Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts(4 days, 10 hours ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)
My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendments 223 to 226, and your Lordships’ House will remember that we debated the issue in these amendments in June of last year. The amendments have two aims: to provide parents with an effective means of escalating a formal complaint about a school when they are not satisfied with the school’s response, and to introduce a mechanism for better enforcing the legal duties of schools in the provision of education, for example over political impartiality. Proposing these amendments allows for a debate that draws attention to breaches of education law, the failure of the DfE to enforce it or to support concerned parents and the disempowering of parents in the education of their children.
At present, there is little or no enforcement of significant parts of education law: first, because the school inspector at Ofsted does not consider compliance with education law per se. When challenged about rating schools hitherto as outstanding when they were clearly in breach of their legal duties, Ofsted has stated that there are many different obligations and that it is not a compliance-driven inspectorate. Inspectors are teachers by profession, so they may not always be equipped to make judgments over legal compliance.
Secondly, parents could, in theory, launch a judicial review against their child’s school, but the significant costs of such legal action and the damage it could do to the parents’ relationships with their child’s school are significant factors. Parents can use the school’s internal complaints process, and, at a state-funded school, if they remain dissatisfied, they can escalate their complaint to the DfE. However, there are examples of extremely poor handling of complaints by the department. The department occasionally appears to go to considerable lengths to evade making any decision and parents can literally be waiting years after they first submitted their complaint to the school before they receive a response, by which time their child may well have moved on to another school.
Consequently, failure to comply with some education laws is widespread and schools do not always take them seriously. It is common for teachers and governors not to know what education law requires, demonstrating that it is largely irrelevant in practice. There are exceptions; for example, inspectors will consider aspects of a school’s work on safeguarding, and schools are consequently more likely to closely follow the statutory safeguarding guidance, Keeping Children Safe in Education—although even here there have been concerns about schools’ practice.
The amendments would introduce a right for parents to appeal complaints to the First-tier Tribunal, rather than to the DfE, if they have completed the internal school process and remain dissatisfied. The internal school process usually has at least two formal stages. Parents would retain their ability to escalate a complaint to the DfE. The amendments would work by inserting new clauses into existing education Acts: the Education Act 2002, for local-authority maintained schools; the Education and Skills Act 2008, for independent educational institutions, including academies; and the Education Act 1996, for non-maintained special schools. Finally, Amendment 226 would allow for consequential amendments to be made.
As the hour is late, I will not go into detail on the amendments, but I will finish by explaining their impact. To make use of these provisions, parents would need to specify in their complaint the duty that they are concerned the school is breaching. There would also be some costs involved. Not all parents and complaints will be able to make use of these provisions. However, in those situations, parents would be no worse off, as they would still have their current ability to escalate to the DfE. The general effect, however, would be to increase awareness, among both parents and schools, of the school’s legal obligations. An increasingly clear focus on schools’ obligations may lead to greater objectivity in parental complaints and help reduce spurious complaints.
Whereas in the past schools have sometimes withheld information from parents on what they teach, the duty of disclosure would compel them to provide this information if an appeal to the tribunal was pursued, preventing secretive approaches to what children are taught about sometimes sensitive subjects. As tribunal judgments start to be issued, teachers and governors would become more aware of the legal requirements that they are under and take them more seriously, improving compliance and potentially reducing parental complaints in the long run. Politically sensitive judgments —for example, on whether particular teaching about gender identity is a breach of schools’ duty of political impartiality—would pass from the Secretary of State and the department to the tribunal, which would have a greater ability to prioritise a dispassionate consideration of the legal questions over political considerations. The Secretary of State and the department would also benefit, in that their policy decisions that lead to changes in schools’ legal obligations, or changes in statutory guidance to which those schools are legally required to have regard, would be given better effect in schools.
Although judgments of the tribunal at first tier do not set a binding precedent, unlike the decisions at upper tier, they would nevertheless build up a body of legal opinion on the application of education law that would be a valuable reference for governors, teachers and parents. If tribunal decisions repeatedly support bad practice, this would provide clear evidence to Parliament of the need for changes to education law. This may help cut through the claims and counterclaims about whether there are problems in schools’ teaching in areas such as RSE, providing a more objective basis for debate and evidence-based policy. For those reasons, I am happy to commend the four amendments tabled in my name.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 191 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Knight, to which I have added my name. In doing so, I declare my interest as honorary president of COBIS. Unfortunately, the noble Lord, Lord Knight, is unable to be here today, but I am grateful to him for sharing recent correspondence he has had with the Minister on this matter.
