State Pension Age: Women

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2016 Westminster Hall

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

I thank the hon. Gentleman for securing the debate. He has certainly done women a great service, because he has been working on this issue for a long time. The other dimension to the issue, which we see when we do an analysis of it, is that it affects women in different ways. There are different poverty levels involved, so things such as bus passes may not be accessible to them.

[Ian Blackford]

Absolutely. The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. I will come later to the proposals that my party has made. We have been able to test the number of women who would be taken out of poverty as a consequence, and it is a very important point.

We should remind ourselves what a pension is. It is deferred income. Women and men have paid national insurance in the expectation of receiving a state pension. That is the deal, plain and simple: people pay in, and they get their entitlement. They do not expect the Government, without effective notice, to change the rules. What has been done to the WASPI women has undermined fairness and equity in this country.

Supported Housing: Benefit

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

Before I move the motion, I take the opportunity to welcome the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and members of his team to their posts.

I beg to move,

That this House notes that the Government intends to cut housing benefit for vulnerable people in specialist housing, including elderly people and people who are homeless, disabled or fleeing domestic violence; believes that this will have harmful effects on current and future tenants of these specialist housing schemes; further notes that there is already a significant shortfall in this type of housing provision across the country; notes that charities, housing associations, councils and others have made Government Ministers aware of the damaging impact these cuts will have on tenants and the financial viability of these schemes and that the Government’s proposal to mitigate these cuts with discretionary housing payments will not compensate for these cuts; notes that the Government’s own evidence review into the impact of its decision, commissioned in December 2015, has yet to be published; notes that the Government has postponed the implementation of these cuts for new tenants to April 2017 but plans to fully roll out its planned cuts to housing benefit in April 2018; and therefore calls on the Government to exempt supported housing from its planned housing benefit cuts and to consult fully with supported housing providers to identify ways in which all vulnerable people who need supported housing can access it.

Six months ago my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) led an Opposition day debate on the Government’s decision to cap housing benefit support for vulnerable people in specialist housing. The decision will affect elderly citizens, our armed forces veterans, those with disabilities, people with learning difficulties and people with mental health problems. It will hit homeless people and it will jeopardise the safety of people fleeing domestic violence.

Following pressure from the Opposition Benches, and concerns raised by Members on the Government Benches, there was an interesting debate last week led by the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous). A campaign has been mounted across the country by community groups and housing providers. I was pleased that the Government agreed to delay the implementation of the cap, but I press Ministers now to go one step further. They must reverse their decision to slash housing benefit for a huge range of vulnerable people living in supported housing. What kind of country would we be if we abandoned the most vulnerable in our society? What kind of message will it send, not just to the country and to vulnerable people but to observers around the world, about the priorities of this Government?

What credibility will be left for the outgoing Prime Minister’s repeated assertion that the Government would not balance the books on the backs of the poorest? Unless Ministers reverse that destructive decision, that is precisely what they will be doing. I am willing to give way to the Secretary of State if he is prepared to stand at the Dispatch Box, say that he will reverse the decision and make the announcement that we are all hoping for. To implement that decision would be a damning legacy for the former Prime Minister and a broken promise to those who can least afford it. The decision is not just detrimental to the most vulnerable members of society; in purely financial terms, it makes no sense.

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

Does my hon. Friend not agree that it is becoming more difficult for people to get housing benefit, and that in some instances, it might not be adequate?

[Grahame M. Morris]

Indeed, that is the case. The groups I originally listed are some of the most vulnerable in society—they are people who should be protected and who require supported housing. If the Government proceed on their intended course, some of the most disadvantaged and vulnerable people will be further disadvantaged, and the cost to the taxpayer and the Exchequer will be greater.

