Oral Answers to Questions

Anne McGuire Excerpts

Monday 23rd January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

My hon. Friend will be aware that the new personal independence payment assessment will be separate from the WCA, and that any contracts that are in place for Atos are not at all connected with the new assessment that we need for PIP. In fact, a formal competition document is going out today to start the commercial process. To reassure her about the involvement of disabled people, I say that we already have an implementation development group, which involves disabled people closely at every step of the way.

[Mrs Anne McGuire (Stirling) (Lab)]

Just for balance, I should like to put on record my thanks to those who gave us the Spartacus report, which was a challenging document and took apart some of the Government’s points.

The Dilnot report recommended that universal disability benefits for people of all ages should continue as now. However, under the new PIP the Government are scrapping low-rate care. Some 500,000 people, and probably more, could face escalating unmet needs that will result in pressure on council care services. What specific discussions has the Minister, as lead for the Office for Disability Issues, had on the changes with her colleagues in the Department of Health and the Department for Communities and Local Government, and with the Scottish and Welsh Governments, and what action has she taken as a result of any conversations?

[Maria Miller]

The right hon. Lady will know that we have been having very close conversations with both the devolved authorities and the Department of Health, and she is right that we have to consider the changes that are happening in the round. She should also be mindful of the fact that the changes that we are making under the PIP will remove something that we inherited from the previous Government—£600 million a year going out in overpayments to people whose conditions have changed and who no longer need the same level of support.

Remploy

Anne McGuire Excerpts

Thursday 15th December 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Anne McGuire (Stirling) (Lab)]

Thank you very much, Mr Benton, for calling me to speak. It is a pleasure to respond to this debate on behalf of the Opposition and to serve under your chairmanship. I also particularly want to thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) for leading the debate today, and the Backbench Business Committee for allocating time for it. If there is one thing that all of us have learned over many years, it is that Remploy and its future are of abiding interest to many Members from all parts of the House.

I also want to act slightly at odds with normal parliamentary procedure—since we are not in the main Chamber, I think that I can probably get away with it, subject to your ruling, Mr Benton—by thanking those disabled people from Remploy who have travelled to observe this debate, including members of the trade unions GMB, Unite and Community, who had not been mentioned before in the debate. It is an indication of how the staff at Remploy feel that they have made this journey at this point in the week and at this point in the day to hear this debate. Regardless of the views that have been expressed—there have been some differing views, including some subtly differing views—I hope that those staff will recognise that people in this place take Remploy and the issues affecting disabled people and the future of disabled people very seriously indeed.

I also want to thank my hon. Friends the Members for North Tyneside (Mrs Glindon), for Glenrothes (Lindsay Roy), for Bridgend (Mrs Moon), for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery), for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg), and the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd) for their contributions to the debate. I will come back to the points made by the hon. Member for Eastbourne shortly. I am also grateful for the interventions that were made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden), and the hon. Members for St Ives (Andrew George) and for Brecon and Radnorshire (Roger Williams). I realise that I have missed out my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) in my list, but I remember his very powerful contribution to the debate.

For very personal and obvious reasons, I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins), because he and I had many a long conversation about the Remploy factory in his constituency and the model that it provided; I will discuss that model later. He illustrated today that, where we can galvanise a community and put in energy and commitment, we can make a Remploy factory work. Indeed, that comment was echoed by my hon. Friends the Members for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) and for Wrexham (Ian Lucas), who highlighted that where local leadership is shown, we can make a difference.

[Paul Goggins]

I pay tribute to the work that my right hon. Friend did as the Minister with responsibility for disabled people when we were in government and I thank her for the encouragement that she gave to me in the days when we were trying to establish the support group for the Remploy factory in my constituency; she has just referred to the conversations that we had about that issue. Does she agree that, as one or two Members have already mentioned, a key group in any area is local councillors? Councillors are community champions who provide links to the local authority and, because of their experience, they can also help to scrutinise some of the development proposals. Indeed, will she join me in paying tribute to the councillors in my area and elsewhere who have done that?

[Mrs McGuire]

Yes, indeed. We can also look at some of the more successful examples of supported employment, including factories where disabled people work, that have had unstinting support from local authorities. Not all of those factories are Remploy factories. For example, the Royal Strathclyde Blindcraft Industries factory in Glasgow has had enormous input and support from the local authority. It has supported the factory through thick and thin, and hopefully now through thick again, but obviously business conditions may change.

As I said earlier, I want to refer to the comments of the hon. Member for Eastbourne. I think that everybody who has spoken in the debate accepts—at least, I hope that can be said of everyone—that there is a change in expectation among most disabled people, and certainly among their spokespersons and the organisations that represent them, and that disabled people want to have a range of choice in employment. Disabled people want the same range of choice that non-disabled people have. Government support is crucial in helping to deliver on those aspirations. I say gently to the hon. Gentleman, who I know has a long and honourable history of working in the disability movement, that we cannot deliver on the aspirations for the majority if we trample over the expectations of the few. In many respects, that is the dilemma that we face in discussing the current issue.

I have heard today from many right hon. and hon. Friends and hon. Members about their own experience of the Remploy factory in their own constituencies. I share their admiration for those factories, because there is a Remploy factory in Stirling. I visited it on the international day of disabled people and took the baton from a young man who works there. As has been said of other Remploy factories, that company of people in that factory in Stirling recognise that Remploy is not only about a job but about a wider network of social support, economic support, health support and all the things that disabled people look for. Indeed, Liz Sayce, in her report, recognised the value of the Remploy environment, and I will read an extract from page 96:

“It was clear from this review that the best factories offer job satisfaction, a supportive and accessible environment and a reasonable income for those they employ. The factories have provided employment opportunities – sometimes for many years – to disabled individuals. They have also provided a sense of community for their employees. Some have pioneered learning and development, often led by Union Learner Representatives, through which individuals have (for instance) learnt to read for the first time, or worked towards qualifications. While some sheltered workshop environments pay staff less than the minimum wage, Remploy factories pay above the minimum wage and offer good terms and conditions.”

