Oral Answers to Questions

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Monday 9th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Richard Harrington]

I thank my hon. Friend for his salutations and for his question. The Department for Work and Pensions continues to run a multi-channel communication campaign that includes radio, press and social media to raise awareness of the new state pension. As well as directing people to information on gov.uk and working with stakeholders to deliver key information, our priority has been to provide personalised information to individuals so that they know how much state pension they are likely to get, and from when. Since February 2016, the online Check your State Pension service has had more than 2.1 million views.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

The Minister’s warm words will do nothing to reassure the women in my constituency for whom the Government’s advice on pensions has a terrible reputation because of the injustices highlighted by the Women Against State Pension Inequality campaign. The one thing the Government could do to persuade the public to believe their pronouncements on pension entitlements would be to give justice to the WASPI women by looking again at the 2011 changes.

[Richard Harrington]

The hon. Lady will be aware, because the WASPI women have been discussed in the House and I have discussed this matter personally with her on many occasions, that the changes affecting them were in the Pensions Act 1995, and that a lot of time and resources were devoted to informing them of the situation, including millions of letters being sent out from 2011.

Autumn Statement Distributional Analysis, Universal Credit and ESA

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Wednesday 16th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Ian Blackford]

The hon. Gentleman has made a gross misjudgment. When we were campaigning for independence for Scotland, it was about securing Scotland’s future as a European nation. Those in the Better Together campaign continually told the people of Scotland that our European future would be secured only by staying with the UK. Well how has that worked out? I am glad that the Scottish Parliament has given a mandate to the Government of Scotland to make sure we protect Scotland’s position as a European nation and remain within the single market, and, through that, to ensure we protect the prosperity and jobs of the people of our country.

Let me come back, if I may, to the subject we are supposed to be discussing.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

While half of me is loth to continue this debate, I want us to be clear. We have here an economic crisis brought about by political instability caused by the rupturing of unions between countries. So for the hon. Gentleman to argue that Scottish independence would not have had similar disastrous effects for the Scottish economy is, frankly, disingenuous.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I remind Members to be cautious with the language they use. Also, I do not want this to degenerate into a debate about independence, and I know that the hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) wants to get back to his brief and not to be tempted by those who want to go out fishing today. To those Members intervening, I say this: when your speaking time is reduced to four minutes, do not blame me.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate and to follow the hon. Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson). I admire his ambition and commitment to people with disabilities. Unfortunately, I do not admire the changes that the Government have made, especially the Work programme, which prevented the kind of work with charities that he was just describing. It is a shame that words do not always match reality. That is the nub of what I want to say in my brief five-minute speech.

Today, the Oxford English dictionary added “post-truth” to its long list of words. It is a phrase with which we have become all too familiar over the recent year or so. I place the blame for that squarely on our own shoulders. The public disconnect from the words that we say when they do not match the reality of what they experience.

Another phrase that we learned about in the Brexit debate was the “end of experts”. That is true no more of any profession than of our economists. Far too often, we have seen our economy described in a way that simply does not match up with what the average ordinary person wants in our country.

The point I want to make to Ministers today is that we have a choice about what we offer the British people. We must consider whether we are prepared to face the reality of our decisions. In the end, I feel very strongly that they should publish the distributional analysis—this is what I want to focus on rather than the specifics of ESA. In the end, what matters is the money in people’s pockets. We do not want a repeat of what we saw in the last Parliament, which is the better-off half of our country doing well and those with the least doing the worst. If that happens again, it will not be the Budget book but people’s own bank balances that tell them, so we might as well be honest and up front about it.

A couple of Members have mentioned the prospect of inflation and the fact that the autumn statement needs to respond to the possible risks ahead. Because of Brexit, however, we simply do not know what is going to happen to our economy. Uncertainty has increased radically and British people face a more unstable situation than ever before, so the least they can expect from us is clarity and the knowledge that we have looked squarely at the consequences of our decisions.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I am sorry that I missed the first part of the debate, but I have been in Committee. As an example of the uncertainty, the hon. Lady will be aware of the collapse in the value of sterling since the Brexit vote, but she may not be aware that as a direct and perverse result of that, the UK’s contribution to the European Union is now £2.5 billion a year more than it was in June. Does she not think it ironic that that alone would cover half the costs of the cuts that are being debated here this afternoon?

