State Pension Age: Women

George Howarth Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2016 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Pensions (Richard Harrington)]

It is a great privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Nuttall. It is also pleasing to see so many Members present, which shows the importance of the issue. The Westminster Hall debates that I address usually have a much smaller audience. It is also fair to say that Members from all political parties have been present at different times in the debate.

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

The Minister studied jurisprudence at university and had a career in the retail industry, so he will recognise the concept of good faith. Does he accept that the women concerned in this matter entered into a contract with the state about their pensions in good faith and that the Government’s actions amount to bad faith? If so, what is he going to do about it?

[Richard Harrington]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention, which I will attempt to answer in a moment, after I have thanked the hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) for opening the debate and hon. Members from both sides who contributed.

I must say that this is the first time that my rather limited attempts at jurisprudence between 1976 and 1979 have been mentioned in the House. At least they will now be recounted in Hansard rather more than they are by my tutors of the time. The serious point that the right hon. Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth) makes is that hon. Members feel that the Government have broken some form of contract, presumably non-written, with state pensioners generally or WASPI women specifically. I have heard that point made several times today, but the Government’s position is very clear: this was not a contract. State pensions are technically a benefit. I add no value judgments to that, but since he made a legal point, I felt I should place the answer to it on the record.

[Richard Harrington]

I think I should continue, but the hon. Gentleman will have time at the end.

[Mr George Howarth]

I am sorry, but—

[Richard Harrington]

I am very sorry, but to allow time for the hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber to wind up, I have to continue. I am happy to discuss the matter—although not my jurisprudence degree—outside the Chamber.

I have been quite clear in public and in the House that the Government will make no further changes to the pension age of those affected by the 1995 Act and the 2011 Act, nor pay them financial redress in lieu of pension. I know that Members present do not agree with that, but I feel it is right to state our position clearly without leaving any doubt. That view has not changed.

It is important to acknowledge that state pension age increases cannot be looked at in isolation. The acceleration of the state pension age is a consequence of serious and fundamental changes that continue to affect the wider state pension system, such as the significant changes in life expectancy in recent years, the huge progress made in opening up employment opportunities for women and the wider packages of reforms that we have introduced to ensure a fair deal for pensioners.

Life expectancy, as everyone knows, has been increasing for a number of decades; people are living much longer. However, the increase in life expectancy over time has not been linear. Between 1995 and 2011—in just 16 years—remaining life expectancy at age 65 increased by 3 years for women and 4 years for men, an unprecedented increase compared with past decades. There are significant variations across council authorities and within Scotland, for instance. I could spend a lot more time going into those differences, but I feel I have made the point.

Employment prospects for women have changed dramatically since the state pension age was first set in 1940, especially for women affected by the acceleration of the state pension age. The number of older women aged 50 to 64 in work in 2016 stands at more than 4 million —a record high. Some 150,000 more older women are in work than this time last year, and 580,000 more than five years ago. In addition, independent research by the Institute for Fiscal Studies has shown that employment rates for women aged 60 and 61 have increased as a direct result of the changes in state pension age. Furthermore, to help older women remain in work, the Government have abolished the default retirement age.

Child Poverty

George Howarth Excerpts

Tuesday 15th September 2015 Westminster Hall

[Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered child poverty.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I am delighted to have secured a debate on this vital topic. Child poverty unfortunately blights the lives of so many children throughout the UK, and should surely be a concern of absolute priority for the Government. I note, however, that in July’s Budget the Chancellor of the Exchequer launched the Tory Government’s latest plans to attack the poor, the vulnerable and the helpless in society.

The most recent target of the Government’s austerity crusade is our children. I have to wonder what that says about their priorities. They have often been heard to give much less than reassuring explanations for their dismantling of the welfare system, saying they are building a better, fairer society, where work pays. How do the proposals in the Welfare Reform and Work Bill truly build a better, fairer society? It is my contention that the Government are simply not concerned about fairness. In fact, it could be considered spineless to attack the people in our communities who most need our assistance: the working poor, the ill and the unemployed. Ultimately, the weakening of the welfare system has and will continue to hit low-income families and children the worst. Is that really the way forward?

Currently, 3.7 million children in the UK are living in relative poverty—that in itself is just not good enough. Shockingly, however, rather than actively stepping up to address the challenges facing children today, the Tory Government have hit out with further assaults on the poorest in the UK. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has predicted that, as a result of the Government’s most recent policies, child poverty could increase by more than a million from 2010, reaching highs of 4.7 million by 2020-21. Those are astonishing figures. It is frankly deplorable that, in a region as rich as the UK, such shameful, regressive and unacceptable policies should be even considered by the Government, never mind being pushed through this House.

Today, in another Chamber, right as we speak, the Government will move to reduce the amount people can earn—from £6,420 to £3,850—before tax credits begin to be withdrawn. The same measures seek to reduce the threshold from £16,105 to £12,125, as well as to increase the taper rate, which will mean that families reliant on those benefits lose out faster. That is simply illogical. It is incomprehensible and immoral to focus cost-cutting exercises on children.

Tax credits were introduced in 1998 in response to rising child poverty. Since their introduction, the number of children living in poverty in the UK has fallen from 26% to 17%. Surely the policy was working. Although we know that more needs to be done to lift all children fully out of poverty, at least tax credits have been keeping food on the table for children, and their parents’ heads above water. Today, the Tory Government move to take us backwards, to intensify the difficulties facing the working poor and our children.

In Scotland, 346,000 children will be affected by the tax credit changes—that is more than 197,000 families. In my own constituency of East Renfrewshire, nearly 15% of children are living in poverty, after housing costs. That is of great concern. The Child Poverty Action Group has estimated that the overall child poverty rate in Scotland could increase by a colossal 100,000 by 2020. Surely it is not good enough for us simply to vote against these measures; surely we have also to question the Government’s motivation. What sense is there in their actions, taking food from children’s mouths? I find it difficult to see how members of the Conservative party are not deeply concerned about the measures and proposals on child poverty, which is why I have brought this issue to the House today. I would like to force the Government to re-examine their proposals before it is too late.

