Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Lefroy and Chris Grayling

Tuesday 1st July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

To reiterate what I said earlier, my views on outsourcing UK jobs are on record. I made them clear when I was an Employment Minister, and my position has not changed.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

T9. Stafford prison has a very good record in securing paid work for prisoners to carry out, including reshoring work from the far east. What support is he providing to others across the estate to continue that good progress?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Lefroy and Chris Grayling

Tuesday 17th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

21. What plans he has for Stafford prison.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Chris Grayling)]

My hon. Friend and I had the honour and pleasure of visiting Stafford prison last week. I pay tribute to the skills of the team working there. It has a strong and valuable future in our prison system.

[Jeremy Lefroy]

I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend for visiting last week. He will have seen the emphasis that Governor Oakes-Richards places on prisoners being in work, education and other purposeful activity. Will my right hon. Friend indicate what support the Ministry of Justice is giving to Stafford and other prisons to help them prepare prisoners for the world of work?

[Chris Grayling]

If you were to visit Stafford prison, Mr Speaker, you could not help being impressed by the work being done by the team on the ground, bringing valuable contracts and work experience into the prison. Of course, our central team that looks for opportunities to bring work into prisons will work with Stafford and other prisons to ensure that we do as much as we can to keep prisoners active.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Lefroy and Chris Grayling

Tuesday 5th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

If I am not mistaken, the right hon. Gentleman was a Minister in the previous Government who introduced the legislation that makes these changes possible. The Opposition say one thing one day and another thing the next. The truth is that reoffending rates in this country have barely changed in a decade, despite extra money being spent, and I want to bring those rates down.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

9. What plans he has for the modernisation of the prison estate.

Transforming Rehabilitation

Debate between Jeremy Lefroy and Chris Grayling

Wednesday 9th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I know that the Labour party is going through an identity crisis at the moment, and the hon. Gentleman may be in the wrong party, but if I am not mistaken the Peterborough pilot was started by Labour and the legislation that allows me to do this was passed by Labour, so does he support what his party did, or not?

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

I welcome the extension of rehabilitation to more offenders. As my right hon. Friend rightly said, a place to live on release is vital. Will capital funding be available to assist in the development of such, sometimes specialist, housing?

[Chris Grayling]

This is an important issue that was raised with me this morning by the probation trust chairs. Of course, we provide a number of specialist accommodation blocks already. As part of the work we do over the next two or three months, we need to look at exactly how we ensure that the right vehicles are available to address accommodation needs. I want to see what I saw this morning at St Giles Trust, which has a small team of professionals who are very good at finding young people who are out of prison somewhere to live and stabilising their lives.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Lefroy and Chris Grayling

Tuesday 18th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I regard it as a national shame that so many former members of our armed forces are in our prisons. I have discussions with the Minister with responsibility for veterans issues, my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois). I see the issue as something that we need to take forward in the next few months. It is certainly sitting high in my in-tray as a priority for us all.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

7. What steps he is taking to tackle reoffending.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Chris Grayling)]

I refer my hon. Friend to the answer that I gave a few moments ago. We intend to apply payment by results to the majority of rehabilitation work conducted with offenders in the community as soon as we can.

[Jeremy Lefroy]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer and for the one he gave my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones). Reoffending is to some extent also linked to lack of preparation prior to release. As a member of an independent monitoring board, I noted that we placed a great emphasis on induction and less on “outduction”—preparation prior to release. What is my right hon. Friend doing in that respect?

