Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. We are clearly looking to reform the work capability assessment on employment and support allowance. That affords us some opportunities to look at the PIP assessment process, to which there have already been many improvements. If we can ensure that both those systems are sharing data properly, we should be able to reduce the burden on the claimant.

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

12. What are the Government doing to raise awareness of the Access to Work programme and the support it can offer to employers who want to make reasonable adjustments for employees with disabilities?

[Penny Mordaunt]

The Access to Work programme is popular, and is just one of the Government’s schemes to provide support and financial assistance to employers. One way in which we are publicising that is through the Disability Confident scheme, which we relaunched last autumn. Around 4,000 organisations have now signed up to it, and it is one way of ensuring that employers really do understand the support that is there for them, as well as the huge talent and insight that this group of people can bring to their workforce.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Monday 21st November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Richard Harrington]

As my hon. Friend knows, the public finances are very complicated, and I know that he intends to wait until Wednesday to hear what the Chancellor has to say, but this matter has been looked at long and hard and transitional funds of more than £1.1 billion have been allocated. The change to the state pension age was discussed and enacted in 1995. Since then, there have been further Acts and all this has been extensively discussed.

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

I understand that reverting to the 1995 state pension timetable would cost something in the region of £39 billion. Does the Minister agree that it is easy to criticise the Government over this policy, but more difficult to explain where the money would come from for any policy changes?

[Richard Harrington]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question, and I totally agree with him.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Monday 14th March 2016 Commons Chamber

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

Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the latest low-income statistics show that the percentage of individuals and children in relatively low-income circumstances is at its lowest level since the 1980s?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Yes, and it is also worth noting that income inequality is now lower than it was in 2009-10. It is worth reminding ourselves that, for all the complaining from the Opposition, income inequality rose under Labour to the highest levels it had ever been.

State Pension Age

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I accept that the hon. Lady raises a legitimate point but I wish that, in doing so, she would encompass the fact that she sat on the Labour Benches under a Government who raised the pensionable age and that accusations of “no notice” can very much be lodged at the door of the previous Labour Government. I simply say to her that, during the last Government, we made changes to improve the lot of many of those affected. As I have said, the independent review will look at all of that post-2028 and make recommendations about the best way forward. I hope that she will give evidence to the review if she has such concerns.

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

Will my right hon. Friend confirm that countries around the globe are being forced to confront the impact of rapidly rising life expectancy levels, and it appears that only Opposition parties are in complete denial about the need for a sustainable state pension age?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

That is a fact. Many of our neighbours have already equalised pensionable ages and are accelerating the move to a later pensionable age ahead of us. Germany, Norway and various other countries around the world have done so, and it is only right that we should do so as well. Otherwise, we will place a burden on our children and our children’s children, who will not thank us for not taking the brave decisions that are necessary.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It was with great pleasure that I met Carers’ Resource from his constituency. Earlier today I discussed how we can support and work collectively with that organisation to support more women with caring responsibilities to get employment and also to work with employers to do more to support getting people into work—carers in particular. I look forward to working with my hon. Friend and Carers’ Resource to see what more we can do to pilot more initiatives locally.

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

15. What progress his Department has made in reducing the number of workless households.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

21. What progress his Department has made on reducing the number of workless households.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)]

The number of workless households is now at its lowest-ever level, having fallen by over 680,000 since 2010.

[Andrew Bridgen]

I welcome that encouraging figure, which means that fewer children are growing up in workless households. Does my right hon. Friend agree that, while ensuring that every family includes a member in work is the best way out of poverty, it also offers a great role model to any children in the household, increasing family stability and thus giving children the stability and security they need to have the best possible life chances?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I do agree with my hon. Friend. We know that unemployment is one of the causes of family breakdown. Having a family member in work helps to create strong and stable families, which are crucial to giving children the best possible start in life. It is therefore very welcome that the number of workless households in the east midlands—a huge part of which my hon. Friend represents—has fallen by 68,000 since we came to power. I remind my hon. Friend and the House that, notwithstanding all the nonsense that we hear from Labour Members, some 2.5 million children were growing up in workless households when they left office. That is not much of a record.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Monday 2nd November 2015 Commons Chamber

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

11. What estimate he has made of the number of households to which the benefit cap no longer applies.

[Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) (Con)]

19. What estimate he has made of the number of households to which the benefit cap no longer applies.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)]

The benefit cap is having a long-term and positive effect on those who are trying to find work, and on people’s lives generally. More than 60,000 households have been capped since April 2013, and as of May 2015, more than 40,000 households were no longer subject to the benefit cap. Of those, 16,300 households have moved into work.

