Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Anne Begg and Maria Miller

Thursday 13th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

My hon. Friend is drawing me back to my old job, but I will resist the temptation. He is right that this matter is well and truly in the sights of the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, and I note his comments.

[Dame Anne Begg (Aberdeen South) (Lab)]

I, too, welcome the right hon. Lady to her new position. As she has already seen, her old position will follow her wherever she goes. I do not think that she will ever get away from that, because disability pervades all of society.

The Paralympics were a huge success and the Channel 4 coverage was wonderful. Does the right hon. Lady agree that it was particularly insensitive of Atos to sponsor not only the games but the lanyards, so that every Paralympian was forced to wear the name of Atos around their neck? Perhaps Atos had a perverse reason for doing that, because a much wider audience now knows how it has been treating disabled people in the work capability assessment.

[Maria Miller]

The hon. Lady will know that such decisions are made by organisations outside of Government. She is right to say that the Paralympics were a fantastic opportunity to change attitudes in this country, and I think that they achieved that. We need to keep that going. She is also right to say that former Ministers for Disabled People retain a deep and passionate interest in ensuring that the needs of disabled people are catered for, whichever Department they work in.

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[Dame Anne Begg (Aberdeen South) (Lab)]

T7. Many of my constituents cannot even get moderately fast broadband. They are therefore desperate for the introduction of superfast broadband, but 2015 is too far away. Aberdeen will be bidding to become one of the superfast cities. Can the Secretary of State give us an assurance that the criteria will include not only ease of installation and density of population but factors such as the industries that will depend on having superfast broadband? Aberdeen is an important economic driver in the north-east of Scotland.

[Maria Miller]

The hon. Lady makes an important point, and I hope that she will join me in encouraging her local authorities to adopt the kind of deregulation of planning issues that will help to speed up the delivery of broadband and reduce the costs.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Anne Begg and Maria Miller

Thursday 12th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Dame Anne Begg (Aberdeen South) (Lab)]

3. What assessment she has made of the effect of Government policies on efforts to tackle violence against disabled people.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Maria Miller)]

The Government take seriously tackling hate crime against disabled people, and violence in particular. We are meeting the coalition commitment to improve the recording of such crimes and working with voluntary sector partners to encourage more victims to come forward.

[Dame Anne Begg]

Disabled people report an increase in the use of insults such as “scroungers” and “cheats” aimed at them, which reflects the language used by many media outlets when reporting the Government’s own welfare reform. What action will the Minister take to stop the Government adding to the perception that anyone on benefit is fleecing the system and is an acceptable target for such verbal attacks?

[Maria Miller]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question, because I agree that the use of such inflammatory language is not acceptable, and the Government will not use it at all. We believe strongly that it is the system that has trapped disabled people in a spiral of welfare dependency, and that is why the overhaul of the benefits system is such a priority. I hope that we can rely on her support for our work in that area.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Anne Begg and Maria Miller

Monday 28th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dame Anne Begg (Aberdeen South) (Lab)]

I was particularly disappointed to hear the reply that the Minister with responsibility for disabled people gave to my right hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Mrs McGuire). The Minister seemed to imply that the only way one could trust a disabled person to tell the truth was in a face-to-face interview. The Government seem hellbent on making every disabled person go through multiple face-to-face interviews to get any kind of benefit. She was disparaging about filling in a form and getting supporting medical evidence. Dame Carol Black has said in her most recent reports that there should be fewer face-to-face interviews for employment and support allowance. What is the Minister’s response to that?

[Maria Miller]

The problem with disability living allowance is that 70% of those currently in receipt of it have it as a lifetime award, and do not have the necessary updates and reassessments to keep track of whether that assessment is right. Having a face-to-face assessment in the first place means that disabled people get the opportunity to talk to a health care professional about their condition and ensure that they receive the right support.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Anne Begg and Maria Miller

Monday 24th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. I know that he does a lot of work in this area, and I welcome his contribution. He will be aware that through the Sayce recommendations, we are specifically considering how we can increase the role of Access to Work. That could have a particularly positive impact on people with MS. We already have a budget of some £105 million supporting about 35,000 people through Access to Work, and the Sayce recommendations indicate that the number could be doubled if there is a reprioritisation of how Government money is used.

