Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts
Thursday 30th January 2014

(10 years, 3 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Kerry McCarthy Portrait Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
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I have been slightly pre-empted by other Members mentioning the UK-Russia year of culture. It was reported in December that Sir Ian McKellen was advised by the Foreign Office not to travel to Russia because he is gay. How does the Secretary of State think we can use cultural diplomacy to overcome some of the issues with LGBT rights in Russia, and should we not use people such as Sir Ian and encourage him to go to Russia to make the case?

Maria Miller Portrait Maria Miller
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I am not aware that the FCO would make that sort of advice available to people, although it is obviously important that we advise people on security issues, as we do in relation to many nations. The hon. Lady is right to say that we can use culture and cultural links to advance many human rights issues. When I visited Moscow and St Petersburg in December to discuss the year of culture, I used that opportunity to meet a wide selection of human rights organisations, including those that support people on issues of domestic violence.

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Lord Vaizey of Didcot Portrait Mr Vaizey
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Yes, we have regular meetings with colleagues in the Department for Education, who work tirelessly on the issues of cyber-bullying and bullying in general. It is important to stress that Ofsted now holds schools to account for how well they behave in relation to bullying. It is also important to note, in the spirit of the hon. Lady’s question, that we help teachers to help their pupils, particularly when they are subject to abuse online.

Kerry McCarthy Portrait Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
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I hope that the Minister will be aware of the report from End Violence Against Women, “New Technology: Same Old Problems”. One issue that the report highlighted was the sharing of intimate pictures online, suggesting that even if the person in the photograph had originally consented to it being taken, they ought to have the right to object to it being posted online, and that the internet service provider or the website should co-operate with them in getting it removed.

Lord Vaizey of Didcot Portrait Mr Vaizey
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I am aware of that report, and that is another important issue that is worth raising with social media companies. There is a debate in Europe at the moment on the future of data protection regulations, and it is important to put on the table the issue of people being able to retrieve their data from websites to which they have freely given them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts
Monday 18th November 2013

(10 years, 5 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Iain Duncan Smith Portrait Mr Duncan Smith
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May I say to my hon. Friend that that is exactly what we want to do? We want to make sure that those claiming universal credit can claim it in a number of different places—for example, we are setting up the facility to claim in libraries, in local government offices and also in jobcentres. We will work and are working with post offices to ensure that if people need to make claims from them, particularly in very rural constituencies such as my hon. Friend’s, that facility will be made available as well.

Kerry McCarthy Portrait Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
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T2. Last month, the Secretary of State tried to tell me that lots of people were using food banks simply because they were available and it made sense to do so—adding insult to injury for the many thousands of people who are being forced to use food banks and have been referred to them by agencies because they are recognised as being in desperate need. Has the Secretary of State seen the research commissioned by Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs into the rise of emergency food aid? Why has this been shelved? Is it because it reveals that the Government are at fault for people not being able to feed themselves and their families?

Iain Duncan Smith Portrait Mr Duncan Smith
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We have not shelved anything, and I have to tell the hon. Lady that she needs a few facts to be put on the table. First, during a time of growth under the Labour Government—[Interruption.] Labour Members really hate to be reminded that they were in government once and that the reason why they are no longer in government is that their incompetence was so phenomenal that even at a time of growth, people ended up claiming food parcels. If we look back, we see that under the last Government the number claiming rose by 10 times. More importantly, let me inform the House of an international comparison. In the UK at the moment, some 60,000 or so are food bank users. In Germany, which has a much higher level of welfare payment, 6 million people use food banks—one in 12, which is many more, and it is the same in Canada. The hon. Lady should not always read everything she reads, particularly when it is her lot that write it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts
Monday 14th October 2013

(10 years, 7 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Iain Duncan Smith Portrait Mr Duncan Smith
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I am sorry to hear the hon. Gentleman cavil about this programme. The reality is that the two are not mutually exclusive. For those who have a good idea and want to start a business, the scheme provides an opportunity that otherwise would not be there. I remind him that approximately 1,800 18 to 24-year-olds, 18,000 25 to 49-year-olds, 6,000 aged 50-plus, who may well have had difficulty getting a job later on, and 4,800 with disabilities who would have been written off under the old scheme, have now started a business.

