Oral Answers to Questions

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

Monday 9th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Esther McVey]

Sanctions have been around since the benefit came into being, to ensure compliance, to enable the Government to have a backdrop to the social security they provide, and to enable the support to be matched by work to enable people to go into a job. As the secretary-general of the OECD said:

“The United Kingdom is a textbook case of best-practice on how good labour and product markets can support growth and job creation.”

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

Freedom of information requests to the Department for Work and Pensions have revealed that of the reviews of 49 deaths of social security claimants, 33 called for improvements into how the DWP operates nationally and locally. What changes have been introduced, and how have they been associated with sanctions on claimants?

[Esther McVey]

As the hon. Lady will know, we are always improving what we do and always making things better. We brought in the Matt Oakley review to look at better communications, and we work with claimants always to ensure that sanctions are applied only correctly. We know that the vast majority of people work within the system. For employment and support allowance claimants, over 99.4% work within the rules, and with jobseeker’s allowance claimants, it is over 94%. It has to work, but we always look to see how we can get it better.

Housing Costs (Reformed Welfare System)

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Teresa Pearce]

It is true that solutions can be found. Sadly, no one seems to have found them yet in my part of south-east London.

The Work and Pensions Committee looked at the problems that are faced by people on housing benefit. They are discriminated against when looking for private rented accommodation. For families, that makes trying to find a roof over their heads an uphill struggle. Given that tenancies typically last for six to 12 months, private renters often have to move just as they have settled in. Children who live in such places have their life chances restricted and their education disrupted, and are often not registered with a doctor. That cannot be acceptable.

Private landlords may be reluctant to rent accommodation or provide temporary accommodation to claimants for a number of reasons. It might not just be general discrimination, but might be due to constraints that are imposed by mortgage lenders, who say that they are not allowed to provide longer tenancies, or due to fears that local authorities will fail to allocate housing benefit in a timely manner. Giving private renters the option of allowing the housing benefit component of their universal credit payment to go directly to their landlord might allay those fears and enable private renters to control their finances more easily. The Government must work with private sector landlords to address their concerns about universal credit and offer greater support to those who rent property to housing benefit claimants. That work must start now.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

I grateful to my colleague on the Work and Pensions Committee for giving way. I met my key local social housing provider on Friday. It said that there was a 15% gap in rent collection between those on universal credit and those not on universal credit. That is manageable over a year or so, but over the longer term it will create huge problems. I wonder whether my hon. Friend wants to comment on that point.

[Teresa Pearce]

That is a valid point. It is something that we all encounter locally when we talk to housing providers. It needs to be addressed, so I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention.

Another problem for private renters is that the change to local housing allowance is further restricting their access to the widest selection of available properties. Local housing allowance rates match only the 30th per- centile of homes within a broad rental market area. The Government reduced that from the 50th percentile. I believe that that needs to be re-evaluated urgently, especially in London. Rents have risen, but the local housing allowance was frozen in 2012-13 and uprated by 1% in 2014. There has been a reduction in the number of homes that can be rented out at that rate.

An analysis by Crisis shows that across Britain, one in 10 local housing allowance rates for 2015-16 is 5% or more lower than the estimated 30th percentile of local rents. Those include 77 rates that have already benefited from an additional increase due to the targeted affordability fund. As was outlined in the Select Committee’s report, analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies shows that rent levels did not decline as a result of the cap. In fact, the most recent rental figures show a 1.8% rise across the stock in England and a rise of 2.4% in London. That is well above the recent 1% cap and means that additional properties will fall out of the reach of those on benefit.

Private renters should not have to choose between having a roof over their heads and eating, but increasingly that is becoming a daily choice for many people in my constituency. The Government should consider increasing LHA rates by more than 1% annually in more pressured areas. Although the Committee welcomed the introduction of the targeted affordability fund as a means of increasing LHA levels in areas of higher rents, some areas may see rents rising by more than the maximum of 4% a year. The Government should amend the targeted affordability fund so that it can be paid at higher levels in areas where rent increases are greater than 4%. It should also use available rents rather than stock rents as a measure for the rental increase.

Rents are currently unaffordable across the private sector. In 2012, the Money Advice Trust stated that rent arrears were the fastest growing debt problem it had encountered and that the number of calls it received on the issue had risen by 37% on the previous year. At the end of 2014, the National Landlords Association reported that almost a third of private landlords had seen arrears that year. There were a record number of evictions of renters across the social and private sector in 2014 as a result of a combination of factors, including the bedroom tax, benefit sanctions, increased numbers renting with the reduced LHA rate, and rising private sector rents.

Recent figures from Crisis have also shown that the No. 1 leading cause of homelessness now is eviction from a private tenancy. The figures highlight not just the lack of affordability for renters when having to manage competing living costs, but how unsustainable rising rents will be for the private rented sector without Government intervention.

The Government must continue to monitor homelessness levels and take action to mitigate the impact on households and local authorities. The Department for Communities and Local Government reported that rough sleeping increased by 14% in autumn 2014. I am regularly contacted by constituents who tell me that they cannot be housed by their local council because they are not in priority need and that they have no option but to live in overcrowded accommodation with family members or to couch-surf, which is code for sleeping on the floor of a friend’s house. If they can be housed, they have been told that their only option is temporary accommodation. In my local area of Bexley, people are often temporarily accommodated in Manchester and Bolton, which means having to uproot their children from school and leave their support networks behind.

It always worries me greatly that, while a number of landlords are reputable, a number of others are not. There are private landlords in my constituency who line their pockets while renters struggle to pay their rent. I wrote to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and the Treasury in November to ask about the Let Property campaign, which was launched in September 2013 to target the residential property letting market. Specifically, I wanted to know whether it had been successful in closing the tax gap on let properties, but the responses I received were not encouraging. They said it was too early to tell, but one of the figures they did give me was an estimate that the tax gap on letting income was just over £500 million. It is absolutely disgraceful that public money is going to landlords who do not then pay their way or their tax. We need to address that urgently.

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[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

Hon. Members agree that there are serious problems when payments of housing benefit rise so high. We disagree on our analysis of how it came about and what we should do about it. Unless we tackle the underlying issues, we will simply trim the edges, to the detriment of many households and families. As the Office for Budget Responsibility says in its review of spending on benefits and pensions, the main drivers for the increase in housing benefit are increases in rents and the number of people on low wages who have to claim housing benefit to make ends meet. The OBR was concerned that those two things would continue to be drivers in the coming decade unless action was taken. There is very little—I would say virtually nothing—in the steps that the Government have taken since 2010 to tackle those problems. Indeed, they may have made them worse.

We were told by Ministers during the passage of the Welfare Reform Bill that the private rented sector had become so intrinsically dependent on the housing benefit market that rents would fall as a result of the changes. Rents have not fallen. In many places, they have risen considerably above inflation. That is certainly true in my city, in the city represented by the Chair of the Select Committee and in London. The DWP accepts that this is the case. For the private rented sector, it has introduced additional payments in some areas to top up the local housing allowance—after it previously made reductions—because it accepts there is a growing gap between the actual rents available to people who want to rent and need housing benefit, and the payments they would otherwise receive. The promises that rent would fall as a result of the policy have not come about. I hope that in looking to see what savings are supposed to have been made, those additional payments will be factored in.

We are repeatedly told that this policy is about saving money. I think the Minister from a sedentary position said, “Oh, it’s about £1 million a day,” but that was based on the Government’s original statement that the policy would save about £500 million a year. Other experts said, at a very early date, that it would be lucky to be somewhere nearer £350 million, and that does not take into account the very high cost of discretionary housing payments, which are a cost to Government and so detract from any savings made. It is therefore not correct for the Government to say what they say.

For individuals, households and families, the impact is extremely serious. This is not the same, as is often said, as what happened previously in the private rented sector, dating back to about 1998 when size was taken into account. This is an impost on people now, whether they can move or not and whether there is anywhere for them to move to or not. One of the amendments tabled during the course of the Welfare Reform Bill by the Opposition—it was followed up through the House of Lords and incorporated into a private Member’s Bill that was not allowed to progress in this House recently—proposed that if people were offered a suitable alternative house and did not take it, then the cut in their benefit could apply. For many people, however, that just is not practical. I have just checked yet again, as I do constantly, the number of houses available for social rent in my city. This week, there were 54 in the whole city. Of those, 31 were one-bedroom, but eight were sheltered. The people affected by the bedroom tax are by definition under pension and retirement age, and so would not qualify for those eight.

[Debbie Abrahams]

That is not just the case in my hon. Friend’s city. In Oldham in my constituency, 2,048 people are affected by the bedroom tax and there are only 50 properties for them to move into.

[Sheila Gilmore]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention.

In Scotland, the priority given to people who are homeless—a much wider definition of homelessness has been adopted by the Scottish Government—means that there is real competition for smaller houses. The majority of people who present as homeless are single people, so they too need the small houses that other people are trying to fit into.

Compulsory Jobs Guarantee

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

Wednesday 11th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Timms]

My hon. Friend is right about that. I have spoken to a large number of people, including young people whose break came through the future jobs fund. They have said that having got six months’ work under their belts, thanks to that initiative, they were then able to look after themselves and apply for jobs, do well and build a career. As he rightly says, young people need that crucial first break and that is what this guarantee will provide.

Every day of unemployment means hardship, worry and missed opportunity for someone who wants to be working and earning. But the full costs are borne more widely and last much longer. Every day of unemployment is a cost to the taxpayer in unemployment benefit and tax revenue forgone, and a cost to the economy in lost output. It also imposes a cost we can never account for, through the strain it puts on individuals, families and communities. Those costs—in benefit spending, tax revenues, economic output, and individual and social well-being—can reach far into the future, as the scarring effects of unemployment build up.

