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Oral Answers to Questions
(8 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)
1. What assessment he has made of the potential effect of his proposals to reform the NHS bursary on future levels of recruitment into the medical professions.
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
7. What assessment he has made of the potential effect of his proposals to reform the NHS bursary on future levels of recruitment into the medical professions.
Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP)
10. What assessment he has made of the potential effect of his proposals to reform the NHS bursary on future levels of recruitment into the medical professions.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Ben Gummer)
The reform to the NHS bursary will lift the cap currently placed on university places for nurses, midwives and allied health professions. Universities will be able to train up to 10,000 extra students by the end of this Parliament. This increase in UK graduates will reduce NHS reliance on expensive agency staff and staff from overseas.
Stuart C. McDonald
I am certain that the Minister will want to congratulate the SNP on sweeping spectacularly to a historic third successive term, all on a manifesto pledge to protect rather than abolish the nursing bursary in Scotland. The serious question is this: how does the Secretary of State plan to monitor the impact that the removal of the bursary might have on students from poorer backgrounds who are training as nurses in England?
Ben Gummer
I would like to congratulate my friend the leader of the Scottish Conservative party, who has led the extraordinary resurgence of Conservatism and Unionism north of the border.
I regret very much that the SNP is not endorsing our plan to give opportunity to thousands more people who want to become nurses, especially those from under-privileged backgrounds. We will of course monitor the reform, not only as we continue our process towards making a decision, taking account of all the equalities analysis that will be done in the interim, but after the final decision has been made.
Carol Monaghan
It is recognised that there is a high proportion of mature students of nursing and other health professions. How does the Secretary of State plan to mitigate the effects of the removal of the bursary and provide support to students who have family commitments or who already have a student loan from a previous degree?
Ben Gummer
The NHS benefits enormously from mature students entering the service, and that is why we have already said that we will be looking at offering second-degree bursaries in the scheme. The consultation is clear: it asks a number of open questions, inviting responses from nurses and nurse trainees about how best to support mature students. We will be looking at those carefully as we formulate our conclusions.
Martyn Day
With the increased cost of training as a nurse and a 1% pay freeze throughout this Parliament, how does the Secretary of State plan to recruit and retain sufficient nurses in permanent posts in the short term, so that patient care and staff wellbeing are not negatively affected?
Ben Gummer
South of the border we have been able over the past six years to increase the number of nurses, both in training and in the service, which has been made possible by the stronger economy and the stewardship of the NHS, in such contrast to the developing picture in Scotland. We are able to expand the numbers in training by up to 10,000 between now and 2020 as a result of that innovative policy, and that is why it should also be adopted in Scotland.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
What lessons has the Minister learned from the experience in higher education, where bursaries or grants were removed and replaced with student loans, and we have seen an increased number of students from all backgrounds?
Ben Gummer
We have indeed, and it is remarkable that south of the border we have seen a university that would equate to the fourth largest in the country filled every year as a result of the reforms to higher education funding, and a university the size of the University of Leicester filled with those who would not previously have gone to university as a result of the reforms that we introduced in 2011. I want to see those benefits extended across the range including to those who have not so far had them—namely, student nurses.
Ms Margaret Ritchie (South Down) (SDLP)
Considering the importance and the central role of nurses in the medical profession and in helping people when they are ill, how long does the Minister expect it will take on average for a nurse working in the NHS to pay back the total debt that would be accrued under the Government’s proposed replacement for the bursary scheme?
Ben Gummer
It depends of course on the career progression of that particular nurse, but the repayment terms will be precisely those for students of other degrees. Newly qualified nurses will not pay any more than they do currently, and the exact rates at which they will pay back—9% above £21,000—are outlined carefully in the consultation document. I recommend that the hon. Lady looks at it and sees the benefits that will come from the reform that, were it to be adopted in Scotland, would provide an enormous benefit to the service north of the border.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
I start by congratulating the Secretary of State on becoming the longest serving Health Secretary in history. It is an important-landmark, not least because it is the first target that he has managed to hit.
On NHS bursaries, last week the Minister said that
“more mature students are applying now than in 2010.”—[Official Report, 4 May 2016; Vol. 609, c. 197.]
However, a written answer given to me yesterday by the Minister for Universities and Science appears to contradict this. Indeed, it shows that numbers of mature students have fallen in the past five years by almost 200,000. Given that the average age of a student nurse is 28, and in the light of the clear evidence from his own Government, will the Minister correct the record and commit to looking again at the impact of these proposals on mature students, who form a significant part of the student nurse intake?
Ben Gummer
I, too, as I know will all my ministerial colleagues, congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on a remarkable tenure in his post.
It is clear that mature student numbers dropped immediately after the higher education reforms, but they then started rising and have now exceeded the rate before the reforms. I am happy to give the hon. Gentleman the details of that. We are also clear that we need to nurture mature students, which is why the consultation asked the specific question that it did. We want to invite answers from the service about how best we can do that because we are clear that the current system is not working as well as it should.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
2. What recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of specialist nurses in supporting disabled people.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Ben Gummer)
Specialist nurses make a valuable contribution to the care of disabled people. They have specialist post-registration qualifications, which are attained through additional training. There are now 3,000 more nurses working in the NHS than in May 2010, ensuring that disabled people continue to receive the highest possible quality care.
Debbie Abrahams
In May 2010 there were 5,360 learning disability nurses. In January 2016 there were 3,619. The Government promised to protect the NHS frontline. Why does this protection not extend to people with learning disabilities?
Ben Gummer
It is true that the skills mix and the way in which specialist nurses have changed over the past six years may well account for the variation that the hon. Lady has noticed—I am willing to write to her with the detail—but the total number of nurses has increased, and we are giving better and more varied training to nurses across the board so that they can deal with the specialist problems that are increasingly the core part of their work.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Minister for his response. Specialist nurses are vital for the care and support that they provide for patients and families, not just for the elderly but for the disabled. What is his Department doing to ensure that funding for specialist nurses is maintained and that we do not end up in the situation that we have in Northern Ireland with Four Seasons, which is responsible for 62 homes in Northern Ireland and 450 across the whole of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland?
Ben Gummer
Funding for nurses has increased over the past six years. It is because of the sixth largest increase in the NHS budget that we can guarantee that nursing numbers will remain in that strong position for the remainder of this Parliament. That will include specialist nurses. My role is to make sure that as many nurses as possible get additional training so that we have a wider and richer skills mix, specifically so that nurses can develop their careers—something that I am afraid was often made more difficult rather than easier under the previous career structure.
Dr Tania Mathias (Twickenham) (Con)
3. What steps he is taking to encourage the use of biosimilar medicines in NHS treatment.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Life Sciences (George Freeman)
The biosimilars—the generic versions of biologic products—represent part of the extraordinary range of new drugs that are becoming available for the benefit of our patients. The Government are committed to ensuring access to drugs for UK patients at the highest level of quality and safety, and to ensuring that effective biosimilar medicines are available. That is why we are leading, not just here but in Europe, the regulatory regime through the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency as the lead assessor and rapporteur. In the NHS, the chief pharmaceutical officer, Keith Ridge, and the commercial medicines unit in my directorate have put together a framework agreement for biosimilars, and through the medicines optimisation programme we are looking specifically at biosimilars, and we have set up a national biosimilars medicines group.
Dr Mathias
I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. May I ask also that where NHS pharmacists are involved in oncology clinics, there is a higher prescribing of biosimilars? What steps are in place to encourage more oncology clinics to involve NHS pharmacists at the start of the patient’s treatment journey?
George Freeman
Not surprisingly, my hon. and, in this field, learned Friend makes a very important point. We have set up a number of initiatives to that very end: to make sure that our pharmacologists and pharmacists in the system are alert and have all the information they need to increase the prescription of biologics and the generic versions, biosimilars. I will happily write to her, describing a range of initiatives that are in place which we are pursuing to that end.
Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)
One of the issues around the adoption of biosimilars and, indeed, driving down the NHS drugs budget generally is the lack of local analysis of patterns of prescribing against efficacy and cost. I wonder whether the Minister would consider encouraging clinical commissioning groups to appoint analytical pharmacists, who could look at this equation and recommend different prescribing decisions on a local basis.
George Freeman
My hon. Friend makes a really interesting point. It goes to the heart of the work that we are doing at the moment with CCGs, in terms of use of data to map and track prescribing practice across the system. I will happily pick up the point about ensuring that biosimilars are incorporated in that.
Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)
4. What progress has been made on improving diagnosis and treatment of Lyme disease.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Jane Ellison)
Lyme disease is a complex infection, so we recognise that there are real challenges in diagnosis and treatment. In the light of this, I am pleased to say that the Department plans to commission three reviews on the diagnosis, treatment and transmission of Lyme disease to inform future decision making.
Andrew Stephenson
A constituent in Earby was struck down with a debilitating illness several years ago, which has totally destroyed her quality of life. Since then, I have been visiting her regularly at home every few months, as she has fought to get a diagnosis. Over recent months, all the evidence has started to point towards Lyme disease, but there seems to be precious little support out there for people with this condition. What more can my hon. Friend do to support constituents like mine?
Jane Ellison
In addition to the reviews that the chief scientific adviser is overseeing, we have commissioned the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence to develop a new evidence-based guideline for care, specifically to respond to the sort of situation that my hon. Friend describes with his constituent. That is for publication in 2018 and it is being prioritised because of the interest in this area.
John Pugh (Southport) (LD)
5. What plans he has to reduce agency staffing expenditure in the NHS.
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Jeremy Hunt)
We have taken tough measures to control unsustainable spending on agency staff, which cost the NHS more than £3 billion last year. Overall agency spend is now falling and we expect to save the NHS at least £1 billion this year as a result.
Mr Hunt
I think the hon. Gentleman is right that we have historically not trained enough staff to work in the NHS and been over-optimistic about the staff needs. That is why, in this Parliament, we will be training over 11,000 more doctors as a result of the spending review, and 40,000 more nurses.
Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
In the Public Accounts Committee, which I sit on with the hon. Member for Southport (John Pugh), we have repeatedly come to this question about agency staffing. The key thing is, as he says, that the establishment level for acute hospitals is always under par, because the budget set from the centre is never enough to meet it. Will the Secretary of State go and take a serious look at this issue, and stop this myth that it is just down to the rates paid? That is part of the problem, but it is not the main problem.
Mr Hunt
Perhaps I can give the hon. Lady some comfort. I recognise that there is a big mountain to move, but the changes we made last year were not just about changing the rates paid to agencies. They were also about capping the amounts agencies can pay their own staff, because we think it is incredibly divisive inside hospitals to have two nurses doing exactly the same work, but one being paid dramatically more than the other. We are also capping the total amount hospitals can spend on agency staff. The result is that the monthly spend on agency staff is now falling and we are on track to reduce the agency bill by about £1 billion in this Parliament.
Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)
Spending on agency staff has gone through the roof under this Health Secretary, and the Secretary of State’s attempt to deal with the symptoms of the problem but not the cause has left hospitals struggling to get staff at rates they are allowed to pay. In the past few weeks we have seen reports of emergency surgery suspended in Doncaster, an A&E department downgraded in Chorley and two critical care units closed in Leeds, all because of staff shortages. The Health Secretary has admitted that this will be his last big job in politics. May I urge him before he goes to get a grip on the cause of the staffing crisis? Otherwise, it will be patients who will be facing the consequences long after he has gone.
Mr Hunt
May I start by thanking the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) for his generous congratulations earlier, and indeed for making history himself by being the first Opposition Member I can remember to congratulate the Government on hitting a target?
I say to the hon. Lady that, as a result of the measures we have taken to deal with the agency staff issue, we think we have saved £290 million compared with what we would have spent since last October, two thirds of trusts are reporting savings and the price paid for agency nurses is 10% lower than it was in October. The root cause of the problem is, as the hon. Member for Southport (John Pugh) said, our failure in the past to recruit enough staff. One of the reasons for that is that successive Governments failed to understand the needs of nursing in wards, which is why we had the problem at Mid Staffs. Because we are addressing that, we are now able to make sure that we do not pay excessive rates for agency staff.
Heidi Alexander
If I may turn to another part of the staffing crisis, all Opposition Members welcome the resumption of talks on the junior doctors contract. It is in no one’s interest—not the Government’s, not junior doctors’ and certainly not patients’—for this dispute to drag on any longer. May I implore the Health Secretary to do all he can to find a reasonable compromise this week that will keep doctors in the NHS and ensure that we have a motivated, well trained and fairly rewarded workforce to continue to deliver the excellent care we all want?
Mr Hunt
I thank the hon. Lady for her reasonable tone and absolutely give her that assurance. We have always wanted a negotiated outcome to this dispute. That is why we paused the introduction of the new contracts last November to give talks a chance to succeed, and it is why this week I have said we will further pause the introduction of the new contracts to see whether we can get a negotiated outcome. We want a motivated workforce and we are highly cognisant of the fact that hospitals that offer seven-day care and higher standards of care for patients are the very hospitals that have some of the highest levels of morale in the NHS. It takes two to tango, and I very much hope that the British Medical Association will play ball and its part this week in helping us to deliver a safer seven-day NHS.
Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)
6. What steps he is taking to improve the outcomes of people with rarer cancers.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Life Sciences (George Freeman)
The extraordinary pace of progress in biomedical science, not least in genomics and data, is transforming our understanding of cancer. It is leading to greater identification of more rare cancers, and indeed to more diseases becoming rare diseases. That is why we have invested so heavily in Genomics England and set up the 13 genomic medicine centres around the UK, leading in cancer and rare disease diagnosis. I am delighted that we are now setting up a Northern Ireland General Medical Council, which will collect 17,000 samples. We will implement the recommendations of the independent cancer taskforce on diagnosis and we are setting up a series of regional genetic laboratories and infrastructure. I believe the hon. Gentleman will be able to see that we are investing heavily in making sure we lead not only in the science but in the adoption of genomic medicine in the NHS.
Mark Durkan
I thank the Minister for all that, but remind him that there is concern about the implications of the cancer drugs fund details, as they will affect people with rare cancers. Is he prepared to promote progress on rare and less-common cancers as part of the new work programme for the British-Irish Council? The challenges of small patient numbers, thinner investment in research, and symptoms being less well known are not confined to his jurisdiction.
George Freeman
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. In both Northern Ireland and the Republic, I have seen some great leadership in this field, and as the UK Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Life Sciences, I would be delighted to pick this up through that council, and suggest that our nations, working together, can collaborate better, not least in implementing the accelerated access reforms that I am putting in place. Those reforms, aligned with the cancer drugs fund in its revised format, should see us able to accelerate the adoption of drugs for rarer cancers for patients’ benefit.
Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
In part because they are the hidden majority, people with rarer cancers are often diagnosed later, often through an emergency presentation. That can make for more aggressive treatments, which can have a longer-term impact on health. Will the Minister update the House on tailored recovery packages, and the plan to roll those out that was outlined by the Government back in September last year—a Government who have, I must say, been a great friend to the cancer community?
George Freeman
I am very grateful for that acknowledgment. We have put £1 billion into the cancer drugs fund, and we are completely committed to increasing the pace at which we bring cancer drugs through. It is true that cancer outcomes have improved quickly since 2010; in 2014-15, over 645,000 more patients with suspected cancers were seen. That is an increase of 71%. Almost 40,000 more patients were treated for cancer—an increase of 17%. We have announced funding of up to £300 million a year by 2020 to increase diagnostic capacity, so that we can meet the new target, which is that patients will be given a definitive cancer diagnosis or the all-clear within 28 days of being referred by a GP.
Danny Kinahan (South Antrim) (UUP)
We are very grateful for all the work that is going on, and for how we are pulling together and working as a United Kingdom, but is there any way of helping those people who cannot afford to travel to the specialists to get the treatment? That is a huge chunk out of a devolved budget, and it is something that we should be working on together.
George Freeman
I will happily look at that as part of the discussions with the council that I just touched on. We are determined to make sure that this life science revolution is not just in the Oxford-Cambridge-London triangle, but goes out across all the devolved areas, which of course are leading on much of the science. That is why we are committed, through the National Institute for Health Research and the NHS, to creating hubs across the country, so that everybody can benefit.
David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)
Is my hon. Friend aware that about a third of people, including those with rare cancers, will, on their cancer journey, use some form of complementary or alternative medicine? Is he further aware that there is a range of new treatments out there that are being used in the private sector, including virotherapy and hyperbaric oxygen therapy? The second particularly can help people who have serious effects from chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Will he look at some of these treatments and write to me about them?
George Freeman
I am not against people taking whatever they feel helps, but my hon. Friend will understand that in this field, in allocating every pound, we need to be guided by the very best science and evidence. Internationally, we are applauded for the quality of our assessment, and I intend to do everything to make sure that that continues.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
Outcomes in cancer are not just about survival. Does the Minister agree that nowhere is the case for a seven-day NHS stronger than in palliative medicine, and will he say what can be done, in rolling out the 7/7 NHS, to address the scandal whereby only one in five hospitals has specialist palliative care cover on a Saturday and Sunday?
George Freeman
My hon. Friend makes a really important and specific point. He is absolutely right, and that is one reason why we are committed to our seven-day NHS. It is improving—I can share the data with him—but he makes a good point, and that is one reason why we need to continue.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
8. What assessment he has made of the effect of changes to local authority social care budgets on demand for health services.
The Minister for Community and Social Care (Alistair Burt)
Good morning, Mr Speaker—[Interruption]—and everyone.
There is a link between adult social care funding and demand for NHS services. More recent analysis shows no definitive relationship, but Forder’s 2009 study showed a £1 reduction in social care spend increasing NHS demand by 35p. That is why Government have driven the integration of health and social care, and given councils up to £3.5 billion of new support by 2019-20.
Chi Onwurah
The Royal College of Surgeons has said that
“the new council tax precept will not raise enough funds for the areas of the country”
with the greatest need. In Newcastle, it will raise £1.7 million this year, but the funding gap is £15 million. Why is the Minister’s Government making my constituents pay more for worse social care, increasing the pressure on the NHS and causing misery for millions?
Alistair Burt
The better care fund has been adjusted to recognise that not all councils can raise a similar amount of money through the social care precept, so the issue that the hon. Lady raises has been noted and recognised. The only way in which the NHS can achieve better outcomes and meet the challenges of rising demand is through an increased focus on preventive community health and social care, and closer working with local authorities. That is what the pooled budget is designed to deliver, and that is what it will do.
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
Indeed, good morning, Mr Speaker.
A big challenge for local authorities and adult social care is how to fund the increases in the minimum wage that care providers have to pay. As my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) just detailed, the 2% social care precept does not cover all the increased costs and, indeed, in some areas, it is not even being passed on to care providers. The Local Government Association asked Ministers for £700 million from the better care fund to help with that increased cost this year and next year—not in 2019. When will Ministers listen to local councils and agree to bring forward that much needed funding to support what is effectively their own policy in the care sector?
Alistair Burt
I do not think that anyone fails to recognise that the next couple of years in social care will be very tight, but that is why the better care fund is there. Work has been done to increase the amount of money available to meet the challenges that the hon. Lady raises. I have to repeat that to fund this properly there has to be a sufficiently strong economy. There has to be the commitment to funding that the Government have been able to make almost uniquely in the House. I sometimes think it would help if she recognised the strength of the economy that has been able to do that by assisting local authorities, rather than complain about the amount of money available.
Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)
9. What steps his Department is taking to ensure provision of good quality A&E services.
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Jeremy Hunt)
Although we are not currently hitting the national A&E target, hospital A&E departments continue to perform well under great pressure. Overall they are coping with 1.9 million more attendances annually compared with 2009-10, and the average wait to see a doctor remains just 38 minutes.
Chris Green
I thank my right hon. Friend for his answer. Many of my constituents are concerned about the temporary closure of the Chorley A&E department, which now only operates as an urgent care service. What assurance can he give my constituents on A&E cover in and around the Bolton West constituency?
Mr Hunt
May I reassure my hon. Friend that I am very aware of this issue, and I have had a number of meetings with hon. Members to discuss it? Patient safety has to be the utmost priority. We are working with the local trust, and we have been given an assurance that neighbouring hospitals will be able to absorb any extra activity, and that it is working hard to try to reopen the A&E department.
Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
The temporary closure of A&E services at Chorley hospital has had a knock-on effect on hospitals across Lancashire, and anecdotally I hear of many more people turning up at Preston Royal. What reassurances can the right hon. Gentleman give my constituents and residents across Lancashire that he is doing everything he can to make sure that the staffing issues at Chorley are fixed and that Chorley A&E is open again?
Mr Hunt
I can reassure the hon. Lady that we have been monitoring the situation closely and have provided extra capacity at the Royal Preston hospital. Her own Royal Lancaster infirmary has recently come out of special measures and done a really good job in turning round the quality of care after protracted difficulties. We continue to monitor the situation, and patient safety is our No. 1 priority.
Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)
Following centralisation and specialisation processes to drive up the quality of clinical care, we now have patients presenting at minor injuries units and urgent care centres with conditions that need to be treated elsewhere. Will my right hon. Friend take steps to ensure that those centres own the patients’ experience once they have presented, so that we never again have a patient with a serious illness being sent out to make their own way to A&E?
Mr Hunt
As ever on health matters, my hon. Friend speaks wisely. The fundamental issue is a high level of confusion about what happens to patients when they are faced with a bewildering choice about what to do when they have an urgent health need that needs resolving. They can call 111, try to get an urgent GP appointment, go to a walk-in centre, go to A&E and many other alternatives. We need to resolve that and make it simpler for patients so that they go to the right place first time. Urgent work is happening to ensure that we do that.
Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)
The closure of the A&E unit at Chorley and South Ribble district general hospital has ramifications across the north-west. I am informed that North West Ambulance Service has taken on three private ambulances at a cost of £70,000 each a month to provide the extra cover that is required. Does the Secretary of State accept that it is a false economy when he allows A&E units to close on his watch? He simply passes on the costs to other parts of the fractured NHS over which he presides.
Mr Hunt
I recognise that we have a difficult situation in Chorley and that people in that trust are working very closely together. The chief executive of the trust pointed out that the reason for the closure was that neighbouring trusts were not respecting the caps on agency staff that she was respecting. It is incredibly important that, across the NHS, we have a concerted effort to bring down the prices paid for agency staff, which I think is the root problem here. However, we are monitoring the situation closely.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
But how will my right hon. Friend’s powers to ensure good quality accident and emergency provision in hospitals across Greater Manchester be affected by the devolution of health and social care responsibilities to Greater Manchester councils?
Mr Hunt
I can reassure my hon. Friend that, although we are happy to put the local authorities in Greater Manchester in the driving seat for some major changes, including what I hope will be the first full-scale integration of health and social care across the NHS, we are monitoring the performance against national standards. We will be able to see exactly how well they do on patient safety, waiting times and so on, and whether they live up to the big promises that have been made.
John Nicolson (East Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
11. What steps he is taking to resolve the industrial dispute with junior doctors.
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Jeremy Hunt)
Talks are now taking place between NHS employers and the British Medical Association to try to resolve outstanding issues around the junior doctors’ contract.
John Nicolson
In his recent letter to the head of the BMA, the Secretary of State offered to discuss improving work-life balance, especially for people with family responsibilities. How exactly does he plan to do that with a contract that the Government’s own quality impact assessment has identified as especially disadvantaging women?
Mr Hunt
That is not correct. It is worth saying that the reason for the dispute is a manifesto commitment to a seven-day NHS that the Government made to the people of England and that the Scottish National party has not made to the people of Scotland. The weekend effect does not happen just in England. There are studies in Scotland, including the Handel study, which states:
“The excess of admissions ending in deaths at weekends compared with those during weekdays seen elsewhere were also found in Scotland.”
