Women’s State Pension Age

Caroline Ansell Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

On the question of time, I have made the position extremely clear. On the question of the report having had to gestate for five years, there was a delay of around two years because of the judicial review that went on in the middle of that process, so to suggest that the Government have in any way been holding things up is not fair or accurate. Indeed, as I have said the ombudsman chief executive has highlighted the good level of co-operation that there has been with my Department.

[Caroline Ansell (Eastbourne) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for coming so swiftly to the House in the wake of the ombudsman’s important report, which, as other hon. Members have said, requires a response. I pay tribute to the 4,000 WASPI women in my constituency who have been affected by the change. Although I welcome the important pension reforms that outlined, of which we can be proud, it is worth remembering that 68% of women born in the 1950s have relied on the state pension, as opposed to 44% of their male counterparts, because of baked-in inequalities that they experienced in much younger years: they started work before equalities legislation; they were not able to join pension schemes back in the day; and they made very definite choices about their caring responsibilities. For all those reasons, I see real injustice in this case. When he talks us through how this will be dealt with in Parliament, I hope to hear that there will be a role for individual MPs who have worked closely with their WASPI women to make representations on their behalf.

[Mel Stride]

I can assure my hon. Friend that we will continue to engage closely with Parliament, as we have done to date and with the ombudsman. She quite reasonably raises gender pension gaps. This Government have brought in and encouraged automatic enrolment—we have consulted on further changes that we are considering —which has led to a narrowing of that gap as it relates to private pensions. There is always more to do, but we are definitely serious about making further progress.

State Pension Changes: Women

Caroline Ansell Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2024 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon]

I had not finished; I was giving way to the hon. Gentleman. I am almost there, by the way. I will keep to your timescale, Sir Gary, simply because everyone here deserves to give their input. I told you I would do that and I will do that.

Compensating those 3.8 million women is recognition of the place in history held by that wonderful post-war generation. I say that again because that is why I am here: to speak for those ladies who contact me in my office all the time. Those are the women who have collectively and individually played a pivotal role in shaping and inspiring change in society. We salute those women for what they have done over the years. They have contributed to the workforce and society throughout their lives, and they deserve to retire with dignity and financial security.

The WASPI women were the mothers, nurses, cleaners, dinner ladies, shop workers, teachers, carers, factory and farm workers—the list goes on. That is only a small group of who those people were. They were trailblazers for women in society and role models for subsequent generations of women, so when the time comes in the debate, let us do the right thing by them—it is imperative that we do.

[Caroline Ansell (Eastbourne) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is paying such a beautiful and wonderful tribute to that group of women that I feel I must rise to mention the more than 4,000 WASPI women in my constituency, the 700 who signed a petition in 2016 and waited all these years, and the two who are my sisters, who very much reflect everything he says. Time is toxic—they have waited so very long. Does he agree that we cannot wait any longer? Every year we are losing our WASPI women.

[Jim Shannon]

It is fitting that the last intervention on my contribution was from a hon. Lady who has staff who fall into that category, along with many in the Public Gallery today. For me, and for all of us here, it is a simple thing. Wrongs have to be righted—that is our job as MPs. There is pressure on all of us, on both sides of the Chamber, but there is more pressure on the Minister and the Government. They must deliver what is right. Let us stand by the WASPI women and make sure that they get what they should.

Oral Answers to Questions

Caroline Ansell Excerpts

Monday 6th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jane Stevenson (Wolverhampton North East) (Con)]

19. What steps she plans to take to support young people into work following the closure of the Kickstart scheme.

[Caroline Ansell (Eastbourne) (Con)]

21. What steps she plans to take to support young people into work following the closure of the Kickstart scheme.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mims Davies)]

Following the success of Kickstart, which has seen over 162,600 young people start their new roles, the DWP youth offer will continue to support our young people. I have observed at first hand how our new youth hubs and our extended Jobcentre Plus network have helped to move young people into those local opportunities more quickly. That includes recent visits to Eastbourne’s Hospitality Rocks and the Wolverhampton College’s electric vehicle and green technologies centre.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mims Davies]

I can reassure my hon. Friend on that. In Wolverhampton, our jobcentres host an employers’ zone, which allows local businesses with vacancies and key training providers to meet claimants and enable those swaps and job-matching sessions. In the new Wolverhampton youth hub located in The Way, the youth zone directly supports young people furthest away from the labour market to find training and employment and, currently, exciting opportunities in the summer’s Commonwealth games, too.