I am not going to run away from the fact that, like the Minister, I have wrestled with some of the issues about Remploy. I understand the tensions between wanting to open up everything to disabled people and the fact that some disabled people want to make a different choice, and we have to be careful about how we interpret the perceived settled will of disabled people. We also must recognise the legitimacy of a position that is not the mainstream view of the disability movement—to close sheltered factories—which is that factories should be maintained, to give disabled people a choice. That was always the position, and those of us parliamentarians who are veterans of the Remploy modernisation programme will remember that my right hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Mr Hain) made it very clear that there was still a place within our range of opportunities for supported factory employment.

I want to probe the current consultation with a series of questions to the Minister, which I hope she will be able to answer, if not this afternoon, in the very near future. In opposition, the Government supported a five-year modernisation plan, so why did the Minister embark on a review nearly two years before that timetable had been exhausted? I suggest that the five-year plan effectively had only two years to run before there was a general election, so why did the Minister go for the current timetable? With the greatest respect to Liz Sayce, the five-year plan did not come out of a review, in a few short months, but was the result of extensive financial investigations, consultations with the disability lobby before a consultation document was published, and extensive and sometimes very robust discussions with the Remploy board and the trade unions, which some of us here will remember. We felt that there had to be a plan with a time frame that would allow Remploy to turn the business around.

We have heard today that some of the factories are being turned around, that order books are overcrowded and new businesses are coming in. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East that there are still some issues about top-heavy management and decentralisation, and we had the five-year time frame so that the issues could be worked through, between the board and the trade unions, with the continued support of Government. I can say this only in the kindest fashion: the current situation has created uncertainty among workers, and indeed among management, about what will happen, and that is stymieing the development of Remploy the business. I have some sympathy with colleagues who suggest that there might be a bit of a withering-on-the-vine strategy behind that.

Given the Minister’s intention to embark on this course of action, what action did she take to involve the board of Remploy and its trade unions in discussions about the issues identified in the Sayce report? What recognition did she give to the trade union analysis of the current operation of Remploy’s enterprises and the questions it raised about the company’s business practices? Did she take any opportunity to discuss some of the issues with the unions? I am not talking about post-consultation discussion, after the paper was published, but about developing the consultation in line with the people who have a strong input into the process. There is a feeling that the consultation is flawed, not least because the Minister perhaps did not appreciate all the implications of the phrase on page 18:

“Government is minded to accept the recommendations of the Sayce Review”.

I do not understand how someone can put out a consultation and then say what they are minded to do before the results have come in.

When the modernisation statement was made to this House on 29 November 2007, the now Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) made the following commitment:

“Let me assure Remploy and its employees that the next Conservative Government will continue the process of identifying additional potential procurement opportunities for them and the public sector work force.”—[Official Report, 29 November 2007; Vol. 468, c. 451.]

What efforts have the Minister and her ministerial colleague made to fulfil that promise? What discussions has she had with the major procurement Departments, including the Home Office and the Ministry of Defence? Has she looked to ensure that her own Department has considered even more ways in which it could open up procurement opportunities for a business in which it has a significant investment? What discussions has she had with colleagues in the Department for Communities and Local Government to encourage local authorities to consider opening up opportunities for individual local factories? What efforts has she made to encourage her colleagues to identify procurement opportunities under article 19? If she is still “minded” after the consultation process closes, what responsibilities will the Government have towards Remploy?

Why is the current pension scheme issue raised in the consultation? Currently the DWP guarantees the company pension scheme, but would it still exist? How would it be managed, and would the DWP have a role in that management? Is the pension fund currently in surplus or deficit, and by how much? If it is in shortfall, what measures will be taken to deal with that? It looks as though the Minister has the figures to hand, but if she does not I would be pleased if she could advise us after the debate. What range of companies does she have in mind that might wish to buy all or some of the Remploy factories? Has she, or have her officials, had any communication with any such interested parties?

The Minister indicates in her consultation that staff might wish to consider acquiring the enterprise businesses, and that they could do so. The consultation also indicates that expert advice would be there to assist, but would any provision be made for a front-loaded capital investment on the part of Government? Would the DWP consider a legacy to those factories, given the deep and extended relationship between Government and Remploy? Those are all unanswered questions in a consultation.

[Ian Lucas]

My right hon. Friend is making a powerful case. Does she agree that one great weakness of the Sayce report is its complete lack of detail about what alternative model for going forward would be available to individual plants and factories? We are in a state of uncertainty about those individual plants, and they have no real knowledge of what is proposed for their future if the proposals go ahead.

[Mrs McGuire]

My hon. Friend is correct. I do not blame Liz Sayce for that, as her report dealt with principles and the direction of travel, but we can criticise the consultation for lacking fundamental details on some of the questions affecting the disabled people who currently work for Remploy.

If the businesses are to be transferred, what provision will be made to safeguard terms and conditions? Will they be guaranteed under the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006, or will people be sacked and rehired under inferior terms and conditions? Liz Sayce complimented Remploy on delivering good terms and conditions for its workers, but again, the consultation says nothing about that.

The consultation mentions a comprehensive package of support, which is one of the Sayce recommendations. What does the Minister have in mind? What kind of support will it be? How will it be delivered, and by whom? Has she factored the costs of that support into her budget for the winding-up of Remploy? What assessment has she made of the costs involved in selling off the factories and winding up Remploy enterprises, including all the calculations relating to redundancy payments, liabilities and creditors, a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Glenrothes? How do they relate to the current budget, and how much money will actually be transferred to other Government support programmes after all those issues are taken into account?

[Dame Anne Begg]

On the Government’s Work programme and their desire to get more disabled people into work, without the factories, there will be fewer opportunities for work experience to give people the skills, expertise and background that will allow them into open employment. We cannot do away with the factories if we are serious about getting people with severe disabilities into open employment. The only employers likely to be able to give them that experience are those such as Remploy factories.

