Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Lord Evans of Rainow Excerpts

Thursday 9th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

rose—

[Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)]

rose—

[Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)]

rose—

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[Mr Duncan Smith]

If hon. Members want, we can go back over the figures one more time. I am enjoying myself, even if the shadow Chancellor is not.

[Graham Evans]

rose—

[Antoinette Sandbach (Eddisbury) (Con)]

rose—

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[Mr Duncan Smith]

I will give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Graham Evans). I know he wants me to keep going.

[Graham Evans]

Opposition Members never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity to apologise for wrecking the country’s economy. The shadow Chancellor criticised my right hon. Friend the Chancellor and said there was no mention of science and technology. My right hon. Friend has a very proud record of investment in the north of England, as part of the northern powerhouse—

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. Mr Evans, you will be making your speech very shortly. The danger is you will have nothing to say because you will have already made it.

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[Dr Whiteford]

I will not give way at the moment.

Amid all the rhetoric and the hyperbole of Budget day, it would have been very easy to form the impression from the media lines being trotted out yesterday that tax credits are predominantly a benefit paid to unemployed people, when in fact the opposite is the case. In Scotland, the overwhelming majority of tax credits are paid to working people. In fact, half of all families benefit from tax credits, and 95% of tax credits in Scotland are paid to families with children. We should make no mistake about where the cuts are being targeted.

It is inevitable that today we will consider the short-term consequences, because those cuts will put acute pressure on families, but we should be under no illusion: growing up in poverty has serious long-term consequences for children, too. It is associated with poorer educational attainment, poorer job prospects, poorer health throughout life and lower life expectancy. That is why asking families to bear the brunt of the cuts is so short-sighted. It has not only an enormous social cost, but an enormous economic cost: it holds back our economic progress and productivity, which are what we should really be focusing on and trying to improve.

The Government have tried to argue, today and yesterday, that the cuts will be offset by increases to the minimum wage and changes to the personal allowance, but that claim simply does not stand up to scrutiny. I think we all welcome the announcement of a long-overdue increase in the minimum wage to £7.20 an hour from next year and, indeed, the changes to national insurance, but let us not kid ourselves that rebranding the minimum wage as a living wage will actually make it a living wage.

There is already a living wage: it is calculated by the Living Wage Foundation and is already used by employers in the public, private and third sectors, including, I am very pleased to say, the Scottish Government. The living wage is based on the actual cost of living and it is already £7.85 an hour outside London and is due to go up again in November. We need to be absolutely clear that £7.20 is not a living wage and it will not offset the cuts in tax credits.

The critical point about the living wage is that it has been calculated on the basis of low-paid workers claiming their full entitlement to tax credits at the present rate, so any cut in tax credits means that the living wage will have to go up even further in order for it to provide enough for people to live on. If the Government take on board only one of the points I make today, I want it to be that one.

[Graham Evans]

Does the hon. Lady want Scotland to be a high wage, low benefits, low tax economy? Does she agree with what the Government are trying to do?

[Dr Whiteford]

Scotland has already shown the progress we are making towards a high-skill economy. I was interested to hear yesterday’s announcement on improving the apprenticeship scheme in England. I hope the Government will aspire to do what the Scottish Government have already done. The uptake has been phenomenal and we are well on course to reaching 30,000 apprenticeships a year, which is far more proportionately per head of population than the current number in England. The Opportunities for All scheme guarantees a place in education or training for every single young person. It has been a phenomenal success, with more than 90% of our young people going into sustained employment afterwards. Instead of waiting until people have been unemployed for a year before intervening, we are intervening early so that every school leaver gets those opportunities. The approach is much more carrot than stick. The scale of the uptake shows that in Scotland we are committed to having a more successful economy and to growing it to meet the needs of our population.

