Personal Independence Payment: South East

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Tuesday 10th December 2013 Ministerial Corrections

[Fiona Mactaggart]

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions which of the 21 personal independence payment consultation centres serving South and East England cannot be reached within (a) 90 minutes and (b) 60 minutes by public transport from all parts of their catchment area.

[Official Report, 18 November 2013, Vol. 570, c. 677W.]

Letter of correction from Mike Penning:

An error has been identified in the written answer given to the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) on 18 November 2013.

The full answer given was as follows:

[Mike Penning]

No claimant should travel more than 90 minutes (single journey) by public transport, for their consultation. As part of the process Atos, as the assessment provider in the south and east of England, will offer an assessment at their nearest location and it is only when that location is full would claimants be sent to an alternative site. As part of their bid, Atos stated that 75-90% of claimants will have no journey longer than 60 minutes. In the exceptional circumstance where a claimant is unable to make a journey within 90 minutes via public transport Atos will offer either a home visit or the ability to use a taxi.

The correct answer should have been:

Universal Credit

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Tuesday 10th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Universal credit is worth doing properly because of the benefits it brings to so many people. Just in case he does not remember, although the Opposition say that they support it, they voted against it. We will take no lessons from them because of the chaos, mess and cost that they left for us in the welfare system. We are having to pick up the details of that and put them right. We are doing that every day.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State says that he has read and implemented the report of the Public Accounts Committee, which confirmed that the Department

“only reported good news and denied the problems”.

Unfortunately, we have seen no change today. A specific recommendation of the report was that the Government should urgently carry out an impairment review into the value of the IT assets that had been written down as a result of ineffectualness. As he has confirmed today that the recommendations have all been implemented, will he tell us what that value was according to his own impairment review?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The Department has carried out probably the most exhaustive impairment review. It is now being signed off by the National Audit Office. I gave the figures to the Work and Pensions Committee yesterday. The total write-off figure was £40.1 million. We should bear it in mind that Opposition Front Benchers have been running around saying that hundreds and hundreds of millions of pounds will be written off. They will not be. That will be in the published accounts today.

Oral Answers to Questions

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Monday 1st July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hoban]

My hon. Friend is right. One important thing that we can all do is visit Work programme providers in order to understand what they are doing. I have been doing that since I took over this job in September. It is clear that lives are being transformed, and that people who might otherwise have been out of work for years are gaining employment as a consequence of the programme. We need to learn from what is successful, and spread best practice throughout the country.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

What does the Minister plan to do with people who come out at the other end of the Work programme? According to a letter that I have received from my local branch of Jobcentre Plus, the programme’s intensive regime will reduce the number of people on benefits, but will not increase the number of those in work. Will the Minister assure us that the activities involved in following up people who have been left without work on the programme will not include bullying them off benefits, and will include getting them into work?

[Mr Hoban]

It was the hon. Lady’s party, when it was in government, that established targets for sanctions on jobseekers—targets that the present Government scrapped.

A range of measures exist to support those who are leaving the Work programme and bring them closer to employment. However, we are also asking people to go into the jobcentre every day in order to receive one-to-one support, and I think we shall find that that is very effective.

Oral Answers to Questions

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Monday 20th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

My hon. Friend is right and his campaigns have helped us shape some of our thinking on that. It is worth noting that for the first time financial education will be on the national curriculum, which is extremely important. Through universal credit we are making available a series of financial planning devices and special bank accounts, so we hope this will drive people in the right direction. The crackdown on payday lenders who abuse their position has already started and is yielding real results.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

16. What assessment he has made of whether people who claim disability-related benefits are also more likely to receive housing benefit; and if he will make a statement.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Esther McVey)]

As I am sure the hon. Lady knows, there are different types of benefit for disabled people, including disability living allowance, which is paid irrespective of whether the claimant is in work or not, as well as income replacement benefits such as employment and support allowance, so a person could receive ESA and DLA or wages and DLA. Around a third of households in receipt of disability living allowance or attendance allowance also receive support for their housing costs.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

I have been driven to ask this as an oral question by my being refused a reply to a number of written questions on the grounds that it would cost too much money. I have been able to discover that there are 678,000 housing benefit claimants who are also receiving ESA, so there are at least two thirds of a million disabled people in receipt of housing benefit. In Slough landlords—

[Mr Speaker]

May we have a question? We must move on.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

What is the Minister going to do to protect disabled people in private housing when landlords refuse to accept people on housing benefit, which is common in my constituency?