Kerry McCarthy Portrait Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
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Will the Secretary of State look at the problems people are having in making the transition from jobseeker’s allowance to the new enterprise allowance regime, particularly with regard to housing benefit? A constituent, who is keen to set up his own business, came to see me the other day, but immediately found that his housing benefit had been stopped. He is of course still entitled to it in the early stages of claiming NEA.

Iain Duncan Smith Portrait Mr Duncan Smith
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I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising the issue and I will definitely have it looked into immediately. It is meant to flow easily. If there is a misunderstanding, or people do not know what it is, we must take that on and ensure that they do.

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Steve Webb Portrait Steve Webb
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My hon. Friend raises the crucial issue that, while the largest firms have been able to negotiate very good charging levels, we cannot be certain that the smaller firms will even be offered them or, indeed, that employers will necessarily be interested in charging levels when it is the employees, rather than the employers, who pay them. Our consultation will touch on that issue and on that of active member discounts.

Kerry McCarthy Portrait Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
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T5. The Government continue to disregard warnings from the likes of Oxfam and Church Action on Poverty that many of the 500,000 people being forced to use food banks are doing so because of delayed, reduced or withdrawn benefits. The Department seems not to be interested in collecting any statistics behind the reasons for that referral. Will the Secretary of State look into this to see what impact his benefit changes are having on people who simply cannot afford to feed themselves?

Iain Duncan Smith Portrait Mr Duncan Smith
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We do spend our time looking carefully to see whether the effects of our policies are negative on some families and how we can best support them. We have localised to local authorities the support for things such as crisis loans. Local authorities are now much better at focusing on what people really need. Our general view is that there are people in some difficulty, but lots of people are taking some of this food because it is available and it makes sense to do so. We are working with local authorities to ensure that those in real need get support.

Remploy

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts
Thursday 4th July 2013

(10 years, 10 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Esther McVey Portrait Esther McVey
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I do not know what to say to that, but I think I might even be blushing. Thank you.

Kerry McCarthy Portrait Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
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The Government spent £248 million less than anticipated on the Work programme in 2012-13, owing to provider under- performance under payment by results. In view of the disappointing figures about the number of ex-Remploy workers who have managed to find re-employment, can this underspend be used to extend proven alternative programmes for disadvantaged jobseekers, like the Work Choice programme for disabled people and Access to Work, which helps them cope with some of the obstacles they might face in the workplace?

Esther McVey Portrait Esther McVey
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I am not sure that the hon. Lady has been listening. These are not disappointing figures; they are better than those for most other redundancies—that is how fast these people are getting into employment. We have given personal support. People are going on Work Choice and getting the tailored support they need, and we are doing this for 18 months.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts
Monday 1st July 2013

(10 years, 10 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Mark Hoban Portrait Mr Hoban
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My hon. Friend raises an important point. I have regular discussions with ministerial colleagues, particularly the Under-Secretary of State for Skills, on careers guidance and advice. A further education college in my constituency is setting a good example by having an employment adviser in the college who talks to young people about the opportunities that can flow from the courses they are taking. That kind of innovation is really important if we are to ensure that young people make the best of their qualifications.

Kerry McCarthy Portrait Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
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I hope that Ministers will be aware of the excellent research being carried out by the Single Parent Action Network, which supports young single parents as well as older parents who are trying to get into work. Its recent report on the Work programme found that many barriers still exist to prevent them from getting work, including the lack of affordable child care. May I urge Ministers to look at that report and to acknowledge that getting into work is not so easy for people with child care responsibilities?

Mark Hoban Portrait Mr Hoban
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The hon. Lady raises an important point. We need to work with those organisations that support lone parents to see what more the Work programme can do to help them into employment. The Chancellor announced last week that we will be providing more support to lone parents in the two or three years before their child goes to primary school.

Jobs and Business

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts
Friday 10th May 2013

(11 years ago)

Commons Chamber
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Rushanara Ali Portrait Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)
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The Government have had three years in office, and the Queen’s Speech offers us a timely opportunity to assess their record. As we have heard, what the Government have achieved and not achieved is striking. They have delivered rising unemployment, 1 million young people out of work, prices that are rising faster than wages, and a chronic drop in living standards for British families.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies this week forecast that the Government’s reforms since 2010 will lead to one in four children living in poverty by 2020. That is scandalous in the 21st century. The Child Poverty Act 2010 set a goal to set a target to reduce child poverty to one in 10, which is still not acceptable. It is therefore an absolute scandal that the Government are doing nothing to address that important problem.