[Mrs McGuire]

My hon. Friend makes an important point that has been echoed by other colleagues in this debate. The Remploy factories have changed how they operate, including working with local special needs schools. They open up opportunities. She will know that they are not a destination but a stepping stone to the world of work. Disabled people can work in a range of industries and with a range of skills. I support the opening up of opportunities, with the support of trade unions, workers and management, as part of modernisation. At a factory in Causewayhead in my constituency last week, I was told how many people were coming to the factory through the training annexe. Training opportunities were being opened up to a range of disabled and non-disabled people. She makes a good point.

I have left one important issue until the end. Why has the Minister decided effectively to renege on a deal made with people who decided to stay with Remploy under the modernisation programme? I refer her to page 19 of the consultation document, which says:

“The implication of the recommendations in the Sayce Report is that, if accepted”—

she has already said that she is minded to accept them—

“Remploy in its current form would not exist…The Government will therefore not be able to give undertakings that staff”,

who are covered by protection of their working conditions, salaries and pensions,

“will not be made compulsorily redundant as a result of such changes, including the modernisation group.”

Modernisation came about as the result of protracted and difficult discussions. I will be disappointed if the Minister and her Government run away from the decisions and agreements made and accepted by her party when they were in opposition to maintain terms and conditions even for those who chose not to or were not in a position to move into other full-time employment. That was our deal with people who had given a lifetime of service to Remploy. Frankly, if my interpretation of her consultation document is accurate, I am disappointed.

The Minister cannot distance herself from the economic situation in which we find ourselves, a situation underlined by yesterday’s unemployment figures. Does she accept that even if she is minded to make that decision, making it in the current economic environment looks almost like abandoning her duty of care to the disabled employees who have given many years of service to the company that she effectively owns?

The Minister cannot hide behind the views of the disability lobby to justify her actions. Indeed, one leading disability organisation, Scope, while accepting the principle of closure, says on page 101 of the Sayce review:

“However, given the harsh economic climate, we recognise the need for transitional protection for the 3,000 employees currently located in the Remploy factories and suggest that full closure is deferred until the employment environment has recovered.”

Even one of the organisations supporting the direction of travel says that now is the wrong time to make that decision.

During the past two hours or so, the Minister has heard the passion and commitment expressed by hon. Members from all parties. I hope that she will seriously consider those points of view. I hope that her phrase that the Government are “minded to accept” was an unfortunate slip of the pen and that her mind is still open. Not only do disabled people fear unemployment, they experience fear every day due to negative media headlines about disabled people and their lives in the community. I think that she is an honourable lady, and I hope that as a result of this debate, she will take away some of the points made and see that there is a flexibility of approach and that nobody is tied to a model of Remploy that is stuck in the past. We want a network of supported factories in local communities and linking into local networks that deliver good-quality jobs and experiences for many young people for many years to come.

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

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Benton, and under that of Mr Havard, who is no longer in his seat. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) on securing this debate and right hon. and hon. Members on making a strong case on their constituents’ behalf for the importance of providing the appropriate support for disabled people to get into employment. I, too, note that many people in this room today other than right hon. and hon. Members have an interest in that.

It is also important to note how much time hon. Members have taken to come talk to me. My hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd), the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) and the right hon. Members for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins) and for Cynon Valley have all taken a great deal of their own time to ensure that they put their views in a measured and sensible manner, and I thank them all.

It was interesting to follow the right hon. Member for Stirling (Mrs McGuire), who speaks for the Opposition. Having been in my place, she is right to say that we face a dilemma. She stated that she understands the tensions. I have no doubt that she does, having done this job before me, but what was not clear is exactly what the Opposition’s position is. She might feel that she has made her position clear, but it was not clear to me.

[Mrs McGuire]

I have made it clear that we expected the five-year plan that was in place to run its course. The problem is that it is the Minister who has to wrestle with the decisions, but I have made our position very clear.

Oral Answers to Questions

Anne McGuire Excerpts

Monday 28th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

As the hon. Lady knows, we work on an ongoing basis with employers through a number of forums. In particular, I am aware of the work that an organisation such as BT does to support its employees in such matters. It is by showcasing that sort of good practice that we will get a better understanding more broadly among employers.

[Mrs Anne McGuire (Stirling) (Lab)]

Given that evidence of public understanding of disability benefits is often hazy, does the Minister with responsibility for disabled people agree with the Secretary of State when he said earlier this month in a comment in a daily newspaper:

“At the moment . . . millions of pounds are paid out in . . . benefits to people who have simply filled out a form”,

thereby giving credence to yet another negative and erroneous story about disabled people? If she does not, what efforts has she made personally to discover who briefed the story, and what action has she or her Secretary of State taken to correct the facts in this instance and to challenge future stories of a similar ilk?

[Maria Miller]

The right hon. Lady will know, from her time working in the Department for Work and Pensions, that there are indeed many people who simply fill in a form and receive a benefit, and that we are not making the right sort of assessment to ensure that that is correct in future. She may also be aware that £600 million is given out each year for disability living allowance, which is an over-assessment of people’s needs.

Disability Hate Crime

Anne McGuire Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd November 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Anne McGuire (Stirling) (Lab)]

I am delighted to be in the Chamber under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I have known you for more years than either of us cares to remember, so it is a pleasure to find ourselves in this situation this morning.

I echo the remarks of others and congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) on initiating this important debate. I thank other colleagues—my right hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr Clarke) and the hon. Members for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard), for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd), for Edinburgh West (Mike Crockart) and for South Swindon (Mr Buckland)—for their powerful comments. I also thank colleagues from Northern Ireland who participated in the debate. The question was asked about this being a UK issue; it is definitely a UK issue. Indeed, the Equality and Human Rights Commission report makes recommendations for the devolved Administrations, which I hope they will be able to pursue.

As others in the Chamber have said, it is to our collective shame as a society that we are having to consider such a report 11 years into the 21st century. We are supposed to be committed to a road map for equality for disabled people, yet we are considering a document that highlights the antagonism, harassment, assault and even murder inflicted on those whose only crime was that they were disabled and were therefore seen as a legitimate target by those who sought to harm them.