[Alison McGovern]

For the good of my constituents, I have never advocated our leaving the European Union and I still do not. Why damage the relationship that we have with our European partners such that they put such high numbers on the table? The hon. Gentleman makes a good point.

We can choose to face squarely the consequences of our actions or we can try to hide them from ourselves. I ask Ministers to consider the steps that they took in the previous Parliament to undermine people’s confidence in us as a body politic that wants to deal with poverty and inequality in our country. Among the consequences of the decisions taken in the previous Parliament—including, despite his welcome contribution earlier, those taken by the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith)—are a steep rise in child poverty that looks set to continue and will see 3.6 million children in relative poverty by 2020. It is no wonder that steps were taken to undermine the clarity of the Child Poverty Act 2010 that meant that we could never hide from the impact of our decisions on the children who depend on us all for a decent life and a decent future.

The Minister mentioned childcare several times. Unfortunately, that is a promise in words only. Families across the country are still not able to access the childcare they need to get to work, and the consequences of the Minister’s decisions mean that we are staring in the face the possibility of single parents being hit hardest, given the changes to universal credit. Ministers should make the right choice, be honest and up front, and allow scrutiny. Let us get this right together. We need to be clear and transparent. At the last Budget, the distributional analysis was not good enough and the IFS produced its own analysis anyway. It did not take long for the obfuscation to be revealed. Others will find out and analysis will make the position clear. Most importantly, our constituents will know. They will see the consequences in their bank balance and in the money in their pockets, and they will not forgive us.

State Pension Age: Women

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2016 Westminster Hall

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Nuttall, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) for securing the debate.

I find myself speaking on the Women Against State Pension Inequality women for, I think, the fourth time. Frustratingly, despite three previous debates and the launch of a UK-wide petition, which attracted 2,534 signatures in my constituency and would have attracted more had there been more time; despite legal action from the WASPI women being seriously on the table due to what has been, in effect, the mis-selling of this group of women’s pensions; and after a Work and Pensions Committee report concluded that

“more could and should have been done”

to communicate the changes, we seem to be no further forward. Everyone is feeling the frustration.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

The situation is worse than the hon. Lady described. Five and a half years ago I stood in this Chamber with my colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves)—our then Front-Bench spokesperson—and challenged the Government on this issue. We did that again the year after and again the year after that. The hon. Lady described recent action, but the situation is even worse: we have been telling the Government that this is wrong since 2011.

[Patricia Gibson]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention, and I go back to my original point: after all this time, all this activity, all the warnings, and all the stories of hardship, we are still no further forward. When will this Government wake up to the fact that pensions are not a benefit? The hon. Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone (Tom Elliott) described them as a promise. They are not a promise; they are a social contract, which has been cruelly and thoughtlessly broken. It is time for the Government to step up and take responsibility for the way in which this matter has been mishandled over a number of years, and stop dragging this misery out for the women caught up in this injustice.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jessica Morden]

Or maybe not in that case, but I will leave that there.

Another constituent explained to me the impact of her pension date being deferred for the second time with little time to make compensatory arrangements. She has worked for 45 years and paid her way, and the changes to the pension age, which mean that she is not in receipt of her state pension at 60, will deny her more than £38,000. She, too, has cancer and is considering whether she has to give up work.

[Alison McGovern]

My hon. Friend was also in the debate with me and our hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) back in 2011, so we are veterans of this campaign. Does she think that the Government should look at the net cost of any transitional arrangements? As she points out, many women who are missing out on their pension are now relying on disability benefits because of the incidence of ill health among the women affected.

[Jessica Morden]

My hon. Friend makes a crucial point. The change to the state pension age is affecting people who are ill and on disability benefits, and the Government should look into that.

My constituent who has cancer and is considering giving up work tells me that instead of seeing retirement as a positive development, she is dreading the financial insecurity after having worked for 45 years. These women had a picture of what their retirement might look like and it has been cruelly taken away. They did not expect the Government to change the rules. It would be good to know whether the Minister gets just how tough it is for many trying to find work at this stage, especially those who are ill or who have a disability. What will Ministers do for that group of women?

Women who have contacted me from Newport East add their voices to the calls for more reasonable transitional arrangements that are particularly mindful of those who are ill, who depend more on the state pension in retirement and who have limits on their ability to work. We need the Government to move on this issue and ease the impact of the changes on those most affected. The Government have an opportunity in the autumn statement. There are a number of options on the table and they are all ways in which the Government could act. We need them to take responsibility for what has happened to these women.