Kerry McCarthy Portrait Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
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My hon. Friend was not in Parliament before 2010, but I am sure she kept a close eye on child poverty in her work at the time. Does she share my frustration? Many of those now on the Government Benches signed up to the child poverty pledge and said that the abolition of child poverty was their No. 1 priority. I was sceptical of that at the time. The moment the Conservatives got into government, they spoke of revising the targets and said they did not want to assess child poverty in this way or that and so on. I am not allowed to say that people were misled, Madam Deputy Speaker, but does my hon. Friend believe that people will feel let down by the fact that Conservatives were vociferous in their support for the pledge and then reneged on it?

Rushanara Ali Portrait Rushanara Ali
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I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. That episode highlights the fact that the Conservative party was desperate to decontaminate its brand as the nasty party. As soon as it returned to power, all the bad old Tory habits crept in—and they are now flooding in. There is no pretence and no attempt to rebrand the party. The Conservative party stands up for millionaires and not for ordinary people or for children who live in poverty in constituencies such as mine—more than 50% of children in my constituency live in poverty, and that will get worse by 2020.

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Kerry McCarthy Portrait Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
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As many Opposition Members have said over the last few days, in this Queen’s Speech the Government have comprehensively failed to address the real issues and the scale of the challenge facing this country. They have missed a good opportunity to set out an economic programme that can rebuild our failing economy and address the rocketing cost of living.

That is not talked about enough, because the problem is not just the fact that people cannot get jobs and are struggling to find work; it is also that even for those in work, the cost of living, with rising fuel bills, food prices and rail and bus fares, alongside what is happening in the private rented sector—I could give many more examples—is having a major impact on people’s lives, yet the Government do not seem able to act.

There is a paucity of imagination and a dearth of ideas in the Queen’s Speech. As many have said, there is a very thin legislative programme. The Queen’s Speech could have contained several measures that were floated in advance of it, such as minimum alcohol pricing, plain cigarette packaging and the lobbyist register. I am sure the reasons why they have been dropped will be revealed in time, but there does not seem to me to be any good reason.

It was also disappointing that the Queen’s Speech did not include the legislation to enshrine in law the promise made in the coalition agreement to spend 0.7% of gross national income on the aid budget. As the head of advocacy at ActionAid said:

“The aid budget is a tiny proportion of Britain’s national income. Having it enshrined in law would provide poor countries with the certainty they need to plan their development and deliver the best value for money from UK aid. A constant debate about volumes of aid is not in the interests of either donor or recipient nations and the Government should have recognised this.”

Mark Hendrick Portrait Mark Hendrick
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My hon. Friend will recall that I introduced a private Member’s Bill that would have put that 0.7% of GNI commitment into statute. It was scuppered by the Government twice, which was an absolute disgrace.

Kerry McCarthy Portrait Kerry McCarthy
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I share my hon. Friend’s disappointment that that Bill was not supported, and I was present in the Chamber during some of the debates on it. Although the Prime Minister has said publicly that he is determined to stick to the 0.7% target, the fact that he promised legislation and has now reneged on that sends out a signal that he is not absolutely committed to it. I have heard many calls from his Back Benchers saying it is wrong to have that 0.7% target and that the money should, for example, be moved over to the Ministry of Defence and be spent on defence instead. Given those ripples of discontent emanating from the Conservative Back Benches, the Prime Minister should have nailed his colours to the mast and made it very clear that the Government were not for turning on that target.

