"My hon. Friend is making an excellent point about the impact of universal credit. I am sure she is aware that the DWP itself says that 1.8 million main earners will be worse off if they take extra hours under universal credit than they are under the current arrangement. The …..." Bill Esterson - View Speech
"I am glad the Minister was able to confirm that we have put a man on the moon.
Let me return to the point about appeals, which is crucial. Surely if we get the assessment process right and it is fair, there will be no need for appeals and we …..." Bill Esterson - View Speech
"The Minister is right that more people should go self-employed; the problem with the way the system has been set up is that it assumes people earn the minimum wage for every hour worked, when that is far from the truth, as he will know. Will he assure me that …..." Bill Esterson - View Speech
"Given the lack of jobs and growth in the economy as a whole, is not this the worst possible time to be pushing ahead with the closure programme? If the Government are serious about supporting disabled people, surely the way to deal with this is to make sure that the …..." Bill Esterson - View Speech
"My right hon. Friend talks about the cost of the failure of this programme. Will he also mention the impact on our constituents? The message from mine is clear: when they go on Work programme activities, they are not given the sort of training or opportunities they are promised, by …..." Bill Esterson - View Speech
"The Secretary of State is talking about a completely different world that is divorced from the reality for my constituents. My constituents who were on the future jobs fund had real jobs at the end because the programme worked. They are now missing a programme that works, because the Work …..." Bill Esterson - View Speech
"Self-employed people in my constituency are experiencing increasing difficulty in finding work because of the Government’s austerity measures. Does the Minister accept that the bureaucratic requirement for self-employed people to produce two forms of evidence relating to their income is making it very hard for them to claim benefits and …..." Bill Esterson - View Speech
"More than 40 people have approached me with cases of being denied benefit following a WCA, or about their fear of that happening. The Member who mentioned the culture of fear among that group of people is absolutely right. A number of them have described being afraid to appeal, because …..." Bill Esterson - View Speech