Oral Answers to Questions
Justin Madders Excerpts(1 year, 3 months ago)
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Mel Stride
The right hon. Gentleman makes a perfectly valid point, but he needs to see this issue in the round. My fellow Ministers have outlined at some length the cost of living support payments that were made available last year and that were announced in the autumn statement and will be available from April onwards. I have already mentioned discretionary housing payments, with £1.6 billion of support since 2011. There is also the household support fund, which gained an extra £1 billion for 2023-24. I look forward to appearing before his Committee at the end of March, where no doubt we can discuss these matters in greater detail.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mel Stride)
As the House knows, the Prime Minister has asked me to review economic inactivity. We have 9 million people who are economically inactive at the moment, and I will be looking closely at all those in that review, not least the long-term sick and disabled, those with caring responsibilities and those over the age of 50 who have retired early.
Justin Madders
Following on from the question from the Select Committee Chair, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms), many of my constituents are required to seek a housing solution in the private rented sector, but cannot afford it due to the freezing of local housing allowance and the increase in rents. Can the Minister have a conversation with his colleagues in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to see whether they can do more to enable councils to widen their lists for the housing register to ensure that people can access housing they can afford?
Mel Stride
I can provide the hon. Gentleman with that reassurance. There are discussions ongoing between officials in my Department and in DLUHC, and we will continue those through time. We are aware of the issue. I have raised the inordinate expense of these measures, but none the less it is important that we look at them closely.
DWP Estate: Office Closures
Justin Madders Excerpts(2 years, 1 month ago)
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Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
It looks as though the Department for Work and Pensions does not believe in levelling up, does not believe in its own rhetoric on jobs, and does not believe in keeping people in work. We hear that offices will be closed in Stoke, Southend, Peterborough, Chesterfield, Aberdeen, Kirkcaldy, Barrow, Bishop Auckland, Doncaster and Burnley, taking jobs out of these communities. Can the Minister answer these questions for the Members in Stoke, in Wellingborough and in Stockton whose communities and constituents will be concerned about the news today? We have heard that up to 12,000 jobs might be affected, but how many of the workers will be able to find new jobs locally within the Department? Can the Minister guarantee that there will no compulsory redundancies?
I appreciate that staff are being informed only this morning, but this is the correct forum for the Minister to answer these important questions. The PSC Union has said that its members are facing spiralling workloads. Is it not the case that the Department actually needs more staff, not fewer? If these closures are allowed to go ahead, we will face the absurd prospect of making staff redundant in one area, while recruiting new staff in another to do exactly the same job. That will be both costly and inefficient, so can the Minister confirm that that will not be allowed to happen?
If these closures go ahead, local communities will be faced with the loss of hundreds of good jobs potentially. Many of the closures are in areas of economic deprivation that can hardly afford to lose good-quality public sector jobs. Will there be a plan to help those communities attract well-paid jobs back to their local areas? This all comes at a time when families and working people are being hit hard by the cost of living crisis made by this Government. The price of petrol, food and energy is still soaring and people are worried about the future. Has there been any assessment of the impact that these job losses will have on the local economy? I think the Minister indicated in his previous answer that there had not been, but I would be grateful if he could confirm that. Has any consideration been given to the effect that this will have on the high streets of the affected towns? Will we see yet more boarded-up buildings? This is the opposite of levelling up; this is levelling down and it is closing down.
David Rutley
We are absolutely committed to bringing forward more jobs. Jobs are being filled and employment is at a record high. We have vacancies. It is important to highlight that the number of front-of-house roles that we are fulfilling has increased significantly. We have taken forward a rapid estate expansion programme over the past two years. We have created 170 new Jobcentre Plus offices. Many colleagues across the House will be beneficiaries of that along with their constituents. By the end of March, that increase will be up to 194, so there will be 831 Jobcentre Plus offices, which is a huge, huge investment. There will also be an increase in work coaches, which will be a real benefit to our customers. As I have said, the roles that we are talking about are back of house. An equality impact assessment has been made—I do not think that I mentioned that earlier. On the impact on communities, on the whole, this will involve a relatively small number of colleagues in particular communities. We want to make sure that we support those people back into work. For the vast majority, there are jobs close by, and we will help them to transition into those areas. For those who do not have jobs close by, we will give them the support that they need.