Just before Prorogation, the Government published a draft Bill on wild animals in circuses, but that, too, was not specifically mentioned in the Queen’s Speech. Animals in circuses might sound like a trivial issue compared with big topics such as jobs and employment and getting economic growth going again. However, this omission sends out a signal about the Government’s lack of will or nerve to introduce legislation. My view is that we could deal in just a day or two with legislation to outlaw wild animals in circuses. Almost 95% of the public back a ban, and when the House debated a motion on this on 23 June 2011, the Government made concessions to a Conservative Back Bencher who was pushing the issue, and said, “Yes, we’ll bring legislation forward.” That was almost two years ago, and now we have a half-hearted measure saying, in effect, “We’re going to bring forward draft legislation because this is such a complicated issue.” There are only 20 animals left in circuses in this country, but apparently this is so complex it has to be put out in the form of draft legislation and then examined by Committee, and the Government will not be able to bring in a ban until the end of 2015. That seems absolutely laughable given that there has already been a two-year delay. Basically, we should just get on with it.

One of the Bills that I was pleased to see in the Queen’s Speech was the Mesothelioma Bill, although I share the concerns of my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) that it is not comprehensive enough and does not deal with all the details. When I was a junior lawyer—I think that it was 25 years ago, which is quite a scary thought—I acted on one of the very first mesothelioma cases. It took us six years to get resolution. One problem was that the deceased man in question—we were acting on behalf of his widow—had worked for some very small companies. He was a central heating engineer and it was absolutely impossible to trace those companies, because they were almost one-man bands and were no longer in business. However, for a period he worked for Vauxhall Motors. The breakthrough moment came. We could not find any living witnesses who could prove that the deceased man in question had worked with asbestos at that time. Then I happened to talk to my grandfather and it turned out that my grandfather had worked with him and knew him quite well, so we came up with a witness almost by chance.

Nevertheless, it was a struggle to get that case through. At the end of the process, the man’s widow received a settlement of about £80,000, which in the late 1980s was a considerable sum. However, she said, “If I had known the pain and hassle that I’d have to go through, and the endless meetings with solicitors, I really would not have done it.” We want to ensure that other widows and other people who are suffering from mesothelioma do not have to go through that process.

The consumer rights Bill has the potential to be a very interesting and useful piece of legislation. However, it will be quite difficult to pull together all the measures needed to tackle the problems. I am very supportive of the proposals of my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) on secondary ticketing. I hope that the Government will listen to them and take them forward. I have talked to my hon. Friend in some detail about the research that she has done on the problem, which affects many fans and musicians alike.

We have not seen the text of the consumer rights Bill yet, but I was interested that the commentary on it says that it will help people who want to switch suppliers or make purchases via the internet or the phone. In my surgeries, many people come to me who are just banging their heads on the desk because they cannot get a company to respond. I think I spent the best part of yesterday and the day before on the phone to a particular mobile phone supplier. I am very tempted to name and shame it, given the number of times that I was told I would be called back and was not. I was then sent a text message saying, “What’s your experience of the service we’ve provided?” I could give a 10 for “excellent” and a zero for “dismal”. Every time I tried to text zero, the message would not go through. Perhaps if I had tried to text 10, the message would have gone through and the company would have said, “Thank you very much, we are happy to have been of service.”

It is so frustrating for people when they have to go through such minefields, and a lot of people end up stuck with services they do not want. There is another company I could mention on whose website it is almost impossible to find out how to go about cancelling a contract. When a caller phones up, the options are, “Press this if you want to pay your bill, press number two if you want to spend lots more money with us and number three if you want to change your address.” There is never a button with a message saying, “If you want to tell us to get lost, press this” or whatever. I am not saying that it should be compulsory for companies to have a “We want nothing more to do with you” button on their automated phone systems, but it should be made much more apparent to consumers how they can get out of such contracts. Otherwise, they are tied in for a very long time at considerable expense.

On the question of carry-over Bills, the Government have confirmed that they will carry over the Energy Bill. However, that Bill needs extensive changes to address not only the reality of rocketing fuel bills, which I have mentioned, but the issue of climate change. Again, anything on that issue is lacking in the Queen’s Speech. There is nothing to suggest that the Government want to be the greenest Government ever. There is little that will do anything to promote green investment and green jobs. That is a real missed opportunity.

I have real concerns about where the Government are going on green jobs. There was a complete shambles over feed-in tariffs, and I know from speaking to people in Bristol, where there are many companies that are involved in green technology, including research, that they do not believe that the Government are supportive enough of their efforts to make the UK, and Bristol, a real hub for that sort of work.

