Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Guy Opperman and Karen Buck

Monday 24th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

The Department’s recently published research on sanctions, including those relating to in-work conditionality, show that sanctions have a negative impact on claimant earnings. How will the Minister take account of those findings in setting future sanctions policy?

[Guy Opperman]

We want to encourage claimants to comply with reasonable requirements, which are set and agreed with their work coach in the claimant commitment. That will continue on an ongoing basis, and I see no change to that.

Social Security and Pensions

Debate between Guy Opperman and Karen Buck

Monday 6th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Ms Buck]

The hon. Gentleman should go back to the original plans for universal credit, and to what the taper rate was intended to be at the very beginning, before a former Chancellor got his hands on it.

[Guy Opperman]

There is criticism that this Government are different, but the process has not changed since 1987. It has been exactly the same under 13 years of a Labour Government, under the coalition Government since 2010, and under this Government.

[Ms Buck]

I am slightly baffled by that. Although we have heard confirmation of the uprating this year, the point is that it comes on the back of years and years of that annual uprating simply not happening. The failure—[Interruption.] It is not a question of process; what matters is the outcome of the process. Over a number of years, the freeze on benefits and the failure to uprate has left us with a rise in poverty, as I have said.

[Guy Opperman]

I do not want to get too much into a tit for tat, but will the hon. Lady accept that there are 400,000 fewer pensioners in absolute poverty, that absolute poverty has declined by 1.2 million people, and that the living wage is going up?

Social Security Support for Children

Debate between Guy Opperman and Karen Buck

Wednesday 23rd November 2022 Westminster Hall

[Guy Opperman]

The hon. Lady and I spent nearly six months campaigning to ensure that there was a serious and legitimate change to women’s pensions entitlements in certain private sector pensions. I thank her for her work on the private Member’s Bill that she brought forward and that is now in law, having been signed by Her Majesty the Queen. I welcome the fact that she worked on a cross-party basis to ensure that happened. I will try to address the child poverty issue that was raised by several colleagues. I want to deal with it in a variety of ways. I will then segue on to the in-work progression point—namely, people who are working but also suffering from poverty.

Let me start with the background. The fundamental point is that the Government are committed to a sustainable, long-term approach to tackle child poverty in supporting low-income families. We spent £242 billion through the welfare system in the United Kingdom in 2022-23, including £108 billion on people of working age. We have made permanent changes to universal credit worth £1,000 a year on average to 1.7 million claimants, and have given the lowest earners a pay rise by increasing the national living wage by 6.6% to £9.50 from April 2022. From 1 April 2023, the national living wage will increase by 9.7% to £10.42 an hour for workers aged 23 and over. That is the largest ever cash increase to the national living wage. It represents an increase of more than £1,600 to the annual earnings of full-time workers on the national living wage, and is expected to benefit more than 2 million low-paid workers.

I will address the poverty statistics. The latest statistics show that poverty fell for nearly all measures in 2020-21 compared with 2019-20. In 2021 there were 1.2 million fewer people in absolute poverty, before housing costs, than in 2009-10, including 200,000 fewer children. We will come to workless households in a second, but since 2010 there are nearly 1 million fewer workless households in the United Kingdom. The number of children growing up in homes where no one works has fallen by 590,000 since 2010—

[Ms Buck]

rose—

[Ms Qaisar]

rose—

[Guy Opperman]

May I just finish? I will also come to the point made by the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts. That number has fallen by 590,000 since 2010, and 1.7 million more children are living in a home where at least one person is working. I give way first to the shadow Minister.

[Ms Buck]

On the issue of absolute poverty, in a previous debate I raised the fact that the absolute poverty figures for larger families—those affected by the two-child limit—have been worsening, rather than improving, as the Minister claims. Will he go away, have a look at that, and inform himself about it when thinking about where to go next on policy?

Pension Schemes Bill [ Lords ] (Fourth sitting)

Debate between Guy Opperman and Karen Buck

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 4th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 5th November 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Guy Opperman]

I rise briefly, Mr Robertson, to thank you and your fellow Chair; thank the Clerks, who have worked with all colleagues to a massive degree, which is extraordinarily difficult in times of covid; and thank the Hansard team. I would normally thank the Doorkeepers, but they have not had to listen to us—lucky them. I particularly want to thank colleagues who have proceeded to pass a 132-clause, 200-page Bill in under a day and a half.

[Ms Buck]

With proper parliamentary scrutiny.

[Guy Opperman]

With proper parliamentary scrutiny where it particularly mattered, while working on a cross-party basis on other things. I also thank my team at the Department for Work and Pensions, who have put in Herculean efforts to produce this Bill, and it would not be inappropriate to thank the Whips for keeping us in due order throughout this wonderful process.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Guy Opperman and Karen Buck

Monday 19th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Guy Opperman]

If the individual claimant is vulnerable, there can be backdating, but for those who need extra support, there are advances of 100% from day one and also budgeting support. We are creating a brand new partnership with Citizens Advice to deliver a better universal support service.

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

New figures confirm that one in five jobs in London is now low-paid—below the London living wage. That is the highest proportion there has ever been, so working people are also in poverty and need the protection of universal credit, yet the qualifying period is casting many families into very severe hardship. What action will the Minister take to deal with that problem so that people can understand that work will pay, rather than casting them further into hardship?

[Guy Opperman]

The hon. Lady will be aware that the Government introduced the living wage, which is enhanced annually, and that we raised the tax threshold, which assisted individuals. She will also be aware that there is child support for education and that we are freezing fuel duty. All these cost-of-living measures have been of assistance to local people.