Health and Disability Reform

Kirsty Blackman Excerpts

Monday 29th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

I thank my right hon. Friend very much indeed for that question and for raising the issue of her constituent. The reassurance I can give her is that we are aiming for the best outcomes. There will be a number of ways in which those best outcomes may be achieved—that is the purpose of the consultation—but it is reasonable to at least explore the issue of whether cash transfer payments are always the right solution, particularly given the growth in mental health conditions we have seen in recent times. The final point I would make is that we are absolutely interested in examples of situations where people have lifelong regressive illnesses from which, unfortunately, they are not going to recover, and to ask whether, under those circumstances, it is right to require them to go through re-assessments.

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

Following today’s statement, the announcement made a couple of weeks ago and all the proposed changes, people are scared. They are scared because they rely on these payments, which have changed their lives. They have been able to access support that they otherwise would not have been able to get. It is very clear that the announced changes are not being created by disabled people, with disabled people at their heart of the decision-making process. This is a Government consultation and then people are being asked to input into it. It is totally different from the situation in Scotland, where the adult disability payment was created with disabled people in the room talking about the best way to make the payments work and the best way to have assessment processes. Basically, the answer that came back was, “Do not do them anything like the assessment processes for PIP.”

Everybody should have the income to live with dignity, whether or not they are able to work. I am massively concerned by the comments that the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister allegedly made about people with mental health difficulties only facing the “ordinary difficulties of life”. It is very clear that anybody who is able to say that has not suffered from depression, and has not felt that absolute energy-sapping that comes alongside suffering depression or anxiety. These are real conditions. These are real things that people are struggling with. And the lack of the ability to work is just as serious for people with mental health conditions as it can be for people with physical health conditions.

I have a couple of specific questions. In relation to universal credit, it is a gateway benefit. Will the Secretary of State assure us that any changes that might be made to eligibility criteria around universal credit will be fully consulted on and fully discussed, particularly with anybody who administers benefits that are allowed through those gateway benefits?

Has the Secretary of State spoken to the Scottish Government about the creation of the adult disability payment with disabled people in the room, ensuring that at the forefront of every decision is dignity and respect? Those are the two key columns of the Scottish benefits system. The Secretary of State could learn a lot from that approach.

[Mel Stride]

I thank the hon. Lady for her response to my statement. I reassure her that disabled people will be very much involved in the process and the consultation. It will be a 12-week consultation and of course we will take them, their comments and representative organisations extremely seriously.

The hon. Lady’s comment about the importance of recognising that many, many people unfortunately suffer from very serious mental health challenges is extremely well made. I am absolutely determined that whatever conclusions we draw from the consultation, they should lead us to a position where the Government are better able to support people who are in those circumstances.

On whether there will be questions in the consultation on the passporting of PIP into other benefits, the answer is yes. That is something we are most certainly consulting on.

On the Scottish equivalent of PIP—this is, of course, a devolved matter—yes, the Department has been in discussions with the equivalent officials in the civil service and the Scottish Government. We are looking forward to considering, as I know the Scottish Government will be, the independent review of that benefit, which is being conducted at the present time.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kirsty Blackman Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

Research from the Trussell Trust reveals the devastating truth: more than half of people receiving universal credit ran out of food in January and could not afford more, and 2.4 million universal credit claimants have fallen into debt because they could not keep up with essential bills. Will the Secretary of State back the Trussell Trust’s joint campaign with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, and commit to legislate for an essentials guarantee in universal credit to reduce food bank use and ensure that everyone has a protected minimum amount of support in order to afford life’s essentials—yes or no?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

The Resolution Foundation highlights that scrapping the two-child limit would be one of the most efficient ways to drive down child poverty rates, and would lift 490,000 children out of poverty overnight. Surely one child growing up in poverty is one child too many. The Secretary of State should reverse course on this, and the Labour party should also commit to scrapping the two-child limit. Does the Secretary of State agree that no child should grow up in poverty, and will he take action to ensure that that stops now?

[Mel Stride]

The hon. Lady raises the same point as her colleague, the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald), about the two-child limit. I will not detain the House by repeating exactly the same answer, other than to agree passionately with her that one child in poverty is one too many, and to say that, although we have further to go, it is important to recognise that we have reduced the number of children in absolute poverty, after housing costs, by 400,000 since 2010.

British Sign Language

Kirsty Blackman Excerpts

Tuesday 17th October 2023 Westminster Hall

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

Thank you for chairing this debate, Ms McVey. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith) on securing it. I think this is the right time to discuss this issue and to ask the Minister pertinent questions that need answers.

I am not going to do what I often do and talk about how dreadful a job the UK Government are doing, because this is genuinely really good progress. This is a really good report highlighting the issues and making clear what needs to be done to get to a better place. All Governments have more to do in this regard.

Let me take a moment to celebrate the fact that next week will be the eighth anniversary of the passage of the historic British Sign Language (Scotland) Act 2015 by the Scottish Parliament. Our strategy, which ran from 2017 until this year—it is about to be superseded by the next one—contained 70 actions across 10 long-term BSL ambitions.

Before I go into some of the actions we are taking in Scotland, I will take a moment to recognise how unique British Sign Language is. For many people, English is not their first language; BSL is, and those are not people who have come from another country. BSL is an indigenous language throughout these islands. The Scottish Government have continued to promote and support the teaching of BSL, because it is one of Scotland’s vibrant indigenous languages. We have said that we want to make Scotland the best place in the world for a BSL user to live, work and visit, which means that people whose first or preferred language is BSL will be fully involved in daily and public life in Scotland as active, healthy citizens, and will be able to make informed choices about every aspect of their life.

As I said, we have taken 70 different actions. We have not made the progress that we would like on all of them, and there is definitely significantly more to do. As the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) mentioned, we are trying to ensure that the principle of “nothing about us without us” is enshrined in everything we do. When the Scottish social security system replaced the personal independence payment with the adult disability payment, we ensured that people with lived experience were at the table, telling us how they wanted the system improved. We are ensuring that when we consult on the new progress and action plan on British Sign Language, the deaf community will be as involved as possible, making the case for the action and improvement that they want. No Government can make good decisions if they do not have an adequate amount of lived experience informing those decisions.

We took some of our actions during the covid pandemic. For example, our former First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, said that she

“couldn’t have done my job over the past few years”

without BSL interpreters. She said:

“They were crucial in making sure that we were able to communicate properly and fully the public health messages that were so essential in the country during that time.”

We are also taking action in relation to schools and learning. The hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter) mentioned the possibility of creating a GCSE in BSL. I am not entirely sure what the equivalent is, but we in Scotland have SCQF qualifications available in British Sign Language at a number of levels. Edinburgh University is looking into introducing a primary teaching degree that includes British Sign Language, to help tackle the decline in the number of teachers who are able to teach in BSL. It is incredibly important that at all levels—whether at pre-school, primary school or secondary school, in the workplace or public life, or even in accessing shops and services—we do everything that we can to ensure that people who use BSL have access to it. We have ensured that all our colleges and universities in Scotland have a BSL plan in place, which is available both in English and in sign language.

We are also ensuring that each of our local authorities —we are not there yet—does what it can to increase access to the services they provide. In 2021, 24 of Scotland’s 32 local authorities taught BSL in primary schools—a total of 113 schools across Scotland. Obviously, we would like BSL to be taught in all 32 local authorities; as part of the action plans, our local authorities are working towards that.

I want to take this opportunity to celebrate this vibrant, dynamic and exciting language that so many of our constituents use, and to make it clear that we all have the same direction of travel. We are all trying to improve access to services, to public life and to information for users of British Sign Language. Any work that the Minister wants to do with Scotland, either to promote good practice on the part of the Government, or to learn from good practice in Scotland, would be wholly welcomed by my Scottish Government ministerial colleagues in Holyrood.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Kirsty Blackman Excerpts

Thursday 16th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

I can understand why, when it comes to policies on spending, on tax and on the Budget, we have an ideological divide across this Chamber. I can understand that the Conservatives want to go down a different route to those of us who are left of centre, but I cannot understand the experiential divide that seems to occur. I do not understand how those of us on the Opposition Benches are being approached by constituents who have lost all hope, who have nothing to look forward to and who are looking at their energy bills wondering how they are possibly going to make it through the next few days, let alone through the next few months, yet those on the Government Benches do not seem to be experiencing that. The hon. Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) said that her constituents had not lost all hope. A number of Members seem to be standing up talking about things that do not affect or are not the highest priorities for our constituents.

I have been representing communities and individuals in Aberdeen in an elected role for the past 15 years, and I have never seen such levels of desperation as those we currently face. I have never seen the numbers of people who are contacting our surgery or our office talking about suicide. I have never seen these levels of worry and debt—and I was an MP for Aberdeen when the oil price crashed, when we saw major impacts and job losses in our city.

The fact is that an absolute lack of hope is being offered, and this week’s Budget could have done something to alleviate that. The Government should have gone far further than a freeze on energy prices. They should have been looking at what people’s energy bills were previously and working to reduce them, not simply freezing them. As our leader in Westminster, my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Stephen Flynn) said yesterday, the reality for people in Scotland is not that an average household is paying £2,500—in Scotland, it is £3,500. One of the Conservative Members yesterday stood up and talked about the fact that we had had a warm winter. It was -8˚C in Scotland this week in some places. It absolutely has not been a warm winter. People are freezing, unable to afford their energy bills.