The Government’s proposal does not make financial sense, and it leaves the providers of supported housing in an invidious position. I know that housing providers—I have met many of them—breathed a collective sigh of relief when the decision to cap support was delayed pending a review, but they are still left in a very precarious position, with the sword of Damocles hanging over the services they provide.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne pointed out in a debate in the House on 27 January, unless the Government reverse this pernicious proposal, 156,000 units of supported and sheltered housing may have to close.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Crabb]

The Government have not said that they are going to scrap attendance allowance. We are looking at options for devolving it to the local authority level, but we have been absolutely clear that this does not mean a cut to supporting attendance allowance. It is about looking at more effective ways of delivering it at the local level to achieve what it is intended to achieve.

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

2. What assessment he has made of the potential effect of the UK leaving the EU on British pensioners living overseas.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Shailesh Vara)]

There will be no immediate changes, as a result of the referendum, in the circumstances of British pensioners. Negotiations for Britain’s future relationship with Europe will begin under the new Prime Minister.

[Mr Cunningham]

What discussions has the Minister had with European countries about the exchange rate and its effect on pensioners abroad?

[Mr Vara]

As I say, the negotiations proper will begin when we have a new Prime Minister. In the meantime, we have a European unit that has been set up in the Cabinet Office, and it will report to the new Cabinet in due course.

Disability Employment Gap

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Crabb]

We can get on to that later in the debate. The truth is that ESA has not worked in the way that was intended when it was set up by the previous Labour Government. When John Hutton created ESA, it was with a view to seeing 1 million people with disabilities and long-term health conditions get back into work. It has not done anything like that. The truth is that for those people who are in the work-related activity group, there are better ways to get them the support they need and to help them back into work. The incentives are not in place.

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

What percentage of the workforce in this country has disabilities, or, to put it another way, what percentage of people with disabilities are part of the workforce?

[Stephen Crabb]

There are different ways of measuring that, but around one in six people have a disability. I will come on to explain why those figures will go up and what challenges that will present to us as a society. It is a mark of the extent of our ambition as a Government that we have a commitment to halve the disability employment gap. That is exactly the right vision to have, but we are in no doubt that the challenges are both profound and complex.

The employment rate for those who are not disabled is currently 80%; for disabled people it is 47%. That is not just a gap of 33 percentage points, but a gap in the life chances of disabled people up and down the country. It is a gap that has persisted for too long. The barriers that disabled people have built up over many years will take time to break down. I am clear that, for far too long, too many have not had the right support or been given the opportunity of work. Very often they are parked on benefits, cast aside and forgotten about. That is not good enough.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Monday 9th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justin Tomlinson]

I thank the hon. Lady for the constructive engagement. I am keen to listen to as many experiences from different organisations as possible. This is an incredibly important area of work for me, and I would be very happy to have a meeting with her if she would like to contribute.

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

11. If his Department will introduce transitional protection for women adversely affected by changes in the state pension age.

[Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

12. If his Department will introduce transitional protection for women adversely affected by changes in the state pension age.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Shailesh Vara)]

Women affected by changes made in 2011 face a maximum increase in state pension age of 18 months, rather than two years, as a result of a Government concession, and will retire under the new state pension, which will be more generous for many than the previous system. No further transitional arrangements are planned.

[Mr Cunningham]

Will the new Secretary of State look again at these transitional arrangements? Will he also see whether or not the cost of this could be offset by some adjustments in his budget?

[Mr Vara]

The Secretary of State made it absolutely clear earlier in these questions that he has no intention of revisiting this issue.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

I support Lords amendment 1, which deals with child poverty reporting obligations, and amendments 8 and 9, which relate to the proposed cuts in the employment and support allowance work-related activity component and the universal credit equivalent.

Lords amendment 1 places a reporting obligation on the Secretary of State, requiring an annual report on child poverty to be laid before the House. The amendment stipulates that the report must include information on the percentage of children living in poverty as originally described in the Child Poverty Act 2010, and based on household income and material deprivation.

