Oral Answers to Questions

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

Monday 13th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Guy Opperman]

Automatic enrolment has transformed savings across the country. I welcome my hon. Friend’s strong support and his passion in this area. The pot for life model offers attraction, with the potential to help engaged individuals with their pension savings if it maintains the gains achieved under automatic enrolment. I am sure he will discuss that with the future pensions Minister.

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

T5. If life is so peachy for pensioners and if the Minister really is as passionate as he says he is about supporting pensioners, why does Independent Age say that, despite the long list he has given, the uptake in pension credit is not reaching the people who need it the most? Why, in my constituency of Glasgow North East, are pensioners, who I am passionate about supporting, still missing out on several million every year? Will he use that passion to follow the Scottish Government and have a proper targeted benefit uptake strategy?

[Guy Opperman]

The hon. Lady will be aware that pension credit applications are up 75%. Clearly, we are trying to get that even higher. There is a nationwide campaign, which includes Scotland.

Benefit Sanctions

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

Tuesday 13th December 2022 Westminster Hall

[Chris Stephens]

I thank the hon. Lady, who is a good friend, for her intervention. She has done fantastic work in this area, which I very much support. I am concerned about the effects that sanctions have, and that the whole deductions policy has. The effect that taking money away from people has on cost of living payments is another real issue, which I will come on to.

I would also add that, based on exchanges I have had with Ministers past and present, people can be sanctioned if they refuse a zero-hours contract job. Someone could be in a position where they have secure work, but less hours. The Department is encouraging people to increase their earnings, so if that person refuses a zero-hours contract and insecure work, they will be subject to a sanction.

Then, we have the position of the DWP staff themselves. Some have received letters saying that they need to increase their earnings. It is no wonder that they are going on strike, is it? There is an anomaly here: many thousands of DWP staff are paid so poorly that they are claiming the same benefits they deliver, while sharing an office with someone who could then sanction them because they have not increased their earnings or their hours. I find that completely and utterly bizarre, and I hope that Ministers will look at PCS’s concerns and maybe treat the situation of DWP staff separately. It seems to me that the Department that is delivering social security should not be taking social security away from the people who are delivering it.

Food banks across the Independent Food Aid Network see a newly hungry person referred as the result of a sanction every three days on average, so I have a number of questions for the Minister. Does he agree that the current sanctions policy is forcing people to use food banks if they are not to go hungry? To that end, will the Minister undertake to publish the Department’s evidence review on the drivers of the need for food aid, which was promised two years ago, yet remains under wraps? As the Chair of the Select Committee, the right hon. Member for East Ham, has outlined, that is one of the reports that remains unpublished, and it is something that we want to see.

The Department’s own serious case panel agreed at its October meeting that

“there should be further collaborative work undertaken through the appropriate governance routes to explore strengthening the mechanisms which protect our most vulnerable customers in respect of sanctions.”

Will the Minister explain to us what that collaborative work will look like, and when it will take place? Will he also undertake to commission a study into any correlation that exists between the distance someone lives from their nearest Jobcentre Plus and the likelihood of them being sanctioned; the prevalence of poor mental health and vulnerability within households on universal credit and the likelihood of them being sanctioned; and the prevalence of digital exclusion within households on universal credit and the likelihood of them being sanctioned? We know that the Department has closed jobcentres; we also know that has made it more difficult for people to attend jobcentres and that they may be sanctioned for not attending a jobcentre.

Will the Minister also provide an update on the Department’s most recent trials of the yellow card early warning system in two areas, including any plans to roll out that system further afield? I do not accept that there should be conditionality in the system, but if we are going to have conditionality it seems sensible to me that there should be a yellow card system, or some sort of warning system, in place before the decision is made to issue a sanction. Given that the present system seems to rely heavily on individual discretion, which is resulting in people becoming destitute, does he agree that a fully national roll-out of a yellow card system is needed sooner rather than later?

As I have indicated, people being subject to a sanction could mean—indeed, has meant—that they do not receive their cost of living payment, but that decision could be reversed if they appeal and win their appeal. However, it seems to me that if there are 6,600 universal credit claimants who have missed out on that first cost of living payment because of sanctions, the Department for Work and Pensions should look at that situation. It seems to be a double punishment. The cost of living payment is in place so that people can meet their basic living needs and if they are sanctioned, it appears that there is something very wrong.

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

I agree with my hon. Friend that sanctioning people on the lowest of incomes at any time is grossly unfair, but at this time, when even many people in well-paid work are struggling to pay their bills, it is obscene. I had not been aware, so I thank him for highlighting it, that some people are not getting the cost of living payment that the Government say we need to survive.

