Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Berger Excerpts

Monday 1st July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

I am pleased to announce that we recognised that the cap in the pension protection fund on those who are early-retired was affecting people particularly adversely if they had long service. We will be tabling amendments to the Pensions Bill so that those who have long service of more than 20 years with a firm will get an enhanced level of protection.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

T9. The number of people accessing emergency food aid from Liverpool’s central food bank in my constituency has jumped by 70% over the past year. The chief cause of this is delays in them receiving their social security support. What assessment has the Secretary of State made of how many more people will be forced to turn to food banks and payday lenders by his Government’s proposal to extend the wait for jobseeker’s allowance?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The story that the cause is an increase in waits is not true; in fact, waits have fallen and have improved by 4% since 2009-10. The Trussell Trust’s director of UK food banks has set out the real reason behind most of this:

“The growth in volunteers and awareness about the fact you can get this help if you need it helps explain the growth this year.”

Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill

Baroness Berger Excerpts

Tuesday 8th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I will make two points to the hon. Lady. First, the vast majority of people who take part-time work choose to take part-time work. In all the studies we have—I am happy to let her have them; they are in the public domain—only 17% or 18% say that they did not want a part-time job, and wanted a full-time job, so she should not decry those who take part-time work. My second point is that that is why we are bringing in universal credit. Universal credit is about in-work and will be a huge support to those in part-time work, starting this year. The trouble with the tax credit system, which the Opposition are defending despite the fraud, the over-payments and the massive error, is that it lodged people into little silos where they could not move up, out of those hours. If a job moved from 16 hours to 17 or 18 hours, people did not do it because they could not afford to do it. Large numbers of lone parents, as she knows only too well, would rotate out of that and crash back out of work, because the job moved on and they could not stay with it.

The reality is that we are reforming the welfare system to make it better and easier for people who are in part-time work to have improved incomes. That is a part of this overall welfare programme that will deliver an efficient and even-handed system. It is right that the 1% applies across the board, including the tax credit system. As I said earlier about the overall numbers of people affected, of those working households, 20% of all households are affected by the Bill. If tax credits and child benefits were excluded, as the Opposition have prescribed, we would see a requirement to find a further £1.5 billion—yet another amount of money which they cannot say how it would be found. When in denial, like those on the other side of the House, one just votes against everything. A constructive Opposition would give us a proposal on how they would save that money.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Secretary of State has used the word “denial” twice. In previous Budgets and autumn statements, the Government talked about and acknowledged measured child poverty. However, in the most recent autumn statement and in the Bill, there is no mention of child poverty. Will he admit that under these plans child poverty in our country will go up and that that will come at a cost to us all?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I will say two things about child poverty. First, we want to ensure that the figures published concern the years that this measure covers, and the year in which I will be introducing secondary legislation. The figures will be published next week in time for the debate—the Committee stage will be on the Floor of the House and everybody who is here today can take part.

Secondly, child poverty was calculated based on the median income line, and the previous Government lost control of it. Tax credits rocketed because they were chasing a moving line. As upper incomes rose, so did average earnings, and that is why they had to spend so much money. I remind the hon. Lady that they missed their targets in 2010 by 600,000 children in poverty. Since we have come in, the figures published this June show that child poverty fell by 300,000. I am not going to stand here today and try to claim credit for that fall. The figure fell because we saw the biggest fall in earnings for many years. Does that mean that because earnings fell child poverty has been solved? No, it does not. That is why we are consulting on a better way to measure child poverty.

Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived

Baroness Berger Excerpts

Tuesday 18th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hoban]

Food banks are undertaken by the voluntary sector. I will come on to the ways in which the Government provide support to people on low incomes or who are benefit recipients, in order to demonstrate why we do not believe that this EU programme is right. Our principal objection, of course, is one of subsidiarity, echoing the ESC’s comments, but also reflecting the previous Government’s stance when they withdrew from the scheme.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

To pick up on the Minister’s point that the voluntary sector makes a choice to step in, we now have up to 300 food banks across the country under the umbrella of the Trussell Trust, which estimates that it will have fed about 250,000 people in our country by the end of this financial year. Does he think that it is right that the voluntary sector has to step in to provide people in this country with emergency food aid?

