Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 13th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Tom Pursglove)]

No final decisions have been made. We have had the consultation and we will respond appropriately in the normal way.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

May we have specific detail on the help that jobcentres are giving to armed forces veterans, who must live with the consequences of decisions made by Governments?

[Mims Davies]

A very pertinent point after the weekend when we paid tribute in our local communities and after what we saw on the Elizabeth Tower. The DWP continues to work to identify universal credit claimants who are members of the armed forces community, with 11 dedicated forces champion leads and over 50 armed forces champions across our jobcentre network working with spouses and partners, too.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Pursglove]

I hear the point that the hon. Lady has raised. We have, of course, had the consultation, and many views were expressed. We will now consider those views very carefully, and come forward as appropriate in the normal way.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. May I take advantage of a rather quiet news day to ask if there is any way in which I can place on record the appreciation of right hon. and hon. Members for the wise advice, quiet efficiency and unfailing courtesy of Mr Peter Barratt, who recently left the service of this House after more than 30 years?

[Mr Speaker]

I made a statement last week to thank Mr Barratt for all his service, so it has not gone unnoticed and has certainly not been forgotten.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 13th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Guy Opperman]

The hon. Lady will be aware that we spend £2 billion on the winter fuel payments. There is also the cold weather payments fund, the household support fund, and the pension credit energy rebate. There are a whole host of ways in which support can be found for her constituents.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I know my right hon. and hon. Friends in the ministerial team are doing their best, but is there any encouragement they can give, perhaps in conjunction with the Treasury, to the women of the Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign who lost out on the state pension start age?

[Guy Opperman]

With respect to my right hon. Friend, that matter has been decided in the courts on two occasions—in the High Court and in the Court of Appeal—and it is not proposed to change the policy.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 9th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Although face-to-face reassessments are very important in the normal processing of claims, do the Government accept that people living with and suffering from terminal diseases should be exempted from the stress that such reassessments impose?

[Justin Tomlinson]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. We can typically turn around those applying under the special rules for terminal illness process within six days, ensuring that those who are most in need of support get it as quickly and as swiftly as possible.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 7th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Ah yes, the good doctor—Dr Julian Lewis.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I accept everything that the Minister just said, but does he accept that successive Governments, despite their best efforts, failed to get the message across to enough people that the retirement age for women was rising exponentially? Will the Government try to look at some of the proposals from people such as Baroness Altmann for ways in which alternative schemes could mitigate the problems that have resulted?

Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 7th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma]

As I said in answer to an earlier question, 75% of the jobs created since 2010 are indeed in high-level occupations which attract higher wages, but of course we need to do more and that is why the Government are investing in apprenticeships for both young and more mature workers. We are also investing in a national retraining scheme and technical skills. That is what is going to create support for individuals looking for jobs in the market right now.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

How do our low unemployment levels compare with those of France and other countries unfortunate enough to be trapped in the eurozone?

[Alok Sharma]

That is a typically forthright question from my right hon. Friend. To compare rates, in France the unemployment rate is over 9% I believe, but of course the other incredibly important progress we have made is in youth unemployment. That has been almost halved since 2010, thanks to the work we have been doing in government.

Universal Credit

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 5th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call a Member not given to perambulation—Dr Julian Lewis.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I am not certain what the attitude towards gambling is in the Secretary of State’s household, but would she care to place a bet that if the universal credit system is up and running and if, heaven forbid, the Labour party comes into government, it will be most unlikely to replace it with a mish-mash of different cross-cutting benefits such as existed previously?

[Ms McVey]

That is a very good question, because it seems that Opposition Members do not really know what they are going to do. It seems that the shadow Chancellor is going to get rid of it and the shadow Secretary of State is not really sure, but I know that in the Lords, they want to keep it. Perhaps when the next person stands up, they will tell us exactly what the Opposition Front Benchers are going to do with universal credit.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 26th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Guy Opperman]

I will answer this question in detail tomorrow, when I have more time. Anyone considering transferring their pension should speak to the Pensions Advisory Service.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

The good doctor is a clever bloke; I am sure that he can blurt it out in a sentence.

[Dr Lewis]

Does the Minister agree that people who use cold-calling to cheat others out of their pensions are the lowest form of pond life, and will he arrange for criminal sanctions to be visited upon them?

[Guy Opperman]

Yes, yes and Project Bloom, a City of London police operation to ensure that we stop scammers, has brought many prosecutions—pending and future.

Housing and Social Security

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Thursday 22nd June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, as Deputy Speaker Sir David—albeit fleetingly, perhaps. I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows). I did not agree with all her points, but I thought that the collaborative tone of her response to the Grenfell Tower tragedy set the tone that the public want and expect to see in the House.