[Dame Anne Begg (Aberdeen South) (Lab)]

4. If he will publish monthly information on the number of people successfully placed in jobs by Work programme contractors and the cost per job outcome.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Anne Begg and Maria Miller

Thursday 15th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

I was in that position, a few years ago now. It is a difficult transition to make. That is why we are making it a great priority to introduce a new system of flexible parental leave so that new parents can choose how to share child care between them. That, along with our reforms of the benefits system under universal credit, will help many more women in particular to stay close to the labour market.

[Dame Anne Begg (Aberdeen South) (Lab)]

As we have heard, flexible working can be a very good thing, but sometimes the phrase is misinterpreted by employers, and that leads to bad practices such as zero-hour contracts and unrealistic flexibility that they look for from employees instead of giving them set hours. Will the Minister guard against always using the phrase “flexible working”? We may think it is a positive thing, but some employers interpret it differently.

[Maria Miller]

The hon. Lady makes an important point. They are the sorts of issues that will come out in our consultation.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Anne Begg and Maria Miller

Monday 18th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to suggest that the CSA should be doing much more to ensure that both parents are responsible for their children’s financial future, post-separation. That is at the heart of our reasons for reforming the CSA and the approaches that it takes. We want to put that responsibility at the heart of the service that we are delivering.

[Dame Anne Begg (Aberdeen South) (Lab)]

It was the Government who created the anomaly of half a million women being affected by the acceleration in the increase in the pension age, and it was the Government who said that they would make transitional arrangements. I was therefore astonished to hear the Pensions Minister say earlier that he was looking to the Opposition to come up with ideas for those arrangements. The Government have dug this hole, and it should be the Government who get themselves out of it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Anne Begg and Maria Miller

Thursday 23rd June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dame Anne Begg (Aberdeen South) (Lab)]

I was surprised to discover that the data have not been collected, so that trends cannot be found. I welcome the Government’s commitment to collecting those data. May I suggest, however, that the Government also consider the catalyst of the crime that is reported, particularly as a number of disabled people say that they have been spat at in the street or called scroungers because of some of the headlines that have been in the newspapers?

[Maria Miller]

After 13 years of the previous Administration, it is a shame that speedier action was not taken on that. I am glad that the coalition Government have taken action so quickly.

The hon. Lady is right to say that we are dealing with the symptoms, not the causes, of the problem. That is why we are putting a great deal of effort and energy into ensuring that there are positive images of disabled people. We have a consultation at the moment on how to involve more disabled people in political life. Having disabled people at the centre of decision making will help to change people’s attitudes.

Welfare Reform Bill

Debate between Anne Begg and Maria Miller

Wednesday 15th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dame Anne Begg]

That is my understanding also. There will be a group of people who will have paid the contributions in the two previous years and who will go straight into the support group and get to keep the benefit for life, but those with slowly degenerative diseases and those who come from better-off households will get nothing at all. It is that kind of unfairness and that sense of a two-tier system that frightens people.

[Maria Miller]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Although it is very interesting to hear about the ESA, it actually is relevant not to PIP, but to another section of the Bill.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I am sure that there will be a conclusion in which the two points join together. I am not taking that as a point of order.

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[Maria Miller]

We are not producing a report to consult on. What we will do is make our position clear, and then there will be the opportunity for people to give us their views on that.

Finally, I would like to speak to amendment 60. I believe that the intention of the amendment is to ensure that the new assessment for PIP is working effectively before it is used to reassess the existing disability living allowance caseload. I can reassure the hon. Member for Glasgow East that it is our intention to do that. But I can go further than that—the Government are committed to ensuring that the new assessment is working effectively before it is used for any individuals, new claimants or not.

[Dame Anne Begg]

Related to that point, although it is slightly different, I wonder whether the Minister can allay the fears of people with Motability cars. Some of them could sign a new lease this month and be reassessed for PIP before the end of that lease, so they might lose the mobility element of DLA and therefore lose their car. What would happen in such cases?

