Welfare Reform

Debate between Steve Webb and Charlie Elphicke

Tuesday 11th February 2014 Westminster Hall

[Charlie Elphicke]

indicated assent.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)]

indicated assent.

--- Later in debate ---

[Charlie Elphicke]

indicated assent.

[Steve Webb]

indicated assent.

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve Webb]

I will not, because it is the debate of my hon. Friend the Member for Dover. I want to respond to some of his specific ideas on workplace benefits. I agree with his goals. I absolutely agree that we need a system that is fair for women; that we need to think hard about anything in the system that makes an employer less likely to employ a woman of childbearing age; and that we clearly want the system to work for self-employed women. He has made some important points.

As the system currently works, however, 93% of the cost of statutory maternity pay is refunded to employers. In fact, more than 100% is refunded to small firms. Small firms that take on a woman who becomes pregnant and goes on maternity leave will get back all the maternity pay that they pay out, plus what is essentially a handling charge—another 3% on top. Even a large employer gets 92% or thereabouts of reimbursement.

If an employer is reluctant to take on a woman who might have a child, therefore, the pure finances should not make a huge difference. Clearly, there is a bureaucracy issue with the reclaiming and so on, and we are happy to look at whether that can be streamlined, but the basic principle is that the employers get the lion’s share of the money back. The thing that might put them off, as my hon. Friend said in his speech, is the thought, “Well, I employ this person. They might not be there in some months’ time. I might have to provide maternity cover, retraining and so on,” but however we reimburse maternity pay, that will still be a feature of the system.

I am not therefore sure that having a collectivised—I hesitate to use the word, but my hon. Friend knows what I mean—system of insurance is any different substantively for the employer. Either way, employers are getting reimbursed—the costs are being met and are not in essence falling on the employer.

My hon. Friend’s proposal is interesting and I am grateful to him for suggesting it, but one of my worries arises from something that I have learnt as a Minister. Whenever we set up a new scheme, we have new infrastructure, bureaucracy and sets of rules. If we had the levy—the at-work scheme that he described—we would have to define the new tax base, have a new levy collection mechanism, work out who was in and who was out, have appeals and all that kind of stuff. There is always a dead weight to such things. Simply setting up new infrastructure costs money. I would have to be convinced that we were getting something back for it.

In essence, my hon. Friend is proposing that, instead of the general taxpayer paying into the pot and employers handing out statutory maternity pay, which is reimbursed by the Government from the general taxpayer—the current system—we have a new levy on employers, although he recognises that he does not want a new jobs tax, so that it is offset by a reduction in something else that employers pay and the tax in that world is neutral overall. However, he then says that he wants the rate not to be some £130 a week, but to be £200 and something a week.

My hon. Friend was commendably brief, so I apologise if I misunderstood, but I was not clear where that extra money would come from. If we pay women on maternity leave double, someone must pay for it. If he does not want that to be an extra burden on firms, paying for it will simply be a tax increase. That might be the right thing to do—increasing taxes to pay for it—but it is an increase.

[Charlie Elphicke]

Part of the reason for raising the rate is to bring it into line with the self-employed position. Also, however, most work places have the extra maternity leave as well, yet a small number of less good employers do not top up the statutory amount. The idea is to raise the threshold, so that women on maternity leave are overall in a better position.

[Steve Webb]

I appreciate that my hon. Friend would like to make the scheme more generous, but my sense is that that is potentially quite a substantial cost. If we spend £2 billion already and he wants to double the rate, is that another £2 billion? I do not know. Without more detail, I could not say, but it might be a substantial cost that we have to think through.

On the important issue of self-employed women, the dilemma is that if they have chosen to be self-employed, they are paying class 2 national insurance of about £2.70 a week, while their employed sisters are paying national insurance of 12%, or whatever the rate is, as an employee, while their employer is paying another 13.8%. The best part of 25% of wages is raised in national insurance from the employed earner, while £2.70 something a week comes from the self-employed—or at class 4, depending on how much she is earning. The amount going into the system from the self-employed is vastly lower; the maternity provision for the self-employed, however, is only a bit lower for some women.

In that first six weeks, when we are on 90% of earnings, the employed earner could get more, but some self-employed women get more than their employed counterparts, because of the detail of the rules. There is an issue about some women who pay voluntary class 2 at two or three quid a week for a period of time, but then become entitled to maternity allowance running into thousands, having only put in £50 or £100 into the system. There is a worry that the system is possibly too lax in that area and we might need to think about it.

It is absolutely right that self-employed women get proper maternity provision, which is what the maternity allowance is for. Relative to what they put into the system, however, what they get out of it is a fantastic rate of return compared with an employed earner. An employed earner is putting far more in, while the employer is also putting in.

On the tax base for my hon. Friend’s idea, he proposes that all firms should contribute. Unless the self-employed are also going to contribute, they will either benefit without contributing, or we are talking about another levy on the self-employed as well. Having chosen to be self-employed, people often change, because of the lack of burdens, costs and levies of being an employed earner. We would have to think about whether we are distorting the choice between becoming an employed earner or a self-employed person if we made those changes.