I want to return to tax credits and not be distracted from them. Today the Resolution Foundation, which has done so much to promote the living wage and highlight the issue of in-work poverty, has said that the living wage would need to be £10 an hour by 2020—not the £9 announced yesterday—to keep pace with the cost of living under the new tax and benefits regime. Let us be clear: we are not going to get out of the poverty trap with this rebranded minimum wage. We need to bring it up to the level of a living wage if we are going to take away the support currently provided through tax credits.

The huge cuts in tax credits will make the gap between the minimum wage and the living wage even greater and it will leave the earnings of low-paid workers even further below the actual cost of living. At present, a family with two children where both parents work and who live in a house with average rent will be below the breadline, and the changes announced yesterday will not change that. Such families will still struggle to keep their heads above water and their children will still grow up disadvantaged.

We need to recognise that bringing up children is expensive—for everyone, in all income groups—but children are not some sort of luxury lifestyle accessory. Having children and encouraging family life is an essential, necessary and natural part of the human life cycle. For some years, however, we have made it really difficult for younger adults to even contemplate starting a family, simply because of the pernicious combination of low pay, job insecurity and exorbitant housing costs.

That brings me to the differential impact of this Budget on women, because, in spite of the progress that has been made, women are still heavily concentrated in low-paid work. We are far more likely to be working part-time or in zero-hours jobs, and we are more likely to be the primary carer of children or, indeed, frail or disabled relatives. Too many women end up in low-paid, part-time work such as cashiering or cleaning simply because they can work their hours around their family responsibilities. While I welcome the increase in the personal allowance, we need to recognise that many of those women working part time in low-paid jobs will not see the full benefit of it. Indeed, the key beneficiaries are, of course, higher-rate tax payers like ourselves, and 80% of the benefit of the increase will fall in the upper half of the income spectrum.

I have a number of questions for the Government about limiting tax credits to two children. I am not sure why they would do this—certainly in Scotland, we have a worryingly low birth rate so we should not be trying to deter people from having more children. I ask Ministers for clarification about the basis on which the number of children eligible for support through tax credits will be determined. Will it be a couple’s first two children together, or will children from a previous relationship be counted in the total? What will happen, for example, if a woman has her first child with a partner who already has two children from previous relationship or if a mother’s third child is the father’s first? As anyone who ever runs a constituency surgery will know, these are not abstract questions, and I hope Ministers will address them this afternoon.

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[Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)]

It is a great privilege to follow the hon. Member for Bradford South (Judith Cummins)—a fine constituency and a fine city. I am sure that she will do an excellent job as the constituency’s new MP. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Craig Tracey), an outstanding individual who will, I am sure, do a great job for his constituents. I also pay tribute to his good lady wife for her service to Queen and country.

At a time of uncertainty abroad—be it in Greece, Russia or the middle east—the Chancellor delivered a Budget that prized economic stability at home. It was a one nation Budget that will provide security for working people in Weaver Vale, greater Cheshire and the north-west as a whole. Despite the chaos in the eurozone, Britain is still growing faster than any other major advanced economy in the world—faster than America and Germany. Our economy grew by 3% last year, a figure revised upwards from the 2.6% we expected in March. Our long-term economic plan is working. Indeed, before the election, the US President commented that the UK must be doing something right on its economy.

British businesses, backed by the Government through tax cuts and the removal of red tape, have created 2 million new jobs since 2010. I know that businesses across Weaver Vale welcomed the announcements made by the Chancellor yesterday about the extension of the employment allowance to £3,000 and the news that corporation tax will fall to 18% in 2020—from the 28% we inherited five years ago.

Earlier, the shadow Chancellor said that science and technology were not mentioned in the Budget, but the Chancellor has a fine record on such investment, including in Sci-Tech at Daresbury. The previous Labour Government took investment away from Daresbury, and when I became MP for the area in 2010 I was advised by the then Chairman of the Science and Technology Committee—he is no longer a Member, but he was a fine Chairman and I pay tribute to him—to watch like a hawk to ensure that the new Government did not take away investment from Daresbury as the previous Government had done. Instead, the Chancellor invested £150 million recently in big data, and I was proud that, just before the election, IBM signed a £130 million partnership with the Science and Technology Facilities Council that will secure high growth and high-tech, well-paid jobs for my constituents in the long term. That is good for my constituency and for the country, as we become an international hub for science and technology and big data.