It is difficult to read the report without becoming angry about the fact that, after the passing of two disability discrimination Acts, an equality Act, the establishment of the Disability Rights Commission, which is now the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the signing and ratification of the UN convention on the rights of people with disabilities, the Autism Act 2009, the European convention on human rights and the Human Rights Act 1998, and the introduction of public sector duties, our society still sees disabled people being abused daily and regularly becoming victims of violent crime. That is the picture that has been presented to us in the report.

The lessons are stark. For example, public authorities such as police and social services have often been aware of harassment of individuals, but no action has been taken. Even when the harassment escalates, it is often the case that little effective action is taken to protect the disabled person, which often results, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston said, in an escalation of the victimisation of the disabled person. When action has been taken, it has often been unco-ordinated, with little exchange or intelligence sharing among those public authorities that were duty-bound to be part of the support network for the disabled person.

As has been alluded to, research shows that some 60% of disabled people have been the victim of some sort of hostility, violence or aggression from strangers. As the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys said, there is increasing awareness that some disabled people are victimised and abused by people who are known to them. To echo the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill, it is particularly worrying that, according to Mencap, nine out of 10 people with learning disabilities have experienced such abusive behaviour, and there is evidence to suggest that such behaviour is on the increase. I will come to that later.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston said, the Equality and Human Rights Commission report says that disabled people are more likely to be victims of crime than non-disabled people. That reflects a pattern of disadvantage for disabled people in many spheres, including education, health outcomes and access to services. More worrying—I hope that we do not lose sight of this point—is the fact that many disabled people have come to accept that that is an unwelcome but almost inevitable part of their daily lives. What a devastating indictment it is that we have disabled citizens who believe that abuse and harassment, or worse, come with the territory and are things they must put up with.

I congratulate Mike Smith, lead commissioner for the Equality and Human Rights Commission inquiry, who was extremely challenging in his foreword to the report. His words are worth quoting:

“For me, two things come out of this inquiry that are far more shocking than the 10 cases that we cover in more detail, awful as they are. The first is just how much harassment seems to be going on. It’s not just some extreme things happening to a handful of people: it’s an awful lot of unpleasant things happening to a great many people, almost certainly in the hundreds of thousands each year.”

That echoes the experience of the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys, which is that even someone with his awareness found out that someone in his street was being abused. Mike Smith’s second point was that

“no one knows about it. Schools don’t know how many disabled pupils are bullied; local authorities and registered social landlords don’t know how many antisocial behaviour victims are disabled; health services don’t know how many assault victims are disabled; police don’t know how many victims of crime are disabled; the courts don’t know how many disabled victims have access to special measures”

and so on. That is the picture that Mike Smith paints today.

Although the cases are horrible individually, collectively they are truly horrific. Michael Gilbert was a young man with an undiagnosed mental health condition whose dismembered body was found near Luton. He was murdered after years of torture by the Watt family. He had been in contact with police on various occasions, but was never afforded the protection he deserved. Steven Hoskin was a 38-year-old with learning disabilities who was found dead at the bottom of a 100-foot railway viaduct in St Austell, Cornwall. He had been tortured for years before his death, and suffered various

injuries inflicted upon him by people he knew. He had been tied up, dragged round by a lead, imprisoned, burned with cigarettes, humiliated, and violently and repeatedly abused in his own home.

One would think that going to the hairdresser was a safe activity for a disabled person. My hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston raised this matter and said that a young man did a normal thing and went to a hairdresser, but the hairdresser thought he would have a bit of fun at that young man’s expense. Something that links back to the comments of the hon. Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) is the fact that although we may believe that the sentence was not adequate—I believe it was 200 hours of unpaid work, compensation and court costs—the magistrates increased it by using section 146 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which allowed tougher sentences for disability hate crimes. Police, prosecutors and magistrates won praise for the way they co-ordinated their action and used that provision. A little light was shed on the situation.

I ask the Minister to address the Government’s responsibilities concerning the environment in which disabled people live their lives. We have heard a great deal about the cultural environment in which we work, and we have heard about the Scope report. We have not heard about the second part of the report, but it says that 65% of disabled people thought that others did not believe that they were disabled, and 73% thought that others presumed that they did not work.

Leaving aside the debate on whether the Government are on the right track with their welfare reform—that is for another Chamber and another time—the daily feeding to the media of press releases and distortion of figures, and the calling into question whether people really are disabled, has changed the landscape for disabled people. Glasgow university’s monitoring report showed a dramatic increase in the number of media articles related to disability fraud. When its focus group was asked for a disability story, it typically came up with benefit fraud. Is it any wonder that we are seeing cases such as the one reported last week in South Shields, where Peter Greener, a wheelchair user with a brain condition, suffered months of taunts about being a benefit scrounger, stone throwing and harassment by his neighbour, who thought he was exaggerating his disability?

We have heard stories about the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions being enraged when he was told by his Department that no precise figures for the number of people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder who receive free cars were available. The paper concerned had to correct the story the following week, at the prompting of not the Department, but a disability organisation. It does not help disabled people to live their lives when statements are made that disability living allowance is available just by filling in a form. The Minister knows, and I know, that that is not a true picture.

I say with the greatest respect—I exempt the Minister from making such outrageous comments; she has conducted the debate with a measured approach—that she should challenge some of the more outrageous and outlandish comments by some of her senior colleagues, because they are creating an atmosphere that is to the greater disadvantage of disabled people, and that causes fear and uncertainty in their lives.

We can have the debate about welfare reform, but we must ensure that the language—the hon. Member for Eastbourne referred to this—with which we discuss these issues is that of moderation, which recognises that people have their own dignity, and that they are entitled to be treated with dignity and not be encapsulated in some cheap media headline.

I appreciate that the Minister has a very short time in which to respond. I look forward to that response and congratulate her and other colleagues on allowing us to have this important debate.

Oral Answers to Questions

Anne McGuire Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

I agree that the work of the Multiple Sclerosis Society is to be applauded, and I am sure that the Lancaster, Morecambe and district branch will join many other organisations in welcoming the measures in the Welfare Reform Bill, which is currently in the other place, including universal credit. Those measures will address the unacceptable imbalances inherent in the current welfare system, to ensure that people suffering from fluctuating conditions such as MS cannot be written off to a lifetime of dependency in future.