[Mr Hoban]

The hon. Lady is a prolific tabler of questions on this matter and I have answered one or two for her today. This initiative is undertaken by the voluntary sector. The previous Government ignored the existence of food banks. Even at the height of the recession, when long-term unemployment doubled, the previous Government simply ignored them and pretended that they were not there. This Government acknowledge the existence of food banks. They play an important role and enable people on low incomes to get food, toiletries and other basic needs, and to use their incomes or benefits for other purposes. We also signpost people to food banks, but what nobody has done yet—this point has been made on a number of occasions—is analyse who uses food banks and why.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Minister for setting out the Government’s position and look forward to hearing the European Scrutiny Committee’s views in due course.

First, we need to be absolutely clear that there is a large and growing need in the UK for the type of help that the fund would be designed to provide. The Minister mentioned FareShare a moment ago, and I notice that it gets a couple of mentions in the impact assessment of the fund, for example on page 100 of the bundle. As he rightly said, FareShare has never obtained any funding from the EU because the UK has not taken up the funding that is in place. It is slightly confusing that it is mentioned in the impact assessment, because that implies that it has been a beneficiary, but it has not. My understanding, however, is that €50 million is earmarked for the UK from the existing fund, none of which is currently handed over to the UK.

There is certainly a rapidly growing need for the service provided by FareShare and food banks such as those supported by the Trussell Trust, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) referred to a few minutes ago. The latest annual report from FareShare showed that it spent £1.6 million last year. As those who are responsible for FareShare say, a small fraction of the €50 million earmarked for the UK would enable it to transform what it is doing. FareShare provides food to 800 charities and, through them, to almost 40,000 people a day who would otherwise not have enough to eat. It is a wholesale operation supplying food to charities on the front line, and the food that it is distributes is sourced from food retailers and manufacturers, for whom the food is surplus to requirements.

A few minutes ago, the Minister said that everything was absolutely fine and that there really are not any problems in the UK: there are more people in work than ever before, and so on. However, the most recent annual FareShare report says:

“More people are suffering hardship and needing food support than ever before. Demand for our food is rocketing.”

The Minister, for reasons that I entirely understand, was unwilling to accept that the demand on food banks will go up in the next 12 months, but it will undoubtedly do so. Indeed, only yesterday, he sent me a written answer to a question that I tabled about the impact of the benefit cap in London. The information that he supplied was that, in London alone, 27,600 households will lose income when the benefit cap takes effect in April, and of those, 10,800 households will lose over £100 a week. There is no doubt at all in my mind or, I suspect, in the mind of any objective observer that the need for the kind of service that FareShare and food banks provide will only increase in the next few months.

The number of food banks supported by the Trussell Trust, as my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree said, is about to top the 300 mark. Three new food banks are set up every week, so the number has doubled over the past year. They are all Church-based, and involve Church members and non-members in their governance; there are 3,700 churches and 3,000 schools involved at the moment. As my hon. Friend pointed out, a quarter of a million people will receive food from a food bank in the course of this year. It is a remarkable and impressive initiative, but it is also a terrible indictment that so many people in Britain cannot afford basic food, and have to go to a food bank to obtain it.

[Luciana Berger]

We are the seventh most industrialised nation, and the number of people accessing emergency food aid has exploded. It was 26,000 under the Labour Government—I make that point, because it was 26,000 people too many—but I wish to reinforce the point that my right hon. Friend has just made. By the end of the year, a quarter of million people will have had to go to a food bank. If Members go to meet the people who go to a food bank they will see that they do not go in with smiling faces—they go in hanging their heads in shame. Does my right hon. Friend not agree that the Government should do everything in their power to make sure that no one needs to access emergency food aid in the UK?

