David Crausby
Main Page: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)Department Debates - View all David Crausby's debates with the Department for Work and Pensions
(9 years, 9 months ago)
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Several hon. Members
Mr David Crausby (in the Chair)
Order. I intend to call the Front Benchers no later than 3.40 pm. That gives us 25 minutes. If Members can keep their remarks to about six minutes, I will be able to call everyone.
Mr David Crausby (in the Chair)
Order. We have only 16 minutes left before the Front-Bench speeches. Four hon. Members want to speak, which means four minutes apiece. Perhaps I could have co-operation on that.
Mr David Crausby (in the Chair)
Order. Hon. Members are now down to three minutes each.
Mr Raab
If someone is earning between £10,000 and £15,000 under this Government, they are paying 54% less tax than they were under the last Government. If someone is a millionaire—we get lots of jibes on the Government side of the House about that—they are paying 14% more. When do we ever hear that referred to?
A lot of people have talked about poverty. If we look at the inequality Gini coefficient, we see that on elderly poverty, fuel poverty, the number of people not in education, employment or training, and child poverty—on every single statistical benchmark—the level of poverty or inequality is lower now than what the last Government left behind. Where is a little bit of honesty about that?
When it comes to affordable homes, the average annual rate of the creation of affordable homes is 50% higher under this Government than the last Government. The hon. Lady might have mentioned that in her speech. What about inflation, which eats away at incomes?
Mr David Crausby (in the Chair)
Order. Mr Raab did give notice that he would be late. If I am going to call Mr Lavery as well, Members are going to have to give Mr Raab the opportunity to speak.
Mr Raab
Thank you, Mr Crausby, I appreciate that.
Inflation is the other key indicator. It was at 3.4% in May 2010, but it is now down to 0.5%. That is not unalloyed good news—it is tough for savers—but it is incredibly relevant to dealing with cost of living issues, which I believe the hon. Member for Wigan cares strongly about. There is still much to do, but if we care about things such as energy prices, we should not be backing reckless interventions in the energy market that will just create spikes in retail prices. We should be investing in nuclear and shale—but was it five or six nuclear plants that were closed down under the last Government? Labour is going slow on fracking as well. Again, if we are serious about long-term issues relating to poverty in this country, those are the things we should be dealing with. If we care about food prices, we should welcome the competitive supermarket price wars that we have been seeing recently. We should be concerned about the £400 that the common agricultural policy adds to the average annual family food bill, but when do we ever hear from Labour MPs about that? We should be looking for freer trade and reform of the EU.
In conclusion, I welcome the debate, but it is important to shed some light, not merely some heat, on this contentious issue, which afflicts the most vulnerable in our society. The hon. Lady can shake her head all she likes, but the fact is that on almost every official indicator and almost every policy lever, this Government have done better than the previous Government. Not only is the economy doing better, but life is fairer for most people in terms of the things that Government can reasonably control. Those are the facts, like them or not.
Mr David Crausby (in the Chair)
I did say that I would call the Front Benchers at 3.40 pm. It has now turned 3.40 pm, but I am going to give Ian Lavery one minute. If he goes past it, I will interrupt him.
Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)
Thank you for your extreme flexibility, Mr Crausby.
We live in a different world here in Westminster. People in the rest of the country live in a broken society. Children are suffering because of poverty. Disabled people are suffering because of poverty and the introduction of the bedroom tax. Mentally ill people are suffering greatly because of the situation in this country. Single parents are being singled out because of the situation that the Government have imposed on them. Old people are suffering because of poverty; many of them are huddling together because they cannot even afford to put money in the electricity meter or food on the table.
We live in a broken society. Poverty is preventable. Poverty is a political choice. It brings shame on the Government and on politicians to allow poverty to continue as we are experiencing it here in food bank Britain. People in work cannot afford to put food on the table—
Mr David Crausby (in the Chair)
Order. A Parliamentary Private Secretary should be seen and not heard, Mr Elphicke.
Helen Goodman
The response that we have had from Ministers and Tory Members today is precisely what the Archbishop of Canterbury describes in the book “On Rock or Sand?” as “wilful blindness”. If we are wilfully blind to the real problems in this country, we will not be able to deal with them. That is the major problem. The Government are responsible for a large number of the measures that have pushed the poorest further down.
What are we going to do instead? My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) pointed out that in-work poverty is now exploding as well. That point is also made in an excellent book by Julia Unwin, which I recommend to all hon. Members. In-work poverty is the new feature of poverty. It is caused by rising prices, a cost of living crisis and falling incomes. The Government will continue on that exploitative path, which will, in fact, increase the benefits bill by £9 billion, as my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) pointed out this morning. However, this morning the Secretary of State was bragging about something that Barnardo’s has complained to me about, namely the taking of £50 billion from the children of this country during this Parliament.
Hon. Members have asked, “What would Labour do?” I will tell them what Labour will do. The first thing that Labour will do is to abolish the bedroom tax.
Helen Goodman
Paid for by taxing the hedge funds, as was discussed during Prime Minister’s questions only this lunchtime, when the Prime Minister refused to do that. [Interruption.]
Helen Goodman
The bedroom tax bill of £3,800 over the next Parliament will be visited on the poorest people. Two thirds of those who pay the bedroom tax are disabled. If a Tory-led Government are re-elected, those people will face having to pay another £3,800. That is why the first thing that a Labour Government will do, if we are elected, is to abolish the bedroom tax.
