Dame Harriett Baldwin
MP for West Worcestershire · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I welcome the Chancellor to his new role. I paid close attention yesterday to the long speech he made to reset the narrative and drive growth Britain. In paying tribute to his predecessor, will he recognise that she left the highest tax burden on record? Instead of postponing the words he could utter to my hon.”
“I welcome the new Prime Minister to the Dispatch Box. I note that in his statement he referred to the biggest issues facing the country as being “the economy and the cost of living crisis”. Will he accept that one of the things that has damaged our economy and caused prices to be higher is the tax-and-spend Budget in November 2024?”
“Could the Leader of the House make a commitment that the new Chancellor of the Exchequer will come to the House on the first day we are back from recess?”
“With a stroke of his Whitehall pen, the Secretary of State has just abolished Malvern Hills district council, Worcester city council, wonderful Wychavon district council and Worcestershire county council. He said in his statement that this is about making “real improvements to people’s lives and…communities”.”
“In recent weeks in West Worcestershire, I have met local police and the police and crime commissioner; the police and crime commissioner is being abolished, and the police are being reorganised. I have met the local health commissioners; they are being reorganised, and Healthwatch is being abolished.”
“Will the Leader of the House confirm that, given that the other place is sitting next week, there is nothing to stop him tabling a business statement to enable this House to sit next week? Given the enormity of the events happening in the Government next week, does he not think that would be a good idea?”
The complete record
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“This is a missed opportunity for the Government to champion wider support for women with another step forward.”
“In fact, I have personally contacted every single one of the 92 hereditary peers and not had a single person object. If there are objections, they are well hidden in the other place. In fact, I have had the following supportive replies. Lord Hampton told me that he supports the principle behind my Bill. Earl Howe said, “I am very much in favour of the principle behind your Bill.” Lord Willoughby de Broke said, “I will certainly support it, if only because two of our best monarchs have been Queens and it’s absurd that girls are excluded by male primogeniture.” What are the Government’s objections and why are they not supportive of the Bill, because I fear that I will be talked out? Many members of the Government are supportive, and I am sorry that the collective decision of the Government is not a supportive one.”
“1919.] Lord Lucas said, “I share the vision that…women are equal with men in every respect…and I would very much like to see that applied to peerage inheritance.” —[Official Report, House of Lords, 9 February 2024; Vol. 835, c. 1920.] Lord Addington said, “However, if we are going to do this, we should follow the example of the Royal Family. The oldest child is the only way you can really make this equal going forward. It”— Lord Northbrook’s Bill— “could be interpreted as an attempt at a small step forward, but it is out of date and out of time.” —[Official Report, House of Lords, 9 February 2024; Vol. 835, c. 1921.] Baroness Noakes was supportive of the way forward being inheritance by the eldest child, and of course Baroness Chapman for the Opposition was supportive, too.”
“The Earl of Sandwich said, “The campaign for female succession must be encouraged, and has had approval, if not support, from within government at a high level. Harriett Baldwin’s Private Member’s Bill in another place attracted a lot of attention, while, as the noble Earl, Lord Russell, mentioned, Penny Mordaunt”— the Leader of the House— “referred to this as a ‘posh glass ceiling’. Even our own noble Lord, Lord True, seemed to be sympathetic, though could not actually support the Bill. Let us see if His Majesty’s Government can look more favourably on it this time.” Viscount Astor said that Lord Northbrook’s Bill “does not go far enough… it should be a Bill that brings the peerage into line with the Crown.” —[Official Report, House of Lords, 9 February 2024; Vol. 835, c.”
“Lord Northbrook said, “As I said in 2015, I understand that Section 14 of the Human Rights Act 1998 now makes it illegal to discriminate on the basis of sex where both sexes may perform the function required. This would apply to peerages. The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, mentioned to me at the time that if a legitimate female issue, where the peerage would otherwise become extinct, referred a case to the European Court of Human Rights, they could well have a chance of success. I would perfectly well understand if some heirs might wish to take this route.” —[ Official Report, House of Lords, 9 February 2024; Vol. 835, c. 1915.] Male primogeniture could therefore be illegal anyway in some cases, if tested by the courts. On Second Reading in the other place, the following supportive points were made about my Bill.”
