Women’s State Pension Age: Ombudsman Report

John McDonnell Excerpts

Thursday 16th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I have lived this campaign for about 10 years, as have a number of other hon. Members. Today, we have heard unanimity from speakers from all political parties across the House. Unless we can get some action quickly, I despair of what parliamentary procedure is left to us. I do not want to go back to swinging the Mace about again, but something needs to happen fairly quickly because anger is building up, in the Chamber, outside and among the WASPI women.

I do not share the view of some hon. Members about the equalisation of pensions. I supported the equalisation of pensions, but not on the basis of the retirement age for women increasing. I thought we were entering a period when we would be reducing the age that men had to work until, so we would equalise pensions that way. The argument then was about whether the economy could afford it. The reason I was trying to equalise pensions by reducing men’s working age was largely for working-class people.

In many of our cities, the difference between the life expectancy of the rich and the poor is something like 20 years. We were told then that life expectancy would be continuously improving, but it has stagnated. Many people do not work in a sedentary role, so as we increase the retirement age—it is now going up to 68 and beyond—they will work until they drop. That is not acceptable, particularly in the economy that we have, where we could redistribute wealth, lower people’s retirement age and give them a decent pension.

I was involved in designing the scheme proposed in 2019. We commissioned Lord Bryn Davies, who is one of the most respected pensions experts in the country, and worked for two years with WASPI and the different groups to design the scheme. My commentary on the proposals by the ombudsman reflects some of the work that was done. We looked at a straightforward scheme. Going into individual cases would take decades, to be frank, so we looked at a flat-rate scheme for everybody, based on an average loss of £100 a week. That resulted in an average payment of £15,000, which is a lot of money. We costed it at more than £50 billion, which seemed a lot of money at the time, but it is less than a third of what the Government saved by increasing the pension age for these women. In addition, we looked at different options: should we pay it over a four or five-year period and reduce the cost to £12 billion a year. When I said during the debate that this was a large amount of money, somebody said that we had just paid out £500 billion to bail out the banks when they had crippled the economy. Then we went into 2020 and covid hit us.

[Grahame Morris]

The hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) made some excellent points, but he asked us how we could fund decent pensions and the requisite compensation. I looked up the figures. As a percentage of GDP, the UK spends 5.7% on state pensions and pensions benefits. In Italy, the figure is 16%. In France, it is 13.9%. In Denmark, it is 10.1%. The OECD average is 8.2%. By any measure, we are miles adrift.

[John McDonnell]

I also looked at what had been provided in tax cuts to some of the wealthiest in our country since 2010. It was £100 billion. I looked at how much had been given in corporate welfare benefits, and, again, it was £100 billion. Therefore, although it sounded like a lot of money at the time, in the context of fairness, it was the right amount. That is why the ombudsman’s offer of between £3,000 and £10,000 is derisory; it has to be more than that. The reason for having a flat-rate compensation scheme is for ease of administration, and I would recommend that wholeheartedly.

We have heard today about the individual hardships that people have endured. We cannot allow that to go on any further, which is why this scheme must be expedited. The ombudsman reports and is accountable to the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, on which I serve. We have considered each of the reports as they have come forward. We were critical about the delays that were taking place, so we impressed on the ombudsman the urgency of the situation. When we got the report back, we found that it had at least accepted that there had been an injustice and that there needed to be a compensation scheme. We waited with bated breath for the Secretary of State to announce at least the timescale and the timetable for that compensation scheme, but all we heard was that the Government would go away and consider it. That was weeks ago.

PACAC wrote to the Secretary of State and asked for a timetable, stressing the urgency of the matter, because, exactly as Members have said, people are dying. Some people cannot wait, because they either will literally not be here any more, or they are living in poverty and hardship.

We received a reply this week. The Secretary of State said that he would be bringing forward a statement “in due course”. What that means is nothing; it is meaningless. As a Committee, we have agreed to write again to say that that is unacceptable and that we need a clear timetable in which this matter will be addressed and proposals brought forward that we can vote on and, if necessary, amend in this House.

If this Parliament is sovereign and the Government are accountable to this House, I believe that there is a majority, an overwhelming majority, of Members who will vote for a compensation scheme that is readily accessible, and also at a level that reflects the hardship that people have suffered and the scale that most Members would want to see.