[Esther McVey]

We have supported people with discretionary housing payments amounting to £360 million. The authorities are working with credible landlords. We are supporting those people. Perhaps the hon. Lady could not get an answer to her question because she was looking for something that was not there.

Jobseekers (Back to Work Schemes) Bill

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Miller]

If we developed this too far, Mr Hood, I would be outwith the scope of the amendment, but the hon. Gentleman is very perceptive and makes the point about people not understanding the documents or conversations they have had.

To move this forward we need to inject a degree of urgency. I understand the points about the time frame, but I nevertheless think we ought to look at this matter carefully.

My right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) has outlined the framework for a set of terms of reference, and I hope we can agree on that and invite the Department to start gathering the necessary statistics and information to respond to some of the basic questions, so that the independent reviewer can be well equipped with solid information when he or she starts the job. That could provide a practical way of producing a review sooner than after the envisaged 12 months.

Having recognised that that might be difficult to achieve, however, we ought to consider a fallback position that gives the framework of the terms of reference an extra dimension, to enable the reviewer to start reporting on the information as and when it becomes clear. If we approach the matter in that way, we will inject some urgency into the situation and get people to realise that there is acceptance across the House that we are trying to separate the genuine cases from those that are less solidly based. Let us ensure that we target the benefits on the people who ought to get them.

I urge the Minister, in considering the amendment tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins)—to which I have belatedly put my name—to think about the arguments that have been presented and to agree to an early set of terms of reference before coming forward with a sensible time frame that will enable us to achieve the goals that Members on both sides of the House want to achieve.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

I want to follow up on some of the issues that have been raised. I recently asked the Minister how many people had had sanctions imposed on them. He revealed that 540,610 sanctions relating to jobseeker’s allowance had been applied last year. In the same answer, he told me:

“Statistics on how many such people speak English as a second language; and how many such claimants had moved to jobseeker’s allowance from income support or disability-related benefits are not readily available and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.”—[Official Report, 11 March 2013; Vol. 560, c. 103W.]

Those are examples of the vulnerable groups that Members on both sides of the House have been talking about.

I want to support the amendment tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins) on the speed of the proceedings, but I also want to add another question for the reviewer to consider. Shortly after I had tabled that question, I asked the Minister about assaults on jobcentre staff. If we compare the period from October 2012 to January 2013 with the period a year earlier from October 2011 to January 2012, we see that the number of assaults on jobcentre staff increased from 76 to 98. The seriousness of the assaults increased as well. In the first period, there were three that resulted in cuts and bruises, and three that resulted in more than cuts and bruises. A year later, 13 had resulted in cuts and bruises, with eight resulting in more.

I fear—although I do not know for certain—that those increases in assaults on jobcentre staff are a product of frustrated claimants who have been sanctioned. It has been pointed out that they do not always know why they have been sanctioned. If the sanctions regime is resulting in this kind of behaviour—as I have said, I do not know whether that is the case—it would be appropriate for a reviewer to consider whether the regime has consequences for the safety of jobcentre staff. If there are consequences for the safety of the people responsible for giving claimants explanations, their explanations might become less clear and they might retreat behind letters rather than actually talking to people.

I should be grateful if the Minister assured the House that such issues will be included in the review. I fear that if they are not, vulnerable claimants will not get the service they need.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hoban]

Given that my right hon. Friend said that he would stop the practice, we would stop it again if it reappeared. We do not want to see it happening.

I want to pick up on some of the points raised in the 10 or 11 questions put by the right hon. Member for East Ham. We have published, and will publish annually, tables setting out the number of sanctions. The data for 2011-12 were published online on 15 August 2012, and we gave a breakdown of sanctions, so it is not correct to say that there is no information. There were 108,000 variable length sanctions for employment-related failures; 378,000 sanctions were of fixed length, which included 58,000 that were for not attending ESE—employment, skills and enterprise—regulation schemes, 55,000 for not complying with training requirements or for not carrying out a jobcentre’s direction or for a failure to participate in mandatory work activity.