The Bishop of Durham, who moved the amendment in the Lords, emphasised the importance of income to an understanding of child poverty and children's wellbeing and life chances. He said that income measures would not supplant the Government's other measures relating to worklessness and educational attainment. These measures will ensure that the income-based measures of child poverty, which have been collected in the UK and other developed countries for decades, will be retained, allowing year-by-year comparisons and holding the Government to account.

Various charities, including the Children's Society, the Child Poverty Action Group and End Child Poverty, have called on the Government not to abandon the income-based measures of child poverty, as has the Equality and Human Rights Commission. In a letter published in The Times today, 177 child health academics have written in support of retention of those measures. Even UNICEF has urged the Government to retain the income-based measures that are used in the 35 OECD countries, and that allow inter-country comparisons.

As has already been mentioned, the Government’s own 2014 evidence review of the drivers of child poverty found that a lack of sufficient income from parental employment—not just worklessness—was the most important factor standing in the way of children being lifted out of poverty. Even the Minister, in a recent Westminster Hall Debate, acknowledged that

“Income is a significant part of this issue, but there are many other causes as well.”—[Official Report, 26 January 2016; Vol. 605, c. 72WH.]

The Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission’s 2015 annual report found that 2.3 million children were living below what is currently defined as the child poverty line, and the Resolution Foundation has estimated that in 2016 alone a further 200,000 children, predominantly from working households, will fall into poverty. That is on top of the projections of the Institute for Fiscal Studies that the falls in child poverty at the beginning of the century risk being reversed. The 1% uprating of benefits by itself in 2013 was estimated to have pushed 200,000 more children into poverty.

Given the Bill and the four-year benefit freeze, it is entirely probable that the increase in child poverty will rise even more steeply. A recent inquiry by the all-party parliamentary group on health in all policies into the impacts of the Bill on child poverty and health showed clearly that it could lead to an increase in the number of children facing the misery and hardship of poverty by as many as 1.5 million by 2020.

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

I am sure my hon. Friend will agree that there are one or two things that we cannot allow Ministers to get away with. Tax credit, for example, was introduced by a Labour Government because the Conservative Government had done nothing about child poverty in the 1990s. More importantly, the Government say they want to get people into work, but in actual fact people who do get into work get zero-hours contracts, and women cannot get child tax credits as the Government have cut that. So much for doing something about child poverty! In Coventry there are 18,000 people using food banks. The Government are doing nothing about child poverty.

[Debbie Abrahams]

My hon. Friend makes some very valid points and I am going to come on to some of them in a moment.

The implication of these measures in terms of the future health and wellbeing of children is stark. There is overwhelming evidence that child poverty has a direct causal impact on worsening children’s social, emotional and cognitive outcomes. One witness to the all-party inquiry said:

“As children’s lives unfold, the poor health associated with poverty limits their potential and development across a whole range of areas, leading to poor health and life chances in adulthood, which then has knock-on effects on future generations.”

There was unanimous agreement from those who provided evidence to the all-party inquiry that although there is a positive correlation between worklessness and educational attainment and poverty, they are not indicators or measures of poverty. Let me reiterate that two thirds of children in poverty are from working families.

Work Capability Assessments

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 9th February 2016 Westminster Hall

[Louise Haigh]

I could not agree more, and I will come on to that issue.

This is about providing not just a good-quality service for clients, but best value for money for the taxpayer. As I said, when one side is trying to cut costs and another is employed to maximise profit, something has to give. As report after report has identified, the contractors that the Government have employed to carry out cuts have been anything but successful. They have presided over failure after failure. There has been poor performance, a disregard for vulnerable people and, in this new age of outsourcing, a total lack of accountability for Government and operator alike.

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

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this timely debate. The cost to the taxpayer is some £80 million this year, up by £24 million on last year. Does she agree that these private companies are taking the taxpayer for a ride?