As we go into a general election, the issue will not go away. The WASPI women and their campaign will not go away. People have expressed admiration for that campaign, which is not just impressive; it is terrifying. Unless a proposal is brought forward, it will become an election issue. I think people’s votes will stand or fall in many constituencies on the basis of the decision coming out of all the political parties. Voters will, however, blame the Government the most, because there is an opportunity now, as others have said, to make a statement by the recess with a timetable for implementation. We could almost certainly agree the funding. We looked at how to raise the funds. Some could be borrowing, but the Government normally have contingencies for legal liabilities. This is a legal liability. We have the opportunity to act now, and I urge the Government to wake up and listen to what the whole House is saying. If today’s response is not satisfactory, we will be back next week, and if necessary every day until the recess until we get some sense out of the Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Maynard]

Sorry, I won’t.

During the course of the ombudsman’s investigation, state pension age changes were considered by the courts. In 2019 and 2020, the High Court and Court of Appeal respectively found no fault with the actions of DWP. The courts made clear that under successive Governments dating back to 1995, the action taken was entirely lawful and did not discriminate on any grounds. During those proceedings, the Court of Appeal held that the High Court was entitled to conclude as a fact that there had been

“adequate and reasonable notification given by the publicity campaigns implemented by the Department over a number of years”.

We recognise the importance of providing information in good time about the state pension age to help individuals to plan for their retirement. Since 1995, the Government have used a range of methods to inform people about the increases in state pension age, including the provision of detailed and personalised information. The methods have included leaflets explaining the legislative changes, pensions education campaigns, press advertising and direct mailing exercises to millions of people. People have been able to request personalised state pension information since the 1980s.

[John McDonnell]

We do not know the timing of the general election—possibly November, but maybe later—but it is likely that we will have only about 10 sitting weeks between now and a general election. Can I impress on the Minister to take back to his fellow Ministers that we need the proposals rapidly in those 10 weeks, and certainly before recess, if we are to get a viable scheme through Parliament?

[Paul Maynard]

I am happy to confirm that I will take that message back. I have heard it clearly today. I understand the points about the Work and Pensions Committee’s findings, too. The right hon. Gentleman will have heard the Secretary of State—and me, in oral questions on Monday—say that we wish to have no undue delay. That remains the case. I recognise that people are frustrated by that phrase, but it is an accurate phrase. We do not wish undue delay. As I keep saying, it is a complex issue. It is not just a matter of ticking a box. It needs to be gotten right, and we understand all the ramifications and options that are open to us.

Between April 2000 and February 2021, the DWP provided more than 41.2 million personalised state pension statements, and it continues to do so. As well as issuing letters to the 6.9 million women and men born in the 1950s notifying them of the state pension age increase, the DWP sent around 17.8 million automatic state pension forecasts between 2003 and 2006, which included a leaflet explaining that the state pension age for women was increasing.

As I have outlined, the Government recognise the importance of this issue. The ombudsman report has been laid before Parliament, and we have been invited to take a view and engage with this issue. Today is one part of that. We will listen to the views of the House with great seriousness. The report is currently being given active and extensive consideration within the Department, by me and by the Secretary of State. We will seek to provide a further update without, as I say, undue delay, and I hope to give the issue the airing that it deserves as soon as that is practically possible.

Health and Disability Reform

John McDonnell Excerpts

Monday 29th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to talk about the importance of work in the context of mental health. That is my strongly held belief. He is also right to raise the issue of the fiscal sustainability of our welfare system. If the public are to continue to have confidence in that system, we must get the balance right between the requirements of the taxpayer and our absolute determination to support those most in need of help.

The right hon. Gentleman asked a specific question about the Northern Ireland Executive. He is right: it is possible for Northern Ireland to decide to manage its benefits in a different way to England. That is not traditionally what has happened. Traditionally, Northern Ireland has followed the moves that we have made. As to discussions, absolutely, there are always close, ongoing discussions between my Department and our counterparts in Northern Ireland.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State has said that the Government’s approach is fair and compassionate. Can he tell me what is compassionate about the language used by the Prime Minister over the past fortnight, when he has referred to a “sick note culture”, implied that people who are forced to rely on benefits do so as a lifestyle choice, and, today, talked about the arrests, seizures and crackdowns on benefits claimants? The Disability Poverty Campaign Group, which comprises the major charities that we have all worked with, described the speech as “chilling”, “threatening” and “stigmatising”. Does the Secretary of State not realise that the language that the Prime Minister has used increases prejudice against disabled people and contributes to the escalation of hate crime against disabled people?

[Mel Stride]

The Prime Minister shares my view, which is that it is really important that we achieve the best possible outcomes for the people whom we are discussing in this statement. He cares a great deal, and I think he said at the end of his speech that he wanted to help many people, some of whom are watching the screen flickering away while their opportunities drift off into the distance—or words to that effect. That speaks from the heart. That says that we have a Prime Minister who cares deeply that opportunities in our society should be made as widely available as possible. That is a view, a characteristic and a quality that I admire and that I share with him.

