State Pension Age: Women
Helen Goodman Excerpts(6 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Guy Opperman
The hon. Gentleman will be aware that, without a shadow of a doubt, life expectancy has increased in all parts of the country and in all socioeconomic groups over the past 30 years. I refer him to the Cridland report, which accepts the situation that has existed for the past 30 years, and the change that has been made.
Developments in policy have included the Pensions Act 1995, as well as the Pensions Act 2007, passed when the Labour party was in power. It is a shame that the Labour party is now scrapping the fiscal prudence that it seemed to demonstrate with the 2007 Act by now revoking its desire to increase the pension age beyond 66. Under the coalition, action was taken in the Pensions Act 2011 to increase the pension age as a result of enhanced life expectancy.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
I despair, because having stood at this Dispatch Box, led for the Opposition in Westminster Hall debates and worked on the Pension Schemes Bill, with the matter before us taking centre stage, I have spoken about this issue, like a lot of other Members, many times. However, it is not the Scottish National party that I blame for that, nor is it members of the Labour party, and it is definitely not the ’50s-born women who have been energetic, consistent and strong in pushing this issue.
The Conservative party is the reason we are debating this topic yet again, but we know that many Conservative MPs pledged their support for these women by making speeches, by taking up photo opportunities, and by becoming members of the all-party group. A few months ago, I stood here and highlighted the fact that there were no fewer than 37 of them. Among them are the hon. Members for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill), for Eastleigh (Mims Davies), for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan), for Salisbury (John Glen), for North Devon (Peter Heaton-Jones), for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng), for North Cornwall (Scott Mann), for Colchester (Will Quince) and for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan)—that is just nine of them.
This weak Government continue to stick their head in the sand and hope that the issue will go away. I do not know how many more times I or anyone else has to say this to the Minister: the issue is not going away.
I am frustrated and impatient that we are yet again debating this topic when the Government could do something to fix the problem right now. I do not understand the politics of why the Government refuse to address it. They angered the older generation during the general election, and look what happened: their huge predicted majority failed to materialise, and now they are hanging on by the skin of their teeth.
Helen Goodman
My hon. Friend is making a very good case. As a 1950s woman, I am extremely sympathetic to the 4,000 WASPI women in my constituency. Does my hon. Friend agree that what the Government have failed to understand is that some of these women have been working since they were 15?
Alex Cunningham
That is most certainly the case, and the Government need to understand that. My wife herself has been working since that young age.
For some reason, the Government persist in pushing huge numbers of ’50s-born women into financial difficulty and distress. It is time for the Government to put their pride aside and do what is right.
Universal Credit Roll-out
Helen Goodman Excerpts(6 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Michael Tomlinson
The hon. Lady intervened on me during our last debate on this subject. It is always a pleasure to lock horns with her in a constructive fashion. The last time she challenged me, she said, “How about those young people in poverty?” I did not have the figures on poverty to hand at the time but, if the hon. Lady looks at them, she will see that there are 600,000 fewer people—I will check that figure—in absolute poverty this year. Under the old system, for the constituent I mentioned, it did not pay for him to go to work. Under universal credit, the principle should be that work always pays.
Michael Tomlinson
In one moment.
We remember the fiasco of tax credits, with £7.3 billion of overpayments, and we remember the misery that was caused. The hon. Member for Hove referred to the speed with which universal credit has been rolled out. Actually, the lesson to be learned is not to roll out a scheme in a big-bang fashion, as happened with tax credits, when £2.7 billion then had to be clawed back from the poorest and most vulnerable in society. I was a new Member of Parliament in 2015, when people were still feeling the repercussions of that old system.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
I am pleased to take part in this debate because in my constituency, 10,700 households will be moved on to universal credit. That is 21,000 people, which is almost a quarter of my constituents. On 13 December, those with new claims and changes of circumstance will be moved across to universal credit, and over Christmas many people will face a six-week gap in their income. That is not so much a merry Christmas as a Victorian Christmas that even Scrooge did not think of.
Ministers have banged on about advance payments, but let us look at what that means in practice. Suppose that a single disabled person with a payment of £400 a month takes an advance of £200 to pay their rent. If all goes according to plan they will then have their payments abated, so that their income over the next four and a half months will be £200, £320, £320 and £360. In other words, instead of an income of £1,800 over that period, it will be £1,200. That is not a “wait”; it is a cut, and many will feel that over Christmas it is the cruellest cut.