I gently say to the hon. Gentleman that yes, we want to improve the quality of life for junior doctors so that they can live and work in the same city as their partners, and we are looking at the solution to that problem, but that he might think about doing the same thing in Scotland.
Sir Simon Burns (Chelmsford) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend bear it in mind that Secretary of State Dean Rusk always said that jaw-jaw was better than war-war, and that it is welcome that the negotiations have resumed with the BMA on this difficult problem? Does he also accept that everyone wishes the talks well so that we can get a meaningful agreement that ensures a seven-day NHS for the benefit of patients and their safety?
Mr Hunt
My right hon. Friend speaks very wisely. Indeed, I was thinking about the talks as I spoke on my mobile phone and he was having a cigarette just outside the House yesterday morning. He is absolutely right about jaw-jaw. That is why I think that across the whole House we wish the talks well. However, for them to succeed all sides need to recognise their objective, which is a safer seven-day service for patients. I hope that, on that basis, we will be able to make progress.
Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)
I too am glad that the Secretary of State has reopened talks with the junior doctors, but I am a little concerned by the claim that the only issue is Saturday pay, whereas the doctors tell me that they fear the danger of exhaustion. Has he seen the analysis by Cass Business School suggesting that it is impossible to avoid high levels of fatigue under the new contract?
Mr Hunt
What I have done in the new contract is precisely to try to address those issues by reducing the maximum number of hours that junior doctors can be asked to work every week from 91 to 72 and by stopping junior doctors being asked to work six nights in a row or seven long days in a row. These are important steps forward, and the hon Lady may want to look at Channel 4 FactCheck and other independent analysis of the safety aspects of the new contract which say that this contract is a safer contract.
Dr Whitford
I would just say that stating it does not make it happen. Junior doctors have looked at the rotas that have been put out as exemplars, and they will not be able to avoid high levels of fatigue. Does the Secretary of State not recognise that, now that we have more data suggesting that the weekend effect may just be statistical, we actually require clinical research because he does not know exactly what the problem is that he is trying to fix?
Mr Hunt
The new data that the hon. Lady has talked about have been heavily contested this week by some of the most distinguished experts on mortality rates in the country. Academics do sometimes disagree, but Ministers have to decide. The fact is that the overwhelming evidence—whether it is on cancer, cardiac arrests, maternity or emergency surgery, and whether it is in big studies, small studies, UK studies or international studies—is that there is a weekend effect. This Government are determined to do something about it, and I gently say to the hon. Lady that she might consider whether something similar should be done in Scotland.
Mr Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) (Con)
18. I am fully signed up to the national health service, and that is why I want to see the reopening of Chorley A&E as soon as possible. Many of my constituents use it.In his compromising mood, will my right hon. Friend ensure that, as he talks to the junior doctors, whom I value greatly, the one thing that he will not compromise on is delivering a full service seven days a week?
Mr Hunt
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In the end, the British people’s passion for, and commitment to, the NHS is based upon its offering the highest standard of care for patients. It is sometimes difficult to take these decisions and sometimes we have arguments around them. I want to reassure him that my compromising mood is not a temporary thing. We have always wanted a negotiated solution, but there is one bit that we will not compromise on: the moment that the Government start doing things that mean that we are not delivering safe care for patients is the moment that we will fundamentally shake confidence in the NHS. This Government will not allow that to happen.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. We are very time constrained, but I am very keen to get through a few more questions.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
12. How much was (a) collected in payment for NHS care received in the UK by EU citizens and (b) paid for healthcare received by UK citizens in other EU countries in the last 12 months.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Jane Ellison)
For 2014-15, it is estimated that the UK owes other European economic area countries and Switzerland £674 million and is owed £49.5 million by other EEA countries and Switzerland for healthcare activity received in that year.
Mr Hollobone
My constituents in Kettering are increasingly fed up with our national health service paying for the healthcare of foreigners who come to this country to freeload on our system. What more can be done to make sure that hospitals and other healthcare providers bill foreign citizens for the NHS services that they use in this country?
Jane Ellison
The Government take extremely seriously the issue of making sure that only those who should have access to NHS services do access them. Let me make an important point about the figures that I have just given. Some 80% of that imbalanced statistic represents our pensioners who choose to retire to Europe, typically for sunnier weather. The figure is 80% because many more UK pensioners retire to Europe than European pensioners retire here, and there will always be an imbalance. I am sure that even the keenest Brexiteer would not claim that Britain would be sunnier outside the EU.
Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)
Will the Minister encourage her Back Benchers to study the expert evidence that was given recently to the Select Committee on Health on the issue that the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) has just raised, our access to free healthcare in Europe, and the economic shock that our leaving the European Union would cause to the NHS finances and to major public health measures such as clean air and clean water that benefit us immensely? Every single one of them told our Committee that leaving the European Union would be disastrous for the NHS, disastrous for health and disastrous for public health.
Jane Ellison
On this, I am happy to say that I very much agree with the right hon. Gentleman. I encourage all colleagues to look at the evidence deposited with the Committee. Just last year, UK European health insurance card holders—5.5 million people—were able to travel to any other EEA country or Switzerland safe in the knowledge that they would be able to receive free healthcare or reduced costs arising from healthcare if they needed it. That offers great peace of mind and shows that Britain is safer in a reformed EU.
Derek Thomas (St Ives) (Con)
13. What support his Department is providing for meeting additional costs incurred by NHS providers in the integration of health and social care.
The Minister for Community and Social Care (Alistair Burt)
I concur with the remarks that the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Jane Ellison), just made.
The Government recognise that the NHS and adult social care face significant demand pressures, and established the better care fund to join up health and care. In 2016-17, the BCF will be increased to a mandated minimum of £3.9 billion, with additional social care funding of £1.5 billion by 2019-20.
Derek Thomas
NHS Cornwall has a significant overspend in 2015-16 because of the cost of keeping people in acute hospitals rather than their being cared for in the community. Despite the commitment and enthusiasm in Cornwall to achieve meaningful integration of health and social care, the pressure on NHS Cornwall finances threatens this badly needed integration. Does the Minister agree that investment in this today will lead to significant savings for the future and better outcomes for patients?
Alistair Burt
I am aware of significant problems in Cornwall that a number of Members have brought to me, and they are very complex. The clinical commissioning group is building on existing work with NHS England to address the financial challenges facing NHS Kernow and the wider local health and care system. Statutory directions were put in place late last year to support the CCG’s work with local partners in ensuring that services are affordable as well as good. An independently led capability and capacity review is being completed and an action plan is being implemented. I encourage the CCG to continue to work closely with NHS England to help to put its finances on a firmer foundation to achieve its integration plans. There is a further meeting planned locally tomorrow.
Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)
We recently had a Westminster Hall debate on care workers not even being paid the national minimum wage, and now we have private social care providers saying that they will not be able to afford the new national living wage. How does the Department intend to address this impending crisis?
Alistair Burt
It is absolutely essential that workers are paid the national minimum wage, and for care workers that includes travel. The Department has been very clear in that regard. Extra money is being provided to local authorities to pay for social care, as we know, but matters are tight—I am well aware of that. We are looking to providers and local authority providers to meet their statutory obligations to ensure that hard-pressed care workers have the financial support they need to do their vital job.
Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)
14. What progress his Department has made on delivery of the NHS five year forward view.
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Jeremy Hunt)
We are making good progress in implementing the five year forward view, including £133 million invested in new models of care and 18 million people benefiting from extended GP access.
Helen Whately
It is estimated that a third of patients in acute hospitals could be better treated elsewhere, for instance at home, and in east Kent our vanguard aims to address this with new models of care, but it is early days. Will my right hon. Friend advise us of what he is doing to drive progress on new models of care, bringing together health and social care so that more people are cared for in the right place?
Mr Hunt
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to draw attention to what is, in a way, the most fundamental point of the five year forward view, which is getting care to people earlier to help them live healthily and happily at home. Perhaps the most significant announcement we have had in the past few weeks has been the extra £2.6 billion a year that will be invested by the end of the Parliament in general practice. That is a 14% increase that will allow us to recruit many more GPs and, I hope, dramatically improve care for her constituents and others.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
Yesterday the Health Secretary admitted to the Health Committee that “we didn’t protect the entire health budget” in the last comprehensive spending review. I am pleased that he appears to have adopted a bit of straight-talking, honest politics, so in that spirit will he now admit that the very real cuts to public health budgets over the next few years will make it harder to deliver the “radical upgrade” in public health that his five year forward view called for?
Mr Hunt
In the spirit of straight talking and honesty, which I think is an excellent thing, perhaps the hon. Gentleman might concede that those cuts and efficiencies that he is talking about would have been a great deal more if we had followed Labour’s spending plans—that is, £5.5 billion less for the NHS than this Government promised, on the back of a strong economy.
Chris Davies (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Jeremy Hunt)
Last week I agreed to pause the introduction of the new junior doctors contract for five days and return to talks with the junior doctors committee. I commend the junior doctors for their decision to return to talks. They have agreed to suspend the threat of further industrial action and those talks are now in their second day. We have always been clear that we want to see a negotiated solution to this dispute, and the resumption of these talks shows that the Government’s door is and always has been open to meaningful talks.
Chris Davies
Last Friday I met my constituent Lisa Cass whose son Ben was recently diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Ben had been showing signs of the four T’s of type 1 diabetes—toilet, thirst, tired and thinner—and Lisa took him to her local GP for an appointment. No test was done on the day at the surgery and a blood test was booked for the following week. The following day Ben was back at his GP’s surgery after a rapid decline which could have been fatal, and the air ambulance was called. Thankfully—credit is due to the excellent medical professionals who treated Ben—he is now doing well and is managing his condition. However, this case shows the need for awareness of type 1 diabetes to be improved right across the country. Will my right hon. Friend meet me and my constituent to see what more we can do to raise awareness of type 1 diabetes and its symptoms among health professionals and the wider public?
Mr Hunt
Of course I am happy meet my hon. Friend and his constituents. A close friend of mine who wanted to take a place in this House ended up dying tragically early because he had type 1 diabetes and was not able to get the care that he needed, so I am very aware of those issues. What we are doing in England, which is different from Wales, is publishing transparent indicators of the quality of diabetes care CCG by CCG. Those data will be published before the summer recess and will enable us to look at the disparities in care. I am sure there is more we can do.
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
Research published yesterday by NHS Providers and the Healthcare Financial Management Association showed that half of mental health trusts had not had an increase in their budget in 2015-16 and just a quarter of providers are confident that they will receive a funding increase for this financial year, 2016-17. Will the Secretary of State finally admit that the supposed additional investment in mental health that he talks about so often has not materialised for the patients and services that need it most? What is he going to do about it?
The Minister for Community and Social Care (Alistair Burt)
I thank the hon. Lady for her question and for her support for me in the recent London marathon. With reference to her question, it is precisely for the reasons she gives that it is so important for us to make sure that CCGs do transfer the extra money that is available for mental health into mental health services. That is why there will be more transparency and a scorecard for CCGs. She is absolutely correct—it is essential that that money flows through and we are determined to ensure that. Yesterday’s report only shows how right our current actions are to make sure that that happens.
Mr Alan Mak (Havant) (Con)
T3. The Havant Men’s Shed movement has created community workspaces across my constituency, helping to boost mental health and wellbeing, especially for older residents. Will the Minister join me in congratulating the movement on its work and come to Havant to open its new building?
Alistair Burt
Yes. My family know I am a keen supporter of the shed movement, just as I am a keen supporter of the 5 Live Saturday afternoon movement and the beer in the shed movement. I can assure my hon. Friend that an opportunity to visit the Havant Men’s Shed movement will be an important part of the ministerial diary in the very near future.
Mr Speaker
The Minister is an endlessly noble fellow—I think we are very clear about that.
Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)
T2. During March, at one of my local trusts the A&E ambulance target was missed for 937 patients, and more than 4,000 patients waited for more than four hours in A&E. Staff and management agree that this is a trust in crisis, with many wards staffed to less than half the minimum safe staffing levels. Patient safety is being compromised every day. Will the Secretary of State please stop passing the buck and act to stop the downgrade of Dewsbury and Huddersfield hospitals, because it is clear that our local healthcare is in absolute crisis?
Mr Jeremy Hunt
The hon. Lady mentioned to me yesterday that she would raise this issue today. We are absolutely not passing the buck; the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Ben Gummer), had a very productive meeting with her and local representatives to address these issues. She is right to have concerns about some of the safety indicators, but it is also true that summary hospital-level mortality for the trust has improved, and there are encouraging improvements in morale, as recorded through the NHS staff survey. However, there are worrying things, and we will continue to monitor them closely.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
T4. Last month, Coperforma took on the patient transport contract for Sussex. Unfortunately, since then there have been unacceptable and serious delays for some very sick and elderly patients. May I have assurances that the Department of Health will follow up this issue?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Jane Ellison)
Sussex CCGs are responsible for monitoring Coperforma’s performance, and High Weald Lewes Havens CCG acknowledges that, as my hon. Friend said, the early performance of the new non-emergency patient transport service has not been acceptable. For that reason, the CCG, on behalf of all Sussex CCGs, has begun an inquiry, with the aim of making a report available by June, and with interim progress reports. We will of course monitor the issue carefully.
Mr Douglas Carswell (Clacton) (UKIP)
T5. In my corner of Essex, there is a primary care crisis: demand for GP services is rising, the supply of GPs is falling and many surgeries are simply no longer accepting new patients. What assurance can the Minister give me that we will definitely get more GPs, and when will we get them?
Alistair Burt
The concerns the hon. Gentleman raises are very real, and they are shared by GPs around the country, which is why we put so much work into analysing them. The recently published “GP Five Year Forward View” addresses a number of concerns brought to us by GPs, but the determination to have 5,000 more doctors working in general practice by 2020 is a reflection of the fact that making sure there are enough doctors physically to work in general practice is an important aim of the Government’s.
Mrs Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)
T8. My constituent Archie Hill and his parents, Louisa and Gary, were really excited when, on 15 April, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence recommended that the drug Translarna—a breakthrough drug for children with Duchenne muscular dystrophy —should be funded by NHS England. Hon. Members can imagine what happened when, on 4 May, NICE unexpectedly announced that it required extra time to come to an agreement with NHS England. What is going on? We thought this drug had been cleared. Time is of the essence, because the boys affected are eligible for this drug only if they are still walking. Can we please look into this issue, and can we please go back to the original timetable? After all, these boys have had to wait several years to get to this stage.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Life Sciences (George Freeman)
I commend my right hon. Friend, and we have had numerous discussions over the last year on this subject. She can rest assured that I am actively doing everything I can to make sure we expedite this. She will understand that there are important negotiations with NHS England, NICE and the company at the moment, which are key to making sure we can get this drug accelerated quickly.
John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
T6. Other EU countries charge us £650 million a year more for the health treatment of our citizens abroad than we do for the treatment of their citizens here. Is that because we cannot charge them, or because we have not got our act together?
Mr Jeremy Hunt
The answer, regrettably, is that for many years we have not got our act together. That is why I have changed the system of incentives for trusts to make sure that they get a premium for identifying EU nationals they treat and that we can then recharge the treatment to their home countries. We are, as a result, now seeing significant increases in the amount we are reclaiming from other countries.
Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)
Community hospitals are immensely valued by the communities they serve. Will the Secretary of State meet me to discuss the proposals for south Devon, which will particularly affect my constituents living in Dartmouth and in Paignton?
Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)
T7. Wigan A&E is expected to take a third of the patients turned away from Chorley A&E owing to Chorley’s unplanned closure, yet it has a similar ratio of staffing vacancies. What extra resources are being given to Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS Foundation Trust to help it to cope with this crisis?
Mr Hunt
We are making sure that neighbouring hospitals have the resources to deal with the temporary closure of Chorley A&E. The more patients that any hospital sees, the more resources it gets. This is none the less a very worrying situation that we are monitoring very closely.
Peter Heaton-Jones (North Devon) (Con)
The success regime review in Devon is causing real concern about the future of acute services at North Devon District Hospital. Does the Minister recognise that the unique geographical circumstances of Barnstaple mean that the reduction of any of those services will, for some of my constituents, mean a round journey of more than 120 miles to access them?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Ben Gummer)
I do recognise the unique geographical circumstances in my hon. Friend’s constituency. That is precisely why the success regime is being led by local clinicians. I hope and expect that in formulating plans they take account of all the views and all the clinical needs of his constituents and his own views.
Norman Lamb (North Norfolk) (LD)
There is growing concern that the additional investment in children’s mental health services committed last year is not getting through to where it is intended. What will the Secretary of State do to guarantee that that money gets through to help children with mental health needs? It would be scandalous if it did not get through. Transparency is not enough.
Alistair Burt
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for all the work he did in relation to this. I can assure him that the £1.25 billion committed in the 2015 Budget will be available during the course of this Parliament. As I said to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger), it is absolutely essential to me and to us that we make sure that that money does get through to CCGs. The regime will be more transparent, but there will be a determination to expose it to make sure that the money is spent on child and adolescent mental health services, as it needs to be.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
My right hon. Friend will be well aware that the business case for the rebuilding of the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital has been dragging on within the NHS for more than six years. We now seem to have a decision for the Trust Development Authority to make. Will he put pressure on the TDA to approve this business case so that work can begin this summer?
Mr Jeremy Hunt
As my hon. Friend knows, I have done a shift as a porter in that hospital and seen for myself just how much it needs the extra investment to transform its facilities. I will happily look into the matter for him, and I am keen to see it progress as fast as possible.
Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)
The Minister will be aware that mortality rates in England and Wales have increased by 5.4% in 2015—the biggest increase in the death rate for decades. She will also be aware that mortality rates have been rising since 2011. Has she done any analysis of what has been behind those trends? Specifically, with the Cridland review starting, what will her Department do to negotiate with Cridland on the increase in the pensionable age to take account of the recent changes taking place?
Jane Ellison
We welcome the overall trend towards longer life expectancy. There are annual fluctuations, but overall the trend remains positive. The key thing is helping people to live longer, healthier lives. Therefore, tackling health inequalities among people of all ages and in all communities is embedded in policy right across the Department—for example, the investment in nearly doubling the health visitor workforce over the previous Parliament—so that we can really bear down on the things that drive those health inequalities, particularly among poorer communities and poorer children.
Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State for working so tirelessly to get the BMA back to the negotiating table. Will he confirm that Saturday pay for junior doctors will be at a 30% premium, which is above that for any of the hard-working midwives, nurses, firefighters, paramedics and so on in my constituency?
Mr Jeremy Hunt
I thank my hon. Friend for her question. She makes the important point that the proposals on the table in the new contract are incredibly generous compared with the terms of the other people working in hospitals. That is why it is very important that we have some flexibility from the BMA on Saturday pay so that we can deliver the seven-day service that we all want. It is a very good deal for junior doctors, and I think that if they look at it objectively, we should be able to come to an agreement this week, but it will take flexibility on both sides.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. I shall call the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Graham Allen) if he guarantees that his grey cells will produce a one-sentence, pithy question.
Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)
Will the Minister responsible for dental matters meet me and the hon. Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) to discuss dental ill health in children and how we can change the dentist contract to make it more prevention-friendly? I have got a lot more to say, but I will sit down.
Mr Speaker
That was possibly the hon. Gentleman’s greatest inquiry in his membership of the House.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Marvellous. I am sorry to disappoint remaining colleagues, but we must move on. I am most grateful to colleagues for their good humour.
Withdrawal of the Housing and Planning Bill
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
I have the pleasure of presenting the petition of 360 UK residents, overwhelmingly from the Carshalton and Wallington constituency, calling for the withdrawal of the Housing and Planning Bill. I thank Councillors Manuel Abellan, Jean Crossby, Jayne McCoy and Joyce Melican, and the leader of Sutton council, Councillor Ruth Dombey, for helping to promote this petition, and all my constituents who signed it.
The Housing and Planning Bill not only fails to address the critical shortage of housing, but, worse than that, could lead to a drop in the number of affordable homes. The Bill will do nothing for millions who want to get on the housing ladder, and for those who cannot do so it will damage the prospects of finding an affordable, decent home for rent.
The petition states:
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to withdraw their proposed plans for housing set out in the Housing and Planning Bill.
Following is the full text of the petition:
[The petition of the residents of the UK,
Declares that there are severe flaws in the Housing and Planning Bill; further that these flaws unfairly discriminate against people within certain sectors of the housing market; and further that they could lead to a drop in the availability of social housing.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to withdraw their proposed plans for housing set out in the Housing and Planning Bill.
And the petitioners remain, etc.]
[P001693]
Child Refugee Resettlement
(8 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Home Secretary if she will make a statement on the resettlement of child refugees and the implementation of the Dubs amendment.
The Minister for Immigration (James Brokenshire)
As I said last night, the Government are at the forefront of assisting and protecting vulnerable children wherever they are. As the House is aware, last week the Prime Minister said that we would work with local authorities on plans to resettle unaccompanied children from France, Greece and Italy. We have said that we expect the first children to arrive before the end of the year; we have not said that it will take until the end of the year for them to arrive. As I made clear to the House, we are working hard to ensure that isolated children are reunited with family and that children at risk of exploitation and abuse come to the UK as quickly as possible, but we have to be satisfied that they will receive appropriate care and support when they arrive.
The revised Dubs amendment to the Immigration Bill obliges us to consult local authorities. We must ensure that we fulfil our obligations to children who are already in the UK, as well ensuring that we have the right support for those who may be brought to the UK from Europe. The provisions in the Bill, by their nature, mean that we have to consult others before finalising our plans, but that does not imply that we will delay getting on with this. We will be contacting council leaders in the coming days, and I have already spoken to the Local Government Association about the matter.
We have always been clear that we must do nothing that inadvertently creates a situation in which families see an advantage in sending children ahead and putting their lives at risk by attempting perilous journeys to Europe. That is why only those who were present in the EU before 20 March will be eligible for resettlement, and only when it is in their best interests to come to the UK. That will avoid creating a perverse incentive for families to entrust their children to people traffickers.
We have already started to consult relevant non-governmental organisations, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, UNICEF and member states on how best to implement the legislation. Last Friday, I met the Greek Government in Athens to discuss how we can make progress quickly. We are already working to identify those whom we can help. We have an ongoing plan with France to improve our joint response to children in Calais. We have accepted more than 30 transfer requests since February, and more than 20 have already arrived. We will work with France over the coming days and weeks to increase the identification of children in France who have family here so that we can bring them over.
In addition, the UK has played its full part in supporting European neighbours to provide support to those who have arrived. We have provided nearly £46 million of funding to the Europe-wide response to help the most vulnerable, including children and infants. In addition, the £10 million Department for International Development fund that was announced on 28 January will support the UNHCR, Save the Children and the International Rescue Committee to work with host authorities to care for and assist unaccompanied or separated children. That is on top of our Syrian resettlement programme and the children at risk resettlement scheme, which is designed to resettle up to 3,000 children at risk from the middle east and north Africa where that is deemed to be in their best interests. The Government remain committed to making a full contribution to the global refugee crisis.
We are already acting to implement the amendment. We have started discussions with local government. We have begun work with European partners and NGOs to support effective implementation, and we will bring refugee children to the UK as quickly as is safe. I am proud that the commitment of this country and this Government to help those in need, both within and outside Europe, withstands comparison with that of any other country in the world.