[Andrew Bridgen]

I have good news from North West Leicestershire, where two thirds of the households to which a benefit cap applied are no longer subject to that cap. Does that show that the Government are successfully targeting taxpayers’ money in a way that encourages benefit recipients to seek work and reorder their finances, in exactly the same way as those in work do?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Yes. The benefit cap is introducing fairness, and the claimant count in my hon. Friend’s constituency is down by 54% since 2010, and the youth claimant count by 64%. We want even more people to benefit from the financial and wider rewards of employment, and that is why we are reforming welfare and getting on with the job.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

We are not scrapping all the child poverty targets; what we have said is that we are going to look at all the life chances measures. We want to know what they are doing and how well they are performing. Alongside that, we are still publishing income measures; HBAI statistics—households below average income—will still be published. The hon. Lady is therefore wrong in what she says. What we are doing is focusing on what we can actually do to help families get out of poverty, rather than rotating them around a 60% median income line, as the last Labour Government did. That did not make any sense and cost a huge amount of money.

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

Does the Secretary of State agree that an important indicator of a child’s prospects in this country is whether they live in a workless household, and that it is right for the Government to take account of that when assessing child poverty?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Absolutely; that is exactly right. This is about the measures we take that keep people out of poverty in a sustained way. I have talked already about the rise in the national living wage, but we are also doubling free childcare to 30 hours a week; raising educational standards; and expanding successfully the troubled families programme to a further 400,000 families. In addition, the early years pupil premium is hugely important in helping the most troubled families.

DWP Data

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Tuesday 21st July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

As I have said, the statistics will be published, and the hon. Gentleman can then make his own informed decision.

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

As the Minister stated, unemployment benefits have always been conditional. Will she tell the House how often these statistics were published by the Labour party when it was in government?

[Priti Patel]

It is a very short answer—never.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Monday 20th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I will give way to my hon. Friend the Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen), but then I will make some progress. I will give way again a bit later.

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

Does my right hon. Friend agree that, by putting welfare spending on a sustainable footing, these measures are the best way to secure the future of the poor and the vulnerable in our society?

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Timms]

As the hon. Lady well knows, the big impact on child poverty will come from the huge cuts in working tax credits and other changes not in this Bill but elsewhere. I hope that she will join us in fighting very strongly against those changes when the House has the chance to do so.

[Andrew Bridgen]

The shadow Secretary of State is making a brave effort to defend whatever his party’s policy is on this, but he has very little credibility because the country knows that under the previous Labour Government the number of workless households doubled, so Labour policies not only trap people in welfare but trap people in poverty.

[Stephen Timms]

Child poverty fell dramatically under the previous Government; now it has plateaued. I fear that because of measures announced in the Budget, it is going to rocket, and we are determined to stop that happening if we can.

Another reform in the Bill that we support in principle is the provision to turn support for mortgage interest into a repayable loan. That is a sensible step, in principle, given that the benefit enables homeowners to retain an asset and potentially gain substantially from rising house prices. However, it must not make affordability problems worse for people struggling to stay in their homes. Repayments must not tip people into repossession and homelessness. The Secretary of State did not tell us what arrangements are proposed for repaying these loans. We will argue that those who access that support should be able to defer repayment until they sell the property without pressure from the Government to do so. The Budget announced an increase in the waiting period for support for mortgage interest from 13 weeks to 39 weeks. That is too long. As it is a loan scheme, why make people wait, particularly as that could force them into the hands of loan sharks? With support for mortgage interest becoming, in effect, a form of low-risk consumer credit, it should be readily available without nine months of delay to those struggling to make repayments.

We welcome the plans to reduce social rents, which will save 1.2 million households £700 a year, but we have grave concerns about the impact on housing associations and local authorities. They will face a huge reduction in rent revenue, drastically undermining their capacity to borrow and to build. The Office for Budget Responsibility says that many fewer homes will be built; the National Housing Federation puts the figure at 27,000. We will table amendments to address that.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Thursday 9th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Leslie]

I do not think that was a very polite reaction from Conservative Members. My hon. Friend worked very hard during her time in local government to try to support the low-paid by introducing a London living wage, and I think it commendable that local authorities and businesses in London, in particular, have tried to make headway with that. Of course, a real living wage now needs to be about £12 to compensate for the reduction in tax credits.

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

rose—

[Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)]

rose—