I congratulate my hon. Friend not only on securing this debate, but on asking the questions that led me to discover that this summer £153,000 was taken from my constituents by DWP sanctions. Will he join me in saying to his constituents, as I am now saying to my constituents in Glasgow North East, “If you have your benefits sanctioned, do not take it lying down. Contact me and I will fight this for you, because this is wrong and nobody should have to live on less than the minimum income”?

[Chris Stephens]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention and she is absolutely right. We are in a cost of living crisis. During the pandemic, the Department rightly took the view not to sanction people. We are now in a cost of living crisis, and if we did not sanction people during the pandemic, we should not sanction them during a cost of living crisis either. That seems to me to be a sensible approach.

My hon. Friend is also correct in highlighting the great work that constituency office staff do in helping the most vulnerable to see off these attacks. We have all dealt with cases of people being sanctioned; I think that every single constituency office across these islands has had to deal with that.

In closing, I will mention some of the staff concerns. There are concerns that jobcentres have been told by senior managers and Ministers to “up their game” when it comes to sanctions. There are very real concerns about the culture and certainly there is a view that there needs to be a mind-shift towards supporting people in what is important and that punishment has not achieved anything. There is very limited and patchy evidence that sanctions actually work.

There is inter-office competition, whereby different offices’ statistics are compared, pushing for higher sanction and deferral rates, and labour market decision makers are using box-ticking exercises. Pressure is put on the work coaches themselves, through tighter timescales and pushing people to physically attend the jobcentre, with the harms that causes the long-term employed. There are also real effects on disabled claimants who are thrown into a group of those most likely to get a sanction, and the relative rate of sanctions for claimants with disabilities—all of that really needs to be explored further.

Sanctions appear to be back with a vengeance, and that shift of approach requires parliamentary scrutiny. As someone who believes that conditionality has not worked, I think we need a change in approach to put the claimant and their needs at the heart of the social security system. The Department must accept the Select Committee’s recommendations to introduce either a yellow card system or another warning system, because failure to do so would mean the Department going back on its word in how it responded to previous Select Committee reports. I look forward to hearing whether colleagues have to say, including whether they accept—as I do—the need for change and reform.

State Pension Triple Lock

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

Tuesday 8th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

That is a truly constructive intervention because, as my hon. Friend points out, not everybody who would be qualified for that benefit has applied. About 70% of those who we believe are eligible receive pension credit, but 30% do not. My hon. Friend the Minister for Employment did an extraordinarily good job in June in encouraging people to sign up to pension credit, through the campaign that the Department launched, and I believe there was an increase in take-up of 275% due to his efforts. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Gary Sambrook) is right: this is important not just for the benefits that we think of, and the credit itself, worth £3,300, but in terms of recent measures that the Government have announced, the £650 of support, which is available to pensioners only if it is unlocked by access to pension credit. It is an important credit to apply for.

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

The £650 cost of living grant to those on pension credit is great, and would have been a great incentive to get that other 30% to 40% to sign up for pension credit. We know that some people feel that they should not do it, and we need to persuade them. Unfortunately, however, unless someone applied successfully by 19 August, they can no longer get that £650. My campaign to extend that deadline to 31 March has been running for a couple of months, and I have had some positive responses. Will the Minister consider meeting me to talk about the possibility of extending the deadline to the official end of winter, so that we can convince people to take it?

[Mel Stride]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention and I recognise the solid and important work that she has done in this area. I can correct her, and hopefully please her, by saying that the deadline is 18 December, because pensions credit can be applied for three months retrospectively, which would bring it into the reference period for the £650 payment.

[Anne McLaughlin]

The 19 December deadline only allows people to get £324. I will be getting my constituents to sign up for that on the basis of the £324, but I am asking whether somebody who applies until the end of March can get the whole amount of £650, which is a bigger incentive than £324.

[Mel Stride]

I thank the hon. Lady for that clarification and I accept the point she makes. I would be happy for the Minister for Pensions to meet her to discuss the issue she has raised.

--- Later in debate ---

[Anne McLaughlin]

Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the work done by Loughborough University that was commissioned by Independent Age? It stated that if everybody who was entitled to pension credit claimed it, that would cost an extra £2 billion. I understand that that is a lot of money, but it also stated that the extra cost to the NHS and social care now is £4 billion, so if we could find a way of making sure that everybody got it, we would put more money into the Treasury’s coffers.

