Oral Answers to Questions

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Monday 23rd June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

15. What assessment he has made of recent trends in employment figures.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)]

The recent trends are remarkable: there are more people in work than ever before, youth unemployment is down 91,000 since the election, the claimant count for 18 to 24 year-olds has fallen for 30 consecutive months, and we have seen the largest annual fall in long-term unemployment since late 1998. I also note that in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride), the claimant count is down 33% and the youth claimant count is down 41%.

[Mel Stride]

As my right hon. Friend has pointed out, youth unemployment in my constituency is substantially down since the last election, not least due to his efforts to ensure that work always pays. However, does he agree with me that approaches to incentivising work are always best if they are universal, unlike the Opposition’s proposal for means-tested youth allowances, which would punish hard-working families and those people who do the right thing?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Yes, the reality of what we have been trying to do is to make sure that people can get into the jobs that are available. What they do not need—and what is quite ridiculous about the Opposition’s proposal—is to try to take everybody who is below level 2 up to a level 3 qualification. Some people who do not even have a GCSE in maths, for example, are expected now to do training courses to take them to level 3 before they go into work. The reality is that we are getting them work-ready and giving them the training they need. That is why there are record employment levels of some 30.5 million, which beats what we were left by the last Government.

[Mr Amess]

Will my right hon. Friend join me in welcoming the 29% decrease in the number of 18 to 24-year-olds claiming jobseeker’s allowance in the constituency I represent, and does he agree that it is further evidence of the success of our long-term economic plan?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

It is worth noting that under the last Government, youth unemployment increased by nearly a half—up almost 300,000—and long-term youth unemployment increased by 74,000. Since then, excluding full-time students, youth unemployment has come down to 7.9%, which is the lowest figure since 2008. Youth unemployment is down 98,000 on the year, and down 91,000 since the election, and long-term youth unemployment is down 25,000 on the year. That is getting the job right.

[Oliver Colvile]

Plymouth, as my right hon. Friend knows, is a low-wage, low-skills economy. Does he support the Government’s proposal to give Plymouth the city deal for a marine energy park, which will create more than 10,000 new jobs and help provide jobs for the young unemployed?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I absolutely agree with that; it is the right thing to do and it shows how this Government are investing in providing in an area the right kind of jobs for the right kind of people. Even in a difficult area such as my hon. Friend’s, the claimant count is down by 27% and the youth claimant count is down by 30% on the year. This kind of investment helps us to get people into real jobs, not jobs subsidised by the Opposition’s proposals.

[Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)]

Is the Secretary of State aware that a disabled unpaid voluntary worker has been told by the Department for Work and Pensions that as from now she will be in the same category as part-time workers who have a job? Is this a way of padding out the number of people in employment?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I do not know what this case is, but if the hon. Gentleman would like to write to me about it, I will deal with it specifically—

[Mr Skinner]

I have done.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Well, I have not seen the letter, but I will once I have ferreted it out. We are not padding anything out—we do not need to, because there are about 600,000 vacancies now in jobcentres up and down the country and we are doing our level best to help people of all descriptions, including those who have disabilities, most of whom would genuinely like to seek and find work. We are working with them to help them get the kind of job that can change their lives, rather than parking them for many years in a row, as Labour did.

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

With so many young people still in unemployment, especially long-term unemployment, does the Secretary of State not think it anomalous that young people can get support in higher education but not in further education?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

That is not true really, because young people can get help in further education. Under jobseeker’s allowance, traineeships allow up to 30 hours’ training per week—we have made that more generous, because under the previous Government the figure was only 16 hours. For others, two to eight weeks’ full-time training is allowed, depending on the duration of the jobseeker’s allowance. It is one thing to come up with a policy, but another to come up with a policy answering a question that nobody has ever asked.

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

Employment rates in Wales are about the same as elsewhere in the UK, which is very welcome, even if historically rather anomalous. However, we have a large number of people who are involuntarily employed part-time, because they cannot get the hours required. Is it fair or even reasonable for the Government to insist that people take on hours when those hours are just not available?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The jobcentres do not force anybody to take on something that is not there; the jobcentres are working will all those individuals. I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s welcome for the figures from Wales, because it has been particularly successful, having had some very difficult times, particularly in the valleys. I welcome that improvement in employment. Jobseekers go to the advisers, who help them to find those jobs and take the hours that are available. No one will be punished or penalised for trying to take a job or for working with the advisers and only taking the jobs that are there.

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

6. What assessment he has made of the performance of Universal Jobmatch.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)]

Universal Jobmatch revolutionises the way jobseekers look for work. Since it was launched in November 2012, we have seen 6.9 million jobseekers register on the site; 4.3 million average daily job searches; over 560,000 jobs available; and more than 550,000 companies set up an account. It has been a successful transformation.