[Louise Haigh]

Again, I completely agree with my hon. Friend, and I thank him for that intervention. The contractors continue to get paid despite repeated failures. Even worse, after being deemed unfit to perform in relation to one contract, contractors simply get to continue with another lucrative long-term deal, as Atos has done. After failing to handle the work capability assessments contract, it is still running a seven-year contract for personal independence payment assessments for the same Department. Now Maximus is failing to meet a range of key targets—targets that, importantly, put far greater emphasis on saving money than on meeting the needs of people who unjustifiably suffer. Whatever the rhetoric about service quality, this is still a system designed to cut costs for the Government and maximise profit for Maximus.

We have undoubtedly all read last month’s report by the National Audit Office, but some of the figures deserve to be rehearsed. Despite the new contract—which followed Atos’s spectacular failure—being worth some £570 million a year, there is still a backlog of 280,000 employment and support allowance claims. The average cost of each individual assessment is now almost £200, and that is for a 15-minute assessment. One in 10 disability benefit claimants’ reports are rejected as below standard by the Government, compared with one in 25 when the shamed Atos was running the show.

Individuals have to wait an average of 23 weeks for a decision to be made on their benefits; there has been a huge rise in that timescale—almost a trebling—in recent years. For each person, that can and almost always does mean hardship, but the number being referred keeps rocketing as the Government, desperate to clear the books at any cost, lay the bill for clearing the deficit squarely at the door of the sick and disabled. The Government are forcing away from ESA people who need and rely on it, and the failing contractors are being overwhelmed. Despite all that undeniable pain, unbelievably, the Department is not expected to meet the initial £5.4 billion savings target originally envisaged for the 10 years to 2019-20.

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[Louise Haigh]

Of course, I completely agree. The Government’s policy sets the direction for the contractors, which is why the contractors have such a huge gap in their understanding, particularly of mental health issues.

In another case, one of my constituents applied for a home visit after being unable to make their assessment. She has now been waiting for more than two years and still has not received a date. Throughout that time, she has been surviving on a reduced rate and is struggling, as anyone would, to get by. She is just one of 280,000 people in an enormous backlog.

Despite the fact that the Government have made it notably harder for people to appeal their decisions, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle) mentioned, the latest figures show that 54% of appeals result in decisions being overturned. As in the case of the first constituent I mentioned, there seems to be an alarming trend of cases being rejected based on factual errors or even—I hesitate to say this—falsification. I have had several cases of people telling me that their assessment report bears absolutely no relation to the assessment that they experienced with Maximus or Atos. I am sure that other hon. Members have heard similar evidence. One or two cases could be dismissed as an honest mistake, but the situation appears to reveal a disconcerting pattern of behaviour that indicates that the trade-off between cost cutting and profit maximisation is being felt by very vulnerable people.

Maximus is not doing this to make a loss or out of the kindness of its heart, and it is failing on performance, which goes to the heart of the issue. Even if the Government were more concerned with the interests and wellbeing of the user, it would be extremely difficult for them to hold the contractors’ feet to the fire.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

It is good of my hon. Friend to give way to colleagues. Does the situation not demonstrate that the Government’s intention—Governments do give contractors instructions, by the way—is to cut people’s benefits, and to make the system more difficult, through the contractors, so that it is harder for people to get those benefits? If anybody wants any evidence of that, it took the House of Lords to stop a £30 cut in people’s benefits a couple of weeks ago.

[Louise Haigh]

Absolutely. Clearly, there is an attempt by the Government to drive down benefits for people who are sick and disabled, and they are using private companies to outsource that responsibility.

Even if the Government were interested in ensuring that the contractors were doing the best for sick and vulnerable people, it would be very difficult for them to be able to do so. They need to be able to trust the data that the contractor supplies if they are to hold its feet to the fire. In a 2014 report, the NAO pulled the Government up on the poor management of contracts, the level of inexperience within Departments, their naivety and their “over-reliance” on data supplied by contractors in the management of performance.

