Oral Answers to Questions
Matt Western Excerpts(7 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Alok Sharma
I thank my hon. Friend for the enormous amount of work that he does in supporting employers so that they can create jobs. He is right. We need to make sure that the jobs market is very strong, and that is why we make support available through universal credit, with one-to-one interaction.
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Sarah Newton)
No, I do not think that that time is at all acceptable. That is why we have been working so closely with our colleagues in the Ministry of Justice to make sure that people can have their appeals heard much more swiftly. The hon. Gentleman will be pleased to know that more than 200 new judges have been recruited to the tribunal, and that through the use of automation we are beginning to see waiting times for appeals reducing greatly. But let us look at this overall: PIP works for the vast majority of people, and of the decisions that have been made, only 9% have been taken to appeal and 5% overturned. We are constantly looking to make sure that we make the right decision the first time, but the situation is improving.
Oral Answers to Questions
Matt Western Excerpts(7 years, 4 months ago)
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Sarah Newton
I am afraid that the hon. Lady is just factually incorrect. The vast majority of jobs have been full-time, well-paid jobs. I have the honour of representing my home, the area where I grew up, and I can tell her that I have seen at first hand the growth of full-time well-paid jobs all around my constituency since 2010. That is what this Government are delivering all over the country.
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
We have seen an exponential increase in underemployment since 2010, through the growth of part-time jobs and zero-hours contracts. Does the Minister therefore agree that what we have actually seen is a jobs mirage rather than a jobs miracle?
Sarah Newton
I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman is just factually incorrect. We have seen the growth of many full-time jobs, and the number of zero-hours contracts is going down. Speaking as a woman who raised her family, I can tell him that part-time employment can be an extremely good option for many people in our labour market.
Employment Rates
Matt Western Excerpts(7 years, 9 months ago)
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Luke Pollard
Indeed. The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. How statistics are presented by Government can sometimes devalue some of the credibility that the original source may provide, and I am sure that we can all bring to mind examples of that. On the subject of statistics, I am a great believer in the way inflation is calculated. If hon. Members will indulge me for a few seconds, I will explain. Inflation is calculated by taking a basket of measures, of everyday goods, and calculating the inflation rate based on the real-world experience of many measures, many goods, not just one of them. In that sense, a basket of measures can create a fuller, more thorough illustration of what is actually happening.
The reality gap between individual employment statistics and the lived experiences, especially of young people, would be addressed much more thoroughly by having a basket of measures than by focusing just on the jobless figures or any other singular reality. I suggest that when we look at how we talk about unemployment statistics, employment statistics and debt, we look at a basket of measures, which needs to include employment, wages and wage growth, in-work poverty, child poverty, homelessness and temporary housing, disposable income, the number and penetration of zero-hours contracts and especially their demographic targeting, benefit take-up, sanction levels, household debt and overall personal indebtedness. Perhaps those things could be wrapped up together as a new basket of measures whereby we can look at the lived experience of people in employment, because all too often the fact that someone is in a job and that there is a tick beside that box is what is presented by Governments of all colours. We know that the lived experience of people in work, especially in today’s economy, where simply having a contract does not guarantee that someone will get any wages at the end of the week or month, devalues some of the credibility that the jobless figures or employment figures may have carried in the past, when employment was more secure and long term.
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a very important point. I thank the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson) for initiating the debate. My hon. Friend discusses a basket of measures. Does he agree that one thing that we would want to establish, if it was a business that we were looking at, would be the number of hours being worked by those in work—that is, the number of hours or days available to work? That could be one of the measures showing that we actually have significant under-employment in this country and that, rather than a jobs miracle, we have something of a jobs mirage.
Luke Pollard
My hon. Friend has a way with words. Looking at the measure to which he refers as part of the basket of measures could well be useful. Indeed, we might also look at the number of jobs that individuals have, because although we have seen a rise in the number of people with contracts, many of those are part-time contracts, and people in Plymouth have certainly been telling me of needing not just one job but two, three or, in some cases, four or five jobs to pay their bills, because of the insecurity of those jobs and the hours they provide. Consideration of all those measures together would make possible a more informed value judgment about the state of the economy.
