Lord Livermore (Lab)

My Lords, I am very grateful for the support from the noble Baronesses, Lady Kramer and Lady Neville-Rolfe, for the measures I outlined. The noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, asked some questions about the National Insurance Fund and the review. The noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, also touched on the Government Actuary’s Department report and the National Insurance Fund. The next quinquennial review of the fund will provide an update of these longer-term issues and projections over the period starting April 2025, so perhaps we will return to debate some of these issues at that point. The noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, also talked about reform of the welfare system. She will know that we are coming forward very shortly with a Green Paper to achieve exactly the things that she set out. I know we tend to be less political in this Room, but I will say that they were in power for 14 years and did not do those things. However, I hope that we will be doing those things very shortly to ensure that the welfare system incentivises work in the way the noble Baroness described. I am very grateful to both noble Baronesses for their support of the extension of the veterans’ relief, which I totally acknowledge the previous Government introduced. The relief is part of the Government’s commitment to make the UK the best place in the world to be a veteran. It is intended to further incentivise employers to take advantage of the wide range of skills and experience that ex-military personnel offer. I totally take the points that the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, made: you see homeless veterans across London and the transport network, and of course we need to do more work across government to support them in their efforts to get back into work and to eliminate that homelessness. Finally, I take the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, around CPI for child benefit. The noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, in the previous debate very eloquently made the point that some of those smaller upratings compound previous upratings when CPI has been so much higher. I echo the words she said. I hope I have covered the points made by both noble Baronesses.