If we want to talk about and think about boosting employment, boosting jobs and boosting growth—boosting employment and boosting jobs are two different things—we need to make changes. The UK Government need to make changes in their approach. The first thing they could do, given the amount of in-work poverty, is increase the minimum wage to something that people can actually afford to live on and pay their bills with.

The reality is that that real living wage is going to have to go up, because inflation is going up. We can take the total measure of inflation and look at that, but food prices are going through the roof. The Government and the Bank of England can do what they like to reduce inflation, but no matter by how much mortgages are rising and how much people are squeezed, they will still have to buy pasta, rice and potatoes. They will not be able to stop buying those things. Inflation will continue on the things that matter the most to people, even if we manage to discourage some incredibly rich people from buying yet another fancy sports car—that is brilliant; that will really reduce inflation! That will not reduce the costs for our constituents that are currently spiralling, and it will not reduce the costs where it matters.

We need to see a proper increase in universal credit. We need to see that money that was taken away—the uplift introduced during the pandemic—reinstated. We need to see proper decision making by this Government, not their saying, “Universal credit is broken so we will increase the number of sanctions.” That does not help my constituents who are having to go to food banks or those who are working and having to have their wages topped up by universal credit. It costs the Government money to top up those wages, by the way. We could be in a situation where they increase the national minimum wage to a better level, and then they would get more tax as a result and end up in a situation where fewer people required universal credit. I do not see why that is not a win-win for the UK Government.

To create the jobs and growth that we need to see, one of the biggest things that the UK Government could do is to encourage immigration. Brexit has done what it can to reduce the number of people working in our NHS. People are talking about not being able to get a doctor’s appointment, but that is not because too many people are coming into the country; it is because of the exodus from our NHS as a result of Brexit and the way that the UK Government continue to treat doctors, nurses and anybody who comes here from another country. The Illegal Migration Bill will only add to the hostile environment that has been created.

The changes to post-study work visas will do the same. They create investment in our country, which is wonderful, so reducing them would be a significant problem. We need the Government to rethink immigration. For example, if asylum seekers, many of whom are highly qualified, are escaping desperate circumstances and want to work, were allowed to work, it would help some of our communities where there is a lack of people working.

I am pleased to see the changes that allow NHS doctors to have their pensions, but those changes should have been restricted to NHS workers—not for all doctors in the private sector or people in other roles. All the issues that I have heard from my constituents relate specifically to doctors, and that is the issue that we have raised.

On CCS, I am pleased to hear that something is happening, but the previous version of the Acorn Project was pulled by the Chancellor during a Budget speech 10 years ago. We need investment in the Acorn Project in Peterhead, Aberdeenshire.

Social Security Support for Children

Kirsty Blackman Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd November 2022 Westminster Hall

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

I thank you, Sir Christopher, for chairing the debate today. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Ms Qaisar) on bringing forward the debate and I thank all hon. Members for taking part.

My hon. Friend made some points about individual organisations in her constituency. I absolutely agree that we should thank those organisations for all the hard work they do, because they are absolutely necessary, but we can do that at the same time as saying they should absolutely not be necessary. It was good to hear about Paul’s Parcels and the work that my colleague is doing to support those organisations and the eradication of poverty in her constituency. I hope that all hon. Members are doing what they can in their constituencies, as well as putting pressure on the UK Government to try and ensure a sufficiency of social security.

Social security is about security; it is about having a secure situation where people can have positive mental health—the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) talked about people’s mental health—rather than spending every moment worrying about whether they are going to be able to feed their children tomorrow, next week or next month, and whether they will be able to afford food. We need the social security system to work and provide the safety net that it is supposed to. After a decade of Tory Government, it continues to fail and it is not getting better.

I have less optimism now for the futures of my constituents than I have ever had at any point in this job and in my previous job as a city councillor. In about 15 years in an elected role, I have never seen the levels of hardship that I see coming through the door in my constituency office, on the news and in our communities. This has not happened before.

The problem is that there is no light at the end of the tunnel right now, no matter what the Government have announced in terms of inflationary upgrades, for example. As the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) mentioned, that is a temporary measure; it is not permanent and does not provide the level of structural reform people need to afford to live. What could be more important than ensuring that kids are fed and warm? There is nothing more important.

Our Scottish Government are now into their second child poverty action plan. We had “Every child, every chance”, which ran from 2018 to 2022; we now have “Best start, bright futures” from ’22 to ’26. These plans are about putting tackling child poverty at the heart of the decision-making processes of the Scottish Government. I do not think it is too much to ask that the UK Government replicate that, and say that they care about eradicating child poverty, and therefore will have a strategy to do that and make it a central aim of their plans.

[David Linden]

More fundamental to that, though, would be if the UK Government could even start measuring child poverty, which is part of the issue. Yes, it would be great if they had a strategy to deal with it—that would be absolutely fantastic—but does my hon. Friend agree that it is alarming that the Government do not even measure child poverty? They do not realise the scale of it, other than by measuring it anecdotally, as I am sure the Minister does in his Hexham constituency when people come through the doors at his surgery on a Friday morning.

[Kirsty Blackman]

I agree. The fact that the Government are unwilling to even measure child poverty shows the lack of importance they give to this issue. If they cared as much about it as they should, they should be willing to explain, “This is what the current situation is. This is the measurement. This is how bad it is. This is how many people are suffering and how many children are in poverty in the UK in 2022”—in the UK in 2022! How can we be saying this? The UK Government need to stand up, hold up their hands and say, “This is the current situation and this is how we are going to improve it.”

I want to set out a few specific asks, some of which have been made already. As my hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and Shotts mentioned, 87% of those affected by the benefit cap are families with children. The benefit cap would need to increase by £942 to reverse the loss since 2013. Despite the fact that the Government are looking to increase it, this is only the fourth time that social security payments have risen with inflation in 10 years. If we in Scotland can find an extra £25 a week in order to provide the Scottish child payment, the UK Government, with their far vaster budget and flexibility in dealing with their fiscal situation, can surely afford to do the same. They can afford it, but they choose not to match the payments we are making in Scotland.

There is the issue of the sufficiency of social security. One in four people on social security skipped meals this summer. That was in the summer—before the additional price cap increase on electricity and gas; before the upcoming winter months when people will need to put their heating on; before people had to buy school uniforms for their children when school started again in August or September. That situation is set only to get worse, and the promise of a temporary increase in universal credit will not fix it. There is currently no way out of this. We have no certainty that there is not going to be a cost of living crisis next year. Certainly none of my constituents has that level of certainty.

Let me turn to the issue of debt repayment deductions that are made from universal credit and other benefits. We have a situation where the UK Government can take 25% off the standard allowance to reclaim debts. Sometimes, those debts are caused by overpayments that are no fault of the person, but entirely the fault of poor decision making in the DWP or job centres. To be fair, that does not happen all the time; I am just saying that sometimes it is an issue.

If the UK Government have done an assessment of social security payments and believe them to be sufficient—that people can afford to live on them—how can they justify putting in place a benefit cap or taking 25% off the standard allowance? They are saying, “This is what we believe is sufficient for people to live on, but we are just going to take a quarter of it away.” It does not make any sense. People already cannot afford to live on the social security payments they are receiving. When the amount people are getting each month is reduced because of those reductions or the benefit cap, it is even less sufficient. Again, the conditionality and sanctions in place reduce that basic minimum level of payment that people should be entitled to.

[Jim Shannon]

The hon. Lady makes an interesting point. There have been occasions where overpayments have been made to my constituents. The money has to be paid back, and they understand that. Reducing payments by 25% is very unfair. In the past, my staff and I have managed to negotiate a reduction of 10%. That option is more manageable and should be given to the person at an early stage. Does the hon. Lady feel that is the right way forward?

[Kirsty Blackman]

I am glad that the hon. Member has managed that on behalf of his constituents. That is actually not the preferred route that I would take. I would prefer to look at whether people can afford payments rather than coming up with an arbitrary percentage, which is the UK Government’s preferred choice. I would look at affordability. How much are their outgoings and incomings? Can they afford to make the debt repayments? That is what we do, and when organisations like StepChange are managing debt, they look at whether people can afford it.

[David Linden]

In my time working for Glasgow Credit Union before I was a politician, one of the things we regularly had to do when determining whether someone was eligible to borrow loans was calculate their debt ratio. Although that is required by the Financial Conduct Authority and imposed on things like credit unions, part of the problem is that the DWP does not routinely look at people’s income and expenditure. Does the hon. Member agree that the Minister should look at a debt ratio when making these decisions?

[Kirsty Blackman]

I absolutely agree. That is the way this should be taken forward, rather than setting an arbitrary percentage—whether it is 25%, 10% or whatever level. It should be done on the basis of affordability, and a debt ratio would be the preferred method; it would make sense.

One thing that I do not think has been mentioned yet is those people with no recourse to public funds. They are not in receipt of social security payments or the vast majority of payments that are available to others. We are seeing the most drastic and extreme levels of poverty experienced by some of those families, particularly refugee and asylum-seeking families. We are seeing children and families who literally cannot afford any food, and I just cannot believe that the UK Government are unwilling to make any change to the system of no recourse to public funds, because what people are going through is horrendous.

The UK Government stand up and say, “Oh well, it’s fine. They can just go home to whatever country they came from.” Generally, people who are here having made an asylum or human rights claim are here because it is worse in the country they came from and because their children are in danger if they go back. In fact, no recourse to public funds sometimes applies to people who are stateless—they have no country to go back to. It is a horrendous situation, and the UK Government need to fix it.

