Intergenerational Fairness

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

1st reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 28th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Frank Field]

Again, I could not agree more. I did not want to fan out the debate—I wanted to keep it as tight as possible so that we might get some agreement—but these are proper options that have to be considered. There is no way, sadly, that we as pensioners can get all the goodies and expect other people to pay for them. The issue of how we integrate care into the NHS will grow in importance as each month of this Parliament passes.

The fourth and last way in which we could keep the triple lock would be to raise the retirement age continually. Again, I make a plea to Front-Bench and Back-Bench colleagues, because such a policy would adversely affect our constituents almost more than any other. The Select Committee has published the names of the constituencies where the average life expectancy for males is such that they simply will not reach retirement age if we say that we will square the books by increasing the retirement age from 68, which is the figure that it is expected to rise to, to 70 or 71.

There is a commonality between the constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), who leads for the Opposition on these matters, and my constituents. We do not say that no male in our constituencies will on average receive a pension if we raise the retirement age to 70 or 71, thank God, but we know that swathes of our poorer, older and frailer constituents will not actually reach the retirement line—the point at which they pick up the state retirement pension—at the age of 70 or 71, because they will simply have died.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

As usual, the right hon. Gentleman is making an excellent and well considered speech. Notwithstanding what he says, given that average life expectancy has increased from 71 in 1960 to 81.5 now, and that 9.9 million people over 50 are working, people surely want to work longer—I know that the situation is different for those who work in heavy industry, which has killed a lot of people shortly after their retirement—and to be able to exercise their choice to do so.

[Frank Field]

I would not for a moment—look at me—say that people over the state retirement age should not be allowed to work; far from it. However, there is a difference when people have had jobs such as those in factories—I have not had such a job—and are simply worn out by the cost of such jobs, meaning that they will not make it to the finishing line if we keep extending that line. I am therefore making a plea that we do not go down the route of keeping the triple lock by just continuing to raise the retirement age, saying, “With fewer of you drawing the state retirement pension, we will balance the books.”

That approach was one of the alternatives, and I will go through the others again. One was just to continue putting all the cost on people of working age, and I have made a plea about why we should not do so. Another is to think we can just tax and tax again, but I simply do not think that Governments can get elected on that basis. They cannot put up income tax by 50% over a number of Parliaments and expect to be elected—and thanked in the process. Finally, I do not think that any party that wishes to be elected can let borrowing rip to the extent that would be needed to balance the books while keeping the triple lock.

I therefore make a plea to both the Government and the Opposition that they look carefully at the Select Committee’s proposal for a double lock-plus. Pension credit and the coalition Government’s triple lock have already—this will continue—raised the value of the state retirement pension compared with average earnings to a historical high. The Select Committee report says that by 2020, we should peg the state pension against earnings at the level at that time. The double lock-plus would ensure that the state pension would never from that day forward fall relative to average earnings. As there will be—perhaps in the very short term—periods during which price inflation exceeds earnings, we should honour the prices link at those times, albeit coming back to the earnings link as soon as possible. In that way, we would not actually have to face many of the terrible scenarios I have painted.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth) said, the cost of the existing policy has been borne by people of working age. We should not pursue a policy of continuing to take money from that group, especially those who already find it difficult to put food on the table for their children for every meal in the way that our parents fed us when we were growing up.

This is not about begging both sides. If people came here with a script saying that they were going to reject the Select Committee’s report, I ask them not to read that passage, but perhaps instead to enter into discussions more widely with the House of Commons about how we can guarantee standards of living against pensioners’ earnings in 2020. We must ensure that they are never eroded, but we must also ensure that this policy of making increases at the expense of the working population ceases. We should all put such a programme to the electorate when the general election comes.

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[Justin Tomlinson]

I am very grateful for the fact that we have a fantastic Pensions Minister who will be responding to the debate and who will no doubt comment in detail on that point.

The broader point, as I turn to the opportunities for younger people, is that we all collectively—the Government and the Opposition—have a responsibility to recognise that we have a habit of spending more money than we get in as tax revenue. Since the second world war, I think there have been only six years where the Government of the day have spent less money than they have collected. What that really means in plain English is that we, as the generations from most of those years, wish to have more than we can afford and we would like our children, or maybe our children’s children, to pay for it. This applies to all Governments, except in those six years where, for whatever reason, the Government of the day were able to collect in more tax revenue than they spent. We have a moral duty and responsibility to future generations not always to take that easy decision.

I was doing a radio interview yesterday on a relatively contentious issue involving possible additional Government spending, and another MP said, “Well, if I was the Minister, I’d have taken the hit.” The key point was that it was not they who would have taken the hit; it was everybody. Given that we already spend more money than we collect, what they were saying was, “I’d pass that one on to the next generation as well.” We all know that. We would all like to balance the books immediately, but we also all have a long list of personal priorities we would like to spend money on—our inboxes are full of helpful requests from residents for where we could spend more money. Many of those are very important—a balance always needs to be struck—but I gently remind the House not to lose sight of the fact that if we wish to give the best opportunities to future generations, we must not saddle them with too much of our own overspending.

I am inherently a very positive person—I believe that if we equip people and give them the opportunity, they will seize it with both hands and make a huge success of it—so I am greatly encouraged that our Government have delivered 1.8 million more good or outstanding school places. As someone who went to a school at the bottom of the league tables, I understand the importance of equipping people with the right skills. In my constituency and across Swindon, we have had a difficult Ofsted report recently. We have fantastic teachers, headteachers and governors all trying their best in Swindon and we have secured extra funding for our schools, but we are not quite there yet.

We all—the Government, MPs, the council, the schools collectively, the parents—have to look at what more can be done. I am encouraged that the schools Minister recently visited two of my local schools, Nova and Swindon Academy, both of which are transforming the opportunities for their children, having come from what not so long ago were very poor ratings. Frankly, they were failing the children who were relying on them to equip them for the future, but both have transformed their ratings through strong leadership, and I am delighted that yesterday Ofsted confirmed that Nova had moved to “good” in all categories. I pay tribute to Mr Barton, the headteacher, and all his staff who have worked incredibly hard to achieve that. Schools are the fundamental building block for equipping young people in life.

I am also a huge fan of the National Citizen Service, a new initiative giving young adults real, tangible life skills, and every summer, without fail, I visit every stage of the three to four-week programme. It takes a random collection of young people—the activities cost about £1,500—and sends them away for a week to learn teambuilding skills. They then come back, form teams and choose a charity. They learn about that charity, organise entrepreneurial and fundraising activities, volunteer for the charity to see it at first hand, learn presentation skills, haggling, engaging and so on, and at the end, they graduate as NCS students. There is an incredible transformation in all those young adults, who arrive well educated by their schools but perhaps not quite ready for the workplace. I ran my own business for 10 years and employed a lot of young people and I am encouraged to see the huge difference in those young adults. They take the time in their summer holiday, when it is tempting to do other less-constructive things, to go and engage. In doing so, they give themselves the best opportunity when entering the workplace.