Yvette Cooper
I have asked this urgent question because, at the end of the debate last night, the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) raised the evidence that No. 10 had briefed that we would not see the first children arrive in Britain until the end of the year, which is in seven months’ time. That is in contrast with the urgency we heard from the Minister in yesterday’s debate. It is so frustrating to hear warm words and commitment, while at the same time No. 10 seems to be dragging its feet. To take the first children only by the end of the year is simply not good enough.
Let us look at the processes that should already be in place. For those who have family in the UK, the Government are processing only three to four cases a week at the moment, but more than 100 cases are pending. We need proper transparency and targets in relation to those who have family in the UK. Why will the Minister still not answer my parliamentary questions on how many applications have been made to the Home Office? Why is he still refusing to answer my freedom of information requests on how many Dublin III applications have been made? Why, if they are acting with such urgency, are the Government refusing to provide us with such information? We know that Help Refugees, Citizens UK and the Red Cross already have details of children in Europe who have family in this country who we could bring over now. UNICEF said yesterday:
“With the political will, these children could have their cases processed and be here in time to be packing their pencil cases for the new school year in September.”
Why will the Government not make a commitment at least to clear all the family cases already in the system by the time we get to the summer holidays?
As for the wider scheme, I still do not see why it will take seven months. Under pressure, the Government managed to bring in 1,000 refugees under the original Syrian refugee scheme—all tribute to them for doing so—in three months. The Canadian Government managed to take in 25,000 refugees in the space of three months. Children are at risk right now, so why will the Minister not make a commitment to accelerate the wider scheme as well? Has he even spoken to the independent schools, given that we know that 11-year-olds are still sleeping in tents in Calais on their own and 14-year-olds who want to be surgeons have been out of school for two years? Teenage boys who have been abused are at risk of being abused again, and teenage girls cannot escape from forced marriages because there is no support for them to do so. Greece and Italy do not tell the children, “Stay on the boats until we have sorted it out.” Seven months may be very fast for a bureaucrat, but it is a very long time for a child. I urge the Minister to accept the bishops’ target of taking 300 children by the beginning of the next school year. I urge him to do so.
James Brokenshire
I again underline what I said in my response to the right hon. Lady’s urgent question: we intend to make progress during the course of this year and the first children will therefore arrive before the end of this year, but that does not mean it will take seven months. As I think she will recognise from everything I have said last night and today, we are making quick progress in implementing the provisions in the Dubs amendment to the Immigration Bill. What the Prime Minister’s spokesperson has said is entirely consistent with what the Prime Minister said in accepting the Dubs amendment at Prime Minister’s questions last Wednesday. I want to be absolutely explicit and crystal clear in relation to that.
The right hon. Lady refers to what is happening in Calais in France. As I have already said, we are continuing to work quickly with the French Government to speed up the processes. We have already taken steps to do so in terms of the existing arrangements. Clearly, there is a renewed focus given our acceptance of the Dubs amendment to the Immigration Bill. I absolutely want to use that as a means of speeding up and making more effective the processing of those with links to family in the UK. Vulnerable children can then be reunited with their extended family in the UK, which is in their best interests, and will no longer be isolated in France, Italy or Greece.
The right hon. Lady should look at how we have approached the vulnerable persons resettlement scheme—we have got on with it. I pay tribute to the work of my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Refugees. Once we have stated our commitments, we get on with the practical implementation. We are doing that already, even though the Bill has not received Royal Assent.
We will continue in the days ahead to have those discussions within Government and with all the parties involved, so that we can make progress quickly and see that children who have family here and who are in need of support because of their vulnerability to exploitation come to the UK. I need to consult properly with local authorities in the spirit and the letter of the legislation. That is what we are doing and we will get on with it.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. I remind the House of what should be clear from what has already been said: namely, that this urgent question is not about whether to take child refugees from Europe—that matter has been decided by the House—but about when and how. It is about the implementation, the logistics and the timing, so let us focus our exchanges on that basis.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Britain is being generous in its support for refugees in the region and for vulnerable people coming to this country, but because human traffickers are evil people who will exploit any opportunity for their vile trade there is a big danger that the message will go out from them: “Britain is open now to child refugees. Send us your children. We will take them to Britain.” What can Her Majesty’s Government do to ensure that we provide the support that is needed, but do not send the signal that more child refugees should start to make their way to Europe?
James Brokenshire
In implementing this policy, we are very conscious of the way in which people traffickers and smugglers can twist and interpret the statements that we make. I know that no one in this House would want to see more children lose their lives in the Mediterranean sea or in the Aegean, which has, sadly, been a consequence of these people trading in human misery. I assure my hon. Friend that we take this issue seriously. The best interests of the child are at the forefront of our activity. We will continue to underline the message that this scheme is for children who were in Europe prior to 20 March, so that it cannot be open to that misinterpretation.
Keir Starmer (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)
Yesterday’s debate was very much about how the Government came to accept the final Dubs amendment. Today is clearly about the what and where we go from here. I am glad that this urgent question was granted, because there was an apparent discrepancy between the approach the Minister outlined yesterday and what The Daily Telegraph reported this morning had been briefed from No. 10. The Minister has dealt with that.
The resettlement scheme has expanded over time. It started as a scheme to support, rather than take, refugees. It was expanded to include victims of sexual violence, then 20,000 people over five years, and then 3,000 children and families from the region. It has now been expanded by the final Dubs amendment. In fairness, where the Government have accepted the spirit of the expansion, the scheme works well. I have seen the resettlement of families in Glasgow and Colchester, where the scheme works very well. This next iteration is a challenge, but there is a huge prize if we get it right, particularly as it involves very vulnerable children who are here in Europe right here, right now.
I have some questions for the Minister. If the discussions have started, as he suggests, there must be an idea of the numbers, because there cannot be meaningful discussions unless there is some idea of how many children are involved. What is the broad number that the Government are looking at? The original Dubs amendment included a figure of 3,000. What figure are the Government at least discussing at the moment?
The second question is when. I absolutely agree that seven months is too long for children. There is an urgency here. We are all focused on the 10,000 children who according to Europol have gone missing. Those children are very vulnerable and in great danger. Seven months is a very long time in the life of a child, especially one who has gone through such circumstances.
Finally, what are the funding arrangements? It strikes me that the current scheme is working well because resources are being provided to local authorities and others to make sure that it beds in and that families are supported and welcomed and have the resources and facilities that they need.
What are the numbers, when will the children arrive and what are the funding arrangements?
James Brokenshire
I thank the hon. and learned Gentleman for his comments on how we have sought to implement the scheme. As I have already indicated, we intend to follow the same approach in taking these measures forward and effecting them appropriately, with the best interests of the child in place. We are not looking to delay, and I hope we will make positive progress in the months ahead.
On numbers, the hon. and learned Gentleman will be aware that the amendment, which is now part of the Immigration Bill, says that we need to consult local authorities to establish what is termed the “specified number”. Although I recognise the desire for clarity, it is important to have that consultation first, to meet the requirements of the legislation. I do not want to prejudge the consultation but to get the numbers from it.
As for when, that will clearly be informed by the consultation, but, as I have indicated, we are not looking to delay. We want to make progress quickly in the weeks and months ahead. We are discussing funding across Government. The hon. and learned Gentleman will be aware that unaccompanied asylum-seeking children are already funded when they arrive in the UK, and there are clear funding arrangements for local authorities. We need to be cognisant of that. We will look closely at implementing the scheme in a manner consistent with a number of existing arrangements.
Heidi Allen (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)
This morning we are being challenged on the speed of the scheme. We have asked an awful lot of the Government and they have delivered; I am very proud that they have listened to us. I understand that turning passion and heart into practical steps takes time and co-ordination with other bodies. I would much rather encourage Ministers than berate them, and ask, for example, what can I do? What can we do as MPs to speed things up so that Ministers are not on their own in delivering this scheme?
James Brokenshire
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for highlighting the contribution that can be made. An example could be to have discussions with local authorities about capacity issues within the system, the availability of fostering and other support that may be provided. Indeed—as we have sought to do in implementing the vulnerable persons resettlement scheme—we should harness and channel offers of goodwill and support positive implementation, so that when children arrive they have the care, support and assistance that all Members of this House would want to see.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
The Scottish National party welcomes the Government’s change of position on this issue, as we did last night. We very much support the idea that efforts should be made to get these children here as quickly as possible. We are concerned, however, about the funding arrangements for local authorities. I asked the Minister about that in the debate last night, and the hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) has asked him, but we have not had a clear answer. Rather than simply describing the current arrangements, will the Minister give us more detail? Local authorities in Scotland are considering how to respond to the particular challenge of dealing with vulnerable unaccompanied children. They have already responded admirably to the Syrian resettlement scheme, and as a result have received 700 refugees since October—more are arriving each month—but there is particular concern about how the children are to be supported.
Along with the Local Government Association, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities has been encouraging the UK Government to ensure that the resettlement of unaccompanied children is adequately resourced, in the same way as the Syrian resettlement scheme, but taking into account the particular demands of vulnerable unaccompanied children. Will the Minister give a commitment that the scheme will be properly funded, and will he give us some idea of what he is going to do about funding it rather than simply describing existing arrangements?
James Brokenshire
It is important to recognise that we are likely to be dealing with two distinct groups. First, there are those with extended family within the UK. As they already have family here, the pressures that might otherwise be felt—on fostering, for example—will be different from those that relate to children who are being resettled on the basis of their risk of exploitation or abuse. We need to discuss those details with local government, as well as with the different Governments with whom we are engaging. Funding is linked to that, which is why we need to hold those conversations. The Home Office already provides funding for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, and I assure the hon. and learned Lady that we will be talking to the Scottish Government, and to local authorities in Scotland as well as in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, so that this is seen as a contribution that we are making as the United Kingdom.
Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend for his clear enunciation of Government policy, and this must be seen within the context of the wider refugee crisis. He will know that in September last year, the Prime Minister gave an undertaking that cognisance would be taken of religious persecution in the middle east, and the systematic slaughter of Coptic Christians, Yazidis and the wider Christian community. Will he reassure the House that a methodology will be put in place to take those issues on board when considering the settlement of child refugees?
James Brokenshire
My hon. Friend takes me to the implementation of the “children at risk” resettlement scheme, and the new arrangement under which 3,000 people from the region around Syria will be resettled over the next four years. That is not focused specifically on Syrian nationals; all nationals will fall within its scope, which I hope reassures my hon. Friend of the Government’s continuing commitment.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
On 14 April I asked the Minister how many children in France who had applied for asylum or family reunion had been admitted to the UK, and he told me that the data are not held in a way that allows them to be reported on automatically. I am certain that in preparation for last night’s debate and today’s urgent question, he is aware of those data. Will he tell the House how many children with family have already been admitted, how many have applied, and whether those children with family who have leave to remain in the UK can be admitted before the school term starts in September?
James Brokenshire
As I said in my opening statement, we have accepted more than 30 transfer requests since February, and more than 20 children have already arrived. We will continue to work closely with the French Government over further transfer requests, and to support them with the identification of children who are not already in the system. On transparency, I will be looking carefully at how we can update the public and the House on our progress, just as we have done for the vulnerable persons resettlement scheme.
Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
I am grateful to the Minister for coming to the Chamber today and for all his work. I am also grateful to the Under-Secretary of State for Refugees, my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Richard Harrington) and those in the Department for International Development who have helped to deal with this crisis, which keeps going on and on. It is important to ensure that the right support is in place for these children when they come to this country, but does the Minister agree that we must also ensure that we do not play any part in encouraging people trafficking, or in encouraging children to make that perilous journey across the Mediterranean?
James Brokenshire
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend, which is why the programme will apply only to children who were registered in the EU prior to 20 March when the EU-Turkey deal came into effect. We must be careful not to add to an already difficult problem, and ensure that we send out that clear message to confront people traffickers and those who seek to exploit children.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
How quickly does the Minister think that the authorities should be able to turn around a case involving a vulnerable child in the European Union who has links to the UK, so that they can be provided with sanctuary? Should they be granted five-year humanitarian protection when they arrive? We do not need placatory words from the Minister; we need a decisive action plan with a clear timetable. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. There would be no discourtesy if the right hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) felt the need to leave the Chamber to put her device in order. She mentioned that she thought her phone was switched off, but in my experience, the right hon. Lady is never switched off.
James Brokenshire
Thank you, Mr Speaker. As I said last night, we are carefully analysing the nature of the grant of leave that should be given, and there is a distinction between those who are joining family, and those who are being resettled because of vulnerability. We are holding conversations with the UNHCR to ensure that we strike the right balance, and reflect on what we have done for other schemes, such as the vulnerable persons resettlement scheme where a five-year grant is given.
Will Quince (Colchester) (Con)
I very much welcome the Minister’s statement. I pay tribute to him for all his hard work on this matter and for the work he continues to do. Colchester stands ready to play its part, as we have done in the past and look forward to doing in the future. I urge him to do all he can to speed up the process and ensure we help as many of the vulnerable, unaccompanied children as possible, as soon as possible.
James Brokenshire
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the commitment he gives on behalf of Colchester. We will follow up on all offers of support from local authorities. As I indicated, we have already contacted the Local Government Association, and we will be making contacts through strategic migration partnerships and with local authorities directly. We will be getting on with this.
Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)
The Government seem to give the impression that for people coming to Britain there is a very fast track and a very slow track, which is exemplified today with vulnerable children. People in my constituency believe the fast track is when Mike Ashley of Sports Direct sends for 500 agency workers to work on zero-hours contracts and they are here in the flash of an eye. My right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) has been at the forefront of the campaign to try to get these vulnerable children in. Let us have a little bit more energy on the slow track!
James Brokenshire
I fear the hon. Gentleman may have strayed into the wrong debate. We have shown our commitment clearly through our work on the vulnerable person resettlement scheme and by taking firm action so that children and vulnerable adults come to this country quickly, while dealing with safeguarding and the best interests of the child. I will take no lectures from the hon. Gentleman.
Mrs Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (Con)
I commend the Minister for the huge effort he and his team at the Home Office have put in. I have a specific question from the many people in Northumberland who are keen to help. They have shown a real willingness to be a part of the scheme to bring in the most vulnerable children who need protection. How can they become foster carers and ensure that they are able to take all children in need, as well as the many children in Northumberland who already need a home?
James Brokenshire
The Children’s Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Edward Timpson) is sitting alongside me on the Government Front Bench. He and I recognise that there is a further opportunity to encourage people to come forward to become foster parents. It takes about nine months to train as a foster parent. On teenagers and issues of specific vulnerability, if people can come forward to their local councils and say that they want to become a foster parent, that would do an awful lot to assist not just with the implementation of this scheme but with ensuring vulnerable children in this country receive the love, care and assistance we all want them to receive.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
Wales is waiting to welcome refugee children. Will the Minister commit to working with the Children’s Commissioner for Wales to ensure that she is properly empowered to support refugee children and Welsh local authorities without delay?
James Brokenshire
As I have indicated, we want our response to reflect the whole of the United Kingdom, including Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. I will certainly commit to contacting all relevant agencies in all the countries of the UK to give effect to that.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
It is clearly important that we treat as a matter of urgency the arrangements for these children. However, as the recent bombing of the Syrian refugee camp has shown, we must not lose sight of the main thrust of Government policy, which is to bring people from those dangerous camps. Will the Minister reassure the House that that remains the thrust of Government policy?
James Brokenshire
We are very clear that we believe we can make the biggest difference in the region, which is why we have committed £2.3 billion of aid and focused on resettlement schemes from the region. Peace and stability in Syria and the extended area are therefore absolutely pivotal. We recognise the needs of children in Europe, which is why we have already acted and why we are taking further action through the steps we are now outlining.
Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)
The poorest areas in this country, whose services are already overburdened, take a grotesquely disproportionately high number of asylum seekers, while rich areas, including the constituencies of the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and the Home Secretary, take none. What are we going to do to improve public acceptability so that more children can be brought into places of refuge and to ensure that the system is fair? It is a question not just of money but of capacity. This great burden is being taken on by the areas that are poorest and least able to cope with large increases in the number of asylum seekers.
James Brokenshire
The hon. Gentleman needs to recognise the significant pressures that counties such as Kent and others have been experiencing in dealing with unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. He makes a broader point about asylum dispersal. We have around 100 councils that fall within the dispersal zones and are in conversation with 20-plus about extending the numbers. I hope, however, that he will recognise the new provisions in the Immigration Bill for a statutory underpinning of a dispersal mechanism for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children to ensure a more even sharing of the requirements across the whole UK.
Kelly Tolhurst (Rochester and Strood) (Con)
I, too, thank the Minister for his comments and his hard work over many months—not just in recent times. I am glad we are focusing on putting the right resources in place on the ground, but will he assure me that areas and counties such as Kent and Medway, which have experienced pressures over the last 12 months, will not be pressured to take further young people, given their existing burden?
James Brokenshire
I am very aware, from my discussions with the leader of the council and other hon. Members, of the pressures that Kent has experienced over many months. I can assure my hon. Friend that the new mechanisms and statutory underpinning of a national dispersal arrangement for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children will address those pressures and ensure that Kent and other councils experiencing such pressures are not overburdened, as they have been.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
I commend the excellent work of my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) in leading the campaign on this issue and welcome the Government’s new approach, but may I ask the Minister, who has talked about transparency, why he has refused to answer my right hon. Friend’s parliamentary questions and the freedom of information request? In particular, we want to know the number of applications being made so that we can judge how quickly the Government are acting.
James Brokenshire
I have already provided the House with information this morning about children who have arrived in the UK and those applications accepted as “take charge” requests, and I will reflect further on what data can be provided, but clearly we are reliant on the French Government in relation to assessment. One key issue is the identification of children in the camps in Calais and Dunkirk. We are engaged in that work with the French Government in order to help achieve that.
Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)
I commend the Minister for his significant and long-standing commitment—it did not just start with the consideration of the Dubs amendment—to work for the best interests of lone children. Can he confirm that the lead he is taking in relation to additional expertise in Calais and the imminent dispatch of 75 experts to Greece is resulting in family reunions being expedited and that that will continue in the coming weeks? On transparency, can the results be published alongside the quarterly statistics?
James Brokenshire
As I have just indicated, I will consider further what information can be provided so that people can assess how the Government are progressing. When I was in Athens on Friday, I discussed directly how the experts we wanted to be deployed in the coming weeks could be used effectively and could bring a focus on issues of vulnerability, exploitation and support for vulnerable children.
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
The Minister says that we cannot get 300 children here in time for the start of the school term because he needs to consult local authorities, but that is why, a calendar month ago in the House, following my conversations with leaders on Merseyside, I asked him whether he had spoken to local authority leaders about educational needs for children coming here. He said then that he had, so will he confirm that consultation with local authorities started at least a month ago?
James Brokenshire
If the hon. Lady looks at the legislation—the amendment was approved last night—she will find that it imposes a legal duty on the Government to carry out that consultation on the basis of the revised arrangements on resettlement from Europe that we have accepted. We need to look closely at that. It extends from the work on child resettlement from the region. There are pressures on fostering, children’s centres, mental health and other facilities. We want to get this right, but there should be no imputation that we are delaying in doing so.
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
I have been contacted by constituents about this issue, as have many other Members. Some have said that they would be prepared to provide a placement for one of the refugees being resettled in this country. What work will be done to take up some of those offers? If they are not suitable for this programme, will the Minister consider whether they might be suitable for wider fostering placements, given the need for them?
James Brokenshire
I thank my hon. Friend and others for indicating the support from their communities. My hon. Friend may be interested to know that we continue to work closely on this. The Under-Secretary of State for Refugees, my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Richard Harrington) and the Home Secretary are looking closely at the community sponsorship mechanism that might provide new means for recognising children and others fleeing persecution who might be able to come to this country. I hope to be able to update the House on this shortly.
Mr Speaker
Order. I have just been reminded by the hon. Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick) that today is the 76th anniversary of Winston Churchill becoming Prime Minister. I note in passing, despite the absence—the relatively rare absence—of the hon. Member in question from the Chamber, that today is also the 76th birthday of the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash). [Interruption.] Recover your composure, Mr Doughty.
Stephen Doughty
I was taken aback by your encyclopaedic knowledge, Mr Speaker.
Citizens Cymru in Cardiff and the Vale has been very clear about the need to take urgent action on this issue. It wants to know from the Minister whether we are talking about a ballpark figure of 300? I understand that he will not give us a specific number, but is this the sort of figure involved, which Citizens Cymru and the Archbishop of Canterbury have asked for? The Minister has talked about the best interests of the child and I agree with him absolutely on that, but does he agree, given the conditions that we have heard some of these children are in, that seven months is unlikely to be in the best interests of the child?
James Brokenshire
I have already responded and made it clear that we will make progress during the course of the year. That does not mean that we are waiting seven months to do so. I underline that very clear message once again. I appreciate the desire for clarification on numbers and expectations, but I underline again that we need to do so in consultation with local authorities. That is what the Bill says; that is what we will do.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
I very much support the pragmatic and responsible position outlined by the Minister on unaccompanied children, but does it not assert a worrying incapacity, particularly on the part of France and its structures, for maintaining the safety and security of vulnerable children?
James Brokenshire
The main point at issue is the children who have family here in the UK and how we can work speedily with the French Government to ensure that they are reunited with their family members here. We have been engaged in that work, but we have also supported the French Government on improving the conditions in and around the camps in northern France. We will continue to support them in their endeavours.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
I want to push the Minister a bit more on the resources that will be required—not just for the speedy identification, processing and resettlement, but for the support that the children will need in the communities that they finally make their home. Many will almost certainly need educational support, but they might also need mental health and counselling support, too. What resources will the Minister make available for the child refugees?
James Brokenshire
That is precisely why we need further consultation with local government—to identify the pressures that will need to be satisfied. It is also why I have highlighted the different issues involved in these children rejoining a family, so that they can receive the support, love and care that they need from an established family group. As I have said, we need to look at this very carefully in the light of the best interests of the child.
Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)
I believe strongly that Ministers have been right all the way through to say that we should not incentivise or encourage perilous sea journeys. It is clear that other countries in the region should be doing more, so what pressure are Ministers putting on those countries to do that—not least to stop criminal gangs and traffickers being able to paint this an opportunity?
James Brokenshire
As my hon. Friend may know, we have established an organised immigration crime taskforce to strengthen our own knowledge, intelligence and action against the smugglers and people traffickers, working with Europol and at a European Union level to retain focus on confronting the smuggling networks. That is allowing us to work with other European countries to take firm action not just close to our shores, but further afield.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
Will the Minister guarantee that children whose families are already in the United Kingdom will be cleared in time for them to start school in September? Will he also agree to publish a timetable showing when unaccompanied children in Europe can come here?
James Brokenshire
As I have said, we want to make rapid progress. We are already taking children with family connections to the United Kingdom from France, and we want to find ways of improving the process further so that, when cases are identified, we can take charge and ensure that those children come to the UK quickly. There are vulnerable children in Italy and Greece, which is precisely why we are opening a dialogue with those countries. We want to understand their systems properly, and join up with them effectively so that we can identify such children and act to enable them to come to this country.
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)
The Minister has spoken about the extra 75 staff who will help with child refugee resettlement. What will be the role of those staff, what will be the timescale for their deployment to help identify vulnerable children, and how will this move help to speed up the process?
James Brokenshire
Some of the 75 experts whom we have offered to the European Asylum Support Office to contribute to its endeavours in connection with the EU-Turkey deal will help with processing. Others will be translators. We have also offered medical support, as well as officers who will be able to identify vulnerability issues. I had conversations with EASO about this when I was in Athens on Friday. We have identified the people concerned, and we want them to be deployed quickly—within, I hope, a matter of weeks.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)
We now come to the statement on key stage 2 tests. Before I call the Minister for Schools, I should inform the House that the Speaker had granted an urgent question to the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin), but the hon. Gentleman has withdrawn it in the light of the Government’s offer to make a statement on the matter.