It is critical that we act to improve the safeguarding arrangements between schools here in England and international schools overseas. The Safeguarding Alliance has supplied a couple of very concerning examples of recent cases where the system has clearly failed. In one international school, sexually explicit material was discovered on a school-owned computer during recent IT maintenance. A subsequent investigation identified multiple videos showing a member of staff livestreaming and recording explicit content which was stored within their user account. The content was assessed as being of such an extreme nature that the local UK embassy declined to view or handle the material. A referral was made to the Teaching Regulation Agency, but the TRA confirmed that the matter fell outside its jurisdiction. The member of staff is now working in another country and able to return to teach here undetected.
In a second example, a nursery teacher was discovered by a parent in the act of sexually abusing a child within the school setting. The parent immediately reported the incident to the school’s senior leadership team. The school made an immediate referral to the relevant local authorities and attempted to report the incident to the TRA, but as the school was based overseas, the TRA was unable to accept or process the referral. The school had no clear alternative reporting or regulatory pathway for international safeguarding concerns involving a UK-regulated teacher. The alleged perpetrator subsequently left the setting, and their current whereabouts remain unknown.
For this reason, Clause 46 is very welcome, in that it extends the jurisdiction of the TRA to those who have previously worked in England. It will give much-needed assurance to employers as teachers return from overseas. However, there remains a narrow but significant gap: where an individual who is qualified to teach in England through IQTS has completed induction in a British school overseas but has never taught in England, there is currently no route for serious misconduct overseas to be reported to the TRA. As the Minister has agreed in correspondence, this covers a very small number of teachers, but this loophole remains a risk to children if it is not closed.
The substantive reason for the Government resisting this amendment was set out in a letter which the noble Lord, Lord Knight, received last night. In essence, it argued that the TRA cannot practically be expected to investigate such incidents overseas. Yet this is precisely what it will have to do with incidents in relation to Clause 46. I want to stress on behalf of both me and the noble Lord, Lord Knight, that this amendment does not seek to turn the TRA into a global regulator or require the Secretary of State to investigate all misconduct overseas. It is tightly drawn, applying only to those who are qualified to teach in England and who may in due course seek employment in our schools.
Once Clause 47 requires all schools to employ qualified teachers and Clause 46 brings those who have previously worked in England within scope, this group is all that remains. It is a small cohort, but without this change, an individual who commits serious misconduct overseas may move on, secure a fresh reference and subsequently take up a post in England.
Safeguarding training reminds us that safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility; it does not stop at national borders and concerns must be reported wherever there is a risk to children. This amendment is pursued in exactly that spirit, and I hope that the Minister will once again reflect on whether this narrow extension could be accommodated to deliver the outcome that I know we all seek.
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts(2 weeks, 4 days ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)
My Lords, I will respond to Amendment 97 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, and oppose it. It is over six months since we last debated this issue in Committee in June last year. I welcome the change in tack. A previous version of the amendment sought to abolish the reasonable chastisement defence outright. Amendment 97 is more measured, given the serious implications that such a change in the law would have for parents and children.
In England, the only parents who can use the legal defence of reasonable chastisement are those who use reasonable discipline, like a mum tapping a tot on the back of the hand to teach the child not to play with the electrical sockets at Granny’s house. The defence protects parents from being unfairly charged, prosecuted and convicted for smacking their own children, and does so only when no harm was caused and the parent’s behaviour is objectively reasonable.
We are not talking about allowing parents to get away with abuse, as Government Ministers have helpfully acknowledged from the Dispatch Box on previous occasions. Under the reasonable chastisement law, if a parent punishes a child in a way that causes anything more than temporary reddening of the skin, that is unreasonable and therefore illegal. Some in the media have exploited horrific cases of children being brutalised to try to bolster their case for outlawing mild parental smacking. I reiterate that abusers are prosecuted under existing law. The tragic cases that we have seen in the press invariably turn out to involve children who were well known to social services but the social workers were invariably overstretched.