Disability Benefits

John McDonnell Excerpts

Tuesday 26th March 2024 Westminster Hall

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I will try to be as brief as possible, so that others can contribute. Before I come to the general topic, I want to make one specific point to reinforce what my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) said.

I am a champion for Action for ME, the myalgic encephalomyelitis campaign. The organisation has written to a number of us to emphasise its concerns about how narrow PIP assessments are. ME sufferers are losing the ability to access the relevant benefits themselves as a result. They are simply asking the Minister to commit to what the previous Minister committed to, which was to meet them so that they can work to co-produce a system that enables them to have full access. I dealt with my first ME case about 25 years ago, when ME was not recognised and there was a lot of stigma attached to it. These people have suffered on the quiet. It behoves the Government to sit down with that group and work through the process.

I want to take the debate up where my hon. Friend left off: on the impact of the system on individuals. Those who were at the Select Committee might recall the evidence that was provided with regard to Michael O’Sullivan. I dealt with his case 10 years ago; I met his family, the lovely Anne-Marie and Declan. He had suffered mental health difficulties and had attempted suicide already. He was then assessed; he was declared fit for work, and he could not cope with it. He committed suicide. That was 10 years ago.

Some Members will know John Pring from the Disability News Service, who performs an excellent role monitoring cases and providing information to many of us. He has particularly monitored recent cases that relate to people coming under pressure when seeking to apply for universal credit. He gave three examples from the past couple of years. I will give brief details; I will not use any names.

A disabled woman who was left traumatised by the daily demands of universal credit took her own life. Days earlier, she had been told that she would need to attend a face-to-face meeting with a work coach. She would shake and cry every time she had to log on to her universal credit journal, which she had to do every weekday to check whether she had received instructions and to avoid a sanction. She had already had a six-month sick note from her doctor explaining that she was not fit to work, but she was expected to go through the whole process, and she could not cope with it. The DWP was told about her mental distress, her suicidal thoughts and her fear of the Department. She took her own life.

There was another suicide months later. Someone had a long history of depression and anxiety and had been engaging with mental health services. He had been detained under the Mental Health Act 1983; he was then discharged. A psychiatrist who saw him two days before he took his own life told the inquest that he believed that the anxiety had been exacerbated by the whole process of the universal credit application.

Another person died a month after taking an overdose that caused irreversible damage to her liver. The coroner did not believe that she intended to take her own life, but nevertheless the coroner wrote a prevention of future deaths report to the DWP highlighting how the DWP had failed in its duty to maintain protection.

I raise those cases because John Pring and others had to put in a freedom-of-information request to get a report that was produced by the Prime Minister’s implementation unit on the harm caused by the process and the suicides that were taking place. It was four years before that report was produced. It had been covered up in the PMIU, and publication was prevented. Some of us have been calling for that report on the Floor of the House of Commons, but we have been denied access. We were calling for it because there were recommendations in it about the duty of care that the Department owed to people identified as vulnerable, and specific actions needed to be put in place. There is a further report that should be produced with full openness and transparency. I commend Disabled People Against Cuts, which has run a campaign year in, year out about the issue.

When it comes to disability benefits for PIP, the work capability assessment, the application process for universal credit and the pressures that people are put under, the system is putting lives at risk. What Anne-Marie called for, which I think is right, is a statutory duty of care to be placed upon the Department, with particular regard to vulnerable people. I also agree with Anne-Marie and others that there should be an independent public inquiry into the harm the Department has done over the last 14 years through the brutal way benefits have been administered, particularly for those who are vulnerable with mental health problems.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Women’s State Pension Age

John McDonnell Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

The report is absolutely clear that the DWP’s systemic failure is that it did not even draw upon and learn from its own research into the failure of communication with those women. In addition, it did not investigate properly and respond to the complaints. That is straightforward in the report. Perhaps as a warning, I say to the Secretary of State that the anger out there will be not that he has not come up with a scheme immediately, but that he has not even acknowledged the failings of his own Department. That is why the report recommends that Parliament deal with this matter. Members of this House share the same feelings as the ombudsman and the WASPI women: we have no confidence in the Department for Work and Pensions to resolve its basic failure of decades ago.

[Mel Stride]

The right hon. Gentleman refers to one part of the report’s findings, where the ombudsman found maladministration but did not find injustice. The point that I have made to others in the House is that we need to look at this report properly. It is a report of 100 pages, to which my Department provided 1,000 pages of evidence, and which we received on Thursday. The only thing I can do responsibly is come to the House and make it clear that we will act without undue delay and interact with Parliament in an appropriate manner, exactly as we did with the ombudsman.