Key Stage 2 Tests
(8 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister for Schools (Mr Nick Gibb)
With permission, I will make a statement about key stage 2 tests.
Last night the Department for Education was made aware of an issue involving the key stage 2 English grammar, punctuation and spelling test, which was mistakenly uploaded on to a secure website by Pearson. Pearson is the external marking supplier contracted by the Department to mark the tests.
At this stage, we know that the test was mistakenly uploaded at about 5 o’clock yesterday evening. It was uploaded on to a secure site, which was not accessible to anyone without approval from Pearson. Pearson was informed that the test was on its site by markers during the course of the evening, and removed the material from the site at 9.1 pm. The Department was separately alerted to the situation at about 9.30 pm by the media, and contacted Pearson immediately to establish the facts. Pearson’s records show that during the short period when the materials were live, 93 markers—all with the appropriate clearance—accessed the material.
It is worth emphasising that the only people with access to the site are contracted markers, all of whom are under a contractual obligation not to share sensitive information. I should also point out that it is standard and appropriate practice for key individuals to be given prior access to assessment material in order to ensure that the delivery of tests and marking of papers can occur in a smooth and timely way. Some 23 senior markers had access to the material from 1 April, and 153 team leaders had access to the material from 11 April.
Clearly, in this system, it is essential that people in positions of trust can be relied on to act appropriately. Unfortunately, in this case, it appears that one person could not, and leaked the key stage 2 English grammar, punctuation and spelling test to a journalist. I have spoken to Rod Bristow, the president of Pearson UK, this morning to ask for a full explanation of how this mistake occurred. He has accepted full responsibility for the error and has committed to investigating the matter quickly and fully.
Specifically, I have asked Rod Bristow to look at two issues. First, how did the material come to be uploaded on to the secure site in error? This was clearly a mistake which should not have been possible. Secondly, I have asked that all records be examined and all information interrogated so that the culprit who leaked this sensitive information can be identified. I am satisfied that Pearson understands the seriousness of the issue and the need to take action quickly to provide clear and unequivocal answers to these two questions. Once I have this information, I will consider what action it may be appropriate to take. I will explore the full range of options available to the Department, including looking at contractual and other routes to seek redress.
I would like to reiterate that we have no evidence to suggest that any sensitive information entered the public domain before children started taking the test today, and the tests are going ahead as planned. My officials were monitoring social media and other platforms through the night and found no sign of materials being made available. The journalist in question took the decision not to publish the test papers and I am grateful to him for that. Although this is a serious breach—and I am determined to get to the bottom of how the error occurred—it is clear that the actions of almost every marker involved have been correct and proper, and that the integrity of the tests has not been compromised. Teachers and schools should have confidence in the content of the tests and in the processes underpinning the administration of the tests in schools and the subsequent marking.
I would like to make a few comments about the wider context of primary assessment. I acknowledge that there have been errors in the administration of tests this year. While it is important that we address those errors, they should not detract from the central importance of testing in the life of a school. Tests are an appropriate and essential way for us to understand how well schools are doing, and where more support needs to be targeted so that every child is given the best possible opportunity to succeed throughout their time in school and to get the best preparation for adult life.
We have taken clear action to strengthen the primary curriculum, to ensure that children today are being taught the fundamentals of literacy and numeracy that are vital for their future success. There are some who say that tests are inherently wrong, that we should not test children and that we are creating a regime that is overly stressful. I disagree. Yesterday, ComRes released a poll of 750 10 and 11-year-old pupils for the BBC, in which 62% of pupils responded that they either “don’t mind” or “enjoy” taking the tests. That is far more than those who said that they “don’t like” or “hate” taking the tests. Altogether, more of the polled pupils reported that they “enjoy” taking the tests than “hate” them.
Testing is a vital part of teaching: it is the most accurate way, bar none, that a teacher, school or parent can know whether a pupil has or has not understood vital subject content. What is more, the process of taking a test actually improves pupil knowledge and understanding. As such, testing should be a routine and normalised part of school life. When the time for national curriculum assessments comes around, pupils should be entirely accustomed to the process.
I would like to finish by reiterating that the key stage 2 English grammar, punctuation and spelling test remains valid and is going ahead as planned. Teachers, schools, parents and others should have confidence in the test, and it will remain part of the primary assessment system. I commend this statement to the House.
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for giving me advance sight of his statement. The Government have taken their eye off the ball. Ministers have obsessed for months over a plan for forced academisation, a plan which was never about raising standards and which was self-evidently flawed from the start. Parents did not want or need forced academisation. They made that extremely clear and played a key role in forcing the Government into a humiliating policy U-turn last week, which was confirmed by the Secretary of State in her humiliating statement yesterday. What does matter to parents, however, is having an appropriate and supportive assessment regime for their child. They want to know how their child is performing at school, how they can help to close any gaps in their knowledge and how they can support them to do their best.
The Government have let parents down at every step of the way. Today’s debacle is just the latest in a sorry line of chaos in primary assessment. First, with no proper consultation with parents, school leaders or teachers, the Government scrapped the assessment system of levels in schools with no regard to what would replace it, creating significant uncertainty and anxiety among the professionals delivering the primary curriculum. It created confusion for parents, with many schools simply attempting to reintroduce their own watered-down version of levels assessment that failed to adequately articulate exactly how well children were getting on. Ministers were then forced to push back the deadline for primary assessments after failing to deliver the necessary resources for teachers in time.
Following that came the embarrassment of the Government’s failure to introduce baseline assessment. By rushing ahead with the policy without properly involving professionals or parents, the Government failed to spot the fundamental flaw in the design, which was that the tests that they had developed were insufficiently comparable. As a result, they were forced to abandon their approach to baseline tests entirely. Furthermore, just three weeks ago, we learned that the key stage 1 spelling and grammar test had been accidentally published online in December 2015 as a practice paper. Answers to parliamentary questions show that it was downloaded more than 18,000 times before Ministers realised that there was an issue. As a result, the Government were forced to cancel the test, invalidating the work of many children, teachers and parents.
There has been a constant stream of chop and change in primary assessment under this Government. Since September, the Department for Education has updated or clarified on average at least one primary school assessment resource every other working day. The situation has become so ludicrous that the Department is now having to start clarifying its clarifications. Without a doubt, the confusion and chaos created in primary assessment has led to a damaging fall in confidence among parents and teachers about the reliability and validity of assessment in schools.
As 10 and 11-year-olds are sitting down to take the key stage 2 spelling and grammar test this morning, we now learn that the test has already been published online. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, to lose one test may be regarded as a mistake, but to lose both looks like carelessness. It could not be made up. It is a serious breach on top of a series of multiple failures. How on earth can parents have confidence in the assessment regime when the Department for Education has completely lost control of the tests for which it is responsible? How can we be confident that the rest of the test process is secure? Remember, the tests are not only important for individual pupils, but part of the performance data by which schools are judged. We can have no confidence in their being used for that purpose after what we have heard today.
The National Association of Head Teachers is right to say:
“We cannot see how school level results can be published or a national benchmark set on such shaky data.”
Headteachers and parents deserve a firm guarantee from the Minister today that no primary school will be forced to become an academy on the basis of these compromised tests. It is time for him to be honest with then, honest with himself and—[Interruption.] The reality is that parents, school leaders and teachers have lost confidence in this Government’s approach to assessment and exams. It is time for the Minister to be honest with them, honest with himself and honest with us. He needs to hold up his hands, admit that he has got it wrong and stop trying to blame others for his Department’s mistakes. It is time for him to engage properly with parents and teachers to establish an approach to primary assessment that has everybody’s confidence and not just his. He needs to look into the eyes of all those 10 and 11-year-olds who are taking the tests today and say sorry for getting it wrong and sorry for letting them down. After all, that is what we teach children to do: admit their mistakes, apologise for them, learn from them and move on. So will he now learn his lesson and turn his attention away from the misguided obsession with structures at the expense of raising standards in schools? Will he turn his focus and his energy on what really matters to parents, and get this right?
Mr Gibb
I am grateful for the opportunity to respond to the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin)—or should I say the Lady Bracknell from Scunthorpe. I have to say to him that this Government are committed to raising standards in schools. Given the way the Opposition address this issue, I sometimes wonder whether they are as committed to raising standards as we are. In 2011, we conducted a review of the primary curriculum to ensure that it was closer to the curriculums being taught in the most successful education systems in the world. The review was overseen by the national curriculum review panel, which was made up of highly experienced headteachers and teachers in this country. We introduced the phonics check to ensure that six-year-olds were learning to read properly, and as a consequence of that reform 120,000 six-year-olds are reading more effectively today. We reviewed the reading curriculum—the English curriculum—to ensure that children became fluent readers who developed a habit of reading for pleasure. We reformed the maths curriculum so that children learn how to perform long multiplication by year 5 and long division by year 6, and so that they know their multiplication tables—up to 12 by 12—by heart by the end of year 4. Under the last Labour Government, one in three pupils were leaving primary school still unable to read, write and add up properly. Our Government are determined to address those issues.
Let me address some of the issues the hon. Gentleman raised. He talked about the removal of levels, but level descriptors were only ever intended to be used for the end of key stage statutory assessments, and yet over time came to dominate all assessment and teaching practice. That had a damaging impact on teaching and failed to give parents an accurate understanding of how their children were doing at school. The removal of levels allowed classroom assessment to return to its real purpose of helping teachers evaluate pupils’ knowledge and understanding of curriculum content. When we introduced the reception baseline in September last year, we said we would carry out a comparability study to establish whether it was fit for purpose. The study is now complete, and it has shown that the three different assessments being used by schools this year are not sufficiently comparable for us to create a fair starting point from which to measure pupils’ progress. We remain committed to the assessment of pupils in reception, and over the coming months we will be considering options for improving these assessment arrangements for beyond 2016-17. We will engage teachers, school leaders and parents in that work.
The hon. Gentleman brought up the spelling test. The investigation has uncovered further weaknesses in some of the Standards and Testing Agency’s clearance processes. I initiated that investigation, and the STA is now taking appropriate management action with the members of staff involved. We have already reviewed and tightened up the publication clearance processes.
This is a Government who are committed to reviewing the curriculum and to raising academic standards in our schools. This was always going to be a challenging month as schools got used to the new, more demanding curriculum and the new, more demanding assessments that follow that curriculum. I am confident—the Government are confident—that this is the right thing to do to raise academic standards in our schools to prepare young people for life in modern Britain and for an increasingly competitive global economy.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Parents in Kettering, of whom I am one, want their children, when they leave primary school, to be able to write neatly and legibly, spell correctly, read confidently, be able to add up, take away, multiply and divide, know all their times tables by heart, mix well with other children, realise that they in themselves have lots of potential, and have a thirst for knowledge that they can develop in their secondary school career. To what extent are we achieving that in modern Britain?
Mr Gibb
My hon. Friend rightly summarises the issues that we need to address. We need to ensure that we return to a knowledge-based curriculum, and that children become fluent in arithmetic and reading before they leave primary school. I am afraid that, under the previous Labour Government, too many young people left primary school without those skills to equip them for secondary education. I am convinced that our reforms will deliver the objectives that my hon. Friend set out. [Interruption.] The evidence is that 120,000 more six-year-olds are reading more effectively today than they were in 2012, and that 1.4 million more pupils are being taught in good and outstanding schools today than they were in 2010.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
Having listened to the Minister today and heard the statement about the U-turn on academies recently, it seems to me that the Department for Education should now be put in special measures. When the Minister cannot even get the basics right in education, what confidence can we have that the Department will get the big issues right?
Mr Gibb
As the hon. Lady will know, this process of testing 600,000 pupils is complex. We use contractors, and, on this occasion, an error was made in uploading that material on to a secure website. We took action swiftly when we discovered that error, as we did when the spelling test was put online three weeks ago. It is how a Government react to these issues that determines their competence, and we acted swiftly on both occasions. This whole approach to testing our six and seven-year-olds and our 10 and 11-year-olds does require an element of trust in those people engaged in the process. We must test and develop the test. A huge number of professionals see the content of these tests many weeks before they go live, and we have to trust those professionals to do their job properly and with integrity. On this occasion, one such professional decided not to act with integrity. I hope that the hon. Lady will take the same view that we do about professionals who act in that inappropriate way.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend that testing forms an important and crucial part of our education system. If proof were needed that testing is important, one need look no further than the text of the statement that has been circulated in the Chamber today. It says:
“Although this is a serious breech—”.
Unfortunately, the word “breach” is spelled incorrectly.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
I speak as a former key stage 2 marker, and I support efficient, effective testing of children, but I do not think that the Government understand what testing is for. The Minister’s statement said that it was for the accountability of schools, but it seems to me that what testing should be about is measuring and developing a child’s learning. That is why we should not put so much emphasis on a national test that is about school accountability and leads to this kind of appalling behaviour from one teacher. We should focus on ensuring that children understand what they are learning and that we get appropriate tests for individual children.
Mr Gibb
I do not disagree with the right hon. Lady. It is important that children are tested frequently, which helps with memory and practice. Schools use informal formative testing as part of the learning process. There is also another purpose of testing, as summative testing for public accountability and to hold schools to account. That is why the key stage 2 assessments, or SATs, were introduced nearly 30 years ago: to hold schools to account. In doing so, we can target school improvement resources on those schools that are not delivering the quality of education that we want for our young people. We need to be able to do that. Children have only one chance at an education and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is committed to ensuring that we have educational excellence everywhere, in every part of the country. To be able to identify those areas and schools that need the extra support, we need external assessment of children as they leave primary school.
Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
As a parent who has a child who will do key stage 1 this year and another doing key stage 2, I find it absolutely outrageous that an individual has put my child’s chances at risk with this leak. Does the Minister agree that it would be better for the Opposition to bear that point in mind rather than playing politics with children’s testing?
Mr Gibb
I agree with my hon. Friend. As I said, the whole system depends on the integrity of professionals. We need our senior markers to have access to this material weeks before it goes live. We need our test developers to have access to individual questions months before the tests go live. We test these tests with a large number of pupils before we are sure that they have the right degree of demand. A range of people have access to this material long before it goes live in the classroom. If people do not have that professional integrity, there will be problems. We will be investigating to identify the individual and to ensure that Pearson’s processes are tightened up so that this cannot happen again.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
The Minister needs to move to the bottom of the class, because he must try harder. This is not the first time that tests have been compromised in this academic year; it is the second time on his watch. Will he sincerely apologise to parents, teachers and those pupils who have taken the test today? Will he also assure them and us that every measure that he needs to take will be taken so that this will not happen on a third occasion?
Mr Gibb
I did apologise for the problem with the key stage 1 spelling test when that material was inadvertently put online. This issue has not damaged the integrity of the grammar, punctuation and spelling test being taken by 600,000 10 and 11-year-olds today. It was put on to a secure website, protected by password and available only to markers, and 93 of those markers examined the material. We have looked on the websites and at social media—officials were doing this work through the night—to see whether there was any compromising of the test. There is no such evidence.
The Standards and Testing Agency is confident that the test has integrity and it will go ahead. This is a complex process of administering these tests for 600,000 pupils every year. This year was always going to be a challenging year, as it is the first to assess the new and more demanding national curriculum that came into force in September 2014 and that schools have had since July 2013. There is therefore an element of controversy to it. We do not apologise for that controversy, because we believe as a Government in raising academic standards in schools. That is what we came into office to achieve.
We are a Government that will achieve and are achieving those high academic standards, but there are some—I assume that there are no such people on the Opposition Benches—who do not necessarily agree with us that it is important to raise academic standards. Somebody decided that their own opinions were more important than their professional integrity, and decided to breach the trust they had been given and the confidentiality contract into which they had entered, and leaked one of those tests to the media.
William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)
I begin by wishing the thousands of children undertaking their SATs this week the very best of luck. I am sure they are taking place in classrooms far calmer than our Chamber this morning. If there has indeed been a deliberate leaking of the SATs material, that is very serious. What is my hon. Friend doing to ensure the continued viability of this year’s key stage 2 SATs?
Mr Gibb
Following the problem with the key stage 1 spelling test, we asked the Standards and Testing Agency to go through all the material with a fine-toothed comb to ensure that there were no further problems at either key stage 1 or key stage 2. We have been assured by the chief executive of the Standards and Testing Agency that those tests are safe and secure. Also, I spoke to Rod Bristow, the president of Pearson UK, this morning, and he assures me that Pearson UK is making sure that its processes are secure and tight so that such breaches cannot occur in the future.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
Last Wednesday the Prime Minister was not able to tell the House his definition of a modal verb or what the past progressive tense is, or to distinguish a subordinating conjunctive from a co-ordinating conjunctive. I want to give the Minister a second chance. In the sentence “My baby was born in the hospital where my father works”, are the words “where my father works” a preposition phrase, a relative clause, a main clause or a noun phrase?
Amanda Solloway (Derby North) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that it is essential to measure the progress of both the child and the school to identify the gap and how best to fill it?
Mr Gibb
My hon. Friend is right. It is important to measure progress, as well as absolute attainment. One reason why some people regard the assessment this year as challenging is that there are questions in it that previously were not included in the standard test. They were called level 6 tests and were taken separately. We now include those challenging tests within this test so that schools can get credit for the progress of children who start their school with high levels of prior attainment.
Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)
The Secretary of State appeared before the Education Committee on 27 April and told me that the new testing regime for key stage 1 and key stage 2 had not been handled badly. I, and parents and teachers throughout the country, strongly disagree. Does the Minister accept that his Department’s actions are making the working lives of teachers more stressful and more difficult, and explain how he thinks that will help to solve the already very worrying teacher recruitment crisis?
Mr Gibb
Whenever I have a platform, I talk about how important it is to go into teaching. I say that it is a very important profession. There are more teachers—450,000—in the profession today than there have been in history. There are 13,000 more teachers today than there were in 2010, and 14,000 returners came into the teaching profession last year, which is more than the 11,000 who came in a few years before that. Of course, we want more professionals to come into teaching as the pupil population increases. That is why we have very effective advertising campaigns and why we are spending £1.3 billion on generous bursaries to attract the best graduates into teaching.
Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)
I, too, wish all the children doing their exams good luck. I know what that is like, having had three children who went through a state primary school. Tests are an imperative part of school life because we as parents want to know how to plan for our children’s education, and we want the schools to help us see where the gaps are and how our children are doing. Businesses in Taunton Deane would like our children to have better maths qualifications and better writing skills. Under Labour for all those years, education standards sank. Does the Minister agree that our driving force is better education to raise standards, and that tests are an imperative part of that?
Mr Gibb
Yes, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have been declining in the programme for international student assessment tables internationally. We have to continually improve our education system, because other countries are not standing still. They are continually improving their education systems, and unless we do the same, we will fall behind. That is why we reviewed the primary curriculum, why we increased the demands and rigour of mathematics and English, and why we are focusing so much on getting every child to become a fluent reader, who not only masters the mechanics early in their education but becomes a regular reader, reading books for pleasure and developing a lifelong love of reading. We have reformed the secondary curriculum, and we have reformed GCSEs so that they are more on a par with the qualifications in the best education jurisdictions in the world. We have also reformed A-levels, responding to the concerns of employers and universities about the standard of undergraduates and employees.
John Pugh (Southport) (LD)
Returning to the tests, the Minister cannot do them, the Department cannot organise them and schools cannot understand them. Does the Minister agree with the headmaster of a major primary school in my area, Adrian Antell, who wrote to him saying,
“The primary assessment system in our schools is nothing short of shambolic…Yet again, the professional judgements of experienced educational professionals is ignored by politicians trying to make a short term political gain”?
Mr Gibb
No, the tests were developed by educational professionals—a huge number of such professionals were involved. A large number of professional educators, headteachers and experienced teachers were involved in the review of the curriculum. The tests assess the ability of schools to deliver the new curriculum. That curriculum is more demanding, and we do not resile from that; it was a deliberate decision to raise academic standards in our primary schools and secondary schools as we respond to an increasingly demanding world and to the concerns of employers, universities and others.
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
The Government made a big song and dance about testing, which they cannot now deliver. This weekend I was in the Wirral talking to school governors about how to cope with forced academisation, but the Government had already U-turned. The next time the Minister comes to the Dispatch Box with a grand plan to improve education, why should teachers, parents and pupils in the Wirral believe what he has to say?
Mr Gibb
The hon. Lady simply overstates her case. Our plan for reforming the education system was put in place in 2010. We have reviewed the curriculum. That was overseen by a national curriculum review panel of experienced teachers and headteachers. The new curriculum was advised on by a panel of curriculum experts. It was consulted on widely between 2012 and 2013, informally and then formally. It was published in final draft in July 2013, giving schools over a year to prepare for the first teaching of it in September 2014. This has been a carefully planned review and reform of the curriculum. It has been as swift as it can be, because children need the best education possible, as quickly as possible. This is an important reform. This was always going to be a difficult month, as children were assessed for the first time on the new curriculum. However, schools have had a significant amount of material since July 2013, and they are ready—all our surveys have shown that they are confident about teaching the new curriculum.
Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)
I hope the Minister will agree that stability is key to a child thriving at primary school. As has been said, however, the Department for Education has changed documents and resources almost every other day recently, and that has been compounded by the disgraceful leak of the tests. Government Members are rewriting history—something the UK Statistics Authority told them to stop doing—because the Labour Government improved standards from 1997 to 2010. I will give the Minister another chance to apologise to teachers, parents and pupils, and to allow teachers to get on with teaching and children to thrive. Apologise!
Mr Gibb
Again, I think the hon. Lady overstates her case. The primary curriculum was published in final form in July 2013, sample questions were available as early as March 2014, and there were later sample questions in 2015. In reference to her point about changes being made to materials on-site, the Standards and Testing Agency has responded to telephone queries from teachers about certain aspects of the curriculum and the sample materials. To help teachers, it revised some of that material so that it responded to those concerns. There were other, very minor changes—for example, when, in response to representations from the NAHT, I changed the date on which the STA collected the teacher assessment materials. That decision was taken in response to the concerns expressed. There were real reasons why we wanted the date to be earlier to ensure fairness between the schools that were moderated by the local authority and those that were not. Of course, that required all the documents online to have a date change. The hon. Lady can make a song and dance about these changes, but they were all done for professional reasons by the very experienced professionals of the Standards and Testing Agency, and they were the right thing to do.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
Labour Members are most concerned about the fact that this is the second case in a matter of weeks of major pupil testing errors, and that suggests quite strongly that the Government have taken their eye off the ball. How has their preoccupation with enforced academisation affected their ability to monitor their contractors?
Mr Gibb
We monitor contractors very carefully. The Standards and Testing Agency monitors these issues. This error was made by an individual who put the marking scheme and the test papers for one of the tests—the key stage 2 spelling, punctuation and grammar test—on to a secure site 24 hours before they should have done. As soon as one of the markers alerted them to that fact, they took it down. Ninety-three people had seen that material on-site, but all those 93 people were subject to a confidentiality agreement with Pearson, so this is not some widespread breach. We checked to see whether the individual who leaked this to a journalist had succeeded in spreading the test further. We saw no evidence overnight, through social media or other platforms, that some of that material leaked. The Standards and Testing Agency believes that the test has not been compromised, and we are continuing with it. These are very important assessments and this is a very complex operation. I believe that parents, teachers and the public can have confidence in the tests that have been set this week.