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts(4 months, 2 weeks ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
“Parental complaints (maintained schools)(1) After section 29 of the Education Act 2002 insert—“29ZA Parental complaints: appeals(1) A complainant may appeal to the First-tier Tribunal (Health, Education and Social Care Chamber) where—(a) the complaint was against a maintained school in England under section 29(1),(b) the complainant was a parent of a registered pupil at the school at the time they first pursued the complaint,(c) the complaint specified one or more legal duties listed in Schedule 1A of which the school was alleged to be in breach,(d) the complaints process under section 29(1) was completed,(e) the complaint was not fully upheld in respect of one or more of the matters specified as described in paragraph (c), and(f) the complainant does not have and has not had any other prescribed right of appeal apart from that provided under section 29(1) and this section.(2) The Secretary of State must make regulations about appeals to the First-tier Tribunal in respect of subsection (1), including—(a) making and determining appeals;(b) the powers of the tribunal on determining an appeal.(3) Regulations under subsection (2) may include provision conferring power on the First-tier Tribunal, on determining an appeal against a matter, to make recommendations in respect of other matters (including matters against which no appeal may be brought).(4) A person commits an offence if without reasonable excuse that person fails to comply with any requirement—(a) in respect of the discovery or inspection of documents, or(b) to attend to give evidence and produce documents,where that requirement is imposed by Tribunal Procedure Rules in relation to an appeal under this section or regulations under subsection (2).(5) A person guilty of an offence under subsection (4) is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale.”(2) After Schedule 1 to the Education Act 2002 insert—“Schedule 1ALegal duties for the purposes of section 29ZA1 (1) The legal duties to which section 29ZA applies are as follows.(2) The Education Act 1996—(a) section 9 (Education in accordance with parental wishes),(b) section 402 (Obligation to enter pupils for public examinations), (c) sections 403 to 405 (Sex education),(d) sections 406 to 407 (Politics) and(e) section 542(1) (Prescribed standards for school premises);(3) The Education Act 2002—(a) sections 78 to 80B (General duties in respect of the curriculum), and(b) section 175(2) and (3) (Duties ... in relation to welfare of children);(4) The School Standards and Framework Act 1998—(a) section 1(6) (Duty in relation to infant class size),(b) sections 69 to 71 (Religious education and worship), and(c) section 114A (Requirements for food and drink provided on school premises etc);(5) Childcare Act 2006, section 40 (Duty to implement Early Years Foundation Stage);(6) Children Act 1989, sections 87 and 87C (Welfare of children in boarding schools and colleges and national minimum standards) and(7) The Education and Inspections Act 2006, sections 88 to 94 (School Discipline).””
Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)
My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendments 485, 487, 488 and 489. Before I do, I warmly concur with and support Amendment 502YM in the name of my noble friend Lady Spielman, which I believe is clear, sensible and complementary to my amendments. The principle behind my amendments is simple, and it goes to the heart of the rule of law. The laws that this Parliament passes are not mere suggestions for our schools; they are the rules that must operate, and they must be properly followed. That requires accountability when those laws are broken.
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
The noble Baroness raises a very important point, and these will all be matters that are being considered as the Secretary of State takes this important work forward. I can get a written note and put it in the Library to outline the way forward and where we are at this moment.
Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her well thought through and considered response. It ranged wider than I expected, but just for the avoidance of doubt, of course I deprecate any unreasonable or vexatious complaints against teachers from parents that might veer into anti-social behaviour of the type she mentioned in terms of WhatsApp groups. I am happy to put that on record.
This has been a very thoughtful and important debate and I am grateful to noble Lords who took part, not least the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and my noble friend Lady Spielman, who both brought great expertise and experience to the debate—the noble Lord from his time on Liverpool City Council and my noble friend from her leadership of Ofsted.
At its heart, this debate has revolved around a single clear question: do we believe that the laws passed in Parliament should be enforceable in schools? People are worried about a litigation culture, yet the evidence demonstrates that the current system of bureaucratic brick walls and institutional inertia is the true source of conflict and frustration. We have heard concerns about costs, but I ask again, what is the price of the status quo? What is the cost of a department that fails in its duty, and of parental trust in schools evaporating?
This accountability vacuum does not remain empty for long: it is filled by an entire ecosystem of unaccountable third-party advisers and activists. This is not, I suggest, a failure of individual teachers but a systemic failure. In the absence of clear enforcement, the law becomes muted and professionals are left rudderless. Into this void step commercial subscription services. I will give one final example in this debate. The Key is an organisation ironically first established by the Department for Education before it was privatised. When the previous Government consulted on draft guidelines for schools on gender-questioning children, The Key actively counselled schools that it would be unlawful to follow that guidance.
The accountability these amendments would introduce is not just for schools; it is for the entire advisory industry, which is funded by stretched school budgets. When the advice of these organisations is tested before a tribunal and found wanting, schools will quite rightly cease to pay for it. The market for bad advice will therefore, for the first time, face a correction.
These amendments are not a radical proposal. They do not seek to create conflict: they seek to provide a clear, fair and independent forum for its resolution. They would not undermine professional judgment, but they do subordinate it to the rule of law, which is as it should be. They give parents a voice and give the law teeth.
In conclusion, the choice is simple. We can endure the current inertia, condemning parents to a system that does not work, or we could take a meaningful step to restore accountability, uphold the will of Parliament and ensure that, when a parent has a legitimate concern that a school is breaking the law, they have somewhere to go. I believe we must choose the latter. For now, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment but will consider returning to it at a later date.