University numbers continue to increase, but the Government have rightly put a huge emphasis on apprenticeships. For generations, Governments and Opposition parties got into an arms race on students going to university. Every general election, we would hear, “We sent 25%.”, “Well, we’d send 30%.”, “We’d do a third.”, “We’d do 45%.”, “We’ll break 50%.”. Everybody has a talent. David Beckham is not renowned for being academically gifted, but he has a gift that has earned him more money in a week than the majority of people in society will ever earn, and that was because somebody recognised his skill and allowed him to develop it.

We all have a talent. Every time I failed to make it on to a sports team, I wondered whether I did—perhaps that is why I am here—but everyone has a talent, and apprenticeships rightly recognise that. Workplace learning provides people with real, tangible skills and a fantastic opportunity to secure a long-term career with good career prospects. That is also vital for our growing economy, particularly where we have skills gaps.

In the last Parliament, we had a commitment to 2 million apprentices, which we have met, and in this Parliament we have rightly identified an even more ambitious target. It will be tough to get there, but it is right to have such challenging targets. I have spent, as I am sure have all hon. Members, a lot of time meeting the young apprentices who are doing things that I have absolutely no idea about—advanced engineering, all sorts of complex things with computers. They are on the first rung on the ladder towards their brilliant careers. They will all go on to huge success.

Across the economy, this Government have now delivered record employment—2.7 million more people are in work than when we came to office in 2010. That is not just in London or the south-east, as has sometimes been seen in previous strong economic performances; it is in every single region of the country. In my town of Swindon, 8,400 more people are in work, which is greater than the number who currently go on a weekly basis to see Swindon Town bravely fighting the relegation battle. Thankfully, with the victory at the weekend, we have got a bit closer to achieving the objective.

There are now 865,000 fewer workless households, and youth unemployment is at its lowest since 2005. In Swindon—I know that people are keen to know how well we are doing—youth unemployment is down by 69.2% since 2010, which is a fantastic achievement. The Government have rightly introduced the national living wage so that we are looking at a wage of about £9-plus by 2020. That will help 6 million of the lowest earners to have a pay rise and to share in the proceeds of the strong economic growth that we have delivered. The increases in the personal tax threshold have taken the 3.2 million lowest earners out of paying any income tax at all, and we are continuing to raise that threshold to £12,500, after which it will be index linked, making sure that the lowest earners will never return to the point of having to pay income tax again.

[Mr Jackson]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech, based on his expertise as a former Minister. We share something in common, in that our towns and cities of Swindon and Peterborough are, unfortunately, the two largest conurbations in the UK without a university that was created from the beginning. Does he agree that, in that respect, it is important to build on apprenticeships, with university technical colleges, for instance, so that young people who are not of an academic bent can be persuaded to pursue a technical and vocational education, which is so important for our future economy?

[Justin Tomlinson]

I thank my hon. Friend for that powerful intervention. He is a real champion for his constituency. On his point about universities, my Swindon constituency benefits from having a huge influx of graduates, so we benefit from the network of local universities within striking distance of Swindon, which is why our area has seen such strong economic growth.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight the importance of university technical colleges. My constituency had one of the first UTCs—a £10 million facility in Swindon. It has had its teething problems, but the principle is fantastic, because it is identifying the people who would ultimately be doing advanced engineering and technical work, giving them a real focus on that. They are working with local businesses, which can help to shape the curriculum to fill the skills gaps that can be identified in the local economy. This means that young people will have the best chance of having a career at the end of their education.

The challenge with university technical colleges is how to attract the best and most able students for that type of education at the age of 14. Not unsurprisingly, schools, which are all judged by league tables, are not always brilliantly keen to encourage their most able students to transfer, because it will have a detrimental effect on their place in the league tables. I would urge the schools Minister to consider having a dual score in the league tables, whereby the student remains attributed to the original school, but the results can be shared with the UTC. That would get around the disincentive facing schools if they lose some of their best students. It will give them the opportunity to say, “Look, they are doing great; but they can do even greater with that type of specialist education”. Undoubtedly, apprenticeships and UTCs are making a huge difference.

Not everybody has the opportunity to walk straight into work. As a society, we therefore have a duty to make sure that our jobcentre network is at its most able to support people. I was not the Minister responsible for jobcentres during my time in the Department for Work and Pensions but we had a lot of joint meetings and I got very excited about the need to refresh our jobcentre network. I had been on a number of visits and I was fundamentally depressed when I saw the 1960s and 1970s concrete structures and the security guards who are, understandably, needed. Let me imagine, though, that I am going to a jobcentre. I am almost certainly nervous, and I am then greeted by a security guard in bleak surroundings. There is no celebration of the successes, and no highlighting of those who have faced the same challenges that I fear but know that I must overcome.

I also visited a Shaw Trust community hub that helped a number of people who were a long way away from entering the workplace. There were bright colours and great furniture. This security guard had a different uniform to show that he was a welcomer: as soon as people arrived they were made to feel special, were congratulated on taking this step, and were made aware that he was there to be their anchor throughout the process. It was a real hub of activity. I could see nervous people coming into the building, but as soon as they met the guard they were at their ease, keen to engage in the process and fulfil their potential.

I am delighted that the Government have rolled out this system. When I visited the Swindon jobcentre a few weeks ago, I was not sure what to expect. I was greeted by senior members of staff, who told me excitedly that although the jobcentre had a budget of only about £3,000, they had painted the walls, changed the furniture around, changed the way the entrance worked, and provided work stations so that people could use computers to look for jobs independently after receiving support from the staff. Those staff members were excited because those improvements had transformed their morale and engagement among those with whom they sought to work.

The staff were then keen to talk to me about the difference that universal credit was making by simplifying what had been an incredibly complex benefits system. Under the old system, involving about 167 benefits, it was necessary to be a nuclear physicist to work out what people were or were not entitled to. All too often, through our casework, we would discover that, because of the complexity of that system, our constituents were missing out on support to which they should have been entitled.

Everyone supports the idea of a simplified single benefit that enshrines the principle that the more people work, the better off they will always be, and removes the ridiculous 16-hour cliff edge that prevented people from progressing from part-time to full-time work, to the frustration both of employers and of those whose circumstances were changing and who wished to build up their hours. Crucially, real-time technology now allows people with fluctuating health conditions to have a minimum income. As the condition goes up or down, the system automatically kicks in, so that people no longer constantly have to reapply and experience complicated bureaucracy when they want to focus on dealing with their health challenges and with remaining, or progressing, in work.

Often it is the simplest things that make the biggest difference. Another exciting development is that, for the first time, there are named work coaches. When people arrive at the jobcentre, they do not just need direct help with their search for work; there are a number of other challenges that they may need to navigate, such as securing childcare or additional training. The named coach will help them through that process, giving them significantly more time to concentrate on looking for the work that they would like. The coach will stay with people when they start work, which will also make a huge difference.

Many of us, looking back on our careers, will realise that we were probably driven mostly by our parents encouraging us to make progress—encouraging us not to be complacent; encouraging us to push ourselves—but that is not a given in life. When I was at school, it was a given that many people had no interest in going to work. That was a shame, because they were brilliant people, and with the right encouragement they could have made huge successes of themselves.