Although some much-needed changes have been made since the calamitous Atos contract and that 2014 report, old habits die hard and inexperience in managing contracts remains a major issue for the Department. Although we know that contractors are performing poorly against a range of measures, because of the helpful insight we get from the NAO once in a while, assessment across the full range is not always forthcoming.

Across a range of vital measures, it is up to us to trust that the Department is doing the job and that Maximus is supplying the right information. They include the number of face-to-face complaints following an interview; the number of serious complaints; the percentage of face-to-face consultations without complaints, which is supposed to be at 99.5%; and the target of 100% payment of travel expenses within nine working days. Those targets are all noble and sensible, but there is no regular method for publishing whether they are met. That is why we talk about a democratic deficit in outsourced public services, the costs of which have rocketed since 2010 to almost £120 billion, covering vast swathes of services that we all rely on.

What exactly is the point in setting targets if the public cannot see whether they are being achieved? A supplier could manipulate the data, and we would have to rely on an overstretched Department to pick it up. Let us not pretend that that would be unusual or unprecedented. In 2007, Maximus was fined $30.5 million over accusations that it had cheated Medicaid in the United States by making tens of thousands of false claims on a payment by results contract. Maximus effectively stole money from US taxpayers by making claims for children who had not received care. After that was exposed, Maximus said it would not sign any more contingency-based contracts where it was paid from savings in state expenditure, but the contract we are discussing is just such a contingency-based payment by results contract.

In 2007, Maximus was sued by the state of Connecticut for the abject failure of its computer system, which was supposed to run a police database, including real-time police record checks. The state’s attorney general said:

“Maximus minimized quality—squandering millions of taxpayer dollars and shortchanging law enforcement agencies.”

He said that the database could

“make a life and death difference to police and other law enforcers”,

so the failure was unacceptable. In 2012, Maximus settled the case for $2.5 million. While the US sues companies such as Maximus, which spectacularly fail to deliver the contracts they are required to, we continue to hand over billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money.

We have an original policy based on a flawed and myopic view of the sick and disabled, and handed down by the Government to catch contractors that are undeniably failing. Meanwhile, the public’s right to know what is going on is limited by commercial confidentiality. We will all be forgiven for not wanting simply to trust that all is well when our constituents tell a different story and when well documented scandals seem to play on a loop.

Will the Minister commit to publishing regular updates to Parliament on Maximus’s performance against its targets? Will she release the latest spending on WCA appeals, given that the figures in the public domain date back to 2012, and when the contract comes up for renewal in three years’ time, will she release a cost-benefit analysis of bringing the service back in-house? Finally, will she confirm what steps are being taken to bolster the experience of civil servants in her Department overseeing contracts of this magnitude, to ensure that they are delivering the best possible service to vulnerable people and the best possible value for money to the taxpayer?

The fundamental problem is that regardless of which hapless and dubious provider is dragged in, and regardless of the operating system and oversight of the WCA, the need of extremely vulnerable individuals simply cannot come in third place behind a need to cut costs and maximise profit. Is not the lesson of this whole sorry episode and the episode before it that profit has no place in assessing need?

Oral Answers to Questions

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point and for his observations from his own constituency. He is right to say that more support can always be provided for women on ESA, but also for people in general on it. That is why this Government are committed to the reforms that we have outlined. Importantly, we are committed to working in partnership with other organisations, including charitable organisations—as well as local authorities—such as the one my hon. Friend mentioned from his own constituency.

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

What is the Minister doing to help women on zero-hour contracts to get tax credits?

[Priti Patel]

The most important and significant thing we have done as a Government in respect of zero-hours contracts is to abolish the exclusivity clauses, which the hon. Gentleman’s party, when in government, did absolutely nothing about.

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[Priti Patel]

I thank my hon. Friend for making this point about the great work that is taking place in his constituency. I absolutely endorse his commitment to holding apprenticeship and jobs fairs, because they are the gateway to new jobs and employment opportunities for many young people. I commend him for the work that he is doing.