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts(4 months, 2 weeks ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)
My Lords, I oppose this amendment. Time does not permit me to properly debate and discuss Amendment 471, so I will confine my comments to Amendment 465. I thought that the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Weir, were very apposite, and I more or less wholly agree with him.
I want to specifically talk about the first part of the amendment, which would replace the duty to provide an act of worship with
“an assembly which is principally directed towards furthering the spiritual, moral, social and cultural education”,
rather than the specific issue of replacing the daily act of worship. This amendment contains an incoherent phrasing that, in effect, amounts to an imposition of humanist beliefs. To refer to spiritual education, regardless of religion or belief, is absurd. To refer to moral education, regardless of belief, is irrational. It is impossible to make moral judgments without beliefs about what is right or wrong or beliefs about how these judgments should be made.
It is not possible to understand British society and culture without regard for the religious beliefs that have shaped its literature, music, art, history and institutions. The exclusion of religious belief from a social and cultural education in assemblies is illogical and will restrict pupils’ understanding. The assumption that it is possible to provide an assembly
“directed towards furthering the spiritual, moral … education of the pupils”,
without regard to belief, is illogical. In effect, these new assemblies would promote humanist beliefs and provide pupils with a highly partial account of spiritual, moral, social and cultural education.
As humanists are keen to point out, not everyone is religious. There are people who hold non-religious beliefs, but these are beliefs, and consequently shape the perspective, values and attitudes of those who hold them in ways that are not neutral. They are sincerely held, but they are not universally held. This is why Humanists UK, for example, campaigns so vigorously—it needs to persuade others who currently disagree with it.
There is also a disparity in parents’ rights to withdraw their child. Currently, all parents have the right to withdraw their children from collective acts of worship, but this amendment allows parents to withdraw their children from assemblies in schools that contain an act of worship but does not allow parents to withdraw their children from humanist assemblies. This two-tier system is deeply inconsistent and unfair. The state educates children on behalf of parents with their permission, and not against their wishes; the amendment is inconsistent with Section 9 of the Education Act 1996, and incompatible with Article 2 of the first protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights. I surmise that there has been no consultation with the Church of England, the Roman Catholic Church or any religious bodies on this in respect of this amendment.
Without the context of religion, the content of these assemblies will inevitably focus on issues of a political nature, and views on these issues will have to be considered with religious perspectives excluded. There are already concerns about political impartiality in schools, and this amendment risks making matters worse.
Britain and its values are rooted in Christianity, and this continues to be reflected in our national life. Currently schools can accommodate important national days, such as Remembrance Day, within their acts of collective worship. The noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, spoke in favour of the Private Member’s Bill proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, earlier in the year, which aims to achieve similar changes to this amendment, arguing:
“Children need to be taught early the importance of generosity, kindness, neighbourliness … community support”.—[Official Report, 7/2/25; col. 968.]
But the fact that these are valued in contemporary British society is due in large part to the impact of Christianity. These values have positively transformed society and are still cherished in modern Britain. It is impossible to explain the development of these values to pupils without regard for the context of the religious beliefs from which they arose.
There is an assumption that Britain is becoming an increasingly secular country, which is used to support these amendments, but it is not borne out by recent studies which demonstrate a sharp increase in young people attending church. Dr Rhiannon McAleer, co-author of The Quiet Revival, states:
“While some traditional denominations continue to face challenges, we’ve seen significant, broad-based growth among most expressions of Church—particularly in Roman Catholicism and Pentecostalism. There are now over 2 million more people attending church than there were six years ago”.
The present legislation already allows for the consideration of all beliefs, and requires the head teacher to have regard for the background of pupils in determining the extent to which collective worship reflects Christian belief. If still unhappy, parents can withdraw their child. The proposals are trying to fix a problem that does not exist.
There is also the issue that the amendment extends to Wales, where the education system and governance are devolved.
For all the reasons that I have laid out, I oppose this damaging and wholly unnecessary amendment.
Baroness Whitaker (Lab)
As it is late, I shall just register my support for Amendments 465 and 471. I agree that a large number of young people and their parents do not adhere to a religious faith. It is clearly valuable and important for them to learn about the central faiths that influence our culture, but they are also entitled to have access to moral and ethical frameworks which do not depend on a religious faith so that they may arrive at their own moral compass. These amendments would enable that positive development.
Intergenerational Fairness
Lord Jackson of Peterborough ExcerptsTuesday 28th February 2017
(8 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Supply and Appropriation (Anticipation and Adjustments) Act 2017 View all Supply and Appropriation (Anticipation and Adjustments) Act 2017 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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.
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.
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(9 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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(10 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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?
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.
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.
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.
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—
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.
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.
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.
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(10 years, 3 months ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
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(11 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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(12 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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?