--- Later in debate ---

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Alison McGovern]

Will the Minister give way?

[Richard Harrington]

I really cannot take any more interventions, simply because of the time. It is not in my nature, because I like interventions, but I really cannot.

The hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mhairi Black) and others mentioned a notional national insurance surplus fund. The fact is that, in order to maintain the minimum work balance of the national insurance fund, a Treasury grant of £9.6 billion was made in 2015-16. Public sector finance is complicated. It is easy just to pick out one bit.

I wish to spend a little time discussing the Scottish National party’s proposals. Its independent report suggests rolling back the 2011 Act and returning to the timetable in the Pensions Acts of 1995 and 2007, but that is simply too expensive for the Government to consider. The report puts the cost at £7.9 billion, but my Department’s direct comparison for the same period is £14 billion. We can discuss it however many times, but our modelling is comprehensive and no one is trying to take advantage of anybody else. I really believe that the SNP report has underestimated the impact by somewhere in the region of 50%. It has done so by ignoring most of the costs and applying costs only to the five-year window from 2016-17. Costs beyond that horizon have simply been ignored.

The Pensions Act 2011 not only increased the female state pension age to 65 sooner, but brought forward the increase to 66 for both men and women. The increase to 66 generates significant savings of more than £25 billion, yet such an important element of the Act is omitted from the paper, along with the associated costings.

John Ralfe Consulting, which is independent, reviewed the SNP option. Mr Ralfe concluded that:

“Sadly, the SNP has not managed to pull a Rabbit out of its Hat. The real cost of Option 2”—

the SNP’s preferred option—

“is almost £30bn…The SNP can claim the cost is much lower simply because it has chosen to ignore most of the costs.”

I hope that demonstrates that that option is simply not deliverable.

In the limited time remaining, I shall address the notification issue. In answer to the hon. Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone (Tom Elliott), between 2003 and 2006, the DWP issued 16 million unprompted products called automatic pension forecasts. People contacted the Department and it gave out all those forecasts. In 2004, the Department ran a pensions campaign that included informing people of the future equalisation of the state pension age. The Government made sure that the information was there, but I accept that it was not communicated by individual letter, as it was later when, as I am sure Members will be aware, millions of letters were sent out.

To say that nothing happened is not true. I have seen a leaflet on equality in the state pension age that was widely circulated, with many, many copies printed. A summary of the changes was issued and the general public were advised, although I accept that they were not informed by specific direct mailing in the way mentioned by some Members.

[Richard Harrington]

I certainly will not take that message back to the Prime Minister, because I do not accept that anything I have said today is incompatible with what the Prime Minister said on the steps of 10 Downing Street. Governments have to make difficult decisions, and the allocation of public spending is one of the most difficult.

It is not fair to say that the acceleration of the women’s state pension age has not been fully considered. It went through Parliament, there was a public call for evidence and there was extensive debate in both Houses. The Government listened during the process and made a substantial concession worth more than £1 billion. Finally, Parliament came to a clear decision. As it stands now, it would cost more than £30 billion to reverse the 2011 Act.

[Alison McGovern]

Will the Minister give way?

[Richard Harrington]

I am very sorry but I cannot give way because there are only three minutes remaining.

I conclude by reiterating what I have told the House and, indeed, the public before: we will not revisit the policy or make any further concessions. The acceleration of state pension age was necessary to ensure the system’s sustainability in the light of increasing life expectancy and increasing pressure on public resources. Mr Nuttall, I have left three minutes, as requested.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Crabb]

I agree very much with my hon. Friend’s point about the leadership role that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has played—it has been critical in driving this agenda forward—and I am delighted that the future Prime Minister also shares his commitment. My hon. Friend is also right about the troubled families programme. It is important that we stay positive about the changes and that we do not stigmatise any particular communities, families or households.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State has mentioned support for working parents several times, but those hit hardest by the Government’s cuts to in-work support for parents are single parents—those who least deserve it—so, on this issue and that of helping single parents, will he think again?