[Mrs Anne McGuire (Stirling) (Lab)]

Department for Work and Pensions research on disability living allowance in work has indicated that those receiving DLA are, on average, more severely impaired than others and have a greater likelihood of multiple disabilities, including mental health conditions. Additionally, they are disadvantaged in the labour market because of the types of their impairment, and carry the greatest employment disadvantage.

The new personal independence payment assessment has been criticised by 23 leading disability organisations as being too medicalised and not taking into account the social and environmental barriers that disadvantage disabled people in the jobs market. Will the Minister share with us just how many disabled people she expects to get back into work as a result of her DLA proposals, given that the only figure that we have on the record is that the Government want to make a 20% cut to the DLA budget?

[Maria Miller]

I am somewhat surprised that the right hon. Lady tries to link disability living allowance to returning to work, given that in the past she has held the position that I hold now. It is absolutely clear that DLA, and indeed the PIP, which will take over from it, are not linked to work. I should think we would want to make that clear to people who are listening to these questions.

Welfare Reform Bill

Anne McGuire Excerpts

Wednesday 9th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I am afraid that I do not agree with the right hon. Gentleman, because that is exactly what I was saying. The provisions gives us the opportunity to do just that; it does not specify what we do, but it tells us that this is what we are going to be doing. We are looking at all this because, in our view, we need to come forward with an amount that is relevant to the mobility that is necessary for people in care homes.

[Mrs Anne McGuire (Stirling) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State is playing with words. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) is right. Although reference is made to an indefinite award, these awards have always been liable to review. If someone has an irrecoverable disability such as permanent blindness, what is the value in regular reviews to assess whether they are still entitled to DLA or the PIP?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

As I said to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), it is assumed straight away that this is a terribly intrusive process, but in reality what goes on is patchy. For many people, their condition may well have worsened. Do we simply want to say that we should not speak to them or see them, and that it is therefore left up to the vagaries of the system? It is not built into the system that they will be seen.

[Mrs McGuire]

rose—

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Wait a minute. The right hon. Lady has made a point and I am trying to respond to it. As this is not built into the present system, it is left to decision making, which can be very ad hoc, about who someone sees and when they see them. All I am saying is that if we believe it is right to see people, we may then be seeing somebody whose condition has worsened, and surely that is an advantage.

[Mrs McGuire]

rose—

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I am going to press on, because I think that I have dealt with the right hon. Lady’s point. She may not agree with me, but I think that this is the right position for us to take.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Anne McGuire (Stirling) (Lab)]

I am delighted to follow the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin). In June last year, I made a contribution to a debate in the House on welfare reform, in which I congratulated the Secretary of State, then new to his post, on the sentiments that he had expressed on reforming the welfare system in this country. At that time, I said that he had used a broad brush, and that we had not yet seen any details. Frankly, we still find ourselves in that situation today.

Like other Labour Members, I welcome some aspects of the Bill. The introduction of the universal credit and the moves towards simplification are certainly proposals that we can endorse. Most of us, and most of the organisations that we communicate with, welcome those developments, but there is still serious concern about significant aspects of the Bill. In the time available to me, I want to concentrate on just a couple of those aspects.

First, the Bill is skeletal in the extreme. The clauses have definitely been drafted with a broad brush, declaring an intent rather than giving details of what will happen. For example, what exactly does

“benefit rates for people not in work will generally be the same as under the current system”

mean? How will “generally” impact on the specific? How will individuals know, when deciding whether to support the Bill, what is actually going to happen if work is not a realistic option for them? I have rarely seen a Bill in which so much depends on regulations that “may” happen—[Interruption.] I do not know which hon. Gentleman is chuntering over there, but I can give the House an example from clause 4 on entitlement. Subsection (2) contains the words “Regulations may provide”, and subsection (3) states that “regulations may specify”. Subsection (7) states that “regulations may specify circumstances”. And so it goes on.

We are not being asked to deal with a major piece of welfare reform here; we are being asked to buy a pig in a poke. We do not know the details. The Secretary of State made great play of the fact that this will form a contract. Well, in all contracts, the devil is in the detail. I welcome the comment of my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne) today that he is not prepared to sign up to the Second Reading of the Bill until we have seen the details. We have so many unanswered questions. What will happen when council tax benefit is abolished? Is it going to be replaced by a grant? How will that be assessed? How is it going to be managed?

I must point out to Conservative Members that it is not only in Labour constituencies that the Bill will have an impact. It will do so in the constituencies of Members across the Floor of the House, and individuals in those constituencies are now worrying about whether they will be able to maintain themselves in their own homes. What will happen to those who fall off the edge when their employment and support allowance runs out? Surely it is the right of any disabled individual in a civilised society to be supported if they are unable to work. Frankly, the Secretary of State’s comment about reviewing people whose impairment will not change throughout their lifetime was absolutely astonishing, and I think it did him no great credit. I would not like to explain to the parent of a deaf-blind child that they needed to bring their child for a review every so often—just to make sure that the child was still deaf and still blind.

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

Like my right hon. Friend, I have received representations from many constituents who have a similar concern. Does she agree that, regrettably, those parents who have heard the Secretary of State today are likely to be even more worried than they were at the start of the debate by his very refusal to rule out the type of continued reassessment about which we are so concerned?

[Mrs McGuire]

I agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend. I believe that this is one of the issues causing the greatest concern among individuals and families.

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

rose—

[Mrs McGuire]

If the Minister is going to clarify what the Secretary of State said earlier, I would be delighted to give way to her.

[Maria Miller]

I just wanted to clarify that these measures do not affect children.

[Mrs McGuire]

In that case, we can take the age forward and talk about a deaf-blind adult. Our case about people whose impairments or disabilities will not change and who can be assessed as such is not at all diminished, as they will still have to go through this review.