The Acevo commission on youth unemployment found that people who experienced unemployment in their younger years are more likely to suffer not only spells of unemployment in later life, but in work an average wage penalty of more than 15%. That is why it is so troubling that youth unemployment is going back up. It is back up today to more than three-quarters of a million. Young women now unemployed will, a decade from now, be earning on average £1,700 a year less as a result of being unemployed today. Young men now unemployed will be earning £3,300 less a decade from now. Those effects worsen the longer that somebody is out of work.

Work by Paul Gregg at the university of Bath and Emma Tommony at the university of York suggests that the 200,000 young people who have now been out of work for more than a year are, on average, likely to spend another two years either unemployed or economically inactive between the ages of 28 and 33, and that the men, by the age of 42, will be suffering a wage penalty of more than £7,000 a year. Those are big effects that need to be addressed.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend is making a very powerful case. On the effects of long-term unemployment on young people, he mentioned the impact on income, but will he comment about the impact on mental health, as unemployment can have lifelong effects? Does he agree that it is important to have a joined-up approach between the Department of Health and the Department for Work and Pensions?

[Stephen Timms]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I was at an event yesterday with the Prince’s Trust where a young man was describing how he was about to be sectioned when, thanks to the Prince’s Trust, he was able to go into a job and his mental health problem was resolved. She is also right about the costs to the economy and the health service of long periods of unemployment early on.

UK Poverty

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Westminster Hall

[Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)]

It has been almost five years since the coalition Government took office, so we are far beyond the time when it was even remotely credible to claim that everything that has happened in this country is the fault of the previous Government. The truth is that the choices that we make as a country have an effect. With a few months to go until the general election, this is a good time to assess the Government’s impact on the most vulnerable people in this country and to look again at the Prime Minister’s claim, five years ago, that he would not balance the books on the backs of the poorest. What a joke that statement now seems.

The rise in food banks has been the most visible sign of the devastation caused to towns such as mine, Wigan. In the past three months, my local charity, the Brick, has handed out more than 1,000 food parcels to families who cannot afford to eat. The first thing I want to say is this: be in no doubt that the situation has become much worse under this Government. Ministers have constantly said that food banks are the fault of the previous Government, but let me give them the facts. There were 3,000 food bank users in 2005, and 40,000 by 2010. By 2012, that had exploded to 128,000 people queuing for food parcels in one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Under the Labour Government, food banks fed tens of thousands of people a year; they now feed a quarter of a million people in this country, and the numbers are rising.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. She may not be aware that we had never had a food bank in Oldham until 2012. In that year, 849 food parcels were delivered; last year, 5,000 people ended up receiving support, including 1,500 children. The numbers are going up inexorably. Would my hon. Friend like to comment on the suffering that those people are experiencing?

[Lisa Nandy]

That experience is mirrored in my constituency. The Brick gave out 6,097 food parcels in Wigan last year. I spent a day helping its volunteers to do that. Many of the food parcels were cold boxes—I had never heard of a cold box before I spent the afternoon at my local food bank—for people who cannot afford the gas or electricity required to heat up some soup or a tin of beans. Our credit union, Unify, the charity Compassion in Action and Citizens Advice have given out loans, furniture and fuel payment vouchers in increasing numbers in the past four years. Yet people were told by the Conservative hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) that unfortunately their food bank use has become a habit. How utterly offensive.

The real causes are obvious. In my constituency, one can track almost exactly when the cracks in the community started to show. In October 2012, the Government introduced a new sanctions regime that affected nearly 6,000 families in my borough alone. It had an immediate impact. In early 2013, the manager of the Brick, Trish Green, said:

“We have been operating since 2008 but recently we have seen more families, more young people and people who have lost their jobs using the service…It also affects every part of the borough and we distribute food parcels throughout different communities, not simply the more deprived areas.”

That is mirrored across the region: as pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), between 2012 and 2014, the number of people accessing food banks in the north-west exploded, growing by 238%. That was not, as the Conservative Minister for Business and Enterprise, the right hon. Member for West Suffolk (Matthew Hancock), said, because

“more people know about them”.

The vast majority of food bank referrals were because of benefit sanctions, although delays, debt, low-paid work, loss of job and family crisis were all common reasons.

Most of my constituents who have used a food bank were referred to it after being refused help by the jobcentre. A quarter of them had been told that they had not participated in an employment programme, and a fifth had been told that they had failed to attend an adviser interview. Let me give the Minister an example. Just yesterday, a man got in touch with me who had taken on temporary work over Christmas. He had notified the jobcentre of the start and finish dates of that temporary work, but was told that he had missed an appointment with the jobcentre to give the information that he had already provided. He was sanctioned. The jobcentre was closed on the day when he was supposed to have attended an appointment, so he was paid just 1p for the whole of January. He found out yesterday that he has been given £26 for the whole of February. Will the Minister tell me how someone in this country is meant to live on a penny a month?

Quite separately, two other people got in touch with my office, one a woman, the other a young man. Both had been sanctioned in the past few months for attending the funeral of a family member. In both cases, the individuals had notified the jobcentre of the reason why they could not turn up to sign on. I was thinking about what on earth people are supposed to do in that situation. It reminded me of a line from Kafka, which states that,

“it is not necessary to accept everything as true, one must only accept it as necessary.”

When death is not a good enough reason to change the rules, what sort of society have we become?

We find increasingly that people are sanctioned for being just a few minutes late for appointments to sign on. My local councillor, Jeanette Prescott, said that,

“several times this year I have had to refer a gentleman with learning difficulties to Denise (the local Reverend) for food due to him having sanctions on him for turning up late (once by 4 minutes). The gentleman can’t tell the time and is a recluse. He has been found sitting in his flat in the dark with no electric or gas. He won’t ask for help. Only for the old neighbours watch out for him and contact myself heaven knows what would of happened to him. I was informed he has to get a letter off the doctor for an electric card…The lad turned up at my door the other night. He hadn’t eaten for 5 days. He looked like he was dying.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Lisa Nandy]

The man I am talking about is the fourth case of someone with learning disabilities being sanctioned that I have come across in my constituency office this month. The Minister’s Department holds the responsibility for people with disabilities. I hope that she has listened to the comments made by her colleague and will take the opportunity to condemn them. I also hope that she will ensure that in future no one will be sanctioned for having learning difficulties that prevent them from being able to tell the time.

[Debbie Abrahams]

I am sure that my hon. Friend will want to take the opportunity to mention the fact that the universal credit regulations include the potential for introducing in-work conditionality for people who are in work but on low pay. The hon. Member for Sherwood (Mr Spencer) should be careful in what he says. Also, people are sanctioned who have done nothing wrong. We repeatedly hear examples of people who did not know that they had appointments because they were made without their knowledge. Of course, they did not turn up to those appointments, so they were sanctioned.

[Lisa Nandy]

Absolutely. I could not agree with my hon. Friend more.

I want the Minister to understand the complete nonsense of the system. Another of my local councillors, Lol Hunt, got in touch with me last week to help a 53-year-old woman. That woman was awarded maximum points for ESA last year; she got no points at all this year. Absolutely nothing in her health or circumstances has changed. Councillor Hunt said that,

“she has very little food in her cupboards and is cancelling her direct debits this week for rent, gas, electric, phone etc. as she simply cannot pay.”

That is just the tip of the iceberg as to the stupidity of the sanctions regime.

The single biggest reason that my constituents were given for being sanctioned last year was that they were supposedly not seeking work. For example, in one family, a couple with two-year-old twins, one of the partners worked as a home care worker on a zero-hours contract—I am sure all Members are familiar with the situation of the many people who work in the home care industry on low pay and with insecure conditions. The hours that she was given were so few that the pay did not even cover the bus fare to work.

The wider family tried to help out, but the stepfather is out of work and the grandmother on a small pension. They were even refused a doorstep loan. The twins were living on a tin of beans and a few potatoes a day, while the adults went for days on only tea and the occasional biscuit. Relatives of mine remember such conditions in our family a few generations back, but that was before the war. One of my constituents—one of the parents—told me that,

“asking for food was so humiliating but the alternative was to go hungry. We were so grateful for the help of the Brick and they made us feel like it is not something to be ashamed of.”

Contrast the actions of that local Christian charity with the words of Lord Freud, Minister for Welfare Reform, who said that,

“food from a food bank…is a free good, and by definition there is an almost infinite demand for a free good.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 2 July 2013; Vol. 746, c. 1072.]

How utterly insulting to a family such as the one I am describing. They had built up £1,000 in rent arrears, because they were not earning enough even to cover the bus fare to work. At a loss as to how to help them, the only advice that a local charity could give them was that the partner should leave her job, because it was pushing them further into debt. Reluctantly, they went to claim jobseeker’s allowance, but were told that she had left the job voluntarily and were sanctioned for three months. The mother said:

“We were receiving 15 minutes of work a day that is around £1.10 a day. If this…wasn’t a good reason for leaving a job, I truly do not understand what is.”

That is not an accident of the system; that is the system.

The level of confusion in the Government is astonishing. The Department for Work and Pensions website states:

“We expect claimants to do all they reasonably can to look for and move into paid work. If a claimant turns down a particular vacancy (including zero-hours contract jobs) a sanction may be applied, but we will look into the circumstances of the case and consider whether they had a good reason.”