[Kevin Foster]

I do not recognise the statistics from that report, but I welcome the overall thrust of that argument. When we as a Parliament have decided that we want people on a low income to receive a particular type of support, we want them to be able to get that.

I was interested to hear the suggestion that the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) made about working with banks. An institution that might be slightly easier to work with is post offices, where many people on lower incomes go to collect their pension and do other banking. The Secretary of State, who represents the rural constituency of Central Devon, will be aware of people going to post offices to withdraw the exact cash amounts that they need. Cashpoints mostly operate with multiples of £10 or £20, which may be difficult for someone who has to budget tightly for their bills and spending, whereas at a post office counter they can withdraw amounts literally to the penny. That allows very precise budgeting for those who need it.

This is a welcome debate. I must say that I am interested to hear Opposition Members’ comments on who they expect to oppose the motion. We may hear one of those suspicious shouts of “No!” that are not followed by anyone showing up to vote in the No Lobby.

Pensioners in Torbay put their faith in this Government back in 2019. I believe that they put their faith in a manifesto that offered them a positive choice, and I continue to believe that that is the right basis for us to move forward. I hope to hear next week that we will honour that commitment to them.

Pension Credit and Cost of Living Support Grant

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2022 Westminster Hall

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered pension credit and the cost-of-living support grant eligibility period extension.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I am not going to go through all the stats that demonstrate that far too many older people live in poverty. I expect others might do that, but I also think we are all in agreement about it. I know that we are all in agreement that the uptake of pension credit—the social security payment that goes only to the very poorest of our pensioners—is, at around 60%, far too low. I know this because the Conservative UK Government have an annual pension credit awareness day and, whenever we have talked about it in Westminster Hall or in the main Chamber, everyone says something more has to be done.

My ask today is for the Government to agree to something that could see the biggest ever increase in uptake of pension credit. I published an early-day motion to that effect, I presented a petition on the Floor of the House and I wrote to myriad Chancellors and Ministers, so far to no avail. My ask, as the motion says, is to extend the deadline for eligibility for the £650 cost of living payment, because the deadline for that crucial help has passed. Anybody applying after 19 August 2022 may well get pension credit, but crucially they will not get that £650. That, I believe, is what could make all the difference in convincing people to apply. It is not enough, in my view, but it is a significant amount that could act as a real incentive when we are all collectively trying to increase uptake.

I have a few other asks before I come to the substance of the debate. I appreciate that those who successfully apply by a date in December will receive half of the payment, which is £324. Although I will argue that they should get the full amount, I would like to know the exact date in December, because there is confusion about that. What strategy will the Government put in place to raise awareness of that entitlement? I do not mind if they do not know yet, as long as they agree to look at it seriously and urgently.

I am concerned about that, because I question what strategy was in place to make people aware in the run-up to the 19 August deadline. I certainly did not see any evidence of it, which makes it something of a missed opportunity. In my constituency, I had a strategy to let people know; when people knew, four of my team spent a day and a half helping a steady stream of constituents make their applications. What did the Government do to raise awareness?

I am sure there are pensioners who would also be grateful if the Minister could tell us what the situation is with the triple lock guarantee on pensions.

[Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)]

Pensioner poverty is a significant issue, particularly in my constituency, where 25,000 people receive the basic state pension. I am very concerned at how hard it is to find out how many of those 25,000 are eligible for pension credit but are missing out on that vital support, which could be the difference between putting food on the table and turning the heating on this winter or not. At one time, the Department for Work and Pensions monitored eligibility for pension credit—

[Richard Foord]

I am suggesting that the Government should pledge not only to keep the triple lock on pensions but to restart monitoring so we can get support to the people who really need it.

[Anne McLaughlin]

I could not agree more with the hon. Gentleman. It is really important that we monitor it. We are talking about the people in these four countries who are the very poorest and really need that help.

The former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), clearly said at Prime Minister’s questions last week that the triple lock would apply. That seemed to be a little surprising to the Chancellor. Now that we have a new Prime Minister, but the same Chancellor, does the Minister know whether they will renege on that or keep to the Government’s word?

Finally, something that pensioners and others are desperately worried about is the uprating of social security entitlements—or benefits, as they are called here. Can the Minister tell us what is happening with that? Coming back to the main thrust of the debate, I believe that if the deadline is extended and anyone who successfully applies for pension credit by 31 March next year is also entitled to the £650 cost of living payment, it will act as a significant incentive and will enable us, together, to convince people to apply.

