My Lords, I support my noble friend in his Amendment 70A and I echo his words about easing the transition, but I speak mostly to my Amendment 77A in the group. It concerns income variability in the context of pay to stay, which is something I raised at Second Reading. I realise that it has already been mentioned in both the previous groups by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, and others, and also that the Minister indicated when she replied to the first group that the Government are looking at “an equitable conclusion” to the issue. Nevertheless, I would, as usual, like to put a rural slant to add to and help the much-needed thinking on this issue, and perhaps put some rural flesh on the bones of the problem.
It is very much a feature of rural life that many, both young and old, are self-employed. Indeed, I have always been proud of the fact that of those who are below the poverty line in rural areas, statistics show that 22% are self-employed, while of those below the poverty line in urban areas only 8% are self-employed. In other words—and this is what makes me proud—we in rural England, when in economic difficulties, have a greater tendency to get off our backsides and turn our hand to whatever comes along in order to resolve our problems. In Cornwall I believe the self-employed figure is as high as 28%, but that probably just exemplifies the nature of the local economy there—a high summer tourist trade and only odd jobs available during the winter months.
The point I am making is that these sorts of people can, in some years, be very successful. The whole family can all find themselves with work. Although there is probably only one member of the household with a regular job on a living wage, the others could all get lucky and push the total household income up well over the £30,000 figure stipulated in this section of the Bill, for a brief period of time. Therefore, it is really important that the Government are aware of these quirks of fortune in rural families and, for that matter, in many urban families too, especially those on zero-hour contracts, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, pointed out. The point being that after a good year of combined family incomes of sometimes well over £30,000, the same family might find themselves back down to £20,000 or less the following year.
Therefore, my amendment is designed to encourage the Government to think very hard about that sort of variability and put in place some sort of long-term averaging system—I stress long-term—to iron out the
highs and lows of rural and urban life. This whole scheme makes some limited sense in principle: those in assisted rental accommodation who greatly increase their income should perhaps move to pay a market rent. However, the scheme itself is so full of pitfalls, and what my children call heffalump traps, that it needs either withdrawing or serious wholesale amendment, perhaps after some of the preliminary pilots mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, and particularly across a whole range of areas, which should include a rural area.