[Caroline Ansell]

I thank my hon. Friend for her visit to Eastbourne and the great energy and commitment she has shown to raising local aspiration. The kickstart scheme has been a huge success locally. Now hundreds of young people are in employment and building their careers—notably in Sussex NHS, where there are hundreds of new entrants. We are still working hard in hospitality and care, other sectors where there are opportunities as yet unfilled. What work is there coming down the line to connect young people with some of those opportunities, including in the digital and creative sector, where it is also important for us to build?

[Mims Davies]

My hon. Friend rightly highlights the success of the kickstart scheme. I know she has had personal involvement in supporting young people in her constituency. Building on that success is an important question. The Way to Work initiative is building on those key links with local employers, such as the Sussex NHS, that offer good-quality opportunities for young people. Meanwhile, our work coaches continue to support jobseekers of all ages in accessing those vacancies and opportunities that she mentions in all those in-demand sectors.

Oral Answers to Questions

Caroline Ansell Excerpts

Monday 7th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dr Coffey]

The sanction regime has not changed. In fact, sanctions have been at a record low over the past year. We are applying a sensible approach, recognising the number of vacancies, so that we can help people to get back into work as quickly as possible.

[Caroline Ansell (Eastbourne) (Con)]

T8. When the lovely Karen came in to celebrate her new job, I saw at first-hand the impact of work coaches like Victor and Harlon at Eastbourne’s Jobcentre Plus. The untold story is perhaps how brilliantly the same Jobcentre Plus can support employers. What work is the Minister and the Department doing to promote that aspect of their work, so we can double down on local unfilled vacancies?

[Mims Davies]

We have seen 130,000 people going into work through kickstart, working with employers. Way to Work is exactly the same, so we can showcase that local talent to local employers at JCPs.

Supporting Disadvantaged Families

Caroline Ansell Excerpts

Monday 9th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dr Coffey]

People can move to universal credit, apart from that small cohort of people who currently receive the severe disability premium, and they will be able to make that move from January. It is important that people check to see whether they will be better off, but we think that the vast majority of recipients will be better off on universal credit than they are on legacy benefits, and we will do what we can to help them in that journey.

[Caroline Ansell (Eastbourne) (Con)]

I sincerely thank my right hon. Friend and the Ministers who have worked intensively during this period to bring these measures to the House today. They are incredibly welcome and will make a real difference to children in Eastbourne and Willingdon. I recognise that they go further, wider and deeper than the motion I supported two weeks ago. I particularly welcome the extension of the holiday and food activities programme, not least because we have seen schools close this year, and the learning gap has widened. These measures will help with that and be impactful. The programme is new to Eastbourne. I have seen the success of pilot schemes in other areas, and it is something I hugely welcome. Will my right hon. Friend assure me that good practice in other areas will be shared with county councils that do not have experience of delivering these programmes, to ensure that every child benefits to the maximum?

Oral Answers to Questions

Caroline Ansell Excerpts

Monday 27th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

This is one of the key reasons why not only is 3% of the PIP caseload being overturned at appeal, but we are not getting the right decision at mandatory reconsideration stage. We have been doing a number of trials to improve that, including telephoning claimants to ensure that all the healthcare information that is required for a good assessment and a good decision is in place. There are other measures as well. I hope that this will improve the situation.

[Caroline Ansell (Eastbourne) (Con)]

Any delay in making the PIP award is stressful for the person in need of that support and creates inefficiencies in a very pressed system. A number of cases successful at first tier tribunal are challenged by the Department and then ultimately upheld. Can the Minister assure me that this number is monitored, statistically insignificant, and, in light of improvements in assessment, falling?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I can give my hon. Friend those assurances. In addition to the measure that I have mentioned, there are a number of other trials going on and a number of changes that our providers are making—for example, sitting down with someone and talking about the effects of their condition on their ability to live their lives prior to a medical history being gathered.

Employment and Support Allowance and Universal Credit

Caroline Ansell Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Ansell (Eastbourne) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Neil Gray) on securing this important debate, and I welcome its tone, not least because when this change was first proposed, there was such heat and rhetoric that I had to field very many calls from distressed constituents. One in particular stays with me to this day: a father concerned that he was about the lose the benefits associated with supporting his eight-year-old daughter. It is hugely important, therefore, when we speak about such changes, that we be mindful of the people who might be affected by it, so as not to cause undue distress.

