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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Will Quince)
It is a pleasure to serve under you in the Chair, Ms Bardell. May I personally thank you for your enlightened approach and position in relation to jackets and the wearing thereof, given the heat? I also thank the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald) for securing this debate on a report that covers many important issues.
The report from the Social Justice and Fairness Commission, set up by the Scottish National party, is very wide-ranging. It covers a number of areas where policy is already devolved to the Scottish Government. I will predominantly focus, as I mentioned to the hon. Lady ahead of the debate, on areas that fall within my remit and that of my Department.
Let me start by reminding hon. Members of the UK Government’s long-standing commitment to devolution. The Scotland Act 2016 gave the Scottish Parliament significantly increased powers as well as responsibility for social security benefits worth about £3 billion. It also has powers to create new benefits in areas of devolved responsibility, to top up reserved benefits and to provide discretionary payments in this area.
My Department has made every effort to support the Scottish Government in the delivery of their plans and priorities. There is close working at every level. There is also regular constructive ministerial engagement through the joint ministerial working group on welfare to discuss the transfer of powers, in the spirit of the Smith agreement.
Returning to the key focus of today’s debate, I share the concerns expressed by the hon. Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols) and other hon. Members about poverty levels in Scotland and, indeed, in the UK as a whole. As a Government, we are wholly committed to tackling that, and it is only right that any Government are held properly to account for the effectiveness of their policies in this area. I want to put it on the record that I do not want to see anybody in Scotland—or anywhere in our United Kingdom, for that matter—living in poverty; and although I do not have within my control all the levers to tackle poverty, I want to assure the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire and other Members that I take this issue incredibly seriously and I am working with counterparts across Government to identify, tackle and address the root causes and drivers of poverty.
Over the past 16 months, our priority has of course been to help people to withstand the financial hardships brought about by the pandemic. Such unprecedented economic circumstances have called for an unprecedented economic response, and I believe that this Government have delivered that by spending more than £407 billion on support measures to mitigate the impact of the pandemic, including, for example, the furlough scheme and the self-employment income support scheme. That has helped to protect one in three jobs in Scotland, helped to keep businesses afloat and helped families, wherever they live across our United Kingdom, to get by. As we move forward, our collective priority must be recovery—recovering from the challenges that the covid pandemic has created. I stress that the UK Government will of course work hand in hand with the Scottish Government on this mission, because we will recover faster and stronger if we work together.
That spending also includes the additional £7.4 billion injected into the welfare system, which the hon. Lady referred to, to provide further support for those most in need, raising our total spend on welfare support for people of working age to over £111 billion in 2020-21. As she rightly said, this extra funding includes the temporary £20 increase to the universal credit standard allowance and the working tax credit standard allowance, and nearly an additional £1 billion to the local housing allowance, topping up the rates to the 30th percentile of local market rents, which we maintained in cash terms at the same level this year.
The measures brought in by this Government in response to the pandemic targeted support at those who needed it most in a swift and effective way.
Kirsten Oswald
The Minister spoke about the £20 uplift and then moved swiftly on, as if the people in receipt of that uplift will not still have the same need when it is pulled from under their feet. How does he think that the families concerned will manage without that money, which has clearly been much needed? How does he think that it suddenly stops being needed when he pulls the plug?
Will Quince
The hon. Lady is right to point out that universal credit has provided a vital safety net for approximately 6 million people during the pandemic and, as she rightly suggests, we announced the temporary uplift as part of the £400 billion package of measures that was put in place to support those facing the most financial disruption and economic shock as a result of the pandemic. I hasten to add that that measure was not being called for by any other party in the House of Commons. Nevertheless, it was a measure to support those facing that economic shock and financial disruption, and the point is that it will last—the temporary uplift having been extended further by six months—well beyond the end of the road map.
Notwithstanding the points that the hon. Lady makes, and I know that they come from the right place and that she is very passionate about these issues, our focus now is on our multi-billion pound plan for jobs, which will support people in the long term by helping them to learn new skills, to increase their hours and, of course, to find new work.
The report talks at length about universal basic income, so I will touch on that very briefly, if I may, and also services. However, we know that these do not target support at those in greatest need and that they fail to take into account the significant additional costs faced by many individuals, including those, for example, with disabilities or childcare responsibilities.
As we look towards our economic recovery, tackling poverty will be very much at the heart of our mission. We have long championed the principle that the best way to do so is to support people, wherever possible, to move into work and to progress in work through our reformed welfare system, which ensures that families of all backgrounds are better off in work.
Statistics for 2019-20 show that, before the pandemic, the UK was in a strong position overall, with record levels of employment, rising incomes and 1.3 million fewer people, including 300,000 fewer children, in absolute poverty after housing costs, compared with 2010. In Scotland, the proportion of children in absolute low income reduced by 3 percentage points to 17% before housing costs in the three years to 2019-20, compared with 20% in the three years to 2009-10. But there is still a lot of work to do in that area.
Helping people back into work is key to levelling up across the whole of Great Britain, and the Department for Work and Pensions is playing a central role in delivering this Government’s ambitious £30 billion plan for jobs, which is already helping people of all ages right across the country. That includes over £7 billion on new schemes such as kickstart. Since it launched last September, over 10,500 kickstart jobs have been advertised in Scotland and over 3,500 young people have started in kickstart roles.
The evidence is clear that parental employment, particularly where it is full time, substantially reduces the risk of a child growing up in poverty, but we know that having a job is not always enough to lift families out of poverty. People also need the right skills and opportunities to progress in their roles, so that they can increase their earnings and build a career. That is very much a focus of the Department going forward.
