Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Monday 18th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s question. I have written to him today on this specific case. I do not know whether the response has yet come to hand following his question on Thursday, but I am happy to meet him and discuss it in detail. I understand that there was an issue about some of the information at the time the claim was made, and that there has been some backdating. We will talk about the matter later.

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

10. What discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on the number of jobs created since 2010.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr David Gauke)]

The number of people in employment has increased by more than 3 million since 2010 to reach 32 million in the last quarter. The employment rate is close to the record high and has increased by almost five percentage points since 2010.

[Robert Jenrick]

Despite a small recent decline in total employment, unemployment has continued to fall. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this suggests that the Government’s policies and the work of our great jobcentres across the country are making all the difference in matching jobseekers with available jobs? As it is Christmas, would he thank Ian Spalding—the manager of the Newark jobcentre—and his fantastic staff for ensuring that unemployment in Newark is now at 1%?

[Mr Gauke]

I will very happily join my hon. Friend in thanking Ian Spalding and, indeed, Jobcentre Plus staff up and down the country, who do a fantastic job in helping to reduce unemployment. I think that the claimant count in Newark has fallen by 42% since 2010. In the meetings that I have had with jobcentre staff across the country, I have seen that they are enthusiastically implementing universal credit because they can see that it will help them to make further progress.

Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Monday 13th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

This is why I repeatedly make the point that nobody needs to wait a long period of time for cash support under the universal credit system, and to suggest otherwise is causing unnecessary anxiety for those who are not on universal credit—and I think we should all discuss this in a slightly more responsible manner.

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

When I visited Newark’s jobcentre a week or so ago, I found that 80% of the jobs on offer were paid either four-weekly or monthly. Does the Secretary of State agree that we have to be careful not to patronise working people and not to prevent them from entering the workplace with as much ease as possible? The vast majority of jobs in my constituency are paid monthly.

[Mr Gauke]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Part of the purpose of universal credit is to close the gap between being out of work and being in work. Most jobs are paid monthly, and getting people used to that monthly system is a sensible approach. I also very much welcome the fact that my hon. Friend has visited a jobcentre, and I recommend that other hon. Members do so, to hear how universal credit is operating on the ground. I know that many hon. Members have found the experience to be extremely positive.

Pensions

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Wednesday 19th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

That is absolutely right. Looking ahead, every generation will spend more years, on average, receiving a state pension than the previous generation. That is a very good thing, but it is right that we get the balance right. If Governments do not address this issue, we end up with a crisis, end up having to move quickly, and end up with sharp increases in the state pension age. That is what we are avoiding through the responsible approach we are taking today.

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

I am the father of three young daughters. Office for National Statistics figures say that one of them will live to be 100, and that by the time they retire, there will be only two workers in this country for every retired person. Does the Secretary of State agree that it is blindingly obvious that we need to take the steps that he has outlined today? It should not be a cause of regret—it should be a cause of celebration that our children and grandchildren are going to live to such a grand old age—and it should be treated on a cross-party basis as the perfectly responsible action that any Government should be taking.

[Mr Gauke]

My hon. Friend puts it very well. It is a cause of celebration that life expectancy is improving, but along with changes in life expectancy, inevitably, there are changes in the state pension age, as the change announced today demonstrates.

State Pension Age

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

That is another legitimate question. It is within scope for the hon. Lady to raise it with John Cridland and I urge her to do so. A number of similar points have been made. Of course, he will have to make the final decision about the balance of his review within the terms of reference, but this matter is certainly within the terms of reference. I wish those on the Front Bench of the hon. Lady’s party had taken such a positive view.

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

I have listened to this discussion for 45 minutes and, setting aside the bluster from some of the Opposition parties, the only point of divergence that I can see is on whether the Government have included a requirement for this five-yearly statutory inquiry to consider affordability. If that is the case, does my right hon. Friend agree that affordability should definitely be part of any inquiry into our pensions system?