Often, people—especially those who have been out of work for a long time—will enter work, but on the lowest wage. Sometimes they will then stagnate, and will not have the confidence to kick on to higher levels. Let us suppose, for example, that I have been out of work for a long period, and have secured work in a supermarket. I am determined to make it a success, so I turn up every day, work my hours diligently, and stay there. Now, however, the named work coach would contact me and ask, “How is it going?” I would say, “For the last three months I have turned up every day and worked as hard as I possibly can.” The named work coach might say, “Have you thought about asking to become the supervisor?” The reply would be, “I’m too shy to do that.” The named coach would say, “No problem,” and then ask the supervisors and managers in the store, “Is he ready to take that step up?” Therefore, the coaches help people to progress in the workplace.

It is great that we have 2.7 million more people in work and that we have introduced the national living wage, which has helped the 6 million lowest earners to get a pay rise, but the next challenge, as we move close to full structural employment, is to ensure that there is support for in-work progression, so that everyone can not just get a job but fulfil their potential. By working hard, they can then progress through those organisations.

[Justin Tomlinson]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I am always at a loss to understand why he is not a Minister. He is one of our most able MPs. In the debates that I have attended, time and again, he is so thoughtful. I had a brilliant time visiting his constituency as a Minister to see the great work that he had done to help to promote apprentices, before it became fashionable and all of us started to campaign for more apprenticeships. He is always ahead of the curve. Rightly, his intervention highlights that we have to look at people of all ages and at the opportunities. I was an employer myself, so I understand the responsibilities to staff in respect of pensions and other benefits and career progression. As ever, he makes a powerful point.

[Mr Jackson]

Before my hon. Friend finishes his speech, on a positive note, does he agree that it is important that we have done everything we can to remove the badge of shame in the way we treat disabled people who want to work, and that the Disability Confident scheme, with which he was very much involved at the Department for Work and Pensions, is going from strength to strength, so that more disabled people, who should not be put in the shadows but allowed to fulfil their potential are able to do so in the employment market?

[Justin Tomlinson]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I know that he personally supported the Disability Confident campaign. I am coming to that, if he can hold on for a few more seconds.

Another thing that the staff at the jobcentre highlighted was the great initiative of the school advisers from the jobcentre going into schools, starting to identify those who would need help at an earlier stage and working with them to prepare them for their final day in education and to have a smooth transition. Staff are very excited about the early stages of that initiative. I am delighted that the small employment offer, a pilot that I introduced, is making a difference in getting more businesses to engage directly with the jobcentres, which are now a hub of activity, creating more potential vacancies for those who are still looking for work.

As a former disability Minister, it would be remiss of me not to talk about the additional opportunities that have been created for disabled people. On all the visits I ever did, the most passion I saw from people was when I played my favourite game, which was to ask anyone I ever met, “You are the Minister—what would you do?” I was always looking for good ideas. Without a shadow of a doubt, the most passionate, enthusiastic and engaged cohort of people I talked to were young disabled people who wanted to have exactly the same chances and opportunities as their friends. These were highly talented, often highly educated, brilliant young people, but not all employers had the confidence to consider offering them an opportunity. Nearly always, the employer just needed to make a relatively small change and they would benefit. As an employer, by accident—I am not looking for a halo—I employed people with a disability and it made a huge difference. Therefore, I welcome the fact that over the past three years 600,000 more disabled people have gone into work and that the Government are committed to delivering the disability apprenticeships. Those are real opportunities, predominantly for that younger generation.

I welcome this report, but I urge everyone to remember: it is not them versus us. We have a duty to do our best by people of all ages. I very much hope the Government continue their good work in this area.

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[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

This has been an excellent debate, which was brilliantly introduced by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field) and has included thoughtful and intelligent contributions from all hon. Members.

This debate is about poverty, wealth, the accretion of assets and life chances. My grandmother, Kathleen Woodman, was one of 13 children born in County Wexford in Ireland. Eleven of those children died of tuberculosis before Kathleen was taken to England in the late ’40s to live out the rest of her life. I mention that because it is impossible not to remember that the reality of life for so many of our fellow citizens for so many hundreds of years was brutal, grinding poverty. We have come an enormous distance. I say to the right hon. Member for Birkenhead that, yes, there is much to be done, but we have done a great deal to right the wrong of the grinding poverty that afflicted so many people over so many years.

It is important to remember that the modern welfare state was debated after Lloyd George’s 1909 people’s Budget, which brought in social insurance, pensions and the pre-Beveridge foundations of the welfare state. For that reason, we ought to recognise that we have gone in the right direction over the years. To use another statistic, it is impossible to believe that 44% of the world lived in absolute poverty as recently as 1980. In 2015, that figure was 9.6%. We have done an enormous amount—through technology, science, innovation and advances in healthcare—to lift the burden of destitution, misery and poverty from our fellow man, and we should accept the importance of that.

I will confine my remarks to the specific issues raised in the report. The debate between the so-called millennials and the baby boomers does not have to be acrimonious and adversarial. None of us can do anything about the societal change inherent in it, which is essentially demographic. The number of over-85s will double in the next 25 years, and that is a fantastic piece of news. As recently as 30 years ago, people worked incredibly hard—often in manual work. They reached 70 and had a few years tending their plants or their budgie, and then they fell off their perch. That was the reality of our life then. People now are richer, happier and healthier, generally speaking, than they have ever been, and that is a good thing.

It is also true to say, though, that we have not always done the right thing in response to that significant demographic change. To go back to the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson), we have made some policy mistakes. We had a fetish in the 1980s and 1990s for university education—academic education. We did not consider the importance of technical and vocational education to young people who were not necessarily academically gifted. We drove the target of 50% of 18-year-olds going to university, which is great if someone goes to Harvard, Oxford or Cambridge, but not if they go to a less prestigious university and end up earning £7.50 an hour in a call centre, with £40,000 of student debt. We have to really consider whether we made the right decision. For instance, we turned polytechnics, which did a great job in providing technical education for young people, into universities. Was that the right thing? We are doing our best now to ameliorate those issues by, for instance, creating university technical colleges and a brilliant apprenticeship programme across the country, but I am not sure that is enough.

Housing is an important issue, and it was raised by the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West)—I think she got her figures the wrong way round, unless Muswell Hill has gone downhill a lot since I last visited it, compared with Wood Green. It is absolutely right to point up the issue of older people, who are, in any case, better off, hoarding capital assets and, particularly in the planning system, preventing younger people from having what they themselves had. When someone who wants to buy a home has to be 37 years of age and to have something like £25,000 for a deposit, that cannot be right, and it distorts the system. We must build more homes, release more land and liberalise the planning system to address the specific issue of housing and intergenerational fairness.

We have to look at the triple lock, and we need a national debate about it. I am indebted to the Resolution Foundation for the paper it produced last year—“Stagnation Generation: the case for renewing the intergenerational contract”—and for the work of Lord Willetts, among a number of people. It is scarcely believable that the Resolution Foundation could say:

“Millennials are at risk of becoming the first ever generation to record lower lifetime earnings than their predecessors”.

That is the political inheritance we are potentially giving to people who are under 30 at the moment.

[Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend therefore agree that we should reform pensions tax relief to enable younger people to save more? Three quarters of pensions tax relief goes to higher earners, who are often older. If we reformed it—moving to, say, 28p or 30p in the pound—lower-income people would have more bang for their buck.