The type of review is also an important issue. For a long time, disabled people in this country have fought hard to be recognised as part of a social model of disability. What we are seeing now is the introduction of an assessment by a medical professional. Is it any wonder that disabled people out there are beginning to think that all those things for which they fought so long and so hard—the achievements they have made over the last 15 years, with cross-party support—are going to be thrown on the scrapheap? That, I think, is the danger posed by this Bill, and I have highlighted the questions that disabled people are asking.

The Minister might well be thinking that all this is a matter of hyperbole. I do not think it is, and I know that many of my hon. Friends would agree, because we are hearing daily quite tragic stories about people who are terrified about what is going to happen. They are worried not necessarily because the Government have bad intent, but because the Government are not explaining exactly what is in the Bill. I do not think that the Minister has bad intent and I certainly do not think that the Secretary of State has, but given that they are embarking on something that will radically affect individual people and families, we must have a better Bill than the one before us.

The Secretary of State is often cited as saying that this Bill amounts to the greatest change in the welfare system since Beveridge. The reason why Beveridge worked and was sustained for so long was that it was about engagement with the whole of society. It was about a contract that people recognised, knowing that if they put something into society, they could occasionally get something back—not just a cushion, but something that gave them a participatory role in that social contract. What we have now is a deconstruction of those Beveridge proposals. What we have is a system that effectively tells people that they cannot have welfare unless they meet all the criteria, which are not even known, in a Bill that is far more skeletal than many of—indeed, any of—the welfare Bills brought before this House.

We should not give the Bill its Second Reading today. If the Minister can tell us in her summing up that all those issues will be dealt with in Committee, we might be able to give the Government the benefit of the doubt later in the process. I welcome, however, the view of my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill, the shadow Secretary of State, that if the Bill is not radically changed and if its contents are not confirmed, we should not support it even on Third Reading.

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

I rise to speak in support of the Government, very conscious that a large number of people will have legitimate and sincere concerns about the Bill. For example, I asked one local activist, who leads the Zacchaeus 2000 Trust, to critique the Prime Minister’s recent speech, and his response ran to 23 pages. I regret that due to the time I will not be able to share his concerns, but I will forward them to the Government, as a matter of interest.

I do not think there can be any doubt that the system is currently failing the very people that it is intended to help. I want to share with the House two stories from my constituents—one that shows the imperative for change and one that has slightly broader applicability.

Miss Rachel Pepin came to see me in a state of some anguish. She is a struggling single mum who wants to work more. She is in employment and the work is there for her, but she cannot take it because of the benefits system. She has two sons whose father will not support them. It seems that every time the Child Support Agency catches up with him, he drops out on to jobseeker’s allowance. Her current housing benefit receipt makes it profitable to stay on income support and actively not to seek work. She has reached the conclusion that it simply does not pay her to stay in employment. She sees her neighbours—on benefits—better off than she is.

I am glad to say that that is not how Rachel Pepin wants to live. She wants to work, and she is struggling against the treacle of the present system. It is letting her down, and that must end. Not everyone will share her admirable work ethic. Many will make the wrong choice when faced with the choice between being better off and doing the right thing. We must ensure that work is better for everyone, or we will encourage the decivilising consequences of the state encouraging bad choices.

My constituent Mr David Laws—[Interruption.] I expected that response from the House; I believe that he is not related. Mr Laws is most concerned about the recent changes that will end home loan interest payments after two years. He wishes to protest most strongly about the “unfairness of this legislation”, as he puts it. He has been out of work for some time. He says he is not workshy. He has a law degree and has experience of both public and private sectors. At the age of 51, he finds that many employers do not think him suitable for the low-paid jobs that are available. He finds himself willing to do anything but unable to find work. He therefore faces the very real possibility of losing his home if he fails to secure a job before April 2012.

That puts me in mind of two points. First, I think Mr Laws has a legitimate concern, which must be addressed. Secondly, if we cannot create an economy in which Mr Laws can find a job within a year when he is highly qualified and at the peak of his productivity, we will have failed. I urge the Government to impress on the Chancellor the need to fulfil his pledge for an enterprise-driven Budget. We simply must deliver those private sector jobs.

Given the time and the fact that other Members wish to speak, I conclude by echoing the sentiments put succinctly in the Centre for Social Justice report, “Breakdown Britain”:

“The more we struggle to end poverty through the provision of benefits, the more we entrench it. By focusing on income transfers rather than employment, the system makes people dependent on benefits. Habituation to dependency destroys individuals and communities, as well as reducing the overall competitiveness of the UK.”

I listened to my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton), who made the case brilliantly that the moral and intellectual high ground is on the coalition side of the House, and I agree with her.

We have heard a range of Opposition speeches. I welcomed the speech by the right hon. Member for Stirling (Mrs McGuire), who accepted that the Government’s intent is good. I share her concern that the Bill, in a sense, is enabling, but unlike her I suspect that in a complex welfare system it is necessary to give the Government some flexibility.

[Mrs McGuire]

On flexibility, does the hon. Gentleman recognise that the 300-odd regulations defining what is meant by the Bill should be before us today?

[Steve Baker]

I hear the right hon. Lady, as have Ministers, but as I have so little time, I hope she will forgive me for finishing my contribution.

I was glad to listen to the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett). In an intervention, I agreed with another Member that the banking system is currently the source of great injustice, but some of the contributions from the Opposition seemed cynically opportunistic. There has previously been broad agreement across the House that there must be change. I urge Members in all parts of the House to get on board a welfare reform that is well intentioned and must be seen through.

Oral Answers to Questions

Anne McGuire Excerpts

Monday 14th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am extremely grateful to the Minister.

[Mrs Anne McGuire (Stirling) (Lab)]

Given that transport facilities offered by residential care establishments normally relate to social and care needs, not independent choice, could the Minister explain how the removal of disability living allowance from those in residential care is consistent with article 20 of the United Nations convention on the rights of persons with disabilities, to which this country is a signatory? Has she assessed her policy against the commitment to the convention?