[Chris Grayling]

Our aim is to deliver a service that flows through the prison gates. One of the failings of the current system is that, as the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) said a moment ago, there is not enough co-ordination between what happens in prison and after prison. The contracts that we build will begin while an offender is in prison and will see them through the prison gate to ensure that the continuity to which my hon. Friend refers is present.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Lefroy and Chris Grayling

Tuesday 13th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

It is difficult for me to comment on the individual case, because that is a matter for the probation authorities. We have put in place a package of longer sentences for more serious offenders. In relation to those who are still in prison on an indeterminate sentence, they will of course have to submit to the procedures that were law at the time. It is particularly important for us to know that they are safe to be released before they are released.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

Stafford prison was built in 1794 and is one of the cheapest prisons in the country to run. Will my hon. Friend visit Stafford with builders of new prisons to see how it is done?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Lefroy and Chris Grayling

Monday 18th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

5. What recent progress he has made on delivering the Work programme.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling)]

The Department for Work and Pensions completed the launch of the Work programme by the end of June and it is now operational in all parts of the country. I have now visited a number of the providers and their centres and I am pleased to see the progress they are making.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Grayling]

There are two things about the Work programme that will help my hon. Friend and his constituents. First, the providers are free to deliver whatever solution works for the individuals—a crucial difference to past programmes—and, secondly, they are rewarded not simply for getting people into work but for sustaining them in work for periods that can be as long as two years and three months. I hope that will deal with the challenges in the labour market in my hon. Friend’s constituency.

[Jeremy Lefroy]

On Friday, we welcomed the Minister to the Stafford jobs fair and the Shaw Trust in the Stafford constituency. How extensive is the role he foresees for the voluntary sector in providing the Work programme?

[Chris Grayling]

The voluntary sector has a crucial role to play in two ways. First, we have a wide range of voluntary sector organisations contractually involved in the Work programme, delivering support to the long-term unemployed. I also believe that a local community activity such as the excellent jobs fair that my hon. Friend organised in his constituency, together with Stafford Works, is an ideal example of how Work programme providers and the local community can work together to deliver real back-to-work support for the unemployed.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Lefroy and Chris Grayling

Monday 10th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

That is an important point because many of those who go on to the Work programme will be former offenders or, in some cases, people going through community payback who are on welfare. I am in close contact with my colleagues in the Department for Justice and we are working together to try to ensure that we integrate their work on rehabilitating offenders with our work to get former offenders back into work.

[Jeremy Lefroy]

In my constituency of Stafford, a number of local voluntary organisations and social enterprises are committed to getting people back into work. What assurances can the Minister give us that they will be taken into account when it comes to awarding the sub-contracts under the main contractors?

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. We are very clear that we want to see small local community, voluntary sector, social enterprise and private sector groups having the opportunity to work alongside major contractors in the Work programme. We have been very clear to would-be prime contractors that if they do not bring together a consortium of smaller organisations that demonstrate the breadth of skills necessary to deliver support to all the different groups that will be helped under the Work programme, they will not be successful in their bids. That is of paramount importance.

Work Capability Assessments

Debate between Jeremy Lefroy and Chris Grayling

Wednesday 27th October 2010 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling)]

I shall do my best to answer the questions asked by the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel).

I start by saying that there is a huge amount of agreement between us. Let us be clear: the proposals are not an exercise in money-saving. I have said time and again that they are about saving lives, not money. Yes, we will save money if we reduce the number of people who are welfare-dependent, but the starting point surely must be to try to help people make a better lot of their lives. That, effectively, is where the proposals came from.

If we look back to the last Parliament, there was—and, I believe, still is—cross-party consensus on the need to make the changes. The original proposal to assess current incapacity benefit claimants came in the Green Paper that I launched in 2008. James Purnell, who was Secretary of State shortly after that, took up the proposal for the migration and put in place many of the mechanics that were needed.

Given the hon. Lady’s comments, I believe that there is still cross-party consensus on the need to do something about the issue. Frankly, I regret that the assessment was not done years ago, because it is not right for anybody to be left on benefits, doing nothing, year after year without us seeking to find them a way back into work and helping them to make a better lot of their lives.

The hon. Lady is also right to say that we inherited the work capability assessment; it was set up by the previous Government, and was initially meant to operate with the employment and support allowance system for new claimants. It was designed by the previous Government and they put it in place, but it was not completely right; there were things that were wrong with it and needed to change.

