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Earl Peel: My Lords, can the Minister give the House an estimate of the number of eligible claimants who are not claiming at the moment, probably because of the over-complication of the system?
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, I have here a long list in relation to the various benefits. For income support, the take-up is between 90 and 97 per cent; for the minimum income guarantee, it is between 73 to 75 per cent; and for pension credit, it is between 68 to 76 per cent These are all by expenditure. I can let the noble Earl have a full list. Clearly the issue of take-up is very important. There are many reasons why benefits are not all taken up. It is partly because for individual claimants the amount from some benefits would be very small indeed. I accept that complexity is one of the reasons. The department has a lot of programmes in place—advertising, the issuing of leaflets and the use CABx and other avenues—to encourage people to make claims. I certainly accept that making the benefits system easier to use and understand is one of the ways in which we need to go forward.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, does my noble friend not agree that means-tested benefits are complicated because they have to assess income and contributory benefits are complicated because they have to track national insurance records? Therefore, does he agree that the sensible way to simplify benefits for pensioners would be to go forward to a universal basic state pension—not based on income and not based on contributory records—thereby at last recognising the contribution that women make to our society?
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, that was an ingenious question. My noble friend knows that I am
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not in a position to respond to it. Very shortly, the Government will announce their deliberations in relation to the Turner pension commission, setting out the way forward. I will be happy to respond then. Clearly, as regards my noble friend's substantive point, there are intrinsic complexities of either a means-tested system or a universal system. We cannot run away from the fact that benefits systems are by their very nature complicated. We need to simplify them, but it will be a real challenge to do so.
Baroness O'Cathain: My Lords, surely the suggestion of the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, is valid. The problem is that people believe that the more complex the administration surrounding all these issues, the easier it will be for people to understand them, but the reverse is true. Can there be some completely new, clear thinking on this? There is a groundswell of opinion from people who want to make the pensions system much fairer. We should take this opportunity and start now, and not keep harking back to the complexity of old systems.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, there are some fundamental issues here. My noble friend Lady Hollis is suggesting that we move away from the contributory principle altogether for the basic state pension towards a universal pension system based on residence. That would be a fundamental change. It is one of the issues that the Government are considering. There are clearly issues that need to be teased out, but one has to be cautious about saying that the current edifice of benefits should simply be swept away so that we can start with a new system. These are complex areas; we are attempting to simplify them and are making some progress. But we cannot run away from the fact that, in terms of cost and administration, these are difficult matters.
Lord Addington: My Lords, how much thought has gone into simplification meeting the new one-stop shop interview process and into how these two are being brought together? If this interview process is to be carried out efficiently, and you are to understand the information that you are given, the two must be made to work together.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: I agree, my Lords. On the development of one-stop services, Jobcentre Plus has combined employment and benefits services, so we already have an advantage from an integration of services. We want to build on that with the development of telephony services and with the use of the internet and call centres, all of which will enable us to provide a better service to the client. Of course, it is much better if the benefits structure can also be simplified and integrated to run alongside that, but there are complications. Issues of contributory, universal and means-tested benefits all have to be taken into account. However, I am sure that the direction referred to by the noble Lord is the right direction in which to go.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I welcome the simplification unit that has been set up in the noble
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Lord's department. But does he recall a former Secretary of State saying that, with 29 different benefits and more than 270 different add-ons, today's welfare state has more sticking plasters than Boots the Chemist? It is small wonder that it takes 6,500-odd paragraphs to describe it. Can the noble Lord explain how the proposed new employment and support allowance, with at least three levels of payment, will simplify the system?
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, my understanding is that £119 billion is paid out overall in benefits and allowances in more than 30 different allowances and benefits to around 20 million customers. The operation is very big and very complicated. On the proposed employment and support allowance, we have published a Green Paper setting out our broad proposals and I hope that within the next few weeks we will be able to announce our conclusions in this area. We have signalled that we want to move to a simplified and integrated benefits structure for all working-age benefits; when we publish the results from the Green Paper, we will be saying more about that.
Schools: British Values
3.24 pm
Lord Wallace of Saltaire asked Her Majesty's Government:
What consultations they will undertake on the teaching of British values in English schools.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education and Skills (Lord Adonis): My Lords, citizenship education is already a statutory part of the curriculum and includes teaching about the values underpinning our democracy. The department has asked Keith Ajegbo, a leading head teacher, to review how more effective teaching of modern British history could underpin citizenship education. He will consult teachers, subject associations, community groups, young people and others. The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority will consult formally on any changes to the statutory citizenship curriculum, which will require parliamentary approval.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, will the Minister accept that there has been much discontent in some of the teaching advisory bodies about the quality of citizenship education so far? Will he also accept that this is an area in which cross-party and non-party consensus needs to be created when we are touching on something as sensitive as British values? Does he recall that, in 1989, the then Mrs Thatcher set up a national curriculum working party on the teaching of British history which failed partly because the terms of reference assumed that we all shared a particularly conservative view of British history?
Lord Adonis: My Lords, 1988-89 was a bit before my time, I fear, but we certainly agree on the need to build
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up consensus in support of any change and we will seek to do so. Citizenship education, as a subject, has been available in schools only for the past two years on a statutory basis, and significant progress has been made in equipping the teaching force to provide for that, including the training of a large number of additional teachers and the provision of a great deal of material for teachers to ensure that the quality of teaching in the subject improves.
Baroness Massey of Darwen: My Lords, is it not the case that citizenship and values should be taught across the curriculum and not just in a single subject such as history? What plans are afoot to improve the teaching skills of teachers to teach values across the curriculum?
Lord Adonis: My Lords, I entirely agree with my noble friend that citizenship should be taught across the curriculum—that is why it is taught as a separate subject from history. We are training a significant additional number of teachers who can teach citizenship both as a discrete subject and in conjunction with other subjects to meet the concerns that my noble friend has expressed.
Baroness Buscombe: My Lords, I am concerned that the Minister is referring to modern British history. Will he assure me that when we are talking about British values we are talking not just about ethnicity or modern British history but about all our history—our ancient and hard-fought-for freedoms and our culture and core values of things such as mutual respect and fairness, which bind us as a people?
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