The OBR has predicted that a further 1 million jobs will be created over the next five years, but we are the party of ambition and we want to go further. We are working towards a target of full employment—a job for everyone who wants one and a country that is open for business. In the past five years, Government-backed schemes such as the right to buy have helped 200,000 people on to the property ladder. That is vital, because home ownership is central to the aspirational country that we are building. Owning their own home means so much more to families. I was born in a council house, the youngest of four children. My family lived there for 20 years and, in 1972, Ted Heath’s Conservative Government offered us the opportunity to purchase the property, so my parents did so. My father died when I was a teenager and my mother had security in old age and retirement because they had invested in that house. The right to buy is central to the Conservative party’s philosophy that everyone should have a home of their own.

Yesterday, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor gave Britain a pay rise. Over the course of the Parliament, the introduction of the national living wage could be worth more than £5,000 to someone working full time for the minimum wage. I need not tell the House how much that extra income will mean to hard-working families trying to get on. Not only will working people earn more, they will keep more of what they earn. Typical taxpayers will pay £905 less tax than in 2010, thanks to the increases in the personal allowance over the last five years.

[Mr Betts]

I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has seen the analysis from the Institute for Fiscal Studies today, but it says that the minimum wage announcement will not go anywhere near compensating for welfare cuts in cash terms. People currently on tax credits will be significantly worse off and the reform could cost 3 million families an average of £5,000 a year. That is the IFS’s calculation.

[Graham Evans]

I have to confess that I have not seen those figures, but the Government’s overall mantra is “A higher wage, lower tax, lower welfare economy”, which will benefit all of our constituents. That is in contrast to the Labour party, which had a high-tax, low-wage, high-benefit culture. That is the debate we are having today: the Conservatives want high wages and low benefits and I believe that the Budget will move Britain in that direction. That will be good for the country, for my children and for our country’s future. We are a beacon in Europe, as its second biggest economy, and if we continue down the same road, in 10 to 15 years we will become the biggest economy in Europe. The whole world is watching this great country, and we are the beacon for how things can be done in difficult economic circumstances.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

I want to add to what my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) said. The IFS has said that it is “arithmetically impossible” for the Chancellor’s national living wage to offset the loss of income from tax credits. I recommend that the hon. Gentleman reads that. Will he and other Government Members who have said similar things to him today also advertise a surgery on tax credits and invite their constituents to see how they feel about it and whether they think this Budget makes things better?

[Graham Evans]

I am most grateful to the hon. Lady. I will indeed look into those figures. I hold surgeries every Friday, so I will see constituents about that. What I would say to her is that unemployment in Weaver Vale has dropped by 70% since 2010, and that is 80% full-time, good quality jobs.

I am not saying it is easy, but these difficult decisions have to be made. When Gordon Brown introduced working tax credits, he said the figure would be £2 billion. It is now £30 billion. The Labour party has to decide—I asked this question yesterday and did not get a reply—whether £30 billion is too much, too little or about right. We have to make these difficult decisions, but the hon. Lady makes an important point. I am not saying for a moment that it will be easy, but we are the party of aspiration. We are the party that always makes work pay, which is something that did not happen under 13 years of Labour.

[Jeremy Quin]

My hon. Friend will recognise, as those of us on the Government Benches do, that we will still be paying out tax credits in the same numbers that we were paying them out in 2007 and 2008, under the last Labour Government. What we are talking about is the sudden spike to which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions referred in his speech.

