Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Monday 11th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Newton]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on taking that initiative. She is an absolute champion of enabling people to reach their full potential in society through work. I pay tribute to the many hon. Members across the political divide who have joined Disability Confident and who are getting out and having events in their constituency. We should all be proud that, for the first time in our country, there are more disabled people in work than out of work, so the nation can draw on that rich talent pool.

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

I support the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman). Is it not true that, because of their recruitment processes, many employers are missing out on the talent and the enrichment that employing someone with autism would bring? People do not even get that first opportunity. What more can the Minister do to support employers to think again about the way they go about recruiting people and to give the opportunity to a wider range of people to get that first chance?

[Sarah Newton]

The hon. Lady makes a really important point. We do not want employers to miss out on this fantastic talent pool of people. Through Disability Confident, we are able to provide free and extremely valuable resources to employers to show them how they can make reasonable adjustments regarding the recruitment, retention and management of people on the spectrum in the workplace. That is really important. I am sure that her question will raise awareness of the free, fantastic resources that are available to all employers through Disability Confident.

Universal Credit

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Tuesday 16th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Ooh, this is difficult. Blaenau Gwent or Darlington? I call Jenny Chapman.

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

The right choice, Mr Speaker.

The Minister’s tone this afternoon is very abrasive, and he does not seem to be listening to genuine concerns from Members on both sides of the House. We understand that the Government may want to save some announcements for the upcoming Budget, but I would have thought that the extent of concern about universal credit from across the country would have led him to make some solid announcements before then so that we can reassure our constituents.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Monday 27th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

The number of young people in my hon. Friend’s constituency claiming out-of-work benefits has fallen by more than half in the past four years, and he is right to highlight the large number of vacancies—over three quarters of a million nationwide. Alongside promoting work experience and apprenticeships, the Government will soon be rolling out the youth obligation, providing additional intensive support for young people from day one.

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

The Minister can highlight what he likes, but long-term youth unemployment in Darlington and the Tees valley is completely stagnant: the situation has not improved at all. What is he going to do to make sure that in six months’ time the picture has improved?

Autumn Statement Distributional Analysis, Universal Credit and ESA

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Wednesday 16th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

I begin by saying some words that I never thought would leave my mouth: I really hope that Ministers listen to what the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) has just said—but where were you as Secretary of State? The right hon. Gentleman has explained very clearly how many people feel about the proposed changes. I hope that it is not too late for the Government to change their mind.

This Government seem to be developing a problem with transparency. We found out from the front page of The Times this week that there is no plan for Brexit, even though we were told that there was. My constituents found out through a leak from another local authority that their A&E department was under threat. Now we find that the Government do not intend to publish a full distributional analysis of the impact of the decisions they are about to make in the autumn statement. The decision not to publish a full analysis of that impact makes Opposition Members incredibly suspicious. The people who are going to feel the worst brunt of those decisions might well feel extremely angry.

[Robert Flello]

The right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) said that, historically, whenever there was a change to benefits, people suffered until the situation was changed and improved. Does that not also explain why so many of our constituents are extremely worried about what is going to happen?

[Jenny Chapman]

That is right. People want clarity. What everyone wants is for work to pay and for people to be better off in work than out of work, but that is not what we are going to get.

The Government used to be very keen on having a full and detailed distributional analysis, and I have with me the introduction to the one they published in 2012. They said then:

“The Government has taken unprecedented steps to increase transparency and enable effective scrutiny of policy making by publishing detailed distributional analysis of the impact of its reforms on households.”

It was a very good thing that the Government, and the right hon. Member for Tatton (Mr Osborne), did then. The right hon. Gentleman went on to say:

“The analysis shows average impacts due to policy changes over time across the income and expenditure distributions by decile”.

I hope that, at the end of the debate, Ministers will commit themselves to publishing the information by decile, so that we can scrutinise it properly and challenge the Government on what they are about to reveal. That is not just my view. The Tory Chair of the Treasury Committee agrees, because he knows that if he is do his job effectively the information must be published and available to everyone, including the public. This matters: the distributional analysis should reveal the impact of tax, welfare and public spending changes on 10 household income brackets, but the Government want to halve the amount of detail and cover just five brackets.

I was pleased when the Conservatives chose this new Prime Minister, given the choices that they had, and I was pleased when she said that she wanted this to be

“a country that works for everyone”.

Don’t we all? But how can we know whether the Prime Minister is true to her word if she does not proceed to publish the information that we need to test the assertion by which she herself asked to be judged? Unless she does so, we cannot test that claim.

This leads us to ask ourselves what the Government are attempting to hide. What the Minister said sounded incredibly positive, and there were many measures that he said we ought to be welcoming. If that is true—if he is right and Opposition Front Benchers are wrong—he should publish the information, so that we can test him on his claims. Go on, let us see it!

