Independent Debt Advice

Lord Watts Excerpts

Tuesday 8th February 2011 Westminster Hall

[Yvonne Fovargue]

I completely agree. The idea that there were clusters of problems was identified at least 10 years ago. The legal aid cluster of social welfare law was developed so that the person could be addressed as a whole and not just seen as a set of individual problems.

A national telephone advice system could not help with our current problem of debt. Local knowledge, particularly about bailiffs, is vital. That was evidenced on Saturday in an article in The Times, which highlighted the different practices of bailiffs employed by neighbouring local authorities. The cuts cannot, however, be taken in isolation, as my hon. Friend pointed out. The consultation paper on legal aid proposes to remove debt from scope for all cases except those with an

“immediate risk of losing their home”.

That flies in the face of all the research demonstrating that early and timely intervention is crucial and actually saves the public purse money. For every £1 of expenditure on debt advice, the state potentially saves £2.98. Indeed the figure could be higher, particularly for the NHS.

Last Thursday in the Chamber, I mentioned a project that had been funded by my local primary care trust, which I managed until last May. It measured stress levels on a recognised NHS scale before and after the debt advice process. In the first nine months of the project, the PCT estimated that three suicides had been prevented. The project was a finalist for a national NHS innovation award due to its low cost and good outcomes for clients and the NHS.

Local authorities are also cutting the amount of money available for advice. The CAB in England and Wales faces an expected cut of 10% in 2011-12. If that is factored in with cuts to the financial inclusion fund and the proposed changes in legal aid from 2012, local bureaux can expect, on average, a 45% cut in funding.

[Mr Dave Watts (St Helens North) (Lab)]

With the cuts that we are seeing right across the spectrum, whether in local government or, in my case, the PCT, which part funds some of the posts in CABs in my area, does my hon. Friend agree that the only way to resolve the matter is for the Government to make a direct grant to citizens advice bureaux so that they can handle the massive increase in demand caused by the cuts imposed by the Tories and the Liberal Democrats?

[Yvonne Fovargue]

I have long been a supporter of a statutory duty to fund advice services, and I still believe that it is the only way in which the absolute importance of advice can be highlighted to local government and other funders. The cut to debt advice funding and the proposed cuts to local authorities and legal aid will be felt most significantly in urban areas, which have the greatest numbers of clients. To whom are those people expected to turn for advice on their debts?

The Government have announced their intention to establish a national money advice service to deliver free financial advice and an annual financial health check to provide people with a holistic overview of their finances.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Percy]

No, let me finish. If the hon. Gentleman is going to make a point, he should at least have the courtesy to listen to the response. He was part of a Government that ran up massive debts that the coalition Government must repay. Tough decisions have been made, but even when we are not necessarily happy with some of those decisions, our job as coalition Members is to come here and make it clear what we think our constituents deserve. In saying what I have, that is exactly what I have tried to do. I am trying to support exactly the point that Opposition Members have been making, which is that we need face-to-face debt advice.

[Mr Watts]

The hon. Gentleman must have come across the same sort of cases that I have as an MP, in which people have been given bad advice. My worry about training someone for one day, or even one week, is that it will not provide the level of skills required to advise people in the best possible way. Bad advice is worse than no advice at all.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nic Dakin]

I thank my hon. Friend. I think all hon. Members agree that these are specialist advice services with specialist staff. One of the points my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) made was about the danger of losing specialist expertise. That is another consequence I am sure nobody wants to see. In Scunthorpe, the part-time debt adviser at Crosby community association was withdrawn in December. The area is now losing the FIF debt advice, and the debt advice provided through legal aid is not in place. North Lincolnshire credit union does not provide debt advice, so the local situation is bleak.

As my hon. Friends have pointed out, there is a direct correlation between debt advice and ill health. My hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield mentioned the case study of John. Grant Thornton’s recent study, “Psychology of Debt,” demonstrated that one in two adults with debts have a mental health problem and one in four people with a mental health problem is also in debt. It is therefore clear that the time spent helping people to address their debt problems can help their overall health and well-being. Money spent by the Government on debt advice is likely to save money being spent on the health service. Research by Friends Provident found that the provision of free debt advice allowed creditors to recover in one year £1 billion more than they would otherwise have done.

[Mr Watts]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Nic Dakin]

I am about to finish.

Independent free debt advice is good for the individual, good for the public and private sectors and good for UK plc as a whole. I hope that the Minister will take this opportunity to spell out the Government’s plans to ensure that independent debt advice remains available and accessible to all those who need it. It is crucial that the Government do not abandon people with debt problems at this time.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Watts Excerpts

Monday 7th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

No one is served when people who should not be in the classroom continue there. It increases the burden on other professionals and deprives children of the highest quality education. We are reviewing the professional standards for all teachers to make it easier for head teachers to ensure that staff who underperform are given the support that they need to improve or to move on.