This important debate is an opportunity for us to challenge the Government and raise concerns and for the Minister to offer reassurances, particularly on the position of existing claimants and those on reassessment and on the grace period extended to those who move into work. For them, it should not be game over; rather, their support should continue, or they might face too early a challenge. I hope to hear the Minister reassure people in receipt of that benefit.

I welcome the comments made by the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin) about abandoning the ideology that has sadly underpinned this debate. It is not driven by ideology. As we have heard today, there are many Members on both sides of the House who have compassion and want the best for everyone in our country, whatever their position, background or—crucially—disability. As a Member of Parliament with disabled family members, I can say there is nothing more important to me.

Moving into the world of work is a hugely positive step for people, and it brings with it identity, purpose and connection, but when only 1% of claimants are doing so, we must recognise that the system has failed. Whatever the cause, whether it be the assessment or the fact that people should actually be in the support group, one in 100 is simply not good enough.

We need always to remember the bigger aspiration when we are talking about benefits and work. I share the concerns over the changes to ESA. We have heard many speeches from hon. Members expressing those concerns eloquently and movingly, and I would endorse the proposals from my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy).

Work is a hugely positive thing, as has been recognised by Governments of all hues and colours, not least by the previous Labour Government in a DWP report that associated the renewal of work with positive mental health outcomes. I am a member of the all-party group on disability, which has an imminent report containing a host of recommendations not just about reforming support services to help people into work but about the need to reform our attitudes to disability in the workplace.

I welcome the Green Paper, especially for its engagement with disability charities. On the change to the WRAG, I have been contacted by many constituents who share the concerns expressed today, so I am looking forward to some reassurances, and, on the motion, I would support a pause in the implementation of these changes. Equally, however, I am pleased that the Government have already announced new schemes and initiatives, rather than waiting until 2017 to make those changes. I particularly welcome the abolition of the permitted work rules, which will allow ESA claimants to work more than 16 hours a week without the immediate cessation of ESA payments. What more perverse situation is there? The Government have recognised that and responded positively. Likewise, there is the additional funding for access to work, the work and health unit and the discretionary flexible support fund, which will help thousands more people with disabilities to move into work, or at least to begin that journey.

I also recognise, however, that there is far more to do than simply looking to central Government. The all-party group’s report makes several suggestions at a grass-roots level, such as ensuring that disabled entrepreneurs are integrated into local business networks, such as the Federation of Small Businesses and the chambers of commerce. We have an exceptionally active chamber in Eastbourne, and I look forward to discussing further with it what more can be done to enhance employment opportunities for people with disabilities in Eastbourne and Willingdon. Likewise, the BIG Futures event next year, aimed at school leavers, will for the first time have a strong Disability Confident element to it. That is change; that is progress, and I welcome that.

To close, all change is unsettling, but I am looking today for assurances, and I would encourage all those with strong views to contribute to the Green Paper, because we all want to see the right policies that support people with disabilities back into work and ensure that they can enjoy the same life opportunities.

Cross-departmental Strategy on Social Justice

Caroline Ansell Excerpts

Wednesday 14th September 2016 Westminster Hall

[Fiona Bruce]

We certainly need to look at a range of solutions for supporting such children more, and that could be one. My hon. Friend raises the concerning issue of young carers, who are certainly under-supported and under-resourced and whose number is underestimated, as I know from my own area.

I am patron of a young persons’ mental health charity, Visyon, which cannot cope with all the requests for help that it receives, including from children as young as four years old. I recently asked how many of those children have mental health issues because of relationship difficulties, and the answer was virtually all of them. Similarly, young people in step-families were reported by the longitudinal study that I referred to as being significantly more likely to be above the caseness threshold than those living with two parents. We are often reminded of the need for more and better mental health services, but the role of family breakdown in fuelling that need is almost never mentioned. Would it not be wonderful if we could start to look earlier in the chain of difficulties and challenges that such children experience at how we can prevent family breakdown from occurring, as it does in so many cases?