[Maria Miller]

I had a meeting with Motability yesterday to talk about these issues, which was one of many meetings that I and officials have had with it. We will look at the issue in great detail. Motability provides a fabulous service to disabled people and we will ensure that the issues that the hon. Lady mentions are addressed.

Welfare Reform Bill

Debate between Anne Begg and Maria Miller

Monday 13th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

I would not want to incur the wrath of Mr Speaker by going into such issues, which are more to do with my colleagues in the Department for Communities and Local Government. Certainly, however, my Department has a responsibility to ensure that we apply that downward pressure on rents in order to ensure affordability for people across the board.

[Dame Anne Begg]

The housing associations in my area are saying that because they are likely to have people defaulting on their rents, such housing will no longer be a good investment, and for that very reason further building programmes are likely to be curtailed. That is the result of the Government’s policies.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Anne Begg and Maria Miller

Monday 28th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dame Anne Begg (Aberdeen South) (Lab)]

I was contacted last week by a constituent who is in her 50s, has advanced multiple sclerosis and lives in a residential home. Her elderly mother has moved into a nursing home on the other side of Aberdeen. The taxi that allows my constituent to visit her mother costs £50 there and back—exactly the amount she gets from the mobility component of disability living allowance. Will the Minister guarantee that my constituent will continue to have access to those funds after the changes to DLA, and that she will not have to go through a reassessment to make sure that she really deserves it?

[Maria Miller]

As we have said before from the Dispatch Box, the intention of our measures to reform the personal independence payment is not to remove the ability of people such as her constituent to get out and about. We will now include the needs of people in care homes in the overall PIP reassessment.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Anne Begg and Maria Miller

Thursday 10th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. Shared parental leave has an important role to play in the workplace, both in reflecting the realities of modern living and in helping to ensure that the gender inequalities that the House has worked so hard to reduce are reduced even further.

[Dame Anne Begg (Aberdeen South) (Lab)]

During yesterday’s debate on the Welfare Reform Bill, it became clear that no more money would go into child care and that the existing money would have to go much further, especially when the Government are placing new obligations on women to find work. What will the Government do about that?

[Maria Miller]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions made clear in yesterday’s debate, support for child care costs will be provided as an additional element as part of the universal credit, and we will invest at least the same amount in child care as under the current system. That is important at a time of fiscal restraint. We will go further, however, and make sure we target that money at people working fewer than 16 hours —who in the past perhaps have not received as much help as they need—thus getting more people closer to the labour market.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Anne Begg and Maria Miller

Monday 22nd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. It is important that we have personalised care for disabled people. Every disabled person has different needs and, working with colleagues in the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Department of Health, we will ensure that the correct level of support is being delivered locally.

[Miss Anne Begg (Aberdeen South) (Lab)]

Will the Minister take this opportunity to clarify exactly who will lose the mobility element of their DLA? There is quite a lot going around the blogosphere about who might be affected. Will the changes affect children in residential schools? Will they affect those in residential care who are self-funders as well as those who are funded by the local authority? Will there be exemptions, or will everyone in residential care lose the mobility element of their DLA?

[Maria Miller]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. This does not affect self-funders, and we will be making clearer as we get towards the Bill exactly how the measure will affect all other groups. I reiterate that it is important to get clarity in the funding streams as we move towards personalisation, which is overwhelmingly welcomed by disabled people.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Maria Miller)]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. We can be clear that individuals such as his constituent are able to undertake volunteering opportunities. Indeed, that is something we have been encouraging as part of the Olympics and Paralympics, and it does not cause any problems if they are in receipt of state benefits.

[Miss Anne Begg (Aberdeen South) (Lab)]

T4. May I ask Ministers to look again at the proposal to reduce housing benefit by 10% for people receiving jobseeker’s allowance for a year? The Minister for Housing and Local Government said this morning that people in social rented housing will be kicked out of their homes if they go into work, and under the proposal on housing benefit, people will be kicked out of their homes if they do not go into work.