Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jake Berry and Iain Duncan Smith

Monday 7th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Universal credit actually improves the lot of lone parents dramatically, because the first person into work gets a huge amount more than they would have done under tax credits. Here is the key: I have already said that those who are on universal credit at the moment will be supported by their advisers through the flexible support fund, to ensure that their status does not change.

[Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on protecting the winter fuel payment, but although hundreds of thousands of letters are dropping through people’s letterboxes, figures also show that those who are retired are disproportionately less likely to switch their energy supplier. Will he commit to work with colleagues in the Department of Energy and Climate Change to look at how energy switching details can be included with the winter fuel payment?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jake Berry and Iain Duncan Smith

Monday 2nd November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)]

Given the Government’s ambition to have all benefit claims online by the end of this Parliament, will the Minister update the House on what discussions he has had with internet service providers to ensure that those on low incomes can get online?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The ambition is to get as many claims online as we can, but there will be some people who cannot get online. Under universal credit, we are keen to ensure that people can, if necessary, continue to make paper submissions, and that they will be treated inside jobcentres, but we will get as many online as we can. We have been talking constantly to the providers about how best to do this, and also about matters of security.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jake Berry and Iain Duncan Smith

Monday 22nd June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

As I have said, the problem that we inherited was a tax credit system that rewarded people for doing the wrong things, and parked people who wanted to do better on benefits that allowed them not to do any more hours of work. Universal credit changes that: every hour of work pays. Labour has opposed that root and branch, but then it has opposed every other welfare reform that we have introduced, and all the extra jobs that have come about directly as a result.

[Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)]

Will the Secretary of State take the opportunity to congratulate with me people working in Jobcentre Plus in Rossendale and Darwen who have been involved in the roll-out of universal credit? Having spoken to them and to some of their clients, I can say that universal credit seems to be universally popular.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I thank my hon. Friend for that difficult question. I will, absolutely. Jobcentre Plus staff do fantastic work, do a huge amount to get people back into work, and work with people with difficult conditions, and they welcome universal credit. I will pass on his congratulations to them, and I thank him for asking me to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jake Berry and Iain Duncan Smith

Monday 1st September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I remind the right hon. Gentleman that this Government have got more people back to work, that we now have record levels of employment, that we have cut the deficit and that we are getting the cost of delivering welfare down. We inherited a shambles, and we have turned that around. That is the purpose of government.

[Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating Rossendale jobcentre, which has just signed up nearly 45 people to its work experience programme, including me and my office? The first young person to come through my office on work experience, Liam, has just secured a job because of that work experience.

Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill

Debate between Jake Berry and Iain Duncan Smith

Tuesday 8th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I hear the hon. Lady’s point; I have to say that I do not agree with her. Benefits have risen, but if she would like to talk to those who are in employment on lower incomes in her constituency she would find that many have seen absolutely no rise in their incomes at all, and some even less than that.

[Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)]

On that point, I was approached by a member of Manchester constabulary in my advice surgery recently. He said, “How can you justify putting out-of-work benefits up by 5.2% last year, when I have had a pay freeze and I risk my life every day?” Is that not the nub of the argument? People who are in work have to be treated fairly.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I agree with my hon. Friend. I want to make some progress because he is absolutely right. The reality that Labour will not face up to is that the programme it has put forward is hugely costly.

I want to deal with the programme that Labour put forward in the past week, which I think is in the amendment before the House. I looked at it and it seemed very familiar. I remembered something, looking back over the past 10 years. I went back and had a look at the programme that the shadow Chancellor and his then boss, the then Labour Prime Minister the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) came up with. [Interruption.] I seem to recall that they came up with a programme called StepUp. The right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls) was an adviser at the time. [Interruption.] Well, he was certainly very close to him. Is he now denying—[Interruption.] Well, there we have it finally: he no longer wants to have the former Prime Minister as his friend. More than that, from his sedentary position, he will probably deny that, late in the hour while the then Prime Minister was troubled and in difficulty, he did not come by taxi or by car to consult him and help him out. A denial of a friend is pretty cheap, and I think we will remember that.

The reality is that the StepUp programme, on which the Opposition have clearly based this new programme, was piloted in 20 areas between 2002 and 2004. It was never rolled out nationally, and I want to quote from the evaluation report. The StepUp programme was all about giving paid employment to people who had been out of work for some two years. The report stated:

“StepUp produces a very modest improvement in job entries…but this is below the level of statistical significance.”

In fact, each of those jobs would have ended up costing £10,000—a massive cost for a very small regard. When they did it—[Interruption.] Wait a minute. When they did it—[Interruption.] They do not want to hear about it. They made a bogus announcement and now they do not want to hear how useless it is. The work prospects of under-25s in the pilot got worse as a result of this programme.

