Oral Answers to Questions
Mary Robinson Excerpts(7 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Damian Hinds
The policy to which the hon. Lady refers relates to new cases. I remind her that relative poverty is down by 100,000 children since 2010.
Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Pensions (Richard Harrington)
The Government are committed to providing free impartial guidance through Pension Wise to help people make informed and confident decisions about how they use their defined-contribution pension savings in retirement.
Mary Robinson
What further steps is the Department taking, working with other Departments, to ensure that protections are in place for those in receipt of their pensions who may be at risk of falling foul of financial scams in their retirement?
Richard Harrington
I thank my hon. Friend for that really important question. She can be reassured that a cross-Government consultation on further measures to tackle pension scams closed very recently—on 13 February —and it included a proposal to ban all cold calling in relation to pensions. We will announce our next steps once we have considered the responses we have received to the consultation, but I assure her that we will take action as soon as possible.
Damian Green
As my hon. Friend the Minister for Employment explained, the data are now held in a different way. They are entirely owned by the claimants, who can and should give any Member of Parliament permission to act on their behalf. With that permission, all of us can do our job, as we traditionally have, on behalf of our constituents.
Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)
The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Penny Mordaunt)
May I first praise the work of the all-party group on motor neurone disease, and the work of my hon. Friend as its vice-chair? Following the announcement, we are working to develop a set of criteria to switch off reassessments for people with the most severe health conditions or disabilities. We have sought feedback from stakeholders, including many motor neurone disease organisations. They will not be about a specific list of medical conditions; they will be based on a number of other factors, in particular how conditions are impacting on people.
Universal Credit: North-West
Mary Robinson Excerpts(8 years, 11 months ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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Marie Rimmer
No, I do not agree. People knew what was coming and knew that the funds were available. There are 155,000 people on universal credit now, and I am talking about the problems that they are experiencing now. For most people, not getting paid on time will cause at least some level of difficulty. For people on universal credit, not getting paid can be a catastrophe that makes it impossible to manage everyday living and responsibilities such as heating their home, eating, or clothing their children. Increased numbers of people are in rent arrears.
In my experience, there have been other cases of people facing great hardship through the incompetence of the programme so far. Basic work with different agencies has not taken place. For example, one of my constituents was previously in receipt of jobseeker’s allowance and was subsequently moved on to universal credit. Upon going to the dentist he required treatment, which was free under the NHS. When he was filling in the usual form, he was advised to tick the box marked “income-based jobseeker’s allowance”, as there was no box for universal credit. Subsequently, he was billed and pursued by the NHS Business Services Authority and threatened with county court action for a false declaration. If that is the level of co-operation between different agencies at this stage, what hope is there for the future?
I must highlight the DWP’s use of sanctions in the case of universal credit. It has thus far been largely concentrated on those who are on jobseeker’s allowance or employment and support allowance. We have all heard of the cases of people who have had their benefits stopped, often for absurdly spurious reasons such as selling poppies or not searching hard enough for jobs on Christmas day—that is true. We have come across many tragic cases of constituents who are literally starving and unable to turn on their heating because they have no money. Sanctions are sometimes imposed for the crime of arriving only a few minutes late for a jobcentre appointment following a hospital appointment.
There is no confidence in the current sanctions regime. It is both incompetent and brutal. There needs to be a full and independent review to restore some kind of confidence in the whole system. It is therefore completely irresponsible to expand the use of sanctions under universal credit to claimants in work.
Conditionality of benefits is being trialled for some of the in-work elements of universal credit. The New Policy Institute published a report into sanctions last year, which said:
“The expansion of conditionality under Universal Credit could see a substantial increase in sanctions: if sanctioning occurred at the same rate as for JSA claimants, then the number could almost double, with an additional 600,000 sanctions.”
It is surely inconceivable that people in work could be left in such a situation because of a Government policy that is supposed to support them for doing the right thing, but that is what will happen unless the Government think again.
To say the least, there has not been a smooth transition to universal credit for people in the north-west region. I do not have enough time to outline the range of problems that we have faced as a result of being the guinea-pig region for the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions.
Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)
Does the hon. Lady not agree that behind the roll-out of universal credit is the desire to help working families, to get people back into work and to fulfil the aspirations that people have for their lives and their families, and that it would be much better for us to support that aspiration, support universal credit and iron out all the operational difficulties that she has highlighted?
Marie Rimmer
Universal credit was supposed to simplify the benefits system and increase incentives to work. It has not simplified the benefits system. People have to wait longer, and very often the assessments that they receive are wrong. How does it incentivise people to work if they are subjected to cuts that they would not have been subjected to previously? We have experienced neither benefits being simplified nor incentives to work being increased.
The cuts to the work allowance will destroy the basis of the new system and any incentive or encouragement to work. The Minister said that no one would lose a penny, but now the Government are saying that people should work for three to four hours more a week—200 hours more a year—to be no better off. How does anyone find three to four hours more a week for an adviser to help them when they are in full-time employment anyway?
This change will hit the people who most need help. I urge the Government to stop, think and implement something that will work. They should think again before pursuing these devastating cuts, and, importantly, they should put transitional protection on a legal footing. Until someone’s earnings reach the universal credit work allowance scheme limit, their transitional protection should be put on a legal basis. That is what I ask for.