[Maria Miller]

I can assure the right hon. Lady that we have assessed our policies in the right ways. I reiterate what I have said to her before, which is that the policy is trying to remove overlaps, not mobility.

Oral Answers to Questions

Anne McGuire Excerpts

Monday 22nd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point, and it is one that we are aware of. However, he will be encouraged to learn that in the past decade, life expectancy for both manual workers and non-manual workers, for example, has risen by two years for men. Although there are still differences, both groups are seeing improvements in life expectancy.

[Mrs Anne McGuire (Stirling) (Lab)]

2. What steps his Department plans to take to assist employers to provide real-time pay data for universal credit computations.

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

Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs is continuing to consult with employers on how best to collect real-time pay information. I should stress that the information required for the universal credit is already being collected by HMRC as part of its reforms to the pay-as-you-earn system, which are on track. The adoption of the new real-time information system, for the benefit of employers, universal credit customers and taxpayers, is already well on track.

[Mrs McGuire]

Can the Secretary of State tell the House what proportion of the £2 billion allocated in the comprehensive spending review to implement the universal credit will go to support HMRC’s IT project, and what proportion will go as compensation, so as to avoid losers in the transition to the new universal benefit?

Work and Pensions

Anne McGuire Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2010 Ministerial Corrections

Pensions: Index Linking

[Mrs McGuire]

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what estimate he has made of the change in expenditure in the Financial Assistance Scheme attributable to the use of the consumer prices index for pension indexation in the next five years.

[Official Report, 27 July 2010, Vol. 514, c. 1154-1155W.]

Letter of correction from Steve Webb:

An error has been identified in the written answer given to the right hon. Member for Stirling (Mrs McGuire) in response to Named Day PQ 10/11057 on 27 July 2010.

The answer given was as follows (error indicated by italics):

[Steve Webb]

The figures show the estimated annual reduction in Financial Assistance Scheme expenditure as a result of switching the indexation of payments in payment and revaluation of payments in deferment from RPI to CPI from 2011.

Figures are in cash terms and are rounded to the nearest £100,000. The reduction represents 0.1% of estimated total FAS spending in each year.

Capital Gains Tax (Rates)

Anne McGuire Excerpts

Monday 28th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

That is a very generous invitation, which I shall pass on to the right hon. Gentleman.

Where are the figures for the analysis of the impact of those proposals on homelessness? Where are the figures for their impact on families who will not be able to pay their rent? Does the right hon. Gentleman have any idea how expensive it is to keep a family in temporary accommodation? That is the problem. That proposal is just like the proposal on unemployment. If the Government do not provide the support up front, it will cost them more later on in terms of dealing with homelessness.

As for supporting families, not even in the worst of the Thatcher years did the Government ever introduce a Budget that hit children so hard. Of the £8 billion that this Budget raises from direct tax and benefit changes, however, £3 billion directly hits children: cutting the child trust fund and the value of child benefit, and overall cuts in child tax credit. That is even before we add the cuts that families face in housing benefit, free school meals, free swimming, the future jobs fund and university places. This is a savage Budget for children. The Government claim that it will be all right because there is not a measured increase in child poverty as a result of this Budget. Of course there is not, because the Treasury model will not measure the impact of changes to VAT or housing benefit, and it will not look ahead any further than 2012-13, before many of the cuts bite.

Look at the people the Secretary of State is hitting hardest—the very youngest children of all. Gone is the baby tax credit, so some mums will now find they cannot afford to stay at home for as long as they want with their little babies. Gone is our plan for a toddler tax credit, gone is the pregnancy grant, and cut is the Sure Start maternity allowance. Has he no idea at all that supporting a family and getting the children out of poverty when the babies are born can save money from the public purse for years to come? Instead, he wants to cut support from the babes in their mothers’ arms. At least Margaret Thatcher had the grace to wait until the children were weaned before snatching their support.

[Mrs Anne McGuire (Stirling) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend recognise that the Child Poverty Action Group has said that this is a disappointing Budget in terms of child poverty and that it will make it very difficult to meet the targets for the eradication of child poverty already set by the previous Labour Government?

[Yvette Cooper]

My right hon. Friend is right. When one takes account of what the Government are doing to housing benefit and VAT, the real consequence of this Budget is that it will push people, including children, into poverty. We remember how the Conservatives did this before in the ’80s: they cut jobs and cut the help for people to get into jobs, they cut the support for people who could not find jobs, they cut help for pensioners, and they cut support for families and ramped up the VAT bills for them to pay. We also remember how those cuts cost us more for generations to come. It cost more to deal with people on the dole, it cost more to help families who were made homeless, and it cost more to deal with the long-term effects on communities devastated by unemployment.

These unfair cuts are not driven by good budgeting. They will cost our economy and they will cost our public finances, too. This is an ideologically driven Budget by a party that simply wants to cut the size of the state, no matter who gets in the way. The truth is that the Conservatives have the youngest, the oldest, the poorest, the weakest and the most vulnerable in their sights. The nasty party is back—only this time they brought along their mates. Shame on them. Both parties have broken their promises; now they want to break Britain too, and we will fight them all the way.

--- Later in debate ---

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

In March, before the election, the Chancellor told the News of the World:

“We are all in this together. I am not going to balance the budget on the backs of the poor”,

which was very reassuring for voters to hear before an election. Since the election, both the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister have tried to argue that the Government and even their Budget are progressive. However, having had a closer look at the Budget and the Government, we can conclude that neither is progressive in political or economic terms. I am afraid that it looks very much like the Chancellor is indeed planning on balancing the budget on the backs of the poor.

I want to spend a little of the time that I have examining the effects of several Budget measures on poorer and disabled people. Disabled people are some of the most marginalised and vulnerable of our fellow citizens, but they are also one of the greatest sources of under-utilised talent and potential in our country. They are generally at the poorer end of the income distribution and they are more reliant on public services than many of our citizens, so the Budget’s impact on them will indeed test the Chancellor’s claim that he is not aiming his Budget at the poor.