[Mr Jackson]

I absolutely agree. In terms of fairness and social equity, that is an excellent fiscal policy, which we should look at.

As the Select Committee report said, we also need to look at the information gap. We need qualitative and quantitative data on what goes in and comes out across both generations. We need to publish that analysis and study it independently.

We need to look at universal pension benefits, such as the winter fuel allowance. With demographic change, it is inevitable that we need to make sure we marshal our public resources in the best way we can. We need to look at a smoothed earnings link—a nuance in terms of prices-related indexing of benefits to pensioners. Life expectancy is increasing and health outcomes are getting better.

It is not that we have not done a good job, with automatic enrolment, changes in tax allowances, the national living wage, record employment of 74.6%, apprenticeships, and real incomes now rising by 2.6%. As we have heard, the number of those not in education, employment or training is reducing. Youth unemployment in my constituency has seen one of the biggest falls in any constituency in England—about 70%. Work means wealth. Work is the biggest determinant of getting out of poverty. Albeit that it might be low-paid and low-skilled work at the beginning, it is the No. 1 determinant of breaking the cycle of intergenerational welfare dependency. It is hugely impressive that the Government have taken 865,000 people out of workless households since 2010, although obviously they need to do more.

Before I conclude, may I be a little disobliging to the Scottish National party? The hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows), who is an excellent representative of her constituency, was rather churlish in the partisan point that she made. If we are talking about ideology, perhaps she can explain the £2,000 gap per head in public expenditure as a result of the Barnett formula, as between my constituents and hers. I will leave that in the air for her to think about.

My hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) made a superb speech. In fact, we do not have an approach where we just put money in a biscuit tin and take it out when we are 68 or 70—we have a pay-as-you-go system. We must have a national consensus and a proper debate on this issue, because we cannot kick it into the long grass any longer. As I said at the beginning, grinding poverty, destitution, ill health and hidden mental illness are all things that we never want to go back to. The system we have is a price we are paying for a civilised society.

Welfare

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Crabb]

I think I fully addressed the right hon. Lady’s question in my statement.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend to his new position. He is a good man, and I think he will do a great job. He will of course know that the Conservative party has a proud heritage of welfare reform in areas such as public health and social housing. If he is to have a debate, it must surely be about intergenerational fairness and ring-fencing. Those of my constituents who see welfare reductions cannot understand why, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, we intend to spend another £900 million on Scotland and are ring-fencing the Department for International Development budget. We need to refocus our priorities on the most needy across our country.

Housing Benefit and Supported Housing

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Wednesday 27th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

It is down to the hon. Gentleman and his Front-Bench colleagues to demonstrate that case to those who are watching the debate, and especially to the people whose homes and lives are at risk.

As I said, every Member of the House has constituents who are threatened by the Chancellor’s crude housing benefit cut. In the Minister for Housing and Planning’s local authority area of Great Yarmouth, there are some 258 people in supported housing and at least 139 in sheltered housing. The numbers are even higher for Swindon and Tunbridge Wells. What do we say to these residents and their families? What do we say to the committed charities, churches, housing associations and other groups that provide such specialist housing and are so concerned?

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

Surely the right hon. Gentleman concedes that this is not a back-of-a-fag-packet policy and that the Government are doing a sensible thing by collating all the information and demonstrable data as part of a proper scoping exercise on assisted housing, with an impact assessment. They have also put aside nearly £500 million for discretionary housing payments and the changes will not take effect until April 2018. Surely that is a sensible policy for the Government to pursue.

[John Healey]

We have not seen the information and we have not seen the evidence—we have not even seen the fag packet. Without the information and the evidence, why on earth did the Chancellor take this decision in the spending review before Christmas, thus pre-empting exactly what good policy and decision making should be based on?

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[Brandon Lewis]

I think there was an intervention somewhere in that speech. The hon. Lady has experience of the excellent work that those organisations do, as do I—I was a trustee of a Foyer. That is why it is important that we ensure that we protect the most vulnerable in society.

[Mr Jackson]

Is not the difference between the two sides of the House the fact that we on the Government side have got 339,000 disabled people into work and off benefits, whereas in 2010 the Labour party, to its eternal shame, presided over a situation in which 70% of people on disability living allowance had never been systematically re-assessed? That is a shocking and disgraceful record.

[Brandon Lewis]

My hon. Friend highlights the difference between the two parties. We want to ensure that we get a deal that protects the most vulnerable in society, helps them out and gives them an aspirational opportunity to move forward in their lives while getting a right and proper deal for the hard-working taxpayer.

In the autumn statement we announced that social sector rents eligible for housing benefit will be limited to the level of the relevant local housing allowance rate, including the shared accommodation rate for single claimants under 35 who do not have dependent children. It will be effective from 1 April 2018, affecting all tenancies that commenced from 1 April 2016. I know that has raised some concerns, so let me be clear that we will always ensure appropriate protections for the most vulnerable in supported housing. We will work closely with the sector, through the supported housing review, to ensure that we do that in exactly the right way.

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[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

I want to put on the record my support for the one-year moratorium that has been announced, which demonstrates that being in government is about listening to a wide-ranging debate and taking on board the views of the key stakeholders. It is very welcome. Government is about matching policy principles, such as fairness and social equity, with practical policy implementation.

We have seen the usual hysterical shroud waving from the Labour party. It is working with people in the housing sector to scaremonger and to frighten the most vulnerable tenants.

[Neil Gray]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Jackson]

No, I will not.

The question has to be, where is the Labour party’s policy? Where is the coherence? Where is the comprehensive costing? Where is the alternative? It is not there. And this from the party that voted against every single welfare change that we made in the last Parliament. What would it have done? It allowed housing benefit claims to reach £104,000 for a single year. They are the people who saw a 46% rise in the housing benefit bill. They are the people who consigned millions of families to welfare dependency, with a record number of children in workless households. This Government are doing something about that.

[Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend recall that Labour Members recently voted against the pay-to-stay policy in the Housing and Planning Bill, under which higher earners in social rented accommodation will pay more and housing associations will keep the revenue to invest in supported housing?

[Mr Jackson]

Exactly; that is a fairness issue. How can it be fair that working families effectively give a direct payment to other people in social housing, who are often not working? That cannot be fair. We have to deal with the issue of welfare dependency.

[Alison Thewliss]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Jackson]

No, I will not.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Julian Knight) said, these are difficult decisions. In the short term, they will deliver £240 million in savings. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has said that in the long term, they will save £1.1 billion. We have to do this, given the fiscal inheritance that we took on.

The Government have a responsibility—it was a manifesto commitment, so there is a mandate from the people of this country—to deliver welfare reform. The hon. Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie) is no longer in his place, but if Labour Members really believe, after reading the report by Deborah Mattinson on the BritainThinks focus group, that the Labour party will ever be trusted on the economy, and particularly on welfare, with the policies it is pursuing—the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) knows that this is the case—they are completely wrong. They have to understand that completely opposing everything the Government do on welfare reform, in favour of more spending, more taxing and more debt, will never deliver another majority Labour Government.

