Social Security

Gareth Snell Excerpts

Tuesday 10th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. That slightly lengthy question might be better addressed by way of a rather lengthy letter to the leaders of Birmingham city council.

Of course, all politics is about choices, and what this Government have done is cave in to their trade union paymasters. They have settled way above inflation. Junior doctors—22%. Train drivers—14%. They have stood up for their trade union paymasters on the backs of vulnerable pensioners, and that is not right. If it is not the case that the trade unions are running the Labour party, hands up everybody on the Government Benches who has not received money from the trade unions for their campaigning or their private office. [Hon. Members: “One!”] One person. Therein lies the truth about who is running the Labour party.

Of course, we have seen all of this before. Under the last Labour Government, we had the 75p pension increase, we had Gordon Brown’s stealth tax on private pensions—£118 billion in total—and was it any surprise that we ended up with the fourth highest level of pensioner poverty across the whole of Europe?

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

The right hon. Gentleman talks about choices and pensioners. When his party chose to suspend the triple lock in 2021 and give a below-inflation increase to pensioners, costing them £500, what was his concern then? Why did he say nothing?

[Mel Stride]

The hon. Gentleman is entirely wrong. We went into the election promising the triple lock plus. Unlike his party, under which millions of pensioners are going to be dragged into income tax spend, many of them for the first time, we were prepared to stand up and say that we would not do that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gareth Snell Excerpts

Monday 1st July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Guy Opperman]

I will take the hon. Lady’s point on board and write to her.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

10. How many people receive a state pension of less than £168.80 a week.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Guy Opperman)]

The Department does not publish statistics on the number of people who receive a state pension below the full new state pension amount. As of November 2018, the average amount of the new state pension that people received, including any protected payments, was £154.91 per week.

[Gareth Snell]

I thank the Minister for that answer. While he may not have that figure, I can tell him that two of the people who do not receive that amount are Bob and Hilary Heyes from my Stoke-on-Trent constituency. Had they started to claim their state pension under the new state pension, they would have received the full amount because they had 35 qualifying years, but because they were born before 1951 and 1953 respectively, they receive considerably less. What would the Minister have me tell Mr and Mrs Heyes when they come to constituency surgery next?

[Guy Opperman]

It is hard for me to comment on the specifics of the particular case. If the hon. Gentleman writes to me in advance of the forthcoming constituency surgery, I will write back to him and he can hand over the letter.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gareth Snell Excerpts

Monday 21st May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ms McVey]

My right hon. Friend is living proof of social mobility—her family came here from Uganda, started a newsagents and expanded their business—and is right to ask: how can we get people into a job, and how can we help with recruitment and apprenticeships? I am working with the Recruitment and Employment Confederation to look at those opportunities and also with the Secretary of State for Education—that is where responsibility for apprenticeships is held, but we will do all we can to support my right hon. Friend.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

In Stoke-on-Trent, one of the best ways of achieving social mobility is through our wonderful further education system, so will the Secretary of State please impress upon her colleagues at the Department for Education that properly funded further education, whether that be sixth-form colleges or other establishments, is needed and that they must make sure it is provided?

[Ms McVey]

I will send the hon. Gentleman’s message to the Department for Education, but in this Department we do as much as we can, whether through traineeships or sector-based work academies, to support young people. It is about choice: do they want a job, an apprenticeship or further education?

Personal Independence Payment

Gareth Snell Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

What we are hearing about today is a court judgment that found the Government’s policy wanting, but the Secretary of State has come to the House seeking plaudits for now not appealing that decision, and that is frankly unacceptable. While it is right for those who were not given the help and support that they needed to get a backdated payment, that payment does not remedy the trauma that they faced during the years when they did not have support. Will the Secretary of State offer an unequivocal apology from the Dispatch Box for the consequences of her Department’s policy? Whether intended or not, it was her Government’s decision that led to people struggling at home, and that is simply not right.

[Ms McVey]

That was another reason for making a written statement, as well as the time constraints and what we had to do to adhere to the legal ruling. I have not come here today for plaudits. I have come here to do what is right and to explain what is right. That is what I have done, and that is the key thing for all our constituents and the people who are watching this closely at home. We have made a decision. I believe that it has been accepted on both sides of the House, and we are going to get things right.