[Graham Evans]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. Working-age benefits are something we have to tackle so that we can eradicate the deficit and start paying down the national debt. That is what I believe in. I believe that the Government are right: a higher-wage, lower-tax, lower-welfare economy. Britain is open for business. That is the future for our country.

DWP: Performance

Lord Evans of Rainow Excerpts

Monday 30th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)]

I am very pleased to have the opportunity to speak in this important debate. As a member of the Work and Pensions Committee, like the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore), I have a unique opportunity to examine the successes and failures of the complex system that this country has in place. Fundamentally, every colleague in the Chamber harbours the same desires: to protect those who are unable to work and to equip jobseekers with the skills and support they need to get into work.

With colleagues from across the House, I have sat in the Select Committee and listened to accounts of waste, error and fraud. I have listened to the accounts of people who, thanks to the system the previous Government presided over, have been taught that there is no opportunity for them. As someone who spent some time unemployed in my youth, I know how disheartening the situation can be, quite apart from the assumptions of a system that says, “Because you aren’t in work now, you never will be.” The accounts we have heard have shown time and again that reform is not only important but essential.

Certainly, the outlook is brighter for active jobseekers across Britain under this Government. Employment is now running at over 30 million, which is an increase of 1.7 million since the general election. On the day it was announced that private sector employment had risen by more than 2 million since the election, figures show that in my constituency the number of jobseeker’s allowance claimants had fallen to a record low of just over 3%. That is a drop of 31% since I became the Member of Parliament. Running my annual jobs and apprenticeship fair, the third of which I held in May, is a great tribute to the jobcentres and the people who work in them, as was ably demonstrated by my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith). They do an outstanding job helping the neediest people get into employment.

I have spoken in the Chamber before about PIP and how the Government’s reforms offer responsible protection for those who need it the most while supporting those who can move back into work. Let me first set out how this Government are committed to supporting those with disabilities. Last year in the UK we spent over £50 billion supporting disabled people. To better serve those who need support the most, we need to look at how to address people’s needs as they change. Some 71% of DLA claimants are given indefinite awards, with no need for reassessment, so it is no surprise that changes in conditions are not picked up. That means that people whose conditions improve are not identified and, crucially, that people whose health has deteriorated further are not given what they need. How can we be surprised that people feel they have been labelled as lost causes and written off, given that no one takes the time to see how their lives have changed? I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) who gave an excellent example of what I am talking about.

DLA is clearly now an outmoded system that fails to address the needs of the people concerned. PIP will ensure that a responsible support network is in place to protect disabled people by providing regular assessments. That will mean that the proportion of people receiving the highest rate for both components will increase to 20% and that those receiving at least one component at the highest rate will increase to 56%. We are committed to a responsible transition, so the Government have set up, among other services, a dedicated phone service and electronic transfer of information, a streamlined assessment report form and a faster process for people with terminal illnesses.

The work capability assessment has also demonstrated the failings of the previous Government. The system was designed to ensure that those who are able to work get the help they need and that those who are too sick or disabled are fully supported. However, it proved unfit for purpose after its introduction in 2008. The hypocrisy of an Opposition debate about welfare should not be ignored, given that the Labour party left a 200,000-case backlog of employment and support allowance applications after its 13 years in power. As with the economy, it has been this Government’s job to fix its failure.

There are people who were written off by the state as unfit for work who are victims of poor assessments and a fundamental lack of support. Of those now accurately described as fit to work, 29% have been claiming incapacity benefit for more than 10 years and 10% have been claiming it for more than 15 years. The Government are committed to reviewing and continually improving the assessment process to make sure that nobody gets left behind. They are taking the vital steps needed to ensure that each person is seen as an individual. It is this Government who are making sure that each person has a place in our society. The message is: it always pays to work.

[Paul Maynard]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. In my zeal to correct the record, I inadvertently attributed the phrase “infectious disease” to the hon. Member for Hyndburn. I apologise to him; in fact, he said “incurable disease”. I place that on the record.