I say gently to housing associations that the 1% cut in rents will have a direct impact on all their tenants in general needs housing. There will be a 12% reduction in average rents by the end of the Parliament. We give £13 billion a year to housing associations so that they can discharge their duty to house people. They have to raise their game and meet the challenge. This is not often commented on, but housing associations are not subject to the Freedom of Information Act. We need to see that they are as efficient as possible. They are very efficient when it comes to campaigning against the Government, but they are not so efficient in resource allocation to deliver front-line services to the most vulnerable tenants.

[Richard Graham]

On that point, does my hon. Friend agree that over the past five years, large sections of the public sector have stepped up to the plate, delivered more for less and executed changes that have saved the taxpayer money and helped the public finances, and that housing associations should be able to follow that example?

[Mr Jackson]

I agree with my hon. Friend.

There will be an impact assessment and an evidence-based review of the whole assisted and supported housing regime. We do not know what the final decision will be, but it is for local housing associations to stop complaining and to work with planners, developers and other key partners, such as those in the national health service—

[Marie Rimmer (St Helens South and Whiston) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Jackson]

Sorry, I would love to, but I do not have time.

Housing associations must work with those partners to deliver the projects that they want to deliver.

I am not wholly supportive of the Government on this issue and I will tell the House why. There has to be a comprehensive and holistic approach to meeting the crisis that the demographic time bomb of older people will bring to acute social care and acute hospital care. We have to reduce those numbers. We have to use the tax system—

[Marie Rimmer]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Jackson]

I will not, I am afraid. The hon. Lady is not taking the hint, but I cannot give way because I do not have time.

We must use the tax system and the expertise that we have to deliver good adult social care and to care for women who have been subject to domestic abuse. That is a massive issue. Of course, we have put £40 million into it. Mention was made earlier of discretionary housing payments, which will assist those tenants directly. Incidentally, we have talked about the spare room subsidy, but those payments were not always drawn down fully by local authorities, often Labour ones, because of inefficiency.

I say to Ministers that the Opposition spokesman made the fair point that we need further clarity. It cannot be the will of the Government to make it more difficult to develop more extra care facilities. We do not want non-viable projects to go forward. It is therefore important that the Treasury, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Communities and Local Government get round the table and work out together how we can deal with this.

We have a duty and a responsibility to deal with the fiscal inheritance, including the out-of-control welfare spending, but we must balance that with practical, pragmatic solutions that deliver adult social care and that are fair to the most vulnerable people in our society, whom we all care about—memo to the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle). Fairness and equity are important, but if we demand tax revenue from our constituents, we must deliver value for money. That is why I will not support the Labour party tonight, but will support the Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Owen Smith]

Is not that just shroud waving? We have heard for the past few years—not just months or today—that we are shroud waving about the bedroom tax and its effects on the vulnerable. Indeed, we have been told that it is shroud waving to suggest that the bedroom tax might be unlawful, but it turns out that it is illegal, so the Government must come back to the House to address the situation—[Interruption.] The Minister for Housing and Planning is chuntering, but this afternoon there was a welcome yet extraordinary turn of events in the House. Despite Labour Members and others interested in the social rented sector asking him on hundreds of occasions in recent months to make the change, the Minister has only now said that he agrees with us.

We should address the deeply unfair 1% cut to social housing rents which is but part of the problem that the social supported housing sector faces. I welcome the fact that the Minister, without much good grace, conceded that there should be a delay. It is extraordinary that his Government have been looking at the policy not, I have to tell my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), since 2014 but since 2011, which is when they first suggested that they ought to address the question of, in their view, high social rented costs versus local housing allowance. Five years later, they still have not reached a conclusion on what they are going to do. It is incompetence on a gross scale.

In the Welfare Reform and Work Bill Committee, we lost count of the number of occasions on which we were offered excuses as to why the change could not possibly be made, and why the moratorium—or, as we asked for, a full exemption—was not affordable or allowable. In Committee, I believe that the words, “shroud waving” were used on a number of occasions. We were accused of jumping the gun, and told that the measures would not be introduced for a while, so there was plenty of time for the Government to get their papers in order and get the policy right.

[Mr Jackson]

The hon. Gentleman makes an eloquent case. Can he explain to the House why, in benign economic times, his own Government failed to deliver tax breaks to encourage the development of extra care facilities and specialist housing facilities? Why did they stand still when there was plenty of money coming in and they had the opportunity to do so?

[Owen Smith]

The National Audit Office concluded that under the Tory and Liberal Government there was a 45% reduction in the amount of funding for the supported housing sector. That is the reality.

[Mr Jackson]

What about your Government?

[Owen Smith]

We have not been in power for six years, and there is only so long that the hon. Gentleman can keeping waving that shroud at me. The key point is that under the hon. Gentleman’s Government there was a 40% cut, and we face the prospect of the end of supported housing in this country unless there is a change of course from his Government.

There is a lot of misunderstanding among Government Members about what we are talking about. I do not know whether they do not read the briefing from the Whips or the Whips do not tell them the truth, but there are two measures that we are debating. On the first measure—a 1% cut in social housing rents—there is now a one-year stay of execution. The second and more important measure, which the Minister did not address despite the questions raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne, is the equalising of the amount of housing benefit available to people in social rented accommodation with the local housing allowance. That is the biggest, most substantive change that the Government propose to make.

The hon. Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield) said that the measure had not been introduced and is not happening yet. She really ought to read the Government’s statements. I shall read from the autumn statement, which said at paragraph 1.125:

“The Government will cap the amount of rent that Housing Benefit will cover in the social sector to the relevant local housing allowance. This will apply to tenancies signed after 1 April 2016”.

According to my maths, that is in a couple of months, with housing benefit entitlements changing across the board from April 2018. This is not shroud waving, nor is it jumping the gun: it is the Opposition drawing to the attention of the House and, it would seem, Government Members, a measure that will impact on their constituents in just a few months’ time.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Disabled People (Justin Tomlinson)]

This has been a powerful and important debate, and we have listened to the arguments from both sides of the Chamber. A number of important points were raised and questions asked, and I will do my best to cover as many of them as I can.

Our welfare reform is about bringing wide-ranging reforms to the welfare system and bringing the budget back under control after years of overspending by Labour. My hon. Friends the Members for Peterborough (Mr Jackson), for Weaver Vale (Graham Evans) and for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) set out eloquently how important that is. Our reforms are bringing fairness for hard-working taxpayers, making work pay and making welfare sustainable for the future.

Protecting the most vulnerable is the key part of today’s debate. As we have progressed with these important and necessary reforms, we have stuck to our principle of protecting the most vulnerable. As the Minister for Disabled People, I hold that principle to be particularly important. I know how important the right housing is for an individual’s needs. I am proud of our record on helping those who need the most support.

I want to remind the House that we have spent around £50 billion every year on benefits to support people with disabilities or health conditions, and that spending will be higher in every year until 2020 than it was in 2010. We are spending £400 million to deliver 8,000 specialist homes for the vulnerable, elderly or those with disabilities, and funding for the disabled facilities grant, which funds around 40,000 adaptations a year, is due to increase by nearly 80% next year. We are providing £870 million of support through discretionary housing payment over the next five years to help those who need support, and the Department of Health has committed to funding up to 7,500 further specialist homes for disabled and older people.