State Pension Changes: Women

John McDonnell Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2024 Westminster Hall

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

Sometimes we do not have a collective memory in Parliament. I will briefly go through some of the history of the last 10 years in which I and others have been dealing with this issue, because we need to learn its lessons.

In debates held here in 2015 we recognised the immense suffering people had gone through and the injustice of the case itself. Between 2015 and 2017 we tried to ger cross-party agreement for a compensation scheme, but it was rejected. As shadow Chancellor at the time I met with all the various campaigning groups, including the WASPI women, and we asked Bryn Davies—now Lord Bryn Davies—a prime pensions expert in the field, to develop a scheme, which we brought forward in 2019. In a normal electoral cycle it would have been implemented by agreement, hopefully by 2020-21, but it was not, as we had an election campaign at that time.

The scheme balanced compensation with ready implementation and was relatively straightforward and simple. However, at the time the argument against it was cost—that at £12 billion a year over a four-year period it was too expensive. The Government had already saved £200 billion from those affected women; £48 billion may well have seemed expensive, but I remind people that at that time interest rates were on the floor.

The compensation scheme was relatively cheap, would have been paid over a limited period of time and would have delivered compensation to those women. I believed it was a legal contingent liability anyway and that it should have been brought forward from the Contingencies Fund, even if we were then forced to borrow, relatively cheaply. Had that happened, that scheme would have been paid out by now and the affected women would have been compensated. The 216,000 women who have died would have received something—but tragically they are now lost.

The conclusion is that I do not want to be here in another five or 10 years’ time arguing the case. I agree with the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely): we have the autumn statement. A relatively simple scheme should be brought forward so that the money can get out the door very quickly. I fear there is no sense of urgency from the Government, so we must create a cross-party sense of urgency. My other fear is that the ombudsman will bring forward its final report and the compensation levels offered will be trivial, which would be unacceptable given the suffering that people have gone through.

I appeal to the Government to listen to hon. Members on both sides of this House. The Government rejected and opposed the our earlier scheme, and by doing so they have probably enhanced the cost of compensation now. Let us grasp the nettle. Sometimes tackling injustices can be expensive, but it is right.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Maynard]

I have already given way, and I am running out of time. I do apologise.

I have listened carefully to the arguments that have been made today. I would like to set out further the range of support available both for those making provision for their retirement and for those who have reached state pension age.

In 2016, the state pension was reformed with the introduction of a new state pension to be simpler and more sustainable. It had the clear objective of providing the foundation for private saving. In this way, the state provides a base to which people can add to provide the pension they want through their retirement.

The new state pension improves outcomes for many women, carers and self-employed people, who often did less well in the past. State pension outcomes are projected to equalise for men and women more than a decade earlier than they would have under the old system. On average, women receiving the new state pension receive about £18 a week more than women under the pre-2016 system. Under the new state pension system, women currently receive an average of 97% of the amount that men receive, compared with 85% under the pre-2016 system.

Automatic enrolment has helped millions more women to save with a pension, many for the first time. Participation rates for women are catching up with those for men. Pensions participation among eligible women working in the private sector was at 86% in 2022, up from 40% in 2012.

Pension credit is extra money to help with daily living costs for people over state pension age and on a low income. It tops up a person’s other income to a minimum of £201.05 a week for single pensioners and £306.85 a week for couples. People with a severe disability, carers and those who are responsible for a child or young person who lives with them can get more. Pension credit can also include extra amounts for certain housing costs such as ground rent or service charges. The pension credit case load is just under 1.4 million people, of whom 66% are female; in fact, of the total case load, 63% are single women. People receiving pension credit may also get help with other costs, including rent, via housing benefit, and council tax.

The latest statistics show that by 2021-22, the poverty rate for pensioners had decreased by two percentage points since 2010. For both female and male pensioners, there was a decrease of two percentage points over the same period. In 2021-22, there were 200,000 fewer pensioners in absolute poverty, after housing costs, than in 2010. By 2024-25, working-age and extra-costs disability benefit rates will increase by 6.7%, and relevant state pension rates, including the standard minimum guarantee in pension credit, by 8.5%, following the 10.1% increase in April 2023.

[John McDonnell]

Will the Minister give way?

[Paul Maynard]

I am about to conclude, because I have only a minute left before the hon. Member for Strangford needs to have his concluding say.

I thank the hon. Member for Strangford for raising such an important issue, which I know concerns very many people—thousands across each of our constituencies. I have the greatest sympathy for anyone who has found themselves in difficult circumstances, but I believe that the welfare state can be and is effective in providing support for those who need it. In particular, there is a range of established support that this Government provide for people either nearing or over state pension age. Additionally, we have made cost of living payments available to those who are most vulnerable.