When the study that I referred to was publicised, digital media received the lion’s share of the blame for driving poor outcomes. I have no doubt that over-exposure to screens and the online world does children and adolescents no favours—I and many other Members spoke about that only yesterday during the debate on the Digital Economy Bill—but digital media are here to stay, and we must be ruthlessly honest that family background can make children more likely to get less help than they need to navigate the challenges of the digital world. That is why I said in that debate that

“whatever protections the Government devise, they cannot be comprehensive. Parents need to be given as much information and support as possible to enable them to engage with and protect their children from harmful behaviour online in what is a very challenging environment for many parents.”—[Official Report, 13 September 2016; Vol. 614, c. 841.]

That might not be the responsibility of the Ministers promoting that Bill, but I believe that it should be grasped by someone in government.

Families with two super-invested parents who have time and motivation to supervise their children’s internet use and coach them to be savvy digital natives are at a distinct advantage over others in helping to protect their children from self or other, abusive sexual experimentation. My main point is simply that when it comes to social harms, there is still a tendency to emphasise factors external to families and to look for solutions at a safe distance. However, the report of the Government-commissioned “Longitudinal Study of Young People in England” stated:

“Schools would seem ideally placed to cut through to all young people in year 10 and provide them with the support that they need around wellbeing”.

I accept that schools have an important role to play—many do so and support children with difficulties and disadvantages well—but the challenges are huge. We should surely also equip and educate parents so they can help their children. I commend Keith Simpson, headmaster of Middlewich High School in my constituency. When he seeks to support children with challenges in his school, he seeks to work with their parents, too.

The Institute for Public Policy Research, in its report “A long division”, found that no less than 80% of the factors influencing pupil achievement come from outside school, and family influence is particularly strong. Equipping and educating parents must include helping them when their own relationships are under strain and being honest about the effects that a culture of family breakdown has on the next generation.

The Government has a self-interested responsibility in this area, given that young people with poor mental health and wellbeing often grow up into adults who struggle, with implications for employers, national productivity and health services. University College London’s research department of epidemiology and public health has shown that 60-year-olds still suffer the long-term effects of childhood stress linked to the trauma of family breakdown. As someone who has been involved in a law firm that has undertaken family work for three decades, I can confirm that the bereavement and grief that young people feel from missing relationships can be profound and last a long time.

Members will be pleased to hear that that brings me back to the title of the debate, “A cross-departmental approach on social justice”, which has clear implications for the Prime Minister’s broader social reform goal. I have touched on just some of the social problems that restrict a child’s life chances and make life in Britain much less fulfilling and prosperous for so many than we in this place want it to be. If we are to cut through and make a lasting difference to those problems, a much more concerted and co-ordinated effort has to be made from the very top of the Government to address family breakdown than has been made to date.

[Caroline Ansell (Eastbourne) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for securing this important debate. Children’s experience of school demonstrates perfectly how their experiences transcend departmental lines. You—she, rather—will not be surprised that when I spoke to colleagues in my constituency who work in the education sector, their primary concern was not curriculum reform, exam success, assessment or even funding, but children’s mental health. That has an impact not only on health policy but on children’s education—and their life chances, for which the Department for Work and Pensions is responsible.

[Nadine Dorries (in the Chair)]

Ms Ansell, I am more concerned about the length of your intervention than your use of the word “you”.

Assessment of Government Policies (Impact on Families) Bill

Caroline Ansell Excerpts

Friday 4th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Ansell (Eastbourne) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

“Whether it’s tackling crime and anti-social behaviour or debt and drug addiction; whether it’s dealing with welfare dependency or improving education outcomes—whatever the social issue we want to grasp—the answer should always begin with family.”

So said the Prime Minister, and so it is.

As I am following my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (William Wragg), a former history teacher, I feel that it is incumbent on me, as a former French teacher, to look to Paris, where climate change is being debated. The world needs to recognise that some very necessary changes must be made to safeguard our greatest natural asset for generations to come. I put it to the House that the family is the social fabric of our world and that we, likewise, need to safeguard that social fabric for the next generation and the next.

Why is the family so seminal? It is in the family that we find identity, wellbeing and esteem. It is in the family that we learn right and wrong.

[Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con)]

Hear, hear!

[Caroline Ansell]

Thank you kindly. It is in the family where we thrive. The family are the best carers, the best nurturers and the best teachers.