Draft Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers' Compensation) (Payment of Claims) (Amendment) Regulations 2022
Draft Mesothelioma Lump Sum Payments (Conditions and Amounts) (Amendment) Regulations 2022
Justin Madders Excerpts(2 years, 2 months ago)
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Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
I believe that this is the first time I have appeared before you in the Chair, Dr Huq, so I will do my best to make sure that it is a memorable occasion for us both.
I thank the Minister for introducing the regulations. As she set out, the mesothelioma regulations amend the Child Maintenance and Other Payments Act 2008 and the pneumoconiosis regulations amend the Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers’ Compensation) Act 1979. As we heard, both Acts make provision for lump compensation payments to be made to people suffering from specific dust-related diseases or their dependants, provided that they meet the conditions of entitlement. I note that as of 1.30 pm today both statutory instruments had still not been assigned numbers and the explanatory memorandums appeared in draft form on the Government website. I hope that that can be addressed.
As we have heard, today’s regulations uprate the amount of compensation paid to disease sufferers or their dependants by 3.1%. I note that the Government have reviewed the rates to maintain their value in line with inflation, as measured by the September 2021 consumer prices index, and in line with disability benefits. Although we recognise that the Government are under no obligation to do any uprating under either Act, we believe that it is vital to continue to support people affected by these awful diseases and their families and that annual uprating is necessary. Having said that, it is worth noting that, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth) has already stated, uprating in line with inflation last September does not really reflect the true position that we are now in, given that inflation is likely to be around 6% for much of the course of the year according to the Bank of England. The uprating therefore reflects a real-terms cut.
The cost of living crisis has been debated in this place many times already this year and will no doubt be discussed again. As the regulations are not amendable, we cannot substitute the figure of 3.1% for something more akin to reality, but I believe it shows how once again the Government have struggled to recognise the very real financial pressures people face.
As we have heard this afternoon, mesothelioma is an invasive type of cancer caused by prior exposure to asbestos and for which there is currently no cure. It grows in the pleural membrane that lines the outside of the lung and the inside of the chest. Less commonly, it can also affect a similar lining around the abdomen or heart. It can take a long time to develop, as we have heard, with the first symptoms sometimes appearing 30 to 40 years after exposure. Patients experience complex debilitating symptoms and often have a short life expectancy. Of course, that presents real difficulties for those who develop the disease in being able to pursue a legal remedy.
The Health and Safety Executive reports that the UK has the highest rate of mesothelioma in the world and mortality rates have more than quadrupled in the past 30 years, with the disease being more common in certain parts of the country, reflecting the location of industries such as shipbuilding where asbestos was frequently used. Sadly, it is estimated that about 2,500 people die of the disease every year. Over the next 30 years, some 60,000 people will die of mesothelioma in the UK unless new treatments are found.
Pneumoconiosis refers to a group of lung diseases caused by inhaling dust. Common types include asbestosis; coal workers’ pneumoconiosis, caused by breathing in coal mine dust; and silicosis, caused by breathing in respirable silica and typically affecting industries such as quarrying, foundries and potteries. As with mesothelioma, there is a long delay between exposure and the onset of the disease. The Health and Safety Executive estimates that overall 12,000 deaths each year are linked to occupational lung disease.
I pay tribute to organisations such as Mesothelioma UK, the British Lung Foundation and Macmillan Cancer Support, which raise awareness and provide ongoing support for individuals and their families who are affected by these terrible diseases.