I commend the Gracious Speech. I am not going to labour the point on Brexit, except to make two brief points. First, the ex-remainers who continue to increase the demands that we should make on our European partners for concessions as we leave the European Union are actually making it harder to get any deal at all, because the more we demand and the more concessions we want, the more we will be accused of cherry-picking. The EU has made it very clear that—to paraphrase Michel Barnier—we cannot enjoy the benefits of membership and not be in the EU. Perhaps the ex-remainers have a plan to make so many demands that will not be granted to us in the hope that the country will decide, “Well, maybe we shouldn’t leave the EU after all.” I put it to them that if there is any idea that we are going to try to reverse the decision taken by the British people in the referendum, that would be an incendiary decision for the House to take.

Secondly, we keep hearing about a cliff edge. What is this cliff edge? It seems to me to be a continuation of the fear campaign that is now so discredited. There is obviously not going to be a comprehensive trade agreement within two years—to that extent, we are not going to have a deal—but are we seriously suggesting that the EU is so insane that it will not make the same kind of arrangements on aviation, data protection, intellectual property, customs facilitation or product recognition on standards that it makes with 100 or 150 other countries with which it does not have a trade deal? I prefer to regard the EU as a bit more constructive than that; indeed, the EU has said that it wants to be constructive and does not want to punish us. If we leave without a comprehensive trade deal, we will have an agreement about lots of detailed things that will enable goods to flow across the Northern Ireland border, just as goods flow across the border between Canada and the United States without the lorries stopping, as my right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson) said.

I commend the Gracious Speech because I am delighted to see that it contains a draft patient safety Bill, which is the result of a 2015 recommendation on clinical incident investigation by the Public Administration Committee, which I chaired at the time. I had hoped to see a draft Bill on reform of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, which the Committee described as “stuck in time” in our report entitled, “Time for a People's Ombudsman Service”. If we are going to introduce a public advocate for public disasters, is it going to be a statutory body? Would it not be a good idea to combine ombudsman reform with a new public advocate statutory function?

I wish to talk about the response to the Grenfell Tower fire and to raise some issues relating to how a public inquiry could be established. Just this year, in February, the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee produced a report called “Lessons still to be learned from the Chilcot Inquiry”. We drew on previous reports produced under the chairmanship of Dr Tony Wright. Public confidence in public inquiries is not to be taken for granted. As well as Chilcot, we looked at other inquiries that lost public confidence, including the child sex abuse inquiry, and at the length of time that it took for the Saville inquiry in Northern Ireland to report. We recommended that a public inquiry should not be established unless the House has voted for it, on an amendable motion dealing with the remit, the timetable and the chairmanship, and that before such a motion is debated a special Select Committee should be established to consider those matters and report back to the House.

Everyone wants to set up this inquiry as quickly as possible in response to public anger, which is very understandable, but so many public inquiries are set up in haste before their terms of reference are properly considered. The Leveson inquiry, for example, has been regretted because not enough thought was put into it. I do not belong to the tradition of democracy that believes that the elected Government are necessarily the fount of all wisdom, however much I admire the Prime Minister herself.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Is it my hon. Friend’s position that were a Select Committee to look into a terrible tragedy such as this, there might be a better chance of getting a non-partisan analysis that would lead to more information coming forward on the Floor of the House?

[Mr Jenkin]

I am glad that my right hon. Friend has made that intervention, because I want to be absolutely clear. I fully support what the Prime Minister is doing in setting up a public inquiry; what I am suggesting is that a special Select Committee should be established to supervise the setting up of the inquiry, to monitor it and, essentially, to set some timelines. These inquiries take so long because lawyers can always think of new questions and new points to make. We need to put a sense of urgency into these inquiries so that they report on time and do not drag on and on.

I submit that the terms of reference should not be about finding blame. If there are to be prosecutions, there will be prosecutions, but we will not make life better by creating an atmosphere of blame, however understandable it is. I remember that after the Paddington rail crash there was so much blame, but in the end the report did not blame people. The Cullen inquiry was a good inquiry that resulted in far-reaching institutional changes in how safety is managed on the railways. I suspect that we need the same kind of far-reaching reforms on fire safety. We heard from the hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) about the different regulatory arrangements that are scattered across the landscape of housing management.

All those arrangements need to be brought together and considered as a whole, and possibly there should be one new body supervising the safety management of residential property. There should probably be an independent investigatory body to determine the causes of accidents, rather like the air accidents investigation branch of the Department for Transport or the rail accident investigation branch. The healthcare safety investigation branch of the Department of Health is to be established in statute to do the same kind of thing in health. We want to know who is accountable and what lessons need to be learnt. The whole landscape is very confusing at the moment, and that is what this inquiry really has to resolve.

AEA Pension Scheme

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2016 Westminster Hall

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

I am grateful to the former Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my right hon. Friend the Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb), with whom I have dealt on various occasions in even more vexed circumstances. He is absolutely right. The gist of what I am talking about is the advice these pensioners were given at the time they decided to make the transfer. I will go into that in some detail in just a moment.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I thought I would get this in now before my right hon. Friend gets into his flow. My constituent, Dr Keith Brown, wrote to me quite some time ago, saying:

“Our main complaint is that official information provided to us at the time of privatisation did not tell us that the new pension scheme was at a much greater risk of failure than our old UKAEA scheme.”

