Business of the House

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 11th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Paul Maynard]

I very much support what the hon. Gentleman has to say and congratulate the local organisation that provides that support in his part of Scotland. I hear his case for a debate and urge him to consider an Adjournment debate on the issue to allow the Minister responsible to explain what we are doing here in England.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

The most recent figures show that a staggering 69% of new houses built in the north-west are unnecessarily sold as leaseholds, leaving homeowners at the mercy of cowboy financiers who block-buy their freeholds in job lots in order to exploit them financially. The hon. Gentleman gave a poor answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Halton (Derek Twigg) when he asked about this earlier. May we have an urgent debate in Government time about what the Government are going to do now to help the thousands of people, including many of my constituents, who are subjected to this appalling financial exploitation?

[Paul Maynard]

I am always disappointed if Opposition Members are disappointed by my replies. I am keen to make sure that we address the concerns the hon. Lady has expressed. The Prime Minister was clear yesterday that we are bringing forward changes to legislation. I suggest that the hon. Lady urges a degree of patience while we make sure that we get it right. We can then discuss our proposals.

Outsourcing and Tax Credits

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Friday 4th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Simon Kirby)]

rose—

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

That’s not the Chancellor.

[Simon Kirby]

Not yet.

I can confirm that there has been no change in Government policy on outsourcing. I suspect that the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) has asked this urgent question in the light of the recent concerns surrounding the Government’s outsourcing contract with Concentrix.

Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs places the utmost importance on providing a quality service to its customers. As the Government have made clear, high standards were not met in recent months by Concentrix, the company HMRC had engaged to help us in the important work of tackling fraud and error in the tax credits system. Once this became clear, HMRC took steps to rectify the situation and deployed HMRC staff as quickly as possible. From that point, no new cases were passed to Concentrix, and HMRC took back 181,000 individual cases that were being managed by Concentrix. I can reassure the House that not only have all the 181,000 cases been finalised, but HMRC has now restored the expected quality levels of customer service to ensure people receive the tax credits to which they are entitled. HMRC continues to review outstanding cases in which a mandatory reconsideration has been requested, and it has taken steps regarding the future of the contract with Concentrix.

On 14 September, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury informed the House that HMRC would not be renewing the contract with Concentrix. Last week, she informed the House that HMRC is currently in discussions with Concentrix to agree a negotiated early exit to the contract. These commercial discussions continue. I want to be clear that HMRC will not go back to the market to seek another partner to replace Concentrix and provide additional capacity to challenge error and fraud in the tax credit system. There has, however, been no change in Government policy on outsourcing, which can be an appropriate way to deliver both quality public services and savings for the taxpayer. I assure the House that HMRC is committed to learning the lessons from the problems that have arisen over the past months, supported by the independent review of the National Audit Office.

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[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

Some of my constituents have lost other moneys. They have gone into rent arrears and have bank charges to pay, for example. Will the Minister undertake to make sure that either Concentrix or HMRC compensates those people for their actual losses—caused, it must be remembered, when they were accused of having an undeclared partner who was dead or a previous tenant they had never known. This has nothing to do with my constituents and has everything to do with rank maladministration. I hope that the Minister will stand up today and confirm that these people will be compensated by Concentrix or HMRC.

[Simon Kirby]

The hon. Lady will be pleased to know that HMRC does run a compensation scheme. If her constituents—or her as their MP—would like to write, I am sure they will have some success.

Concentrix

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Long Bailey]

I could not agree more. The case to which I have referred is not an isolated one. According to the Government’s own figures, the company has considered about 667,000 cases, of which 103,000 have been amended. That means that 15% of investigations have wrongly pursued perfectly legitimate tax credit claimants, and they are simply the ones who have had the strength to come forward and present themselves, including to their MPs, as we have heard.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

In every single one of the Concentrix cases that has been taken up by my office so far and that has been resolved, the payment has been put back in place. In other words, they have been 100% wrong. What does my hon. Friend think that the Government ought to do about that?

[Rebecca Long Bailey]

I think that the cases we have seen so far are the tip of the iceberg. The Government have a responsibility to ensure that all cases are adequately investigated, and that no one has fallen through the cracks and not presented themselves either to their MP or directly to Concentrix.

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[Jane Ellison]

It is very difficult for me to comment on a specific case, but if the hon. Gentleman writes to me with the details I will ask HMRC to comment on it. We held a further drop-in on 19 October, and if the House feels it would be useful to hold another such Member drop-in for cases such as that to be resolved face to face, I am very happy to arrange one. If hon. Members are aware of people in hardship—I know many are—they can bring that directly to our attention. In fact, I am grateful to all those Members who have already taken action of that kind and attended the various drop-in sessions I have organised in the House. I remind everyone that there is a special hotline for MPs to raise issues and seek information, and we have allocated extra staff to make that service available over extended opening hours. We will address any such cases with the greatest of urgency.

We are making some progress towards at least putting an end to the distress and worry that some people have regrettably faced in recent times. Mechanisms are in place to make sure that anyone in hardship as a result of uncertainties or mistakes will be supported. Those two things have been our top priorities.