We know that before the dangers of asbestos were known it was frequently used for insulation, roofing and flooring in commercial buildings and homes. Indeed, it has been used in this very building and I recall my grandfather telling me how they used to use it as a snowball when he was at work. It was clearly very commonly used and we are still reaping the consequences today, but it was not banned until the Asbestos (Prohibitions) (Amendment) Regulations 1999. That means that buildings constructed up until the turn of the century might still have asbestos in them. Many colleagues will be aware that unfortunately those who worked in industries such as building and construction from the 1970s to the 1990s may still experience the consequences of exposure to asbestos, but those consequences are not limited to people who worked in those industries. For example, the National Education Union found that at least 319 teachers have died from mesothelioma since 1980, 205 of whom died after 2001. That is a staggering statistic and highlights the pervasiveness of asbestos in many of our buildings.
As we have noted, the Government are not under any obligation to uprate the payments, but it is clear that Members have asked on many occasions whether future increases could be made automatically rather than at the discretion of Parliament. One of the Minister’s predecessors agreed to consider that proposal, and I wonder the Minister can update us on that point. We have been told previously that automatic uprating would not be sensible because it would prevent debate, but when the yearly debate consists of very much the same issues being raised again and again, that argument appears a little artificial. Members are more than capable of raising issues in several ways through debates and in other forums. I hope that the Government will address the issue of automatic uprating, because it would not reduce Members’ ability to raise specific issues. It would also send a powerful message that, while no amount of money will compensate for the suffering and loss caused by the diseases, the Government are committed as a matter of course to ensuring that support is provided to those entitled to it.
It would also provide security to those affected if they knew that the uprating would apply each year without fail. That is especially important when those in receipt of payments may already have experienced a long and stressful wait for their assessment and gone through what can sometimes be a challenging and distressing assessment process. Members will be aware from experiences with their constituents that the process is not necessarily adapted to individuals’ needs, and the one size fits all approach can sometimes ignore irrefutable medical evidence. The Minister has set out some of the changes that have been made, but security for individuals from having their payments automatically uprated would be an important step forward, and the least that they deserve.
The hon. Member for Glasgow South West raised the issue of equalisation of lump sum payments to victims’ dependants. According to the Asbestos Victims Support Group Forum, figures from 2019-20 showed that a 77-year-old with mesothelioma would receive £14,334 if they claimed themselves, but if they died before claiming —as we know can happen with such aggressive and difficult to diagnose cancers—their surviving partner or dependant would receive just £7,949, which is just over half. That issue has been raised by Members year after year in these debates.
Chris Stephens
I thank the hon. Gentleman, who is my good friend, for raising this important issue. I remind the Committee that the Government committed in 2010 to look at the disparity and to equalise the situation. Twelve years is too long and we need action now.
Justin Madders
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, which highlights the point that we have these debates every year and the same issues continue to be raised. The Government are sympathetic, as indicated by previous commitments, but action is missing. The Minister has said that she will write to the hon. Gentleman after the debate, and I hope that she will share that correspondence with the rest of the Committee, because this is an important issue that needs addressing. It will not go away; we will continue to raise it on an annual basis.
When the Minister responds to this debate, will she comment on a response given to a written question tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan) on this matter? He was told:
“It is right that available funding is prioritised where it is needed most, that is to people living with these diseases.”
Will the Minister explain whether she agrees with that assessment; when she will be able to give us a timetable for when any change in the Government’s position on the matter can be expected; and what recent estimates have been made of the cost of providing equal payments to sufferers and their dependants? I feel that that may well be what is behind the inertia on the Government Benches. Furthermore, given that the difference in payments often affects women whose husbands were directly exposed to asbestos, will the Minister tell us whether there has been any equality impact assessments in respect of the lack of parity in payments?
I conclude by urging the Minister to reflect on the issues that hon. Members have raised and to address them, so that we do not have to come back next year and debate them all over again.
Oral Answers to Questions
Justin Madders Excerpts(3 years, 3 months ago)
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Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Justin Tomlinson)
People who are advised to shield and are unable to work from home may be furloughed. Those who are not furloughed may be eligible for a range of other financial support, including statutory sick pay and new-style employment and support allowance, both of which remain payable from day one of a claim. Where eligible, a claim may also be made to universal credit.