Seven years ago in my constituency there were no food banks, but after seven years of Tory Government we now have seven food banks. Labour Members have spoken previously about the need to address free school meals, and in my opinion every child in a UC family should receive them. Now, however, to add to the loss of income, during that six-week period children will not receive free school meals either. Ministers talk about preparing people for work, but this is an in-work benefit. In my constituency, 4,500 of the households that are being moved on to universal credit—that is 40%—contain people who are already in work and have jobs.
Vicky Ford
My understanding is that if a child received free school meals before, they will continue to receive them. It is only for those who are new to the benefit system that there may be a delay.
Helen Goodman
I am sorry to inform the hon. Lady that that is not the case for new claimants and those whose circumstances have changed.
I am alarmed at what is happening to women in low-paid work. Many are trying, with great difficulty, to do their best to balance their need to earn an income with their responsibilities for collecting their children from school and looking after them properly. They might work 20 hours a week to get the right balance, but the Government are now going to employ advisers to harass them to increase their hours. When Labour was in power, we had different rules for single parents from those for other families. It seems to me that the Government are trying not to help lone parents, but to grind them down and grind down their children as well.
Vicky Ford
I remember under the Labour Government that single mothers came to me who were unable to continue work because they were better off on benefits. Does the hon. Lady agree that the system of universal credit is to help people move into work, rather than be better off on benefits?
Helen Goodman
I am sorry but the hon. Lady is wrong. I took through the statutory instruments on work conditionality myself, and when we left government, people were always £40 a week better off in work than not in work. Those are the facts.
Women fleeing domestic violence are in an even worse situation. When they arrive at the refuge, they have to register their change of address as a change of circumstance, so they will be in the vanguard of those who have a six-week gap in their income. It may even mean that some do not flee violent partners because they are worried about the effect.
In Bishop Auckland, huge preparations are being made for the roll-out of universal credit. The council and housing associations are employing more people—unlike, I am sorry to say, the jobcentres, which should be employing more people. One housing association is increasing its provisions for bad debt fourfold. Money that would have gone to building new homes is now going to deal with this Government-induced crisis in the housing system.
Three months ago I asked to attend one of the digital courses to see how people are supported by jobcentres. That is a major issue in my constituency because we have very bad broadband in the rural areas, and high levels of digital exclusion. Ministers must bear in mind that 5 million people in this country have never sent an email, and those are predominantly people on low incomes—the very people affected by this change to universal credit. We raised that point with Ministers five years ago, and it still has not been sorted out. Some single men who have already made a claim told me that people are timed out after 45 minutes if they cannot complete the claim, but it is difficult to complete in that time because there is no written guidance to tell people what documents they have to produce and scan in.
I am not saying that the problems with this system are only administrative because there are fundamental problems with universal credit, the first of which being that George Osborne took £3.5 billion out of the system. The Government refuse to recognise that people need these payments, and because of that refusal, rates are too low, payment gaps too long, and tapers too high. Let us pause and fix the system.
Several hon. Members rose—
Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)
I am pleased to contribute to this debate—I have been looking at proto-plans for universal credit that go back about five years, and it is a pleasure to work with the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field), who is also a friend, on the Work and Pensions Committee.
Let us go back to where this all began and the reason why, in principle, we have cross-party agreement on universal credit. The previous system was not good enough. It was set up with good intentions, and it was a way of trying to take people out of poverty by giving them handouts. However, the way it was set up meant that many people were discouraged from taking on more work, which inhibited their ability to move on in life, improve their situations, and support their family. Universal credit was born out of that realisation, and from a desire to build a welfare system that would slowly remove benefits as people moved into work, and actively encourage people to take more hours and be better off.
We also want to create a system in which the world of life out of work mirrors the world of life in work. That means that people are in work to find work, and there is an expectation that they will look for work and sign a contract to that effect—the claimant commitment. It means that benefits will be paid on a monthly basis, so that when people move into work and monthly employment, they will be ready for that. I am afraid I cannot accept the argument that some people will never be able to cope on monthly payments. I feel that is extremely insulting to many people.
Alex Burghart
I disagree with the hon. Lady. It is.
We now have a system coming into being—
Alex Burghart
The hon. Lady can shake her head, but it is true. It is insulting to people to say that they will never be able to cope on monthly payments. I challenge her to have that conversation with the many people who are looking for work, because they would be insulted by it. [Interruption.] It is unfortunate that she laughs at that because it is true. [Interruption.] Look, this is a very insulting way of carrying on.
Helen Goodman
Anybody can manage on a monthly payment of £2,000, but managing on a monthly payment of £500 is rather more difficult.
Alex Burghart
The hon. Lady will recognise that there are lots of people who do manage to do that. [Interruption.] I have had enough of this Opposition.