Only a couple of weeks ago, however, I had a letter from the Minister stating:

“It may be helpful to explain that Jobseeker’s Allowance claimants are not required to apply for a zero hours contract job and cannot be sanctioned for refusing to accept employment under a zero hours contract or for leaving such employment voluntarily.”

She even went to the trouble of underlining some of the words in that sentence. When she responds to the debate, will she tell me how that fits with what happened to my constituents only recently? Will she tell us what the policy is? Perhaps she would like to explain it to people who are trying to navigate the system and work within it, but who find that there is no safety net.

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[Mr Spencer]

Of course, the Labour party now supports our funding pledges, so there is friction between what is being said about reversing some of our changes and other statements about supporting our spending regime. It will be interesting to hear the Labour Front-Bench justification of that.

In another life, I was a farmer, involved in food production and supply. Interestingly, the OECD says that 9.8% of people had difficulty affording food in 2006-07, but the figure had fallen to 8.1% in 2011-12. That shows we are going in the right direction. There will always be individuals who get themselves into difficult circumstances and where the system has frankly gone wrong. The hon. Member for Wigan raised several such cases and I have encountered some in my constituency office, when clearly the system has broken down and some incorrect decisions have been made. It is my job as a Member of Parliament to try to help people through the system and solve their ills, and we have succeeded on a number of occasions in helping individuals in difficult circumstances to work their way through the system to the right point.

[Debbie Abrahams]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Spencer]

I will not give way any more, because other people want to speak.

I want the Government to continue to reduce the deficit, and to make sure that the economy continues to grow and that we generate more jobs and help people out of poverty through employment. I want them to continue to cut taxes at the lowest end, so that we can raise more people out of tax altogether. I want them to create more jobs and back businesses—particularly small businesses that create real-life careers for people. I want a continuation of the welfare cap, so that we can control immigration and make sure people in work are better off and so that people who decide to go into work and get a career and who can move forward aspire to overcome their difficulties. I want better schools, to make sure that the next generation have the education that will deliver them a future, make them ready for the workplace and enable them to take careers and move forward. The only way to solve the problem is to give people the aspiration and ability, so that they can aspire out of their difficulties.

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[Mr Raab]

If someone is earning between £10,000 and £15,000 under this Government, they are paying 54% less tax than they were under the last Government. If someone is a millionaire—we get lots of jibes on the Government side of the House about that—they are paying 14% more. When do we ever hear that referred to?

A lot of people have talked about poverty. If we look at the inequality Gini coefficient, we see that on elderly poverty, fuel poverty, the number of people not in education, employment or training, and child poverty—on every single statistical benchmark—the level of poverty or inequality is lower now than what the last Government left behind. Where is a little bit of honesty about that?

When it comes to affordable homes, the average annual rate of the creation of affordable homes is 50% higher under this Government than the last Government. The hon. Lady might have mentioned that in her speech. What about inflation, which eats away at incomes?

[Debbie Abrahams]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Raab]

I will not, because I have very limited time before we come to the wind-ups, and we have heard a huge amount from the Opposition side. It is important to hear the counter-arguments to puncture some of the myths that the Labour party is putting around—[Interruption.]

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[Esther McVey]

I will not give way for a while, because I would like to put these figures on the record.

The top 1% of income tax payers will contribute nearly 30% of this year’s income tax bill. We talk about the richest helping most to get us out of the financial situation in which we found ourselves after Labour left office, and that is what is happening. The top 20% of income tax payers are paying 80% of the bill, which is key. We also have 390,000 fewer children living in workless households, and in-work poverty has fallen by 300,000. In fact, in-work poverty rose 20% between 1998 and 2008.

[Debbie Abrahams]

Will the Minister give way?

[Esther McVey]

I will not give way for the moment.

It is also key to know that 1.75 million more people are in work. When my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) talked about what sorts of jobs those people are doing, he was right to say that, since the election, three quarters of them are full-time jobs. In fact, in the last year 80% are full-time jobs. What sorts of jobs are they? The vast majority, 75%, are skilled, managerial and professional. If we want to look at the figures from the other point of view, we could say that, at the election, 600,000 more people were in relative poverty and there were 670,000 more workless households. We could say that there were 300,000 more children and 200,000 more pensioners in relative poverty. We could also say that there were 50,000 more households in which no member had ever worked. That is what we were picking up. As my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) pointed out—I hope this is a point of consensus for all of us—there had been a financial crash and the GDP of the whole country had shrunk by 7%. The truth of the matter is that everybody had to bear the brunt of the crash that we had from the Labour party, but we have ensured—[Interruption.]

[Esther McVey]

We have ensured that the richest are paying the most. We are ensuring that the richest people are now paying more than they ever paid under Labour. The hon. Member for Wigan talked about working for Barnardo’s, and I congratulate her because I am a child of Barnardo’s. When we talk about poverty and how we take people out of poverty, the key building blocks have to be education and employment, and the Government are creating those key building blocks.

When we look at this, what have we done? We have brought record rates of women into work. We are increasing and supporting lone parents into work. We have put £2.5 billion into the troubled families initiative, and we have put the same amount into the pupil premium. We have ensured that 3 million people are out of tax altogether and that 26 million people have had their tax reduced. We have increased the minimum wage to £6.50 an hour, which is the first real increase since 2008—a 3% increase—and which benefits more than 1 million people. People in full-time work on the national minimum wage are getting an extra £355 a year. All those things are key, and we are doing them.

[Debbie Abrahams]

Would the Minister like to comment on her point about the reduction in inequality? The OECD’s report before Christmas and the International Monetary Fund’s report from a similar time show that inequality has actually increased. In fact, we have the worst rate of inequality in 30 years. The reports show that inequality is harming growth and that the trickle-down economics to which the Government are absolutely committed does not work. It actually stifles growth and hurts human beings.

[Esther McVey]

I never recognise where the hon. Lady gets her figures. I have given the independent facts, which are correct. The only thing I will say is that here is a party that delivered the biggest financial crash in living memory. This is the party that said there would be 1 million more unemployed people now, but we are near to having 2 million more people in employment. [Interruption.] Labour Members would do better to listen for a change, rather than charging forward with things that really are not true. It is sometimes worth listening, rather than talking, especially when the Labour party delivered such a disaster for the UK, which we are all now having to cope and deal with. It is worth remembering that, because of our long-term economic plan, we are the fastest-growing developed nation. The UK has delivered more jobs than the rest of Europe added together. Those are the facts.

My hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton read out a list of facts about the constituency of the hon. Member for Wigan. He talked about the unemployment figures and the claimant count rising by 100% between 2005 and 2010, but let us look at what is happening in Wigan now: the employment rate is up by 7.9 percentage points; the claimant count is down by 49%; the long-term claimant count is down by 44%; the youth claimant count is down by 70%; and the long-term youth claimant count—[Interruption.]

Benefit Sanctioning

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd December 2014 Westminster Hall

[Paul Blomfield]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention and for the great work she has done as Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, along with the other members of the Committee. She is right to highlight the link between benefits sanctioning and payday lending. As she will know, payday lending is a concern to me. With colleagues from all parties in the House, I introduced a private Member’s Bill on high-cost credit.

I have subsequently worked with colleagues on the all-party group on debt and personal finance to push the Financial Conduct Authority to introduce effective regulation of payday lenders, and I am delighted that we have made some progress on that. However, that is only part of the solution. We are dealing with the consequences of poverty—people resorting to payday lenders—but not the causes, and one of the most significant causes is benefit sanctioning. I am therefore pleased that my hon. Friend raised that point.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

I apologise to my hon. Friend for being a little late. Is he aware of the evidence from Oxford university, which shows that one in four JSA claimants who are sanctioned leave JSA and that more than half of them do not get into work? Using sanctions to get people into employment has therefore proved ineffective.

[Paul Blomfield]

I was not aware of that research, so I am doubly grateful to my hon. Friend for her intervention. That makes the point powerfully that the sanctioning regime is failing to achieve its stated intention. Even leaving aside the hardships and all the consequences of sanctioning, we still need to look carefully at the issues I have raised because of the failure of sanctioning to meet its stated objectives.

So far, the Government have resisted calls from the Work and Pensions Committee, Citizens Advice and others for a full review of the sanctioning system. I have commended the work of the Oakley review, but that focused only on the practicalities of the current system. I understand the Select Committee is conducting its own inquiry, which I strongly welcome, and I am sure Citizens Advice and many others will engage fully with it.

Why, however, are the Government refusing to address one fundamental question: is the sanctioning system proving effective at getting people into work, which is its stated intention? Why is there no performance evaluation of the system against that criterion? There is no shame in that, whatever the answer—even if it is that, no, the system is not proving effective. However, we need to know the answer as policy makers; if we do not even ask, we are showing enormous contempt for the people whose lives are being dramatically affected. I hope the Minister will give us a commitment on that today.

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[Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

One of the things that has troubled me most in my parliamentary career has been when serious allegations have been made about the unintended consequences of benefits reform. In some cases, it is alleged that it has led to people’s deaths.

In the Library brief, I read an article from The Independent about the cases of Mark Wood and David Clapson. Mr Wood died. He had a number of mental health problems and was found starved to death. Apparently, he thought that he deserved only £40 a week, and when a member of his family gave him money, it is alleged that he gave it to charity. Mr Clapson also died. He was a former soldier and a type 1 diabetic. It is said that his benefits were cut. The article says:

“He had no food in his stomach, £3.44 in the bank and no money on his electricity card”,

so he could not run the

“fridge where he kept his insulin.”