[Stephen Crabb]

I share the hon. Lady’s passion for helping single parents. The current statistics all demonstrate and underline that when lone parents are supported back into work, they can achieve remarkable things in bringing children in those households out of poverty. The trends are moving in the right direction. She should welcome initiatives such as universal credit and our support for childcare costs.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This is the fundamental difference between our party and the Labour party in government. We are committed to supporting people to get into sustained employment, rather than consigning them to a life of dependency on benefits, which has counterproductive consequences.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

The Minister is wrong, isn’t she? The new deal got more people into work than ever before, whereas this Government are taking money out of the pockets of working families. How can she say that she wants working people to feel the benefit when universal credit will make them poorer?

[Priti Patel]

The hon. Lady is wrong in many, many ways. For a start, this Government have supported more people back into work than ever before. Our welfare reforms are helping, through universal credit and our work coaches in particular, and by giving individuals dedicated support to help them not just get into work but remain in work.

--- Later in debate ---

[Debbie Abrahams]

My hon. Friend is spot-on, and again this is what the Lords amendment is asking for: that the exact same measures be included.

I want to sum up on this point by referring to one of the witnesses, who is a clinical expert in child health. He said the Government are trying to refocus child poverty from “income-based indicators” to factors related to

“family breakdown, debt and addiction”,

conflating

“the consequences of child poverty, with the cause—a lack of material resources.”

That sums it up so well.

Let us turn now to the UK’s infant mortality rate, a proxy for the health of the nation. It is currently in the highest quarter of all EU15 countries. I was shocked when I heard that, and for under-fives we have the worst mortality rate in all of northern Europe. We should be ashamed of that. We know that infant mortality is strongly linked to poverty and material deprivation. We know from national statistics that there is a fivefold difference in the infant mortality rates between the lowest and highest socioeconomic groups. There is not a law of nature that says that children from poor families have to die at five times the rate of children from rich families.

[Alison McGovern]

My hon. Friend is giving a characteristically calm, evidence-based explanation of why money matters, so does she agree that it is disappointing continually to hear the myth from the Government Benches that educational attainment or poor health is what causes poverty, rather than poverty that causes those things?

[Debbie Abrahams]

Again, my hon. Friend sums it up perfectly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Heaton-Jones]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I shall take what you say as a gentle reminder for me to move things on, too. I shall do so.

Moving households closer to employment is what improves the life chances of young people in the long term. That is why the Government are focusing on getting parents into work, and then getting their children into work through education. We are tackling the cycle of deprivation that has stifled the ability of too many children to reach their full potential for too long, and has condemned generation after generation to a life in which underachievement and a lack of aspiration become inevitable.

The Government are seeking to change that cycle fundamentally. We are committed to the far more effective approach of targeting the root causes of poverty, which include a lack of educational attainment and family stability. Work remains the best route out of poverty, and higher educational attainment is the best route into work. That is why the Bill that was passed in the House of Commons seeks to introduce two key measures of poverty, namely the proportion of children living in workless households and educational attainment at the age of 16. The Government are focusing on those factors because they have the greatest impact on child poverty and the life chances of children. The Lords amendments propose a reliance on spurious measures which will do nothing to tackle the problems at their sources. They are misguided, and we should therefore not support them.

[Alison McGovern]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for calling to speak in this important debate. I shall be as quick as I can.

Let me begin by pointing out to the hon. Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) that we already measure educational attainment, and we already measure worklessness. It is not a question of what we should repeat; it is a question of what matters. I shall not go into detail about the hon. Gentleman’s comments about “spurious measures”. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) will do that shortly, so I shall leave it to her.

I want to return the debate to the basics. What are we debating today? What do we mean by transparency in regard to child poverty? That is a very simple question about what we in the House believe poverty to be. Should it be defined as a measure of income, or as a measure of educational attainment or worklessness? We already apply those measures to other statistical estimates of what is going on in our country, but what does the law say about what poverty is?

I asked myself this question: does the amount of money that people have make them poor? Well, it seems obvious to me that it does. A parent—a lone parent, for instance—might not be well paid and might be unable to work many hours. That parent would not suffer from worklessness, but he or she would still be poor. A child might achieve great things at school, securing all the certificates and qualifications, and still suffer the effects of not having enough money at home. Plenty of children go to school, work hard and do well, despite seeing their parents suffer from the stress of trying to pay the mortgage or the rent, or not having enough money to put in the electricity meter so that they can wash their school uniforms. That happens to plenty of children. This is not about educational attainment or worklessness; it is about the fact that the cause of poverty is not having enough money.