That seems to be the nub of the problem: what they were and were not told.

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right: that is the nub of the problem—and the nub of the solution is related. It is a good idea to have solutions that relate to problems, and I am going to propose a solution to that particular problem, but let me first enlarge on the point both of my right hon. Friends have just raised, because this is where we get to an extraordinary sequence.

At the time when the pensioners in question were choosing whether to transfer their existing accrued rights from the Government-backed UKAEA scheme into the commercially-backed AEA Technology scheme, they were offered advice by all sorts of people. They were told various things by AEA Technology, the new firm. Needless to say, AEA Technology said the new scheme was wonderful because it wanted to attract people into it. It wanted to do that because anybody who knows about final salary schemes—there are people here who are genuine experts on that—knows that it is necessary to have a large number of employees in such a scheme to make it remotely viable, so AEA Technology had an interest.

I do not know, and I do not suppose we will ever find out, but I suspect that the UKAEA employees—who are not just any old set of employees, they are highly skilled professionals; some of them are extraordinarily clever people—would quite easily have been able to account for the undoubted bias in the advice coming from their prospective employer, so let us forget about that piece of advice. They were also, I think, given a certain amount of steer by UKAEA itself. This is where it gets a little trickier, because UKAEA is a Government body and it had some kind of duty to give people dispassionate and neutral advice. However, UKAEA was in the course of trying to spin off AEA Technology, so it had an interest, too. I genuinely do not know the extent to which the employees did or did not pay attention to whatever they were told by UKAEA. Luckily, for the purposes of the debate, I do not want to dwell on that either, because there is a much more serious issue at stake.

The third set of people from whom the employees received advice—we do not have to speculate about this because it was written, and I am going to describe exactly what it said—was from none other than the Government Actuary’s Department. That is not just any old body. It is the most august body, so far as advice on pensions and pension matters is concerned, in our country. It is exactly what its name says on the tin; it is the Government Actuary’s Department.

The Government Actuary’s Department now has a statement of practice, but at the time it issued that advice it did not. It issued a paper, a copy of which I have in my hand, that discussed transfers from the UKAEA superannuation scheme to the AEA Technology pension scheme. In section 3 of that paper, particularly in subsection 3.2, the Government Actuary’s Department listed what it describes on the contents page as “Advantages of preserving”, which means the advantages of remaining in the UKAEA scheme. Another section describes

“advantages of taking a special transfer value”—

namely, the advantages of moving from the UKAEA scheme to the AEA Technology scheme.

The first strange thing about that is, in section 3, in which the Government Actuary’s Department lists the

“Factors to consider in making the decision”,

and was in particular describing the advantages of preserving the UKAEA scheme benefits—looking at what might influence the employees to remain with the public sector scheme—it said:

“Whilst it is unlikely that the benefit promise made by either the UKAEA Scheme or the AEAT Scheme would ever be broken—”,

and it went on to say that it is even more unlikely that both promises would be broken.

The important point is that not just any old person but the Government Actuary’s Department said it was unlikely that the benefit promise would be broken by either the Government-backed scheme, UKAEA, which is undoubtedly true, or the AEA Technology scheme. I have no doubt that, so far as it went, that statement was accurate, if looked at from the perspective of the date on which the Government Actuary’s Department wrote that it was “unlikely” that the benefit promise would be broken by AEA Technology. Incidentally, I hope the Minister and others will trust me; I am sure the Minister has read the whole thing because I know he has been assiduously preparing for the debate.

What is clear is that nowhere in the rest of the document does the Government Actuary’s Department say what was also patently true—that the risk of the pensioners losing a large part of the value of their pensions if they remained with their accrued rights in the UKAEA scheme was zero, or as near to zero as human beings get. A triple A-rated guarantee from HM Government attended that scheme. No such security was available under the AEA Technology scheme. Commercially-backed schemes do not have a triple A-rated Government-backed guarantee that pensioners will get their money as promised. That is a material difference between the two schemes, and the Government Actuary’s Department, in offering advice to pensioners, had a clear duty to bring out that difference in risk. It did not, and that is the starting point for the compelling argument I will make.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justin Tomlinson]

I pay tribute to the hon. Members for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) and for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle) and my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) for their tenacious and constructive work in this area, which I am delighted to support in full. Subject to the will of Parliament, we intend to make and lay new regulations and, as set out by the Secretary of State, we will write shortly to update Members on that timetable.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Will Department for Work and Pensions Ministers hold discussions quite urgently with civil service and Treasury Ministers about the Conservative manifesto commitment to cap very large redundancy payments? Are they aware of serious concerns that, by including early retirement awards in the capping scheme, we may penalise long-serving but low-paid public employees by a measure rightly intended to limit undeserved golden goodbyes to the very highly paid?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

As my hon. Friend knows, that is really a matter for the Treasury, but I am very happy to undertake such discussions. If he would like to add his extra information on this, I would be very happy to take it.