The independent In-work Progression Commission published its report on the barriers to progression for those in persistent low pay earlier this month and we will consider its recommendations carefully before responding later this year. I encourage both the Scottish Government and employers across Scotland—indeed, across the whole of the United Kingdom—to do the same.
Through our recently expanded UK-wide network of jobcentres, we are also taking wider action to support those whose ability to work is affected by a range of often complex barriers to work. Customers with a drug or alcohol dependency who are not in treatment can be referred for a voluntary discussion with a local treatment provider to discuss their dependency issues and treatment options, for example. We are able to put in a six-month drug and alcohol easement for those in structured recovery treatments, so that work availability and work search requirements within UC are switched off for up to six months, giving the claimant the time and space to recover. Furthermore, for those in recovery who are moving into work, our Access to Work grant provides adaptions and specialist equipment for the workplace.
Work coaches have been key to the support that we have been able to provide over the last 16 months. They can also play a crucial role in preventing homelessness through the provision of tailored support via universal credit. That can include pausing the requirement for homeless claimants to look for work while they resolve things such as accommodation issues, and helping customers to access the right additional housing assistance and all-important expert support. Additionally, work coaches can offer voluntary referrals to local housing teams under the duty to refer.
Before I conclude, I will touch on pensions, which are also referenced in the report. We are absolutely committed to maintaining a private pensions system that ensures financial security for current and future pensioners. Automatic enrolment has, without question, been hugely successful, with more than 10 million individuals—including more women, lower earners and young people—now building greater financial resilience for their future. We are committed to reaching more of those previously under-served groups by implementing the 2017 automatic enrolment review, and to further improving schemes and information for savers under the Pension Schemes Act 2021. That is a joint endeavour, so Government, employers, industry and individuals all need to play their part in delivering a system that is affordable and sustainable for all.
Kirsten Oswald
A number of important points were raised, and I understand that the Minister cannot possibly deal with them all in the short time available. However, I am particularly keen to hear from him about the rape clause and how such a policy, which causes such harm and damage to women, can be part of any just social security system.
Will Quince
I thank the hon. Lady for raising that issue. I know that the two-child policy is not supported by the Scottish National party, and it is regularly raised at oral questions. What I would say is that a benefits structure that adjusts automatically to family size is unsustainable, notwithstanding the points that she makes. The 2020 figures from the Office for National Statistics suggest that 85% of families with dependent children have a maximum of two in their family; for lone-parent families, the figure was 83%. The Government therefore feel that it is proportionate to provide support through child tax credit and universal credit for a maximum of two children, but we recognise that some claimants cannot make the same choices about the number of children in their family. That is exactly why exemptions such as the non-consensual sex exemption, which the hon. Lady mentioned, have been put in place to protect those individuals.
Kirsten Oswald
Given what the Minister has just said about the high proportion of families for whom such policies would clearly not be relevant, will he explain why he thinks the two-child policy and the rape clause have any place in a socially just system?
Will Quince
On this particular issue, the hon. Lady and I will have to agree to disagree. The policy is based on the principle of fairness.
Will Quince
Let me finish answering first. Even if we park the fact that it would cost around £2 billion a year to reverse the policy decision, it is based on fairness, because the idea is that those who are in receipt of benefits should have to make the same life choices—
Kirsten Oswald
It is important to say to the Minister on the record that it is unhelpful to use the phrase “life choices” when talking about things such as the rape clause. I know that he is thoughtful about matters in this area of social security, but he is trying to defend the indefensible. I come back to the question of how this could possibly be just.
Will Quince
The hon. Lady is conflating two issues. She is conflating the two-child policy, in and of itself, which is a matter of fairness—it is about putting those who are in receipt of benefits in the same position as those who are not, when it comes to facing life choices—with what she refers to as the rape clause, which I refer to as the non-consensual sex exemption. That is exactly why we have that exemption in place.
Charlotte Nichols
I am interested in how a policy that, as the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire said, affects only a very small number of people can be unsustainable. We know that all money put into early years represents a saving over a child’s lifetime, particularly for those children who are in the sharpest financial straits because of their family circumstances. Those are, of course, no fault of the child, so how can this be a matter of fairness?
To pick up on the point about the rape clause—non-consensual sex is rape—how can it possibly be fair that at a time when we have a conviction rate of less than 1.6%, women are being asked to re-traumatise themselves, not only through the justice system, but in accessing the support that their families need?
Will Quince
Again, on this particular policy, we are not going to agree. It is one of many issues on which the hon. Member for Warrington North and the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire will not agree with me, and I understand that. They say, “It is not very much money. It is a very small policy—it is £2 billion here.” If I add up in my head the cost of the policies that the hon. Ladies have said over the past half hour that they would like to bring in, it comes to more than £15 billion, plus inflation at the consumer prices index rate, every year for ever more. We should bear in mind that we already spend around £100 billion a year on benefits supporting working-age people. This is probably a debate for another day. I think that the position is very much one of fairness, but I have no doubt that the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire will continue to champion this cause and campaign on the matter.
Our full focus must be on recovering from the challenges that the covid pandemic has created. We have protected all the jobs we could through the furlough scheme, and we are now pivoting towards getting people back into work and progressing in work through our plan for jobs. We are also focusing on ensuring that our children can catch up on their missed education and giving young people the right opportunities to get a foot in the labour market.
It is absolutely right that as the country begins to recover from the effects of the pandemic, we ensure that the welfare state continues to support the most disadvantaged in our society. As we have done throughout the past 16 months, we will continue to assess how best to target taxpayers’ money on support for the most vulnerable families beyond the pandemic.