Those are appalling cases. The DWP has apparently said of Mr Wood:

“The coroner attributed Mr Wood’s eating disorder and food phobia as the likely cause of his death”

and Mr Clapson had not appealed or applied for a hardship payment. In the system set up to help such people, it may well be that unforeseen circumstances arose that led to the deaths of both those men.

The Government explain that the majority of claimants do not receive a sanction and that vulnerable claimants can receive hardship payments immediately if they are sanctioned. It seems to me that in the cases of both Mr Wood and Mr Clapson, there should have been immediate hardship payments, if not a suspension of the sanction in the first place.

Why do such decisions get made? First, it is because the state is not an instrument of compassion and kindness. In the end, it is an instrument of rule following and coercion. Something is going on in the system when the Minister’s and the Government’s good intent, which I do not doubt for a moment, goes through a set of rules, procedures, structures and bureaucracies that ultimately leads to some edge cases in which people may even die as a result of the system. Why does that happen?

The other question is why people working within the system allow these things to happen in front of them. I have observed that people with the least are often the most generous, and those who are the closest to human suffering usually feel the most for the people they see suffering, so why do these things happen? I am afraid that I found myself turning to the Milgram experiment, which gave a psychological explanation of why people obey authority. It is just a fact—this has been shown repeatedly—that people will obey the rules far beyond their personal morality regarding the consequences. I ask the Government to think about how the incentives for staff could be changed to allow their personal morality to flourish in the system, so that the small minority of cases that are clearly illogical and wrong never arise.

It has been pointed out that the vast majority of decisions are correct. In the 12 months to June 2014, decision makers considered 1.76 million JSA cases and imposed 850,000 sanctions or disentitlements, but fewer than 15% of those decisions were changed on reconsideration or appeal. Some 15% were changed after review and fewer than 1% after appeal, and that was often because the claimant brought forward new evidence. The problem I am most concerned about is how in the tiny minority of cases where a different decision really ought to have been made, it was not made.

[Debbie Abrahams]

The hon. Gentleman is making an interesting speech. He might not be aware of the Select Committee inquiry and the report we published earlier this year that clearly showed that the pressure on Jobcentre Plus advisers to get claimants off-flow—off the books—was such that it was distorting what should happen. He mentioned the rules in society, but the rules and culture being set up within the Department contribute to those tragic cases.

[Steve Baker]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady, because I was not aware of the report. I will be sure to dig it out after the debate and have a good look at it.

My point is that I do not doubt the Government’s good intent or that the overwhelming majority of the people working in the system do an extremely difficult job that is demanding both on their skills and talents and on their emotions; but I have to ask why it is that in a tiny minority of cases things go so badly wrong. The hon. Lady made a good point about the systems that are put in place. How do people end up feeling incentivised to sanction people whom they otherwise might not sanction? Why do they not notice that someone has a mental illness such as a food phobia and feel able to refer them to help elsewhere? How can that possibly be? I am absolutely convinced that every Member of this House believes not only that we should have an ultimate social safety net, but that there is one there that should be and largely is effective.

I will finish my speech with some obvious suggestions for the Government, which I feel sure they will have considered. First, it is obvious that everything should be clearly communicated to people, taking into account issues such as those the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) mentioned, where someone cannot read. It is obvious that a person cannot be expected to comply with rules that have not been explained to them. The rules should be explained simply and people’s understanding of them confirmed. It is not enough sometimes just to send a letter—if people cannot cope with life, they will not open their correspondence. Secondly, how can we expand the capacity of individual members of staff to exercise their personal moral judgment in cases, so that we do not end up with a type 1 diabetic with no money to pay for the electricity to keep the fridge on for his insulin? I suggest that all staff should have a duty to inform claimants of their right to appeal and to apply for hardship payments.

I am absolutely sure that the Government intend to drive people into work, and that is right. If people can work, they should work; it is good for them and it is good for society. I am also absolutely sure that the Government intend to bring hope to people who are without it. I just hope very much that we can deal with all the issues around the edges and set up a system of welfare that works for everyone, all the time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Maynard]

I agree entirely. One of my caseworkers also works part-time at the local citizens advice bureau; her experience in the one role helps her in the other, and vice-versa.

What is not made sufficiently clear to all claimants of jobseeker’s allowance is that participation in any activity to get claimants closer to the workplace, whether computer or other skills training, does not invalidate the obligation to continue job-seeking activities. That is often the golden thread running through so many of the sanction cases that come across my desk. That central and essential point is somehow lost on people and, given that it is so central, I urge the DWP to make it much clearer.

What might be driving the ESA issue in particular, which the hon. Member for Edinburgh East mentioned, is the lack of freedom that Work programme providers have not to refer an infringement on for a further decision. That seems to be building into the system an accelerator of the number of referrals on potential sanctions. I urge the Minister to look at how we can build more flexibility into the system so that Work programme providers may choose not to refer if they deem that the claimant has a good reason.

I was struck by the reference of the hon. Member for Sheffield Central to the number of increasing incidents. We can all argue over the figures—some people cite 4.5 million—and I am sure that we will argue about them in the Select Committee, but the essential point to me is that any change in the welfare state or in any particular benefit inevitably creates confusion for those who have to administer the system and for those seeking to navigate it as claimants.

We have seen tremendous changes in the benefits system in recent years—new benefits coming in and new requirements being placed on claimants, none more so than the claimant commitment—and that has required a great degree of comprehension on the part of many of those applying for JSA. Many have none the less found the new document off-putting. Yes, it is certainly personalised, but it is still a matter of putting ticks in boxes as they apply to the individual, so the personalisation is a little limited. It still requires a variety of boxes to be ticked, rather than being built around the needs of an individual. That still creates problems.

I am also struck by the number of people making the journey over to my office from the jobcentre who say, “I have been sanctioned”, when on investigation no sanction is officially part of the story. To me, that was an anecdotal impression—that people said that they were being sanctioned, but were not being sanctioned—so I was intrigued to read in the Oakley report that DWP research had found that 28% of JSA claimants had said that they had been sanctioned in some way, shape or form. Once the case load was reviewed, it turned out that only 11% of claimants had been sanctioned.

I am not saying that those individuals were in any way seeking to misrepresent what had occurred. Once again, benefit claims can be complex, and the amount that one receives each week can change according to a wide range of factors, such as social fund repayments, late payment of bills or the Child Support Agency—the list is endless.

[Debbie Abrahams]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Paul Maynard]

I am conscious that I am taking a lot of time, so I would like to get through my comments rather than give way. I do apologise.

What interests me is that sanctions appear to be becoming a shorthand for a wider range of issues in the welfare system, all of which undoubtedly need to be addressed. Meanwhile, the issue of conditionality is almost getting a worse name for itself than it should be. Conditionality is not always responsible for all the problems that individual claimants are bringing forward and identifying. We need to drill down to what exactly is occurring.

We obviously have the endless debate about whether Jobcentre Plus employees are expected to hit particular sanction levels. I try to take a pragmatic view. If I am managing a process and I have an outlier branch of my network that is producing figures that I do not recognise, I will of course investigate. I specifically asked my Jobcentre Plus advisers in Blackpool whether that was occurring, and I was assured that it was not. I can only take their word for it, but I understand such concerns. I suggest to those concerned that entering into a potential sanctioning process can often bring out some of those underlying problems—[Interruption.] Was it something I said? I see that the hon. Members for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue) and for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) are leaving the Chamber.

On the underlying problems, one gentleman who came to my office had not completed any of his back-to-work activity, but he was then found to be functionally illiterate at the last-but-one stage before he was due to be sanctioned. The sanction was not applied and his literacy issues were then dealt with; Jobcentre Plus employees can use discretion and can already get to the bottom of what is causing some of the problems. I revert to the underlying point of Mr Oakley’s report, which is that the system is not fundamentally broken. He states that quite explicitly. Improvements can certainly be made but, as a system, conditionality is not fundamentally broken.

The hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth made a point about the sizeable numbers exiting JSA totally. I hope that the Select Committee will investigate that important issue, because one of the challenges in Blackpool has been to estimate the size of the black economy. The suspicion is that many people, who until the introduction of the new claimant commitment were able to maintain their job-seeking activity while working in the black economy, could no longer juggle both balls and therefore voluntarily chose to exit JSA. It is a persuasive narrative and I would like the Committee to investigate the extent to which it holds true. Does it depend on the size of the black economy in any particular local economy? What estimates have been made? That is another important issue to be drilled down into.

I want to ensure that other people can speak, so my final point is that, as we have all been saying, conditionality has to be part of any functioning welfare system, but it must be done in such a way that it is also seen to be humane. The Litchfield review of the work capability assessment was always careful to make the point that there is such a thing as institutional justice. People will accept an adverse decision if they have confidence in the process that they have gone through and feel that they have been given a fair opportunity to have their say. The fact that institutional justice is part of the welfare state is an important factor in making it work in the interests not only of those claiming, but of those funding and administering it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

Monday 3rd November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

We have already taken action. We have closed many of the loopholes and tightened things up. Come Monday next week, nobody will be able to claim out-of-work benefit for more than three months, and after that people will have to leave the country. They will not get housing benefit, they have to be able to speak English and they have to show that they are resident here. And that is only the beginning.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

A research group from Oxford university has analysed the data from the Government’s new sanctions regime. It has identified that 4.5 million people on jobseeker’s allowance have been sanctioned, including young people. One in four of those who were sanctioned left JSA. More than half of those who left did so for reasons other than employment. In the light of that, will the Secretary of State apologise for his claim that his policies are getting people into work, when they clearly are not?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

As far as I am concerned, jobcentres apply sanctions only as a last resort. With the new actions that we have taken to get mandatory reconsideration, the number of appeals has dropped. The truth is that when the hon. Lady’s party was in government, it accepted the need for sanctions when people did not do what they were expected to do. Only in opposition does it claim that it is opposed to sanctions. It would not implement that policy if it was in government.

Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Welfare Reform (Disabled People)

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

Tuesday 28th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

I am going to make progress. Otherwise, nobody else will be able to speak and it would be very boring if everyone was listening to me all afternoon.

Let me mention the employment and support allowance and the work capability assessment. I was criticised by the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston for the work capability assessment. The Government inherited the contract with Atos, which, I should remind hon. Members, was appointed by Labour. It was not a great piece of procurement. We inherited a backlog when we came to office. We have made considerable improvements to the process. Hon. Members will know that Atos is exiting the contract early, having paid a financial settlement to the taxpayer. I will announce the results of the process to appoint a new provider in due course.

The hon. Lady will also know that there have been four independent reviews—Dr Paul Litchfield is undertaking a fifth—and we have implemented more than 75 recommendations. We have made the assessment less mechanistic, with better interactions between the Department and claimants. We have also improved communications and carried out an evidence-based review of the descriptors, which looked at the current assessment criteria along with alternative assessment criteria from disability charities. The findings indicate that, overall, the WCA provides a valid assessment relative to experts’ opinions about people’s fitness for work.

We have also built on previous changes to how claimants with cancer are assessed to ensure that patients awaiting, undergoing or recovering from cancer treatment are placed in the support group. We have also retained a strong focus on how mental health is assessed, including, for example, through the introduction of mental function champions. We have introduced mandatory reconsideration. The number of people waiting for an assessment has fallen by more than 20% in the last six months, and I want it to continue to fall.

[Debbie Abrahams]

(Oldham East and Saddleworth)(Lab): Will the Minister explain why seven out of 10 people with progressive conditions such as multiple sclerosis or cystic fibrosis are being assessed two or three times? Does he think their conditions will change?

[Mr Harper]

The hon. Lady will know that the WCA and the personal independence payment are not based on diagnoses of conditions; they are about the impact on somebody’s life. It is also—[Interruption.] Perhaps Members will listen to the reply. It is also worth making sure that people are getting the appropriate help. When someone is assessed the first time, it might be that they are found able to work. If their condition deteriorates and has a larger impact on their life, it is important for us to ensure that they get the help they need for that level of condition, so I think it is perfectly appropriate to reassess people at intervals of up to three years.

The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston mentioned the spare room subsidy, which this House has debated at great length. The basic issue is one of fairness and treating people in social housing the same as those in private rented accommodation. That was the position that applied under the whole of the last Government, and I am still waiting to hear how Labour plan to fund the reversal of that policy. It is also worth noting that the example she gave, if I heard her correctly, was of somebody who had received support from discretionary housing payments, which are exactly designed for people who need that extra support. I could not quite see what her criticism was.

--- Later in debate ---

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

I, too, congratulate my new neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes), who made a fantastic maiden speech. I know that she will go from strength to strength.

The Government’s onslaught of welfare reforms is so punitive and regressive that it is taking us back to the Victorian era. People who are disabled or who have long-term illnesses are being hit particularly hard. Any one of us could fall ill, become disabled or fall on hard times. We have a welfare system so that people have a safety net, but I am afraid that it is failing.

The main point that I want to make in the short time that I have is about social security sanctions. The Government’s sanctions regime was introduced at the end of 2012. More than 4.5 million people on jobseeker’s allowance had been sanctioned by March this year. More than 2 million of those people had a sanction where payments were stopped for at least four weeks. Last year, the number of people with disabilities or long-term conditions on employment and support allowance who were sanctioned increased by 250%.

David Clapson, a former soldier who had diabetes, was sanctioned and his money was stopped. When his electricity was cut off, he could not keep his insulin cold and so could not use it. Unfortunately, he died. I pay tribute to his sister, Gill Thompson, for all that she has done to raise awareness of what happened to David. Sadly, his is not the only case.

More than 200,000 people signed a petition calling for an independent inquiry into sanctions. Last week, after the Government refused to hold an independent inquiry into the sanctions scandal, the Work and Pensions Committee agreed to hold an inquiry into it. We will examine the appropriateness of sanctions and their efficacy and effects. We will also consider how they are used for people who are on ESA and the alternatives to financial sanctions.

There is anecdotal evidence that it has been Government policy to have targets for sanctions. The initial findings of a research group at Oxford university show that, of the 2 million-plus people on JSA who were sanctioned, one in four left JSA and more than half of those did so for reasons other than employment. That blows out of the water the Government’s claims that their welfare reforms are getting people back to work.

In the limited time available, I also want to refer to the personal independence payment that has affected many of my constituents. One has waited 10 months for his assessment and been passed from pillar to post, with mixed-up assessment dates and the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. We have heard of an assessment backlog affecting 300,000 people. I hope that the Minister will be able to give a fuller response than he gave to the Work and Pensions Committee when explaining why advisers were made redundant when there was an escalation and backlog of cases, because, quite frankly, that was inadequate.

Jobcentre Plus

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

Thursday 10th July 2014 Westminster Hall

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Amess. It is also a pleasure to follow my colleague on the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris), who, as always, made a balanced speech. I am particularly pleased to speak on behalf of my constituents, many of whom are claimants and use their Jobcentre Plus, but I also speak on behalf of those who work within the Jobcentre Plus network and more widely within the Department for Work and Pensions system. I have been contacted by a number of people since the Select Committee started looking at this issue, and I want to air their views as well.

My speech will focus on sanctions, which both the previous speakers have touched on. The Select Committee’s report raised concerns on whether sanctions are being applied

“appropriately, fairly, proportionately and in accordance with the rules, across the Jobcentre network.”

The principle of conditionality has been accepted across all the parties represented in the Select Committee and beyond. It is that if claimants are receiving financial support from the state, there are conditions around that—on job search and on having regular meetings with jobcentre advisers, for example. That principle is long established and has in recent years been extended to involve financial penalties or sanctions being applied to the claimant, with benefit payment being stopped for a limited period if the conditions are not met. Even more recently, it has been extended to people who are sick or disabled, who can have work preparation conditions, with associated sanctions, applied to their benefits.

As many know, two thirds of those who receive social security payments are in work. The Government have already mooted that in-work conditionality and conditionality for in-work social security payments is likely. We should remember that and reflect on the particular issues we are facing with those on out-of-work or ill-health payments. The Welfare Reform Act 2012 introduced a new regime of sanctions. Instead of a maximum of six months of sanctions, the maximum period of a JSA benefit sanction is three years. The minimum is a month. Under the previous system, people could perhaps tide themselves over for a week’s sanction—they might have been able to borrow off family members or friends. A month, however, is a different kettle of fish. Later, I will come on to what that change means for so many individuals and families.

Many fair-minded people would say, “If you’ve done something wrong, it is only right that you should be punished for it.” That was raised by the Committee and has been mentioned today. My colleagues and I, however, have received overwhelming evidence, and investigative journalists have highlighted, that people are being sanctioned for doing nothing wrong at all. They are being set up to fail.

A whistleblower—a former JCP adviser—came to my constituency office and said that stitching up claimants was part of the job. He referred to a “bullying” culture, driven from above, in which claimants were constantly harassed to get them “off flow”, off benefit and off register. If advisers resisted pressure from managers, they were issued with a performance improvement plan, which is the start of a disciplinary procedure. Targets were set for advisers to cover targets for decision makers, resulting in perverse behaviour. He described advisers setting claimants up to fail, including making appointments about which they had no knowledge so that they were automatically sanctioned when they did not turn up. That is absolutely outrageous and there is growing evidence that it is happening up and down the country.

Another whistleblower from the midlands this week reported the pressure that she is under to meet targets to push people, including the sick and disabled, off benefits, such as being told to “disrupt and upset” claimants. The article states:

“Managers repeatedly question them on why more people haven’t been sanctioned. Letters are sent to the vulnerable who don’t legally have to come in, but in such ambiguous wording that they look like an order to attend. Tricks are played: those ending their contributory entitlement to a year on ESA need to fill in a form for income-based ESA. But jobcentres are forbidden to stock those forms. These ill people’s benefits are suddenly stopped without explanation: if they call, they’re told to collect a form”—

but of course the jobcentre does not stock them. The article continues:

“If someone calls to query an appointment they are told they will be sanctioned if they don’t turn up, whatever. She said: ‘The DWP’s hope is they won’t pursue the claim.’”

It is shocking.

Figures for the new sanction regime introduced at the end of 2012 show that sanctions have increased by 11% on the same period and that 1.35 million people on JSA were sanctioned in the first six months, with 553,000 upheld on appeal. For the same period, 11,400 people on ESA were sanctioned, including a constituent of mine who had a heart attack in the middle of a work capability assessment. The nurse said, “You’re having a heart attack. We’re going to have to stop. You’re going to have to go to hospital.” He received a letter two weeks later to say that he had been sanctioned.

The work that Citizens Advice in Manchester did on the effects of benefit sanctions on claimants showed that 40% did not receive a letter informing them of their sanction; they just had their money stopped. Over half of claimants said that they had not received any information about how to appeal.