Let us look at some of the reasons why 40% of those who are entitled to pension credit do not apply for it, why £7.7 million goes unclaimed in my constituency of Glasgow North East and why £2.2 billion goes unclaimed in the UK every year. On that £2 billion, I appreciate that if everyone took up their entitlement it would cost the Treasury a lot of money. However, failing to deliver pension credit to every eligible person costs the UK an estimated £4 billion a year in increased NHS and social care costs. That is according to research commissioned by Independent Age and carried out by Loughborough University. That sounds to me like we would be almost £2 billion better off. More importantly, it would eradicate pensioner poverty almost entirely.

There are lots of reasons why people do not apply, but I will look at the three main reasons: stigma, a perception that the process is complicated and not knowing about it. I thank Independent Age, Age Scotland and Age UK for all the work they do and for meeting me on Monday to discuss the debate. The one thing that they had all repeatedly found was that many older people who do know about pension credit, and who even know how to apply, still do not because they are too embarrassed. They talk about the stigma and how they believe they should be able to cope. They talk about not accepting charity handouts.

Some politicians and some sections of the media have got a lot to answer for here. I have not heard anyone calling pensioners workshy, greedy or layabouts, but that is how so many talk about other people who are in receipt of benefits. If is rife, it goes largely unchecked and, while they may not be talking specifically about pensioners and pension credit, the impact on pensioners and the resulting feeling of shame among them is real. It is stopping people applying and we need to stop that. The rest of us need to call it out when it happens.

The Government have to say as loudly, as clearly and as often as possible, exactly what I said when I toured bingo halls, lunch clubs and pensioner groups in my constituency in the summer, trying to get people to apply. The Government need to say, “This is your legal entitlement. This is not charity. You have worked for this. You have brought up families. You have made your contribution to society. Thank you. Now please apply for your legal entitlement.” That is what the UK Government have to say when rolling out the awareness-raising strategy I mentioned earlier. Although I did not see any response from the Minister at that point, I sensed agreement that that would happen.

The second issue is that it is perceived to be complicated to apply. Between them, my team applied for around 60 people and found the online process to be fairly straightforward, but that is because they are au fait with technology. Many older people do use it, but many more are frightened by it. I realise that there are other ways to apply, but there is the perception that it will be difficult. We need to work on that, and we need to fund those organisations that help people make their applications when they are struggling.

There are a lot of other reasons why the 40% not apply, but the final one I want to talk about is simply not knowing that pension credit exists. I leafleted thousands of people in my constituency. I focused on some of the poorest parts of Glasgow North East, letting them know about pension credit and offering to help them apply. The phone rang off the hook. We were truly overwhelmed by the response, but also taken aback by the number of people who said, “I have never heard of pension credit. What is it?” There is clearly a massive job to be done to let people know.

I raised this matter in the Chamber in 2020 and was told that there was a poster campaign in GP surgeries, but nobody was getting into GP surgeries then because of lockdown. It did not sound as though anything else was being done to make people aware. A proper professional strategy would look at multiple ways to let people know. Industry professionals will say that someone needs to see something advertised between seven and eight times before it properly sinks in. One day of action a year is not nearly enough.

Age UK has a fantastic briefing on how to get the message across to the right people. The Work and Pensions Committee has called for a proper strategy. Wales and Scotland have benefit uptake strategies. Indeed, in Scotland it is a statutory duty: sections 8 and 9 of the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018 say that Scottish Ministers must prepare, publish and lay before Parliament strategies to promote take-up of Scottish social security assistance. We need a full strategy for pension credit uptake, and there is no better time to do that than this winter.

That brings me to why I want the deadline to be extended, effectively to the end of winter. When I started talking to people in the constituency about the deadline of 19 August, I got lots of blank looks. A lot of people paid lip service and said they would have a look and maybe apply, but when I mentioned the £650 cost of living payment they would get if they were successful in their application, many of them started to take it more seriously, because they were starting to be concerned about predicted rises in energy costs.

Notwithstanding the fact that so many people do not know that it exists or how to apply for it, for those who do but feel they should be able to manage and are too embarrassed about taking money, it might be only this winter that the message really hits home. If someone is told in the middle of summer about help they can get for heating later in the year, it does not have the same impact as finding out about it in the dead of winter. It is easy when the sun is shining to think, “I’ll be fine.” That is especially so if the mindset, as it often is with this generation, is, “I should be able to manage.” But when someone is sitting at home, so cold that their bones are aching and they have had their one hour of heating, and they now have to hope that the cardigan and blanket are enough to keep them alive, and despite that frugality they are staring at a massive bill they cannot pay, that is when we will be able to get the message across that they could get an extra £650 of help, as well as extra money every week. That is when, for those people who are desperate to manage without so-called handouts, it will stop being a choice. They will have no option but to apply for pension credit—the thing we all say we want them to do.