“We should want every person born in this country to enjoy the same chance to make a difference, to thrive and to prosper. I personally will not give up until this posh glass ceiling is broken. Another concern that I heard raised was, “What about their lordships? What might they do if, Lord forbid, this Bill should reach the other place?” I want to put on record my gratitude to the Earl of Devon, no less, who has agreed to take the Bill through the other place. Fortunately, we have some recent comments from Hansard that reflect the mood in the other place, because on 9 February, Lord Northbrook secured a Second Reading of his Succession to Peerages and Baronetcies Bill, which takes a different approach; it would allow female succession only if no man was available—no comment needed.”
“Clause 1(2) would phase the provision in gradually and—again, listening to comments from people—when there is already an identified male heir in the line of succession, the change would take place at the next point of succession. That would gradually phase in the change, which is another concession I am making to get the Government’s support. Clause 2 makes it clear, again in response to objections, that the Bill is entirely about the titles and that any decision about wills, property or inheritance is completely distinct from the issue of the title. Clause 4, again addressing an objection, would exempt the peerages and titles that are still held by the Crown. I have, therefore, gone a long way in this new version of the Bill to address the concerns I have heard. As a Conservative, I stand for equality of opportunity.”
“On the register to stand as hereditary peers, there are 210 people who wish to put themselves forward should there be a by-election, and I understand that of those 210 people, only one is female. That demonstrates that it is already possible to be a female hereditary peer, but under the current system it does not happen as routinely as it does for men. Unlike my earlier Bill, the scope does not include baronetcies and other titles, in order to address the objection that the Bill has too wide a scope and would intrude into the private lives of those 1,500 to 1,800 families who would never be in our legislature. I have done that with some reluctance, but in order to get the Government to support my Bill.”
“If it is good enough for succession to the Crown, it should be good enough for everyone else. Hereditary peerages in the other place should go automatically to the eldest child, which at the moment very rarely happens. I have listened to many points of view on this topic since I first introduced the Bill, and I have reflected on those comments and changed it; it is not the same Bill that I presented last time. I hoped that by making these changes, I might persuade the Government to support it. Clause 1(1) provides that succession to hereditary peerages only does not depend on sex. I have deliberately narrowed the scope of the Bill to focus on peerages because of the constitutional implications, as they are eligible to be elected to our upper House.”
“Whatever our views of the other place or of hereditary peerages more generally—personally, I value the contribution that they make and the perspective they bring, but I understand that there are other points of view—I hope we can all agree that, in 2024, embedded sex discrimination is simply not acceptable. Women are being treated unfairly for no reason other than that they are women. That has terrible real-world consequences. In fact, 13% of the land in the UK is owned by women and 87% is owned by men. Boys are twice as likely as girls to inherit the family business. If we cannot change inequality at the top of our society, we will never be able to change inequality for the whole of our society. Put simply, daughters should be treated the same as sons across society.”
“The Succession to the Crown Act 2013 meant that the firstborn child of Prince George will be in line to succeed him. The Act ended male primogeniture for the Crown, but we left undone any wider reform to make male primogeniture in the United Kingdom a part of history. As a result, in this very Parliament, a quarter of the way through the 21st century, we still have a situation where an eighth of the seats in the other place are reserved for men only. I will repeat that because I find it so shocking: an eighth of the seats in the upper House of this Parliament are permanently reserved for men only, through the system of reserving 92 seats for hereditary peerages.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for his endorsement. I agree, as does almost everyone I have met, and I will go through some of that agreement in my remarks. As someone who has had the privilege to be both a Foreign Office Minister and the chair of the British Group Inter-Parliamentary Union, I found it hard to meet parliamentarians from other parts of the world and say that our unwritten constitution had created a great outcome for women in this Parliament, because we still have this anomaly of inbuilt sexism. For over 70 years, our country was graced by a female sovereign, who was the perfect embodiment of the benefits of female succession. That is probably one of the reasons why this place changed the succession to the Crown in 2013.”