As I have outlined, the Government take the matter of state pension age extremely seriously. The Department is committed to giving the best service it can, and we will very carefully consider the ombudsman’s final report.

Disability Action Plan

John McDonnell Excerpts

Monday 5th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mims Davies]

Diolch yn fawr—and iechyd da! That is a fantastic opportunity for those local children to have a really inclusive and positive playground. This afternoon, I wrote to my counterparts in the Welsh Government to tell them about the plan, and to thank them for their engagement. We want to support action in all playgrounds to make sure disabled children and their families have that sense of belonging and that experience, and there is no greater sense of belonging than when it comes to Ynys Môn. We want to make sure that learning comes from play, which is why, when that splash pad is being designed, the portal and the best practice could make it more inclusive than anyone could have dreamed of before today.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

Will the action plan address the specific issue raised by the excellent John Pring of the Disability News Service, which is the 14-year pattern of the DWP dismissing the concerns expressed by coroners over the deaths of disabled claimants?

[Mims Davies]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for the point he makes. Of course, we in our Department deal with some very vulnerable people in very difficult situations, but this is a time of 30-plus actions and some changes that are extremely positive. We have made sure that we have put safeguarding at the heart of what we do, and I will write to him specifically about that matter.

Social Security

John McDonnell Excerpts

Wednesday 31st January 2024 Commons Chamber

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

I start by welcoming the uprating order, including the uprating of the local housing allowance, which has been frozen for over 10 years now. That is a significant move forward, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) said, we need to recognise the context in which this apparently positive uprating is being brought in. We need to look at what has happened since 2010, particularly the various cuts and freezes to working-age support over the past 14 years.

I was going through some figures just before the debate started, and I noted that between 2010 and 2012, the uprating was about 1.5%; between 2012 and 2016, it was 1% a year, and between 2016 and 2020 it was zero. Of course, the average annual CPI increase for each of those years was about 3%. That is the context. There has been a steady and consistent erosion in the value of social security, and this has affected universal credit, jobseeker’s allowance, employment and support allowance, income support, housing benefit, child tax credits, working tax credits and child benefits.

The Resolution Foundation estimated at the time that this was the equivalent of a cut of over £20 billion a year. That is £20 billion a year taken out of the support for working-age people. What is not well understood is that these are predominantly people in low-paid work; yes, a small proportion of people are on unemployment support or in long-term unemployment, but they are a tiny fraction of the population. This is predominantly support for people in low-paid work.

The hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden), a fellow member of the Select Committee, mentioned the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s “UK Poverty 2024” report. I invite people to read it, and if they cannot read the whole document, they should read the summary. It is absolutely shocking. The headlines are that levels of relative poverty now are equivalent to those we had before the pandemic. The Government prefer to talk about absolute poverty because that is to their advantage, but in terms of relative poverty, we are back to where we were before the pandemic. So that everyone understands, what happened during the pandemic—who was affected, where was affected—reflected that poverty; those inequalities drove who was going to get ill. They drove what happened during the pandemic, and now we are back there, not having learned very much.

There are 14.5 million people living in relative poverty, of whom 6 million are in deep poverty. Deep poverty describes people who are living on less than 40% of median income. My fellow Select Committee member mentioned another level below that: very deep poverty. That is even worse poverty. The average income of somebody in very deep poverty is 59% below what we recognise as the relative poverty level. How on earth can we think that is acceptable in this country? We heard last year about the increase in destitution, which is another category altogether. There is deep poverty, very deep poverty and—the worst of the worst—destitution. The number of people in destitution has doubled, meaning there are 3.8 million people who cannot afford to meet their basic physical needs to stay warm, dry and clean, and to feed themselves.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South talked about the children in the families who are affected. For every 1% increase in child poverty, 5.8 extra children out of 100,000 live births—I apologise for the fractions—will not reach their first birthday. That is the consequence of poverty. For those who survive, poverty affects every aspect of their development, including how their brains are wired, how they will develop and their attainment at school. It is a disgrace that we have such levels of poverty in this country.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

We have this debate every year and it becomes increasingly distressing. For me, one of the most distressing statistics this year is the European comparison of growth rates: the height of children in this country is now falling behind the height of children in Europe. What does that mean? That is not a cosmetic issue, but one that concerns the health of the child and their ability to flourish.

Musculoskeletal Conditions and Employment

John McDonnell Excerpts

Wednesday 10th January 2024 Westminster Hall

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I want to continue in the same spirit as the hon. Member for Gedling (Tom Randall). It is entertaining and sometimes enjoyable to have debates in which we just kick the Government and other political parties, but Westminster Hall debates are often a way to share information about our own experience of policy development and our constituents with the hope that the noise we make is listened to by the Minister and their advisers. We often find that there are shared issues that we can all learn from.