We are also providing support to other vulnerable groups. For example, we are providing £40 million for victims of domestic abuse, which is a tripling of the support, ensuring that no one is turned away from the support they need. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) for focusing the House on the absolute importance of the services that refuges provide, bringing real dynamism and realism to the debate. I understand that, because I have done a lot of work with Women’s Aid, particularly in the last Parliament, and I pay tribute to the women’s refuge in Swindon. It cannot boast about what it does, because it has to be behind closed doors. The hon. Lady has really focused minds, which is an important thing to do. More than £500 million has been spent since 2010 on tackling homelessness, preventing almost 1 million households from becoming homeless.

Let me turn to supported housing. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield) and the hon. Member for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue), who drew upon their real-life experience and set out some of the challenges and opportunities faced in this area. We recognise the value of the supported housing sector and want to ensure that the essential services it delivers continue to be provided, within the context of driving appropriate value for money. Many Members have put that on the record today and spoken about that support, which is very important. We want to ensure that the sector can continue to deliver the important services it provides, which is why we will be putting in place a one-year exemption from the 1% rent reduction for all supported accommodation. That will give us time to study the evidence from the supported housing review, which is due to report in the spring, and consider a longer-term solution for the sector.

The hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) asked a number of questions, including about what happens to rents for supported housing next year during the one-year delay. They will be uprated by CPI plus 1% up until April 2017, then reviewed after that.

The review will tell us the size, scale and scope of supported housing funded through housing benefits. The policy options will be considered after the report is published, in consultation with a wide range of stakeholders, and conclusions will be reached in due course as that is brought together.

[Mr Jackson]

I am reassured by the Minister’s comments. Will he ensure that the Treasury and NHS England are involved in this issue, because it is important that there is proper co-ordination between acute hospital care and social care as we face demographic issues in the future?

[Justin Tomlinson]

We all accept that this issue goes far wider, and we must look at all that in the consultation.

My hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Seema Kennedy) asked me to take on board the comments from Progress Housing, and I will happily do so. The hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) talked about the YMCA, which is an important organisation. I am pleased that Denise Hatton, YMCA England’s chief executive, has already tweeted:

“It is positive that the Government has listened to the concerns of the sector and we welcome the fact it has taken appropriate action to protect supported housing.”

Young Jobseekers

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2015 Westminster Hall

[Chloe Smith]

I do not think that the hon. Gentleman will hold me too far to account if I leave it to the Minister to cover some of those points that are, after all, national. I suspect that the hon. Gentleman is arguing that they ought to be a matter for Government. The great majority of the private sector jobs created over the past few years have been full-time. Myths abound as to the extent of zero-hours contracts. We gave that argument a good going-over in the general election campaign—I am sure that the hon. Gentleman did as much as I did. There are myths around about the quality of jobs that young people can look forward to as they leave education and look for opportunities. It is deeply disrespectful to young people to set up a negative argument that they can look forward only to a zero- hours contract. It is deeply negative and we ought to avoid it.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate and on chairing the all-party group, of which I have the pleasure of being a member. A key complaint from employers is about the work-readiness of young people. Does my hon. Friend concur that the National Citizen Service is one of the best initiatives we have, particularly in the east of England, in helping young people to grow in confidence and work-readiness?

[Chloe Smith]

Yes, I do. Indeed, I note that the NCS is holding an event in Parliament today at which its leaders are on hand to explain an important point that we ought to celebrate in this debate: young people can lead young people to face these challenges. We should look for examples of that and give praise where it has worked, and we should seek more ways for young people to be in a position to lead their peers. I want to put that proposition forward, because it came over strongly in last night’s digital debate. It is another way of looking constructively at what has worked up and down the country.

amendment of the law

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Tuesday 25th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

I have been very clear that net migration from outside the EU is falling, but that it is going up from inside the EU. That is why we will renegotiate and put the terms to a referendum. We trust the British people with that decision—something that the hon. Gentleman’s party is not prepared to do.

One of the most important things that we have done on the cost of living is to enable interest rates to stay low. That means that one of the largest costs for any family—their mortgage—has stayed at a very low rate. That has been incredibly important and the Labour party would put it at risk.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

Is it not a bit galling to take lessons from the Labour party on equity and fairness when, under this Government since 2010 there are 400,000 fewer workless households and 290,000 children who are no longer in workless households? That is a record that I will be proud to stand on at the general election next year.

[Mr Harper]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right.

Also on the cost of living, I am very proud that Conservative councillors in Gloucestershire, working in partnership with the Government, have delivered a council tax freeze. Council tax is one of the most significant costs for families, after their mortgage. Gloucestershire county council has delivered a council tax freeze in every year since 2011-12; Forest of Dean district council has delivered a freeze since the 2011 local election; and Tewkesbury borough council has frozen council tax for four years running. I am looking at my council tax bill. The Conservative-controlled bits of the bill are frozen. The only bits that have gone up are those that are controlled by the independent police and crime commissioner who, for the second year running, has broken his promise and put up council tax for hard-working families across my constituency. That is an unacceptable breach of his manifesto promises. I am pleased that Conservative councils, working in partnership with the Government, have kept council tax low.

In constituencies like mine, having a car is not a luxury but a necessity, so I am pleased that we have frozen fuel duty. That means that for my constituents petrol is 20p a litre cheaper at the pumps than it would have been if the fuel escalator put in place by Labour had continued. That is not a trivial matter for my constituents. It saves them £11 or so every time they fill up and it is very much welcomed.

The hon. Lady spoke about our pension reforms. I know why there is some confusion, to which the Secretary of State drew attention. I raised in the House last week at Business questions the interesting response from one of the Opposition’s key policy advisers, a man who used to advise their Social Security Secretary, the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman). He said—and I think this is what many on the Labour Benches believe—that

“you cannot trust people to spend their own money sensibly planning for their retirement”.

He was not a lone voice. He was supported by the hon. Member for West Bromwich East (Mr Watson), who said that the Labour party must oppose our policies, and there are a number of other Labour MPs such as the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell), and the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg), who is in the Chamber, who sounded a little confused. She was sort of welcoming—[Interruption.] She sounded a little confused about our policy. I have great respect for the hon. Lady, with whom I worked when I was in opposition as the shadow Minister for disabled people.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

No, I would not, and I hope that nobody else in the Chamber would be able to apply either—otherwise we may find out exactly what they are worth. The changes we are making with the spare room subsidy are to get rid of the subsidy that ordinary taxpayers are paying for people to under-occupy houses while many others live in overcrowded accommodation.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

There is significant concern across the country about the likelihood of welfare dependency as a result of immigration from Romania and Bulgaria from January 2014. Will the Minister look urgently at the habitual residence test within the context of the free movement directive and ensure that such issues are addressed in good time?

[Mr Hoban]

I assure my hon. Friend that we apply a habitual residence test to see whether people moving from other EU states are entitled to means-tested benefits. We will continue to look at that test and at what more can be done to strengthen it.

Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Tuesday 8th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Debbie Abrahams]

I cannot because I do not have the figures to hand, but I am happy to provide them later. The evidence is there. Scenario modelling has been done—[Interruption.] If I could finish the point. Scenario modelling is available showing exactly how many have been assessed.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Debbie Abrahams]

I will not give way at the moment. I will finish my point and then make some progress.