Points of Order
(8 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mrs Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I want to raise a very serious point of order with the Chair. We know from reports in the press that HS2 Ltd is apparently again facing difficulties on costs, which are being reviewed by no less a person than the Cabinet Secretary, and on issues of connectivity, which has ever been thus since the project was first announced. A serious matter has arisen that I believe is an attempt by the civil servants who are paid for by the taxpayer and who run HS2 Ltd through their agents—very highly paid lawyers, Eversheds—to gag Members of this House. I do not know whether the Chair is aware of this, but the locus standi of no fewer than four Ministers, three Back Benchers and, I believe, even the Speaker has been challenged.
In other words, HS2 Ltd is trying to prevent Members of this House from speaking out for their constituents and bringing information to the other place—to the House of Lords Committee, which will now be deliberating on the scheme. The question that arises is, “What is it afraid of? Why shouldn’t Members of Parliament be able to speak directly about their constituencies and their constituents and help to try to improve this legislation as it is going through?” Quite frankly, I regard this as an interference with the freedom of speech of Members of this House, and with our ability and right to represent the people who send us here. I ask the Chair and the House authorities to look into this issue, because I believe that on so many counts, HS2 Ltd has been trying to cover up what is happening, or even to gag those who want to speak against the project or improve the project and make greater gains for their constituencies.
It is ironic that Eversheds quoted in its locus standi challenge the 24th edition of “Erskine May”, pages 949 to 950, in support of the proposition that we should be gagged. The section on
“Members and Officers of the House disqualified as agents”
states:
“No officer or clerk in the service of either House is allowed to transact private business before the House for his emolument or advantage, either directly or indirectly.”
The previous sentence states:
“Members may not be agents, though they can deposit petitions on behalf of parties”.
I hope that there is no implication from Eversheds that any of the Members of Parliament who have made representations on behalf of their constituents on HS2 are
“in receipt of emolument or advantage, either directly or indirectly”,
but we know that Eversheds certainly is.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mr Robert Goodwill)
Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I just make it clear that the rules on locus standi are very clear and we are following them to the letter?
Mrs Gillan
Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. This is not a matter of the letter of the law, but the fact that it is wrong to prevent Ministers, Members of Parliament and even the Speaker from informing a Committee of the other House about a project that has been through this House in its first stage.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)
On advice, this is a matter that is with the House of Lords at the moment, and therefore the locus standi is a matter for the House of Lords. I suggest that because the right hon. Lady is referring to a matter of privilege, she should write to the Speaker to ask him to have a look at this. I hope that she is happy with that. He will certainly have a look in Hansard at her full explanation in her point of order.
Harbours, Docks and Piers Clauses Act 1847 (Amendment)
Tuesday 10th May 2016
(8 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Harbour, Docks and Piers Clauses Act 1847 (Amendment) Bill 2015-16 View all Harbour, Docks and Piers Clauses Act 1847 (Amendment) Bill 2015-16 Debates Read Hansard Text
A Ten Minute Rule Bill is a First Reading of a Private Members Bill, but with the sponsor permitted to make a ten minute speech outlining the reasons for the proposed legislation.
There is little chance of the Bill proceeding further unless there is unanimous consent for the Bill or the Government elects to support the Bill directly.
For more information see: Ten Minute Bills
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend section 33 of the Harbours, Docks and Piers Clauses Act 1847 to allow local authorities to proscribe, in certain circumstances, the transport of live animals for slaughter abroad via facilities that local authorities control and operate; and for connected purposes.
I introduce this ten-minute rule Bill for a number of reasons. I do not count myself an outright animal rights activist, but I do count myself as a common-sense activist. That said, there are many reasons why we should all have concerns about any act of animal transportation that imposes stress and unnecessary suffering, when the most logical answer is local slaughter and refrigerated transport of carcases to their destination. The Bill is designed not to change the law on the transportation of live animals for breeding or other aspects of animal husbandry, but merely to allow local authorities discretion to decide, in the spirit of localism, whether facilities that they own should be used to transport animals for slaughter abroad. In short, the Bill would make due amendment to section 33 of the Harbours, Docks and Piers Clauses Act 1847 to allow local authority-controlled ports to proscribe, at their discretion, the transport of animals for slaughter abroad.
The primary reason for my interest in the matter is local to my constituency of South Thanet, where we have the active port of Ramsgate. It is on a long-term lease from the Crown Estate, and all port operations are controlled and invoiced by the local authority, Thanet District Council. Following pressure from a shipper, the council acquiesced to legal threats and demands that the port be made available for small vessel roll-on, roll-off operations of just a few lorries carrying livestock. The first such shipment happened on 18 May 2011. Not surprisingly, the transportation attracted a huge amount of local opposition and active campaigning by Kent-wide animal rights activists. The police cost of marshalling such shipments is estimated to be £18,000 per shipment. That is massively more—perhaps by a factor of 10—than the likely profit arising to the shipper.
The regular shipments continued, with local opposition, until what can only be described as a truly appalling event on 12 September 2012. A lorry was loaded with 548 sheep over three tiers, and the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency staff who were on site discovered that it had been poorly loaded and was overstocked. One sheep had a broken leg, others were lame and some had trapped limbs. An order was given to unload the sheep, and a witness of the scene that followed commented that
“all hell let loose with nearly 20 people made up of RSPCA, AHVLA”—
the veterinary association—
“Police and port staff, some with a camera in hand and a paint sprayer in the other chasing over 500 sheep around and apparently trying to find lame ones. In fact it was the chasing on the unsuitable surface that was causing the lameness. During the chase six lambs went into the water resulting in four being rescued by the RSPCA and two being found dead”.
Some 13 hours later, after the arrival of Kent trading standards and news crews, a further 37 sheep were identified as lame and were euthanised on site. That followed a second unloading, after sheep were again found to have trapped limbs. It was described by the local press as simply a “massacre”.
The following day, Thanet District Council unilaterally decided to suspend any further live animal shipments through Ramsgate. This decision was supported by the wider council across all the political parties locally, and of course by local residents. However, legal fears were brought to bear, and following a grant of interim relief in the High Court, shipments resumed a little over a month later, on 19 October 2012.
The shippers then entered the legal fray over a protracted period, which resulted in a High Court judgment on 27 February 2014. During a four-day hearing in December 2013, Thanet District Council relied heavily on section 40 of the Harbours Act 1964, which offers some discretion in relation to port use. Unfortunately, the judgment went against Thanet District Council primarily because of section 33 of the Harbours, Docks and Piers Clauses Act, which states that ports
“shall be open to all persons for the shipping and unshipping of goods”.
I am seeking to change that provision through this Bill. The adverse judgment has left local taxpayers—the authority is not a large one—with a compensation bill and costs in excess of £4 million, and it has resulted in the resumption of a trade that nobody wants through a port that is unsuitable. Local residents are appalled that their port is now being used for a trade that they find unnecessary and that many find distinctly abhorrent.
This is the nub of my ten-minute rule Bill: in the true spirit of localism, a long overdue amendment to the 1847 Act would give local authorities a greater degree of certainty that they will not face this type of legal action in future and provide them with an opportunity to object to the use of their municipally operated facilities for such transactions. If only life were that simple, I could bring in a Bill to amend the 1847 Act and if this House agreed to it—if only this House was sovereign and able to do so—that would be the end of the matter. Unfortunately, there is the big boot of the EU to consider, given the protection of free trade and the free movement of goods provided by article 35 of the treaty on the functioning of the European Union. Such protection has been further added to over the years by various European Court judgments, notably Francovich in 1991, and by the Factortame case in the Lords in 2001.
In summary, I am seeking the House’s leave to advance this Bill to its next stage, and, on the assumption that this Parliament is sovereign and can do so, to secure an alteration of domestic law to proscribe such trade in the circumstances that clearly apply to the port of Ramsgate and to Thanet District Council, which controls it. The conclusion of the High Court judgment was rather instructive and quite alarming: in the judge’s words,
“the law does not exist only to protect the interests of the popular.”
I would say that this is entirely the foundation of our democracy. The argument about the intervention of EU law in this area is not one for me to make today; it is an argument for another day—possibly 23 June. On that basis, I commend the Bill to the House.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
I rise to oppose the motion, which was proposed so ably by my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Craig Mackinlay). I thank him for raising a matter of concern for millions of our fellow citizens. At the time of the events to which he referred, I am sure that I was not alone in receiving communications from constituents, asking that we stop this trade. He is responding to those calls for action, but I want to deal with the elephant in the room—in fact, the two elephants in the room, one of which he touched on briefly.
The first elephant in the room is to do with our proceedings. As we are in the last few sitting days of this Session, even if the motion is passed today there will be no time to consider the Bill further during this Session. Along with the dozens of others that are listed on the Order Paper, it will fall when Parliament prorogues in the next day or two. As the House will be aware, the Procedure Committee, of which I am a member, has put forward proposals to change our procedures to make them more readily understandable to those outside the House.
There is therefore an interesting contrast between the two elephants. It is within our power to do something about the first one. It is in our hands to improve matters, so we can remove the first elephant from the room. The second elephant is the effect on our law of European law, which was touched on briefly by my hon. Friend in moving the ten-minute rule motion. It means that no matter how much we would like to change the sad state of affairs in which we find ourselves, we are powerless to do anything about it.
In the time available today, it is not possible to deal with every single detail of the matter, but I hope that in trying to prove my case to the satisfaction of the House, it will suffice if I quote briefly from the judgment of Mr Justice Birss in the case that arose out of the facts set out by my hon. Friend, the short title of which was Barco de Vapor v. Thanet District Council. It is a comprehensive judgment that runs to 192 paragraphs. I will quote from just three of those paragraphs.
Paragraph 8 states:
“The claimants’ case in outline is that the ban amounted to a restriction on the exporting of goods within the European Union in breach of Article 35 TFEU and cannot be justified under Article 36 TFEU or otherwise. One reason it cannot be justified is because the relevant legislation is Regulation EC 1/2005. The claimants contend that the ban is contrary to the Regulation and that since the Regulation exhaustively harmonises the law in the relevant area, the ban cannot be justified under Art 36.”
I should explain for the benefit of those who are not familiar with the acronym TFEU that it refers to the treaty on the functioning of the European Union, which is one of the basic treaties of the European Union that we are subject to.
Let me jump to the very end of the judgment, where the judge delivers his final verdict on the case. At the end of the penultimate 191st paragraph, he says:
“In my judgment TDC are liable to pay damages to compensate the claimants for the losses caused by the breach of Art 35 TFEU.”
There is no mention of the Act that my hon. Friend seeks to amend today.
Finally, let me quote from the final paragraph. My hon. Friend referred briefly to one part of it, but did not read the whole paragraph, which is very instructive indeed. Paragraph 192 reads as follows:
“The animal export trade is not popular. It involves activities which are highly distasteful to many people. However the law does not exist only to protect the interests of the popular. I have found that Thanet District Council did not have the authority to impose the ban which prevented the claimants from using Ramsgate port to export livestock. The ban was an unjustifiable breach of Art 35 of the TFEU. It was a disproportionate decision reached in haste without separate legal advice and breached a fundamental element of the rules governing free trade in the EU. In my judgment the council is liable to pay damages to the claimants.”
There we have it: the final judgment was nothing to do with the 1847 Act—let’s not kid ourselves. It all came down to article 35.
Our constituents will often hear that one of the reasons why those of us who believe that the United Kingdom would be better off if we left the European Union is that our membership means a loss of sovereignty. Unsurprisingly, many people are not all that clear about what that actually means. Is it some sort of technical or theoretical issue that does not really matter? This case brings the whole issue of sovereignty to life. In short, the loss of sovereignty means the loss of power—the loss of power of this House to do anything about certain things. It means that the power of our constituents has been given away; the power that they have entrusted to us to enact legislation on their behalf has been lost.
I believe that we must be open and honest with the country about these matters. There is no point in continuing the pretence that this House has any power to stop these exports by merely amending domestic legislation. Unless we leave the European Union and regain our sovereignty—that is to say, regain the power to control our own affairs—we are simply wasting our time. We are giving the public the false impression that we are able to do something about this matter, when we cannot.
In view of the fact that there is no prospect of the Bill making further progress, I do not wish to divide the House, but I trust that by the time my hon. Friend brings the matter before the House again, voters across the country will have taken the opportunity afforded to them on 23 June to take back control over this matter.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Craig Mackinlay, Sir Roger Gale, Martin Vickers, Kelly Tolhurst, Mrs Flick Drummond, Caroline Lucas, Peter Aldous, Mr Steve Baker and Dr Tania Mathias present the Bill.
Craig Mackinlay accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 13 May, and to be printed (Bill 176).
Backbench Business
Universal Credit (Children)
(8 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House notes that, while some aspects of the universal credit system are likely better to support families with children, some groups of children and families are particularly likely to lose out, and many may struggle with elements of the new approaches to payment and administration; further notes that there has been no revised impact assessment to take account of significant cuts to the work allowance; and calls on the Government to re-assess the effect of its policy on universal credit in light of those cuts and to ensure that the number of children in poverty, and particularly those in working families, falls as a result of the introduction of the new universal credit system.
I am extremely grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for giving us the opportunity to debate this subject. Once universal credit is in place, it is estimated that about half of all the children in the UK will be in households that are entitled to it at any given time, so it will have a huge impact on children and one that it is important for us to scrutinise.
I am pleased to see my hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) and the Minister for Employment in their places. I have always enjoyed debating these matters with the Minister, but I often wish she felt as willing to disagree with her right hon. and hon. Friends on her ministerial brief as she is free to disagree with the Prime Minister about Europe. However, I fear I may be disappointed when we come to the end of the debate. I hope that the debate can shed some light on the impact of universal credit on child poverty around the UK.
The Opposition have always recognised that there are significant potential benefits from universal credit: simplifying the system, merging six different benefits into one and, in particular, making it much easier for people to work out the effect on their financial position if they were to move into work—that is difficult at the moment but under universal credit should be simpler. The former Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith), who of course resigned from the Government after the Budget fiasco on disability benefits, is entitled to a good deal of credit for coming up with the original idea and driving it through while he was in the Government.
Unfortunately, however, the right hon. Gentleman is not entitled to very much credit for the way that he implemented universal credit—the Department got itself into a terrible mess, and the Cabinet Office had to step in to sort out a looming IT disaster. The result is that universal credit is now running extremely late. On the original timetable, set out in 2010, transition from the old benefits system to universal credit would now be almost finished, and the whole thing would be complete by next year. In fact, implementation of universal credit is really only just beginning. According to the most recent figures, from March, 225,000 people are receiving universal credit, of whom almost 88,000 are in work.
The initial plan was hopelessly unrealistic, as was pointed out by the Opposition at the time. Unfortunately the Government ignored those warnings. We were told at one stage that 1 million people would be claiming universal credit by April 2014; two years later, we still have not reached a quarter of that number. Things are a little unclear, but it now looks as though the current plan has transition complete by 2022, which is five years later than originally announced.
Christina Rees (Neath) (Lab)
Does my right hon. Friend think it right and fair that, as a result of the piecemeal roll-out of universal credit, along with the cuts to work allowances, some families could be more than £3,000 a year worse off than they would be if they were in exactly the same financial circumstances but lived in an area where tax credits were still available?
Stephen Timms
No, I do not think that that is fair. There is now a large and growing group of people who are significantly worse off than they would have been because they have the misfortune of being in an area where universal credit is paid instead of tax credits. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to draw attention to that.
When the universal credit project started in 2011, we were told that it would be completed in six years. Today, five years later, we are being told that it will be completed in another six years, by 2022. Five years into this initiative, its expected completion has been delayed by five years. We are no nearer the end now than we were told we were five years ago.
Jeremy Quin (Horsham) (Con)
The right hon. Gentleman was generous in his support of the principle of the scheme. Surely he must accept that it is better to get it right. A steady, phased implementation is the right way to ensure that the benefits to which he referred are properly implemented across the country.
Stephen Timms
Of course that is right. There should have been a sensible timetable and plan from the start. It was pointed out to Ministers that the original plan was unrealistic, but unfortunately they took no notice of that.
It is not just the timetable that has changed, however, but the substance. What is being implemented is now significantly different from what it was originally going to be. A report published last week by the Resolution Foundation has made that very clear; I will refer to that report a number of times in my speech, but at this point I will quote one observation from its executive summary, which says that
“the latest series of cuts—announced at last year’s Summer Budget—risk leaving UC as little more than a vehicle for rationalising benefit administration and cutting costs to the Exchequer.”
That is at the heart of this debate. Universal credit is now set to be a pale shadow of what Ministers initially announced. The losers, both from the cuts made to the original proposals and from flaws in the original design that have never satisfactorily been addressed, will above all be the nation’s children.
The Resolution Foundation has explained the impact of the £3 billion cut announced last summer:
“As initially designed, UC gave broad parity with the current tax credit system…Now, UC will…be less generous than the tax credit system for working families.”
That is what gives rise to the anomaly and unfairness to which my hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Christina Rees) drew our attention.
Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)
Is my right hon. Friend as shocked as I was to hear that a recent report from the Children’s Society has shown that disabled children will get considerably less money under universal credit, and many will receive only around half of what they currently get under tax credits?
Stephen Timms
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is a shocking aspect of what has always been proposed with universal credit—the support for disabled children is being drastically reduced. I hope we will have time to discuss that.
Will the Minister publish an updated version of the impact report for universal credit that was published alongside the 2011 Welfare Reform Bill, which introduced it? I will come back to that, because what is now being introduced is certainly not what the previous Secretary of State had in mind when he launched the universal credit initiative six years ago.
Throughout the last Parliament, Ministers repeatedly said that they were committed to eliminating child poverty, and they cited the introduction of universal credit as key to helping to achieve that. The 2011 impact assessment, which I hope the Minister will update, said that universal credit would reduce child poverty by 300,000. A written answer in January 2013 gave the lower figure of 150,000, half the initial figure of 300,000. We have not had an update since the really big cuts to universal credit announced last summer. That is what I am hoping the Minister will give us.
All of us will recall the furore when the Chancellor announced swingeing tax credit cuts last summer. I pay tribute to those Government Members who, unlike the Chancellor, grasped what those cuts would mean to many hard-working families struggling to make ends meet, such as the family of an ambulance driver earning £20,000 a year, who stood to lose a full £2,000 from the cuts. Thankfully, the Chancellor was forced to abandon those plans. But the equivalent cuts to universal credit—at that time, claimed by hardly anyone in work—went ahead, so the Chancellor’s cuts to tax credits will, over time, be implemented by stealth. Working families on universal credit rather than tax credits saw a big income cut last month, as my hon. Friend the Member for Neath has already pointed out.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
My right hon. Friend is making a strong point about the value of the cuts and the wider impact of the changes. Does he agree that there is a significant challenge with the move from weekly or fortnightly payments to monthly payments? With a week’s processing time for claims, and payments in arrears, that could leave five weeks before people receive claims under universal credit. We are told that there is an advance payment system but Citizens Advice has said that six in 10 clients coming to a citizens advice bureau about universal credit have not been told about it. We could see many people out of pocket and really struggling to get by, through no fault of their own. That can have a huge impact on children.
Stephen Timms
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that point, and Citizens Advice points out that this is the biggest practical problem that arises where universal credit has already been introduced. The assumption with universal credit is that people have a monthly pay cheque that will see them through the first month, and that they will receive universal credit at the end of that. However, Citizens Advice suggests that more than half of those claiming are paid weekly, not monthly, and therefore do not have a month’s pay cheque to keep them going for those five weeks. That is causing serious problems.
Will the Minister update the House on what the Government now believe the effect of universal credit will be on child poverty? Given the drastic cuts that we have seen, I believe that implementing universal credit will increase child poverty, rather than decrease it as we were told it would, and as—I have no doubt—was the intention of the former Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in introducing this radical change.
Some information on that question has been provided by the Institute for Fiscal Studies in its February report, “Living Standards, Poverty and Inequality in the UK: 2015–16 to 2020–21”, which shows relative poverty rates from 1997-98 to 2020-21. It points out that in 1997-98 relative child poverty—which was inherited by the incoming Labour Government— stood at 27%. By 2010-11 when that Government were replaced, that figure was down to between 17% and 18%. The statutory target enshrined in the Child Poverty Act 2010—which I took through the House with all-party support—was 10% by 2020, but after 2010 the level of child poverty flatlined for a number of years, and it is now starting to rise. Under the IFS projection, by 2020 it will be virtually back up to the catastrophic level inherited by the Blair Government in 1997. As the IFS states in its report
“the projected increases over the next few years simply reverse the large falls seen under Labour.”
It is interesting to contrast that with what the IFS says about pensioner poverty. Like child poverty, pensioner poverty in 1997 was at a high level—around 27%—but the policies of the Labour Government reduced that to around 17%, and that level remained fairly stable throughout the previous Parliament from 2010 to 2015. The future trajectory for pensioner poverty suggests that it will not rise and will carry on at around 17%. By contrast, child poverty will rocket back up to the levels of 1997. Under the IFS projection, the rate of child poverty in families with more than three children will be more than 30% by 2020.
The huge cuts announced to universal credit will come about by reducing the income of working families with children—a lot of families will be much worse off not only compared with what they would have received under the tax credit system, but in comparison with what they would have received if the original universal credit proposals had gone ahead. The Child Poverty Action Group highlights problems for lone parents and states that
“lone parents will be hit particularly hard, and stand to lose…around £554 per year if renting, or over £2,600 per year if not…The children of single parents are already at twice the risk of living in poverty as those in couple families, and this will exacerbate their disadvantage”.
Cuts to universal credit will drastically reduce the income of working families, and just as big a worry is that incentives for unemployed parents to get into work will be much weaker under current proposals for universal credit than originally intended. That was spelt out by the Resolution Foundation in its report, which states:
“These cuts don’t just affect incomes, they also undermine the scheme’s incentives structure… Returns to entering work are much lower than anticipated under the earlier design of UC.”
It warns that parents—particularly lone parents—will find the incentives to work more hours very weak, and many will reduce their hours for a very small income drop.
Christina Rees
Does my right hon. Friend agree that guidance from the DWP that instructs people to work an extra 200 hours a year for no extra money, to make up the thousands of pounds a year that families are set to lose as a result of cuts to universal credit, is unacceptable?
Stephen Timms
Yes, the suggestion that people can make up those losses simply by working more hours is unrealistic in many circumstances. The Resolution Foundation also points out:
“For second earners in couples the situation may be worse still, with increasing numbers potentially deciding not to enter work at all.”
The whole point of universal credit was supposed to give people incentives to be in employment—indeed, yesterday the Secretary of State reiterated that point at questions to the DWP. The problem is that as currently proposed, those incentives will not be in place when universal credit is rolled out.
Let me draw the Minister’s attention to an article that was published last month and written by Deven Ghelani, who was one of the original architects of universal credit at the Centre for Social Justice. He describes the cuts to universal credit work allowances that were introduced on 11 April as
“undermining the original intent of Universal Credit—to make work pay…The Government should maintain support for work incentives within Universal Credit…these cuts to work allowances will not help to make work pay for low earners.”
That is a deep problem with what is now proposed.
The Minister will argue that calculations of child poverty—the reduction in child poverty of 300,000 that was announced by the Government in the original impact assessment for the legislation, and the subsequent written answer estimate of 150,000—do not allow for the dynamic effects of universal credit and of encouraging people into jobs. In his article, Deven Ghelani addresses exactly that point and states:
“Lower work allowances will limit the dynamic effect of Universal Credit and…will make it harder for households to make up their shortfall by working additional hours.”