As an elected representative, it is sickening to me to think of even one child in poverty, never mind such incredible numbers. I despair for the children in my area who will be affected by the Government’s actions. I despair for children around the world, so I urge the Government to do what they can in the UK and to heed the warnings given by the charity and voluntary sector, which has said that the proposed policies will plunge more children into poverty rather than pulling them out.

The Government have given us no plausible evidence base to demonstrate how cutting tax credits will incentivise work; I challenge Government Members present to address that point. Before they do, I remind them that the Government’s own evidence review of drivers of child poverty last year noted that the most important barriers to children exiting poverty were those arising from a lack of sufficient income from parental employment, not just worklessness.

It has been confirmed by the House of Commons Library that 99,600 out-of-work families in Scotland are receiving tax credits, compared with 250,300 families who are in work and receiving tax credits. The Government therefore contradicted their own testimony that cuts to the welfare system will make work pay: it is clear that working families and their children will suffer most from the tax credit changes.

It is clear that the UK Government were planning to give with one hand and take with the other when the Chancellor announced his golden ticket increase of the minimum wage. As ever, the devil is in the detail. The Office for Budget Responsibility estimates that the higher minimum wage rate will increase earnings by £4 billion in total by 2020; however, there will be welfare cuts of £12 billion. That simply does not add up. In any case, the policies target different groups, with those hit by cuts to tax credit unlikely to benefit from the minimum wage rise.

It is extremely worrying that the Tory Government have gone one step further in the Welfare Reform and Work Bill by enforcing a two-child cap on families who will be eligible for receiving child tax credit from 2017. Currently, 872,000 families in the UK—548,000 of whom are in work—receive an average of £3,670 a year for supporting a third child or subsequent children. The policy is deeply unfair, and threatens to undermine the financial stability of thousands of families who are at a higher risk of poverty.

The Government’s own national poverty strategy recognises that the risk of child poverty is already significantly higher among larger families. In fact, a third of children living in poverty are in families with three or more children. The Government’s rationale is still unclear. There is no evidence base to show how the measures would somehow bring about some kind of behavioural change, should that be their plan. To deny assistance to families—most of them working—who fall on hard times or into a low income but have three or more children, is completely condemnable. The policy seems to be based on the assumption that a third child is now a luxury commodity, reserved for the most affluent, but the right to a family life should surely be protected and encouraged by the Government.

The Government’s welfare reform measures have already hit some of those most at risk of poverty, and the new proposals will undoubtedly thrust more children into poverty, but one of the Government’s most troubling moves is to remove the requirement in the Child Poverty Act 2010 to report on income targets. They have renamed the Child Poverty Commission the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission, which represents a stark shift in focus from tackling poverty to promoting social mobility and equality of opportunity rather than of outcome.

The removal of income targets means the fundamental driver of poverty is de-prioritised. Do the Government no longer care how much money people have in their pockets to feed their families? Instead, by focusing on targets that are not necessarily related to poverty, the Government are taking worrying steps towards characterising poverty as a lifestyle choice, rather than addressing the social and economic drivers that cause people to fall into poverty. I wonder whether there is a link between their attacks on the welfare system and their rationale for watering down commitments to protecting children.

It is worth noting the Scottish Government’s approach to tackling child poverty. Under the Scottish National party, the Scottish Government will look at a Scottish approach that builds on the innovative child poverty measurement framework, with a view to introducing a new approach to reporting on measures to tackle poverty. Scotland has shown its commitment to tackling inequalities and lifting children out of poverty, and I am pleased to note that the Scottish Government’s Social Justice Secretary, Alex Neil, has requested that the UK Government repeal all parts of the Child Poverty Act relevant to Scotland and confirmed that the Scottish Government will remove themselves from the new social mobility commission. Instead, they will develop a distinct Scottish approach that does not ignore the increasing problems of in-work poverty.

Coupled with the squeezing of the benefit cap and work-related conditions imposed on families with younger children, the UK Government’s austerity campaign is on course not only to hit hard-working and low-income families, but to sink more children further into poverty. It is beyond reason and moral thinking for the Government to identify the poorest children in the UK as the target for shouldering the bulk of their cuts. To protect children, to ensure that they have full access to a real childhood and opportunities to grow and flourish in education, as well as socially, the Government must withdraw the measures in the Welfare Reform and Work Bill, halt the changes to tax credits and continue to build on the good work of the child poverty commission, rather than getting rid of it.

[Mr George Howarth (in the Chair)]

Order. I do not propose to impose a time limit at the moment, but seven Members have indicated that they want to speak, excluding the SNP and Opposition spokespeople and the Minister. If those who are called can emulate the great self-discipline exercised by the mover of the motion and keep to a time limit of seven minutes, we should be able to get everybody in.

--- Later in debate ---

[Natalie McGarry (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald) on securing the debate, which has been enlightening. It is good to see cross-party participation among Opposition parties. I am disappointed that Conservative Members have not come to defend policies that they will vote for in the Chamber. [Interruption.] I thank the Minister for being here, but it would have been appropriate, given the gravity of the circumstances relating to child poverty, had more Conservative Members been present to defend the levels of child poverty and what the Government are doing.

My hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire said that it is immoral to force tax cuts on children. It is clear that the target of austerity is children. It is a hugely important debate and should transcend party politics, because child poverty should be the concern of us all. Unfortunately the Government’s policies are forcing more children into poverty. It should concern us all that 3.7 million children in the UK live in relative poverty, and it should alarm, astound and worry us that the number in child poverty is projected to rise to 4.7 million by 2020 under current policies. The obsession of the Tory Government is that people at all levels of society must firefight cuts. For their part, the Scottish Government are providing more than £300 million between 2013-14 and 2015-16 to mitigate the effect of Westminster welfare changes for families in Scotland.