The Children’s Society’s analysis shows that between £500 and £400 will be lost per annum by key workers such as a second lieutenant in the armed forces or a primary school teacher.

--- Later in debate ---

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

I apologise for being absent for part of the debate while attending duties at the Home Affairs Committee.

The one inescapable fact is that however much the Chancellor talks about shared pain, we are discussing real cuts to benefits at a time when he thinks it is okay to prioritise tax cuts for millionaires. We should no doubt be grateful that pensioners have been spared this cut in their benefits, but that is probably down to Lord Ashcroft having identified what a key group they are and putting their benefits off limits.

I am afraid that these proposals look like an ambition to create division between those who have little and those who have less. That sits comfortably with the values and politics of a particular kind of Conservatism. This is called an uprating, but 1% rises over three years really represent a cut of 4% in the spending power of those already struggling. Citizens Advice estimates that when we take tax changes into account, a family with two children paying £130 per week in rent and earning just above the minimum wage will be almost £13 per week worse off. That is before we take food and energy inflation into account. No wonder people are being driven into the arms of payday loan sharks.

Income transfers for those on modest incomes, for example, are recognised throughout developed economies as exactly the kind of fiscal stimulus needed when recessionary pressures are highest, but the Chancellor is doing the exact opposite. A total of 4.6 million women will lose their tax credits, including 2.5 million working women and more than 1 million who care for their children while their partner works—the same people who are also having their maternity benefits cut. Lord Ashcroft calls them “suspicious strivers”. In his words, they fear they are one more redundancy, one interest rate rise or one tax credit change away from real difficulty, and they would not want to rely on a Conservative Government if they found themselves in trouble.

[Mr Stewart Jackson]

For the record, 42,654 people in the Peterborough constituency will be better off under the tax changes in April. Is the hon. Gentleman not ashamed that under his Government, who presided over 16 years of economic growth, more than 1,000 people in my constituency were parked on invalidity and incapacity benefit for more than 10 years. That is shameful and it is his Government’s record.

[Steve McCabe]

I cannot wait for the hon. Gentleman to have to meet all those people who are better off at his advice centre.

The International Monetary Fund regularly warns about the dangers of cutting the automatic stabilisers in these economically fraught times, yet that is exactly what is happening. It is estimated—the IMF is the source —that these benefit cuts will contribute to a £40 billion reduction in the country’s output when we desperately need the opposite to happen.

As well as implementing benefit cuts that defy economic logic, the Chancellor has set up a special hotline for Tory MPs who are confused about his benefit changes. Special hotlines for Tory MPs, Government cars to cushion Ministers from rail-fare rises, and specially arranged meetings to cover the transport costs if they want to watch the European cup final—yes, they are definitely all in it together.

My contention is that these decisions do not make economic sense, are not fair and will punish the very people who are striving and struggling to make ends meet while the Chancellor’s millionaire friends are prioritised for tax cuts. That tells us all we need to know about this Government’s values.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

I do not criticise Labour Members for their aspirations. There is nothing ignoble in the positions that they are taking; I just happen to believe that they are wrong. They know that the picture of despair and hopelessness that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State saw in Easterhouse in 2002 was the same picture that the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) saw in 1997, when there was an historic opportunity for the then Labour Government to tackle welfare dependency and rebalance work and welfare. Unfortunately, they did not take that action.

People out there are decent; they care and their attitude is, “There but for the grace of God go I.” They do not want to stigmatise people, and nor do Government Members. I accept that there has been some rhetoric on both sides of the House, but people do care. They also care about the dependency culture, and about fairness. In all honesty, they feel that the previous Labour Government tested their patience on this issue.

It is disingenuous to talk about cruelty. I think that it was cruel to park 1,000 of my constituents on invalidity or incapacity benefit for more than 10 years without the opportunity—[Interruption.] I should remind Labour Members that this was in 2010. Those people were given no opportunity to inform anyone of their needs. People suffering from depression or other mental health problems, and people with physical afflictions, were simply parked and forgotten. I am not saying that the Labour Government did that because they were cruel or heartless; they did it because they were incompetent. We are taking the tough decisions that will make work pay, through the Work programme and through apprenticeships that will tackle youth unemployment, which the previous Government doubled. Work is the No. 1 determinant in taking people out of poverty and breaking the cycle of children seeing their parents unemployed, living in a half-life of hopelessness and poverty and lacking ambition. That has been demonstrated across the world.

[Christopher Pincher]

My hon. Friend is quite right to say that work provides the best way out of poverty. Does he agree that the 5.2 million people who were trapped in dependency when the economy was growing in the boom years under Labour are evidence of the previous Government’s structural failure to deal with poverty?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jackson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In retrospect, I think that it was a tragedy to import thousands of low-wage, low-skilled people from eastern Europe while we parked our own indigenous young people who needed skills and training and who needed educators and businesses to put their the faith and trust in them. I have nothing against the people who wanted to come to this country to make a better life for themselves and their families, but at what cost did they do so? Even the Scottish Trades Union Congress says the same thing.

Some of the arguments being used are disingenuous because they do not fully understand the context. We have uprated benefits by 5.2%, we have brought in apprenticeships, and we are trying to deal with these issues through the Work programme. I am on the Public Accounts Committee and I know that the programme is not perfect. We are at the beginning of a process and there are some difficulties with appeals, with people’s understanding of the system, and with advocacy. I understand that. However, my blue-collar constituents do not understand how it can be right, when their average salary is about £24,000, for a party that aspires to government to say that it will not countenance a benefit cap of £26,000. My constituency has some of the poorest super-output areas and wards in the eastern region, and my constituents are decent, salt-of-the-earth people who want to work. They are not shirkers.

[Mr MacNeil]

rose—

[Mr Jackson]

I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman, even though he is a terribly charming fellow.

Those people in my constituency want to work, but they want the Government to give them a positive message about the future. It is cruel to park people and to forget them.

[James Wharton (Stockton South) (Con)]

I want to back up what my hon. Friend is saying. When I went around my constituency at the last election, the issue of making work pay came up time and again, and the communities in which it came up were the poorest ones. They had seen the damage that long-term welfare dependency could do to a community. The reason that my hon. Friend and I welcome the reforms is that the Government are finally tackling this long-term problem, which hits the poorest in our country the hardest.

[Mr Jackson]

That was eloquently put by my hon. Friend, who is even younger and better looking than the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil). We take a pinch of salt for a party that has no coherent fiscal alternative. Frankly, “Tough on Coco Pops and tough on the causes of Coco Pops” does not make a fiscal policy. The 10p tax rate was a debacle, while re-spending over and over again bankers’ bonuses and pensions credit does not cut the mustard.