“Such wonderfully encouraging words from my hon. Friend! I believe that by making the changes I have to the substance of the Bill, I have addressed any substantive concerns that the Government might have. I have heard the objection that it is just too complicated, too time-consuming—basically, a faff for which there is not enough parliamentary time. I have been told that it is not a doorstep issue or retail issue, and it is true that few people would ever raise it with me on the doorstep. I am sure that colleagues would say the same. However, it is important because when we mention what it is about, people immediately understand how pernicious it is if sexism is embedded in our legislature in this way.”
“Perhaps 2024 will be the year when these things are finally heard. I have heard concerns that the Bill could be used to abolish hereditary peerages altogether, with an amendment in the other place, but the primary advocate of that—Lord Grocott—has assured me that he will not use this Bill for that purpose. I will conclude my remarks by saying that my only interest in the issue is as a female parliamentarian—the 341st woman ever elected to this place in our nation’s history.”
“I am encouraged to hear a Government Parliamentary Private Secretary, no less, making supportive remarks in this debate, and I agree with my hon. Friend. I want to say for the record that I am not posh. This Bill does not affect me at all. I care passionately about equality, equality of opportunity, girls getting a great education, women succeeding in the workplace and in their lives, and achieving a 50:50 Parliament in my lifetime.”
“I will continue to make a little trouble on this subject until you let this Bill pass.” Alternatively, we could agree today to make this small and symbolic change for our country’s sake and for the sake of equality between future generations of men and women.”
“I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for finding someone who objects to the principle of the Bill. I have not yet had a reply to my inquiry of Lord Trefgarne, so I will certainly follow that up in due course. I want to end my remarks with an inspiring quotation that I heard this week, which sums up why am persisting with this issue. I was very inspired to hear these words by Nora Ephron, the great US screenwriter: “Whatever you choose, however many roads you travel, I hope that you choose not to be a lady. I hope you will find some way to break the rules and make a little trouble out there. And I also hope that you will choose to make some of that trouble on behalf of women.” So I say to my Government: “Come on.”
“I appreciate my hon. Friend’s supportive tone. I note for Hansard that he is the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Leader of the House of Lords.”
“On that subject, the best way to find out if there are any objections would be to give the Bill a Second Reading today, send it to the other end and find out what is in that can of worms. Then we can move forward on that basis.”
“If the Chancellor had an ambition to spend an additional £28 billion a year on something, will he explain to the House what level of tax that would impose on ordinary households?”
“I will not detain the House for long, because I have the feeling that not all my colleagues are here to listen to my remarks. However, I want to make a couple of points. First, having heard the Opposition complain about the measures in this Finance Bill, one would think that they did not like them, but they are not here this evening, they are not voting against Third Reading, and they have not tabled any solid proposals themselves. The only economic policy anyone has heard from the Opposition is the extra £28 billion that they want to impose in taxes on our businesses and our families.”
“Can I ask the Financial Secretary to convey the sense of urgency that I think we all feel about making these pro-growth, pro-investment changes? There is a wide range of measures in this Finance Bill that I welcome, and I look forward to the Budget on 6 March. I think we can pay tribute to all the hard work that the Financial Secretary, his team, and all the Treasury and HMRC officials have put into this excellent piece of legislation.”
“I worry about the fact that various thresholds have been frozen, and in particular, as the Minister knows, that the high-income child benefit charge is affecting more taxpayers up and down the land. I am worried about one of the 110 measures—one that is within HMRC’s bailiwick. It is the measure allowing people to put fractional shares into their individual savings accounts. That was a very welcome announcement in last year’s autumn statement. I tried to put down an amendment to the Bill about it, but it was found not to be orderly because that change has not been legislated for this time around. In fact, the word is that HMRC will not be able to put that in place until at least the next tax year.”