When the Minister attended the Work and Pensions Committee in November, I asked her how sanctioned JSA claimants would affect JSA claimant figures and she said that, as long as they kept signing on, they would be counted. What she did not say, however, is that the Department does not keep such data. No one knows how many sanctioned JSA claimants keep signing on. If more than half of those sanctioned do not know that they can appeal, how many will know they need to sign on stay on register? Will JCP tell them? I would query that. I did some basic maths: taking the May JSA claimant figure, if 5% of 1.09 million people are sanctioned every month, the actual JSA claimant figure would be 1.147 million. It is apparent how the number can be distorted because the actual JSA claimant figures are not being kept.

I also asked the Minister whether she would commit to a second, broader independent review, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg), to look at inappropriate sanctions. At the time, she agreed. The Work and Pensions Committee certainly believed she had—it was one of our recommendations—but it is disappointing that the commitment has since been reneged on. I ask the Minister once more whether she will commit to that important piece of work in light of the compelling and growing evidence that has come forward since our inquiry and the potential distortion of the JSA claimant count.

The impact of benefit sanctions on people’s lives is becoming well documented. The Trussell Trust, which runs so many food banks up and down the country, cites benefit changes and delays, including sanctions, as the main reason why people visit it needing help. People are not able to feed themselves and their families. The principle of social security conditionality is well established and supported, but it needs to be examined in the round, as my hon. Friend said, to ensure that it is effective and produces the desired behaviour.

[Stephen Timms]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful case. Regarding the documentation of problems with benefit sanctions, has she seen the website devoted to the topic? It is entitled “A Selection of Especially Stupid Benefit Sanctions” and contains a raft of ludicrous examples, including the case of her constituent not completing his work capability assessment because he had a heart attack in the middle of it.

[Debbie Abrahams]

I have seen that website. Following the inquiry and people becoming more aware, a whole raft of unbelievable examples are coming forward.

As I said, the principle of social security conditionality is well established and supported, but the reports of punitive, unfair and inappropriate sanctioning and bullying behaviour in JCP offices should be a cause for concern. I urge the Minister not to turn her back on the issue and the people it is affecting this time and to do the right thing by committing to an independent review of inappropriate sanctioning.

--- Later in debate ---

[Pamela Nash (Airdrie and Shotts) (Lab)]

Let me echo my colleagues and say what a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship again, Mr Amess.

I will not replicate my colleagues’ remarks about the report, but it will not surprise Members to hear that I agree with the vast majority of it. I congratulate the Committee’s Chair, my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg), on all its work, but particularly on this report and on giving us the opportunity to debate it today.

The first issue I want to concentrate on is support for claimants with health conditions and disabilities. In one of the report’s recommendations, the Committee asks the Government to take urgent action to improve the level of jobcentre support for claimants with health conditions and disabilities, including by addressing unacceptably high work-related activity group case loads.

One of the most heart-breaking things I have seen in my four years as a Member of Parliament is the number of people coming to my surgery, or requesting a home visit because of their health conditions, who it is clear—even to the naked eye—are not fit for work, but who are still put in the work-related activity group for ESA. Let me give one example from my constituency, although it represents the stories of many other people there. My office spoke this morning to a constituent who wants to remain anonymous. She is 59, and she had to stop work due to ill health. There has been a series of errors since she applied for ESA.

My constituent, who suffers from arthritis and panic attacks, among other health conditions, attended an assessment, but she did not receive a copy of her assessment report afterwards—I have heard the same point made repeatedly over the past four years. She was just told that she had “passed” the medical. Does that mean that she is healthy, or that she will receive the benefit? It is an ambiguous term.

My constituent was given no information about the difference between contribution-based and income-based ESA. After 365 days, she was moved from one to the other with no notice. The only indication that something had changed was the unexpected drop of £118 per week in the amount of money going into her bank account. That is an extremely large amount for a low-income household.

I will not go any further, because I may be drifting a little from the report, but I ask the Minister to look at what has been a recurring theme today: the data and analysis available on the success of jobcentres and the DWP. Will she publish more information so we can look at the problems? If we do not know what they are, how can whoever is in government seek to fix them?

Another issue is support for those in the work-related activity group. There are some who clearly should be in that group. However, the type of work they can do is severely limited, although they might be able to work with the correct support. My understanding is that that is exactly why this policy is in place—to allow these people to go back to work. If they can contribute, therefore, they should be supported so that they can do so. However, the Committee’s inquiry found that relatively few resources were devoted to providing that support in jobcentres; in fact, the figure is one adviser to every 600 claimants. Is the Department looking at improving the support available to help these people back to work?

Another issue related to ESA, which I became aware of recently, is the actual average clearance time. The headline figures for ESA show that, since the Government came to power, waiting times have gone down. However, I asked the House of Commons Library to look into that, and it told me that the figure relates only to the time between a new claim being made and a decision being taken on whether the person should have an assessment. The total time, if we look at how long people have to wait for a work capability assessment, is 118.9 days on average. What is the Department doing to bring that figure down?

I want to say something briefly about sanctions. Again, I will not replicate what has been said, and I agree with much of what my colleagues have said. However, I would ask the Minister to comment on the repeated claims from Jobcentre Plus whistleblowers, which we have heard about in the press and here today, that there are quotas or that there is pressure on staff to impose a certain number of sanctions on their client base.

I also want to talk about the fact that there are no crisis loans any more, with the localisation that was touched on in the report. In Scotland the Scottish welfare fund is the replacement, but that specifically may not give money to people who have been sanctioned. I simply want to put the question to the Minister: what are those people supposed to do? How are they supposed to eat, with no income at all? When people are convicted of a crime we do not starve them; yet people who have been sanctioned turn up at my office—and the vast majority get the sanction overturned on appeal, for reasons such as we have heard today, and because of mistakes—and they are left in dire straits.

I am ashamed sometimes to be an MP in a country where all I can do is send those people to a food bank. They are sent for payday loans. They should not be getting those if they have no salary, and if they are given them that is shocking. Even worse, they often go to criminal loan sharks. That is the one business that has thrived during the recession, which is a disgrace. What does the Minister expect people who have been sanctioned to do, to meet their basic needs for survival?

The report examines in depth the flexible support fund and its uses. It replaced a few other funds; many of the relevant people would have been affected more recently by the removal of the return to work credit, although I realise that that was a much longer-term support for people returning to work. I worry about some constituents who receive a job offer—which is happening increasingly; I welcome the fact that unemployment is reducing in my constituency and there are many new businesses, and the town centre is more thriving than I can remember. However, some constituents find it difficult to go back to work, because they do not know how they will survive for the first month.

I have been told by my local jobcentre that the usual flexible support fund payment is rarely more than £50 for travel to work. Housing benefit runs on for a month, too, but apart from that there is little, if any, support to enable someone to pay bills or perhaps buy clothes for a new job—or, indeed, lunches for the first month. Being out of work often causes a drop in confidence, so people want to make a good impression and not to have to worry about such basic things in the first month of a new job.

Work experience contributes to building up confidence. I know that the Government have made work experience programmes part of Get Britain Working, but in my experience there are few opportunities for young people to get such experience. What are jobcentres doing to increase opportunities for placements? I am setting up a work experience programme in my constituency, and letters to more than 400 local businesses are being produced as I speak. That is being done in conjunction with the jobcentre, which has difficulty finding enough work experience placements for the people who want them. Some of my colleagues are setting up similar projects in their constituencies, but what is happening at Government level, so that it will not matter whether MPs spend time doing that, and people will not need their MP to set up work experience projects to make placements available to them?

I found work experience useful, because I was on the dole at one point after university. The jobcentre told me I would be sanctioned if I did voluntary work, because I would not be spending that time looking for jobs; however, since then, there has been cross-party support for and understanding of the idea that voluntary work and work experience can lead to full-time sustainable employment.

[Debbie Abrahams]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on setting up work experience in her constituency. I have done that too, for 18 to 24-year-olds, starting next week for two weeks. It is the first time I have done it, but I have been asked whether I would consider something for older people. We need to think of them as well.

[Pamela Nash]

Definitely. The work experience programme that I am setting up is aimed at young people, but it is not just for them—it is certainly for others too. At the other end of the age range in the work market, and particularly with the pension age going up, there are many people who want to work a bit longer but are having difficulty finding jobs. That affects every age group in between, too.

In fact, there was a good news story from my local jobcentre when I visited last Friday. A gentleman had been out of work for 20 years, and, with the new programmes, one of the advisers who recognised his need could spend much longer with him. He has now started a full-time job.

The hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) said that Select Committees are often negative because of their role in holding the Government to account, and I think that that often applies to Opposition MPs as well; we appear a bit crabbit, to use a Scottish word, and negative. However, holding the Government to account is our job. I certainly do not think that everything is wrong, but there is a lot of room for improvement.

Finally, I want to comment briefly on the Work programme, which comes outside the work of Jobcentre Plus. My area has very good and very bad examples of the way it is run. I am angered when I go to the jobcentre and staff tell me how good the success rate is for people leaving the Work programme after two years, and being found work quickly. There are people who are ready and desperate to work, but who were not given the support they needed during the Work programme.

When I meet constituents who have been on the programme, they always tell me two things. First, they tell me that they can end the two years without even a CV—which is ridiculous—or basic IT skills. Secondly, I am constantly told about their intention to apply for training; there are many positions in security in my area, so they might want to go for a Security Industry Authority badge. Yet that is not available—nor is any small cost for training that might keep their skills up to date or improve their job opportunities.

If those people had been under the care of the jobcentre at the time in question, those things would have been available to them, but the contract that the Work programme providers have does not include such provision, and obviously the providers will save costs whenever they can. That is relevant to the debate, because the situation increases the work of the jobcentre, when the people in question go back. If the Government are not going to scrap the Work programme as it stands, will they take another look at the contracts, and make it clear what is expected of Work programme providers in the way of support for participants? Can that be published? Are there guidelines for the providers that Members of Parliament can see?