If the Government do not change their mind, and do not extend the deadline to the end of winter, those people will still be sitting, freezing, in pain. They will still be being frugal, and will still be hit with eye-watering bills that they cannot pay. Then, all they will have is the knowledge that they could have had an extra £650, had they not been too embarrassed to apply back in August.

What about those older people who just did not know? With the pain of the cold reducing them to tears, nobody to turn to for help and no way of paying their bills, someone tells them about the pension credit that they knew nothing about. Then they say, “But you’re too late for the £650.” How will that help to dry their tears? It will not. It will simply devastate people further to know that the money was there, that the Government believed that they needed it, that they had been entitled to it, and that, despite needing it, they will be denied that help. How will that make them feel, and how are they supposed to survive this winter?

What I am asking for is simple. Currently, any pensioner who was entitled to pension credit by 25 May this year and applied for it by 19 August will get an extra £650 to help with the cost of living crisis this winter. Any pensioner who was entitled to pension credit by 25 August this year and applied for it by December will get half that amount—an extra £324. Let us recognise how hard this winter will be, and how much literally freezing will concentrate people’s minds. Let us extend the deadline from 25 May, before the summer, to the end of winter: 31 March 2023. Let us say that anyone who becomes entitled to pension credit before 31 March next year and applies for it by then will also get the full £650. Let us do it without interruption to the payment dates for those who are currently entitled.

Then, let us get in the professionals and get a proper advertising strategy up and running. Let us tell people, “This is your legal entitlement.” I want to hear the Minister say that with passion and conviction. Let us help people to apply. Let us not look back on this year as the year that the UK Government completely neglected the pensioners of our four countries, just when those pensioners needed the Government the most. Instead, when we are through the cost of living crisis, let us look back and be proud that there are hundreds—hopefully thousands—more pensioners receiving the pension credit to which they were always entitled, and which enables them to enjoy life a bit more.

There is no excuse for not extending the deadline. It would make all the difference to whether older people eat, heat and live or die. If the Minister cannot say yes today—I understand that this is a new Government—I implore him to at least agree to give it serious consideration. If he is says no, can he tell us what possible justification he has?

--- Later in debate ---

[Anne McLaughlin]

To clarify, I was blaming individual politicians and sections of the media for besmirching the character of people in receipt of social security payments. I am not suggesting that the UK Government are doing that. What was the increase in the number of people applying for pension credit after that campaign? What was done in the run-up to the crucial deadline of 19 August, and what will the Government do in the run-up to December, because that is an important incentive for people. It is not enough to have the £324, but it will act as an important incentive.

[Alex Burghart]

I thank the hon. Lady for her clarification. I have not heard any colleagues use that sort of language. I will answer her point in my speech.

We continue to work closely with a whole range of stakeholders, including Age UK, Independent Age and Citizens Advice, which have reach and expertise to identify other practical initiatives that will help encourage eligible pensioners to claim. On 15 June, the DWP had a second pension credit day of action with the media, in which we encouraged the media to reach out to pensioners, their family and friends. Thanks to that day of action, we recorded a 275% increase in claims in the week of 13 June this year, compared with the same week in 2021. The DWP has received unprecedented volumes of new claims for pension credit. Weekly claims tripled between December 2021 and August 2022, so we are seeing a genuine increase in traffic. Obviously, the quoted figures for uptake are about 70%, and the uptake for guarantee credit, which is the main safety net within pension credit, is 73%. Those figures are from 2019-20, before the current days of action and the campaign push, so we very much hope the next set of figures will be some way above that.

Prior to that campaign, the previous Minister for Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham, wrote to all MPs to request their support. It has been heartening to hear all the Members who have spoken today give evidence of how they responded to that request. I know there is still work to do. The latest available estimates show that there are still substantial numbers of people who may be eligible for pension credit but are not claiming it. That is why we continue to encourage everyone to reach out to their own networks and use resources such as the pension credit calculator on gov.uk. By working together, cross-party, we can ensure that those eligible for pension credit receive the support they need.