[Maria Eagle]

Will the Minister tell us where the duff information that has been acted on by Concentrix has come from? One of the key things about these cases is that the information upon which people’s claims have been cancelled has been almost universally poor and nonsensical. Where have those data come from?

[Jane Ellison]

Most of the data that both HMRC and Concentrix are working from are the sort of data Members would expect companies and HMRC to be using in this regard. Concentrix makes some reference to credit data. Because there are so many tax credit claims, a lot of the work on pointing to where there might be errors is based on the history of where there have been substantial errors over time, and those individuals and people—

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[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

I want to set out the experience of some of my constituents with Concentrix and their tax credits. Having listened to colleagues around the House and from around the UK, I know that it is a familiar story.

Normally, my constituents have waited five to seven weeks before they come along and see me to try to get a problem sorted. We can then get it sorted, although I do still have eight Concentrix cases that have not been resolved. The Minister said that she was resolving them all very quickly, but that is not the case. It is four or five weeks since we took up many of these cases and they have not yet been resolved, so there are outstanding cases.

We saw a rapid increase in cases from August onwards. Before that we had a drip, drip, drip of cases that went wrong, but from August something happened—something at HMRC or something at Concentrix. It would be interesting to know what it was and who initiated it, because suddenly there was an influx of cases, all wrongly decided and all coming in in a rush. The contract has been running since 2014, so what happened in August? We want to press the Minister to tell us what caused that sudden spike in cases.

All my constituents who have come to see me are single mums with children. They have mainly been accused of having an undisclosed partner. Some have been told that they did not have childcare costs that they had claimed. Occasionally they have been told that they do not have children, when they do. Most had simply had money stopped, without receiving any prior notification. They found out that there was a problem because there was no money in the bank. When they tried to get through on the telephone they could not do so, and then they received a letter that said, “You have an undisclosed partner”, but it did not say who that undisclosed partner was supposed to be.

The letter said, “Prove that you don’t have an undisclosed partner. Send us evidence to show that you don’t.” However, without knowing who the undisclosed partner is supposed to be, how can anyone do that? Worse, when my constituents have discovered who that undisclosed partner is meant to be, it turns out to be a previous tenant of their home whom they have never met and who left years ago, or a family member, who they never imagined would be construed as an undisclosed partner because they were related. What duff information is being used to make the lives of these people a misery? I have said it is duff once and I will say it again. If Concentrix turned down 80% of the cases sent to it because it decided that there was not an issue, what kind of information was it looking at for those 80%, given the kind it was looking at for the cases it decided to act on? It beggars belief.

In all these cases, my constituents were told to prove that they did not have a partner, but no name was given—in all the cases that have been resolved so far, the determination has been reversed and claims have been put back into payment—and that seems to me to be a complete reversal of any proper burden of proof. You prove that you do not have an undisclosed partner, Madam Deputy Speaker—not at this moment, Madam Deputy Speaker. That is what these people are being told, and it is not fair. They are already in financial difficulty, which is why they can get tax credits. They are usually living on the financial margins, working part time and in low-paid work. I have constituents who have had to take their children out of childcare and are in danger of losing their job because they have been told that they do not have children.

It is taking far too long to resolve these issues. The worry and stress is particularly difficult when dealing with an unreachable and harsh bureaucracy. That is what makes this experience particularly Kafkaesque. There are secondary impacts that go beyond getting these claims right, including severe debt problems, rent arrears and threats of eviction. There are bank charges, damaged credit histories and massive mobile phone bills. It is all very well saying that these cases have been put right, but what about those ongoing impacts? What can the Minister say about putting those right?

I think that there are cases where people ought to receive compensation. It is distressing enough to have this done without the ongoing financial problems that result from it. What about control of the data that HMRC is passing on, or that it will look at itself in future? Why are those data so poor? How is it possible that previous tenants, including those who may no longer be alive, can be suggested as undisclosed partners? What kind of quality control is there for those data, because obviously it is not working?

It is wrong for the Government to incentivise maladministration in their contracts. That, in effect, is what has happened here. I think that my constituents who have suffered in these cases have been subjected to maladministration. If they are not properly compensated, I will suggest that they make a claim to the parliamentary ombudsman because of this maladministration. The Government could stop that happening by compensating them before they have to make any such claims.

The worst of it—I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) on this—is that this has been specifically targeted at a population largely made up of financially vulnerable single mums who are trying to do the right thing by going to work. They are excessively impacted upon by this kind of behaviour by bureaucracies that they cannot even begin to reach. I think that it is incumbent on the Government now to compensate and apologise to those people and ensure that the information they use in future is not so poor.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Simon Kirby)]

This has been a thoughtful debate. I thank all hon. Members for their contributions and efforts to support their constituents. It is right and appropriate that I thank MPs’ staff, who have worked hard to help constituents with their tax credit claims.

It is clear—there is no doubt—that mistakes were made in HMRC’s partnership with Concentrix. As my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury said, it is right that we take action to stop errors and fraud in the tax credit system. That was why HMRC entered into a contract with Concentrix to support that action, which—let us be clear about this—delivered millions of pounds of savings and achieved close to the lowest level of fraud and error in the tax credit system since it began.