That point was also raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Neath.
Stephen Doughty
I am sure that my right hon. Friend has had the experience of meeting many constituents who have to make agonising decisions when making up shortfalls in their income, particularly when it comes to children, whether for basics such as food and school clothes, or modest birthday presents. Sometimes that will force people down the route of getting into further debt, which further compounds their situation. We have seen the horrors of payday loan companies, and others, and many families will find themselves in difficult situations, particularly during that transition period, and they may end up getting further into debt.
Stephen Timms
My hon. Friend is right, and Citizens Advice made exactly that point about the change to support for disabled children that my hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey) referred to. A large proportion of those affected say that they will have to cut back on food, and are likely to get into debt as a result of the cuts.
Deven Ghelani refers to
“the challenges that arise from weakening work incentives within this Government’s flagship welfare reform.”
The Minister will understand why that is a problem, given what the Government have been telling us for years about what universal credit was going to do.
The IFS’s projections for dramatically rising levels of child poverty over the next few years are not only about universal credit; other factors also have an impact. As far as I can see, however, the projections are consistent not with universal credit reducing child poverty—we were originally told it would reduce child poverty—but with universal credit increasing child poverty. It is low-income families and children who will bear the brunt of the cuts, while older and better off people will not be affected at all. I press the Minister to tell us the Government’s current estimate of the effect of the implementation of universal credit on the child poverty figures.
That is the big picture impact of universal credit, but there are a number of other aspects of its design that I want to touch on. I will try to do so very briefly. The first aspect is the eligibility of universal credit claimants to free school meals. At the moment, entitlement to so-called “passported benefits” is dependent on receiving means-tested, out-of-work benefits. That simple test is no longer available in universal credit, because the benefit does not indicate whether the claimant is working or not—indeed, that is one of the advantages of universal credit. The Government therefore have to devise a new eligibility test.
There has been discussion about how, instead of free school meals, claimants could be given cash which could be tapered away with the rest of their universal credit payment. The problem, however, is that we know much of the cash would not be spent on school meals but on something else. There is a real danger of the school meal system collapsing. The Government have rightly rejected that option. We could envisage an electronic system, where claimants are given credits that could be used only to buy school meals. Those, too, could be tapered, but currently there is no IT system in place to do that. The Welfare Reform and Work Bill Committee asked about this during pre-legislative scrutiny in 2011. The Secretary of State at the time told us we would have an answer before the Bill gained Royal Assent in summer 2011. Five years later, we still have not had an answer. Ministers often tell us it is a matter for the Department for Education. The problem is this: the way this question is answered is crucial to whether universal credit will achieve its goal.
It has been hinted that free school meals eligibility will depend on a family’s income being below a particular threshold. The huge problem with that is that it would introduce an enormous new cliff edge into the benefit system, which is exactly the kind of perverse incentive that universal credit is intended to remove. In fact, it would be far worse than any of the perverse incentives currently in the system. If one’s income is just below the threshold—whatever it may be—the last thing you would want is any kind of pay rise or hours increase that would cause you to lose, overnight, the benefit of free school meals for your children. With three children, well over £1,000 a year could be lost.
What is the answer? I recognise that this is a genuinely difficult issue. I do not criticise Ministers for the fact that it is difficult, but I do criticise Ministers for the fact that five years later we still do not have an answer. Increasingly, it seems to me that the viable solution, albeit quite a costly one, will be to extend the current temporary solution that free school meals should be made available to everyone who claims universal credit whether they are in work or not. I ask the Minister when it is likely that we will get a decision on this issue.
My hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles drew attention to the severity of the proposed cuts to the incomes of disabled children through universal credit. The tax credit support of about £60 a week will be cut to £29 a week. I think all of us can see that for an estimated 100,000 families with disabled children that will be a dramatic reduction in their income. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) drew attention to the problems with the long delay between someone making a claim for universal credit and receiving the money. The assumption that people will have a month’s pay cheque in the bank to keep them going in the meantime is proving to be unfounded. The Trussell Trust published its annual statistics last month, which show another increase in food bank demand in the past year. It notes:
“In some areas food banks report increased referrals due to delays and arrears in Universal Credit payments.”
Will the Minister look again at the administrative arrangements for universal credit, as it seems the current arrangements will be a serious problem for many families with children?
The final point I want to raise is that at the moment local authorities pay housing benefit. They can see which claimants will be hit by cuts to benefits of various kinds and provide additional help and tailored support. That is what we have seen in practice. Under universal credit, however, the payment will be made by the DWP. Local authorities will no longer have the data about people’s circumstances. Will the Department provide that data, which it will have instead of local authorities, to local authorities so they will be in a position to continue to provide the kind of tailored support we have seen in the past couple of years?
My fear is that the implementation of universal credit may well have a deeply damaging impact on Britain’s children. In particular, I would like the Minister to give us an update on the Department’s estimates, published in 2011 and updated in 2013, for the impact of universal credit on the number of children living in poverty.
Peter Heaton-Jones (North Devon) (Con)
I echo the words of the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms). The Backbench Business Committee has, properly, allowed this debate and he has introduced it very wisely indeed.
In my mind, there is a difficulty with the motion as it currently stands on the Order Paper: it seeks to look at universal credit in isolation. That is a problem, because what we need to consider is the entire package of measures the Government have introduced with regard to changes to benefits and very significant movements forward in seeking to tackle child poverty. We need to look at all of those measures in the round and as a whole, and not focus solely on universal credit. The package of measures we need to be thinking about are the increases in the personal tax allowance, the introduction of the national living wage and better childcare provision, which goes to the heart of what this debate seeks to address.
Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)
The hon. Gentleman talks about needing to take these issues in the round. Does he accept that in February this year the IFS predicted that, taking all issues in the round including planned tax and benefit reforms, child poverty will increase from 15.1% in 2015-16 to 18.3% by the end of this Parliament?
Peter Heaton-Jones
I am glad the hon. Gentleman mentions the IFS, because it also said that
“universal credit should make the system easier to understand, ease transitions into and out of work, and largely get rid of the most extreme disincentives to work or to earn more created by the current system.”
The IFS seems to quite like the introduction of universal credit, which has to be looked at in the round. The Government are introducing a whole package of measures. I listed some of them. The growing economy and rising employment also help.
The other issue that is not taken into account when we consider universal credit is what is sometimes referred to as the dynamic impact—a horrible bit of jargon—of universal credit. This seeks to take into account changes in individual behaviours in response to the introduction of universal credit. It is quite difficult to analyse but it means improved opportunities for people to move from welfare into work, which changes people’s behaviours. This is a vital point. Even though it is in its early stages of introduction, as pointed out already, there is significant evidence that universal credit is doing well and succeeding at ensuring that more people move off welfare and into work. The latest figures show that for every 100 people who found work under the old jobseeker’s allowance system, about 113 universal credit claimants move into a job. What matters, however, is not just the fact of moving into a job but the quality of the job and the pay, and people are actively looking to increase their hours and their earnings as well.
Jeremy Quin
Does my hon. Friend, like me, welcome the emphasis on in-work progression? The story does not end when someone happily gets into a role. It matters also that they are encouraged through Jobcentre Plus to improve their hours and their standing in the firm and get paid more over time.
Peter Heaton-Jones
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. That is important, and the latest figures show that 86% of claimants on universal credit are actively looking to increase their hours, which compares to 38% under JSA, which is a significant difference. People are actively looking to increase their earnings as well, which goes to the heart of his point. Some 77% of those on universal credit are actively looking to increase their earnings, compared to 51% on JSA. That is a really important part of the universal credit package.
Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)
Is the hon. Gentleman really trying to tell us that the dynamic impact will compensate for the loss of income that families, particularly those with disabled children, will suffer under the universal credit changes?
Peter Heaton-Jones
The hon. Gentleman leads me on to talk about children in particular—the essence of the issue the motion seeks to address—so let us talk about what the Government are doing to reduce child poverty. The latest households below average income statistics show that child poverty in the UK remains at its lowest level since the mid-1980s—the lowest for 30 years. The number of workless households has fallen by about 750,000 since 2010 and—this is the crucial point that goes to the heart of it—there are nearly 500,000 fewer children living in workless households.
The Government, therefore, have a good and sound record on reducing child poverty and targeting the welfare system very carefully at those who need it the most. That is the key to what universal credit seeks to do. The hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) mentioned young children. The Government have invested £2.5 billion in the troubled families initiative and the same amount again in the pupil premium, which provides extra funding for the most disadvantaged children in school. And here is a measure we do not hear much about from the Labour party: income inequality is down under this Government.
Peter Heaton-Jones
That is what the statistics show. It is important to remember that the Government are having some success.
I want to touch on the Government’s announcement of the introduction of the new and significantly strengthened approach to the life chances of Britain’s most disadvantaged children. I sat last autumn through 17 sittings of the Bill Committee for the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016, along with the Minister and other hon. Members I can see today on both sides of the House. For those who were not there, this was a very important part of what the Committee discussed. The Act seeks to ensure that the life chances of the most disadvantaged children are front and centre in all the welfare reforms we seek to introduce. That will be central to our one nation approach over the next five years. Ministers are committed—I have heard them say it several times—to this much more effective measure focused on the real causes of poverty.
I repeat, however, that we need to look at this as a whole. I am not saying that this debate is not worthwhile, but I question the wording of the motion and the fact that it merely isolates universal credit. We need to look in the round at all the measures and welfare reforms that the Government have introduced and which amount to a significant and beneficial package of reforms.
Peter Heaton-Jones
If the right hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I am coming to a conclusion.
I understand the concerns that the right hon. Gentleman has raised and which the motion seeks to address, but having sat through the Bill Committee, I think that universal credit will bring longer-term benefits. It needs to be seen as part of a package of measures. I am not for one minute saying it is not important that we look at how children are being affected by these measures, but I know that the Minister is addressing the matter and that the Government have put the effect on children at the heart of their full package of welfare reforms. We want to ensure that those effects are beneficial. I believe that they will be and that the Government are moving in the right direction.
Kate Osamor (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) for his eloquent introduction to the debate and the Backbench Business Committee for bringing it to the main Chamber.
This debate is of particular concern in my constituency, where there is a high proportion of people claiming welfare benefits. As of April 2015, there were 14,500 people on tax credits, and it is estimated that, by 2020-21, 19,000 people will be on universal credit. According to figures from Child Poverty Action Group, reductions in work allowance under universal credit, introduced in April 2016, will result in a working single parent in rental accommodation losing up to £554 per year and in a working single parent who owns their home losing up to £2,000 per year. In both cases, this is more than double the loss suffered by working couples. The majority of these single parents are women. Once again, this is a cut that comes at the expense of women, who account for 86% of cuts to benefits and tax savings. This figure has increased, not decreased, as a result of the Chancellor’s latest Budget.
A single parent already working full time on the national living wage will have to work an extra 46 days each year—more than two additional working months—to make up what they have lost. While the Government may paint these reductions in income as an incentive to work, for single parents already in full-time work, extra hours are not realistic. Support for childcare might have increased from 70% to 85%, but this will not compensate families for the losses they will suffer as a result of the changes in universal credit. End Child Poverty estimates that 42% of children in my constituency live in relative poverty, which makes it the constituency with the sixth-highest level of child poverty. The four-year freeze on support for children under universal credit is expected to reduce the value of key children’s benefits by 12% by the end of the decade, when creeping inflation will also have added to the cost of living.
In 2011, the Government forecast that universal credit would lift up to 350,000 children out of poverty. In 2013, this figure was amended to 150,000 and the Government today refuse to give a figure. There remain significant gaps between the Government’s aim of making work pay through the new universal credit regime and the reality of families facing huge cuts to their income. I would like to ask the Minister two questions. First, will the Government review the impact of work allowance reductions on working families, particularly working single families? Secondly, will they agree to review annually the decision to freeze most key children’s benefits for four years?
As I have stated, the impact of changing tax credits to universal credits will affect families in my constituency. I am here representing them and trying to get their voices heard in the Chamber, so I ask that the Government take very seriously the effect the changes will have on families and women.
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful case. Does she agree that we should be particularly concerned about the plight of the self-employed—an increasingly large group of income-insecure people? Does she share my concern that about 800,000 self-employed people are likely to lose £1,000 a year as a result of the cuts to universal credit?
Kate Osamor
I totally agree with my hon. Friend. There are many lone workers and people who have their own businesses in my constituency, and they have come to see me in my office to say that they are very concerned because they need to use benefits to top up their salaries. This is an issue that I hope the Government will take into account.
I conclude by asking the Minister to review the impact that work allowance reductions are having on working families, particularly single families. Secondly, will the Government agree to review annually the decision to freeze most key children’s benefits for four years?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)
Were you here at the beginning of the debate, Mr Graham?
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
I am very grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker.
Today’s debate comes at an interesting time. The right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) introduced it with his usual reasonableness on an issue of concern to everybody here. There are two or three points that I would like to highlight in a brief contribution. The first is the biggest strategic challenge for the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues, which is where the balance of the strategy that Labour Members are trying to pursue will lead the country. I offer two thoughts. The first is that Labour Members have still not told us what reforms to welfare benefits they would make to reduce the budget deficit that we and all our constituents still face. At a time when the country is spending more on the interest of our debt than on the education of our children, it has to be wrong to ignore this part of the equation.
I think I am right in saying that Labour opposed every one of the welfare reforms pushed through by the coalition Government in the last Parliament, which amounted to some £20 billion of reductions in expenditure, and indeed have opposed everything in this Parliament as well. This comes at the same time as consistently opposing in this Parliament measures that the Government have taken to improve conditions for businesses that generate, directly and indirectly, 75% of all the tax that pays for the services, the welfare and the pensions that we all know are so important to our constituents.
Richard Graham
I have two points in response to that. First, when it comes to generating more tax, I subscribe to the philosophy of the former Chinese leader, Deng Xiaoping, who said:
“It matters not whether the cat is white or black so long as it catches mice.”
On this occasion, when we lowered the top tax rate from 50% to 45%, the additional tax revenue was £8 billion. My question to the hon. Lady and her colleagues is this, “Would you rather have an extra £8 billion of tax revenue to spend on our vital services, or enjoy the ideological thrill of raising the top tax rate and collecting less tax revenue with less to spend on services?” I know what I would go for; I am not sure about her.
Richard Graham
The hon. Lady is shaking her head, which suggests to me that my colleague on the Select Committee on Work and Pensions is still from the school of thought that prefers to raise taxes and get less tax revenue. I would have thought that the period of Reaganomics and Thatcheromics had made it very clear that we incentivise businesses to grow, to generate more revenue and to employ more people by creating a business-friendly environment rather than the opposite. It is something that the hon. Lady and her party will have to work out.
The hon. Lady’s second question was on the married person’s tax allowance. All the evidence from research done over a period of years shows that we have happier families and less dysfunctional behaviour when we have closer families, and marriage plays a key part in that. I recognise that not all Members subscribe to the importance of marriage as a contributing factor to a happy society, but we should probably leave that debate for another day.
My second main point relates to what the right hon. Member for East Ham said about universal credit, in particular the part of the motion that states that
“many may struggle with elements of the new approaches to payment and administration”.
There is a philosophical issue here, too. Originally, the current Minister for Welfare Reform, Lord Freud, acted as an adviser to the last Labour Government, and he recommended many solutions to the problem of tax credits, which he has now implemented in government with our party. I once asked him what the difference was between the work he had done for the previous Labour Government and our own Government. He said that the difference was simply that we would implement it.
The former Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer and Member for Edinburgh South West, now Lord Darling, said in this House that Labour had not implemented universal credit simply because it was “too difficult”. His party has always struggled with the fact that we are implementing something that it had decided was too difficult. Labour Members have not been able to work out whether to oppose it all in principle, which would be odd, given that they had looked at it, or whether to attack it in detail on the basis that it is too complicated to do. As universal credit continues to move forward on its journey across the country, affecting a growing number of people, I suspect that that challenge is going to be more and more difficult, and those on the Labour Front Bench are going to have to reconcile these problems.
The assumption behind what the right hon. Member for East Ham said today is that universal credit is basically all too complicated, with the twist that it now cannot be understood by those who are going on to it. I do not know how many Members have actually been to their Jobcentre Plus and spoken to people working there about the implementation of universal credit, as well as to their customers, namely our constituents who are receiving it. I suspect that those who have done so, as I have, will find that people working in Jobcentre Plus find universal credit to be a huge step forward. More than one officer working there described it to me as a quiet revolution, while those receiving it find it much easier to understand than the plethora of often contradictory benefit systems that our country built up over a long period of time.
I fundamentally disagree with the right hon. Member for East Ham—reluctantly, because I agree with him on several things—on the notion that universal credit cannot be understood by those either receiving it or responsible for administering it. He claimed that there were “long delays” to universal credit claims, and that the Trussell Trust had said once again, having said it several times before, that the increase in demand for food banks was largely down to the delays in benefits. Because I had heard that argument for quite a long time, last year I set up with my local citizens advice bureau a service agreement that obliged it to refer to me any instance of any of my constituents who are waiting longer to receive benefits due to them than the accepted norm set by the DWP. That covered any situation. In the last six months, how many people had been referred to my office for unnecessary delays to their benefits? One—one single constituent. It could be argued that there is not a complete correlation between people referred to the food bank by the CAB and those who go to the food bank. That could be true. A number of organisations in the city of Gloucester, including my own office, refer people to our food bank. None the less, the CAB is probably—I do not have the precise statistics—the biggest single organisation handling the welfare difficulties of my constituents. It is, I think, telling that over the last six months there has been only one case of unnecessary delays in the receipt of benefits.
Stephen Timms
The hon. Gentleman has got slightly the wrong end of the stick in relation to what I was saying. The problem with universal credit is that the five-week delay is built into the design of the benefit. That is not a fault; it is how it is supposed to work. The assumption is that someone who has last month’s pay cheque in the bank can cope for a month. That is the problem that the Trussell Trust is starting to identify, and Citizens Advice is saying that, in practice, it is proving to be a very serious problem for many claimants of the new benefit.
Richard Graham
I do not think that I have grasped the wrong end of the stick, but I may have grasped a different part of the stick, and I think it is important for all parts of the stick to be considered in this context. I will, however, respond directly to the point that the right hon. Gentleman has made.
I have sought permission from the Department for Work and Pensions and my local Jobcentre Plus to install a DWP adviser in the George Whitefield Centre—appropriately, as the right hon. Gentleman will know, named after the founder of Methodism—where there is both a food bank and a health service for the homeless. I hope that, should I be fortunate enough to receive approval from the Department and the Jobcentre Plus, the adviser, with access to a computer, will be able to see precisely where the problems are, and I hope that if, as the right hon. Gentleman suggests, the inbuilt delay is a real issue, that fact will be revealed. I put it to him gently, however, that there are a number of alternative scenarios, one of which is—to put it bluntly—that when people go to a food bank and are asked why they have done so, it is very easy for them to say, “I have had problems getting my benefits.” I hope that one of the advantages of the presence of a DWP adviser will be the ability to establish the extent to which that claim is correct, or possibly slightly exaggerated. The reality of life, I think, is that people get into financial difficulties—through no particular fault of their own—in a series of different ways, and I think that that is an aspect of the Trussell Trust feedback that has not been explored in enough detail so far.
Neil Gray
It is not just the Trussell Trust that is reporting circumstances in which people find themselves requiring emergency food aid from food banks. In February last year, the Poverty Alliance in Scotland reported that delays in benefits and cuts in social security support were the direct responsible contributing factor in those circumstances. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will reflect on the fact that that is being said not just by one organisation, but by many.
Richard Graham
I sort of thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but I do not think that he should rely on statements made by particular charities that tend to generalise. I encourage him to look into the position in his own constituency in detail, so that he can establish what the issues are.
At some point, the hon. Gentleman will also have to face the same strategic issue to which I referred the right hon. Member for East Ham and his party. If the position of the hon. Gentleman’s party is that all welfare expenditure is sacrosanct from now until the end of all days, he and his party will have to think about where they will find the revenue to fund that, and how they will do so without building up excessive debt on which interest has to be paid, which reduces the amount of money that is available to be spent on services.
If the hon. Gentleman studies—as our Select Committee has—the ratio between our country’s budget expenditure on welfare and that of some of the largest comparable nations in Europe, such as France and Germany, he will see that we spend more on welfare than they do. That is the challenge there for him and his party. He shakes his head, but reality will have to intervene one day, as my colleague Ruth Davidson in Scotland has pointed out several times.
Other Members wish to speak. Let me end by addressing one particular aspect of child poverty. There is a philosophical divide between different parties in the House on this issue, but an important part of the motion tabled by the right hon. Member for East Ham is the request for the Government
“to ensure that the number of children in poverty…falls as a result of the introduction of the new universal credit system.”
Evidence suggests that the highest poverty exit rate is strongly linked to the children of families who have gone into work, and have moved from part-time to full-time employment. I believe I am right in saying that 75% is the figure that enables the number of children referred to in the motion to be reduced. I think that that tells us that any welfare system which encourages people to work longer hours, obtain promotion and advance themselves in different jobs will have a hugely beneficial impact on the number of children in poverty, and I have no doubt that the steps taken by the Government to improve the chances of those receiving universal credit of moving up the ladder in the workforce will have a positive effect on the number of children in relative poverty.
I have made four points. First, there was the philosophical point about the strategy of welfare relative to tax revenue. Secondly, there was the point about the value of universal credit to our own constituents. Thirdly, there was my gentle challenge to some of the assumptions of the Trussell Trust about why people are going to food banks, and the role of DWP advisers in shedding more light on that issue. Finally, I drew attention to the relationship between getting into the workplace and moving on, and relative child poverty. On the basis of those points, I cannot support the motion.
Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)
Thank you very much for calling me, Madam Deputy Speaker. I appreciate the flexibility that you have shown this afternoon.
I congratulate the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) and the Backbench Business Committee on securing this debate. The right hon. Gentleman made some powerful points in his measured, brilliant and very well-researched speech.
The new Secretary of State has been keen to push the line that his Department needs to look at people, not just at statistics. I completely agree, but where is the evidence that that is happening? Where is the compassion being brought to social security policy? In the context of this debate, the Secretary of State will no doubt wish to be reminded of a quotation from Dr Seuss:
“A person’s a person, no matter how small!”
He needs to start thinking about the impact that his Department’s policies are having on children. Now, while he is relatively new to the job, we can call them inherited policies, but as he begins his tenure by marching to the defence of everything that went before him, those policies will become his own, and he will be responsible for what unfolds. He has an opportunity to make his mark on the Department and to embark on a genuine departure from what went before—as was touted when he was appointed—and that needs to start with the cuts in universal credit. As the shadow Secretary of State rightly said yesterday, if he does not make those cuts, how will he be any different from his predecessor? Perhaps the Minister could relay that, and other issues raised in the debate, to the absent Secretary of State.
The cuts that are being deferred from tax credits and lumped on to universal credit will have a very real impact on the quality of children’s lives and their long-term life chances. The cut in the work allowance—slashing the only work incentive in universal credit—will hit families and lone parents the hardest. Lone parents without housing costs will experience the largest reduction in their work allowance, from £8,800 last year to £4,764 this year—a cut of £4,000, according to the House of Commons Library. These are working families. The children of single parents are already twice as likely to risk living in poverty as those in couple families, and, according to the Child Poverty Action Group, cuts in work allowances will only exacerbate that disadvantage.