My hon. Friend the Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) said—and I agree—that there is no mandate for imposing the cuts in Scotland. The Tory party received its lowest support in 165 years in Scotland at the general election; it fell to just over 10% of the vote. My hon. Friend spoke about semantics over substance, and the change in Tory rhetoric and attitude with the renaming of the poverty statistics. The simple fact is that austerity has not worked. It is astonishing that, despite the evidence of the harm from what they are doing, the UK Government continue to attack low-paid families. That makes a mockery of the Conservatives’ claim to be the party of working people. For example, cutting tax credits, which are a lifeline for low-income families and a crucial tool in lifting people out of poverty, will only exacerbate the already dismal projections of rising child poverty. In Scotland alone, 346,000 children will be affected by the changes, and we are in danger of pushing them into poverty and causing lasting damage to their life chances.

We know the harm that austerity is doing to thousands of children across the country. It simply cannot be acceptable to ignore the severe and particular impact on children of the Government’s policies. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said that poverty robs children of their childhood and the life chances that they deserve, and I agree. By changing the definition of poverty and removing the requirement to report on income targets, the Government are doing just that. In renaming the commission set up under the Child Poverty Act 2010 the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission, the Tories are trying to airbrush child poverty out of our political debate.

We must of course look at the wider picture of young people’s life chances, rather than focusing simply on one set of statistics or another, but the Government’s changes to the Child Poverty Act will be deeply damaging, for three main reasons. First, the removal of the requirement to report on income targets means that a fundamental driver of poverty—how much a person has in their pocket —is essentially being deprioritised. My hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry) said that that low wages and increased inflation are key drivers of poverty. Secondly, the Government’s plans to focus purely on worklessness ignore the 67% of UK children who live in a household with one or more working adult. In-work poverty, which will undoubtedly be exacerbated by the changes to tax credits and other Budget measures, is a key challenge that the Tories seem content to ignore. Thirdly, the additional targets that are proposed are not necessarily related to poverty. Family break-up and drug and alcohol dependency affect families in all income deciles, and problem debt is generally a consequence rather than a cause of poverty. The proposals are a step towards characterising poverty as a lifestyle choice, rather than addressing the social and economic drivers that cause people to fall into poverty. That is a mistake that we cannot afford to make.

The hon. Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans)—I hope he will forgive my pronunciation—is correct: we must seek solutions. It is up to this generation. Poverty should not exist in a country as rich as ours and no child should have to experience it. As long as the Government pursue a damaging austerity strategy and attempt to sweep child poverty under the carpet, it will persist and be pervasive. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) said that poverty is a scandal wherever it exists, and spoke of his constituency where the rate of child poverty is 25%, the 110th highest in the UK. In 2012, my constituency’s child poverty rate was 32.6%, which was the 26th highest in the UK. Twenty-five constituencies had child poverty rates higher than almost a third of children. In some parts of my constituency child poverty is almost at 50%.

The Government’s Dickensian policies belong in the House of Commons Library, not in the Chamber or the statute book of any country that has the resources that the UK has. When there is a clear and demonstrable link between Tory policies and low wages it becomes clear that increasing levels of poverty and child poverty are political choices; we have the power to tackle the situation, but we worsen it instead. The Government must halt the changes to tax credits, withdraw the measures in the Welfare Reform and Work Bill and continue to build on the good work of the child poverty commission, rather than eradicating it from political discourse. I urge the Minister to consider what has been said in the debate, from across the parties.

[Mr George Howarth (in the Chair)]

Order. We have just over 30 minutes—32 to be precise—for the two Front Benchers to wind up. I ask them to bear in mind that, because of the self-discipline that hon. Members have shown, there is plenty of time, and to recognise that the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire, who moved the motion, would like to make a few observations by way of winding up.

DWP Data

George Howarth Excerpts

Tuesday 21st July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

Does not the Minister accept that although of course each case is a personal and individual tragedy, we aggregate and analyse data to see whether a pattern emerges? Does she accept that as long as she drags her feet on this issue, people will conclude that the Government may have something to hide?

[Priti Patel]

On the contrary, I find that question astonishing. I take no lessons in transparency or the publication of data from the Labour party. The last Government were more open and transparent in data publication than any other. In the wider context of statistics, I have said it once and will say it again and again that we intend to meet the high standards expected of official statistics when publishing these data, and that is what we will concentrate on doing.

Benefit Sanctioning

George Howarth Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd December 2014 Westminster Hall

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr George Howarth (in the Chair)]

Order. It might be helpful before we proceed any further if I point out that I intend to call the two Front-Bench spokespeople at 10.40 am to begin the winding-up speeches. I do not intend at this point to impose a time limit on speeches, but, depending on how things go over the next few minutes, I may decide to do so.

Affordable Homes Bill

George Howarth Excerpts

Friday 5th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Andrew George]

I believe that the hon. Gentleman has put his name down to speak, so I am sure we will be ready for that when it comes.

With regard to the changes in relation to disability, the clause is self-evident and I do not need to explain the reasoning for those measures. The provision about a reasonable offer of alternative accommodation is entirely reasonable. In a constituency such as mine, anyone engaging in the desperate weekend effort to try to find alternative accommodation through the Homechoice register would be very lucky, if they are seeking to downsize, to be able to move within a radius of 40 miles. If they live on the Isles of Scilly, there is no chance that they will be able to stay there. People who are seeking to downsize clearly cannot do so within their own local community, as would be reasonable. Therefore, as a result of moving, they will lose their ties with their school, their job, their social network, and their family. It is important and reasonable that we address these issues, and that is what the Bill does.

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

rose—

[Philip Davies]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Andrew George]

I am conscious of the time. I have taken a large number of interventions, so I will not take any more in order that I can bring my remarks to a conclusion as quickly as possible.

In the light of the evidence, we should try to steer away from implying that it is somehow the fault of the vulnerable that they are living in under-occupied accommodation. In fact, we need to look carefully at the approach of successive Governments in the past who have failed to build the right proportion and number of the right size of accommodation to ensure that we make sufficient decent properties available. We need to recognise the unintended consequences of this regulation, particularly for those living in expensively adapted disabled accommodation. Those costs will have to be paid all over again if we force them to move to alternative accommodation when there is a lack of reasonable alternatives. The mere fact that someone is poor does not mean they are any less entitled to a stable family home than if they were better-off.