The reason there is a range in the impact assessment is that we were trying to be helpful to the Committee. We used a combination of official statistics and an estimate based on management information to give Members an up to date figure of the numbers involved. The final numbers will be available when we publish the next official statistics. Having been a DWP Minister, the right hon. Gentleman will appreciate that we take the validation and verification of statistics seriously. These are official national statistics and they need to be published to appropriate quality. That is the basis for the numbers in the impact assessment.

Communication is really important, and we need to ensure that we get it right. We talked about some of the measures that we set out in the recent regulations to ensure clarity in universal credit. There is a challenge here. We want to ensure that communications between the Department and jobseekers are clear, whether they are oral communications between a personal adviser and a claimant, or items of correspondence. But I think there is a tension here. The hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) said in her Second Reading speech that she felt that the notice we sent out was defective, and the courts said the letter should have contained more detail about the sanctions regime.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

The courts said that or judges ruled it was obfuscation.

[Mr Hoban]

Absolutely, but the hon. Lady repeated that, and by virtue of the quote I think she was supporting their view. Another hon. Member said that people “may be” sanctioned. I think there is a tension here between clarity and disclosure. The more detail there is in the letter—maybe to comply with what is in the law—the harder it can be for people to understand what is in the letter. It is possible to go into lists, as the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill did—to list a whole set of “good cause” reasons in a letter. One could put in a letter every detail of the graduated sanctions regime. We need to ensure that our communications are very clear and legal; sometimes the two do not go as easily together as we would like them to, but we do need to ensure that there is clarity.

The right hon. Member for East Ham talked about what happens if people are sanctioned, and then immediately answered his question by referring to hardship schemes. He and I have debated the revised sanctions regime and discussed hardship at length, as we did on a previous occasion with the right hon. Member for Stirling (Mrs McGuire). There is a hardship scheme in place for people, and it is right that it is there. We do ask people to look to see whether there are any other ways in which they could find financial resources to live off, and that is very carefully set out in the Bill, but those hardship schemes are available. It would be wrong to give anyone the suggestion that there is no hardship scheme in place, but the rules on access are very tight indeed.

Jobseekers (Back to Work Schemes) Bill

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hoban]

The hon. Lady must recognise that we are in a very different economic climate from the one in 2008, when we saw a debt-fuelled boom that undermined the strength of the British economy. The economy is going through a healing process at the moment, and since May 2010 we have actually seen the private sector creating an extra 1 million new jobs. She should welcome that, because it has given people across the country an opportunity to get into work. We have seen the effectiveness of our welfare reforms—230,000 fewer people are claiming out-of-work benefits than they were in May 2010—and they have contributed to an increase in the numbers of people in work. People are coming into the labour market and finding jobs, and I would have thought that the hon. Lady would welcome that.

Before I go into the detail of the Bill and the background to the Court of Appeal judgment, let me outline why the Government believe that, in certain circumstances, jobseeker’s allowance claimants should be mandated to take part in employment programmes. and that when they fail to participate without good reason, they should face a benefit sanction.

First, this is a policy that is supported not only by Members from all parts of the House, but by the vast majority of the British public. According to the British social attitudes survey, 85% of the public believe that someone who is unemployed and on benefits should be required to do some unpaid work in the community while keeping their benefits. Sir Stanley Burnton, one of the Appeal Court judges in the Wilson and Reilly judgment, said:

“Parliament is entitled to authorise the creation and administration of schemes that are designed to assist the unemployed to obtain employment...it is not easy to see what objection there could be to them. Parliament is equally entitled to encourage participation in such schemes by imposing sanctions, in terms of loss of jobseekers’ allowance, on those who without good cause refuse to participate in a suitable scheme.”

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

Is not the issue the fact that sanctions can work if people know the consequences of failure to action? Did not the court rule that the information that was sent to people who were sanctioned did not comply with the regulations passed by this House?

