Ministerial Corrections
(6 years, 2 months ago)
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Work and Pensions
(6 years, 2 months ago)
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Ms McVey
In less than 10 months, my ministerial colleagues and I have met over 500 colleagues, charities and stakeholders; come to the House on 56 occasions; visited 46 jobcentres, service centres and pension centres; tabled 34 written ministerial statements; and appeared in front of Select Committees 12 times. My Department has published 637 responses to parliamentary questions, 153 pieces of guidance, 102 statistical releases, 30 research reports, and 23 consultations. We have gone to great lengths to be open.
[Official Report, 17 October 2018, Vol. 647, c. 653.]
Letter of correction from the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the right hon. Member for Tatton (Ms McVey):
An error has been identified in my speech.
The correct wording should have been:
Ms McVey
In less than 10 months, my ministerial colleagues and I have met over 500 colleagues, charities and stakeholders; come to the House on 56 occasions; visited 46 jobcentres, service centres and pension centres; tabled 34 written ministerial statements; and appeared in front of Select Committees 12 times. My Department has published 2,637 responses to parliamentary questions, 153 pieces of guidance, 102 statistical releases, 30 research reports, and 23 consultations. We have gone to great lengths to be open.
Work and Pensions
(6 years, 2 months ago)
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Ruth George (High Peak) (Lab)
I apologise, Mr Deputy Speaker, for having to head off to the Select Committee meeting in a moment.
Will the Minister confirm how much of the £1 billion underpayment now being cited is due to payments made before October 2014, thanks to the Child Poverty Action Group’s successful court action, and thanks only to that? When Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs makes someone overpay tax going back years due to official error, they are paid interest and often compensation. Will the Minister confirm that these ESA recipients, who are often in a much worse position than taxpayers, will receive similar interest payments backdated to when their payments should have been made?
Sarah Newton
I thank the hon. Lady for that question. I know that she does fantastic work on the Work and Pensions Committee, and no doubt we will discuss this further at the Committee.
Let us be really clear about what happened. The advice that the Department got was that section 27 of the Social Security Act 1998 applied. That was why we felt we had to make the decision to back-pay to 2014. When additional information came forward from the National Audit Office and the Child Poverty Action Group about official error, the Secretary of State took the decision that, of course, we must do what the law says and go right back to the point of conversion. It was not in any way that the Government were trying not to do the right thing. We have proactively been utterly transparent and open with the House about this error, and we want to fix it as soon as possible.
The hon. Lady asked about the two phases. The first group of people that we are looking at date back to pre-2014 and the second group are from 2014. We have started to make payments to both groups of people, and so far we have paid out £420 million to the pre-2014 group. [Official Report, 18 October 2018, Vol. 647, c.793.]
Letter of correction from the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work, the hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton):
An error has been identified in my response to the hon. Member for High Peak (Ruth George).
The correct response should have been:
Sarah Newton
The hon. Lady asked about the two phases. The first group of people that we are looking at date back to pre-2014 and the second group are from 2014. We have started to make payments to both groups of people, and we will pay out £420 million to the pre-2014 group.
Justice
(6 years, 2 months ago)
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Sir Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)
I am glad that the Minister prefers sport to chain gangs, but can he tell the House when the use of sport for prisoner rehabilitation will be the norm, rather than the exception?
Edward Argar
The right hon. Gentleman is right to highlight again the importance of sport. The report published by Professor Meek in the summer, of which we have accepted 53 of the 54 recommendations, sets out a clear direction of travel—that is, alongside education and developing skills, and provisions for mental and physical health, sport plays a key role for prisoners in the rehabilitative process.
[Official Report, 9 October 2018, Vol. 647, c. 11-12.]
Letter of correction from the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar):
An error has been identified in the response that I gave to the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Sir Edward Davey).
The correct response should have been:
Edward Argar
The right hon. Gentleman is right to highlight again the importance of sport. The report published by Professor Meek in the summer, of which we have accepted 11 of the 12 recommendations, sets out a clear direction of travel—that is, alongside education and developing skills, and provisions for mental and physical health, sport plays a key role for prisoners in the rehabilitative process.
Topical Questions
The following is an extract from topical questions to the Secretary of State for Justice on 9 October 2018.
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/ Co-op)
Rory Stewart
We take the report very seriously, as we take all reports, including the recent report on domestic violence. It is absolutely right to say that we need to improve the risk assessment, the programme plans and the frequency of meeting. We are doing a consultation at the moment, to which we invite the hon. Lady to make a submission, on exactly what we can do to tighten up procedures for the CRCs. They have reduced reoffending by 2%, but there is much more that we can do on the quality of delivery.
[Official Report, 9 October 2018, Vol. 647, c. 22.]
Letter of correction from the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart):
An error has been identified in the response that I gave to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger).
The correct response should have been:
Rory Stewart
We take the report very seriously, as we take all reports, including the recent report on domestic violence. It is absolutely right to say that we need to improve the risk assessment, the programme plans and the frequency of meeting. We have recently conducted a consultation on exactly what we can do to tighten up procedures for the CRCs. They have reduced reoffending by 2%, but there is much more that we can do on the quality of delivery.
Topical Questions
The following is an extract from topical questions to the Secretary of State for Justice on 9 October 2018.
Laura Smith (Crewe and Nantwich) (Lab)
Rory Stewart
As I have said, we have looked very seriously at the inspectorate’s domestic violence report. It is worth bearing in mind that this has been a problem in many probation services across the world, and that it was, in fact, a problem before the CRCs were introduced. We are looking closely at the question of qualification during the current consultation, which will run for a further six months.
[Official Report, 9 October 2018, Vol. 647, c. 23.]
Letter of correction from the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart):
An error has been identified in the response that I gave to the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Laura Smith).
The correct response should have been:
Rory Stewart
As I have said, we have looked very seriously at the inspectorate’s domestic violence report. It is worth bearing in mind that this has been a problem in many probation services across the world, and that it was, in fact, a problem before the CRCs were introduced. We are looking closely at the question of qualification.
Ministerial Corrections
(6 years, 2 months ago)
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