[Mr Dave Watts (St Helens North) (Lab)]

T6. Given that the cuts in EMA will affect more than 2,600 low-paid families in my constituency, is the Minister not ashamed of that policy? What will he do to increase the top-up learner funds to help at least some of those families?

[The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)]

I have made it clear that we are absolutely determined to ensure that the worst-off are not disadvantaged by the new arrangements. However, I believe that there is a strong case for greater discretion to target some of things that Opposition Front Benchers identified as salient in helping people to achieve their best.

Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Performance)

Lord Watts Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Denham]

The hon. Gentleman is wrong: the reason for the large deficit was the global banking crisis, which cut corporation tax receipts by £40 billion in a year. The measures that we took, which got us out of recession quickly and had the economy growing this time last year, were the right measures. There are no deficit-deniers—we are proposing the right measures for tackling the deficit. The point of this debate is that the Business Department has made wrong choice after wrong choice in responding to the economic situation.

The Government have been reckless in their approach to deficit reduction. They are making the wrong choices on growth. By cutting too far, too fast, the Government are putting economic recovery at risk. Shrinking growth and rising unemployment are not only bad news for families, but will make it more difficult to get the deficit down. The economy should be growing by now, not shrinking. Unemployment should be coming down by now, not going up. To make things worse, the Business Department has failed to produce any plan for growth and jobs.

Even with a more measured and responsible approach to deficit reduction, it would be private sector growth and jobs that Britain needs. That means creating the confidence for businesses to invest, to take on people and grow their business, with every aspect of public policy being bent to ensuring the right conditions for a strong, competitive and fair economy. But there is no plan for growth. As Sir Richard Lambert, the outgoing director general of the CBI, said last week about the Business Department, the country needs it to be

“Less of a talking shop, more of an action-oriented growth champion.”

[Mr Dave Watts (St Helens North) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that if the Government were serious about encouraging private sector investment, they would not have cut the grants to business that poured money into our areas? That money has now been sucked away. Is not that a demonstration of the Government’s inability to encourage investment in our areas?

[Mr Denham]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I shall address several such decisions that the Business Secretary has made.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Watts]

rose—

[Vince Cable]

I will take one more intervention before moving on.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vince Cable]

It is a pity that the hon. Lady was not here to hear my speeches on this subject for the five years running up to the crisis, but I shall make two simple points now. The first is that when the financial crisis occurred, I thought and said openly, as I shall repeat now, that the interventions made at that time by the then Chancellor were exactly right and deserved support. What the then Government did not do—this is what we are doing through the Banking Commission—is look at the fundamental issues of overly large banks, concentrations of retail and investment banking, and how to deal with the very complex problems of those two things being locked in the same institution. We are dealing with the fundamental issues behind the banking crash, rather than the superficial aspects of it.

[Mr Watts]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for finally giving way. He seems keen on encouraging manufacturing investment, so may I suggest that he restore the grants for business, which actually brought in £3.9 billion of investment and created 70,000 jobs, before he scrapped them?

[Vince Cable]

No doubt the hon. Gentleman will tell us where that fits on the shopping list. On industrial support, I shall simply say that where the previous Government promoted good schemes, such as the manufacturing advisory service, we are building on them, because we are looking at them on their merits, not doctrinally. However, where schemes were failing and were not cost-efficient, we have reduced them and scrapped them.

School Sports Funding

Lord Watts Excerpts

Tuesday 30th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham]

The Health Secretary was on the airwaves this morning saying that we need more sport played in schools. Well, yeah. I never agreed very much with the current Health Secretary—we had our differences—but he was right to speak up in Cabinet against the Education Secretary. He had the courage to say that. As always, we see this Secretary of State failing to carry people with his decisions. He rushes out to make a decision, but does not carry his Cabinet colleagues with him. The mismatch between what the Government are saying in the public health White Paper and what we are debating now demonstrates that.

[Mr Dave Watts (St Helens North) (Lab)]

Is it not clear that Ministers have no idea about sport? Looking at them across the Chamber, I think it is clear that none of them has played sport. I cannot see, for example, the Secretary of State joining the boxing club.

[Andy Burnham]

I shall turn to that issue in a moment.

Schools White Paper

Lord Watts Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who I know takes a keen interest in the educational attainment of poorer children. In addition to implementing the pupil premium, we are going to focus relentlessly on schools where attainment is low and progress is poor. I know that some schools will often take in children who have been poorly educated at primary level, but still make fantastic progress with them. I do not want those schools to be stigmatised and I do not want schools to be seen as failing, but where they are underperforming, we need to hold them to clear standards and provide additional financial support to help them achieve them. I am perfectly happy to say that this builds on an initiative that the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) and Lord Adonis helped to introduce. I take no pride in authorship: this was a good idea, and I am delighted to extend it.