Why does that matter? It matters because, in the coming years, the Tories are going to make people poor, and, specifically, they are going to make children poor. We know that, because the Institute for Fiscal Studies has told us. Families will be worse off, despite the so-called living wage—many of them will be in work—and their children will be affected, whatever the qualities of their teachers at school, which may be legion. We have some fantastic schools in this country, which help children to achieve despite poverty at home.

The next question is straightforward: what should we do about the situation? The Government have made it clear that they do not think money makes a difference to life chances. I have made it clear that I think it does, but why would anyone listen to me? I am a Labour politician. However, there is independent evidence. My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) mentioned some of it in her fantastic speech, but I can add the information that Kitty Stewart and Kerris Cooper, of the London School of Economics, reviewed 34 studies of whether family incomes affected children’s outcomes throughout the OECD, and found that family income mattered. What is the point of having some of the world’s finest researchers if we do not listen to them? We know from an FOI request that of the 250 replies on the issue to Government consultations, only two agreed with their desire to forget about reporting on the income target. The vast majority of people agreed that money matters.

Universal Credit Work Allowance

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Wednesday 6th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Owen Smith]

I agree wholeheartedly. In fact I believe that in my hon. Friend’s constituency 12,000 people will by 2020 be subject to far lower incomes as a result of the cuts to UC. That is 12,000 people—less the northern powerhouse than a northern workhouse.

Let me be clear about what we are talking about, because this is complicated; UC is a bit of a black box and I think many people out in the country—and many on the Tory Benches—do not quite yet appreciate what is going on and have believed the smoke and mirrors from this Government. The changes that were snuck out—mentioned in passing in last summer’s Budget and then leaked out piecemeal in a statutory instrument subject to negative resolution that we had to pray against in order to get it even debated in this House—will halve the value of the work allowance under UC, which is the piece of UC that is essential to making work pay.

Let me illustrate exactly the nature of those changes to the work allowance by giving a few examples. For a single mother with one or more children, the work allowance will be halved from April of this year from £8,808 to £4,764, a reduction of £4,044. In cash terms, that working mother will lose £2,628 next year. That is the nature of the loss to a single mother. For a joint couple living and working together, one or both with limited capacity to work as they are disabled, their budget —the work allowance—will be cut from £7,700 to £4,700, a loss of £3,000 in their income. A single individual in receipt of UC will lose everything—a £1,332 reduction; a net loss to their income of £865.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

I am so glad my hon. Friend has mentioned single parents and how they are going to be hit. The last Labour Government did us all proud with the new deal for lone parents. Does my hon. Friend agree that the fate that now befalls single parents in this country is an absolute reversal of what past Governments did to help them work?

[Owen Smith]

Let me be very clear: under the Tory Governments in the 1980s I remember the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) being dragged through the newspapers in this country for damaging the reputation of working mothers almost irreparably after comments he made about the St Mellons estate in Cardiff, and the Tories are back on the same track. In their sights are single mothers. They are the biggest single group of losers from all these changes to tax credits and UC, and it is an absolute disgrace that the Tories are undoing all the good work the last Labour Government did.

--- Later in debate ---

[Owen Smith]

The Minister says it is 250,000, but 350,000 is the latest estimate that I have seen from the Office for Budget Responsibility. Perhaps it is wrong—it could be wrong about other things in future, as well. However, there will not be transitional protection for the 5.8 million people who will eventually be on universal credit. Even for the 350,000 who are currently on it or will be on it by March, there will not really be transitional protection if they undergo anything that constitutes what the Government call a “serious change of circumstances”. In that case, the maintenance of their in-work support at tax credit levels will stop. It will interest the House, especially given the Secretary of State’s interest in marriage as an institution, that getting married will constitute a serious change of circumstances. If someone who is on tax credits and enjoying transitional protection gets married, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions will take that money away from them.

There will be no protection whatever for any of the millions of new claimants by 2020. The Secretary of State has implied on several occasions that there will be transitional protections. Indeed, when he intervened on me in the debate before Christmas—he was not leading for the Government in that debate—he said explicitly:

“We are transitionally protecting those who are moving on to universal credit.”—[Official Report, 7 December 2015; Vol. 603, c. 696.]