Jobs and Work

Lord Evans of Rainow Excerpts

Wednesday 11th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy). She made some important points, which I agree with, about modern day slavery.

It is a pleasure to have my chance to speak about my constituency of Weaver Vale, and jobs and work. I am aware that I have spoken a number of times about my jobs and apprenticeship fairs. This is the third time that I have mentioned my third annual jobs fair, of which colleagues have been very supportive. However, if I keep this pattern up, I suspect that my colleagues will be slightly less tolerant when I hold my fourth jobs fair, next year.

The reason I raise employment in the House so frequently is that I understand that it is not about just boosting economies, ticking boxes or quoting statistics. I left school at 16 with few qualifications and I spent some time unemployed, so I understand that employment means so much more than being a statistic on a piece of paper. This is about confidence, getting up in the morning and people knowing that they are in control of their own future. When we think of employment statistics, we should think not just of the big picture—although of course that is important—but of how lives have been changed because of new-found vocations.

So what is the outlook for Weaver Vale? I am exceptionally proud that my constituency is a real success story. Since 2010, unemployment has dropped by 30%, to a claimant rate of 3.1% for jobseeker’s allowance. There are 749 fewer jobseekers than a year ago, and youth unemployment has dropped by 41% in the past year alone. What has caused such a dramatic improvement in the outlook for my constituents? Of course, a number of factors have contributed to this success story. First and foremost, as I have mentioned occasionally in the past, the long-term economic plan is working. This country’s recovery from the biggest budget deficit in our peacetime history and the deepest recession since world war two is fast and getting faster. Britain has set out to the world that it is a great place to do business. International and national confidence in our economy is high. Confidence translates into investment. Businesses are therefore expanding to create more jobs. Britain is open for business and everyone knows it.

The second factor is local investment projects, such as the Mersey gateway bridge—representatives of which were in attendance at my jobs fair—and the regeneration of Northwich town centre, which are creating hundreds of construction roles and thousands of permanent jobs. Such projects identify the local need and are being maximised to create bright new prospects across a huge range of vocations. I look forward to continuing to work with jobseekers and employers alike as those projects develop.

Finally, I should like to mention employment skills. At my jobs and apprenticeships fair, I welcomed employment support organisations and apprenticeship schemes to help people to develop the skills they need. Waitrose recently opened a store in Northwich, creating 151 roles as a part of the regeneration of the town centre. I am very pleased that Northwich shoppers now have more choice in their weekly shop and that numerous charities and community projects, such as the ArtWork gallery, are receiving support from the store. However, what is even more important about the opening of this store is the fact that 45% of the staff were unemployed before being offered their role. A further one in five roles were offered to people working fewer than 16 hours a week.

Last month, I was delighted to welcome the Chancellor to Northwich to see the regeneration, to meet staff and to learn about their stories. Waitrose collaborated with a number of local organisations, including Cheshire West and Chester council, the Northwich jobcentre and Mid Cheshire college, which works with local jobseekers, tailoring its training to make them perfect candidates for the roles. This is a great example of local bodies recognising the need for candidates and the need for jobs, and identifying the skills required to match up to those needs. In truth, this is the most important aspect of the upturn in employment statistics. It is about showing individuals the skills that they have already, helping them to discover new skills and finding the right role for them. That is also why I believe apprenticeships are so important; they nurture vocational skills.

I am very pleased that the number of apprenticeships in my constituency has risen by 27% over the past three years—a statistic that I expect to rise even further next year, thanks to the excellent work of Mid Cheshire college and the ambitious 100-day apprenticeship challenge of the Northwich Guardian. I am proud that the outlook for jobseekers in Weaver Vale has improved so markedly since I became a Member, and I will continue to run my jobs fairs to bring together training, talent and opportunity, because I believe that every job filled is a success story to be proud of.

Welfare Reform (Sick and Disabled People)

Lord Evans of Rainow Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)]

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on this very important subject, and it is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns).