[Mr Hoban]

A clear message was sent that people who failed to participate in schemes could lose their benefit for up to 26 weeks. That is the maximum they could lose. What the Court of Appeal said, and what the High Court said previously, was that we should make reference to the fact that if someone had committed a first offence, as it were, we should give details of the amount of benefit they would lose the first time they did not participate in a scheme. In fact, we have changed the notices as a consequence of the High Court judgment. The notice that we sent out said that people would face a loss of up to 26 weeks benefit if they did not take part in the scheme. What the High Court wanted was details of the lower levels of sanctions that could apply in that situation.

There is a broad consensus that mandatory back-to-work schemes are a necessary part of the approach that we take to get people back to work. When a person signs on to receive jobseeker’s allowance, they accept that they have certain responsibilities. It could be called a contract between the jobseeker and the taxpayer. We will offer a huge amount of support to jobseekers, including help to search for jobs, work experience and jobseeker’s allowance. That is our part of the deal. The jobseekers’ part of the contract is to take up the help that we offer. While the vast majority of jobseekers live up to their part of the contract, there are a small minority who are reluctant to do everything they can reasonably be expected to do to get back into work.

--- Later in debate ---

[Fiona Mactaggart]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Hoban]

I have given way already to the hon. Lady. I want to make some progress.

As I have made clear, the Department fundamentally disagrees with the Appeal Court’s verdict, which is why it has applied for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court in respect of both grounds. We believe it is right that the regulations should allow for flexibility, so that we can respond rapidly to improve jobseekers' chances of finding work, such as trialling new approaches in Derbyshire and London to help young people get vital experience to bolster their CV. A more prescriptive approach—the one proposed by the Appeal Court—to the content of the regulations would create inflexibilities that would ultimately hinder the jobseeker's chance of finding work.

Those are the arguments that we will make before the Supreme Court, if we are granted permission. Those arguments will not be affected by the Bill. We are hopeful that we will obtain permission and that we will win our appeal. There is, however, no guarantee that we will be granted permission to appeal, or that we would win the appeal. Were that to happen, claimants who have been subject to a sanction for failing to take part in the schemes would be entitled to a refund of that sanction. It would also mean that we had no power to impose sanctions in relation to failures under the ESE regulations, in cases where no sanction decision has yet been taken—the so-called stockpiled cases. If that were to happen, the cost to the taxpayer would be up to £130 million.

It is vital that, in the present economic climate, the public purse be protected from such claims. The Bill will ensure that the taxpayer does not have to repay benefits lost by claimants who have failed to participate in employment programmes, and can properly impose sanctions for such failures. It would be unacceptable for claimants who have failed to take all reasonable steps to increase their chances of finding work to receive an undeserved windfall payment. The Bill will prevent that by providing that any decision to reduce jobseeker's allowance under the ESE regulations cannot be challenged on the grounds that the ESE regulations were invalid or the notices given under them inadequate. It makes similar provision in relation to the mandatory work activity regulations in respect of notices given under those regulations.

--- Later in debate ---

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

Over recent months, I have asked the Minister of State a number of questions about the sanctions regime. It has proved hard for him to answer questions such as how many people for whom English is a second language have been sanctioned and how many disabled people have been sanctioned. In my view, he does not have the evidence to state in the impact assessment that protected groups will not be disproportionately affected by the Bill. They may or may not be affected, because my efforts to find that information have failed, but I believe they are. When I see constituents who have been sanctioned, they are disproportionately people who are easily confused or who do not have good English.

However, that is not the reason why I shall go into the No Lobby on Second Reading. I oppose the Bill because I do not believe that Parliament should give the Government an alibi for confiscating from more than 200,000 people sums of between £340 and £810. They have illegally kept those sums from them. Let us be clear. That is what we are being asked to do by this retrospective legislation.

The Government have broken the law in a way that impacts on individual citizens. They have disrespected the rights of individual citizens and they are now asking Parliament to say, “Carry on doing it.” I do not believe that Parliament should do that. It is a fundamental issue of civil liberties, human rights and good governance. For that reason, not because of the content, I shall not abstain: I will oppose the legislation.