When I was engaged in the sector before I came to this place, I used to make recommendations as a result of needs assessments. I tried to make sure that we developed in social housing ranges of property that met the future needs of the local community, not necessarily just immediate need, so I would always err on the side of three and four-bedroom properties. The marginal cost at the time of development is only 3% or 4%, and that provides flexibility in future, particularly in small communities. It is essential that we have that. The problem with the regulation as it stands is that it sends the wrong signals to social housing providers so they will build too many small properties, creating a legacy for future generations that continues to put pressure on families in social housing. Personally, I find that unacceptable.

[Mr Howarth]

rose—

[Andrew George]

I have said that I will not take any further interventions because of the time I have taken—I apologise.

Clause 3 relates to intermediate market housing. I am keen to make sure that we advance the case for intermediate market housing, which I think is self-evident. I hope that I can have discussions with Government about this measure. It is reasonable to undertake an evaluation of what is going on in that sector and to try to create tools to enable housing associations and community land trusts to construct a new lower rung on the housing ladder.

Having taken a large number of interventions to accommodate those who wished to make them, it only remains for me to say that I believe the measure is reasonable and based on the evidence—I took account of the evidence of the interim evaluation—and I urge all hon. Members from across all parties to support the Bill on Second Reading.

[Mr Nick Raynsford (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

May I at the outset draw attention to my interests as declared in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests?

I am very pleased to speak in support of the Bill, and I congratulate the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) on seizing the opportunity of his good fortune in being drawn in first place in the ballot to introduce a Bill that will have a significant impact on the living standards and housing prospects of a substantial number of our fellow citizens. The House should warmly welcome this serious Bill, and I applaud his decision to bring it in.

As the hon. Gentleman made clear, the Bill has two main purposes: first, to limit the circumstances in which social housing tenants are subject to deductions in their housing benefit or universal credit because of the impact of the bedroom tax; and secondly, to encourage the development and take-up of low-cost home ownership and other intermediate housing market options to assist people in need of housing who are unlikely to qualify for social tenancies but cannot afford the often prohibitive costs of housing for sale on the open market. I support both objectives, although in several respects I would like the provisions to go further. Indeed, the hon. Gentleman has made clear his own inclination to go beyond the specific measures, but the Bill as presented to the House is a good start in the right direction, and it deserves our support. I will take the two main objectives in turn.

I applaud the three proposed limitations on the impact of the bedroom tax, which is one of the harshest measures introduced by the present Government. The bedroom tax was misconceived from the outset, being promoted on a false—indeed, one might say fraudulent—premise that the objective was to encourage better use of the country’s social housing stock. It was misconceived in that there was no way that the measure could achieve its supposed objective of prompting tenants under-occupying social tenancies to move into smaller homes because the supply of smaller homes available to accommodate them was hopelessly inadequate. Social housing providers and local authorities presented such evidence to the Government time and again when they proposed the bedroom tax, but the Government ignored all the clear evidence that there was simply not a sufficient supply of smaller homes to make it possible for people who would be penalised to move into smaller accommodation.

[Mr George Howarth]

On that point, I can give the example of the Ravenscroft Re-build Housing Co-operative in my constituency. At my surgery last week, two ladies told me that because of how it is funded, the rent for a two-bedroom property is £54.50 a week and the rent for a three-bedroom property is £56 a week, while there are no smaller properties within the co-operative and there is a waiting list of one. If they moved to social housing—say, a one-bedroom flat—the rent would be between £70 and £80 a week, which makes a complete nonsense of the purpose of the policy in the first place.

[Mr Raynsford]

My right hon. Friend’s point is absolutely valid. The policy is based on extremely unproven and in many cases very suspect assumptions. The idea that people eligible for housing benefit will benefit either themselves or the public purse by moving out of accommodation costing £55 a week into accommodation costing £70 seems absurd. That, however, is the consequence of the bedroom tax as it is currently constituted. The Government have made it clear that they expect people to look for alternative options in the private rented sector, even though that sector is in general hugely more expensive than social housing. There are a whole series of contradictions at the heart of this policy.

amendment of the law

George Howarth Excerpts

Tuesday 25th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Alistair Darling (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)]

The hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper)will forgive me, I hope, if I do not follow him directly in what he has just said. I want to say something about infrastructure in this country, and I want to talk about some of the slightly longer-term issues in relation to the capacity in our economy as it now is, as well as levels of public expenditure, but I start with annuities. In drawing the attention of the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, I declare a further interest. As I was 60 at the end of last year, my professional interest in pensions has become rather more personal.

Five years ago when I was Chancellor I looked at the whole question of annuities, which at that time was receiving quite a lot of publicity. There were two reasons that I did not make any changes. One was that I was concerned about any major change that would undermine the insurance principle that underpinned the idea of annuities when they were introduced some 70 or 80 years ago. Also, at that time I was concerned about some of the safeguards that we would need. Given the general economic climate at the time and because I was more focused on what was happening to our banks rather than our insurance companies, I did not pursue the matter.

However, I quite accept now that, because of the very poor annuity rates in the past few years and because the industry has not helped itself in the range of products that it offers people, it is time to look at the matter again. There are three areas about which I want to express my concern. These are issues that the whole House needs to address, and the Government need to address them during the consultation period that follows. First, I am concerned about the effect of the proposals on the annuity market. It is interesting that one does not have to get too many pages into the White Paper to see that at paragraph 2.27 the Government say that annuities are

“the only realistic option for many.”

I read last week that the IFS is concerned about the effect that taking out the higher end contributions will have on annuity rates. The Government need to have regard to that. It is not insuperable, but we need to look at it.

Secondly, the Australians have shown that it is possible to have a wide range of products that we would not necessarily recognise as annuities, but safeguards are needed, particularly in relation to the advice being offered. The Government said last week that they had made £20 million available. When I read the detail, I was surprised to find that that is a one-off payment. There is nothing after that. We in this House should all know that unfortunately the financial services industry has shown that if there is scope for mis-selling, mis-selling will happen. This is critically important.