[Ms Qaisar]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent contribution. On that specific point, I recently visited Manston and saw harrowing scenes of a tent full of families with young children. Those kids should have been playing in nursery; they should have been in a safe area. Instead, they were with dozens of other children in one tent. Does my hon. Friend agree that the wider issue at play is that the UK Government are spending their time othering communities? They are pitting communities against one another—whether they are refugees, working class, gay, lesbian or trans—when in actual fact we should all be uniting and campaigning to get that lot of Conservatives out.

[Kirsty Blackman]

I absolutely agree; I could not have put it better. No matter where they were born, the colour of their skin, their religion, their sexuality or gender identity, those children and families deserve a basic level of human dignity and fairness. That point about dignity, fairness and respect was made earlier. The UK is, in all our names, failing to provide that. It is choosing to make a differentiation between those people who are in slightly different communities and to treat them differently, and it is therefore trying to make that okay.

In Scotland, we are putting wellbeing at the heart of what we do. We are one of the founding members of the Wellbeing Economy Alliance. We are not choosing to levy austerity on the most vulnerable people in our society; we are choosing to provide respect, dignity and fairness. We are choosing to provide as much as we possibly can within our limited budgets. Our five family payments, including the Scottish child payment, can be worth over £10,000 by the time a first child turns six, and £9,700 for subsequent children. That compares to £1,800 for an eligible family’s first child in England and Wales, and under £1,300 for subsequent children. The difference is £8,200, and it highlights the Scottish Government’s major support in the early years for low-income families.

This is an incredibly important debate. We need a social security safety net that works. I would rather our social security system accidently pay the few people who are not eligible—who do not meet the criteria—than miss any one child who should be receiving those security payments and that Government support. The ideological choice that I and the SNP would make is to put dignity, fairness and respect at the heart of the decision-making process. We need to make sure that children are not in poverty, and that our guiding mission and our choices go towards eradicating child poverty.

--- Later in debate ---

[Guy Opperman]

The hon. Lady has obviously pre-read my speech and the comments that I will make, because my fifth point was going to be about childcare. There are a variety of points, which I will address in their totality; I will then try to deal with the specifics, particularly for those on universal credit.

It is patently obvious that for some parents childcare costs present challenges—at the very least—to entering employment. As the father of a 15-and-a-half-week-old child, I can testify to the bitter experience of that. The Government’s 13 hours of free childcare offer entitles all parents of three to four-year-olds in England to 570 hours of free childcare per year, with many children also entitled to the additional 15 hours of free childcare for 38 weeks per year. In addition to helping parents to manage childcare costs and working patterns, free childcare supports children’s development.

I will deal in particular with universal credit and childcare, in respect of which there is a massive role for Members of Parliament. Bluntly, those on universal credit are entitled to a massive amount of childcare, but the take-up of that offer is not good.

[Kirsty Blackman]

They are entitled to 85% of childcare costs—that is absolutely true—but is the Minister aware that the caps set in 2005 have not been uprated, despite the fact that childcare costs have since increased dramatically? Will he take a look at those numbers?

[Guy Opperman]

The Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho), and I have had a preliminary meeting. The country wants to try to assist parents who want to go back to work. There is a real desire to address childcare on a long-term basis to ensure that parents who wish to can go back to work.

There are many discussions about all aspects of how we reform, improve and expand childcare in this country. The bit that I control is the ability of somebody on universal credit to access and take childcare. I take the point made by the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts and I will go and look at that, but the blunt truth is that the take-up is low. That is the first problem. I am genuinely of the view that there is not sufficient knowledge that individuals on universal credit can claim 85% of their registered childcare costs each month, regardless of the number of hours they work. That is a significant increase on the previous 70% of costs that could be claimed back on legacy benefits.

Parents can claim up to a maximum of £646.35 per month for one child and £1,108.04 per month for two or more children. For families with two or more children, that could be worth over £13,000 a year. I take the hon. Lady’s point on board and will go away and look at that, but that is still £13,000 of subsidised childcare paid for by the state in circumstances. That support is also available to all lone parents and couples who satisfy both the childcare cost and the work conditions to qualify for help with childcare costs.

I am conscious that there is an issue with prepayment of childcare. Various support funds are used up and down the country. In my three-and-a-half week journey of understanding this issue, there seems to be patchy take-up, but I urge all local areas and individual job centres that are assisting parents in this process to ensure that the various support funds available can be provided. It is not a grant, but it is a provision to pay for the childcare deposit. That is definitely happening up and down the country and we should try to encourage and nurture that on an ongoing basis.

I am conscious of time and the desire to deal with a large number of other matters. The autumn statement saw £26 billion in total, as part of further support in 2023-24, to provide around 8 million households on means-tested benefits such as universal credit with payments of up to £900 to help their income stretch further. That is on top of the £37 billion of cost of living support for households in 2022-23. In addition, there are benefits increases in line with September inflation of 10.1%, worth £11 billion, to working-age households and disabled people. There is also the triple lock and support for pensioners.

We will continue to provide support to all households through the energy price guarantee, which caps the price paid for each unit of energy, saving the average UK household £500 next year. For those who require extra support, we are providing an additional £1 billion to help with the cost of household essentials next year, bringing total funding for this support to £2.5 billion since October 2021. In England, that includes an extension to the household support fund backed by £842 million for the 2023-24 financial year. Devolved Administrations will receive £158 million through the Barnett formula. I could go into detail about support for free school meals across England and about the Healthy Start scheme.

I will briefly touch on the funding and powers in Scotland. The hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts highlighted the extension to the Scottish child payment. The Scotland Act 2016 devolved significant social security and employment support powers to the Scottish Parliament, worth around £3 billion, as well as providing additional powers to create new benefits in areas of devolved responsibility, top up reserved benefits and provide discretionary payments. The UK Government provided the Scottish Government with a record £41 billion per year Barnett-based settlement at the 2021 spending review. That is the largest settlement since devolution. That record settlement provides the Scottish Government with around 25% more funding per person than equivalent UK Government spending in other parts of the UK.

In respect of various other matters, I will endeavour to write to colleagues. To conclude, I welcome today’s debate. I will attempt to work with colleagues on an ongoing basis. It is my job to ensure that there is ongoing support for children through the social security budget that operates throughout the United Kingdom. I commend the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts on her first Westminster Hall debate.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kirsty Blackman Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

I welcome the new ministerial team to their place. I hope to meet the new Secretary of State in early course; it was quite difficult to secure a meeting with some of his predecessors, unfortunately. The new Prime Minister spoke of the difficult decisions that will have to be made, but the real difficult decisions are those being forced on our constituents—people on low incomes struggling to afford the basics, pay their bills, heat their homes or feed their children. Let us not forget the reality of the tragic human cost of over a decade of Tory austerity, which urgently needs to end. Does the Minister agree that uprating benefits in line with inflation is not a difficult decision, but is instead the only moral course of action?

[Mims Davies]

That is not a matter for me, but I would like to reiterate at the Dispatch Box that the Government fully understand the pressures we are all facing. We all have constituents facing these matters, and it is absolutely right that we take that decisive action to support people with their bills. Members are talking as if we are not supporting people, but there is £37 billion of help with the cost of living, including the £400 of non-repayable discounts to eligible households provided by the energy bills support scheme. In addition to the benefits calculator and the cost of living webpage on gov.uk, I would ask people please to reach out to their councils. Members are talking this afternoon as if there is no help, and it is important that our constituents know that that is far from the case.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kirsty Blackman Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

The UK Government recently rejected the Work and Pensions Committee report’s recommendation to

“extend Child Benefit to all British children irrespective of their parents’ immigration status.”

People with no recourse to public funds do not qualify for the additional cost of living payments. Children are literally starving and suffering malnutrition because of this cruel policy. Does the Secretary of State believe that this is acceptable in the 21st century?

[Dr Coffey]

The hon. Lady refers to the fact that people without recourse to public funds are not eligible for benefits. When people arrive, I accept that they are not going to be eligible for child benefit. Any family in a state of difficulty can apply to the Home Office for a review of that status; it is for them to do so. At the same time, as I think we confirmed to the Select Committee when we discussed the matter at the hearing last week, it is for local councils to design the way they do the household support fund. It may be possible for people without recourse to public funds to apply to their local authority.

Cost of Living

Kirsty Blackman Excerpts

Tuesday 5th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to follow my good friend, the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, the right hon. Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms), and it is a pleasure to be a member of that Committee in holding the Government to account. I of course refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, particularly my role as chair of the PCS parliamentary group, as I will have some things to say about the office closures issue.

I want to start with the Secretary of State’s appearance at the Work and Pensions Committee last week, when she said that, on Thursday, she was going to meet her officials to discuss a second remedial order on bereavement support benefits for cohabiting couples. This is a very important issue, and we have had many great campaigners, including my Glasgow South West constituent Ailsa MacKenzie, who has been in the vanguard of pushing this issue. I hope the Minister will update the House on that issue, because it affects many thousands of people. The quicker we get the remedial order laid down, the quicker people can start receiving those bereavement support payments, which will no doubt help them deal with the cost of living crisis.

Let me touch on what I think lies at the heart of the problems in the Department for Work and Pensions: the start of the claim, the five-week wait and the deductions that come with that. The Minister responded to a written question from me, and the figures are becoming increasingly alarming. Ever since, I have periodically tabled such questions, and the number of deductions and the amount deducted have increased over the past 18 months. A total of £11 million a month is now being taken off claimants as a result of deductions. In my view, that has become a poverty tax.