[Stephen Mosley]

My right hon. Friend will be delighted to hear that more than 5,500 jobs within 5 miles of Chester are being advertised at the moment, which is a massive testament to the number of new jobs that have been created under this Government. However, Universal Jobmatch depends on accurate data, so what steps is he taking to ensure that all the jobs on the site are described accurately, are real and are available for jobseekers?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

We regularly talk to all the employers. New employers are seen by advisers in the jobcentres in the local area. Fraudulent jobs are rare on the site; it is estimated that fewer than 0.1% of these vacancies have been fraudulent since go-live, and those have been removed. We constantly monitor the Universal Jobmatch system and we crack down on abuse. In addition, employment advisers are meeting all those employers they are not aware of or who have just come up on the system for the first time.

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

The problem is that that is just not happening, and perhaps the Secretary of State should accept that. For example, I saw a job advertised in my constituency today for a care assistant in a care home that has just closed down. Jobs are being wrongly categorised. Among sales assistants, we find jobs for account executives, for which qualifications are needed. What exactly is happening with Universal Jobmatch?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The problem is not what the hon. Lady describes. It is with Labour Members, who cannot bear the idea that, when they were in government, they had an archaic system that worked only from 8am to 6pm. Our system works for 24 hours. It works while people’s computers are shut down. It nominates jobs, and advisers can offer advice online. This is a major success story. The problem is that Labour does not get it. We are getting more people into work, higher levels of employment and falling levels of unemployment. In fact, we have some of the lowest levels in the European Union.

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

7. What recent progress he has made on the universal credit programme; and if he will make a statement.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)]

Universal credit is on track to roll out against the timetable set out last year. The claimant commitment is in place across all jobcentres. Universal credit is live in 14 sites, and from today further expansion is under way across the north-west, with couples and families joining at a later stage. Based on the case load projections, there are, at the moment, around 11,000 people making those claims on universal credit.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

I am interested in the Secretary of State’s answer. In 2011 he announced that a million people would be claiming universal credit by April 2014, when the true figure was just 6,000. What went so badly wrong with his projections, and what are his current milestones for the delivery of universal credit?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I think I made that clear before, but I will repeat it again. Back in 2012, I was not happy with the plan for the roll-out, because it mirrored too much the roll-outs that used to happen under the previous Government—[Interruption.] We hit the bump. [Laughter.] It is interesting that Opposition Members sit there laughing, because I remember the tax credit fiasco. They launched tax credits and people suffered. People did not get their payments and were out of pocket. That has not happened with universal credit. In answer to the hon. Gentleman, I simply say that we deliberately set a pathfinder and we are expanding it now, with 90 new sites. Universal credit is rolling out carefully, and we are ensuring that all those who are eligible get the money that is due to them when it is due. It is not the disaster that we had under the previous Government.

[Sir Nick Harvey (North Devon) (LD)]

What progress is the Secretary of State making in his discussions with other Government Departments about the various forms of state support they give in the era of universal credit? I am thinking of free school meals, which could be considerably improved. Is the matter all sorted? If it is not, how is he getting on?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I believe it is getting sorted. Very soon, the Department for Education will be able to make announcements about its preferred options for universal credit, and we will be able to accommodate them regardless of what it asks for.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

That is very interesting. In 2011, the then employment Minister, the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling), said that the Department would consult on new eligibility criteria for passported benefits such as free school meals

“in good time to take decisions to meet our overall timetable to introduce universal credit by October 2013.”—[Official Report, 7 November 2011; Vol. 535, c. 66W.]

The Schools Minister has only just admitted that it would cost an extra £750 million to give free school meals to the children of all those whom he eventually expects to be on universal credit. Can we clear this up this afternoon? Do the Government intend to give free school meals to everyone on universal credit, or do they intend to introduce a new means test for free school meals? If the Secretary of State cannot give a proper answer this afternoon, as I suspect from the way he is performing, will he at least tell us when he will make up his mind?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

It is interesting that the hon. Gentleman does this publicly—he was told the answer to this the other day when he came to my office to talk to me directly. Just in case he does not know how free school meals work, let me tell him that they are means-tested today: there is no change to that.

[Chris Bryant]

No, they are not.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Yes, they are, because they are set against means-tested benefits. I wish the hon. Gentleman would get his facts right and learn something about the benefits system. We have a system that will enable us to deliver the free school meals to those who are eligible for them, and not to those who are not eligible for them. The reality is that the mess that the Opposition left us is being cleared up and they cannot bear it. They do not even know whether they support universal credit. They flip-flop more on every policy than any other Opposition ever have.

[Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

8. What estimate he has made of the number of people below the threshold for auto-enrolment in a workplace pension.

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[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)]

Our reforms have ended a situation in which migrant workers had indefinite access to jobseeking benefits, which we inherited from the previous Labour Government. Since April, we have banned access to housing benefit. From July, migrant workers will have their claims to jobseeker’s allowance stopped if they have claimed for six months and cannot show that they have found employment. I intend to tighten this up further still.

[Mr Ruffley]

I am grateful for that reply. I congratulate the Secretary of State on the tougher habitual residence test and the new minimum earnings guarantee. Has he received support from European partners for his tougher approach to curb benefit tourism, and are they taking further steps to move the approach forward?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I am in discussions with colleagues from various countries in the European Union. Many of them, including the Dutch and the Germans, have made it clear that they essentially support our direction of travel and that some kind of change must be made to the regulations. The German Chancellor made Germany’s position clear, saying that the EU is “not a social union” and there cannot be de facto immigration into other EU social systems.

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

19. What estimate he has made of the number of people who will receive face-to-face guidance at the point of retirement in 2015-16.

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[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)]

Today I welcome the National Audit Office’s positive response to the report on the child maintenance scheme, which simplifies the system and helps parents work together in the best interests of their children. There will be further to come on this soon. Already we know that twice as many parents intend to pay direct, even before the second stage of our reforms and ahead of expectation.

[Rehman Chishti]

What support are the Government giving to older workers and their employers in Medway to assist them into work and to build a fairer society?

[Rachel Reeves (Leeds West) (Lab)]

At the start of this year 3,780 people were claiming universal credit. The most recent numbers show that 5,610 people are receiving the benefit. At this rate of progress, how long will it be until the 7.7 million households that are supposed to receive this Government’s flagship benefit, as the Secretary of State originally set out, are receiving it?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

We have already made that clear. To date around 11,000 people are on the pathfinders. We have started a roll-out to another 90 sites beyond the 10 sites where the pathfinder took place. There will be further changes and enhancements, and we expect and believe, according to the plan that we laid out, that everybody eligible will be on the benefit by 2017.

[Rachel Reeves]

I think that is the first time I have not heard the Secretary of State say that his project is on time and on budget, but we still hear total and utter complacency. At the present rate of progress, it will take a staggering 1,052 years before universal credit is fully rolled out. So what do we have? Universal credit delayed, personal independence payments delayed and employment and support allowance delayed. Does not the Secretary of State realise that his incompetence is not only wasting tens and hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money, but causing untold pain and hardship for some of the most vulnerable people in our country?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

As I said, we are rolling out universal credit to 90 sites and we will deliver it safely and carefully, unlike what the Labour Government did with tax credits. To answer the hon. Lady’s general question about what we are doing, this Department and this Government have undertaken the biggest welfare reform programme ever and we are getting more people into work—there are record numbers in work and record falls in unemployment; and we are getting more young people into work and more young people who have been long-term unemployed back into work. The benefit cap means that 42,000 people have been capped, as a result of which 6,000 have moved into work.

On universal credit, 600,000 claimant commitments have been signed. There are 6.9 million people registered for Universal Jobmatch. The Work programme—[Interruption.] She does not want to hear this because these are all records of the success of welfare reform. Through the Work programme, 550,000 people whom the previous Government wrote off and who never got a job are now back in work, and through auto-enrolment under the Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate (Steve Webb), 3.6 million people have moved into a workplace pension. This is a Government who are reforming welfare. The Opposition have no policies, no purpose and no prospects.

[Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

T5. This morning I was with the staff and students of Farleigh college of further education in my constituency, which offers excellent education and training opportunities to young people with autism and other complex conditions. What more can my right hon. Friend do to ensure that we reach the goal of full employment by ensuring that increased opportunities exist for young people with learning disabilities and autism?

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[Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)]

T4. My local citizens advice bureau has been contacted by a young single woman who has been hit by the bedroom tax. After paying her rent and utility bills, she has just 84p a day left to spend on food and toiletries. With eight households for each available one-bedroom property in my area, moving is simply not an option. How can the Secretary of State continue to try to justify a policy that results in such extreme poverty?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

We have given local authorities between £300 million and £400 million for discretionary payments. It is their job to ensure that individuals with particularly difficult circumstances can be helped with that money. The overall policy is very simple. It is about people who are living in accommodation that they do not fully utilise, and about others, including the quarter of a million left by the last Government in overcrowded circumstances and the 1 million people on waiting lists. I do not think that the hon. Lady has ever got up and asked a question about those people. The reality is that this policy will help them to get the accommodation they need to improve their lives, and not waste it on people who do not need it.