Although the Pensions Minister may be indifferent as to whether or not somebody buys a Lamborghini, if they are buying it, they must at least understand that there might be consequences for how much money they have for the rest of their lives. It is not in the public interest that people go into something that might have to last them for the next 20 or 30 years without having received proper advice. That needs to be looked at. The offer of guidance is not enough.

Thirdly, the Government will have to consider the scope for tax avoidance. The reason that pensions are tax-privileged is that there is a societal interest in making sure that we save for our retirement. It was never designed to enable people to shelter their money from tax. Those are all aspects that need to be looked at.

I want to say a word about infrastructure. On Monday last week in the Financial Times there was the now traditional announcement of all the infrastructure projects that were on their way and on show, and an invitation to the pensions industry and others to invest. That is all very well. There were some old familiars which I recognise from my time in government, which are still not built and are still looking for money. Owing to the Budget, the pensions industry has just been relieved of quite a large sum of money. I would be interested in the Government’s assessment of where we will get the additional funds that we all know are needed from both the public and the private sector if we are to improve our housing stock, our transport stock and our ageing power fleet, which we are still struggling to replace. Successive Governments have had difficulties with that and this Government need to attend to the matter. That infrastructure will have some bearing on the capacity in our economy if we are to be able to provide for an ageing population and everything we have taken for granted over the past 30 or 40 years.

Reading the OBR report on the Government’s measures announced last week in relation to the economy, we see, rather surprisingly, that none of the measures announced by the Chancellor will, in the view of the IFS, make any difference whatever to the country’s GDP. The annual investment allowance which he doubled will, it says, have a negligible effect. That did not surprise me, because I doubled it when I was the Chancellor and it had no effect then. At least the advice from the IFS and the Treasury is entirely consistent. What is worrying is that we must increase the capacity of our economy. If we do not, we are locking ourselves on to a path where austerity will be unavoidable, because we will not have the wealth to pay down our debt, reduce the borrowing and generate the capacity needed in an economy.

This is an issue for Members on both sides of the House. We must decide how we are going to get more capacity into the economy. I hope the measures announced last week in the Budget work, but whether firms come to this country will be determined far more by big issues such as our infrastructure than by simply fiddling round the edges with tax reforms.

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend speaks with great authority on these matters. Does he agree that unlocking potential capacity and creating more employment in turn creates more revenue?

[Mr Darling]

Absolutely, and the argument that has been with us throughout this Parliament has been about how to ensure that we generate growth to pay down the debt. Part of the problem that the Government have at the moment is that the plan that they started out with did not achieve significant results—it is not the same plan as they are operating now, by the way, because it is running some four years late and is significantly different from the one set out in 2010—because we simply did not have the economic growth that people expected.

One of the most worrying points in the OBR’s report is that it expects our economy to be at full capacity in just four years’ time. Normally, when growth recovers after a recession, as it did in the ’80s and ’90s, it peaks at 3% or perhaps 4%, because spare capacity is being used up. The OBR says that there simply is not spare capacity in the economy at the moment. That should worry us, because if our economy is operating at capacity in four years’ time and inflationary pressures start kicking in, how on earth will we meet the future bills of a mature economy with an ageing society?

I understand that some Government Members are more ideological than others about public expenditure, and understandably, many of them expressed concern about the flooding in the west country earlier this year.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt), who stressed the importance of getting independent advice. That advice was well worth giving, but I simply observe that in the past people have had independent advice but it has not always turned out to be to their advantage. There are two kinds of independent advice: good advice and bad advice. How we distinguish between the two will be—

[Crispin Blunt]

The important change is that independent advice is now definitively independent advice—the era of relationships, commission and so on between financial advisers and providers has gone, and that is an important benefit.

[Mr Howarth]

I agree, but my concern is that the people giving the advice need to be competent; it is not necessarily a question of whom they are connected to.

I want to use the time available to me to talk about the Budget and poverty, but first I wish to refer to my experience of volunteering in our local food bank—the Big Help Project—last Saturday at the Tesco supermarket in Prescot, in my constituency. The first point to make is how generous the response of shoppers was to the appeal. It was so overwhelming that at one point the volunteers struggled to keep up with the number of bags of groceries that were being given to us, and that is a great tribute to everybody involved. Secondly, from talking to volunteers and supporters it became clear that they did not take a prescriptive view of people who, unfortunately, have to rely on the services of a food bank to feed their family. The statistics bear out why people are right to be sympathetic. The Big Help Project has had 6,000 referrals over the past 12 months, 73% of which are the result of benefit changes, benefit delays or low income. The project has a vital job to do, but we need to be mindful of the reasons why people find it necessary to go to a food bank.

I want to talk specifically about poverty, and not about welfare. We have sometimes managed to confuse those terms, but they sometimes go together and sometimes do not. According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation,

“the most distinctive characteristic of poverty today is the very high number of working people who are also poor.”

Again, the food bank experience in Knowsley bears that out, as 22% of those referred are in employment but they are so poorly paid that they are forced to rely on the food bank to make ends meet. The other two main groups relying on the food bank are people who are dependent on the benefits system and who are affected either by benefit changes or by delays in payments. In some cases, these people find themselves with absolutely no income at all, and often that is as a result of sanctions, which in some cases are arbitrarily put on people who are trying to make a claim.

The trouble with the Government’s approach to welfare reform is not just that it is morally flawed, but that it is based on the subjective view that welfare dependency is, in some way, a choice that people can make. If it were as simple as that, it would be a relatively straightforward phenomenon to resolve—but it is not as simple as that. The reality is that people who want to re-enter the labour market are often confronted with a complex web of barriers that can, in some cases, be impossible to negotiate without help that is tailor-made to their particular circumstances.

Research from the Department for Work and Pensions itself has concluded that what matters for poverty reduction is not the aggregate employment rate, but the share of working age adults and children in workless households. In other words, an increase in the number of people in the labour market will not necessarily reduce poverty if it consists of people entering the labour market from households which are not already in poverty. So, even if employment rates are rising—I acknowledge that they are—below the surface there is a highly polarised employment structure, with a high number of double earners and a high level of zero-earner households. The Secretary of State referred to that in his opening speech.