In recent years, we have seen a rapid shift towards a gig economy, and despite calls for an end to zero-hours contracts, many people are still struggling with the precarious nature of those contracts. There are some people who value zero-hours contracts, but my fear about what has happened with zero-hours contracts is that their utility for that small group of people has been overtaken by employers using them as a way of being more flexible with their workforce or cash flow. As a consequence, the utility of those contracts for a small number of individuals, because of the workplace flexibility they provide, has been eroded because they are being used to devalue secure work.
Before I came to the debate, I posted on my Facebook page—if anyone has not visited it, the address is facebook.com/LukePollard—to ask people what their experience was. I said, “I am going to a debate about employment statistics. Can you tell me your stories?” Normally on my Facebook page, I have a few regular posters, as I am sure other hon. Members do. What struck me about the response to this post was how personal, emotional and honest people were in telling me their experiences. If hon. Members have not done this on their own Facebook page, I encourage them to do so, because it helps to create a fuller picture.
Let me give some examples of what people said. Erin, who is one of my constituents, is a qualified secondary school teacher who has been forced to take zero-hours contracts by an employment agency for the past three years. She told me that, despite years of training, she was struggling to find permanent work, and that that has impacted her ability to pass the tenancy checks required for private renting. The figure for private renters in Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport is 43.5%, which shows just how important that can be. Erin now plans to leave the teaching profession for good and will be retraining in September. She is just one example of someone we need to retain in their role with more secure work.
Melanie is another example. She worked for three years at Royal Mail in Plymouth. She was on a fixed-term, 20-hours contract that was reviewed every six months. As a single parent, she spoke of the stress that the uncertainty of that brought, as she could never be sure that she would still have a job once the end of her contract rolled around. Although Melanie has managed to secure permanent employment elsewhere, her story is not uncommon.
Those types of lived experience are the stories behind the statistics. I am talking about the frequency of needing to go to another interview to get extra hours and then the concern and worry about what happens if an employer wants their hours to coincide with another employer’s hours. Those are concerns that many in this Chamber may not have experienced themselves, but they are genuine worries for many people up and down the country. That situation is adding to the complexity and inequality within our system.
Colleagues will know of the problems that universal credit has brought to the system. Indeed, the House of Commons Library points out that the roll-out of universal credit, which is taking place in part of the area that I represent but not all of it, skews the jobless figures for this period, so looking behind those figures is a little more complex and complicated than it might have been before universal credit was rolled out. I ask the Minister whether there is a way of navigating through that complexity and that added dimension to see what the underlying picture is. The roll-out of UC complicates that and affects our ability to get an accurate sense of where we are.
Universal credit is failing many people. We know the experiences that have been shared in this Chamber and elsewhere. Our benefits system should not allow people to spiral into more debt, and I am concerned about the sustainability of the system in its current form. Concerns around UC and the roll-out on to UC, especially for people in insecure work—although they may not be in the jobless figures that the Government provide—need to be addressed.
We also need to look at in-work poverty. I believe it is fundamental to most people’s reasons for entering politics in the first place—be they on the red team or the blue team—that they want to make the world a better place. The only disagreement I perhaps have with colleagues on the Conservative side is how to do that. In-work poverty should be anathema from the perspective of the Labour party, the Conservative party and other parties as well. We all aspire to help people into work so that they can provide for their families through the hard work of their own labour. If someone is in work and still unable to provide for their family, something is wrong with our economy.
We know that that is the case in Plymouth and elsewhere at the moment, because we are seeing a rise in food bank use. One day I hope that we will no longer need food banks and that the fantastic volunteers who staff them can be redeployed to other endeavours. However, I know that food bank use is going up, and having seen the work of the fantastic soup kitchens and soup runs in Plymouth, I know that demand is increasing among not just rough sleepers, but those in insecure work and temporary accommodation, who cannot make ends meet and who struggle to feed themselves and their families.
I highly recommend that Members of Parliament and those watching at home go out on a soup run. It is an eye-opener in terms of the lived experiences of those in our communities whom we may not see during the day. When they are handed a pasty or a banana from the back of an old Transit van—as happens every now and then in Plymouth—they give back stories and gratitude. It is a really humbling experience to see people who, in many cases, are now in work but still struggling to make ends meet.