Unfortunately, the Minister for Welfare Reform, Lord Freud, had to correct him in the House of Lords, saying:

“It is not the same as transitional protection…it might be some more work or it might be upskilling”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 14 December 2015; Vol. 767, c. 1910.]

In truth, the £69 million fund that the Secretary of State has prayed in aid as transitional funding will in no way make up for the £3.2 billion loss over this Parliament.

The truth came out in the infamous data dump of documents snuck out in Christmas week. Responding to criticism by the Government’s own Social Security Advisory Committee, Ministers had to admit that the only way to recoup the losses would be to work an additional three to four hours a week. That is right—the House heard me correctly. The Government are now saying to a single mother who is working full time on the national minimum wage and looking after her children in the evening and who will lose £3,000 that she has to get another job working an extra three or four hours a week—approximately 200 hours a year—to make sure that she is no worse off. Tell me, Mr Speaker—I cannot see it—how that single mother who has a child at home and who is working full time will, even on the new national minimum wage, be able to work an extra three to four hours a week or 200 hours a year. Is she meant to get a job after work in a bar, in a garage or serving coffee? Is she meant to get a job in addition to the full-time job she is doing during the day and in addition to looking after her children—for example, cleaning in the mornings—to earn an extra few quid?

What on earth is the incentive for that mother to undertake that extra work? I ask that because the other massively damaging effect of the cuts is that they fundamentally undermine and destroy the very premise of universal credit—to make work pay.

[Alison McGovern]

I thank my hon. Friend for being so generous and giving way again. I remind him that when the Chancellor announced his so-called living wage, he assumed a rising personal allowance in his calculations in the Budget book that suggested that work would pay. Given the Government’s broken promises left, right and centre, why should any single parent believe what they say?

[Owen Smith]

My advice to single parents is absolutely clear: do not believe a single word that the Government say in response to today’s debate, or what they are telling the country about making work pay and about universal credit. Each and every promise is being broken.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Monday 7th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

I was surprised to hear the Secretary of State say earlier that my party never supported universal credit. If that were the case, why would we have spent the past five years harassing him about how slowly he was going with it? However, that does not stop me worrying about the fortunes of the 30,000 lone-parent families in work in Merseyside. Is the Secretary of State for real: can he confirm that not a single one of those families will be a penny worse off?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Universal credit actually improves the lot of lone parents dramatically, because the first person into work gets a huge amount more than they would have done under tax credits. 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.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Monday 20th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

I rise to urge the House not to give the Welfare Reform and Work Bill a Second Reading.

On the day of the Budget announcement, I, like many of my colleagues on the SNP Benches and many in society, watched in horror at Conservative Members jeering and cheering as the Chancellor announced swathes of cuts that will hit the poorest and most vulnerable in our society hardest. When I was elected by the good people of Livingston to this House, I anticipated some aspects of Dickensian tradition, largely framed around the traits and traditions of Westminster, but not for one minute did I expect that we would be taken back to Dickensian times by a Government hellbent on dividing our nation in such a regressive way.

The Conservative Government have claimed that they have

“a long-term economic plan to move the nation back to where we should be. This offers that and will reward hard-working families.”

We are certainly going backwards. The rhetoric that the Conservatives use in this Chamber about hard-working families and aspiration is fast wearing thin for many of us. Apart from anything else, when we delve into the detail, what we find is deeply worrying.

Let us look at exactly what the Government plan to do for our so-called hard-working families. The Conservatives will rename the Child Poverty Act 2010 the life chances Act. I spent a number of years in the marketing industry and recognise that this is rebranding on a grand scale. Perhaps the Chancellor is in the wrong job. I have taken the advice of the hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) and looked at the impact assessment that came out very recently. Paragraph 33 says of the life chances Act:

“The proposed changes enhance the life chances of children as they ensure that households make choices based on their circumstances rather than on taxpayer subsidies. This will increase financial resilience and support improved life chances for children in the longer term.”

Let me explain why SNP Members do not believe that to be the case.

The Scottish Trades Union Congress says that the “so-called” living wage is

“simply a cheap gimmick aimed at undermining…a meaningful living wage”

and that

“continuation of the public sector pay gap is…a kick in the teeth for hard-working public sector workers.”