I reiterate that this is all about people. It is about making sure that the most vulnerable people are paid appropriately and that errors are not made. It is often very difficult for the most vulnerable people to deal with overpayments.

[Maria Eagle]

Given the poor quality of some of the information that Concentrix has used—information about tenants, previous tenants, people who are dead and people who live in the same block but not in the same house—how can the Minister justify putting our constituents through the pain of having their payments stopped on such very poor information?

[Simon Kirby]

I will cover that matter later, but there are clearly lessons for all of us to learn.

[Simon Kirby]

I will certainly ask HMRC to look into that. The important point is that this is about helping people. It is easy to stand in the Chamber citing figures and trying to pretend that something is not what it is. This is about making sure that the most vulnerable people get the money that they deserve, and about clearing the backlog as quickly as possible.

This issue is about customer service. Everyone has a right to expect a good level of customer service. There is no doubt that the customer service provided in recent times was simply not good enough and not up to the standard clearly specified in the contract. As a result of that poor performance, a great deal of worry and distress has been caused to the often vulnerable people who claim this benefit. We heard lots of very good examples of that today. I do not think that any MP is in any doubt that vulnerable people have suffered worry and distress. I advise anyone who has been adversely affected to get in touch with HMRC, which will take all complaints seriously and provide compensation where appropriate.

I move on to specific issues that hon. Members raised. The hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mhairi Black) suggested that Concentrix targeted people at random and engaged in fishing expeditions, which the hon. Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd) also mentioned. That was not the case—Concentrix was not allowed to engage in fishing expeditions. It is important to note that when information was incomplete or suggested that something was wrong, customers were asked to provide further information to enable an informed decision to be reached.

[Maria Eagle]

Would this be an opportunity for the Minister to tell the House why the information used was so very poor?

[Simon Kirby]

Some of the information used was very poor—some of it applied to people who no longer lived at the address—but, at the end of the day, the review will provide lessons for us all to learn.

The hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South said that the evidence was flimsy. HMRC sent Concentrix cases to review if it thought that they were worth checking because there was an indication that the tax credits claim might be incorrect. Concentrix and HMRC will never be able to screen out all cases that do not involve error or fraud through data analytics alone. That is why—this point is important—HMRC and Concentrix write to customers to ask for more evidence to inform decisions.

The hon. Lady asked for an apology. At a sitting of the Work and Pensions Committee on 13 October, the chief executive of HMRC apologised for the worry and distress caused to claimants. On behalf of the Government, I echo that apology today.

The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) said that she thought that the letters were unconvincing and misleading. This is an area in which there are lessons to be learned. It was said that customers could not provide the evidence requested. Most people were able to provide the information asked for, but we want to make it easier and cheaper to supply information in the future, so we are looking at ways of improving the customer journey on tax credits.

Oral Answers to Questions

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 9th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Whittingdale]

I certainly do join my hon. Friend in that. I think he was 10 at the time, but he might recall that I represented part of Colchester in the House of Commons, so I am very familiar with the Mercury theatre. I am delighted to hear about the investment in its expansion. I think that any investment in the arts brings real benefits, not least in economic terms, for the local community. I wish the Mercury continuing success into the future.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

On Tuesday, the Secretary of State told the Culture, Media and Sport Committee in his evidence that there had been no discussions within government about Channel 4 privatisation, and that the examination of such an option had not been started by 9 September 2015, when he had previously answered questions before the Committee. However, in answer to an FOI request on 27 April, received in my office, the Department confirmed that he himself met the Minister for the Cabinet Office to discuss Channel 4 reform options on 3 September—six days before his appearance in front of that Committee. Can he explain the discrepancy?

[Mr Whittingdale]

Yes. The first discussion that I had with the Cabinet Office Minister was about Channel 4 and what possible options there would be for its future. At that stage, no decisions had been taken. Following that, the Department did begin to look at whether or not there was a case for having a fundamental examination, and the decision to go ahead with that was actually taken after my appearance before the Select Committee; it was taken later in the month of September.

[Maria Eagle]

Well, on Tuesday, in answer to questions from the Select Committee, the Secretary of State was asked whether or not any discussions at all had taken place before 9 September, and he replied—I have the transcript—“No not within government.” That seems to me a clear discrepancy, and it seems to me he may have misled the Committee, and I invite him to correct his evidence to it now on this very important matter, which matters to a lot of us in this House—the future of Channel 4.

[Mr Whittingdale]

I entirely agree with the hon. Lady that the future of Channel 4 is an important matter. Whether or not the discussion with the Cabinet Office Minister, which took place on 3 September, constituted the beginning of an examination, when actually a decision was not taken to begin that examination until about four weeks later, does not seem to be a centrally important matter in the future of Channel 4. We did decide that it was sensible to carry out an examination. That examination is still under way. We have still not yet reached decisions about the best way forward for Channel 4, but I look forward to having that discussion with Channel 4 in the very near future.