Justin Madders
Many disabled people are on legacy benefits, which of course means they have not had the £20 a week universal credit uplift that has been made available. As the Government did not vote against our motion last week to retain that payment, I presume that they understand the value of retaining it, so will they now do the right thing and ensure that all disabled people have access to that extra cash?
Justin Tomlinson
We have shown as a Government the support we are providing, including over £9 billion of extra welfare support. Those on legacy benefits will have benefited from the annual uprating. Depending on individual circumstances, if a claimant would be better on universal credit, they can look to transfer over.
Oral Answers to Questions
Justin Madders Excerpts(3 years, 8 months ago)
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Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mims Davies)
Unemployment was little changed over the second quarter, with the latest official Office for National Statistics figures showing unemployment at 1.3 million. This is due to the unprecedented package of support the Chancellor put in place, protecting millions of jobs through the coronavirus job retention scheme and the self-employment income support scheme. We do recognise there are difficult times ahead, but our ambitious £30 billion plan for jobs will support people during the next phase of our recovery, as we build back better and greener.
Mims Davies
I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising the need for local interventions in his constituency. I must say that his local jobcentre is doing fantastic work, particularly working with young people, and already has new dedicated work coaches to help people as they look to get back into work. We have a new virtual jobs board as well, and we are also working on a local place-based plan to help fill roles in sectors which we already could not fill coming into this, particularly in care homes. There are also roles with the DWP, which start next week, for people to apply for. But I do not think that keeping people in suspended animation and not giving them hope for the future is the way forward.
Justin Madders
There is no doubt that the unemployment situation, bad as it is, would have been so much worse had it not been for the various schemes the Minister has talked about, which is why it is such a catastrophic error for the Government to end the furlough scheme in October. With that in mind, can the Minister tell us what estimate the Department has made of the level of unemployment this coming Christmas?
Mims Davies
That is exactly why we have our plan for jobs—a £30 billion scheme, including £2 billion for the kickstart scheme. I am going to be boring about this, Mr Speaker. There is so much good work going on in the DWP and our JCPs locally to tackle what the hon. Gentleman has spoken about. There was an amazing opportunity just recently in his constituency regarding sector-based work academy programmes, and new virtual jobs fairs for kickstart are coming up in his constituency, as is more recruitment to help people get back into work, which will start near him next week. We are absolutely determined, with our plan for jobs, to see off that tsunami and give people the right skills and opportunities for the future.
Oral Answers to Questions
Justin Madders Excerpts(4 years, 3 months ago)
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Will Quince
Absolutely. Income inequality has been falling under this Government in real terms, and the national living wage will rise to £8.72 in April and to £10.50 by 2024. My hon. Friend rightly points out that our tax changes have made basic-rate taxpayers over £1,200 better off than in 2010. We have doubled the free childcare available to working parents of three and four-year-olds to 30 hours per week, saving them up to £5,000 per year per child.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Will Quince)
A record 32.9 million people are in work in this country, up by over 3.8 million since 2010. Universal credit has successfully rolled out and is now available in every jobcentre, with a caseload of 2.8 million claimants. We continue to build evidence on the experiences of claimants through our ongoing programme of research and evaluation. The next phase of delivery is to learn how to safely move people across from legacy benefits, which we are doing through our “Move to UC” pilot.
Justin Madders
I have some extra information for the Minister’s research and evaluation. A problem regularly raised in my constituency surgeries is that claimants who receive two payslips in one month find themselves in real difficulty the following month. That is happening far too often for it to be loaded on individuals. Can something be done to alleviate these difficulties?
Will Quince
The hon. Gentleman characteristically asks a very good question. Universal credit is based on real-terms earnings information, so it is a complex problem. We are subject to litigation on this matter, so I cannot go into too much detail, but I would be happy to meet him at a later point to discuss this issue further. I am keen to find a solution.