The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations said that the Budget was an attack on the poorest and most vulnerable communities by an “economically illiterate” Chancellor who has admitted that this is not about tackling the deficit, as he said that it was part of his push for a low tax, low welfare society. In SCVO’s view, he was

“demonstrating a cruel disregard for the impact this will have on hundreds of thousands of people’s lives.”

Barnardo’s has stated that renaming the Child Poverty Act 2010 the “life chances Act” sends the message that eliminating child poverty is no longer an aim of this Government. It is clear that the Bill will push more children, families and vulnerable people across Scotland and the UK deeper into poverty. Rebranding child poverty plans as “life chances measures”, and completely removing any legal obligation to meet those targets, only proves how badly this Government are failing our society on welfare. As indicated by the House of Commons Library, the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission’s “State of the Nation” report from October 2014 stated:

“Modelling for the Commission illustrates the scale of the challenge. It projects that—based on current OBR forecasts for employment and wage growth—relative poverty (before housing costs) will rise to 21 per cent by 2020, 11 percentage points above target, and absolute poverty will rise to 24 per cent, even further behind the target of five per cent. This is likely to be an optimistic view as it ignores the impact of the further cuts to welfare benefit entitlements that are pencilled into current plans for deficit reduction in the next Parliament.”

Those plans are no longer pencilled in; they are in black and white for all of us to see. It is crystal clear to me that the Conservatives cannot meet their targets or fulfil their promises to folk across the UK, so instead they will just rebrand and repackage swathes of cuts to make it sound as if we are getting a better deal. It simply will not wash.

Another genius rebranding exercise by the Tories has been the introduction of the so called “living wage”—which, in reality, is a small increase in the minimum wage, up to £7.20 and to £9 by 2020—and the Chancellor has blatantly stolen the terminology used by the Living Wage Foundation that has set the living wage rate at £7.85 outside London and £9.15 in London. Rhys Moore, director of the Living Wage Foundation said:

“Is this really a living wage?...The Living Wage is calculated according to the cost of living whereas the Low Pay Commission calculates a rate according to what the market can bear. Without a change of remit for the Low Pay Commission this is effectively a higher National Minimum Wage and not a Living Wage.”

He went on to say that, to add insult to injury, the current calculation is based on workers receiving tax credits, which are also being cut.

Let us move on to tax credits and universal credit. The four-year freeze starts in 2016 and will affect around 577,000 families in receipt of child benefit in Scotland, and an overlapping 468,000 in receipt of housing benefit. More than a third of a million households in receipt of tax credits will also lose out. The Conservatives claim to be the workers’ party, but that claim could not be further from the truth as they lower the total amount that a household can receive in benefits to £20,000 outside London, and £23,000 in Greater London. In the words of charity Barnardo’s:

“This will significantly reduce the income of some very poor families.”

Worse still, in the Trade Union Bill—yet to be debated by this House—the Government plan to introduce standards for unions when voting for a strike that not even we as politicians are required to meet.

Let us consider the proposals for lone parents and other “responsible carers” in receipt of universal credit. We know that they are not currently subject to “work preparation” requirements until their youngest child reaches the age of three, and they do not have to be available for and look for work until that youngest child reaches five. The Bill reduces the age thresholds for work preparation to two, and for full work-related requirements to three. Let me be clear: the SNP is abjectly opposed to the capping of benefits such as carer’s allowance, child benefit, child tax credits, severe disablement allowance, and widow’s pension. The people who receive those benefits are some of the poorest and most vulnerable in our society, and it is abundantly clear that there is no level to which this Conservative Government will not stoop as they attack those vulnerable groups.

Instead of considering how we can properly protect and support folk who have already faced significant challenges in their life, we have a Government who cannot see past reducing a deficit, and will do so at all costs. This is an “at all costs” attack on the sick, the poor, the disabled, the elderly, and the many families who are working and trying their best to get to the end of the month without getting into debt. This Government’s cuts will affect the working poor, so that instead of being supported to better themselves, those in work will be further marginalised and have their benefits cut. Barnardo’s has noted that:

“A lone parent working full time on the minimum wage for 37 hours a week with two young children would lose £1,200 a year as a result of changes introduced from April 2016, even after accounting for the increase in the minimum wage.”

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

The hon. Lady is making an important point. Does she think that all lone parents are able to work 35 hours a week?

[Hannah Bardell]

I believe we must have benefits that are suited to the situation, and the Conservative proposals will not do that.