I have real concern about the policy on fracking. There are again suggestions in the paper today that the Government may be too close to people who have a very personal vested interest in making money out of it. In the forthcoming parliamentary Session, we need to have real scrutiny of whether fracking is the right way forward for our energy policy, taking into consideration environmental consequences such as disruption to local water supplies. There are a lot of unanswered questions about fracking, which the Government should answer before they pursue that path.

Energy bills are one of the biggest costs that families now face. A typical dual-fuel bill is now £1,420—up more than £300 since the Government came to power. The number of households living in fuel poverty is predicted to rise to 8.5 million in 2016—up from 4.75 million in 2010. The big six energy companies have rightly been accused of “cold-blooded profiteering” after figures emerged showing that they have more than doubled their retail margins over the past 18 months and are now earning a staggering average of £95 profit per household on dual-fuel bills.

In a recent debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) highlighted the case of a large supplier in south Wales, which has now increased its standing charge to £200 for both gas and electricity. That is hitting the poorest households hardest. They have to pay £200 before they use even 1 W of electricity. I hope that problem will be addressed, if not in the Energy Bill, then in the consumer rights Bill.

The thing most notably missing from the Energy Bill is a target for decarbonising electricity by 2030. By putting off the decision about decarbonisation until 2016, after the next general election, the Government are locking our economy into increasingly expensive gas, which is bad for carbon emissions and for energy bills. The Committee on Climate Change has said that the gas strategy set out by the Chancellor in December is “completely incompatible” with the UK’s legally binding carbon emissions targets, and should be “plan Z”. I wonder whether the Government have any intention of decarbonising our power sector by 2030. I also increasingly doubt their commitment to meet our legally binding carbon target of reducing our carbon emissions by 80% by 2050. Again, there was nothing in the Queen’s Speech to help us move towards that.

As I mentioned, the one thing that the renewable energy sector needs to enable it to create more jobs and encourage investment is confidence that the Government are committed to renewable energy and will support it over the long term. The lack of a target also puts the sector in a difficult position in that regard. It is deeply disappointing that the Government do not capitalise on a golden opportunity to drive economic growth and create jobs. A CBI report published in July showed that the UK could become a global front-runner in low carbon, adding £20 billion to annual GDP by 2015, and that a third of the UK’s economic growth from 2012 to 2013 came from green businesses. As the former Energy Minister, the hon. Member for Wealden (Charles Hendry), has said, extending uncertainty about that until 2016 will lead to higher capital costs and higher energy bills. That is backed by the Committee on Climate Change, which has said that

“continued reliance on unabated gas-fired generation carries the risk of electricity bills for the typical household being up to £600 higher than under a low-carbon power system over the next decades”.

In the remaining two minutes, I want to flag up what has become a topic of particular interest to me during the past year—food waste. There was an opportunity for the Government to bring forward in this Queen’ Speech measures that would tackle the issue. I was very disappointed yesterday when phase 3 of the Courtauld agreement, a Government-led commitment to reducing food and packaging waste, was announced. There is a target for retailers and manufacturers to work to reduce household food waste by just 5% by 2015, and to reduce their own waste—the waste that they create in the supply chain—by just 3%. Given rising food prices, and as people become better educated about the things that they buy, it is estimated that we will meet such targets anyway. So the target is meaningless. The Government had a real chance to push forward with measures to prevent food waste. Between 30% and 50% of edible and healthy food is wasted in this country, and half that waste is generated by the food industry. In Westminster Hall recently we heard the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), telling people how they could reduce food waste and stop throwing away food that was in their fridges. He told them not to keep bread in the fridge and offered other helpful little tips, but we need to tackle what the food industry is doing. It is the industry that should drive the level of change that is needed. If the industry will not do so and if the Courtauld commitment does not contain the targets that will make the industry act, there should be a mandatory obligation on large retailers and manufacturers to take steps to reduce their food and packaging waste. The Government could have introduced that in the Queen’s Speech but they did not.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts
Monday 5th November 2012

(11 years, 6 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Steve Webb Portrait Steve Webb
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Yes. We have had 100 expressions of interest from voluntary groups and charities, and we have whittled that down to about 30. All are trying to build on existing work that enables parents, when they are separating, to deal with each other in a mature way in the interests of the children. That is the central aspect of our new strategy.