Endometriosis Workplace Support
Justin Madders Excerpts(4 years, 6 months ago)
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Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke) on securing the debate and on the excellent way in which he introduced it. As many Members know, I have spoken in the past about the challenges that my wife faces as a fibromyalgia sufferer, and I can see many parallels between the two conditions, given the debilitating physical symptoms and their unpredictability, as well as the lack of understanding from the public and employers about the conditions and the delays in getting a diagnosis.
I want to speak briefly about the experience of a person I spoke to who suffers from endometriosis. She told me that before she was diagnosed she had regular periods of extreme pain, which she described as more severe than giving birth. She said the contraction-like pains would last for several days a month, which made it difficult for her to look after her children and go to work, yet she did not feel that she could take time off for what her GP described as bad period pains. She went back and forth to her GP for three years and was given increasing amounts of pain medication. Outrageously, she was told that, as a woman in her 40s, she was not expected to have to put up with it for much longer. I simply cannot believe that was the advice. She was eventually diagnosed and had treatment, and she is now on the mend.
Endometriosis UK has called for those with the condition to have access to statutory sick pay. As it stands, the current definition of SSP penalises people with chronic long-term conditions such as endometriosis, whose symptoms can be experienced over many years. What about people who work in the gig economy? How realistic is it for people in agency work or on zero-hours contracts to take time off when they are suffering, knowing that they may not get a call back when the next shift becomes available? We need to think about wider protections.
We also need to make it easier for employers to feel comfortable in talking about endometriosis with their staff, who will hopefully feel more supported if they can have an open dialogue. An endometriosis-friendly employer scheme would be helpful in that respect and would effectively mean people could manage their conditions better in the workplace. Some of the examples given by the right hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell about how people have been treated in the workplace show that there is an awfully long way to go.
This is a good opportunity for the Government, and for Parliament, to lead by example and become endometriosis-friendly employers. I would be happy if we could support that scheme. We must step up the fight here to ensure that all women who suffer from that terrible condition have the support they need in the workplace. That means strengthening workplace protection so that women do not feel that they need to fight their employer as well as the condition itself.
Child Maintenance Service: Payment Recovery from Absent Parents
Justin Madders Excerpts(4 years, 7 months ago)
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Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
Thank you for calling me, Mr Owen. It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair.
All Members here will recognise that this issue is an important matter that comes up in surgeries week after week. We know that the maintenance service is vital to ensure children do not enter poverty. One lone parent in four is vulnerable to poverty, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, so it is critical that those payments are delivered on time. Simply, when the system fails, it fails the children we are trying to protect.
It saddens me that progress in improving the payments seems to be slow. I met the Minister earlier this year and I was impressed by his commitment and dedication to improving things, but we still come across issues all too frequently. Cases of non-payment are commonplace. Non-payment problems seem to arise particularly when parents switch from the collect-and-pay service to direct pay. There needs to be greater recognition of the long history of the parent’s paying record, rather than the small period when they are on direct pay. Too often, matters deteriorate again when they switch back to direct payments, which can make things worse for everyone, because arrears—sometimes of several thousand pounds—begin to accrue, which makes it even harder for commitments to be honoured.
I understand that a third of paying parents were non-compliant in the first quarter of this year, which demonstrates that my constituents’ experiences are not isolated. The level of arrears appears to be creeping up; more than £275 million of arrears was recorded in the first quarter. That suggests that some of the measures that the Government have introduced need further refinement.
In particular, there seems to be a lack of effective enforcement. My constituents tell me that the CMS appears more concerned with meeting the priorities of the paying parent than those of the receiving parent. That is probably an incorrect perception, but it is how they feel. There is also sometimes a feeling that some payment is better than no payment at all and that a hands-off approach with the parent seems to arise, which leads to greater arrears accruing.