Ministers say, “Oh, people knew,” but let us be completely clear about what the regulations the Government have been found in breach of say. Regulation 4 says that the notice that people who are sanctioned receive “must specify” that C—the claimant—

“is required to participate in the Scheme…the day on which …participation will start…details of what C is required to do by way of participation in the Scheme…that the requirement to participate in the Scheme will continue until C is given notice by the Secretary of State that C’s participation is no longer required, or C’s award of jobseeker’s allowance terminates, whichever is earlier”

and finally,

“information about the consequences of failing to participate in the Scheme.”

In my view, the Minister has utterly disingenuously—I hope that is not unparliamentary, but I think so—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I think it is, and I am going to rule that it is, so I am sure the hon. Lady will not want to use that word.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

I withdraw that word, Mr Deputy Speaker.

The Minister suggested that claimants knew the consequences. I refer him to the statements of judges on the matter. Judge Foskett said that

“the words…in the letter received by Mr Wilson were that his benefits ‘may be stopped’, perhaps conveying the impression that sanctions are not necessarily automatic.”

He goes on to say that

“the information given concerning sanctions is unclear and opaque.”

I accept that, since then, the Minister has improved the letters. I think that is right, and I do not oppose the possibility of sanctions; I believe that sanctions can work if people know that they are at risk of being sanctioned.

[Mr Hoban]

May I point out that, actually, sanctions are not automatic? Sanctions may be applied, because actually we disregard sanctions—sanctions do not apply—if there is good cause not to apply them. So “may” sounds right to me. The problem that the courts had was not specifying the graduated approach to sanctions.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

As I said, the judge said that

“the information given concerning sanctions is unclear and opaque.”

If the Government want sanctions to work, people need to know the consequences of their actions, and this is a debate about the consequences of actions—the consequences of the Government’s actions in failing to ensure that they complied with regulation 4 of the regulations in every communication with claimants. It seems to me that the Government should bear the consequences, and the consequence in this case is up to £130 million. When the Government do wrong—and let us be clear, the Government have been found to do wrong in this case—it is not just to be overlooked. This is a series of court judgments which say, in respect of individual citizens, that they have been wrongly treated—the Government must give those citizens back their money. It is not the Government’s money; it is their money. The Government have wrongly kept it from them, and it is quite clear that that is what the courts have decided.

If the Government are going to say that a sanctions regime is necessary so that people know the consequences of their actions—an argument that I would support—it seems right to me that the Government themselves should bear the consequences of their wrong actions, and they should not be coming to Parliament to ask us to give them a free pass for breaking the law, because that is what the Bill is doing.

Oral Answers to Questions

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I say to my hon. Friend and to all hon. Members and hon. Friends whose areas are affected by the roll-out that we are in deep discussions with all those councils. Jobcentre Plus will be working hugely with each of them, advising, helping and supporting them—in many senses, giving them more support than is necessarily likely to be the case when the national roll-out follows the pilot programmes.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

But as the roll-out happens, some of the areas that will be most affected are not the pilot areas—the first areas—but places such as my constituency, where people are already being moved out of London housing into Slough because there is relatively cheap housing there. Will the Secretary of State undertake that during the period when, as he said, he is taking time to introduce this, he will make revisions and talk to those authorities that are not the pilot authorities and are affected, as mine will be?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I am glad to see that the hon. Lady realises the point of this whole process—to learn the lessons and to understand how best to implement the pilot programmes properly. Of course we will be talking to all local authorities, particularly those that are directly affected, and all other local authorities will listen to what they say. Despite the massive protestations of collapse and doom and gloom that we heard when we announced these proposals—we should remember that all local authorities have known about them for over a year—we now see statistics showing that there has not been the mass migration that was predicted. As for access to housing, housing benefit caseloads in London have risen by 5%, not fallen.

Personal Independence Payments

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Thursday 13th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Esther McVey]

I can indeed confirm that.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

Given the Minister’s announcement that, although 230,000 will get the same or more support, 330,000 people will get no or less support, I assume that there will be a large number of appeals. At the moment, people who are appealing against rulings on the employment and support allowance in my constituency—80% of them are successful—are waiting for more than a year for their appeals to be heard. Is the Minister able to give any guarantee on how long the appeals against refusal of DLA will take? Will she set a maximum length of time and tell us that there will be enough staff to open the envelopes from people who make appeals, let alone administer them, which is not what is happening at present with ESA appeals?