We need safeguards to help those who are struggling to break into the job market and permanent employment, as well as to help those who are in the job market by making sure that work can truly pay. That is not where we are at the moment, and that is especially true for those with disabilities. One of my constituents, Jo, who works in the employment sector, told me that the job opportunities advertised for students and graduates often involve temporary contracts in low-skilled roles. Similarly, Mat, from Plymouth, shared his experience of having high-functioning autism and described his job search as “impossible”. That should shame us all. The challenge for us is how and where we present job adverts, what the employment process is and the jobs themselves. I am concerned that the lack of opportunities is impacting people in Plymouth on a personal and economic level, and we must act to contain the ongoing effects of not only unemployment, but under-employment and the impossibility of getting employment in many cases.
Many hon. Members will know of my desire to talk about transport. I occasionally talk about trains in this place. Connectivity for the far south-west is a complicating factor in the economic performance of Plymouth and the wider south-west economy, as it is for many other parts of the country. The investment we need in structural transport, both on road and rail, and bus services within cities, can open up and transform job opportunities.
I want to talk about buses for a moment, because when we look at under-employment, one concern that a number of people tell me about is that, without a car, they are sometimes unable to get to their workplace. That is because there is no public transport available or the buses stop at a certain time. That is especially true of low-wage service work. The hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole talked about our hospitality sector. Without decent public transport, it is impossible for those people to get to shops, tourist attractions, cafes and restaurants early in the morning to provide sleepless people with their coffee on the way to work. The concern is that that means some people are spending their already low wages on taxis to get to work before the working day has started, eroding the value of that day’s work for them.
There is a lot we need to do to look behind the statistics. I encourage the Minister to look at whether a basket of measures could be more appropriate. To an extent, the debate as to what goes in that basket of measures—just as the debate as to what goes into the inflation measure—tells a story about our modern Britain. For example, when we take a record player out from the basket of inflation measures and put in an MP3 download, we can see the way the economy is changing. That same principle should apply to how we look at employment statistics and the lived experience of people seeking employment or in employment. One day I hope we will be able to take out sanctions and food bank use from that basket of measures. That should be a collective aspiration for all parties. Until the time when they are no longer in use, we should feature those as part of that collective basket of stories—that human lived experience—that sits behind the unemployment statistics. There are many other things we could add into that basket, such as mental health provision, which I have not spoken about, but I hope colleagues might add to the list in the debate.
So I ask the Minister whether the Department has considered a basket of measures in how it presents these stories, and I encourage all hon. Members to do as I did on my Facebook page and to get the lived experiences of constituents, because it is the most powerful and humbling experience.
Oral Answers to Questions
Matt Western Excerpts(8 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Guy Opperman
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question, and I will take it up with him after this debate; I will be delighted to sit down with him and be clear on that matter. The Minister for Employment is at the G7 in Canada, so he cannot answer that point, but we will take it up.
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Kit Malthouse)
Such an obligation already exists.
Matt Western
If that is the case, can the Minister explain what the lead time is in respect of someone having to declare that change in income? What would be recommended—for example, would it be one month or two months?
Kit Malthouse
Paying parents who are in the Child Maintenance Service must declare changes in income immediately if they vary by more than 25% of the previously declared level. Of course every paying parent is subject to an annual review, where adjustments are made to the payments if required.
Supported Housing
Matt Western Excerpts(8 years, 5 months ago)
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John Lamont
I just want to make some progress, if I may.
Today’s announcement by the Prime Minister that the cap will not be rolled out for supported housing is just further evidence of the Government’s willingness to listen. I look forward to the Government’s detailed plans for supported housing funding, which will be published next week, as promised. I also welcome the Prime Minister’s announcement that the UK Government have listened to concerns about the local housing allowance cap and that it will not be applied to supported housing or, indeed, the social housing sector more widely. I welcome the fact that the UK Government are engaging with the sector to decide how best to proceed. This is sensible.
Matt Western
I hear what the hon. Gentleman says, but the criticism is actually about the cuts to local authority funding. To challenge his point, Warwickshire County Council’s budget has been halved, and we have seen wholesale closures of much housing and many refuges, which has led to the number of people sleeping rough on the streets doubling in recent months. The issue is down to the lack of funding from central Government to our local authorities.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
The time limits in this debate are really tight, so we cannot have long interventions. An intervention should be a quick point.