Let me give some free advice to Labour Members. We did the same as them in 1998 and 1999 when we said that the downturn was made in Downing street, but it did not help us because we were not seen as credible. I respectfully invite Labour Members, if they are going to vote against Second Reading, to say what they would cut and what they would spend as an alternative. The Bill will save the best part of £2 billion. Politics is about choices, as Aneurin Bevan said 50-odd years ago, and he was right. It is disingenuous to keep repeating the issue of tax cuts to millionaires, when we have taken millions of people out of tax and cut the taxes of many low-paid working people. This Bill is about giving a message—that work pays and that it is better than welfare. We should give people the life they need and deserve—a life of work and a better future.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

Living Standards

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Wednesday 30th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)]

Given the constraints on time and the number of people who wish to speak, which shows how seriously Members on both sides of the House take this issue, I will try to limit my remarks.

The obvious route to improving living standards is to help as many people back into work as possible. Instead of focusing on the points that have been made about some of the very good schemes that have been introduced, I should like to start with structural issues to do with employment. There is no question but that the Government are introducing measures that will help to increase employment. For example, they are looking at rebalancing out-of-work incentives. We are trying to make work pay through the very welcome introduction of higher personal allowances, which will help people at the lower end of the scale. We are also, as the Secretary of State outlined, looking at the bigger picture of welfare reform.

However, we have to consider matters beyond that. As a former employer who started a business with one or two people and ended up with 100 people, I saw, and shared, the intense pleasure of recruiting someone into a new job or their first job. I also understood, and felt, the enormous pain, and sometimes shame, of people who underwent redundancy through no fault of their own. In the last two years of my working time before I came into Parliament, I was very worried by the level of the CVs that were being produced and the failure of candidates to articulate themselves with even basic English or a basic education. That was a clear sign that some people were being failed by their education. I am sure we all agree on the common goal to improve education and raise standards, but there is no question but that the structural changes that we are introducing will improve people’s chances and lead to a fundamental generational change for the future. If those changes fail, we may be back here in 10 years, still talking about the problem.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

Has my hon. Friend, like me, noted the lack of contrition from the Labour party in its failure to apologise for driving many people into welfare dependency through its policy of unrestricted immigration over the last 13 years?

[Nick de Bois]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s comments on the complex issues that he raised. We have to consider the consequences of both those issues, but I shall continue to examine the structural changes I was discussing.

The welcome sign for the future is that we have rightly shifted the emphasis from a purely academic route and are now pushing vocational routes, whether through apprenticeships or through further skills and training, giving people a choice from the age of 14 or 16 that will meet the skill needs of employers. Otherwise, we could be back here in 10 years discussing many of the same issues.

With the changes that are being introduced, we need to look at the tactical areas where we can help people get into Work that will meet the immediate challenges of improving both their life chances and their living standards. I have met Work programme providers and witnessed how they are determined to provide long-term jobs for those who are unemployed and going through the new system. These programmes are to be welcomed because they seek to provide a long-term, rather than a short-term, solution.

I am particularly impressed by the early results of the work experience programmes, working with the jobcentres, where people who had little chance of breaking the dependency culture and moving to independence are put into a work environment and employers are encouraged to take them on. As a result, over half of those who have been in such employment for three months are getting full-time work. I do not subscribe to the theory that so many people just wish to sit on benefits. The road to work is through breaking the cycle of dependency and putting people into an environment where they relish the challenge and want to work. That is the very life chance that they will be able to see, given the chance to improve their opportunities, shaped around the proposals of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State.

Much has been said about the debt interest. It is shocking that this country pays about £46 billion a year to service debt in return for nothing. The worst thing is that that money is going to our competitors. The people who are lending us money are the people who will make it harder to help people in this country improve their life chances.

Welfare Reform Bill

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Wednesday 9th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

We have had, and continue to have, those discussions, and I understand the concern. There is a debate, on both sides of the argument, about whether we basically continue with the principle that we should pay people and deal with certain elements of what they receive because they are not capable of doing so themselves, or whether we try to get people to the point where they are capable of managing their own money more and more. I recognise from the hon. Lady’s intervention that, on this matter, there is no absolute, but there is at least a debate on both sides, and that is simply where we are at the moment—trying to discuss the issue with those who feel that they would be most affected.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

Was it not a moral catastrophe and economic madness when, under the previous Labour Government, registered social landlords had no incentive to tackle welfare dependency, because their main funding stream was housing benefit? Under this Bill, registered providers will have an opportunity to tackle welfare dependency among their tenants.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

What we want from the Bill is to encourage people to get involved in the process—to help people to use it as part of the incentive of trying to make the right decisions about taking work and providing for their families.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Byrne]

I would do no more than encourage the hon. Gentleman to look at the analysis of his noble Friend Lord Freud, who examined our work to get people back to work and remarked on how fast the number of people on out-of-work benefits had fallen. He examined the number of children lifted out of poverty and said that our record was truly remarkable.

[Mr Stewart Jackson]

I fear that the right hon. Gentleman is going through the motions. He was a gifted and talented Chief Secretary to the Treasury, and I do not think he truly believes what he is saying. Will he at least concede that people who are no friends of the Conservative party, such as the Scottish TUC, have said that worklessness was exacerbated by the decision to import millions of low-skilled, low-wage workers from eastern Europe, which drove down wages and conditions and made it much more difficult for indigenous British workers to secure jobs and get off welfare dependency?

[Mr Byrne]

I do not think I should veer into a debate about immigration this afternoon, because you, Mr Deputy Speaker, would quickly call me to order. I would, however, make the point that, after consistent economic growth, employment went up, the number of people on out-of-work benefits came down and the number of people lifted out of poverty, including pensioners and children, was at a record high. The Government can learn something from that record.

Of course, that has to be put alongside the right legislation to encourage people back to work, which is where I fear the Bill will fall short, for a very simple reason. It fails the basic tests of whether it fosters ambition and whether it reinforces and consolidates our obligations to each other. Fostering ambition and nurturing compassion are the basic tests of welfare reform, and I am afraid the Bill fails both.

Youth Unemployment

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Wednesday 16th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

Let me tell the right hon. Gentleman what we are doing to get young people into the workplace for the first time.

One of the first things I received on entering government was an e-mail from the mother of a young woman who had arranged a month’s work experience for herself but been told by Jobcentre Plus that she could not do it, because the rules, which the previous Administration put in place, prevented her from doing so. We have therefore changed things.

We now encourage work experience. Through Jobcentre Plus, we will actively find work experience for young people, without their losing their benefits, and give them the opportunity to solve the age-old problem whereby, if someone cannot get the experience, they do not get the job, but, if they do not get the job, they cannot get the experience.

We have also strengthened volunteering opportunities for young people, and we will have Prince’s Trust representation in every job centre, so that we can steer young people towards voluntary work and take advantages of the trust’s skills to help unemployed young people.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

Is my right hon. Friend as incredulous as I am at the Opposition’s faux outrage? They are members of the party that, during 13 years of government, imported low-wage, low-skilled people from eastern Europe—more than 1 million of them—and pushed thousands of young people into welfare dependency and on to the dole. They should be ashamed of themselves.

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There is collective amnesia among those on the Labour Benches. One of the things they have also conveniently forgotten, which was revealed by one of their number, the right hon. Member for Birkenhead, is that over the course of those years nearly 4 million new jobs were created in this country, the vast majority of which went to people coming to the UK from overseas. The Labour Government completely failed to make a serious inroad into the nearly 5 million people on benefits, or to get British people into what was once described as the goal of the previous Prime Minister—British jobs for British workers.