I suspect that the picture is not quite as rosy as the Minister suggested. Perhaps it is the £1,500 a year to be taken from disabled people that he is trying to conceal, but it could be any number of the measures that he has in mind. The Resolution Foundation has estimated that the poorest 50% of households will be £375 worse off on average by 2020-21, while the other half will be £235 better off. We need this information to be published before every Budget and every autumn statement, so that we can compare the impact of the different measures. I want to be able to see what is going to happen next week and compare it with what happened three years ago.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a marvellous speech. Does she agree that we can safely conclude that someone is going to lose out somewhere when the Government speak about their proposals in such glowing terms?

[Jenny Chapman]

My hon. Friend has far more experience of scrutinising Conservative Governments than I have, and I suspect that he may be right.

According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the effect of all the tax and benefit changes in last year’s autumn statement would mean losses about 25 times larger for those in the bottom decile than for those in the top decile. If the IFS is wrong, let the Government publish the information so that the Minister can back up the claim that he has made today. The IFS also says that average earnings have been revised down in every year of the forecast, as has real household disposable income.

We want to know exactly what the country is in for. On 23 June, we made a decision to leave the European Union, and what that has done—or part of what it has done—is unleash a huge amount of uncertainty on the country, on business and on decision makers. One thing that the Government could do to ease some of that uncertainty is publish all the information that we need to determine where we are and track the direction in which the Government are taking us.

According to the IFS, nearly half a million children will be plunged into absolute poverty by 2020

“as a result of planned tax and benefit reforms”

in the March Budget. The IFS says that an additional 500,000 people—including 400,000 children—will be in relative poverty because of tax and benefit overhauls. That paints a very different picture from the one presented by the Minister. Unless he is prepared to publish a proper distributional analysis, we shall be forced to conclude that he is, for some reason, trying—his attempt will fail—to conceal the impact of some of the measures that he has in mind. I hope that he will resist that urge and commit himself to publishing a proper analysis with 10 deciles, so that we can see what is happening, make comparisons over time, and challenge and scrutinise the Government effectively.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Monday 9th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vara]

I thank my hon. Friend for that very good question. He will be aware that last October the Department and the Pensions Regulator jointly launched a refreshed communications campaign entitled “Don’t Ignore the Workplace Pension”, to help build on and maintain the success of the previous campaign in raising awareness of automatic enrolment. The campaign includes digital and social media advertising, as well as television and radio, and has helped to raise awareness and guide people towards further information.

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

It was pleasing to hear the Minister say that predictability and clarity were important in pensions. Will he apply those principles to the 2.6 million WASPI women?

[Mr Vara]

We have applied clarity, as I have said at the Dispatch Box on many occasions during the course of many debates.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Monday 8th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Esther McVey]

My hon. Friend is correct that we need to extend the scheme, and we will do so. People can be referred to places through to March 2016. Not only are we extending the time limit for people to apply; we are extending eligibility to the partners of people who are on jobseeker’s allowance or employment and support allowance, and to those on income support. It is a successful scheme. We want to keep it that way and to expand it as much as we can.

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

Single parents in Darlington who are on the Work programme have been to see me because they are being told to leave their nine and 10-year-old children at home unsupervised during the school holidays so that they can attend the Work programme. Will the Minister look into that urgently and ensure that such foolish, dangerous, reckless advice is never given to parents?

[Esther McVey]

I thank the hon. Lady for raising that point. We work closely with charity groups such as Gingerbread to ensure that the hours that lone parents have to work and the commitments they have to live up to fit around their lives and the children they look after. That is key to offering the right support for lone parents.

DWP: Performance

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Monday 30th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to contribute to the debate and to follow the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills). I agree with a couple of the things he said; I agree that the programme has had a bumpy start, but I disagree that the bumpy start is over. I also agree with him that we need to get things right in order to build confidence in the benefit system. For many reasons, that confidence is not as high as we want it to be, and one of those reasons is the corrosive language that we often hear about people who claim benefits.

Darlington is in the north-east, but unemployment there is consistently lower than the regional average. People in my constituency work hard, and they want claimants to be challenged and people to demonstrate why they need benefits, but the system is not working. I shall give a few examples of real case studies. They are still live cases that have been raised with the Department, but they have not been resolved. I would like an assurance from the Minister that we will get a better service from the Department when things go wrong. They go wrong frequently, and despite what the Secretary of State said at the Dispatch Box earlier, we are not getting an adequate response from him or his officials.