[Stephen Timms]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend, who makes a powerful and telling point. As she will know, food banks work hard to minimise the loss of dignity involved in going to a food bank. For example, they often give out food in supermarket carrier bags so that it does not look as if people have been to a food bank. My hon. Friend is absolutely right: it is a terrible indictment of the state of our nation that a quarter of a million people have to do that this year, and the number, I confidently and regretfully predict, is bound to go up over the next few months.

Why has that terrible thing occurred? It is, of course, difficult to survive on benefits or on a low working income, and the Government’s plan to uprate benefits by less than inflation will undoubtedly make matters worse over the next few months—I have spoken already about the effects of the benefit cap that will take effect in April. The plight of those who lose more than £100 a week—as many will when the benefit cap comes in—will be desperate, and a surge of people will be driven to food banks, able to feed themselves and their families only as a result of the help they find there.

The Trussell Trust—this returns to the Minister’s direct responsibilities—makes the additional point that of the 250,000 recipients we have heard about this year, 100,000 are people for whom jobcentres have been too slow in making a payment or made a mistake. Food banks say that more people are turning up with no money because they have been sanctioned by Jobcentre Plus. Often, they have no idea why they have been sanctioned, and know only that they have got no money and must get food from the food bank.

[Luciana Berger]

My right hon. Friend will know that if someone goes to a food bank, they must tick a box giving the reason they have to access emergency food aid, and more than 40% say it is because of delays to their benefit payments. Does my right hon. Friend share my concern that in an article in The Guardian, Ministers said they aim to ensure that 80% of recipients get benefits within 16 days? Sixteen days is long enough to wait for people who have no cushion or money at all, but what about the 20% of people who have to wait for more than 16 days? Does my right hon. Friend share my concern that—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. Interventions should be brief and one at a time. The hon. Lady has made her point.

[Stephen Timms]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. As well as delays there is the problem of mistakes and people being wrongly sanctioned. Friday before last I met a young man in my constituency who has been sanctioned and told that he will lose benefits for 14 months because he is attending a residential course delivered by the Prince’s Trust. An agreement between Jobcentre Plus and the Prince’s Trust means that people on Prince’s Trust activities are not sanctioned if they are unable to sign on while on a residential activity, but in that case—and, I fear, in others—the agreement is not being properly implemented by the jobcentre.

[Luciana Berger]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend and I hope not to intervene on him further. I have one more point for my final intervention. The Minister said that he welcomed the number of people who are in work, but we heard today that if people who access working tax credits call his Department’s phone line—I know this because my office called today—they are told that they have to wait three weeks for the form, and that when they get it back they must wait at least two weeks for it to be processed. Those are people in work who depend on additional funds to support them. Does he share my concern that although the Government are keen to see people in work, those are the very people who are being crucified?

[Stephen Timms]

That is an alarming report and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for passing it on. That matter will be on the Minister’s desk—[Interruption.] I beg his pardon; it will be on a desk in his former Department in the Treasury. There are worries—we have heard reports today—about delays in answering the phone at Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, and I hope that my hon. Friend’s point will be addressed.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Berger Excerpts

Monday 10th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hoban]

The Work programme has been designed to allow providers to use a range of ways to help people back into work. We give them that flexibility. In return, they are paid only when they are successful. That contrasts with the schemes introduced by the previous Government, in which most of the money went in up front and providers were not paid by results. I am sure that the hon. Lady will welcome the fact that, under this Government, there are more women in work than ever before.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

16. I listened carefully to the Minister’s response a moment ago about the success of the Work programme. Does he acknowledge, however, that of the almost 9,500 people who were in receipt of employment and support allowance who used to receive incapacity benefit and who were referred to the Work programme in its first 14 months, only 30 received job outcomes? What are the Minister’s plans for making the Work programme work?

[Mr Hoban]

As I have already made clear in answer to a similar question, the Work programme is improving its performance, and the longer the scheme is in operation the more people are getting into work. That will lead to more job outcome payments in future. We are in the early stages of the scheme, but there is solid evidence to demonstrate that it is getting people off benefits and into work.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Berger Excerpts

Thursday 22nd November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

One of Merseyside’s creative industry strengths is our video games sector. Will the Minister please update the House on the progress that his Government are making towards introducing a video games tax relief?