The hon. Member for Newton Abbot talked about negative comments. On Friday I visited my local jobcentre, as I do regularly—my office is a couple of doors away and it is no accident that I get most of my casework from there. The staff were excited about the prospect of becoming a digital jobcentre. We saw the work being done, and I think much of what is happening will improve the service for my constituents, so I look forward to that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Esther McVey]

I am afraid that, because the right hon. Gentleman has just walked into the debate as I am giving my closing speech and has not heard from other Members, I cannot give way. There is only a limited amount of time, and since it is a three-hour debate, I have many questions to answer.

We have seen the complete modernisation of the Jobcentre Plus system. The system has been personalised and adapted to new technology. We have seen greater employer engagement—how do we get a tailor-made service so that a jobseeker really is ready to go into work? That is what we have tried to do.

When we talk about personalising the service and getting as many people as possible into jobs, one key thing that has come out is the claimant commitment. The claimant feels that they are in charge of the journey they are on and that the adviser can help them. I am pleased to say that more than 26,000 of our staff have received the required training and now all 714 jobcentres offer the service. That is helping 600,000 claimants who have signed the new agreement.

[Debbie Abrahams]

Will the Minister give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Esther McVey]

I will give the hon. Lady a copy of that research, and there are other debates—various debates—in which it has been used. I will provide her with that information if she would find that helpful.

Most claimants do not get sanctioned. In an average month in 2013, around 5% of jobseeker’s allowance claimants and fewer than 1% of employment and support allowance claimants were sanctioned. We know that those people who follow the rules and take up all the support—

[Debbie Abrahams]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Esther McVey]

No, I will not give way at the moment. Those people who take up all the support given to them find it easier to get into work.

We also know that more than three quarters of new claims to JSA end within six months, and that around 90% of new claims to JSA end within a year. So most people are going back into work. However, when I hear stories—whether they come from whistleblowers or otherwise—and when people have concerns, I act. The hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) knows that I brought her and her constituent in to meet me, the Secretary of State and the head of Jobcentre Plus. Her constituent brought his concerns to that meeting and they were looked into. I am afraid that with some of the things that were brought up, we did not actually find anything that would—

[Debbie Abrahams]

Will the hon. Lady do me the courtesy of giving way on that point about my constituent?

[Esther McVey]

If the hon. Lady does not mind—she has spoken at length and I am now replying, and once I have finished I will let her back in to say what she has to say. I promised that that meeting would be anonymous and I would not talk about it, so it is rather unfortunate that she issued, I think, a press release about the meeting.

There are no targets for sanctions and that has to be key, despite what anybody has said; what was said to be happening is not happening. Where people bring in their concerns, I rightly bring people in to speak to them. We see them all the time in our constituencies, but if it is a whistleblower it is only right that we bring them in and listen to them. I brought into the meeting that I mentioned the head of Jobcentre Plus to look into the matter that had been raised.

[Debbie Abrahams]

I am very grateful to the Minister for finally giving way. She mentioned my constituent, who is a former JCP adviser, and yes, we met her. However, he has not yet had any response to the issues that were raised at that meeting and that is a real concern. As she knows, because it was discussed at the meeting, there are other whistleblowers who have also provided their evidence, which verifies claimants’ issues. How does she respond to that, and will she finally commit to an independent review to sort out, once and for all, what is happening about unfair sanctions, which is the key point?

[Esther McVey]

No, I will not. As I have said, not only was it a point of order and not only was it in the last Select Committee—I never said that there would be an independent further review. That was not said. And of course the Matt Oakley review will come out. I said it will come out in due course and that will be this month. The right hon. Member for East Ham asked about that. When we have that report, we will all see what recommendations it makes and what issues have been brought forward. Despite Members here today saying that they did not think that the Oakley review was an in-depth review, yes it was. It was about communications and process; all those things are key.

As I said, we continue to look into these issues, because as was said—it may have been said by the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg), the Chair of the Select Committee—at the end of the day what we need is people to comply and to do what is right to get a job. The ultimate aim would be that less sanctions are given, because that is what we want. We put more and more support into the system; we work with people, and the claimant commitment is there to do that; we see what people’s needs are; and we have got to make sure that we are working with voluntary organisations and charitable organisations, and understanding the needs of the individual and also their vulnerabilities. When we have got all that right, then we will all be going in the right direction.

However, what we know we have got right is the extra support and getting more people into work than ever before. The hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Pamela Nash) said that she had spoken to people who had been unemployed for 10, 15 or 25 years, and she also said how delighted those people now are to have a job, and that it has transformed their lives. Those are the type of people I meet all the time; people who were left on benefits and some people would say that they were forgotten about, and that they were not reached out to and connected with. Well, we said that we, as a Conservative party, do not agree with that; we totally do not agree with it. We will reach out and support them, and help them to do as best they can. But it is a system in the round; it is about support, sanctions and what we can do to get people to support themselves.

Universal Credit

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

Wednesday 9th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

What my hon. Friend says is exactly the point I have been making, but which Opposition Members just do not understand. There were too many disasters under their watch; we do not intend to repeat them. We are doing the implementation exactly as the PAC and the NAO recommended.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

Once again, I am absolutely staggered at the Secretary of State’s hubris; there are more cover-ups, and everybody else is to blame apart from the Secretary of State. This has been an absolutely unmitigated disaster. UC is dead in the water, and he should go.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

That is pretty much what the hon. Lady says whenever she stands up on any question to do with welfare. The reality is that she is opposed to absolutely everything that we have done. If it was left to her and some of her colleagues on the Select Committee, they would repeal everything we have done, and welfare would be in the sort of chaos that Labour Members left us when they left Government.

Universal Credit

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

Monday 7th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

If ever a debate title were a misnomer, it is this one, because it should be “The failure to implement universal credit”. Failure is pretty much par for the course for the Department for Work and Pensions, certainly in the implementation of its policies, which aim to reduce costs to the benefit of claimants and taxpayers. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg), the Chair of the Select Committee, has detailed the fantastic amounts of public money that have already been lost in a failed IT system. She has also touched on the unwillingness of Ministers in the DWP to answer questions from the Select Committee. I point out in passing that every Select Committee is appointed by this House of Commons, and its sole purpose is to scrutinise the Department which bears the same name.

We see constant failure in the implementation of the work capability assessment. On four occasions, Professor Harrington has attempted to ameliorate the agonies which individuals who are subjected to the work capability assessment are put through, yet we are still receiving letters from our constituents detailing the humiliating experiences. This is a really serious matter. An individual claimant can be sanctioned for failing to attend a work capability assessment. We have all had examples from constituents of the letter detailing the appointment arriving two or even three days after the specified date. We have also heard about those who have turned up for the assessment only to be told by the assessors, “Sorry, we can’t take any more people today.”

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

As usual, my hon. Friend is making a passionate speech. I have mentioned this story before, but let me repeat it. One of my constituents was sanctioned for having a heart attack during his work capability assessment. The nurse undertaking the assessment told him he was having a heart attack, but he was still sanctioned.

[Glenda Jackson]

It is not usual for me to be gobsmacked, but I certainly am by that story, even though I have heard from constituents who, while not necessarily experiencing heart attacks, have had absolutely disgraceful treatment. We are also seeing a rise in the number of appeals concerning employment and support allowance, and the appeals that have been lodged are taking longer and longer to come to a conclusion. I will not go into the whole debacle of the personal independence payment, but it is simply scandalous that some of the most vulnerable people in our society, whom the DWP is supposed to be assisting, are being left in many instances with no financial support whatever. To add insult to injury, this Government have also reduced the funding of local authorities. Many local authorities were absolutely central to ensuring that people with disabilities could live human, productive lives. That money has now been taken away.

I hope to bring home to the Chamber the absolute chaos out there at the moment, and to concentrate on the questioning that an individual claimant has to go through and the kind of questioning to which the Secretary of State responds. It is clear that he is burdened with delusions of adequacy, but some of his responses to my hon. Friend the Chair of the Select Committee at his most recent appearance in front of us were absolutely disgraceful.

Let me detail the experience of an individual claimant. A 71-year-old pensioner, dubbed by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to be self-employed, applied for housing benefit. It has now taken 17 weeks and still there is no final cut-off point where she has been assured that she will receive housing benefit. The most recent inquiry that came to her was to detail the cost of a bill of £3.40; the second was to detail the cost of a bill of £7.47. Both of those claims took place in 2012. The mind boggles at that, when the Secretary of State, who has lost millions and millions of pounds on a failed IT system, has categorically refused to give the Select Committee any detail whatever about his newly trumpeted business plan. He has refused to discuss the costs of the plan or whether there will be any direct savings either to the taxpayer or to the overarching benefit system. It is an absolute disgrace that the Select Committee, which has been appointed to scrutinise the DWP, is being buffeted away. It seems that the Department is opting for some kind of bunker mentality, but it will not work.

--- Later in debate ---

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

Although I have huge regard for the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris), I must disagree with some parts of her speech, most notably because there has been a swathe of errors not just in universal credit but, as we debated last week, in the other programmes for welfare reform. My hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Glenda Jackson) remarked on the unfortunate way in which the welfare reforms have been framed and debated in the media, including irresponsible press releases that perpetuate the vilification of people on benefits and paint them as the new undeserving poor. I have found that deeply offensive and such an approach has been used in Ministers’ speeches. Many people have found that offensive.

