Oral Answers to Questions Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Work and Pensions
William Bain
Main Page: William Bain (Labour - Glasgow North East)Department Debates - View all William Bain's debates with the Department for Work and Pensions
(10 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Esther McVey
We have supported people with discretionary housing payments amounting to £360 million. The authorities are working with credible landlords. We are supporting those people. Perhaps the hon. Lady could not get an answer to her question because she was looking for something that was not there.
Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)
Today I welcome the step that we are taking to support those suffering from mesothelioma and their families, which is a vast improvement on previous taxpayer-funded schemes. The Mesothelioma Bill will correct the failings of the insurance industry to keep proper records, speeding up tracing and setting up the scheme whereby insurers will make payments to some 300 people a year who cannot trace their past employers’ insurers. The Bill is a laudable and long-overdue step towards redress for sufferers of this terrible disease and I welcome its Second Reading in the other place.
Mr Bain
Seven weeks in, the true devastating consequences of the bedroom tax are becoming clear: claims for discretionary housing payments up 338% in a month, and in Glasgow rising to 5,500, the highest in the entire country. Is it not the case that the Secretary of State has not provided local councils with the resources they need to deal with a crisis of his making?
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)
We have substantially increased the budget for discretionary housing payment, so it is not surprising that there is a rising number of people applying for it. My officials are in regular contact with Scottish local authorities to look at the issues there, as well as in other parts of the country. We have formal evaluation over the next year and two years, and we are monitoring the situation on the ground to see how these reforms are working.