For example, figures show that in February this year, 189,000 households in Scotland—an increase of 9,000 in just three months—had an average of £60 deducted from their social security payments. That is mainly to pay back the loans issued by the Department to cover the five-week wait at the beginning of a new claim, but some of it is due to overpayments, which include the Department’s errors. I hope the Department will look at that issue, because there is already case law when it comes to pay. By law, if there has been a mistake and someone has been overpaid, the employer cannot take that back. I suggest that if the Department has made a genuine error, it should not be deducting payments from future claims. I hope the Government will look at that, because a number of organisations have said that a deduction should not be made if the Department for Work and Pensions is to blame.

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern about the lack of reassurance regarding top-up payments, as announced by the Chancellor last week? We may end up in the same situation, because if DWP accidentally gives that money to someone, it might try to claw it back, putting people in an even worse state of poverty than they are in already.

[Chris Stephens]

I share that concern, and I hope the Department will respond positively to the concerns that hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman), have raised.

On departmental error, taking £60 a month from people who require state support can be the difference between whether they can buy food or not, or whether they can heat their homes. I am sometimes a bit concerned about the phrase “heat or eat”, because some people will now not be able to do either. That is the desperate situation that far too many people face across these islands, particularly with the cost of living being so high.

On the one-off payments, the Department appears to have conceded the point that grants are better than loans. I welcome that, but I hope it will now look seriously at the report by the Work and Pensions Committee about the five-week wait and introduce a non-repayable grant—a starter payment, as we call it—within two weeks of the claim. That would stop people getting into debt as a result of deductions, and I suggest that it would save money on administration, compared with paying people after five weeks and then deducting £60 a month from them. It seems a false economy to insist on continuing the five-week wait, and then going back and deducting money from people’s claims.

A good friend of mine, Andrew Forsey, director of the charity Feeding Britain, which is involved with Threehills community supermarket in Glasgow South West, recently said:

“Last year, figures like these prompted the DWP to lower the cap on deductions and double the length of time people had to repay those upfront loans. What these latest figures show is that there remains a lot more work to be done, to bring these deductions down still further, if people are to have the money they need each month to put food on the table.”

The Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee mentioned no recourse to public funds, and I agree with what he said. I hope the Department will look seriously, once again, at the Committee’s report that recommends extending child benefit to all children, irrespective of their parents’ immigration status. The right hon. Gentleman laid that out well, and, as someone who represents a city that has signed up to the Home Office’s asylum seeker dispersal scheme, I know this is a very real issue. In areas where asylum seekers have become refugees, it was certainly an issue during covid. I hope the Department will go back and look at that.

We need more resources to go into ensuring that those who are entitled to pension credit receive it. It is reckoned that between 65% and 70% of people who are entitled to pension credit receive it. I would like the Department to do more work on that, and I would like more resources to go into working with pensioners’ groups and various third-sector organisations to ensure that those who are entitled to pension credit get it. It seems to be a very real issue, and some of the statistics from the independent charity Age UK about the amount of unpaid claims for pension credit suggest that the figure is far too high; it is in the millions. Frankly, that pension credit could do a lot of good for pensioners who are dealing with increasing food and fuel costs.

Finally, let me raise my concern about office closures by the Department for Work and Pensions; I know that you also have a constituency interest in this subject, Madam Deputy Speaker. We have Government offices in areas of high economic deprivation, and the Department is one of the largest employers in some constituencies, but it wants to close those offices. That will not just impact on people employed by the Department, although of course it will do that, but have a wider effect on the economy. Many small businesses round and about those offices rely on custom from people who work in the Department, and I refer the Minister to my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin), who has done a survey on this issue in relation to the proposed closure of the Springburn office.

The Department seems to want to take out far too many of the 91,000 jobs that the Government want to cut. The Department responsible for employment and helping people get into work really should not be laying off its own workers and throwing people into unemployment; that would send completely the wrong message and make no sense whatsoever. I will leave it there, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I hope—indeed, I am sure—that I will get a positive response from the Minister to all the points I have raised.

--- Later in debate ---

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

I thank the right hon. Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms) and the Backbench Business Committee for granting this estimates day debate on DWP spending on cost of living measures. It is an important topic for every MP in this place, because DWP matters make up a proportion of our constituency casework, and people come to us at a time of need.

The real elephant in the room is this: the Government talk about spending to help people deal with the cost of living crisis, but we have to acknowledge that they have put some people into the positions in which they find themselves. It is all well and good providing a £650 payment to those on benefits and £300 to pensioners—I welcome that—but many of those receiving those payments have been pushed into crisis as a result of Government policies that have pulled the rug out from under them.

The Government refused to uplift legacy benefits alongside universal credit in the response to the pandemic, as the right hon. Member for East Ham pointed out. The Government told us that it was too complex to do, but given that they seem to have given it very limited consideration, we conclude that that is a political decision. We know that it affected disabled people the most because the High Court said so. Of course, disabled people and the organisations who support them did not need to be told that. They knew that disabled people were disproportionately more likely to be shielding, and as a result relying on expensive services, such as food deliveries.

The reality is that it is generally more expensive to be disabled. When I think about the cost of living crisis and, in particular, the rise in energy costs, I think about disabled people in my constituency and elsewhere who are running electrical equipment, and who need to have the heating on at times of the day when people who do not have a disability and who are mobile do not. As a result, this crisis is hitting them more acutely than others.

[Kirsty Blackman]

On the additional costs faced by disabled people, does the hon. Lady share my concern about the additional costs associated with specialist diets? For those with a gluten-free diet, for example, prices have increased significantly in excess of inflation.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

Yes, I entirely agree. I recommend to anybody who has not read it last Sunday’s article in The Sunday Times about food banks. The journalist took the time to eat a diet of what is provided in the emergency packages. It is not particularly healthy, but it is food, and I am hugely grateful that it is there. I co-chair the all-party parliamentary group on ending the need for food banks, and I am hugely grateful for the work that food banks do, but trying to meet specialist needs and requirements is very difficult for a charity run by volunteers. We should ensure that people have what they need to meet their medical requirements.

I am sure that many Members will refer to this, but the refusal to keep the universal credit uplift has taken away £20 a week from people who were already struggling. No taper, and no additional grants, will make up for that. When the Chancellor introduced the uplift, he said it was to reinforce the safety net. To some extent, that worked. In research by the Trussell Trust, the secretariat for the APPG, 70% of people said the increase in universal credit made it easier for them to afford essentials. Very quickly—this is my last point on the APPG—our call for evidence on the different responses to the need for food closes on 8 July, so if anybody would like to contribute evidence, we would love to hear from them.

The decision to remove the universal credit uplift at the end of lockdown restrictions, when the economy reopened and there was an expectation that people could take on more work, revealed the Government’s true thinking. It was an implicit acknowledgement that it is impossible to live on the current rate of universal credit, and that that would become abundantly clear to voters who started claiming benefits for the first time during the pandemic. The Government’s taking away the uplift clearly shows that they think that poverty payments are acceptable for those who rely on universal credit in the long term, either because they do low-paid but vital work such as caring, or because they cannot work full time for any other reason—there are many other reasons, as we all know from our case loads. I would like to know why the Government think that a reinforced safety net is needed for some people in our society, but not others.

I want to mention, as others have, unpaid carers, who are another left-behind group. Carer’s allowance is £69.70 per week. We do not accept jobs that pay less than £2 per hour, so why do we think it is acceptable to ask unpaid carers to accept that? Earlier, when my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) spoke in support of her ten-minute rule Bill on kinship care, she talked about the instinct to want to help a family member in need. No matter how much we love our family, anyone who has ever been a carer will tell you that it is work. As a society, we rely on that good will, so we must support our unpaid carers. They are the backbone of our society. Where people can and want to work, they should be supported to do so. Members have mentioned no recourse to public funds, but the other side of the coin is that we do not allow people claiming asylum to work and contribute. We give them neither support nor the opportunity to support themselves.

With its earnings cap of £132, the carer’s allowance policy seems designed to keep carers in poverty. We have been waiting for two years for a report from the Government on the effect that carer’s allowance has on people’s ability to work. I hope the Minister can update the House on when we will receive that report, and will explain how Members are supposed to scrutinise Government policy properly when we do not receive the reports that would enable us to scrutinise them. I am pleased that while we are waiting for the report, there are practical steps we can take to support our unpaid carers with work and into work, and with managing their caring responsibilities. I am delighted to be bringing forward a private Member’s Bill this Session to give unpaid carers the right to take additional leave, which would help them to balance their caring and working commitments. It does not go as far as I would like, but I believe it would be the first stand-alone piece of legislation giving employment rights to carers. It would help millions of people. One thing that the Government have been trumpeting is the current low rates of unemployment, but they are not talking about the increasing numbers of economically inactive people. I argue that some of those will be carers who are unable to combine work with caring responsibilities. I hope that my Bill will give them the opportunity to do that, but—this is a big but—it is only part of the picture of supporting unpaid carers into work. I hope that the DWP will do other things to play its part.