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

T7. May I ask the Minister to speed up the review process for benefit claimants who have been sanctioned or whose claims are being investigated? Over the Christmas period, a number of my constituents, despite having done everything right, ended up having to borrow money to get through that period because of delays. In some cases, this has happened after the Christmas period as well.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

None of that should actually happen. There are now loans available immediately, so if someone has been sanctioned they are immediately told about hardship loans, which are advertised inside jobcentres. Delay times have fallen to their lowest level ever; they are far lower than they were under the previous Government. If the hon. Gentleman has an individual case in mind, he should write to us immediately or give us a call and we will help to solve the matter straight away.

Housing Benefit and Supported Housing

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Wednesday 27th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

I have listened and I am afraid that the hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) exemplifies the brand “Same Old Tories”.

Let me make it clear from the start that I am a big fan of welfare reform. I believe that as we move to the second half of this decade, we need an active welfare system. However, the difficulty I have with measures such as the bedroom tax, the local housing allowance and caps on housing benefit is that I am not convinced that they are genuine welfare reforms. They ignore the supply problems in housing, rapacious landlords and the lack of specialist supportive accommodation. We treat all tenants as if their circumstances are the same. In fact, we simply passport cuts from the Department for Work and Pensions to the Department for Communities and Local Government without any regard to the consequences.

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

This particular measure smacks of what in the 1960s we used to call “Rachmanism”. A lot of families will find themselves destitute on this route because they will not be able to pay those rents. It is a private landlord’s charter to make money.

[Steve McCabe]

Almost everyone now realises that we cannot have action on housing benefit without having action on rents. That is self-evident.

We are having this debate because those who are the targets of this change are not the workshy and the feckless. Too many of them are vulnerable people—the very people that many of us, including many Conservative Members, came into politics wanting to help, such as elderly people no longer fit to wholly look after themselves, veterans, youngsters leaving care and those fleeing domestic violence. The National Housing Federation claims the Chancellor’s changes could cost some people up to £60 a week, enough to force them to leave their accommodation and in some cases add to the growing number of casualties sleeping on our streets as a homelessness crisis sweeps our country like a plague.

The NHF also speculates that the changes may lead to the closure of thousands of homes. The kind of places we are talking about are retirement homes, active elderly establishments designed to improve the quality of life, supported accommodation and temporary accommodation. Is that really the kind of reform that Conservative Members want? There is already a 16,000 shortfall in meeting demand for supportive accommodation, and estimates say that is likely to double by the end of this Parliament.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Monday 7th December 2015 Commons Chamber

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

9. What the cost to the public purse of implementation of universal credit has been to date; and how many people have been enrolled on universal credit.

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

18. What progress he has made in rolling out universal credit; and if he will make a statement.

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[Mr Duncan Smith]

Even on the figures we have published in the past 24 hours, it is a reality that people on universal credit are much more likely to get into work, work longer and earn more money—that is the key bit. Rolling out universal credit has a massive effect on the likelihood of people entering into decent work. I also remind my hon. Friend—the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith) obviously did not want to listen to this fact—that under universal credit the childcare package is for every hour they work all the way up until the moment they leave the benefits system.

[Mr Cunningham]

What does the Secretary of State have to say about the value-for-money aspects of universal credit, given that only 2% of people have participated and it has cost £3.25 billion to introduce?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The cost of universal credit implementation has fallen: it was originally forecast to cost £2.4 billion but is now due to cost £1.7 billion. To give Labour Members a concept of what value for money looks like—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman has no idea about value for money because he has been on the Labour Benches for too long.

[Mr Cunningham]

Me?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

With respect, I meant the Labour Member sitting just below him. The number of people getting back into work directly as a result of universal credit has had a net benefit to the Exchequer of £3 billion-plus. I call that a real benefit in real terms.