We will also increase the minimum wage. We will tackle the zero-hours culture. We will tax bankers’ bonuses in order to get young people into work. We will sort out the energy market. We will do something about rents. We will take steps to improve child care, so that lone mums and other mums can get out to work and support their families. We will build more houses, which will help to bring down housing costs and provide more jobs. It is a comprehensive picture, and it is a real choice for the British people.
The Minister for Employment (Esther McVey)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Crausby. This is an incredibly important debate, and I thank the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) for securing it. I begin by putting what I have heard today in context. Every story that has been brought here is important, and it is important that we listen to them, but let us look at the independent figures on inequality, which show us what is happening. Income inequality is lower now than it was at the election. There are 600,000 fewer people in relative poverty than at the election. Why do I use relative poverty? There are various measures, but relative poverty is Labour’s preferred measure against which it set its targets. Labour said that it would halve relative poverty by 2010, but it missed that target. [Interruption.]
Mr David Crausby (in the Chair)
Order. Ms Nandy, you have had your opportunity to speak. Let us listen to others who want to speak.
Esther McVey
There are also 300,000 fewer children living in relative poverty.
Esther McVey
I will not give way for the moment.
It is also key to know that 1.75 million more people are in work. When my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) talked about what sorts of jobs those people are doing, he was right to say that, since the election, three quarters of them are full-time jobs. In fact, in the last year 80% are full-time jobs. What sorts of jobs are they? The vast majority, 75%, are skilled, managerial and professional. If we want to look at the figures from the other point of view, we could say that, at the election, 600,000 more people were in relative poverty and there were 670,000 more workless households. We could say that there were 300,000 more children and 200,000 more pensioners in relative poverty. We could also say that there were 50,000 more households in which no member had ever worked. That is what we were picking up. As my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) pointed out—I hope this is a point of consensus for all of us—there had been a financial crash and the GDP of the whole country had shrunk by 7%. The truth of the matter is that everybody had to bear the brunt of the crash that we had from the Labour party, but we have ensured—[Interruption.]
Esther McVey
We have ensured that the richest are paying the most. We are ensuring that the richest people are now paying more than they ever paid under Labour. The hon. Member for Wigan talked about working for Barnardo’s, and I congratulate her because I am a child of Barnardo’s. When we talk about poverty and how we take people out of poverty, the key building blocks have to be education and employment, and the Government are creating those key building blocks.
When we look at this, what have we done? We have brought record rates of women into work. We are increasing and supporting lone parents into work. We have put £2.5 billion into the troubled families initiative, and we have put the same amount into the pupil premium. We have ensured that 3 million people are out of tax altogether and that 26 million people have had their tax reduced. We have increased the minimum wage to £6.50 an hour, which is the first real increase since 2008—a 3% increase—and which benefits more than 1 million people. People in full-time work on the national minimum wage are getting an extra £355 a year. All those things are key, and we are doing them.
Esther McVey
I never recognise where the hon. Lady gets her figures. I have given the independent facts, which are correct. The only thing I will say is that here is a party that delivered the biggest financial crash in living memory. This is the party that said there would be 1 million more unemployed people now, but we are near to having 2 million more people in employment. [Interruption.] Labour Members would do better to listen for a change, rather than charging forward with things that really are not true. It is sometimes worth listening, rather than talking, especially when the Labour party delivered such a disaster for the UK, which we are all now having to cope and deal with. It is worth remembering that, because of our long-term economic plan, we are the fastest-growing developed nation. The UK has delivered more jobs than the rest of Europe added together. Those are the facts.
My hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton read out a list of facts about the constituency of the hon. Member for Wigan. He talked about the unemployment figures and the claimant count rising by 100% between 2005 and 2010, but let us look at what is happening in Wigan now: the employment rate is up by 7.9 percentage points; the claimant count is down by 49%; the long-term claimant count is down by 44%; the youth claimant count is down by 70%; and the long-term youth claimant count—[Interruption.]
Esther McVey
The long-term youth claimant count is down 80% on the year. In fact, youth unemployment across the country has had its biggest fall in living memory. More than 170,000 more young people now have jobs. Those are just the facts. In the north-west region, the number of workless households is down by 41,000 since 2010, which is a decrease of 1.7%.
Last week, the local paper in Wigan stated that the number of apprenticeship vacancies in Wigan has hit a record high. There has been a 72% increase in the number of apprenticeship vacancies in Wigan posted online, and the paper said:
“An upsurge in firms willing to take on apprentices has been credited with bringing about a dramatic fall in young people not in employment”.
Esther McVey
I think it is. Many people who have gone to hospital with malnutrition have actually put on weight, which is down to a poor diet. That is a much bigger debate for another time. What we can talk about is what is happening, how we are getting people into work and how worklessness is falling in the constituency of the hon. Member for Wigan. [Interruption.] Obviously she does not want to listen to these answers because they do not play to the things she was talking about. Equally, her local paper celebrated that Wigan has received the pupil premium award. A headmaster said:
“We couldn’t be more pleased to win the award”.
The award is key to helping young people to go forward.
I listened to the hon. Lady’s stories about sanctions, and I would like to know about the specific instances. I replied to a letter the other week—I hear that she has sent me another, to which I will be writing back in due course—but if she gave me the names of the people, rather than keeping them anonymous, I could find out what happened at the jobcentre. If someone wanted to go to a funeral, it would be good cause. Somebody with learning difficulties is a vulnerable person and has good cause. There is a booklet that the hon. Lady can download from the website that outlines the guidance, which is substantial. It is a heavy document that says how people will be given good cause. Equally, there have always been sanctions in the benefit system. This is nothing new—
Mr David Crausby (in the Chair)
Order. I am pleased to say that we will now move on to the next debate.