I will briefly turn to two pensions issues, the first of which is a specific constituency matter. My constituent is being denied her full state pension because of a gap in her national insurance record. The gap exists because she worked in intelligence for the armed forces a number of years ago. When she became pregnant, she was immediately discharged from the Army, but she could not return home to Scotland because of the sensitive nature of her work. The gap is purely caused by the pregnancy discrimination that she experienced at the hands of the state. She is being told that, rather than paying her the small extra amount that she would be entitled to each year, the Government would arguably rather give it to lawyers and have us go to court. I really hope that the Government can recognise that she has experienced an injustice. I urge the Minister to meet me so that we can find a way forward for my constituent, who was serving her country.

On a much broader injustice, the WASPI—Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign—women are still waiting to receive the money that has been denied them. As time ticks by, many will die before they receive what they deserve. Do the Government want that legacy—3.8 million women left to die, with far too many of them in poverty exacerbated by the cost of living? The ombudsman might still be reaching its conclusions on compensation, but it would be a huge comfort for the WASPI women to know that the Government plan to follow its recommendations. Will the Minister join me today in pledging to follow the ombudsman’s recommendations, when they are made, and to provide compensation to women who missed out because of Government error?

We could talk about lots in this estimates debate and Members have referred to other issues that I would want to raise. In conclusion, however, we are feeling the impact of the cost of living crisis more acutely in the UK. It is incumbent on the Government to stand up and help constituents, including those claiming benefits or who interact with the DWP, however they do so.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to take part in this estimates day debate. I do love estimates day; it is wonderful every time that this rolls around—I am not being sarcastic, I promise.

I will talk briefly about the shortcomings of the estimates process. We are discussing the DWP estimate today—which involves spending of £240 billion—under, I think, Standing Orders 53 and 54, which were written before I was born. We are unable to table meaningful amendments in relation to £240 billion of spending because of the way in which the Standing Orders are written. That is shocking. Has anyone here ever tried to explain the Budget process to people outside the House? Have they ever tried to explain the fact that we have to stand here and discuss hundreds of billions of pounds of expenditure without any meaningful way to amend that? It is absolutely ridiculous, flawed and deeply inadequate.

The DWP’s objectives in the main estimates book are, first,

“Maximising employment and in-work progression”;

secondly,

“Improving people’s quality of life”;

and thirdly,

“Delivering excellent services for citizens and taxpayers”.

Those are the Department’s aims for the next year. I suggest that the Government have failed and continue to fail in what they are doing. I make it clear that that is not, for a second, the fault of DWP staff, who are working incredibly hard to make the social security additional payments.

[Chris Stephens]

Is it not ironic that the DWP says in the main estimates book that it wants to maximise employment when it is threatening its staff with redundancy?

[Kirsty Blackman]

It is, and it is ironic that the DWP is asking staff to step up and deal with its creaking, unfortunate, flawed computer system. It is asking them to do all this additional work to make that happen while failing to make the investment where it should be making it, in the computer system and in the people. I am also seeing a reduction in DWP office staff in Aberdeen. I very much hope that the Government change their mind about the direction in which they are going.

We have heard from Members across these Benches about the issues affecting people’s quality of life as a result of the DWP’s failures and the failures of the Government’s policies. Loads of people have mentioned the safety net. The whole point of a safety net is that it catches people. The point is not to make the holes as big as possible so that as many people as possible fall through. I would rather have a social security system like the one that we are building in Scotland; a social security system that ensures that everybody is caught by the safety net, so that everybody gets what they are entitled to and people do not accidentally fall through. This Government’s policy seems to be to give social security payments to as few people as they possibly can and to try very hard to set the bar as high as possible so that people cannot meet the requirements.

We have heard about the Scottish social security system and its openness compared with the DWP’s system, where the report on food banks and the equalities impact assessment were buried. Audit Scotland recently audited the Scottish social security system. It said:

“The Scottish Government has continued to successfully deliver new and complex social security benefits in challenging circumstances. This is a significant achievement. There is a conscious focus on the needs of service users, building on the principles of dignity, fairness, and respect. People are positive about their experiences of engaging with Social Security Scotland.”

How different that is from the views that we are hearing down here, from what is in our inboxes, from the absolute intransigence and the issues that people face every day when simply trying to get what they are entitled to.

The social security uprating fails to get anything close to inflationary levels this year. We have seen an increase, but it is nothing close to the level of inflation. In fact, the £650 payment that the Chancellor announced does not even cover the £1,000 that was taken off people last year—never mind going any way to cover the increase in the cost of living. The Chancellor, the Minister and the Secretary of State have repeatedly said, “But people are getting more, with the £650, than they would have if we had uprated benefits”. We are asking them to do both. We are asking them to adequately uprate the benefits and backdate that to April as well as to make the additional payments. Only then can we get to a situation that is close to helping with the cost of living.

This is a tale of two Governments. We can see that another country is possible. We can see the failings, with the bedroom tax, the benefit cap and the two-child policy being carried on with. We have heard a lot about no recourse to public funds. When we discussed the Social Security (Additional Payments) Bill last week, I mentioned that children were literally starving and I was scoffed at by Government Members. If we look at reports, we see that junior doctors talk about children presenting with rickets because of the level of malnutrition, because they have no recourse to public funds, because they have been sanctioned, or because they otherwise cannot afford to eat a healthy diet. Comments have been made about the lack of variety and the lack of healthiness in the diets provided by food banks, which try incredibly hard but just cannot meet the requirements. In addition, they cannot provide food for people who cannot afford electricity. If people cannot afford electricity to boil something in a pan, it is difficult for them to cook adequately.

In the main estimates book, the Government talk about providing £5.6 billion—that is the initial spend—under the Social Security (Additional Payments) Bill. However, they mention providing £37 billion for increases in the cost of living. That £37 billion is made up of additional payments, as the Chancellor has stated, but can the Minister confirm that he is including things in it like the freeze on alcohol duty? It cannot be said that the freeze on alcohol duty relates to improving the cost of living for people who cannot afford to eat.

I am pleased to have been able to talk about the DWP estimates today. What is happening is woefully, woefully inadequate. Our constituents are coming to us and we just cannot provide them with the hope that they need and want, because the Conservatives are digging their heels in and refusing to offer adequate support.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the shadow Minister.

Social Security (Additional Payments) Bill

Kirsty Blackman Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 22nd June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

If the hon. Gentleman thinks that is very generous, how does it compare with benefits systems across the EU, for example, that are significantly more generous?

[Lee Anderson]

I will tell the hon. Lady what is generous: a single parent, like my friend and I were all those years ago, getting £24,000 a year for working 16 hours a week. [Interruption.] The hon. Lady can shake her head, but I think that is a pretty generous payment. That person would not be paying any income tax. Come to Ashfield and ask if £24,000 net is a good income. It would be a struggle to find people who are earning that sort of income so, yes, it is a generous income.

As we level up the country, we need to level up the skills of people who are trapped in this life of benefit dependency caused by the Labour party—I will stick to my words. In the meantime, this caring Government realise that families need extra support, which is why we are providing £37 billion to support families. Remember this is taxpayers’ money. There is no magic money tree, so hard-working people are having to pay for this.

This Bill will ensure swift action by providing the power to make two cost of living payments of £650 to 8 million households throughout the UK. This is real, targeted help for real, vulnerable people. The £200 rebate on energy bills has been doubled to £400, and it is now a grant, so it will not be paid back. The living wage is up, the national living wage is up, the universal credit taper rate is up and national insurance has been cut, so 70% of those who pay national insurance will pay less and more than 2 million people will pay no national insurance at all. We are doing all we can to ensure we help to keep people’s head above the water by spending more than £80 billion on universal credit and legacy benefits, which now represent 3.8% of our GDP.

We cannot keep asking the hard-working taxpayer to put their hand in their pocket to pay more and more. We must all do our bit. Although I welcome that the Bill will get immediate support to families, we must all work hard to make sure every single person in this country has the chance to support themselves. The benefits system should be there to help people in their hour of need; it should not be a way of life.

If it were left to Labour, everyone would be sat at home feeling sorry for themselves, but I am different. I want people to have a good job, to earn more money and to enjoy the fruits of their labour.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to speak for the SNP on the Social Security (Additional Payments) Bill. The Chancellor announced this uprating a number of weeks ago, having dragged his feet for so long. He announced the energy loan at the Budget, after announcing it earlier in the year, with a “Ta-da! Look at this! This is wonderful. We are giving you all this.” It was never sufficient. We called immediately for the energy loan to be a grant and for it to be increased.

The big announcement at the Budget was, “Hey, look, you can have cheaper solar panels!” That does not help my constituents, who are literally unable to buy food. We called for these changes then, and the Chancellor waited and waited until the end of May to make this announcement.

It has been a few weeks since the end of May, and we saw this Bill only last week. Parliamentarians have been able to scrutinise this Bill for only one week. The Government, or the Secretary of State, may say that this is because the Bill is so complicated, but they had weeks beforehand in which to decide what it would look like, and they have had weeks since the announcement in which to present it and give us an opportunity to see it. We should not be doing this in a single day. I appreciate that there is a tight timescale and that the Bill must be put through now in order for the payments to be made; what concerns me is the time during which we have not been able to scrutinise it effectively.

My other concern about process involves the money motion. It is drawn as tightly as possible. No doubt when we reach the Committee stage the Government will say what they say in every Finance Bill Committee: “All the amendments are about having reports. All the Opposition want are reports, rather than any actual changes to the Bill.” However, such a tight money motion makes it impossible for us effectively to put forward the asks that we have and to make it clear that this is wholly insufficient and that there are massive changes that we want to introduce.