[Mr Vaizey]

I am delighted to have the opportunity to remind the House that we are introducing an important tax credit for the video games industry. Our negotiations with the European Commission are going very well and we are, I hope, still on target to introduce it next April.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Vaizey]

I have already accepted a number of invitations on behalf of the sports Minister, and I am happy to confirm that the Secretary of State will, I am sure, make it to Aldeburgh next year to celebrate the centenary of one of our greatest composers whom children will learn about in school, particularly after we publish our national cultural education plan—the first of its kind in our history.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the Department plan any legislative changes to the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964, and if so, when?

[Mr Vaizey]

I am happy to confirm to the hon. Lady that the Government are doing an enormous amount to help libraries. We have given responsibility for libraries to the Arts Council, which has set up a £6 million fund to support them, and we have appointed a new libraries adviser, Yinnon Ezra. We are piloting the compulsory membership of libraries for schoolchildren and we have the Seighart review on e-lending. We continue strongly to support libraries. This is not about legislation; it is about action.

Universal Credit and Welfare Reform

Baroness Berger Excerpts

Tuesday 11th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The timetable is not slipping at all. We are on target. The right hon. Gentleman needs to be happy about that.

It is all very well for the Opposition to carp, while saying that they support universal credit, but let me be absolutely clear why I believe that we have to do this. First, we inherited a complex mess of 30 different benefits. There are seven additions relating to disability alone, which are complicated for people who are disabled. They are often confused about what to do. Some payments are available when a person works for 16 hours, some at 24 hours and some at 30. Some are withdrawn at 40%, some at 65% and some even at 100%. Some are net and some are gross. One needs to be a mathematician to figure them out.

My previous permanent secretary admitted that one day, when he was listening to a lone parent who had come in for guidance on what benefit she would receive and how it would work if she took extra hours beyond the 16 hours at which she was already being supported. It took the adviser about 40 minutes to figure out whether she would be better off, marginally in the same position or marginally worse off because of the dramatic rise in the deduction rates. How can we expect every lone parent who is worried about authority and may not come in for help to understand what these things mean? The complexity and confusion are a problem. The decision whether to go to work is often a marginal one, and many people do not feel that it is worth while.

It is small wonder, therefore, that even before the recession there were over 4 million people on out-of-work benefits and 1.4 million people who had never worked at all. Things then got a lot worse because of the recession. The inheritance that we received included 5 million people on out-of-work benefits, youth unemployment already high and more children in workless households in this country than in the rest of the EU—that is a staggering thought. And that came after years of growth and plenty, which the previous Government wasted.

Ending that failure is a monumental task, and we have undertaken it because it has to be done, whether there is a Labour Government, a Conservative one, a coalition one or even a Liberal one. Universal credit is one of the most fundamental reforms to the welfare system, and it deserves to be supported and helped.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I have given way quite a bit. If the hon. Lady will give me a little leeway I will give way again later, but I want to make some progress.

A single payment, withdrawn at a clear and consistent rate when people move into work, will make work pay at each and every hour and remove the stumbling block in the current system whereby, as I said earlier, some people lose out dramatically. They lose 96p in every pound that they earn, which cannot be an incentive to go to work. Nobody here would take work at that rate, and trying to get the deduction rate down has to be a good reason for our reform.

The Opposition say that they are concerned about work incentives under universal credit. I reassure them that, as I said earlier, the flat 65% withdrawal rate will mean reduced marginal deduction rates for 1.2 million households. What is more, 80% of those gainers are in the bottom 40% of the income distribution. Why am I, as a Conservative, having to stand here and tell the Opposition that that is positive? Surely they should have ensured that it happened during all the years when they were in power.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I thank my hon. Friend for those comments.