It is particularly important that we encourage those eligible to make a claim because for those above state pension age, eligibility for the means-tested benefits cost of living payments is determined through pension credit entitlement. The £650 cost of living payment will help to ease the pressures that pensioners are currently facing. The payment was designed to target those on low incomes, which is why a household will automatically receive a cost of living payment if they are eligible to receive a pension credit payment during the qualifying period. We did this because we needed to get a big system up and running at high speed. We found it was the quickest and most effective way to deliver support to more than 8 million people on the lowest incomes.

[Anne McLaughlin]

I appreciate the Minister taking another intervention—I am doing so to help his throat and give him the chance to have a glass of water. If he is saying, “It was set up quickly because we had to help people as a matter of urgency,” that is good. However, we have now had time to think about it. I have written several times and been campaigning on this, but he has not yet answered the question: will he extend the deadline to 31 March, or will he consider extending it? Will he not say no today? Will he give people a little hope that they might get it? He is making the clear point that it is for households in absolute need. Well, they are still in absolute need—

[Peter Dowd (in the Chair)]

Order. You are bordering on making another speech, rather than an intervention.

[Anne McLaughlin]

I am trying to help the Minister’s throat.

[Peter Dowd (in the Chair)]

I appreciate that. Will you respond, Minister?

--- Later in debate ---

[Anne McLaughlin]

I thank the Minister for his response. He said that the number of claims increased by 275% during the week of pension credit awareness day. That seems to me to be an argument in favour of having more than one such week. If everybody who was entitled applied and the number of claims increased, how many weeks would it take to eradicate pensioner poverty? Perhaps I will go and work that out.

The Minister said that the deadline is 19 December. On the strategy of telling people, “Apply for this because you will also get an extra £324”—which is a real incentive, though not as much as £650—he said that a range of measures are being looked at. I would like to know more about them, so perhaps he could write to me. The advertising campaign that he mentioned sounds great, but I could not find it on YouTube, so it was not that high profile.

The Minister said that the Treasury is spending £134 billion on social security and extra cost of living payments this year. An extra £2 billion of support is a drop in the ocean for the UK Government, but not for the individuals who receive it. Let us not forget that it costs us £4 billion extra not to pay that money. I could introduce the Minister to people who told me how pension credit enabled them to live life again. They are not talking about partying or living the life of Riley; they are talking about being able to relax and be part of society. Do they not deserve that after working hard all their lives?

This might be because of the Minister’s throat, but I did not hear him say a hard no with conviction. I will take that as a sign that, at some point, he will accept that pension credit is different from other social security payments, in that it has incredibly low uptake, in part because people think that they should not have to ask the Government for money. I will continue to argue that the Minister should make a special case and extend the deadline to 31 March. I look forward to continued discussion with him.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered pension credit and the cost-of-living support grant eligibility period extension.

Work and Pensions

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

Thursday 14th July 2022 Ministerial Corrections

The following is an extract from questions to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on 11 July 2022.

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

I know what the Government have said they are doing to increase the uptake of pension credit, and that is good; I do not want to hear it again, though. I also know that people can backdate their claims for pension credit, so anyone who makes a successful application by 24 August this year will receive the £650. However, I have been campaigning for the deadline to be extended to the end of the fiscal year, because I think that as we go into the winter, that is what will concentrate people’s minds when they have to make the very real choice between heating and eating. I am not asking the Minister to commit himself to doing this today, but will he commit himself to at least considering extending the deadline to 31 March next year?

[Guy Opperman]

The uptake of pension credit is clearly to be applauded, and I sincerely hope that the hon. Lady was behind the pension credit day of action and is behind the messages that we are all trying to put out. That is not all, however. On Thursday we will make the £326 cost of living payment, which will drop £1 million in payments every single working day, and there will be a further £324 payment in the autumn. We are also providing the energy support grant of £400, which will go to every individual in the country, as well as the £300 winter fuel payment, the council tax rebate, and various other household support grants. All those are available to individuals up and down the country, and will also support pensioners.

[Official Report, 11 July 2022, Vol. 718, c. 20.]

Letter of correction from the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman):

An error has been identified in the response I gave to the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin).

The correct response should have been:

Oral Answers to Questions

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Guy Opperman]

As my hon. Friend knows, I am in day three of being the Pensions Minister—but the previous one was very good, I did hear. The practical reality is that pension credit is a difficult benefit to try to get out, because everybody has to apply. It is very much our role as Members of Parliament across all parties to ensure that we send out the message that, if anybody is in doubt, they should apply. That can apply to any particular member of our community because the circumstances differ in any particular way, but my hon. Friend is right that this benefit is a springboard to so much else, with £3,300 on average that people can apply for.

