners I speak to, concerns about the state of the health service are front of mind. The biggest betrayal of pensioners today is the state of our NHS—run down in England and undermined in Wales, with the capital budgets handed down by the UK Government to the Welsh Government not remotely sufficient to maintain the NHS estate or to invest in badly needed diagnostic equipment.

• 12 Feb 2025 · Support for Pensioners · Hansard source

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  The right hon. Member is absolutely right to raise the case of those who might need support to complete the form. That is why one of the elements of the campaign we have run this year is targeting not pensioners directly, but friends and family, to encourage them to help people to apply for pension credit themselves.

• 12 Feb 2025 · Support for Pensioners · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member raises an important point. Attendance allowance would entitle a pensioner to extra income to pay for extra costs, including heating if required, but it would also lead to a higher threshold for qualification for pension credit. However, he is right that we need to see people applying for those benefits. As I was saying, the last 15 years tell us that we need to do more for pensioners, and that returns on private pension savings matter too. We are undertaking a comprehensive pensions review to ensure that the pensions system is fit for the future, building on the success of auto-enrolment, which was introduced under the last Government and has seen over 11 million employees saving into a workplace pension. That is one of the big areas of progress in the pensions landscape in the last 25 years. The Government are committed to further reforming our pensions landscape, so that it drives up both economic growth and returns to savers, via the upcoming pension schemes Bill. We need bigger and better pension funds investing in productive assets such as infrastructure. We need to help individuals consolidate small pension pots and have sight of them via the pensions dashboard, so that they can plan for security in retirement. The measures in the Bill could help the average earner who saves over their lifetime have over £11,000 more in their pension pot when they come to retire.

• 3 Feb 2025 · Pensions Regulator: Economic Growth · Hansard source

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  The Government are looking across the piece at how the important work of our regulators supports economic growth, and the Pensions Regulator, which oversees the third largest pension system in the world, is no exception to that.

• 3 Feb 2025 · Pensions Regulator: Economic Growth · Hansard source

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  That is an important question. The Pensions Regulator does recognise its important role in supporting growth; indeed, it has statutory duties not just to protect savers but to minimise the impact on the growth of employers. Superfunds have an important role to play in ensuring that we have larger pension funds that are able to invest in a wider range of assets. As the hon. Gentleman says, on an interim basis the Pensions Regulator has authorised one such fund, but we will take measures in the pension schemes Bill to make further progress in this regard.

• 3 Feb 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment: Pensioner Poverty · Hansard source

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  The largest campaign to drive up pension credit take-up is now under way, and it will continue in the years ahead. What we are seeing at present is that anyone who made their claim for pension credit before 21 December will receive their winter fuel payment when that claim is processed.

• 3 Feb 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment: Pensioner Poverty · Hansard source

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  I will commit to fighting every day to avoid a repeat of the exercise under the last Government whereby pensioner poverty rose by 300,000, having fallen by 1 million under the last Labour Government. We will make sure that we publish details of the take-up of pension credit by the end of February.

• 3 Feb 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment: Pensioner Poverty · Hansard source

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  This Government have run the biggest ever take-up campaign on pension credit, which is worth around £400 on average to those eligible. [ Official Report , 10 February 2025; Vol. 762, c. 1WC.] (Correction) It also opens the door to extra support and means that 1.5 million pensioners will continue to receive the winter fuel payment. The modelled impact of the decision to target the winter fuel payment at those who need it most does not account for the measures that this Government are taking to raise pension credit take-up.

• 3 Feb 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment: Pensioner Poverty · Hansard source

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  This Government and the important charity that the hon. Gentleman mentions are here for the most vulnerable pensioners. That is why we are targeting the winter fuel payment at those who need it most, and why we will uprate all the state pension elements by over 4% this April. He raises the case of the national health service and how important it is to older generations, but it is his party that drove the NHS into the ground over the last 14 years.

• 3 Feb 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment: Pensioner Poverty · Hansard source

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  I encourage all pensioners to consider whether they are eligible for pension credit, but also to look for the wider support that can be provided via the household support fund and the warm homes discount. I say gently to the hon. Member that the driving up of council tax bills is a direct result of the destruction of local government finances by the Conservative party over 14 years.

• 3 Feb 2025 · Pension Credit Take-up · Hansard source

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  I am sure that all Members, on both sides of the House, are providing support to their constituents—pensioners, those of working age and children—to ensure they can cope following a difficult few years for everyone because of the cost of living crisis. On pensioner poverty specifically, it is important that we update our understanding of how that has developed. If we look at the record, we see that pensioner poverty halved under the previous Labour Government, but rose by 300,000 under the Tory Government over the past 14 years.

• 3 Feb 2025 · Pension Credit Take-up · Hansard source

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  It is important that 1.5 million pensioners will receive the winter fuel payments this winter. The statistics my hon. Friend refers to relate to previous years, before the recent take-up campaign. However, he is right to highlight that under the Conservative Government, three in 10 eligible pensioners were missing out.