I am delighted to say that under the universal credit system there is personal budgeting support. No one on the Opposition Benches has referred to it, but it offers money advice to help people with a four-week payment and offers alternative payment arrangements so they can have their money paid direct to their landlord. I am very sorry to hear that the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) found that that was not working well in her jobcentre. I have spoken to people in my jobcentre and I was pleased to see that they were completely on top of how the system worked.
Within universal credit, of course, there are a lot of problems, which have been talked about today and on other days, emanating from the long wait people experience when coming into the system. At the start of the process, far too many people have been waiting for far too long. The Select Committee report has drawn on that. Since the first roll-out phase, however, a number of improvements have been made thanks to the test and learn system. The landlord portal was very favourably received by people who gave evidence to the Committee, saying it would greatly help. We have also recently seen the initial evidence interview, the once and done process, which means that more information can be brought into the system straight away. These measures are all making improvements. I say to Opposition Members that we cannot learn unless we test.
Oral Answers to Questions
Helen Goodman Excerpts(6 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Gauke
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Universal credit is helping people to get into work and to progress in work. It is also clear that people on universal credit are spending more time looking for work than those on legacy benefits. It is really important that we all work to ensure the success of universal credit. We believe it will result in 250,000 more jobs—something worth achieving.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
What the Secretary of State has repeated again this afternoon falls into the trap of treating everyone on universal credit as if they were out of work. Surely one big issue is the problem of applying conditionality to people who already have jobs?
Mr Gauke
The point about universal credit is that it operates when people are out of work and when they are in work. What we will not get is what happens with the legacy system: people worrying about working extra hours in case they find that their claim is closed. That holds people back from progressing. I believe that in-work conditionality has a role to play within our system to ensure that people progress. There is an issue in terms of people who are in work but are none the less receiving substantial support from the taxpayer. We want them to be able to progress to be less dependent on the state. That is what universal credit will deliver.
Universal Credit Roll-out
Helen Goodman Excerpts(6 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Michael Tomlinson
I, too, enjoyed working with the hon. Lady in a cross-party spirit on the European Scrutiny Committee in the last Parliament, and I look forward to doing so again. I have been told—I hope the Minister is able to confirm this—that 250,000 additional people will be helped into work as a result of this policy.
Michael Tomlinson
No, I will not.
The Government’s response should be to ensure that universal credit succeeds and has the transformative potential to get people into work and to ensure that they stay in work. The Government should continue to test, to learn and to rectify during the gradual roll-out.
Jeremy Quin (Horsham) (Con)
I am grateful to have caught your eye, Mr Speaker; I am conscious that I spoke in the recent debate on the Government’s response to Supply day debates and in the debate last week on universal credit. I recognise that in this place repetition is not frowned on, and that hesitation and deviation are positively encouraged in some quarters, but I shall do my utmost not to try the House’s patience.
With the greatest of respect to the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), I question the wording of the motion, which asks us to debate the Government’s response to
“the decision of the House”
on universal credit. The House knows what the hon. Lady means—I know what she means—and I am not interested in silly semantic arguments, but this does get to the core of the matter. The Commons expressed a view, as you wisely said in response to the points of order after last week’s debate, Mr Speaker. It gave its advice to the Government on the roll-out of universal credit. However, the House cannot, on the basis of an Opposition day non-legislative motion for debate, take a decision on a matter of Government policy.
As we discussed at length in the previous debate under Standing Order No. 24, and as I believe was agreed among Government and Opposition Members, declamatory resolutions proposed for Opposition day debates are not and cannot be binding on the Government. That constitutional convention was entrenched by the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, the principle of which was supported in the Labour and Liberal Democrat manifestos in 2010. When that Act was last debated, three years ago yesterday, the Opposition spokesman at the time, the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), spoke in its favour and said that the Labour party continued to support it.
There is no constitutional requirement for the Government to respond to resolutions of the nature we are discussing if that is what the Opposition choose to table for Supply day debates. If the Government choose to respond, they have to determine when and exactly how, particularly if there are fiscal consequences to any actions they determine. Part of the role of the House is to hold the Government to account, so I do not think that last week’s debate was in any way fruitless or a waste of time. In the immediate term, the Government were held to account through the Secretary of State’s responding to 17 interventions. By my count, in a much shorter speech this afternoon, my hon. Friend the Minister for Employment replied to 11 interventions. He was held to account by this House.