“I would agree with my hon. Friend. I point out that the 110 pro-growth, pro-supply side measures in this Finance Bill have not stoked inflation. Indeed, inflation has fallen from over 11% down to 4%, and according to the Bank of England’s forecast, it is on track to reach 2%, so one has to commend the measures taken in this Bill, and I look forward to voting for that progress shortly. I add my thanks to the officials from the Treasury and HMRC who have worked so hard on this legislation, only to hear that in a month’s time there will be another Budget and another Finance Bill. One has to recognise the hard work that has gone into this Bill, but I do worry that HMRC is being asked to do more and more.”
“Worcestershire County Council has some welcome plans to set up a new autism free school in Malvern. Recently, I visited Our Place—an independent provider—in West Worcestershire, which provides specialist education, mainly for children with autism. Is it the Secretary of State’s understanding that such independent provision would be affected by taxation should the Opposition bring in a tax on independent schools across this country?”
“T6. May I first associate myself with the Deputy Prime Minister’s words about the royal family?On 23 February, this House has the opportunity to correct the constitutional sexism that means that one eighth of the seats in the other place are reserved for men only. Will the Government support and work with me on my Hereditary Titles (Female Succession) Bill to ensure that the succession of peerages moves in line with that of the Crown?”
“I thank the Prime Minister for a clear statement. It is reported that the drones being used by the Houthis are being helped by Iran. The American Enterprise Institute has reported that Russia has given $900 million to Iran for drones. Will the Prime Minister assure the House that we are doing everything we can in this country to make sure that none of that money is going through the UK financial system?”
“On Friday 23 February my private Member’s Bill, the Hereditary Titles (Female Succession) Bill, is due to be debated, but sadly it is No. 5 on the Order Paper, and I fear that we may not have much time in which to debate it. I wonder whether the Leader of the House could allocate Government time for a debate on the constitutional sexism which means that an eighth of the seats in the other place are reserved for men. Through such a debate we might be able to seek Government support, and also demonstrate the strength of feeling on both sides of the House that this constitutional sexism needs to end.”
“I mean the kind of help that will make our constituents more financially resilient over a lifetime.”
“Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Bim Afolami), for taking things forward and for his support. I welcome the proposals published in December for closing what is called the advice gap and completing the first part of the advice guidance boundary review. This morning, I want to cover three things. Why is this review important for our constituents? How will these changes help them? And what more can we do to help them? I will start with why this is important for our constituents. Now more than ever our constituents need personalised help and advice about their financial situation, and when I say “help”, I do not mean just the billions of pounds of financial support that was given through the energy price guarantee, the money off electricity bills and so on.”
“I beg to move, That this House has considered the consumer market for financial advice and guidance. It is an absolute pleasure, Mrs Harris, that you are in the Chair for this debate on the consumer market for financial advice and guidance. I am very grateful for the opportunity to hold this debate, which follows up on a cross-party amendment I tabled to the Financial Services and Markets Bill a year ago. I am grateful for all the hard work done by officials from the Treasury and the Financial Conduct Authority over the past year under the leadership of the former Economic Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith), who championed this cause. I am also grateful to the current Economic Secretary, my hon.”
“The quality and cost of financial advice in this country mean that we have created a marketplace where only the richest 8% of the population choose to shop and benefit from the healthy financial choices that our excellent financial services firms can give.”
“However, to make it worth paying the up-front fee, you have to buy exceptionally expensive goods or sufficient quantities, and only 8% of our constituents would in fact choose to pay the fee; everyone else in the supermarket chooses to avoid it. They wander round the generic aisles of the supermarket. They may see some generic NHS advice about healthy eating or something on the supermarket website. They pay much higher prices for the same range of goods and often choose the unhealthy and expensive options. They even find scam and rogue options that scam them out of their shopping money altogether, because anyone can set out a stall in the supermarket I am describing. It is a slightly stretched analogy, but I know that you know what I am getting at, Mrs Harris.”