Last week the Resolution Foundation published a devastating report for the Government, which stated that under universal credit, half a million working families would be significantly worse off, even given the changes in tax allowances and the increase in the minimum wage for over-25s. According to analysis published by the Institute for Fiscal Studies in February this year, absolute child poverty is projected to increase from 15.1% in 2015-16 to 18.3% by the end of this Parliament in 2020.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)
Families who care for disabled children and are prevented from working for that reason are set to be particularly badly affected by the Government’s changes. Contact a Family estimates that those families will be at least £1,600 a year worse off. Does my hon. Friend agree that this change directly discriminates against such families, and that the Government should go back to the drawing board?
Neil Gray
I completely agree with my hon. Friend, and later in my speech I will touch on what is being done in Scotland to address some of those issues.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies says that the projected increase in child poverty is driven entirely by a sharp rise in poverty among families with three or more children, which is itself the result of planned tax and benefit reforms. Those figures are UK-wide. My constituency already has a shocking child poverty rate of 21.7%. If the rise in child poverty projected by the IFS is universally applied, Airdrie and Shotts will have a quarter, rather than a fifth, of its children living in poverty by the end of this Parliament because of this Government’s tax and social security changes. Surely it is time for the Secretary of State to see these statistics and the children behind them. One child in every four in my constituency will be in poverty if he accepts the tax and benefit changes that he has inherited.
The Child Poverty Action Group agrees that to lift families out of poverty and disadvantage, the relationship between universal credit and work must be right. It is calling for: the restoration of work allowances, particularly for single parents; a second earner allowance for couples, to support second earners to get into work without facing an immediate withdrawal of universal credit; and investment in high-quality employment support that recognises people’s individual circumstances, so that universal credit can meet its aspiration to promote in-work progression through the provision of high-quality advice, rather than through the threat of sanctions. Those proposals certainly provide food for thought.
Universal credit was supposed to involve the streamlining of a complicated system to improve work incentives, tackle poverty and reduce the scope for error and fraud. Instead, we have massive delays, huge overspends on implementation, and fundamental changes and cuts to awards that will drive more children and families into poverty. This is not what was intended, but because of this Government’s obsession with austerity at any cost, it is the reality. Universal credit has been watered down and completely undermined, especially by cutting the work allowance to ribbons.
Under the latest Scotland Bill, the newly re-elected Scottish National party Government will have power over 15% of our social security spending. [Interruption.] I hear some chuntering from across the Chamber. Although 15% will be determined in Scotland, the vast majority of social security issues will still be determined here in Westminster, which is why it is so important that we on these Benches challenge this Government whenever we can. I would prefer it if my colleagues up the road had control over all social security decisions, but the SNP is determined to use the powers that it will get to transform the service that people receive. One area of change will come when we scrap the rule that results in the removal of income for families of disabled children if their child is in hospital for 84 days. We will also increase carer’s allowance to the same level as jobseeker’s allowance, giving carers an extra £600 a year. We will put dignity and respect at the heart of the new Scottish social security agency, supported by a £200 million investment. We will also scrap the bedroom tax.
One of the key elements of today’s motion is the call for a proper impact assessment to take account of the significant cuts to the work allowance. My call to the new Secretary of State is to reassess what has gone before him, to assess the impact these cuts will have on children up and down these isles, and to set his own path of supporting people into work rather than threatening them with poverty.
Angela Crawley (Lanark and Hamilton East) (SNP)
When the Government announced their plans to introduce universal credit, their rationale was to lift people out of poverty and help them into work. It was billed as a mechanism to end cycles of poverty and to help parents give their children the best start in life. In 2011, the Government forecast that universal credit would lift 350,000 children out of poverty. In 2013, this was downgraded to 150,000 children. Today, the Government cannot say exactly how many children will be helped by the process. Will they tell us how many families they are actually helping through the universal credit system?
Based on estimates from the Children’s Society and the Child Poverty Action Group, it seems that the downward trend has continued to the point at which the number of children who will be helped out of poverty will be heavily outweighed by those who have been made poorer. That is deeply concerning. As an MP, I often hear from constituents who are struggling under this Government’s programme of austerity. I want their voices to be heard today, and I want the Minister to seriously consider the unintended—I am sure—negative impact that universal credit is having on many children and families.
Among the most damaging parts of this welfare reform are the eligibility criteria. From April 2017, only two children per family will be eligible for the child elements of universal credit. The child elements are intended to allow families to meet their children’s basic needs. How dare this Government discriminate against a third or fourth child? No matter how many children a family chooses to have, the Government should not discriminate against any child.
Neil Gray
Alongside the rape clause, which my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) has raised repeatedly, this is one of the most disgraceful aspects of these provisions. People plan a family based on the circumstances in which they find themselves at the time. Let us take the example of two working parents. What would happen if, further down the line, having had three children, they were unable to work? The two child policy is an absolute disgrace.
Angela Crawley
I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend. This Government have absolutely no right or reason to dictate to families how many children they ought to have, or to place a monetary value on a child’s life or someone’s livelihood.
This Government have scrapped the first child premium, worth £545 a year. That is the equivalent of the family element in tax credits, which was designed to help families with the extra cost of their first child. Obviously, this Government do not prioritise the need to give every child the best possible start in life. The Scottish Government and the First Minister have ensured that every new-born child in Scotland will receive a box that will allow the family to deliver the best possible care, health and support for their child. In what initially appears to be a benefit to low-income families, support for childcare has been increased from 70% to 80% of the cost. However, this policy will not compensate for the far greater losses families will see as a result of other changes to the benefits system.
That brings me to my final point, which relates to disabled claimants. Disabled individuals are often the worst off as a result of benefit reforms, and they are certainly the worst-off group as a result of universal credit. They have been wholly ignored in the process. At present, families with a disabled child can claim £60 per week through the disability element of child tax credits. Under universal credit, £29 per week of support will be claimed under disability additions, but according to the Government’s own estimates, this means that 100,000 disabled children stand to lose more than half their entitlement. How can the Government look at those figures and honestly justify their actions? Disabled lone parents with young carers stand to lose £58 per week as a result of the loss of the severe disability premium under universal credit. Again, this Government have failed to take those individuals into consideration. Lone parents and those under 25 are likely to lose up to £15 per week as a result of reductions in standard allowances for those groups under universal credit.
The Government must commit to fairer arrangements, especially for those most at risk. While they continue to balance the books on the backs of the poor, many more children will continue to grow up in poverty. While they continue to allow tax avoiders and big business to benefit, those who work hard to put food on the table for their loved ones will continue to lose out. When will this Government learn? The fact is that one child growing up in poverty is one too many.
Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)
We have had an unexpectedly concise, but nevertheless interesting, debate is afternoon. I echo the remarks of others who have paid tribute to the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) for securing the debate and giving us this opportunity to highlight the impacts that the universal credit scheme will have on children. Right at the heart of this matter are the recent cuts to the work allowance—implemented just last month—which are set to drive up child poverty quite considerably in the months and years ahead.
Back in January, when the Government performed their U-turn on tax credits, it was clear that the relief would be only temporary for many families. As we have heard today, the transition to universal credit will mean that 3 million working families will no longer be eligible for the support that they would have had under the tax credits system. A further 1.2 million working families will still receive support, but will be worse off. Therefore, according to the Resolution Foundation, 4.2 million families will be on average more than £40 a week worse off, even taking into account increases in the minimum wage and tax allowances.
When universal credit was first introduced, we were told that it would simplify and streamline our benefits system, that it would introduce greater flexibility for those in seasonal jobs or with fluctuating earnings and, crucially, that it would remove the financial disincentives to work created by the previous system. However, that is not what is happening in reality. The introduction of universal credit has simply been an excuse to cut family incomes, taking £3 billion a year out of the pockets of low-paid parents. As the Resolution Foundation report puts it, the latest cuts to universal credit risk leaving it
“little more than a vehicle for rationalising benefit administration and cutting costs to the Exchequer.”
That is a truly damning indictment.
The bottom line is that cutting the work allowance under universal credit has destroyed the very aspect that reduced work disincentives—the thing that made it a distinctive policy. The most potentially valuable aspect of universal credit has been butchered, and we are now left with a system that will reduce the incomes of more than 4 million low-income families. People are already working hard to support their families and are struggling to make ends meet. The change is set to send child poverty skyrocketing over the next few years. Far from creating work incentives, the reality is that cuts to the work allowance mean that parents in low-paid jobs face staggering levels of marginal taxation if they take on extra hours. There is no way around the fact that that reduces the incentive to take on extra work. If someone is going to be only 35p in the pound better off per hour, the extra earnings might not even cover their transport costs, much less their childcare.
Working single parents will be particularly badly affected by the changes, because they are being hit with dramatic income cuts. There is also a big disparity between those who live in rented accommodation and those who are owner-occupiers or otherwise not paying housing costs. In rented accommodation, a working couple with children will lose £234 a year, and a working single parent will lose £554 a year. The reductions in income are even starker for those not in rented accommodation. A working couple with children will lose more than £1,000 per year, but working single parents are set to lose a massive £2,628 a year on average.
Angela Crawley
A single parent already working full time on the national living wage—otherwise known as a modern increase on the minimum wage—of £7.20 an hour will have to work an additional 46 days a year, equating to two additional months. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is unacceptable?
Dr Whiteford
It is not only unacceptable, but completely unrealistic. When the measures were first debated, the Government tried to argue that families affected by the losses could simply work a few extra hours to cover the shortfall. Notwithstanding the availability of extra hours being entirely dependent on the employer’s circumstances—there might not be many extra hours going around in many workplaces at the moment—the Child Poverty Action Group pointed out, as did my hon. Friend just now, that a single parent working full time on the minimum wage would essentially have to work an extra day a week just to make up the shortfall. It is already hard for single parents to manage full-time work and family responsibilities, and I just cannot believe that it is good for them or their children for them to be taking on an extra day a week. Something has to give. People’s health will collapse. People’s children and family life will suffer. It is not the right thing to do.
The effect on families affected by disability will be disproportionate. At Work and Pensions questions yesterday, I mentioned the impact that the introduction of universal credit will have on disabled children. Some time ago, the Children’s Society and Citizens Advice published “Holes in the safety net”, a report which warned that the introduction of universal credit would mean dramatic cuts in support for some disabled children. Some 100,000 disabled children in the UK are likely to be affected and will see their support halved to just £29 a week. As we have heard today, families with a disabled child are twice as likely to be low-income families living in poverty. We know that. We also know that those who live with a significant disability face extra living costs, but it is sometimes too easy to gloss over the realities of day-to-day life for such children, their parents, and their brothers and sisters. Disability affects the whole family.
Some time ago, I worked for Carers Scotland and will never forget my conversations with parents of disabled children about their experiences, many of which were positive, but nevertheless also often enormously challenging, both financially and emotionally. I remember one working mother describing how she had had to give up a full-time professional career and work part time in a lower-paid job, simply because she could not find a nursery willing and able to take on the complex needs of her little boy. I remember another mother talking about realising that she would have to become a full-time stay-at-home parent after her second child was born with quite significant physical disabilities. She and her husband had recently bought a three-bedroom house to accommodate an expanding family, but they had to sell up and downsize, because that was all that they could afford on one income. At the very moment when they needed more space to accommodate growing toddlers and a wheelchair and to enable their elder child to sleep through the night without being woken up by a disabled sibling who needed care during the night, they were instead struggling to make ends meet. Families such as those, for whom £30 a week makes an enormous tangible difference to their quality of life, are being put on the front line.
On the other side of the coin are the cuts under universal credit to the severe disability premium paid to disabled adults, affecting some 25,000 children who live with a severely disabled parent. The level of support will be £58 a week less for such families. Even those in the ESA support group—those who have absolutely no prospect of being fit for work—will be entitled to £28 a week less than under the current system. That will inevitably have an impact on the children in those households, most of whom do not get any extra support at the moment, and it will make life even harder for young people who in some cases are already taking on age-inappropriate levels of domestic responsibility. The Government talk a lot about improving life chances, which we have heard again and again today, but slashing support for disabled children and the children of severely disabled adults who have no prospect of work will only harm those children’s already diminished life chances.
I asked the Government yesterday if their intention really was for low-income families and disabled children to bear the brunt of their cuts agenda. We have heard lots of suggestions today, such as those put forward by CPAG, the Children’s Society, the Resolution Foundation and others, for how the failing universal credit project could be redeemed, not least the need for a credible and up-to-date assessment of the overall impact on child poverty. Instead of trying to defend the indefensible, the Government have an opportunity to go back to the drawing board on universal credit and restore its original policy intent of supporting low-income working families. If they fail to take that opportunity, they will be confirming their reputation as the sort of people who think it is okay to make disabled children and hard-working parents in low-paid jobs pay for the tax breaks being enjoyed by the wealthiest in our society.
Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)
I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for agreeing to hold this debate in the main Chamber. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms), whose erudite and considered opening speech was a great contribution to the debate. The hon. Member for North Devon (Peter Heaton-Jones) talked about the broader context, and I will be only too pleased to do the same in a moment. My hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Kate Osamor) spoke powerfully about the plight of lone working parents, who are particularly affected by cuts to the work allowance. I certainly agreed with the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham), who is no longer in his place, on the idea of ensuring that we visit Jobcentre Plus offices to see universal credit in action, something which I did recently with my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham, but it is equally important to be in contact with local citizens advice bureaux and to visit food banks to see what is happening on the ground.
We heard a useful contribution from the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Neil Gray), who pointed out very well the new approach promised by the new Secretary of State of looking at people, not statistics. I look forward to the Minister telling us how she has changed her approach under her new boss, as I am sure everybody does. We also heard useful contributions from the hon. Members for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) and for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford); my hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Christina Rees); the hon. Member for Horsham (Jeremy Quin); my hon. Friends the Members for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey) and for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty); the hon. Members for Foyle (Mark Durkan) and for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier); and my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck).
This debate comes at a key time—a key moment of test for the new Secretary of State—because the outlook is bleak. The Institute for Fiscal Studies expects absolute child poverty to increase from 15.1% in 2015-16 to 18.3% in 2020-21. The Resolution Foundation believes that 200,000 more children, predominantly from working households, will fall into poverty this year. Gingerbread powerfully makes the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton made about cuts to the work allowance hitting single parents particularly hard. There is a set of damning statistics on this, which the Children’s Society has set out. A working single parent can lose up to £2,628 a year. What was the Government’s response to that? What did they say could be done about that? They told the Social Security Advisory Committee that parents could work three to four additional hours a week on the national living wage.
Carolyn Harris (Swansea East) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that to expect hard-working families to work an extra 200 hours a year just to make up for the cruel cuts in universal credit is an outright insult?
Nick Thomas-Symonds
My hon. Friend is absolutely right about that. The hon. Member for North Devon wanted the broader context to be taken into account, so let us take into account the national living wage as well. A single parent who is already working full time on the national living wage of £7.20 an hour will have to work 46 extra days a year, which is more than two additional working months. How on earth can that be put forward as a reasonable proposition by anybody? It obviously is not reasonable.
The Government were warned about the problems they face today as a result of cuts to universal credit. The Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission report released just before Christmas, on 17 December, said that the “immediate priority” had to be ensuring that the cuts to the work allowance planned for this April did not go ahead, but the Government simply did not listen. The problem that they are getting to is that their approach is starting to deny the very purposes that universal credit was set up for. The Resolution Foundation states:
“But it is also much changed as a result of the increasingly tight financial restraints placed on it over recent years. These have involved more than just a reduction in the money available under UC, they have also altered the very structure of the policy—changing the composition of winners and losers and fundamentally damaging its ability to deliver against its purported aims.”
Perhaps that explains why the Government are so terrified of publishing an up-to-date impact assessment. Perhaps it explains why they are so terrified of telling us the figures as to what they expect will happen to child poverty over this Parliament.
Christina Rees
Does my hon. Friend agree that we also urgently need an analysis of the gender impact of the Government’s policy since 2010, because the design of universal credit, like that of other Government policies, does seem to have a disproportionate impact on women?
Nick Thomas-Symonds
My hon. Friend is absolutely right about that, and we all know that the brunt of the cuts has fallen on women. That is precisely what the Government should be taking into account and they should carry out such an analysis. It is not as though it would be that difficult for the Government to come up with these figures. My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) chairs the all-party group on health in all policies, whose excellent report, produced in February, made it absolutely clear that there is a danger of the progress on tackling child poverty made by the last Labour Government going into reverse as a result of what this Government are doing.
This is not, however, just about the Government’s lack of compassion on these things; it is also about their complete lack of competence. We should not forget how universal credit has been implemented. On 1 November 2011, the former Secretary of State told us in a press release that there would be no fewer than 1 million people claiming universal credit “by April 2014”, but by November 2015 the actual figure was 155,568, which, by my reckoning, is less than a fifth of the target he had set himself in 2011. The day on which the roll-out is to be completed seems to be forever going back. When I was younger, my great aunt and uncle used to own a pub, in which there was a brass plaque just above the bar saying, “Free beer tomorrow”. The problem being that every time people went in it still said, “Free beer tomorrow”. I am afraid that that is where we are getting to with universal credit: six years later, we are still waiting for it to be implemented.
This is not just about the speed of the implementation; it is also about the risks that the Government have identified. Let us also not forget the universal credit risk register, whose disclosure the Government, again, fought tooth and nail against. They were forced to disclose it; they love spending legal fees on defending the indefensible. It identified 65 open risks to the programme, including that of skilled staff resources not being in the right place at the risk time. The list of incompetence does not end there. The former Secretary of State made clear—this was the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham about people being broadly the same on universal credit as on tax credits—the following when answering departmental questions:
“Here is the key: I have already said that those who are on universal credit at the moment will be supported by their advisers through the flexible support fund, to ensure that their status does not change.” —[Official Report, 7 December 2015; Vol. 603, c. 707.]
The idea being of course that the discretionary flexible support fund can make up the difference. I have with me the letter that the Department is sending out on this issue. I do not know whether the Minister has seen this, as the rumours are that since she declared for British exit she does not get to see all the documents in her Department—I am happy to show it to her if she has not. It sets out what the new amount of money is, but there is not one mention of the flexible support fund.
When we are talking about incompetence, it is almost as though some Department for Work and Pensions Ministers have been in competition with each other. We will have to give the top award to the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Mr Vara), although I feel bad in doing so because he is only a part-timer in the Department. However, his answer on mitigating the effect of cuts was as follows:
“let us not forget, the fact that every time we fill up our tank with petrol there is a saving…because of the freezing of the fuel duty.”—[Official Report, 6 January 2016; Vol. 604, c. 342.]
If the answer in 2016 from the Tories to those who lose out is, “Go and fill up your car”, it shows how out of touch they are. I picked him out for the top spot in the incompetence league, but in recent months the Minister for Employment has become used to missing out on the top spot. [Interruption.] I will certainly carry on.
The problem is that naked politics is interfering with universal credit. Do not take my word for it; take the word of the former Secretary of State who, when interviewed on the Andrew Marr show on 20 March, said that
“it looks like we see benefits as a pot of money to cut because they don’t vote for us”.
Let us never forget that, because what it says to children in poverty is that we are only interested in their parents if they voted for us or are likely to vote for us at the next election.
What else did the former Secretary of State say about what was happening to the Government’s social security changes? He said this:
“There has been too much emphasis on money saving exercises and not enough awareness from the Treasury, in particular, that the government’s vision of a new welfare-to-work system could not repeatedly be salami-sliced.”
We heard even worse from him, including his damning criticism of the Treasury:
“I am unable to watch passively while certain policies are enacted in order to meet the fiscal self-imposed restraints that I believe are more and more perceived as distinctly political rather than in the national economic interest.”
Any arguments made today by the hon. Member for Gloucester that these cuts are about a reduction in our deficit were blown apart by what was said by the former Secretary of State. What he was saying is that it is all about the politics and career of the Chancellor.
Mark Durkan
Does the hon. Gentleman also remember that the former Secretary of State made it very clear that the Treasury was imposing the cuts through the welfare cap, which, unfortunately, was supported by both sides of the House in the last Parliament? Now, however, that cap has become the search engine for cut after cut, and, given that even he was expressing criticism of it, it does need to be addressed.
Nick Thomas-Symonds
Yes, it does need to be addressed. As ever, the hon. Gentleman makes a distinctly useful contribution to these matters.
There is no greater moral and economic purpose that we could have in this place than eradicating child poverty. In 1999, the Labour Government promised to do that by 2020. To do it and to achieve it is to ensure that every single child has the ability to unlock their potential regardless of their background.
The European Union—dare I say it—has pledged to take at least 20 million out of poverty and social exclusion by 2020. I very much fear that the Minister for Employment wants not only to leave the European Union, but to pursue policies that will plunge more people into poverty by 2020 than would be the case if we were inside the European Union. The levels of child poverty today are a damning indictment of this Government. They bring shame on this country. The Government must act urgently, and I commend this motion to the House.
The Minister for Employment (Priti Patel)
I welcome the debate and congratulate the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) on both securing it and making an incredibly thoughtful contribution. I want to put my tributes to him on the record, especially as I have spent time with him in Committee. He mentioned the early stages in the development of universal credit and the first Welfare Reform Act 2012. I was also on that Bill Committee and know that he made some notable contributions to the discussions on universal credit and on the changes that the Government were undertaking at the time.
I also want to thank Members from all parts of the House—my hon. Friends the Members for North Devon (Peter Heaton-Jones) and for Gloucester (Richard Graham), and the hon. Members for Edmonton (Kate Osamor), for Airdrie and Shotts (Neil Gray), for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) and for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford)—for contributing to this important discussion. I will come on to the points that they made a little later.
Before I move on to the details of universal credit, it is probably worth setting out the Government’s commitment to—yes—universal credit and also to what has been at the heart of universal credit and our welfare reform changes. Universal credit has been revolutionising the welfare system by focusing on making work pay, and I will go into detail on the points that have been made about incentivising work.
For the first time, we are helping people not only into work, but to have personalised support while they are in work. We are seeking to transform individuals’ outcomes when it comes to employment support. We want to ensure that they are supported in work and have sustainable employment outcomes as well. That has been very much at the heart of our welfare reforms. When we discuss universal credit in the broader sense, it is important to recognise that it has been instituted and developed so that it is easier to start work and to earn more, and that is because of the personalised support that it offers. Under the old system, there was little or no support when someone started work.
Universal credit provides for a Jobcentre Plus work coach. As Members have said, work coaches are focused on providing support and in-work progression. Universal credit mirrors the world of work. Like most jobs, universal credit is paid in a single monthly amount. It aims to make work pay. It stays with the claimant after they move into work. On top of that, universal credit is part of a package of reforms that runs alongside the introduction of the national living wage.
There were comments about the delivery of universal credit. What we have seen is that the national roll-out is now complete and that the digital service for all claimants will start to roll out nationally from May. Once completed in June 2018, it will no longer be possible to make newer claims from legacy benefits. We have been very focused on the agile delivery of universal credit. Just yesterday, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State re-emphasised the fact that we would rather have an agile delivery of universal credit than a big bang approach, which more often than not jeopardises the delivery of our benefit system. [Interruption.] Does the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith) have something to contribute, or is he just chuntering for the sake of it? [Interruption.] It is a well-developed system, and I am sure he is shaking his head in acknowledgement. The fact is that universal credit is in every jobcentre. The vast majority of claimants are now receiving support that, obviously, did not exist under the legacy system.
Nick Thomas-Symonds
Can the Minister define agile delivery, and will she tell us how universal credit will take into account the 65 open risks that have been identified in the universal credit programme?