Here is what happened. The Opposition were in a hurry during the Christmas recess, worried about being attacked for having no proposals, so the shadow Chancellor said, “Oh, I remember something we did under the man who used to be my friend, but is no longer my friend. I remember we had this programme.” So they decided to put that out and propose raiding pensions savings yet again to pay for a bogus programme. If anyone thinks for one moment that it would help anybody at all, let me tell them that it is more than a joke—it is pathetic. And it is pathetic that they have done it to try to get themselves off the hook.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jake Berry and Iain Duncan Smith

Monday 5th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)]

With 70% of social housing tenants having no access to the internet, will the Secretary of State update the House on what progress he is making for a low or no-cost social housing tariff to be overlaid on the existing BT Basic package to enable social housing tenants to access universal credit online?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

In fact, many more people access the internet daily than a lot of people think. Some 78% of all benefit recipients access the internet, and about 48% do so on a daily basis. Obviously it is our job to try to get that figure up, because if people cannot access the internet that affects their employment prospects given that 92% of all jobs require some computer skills. This is an opportunity and, yes, we are looking at that passported benefit to make sure that those who need the money get the money directly.

Universal Credit and Welfare Reform

Debate between Jake Berry and Iain Duncan Smith

Tuesday 11th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I am not one for discussing what goes on privately. I have been kicking around this game long enough to know that sometimes people like other people to move or be promoted, but some of us are not interested in careers. We reached a settlement and we are very happy—it was a happy discussion. We are a Government of friends, we get on enormously well and we do not need to worry about what everybody else says about us.

[Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)]

I would like to take my right hon. Friend back to the online delivery of the universal credit. Although figures vary, he will be aware that the vast majority of people living in social housing have no access to the internet. BT does a social housing telephone tariff. Will he explore the possibility of a social housing broadband tariff to enable those who want to claim their benefits online to do so?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jake Berry and Iain Duncan Smith

Monday 23rd April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

My hon. Friend raises a good point. That is why the Prime Minister asked specifically that Louise Casey operate and head up a unit, reporting to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, which is looking at the 120,000 worst affected, most difficult families. The idea, as I said earlier, is that, working with her, local authorities nominate the families. She wants them to hub up services to make sure that the pooled amount of money they get is spent on life-changing actions, not the tokenistic box-ticking that too often takes place.

[Jake Berry]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the best way to escape the silo mentality in Government Departments and local authorities is to champion the voluntary sector in helping to support families in areas of multiple deprivation, such as those in my constituency? Home-Start is a fantastic charity that does such work in my area. Will he support it?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jake Berry and Iain Duncan Smith

Monday 14th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)]

In my advice surgery on Friday, a young couple came to see me in Darwen to say that they were £30 a week worse off for living together. It is a shameful legacy of the previous Government that people are worse off for living in couples and worse off when they go back to work. What this couple, and everyone else in Darwen, wants to know is: when will the universal credit end this situation?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

My hon. Friend is right to say that this is one of the most invidious unintended effects of a benefits system, and this country found itself in a worse situation on the couple penalty that most others did because of the interplay and complexity of that benefits system. The universal credit will not immediately end all that, but it will make the situation much better for couples. When couples want to stay together, the Government should never be the thing that forces them apart. The right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) has made that clear and I back him up on it completely.

Welfare Reform

Debate between Jake Berry and Iain Duncan Smith

Monday 11th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I guarantee that we have already reviewed the matter. Indeed, we inherited a review process, which the previous Government initiated. We will bind in the results of that—we are doing that at the moment. Having said that, we have subsequently set up the panel and asked somebody to investigate to ensure that we are covering all the necessary matters. The two pilots will help us understand better the way that the system works. I am not sure what else we can do at this stage. As I said to the right hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mr Alexander), we intend to use what we are discussing as a process—it is not an end point, but a process that allows us to get the best out of how we deal with those who have been on incapacity benefit and need our support and help to get back to work. I give that guarantee.

[Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)]

Is my right hon. Friend aware that many responsible employers, including those in my constituency, ask their staff to attend annual health assessments? Does he agree that it is fair and reasonable for those deemed not fit to work to attend similar assessments rather than wait 10 years on incapacity benefit without seeing a doctor?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

My hon. Friend makes exactly the right point: for too long, Governments of both colours were content to see people parked on incapacity benefit. The subject should unite the House; the previous Government started the process and we want to complete it. It is no longer feasible for people to languish on incapacity benefit. My hon. Friend is right; in some cases, people have not been seen for six or seven years and in others, people self-referred and have never been seen by anybody to find out what is going on. It is high time we resolved that.