“They need an expert hand to help them to make good decisions and yet, despite our world-leading financial services sector, it is surprisingly difficult to get help. That is because of the advice/guidance legal definitions. Mrs Harris, I want to try out an analogy on you. Imagine a supermarket where, if you pay an up-front fee of several hundred or perhaps even several thousand pounds to join, you will, over your whole lifetime, be allowed to go into a section where you have a full choice of delicious, healthy food and other goods, offered at competitive prices. Someone will ensure that you are buying things appropriate for your age and dietary needs; they will suggest some terrific, easy-to-cook, healthy recipes and wonderful meal plans.”
“I want to limit my remarks today to consumers and their access to financial advice, but the Treasury Committee is doing an inquiry into access to finance for small and medium-sized businesses, and I encourage the hon. Gentleman to share with us any evidence he might have in that regard. Our constituents need more personalised help to make them more financially resilient over their lifetime. We want them to be more prosperous, better informed and more able to prepare for the inevitable highs and lows of financial life. With the success of auto-enrolment, we now have millions more people taking personal decisions about saving for their retirement, possibly across a multitude of different pension schemes over a full working life.”
“Let us also agree to do more for our constituents by making sure there ia much higher awareness of services such as Pension Wise and the financial advice money that people can take from their pension to pay for financial advice at key moments. I wish my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary well in implementing this important change. It will cost taxpayers nothing. It will harness the expertise of a range of excellent financial services firms and get much more personalised advice to our constituents when they take key financial decisions. I give power to the Minister’s elbow in bringing the changes forward.”
“Whatever we call it, such changes will help our constituents by giving them better and more personalised information to make their choices. Some consumer groups worry about allowing our financial services firms more leeway to help their customers. To go back to the supermarket analogy, there are some bad apples even in the premium aisles of the supermarket. Last year the Financial Services Compensation Scheme paid out millions to those who were badly advised, but doing nothing about the advice gap is also a choice. I believe consumers are being harmed much more in the generic aisles of the supermarket, where often there is no regulatory redress. The proposals are to be welcomed and should be brought in as quickly as possible.”
“The second proposal is targeted support. The new regulatory framework will enable firms to provide broader support without up-front charges based on the limited information that they have on their consumer, and enable firms to suggest products or courses of action. That will be a key proposal to close the advice gap. The third proposal is for simplified advice for consumers with smaller sums or simpler needs at a price that is commercially viable for both consumer and firm. With the development of technology, more powerful artificial intelligence tools and more data out there, innovators will find ways to give consumers more customised, less generic, financial advice—something like coaching or help—at a commercially viable price.”
“Even Martin Lewis, whom many people turn to for financial wisdom, has told me he feels he is held back from recommending certain sensible things because it might be considered financial advice. So I very much welcome the proposals that the Government and the FCA have published jointly to address the advice gap. I think they go in the right direction. There are three elements. Further clarifying the boundary between advice and guidance would give FCA-authorised firms greater certainty that they can give more support to consumers without providing a personal recommendation. It would help firms give consumers greater levels of support with more confidence to operate closer to the boundary. That is a necessary element, but on its own it might not surmount the cautious behaviour that we see from some compliance departments.”
“Now that we are under way with the Edinburgh reforms and there is scope for a more UK-centric regime, I have been raising the problem once again. In addition, Parliament has legislated for a consumer duty on financial services firms, which began to be implemented last July. We have a world-leading financial services sector with many excellent firms serving consumers well, but they are held back by regulations from offering their consumers any helpful advice from their own expertise. That could even contradict their consumer duty—if they can see their customers making poor decisions such as leaving long-term savings in taxable, low-interest accounts when they could perhaps be in an individual savings account or earning higher rates.”
“We have given people pension freedoms, which means some very big decisions can be taken at the age of 55 that will have long-term consequences for people’s financial health. As you can tell, Mrs Harris, I am not happy with this outcome for my constituents, and I am sure you are not happy with the outcome for yours. When I was Economic Secretary to the Treasury in 2015-16, I commissioned the financial advice market review, which tried to make financial advice and guidance work better for consumers. It came up with some good recommendations, including allowing consumers to redeem a small part of their pension pot against the cost of retirement advice in certain circumstances. However, at the time, it was constrained in what it could do by European regulations.”