One of the first things that I did after taking office this summer was make a number of changes to the work capability assessment—changes that were recommended by the previous Government following work that they did in their last few months in office. I looked at the changes and felt that they were sensible. They included: simplifying the language in the work capability assessment; making greater provision for people awaiting, or in between, courses of chemotherapy; making the higher rate of employment and support allowance available to more people with particular communication and mental health problems; and taking into account how people have adapted to a disability.

My view was that that was not enough, and I share the hon. Lady’s concern. It is not in my interests or the interests of the Government to get this wrong. I do not want to do down people who should not be trying to get back into work. I want to help those who have the potential to work, and to ensure that the work capability assessment is as effective as possible. There is no hidden motivation. I am not saying that we should make the test as tough as possible so that we can get more people off benefits and into work, thus saving money. I can categorically assure the hon. Lady that that is not the case.

There is no such thing as a perfect system, but we are working as hard as we can to make the system as effective as possible. Let me tell the hon. Lady some of the things that I have done to ensure that it is. Since the election, we have commissioned a further review of the work capability assessment. It is being carried out by a leading occupational health specialist, Professor Harrington of Birmingham university. We have assembled an advisory group to work with him, which includes Paul Farmer, the chief executive of Mind. I particularly wanted him to be on the review, because mental health is a big issue. Getting the facts right on mental health is essential. I do not want to say that people with mental health problems should not be able to work. Equally, I want to find the right dividing line to ensure that we do not do the wrong thing by people with mental health problems who would have genuine difficulty in working.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

I want to emphasise the importance of the assessment of mental health problems. A constituent of mine told me that he could have sat down and cried to prove that he had mental health problems. He did not and, as a result, he was categorised as having no mental health problems. That was despite the fact that his general practitioner had categorically said that he did.

[Chris Grayling]

I have told the mental health charities that I am happy to hear their proposals on how we can change the wording of the assessment to strengthen the way in which we deal with people with mental health problems. I am happy to look at such proposals and incorporate any sensible changes. I said to Professor Harrington and his team that I want them to bring forward recommendations on how to improve things and to knock off any rough edges so that we can make the system as fair as possible.

The majority of people—it is far from all—who are on incapacity benefit with mental health problems have issues with long-term chronic depression. We have a straightforward choice. We can either leave them at home for the rest of their lives—the hon. Lady mentioned that many people end up just retiring rather than ever moving off benefit—or we can try to do the right thing and help them back into work. I passionately believe that the second is the better option. In a moment, I will address the hon. Lady’s concerns about personalisation, because I agree with her on that.

What I am saying applies across the piste: we are either saying that we will leave these people passively on benefits for the rest of their lives, or saying that we will do something to help them turn their lives around. It may be that going back to work will involve them doing something different from what they were doing before. If, for example, they were doing a manual job and they had an orthopaedic problem, they may have to do something different, and that may be a huge wrench that damages their self-confidence. The hon. Lady was right to say that many people who are on long-term benefits have lost networks and self-confidence. I do not buy into the headlines that say, “They are all scroungers.” Hon. Members will not find me using such language.

The biggest issue is about detachment from the workplace. Some people who have been in work previously and who have become utterly detached start to lack confidence; they do not know what to do or how to go about getting work. Sometimes, people have grown up in an environment in which worklessness has been the norm, and they do not have the knowledge to be able to take the first steps into the workplace. Helping them not only with the assessment but over the hurdle of getting back into work is a huge challenge, and that is what our work programme is all about.

Let me touch on one or two of the other areas that the hon. Lady raised in relation to the assessment. Atos has no financial incentive to get more people through the assessment and back into work, nor would I countenance it having one. It is Jobcentre Plus that takes the decision and not Atos, and Atos does not design the test. The recommendations that we get from Professor Harrington’s review—as long as they are sensible, and I am confident that they will be—will inform our decision making about how the test should be shaped.