[Luciana Berger]

I listened closely to what the Secretary of State said about 1.2 million people having better marginal deduction rates, but his Department’s own impact assessment shows that 2.1 million people will be worse off in work as a result of universal credit.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The reality about marginal deduction rates, as I have just said, is that the massive majority of the money that we are investing will go to those in the lowest income groups, which has to benefit them. People who would otherwise not enter work because of the margins will now find that it is beneficial to do so. Despite what the hon. Lady and the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill, have said about marginal deduction rates, the median increase will be just about 4%. The truth is that there will be a massive improvement in the marginal deduction rate for vast numbers of households. As I said earlier, half a million people who struggled under the previous Government’s complicated taxes had marginal deduction rates of well over 80%. That will not happen under universal credit, which is a critical point.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Berger Excerpts

Monday 10th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hoban]

The vast majority of people in part-time work actually want to work part time, but we need to find more ways to encourage people who want to work full time to do so and we will work very closely with Jobcentre Plus to ensure that those opportunities are available.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

The private sector and private sector employment can be supported if there is a strong network of jobcentres. Will the Minister explain why his Department plans to close the Old Swan jobcentre in my constituency, making it harder for businesses to recruit workers?

[Mr Hoban]

The hon. Lady will be aware that the Old Swan jobcentre in her constituency was subject to an arson attack in May. The cases dealt with at the centre and the 63 members of staff working there have been moved to the West Derby jobcentre. I am confident that they can provide the same quality of service from there as they could from their previous centre.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Berger Excerpts

Monday 28th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend is right. It is of paramount importance that our higher and further education systems are as focused as possible on delivering the right skills for young people. The partnership that now exists between the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, which is responsible for these areas, and ourselves is unprecedented, and it is making a real difference.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

T5. I was appalled to hear the sort of advice that jobcentre staff had given to a Master’s graduate in Liverpool. She was told to stop claiming her jobseeker’s allowance and, instead, to carry out an unpaid internship. Does the Minister of State think that that is morally correct? If he does not, what will he do about it?

[Chris Grayling]

I obviously cannot comment on that specific case, but what I can say is that anyone who is going through a work experience placement can continue to draw their benefits. That is the big difference that we made. Under the previous Government, somebody who was offered a work experience place was forced to lose their benefits.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Berger Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his comments. I do accept that there is a challenge in placing some people into work, which is why we have created a differential pricing structure to reflect the challenge of getting them into the workplace. The problem with the future jobs fund was the cost relative even to the outcome costs of other programmes run by the previous Government. Of course, in straitened financial times we have to seek not only what works in employment terms but what is affordable.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Government reinstate Labour’s jobs guarantee to ensure that young people are offered a job or training place after six months out of work?

[Chris Grayling]

What the hon. Lady does not understand is that Governments do not create jobs. Governments have to create an environment in which jobs are created by the private sector. Our job is to ensure that unemployed people are in the best possible position to take advantage of jobs when they are created by employers. It has been encouraging over the past few months to see the private sector creating far more full-time jobs, and I hope that that continues.

State Pension Reform

Baroness Berger Excerpts

Monday 4th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. A small occupational pension can make the difference between living in poverty and living with a bit of dignity. Hitherto, given the low state pension of £97 a week, the first £35 or so of company pension has tended to offset £35 of guarantee credit, so people have been no better off. Then the savings credit has come along and given them a bit back, and it is all fiendishly complicated. The beauty of the single tier is that people are above the guarantee credit level from pound one, so the works pension is theirs to keep on top. There is still a housing benefit system and so on, but in principle the works pension will be worth more than it is under the current system.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

May I give the Minister a final opportunity to tell us who the losers will be from his plans for flat-rate pensions?

[Steve Webb]

I will have another go. We have made it clear that we are not spending more money overall, that there are significant gainers among women, the low paid and the self-employed, and that therefore, inevitably, some people who would have received higher state pensions under the current system will receive flat-rate pensions. Because the current system is earnings-related, the highest earners will tend to receive lower state pensions under this system. The Labour party used to support that sort of thing.