As the hon. Gentleman said, in the past there was almost a stigma around MSK conditions. Back pain was seen as an easy excuse to pull a sickie, when actually it is incredibly significant for individuals’ lives and, as the hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) said, for the economy overall. I congratulate my hon. Friend on putting this issue on the agenda.

I want to go through the experience of my constituency and set out what has led me to the debate. At Heathrow airport, which is in my constituency, there was almost an epidemic of back injuries among baggage handlers. Some Members may recall, when they went through the airport over the years, that there were different campaigns about the weight of the baggage. Although mechanisation was introduced, the work nevertheless involves physical exercise, so we had an epidemic of people who were going sick as a result of back pain. We went through all those allegations of people fraudulently going sick, but when we did the investigations, working with the employer and the trade unions, we discovered the scale of the back injuries over almost a generation, along with the consequences.

The lesson we learned is that, through joint campaigning with the employer, the trade unions and local health bodies, we were able to introduce practices that minimised the damage that was being done to these individual workers, even though the problem continues. For large employers, it is easier. The epidemic of back injuries in my constituency at the moment is among smaller employers, whose actions are often on the margins of legality and they fail to take reasonable care of their employees.

Through airport campaigns, which involved Unite, GMB, the Public and Commercial Services Union and other unions coming together, we found that we needed engagement with the HSE at the earliest stage. We need guidance in place that can be applied so that the employers recognise their responsibilities and the trade unions representing their members can enforce the guidance through negotiation and, if necessary, through various forms of industrial action if individual employers are not adhering to those guidelines.

This is not in any way an attack on the Government or anything like that, but I want to flag up the resourcing of HSE, which my hon. Friend raised. There is an issue here that has to be addressed. I know that individual Ministers have to fight their corner with the Treasury for resources in their patch. Whenever the Minister goes into budget negotiations for her field again, she will have cross-party support for securing additional resources for the HSE. The current denial of those resources means that inspection and intervention processes are not working as effectively as they should to prevent actions that put people’s livelihoods in danger as a result of back injuries. One problem is that small companies are infrequently inspected these days, which means that incidents are arising where companies are ignoring basic guidelines set out by the HSE.

With regard to incidence, my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West has set out the scale of the problems. I want to congratulate Versus Arthritis, which works so hard. We are all drawing on the briefing we received from the organisation.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend, who is a near neighbour of mine as a Heathrow MP, is making a powerful case. He mentioned Versus Arthritis, of which my constituent, Julian Worricker —as a media person, you will know him, Dame Caroline —is a champion, as am I. My right hon. Friend talked about big or large employers. Some of their advice is well intentioned, such as the information on diet for people with arthritis, saying they should have oily fish, omega 5, extra virgin olive oil and all this healthy stuff. In a cost of living crisis, that may be difficult for people to buy when it is so much cheaper to get Iceland stuff for 99p or whatever it is, with loads of fat in it. Does my right hon. Friend agree with me?

[John McDonnell]

I am glad my hon. Friend has raised that matter in advance of my raising it. Poverty almost certainly relates to that, as it does to work practices, particularly with regard to hours of work. Fatigue then leaves people open to making mistakes at work, particularly around handling goods, heavy lifting and not following practices because they are just so tired. In addition, my hon. Friend’s point about diet is fundamental. A number of constituents have seen me and said, “This is the advice from my local doctor or whoever about what I should be eating, but I literally can’t afford it,” or they do not have the support they need to enable them to go on a path of healthier living and a healthier diet.

Versus Arthritis also made the point that for many of our constituents with these injuries, in the winter conditions, the cold affects them. There is nothing in the financial support that we give people that reflects or effectively deals with the incidence of cold. From the briefing we have all received, for my constituency the figure is 15,000 people. In other words, one in six people in my constituency have some form of condition. They are in pain, they experience fatigue and at times have restricted mobility. That is an epidemic by any calculation, and it has an impact on the economy overall. However, for many of the constituents I have met, it is also savaging their quality of life and, as a result, some of us have a sense of urgency about the need for action.