Nevertheless, I congratulate the House on the fact that we are actually debating spend. That is very exciting—it is wonderful—because we never debate spend. We get the estimates for five days a year, or is it three? For a handful of days a year, we are allowed to debate those. To be fair, we are now allowed to debate spend, but it does not happen. We have the Budget, and then we have the Finance Bill. The Finance Bill is entirely about taxation: it is not about spend. We do not get the opportunity to debate and scrutinise spend properly, so it is very nice to get the chance to do so today—albeit with a money motion that is so unbelievably restrictive that we cannot put forward any amendments that make any sense or assist our constituents in any way.

Before I proceed, I want to thank Chris Mullins-Silverstein and Linda Nagy, who have been incredibly helpful in putting stuff together very quickly to enable me to make a speech that makes sense—or, I hope, largely makes sense.

This is the situation in which we find ourselves. As we heard from the right hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth), in October, energy bills will be up by £1,500 for the average household, which is far more than the amount that the Government propose to provide for people—and that is before we take into account the other increases that we are seeing. According to the Office for National Statistics, pasta is up by 50%, bread by 16% and rice by 15%. I pay tribute to Jack Monroe for the huge amount of work she has done on the “Vimes Boots” index, which allows inflation to be measured not just in the way in which it has historically been measured, but in a way that relates to how people shop—the people at the lowest end of the income spectrum, who count every single penny in the supermarket to work out whether they can possibly afford what they have put in their baskets. Inflation for those lowest-income families has increased by significantly more than inflation for the families who are earning more. It is even worse for disabled householders, who are seeing even more significant increases in energy bills, and the same goes for pensioners.

I was delighted to hear the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) suggest that things are very generous. He cannot have the same inbox as me. According to my inbox, things were dire before Brexit, dire before covid, and dire before the massive increase in inflation that we are seeing now, and they have only got worse. The fact is that the impact of Brexit has increased our food prices. Less migration means less money for the Government to spend, while net migration reduces net public sector debt and increases the amount that the Government have to spend. The former Chancellor George Osborne’s Red Books make that explicit. It is clear that he was seeking to crack down on migration, and that doing so would reduce the amount of money that the Government had to spend. It costs money for us to reduce migration. It means that we will have less to spend on people who stay here, who live here, who work here.

The announcement that this is a £37 billion package is genuinely a joke. In the Government’s calculation of the £37 billion, they have included the fuel duty changes. A significant number of my constituents, especially the poorest, do not drive. They are impacted by the price of supermarket vans having to drive around and small businesses’ costs increasing, but the fuel duty does not make a difference to their daily lives. They do not fill up their fuel tanks because they do not have fuel tanks. They cannot afford cars. So including the fuel duty rise in the £37 billion is ridiculous. Including the freeze on alcohol duty is one of the cheekiest things I have ever seen in this place, and I was here all the way through the Brexit debates. The Government cannot include an alcohol duty freeze and say that they are helping with the cost of living. “We are helping the poorest people to save money on their alcohol.” People who cannot afford pasta are not helped by freezing alcohol duty.

These things that are being included in the £37 billion are listed on the factsheet on the Government’s website, by the way. The £37 billion also includes lots of already planned stuff. It includes what has happened with national insurance, and it includes things that were put in place when the Government thought that increasing benefits by 3.1% in April 2020 was sufficient. It includes a massive chunk of that. The Government cannot stand up and realistically say that this is a £37 billion package, because it is not. These are not the positive changes that my constituents and people across Scotland and the UK want to see.

I am pleased to hear that disabled people are getting an additional amount of money. That is a good move by the Government, but it does not take into account the increased costs that disabled people are seeing, including the massive increase in scarcity affecting gluten-free diets, for example. More disabled people have specialist diets than people who will not get the £150 increase. Disabled people spend more time at home, and it is the same for pensioners. The increases that are happening for those two groups are not sufficient to cover the increases they are facing in their energy costs, particularly, and in specialist diet costs.

[Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

I am listening very carefully to the hon. Lady’s arguments, and she is making some important and useful points, but I have to disagree with her. She cannot honestly stand up here this afternoon and almost dismiss this enormous sum of expenditure that the Government are making by saying that it is not sufficient and that she wants more. Perhaps she could explain where all this extra resource is going to come from. I personally believe that the Chancellor of the Exchequer listened and took on board arguments that many of us were making earlier this year about the rising cost of living, and that he has done everything possible to make his pounds go as far as they can in providing relief to those on low incomes.

[Kirsty Blackman]

The Chancellor of the Exchequer did listen to the arguments that were made, and I absolutely welcome the fact that he came back and said, “What we did before was not enough.” I do not know if he actually said that, but he said that he was going to do more and bring forward more. I am pleased that we are discussing this today, and I am pleased that these increases are happening, but I am making the case that the additional payments that are being made do not cover the cost of living increases. I do not think they are sufficient. and I do not think they will assist our constituents who are already struggling. The right hon. Member asked where the money would come from. We have always said that the windfall tax should be applied more broadly than just to oil and gas companies. We have always said that it should be for all those who made excessive profits during covid. Why should the Amazons and the Sercos of this world get away with making so much money during the pandemic and not have the Government look at that?

The reality is that the UK Government do not have to run a balanced budget. That is how the UK Government budget works. The Scottish Government have to run a balanced budget by law; the UK Government do not. There is far more flexibility in the budget than the Chancellor explains. When he stood up on 27 May, he was already looking at an additional £30 billion of fiscal headroom in the next few years, compared with his earlier projections and targets—compared with what he had hoped to get. There was already extra space, before he made the decision to introduce the supplementary tax on oil and gas companies. There is money there to do the additional payments and the additional requests that we are asking for today.

The UK Government have failed in a number of places. For example, they have failed to keep the triple lock for pensioners. They failed to keep the universal credit lifeline. They failed to implement a pension credit take-up strategy. They failed to come forward with cost of living measures as early as they should have during the course of the Budget. They have failed to scrap the evil sanctions regime. They have failed to produce a strategy to tackle child property. They have failed to bring in a minimum child maintenance payment. They have failed to uprate benefits by anywhere close to inflation this year. They have failed to scrap the rape clause. They have failed to bring in a real living wage that people can actually live on. They have failed to bring forward the long-promised employment Bill. They have failed to end the Department for Work and Pensions vicious loans clawback.

In contrast, the SNP Scottish Government running that balanced budget is delivering for people in Scotland. In Scotland, we are mitigating the bedroom tax. We are doubling our game-changing Scottish child payment. We are uprating benefits by double the level that the UK Government are. We are paying carer’s allowance supplement to people who are carers. We are paying £200 child winter heating assistance to families with severely disabled children and young people. We are increasing our school clothing grant, which is not available across the board in England and is at the discretion of local authorities here. We are offering 1,140 hours of childcare to all eligible children, no matter their parents’ working status. We are providing five new benefits worth up to a maximum of more than £10,000 by the time a first child turns six. That is £8,200 more than that provided in England and Wales. We are also providing additional money for subsequent children that is significantly in excess of the amount being provided here.

I therefore have some calls for the UK Government. I would like the UK Government to now uprate all social security benefits by 10% and backdate that to April 2020. The Chancellor stood there and said that uprating benefits would be less than the additional payment he is making—I want him to do both. This is a sticking plaster. Giving this additional one-off payment does not solve things for next year. It does not undo the fact that this year’s increase was woefully insufficient.

I would like the UK Government to make an additional £25 a week uplift to universal credit and to extend that to all legacy benefits to undo the harm done by cancelling the £20 a week increase last year. I would like them to cancel the rape clause, the two-child limit and the bedroom tax. There is only so much mitigation that the Scottish Government can do within our balanced budget.

I would like the UK Government to produce a child poverty strategy and to make tackling child poverty a national mission, as it is in Scotland. I would like the UK Government to bring in the long-promised employment Bill. They promised 28 times that they would bring in an employment Bill in the Queen’s Speech, and no employment Bill appeared in the Queen’s Speech. I would like them to match Scotland’s commitment to dignity and respect for those claiming disability benefits. I would like them to bring in a real living wage and to scrap the ageism in the pretendy living wage.

From day one of the Chancellor’s energy loan, which he announced earlier this year, we called for it to be a grant, rather than a loan. In May, the Chancellor U-turned. He changed it from a loan to a grant and he increased it, like we had asked. Now, we must see a U-turn on the five-week wait for universal credit. We must see that payment become a grant for those who get universal credit. We must not see those payments being clawed back.

The UK Government have 85% of the powers on social security. They have all the powers that relate to energy, all the powers that relate to the minimum wage and all the powers that relate to national insurance. We are being failed time and time again by the UK Government. We have asked for these measures to be devolved. We have amended things for these measures to be devolved. We have voted for these measures to be devolved. We have called, at every opportunity, for devolution of employment law, for devolution of energy, for devolution over the minimum wage, and for devolution over national insurance. The UK Government refuse. The UK Government are continually refusing and clawing back powers from the Scottish Parliament—in their United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020, for example. The Brexit Freedoms Bill is set to remove powers from this Parliament and centre it even more in the Executive than it already is. This is not the way to run a democracy.

People are struggling. Even with these payments on the horizon, people still struggle to see how they will get through the year. The only choice is for Scotland to become an independent country. Only by having the full powers of independence will we be able to protect people and help them through the cost of living crisis, in contrast to the UK Government who refuse to do so.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Stephen Timms]

That would help—just modernising the old systems would help, and I will say something about that in a moment.