All too often, my constituents experience unreasonably long delays in dealing with complaints, which not only cause emotional and financial stress, but leave parents without the support they are entitled to. Those payments matter. It is vital that, whatever challenges the CMS faces, it is effective in supporting children. Every organisation makes mistakes and I am not here to harangue it for those mistakes, but too often it seems that, even when an error has been identified, the culture of the organisation is too defensive, there is little candour and it takes too long to put things right.
Child Maintenance Service
Justin Madders Excerpts(4 years, 9 months ago)
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Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir Edward. I congratulate the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day) on securing this important debate, and on his comprehensive introduction to the subject. Like him and other hon. Members, I receive many complaints about the Child Maintenance Service. It is one of the constant themes in constituency surgeries—so much so that I recently took the opportunity in business questions to call for a debate on whether the service is meeting expectations. In my view, it often falls short. Following that request, the Minister’s predecessor invited me to come and meet him—to his credit, he took an active interest in the issues I raised, and I was impressed by his commitment to refine and update the system. It is true that there is a very difficult balance to be struck, and there are always examples of where the system is not working, so I welcome the opportunity to raise certain issues.
My constituents feel that the system is not doing as well as it could do. It is no exaggeration to say that the issues I will raise are matters that my caseworker and I were progressing through only last Friday. It seems to be a common theme that issues arise very frequently. It is not good enough, for a service that is supposed to support vulnerable people at their time of need. In an ideal world we would not need such a service because parents could reach an agreement between themselves, with no third-party involvement, and stick to those arrangements. However, we do not live in an ideal world, and it is quite often necessary for the Child Maintenance Service to get involved. It hopefully ensures, at least in theory, that the parents contribute to the cost of bringing up their children after a relationship has broken down.
Meeting the needs of children should be the most important thing. The reality is that child maintenance is a vital source of income for many families, especially those on low incomes. Gingerbread reports that child maintenance lifts a fifth of low-income, single-parent families out of poverty, so we cannot underestimate the impact that a good system has on improving children’s lives.
It is deeply concerning that we have several cases of non-payment at the moment. Of course, constituents do not come and see us to say that the payments are all going through smoothly. I am sure that hon. Members have very similar experiences—I am particularly talking about cases in which the paying parent has been on the collect and pay service, but after six months of compliance they request a move to direct pay, to avoid the fees that the collect and pay service incurs. Unfortunately, we often find that payments are not received once the paying parent has moved back to direct pay, leaving the receiving parent having to chase the matter through the Child Maintenance Service until it refers the case back again to collect and pay. That whole process can often result in several months of no maintenance payments being received; obviously, that can leave parents financially vulnerable. That is not just the case for my constituents; Gingerbread said in its survey that receiving parents are often forced into lengthy, time-consuming efforts to recover late payments.
Much more consideration should be given to the history of payments before it is agreed that someone can leave the collect and pay service. A history of many years of non-payment or late payments should not be disregarded just because of six months of compliance where compulsion is involved. Non-payment leads to arrears, which in the worst case can run to thousands of pounds and can add additional difficulties in getting regular payments made on time.
Although the Government have introduced measures to improve enforcement and collection of arrears, I am concerned that the level of arrears is creeping up. The lack of effective enforcement could be a cause, which would not surprise me since some of my constituents feel that the Child Maintenance System is often more concerned about meeting the priorities of the paying parent than the receiving parent. It seems to take the view that some payment is better than no payment at all, and it does not want to push the paying parent too hard for fear of losing everything. I understand that anxiety, but it can be interpreted as a desire to limit the number of cases administered through the collect and pay service. That view is bolstered by the Department’s evidence to the Select Committee on Work and Pensions in 2017, in which it said that it knew that some parents were staying in an ineffective direct pay arrangement rather than moving to collect and pay.
The 25% threshold for changes in income that has to be reached before payments are recalculated is artificially high. If someone gets an annual cost-of-living pay rise each year, it could be a decade before a recalculation is needed.