[Anne Marie Morris]

The hon. Lady is a fine contributor to our Select Committee and adds a lot of intellectual rigour and brings a lot from her previous background. My challenge is: would it not be lovely if we could control the media? She is absolutely right, I am sure, that some inappropriate things have been said by the wrong people, but when it comes to who said what and whether what is reported in the press is true, I find it a very hard leap of faith to make to accept her other point. I do not believe that any member of the Government would wantonly wish to put out any message in the way that she describes—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. The hon. Lady has already had 14 minutes. Let somebody else in—we need short interventions.

[Debbie Abrahams]

Language such as that about “shirkers” and “scroungers” has been used in the House by Ministers, and I reiterate that I find this deeply offensive.

If we consider welfare reforms in the round, we can see that there have been huge errors in how they have been delivered. If we consider them in the context of other reforms to the welfare state, we can see that we are experiencing a decimation of the welfare system that was set up after the second world war, with people who are sick and disabled through no fault of their own increasingly being denied access to a basic standard of living. In addition, the changes to access to health care and to justice are also affecting benefit claimants and because of the changes there has been a 20% reduction in the number of benefit claimants whose appeals are successful. We need to look at the situation in the round. I find it disappointing that a debate such as this is not seen in the context of everything else that is going on.

On the implementation of universal credit, I do not understand how the Secretary of State can still be in a job. Mistakes and errors have cost hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money. That has been accompanied by cover-up and claims that the system has been reset.

I endorse all the positive comments that have been made about the Chair of the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg). She is a fantastic Chair, always allowing people to engage and giving them the opportunity to speak, but she has been shown such disrespect. If anybody has not seen how the Secretary of State behaved in that Select Committee meeting in February, I invite them to watch it. It was a disgrace.

[Dame Angela Watkinson]

I thank the hon. Lady for allowing me to intervene. I hope she will also allow that the Secretary of State was sorely provoked. If we are going to look at the behaviour of one person, we need to look at the behaviour of others who took part in that exchange.

[Debbie Abrahams]

I am sorry, I do not agree with that. The exchange is on record and people can watch it. It was clear that when the Chair of the Select Committee asked in February why we had not had the information that was available, the democratic role that Select Committees play in our parliamentary system was ignored. The response to the Select Committee’s report is a further justification for my comments. I am not alone in my views. There has been criticism from the Major Projects Authority and the National Audit Office.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

The previous Conservative Government had form in this area, particularly in relation to benefits, although my hon. Friend probably was not in the House at the time. We heard a lot of ballyhoo about the horizon project, but at the end of the day it cost billions to put right. Again, it was the people on benefits who suffered as a result. The Conservatives have form. They come up with all sorts of excuses over the years, and claim to be compassionate. They are not. We have only to look at people with disabilities, who still have to go through medical tests.

[Debbie Abrahams]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. No, I was not in the House at that time. We recognise that we did not get everything right either—I am sure there will be an intervention about that—but this Government and this Secretary of State are now in power. It is their programme that we are scrutinising and it is a categorical failure. It is a mess. I have spoken about the waste of money. The Major Projects Authority said that there have been so many changes to universal credit that it cannot be seen as the same project: it must be seen as a new project.

As I said last week, and as was mentioned also by the Chair of the Select Committee, we started off with four pathfinders, including one in my constituency, Oldham. Those were announced in 2011 and were meant to be followed by a national roll-out in October 2013. On the day that the Secretary of State was supposed to provide evidence to the Select Committee, we learned that there was not to be a roll-out. Again, he was very indignant that we were questioning him about that. It was appalling arrogance.

As we have heard, there are supposed to be 7.7 million people on universal credit when it is fully implemented. Currently about 6,000 people are on it. The Secretary of State thought it was highly amusing when I asked him last week how long it would take at the present rate for 1 million people to be on UC. It is a matter of simple maths. Perhaps he, like the Chancellor, has problems with that. The answer is 2091. The Secretary of State did not like answering that.

Last September the National Audit Office reported IT problems that the Government had known about for 18 months but had failed to tell us about. That is deceptive and dishonourable. Some £40 million spent on software has had to be written off and a further £91 million written down. Good money is being poured after bad as the Government continue to spend £37 million to £38 million on the old IT system, while at the same time spending extensive sums on an end-state solution or, as it is now called, enhanced digital—whatever.

In addition to saying that it was now treating universal credit as a new project, the MPA, together with the NAO, reported its concerns on significant issues of governance, transparency, financial controls over supplier spending, and ineffective departmental oversight. It could not get worse. How is the Secretary of State still in his job? In any other profession, he would have gone. Why is he still there?

We supported and still support the principles of a simplified benefits system and one that makes work pay, but whether that will happen is questionable. There is real concern that the aim of making work pay will not be achieved. Recent evidence has shown that by 2018 cuts to the basic and work allowances will mean that universal credit is £685 a year less generous for a lone parent with two children, saving the Government £1.7 billion a year. There are also concerns that UC will weaken the incentive for second earners in couples to work. One in five children in poverty now lives with a single-earner couple. Ensuring that more second earners, principally women, are able to take up employment will be critical to reducing child poverty rates. Finally, the decision to leave council tax support out of universal credit means that the aim of simplicity is being undermined, with many claimants facing two rates of benefit withdrawal when they move into work or when their income increases.

The introduction of universal credit has been a car crash—a demonstration of how not to implement policy and of how the policy intention of making work pay is failing. This Government and this Secretary of State are failing to reform our welfare system. Of course, we need to make sure that welfare spending is not profligate, but in reforming our welfare system so that it is fit for the 21st century, we must remember why we developed our model of social welfare, retaining its principles of inclusion, support and security for all, protecting any one of us should we fall on hard times or become sick or disabled. It is a hand-up, not a hand-out.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Mowat]

As I said, I have not been serving on the Select Committee and I have not heard about the confidence she mentions. My point is that decisions are made during the life cycle of a programme that effect changes, and if, every time that happens—

[Debbie Abrahams]

There was a two-week difference between the Department saying that everything was fine in a memo that we received and the NAO’s publication of its cataclysmic report condemning what the Department is doing. Is that the sort of time scale that the hon. Gentleman has in mind?

[David Mowat]

I do not know, because I was not aware of that. The hon. Lady’s intervention, like much of her speech, is along the lines of, “We’re doing our job; if only the Secretary of State would do his job and hurry up and get this delivered, everything would be all right.” My substantive point is that delivering this application is harder than delivering the Olympics, and it behoves all of us to get behind the 1,000 or 2,000 people who are trying to do it. That is not to say that individual mistakes have not been made. There have almost certainly been lots of mistakes; it would be odd if there had not been.

As to progress, the issue is not that things have not been done; it is what we do now and how we deal with it. I am going to be kind to the Opposition and talk about the Olympics rather than the national health service project that wrote off about £10 billion. The Olympics was a joint success—a success for our country—and yet its budget increased by a factor of four. When the right hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Dame Tessa Jowell) came to the House and announced that the budget was going up by a factor of four, Members on both sides of the House, broadly speaking, tried to understand why that had happened, accepted it, and knuckled down to get the project delivered. In the end, there was not a cigarette paper between the two parties in terms of the approach to that project of national significance—as this one is. The Secretary of State and his team are trying to do a very difficult thing in delivering this application, to be used by 10 million people, in parallel with existing systems which, every week, continue to be used by 10 million people. Of course mistakes have been made; as I say, it would be odd if they had not. The issue is whether, on the whole, it is being managed correctly and whether, structurally, we are doing the right thing.

I had thought that Labour supported the basic tenets of universal credit, but some of the comments by the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) about scope implied that she has severe reservations. She may be right; I am not an expert. It seems odd that Labour Members are raising issues such as scope at such a late stage of the programme. To some extent, they are the Opposition and perhaps it is reasonable that they oppose, but there is a difference between opposing and what I would call opportunistic carping—not only that, but opportunistic carping that is destructive, not constructive.

That brings me to Labour’s four-point plan, to which Mr Baldrick would have been delighted to give his name. Point 1 is to stop the programme and think about it for three months—not to review it, not to stop rolling it out, but to stop it completely. It is not totally clear to me what they would be stopping—development, implementation, the front end, the legacy systems and interface work, or perhaps all of it. It is not totally clear to me what they would do with the 1,000 people—to take a round number—who are currently doing all these tasks. They are saying, “No, let’s just stop it, with an immediate write-off of all that.”

Point 2 is to get the NAO to have a look at the programme. That is fair enough; one cannot argue with asking the NAO to look at something. Of course, it would have to use people with expertise in programmes of this type, of whom most of the good ones are in the civil service and working on this programme. Nevertheless, let us do it anyway.

The really interesting thing about the plan is points 3 and 4, which represent major, significant scope changes. If we make such changes to a programme right near the end, that is when everything goes wrong—when things have to be retested, budgets change, and all the rest of it. The great thing about these major scope changes is that, according to the four-point plan, they will be done at “no additional cost”. The two points propose to remove some of the onus on self-employed people and to continue to pay the primary carer.

On the train this morning, between Watford and Euston, I costed Labour’s four-point plan at £89,611,207.31. That costing—I am very happy to take an intervention on it—includes 11 new applications, 47 new screens, 190 database changes, 201 reports, a 40% test rerun, and 88 new interfaces. I may have spent only 11 minutes on the calculation to come up with that number, but that is 11 minutes more than Labour Members have spent on putting it into their plan and saying they can achieve it with “no additional cost”. I would be delighted if one of them wants to intervene on me—but intervention came there none.