[Mr Dave Watts (St Helens North) (Lab)]

May I tell the Secretary of State that the decision of St Aelred’s school in my constituency to go for academy status was made under the last Labour Government, not his Government? He has some responsibility, however, for blocking many of the rebuilding projects that were intended to take place. Will he take credit for that and offer to provide the much-needed resources? If we are to have a world-class education system, we need the schools to go with it.

[Michael Gove]

I look forward to visiting the hon. Gentleman’s constituency to congratulate St Aelred’s on moving towards academy status. Of course, it was our Government and our legislation that allowed the school to make that transition to academy status with the speed, grace and support that the superb officials in the Department for Education accord to all schools that want to enjoy greater autonomy.

Funding and Schools Reform

Lord Watts Excerpts

Wednesday 17th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham]

I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has ever been to any of those schools, but if he has seen the transformation in those communities and the messages that the schools send to children in areas that have, frankly, been let down for decades, I am surprised that he rises to his feet to say that that investment is not worth making. Let us talk about his Government and the spending review arrangements that his Secretary of State has recently secured: minus 60%. Let us just think about that figure for a moment.

Just after the spending review, the Financial Times reported senior Whitehall figures chiding the Secretary of State for

“folding too early in negotiations over capital”

spending. The only shock for me on reading that was to learn that he had been negotiating at all. We know that he is courteous, and we like that about him, but minus 60%? I can almost hear him now, politely inviting George and Danny to fill their boots. Is 60% enough? Do they want more? I doubt that the Secretary of State has played much poker in his life—although he has his poker face on now—but, as with sport in schools, it gives a person certain life skills and I recommend it to him.

The average capital reduction across Whitehall was 30%. I would think that everyone in education could live with that. But double the punishment? How exactly does that minus 60% reduction meet the Secretary of State’s “schools protected” claim?

[Mr Dave Watts (St Helens North) (Lab)]

Is my right hon. Friend surprised at the Government’s announcements, given the fact that the previous Tory Government spent nothing on schools? There are those of us who can remember tumbling-down buildings that leaked and needed the massive repairs that were put in by the Labour Government.

[Andy Burnham]

In the 1980s, I had the misfortune to go to a comprehensive school in my hon. Friend’s constituency—a Merseyside comprehensive. It was not a great deal of fun. School sport had dried up and the buildings were appalling. It fills me with dread that my children will go to secondary school under a Tory Government. We on the Opposition Benches will campaign to ensure that another generation is not failed as others were.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy Burnham]

I hope that the Government will take account of my hon. Friend’s point because there is good evidence to show that the policy has been a success and is helping many more young people stay on in education and achieve.

[Mr Watts]

Is my right hon. Friend as depressed as I am about the fact that the Government seem to be saying that financial assistance to families does not matter, the poor state of school buildings does not matter and the overall funding package for education does not matter? What seems to matter is that both the Liberals and the Conservatives are determined to cut education spending and push people back into deprivation.

[Andy Burnham]

That is the inference that people will draw. There is an obsession with structures, not with standards or with helping young people to be the best they can be. I would like to hear the Secretary of State talk a little more about that and a little less about free schools and whatever structural ideas he is dreaming up. Let us focus on standards and on the aspiration of kids from a working-class background. Let us give them some hope rather than introducing organisational reforms that may or may not offer them anything. That is the problem the Secretary of State is facing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Gove]

There are three Opposition Members who are eager to intervene. It is difficult to know to which of these young lads I will now give the opportunity to shine.

[Mr Watts]

May I suggest that the right hon. Gentleman go to Specsavers?

The Secretary of State has said that he has met a group of head teachers from academies. Will he meet the other hundreds of head teachers who are desperately waiting to see whether their schools will be modernised and the holes in their roofs fixed? Will he be as keen to meet them as he has been to meet the academy heads?

[Michael Gove]

I am always keen to meet head teachers, and the more head teachers I meet, the more I find that they say the same things: that under this Government, they are at last being treated properly. At last, in the words of Mike Spinks, a head teacher from Stretford and Urmston, the baseball batting of bureaucracy has ended. At last, in the words of Patricia Sowter, a head teacher from the Labour constituency of Edmonton, head teachers are being given the opportunity to do what they have always done, which is to stress the importance of helping the very poorest. At last, in the words of Sir Michael Wilshaw, a head teacher who teaches in the Labour constituency represented by the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), we have a Government who are on the side of extending academy freedoms. I talk to head teachers all the time. When I do, the one thing I say to them is: “You’ve got a Government who’re on your side,” and the one thing that I hear from them is: “At last.”