I do not want to end on a discouraging note, because my hon. Friend has raised an important challenge. We do not want to be in a situation in which employers, through prejudice or for other reasons, are disinclined to employ women of childbearing age. That is clearly an important issue. We must ensure, however, that the social security system reflects the labour market as it is now and not as it was after the second world war. We need to reflect on the fact that there are growing numbers of, first, women working and, secondly, self-employed women. The Department is not currently doing work in this area, because we have our hands full with reform, but it is always good to look at such things.

[Charlie Elphicke]

Part of my thinking is that we are about to have a revolution with the whole concept of shared parental leave, so that issue of men versus women in the workplace will tend to blur. That might be a good time to look at reworking the system in this way, to encourage and help parents in the workplace.

[Steve Webb]

My hon. Friend is right, and the coalition can be proud of the shared parental leave approach and for rethinking the nature of what happens after a child is born and whether it is mum, dad or a combination of the two who take time off. My hon. Friend is also right to encourage us to think outside departmental silos: the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills does parental leave, but the Department for Work and Pensions does maternity pay, and so on. He makes a welcome link. I am not convinced that his scheme is necessarily affordable, because of the additional cost involved, but he makes an important link.

I have a final word of encouragement to employers, who may be listening to our proceedings. About 10 years ago, less than half of mothers who went on maternity leave came back and worked in the same job; that figure was about 40%, but it is now 80%. The norm now for an employer who takes on a woman who goes on maternity leave is that—four times out of five—she will come back to the job for which she was trained, in which she is experienced and to which she can contribute.

Likewise, we now find that three quarters of women return to work within 12 to 18 months of having their baby. There is a norm: if someone takes on a woman of childbearing age, the odds are that she will come back to the same job within 12 to 18 months. We need to educate employers about the fact that, if they do not employ women of childbearing age, they are depriving themselves of talented people who contribute to the work force. Not employing such women is clearly a bad thing, not only from a social point of view, but from an economic point of view.

I congratulate my hon. Friend on raising the issue and my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne, who serves on the Select Committee now and is thinking hard about such issues, on his contribution. We have done a huge amount of reform in this Parliament, and we want to see our reforms through and deliver them, because we want our legacy to be a system that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dover said, encourages independence, not dependence, that is fiscally responsible, but that works with the grain of people, so that those who want to work hard and get on are encouraged and enabled to do so, rather than being trapped on benefit, which was the risk of the system that we inherited.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Steve Webb and Charlie Elphicke

Monday 1st July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman to the extent that there is mistrust of private pensions, which is why we have taken strong action,: for example, we have banned consultancy charges, which were a source of concern. On savings incentives, if he looks at our analysis, he will find that low earners in particular will have much smaller withdrawal rates when they save. Therefore, the return on savings, particularly for low earners, about whom I am sure he is most concerned, will be enhanced by the proposals.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

Does the Minister anticipate making pensions the subject of a cap at any stage?

[Steve Webb]

I think my hon. Friend might be referring to the idea of a total welfare cap, and while the Chancellor of the Exchequer has explicitly ruled out the idea of capping state pensions, I understand there are others in this House who are prepared to cap state pensions.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Steve Webb and Charlie Elphicke

Monday 28th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

Obviously, the impact of housing benefit policy, which is a matter for the UK Parliament, will be different in different parts of the country. I have been to the Scottish Parliament and talked to the Deputy First Minister about welfare reform and we keep a dialogue open with our colleagues in Scotland.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

Is it not the case that in Scotland and England as a whole getting on for 2 million families are in overcrowded accommodation? Is it not important that we think about their needs?

[Steve Webb]

My hon. Friend is right to bring forward the voice of those in overcrowded accommodation, which is all too often not heard in this debate. At the same time as we are paying housing benefit for approaching a million spare bedrooms, a quarter of a million households in overcrowded accommodation would love the opportunity to live in a larger house.

State Pension Reform

Debate between Steve Webb and Charlie Elphicke

Monday 14th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I always listen intently to what the Minister says, but in a bid to make face-to-face contact with his hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Margot James), he is standing sideways. Facing the Chair is always to be preferred.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that pensions means-testing seriously undermined a culture of savings built up over many decades? Will he assure us that, following this reform, people will not be punished for making proper provision for their old age, as they were under the last Government?

[Steve Webb]

My hon. Friend is quite right. The nightmare scenario under automatic enrolment would be people opening their newspapers and reading, “Don’t bother to save small amounts of money; the Government will just claw it back.” We are confident that by sorting out the state pension we will not only deal with the position of people at the bottom of the pile, but will make auto-enrolment the success that we all want it to be.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Steve Webb and Charlie Elphicke

Monday 25th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

T9. Does the Minister agree that pensions tax and pensions means-testing help destroy our pensions system? What are the Government doing to ensure that it always pays to save for a pension?

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)]

My hon. Friend is right that at the moment there is a concern that if people save small amounts of money, all they do is deprive themselves of means-tested benefits. That is why our state pension reform is absolutely essential to ensure that when people do save they are better off as a result, and we look forward to that being a firm foundation for auto-enrolment when it starts later this year.