My constituents are experiencing unreasonably delays with the complaints resolution team. In one case, we have been waiting two months for a response from the Child Maintenance Service. Despite regular chasing in another case, we have been waiting three months for a decision on reimbursement that was referred to the service by the Minister’s predecessor some time ago. Such long delays cause unnecessary emotional and financial stress, leaving the parent without the day-to-day support that they are trying to recover.
Finally, I would like to say a little about my caseworkers. We all benefit from the hard work of caseworkers, and I pay tribute to those who, day in, day out, work very hard for the people for Ellesmere Port and Neston. When they raise child maintenance issues, they usually use the MP correspondence unit in the first instance. However, there are occasions when the issue is more about the way the legislation works. In that case, it is appropriate for me to raise those matters with the Minister directly. However, my caseworkers find that even in those cases, they are sometimes referred to the director of the Child Maintenance Group rather than the Minister. That leads me to question whether the Minister sees the issues raised. I hope that the Minister, if he remains the Minister—he could be elevated to much-deserved higher office very shortly—will investigate those concerns.
I should make it clear that the Child Maintenance Service is operating far more effectively than the Child Support Agency did. I have an example of how poor the old system was. A constituent’s income had significantly increased but the CSA did not carry out any recalculation, so he assumed that he did not need to increase his maintenance payments. When his son reached 18 and his case was closed, it decided to recalculate and found that he owed £17,000. He clearly owed that money, but because the system did not work properly, he is now paying his ex-wife a considerable amount every month for the care of his son who is now an adult and living with him. That is an absurd situation, which I hope we will not see under the new regime.
With child benefit and child tax credits frozen since 2016, child poverty on the rise and nearly half of all children in lone-parent families in poverty, it is vital that we get this right. The Child Maintenance Service must deliver, and it must do so promptly, reasonably and fairly.
Department for Work and Pensions
Justin Madders Excerpts(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
I welcome this opportunity to scrutinise the DWP’s spending, because when I sit in my surgery, week after week, listening to the stories of people living in poverty and struggling to survive while facing a continual battle with the benefits system, I find myself wondering just where nearly a quarter of all Government spending is going. It is certainly not reaching the people who need it most in my constituency. People have had overpayments, underpayments, long initial waiting periods, inaccessible and complex online forms that lead to uncompleted claims, a lack of support with claims, and cruel disability benefits tests, with fines consistently being overturned at appeal.
We have had plenty of debates about universal credit, and it is not working. The five-week wait for initial payment is driving people into poverty, debt and rent arrears, forcing them to turn to food banks to survive. We have already heard about the number of people using food banks. In my constituency, like everywhere else in the country, the numbers are going up year on year at an alarming rate. Despite the Government’s claim that nobody will be worse off under universal credit, we now know, thanks to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, that 1.9 million adults will be at least £1,000 worse off.
While the Office for Budget Responsibility’s report at the start the year upheld the Government claim that 1 million ESA households will, on average, receive an extra £110 a month, it also showed that exactly the same number of ESA households will lose, on average, £217 a month. It is no wonder, therefore, that the UN special rapporteur, Professor Philip Alston, accused Ministers of window dressing to minimise the political fallout. That is both damning and shaming.
I have spoken on many occasions about the cruel, unfair disability benefits tests that my constituents have to go through, and for what? Record numbers of people are winning appeals against the Department, and it just looks like the whole process is a stick to beat people with. As we have heard, more than 70% of personal independence payment and employment and support allowance appeals will find in favour of the claimant. One of my constituents was assessed five times in eight years of being on ESA, and despite being found fit for work each time, they won every time on appeal. How flawed must the assessment process be to be so consistently wrong? How can the cost of defending five separate appeals be justified when the decision is the same each time?