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

I am not quite sure of your connection with this question, as a Scottish MP, because obviously it is about Northamptonshire and England. There must be one, but I cannot see it. Are you sure there is a connection to the question? [Interruption.] It is limited to three areas—the responsibility is for those areas. I call James Sunderland.

--- Later in debate ---

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

I know what the Government have said they are doing to increase the uptake of pension credit, and that is good; I do not want to hear it again, though. I also know that people can backdate their claims for pension credit, so anyone who makes a successful application by 24 August this year will receive the £650. However, I have been campaigning for the deadline to be extended to the end of the fiscal year, because I think that as we go into the winter, that is what will concentrate people’s minds when they have to make the very real choice between heating and eating. I am not asking the Minister to commit himself to doing this today, but will he commit himself to at least considering extending the deadline to 31 March next year?

[Guy Opperman]

The uptake of pension credit is clearly to be applauded, and I sincerely hope that the hon. Lady was behind the pension credit day of action and is behind the messages that we are all trying to put out. That is not all, however. On Thursday we will make the £326 cost of living payment, which will drop £1 million in payments every single working day, and there will be a further £324 payment in the autumn. We are also providing the energy support grant of £400, which will go to every individual in the country, as well as the £300 winter fuel payment, the council tax rebate, and various other household support grants. All those are available to individuals up and down the country, and will also support pensioners.

Covid-19: Child Maintenance Service

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

Thursday 21st January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP) [V]]

I must first pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows), not just for securing this debate, but for the tenacity she has shown in sticking with this issue for many years. I hope, however, that the strength of the arguments we have heard from colleagues across the House today will inspire the Government to take action. As the Minister has heard today, the SNP is calling for a minimum maintenance payment and a root-and-branch review of the Child Maintenance Service. I will not repeat the detail of the arguments, but I support them wholeheartedly and I hope he will listen.

One of my biggest concerns is that abusive ex-partners have effectively been given an even greater helping hand during the pandemic—inadvertently, of course, but when organisations such as Scottish Women’s Aid, Gingerbread and Mumsnet, to name just a few, tell the Government this is happening, and they do nothing when they could do something, at some stage it stops being inadvertent.

A survey by Gingerbread and Mumsnet in August found that 86% of lone parents say the Child Maintenance Service has allowed their ex-partner to financially control or abuse them, post separation. Abusive partners are using the CMS as a weapon. Survivors and charities say that that has intensified during lockdown. This is deliberate domestic abuse. Given that the Government have been warned for months about that intensification, they and the CMS are responsible for its failure on enforcement. It is deliberate domestic abuse, and what is the Child Maintenance Service doing? Nothing—nothing but assisting the abuse.

Someone recently told me that her ex-partner takes his kids to all the burger, chicken and pizza places that most kids love. He also buys them all the sweets and fizzy drinks they want, and they come home saying, “Daddy said you should take us to nice places. Why don’t you, mum?” This is a mother who barely eats at times because he withholds the money—a mother who then has to cope with the impact of the sugar rush on her kids while trying to home-educate them during lockdown, with the guilt she feels for apparently not making her children happy, and with the misery of knowing that, despite finally managing to get away from him, he still has a hold on her. It has become so much worse during the pandemic because, as we have heard, the CMS is operating on a skeleton crew. It is despicable behaviour. I have no doubt that we all agree on that, but the Minister and the Government can do something about it.

The Scottish Parliament’s Equalities and Human Rights Committee recently held an inquiry on the pandemic. Scottish Women’s Aid reported that abusers are using the pandemic to increase their control of women’s movements; they are keeping them isolated, threatening to expose them to the virus, or discouraging them from seeking help by telling them that CMS services are not operating. We are supposed to be helping people in those circumstances. People need to know that the services are operating—that they and their children are a priority.

The Government must make that point loud and clear, but they cannot do that until they are sure that what they are saying is correct. The Department for Work and Pensions website talks of the need to focus on essential services and says that will impact services such as the CMS. I do not disagree with focusing, but is the CMS really classed as a non-essential service? We only have to ask the parents who use the CMS whether the Government have got it right to know the answer.

Gingerbread and Mumsnet did that in their survey of August last year. Just 11% of parents described their experience of using the CMS as positive, and a shocking 72% said that using the service had made their mental health and wellbeing worse. That is because the CMS, when it is working properly, is an essential service. Levels of dissatisfaction are so high that four parents, backed by Gingerbread, Mumsnet and the Good Law Project, have been forced to seek a judicial review of the service’s persistent failure to collect payments from absent parents. There is so much wrong with the CMS—not the staff, but the system—with or without a pandemic. We need that full review.