We are getting ad hoc payments from the Treasury to tide us over. The Secretary of State rightly spelled out to the Committee the downsides of one-off ad hoc payments such as those that the Bill enables. In oral evidence in February last year, she told the Committee that there were higher risks of fraud attached to one-off payments and that they can make it difficult for claimants to budget effectively—both quite telling points. She said that one-off payments were not

“one of the Department’s preferred approaches”

for providing that financial support. She noted:

“There are some challenges about fraud”

and that there would be difficulties if people claiming tax credits received a one-off payment and then moved to universal credit shortly afterwards. On the question of what might work best for claimants, she told us:

“Previous experience would be that a steady sum of money would probably be more beneficial to claimants and customers, to help with that budgeting process.”

I think she is right; it is not ideal for the Treasury to provide lump sums instead.

Why was proper uprating not done in this case? The Chancellor pointed out that legacy benefits cannot be quickly uprated because they are run on antiquated IT systems, as the right hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb) referred to, so uprating takes several months. The Chancellor told us that that was why he was unwilling simply to uprate benefits: it could have been done quickly for universal credit, as we discovered in the pandemic, but not for legacy benefits.

In an earlier debate, I recall the shadow Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth) brandishing a document from an IT company, perhaps Oracle, about the front end that it had built for the Department’s legacy systems, which it said enabled changes to be made to them more quickly. I wonder whether the Minister, in closing, could tell us the truth behind that claim about the front end that had been provided. I know that the Department has certainly commissioned such front ends for the legacy systems over a long time, so I am interested to know why, notwithstanding what that brandished document said, it is apparently still the case that uprating takes four or five months. Are front ends in place? Why have they apparently not made faster changes possible?

In our June 2020 report on the Department’s response to coronavirus, the Select Committee recommended an increase in the speed with which changes could be made to legacy benefits. We said:

“People will be claiming legacy benefits until at least September 2024, the Government’s most recent estimate for completing the rollout of Universal Credit. It is simply not tenable for the Department to continue to operate antiquated systems that prevent Ministers from making timely changes to the rates at which legacy benefits are paid. We recommend that the Department work to increase the speed with which changes can be made to legacy benefit rates.”

In its response in September that year, the Department said that it

“recognises the need to be able to respond to events flexibly which is why we are investing in Universal Credit which is more agile than the systems that support legacy benefits.”

While substantial numbers of people depend on legacy benefits, the Government surely need to keep the systems that support those benefits fit for purpose. They are clearly not fit for purpose at the moment, and that ought to be addressed.

[Kirsty Blackman]

On that note, the new systems that we have created in Scotland under Social Security Scotland are doing exactly what the right hon. Gentleman asks. It has the ability to make those extra payments, because we set up the systems. Does he agree that the Government need to just invest to sort that out for many thousands of people?

[Sir Stephen Timms]

It certainly does need to be done. I am pleased to tell the hon. Lady that on Monday the Select Committee will visit Social Security Scotland and that our vice-chair, the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills), who is in his place, will be part of that group. We look forward to that visit.

The reason why benefit uprating has not worked this year is, of course, the six-month gap between September, when the inflation figure forms the basis of uprating for the following year, and April, when increases take effect. In response to our call for evidence on the cost of living, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation called on the Government to

“commit to a much shorter timeframe for annual uprating between measuring inflation and uprating accordingly, to ensure benefit uprating genuinely reflects inflation for the year in question.”

Lloyds Bank Foundation told us that the Government should

“consider uprating benefits in line with inflation in the autumn to ensure they more accurately reflect the true cost of living.”

That sounds like what was done in the 1970s. The Legatum Institute also suggested reducing the delay between CPI measurement and the application of uprating as well as introducing a mid-year uprating review. Citizens Advice called for a more sustainable, responsive uprating approach, which means

“addressing the lag between benefit uprating decision-making and implementation and the exclusion of the benefit cap from wider uprating.”

It says that while the one-off payments to be made under the Bill

“are more generous…for some households than if uprating had been brought forward”,

there are problems. For example, as we were reminded by my right hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State, the one-off payments are the same amount regardless of family size. They also have cut-off dates, which risks arbitrarily excluding people from support.

Flat-rate payments being irrespective of family size appears to be pretty unfair to larger families. Overall, the package is somewhat more generous than early benefit uprating would have been, but it is less generous for larger families. The justification for that is not clear.

The North East Child Poverty Committee told us that

“a flat-rate £650 payment for all households on means-tested benefits, regardless of household size, additionally fails to recognise the clear link between family size and essential outgoings, with many larger families (already at much greater risk of poverty, a situation compounded by the two-child limit) facing intolerable financial pressures as a result of rising household bills.”

I will make one final point. One great advantage of the Chancellor’s package for low-income families, compared with a straightforward benefit uprating—I was grateful to the Secretary of State for confirming this—is that the benefit cap does not apply. It is striking that when it appears that the headline rate of social security benefits is likely to be raised by perhaps 10-plus per cent. next year, there is no indication at all about the benefit cap being lifted at all. That means that the growing number of families whose benefit has been capped will receive no increase in their income at all at a time when inflation is likely to be over 10%.

In evidence to the Select Committee, the Child Poverty Action Group Told us that

“the Government has made a welcome commitment to increase benefits in April 2023 in line with prices. However, not all price-related elements of the system are included in the annual uprating exercise and the benefit cap means a substantial minority of claimants—an estimated 150,000—will see no increase at all and face another real terms cut to their benefits.”

At a time when inflation is so high, surely at least the level of the benefit cap must be reviewed. Will the Minister give us any encouragement that it will be, ahead of April next year? For now, and in the context of the Bill, it is welcome, and quite a significant precedent, that the benefit cap will not apply to these additional payments.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Rutley]

Whatever we want to call him, he will take this forward with aplomb, that is for sure.

There was a serious question about why the number of means-tested benefit recipients will fall in the second cost of living payment period, and it is because the projections reflect mortality rates. However, they do not reflect the important work many of us are doing to raise awareness, so hopefully many more people will claim it.

I think I have now answered most of the questions. The hon. Member for Richmond Park asked about industrial injuries disablement benefit, on which I would be more than willing to talk to her separately. We should not underestimate the additional payments from the household support fund to help people with the cost of essentials. The Chancellor announced another £500 million in his latest statement, and it will be available from October 2022 to March 2023.

In England, the £421 million household support fund will be administered by local authorities, and the devolved Administrations will receive £79 million through the Barnett formula. Importantly, there will be new guidance to local authorities on this latest extension of the household support fund to reflect the fact that some people who are not able to secure these additional payments will be able to go to their local council to secure support.

[Kirsty Blackman]

Some household support funds ran out months earlier than expected. Does the Minister expect the new funds will be sufficient and will last as long as they are supposed to last?

[David Rutley]

The current tranche of household support fund is on top of all the other benefits we have talked about. As we have said, these are substantial additional support payments that are being made available, and the £500 million on top is there to help those people who have further needs with the cost of essentials. Further guidance will be made available.

We are working at unparalleled pace to get money into people’s pockets. It is vital that we meet the deadline for Royal Assent by 30 June, after a fast-tracked passage, so that we do not create a strong risk that we fail to make payments in July. We want to make sure that the most vulnerable people in our society—people on low incomes, people with disabilities—get the payments and support that they need. As I have highlighted already, this payment package in total comes to £37 billion this year alone. The Bill helps to deliver key elements of the support package to those who need it most. I strongly support these measures and commend the Bill to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time; to stand committed to a Committee of the whole House (Order, this day).

Further proceedings on the Bill stood postponed (Order, this day).

Social Security (Additional Payments) Bill: Money

Queen’s recommendation signified.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 52(1)(a)),

That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Social Security (Additional Payments) Bill, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of:

(1) a sum not exceeding £326 to anyone who is entitled, in respect of 25 May 2022, to—

(a) universal credit or state pension credit,

(b) an income-based jobseeker’s allowance, an income-related employment and support allowance or income support, or

(c) working tax credit or child tax credit;

(2) a sum not exceeding £324 to anyone who is entitled, in respect of a day after 25 May 2022 and not later than 31 October 2022, to a benefit mentioned in paragraph (1);

(3) a sum which, together with any sum paid as mentioned in paragraph (1) or (2), does not exceed £650 to anyone who receives a working tax credit or child tax credit of at least £26 in the tax year 2022- 23;

(4) a sum not exceeding £150 to anyone who is entitled, in respect of 25 May 2022, to—

(a) a disability living allowance,

(b) a personal independence payment,

(c) an attendance allowance or a constant attendance allowance,

(d) an adult or child disability payment,

(e) an armed forces independence payment, or

(f) a mobility supplement.—(Michael Tomlinson.)

Question agreed to.

Social Security (Additional Payments) Bill

Kirsty Blackman Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 22nd June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Ms Buck]

I thank the Minister for that introduction. There is clearly no need for me to cover the points that we discussed on Second Reading, but I will make a few comments about new clauses 1 and 2.

As the Minister said, the Bill as drafted states that the second qualifying date is to be no later than the 31st of October, which allows for a span of several weeks during which the date could be set. In her introductory remarks, the Secretary of State talked about the need to keep that open because of the potential behavioural impact. It would be helpful if the Minister told us a little about why the Department reached that conclusion.