Given that we have a national debt of £1.7 trillion or £24,000 for every man, woman and child in this country, it would be a crime for the Government not to consider whether our pension age is affordable. I hope that the other parties will reconsider, particularly Labour and the Lib Dems, given that this was the only point of difference that their spokesmen could raise.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I agree with my hon. Friend. I thought that there was consensus on this matter, but it has apparently been torn up. I urge those on the Opposition Front Bench to change their minds and engage with the review. Of course affordability will be considered. I do not know of any Government that would genuinely say, “We will make some change and not think about whether it is affordable.” Hang on a second—the last Labour Government did that, actually. I am sad to hear that the Opposition are following their usual trend, which is to shout a lot and make commitments they could never possibly meet if they were in government.

Under-occupancy Penalty

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Thursday 28th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justin Tomlinson]

The hon. Gentleman seems to object to allowing people the opportunity to buy their own home. We are not all from gifted backgrounds and people should have an opportunity to do that. That, in turn, will raise the funds to create new housing.

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

The amount we spend on housing benefits rose by 50% in the last years of the Labour Government. We now spend more on housing benefit than we spend on secondary education, and that sum is equivalent to 50% of the Ministry of Defence budget, yet there is a chronic shortage of social housing. Does the Minister agree that no reasonable, competent Government would not be trying to find fair and just solutions to both those problems?

[Justin Tomlinson]

The money spent on housing benefit was £24.4 billion. Without our reforms it would have been £26 billion per year. The Opposition are calling on us to scrap the whole of the spare room subsidy policy. That would be an extra £2.5 billion in their ever-growing black hole.

Housing Benefit and Supported Housing

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Wednesday 27th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

My hon. Friend makes a strong point. It is rare that I disagree with him, but the figure is slightly better than he says. There is £870 million coming through. He highlights the Government’s clear focus on these issues.

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend share my surprise that until we heard from the former shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, we had not heard, in 25 minutes of listening to the shadow Minister, any suggestion or acknowledgement that housing benefit is now an issue that any responsible Chancellor needs to look at? We spend more on housing benefit than on secondary education and it represents 50% of what we spend on the defence budget. No responsible Chancellor of the Exchequer would not be losing sleep about housing benefit and looking to reform it.

[Brandon Lewis]

My hon. Friend makes another clear and important point. Not just in the past 25 minutes, but in the past six years, Labour has said nothing constructive about how to deal with these issues for the benefit of the British taxpayer.

Funeral Poverty

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2015 Westminster Hall

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

I will be brief, given the impending time limit. I support this debate, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) for putting across the arguments so thoughtfully. I also thank the hon. Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck) for raising this issue in the national consciousness in the way it deserves.

I will make a couple of brief points. The first is obvious, but it deserves to be said again that we have a cultural problem in this country, even more so than in many other countries, because we do not talk about death and, as a result, do not plan for it. That is part of the reason for the problems that we all get into. Death is a certainty, yet we do not talk about it and too few of us plan for it, even those who have the income to do so if they only thought about it at an earlier time.

As we have heard, it is possible to plan ahead and take a fixed-cost, pre-need funeral plan. I have also had constituents whose funeral director had gone out of business and, as we have just heard, their family only discovered it at the point of death, which is an awful tragedy. I have had two constituents in that position. Such schemes are important and should be promoted by the Government and by funeral directors because, in their defence, they fix the cost at the point at which the scheme is taken out. As we have heard, the cost of a funeral has risen so much in recent years that, in all likelihood, a funeral will be significantly cheaper if a scheme is taken out several years in advance.

Lastly—I know that we need to move on—we must, without bashing funeral directors, make the point that the cost of a funeral has risen enormously in recent years, by seven times the rate of inflation. That is too much. Many funeral directors have quite high margins; some basic products, such as coffins, can be provided for as little as £60 or £100. I do not want people to be pushed into undignified funerals, but funeral directors could do more to reduce the cost of funerals and enable members of the public to have dignified funerals at a sensible price.

Members might not be aware that there is a growing trend in this country of DIY funerals. That has both good and bad sides, but we need to be aware of it, because hundreds of thousands are happening now: members of the public do a lot of the work themselves rather than going through funeral directors. They take control of the paperwork, arrange and even conduct the service and make transport arrangements. That is a difficult process, but we need to be aware of it. If we do not sort out the problem, we will see far more DIY funerals in years to come.