What the Government’s approach fails to take into account are the barriers that those in zero-earner households have to surmount to become earners—certainly at a level that does not lead to their still living in poverty. Time forbids me from going into too much detail, but let me offer two examples of the barriers that people experience. The first is the recruitment practices in many companies. A UK Commission for Employment and Skills report in 2010 concluded that employers increasingly use informal channels of recruitment rather than the jobcentre, which further disadvantages those who are unemployed and, as a result, they do not have the informal contacts needed to be in the know. That approach is probably even more commonplace now in my constituency than it was at that time.

The second barrier is the increasing use of zero-hours contracts by employers. There are varying estimates as to the level of their use, with between 500,000 and 1 million people thought to be affected. I do not intend to get into a discussion about which figure is correct, but that barrier, taken together with the unreliability of agency contract work, makes it difficult for families to abandon the benefit system altogether. That is because the employment available is so insecure and unreliable as to be too risky to contemplate—certainly for families. Indeed, it presents the very real possibility that by finding a job someone will be plunging their family into even greater poverty than they were experiencing already.

Although there are obvious improvements in the economy and in the levels of employment, poverty is stubbornly persistent in this country, to a wholly unacceptable degree. I am afraid that I am bound to conclude that because the Government do not understand the causes of poverty, they have not addressed it at all in this Budget.

Food Banks

George Howarth Excerpts

Wednesday 18th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Maria Eagle]

No. Let me make it clear that I will not take many interventions because of the number—[Interruption.] I am seeking to give hon. Members in all parts of the House a chance to get into the debate, and it will not help if I take three quarters of an hour to open it.

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

rose—

[Maria Eagle]

I will take one more intervention before I continue.

[Mr George Howarth]

As a fellow Knowsley MP, does my hon. Friend agree that it is a disgrace that, from April to 13 November, 756 children and 1,424 adults were referred to food banks with vouchers? We congratulate the agencies involved in doing that work, but is it not absolutely disgraceful that this is what we are reduced to?

[Maria Eagle]

I agree. My right hon. Friend and I share food bank provision in our constituencies, so I know that to be true.

Since April this year, over half a million people have already relied on assistance from the 400 food banks run by the Trussell Trust charity—that is double the number of food banks compared with this time last year. Of those half a million people, one third are children. In Britain, the seventh richest country on the planet, in the 21st century, it is a scandal, and it is getting worse. More people have been going to food banks in the past nine months than in the whole of last year. Half a million people have gone to food banks compared with 26,000 before the last general election.

Housing Benefit

George Howarth Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

Much of my speech will be about facts, figures and statistics, but contributions thus far, certainly from the Opposition, have focused on the real impact of this policy on people’s lives. Be they people with disabilities, people with access to children at weekends that they cannot maintain or others—there are many more—these are real people, and this has real consequences for their lives, so this debate is about not just facts, figures and statistics, but how this policy affects people’s lives.

[Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

For precisely that reason and because Northern Ireland will be worse affected than any other region of the UK, does the right hon. Gentleman welcome the fact that the Northern Ireland Executive and political parties there are joining together to prevent this from hurting the vulnerable people of Northern Ireland?

[Mr Howarth]

Absolutely, I applaud what is happening in Northern Ireland.

Since the introduction of the bedroom tax, rent arrears in Merseyside have increased by £2.2 million—not to £2.2 million, but by £2.2 million—representing a loss of income that could have built 125 houses in the region, creating jobs and bringing all the other consequences. Some 60% of those in the Liverpool city region in arrears because of the bedroom tax are in arrears for the first time. It is not a habit of theirs, but a direct consequence of the bedroom tax.

[Barbara Keeley]

We have some frightening statistics in Salford, too, but those are very large numbers, particularly the loss of spending power. Do those figures cover the Minister’s constituency and will she be explaining to people in the region how these things came about?

[Mr Howarth]

They do indeed. I hope the Minister will respond to these statistics, because her own constituents will be interested to hear.

We have experienced a 30% increase in void—empty—properties, including a 130% increase in three-bedroom houses. This is not, therefore, just a matter of releasing unused bedroom space for those on the waiting list; there is no demand for three-bedroom properties, which is why they become void properties. Staggeringly, the result has been a loss of rent to local landlords of £616,622 per month, compared with £397,000 in the same period last year. Those are the direct consequences, in one city region, of the bedroom tax.

Where are our people supposed to go? In my city region, we have an excess of three-bedroom properties and a shortage of two and one-bedroom properties. We can debate all day who is responsible for that, but it is a fact, so where are people to go? There is a shortage of social housing for them to scale down to. Interestingly, York university’s centre for housing policy report, which has been referred to frequently in this debate, concludes that 41.5% of people losing money because of the bedroom tax and having to move will enter the private rented sector. That is the conclusion of an unbiased, peer-reviewed report.

Now, here is the rub. This measure is supposed to be saving some money. The average rent for a three-bedroom housing association property in Knowsley is £74 a week, compared with £132 for a three-bedroom house in the private rented sector. If someone were to scale down from the three-bedroom housing association property to a two-bedroom house in the private sector, they would be paying £115 a week, compared with the £74 they were paying before.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford) said earlier, this policy is morally bankrupt. It is also incompetent. It presumes that people can just move around at will, and that a property that is right for their circumstances exists somewhere in their area. That is not the case. There is growing evidence that, rather than saving money, this policy is costing more.

Jobseekers (Back to Work Schemes) Bill

George Howarth Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hoban]

The scheme is used particularly for those who are some distance from the labour market. We know that we need to make a range of interventions to get people to move closer and closer to the labour market. The scheme changes people’s attitude to work. Those on the scheme can put that work on their CV and demonstrate to employers that they are ready for work. That makes a contribution to moving them closer to work. As the evaluation that the hon. Lady referred to pointed out, people themselves feel the benefits of taking part in the scheme. It is therefore right that when claimants refuse to take up the support that is available, and then fail without good reason to attend these mandatory programmes, they face the consequences of their actions—a benefit sanction.