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

I hear repeated concerns that there may be targets for benefit sanctions at jobcentres. Will the Secretary of State confirm that that is not the case, and send a clear message to advisers that they should not be seeking to sanction people inappropriately to hit some sort of target? Their aim is to help people.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I can assure my hon. Friend that there is no target on benefit sanctions, that the advisers give benefit sanctions as a last resort, and that the system has a full set of checks and balances. There is a mandatory reconsideration almost immediately of that decision, and then there is the opportunity to appeal. The purpose of a sanction is to help to remind the individual that this taxpayers’ money comes with an obligation to co-operate; to find work by seeking work.

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

T6. Why will the Government not pay universal credit payments to the main carer of children in a family rather than the main earner?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Let us pause and get this absolutely right. The reality is that what the Opposition are now saying is utterly illogical. [Interruption.] Let me give the hon. Lady the figures. What is fascinating is that 93% of cohabiting couples and 98% of married couples share their finances, so most of those people will reach a conclusion. The second point is that we have put safeguards in place within universal credit so that the payments can be nominated as an exception if the carer is to receive the money. Right now, this is about a household getting more money than under the existing systems. This is a benefit that benefits more people, and, honestly, the idea of micro-managing everybody’s lives from Westminster is the kind of absurdity that the Labour party tried when it was in government.

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

It is welcome that youth unemployment has fallen by some 59,000 in the past three months, but I understand that there has been an underspend of some £50 million on the Youth Contract budget. Can my right hon. Friend reassure the House that that money will be spent on supporting young people into work?

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

T8. It is a great shame that Tory Members of Parliament criticised the Trussell Trust and Oxfam—in fact, some might say threatened them—for daring to suggest a link between food poverty and the social security system: the cuts, the delays, the misapplied sanctions and the abolition of the social fund. Will the Secretary of State now accept his responsibility for what has been a 54% increase in the need for food aid in just one year, and commit to working positively with those organisations to see how his Department can help to address the root causes of food poverty?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Inequality is at its lowest since 1986. There are 500,000 fewer people in relative poverty than at the election; 300,000 fewer children in relative poverty than at the election; 200,000 fewer pensioners in relative poverty than at the election; and 450,000 fewer workless households than at the end of 2010. We have done more to help people who are hard up than the hon. Lady’s Government ever did.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

What impact has the Government’s long-term plan had on long-term unemployment, and what representations have the Government received on long-term unemployment from the Opposition?

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[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

I have been here since the beginning of Question Time and may I tell the Secretary of State that I have been sickened—there is no other way to describe my feelings—by his complacent indifference to the agonising hardship suffered by the most vulnerable in our society? He should be ashamed of the policies he is pursuing.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The only sickening thing is the last Government plunging the economy into such a crisis that more people fell into unemployment and hardship as a direct result of the incompetence of the people whom the hon. Gentleman has progressively supported.

[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

Under this Government, how many more women are now in employment?

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

After nine months, fewer than 200 people in Hammersmith and Fulham are on universal credit. This morning the shadow ministerial team visited Hammersmith’s citizens advice bureau to hear directly from my constituents about the catastrophic failure of the Secretary of State’s Department in every area of operation. Is his failure to roll out universal credit just a cover-up of another DWP crisis in the making?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Isn’t that interesting? What a revealing statement. We have endlessly offered the Opposition Front Bench team the opportunity to visit jobcentres where universal credit is rolling out, but only one spokesman went—[Interruption.] No, the shadow Secretary of State never went and is refusing to go. Now she would rather visit citizens advice bureaux than the people who are actually delivering universal credit. Surely that is the most pathetic excuse I have ever heard.

[Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)]

I have a number of very sick constituents who have been pushed into severe financial hardship as a result of unacceptable delays in the PIP process. Some of them are now dependent on food banks. I listened carefully to the Minister earlier, but will he set out a timetable for clearing the backlog for all applicants, not just the terminally ill? What interim support will he offer to those having to wait more than 28 days?

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

Underlying the overly positive spin that Ministers have put on the employment figures is the fact that for the first time ever the majority of families living below the poverty line are in work. What are the Government going to do to make sure that work is always a route out of poverty?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Nothing is more revealing than when the Opposition start claiming that we somehow have to spin the fact that there are more people in work now than when we came into office. We will soon break through the barrier and have the highest proportion of people in work. Unemployment is falling, youth unemployment is falling, and adult unemployment is falling. We do not need to spin facts, because facts in this case tell us that our welfare reforms are working.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—