Priti Patel
The hon. Gentleman is talking about the risk register that was published many years ago. Let me explain agile delivery. This is a system that is adapting. It has adapted following feedback from work coaches. The delivery is the test of the system. All Front-Bench Members will be familiar with this, as we have been very public about it. We have taken the insights from the delivery so that we are supporting people. The reality is that universal credit is out there and is supporting people in work, and we are seeing positive benefits as well.
I am very conscious that a number of points have been made about child poverty, which, of course, was subject to much debate in the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016. For the first time, the Government have a statutory obligation to report annually on worklessness and educational attainment, because they are two factors that have the biggest impact on child poverty and children’s life chances. Previous debates on poverty have focused purely on the symptoms of poverty, rather than on the root causes. We now believe that, through our commitment to ending child poverty and improve life chances, our two measures will ensure that there is real action in the areas that will make the biggest difference to poor children, both now and in the future.
We have also committed to publishing a life chances strategy, and it will set out a comprehensive plan to fight disadvantage and extend opportunity. It will include a wider set of non-statutory measures on the root causes of child poverty, including family breakdown, problem debt and drug and alcohol addiction.
When the strategy is published, I will be working not just with my colleagues on the Conservative Benches, but with all Members of the House, as this is such an important issue. The hon. Member for Edmonton talked about it, and I am alarmed to hear how high her constituency is ranked in terms of child poverty. We will need to develop the right ways to tackle these deep-rooted social problems and work collectively to transform children’s lives so that ultimately they too can reach their full potential. It is important that all Members work constructively towards that aim.
Stephen Timms
What is the Government’s current estimate of the impact on the number of children growing up in poverty of the implementation of universal credit?
Priti Patel
I do not have information or data to hand on the current estimate, but the Government previously published figures on UC and child poverty. As other Members have commented on this, I will be very happy to write to them and to the right hon. Gentleman to update them on those numbers.
Owen Smith (Pontypridd) (Lab)
Does the Minister think that that figure will be more or less than the 200,000 additional children going into absolute poverty cited by the Resolution Foundation?
Priti Patel
As the hon. Gentleman has just heard me say, when we publish our life chances strategy and focus on tackling the root causes of child poverty—we are committed to eradicating child poverty, as well—we will be driving those numbers down.
John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend ensure that when this life chances strategy is published, significant thought will be given to its integration with the lessons learned from the troubled families programme to ensure that the range of interventions across multiple Departments are integrated to give the best chance of success?
Priti Patel
My hon. Friend makes an important point. Of course, the point about the life chances strategy is that it will be a cross-government strategy. The focus will be integration and support. The troubled families programme has been very successful in transforming families and turning their circumstances around, supporting work and the right kind of outcomes. We are incredibly focused on and conscious of the need to integrate. Once the strategy is published, all hon. Members will see that completely.
The point about universal credit, of course, is that it removes barriers that prevent people from finding work and increasing their hours and earnings. Universal credit provides the right support to incentivise work and, in particular, removes some of the barriers that were in place, including the restrictions on hours worked, such as the 16-hour rule.
Not just in this debate but in others and in various Committees of this House, we have been very clear that universal credit claimants receive not only support from their work coaches but additional support for childcare costs. Our in-work progression trials have begun to test how work coaches can continue to provide tailored support to in-work claimants so that they can progress and, importantly, increase their earning capacity.
Dr Eilidh Whiteford
I know that the issue of in-work claimants is still at a fairly embryonic stage, but 40% of the DWP’s own staff are likely to be affected by that in-work conditionality approach. I know that various hon. Members have asked the DWP for answers on whether it will offer those staff the extra hours they need to avoid being sanctioned and having their tax credits and universal credit cut. Will the Minister comment on that now?
Priti Patel
We have been very clear that universal credit is there to secure employment opportunities and in-work progression for everyone who is on it. I come back to the wider support universal credit provides for families, which has been touched on. Parents on universal credit can claim back 85% of their childcare costs when they move into work, compared with 70% under legacy benefits. This is a significant change and means that a working family with two children can now receive up to £13,000 a year in childcare support under universal credit.
Interestingly enough, prior to the recent elections in Scotland, I met the Scottish Minister responsible for childcare to consider the development and uptake of the childcare policy in Scotland, which mirrors many of the programmes that we have in England. Affordable childcare is crucial for working families and I look forward to working with the new Government in Scotland to ensure that we can provide all possible relevant support.
Support for disabled children was also mentioned. We should all be clear—I recall debating these points in the Welfare Reform and Work Bill Committee—that there is clear recognition of the extra costs associated with disabilities. Universal credit will provide support for families with disabled children. Of course, the point about the disabled child addition is that it provides extra support for low-income families with a disabled child. We know that caring responsibilities are enormous for parents with disabled children, and we also know that those parents are less able to take up work. They therefore need greater support, and that is obviously what we are focused on.
Mark Durkan
The Minister refers again to additions and to giving extra support to children with disabilities. Of course, it is not extra or additional to what they would receive now; it is actually a reduction. Will she properly address the terms of the motion and not the fantasy world that she is trying to serve up?
Priti Patel
Let me be clear about this: the Government have been absolutely clear about protecting and supporting the vulnerable and about the support we provide for families with disabled children.
I also want to address some of the points raised about the Resolution Foundation report. It fails to take into account that the highest barriers to entering work for second earners in the current system are virtually eliminated under universal credit through, for example, increased childcare, the fact that there are no restrictions on the number of hours worked and the fact that there are work allowances for those households with children. The report also calls for a more radical focus on boosting claimants’ earnings and, of course, that is exactly what universal credit does. For the first time ever, people are getting personalised support so that they can progress in work and earn more. Universal credit ensures that people are better off for every extra hour they work. Our research shows that 86% of people on universal credit were actively looking to increase their hours, compared with just 38% of people on jobseeker’s allowance, and 77% of people on universal credit were actively looking to increase their earnings, compared with just 51% of people on JSA. That focuses on the type of support that universal credit gives through the personalised work coaches and the additional support that that provides.
I hope that I have made clear the case for universal credit. It is supporting people in work and transforming people’s lives. We already have evidence of that from the indications that I have given. I want to reiterate and emphasise that when it comes to dealing with challenging issues such as child poverty, the Government will be publishing our life chances strategy shortly. I look forward to working with all right hon. and hon. Members to tackle these fundamental issues, which are being supported by the implementation of universal credit.
Stephen Timms
I reiterate my thanks to the Backbench Business Committee and I thank everyone who has contributed, both in speeches and interventions, to what has been a concise debate, as the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) called it, but a valuable one.
I would like to make a couple of points in conclusion. I appreciated the Minister’s telling us that everything was now going to be fine with the universal credit IT system because it is going to be—or because it is—agile. She will remember, as I do, that in the 2011 Bill Committee we were told that that system was agile and that everything was going to be fine—because the Department had discovered “agile”. A couple of years into that system, the Government realised that it was running into the sand so they started up a new system and told us, “Don’t worry, this one is agile.” We will certainly look forward to seeing how that works out.
I am grateful to everybody who has pressed the Minister for an update on the impact of universal credit on the number of children growing up in poverty, including the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Neil Gray), colleagues on the Labour Benches and my hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) on the Front Bench. I am disappointed that the Minister was not able to give us a figure, but I am grateful to her for committing to write to us to set out the Government’s current estimate.
My worry is that universal credit has been so watered down and cut that it will no longer get anywhere near the objectives that the Government set for it. We will return to the subject, but the specific estimate that the Minister has committed to providing will be a helpful piece of information for us to continue to assess the impact of universal credit on children.
Question put.
There being no voices for either the Ayes or the Noes, Mr Deputy Speaker declared the Question negatived.
petition
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
I have the pleasure of presenting the petition of 360 UK residents, overwhelmingly from the Carshalton and Wallington constituency, calling for the withdrawal of the Housing and Planning Bill. I thank Councillors Manuel Abellan, Jean Crossby, Jayne McCoy and Joyce Melican, and the leader of Sutton council, Councillor Ruth Dombey, for helping to promote this petition, and all my constituents who signed it.
The Housing and Planning Bill not only fails to address the critical shortage of housing, but, worse than that, could lead to a drop in the number of affordable homes. The Bill will do nothing for millions who want to get on the housing ladder, and for those who cannot do so it will damage the prospects of finding an affordable, decent home for rent.
The petition states:
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to withdraw their proposed plans for housing set out in the Housing and Planning Bill.
Following is the full text of the petition:
[The petition of the residents of the UK,
Declares that there are severe flaws in the Housing and Planning Bill; further that these flaws unfairly discriminate against people within certain sectors of the housing market; and further that they could lead to a drop in the availability of social housing.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to withdraw their proposed plans for housing set out in the Housing and Planning Bill.
And the petitioners remain, etc.]
[P001693]
HMRC Office Closure (Walsall)
(8 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
I should tell the House that I do not intend taking the full time available, so Members will be spared that.
I thank the Financial Secretary for coming to the House to respond to the debate. I was alarmed and disappointed that I had to apply for this debate and was granted it so soon after the debate on HMRC closures on 29 April in this Chamber. The Minister will know there has been a worrying unilateral change on the part of HMRC, which has decided to close the Walsall office on 20 June 2016. That has been brought forward, much to the shock of people who work there.
This debate is about public servants and those who have worked in the public interest, and how we treat them. If we want society to thrive, we need a balance between the public sector and the private sector. The public sector provides the framework of a good society, doing the things that it is harder for the private sector to do and that the private sector says it wants Government to do. The debate last week showed how important it was for tax to be collected. All that revenue should go into public services, the NHS, education, skills and infrastructure, among other things.
In the previous debate I referred to the tax gap—the difference between the tax owed and the tax collected. The Minister referred to it too in his summing up. In a survey undertaken in 2014, Richard Murphy said that the tax gap stood at almost £119 billion from tax evasion. That figure has not been challenged, and that is the scale of the amount of tax that needs to come back into the public purse. We need to collect that in order to pay for everything the Government have invested in public services.
Today I hope to persuade the Minister of the case for retaining the office and dealing urgently with the issues of HMRC staff in Walsall. What happened to the Walsall office at Pattinson House offends British values and natural justice. Under “Building our Future” it was announced in November 2015 that the office was to close by March 2017. Then on 4 May HMRC decided that all personal tax staff were to be compulsorily moved to Birmingham some six weeks later, on 20 June 2016. A collective grievance had been brought against the office, and many staff fear that this announcement may be a reprisal for the collective grievance and a petition. I am pleased to see my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick) in the Chamber. He and I were in the town centre that day and we saw how the public responded to the petition: some 500 signatures were collected in about an hour and a half, supporting the retention of the office. I do not believe I have had a response to the petition from the Department or from the Select Committee.
The grounds for the collective grievance were that HMRC failed to follow Cabinet Office redundancy protocols, including moving the administrative assistants into redundancy procedures unnecessarily; HMRC denied trade union representation in one-to-one discussions with staff about whether they could practically travel to Birmingham; HMRC failed to carry out an equality impact assessment for the closure; HMRC refused to offer staff the opportunity to move to sites other than Birmingham, despite alternative sites being more accessible for some staff; HMRC ignored evidence of increased journey times for Walsall staff, in favour of an unproven use of a variant of Google maps to estimate journey times; and HMRC refused to subject the closure plans to parliamentary scrutiny or to accept accountability for them. HMRC eventually responded to the grievance, but only to claim that it failed to meet the Department’s test of a legitimate grievance. HMRC refused to investigate the grievance under the Department’s procedures.
It cannot be right that the guidelines have not been followed and that the closure has been brought forward to June. The Minister has said in written answers and to the House that HMRC had given a commitment to staff that they would have a one-to-one meeting with their manager to discuss their options at least one year ahead of their office closure. That clearly has not happened in the case of Walsall. He also said that changing locations was not cutting staff, but the staff in Walsall have been given no choice and some are being made redundant. The Minister has also said that it is an operational matter, but who is the executive of HMRC accountable to? When the Minister said that the Government had asked HMRC to reduce costs, that is a policy matter, not an operational matter. The Minister said that the change would make it quicker and easier for taxpayers to report and pay their taxes online. Does that include those who have offshore accounts?
There are still appeals outstanding. Those who are out of scope for a move do not know what will happen to them. There are still concerns about travel support. The Public and Commercial Services Union has not been consulted. It was just told that a resource planning project had been announced. Now staff have been given six weeks to reorganise their lives and their caring responsibilities, when they were expecting that period to be almost a year.
I want to touch on the impact on Walsall. Walsall South has consistently higher levels of unemployment claimants than the rest of the region and the UK—4.4% of constituents claimed unemployment benefits, compared with a UK-wide figure of 2.5%. An assessment by Coventry City Council suggested that with the loss of quality jobs, almost £1.5 billion would be taken out of the local economy—a figure that I have cited before. Walsall South cannot afford to lose such a sum.
Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)
I am pleased that my hon. Friend is putting the case so well. Does she agree that if HMRC’s decision goes ahead, it will have a negative effect on the borough as a whole? It is undesirable. A public body such as HMRC should not act in an arbitrary manner, as my hon. Friend has explained. Would it not be useful for the Minister, when he replies, to try to persuade HMRC to change its decision?
Valerie Vaz
I agree. The Government seem to do some things well—impose contracts on junior doctors, summarily change employees’ contracts, and dismiss them with no consultation and no negotiation.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
You would think that the Government would be a model for industrial relations, bearing in mind the fact that we pass the legislation in this place; instead, they are becoming the worst employer. More importantly, has my hon. Friend had cases where the public have faced long delays? I had cases like that over Christmas, and I have raised them here many times. At the end of the day, this is about the impact on the public as well as the staff.
Valerie Vaz
I absolutely agree. When unions and the Government are working together, and when unions and employers are working together, there can be a situation where something like the steel industry does not just collapse and we can move forward. We cannot move forward on anything unless we have negotiation and consultation, and that was clearly lacking in this case.
The sad thing about this case is that the majority of the employees are women. The vast majority have worked in the Walsall office for 15 years, and some have worked there for over 30 years. Their average age is 50—yet again, we have women of a certain age being discriminated against, and those with long service and knowledge being ignored. This will have a huge impact on their lives.
Where are the consultation, discussion and negotiation that are the bedrock of a civilised society? Will the Minster look at why some redeployment appeals are still outstanding? It is not clear how many people fall within the requirements regarding reasonable daily travel to Birmingham. What is the position of those who are out of scope? Could staff be offered redeployment in a nearer office, such as Wolverhampton? Could the three administrative assistants be offered promotion? Could long-serving staff be offered enhanced early retirement?
It is in everyone’s interests to have a modern, fit-for-purpose office and up-to-date facilities—the Minister, I and everyone else agree on that. However, I would ask him not to close the office. Given the length of experience there, new work can be taken on. That would save money on rent and relocation.
The staff at Pattison House have given all these years to their country, and there is an accountability issue in terms of HMRC as a non-ministerial Government body. If HMRC is accountable to Parliament, the Minister should be able to look at the reasonable suggestions I have made. He may say that this is an operational matter, but that means that he is powerless in the face of an important department, and HMRC is not then accountable to Parliament. That would make a mockery of the Prime Minister’s anti-corruption summit, which will be held on Thursday, because HMRC should be focusing its efforts on closing the tax gap, not closing offices. There will be no one in HMRC offices with local knowledge who can assist the public to pay their taxes without the help of accountancy or legal trickery.
I hope the Minister will respond positively for the sake of the staff and their families. We owe that to them for their years of public service.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)
May I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) on securing the debate? I welcome the opportunity to discuss HMRC’s proposals and, I hope, to address some of the points she raised.
Before doing so, it is worth recapping briefly on what we are trying to achieve with HMRC. The organisation provides an essential service to people in the United Kingdom, not only helping hard-working families with the benefits they need, but making sure that the taxes that fund our vital public services get paid. We want to help HMRC do that better. We want it to be faster and more efficient. We want it to cost less but to deliver more for taxpayers and tax credit recipients. We want it to focus on our top priority: tackling tax evasion and avoidance.
We have already done a lot to move in that direction. Since 2010, we have driven down the tax gap—the difference between what HMRC should theoretically bring in and what it actually collects—to just over 6%, which is one of the lowest rates in the world. That progress is important; without it, we would not have collected £14.5 billion in extra tax. The hon. Lady quoted Richard Murphy’s £119 billion estimate of the tax gap. She said that, as far as she is aware, that figure has not been challenged, but it has been challenged repeatedly, and it is not a number we accept by any means. None the less, it is important that we reduce the tax gap.
We have also committed to investing £1.3 billion in HMRC to make sure it can offer the digital services people expect in the 21st century, and we have committed millions more to improve customer services.
By the end of this Parliament, therefore, customers will start to see real improvements, whether that is reduced call waiting times, finding it quicker and easier to pay taxes online, or being able to use HMRC’s special phone line for businesses. Furthermore, by 2020, we expect HMRC to be saving £700 million a year, as well as delivering an additional £1 billion in revenue in 2020-21.
However, we want to go further. We want to save £100 million a year by 2025, by transforming the estate the HMRC works through and by creating a smaller but more highly skilled organisation. When HMRC was formed in 2005, it had 570 offices spread all over the country. That could hardly be termed efficient, and even now, in 2016, HMRC has around 170 offices, ranging in size from 5,700 people to fewer than 10. In the case of the Walsall office, at Pattison House, for example, there are 56 employees.
Back in November, therefore, HMRC announced its intention to finish the job of making itself more efficient. Over the next 10 years, the department will bring its employees together in large, modern offices in 13 main locations serving every region and nation in the UK. Those offices will be equipped with the digital infrastructure and training facilities they need to work effectively. Not only will these new offices encourage people to work more closely together, but they will provide more opportunities for them to develop their careers.
HMRC is fully aware that its most valuable asset is its people, and I commend the hon. Lady for her interest in the arrangements we are making for the around 56 employees of HMRC in Walsall for when the office is closed. I would like to reassure hon. Members that we are committed to making sure that the people in Walsall—indeed in every HMRC office—are supported through the changes and informed every step of the way.
First, I should remind the House that this is about changing the locations, not cutting staff. Although the Walsall office, in Pattison House, will be closed in 2016-17, HMRC hopes that everyone who is able to will transfer to an office in central Birmingham and then to a regional centre in Birmingham that will be home to over 3,000 staff.
In February, HMRC made sure that everyone in Walsall had the chance to discuss, on a one-to-one basis, how this will affect them. In particular, that meant checking whether they will be within a reasonable daily commute of the new office and finding out what support they may need to make the move. That could, for example, include an extra contribution towards travel. It is worth pointing out that someone who lives within a reasonable daily commute of another office could get support for up to three years with any additional transport costs. Those outside the reasonable daily travel requirements could receive support with their fares for up to five years. There is therefore support for individuals, which can be considered on a one-to-one basis. However, we remain confident that most people will be able to travel to the new office in central Birmingham.
HMRC will also be asking its Walsall staff to change their area of expertise. As the hon. Lady will be aware, many of them currently specialise in personal tax. As part of HMRC’s restructure, it will be asking them to put their skills to good use in new roles in debt management. To help them make that change, HMRC will be running a full programme of induction and learning.
To address the hon. Lady’s point about why the process has been accelerated, jobs are now available in Birmingham in debt management. The desire is for those jobs to be filled as quickly as possible, and HMRC believes that the staff in Walsall are well placed to perform these roles. That is the reason this has been offered.
Valerie Vaz
First, if the Minister disputes the figure of £119 billion of tax avoidance, will he drop me a letter to say how he calculates that so that I can put it to the source? Secondly, this has not been communicated to the staff in Walsall, who were not told that they have been given other jobs; all they were told was that the office would close. The Minister has not dealt with why the process was accelerated.
Mr Gauke
These debt management roles are available in Birmingham, and it makes sense for people currently working in Walsall who are capable of moving to Birmingham to fill them at the earliest opportunity. That is why this has been done. As I say, it was announced in November that Walsall was going to close in the course of the year 2016-17. As these roles in debt management are available, it makes sense to move quickly to fill them.
I am happy to write to the hon. Lady about the tax gap. HMRC publishes its own estimate of the tax gap that is based on considerable work and makes use of highly skilled statisticians. The National Audit Office has described it as “credible”, if I remember correctly. Mr Murphy’s estimates are well known to be controversial—let us put it that way—so this will not come as a surprise to him. He is very well aware that HMRC’s estimate of the tax gap is very different from his. I will set out in my letter some of the reasons why HMRC believes that Mr Murphy’s estimate is not credible. I have debated this issue on a number of occasions, so it would be more than a pleasure to set it out once again.
Mr Winnick
As my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) emphasised, the staff feel strongly that the closure has been dealt with in an arbitrary manner. They are clearly not satisfied, despite what the Minister is saying about full consultation. As I said earlier, this is having a negative effect on the borough as a whole.
Mr Gauke
I note the hon. Gentleman’s points. This was announced in November last year. PCS was present for the announcement and has been engaged throughout this period. I do not accept that HMRC has acted in an arbitrary way. There has been consultation and a series of one-to-one meetings.
Let me pick up on a point raised by the hon. Member for Walsall South about the administrative assistants in cases where there are no suitable roles within debt management. A personal tax team within HMRC is working with those individuals to see whether they are suitable for promotion to a higher grade and, if so, whether they could be offered posts within debt management.
It is necessary, in the view of HMRC—a view that the Government support—to move towards fewer offices where there is an ability to concentrate staff and to have greater flexibility as to the work that they undertake. It will also ensure that there is greater availability of career opportunities within the regional centres. That is the direction that HMRC is going in—we support that—and it does require staff to be moved from some of the smaller offices to the regional centres, in this case to Birmingham.
Valerie Vaz
This is the first time I have heard the term “debt management” in this regard. As a previously practising lawyer, I know what that means. In effect, these staff have been deskilled. They are going from personal taxation into debt management, which is just chasing debts.
Mr Gauke
No, I do not accept the description of debt management as a deskilled role. Debt management often involves making judgments on whether, for example, a business should enter into a time-to-pay arrangement, which is a highly skilled and sensitive role. HMRC’s assessment is that the teams in Walsall are well placed to be retrained to perform this role within debt management. Debt management is not an unskilled role within HMRC.
Mr Jim Cunningham
Would the staff transferred to Birmingham be on the same pay grades, or would there be differences? What would happen to somebody who was put into a lower grade and did not want to go into it?
Mr Gauke
As far as I am aware, there is no suggestion that people will be put into a lower grade as a consequence of these changes. In a couple of cases, HMRC is looking at whether the move will involve a promotion for those members of staff, but there is no suggestion that anyone would have a reduction in pay. As I outlined earlier, this has to be worked out on a one-to-one basis. Staff may find that they are getting a contribution for up to three years for their additional travel costs as a consequence of a move.
Mr Gauke
I think a significant number of jobs are available. The question is how many of the Walsall staff are in a position to move to Birmingham. There is no suggestion of those who are capable of moving to Birmingham entering into redundancy. Jobs are available for Walsall staff. As I say, the jobs in debt management should not be demeaned, criticised, or suggested to be of a particularly low-skilled nature.
We are determined to keep moving forward in helping HMRC do its crucial job more and more effectively. That is why we are supporting these changes, which put the interests of taxpayers at the heart of what HMRC does. HMRC is working closely with all the staff who will play their part in this important reform, and it is determined to continue to do so throughout the process. I hope that hon. Members will join me in commending the work that HMRC does. Although I may not have persuaded the hon. Member for Walsall South, I wish to reassure her that HMRC will continue to work with staff based in Walsall. These changes will help to move HMRC forward to become a more effective, efficient and successful organisation.
Question put and agreed to.