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Hoban]

I want to make some more progress. We have four hours, and I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will have time to make a contribution.

On 12 February, the Jobseeker's Allowance (Employment, Skills and Enterprise Scheme) Regulations 2011 were found to be ultra vires by the Court of Appeal on the ground that the programmes covered by the regulations were not described in the regulations in sufficient detail. Those are the regulations that provide for most of the mandatory back-to-work schemes, such as the Work programme and the day one trailblazers, which we are running at the moment.

The Court of Appeal also held that the notices sent to claimants advising them that they were required to take part in a programme within the ESE scheme did not comply with the requirements of regulation 4 of the ESE regulations. It is important to remind all Members that the Court of Appeal has ruled that there was no breach of article 4(2) of the European convention on human rights, meaning that these schemes cannot be equated with slave labour. As I have already stated, the judgment was supportive of the principle and policy of our employment schemes.

[Mr Howarth]

Will the Minister confirm that he intends to appoint an independent person to produce a report on this matter? The intention is that they will report within 12 months and the Secretary of State will consider that report for some unspecified period. I know that it is a complex issue, but does the Minister agree that that could be done much more quickly, and the issue could be resolved much more quickly, if that process were shortened, rather than the period being 12 months and then as long as it takes to consider the report?

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

Thank you very much for calling me, Mr Deputy Speaker. I apologise to you, the House and the Minister that I was not hear for the earlier part of the debate. I was in a Select Committee upstairs and then in a meeting. I wanted to contribute to the debate because the Bill troubles me.

I will start by expressing concern about a couple of matters raised by the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris), which are relevant because they are about how we treat the rich as well as the poor. I am not party to what is going to be said tomorrow, but I hope that the Government will go ahead with having a tax system that requires a minimum amount of tax to be paid by everybody. It is planned that that will be in the Finance Bill for the coming year. I share his view that we need a system that does not allow people to escape their tax obligations and that that should be a general principle.

I also share the view of the hon. Member for Easington on who should pay more into the system in times of austerity: it should be those who are better off. As it happens, we disagree about whether the better-off now pay more or less. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) intervened on him to point out the hard truth for a Labour MP that during the whole of the Labour Government, the top rate of tax was lower than it is now and lower than it will be after the change this year. There is no backing away from that. I think that that was regrettable, whatever the explanation. However, I want mainly to talk about the Bill.

I understand why the Government read the judgment from the Court of Appeal and have come to the House. The Court did not overturn the principle that people should do some mandatory work while on benefits, but it found—to put it bluntly—that there was a flaw in the paperwork sent to people requiring them to do that. I would have preferred the Government to go to the Supreme Court and wait for that judgment before seeking parliamentary approval to change the law in relation to a large number of cases. I understand the financing and the logic, but I am always nervous when we do not wait for the courts to adjudicate.

I have not talked about this with the Minister but I assume that the Government are nervous that they will not win in the Supreme Court, which is why they have come before the House now. I am nervous about that, but it is not my principal concern about the Bill. My principal concern is about the system that the Bill will continue, which is—to put it bluntly—bigger than the Bill itself. I am sure that will have been the subject of a speech from those on the Labour Front-Bench, just as I have heard that point in speeches from Labour Members who have already spoken.

Despite difficult economic times, I am happy that over the past few months my constituency, which, as colleagues know, is just over the river, has begun to see a reduction in unemployment, both generally and among young people. It is not a huge reduction—I am not naive about that—and when I checked a minute ago it was still ranked 214th in the country in terms of the percentage of those who are unemployed. We are still in the top half of the table, and 5.9% of the population are still not in work although they would like to be. Nevertheless, the figure has come down from its peak of 6.2% in September and October 2011.

I am concerned that we are still running a system—I would be happy to continue this conversation with colleagues from the Department—that does not work or achieve what the Government wish it to achieve, and I will illustrate that point with four constituency cases from recent months. The first concerns a constituent called Mr RE—I will use initials in all cases because I do not have permission to share the details—who wrote to me in autumn last year. I then wrote to the Jobcentre Plus manager for my constituency, with whom I have a good professional working relationship. Mr RE told me that he wished to dispute a sanction on his JSA claim. He said he had received a letter from Seetec, the providers of mandatory work activity in my constituency, asking him to attend a mandatory work placement in June 2012 at the British Heart Foundation and a charity shop quite near to where I live on the Old Kent road.

On 21 June, the day before Mr RE was due to start, he received a letter from a voluntary organisation for vulnerable adults inviting him for an interview the following Monday—25 June. He told me that he intended to train as a social worker and that a work placement such as the one offered by Sova, the voluntary body, included a requirement to apply for an MA course in social work. He therefore needed to make that interview a priority. He had only a day’s notice, which he needed to spend in preparation and buying appropriate clothing. He telephoned Seetec as soon as possible to advise that he would not be able to start his work placement on 22 June, but said he would be available from 26 June onwards.

[Mr George Howarth]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Simon Hughes]

Let me just finish this example. Mr RE told me that Seetec was unwilling to discuss the matter and that nothing was resolved. He found the telephone staff rude, abrupt and unwilling to hold a sensible discussion. He went for his interview with the voluntary organisation for vulnerable adults and—as he said he would—he attended the mandatory work activity the following day. Three days later he received a letter advising him that as he had not started his placement on the date originally requested—22 June—he was no longer required to attend. He then received a letter informing him that his JSA claim, and that of his partner, would be suspended from 1 August until 30 October last year. I protested that that was a completely inappropriate penalty because it seemed to me that he had good reasons for not attending his placement on 22 June that were directly related to finding work. Furthermore, he had telephoned the provider to explain the reasons, and he attended the work placement as soon as he was able. I stated my view that the system was clearly failing. As it happened, in the end, a review found in his favour. Jobcentre Plus said originally that he did not tell it of the work placement, but it gave in when he queried that. Jobcentre Plus has cancelled the sanction.