“The website then said that, if I wanted advice, I needed to see a financial adviser, so I was back to square one. Those crypto pages are probably there prominently to warn people not to buy those products, but the prominence ends up looking like an endorsement. There used to be a network of bank branches in this country, where people could go to talk to a human being who might be a bit more helpful, albeit that they would focus on their own-brand products. However, there have been so many bank closures that most people would not know where to start to find anyone to speak to face to face about savings and investment choices. Yet, we have asked millions more people to invest in their own pensions through auto-enrolment and have left them with a default provider—the National Employment Savings Trust—which charges an up-front load of 1.8%.”
“Yesterday, I did some mystery shopping on the Money and Pensions Service website to see what advice my constituents would get if they had received a small lump sum—perhaps an inheritance, a redundancy payment or some tax-free cash they had taken from their pension. I followed a link on the website’s landing page to an article labelled, “Types of investments”, which I thought might be helpful. That page then asked, “Do you need help making smart investment choices?” which I thought was probably the right page. I was then directed to the Financial Conduct Authority’s InvestSmart website. On the landing page of that website, the first article is called, “Crypto: The basics”. That is on the FCA’s website. The third article on the landing page is called, “Investing in crypto”.”
“It can be useful and helpful but, more often than not, it leaves them with more questions than answers; it offers some very simple thoughts, which perhaps leaves people not knowing how the advice relates to their personal circumstances. Without urgent Government action to explore solutions for the unadvised, I fear that we are creating terrible long-term consequences for the nation’s savings health and for the prosperity of our constituents in retirement. At its best, that generic guidance and the personalised guidance available through the Money and Pensions Service and Pension Wise is a bit like the generic advice from the NHS to eat five pieces of fruit and vegetables a day: it is useful but it is not going to help anyone make an informed investment choice.”
“That is exactly right. I am using this analogy to make us realise what a scandal it would be if we had supermarkets like the ones I have just described, but that is sort of what we have in our financial services supermarket. It is a slightly stretched analogy, but the quality and cost of financial advice means that we have created a marketplace where only the richest 8% of the population shop and benefit from the healthy financial choices on the menu that our excellent financial advisers can give. The remaining 92% of our constituents end up unadvised. If they are lucky, they might find out that there is state-sponsored guidance such as Pension Wise and the Money and Pensions Service, perhaps through a newspaper article or a Google search. A small number do find that advice, but it is very generic.”
“I thank the Minister for summarising the three proposals again. Could he clarify which of them would need a vote in Parliament, and will he commit to bringing forward any necessary legislation with urgency?”
“I commend the flooding Minister for his energetic response to Storm Henk, and all those who have worked so hard during this terrible weather. In West Worcestershire I have worked with his predecessors and the Environment Agency over the years to deliver schemes in Upton-Upon-Severn, Kempsey, Uckinghall, Powick and Pershore. His predecessor was kind enough to allocate money from the frequently flooded communities fund to the project in Severn Stoke and Tenbury Wells. Will he work with me and the Environment Agency to ensure that those two important schemes are delivered during his tenure?”
“T7. Merry Christmas, Mr Speaker, to you, your team and the Treasury team. Between now and the next Treasury questions, millions of our constituents will be required to file a self-assessment tax return, yet this week we learned that His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has suddenly shut down its hotline for the majority of people and their advisers. Our most law-abiding citizens are trying to get their taxes right, so what advice can my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury give to them as to how they can contact HMRC?”
“I thank the Minister for recognising the hard work that local communities such as Hallow, Clifton upon Teme, Kempsey and Welland have done in my largely rural constituency to develop neighbourhood plans, the strengthening of which has been announced today. None the less, those communities are being let down by the fact that our council is run by the independents and Greens, who do not have a local plan in place. Can he tell us whether the additional protections from speculative development will be immediate or retrospective? When will they take effect?”
“Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. It may be helpful to the House if I draw its attention once again to paragraph 3.13 of the autumn statement document, which outlines exactly how that £1,000 tax cut is calculated.”