Kerry McCarthy Portrait Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
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When family breakdowns occur, grandparents, aunts, uncles or other relatives often have to step into the breach and a kinship care situation arises. Will the Minister assure me that he is talking to his colleagues in other Departments to make sure that when that situation happens, particularly in an emergency, support is given to those who step up to the plate?

Steve Webb Portrait Steve Webb
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I agree that we need to support kinship carers, such as grandparents. One change that our Department has made is that, for example, where a mother is going out to work and is not using the national insurance credits that she would have gained for receiving child benefit, they can be passed to a grandparent, who may not be of pension age, to make sure that they are not financially disadvantaged. That is just one of the things we are doing to support that important group.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts
Monday 25th June 2012

(11 years, 10 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Chris Grayling Portrait Chris Grayling
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My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The universal credit, which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is pioneering and which will be launched next year, will make a huge difference. As for the skills agenda, one of the coalition’s other achievements is the big expansion of apprenticeships. That is making a real difference to the prospects of unemployed people, particularly young unemployed people, giving them a chance to build up skills that can lead to a lasting career.

Kerry McCarthy Portrait Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
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The recent scandal involving the unpaid jubilee steward has exposed the fact that some companies out there, under the guise of offering training to Work programme participants, are exploiting them as cheap or unpaid labour. What checks does the Minister carry out on companies that use Work programme participants?

Chris Grayling Portrait Chris Grayling
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I must say that I think it is pretty poor when the eventuality of a bus arriving two hours early is turned into a scandal by the Labour party. In fact, as part of a training and development programme, a group of volunteers were participating in a national experience that would build skills which could take them into other employment. I think that the hon. Lady should welcome that and not criticise it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts
Monday 23rd April 2012

(12 years ago)

Commons Chamber
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Steve Webb Portrait Steve Webb
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The Pensions Regulator communicates regularly with trustees and provides a trustee toolkit on its website that sets out their duties, but I think that auto-enrolment provides an opportunity for ethical investment. For example, the National Employment Savings Trust will specifically have an ethical fund for those who wish to invest in that way, and I hope that the schemes my hon. Friend refers to will seek to find investment through that sort of route.

Kerry McCarthy Portrait Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
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16. What recent estimate he has made of the level of unemployment in Bristol.

Chris Grayling Portrait The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling)
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The latest estimate for the level of International Labour Organisation unemployment in Bristol, produced by the Office for National Statistics, is 21,400.

Kerry McCarthy Portrait Kerry McCarthy
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Does the Minister know whether the Prime Minister, on his visit to Bristol today, will take the time to meet some of those affected by long-term unemployment, which is up by 72% in the past year and a staggering 15,000% among young people, or was the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Nadine Dorries) correct when she described the Prime Minister and the Chancellor on the “Daily Politics” show today as

“two arrogant posh boys who show no remorse, no contrition, and no passion to want to understand the lives of others”?

Chris Grayling Portrait Chris Grayling
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I cannot speak for the Prime Minister, but I can say that I have been to Bristol recently and spoken with unemployed people there. I can also tell the hon. Lady that the figures she quotes are nonsense. She and her Labour colleagues keep forgetting the fact that they used to hide large numbers of unemployed people on a training allowance, which masked the true picture of long-term unemployment. I can absolutely assure her that genuine long-term unemployment in her constituency is not up by 72%.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts
Monday 5th March 2012

(12 years, 2 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Chris Grayling Portrait The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling)
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We now actively encourage people to volunteer. I prefer to see people out of the house and doing things. They have an obligation to keep up their job search while they do so, but I shall happily discuss this specific case because it certainly is not our intention that people’s volunteering opportunities should be limited.

Kerry McCarthy Portrait Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
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One of my constituents recently had his adoption allowance cut because his child received disability living allowance. We managed to get that overturned but can the Minister make sure that guidelines are issued so that adoption allowance is not cut when DLA, which is intended to meet essential needs, is received?

Maria Miller Portrait Maria Miller
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I thank the hon. Lady for that question. Disability living allowance is not linked to employment or income, so I shall look into the issue she raises in more detail.