As we know, families and household are looking for clarity. We expect the energy cap to rise significantly again in the autumn, and there is real fear and anxiety in the country about what energy price inflation, and general inflation, are doing to household incomes. People are looking for certainty, and the sooner they are able to know exactly when their qualifying period will be and when the payment will be made, the better it will be for those families. It would also be helpful for us to know what the implications are of a qualifying date that could be one month early, so as to cover the span of options for that date. Although, we will not be seeking to press these amendments to a vote, can the Minister advise on whether he will be able to pick up that point and come back to us with answers?

New clause 2 would address the distribution and the equality impact assessment. We have indeed had some analysis from the Treasury, and we have had some looks at the economic distributional impact and the decile impact. As we would expect from measures heavily directed towards means-tested benefits, they are indeed progressive, and that is absolutely right, but the single most important topic that we discussed in the short Second Reading was the downside of single payments that are household unit payments and therefore do not reflect differences in household composition. The impact assessment does not give us that information, and it is critical that we have it, so I will press the Minister on the point. We need a much fuller assessment of what the Treasury expects to be the impact of a reliance on single payments, rather than an accurate updating within the benefits system. We also need, as soon as possible after the first payments have been made, an assessment of the actual impact in terms of the distribution.

Household composition is probably the single most important of the areas of analysis that we need to track. It is the one that is worrying people the most and where the disparity between a direct payment through the social security system and a one-off payment is most marked. We want to see analysis that looks at different recipient groups and at the impact on pensioners, on people with disabilities, on families, on single people and on working people of the distribution of the payments as they go out. It would be helpful also to look at how different working groups are affected, such as the self-employed, who we have discussed, and working households as opposed to households on out-of-work benefits.

The other area on which I will spend a couple of minutes in the context of analysis is the various payments that have been distributed through local government and how we can look at their impact. The Minister has repeated that his principal aim was to try and get benefit payments out as quickly as possible to those who need them most. In fact, the February announcement of the distribution of income through local authorities, through council tax, does the exact opposite. As I am sure he is aware, local authorities have had to go to the considerable length of writing to every household that pays council tax other than through direct debit, wait for them to respond, wait for them to provide information confirming who they are and their entitlement, and then to send the payment out. That of course means that large numbers of people reliant on that £150 have not yet had it, and it is likely to be weeks and weeks still before those families actually get the payment.

The payment requires people to deal with official correspondence, and I do not know whether Ministers have seen some of the letters that have gone out from local authorities, but I certainly have, and I struggle to understand them. A number of those forms have gone out without any reference to people on council tax support, for example, so people do not know that they are likely to be covered by the scheme. It is important therefore that we understand a distributional impact of the household support funds and of the distribution of funds by local authorities.

The Government have been keen to stress the value of those schemes, that they are locally sensitive and that local government has an important role to play in delivering them. That may be the case, but as the Opposition have said all along, it is undoubtedly a more complex and bureaucratic system for delivering help into people’s hands than uprating and delivering that directly through the social security system. Given what we know about inflation and energy costs soaring and the likelihood that we will have to return to this place to consider more emergency support later in the year, it is critical that we understand exactly how the delivery of the Government’s support package affects people, who it affects and whether it is the best way to provide help to people in need.

[Kirsty Blackman]

I have a few things to say about the specifics of the Bill and the points that have been raised in the debate. I understand the Minister’s point about the second qualifying date and the Secretary of State’s earlier point about not wanting to make clear what that is. I will not argue with that, but I have a question about the timelines for the payment.

We had a qualifying date of 27 May and we are looking at the payment being made on 14 July, which is a significant lag. If there is a similar length of time between the second qualifying date and that additional payment, people may not get it until nearly Christmas. The Minister was clear that the support is being given in two payments partly to help with budgeting, and people would like some certainty about the dates on which the payments will be made. I will not press him on the qualifying date; as I said, I do not necessarily disagree with the choice to not publish that now and to bring it forward through negative delegated legislation, which makes some sense.

The other issue for people relates to the other payments that they may be able to receive. We have heard from the hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) that people have not necessarily received a council tax payment and do not know when they might receive that money. For people who are struggling now, it would help to have some certainty about when the payments will come. I do not think the legislation has even been brought forward for the £400 for energy bills; I am not aware when that will happen or when those dates will be. The Government are saying that there will be £1,200 for some families, and it would be really helpful for people to know when they are likely to receive that potential income so that they can plan.

On the negative resolution that will be brought forward to set the second qualifying date, I assume that we are not likely to see that until after the summer recess. If the Minister can confirm that that is the case, it would be helpful for us to understand that. If he cannot do that, that is fine.

The hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) talked about people who get two payments in a month, because they are paid on a four-weekly basis or because they receive bonuses or anything of that sort. It would be helpful if the Minister, when he sets the second qualifying date, tries to ensure that it is not in a cycle that will disadvantage the same people twice. If the date means that people whose universal credit is paid on a cyclical basis—for a significant number of people, it is clear that there is a regular cycle every three months—lose out on the £324 and the £326, even though they are regular universal credit claimants over the year, I would be concerned that the Government were not doing that in the right way. The hon. Gentleman’s suggestion of doing it over a two-month period would probably have been a better way to do it than the way that the Government are proposing. As was stated, if further additional cost of living payments need to be made to people in future, perhaps it would be helpful for the Minister to consider that.

In the context of making payments too quickly, the Minister mentioned the recovery of incorrect payments and how that might work, or need to work. He said that if payments are made too quickly, people might receive a payment that they are not entitled to and then it would need to be clawed back. Given how he phrased that, I am slightly concerned that we might end up with people through no fault of their own receiving payments in error that they think they are entitled to, who then have them clawed back from future payments from the DWP. We have seen that over the years with tax credits and how people are still paying back legacy benefit overpayments that they received, and we have seen the pain and suffering that that can cause people.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kirsty Blackman]

I also join in the thanks, particularly to the Clerks’ team, who have been incredibly helpful, as ever. I expect nothing less, and have never received anything less from the House of Commons staff; they are always excellent. I also echo the Minister’s thanks to all those in DWP and HMRC who will be working so hard; we appreciate the additional work that it will mean, and has already meant, to get these things in place. We are massively supportive of all those staff who will be doing a really difficult job, and potentially working an awful lot, in order to pull this off. That is massively appreciated.

The provisions in the Bill, although welcome, although additional and although they go towards the cost of living, do not cover the cost of living increases that our constituents face. They do not even cover the energy price increases, never mind the inflation on the most basic foods which people just have to buy. You cannot get away without buying pasta, rice or bread. People are stuck with the massive price increases in those foods; they have to buy those things. There has already been a time lag—people are not getting the payments today, although I appreciate that they are getting them quickly—and people will already be feeling the squeeze and struggling. The £326 on the horizon is great; it is helpful, but it is not enough. It does not provide the level of support that uprating benefits in April could have provided, which would have helped with that squeeze resulting from the cost of living.

The one really big thing that the Government could do today to make a massive difference to people’s lives would be to put up the pretendy living wage to a real living wage—a wage that people can actually live on. That is reserved to Westminster—the Scottish Government do not have the powers to do that—and it would make a difference to people. The hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) was talking about the hard work that his constituents do and the amount of money that people get on benefits. The thing is that 40% of the people on universal credit are in work. A huge number of the people going to food banks and their children are in households with at least one parent in work. I get that the Government want to get people into work, but people are in work and still cannot afford to live. They still have to have this top-up from the Government. The Government can help to fix that problem by increasing the minimum wage to a real living wage and giving it to everybody who is over 18, removing the inherent ageism.

The other thing that the Government have missed and failed on in this Bill relates to people who have no recourse to public funds. Those people are, by definition, missed. That is the intention of what the Government are doing, but we can see that the most destitute, desperate people in our society are those who have no recourse to public funds. The Bill fails to provide support to anybody who is not on the gateway benefits or to anybody who is struggling but does not fit into the criteria. This is particularly acute when people have no recourse to public funds. We are seeing children literally starving because their parents have no recourse to public funds. Some of these cases involve people who are fleeing domestic abuse and are not eligible for the destitution domestic violence concession because they are, for example, an EU citizen or because their partner was a student. There are a lot of problems with this.

Another thing that is missing is that we do not know when we are going to get the legislation on the pensioner cost of living payments. If the Minister could let us know when that legislation is coming, that would be very helpful. Could he also let us know when we are going to get the energy bills support scheme legislation? This Bill is only part of the package. We have been discussing the whole package, but this legislation only brings in a bit of it. The right hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb) asked me earlier where the money was going to come from to pay for all this, but we do not yet have any legislation on the charges that are going to be made on the energy companies. If we could just have had a timeline for when we could expect that legislation to come in, we would not have been in this situation, with this Bill appearing a week before we go through every single process in the Bill. MPs need longer to look at these other pieces of legislation that are coming through, and if the Government could do anything to ensure that we get even slightly more time to scrutinise the legislation as it comes in, that would be appreciated. As I have said, I thank the Government for bringing forward this package, but it is not enough. They need to go further, and they need to uprate benefits and backdate that to April, but we welcome this package.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

Business of the House (Today)

Ordered,

That, at this day’s sitting—

(1) the Speaker shall put the questions necessary to dispose of proceedings on the motion in the name of Mark Spencer relating to the Speaker’s Conference not later than one hour after the commencement of proceedings on the motion for this order; such questions shall include the questions on any amendments selected by the Speaker which may then be moved; and the business may be proceeded with, though opposed, after the moment of interruption; and

(2) Standing Order No. 41A (deferred divisions) shall not apply to either the business relating to the Speaker’s Conference or to the business relating to the Committee on Standards.—(Michael Tomlinson.)