I have to raise the issue of waiting times for diagnosis and treatment, which has become a real problem. In my area, the numbers waiting more than a year for operations and interventions are better than some: the national average is 6%, whereas in my area it is 3%. We are performing better than the national average, but even 3%, which is a couple of hundred people waiting more than a year in my area, is a significant number. Hon. Members will know that when we meet those people, they are waiting in real pain and I am finding that the mental health consequences are significant too. People are desperate to support their families and they feel guilty that they are not doing so. At the same time, they are frustrated because they literally do not know what to do in that waiting period. I come to the points the hon. Member for Gedling made with regard to support and access to work. I cannot agree with him more about the significance of this. While I welcome the additional funding that has come from Government, we have found in the past—this relates to the work capability assessment, which I will come on to—a lack of expertise in assessment and advice. Exactly as the hon. Gentleman said, there is a range of conditions and, in many instances, very specific advice is needed—even at first assessment. We have to bring relevant expertise into the pathways at every stage and be capable of drawing on that, otherwise we just get things wrong. If the wrong advice is given, that adds to the pressure and stress on the individual.

The issue with the work capability assessment, which we have been dealing with since its inception, is—to be frank—the brutality of it. The regime has now become even harsher. We have been in debates here on a number of occasions, and we have even heard of suicides taking place as a result of the work capability assessment implementation. That relates to the lack of expertise in the assessment. Harsh conditions are placed on people who cannot meet those conditions, and as a result they lose their benefits. In addition to losing their benefits, there is a feeling of guilt and ostracisation in the community itself, and a stigma attached.

It is important that the Minister sits down with the Public and Commercial Services Union, which represents the civil servants administering these benefits. They are saying to us that their caseloads have increased dramatically, and that as a result they do not feel they have sufficient staff to deal with individual cases effectively. The pressure that many of their members are under is unacceptable, and the problem of being able to deal with their caseload properly has become insurmountable.

My final point is about the strategy for the future. The key thing that comes out of discussion with virtually every organisation we meet, whether it is Versus Arthritis or the Royal Osteoporosis Society, is the importance of engagement with the sufferers themselves and their representatives. It is similar to the disability principle, “Nothing about us without us.” Engagement with MSK sufferers is absolutely key to developing the future strategy. I also put in a plea for engagement with the trade unions representing many of the workers who have been involved in back injury cases and in prevention work. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) made a point about small businesses. The Federation of Small Businesses has really been helpful on a whole range of these issues, not only about how it can advise its members on best practice, but also reporting back on what it feels are impediments to getting people back into work, and the support needed for small businesses to make reasonable adjustments for people suffering from these conditions.

There is a desperate need to move forward. I welcome what additional money there is, but it will not be used effectively unless there is proper engagement with all concerned with the experience that we have had over the last generation. In my constituency, I am hoping that we can overcome the issues of access to proper advice and to health treatment, and do much more on the preventive side, because many of my constituents are disabled for life as a result of past practices.

Social Security (Additional Payments) (No. 2) Bill

John McDonnell Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 6th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Amy Callaghan]

Unfortunately, my constituency of East Dunbartonshire rivals my hon. Friend’s and has a similar statistic for sanctions. It is not a position we want to be in, especially when we know that many of our constituents are sanctioned due to legitimate reasons, such as transport issues or potentially having to take their children to school.

Any Member walking through the Lobby tonight to vote against amendment 2 is condoning the Government’s sanctions regime—in fact, they are breathing more life into it by denying the most vulnerable much-needed support. We on the SNP Benches always welcome additional support for our constituents, especially in these times, but will the Government consider whether they are offering enough? What about the Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign? Those women have been continuously let down by the failings of this British Government. They have run an incredibly powerful campaign so that politicians will listen. Are they supposed to be appeased by this additional payment? I know with certainty that they will not be.

What about UK pensioners living overseas? Will their pensions be uprated this time around? Will they receive this additional support? What about our pensioners who have remained in the UK? Additional support for them is of course welcome, but it highlights a glaring need for a concerted effort, or a more concerted effort, around the uptake of pension credit, of which £3 million goes unclaimed each year in my constituency of East Dunbartonshire alone. Hopefully that will be less this year, given the effort by me and my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin). When will we see a much more active campaign directly reaching out to pensioners, encouraging them to sign up for pension credit?

What about single-parent families, already discriminated against by the British Government’s child maintenance system, which charges them to access money they are entitled to and places vulnerable women at further risk of manipulation and abuse? Where is the relief from their deductions? What about young parents on universal credit? They face the young parent penalty, denying them the same level of social security as parents over 25. Where is the relief from their deductions?

These additional payments are welcome, particularly against the backdrop of this Tory cost of living crisis and a fundamentally broken social security system, but these payments need to be made with the highest degree of urgency, and a timescale would be much appreciated. If the Government wanted to make a real difference, they could reintroduce the uplift to universal credit and extend it this time to legacy benefits. I urge Members to vote for our amendment 2 tonight, to stop our constituents missing out on this much-needed support due to sanctions being imposed upon them.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

Welcome back, Dame Eleanor. You can gauge from the warmth of the response how much you have been missed. Pass on my thanks also to that young whippersnapper they appointed to act on your behalf, the right hon. Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale). I say that, but then I realise that Hansard has no irony, does it?

