Concentrix

Debate between Mhairi Black and Stephen Doughty

Wednesday 26th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mhairi Black]

I want to make some progress.

It is such a farce that the Government and Concentrix cannot even agree on how many times they got it wrong. It is a ridiculous situation to find ourselves in. Meanwhile, people are having to go to food banks and to go home to their crying children, who do not want to eat Tesco’s 80p Bolognese for the fourth time that week.

I appreciate that mistakes can happen in all walks of life, whatever job one is in, but the reality is that, when the mistakes are made by Government, it is people who suffer—and often it is the most vulnerable people. Although we wholeheartedly support Labour’s motion, we have to highlight the fact that the Government have to bear some of the blame. The contract itself states that HMRC is required to monitor the exercise and remains responsible in law for the actions carried out by the contractor. I do not believe that the Government have done that adequately.

The most damning thing in this entire saga is that Concentrix was under the impression that its contract was going to be renewed. Only after the media cottoned on to this and began writing about it, and after 670-odd formal complaints were put in by elected Members to HMRC, did the heat begin to be turned up and the issue begin to be taken seriously. The vice-president of Concentrix said he was initially given only 15 minutes’ notice, before he went on a flight, that the contract was not going to be renewed. He pleaded with HMRC to be given an hour in order to inform staff. An hour was the difference between Concentrix thinking it had a contract that would be renewed and the contract being taken away because of its shambolic work. The level of incompetence is truly incredible. We cannot ignore that and place all the blame on Concentrix.

So what needs to be done now? The hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook), who is no longer in his place, mentioned the £100 hardship payment, but in all my cases constituents have been told that the £100 will be taken back off their benefits. That has to be looked at. If we are all being told that at the same time, that is clearly an issue.

As for how we should deal with the overall problem, the buck has to stop with HMRC. The Government must bring services of this kind back in house, and they must once again be the Government’s day-to-day responsibility. Saying to a private company “We want you to make £1 billion worth of cuts, but we will only pay you on a results basis” is a recipe for disaster. We have to legislate so that this is never allowed to happen again. One of the main reasons that it occurred in the first place was the lack of resources and Departments’ inability to cope. The Treasury must reconsider its ongoing policy of downsizing HMRC, especially when we are in the midst of such a cataclysmic problem.

As has been said by a number of Members today, and on another occasion by my good and hon. Friend the Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley), the Government must apologise to people. There is no shame in apologising and admitting that you got it wrong. The Government need to regain a bit of trust from the people who have been hurt. Concentrix is by no means innocent of any of what has happened, but ultimately it was HMRC that signed the contract: it happened on HMRC’s watch.

Conservative Members will probably roll their eyes and stop listening when I say this, but the biggest problem that I have with issues like this is that the Government seem to be perpetuating an overarching culture of blaming the poor. We treat people with suspicion from the start, and the onus is always on individuals to prove that they are not thieves or frauds. Pressure is put on people who have enough to deal with already. I have sat through many debates of this kind, and I have heard certain groups—disabled people, pensioners and those on low wages—being constantly targeted. We end up pitting them against each other. We tell young people “You cannot get a job because pensioners are living too long”, and we tell the disabled “Sorry, we cannot afford to pay these amounts any more, so we will have to cut £30 from your benefits.” All the while, at the heart of all that, there is a small group of people who are wealthier than ever before—and I have to say that I include every elected Member in the Chamber in that category. We were all given an 11% pay rise; who else was? Who in the outside world has seen that kind of pay rise?

[Stephen Doughty]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Mhairi Black]

I am going to finish soon.

Recently, Philip Green gave evidence to the Work and Pensions Committee. Here is a guy who has lost £570 million worth of pensions, 22,000 pensioners have been affected and 11,000 jobs have gone, yet he is still able to go off to the Greek islands on his £100 million yacht. That is not the kind of society that many us want.

Let us not forget that, despite this whole saga and despite all the horrendous stories that we are hearing, Concentrix will still walk away with millions of pounds as a result of the work that it has already done: I believe that the most recent figure is £27 million. This is a culture for which the Government must be responsible. Although only 0.8% of benefits are fraudulently claimed, the general public seem to think that one third of them are. The Government have not just a responsibility to look after people, but a responsibility for the language that they use—for the rhetoric—and also for the culture that they set.

I know that what I am saying will probably not convince Conservative Members. This may be an unconventional suggestion, but I want them to go and see a film called “I, Daniel Blake”, which will give them a cold and sobering view of the reality that so many people are experiencing. The film rightly makes it clear that, when we debate matters such as this, we are not talking about service users, claimants, or national insurance numbers on a Concentrix computer screen; we are talking about citizens—your citizens. We are talking about people here, and they deserve to be treated with a lot more dignity and respect than they have been.

In her first statement as Prime Minister, Theresa May made this promise in Downing Street:

“If you’re from an ordinary working class family, life is much harder than many people in Westminster realise… When we take the big calls, we’ll think not of the powerful, but you. When we pass new laws, we’ll listen not to the mighty but to you. When it comes to taxes, we’ll prioritise not the wealthy, but you.”

My last question to the Government is “When?” There are people with absolutely nothing. When will the Government prioritise the people who need them most? Lord knows, those people are losing both patience and hope.