We know that the impact of covid-19 has been greatest on particular groups of people, single parents among them. Single parents are more likely to be women, working in a low-wage sector, working part time and facing huge restrictions because of transport and childcare. It was a choice to run the Child Maintenance Service on a skeleton staff last year, and there are still full-time employees of the service redeployed by the DWP. Why choose to make things more difficult for a group of people already facing more difficulties than most?

Another choice is to put the CMS right. Let us not forget that it was not right before the pandemic, which is why we are calling for a full review. During the pandemic, any measures that the Government take around covid restrictions or changes of service are supposed not to discriminate against any particular group, but in this case, as domestic abuse is gender-based and financial abuse is part of that, they are discriminatory. The Government have put money and extra staffing into other services, but why take money and staff away from this one?

I am hoping from some humility from the Government today. I welcome what the Minister said about the relevant Minister meeting us to look at individual cases, but the problems are systemic. If a politician holds their hands up and says, “We got it wrong, but we are ready to put it right,” nobody can argue with that. I can say on behalf of the SNP that if the Government are willing to put it right and have a root-and-branch review, we will support them.

Women and Equalities

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

Monday 2nd November 2020 Ministerial Corrections

The following is an extract from oral questions to the Minister for Women and Equalities on 21 October 2020.

[Anne McLaughlin]

It is estimated that there is more than £2 billion out there every year that is the legal right of older people on those islands. Pension credit does not make anybody wealthy, but it can make the difference between the loneliness and misery that poverty brings and the joy of simply being able to engage in life again. Will the Minister responsible for fighting for those older people agree to take this on as an equalities issue and put resources into ensuring that people have the knowledge and support—including support in using the online service she mentioned—to access what is, after all, a legal entitlement?

[Mims Davies]

In supporting our older people, pension credit is an absolute priority for this Government, as I mentioned earlier. In fact, about 1 million pensioners—close to that number—who are pension credit customers will receive a winter windfall of £140 off their fuel bills, thanks to the Government working with energy firms to cut costs. This Government are determined to do all we can to support pensioners, and the DWP cross-match these pension credit customers with the data held by pension suppliers. I am sure that we will continue to support pensioners as widely as we can through this pandemic and ongoing.

[Official Report, 21 October 2020, Vol. 682, c. 1045.]

Letter of correction from the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Mims Davies):

An error has been identified in my response to the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin).

The correct response should have been:

Covid-19: DWP Update

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

Monday 4th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dr Coffey]

My hon. Friend will be aware that self-employed people will have 80% of their profits reimbursed in the form of a grant. I know that it will take some time for the system to be delivered; my understanding is that payments will start within a month, but in the meantime, there may be people who are currently self-employed who could seek support from universal credit.

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP) [V]]

I was horrified to discover that, contrary to the announcement that personal independence payment recipients would be entitled to a three-month extension, my constituent—a lone parent with severe mental health problems—will not be. Why not? Because, as the PIP hotline confirmed to my caseworker, if someone’s award was decided by a tribunal—in other words, if they were forced to fight the DWP for that lifeline and that entitlement —they will again be treated differently from all other PIP recipients, and the three-month safeguard will not apply to them. Can that seriously be true? If so, why?

[Dr Coffey]

As I set out, where people were due to have a reassessment, the situation would arise in which we extend the award automatically by just three months. People who are in a tribunal process are those who have challenged the decisions; therefore the question of what award they have received will be the one that is under debate and review.

Oral Answers to Questions

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

Monday 27th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dr Coffey]

I am not aware, because as the hon. Gentleman will know, employment tribunals are basically managed by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, rather than the Department for Work and Pensions. I therefore encourage him to table a written question to BEIS instead.

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

My constituent did not wait five weeks for a universal credit decision. She waited five months and then started to receive payments, but there has been no mention of the backdated five months or whether a decision has been made. Will the Secretary of State urgently look at that case? If she lets me know the next time she sends one of her Ministers to my area, I will take him along with me and he can explain to my constituent why she nearly went bankrupt.

[Dr Coffey]

I suggest that the hon. Lady lets the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work, my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson), know directly about her constituent’s particular circumstances so that he can follow up on that individually. I know that he believed that he had let hon. Members know about this matter. We take the issue seriously, and we will check after Question Time what happened regarding the communication.