One case involves a woman who was advised to claim DLA in April 2013. She had a medical and waited to hear what would happen next. She was told she would have to have a medical, but she had already had one. She was told that PIPs were replacing DLA so she would have to claim all over again. In June 2013, she received a letter referring to a letter she had been sent in May, but she had not received that letter. She asked about progress in September 2013 and she was told that her claim was with Atos for internal audit. In October 2013, she raised the issue with me, because she had no money and had to go to the food bank to feed herself and her five-year-old son. She was unable to pay her rent and her gas, electricity and water bills. I contacted the PIP office in October and again in November. It said that it was having trouble getting Atos to respond to its queries. In February this year she finally got her PIP payment. It took nearly a year to resolve, but we got there in the end. Other people are still waiting.

A young man with autism desperately wanted to work, so he volunteered for help from a training provider—Avanta—which then sanctioned him for not complying because he did not understand what he was meant to be doing. Three months later, that case is still not resolved.

I received an e-mail from someone who suffers from various diagnosed mental health problems. He has been found fit for work by Atos so he decided to stop taking his medication. After all, as he said, Atos had said that he was cured. He was later sectioned having been found in a distressed state.

I am not revealing the names of these people as they have asked me not to do so, but their cases give a flavour of the problems that my colleagues and I frequently deal with. Another person had an appointment for an Atos medical in Thornaby on 27 June. Thornaby is a perfectly good place, but it is tricky to get there from Darlington on public transport. It takes at least two bus journeys and the building has stairs and is not properly accessible. My constituent has spondylosis, tennis elbow and sciatica after years of working as a labourer. He telephoned Atos and was told that his GP had to fax a letter explaining why he needed a home visit. He asked Atos to give him a later appointment so that he could get there on time. Because the Thornaby site is so difficult to get to, Atos seems to think that if people can get to their appointment, it is proof that they are fit to work.

In another case, the jobcentre agreed that a constituent, who has a wife and two kids, could do a part-time care course, but he was sanctioned—incorrectly—for being on a full-time course. He has no money for food or rent while that is being sorted out. In the end, he was offered a job, conditional on his completing the course, which only had a month to run, but the jobcentre had sanctioned him for being on the course.

The response from the Department on PIPs is dreadful. It can take 12 to 16 weeks to get an appointment for a face-to-face assessment, and 21 to 26 weeks from date of claim to a decision being made. That is six months, and that is not acceptable. We need to know how long it will take. The whole system is shambolic. My complaint is not that constituents are being challenged or assessed or asked to demonstrate why they should receive ESA or PIP: it is that the delays, the poor administration and the lack of answers when cases are raised are unacceptable.

amendment of the law

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Tuesday 25th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), although I wish he had said more about youth unemployment. A golden thread ran through the speeches of many Opposition Members, most notably my hon. Friends the Members for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham), for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), for Telford (David Wright), for Wigan (Lisa Nandy), and for Livingston (Graeme Morrice). Their speeches focused on youth unemployment, which is clearly an issue that matters greatly to Opposition Members. It certainly matters greatly to me, because in my area, the north-east, it has never been dealt with properly since the election. Although we are seeing some very slight decreases, youth unemployment in my constituency is still double the national average, and Darlington actually does quite well in comparison with the rest of the north-east.

Youth unemployment and low pay are the two biggest challenges that face us, and they are two issues about which the Budget said very little. The average wage in Darlington is £440, and youth unemployment is now at 9.6%. That is not acceptable to us, and, to its credit, private sector companies in Darlington were not prepared to accept it either. They were concerned about the end of the future jobs fund, and decided to take matters into their own hands. I pay tribute to Sherwoods, my local Vauxhall car dealer, to The Northern Echo, to my local council and to the local voluntary sector. They got together and decided to do something, because they knew that they would not get much joy if they waited for the Government to take a lead. They then formed the Foundation for Jobs, a local initiative. Let me say at this point that I agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby that successful initiatives to address youth unemployment are best delivered through local government.

We launched the Foundation for Jobs in April 2012, so it has been going for nearly two years. We have worked with more than 2,700 young people, and have secured 250 new apprenticeships through the foundation. More than 2,000 school-age kids are building closer links with industry, 230 young people are taking part in internships or eight-week work experience placements, and 66 young people have developed their entrepreneurial skills. The foundation is based locally, and has received no funding; it depends entirely on good will. Government Members challenged the shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves), on Labour’s jobs guarantee, suggesting that private sector firms would not be interested in taking part. I can tell them that they were completely wrong. More than 150 businesses in my constituency alone have grabbed with both hands the opportunity presented by the Foundation for Jobs, and they would welcome the opportunity to do more. To suggest that small businesses are not interested, do not have the time or are under too much pressure makes them sound a lot less far-sighted than they are.

All that businesses get in return for participating in the initiative, apart from the satisfaction of knowing they are giving a young person a chance, is a little promotion in my local paper, The Northern Echo, which has taken an extraordinary lead. In the absence of a sensible Government scheme, Members across the House will have to take matters into their own hands, and I think local businesses are up for the challenge.