More than 16,000 appeals have overturned a PIP decision in the first three months of this year, and nearly three quarters of the 22,000 that went through a tribunal also ruled against the DWP. Waiting times for a PIP appeal are coming up to a year in my constituency—nearly a year in which some of the most vulnerable people in our society are denied the financial support that they need. Things can get worse, because if they have a Motability vehicle, they can lose that as well. I met someone last week who clearly could not get to her job on public transport, but she now faces losing her car due to a PIP assessment. I have little doubt that she will win her appeal, but what consolation will that be if she loses her job in the meantime?
Alison McGovern
Does my hon. Friend agree that this poor decision making fatally undermines the relationship between the citizen and the state, and that it must make his constituents wonder what kind of country we live in?
Justin Madders
I thank my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for her intervention. I do sometimes wonder what kind of country we live in when vulnerable people feel the cards are so stacked against them that it is not even worth their while to appeal. Those are the people who come to see me. I do not know what happens to the people who are so beaten down by the system that they just give up, which I feel is the unintended consequence—or possibly the intended consequence—of this policy time after time.
We know that the cost of successful PIP appeals was £27 million last year. ESA is not included in that figure, but 74% of those claims were successful, too. Let us not forget the figures I uncovered towards the end of last year, which show that the Department is not even turning up to four in five appeal hearings. We know what would happen if my constituents did not turn up to four in five appointments with the DWP: they would be sanctioned straightaway.
I also hear from parents whose children are not eligible for free school meals because their household income is just a little too high, and they are struggling to provide their children with a school lunch because they cannot afford it. Many of these families are struggling to make ends meet.
We now come across parents who are eligible for help but who are not getting it due to the complicated application process and the long waiting times. I have constituents who, in the period before the first universal credit payment is made, are desperate for support but are told that they are not eligible for free school meals. Surely we can do this better and provide eligibility for free school meals when the universal credit application is made, rather than waiting until the first payment comes through.
Briefly, on access to benefits for people at the end of life, the current special rules for terminal illness—SRTI—exclude many people with terminal illnesses. I am meeting the Minister next week to discuss this, and I hope we have a constructive conversation, but I raise it now so that people are aware of some of the difficulties and of the money and time being wasted on inappropriate and unnecessary assessments.
Only 45% of people with motor neurone disease are claiming personal independence payment under SRTI. The majority of people in that situation are still using the standard claims route, which is inappropriate for their situation. They are required to fill in a long form, attend a face-to-face assessment and then wait weeks before the benefits are received.
Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)
I commend the hon. Gentleman for his speech. Is he aware of Social Security Scotland’s plans to ensure that all medical evidence is available to decision makers at the application stage, so that a correct decision can be taken without the need for often demeaning, demoralising and horrible assessment processes such as the one he describes? Will he support my call for the UK Government to follow Scotland’s lead?
Justin Madders
The hon. Gentleman makes a helpful suggestion. Certainly those who have, by definition, a very short time to get these matters sorted due to terminal illness should have as much of the process done at an early stage to avoid such difficulties.
It is highly insensitive that people who have been diagnosed with what can be a devastating condition that will end their life, possibly within 12 months, have to face this extra hoop-jumping when they should be focusing on spending what time they have left with their loved ones.
The majority of people with motor neurone disease are awarded the enhanced rate of PIP anyway, so we need to make it easier for them to claim through SRTI instead of the standard route, which many are currently going down. There are a number of helpful suggestions that we can discuss with the Minister next week.
My hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) spoke passionately and eloquently about the Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign. She rightly drew attention to the scandal, which will not go away. The WASPI women are there, and they are growing in number. She is right that, while the Tory leadership candidates continue to spaff cash up the wall with spending promises on tax cuts for the most well off in society, for big corporations and for whatever else they decide when they wake up in the morning, it is damning that not one penny has been committed in the leadership hustings to the WASPI women.
Ultimately, it comes down to priorities, and it is clear that WASPI women are not a priority for this Government and will not be a priority for the new Prime Minister, either. The hardship, the injustice and the erosion of the contributory principle that underpins the welfare state are clearly not a priority for this Government, and it is to their shame that they continue to ignore this campaign in the face of overwhelming evidence that a real injustice is being done.