I have absolutely no doubt that Labour’s talented Front-Bench spokespersons will do their utmost and use all their wiles to ensure that the Government’s decisions on universal credit are drawn to the electorate’s attention. Conservative Members are comfortable with the roll-out, the time we are taking and the way we are presenting it to the country. Ultimately, the electorate will decide. They are seeing the Opposition’s view and the Government’s view, and that is one role of the House.
I am comfortable with the position that our Government are taking in implementing the changes. That is partly because when I talk to staff at my local jobcentre, expecting the usual litany of failure that accompanies IT projects from all Governments, I hear enthusiasm and positivity about the universal credit system and how responsive it is. I am pleased that the Government have already proved themselves similarly responsive, with 50% of new claimants now securing advances, the new landlord portal and the consistent improvement in the time taken to make payments. There may be other measures that the Government can take to bolster the success of the system, but to my mind they would be wholly wrong to pause the roll-out of a system that reduces complexity, increases flexibility and improves employment outcomes for the recipients.
Helen Goodman
Conservative Members have talked a lot about improving work incentives. I shall not go over the history, but I have constituents who say things such as:
“My own personal position is that of a single parent carer to my disabled child. I can’t work as he has very high and complex needs… Quite frankly the rollout of universal credit is terrifying”—
Mr Speaker
Order. The hon. Lady’s eloquence is equalled only by her length. Interventions must be brief.
Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)
A policy should be founded on its vision and its values. The idea that work should always pay is clearly a good value, and many people across the House agree with that. The system should be easy to understand as those accessing it should be able to do so without any challenges or barriers in their way. Simplifying the system from six benefits down to one achieves that aim. People should be able to increase or decrease their hours as the work or the requirements change. It should be quite straightforward for people to increase their hours and for employers to give more hours and more work—if that is what they want to do—so that people can get more experience and there is more reason for employers to give more training and for people to gain greater qualifications. That allows progression and, perhaps, promotion in the workplace, which is very good for those individuals, for the society around them and for the businesses employing them.
Chris Green
I will not give way; time is tight.
The Government are delivering for the poorest. Periods of Labour government have always resulted in an increase in unemployment. From 1997 to 2010, unemployment went from 2.1 million to 2.5 million. Unemployment has dropped to below 1.5 million under this Government.
Universal Credit Roll-out
Helen Goodman Excerpts(6 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Debbie Abrahams
The hon. Gentleman is pre-empting my speech, but I will happily propose exactly what we would like to do in conjunction with the current Government, whose programme this is.
From the start, there were a number of serious design flaws, which the Work and Pensions Committee, of which I was a member, raised in 2012. They included, first, the fact that UC applications would be “digital by default”; in other words, applications could only be made online. There are still several issues with that, not least the assumption that everyone is computer-literate or has ready access to getting online. We all remember the scene in “I, Daniel Blake” where somebody who had not used a computer before was trying to do so, and we saw the real stress and difficulties he found.
Debbie Abrahams
I am sorry but I am not going to give way again, as I must try to press on.
Secondly, there were concerns that UC payments would be made monthly, in arrears, and paid only to the main earner of each household, so women, as second earners, are automatically discriminated against in this process; it was also quite a radical change, with rental payments going directly to the household and not the landlord. Thirdly, there were considerable doubts about the use of so-called real-time information, which was meant to ensure that information from employers to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs would allow the Department for Work and Pensions to calculate quickly what people in low-paid employment would be entitled to from UC. The reliability and validity of this data exchange was another key concern. I believe there is a DWP RTI issues group, so there are clearly still problems. Finally, the Government said that disabled people would not be financially worse off under UC, but because the severe disability premium payment has not been incorporated into UC, it is an effective loss of up to £62.45 a week for a single person—more than £3,200 a year.
All that was in 2012, but a number of other issues emerged in the following couple of years—universal jobmatch, ballooning costs and of course several delays. One of the most worrying issues revealed in the January 2015 UC regulations was that people in low-paid work on UC will now be subject to in-work conditionality. So, for example, someone who is one of 1 million or so people working on a low-paid, zero hours contract, with different hours from one week to the next, will have to demonstrate to their Jobcentre Plus adviser that they are trying to work 35 hours a week and if they fail to do that to that person’s satisfaction, they can and will be sanctioned. For Members who are unfamiliar with this concept, those people will have their social security payments stopped for a minimum of a month.
Fast forwarding to the 2015 summer Budget, the then Chancellor announced that cuts would be made to the so-called universal credit work allowances, which are how much someone can earn before UC support starts to be reduced. For example, a couple with two children claiming housing costs had their work allowances cut from £222 a month to £192 a month. In addition, approximately 900,000 families with more than two children could not receive support for third or subsequent children.