I am so proud of my country. We lead the world in so many ways, but one of the ways in which we lead it is a cause of deep disappointment and huge concern to me: internationally, we are fourth in terms of family breakdown. Let us look at the cost of that breakdown to the person and the child who has experienced it. According to the Centre for Social Justice, they are more likely to grow up in poorer housing, leave home at an earlier age, have more behavioural issues, report more depressive symptoms, become sexually active earlier, become pregnant and a parent earlier, leave school with fewer qualifications, and leave school earlier. A conservative estimate of the financial cost—£46 billion, which equates to the entire spend of the Scottish Government—shows us that family breakdown costs and costs. That is why it is so right that family policy has its place.

Under the Prime Minister’s leadership, we have seen excellent innovation, with new support for relationships, re-recognition of marriage in the income tax system, shared parental leave, the troubled families initiative, and now a new, ambitious programme around house building—excellent. A particularly important moment in the development of the Government’s family policy came in August 2014, when the Prime Minister addressed the relationship summit and announced the introduction of the family test. He said:

“The reality is that in the past the family just hasn’t been central to the way government thinks. So you get a whole load of policy decisions which take no account of the family and sometimes make these things worse. Whether it’s the benefits system incentivising couples to live apart or penalising those who go out to work—or whether it’s excessive bureaucracy preventing loving couples from adopting children with no family at all.

We can’t go on having government taking decisions like this which ignore the impact on the family.

I said previously that I wanted to introduce a family test into government. Now that test is being formalised as part of the impact assessment for all domestic policies. Put simply that means every single domestic policy that government comes up with will be examined for its impact on the family.”

The Prime Minister’s speech was followed in October that year by the inauguration of the family test guidance produced by the Department for Work and Pensions under the sterling leadership of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith). The family test guidance has now been in place for over a year. It is a milestone, an anniversary—perhaps not a coming of age, but a good point at which we could look at this prism of the family test and its impact on policy.

In that light, a whole host of questions have been put to Departments. They ask the Minister how many of his or her Department’s policies have been assessed against the family test and what steps have been taken to publish the outcome of such an assessment. I regret to say that the answers to those questions have been rather limited. In many instances, the response was that the guidance urges only a consideration of publication, and therefore no publication had followed. There have been good examples of the assessment in relation to the Childcare Bill and the Education and Adoption Bill. However, the potential within the family test is as yet unrealised.

Therefore, my Bill looks to give the family test more authority, more influence, and more reach. Clause 1 defines the family test. Clause 2 introduces the central component of the Bill by making it a statutory obligation. Clause 3 applies the test to all Departments. Of particular importance given the perhaps as yet limited understanding of how the test has had an impact, clause 2 requires that the assessment be published.

Clause 4 requires that an assessment be made as to whether the family test should be applied to local government, given that so many of those policy decisions touch on family life. It also makes provision for the Secretary of State, through regulation, to subject any other public body to the family test as they see fit. Clause 5 provides greater clarity on the policy objectives that inform the family test, requiring the establishment of indicators for the Government’s work in promoting strong and stable families.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Nobody supports the family more than me, and my hon. Friend is arguing her case well. How does she avoid this becoming an apple-pie and motherhood Bill? How does she avoid adding more and more regulatory burdens on the Government, as on a Christmas tree? If the Government have any sense at all, surely they will instinctively produce Bills, regulations or whatever, to support the family and the nation. That is good sense and good governance.

[Caroline Ansell]

I thank my hon. Friend for that fair comment. We do not want to increase regulatory compliance or render this Bill another checklist for Governments and policy makers to establish. The environmental impact assessment might have started out life in the same guise, but it is now inherent to our thinking and therefore second nature to policy makers. I believe it is important to bring this issue to the fore, so that it informs policy makers and is deliberately made explicit in that process. History shows that Bills can have unintended consequences that impact on family stability, so this provision is important.

This is not a pass and fail test; it is more the opportunity to understand what the impact of a policy on families could be. It is a prompt to mitigate potentially negative effects and maximise positive effects, and we want it to be used in a genuine, meaningful and practical way to benefit families. It is not a blunt instrument to criticise policy.

I hope that the Government will welcome this Bill and look on it as a recognition of the work that they have instituted, and as a means to progress that and raise it to a new level. I thank all community groups and organisations that backed the Bill. The list is too stellar and too long for me to do justice to it in the time available, but I thank them for their contributions, and more broadly for everything that they do across their communities and in our country to promote family stability, with everything that means for people’s life chances. That is central to everything that family stability means.

I know that we cannot legislate strong families into being, but we can ensure that legislation in no way undermines those families, and only strengthens them. I believe that the future of our society rests on that.