As a member of the Work and Pensions Committee, I understand that the benefit system is an extraordinarily complex one. The system was born out of a desire to provide support to those who need it the most. However, years of mismanagement, and well-intentioned but ill-thought-out additions and changes, have left the system in a shocking mess. Listening to accounts of mismanagement, wrong payments and the relegation of people who are taught that there is no role for them in the workplace has shown me that reform is not only important but essential.

This Government’s reforms offer responsible protection for those who need it the most, while supporting those who can move back to work. First, let me say that this Government are committed to supporting those with disabilities. Here in the UK, we are committed to spending more than £40 billion a year, which is more than Italy, Germany or France spend, and is a fifth more than the European average.

We have taken the strategic view that it is not enough to think of disability as a singular issue. Instead, we have chosen to work across Departments to look at transport, employment and social involvement. The Opposition enjoy flashing big figures; they go for the headline and do not fill in the detail. Let me give them a few figures to consider while we look at the rationale. The amount of disability living allowance underpaid per year is £190 million; the amount of DLA lost through fraud and error between 1997 and 2010 was £10 billion; and the amount that welfare payment increases between 1997 and 2010 cost the average hard-working family per year is £3,000. These stark figures show that something has gone seriously wrong in our support system.

[Grahame M. Morris]

I note the figures that the hon. Gentleman has given, but does he recognise that in the UK in 2009 we spent 2.9% of our GDP on disability and sickness while nine of our OECD neighbours spent an average of 3.2% of their GDP? Far from spending more than our OECD partners, we spend less.

[Graham Evans]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I was talking about the current spending. I also point out to him that in 2009, 1 million more people were in relative poverty; 500,000 more children were in relative poverty; 200,000 more pensioners were in relative poverty; 150,000 more people were unemployed; 25,000 more young people were unemployed; and 1.3 million fewer people were in work. These figures show that the Government’s policies are working.

I will return to my original point. When 71% of claimants are given indefinite awards, with no need for reassessment, it is no surprise that changes in conditions are not picked up. In fact, a third of people with an impairment or a long-term health condition in one year report that they do not have it a year later, according to the Office for National Statistics. People’s conditions and needs change all the time. It is no surprise that people feel that they have been paid off and forgotten when no one takes the time to look at how their lives have changed; it is no surprise that those with deteriorating conditions do not receive the support that they are entitled to; and it is no surprise that those who have conditions that are improving are not helped out of a state of dependency and back into work.

The personal independence payment, which is being introduced gradually to ensure that there is a responsible change to protect disabled people, will involve regular assessments. This means that people will receive funding that is tailored to their individual changing needs. In actuality, this will result in the proportion of people receiving the highest rate for both components increasing to 20%, and the proportion of people receiving at least one component at the highest rate increasing to 56%.

The Government’s Work Choice programme has already helped 9,500 people to move into employment. The new enterprise allowance will support disabled people moving into self-employment, and my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley (George Hollingbery), who is no longer in his place, gave us some good examples of that. The £15 million investment in the Access to Work scheme will ensure that small businesses do not have to bear the costs of additional aids or equipment when taking on disabled staff. This programme helps more than 30,000 disabled people to gain mainstream employment, and stay in employment, every year.

The steps taken by this Government bring back the core principles of the welfare system: to provide support where it is needed; and, just as importantly, to enable those who can go back to work to do so. I am proud to be a member of a Government who are taking logical steps to address the fact that each person is individual, that conditions change over time and that each person in Great Britain has a place in our society.

Universal Credit

Lord Evans of Rainow Excerpts

Tuesday 10th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Welfare reform would benefit Northern Ireland as much as it is benefiting the UK. I suggest that the hon. Lady and her colleagues get on and implement it.

[Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend confirm to the House that universal credit will save £100 million in 2014-15 and £200 million in 2015-16? Will he also confirm that universal credit is currently handling complicated cases?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

My hon. Friend will see from the published accounts that the National Audit Office agrees that the proposed roll-out, which will go ahead, will in every single year save money, ultimately to the Exchequer. The point that is being made is that the net value of the asset of £152 million that we have will deliver huge benefits to the public and huge savings to the Government.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Evans of Rainow Excerpts

Monday 18th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

As I say, the report makes some assumptions that it accepts are not true. One of its assumptions is that there is no impact on take-up; it assumes 100% take-up before and after. We know that that is not true—that take-up is partial—and rolling all three benefits into one will improve take-up for the benefit of the children of lone parents.

[Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)]

The introduction of new IT systems can be challenging for business as well as for Government Departments. What lessons have been learned from the mistakes of others as regards the introduction of the new universal credit and its new IT system?

[Steve Webb]

As my hon. Friend knows, the litany of failed IT systems under the Labour Government would fill the remainder of this Question Time. One of the key things that is often forgotten is that every day this Department pays pensions and benefits seamlessly to millions of people. All the IT projects that are developed without delay and without hiccup never make it on to the front page of the newspapers.

Housing Benefit

Lord Evans of Rainow Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

At least an Opposition Member is talking about overcrowding, which is a start—we might be making progress. The hon. Lady is right that we need to do more to assist and support older tenants to move into more suitable accommodation. One thing we have discovered in the course of doing that work is how little many social landlords knew about their tenants. We were shocked to discover that. Part of the process is social landlords engaging with their tenants and helping them to move to the right sort of accommodation.

[Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)]

My hon. Friend mentioned the mutual exchange service, otherwise known as HomeSwapper. Is he aware that 56,000 one-bedroom properties, 147,000 two-bedroom properties and 104,000 three-bedroom properties are available?

[Steve Webb]

We often hear from Opposition Members the refrain, “There aren’t the properties,” but my hon. Friend has exploded that myth. Significant numbers of people want to move from one-bedroom properties to two-bedroom properties, and from two-bedroom properties to three-bedroom properties. That will be facilitated by our measure.

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[Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams), and I declare at the start that I have more experience of council housing than many colleagues. Similar to the hon. Gentleman, I too grew up on a council estate, in south Manchester, with my mother, father and four siblings. It was not big, but it was home. We lived there because we needed to and because the state was able to help us find a home that we could fit into and was affordable to my hard-working parents.

Social housing is there for those in need. Housing needs change as families expand and contract. The needs of a family with four children are different to those of a divorced empty-nester. The hon. Gentleman used the example of a council estate where a house is also a home and a place to live. In my personal circumstances, when my father died 30 years ago and my mother was on her own in a three-bedroom house, she moved out and now lives in a one-bedroom flat, thus releasing that property back to the housing stock.

[Mr MacNeil]

How often does the hon. Gentleman envisage that people should move homes during the course of their adult lives?

[Graham Evans]

I cannot really answer that because it varies so greatly. I have moved several times but I am now settled with a family and envisage not moving for a while. It varies due to individual circumstances.

[Chris Ruane]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the three great stresses in life are death, divorce and moving house, especially if someone is being evicted or forced out? What effect does he think the bedroom tax will have on the mental health and well-being of people forced out of the homes they love?

[Graham Evans]

The hon. Gentleman raises a very good point and he is right to say that moving house is one of the most stressful things in life.

In my constituency, a disabled lady who lived in a three-bedroom property had to sleep in the lounge and was not able to get upstairs. An appropriate home was found for her with one bedroom on the ground floor and she is very happy. Her old house is now filled by a young family with two children and one on the way. Moving house is very stressful, but sometimes it is the right thing to do.

The debate is a rare example of when I can use Karl Marx as a policy template. We can consider the social housing market using the phrase:

“From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!”

That is to say, what people can afford is what they need. It is a simple enough concept to support low-income families but, in reality, housing policy has moved far away from it.