Social Security (Additional Payments) (No. 2) Bill

John McDonnell Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 21st February 2023 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

Although no one will oppose the Bill today, it is important to put it in the context of what many of our constituents are experiencing at the moment, because it does mean that they will bear a significantly greater burden.

Last year the household energy cap was £2,500, and people on means-tested benefits received £650 plus the £400 universal payment. This year the cap will be £3,000, and yes, people on means-tested benefits will receive £900, but the universal payment is not being renewed, which means that they will suffer a 45% increase in their cost burden. For households that are not entitled to means-tested support, the average household energy bill will rise again by at least 43%. So although we will not be voting against the Bill today and will support the benefits to be distributed by the Government, there will, as I have said, be a significant increase in the burden for many of our constituents.

According to National Energy Action, in October 2021 there were 4.5 million households in fuel poverty, in October 2022 the figure was 6.7 million, and by April 2023 it will have risen to 8.4 million, which means that about one in three households will be in fuel poverty. The Bill will not relieve that fuel poverty. Of those 8.4 million households, 1.8 million will be carers, 5.9 million will be low-income and financially vulnerable households, 3.6 million will be people with a disability, and 1.6 million will be households in off-gas homes—as some Conservative Members have mentioned in other debates. As we heard from my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth), this poverty is due to the fact that, for a considerable time, social security support has not kept up with either the cost of living or the rise in earnings.

I am pleased that some benefits will rise by 10.1%, but in recent decades they have fallen in real terms. I supported the triple lock, which I considered to be an excellent policy, but that was in the context of the breaking of the earnings link by Mrs Thatcher, which I opposed in the 1980s. If the earnings link had been retained, pensions would be £50 a week higher. However, it did not apply only to the state pension; it also applied to carer’s allowance. A group of carers whom I have been meeting over the last year have explained their own financial plight. If the earnings link had been retained, carer’s allowance would be almost double what it is today. With those protections, there would be fewer households in poverty and fewer dependent on the benefits that the Bill will provide. The time has come, I think, when we need to consider the advantages of applying the triple lock to all benefits in future, thus protecting people from poverty and hopefully lifting some of them out of poverty as well.

However, the origins of the current fuel poverty are not just our immediate problems with the Ukrainian war and what has happened post covid. It stemmed from the policies of Mrs Thatcher in the 1980s and the asset-stripping of our country, particularly in respect of energy and the subsequent introduction of a weak market-protecting form of regulation. Today we have Ofgem, a regulator that I and many others believe serves the interests of the companies, not the consumers. The energy companies have made excess profits, and I fully support the call from the Labour Front Bench to extend the welfare tax, because it cannot be right that we have an energy system in which companies are raking in massive profits and another 1.7 million households will be condemned to fuel poverty from April.

In addition to supporting the £900 proposed today, the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) suggested that he would be tabling amendments in Committee. I would suggest that he table an amendment that doubles the scale of support that is being provided today. The cost of providing the £900 is £7.2 billion, but the Chancellor has today been given an extra £30 billion in headroom from the outturn with regard to debt, so doubling the support provided as an emergency measure to lift people out of poverty could easily be accommodated.

I would also like to back the proposal from the former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who said last August in the negotiations with the energy companies for lower prices that those companies that could not meet the lower prices would be given equity loans up to and including taking them into full public ownership if necessary. In that way, we would protect consumers facing fuel poverty as well as protecting them by operating energy companies in the public interest, not in the interest of their shareholders.

We are spending billions of pounds on bailing out families who are being ripped off while protecting the profits of the companies that are ripping them off, and I think there is a better way. The better way is to support the extension of the windfall tax, to ensure that we cap prices at a rate that is affordable to people, to provide greater assistance to those most in need and to provide equity loans for those companies that cannot deliver. In that way, we might be able to lay the foundations for a fuller debate about how we reform our social security system.

I agree with the hon. Member for Broadland (Jerome Mayhew), in that I have consistently argued that we should tackle poverty by enabling people to go to work, but that work must be paid at a level that will lift people out of poverty. The tragedy for me is that I did not believe we would reach this era and have 4 million children in poverty, with two thirds of those children in families where someone is at work. I think that says something about the way in which we distribute the rewards of work in our society. Some of the people who work the hardest in some of the most difficult jobs have tragic levels of low pay. We will be voting to enable this Bill to go through, but so much more has to be done to tackle poverty in our society, and there is an opportunity to improve this legislation in the coming weeks to enable at least some people to heat their homes in this coming period.