I characterise the Chancellor’s overall Budget strategy as further and faster deficit reduction than was planned by the last Labour Government, and an 80:20 split between spending cuts and tax rises in advance of severe spending cuts in the autumn. That is his general approach. We should remember that even the most Thatcherite hawks who did not believe in the existence of society in the 1980s only ever aimed at a 50:50 split between spending cuts and tax rises, so the Chancellor is making the Thatcherites of that time look soft and even-handed. That is not, by the way, how the people of Liverpool remember them for what they did in that decade.

We can say that for most disabled people on lower incomes, who are more dependent than most on public services, the increase in VAT is a disaster. Some Government Members have had the grace to accept that it is a regressive tax. Indeed, both the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, before the election, said on TV that it was a regressive tax. The deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats, who is in his place, has said so more recently. The increase in VAT, which both the PM and the Deputy PM promised us before the election we would not have, but which they are now both going to invite their hon. Friends to vote for, is not only a joint broken promise that will hit the poorest hardest, but something on which both parties will be judged.

The degree of reliance on spending cuts will also impact much more heavily on poor and disabled people than a more balanced ratio would have done. More than half the £11 billion of welfare cuts will come from indexing benefit rates to the consumer prices index rather than the retail prices index. That sounds technical, but the effect is to set benefits on a permanently lower trajectory, thus year by year compounding the disparity at every uprating, though saving more money for the Chancellor. That, in my book, is the very definition of balancing the Budget on the backs of the poor.

The changes in disability living allowance will be judged not only on that score, which will in itself cut almost £300 a year from the payment. The Red Book also promises us reform

“to ensure support is targeted on those with the highest medical need”

and says:

“The Government will introduce the use of objective medical assessments for all DLA claimants”.

Indeed, one Government Member referred to DLA as a benefit that one languishes upon. However, DLA is an extra costs benefit: it is paid not on the basis of a medical diagnosis, but to compensate disabled people for the extra costs incurred by the effect their condition has on their ability to get around or look after themselves. People who work receive DLA. It is not a benefit that one languishes upon; it is a recognition from society that disabled people need a little extra support to enable them to participate in life.

[Mrs McGuire]

Does my hon. Friend agree with the Essex Coalition of Disabled People, which has indicated that the increase in people claiming DLA has resulted in more disabled people living independently in the community, rather than in the residential care that was in existence in 1993, 1994 and 1995?

[Maria Eagle]

My right hon. Friend is correct. She, like me, is a former Minister with responsibility for disabled people and has had to grapple with these issues.

This proposal is retrograde because it reverts to a medical model of disability, which disabled people themselves resent. It also has enormous deadweight costs. People who have never been able to walk do not need a doctor’s assessment to say that their mobility is restricted. What possible sense is there in subjecting them to one? It just looks like harassment. How does that sit with not introducing a medical for those components of attendance allowance which are the same as the components of disability living allowance? What about pensioners who got their DLA before they turned 65 and still retain it? Are they to be subjected to a medical test? Looking at the Red Book, it seems to me that we have a savings figure attached to this measure of £1.1 billion, and the objective medical test is simply designed to reduce the numbers on the benefit by 20%. The policy has not been thought through. This seems to be a proposal aimed at saving money.

Similarly on housing benefit, the Red Book says:

“Housing Benefit is often criticised as making excessively generous payments that damage work incentives. To address this, the Government will remove payments that trap benefit claimants in poverty instead of providing incentives to work”.

But only one in eight housing benefit claimants are unemployed. The majority are pensioners, disabled people, carers or people in work who are on low incomes. What is the point of making this benefit one that incentivises work when most of the people on it fall into those categories? It is nonsense. If instead we start with a suspicion that the reforms are actually about saving money, and we see that they cut £1.8 billion, we are more likely to get to the nub of the issue.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies says that the welfare reforms are

“A mixed bag, with no consistent objective beyond the desire to save money”.

The private rented sector reforms just decouple the local housing allowance payable from the level of the rent even in local housing markets, which can only result in people falling into arrears and debt, and being subjected to eviction. In the public and registered social landlord sector the reforms are equally worrying. Many disabled people only have their home. It is the foundation of their lives and their security. It is all they have that is their own. These proposals will force people to move house and face increasing levels of debt. If their area gentrifies—nothing to do with them—they have to move on. If their children grow up and leave home, as they tend to do, they have to move on.

What about disabled people who have adaptations in their home? Are they to have to move? Often, those adaptations make life liveable. They are not a luxury; they are a necessity. Having debt and having to move from one’s home is difficult enough for anyone to cope with, but many disabled people are too vulnerable to cope well with such upheaval. How are learning-disabled people, those with severe mental ill health and those with severe physical impairments supposed to go out and look for a new home, as they may have to simply because of these reforms to save money? Disabled people are the least equipped to do that, even before the spending review cuts the support they can get in their local communities to help them with such things.

The Budget is a triple whammy for disabled people: VAT and the cost of living up; incomes and benefits slashed; help and support to navigate those challenges ended. If the Tories do this, they should not have the support of the Liberal Democrats and, quite frankly, the Liberal Democrats should be ashamed to walk through the Lobby tonight to support this appalling Budget.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Brian Binley (Northampton South) (Con)]

May I first pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton)? She is no longer in the Chamber, but she held her own with charm and interest among the many excellent maiden speeches this evening. I congratulate all who made such speeches, especially the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Anas Sarwar), who delivered an informative, interesting and hard-hitting speech. He clearly has a great future in the House. I know I speak for all hon. Members when I ask that he pass on our good wishes to his distinguished predecessor—his dad.

It will come as no surprise to Labour Members that I welcome the Chancellor’s Budget, but I have been amazed when listening to some of their speeches during the Budget debates. It seems to me that they have a collective delete button that has erased the last 13 years of their memory. I regret the situation left by the previous Government, which has motivated the many tough measures that the Chancellor has been forced to take. I also regret that they left such a massive budget deficit and such a large public sector debt, and that they let spending rip to sustain the previous Prime Minister’s vain boast that he had done away with boom and bust. How empty those words seem now.

[Mrs McGuire]

rose—

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

rose—