First, let us consider the ability to pay. Housing benefit payments almost doubled from £11.2 billion to £23 billion under the previous Government. That is a cost of £900 per household per year. If hon. Members ask my constituents whether paying £900 per year to pay for other people’s rent on top of their own is reasonable, they will get a short response. In fact, if the Government had not taken action—this Government are prepared to take the tough decisions when Opposition Members are intent on driving Britain to economic ruin—the cost of social housing would have risen to £25 billion in the next financial year.

Secondly, let us consider the need element. As I have set out, I understand the importance of social housing and why the country needs it. Let me be clear that the right type of housing should be available to those who need it. A quarter of a million families are in overcrowded accommodation, and 2 million households are on social housing waiting lists. In part, that is because of the lowest housing growth since the 1920s, and that was under a Labour leadership. Some who do not need social housing insist on remaining, blocking families who have urgent need.

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman gave the House some statistics, but will he concede that, unfortunately, many of the vacant properties he describes are in the wrong places for the people who need them?

[Graham Evans]

There is an element of that in various communities. In my area, people like to live within their own communities. I accept that. The problem is not straightforward, but it is not insurmountable either. People can swap homes within local communities, but I agree with the hon. Gentleman that that is a problem. The problem is not insurmountable for good local housing trusts or local authorities. It might not happen overnight, but with a little bit of creative thinking, moves can be accommodated—people can downsize and upsize.

[Mrs McGuire]

The hon. Gentleman accepts that the situation cannot be changed overnight, but does he believe it is fair that people should be caught in the trap of having to pay the bedroom tax? He is contradicting his own argument.

[Graham Evans]

I am sorry I gave way to the right hon. Lady.

I want to make one final point. Opposition Members have had nothing to say about someone earning £140,000 a year who uses social housing, not least because the person in question is Bob Crow, the leader of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers.

Unless we reassess ongoing housing needs, we will be unable to support those who need it the most. The changes need to happen, and it is important that they happen now, to restore fairness to the social housing sector in line with the private sector.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Evans of Rainow Excerpts

Monday 14th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

The personal circumstances that the hon. Gentleman has described are completely unacceptable. If he gives me the details of the case, I will look at it. The performance of Atos is ever so important and it was an issue for the previous Administration. We are working on it, but those circumstances are not acceptable and I will look at the matter.

[Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)]

Will the Secretary of State confirm that since the benefit cap was introduced, his Department has helped more than 16,000 people who would have been affected by it into work? Does that not show that those who voted against the benefit cap cannot be trusted on welfare reform?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

My hon. Friend is right that the benefit cap is popular and effective. Although the new shadow Secretary of State said that Labour would be tougher on welfare, we have all noticed throughout questions that the only thing we have heard from Labour is opposition to every single spending reduction and welfare reform. That party is not fit for government.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Evans of Rainow Excerpts

Monday 1st July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman mentions the support we give to local authorities through discretionary housing payments. We constantly hear that it is not enough, so he may be startled to learn that in the year just ended, 2012-13, over 300 local authorities in England, Scotland and Wales sent us back money totalling over £11 million because they could not spend it.

[Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)]

In the interests of time, Mr Speaker, I should say that I was about to ask that question.

[Mr Speaker]

Well, that is a first, not just from the hon. Gentleman but more generally.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Evans of Rainow Excerpts

Monday 20th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)]

Last week I held my second jobs fair, at which 30 local employers met 300 jobseekers in my constituency to talk about more than 300 vacancies. Can my right hon. Friend confirm that there is currently a record number of vacancies in the United Kingdom?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

That is correct. On average, about half a million vacant jobs are advertised, and that may not represent all the work that is available. Our universal jobmatch scheme ensures that claimants look for and apply for jobs, because they must be mandated on to the system. The number of private sector jobs has increased by 1.25 million since the election, and every six jobs created over the last six years correspond with one job loss in the public sector.