[Esther McVey]

I recognise the points made by the hon. Lady. We will speed up the process. We have commitments from the Justice Department that it will have enough staff in place, and we will do this as best we can.

Oral Answers to Questions

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Thursday 22nd November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vaizey]

As I understand it, mitigating the impact of the wind farm is the responsibility of its operator, which is now communicating with residents and providing solutions, such as moving aerials so that they can pick up signals from the alternative transmitter. As he correctly says, interference is not caused by 4G, because of course the 4G that could interfere with digital televisions signals has not yet been deployed.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

9. If she will take steps to accelerate the repayment of moneys taken from lottery good causes funds to support the London 2012 Olympic games; and if she will make a statement.

[The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Maria Miller)]

The Government have put in place a new legal agreement with the Greater London authority ensuring that the £675 million that the lottery will receive from Olympic park land sales will be returned to the lottery earlier than previously planned.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

The point is this: when? The Olympic delivery third quarter report stated that the centrally held contingency funding remaining in the package will be transferred to the national lottery distribution fund for the benefit of lottery good causes. Those good causes, which are being hit by Government cuts and squeezes in philanthropy following the recession, want to know when they will get the money and how much interest they will be paid.

[Maria Miller]

I understand the hon. Lady’s concern with the plans that were put in place by the Government of whom she was a part and the timing of the programme we inherited. That is why we have made sure that the money will be repaid earlier. If she wants further details on that, which is quite complex, perhaps I can write to her.

--- Later in debate ---

[Maria Miller]

An important part of the work that we will do to commemorate the first world war will be to ensure that every community, and indeed every individual, has the opportunity to find their own story, whether they have overseas connections or not. The Heritage Lottery Fund will be important in delivering the finances for that.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

T5. We have talked in this Question Time about the contribution of schools to developing sporting activities among children. Schools are also key to developing creativity among children, and Britain leads the world in the creative industries. Will the Secretary of State meet the Secretary of State for Education to discuss the effect of the EBacc plans on creative subjects in the curriculum, and to ensure that creativity is part of our children’s education?

[Maria Miller]

The hon. Lady needs to understand that the English baccalaureate has creativity at its heart. It includes English, maths, science, history, geography and languages, and will give students the opportunity to explore the heritage of this country’s literature. Sitting alongside that, the 123 new music hubs that have been established will ensure that creativity is at the heart of our children’s education.

Oral Answers to Questions

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Monday 10th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

This is one of the most popular programmes that this Government are introducing, and the public genuinely believe that it is the right thing to do. The only group, it seems, who do not think it is the right thing to do are those sitting on the Opposition Benches.

When we recently started dipping into the issue and surveying those who were likely to be affected, it was interesting to find out that, already, well in advance of what is going to happen, about a third of people have admitted that they are out looking for work as a result of the oncoming benefit cap. Some 88% are now up to date with their rent, and 1% have reported having to move.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

20. What discussions he has had with companies that manage contracts under the Work programme on collaborating to reduce unemployment in the area in which they work; and if he will make a statement.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Mr Mark Hoban)]

Like my predecessor, I intend to use every opportunity to meet providers to discuss all aspects of the Work programme. I will do so later this week. Effective partnership working is key to the successful delivery of the Work programme, and it is in providers’ interests to engage with a range of local partners including local authorities, employers and voluntary organisations.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

I thank the Minister and welcome him to his post. On Monday I chaired a meeting in Slough of the local authority, the local college and local businesses as part of a campaign that we have run together to try to tackle unemployment locally. All the partners there were concerned about the lack of collaboration with Work programme providers and the lack of information and working together from them. Those findings are echoed in the recent Manchester Business School study, which stated that although centralisation has cut the cost of procurement, it can also undermine the very local engagement that underpins service innovation. What is he going to do to tackle that?

[Mr Hoban]

As the hon. Lady will know, in contrast to schemes produced by the previous Government, Work programme providers are incentivised to perform well to get people into work. They are paid by results, so they need to be as effective as possible in working with local partners to get the right outcomes. For example, I know that the contract that covers her constituency includes close work with further education colleges to improve outcomes for participants in the scheme.