That was a satisfactory outcome, but it is not the only complaint that has come my way. The second case is of D.P., who contacted me on 25 January. He told me that three sanctions had been applied to his JSA claim for failure to attend appointments at the jobcentre. For the first two sanctions, he had failed to attend because he had not received the letter in the post. His representative had written to the jobcentre but it did not agree to lift the sanction. He does not understand the reason for the third sanction, which applies from 10 November 2012 to 10 May 2013, and feels he has done all he can to comply with jobcentre requirements but is still being punished. He has received such severe sanctions that, effectively, he is no longer receiving JSA. I have not yet received an answer to my letter.

I wrote about the third case on 4 March. C. McC. says she is currently claiming JSA and has been required to attend a work placement at Divine Rescue in Walworth. However, she tells me there is no work for her to do there; that she spends the day from 10 am to 5 pm unoccupied; that no training is provided; and that there are no computer facilities to allow her to work independently.

The fourth case is of a friend of a constituent. A.S. has an accounting qualification and has worked in finance. He has just finished three months’ work experience as an intern in the financial department of a local company, which was appropriate to his career plan. He is a graduate and has a relevant background. He got the placement not through the jobcentre, but separately. He was asked to attend a CV workshop while doing his internship. With the help of my office, we managed to postpone the workshop so he could complete his internship. He was told he was to do mandatory work activities—he was told he had to go and work in a Red Cross shop elsewhere in south London—with no discussion of his qualifications or experience.

[Mr Howarth]

The right hon. Gentleman said earlier in his speech—I tried to intervene at the time—that the problem was with the paperwork. To some extent, I accept that he is right, in that the regulations did not conform with the provisions of the Jobseekers Act 1995. However, is he aware that the Court of Appeal went beyond that by stating

“the Regulations conflict with article 4(2) of the European Convention on Human Rights which provides, subject to exceptions, that…‘No one shall be required to perform forced or compulsory labour’”?

That is slightly more than a departure from the right paperwork.

[Simon Hughes]

I apologise to the right hon. Gentleman for delaying his intervention. My understanding—the Minister could be helpful in this respect in her winding-up speech—is that the Court upheld the general policy principle of the employment programmes and ruled that the general principle of such employment programmes did not breach article 4(2) of the convention. The failures to be specific and to get the paperwork right meant that programmes could breach the convention. I am not disputing what the right hon. Gentleman says, but I understand that mandatory work activity is not illegal under the European convention. We need to be clear about that. Labour Front Benchers accept the principle of mandatory work activity, provided that it is decent, and accept sanctions in the benefits system.

--- Later in debate ---

[Esther McVey]

Obviously, the hon. Gentleman will be pleased to hear that the past 11 consecutive months have seen a rise in the number of people in jobs. Of course education, training and work experience are key, and we are doing all we can to help his constituents.

I want to talk about the scrutiny that the regulations went through. They went through the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, the secondary legislation scrutiny Committee, and there have been various opportunities for Members to raise objections. That did not happen, however, and the regulations went through. We are seeking permission to appeal against the judgment by the Court of Appeal. This is about communications with claimants, and our view is that it was clear that the claimant received information not only through communication via letter but through meeting and speaking to their jobcentre adviser.

[Mr George Howarth]

Will the Minister give way?

[Esther McVey]

I want to progress a little further.

There is one voice that we have not heard here today. The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne) talked about a failing system, but I want to hear the voice of the people who have been on the mandatory scheme. What have they said about it? It is interesting to note that 75% of them said that they believed they were more attractive to potential employers, and that their personal confidence had been increased by attending the programmes. Some 76% said that their ability to work as part of a team had improved; 89% spoke of the benefits of getting into a working routine; and 81% said that they enjoyed their work placement. We should all be listening to those voices, rather than making political points that are not what those people said.

How about the businesses that take people on? What do they say? Many said that the aim was to help people to get a job. That is key. What has come out goes to the nub of the argument. For some, it might have been their first experience of a work environment. We know that is true, because 1.9 million children live in homes where nobody works, so it is vital that they have the scheme.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Howarth]

Could the Minister explain how amendment 1 to clause 1, in the name of her right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, takes us any further than where we are today?

[Esther McVey]

It is to clarify the right to appeal—I did not actually hear the full question.

[Mr Howarth]

Can the Minister explain how amendment 1 to clause 1, which is in the name of her right hon. Friend, takes us any further than where we are today?

[Esther McVey]

The right to appeal remains. That is the answer.

Companies said that the mandatory scheme helped not just them but the local community. The hon. Member for Wansbeck said we did not need a Bill. Actually the Bill is required. Slave labour was mentioned, but that is not an issue. Targets were mentioned. There are no targets whatsoever.

We know that jobseekers should have responsibility to take all reasonable steps to increase their chances of finding work. We therefore cannot be in the position where we have to repay benefit sanctions to jobseekers who fail to take all reasonable steps. For that reason, I commend the Bill to the House.

Question put, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Oral Answers to Questions

George Howarth Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I very much agree with my hon. Friend. At the beginning of April, we launched a new online register of qualified health and safety consultants, precisely with a view to stamping out the cowboys. I want businesses and other bodies that need consultancy advice to work with qualified people who are capable of advising on what the law actually says, rather than working with people who would like to argue that the law does something they claim it says.

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

While the Minister is considering what reform to health and safety legislation might be necessary, I hope he will take into account the problems that the Health and Safety Executive has had at Sonae in my constituency. A major fire incident over the last few days has covered much of the industrial area as well as residential areas in acrid black smoke. Will he assure me that the HSE will work with the local authority, Knowsley council, the fire service and everybody else in the town, because we have reached the conclusion that this place should be closed down?

[Chris Grayling]

I am aware of the very unfortunate incident in the right hon. Gentleman’s constituency. I cannot comment specifically on that investigation, but I can assure him that the HSE is investigating carefully what happened. Clearly, lessons must be learned. However, that underlines my view that the HSE should concentrate its resources on dealing with genuinely serious incidents and problems, and not on trivial matters.