The foundation makes the link between young people and growing industries, which know they need a trained work force. They are looking at the provision available and the skills young people have, and they are looking at the challenges facing young people—who in my constituency are increasingly unwilling to take on the debt they would have if they went into further education—and they are trying to dispel myths about careers such as engineering.

This has been a lot of fun. We have done events with over 100 secondary school youngsters at a time, trying to get them to see the real face of modern engineering. We have performed computer-aided design tasks and we have made basic electric car batteries, wired wind turbines and designed a wind farm. We have built suspension bridges with over 200 young people. It has been quite an education for everybody, and one thing that stands out for me is the absence of advice and guidance for young people now that, thanks to a decision made by the Government a couple of years ago, they are no longer entitled to any face-to-face information, advice and guidance before they leave school, which is disgraceful. If we are to have any hope whatsoever of improving social mobility, particularly in the north-east, we have to improve the offer to young people in terms of advice and guidance.

Labour has made a sensible suggestion in the form of the jobs guarantee, and I am convinced the private and voluntary sectors and the larger public sector employers in the north-east would be very keen to get involved in it. The jobs guarantee would last for the whole of the Parliament for 18 to 24-year-olds who have been out of work for over a year, and twice as many of those young people are out of work now than there were in 2010. If that was my track record, I would be ashamed, and I really do not understand why the Government are not.

Young people will be able to work for 25 hours a week on the minimum wage, the employer must provide training—I think they will be only too willing to do so—and this would rightly be funded by a tax on bankers’ bonuses and on the pensions of people earning over £150,000 a year. I know my constituents support this and local businesses are crying out to be involved, and if the Government had any humility they would be taking on this idea and getting on with it now, rather than our having to wait for a Labour Government.

Job Insecurity

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Wednesday 5th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Umunna]

I am happy to clarify that I was not saying that all the jobs created are as the hon. Lady has suggested.

We want to ensure that the national minimum wage is properly enforced. That is why we want fines of up to £50,000, and we would give local authorities a role in enforcement. To go back to what I said earlier, ultimately, we want more people to be in receipt of a wage on which they can live.

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

Is my hon. Friend aware that people who get jobs on the minimum wage through employment agencies routinely have their wages docked to cover the administration of their pay? Very low-paid workers are therefore receiving far less—up to £16 or £20 a week less—than the minimum wage.

[Mr Umunna]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I understand that the Secretary of State is investigating that outrageous practice at the moment, and we await the findings of his Department’s investigation.

We have already made it clear that we disagree with heaping job insecurity on people in work, which is why we have opposed and voted against all the measures that this Government have introduced to water down people’s rights at work.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jenny Chapman]

It is pleasing that the Secretary of State has referred to the north-east and acknowledged that we have a particular problem. He said that he would introduce policy once he knew the scale of the issues, but regardless of that, will he commit to doing something about employment agencies’ practice of skimming off tens of pounds from the weekly pay of minimum wage earners?

[Vince Cable]

I am not quite sure what the hon. Lady is referring to. Is she referring to something illegal that needs to be investigated? I think the shadow Secretary of State raised the issue of abuses by employment agencies at the last BIS questions. We had been tipped off about that, and we are investigating where there is illegality.

[Jenny Chapman]

I am happy to explain. A constituent of mine contacted me after taking a job through an employment agency on the minimum wage. He was required to sign away £16 of his earnings per week to pay the agency to process his pay—that is what he was told—so he is now taking home much less than the minimum wage. I can assure the Secretary of State that such practices are widespread. Will he commit to cracking down on this, regardless of the scale?

[Vince Cable]

Of course, if there is illegal abuse of the minimum wage, it needs to be investigated and prosecuted, and we will do that. If the hon. Lady gives me the facts I will ensure that the matter is followed up.

I want to round up on the broad issue of the level of employment. The trend is clear: employment is growing rapidly, unemployment is falling and all parts of the UK are now benefiting. Even among particular groups of the population with past experiences of unemployment —for example, lone parents, disabled people and over-65s—employment is now at pre-recession levels. The overall story in the labour market is a positive one, but there are still large pockets of serious structural unemployment and people who want full-time employment —we acknowledge that—and that is why the recovery still has to be made sustainable.

Universal Credit

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Tuesday 10th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I always do my level best to agree with my hon. Friend. He talks common sense whenever he rises to his feet and today is no different.

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

How confident is the Secretary of State that the system will be able to deal with people who live in such unusual circumstances as being in a couple or having children?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The system will roll out for all the complicated groups right the way through until we have 6.5 million on it. There were some reports in today’s papers that were wrong. The pathfinder rolled out to singles to begin with. Next it goes on to couples, then to couples with children, then we bring in the more complicated groups and then we bring in the tax credit group. I simply say to the hon. Lady that she needs to understand the difference between an approach that rolls something out at every stage and learns from it, and the approach that Labour took on tax credits, which was to rush them in and see them fail.