Universal Credit Fraud

Neil Gray Excerpts

Wednesday 10th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to make a statement on the universal credit fraud that has been uncovered by the BBC.

[The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Justin Tomlinson)]

Universal credit is now in all jobcentres, with around 2 million people claiming this benefit. In accordance with our approach to test and learn while rolling out universal credit, we have made several changes to the advances claimants may receive while they wait for their first payment. If they need it, people can now claim an advance from day one of their claim. They can apply in person, by phone or online—a facility we introduced in July 2018. On Monday, the BBC published an article that described cases where fraudulent applications had been made to acquire advance payments. The figures quoted are unverified.

Those who defraud the benefits system take taxpayers’ money from the poorest people in society. We have a dedicated team of investigators working on this issue, and are working with the Crown Prosecution Service to ensure that, where appropriate, perpetrators will be prosecuted: we have in fact already secured our first successful prosecution. We frequently raise awareness among frontline staff to be vigilant to fraud risks, and raise concerns where appropriate.

I remind hon. Members, and their constituents, that DWP staff will never approach a claimant on social media, or in the street, to discuss their benefit claim. Claimants should never give out personal or financial information to a third party unless they are certain they work for DWP, and have followed a password or security protocol. Anyone with concerns about their benefit claim should contact their local jobcentre directly.

[Neil Gray]

I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and to Mr Speaker for granting the urgent question. I am also grateful to the BBC whose investigative journalism uncovered this scandalous situation. The cases we have seen in the news are truly alarming and heart-breaking. The Minister says that the figures are unverified, but according to the BBC the figures come from a member of his jobcentre team, who released them to the BBC. One jobcentre reported that a third of all claims are the result of such scams by criminals operating on behalf of claimants, while at another £100,000 a month is being lost to criminals and not going to claimants who actually need it.

Those people already desperately need help. They have been pushed into serious debt by the actions of those appalling scammers and it is clear from the leaked communications that staff, and perhaps Ministers, in the Department for Work and Pensions were aware that the scams were happening. It is also worth pointing out that, from the cases that we have heard about, claimants have been doubly hit by their money being stolen by the scammers and then having to pay back the advance payment, which— as we all know—is in fact a loan. The SNP has consistently condemned the system of advance payments and feels that it is counterintuitive. The advance payment needs to stop being a loan.

The BBC has uncovered what we have been talking about for years—people being left in desperate straits by cuts to universal credit, which have seen increased food bank use and, now, people being driven unwittingly to criminals to help them to get the money they need to survive. The cases highlight the failure of universal credit to protect those who most desperately need the support that it is supposed to offer. Can the Minister not see that until universal credit is properly fixed, such desperation will continue?

The DWP says that it has already secured its first conviction, so it already knew about this situation. The Minister was quoted in a BBC article on 20 May about another heart-breaking individual case. Why did the Department not identify the loophole and attempt to correct it sooner? Why was a statement not made to the House so that we could have helped to advise our constituents? What is the scale of the fraud? When were Ministers informed? Has this activity gone unnoticed or unchecked because of the 21% cut in staff numbers reported by The Independent? Of course, Social Security Scotland has a clear commitment that when an error or fraud occurs that is not the fault of a claimant, they will not be penalised or out of pocket. Will the Minister follow that lead for the people who have been affected?

The Government’s initial response, and the Minister’s response today, has put the onus on the claimants, and that is wrong. They cannot wash their hands of this responsibility. What will the Minister now do to ensure that those affected are not left out of pocket, those who have ripped them off are brought to justice and practices are put in place to ensure that it cannot happen again?

[Justin Tomlinson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman, who has taken a proactive approach to this important issue. I share his comment that it is alarming. These are criminal actions by what are, frankly speaking, parasites who target some of the most vulnerable people in society. I give the House an assurance that the Department will do everything in its power to protect those vulnerable people, and I am sure that all hon. Members would support that.

There have been 4.4 million universal credit claims and, as it stands, 42,000 staff referrals for fraud have been made, which is less than 1% of all universal credit claims. That said, each and every one of those has the potential to be a serious case. We take them seriously, they are all fully investigated and, where appropriate, we will take action. We are in talks with the CPS on several cases and, as I have said, we have already had a successful prosecution. We will look at each of the cases raised and, where it is clear that the claimant is an innocent victim who has been targeted, there would be an expectation that they would not pay the money back.

I refute, however, the broader point about universal credit. We will spend £2 billion more than the legacy system, and I very much welcome the introduction of the help to claim scheme to provide an independent additional tier of support across the jobcentre network, provided by Citizens Advice.

We are actively making improvements to the system. We are using more real time information. We are working with data suppliers. We are doing more data matching. We are using the DWP landlord portal to verify housing costs and we are developing risk models to help to assess confidence in information that is provided. There is a balance, however. In debates we have had in recent years, hon. Members have rightly pushed to make advance payments available as quickly as possible. It is the balance between being able to support people who need funding—under current rules, a vulnerable claimant in need of financial assistance can access that funding on the first day of their claim—while ensuring that we have 100% confidence that the money goes to the right person.

We are not complacent. We take this matter very seriously. We have a team of 120 staff dedicated to working on advanced payments. As I said, every case referred to us is taken very seriously and we will use the full force of the law where appropriate.

Department for Work and Pensions

Neil Gray Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Justin Madders]

I thank my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for her intervention. I do sometimes wonder what kind of country we live in when vulnerable people feel the cards are so stacked against them that it is not even worth their while to appeal. Those are the people who come to see me. I do not know what happens to the people who are so beaten down by the system that they just give up, which I feel is the unintended consequence—or possibly the intended consequence—of this policy time after time.

We know that the cost of successful PIP appeals was £27 million last year. ESA is not included in that figure, but 74% of those claims were successful, too. Let us not forget the figures I uncovered towards the end of last year, which show that the Department is not even turning up to four in five appeal hearings. We know what would happen if my constituents did not turn up to four in five appointments with the DWP: they would be sanctioned straightaway.

I also hear from parents whose children are not eligible for free school meals because their household income is just a little too high, and they are struggling to provide their children with a school lunch because they cannot afford it. Many of these families are struggling to make ends meet.

We now come across parents who are eligible for help but who are not getting it due to the complicated application process and the long waiting times. I have constituents who, in the period before the first universal credit payment is made, are desperate for support but are told that they are not eligible for free school meals. Surely we can do this better and provide eligibility for free school meals when the universal credit application is made, rather than waiting until the first payment comes through.

Briefly, on access to benefits for people at the end of life, the current special rules for terminal illness—SRTI—exclude many people with terminal illnesses. I am meeting the Minister next week to discuss this, and I hope we have a constructive conversation, but I raise it now so that people are aware of some of the difficulties and of the money and time being wasted on inappropriate and unnecessary assessments.

Only 45% of people with motor neurone disease are claiming personal independence payment under SRTI. The majority of people in that situation are still using the standard claims route, which is inappropriate for their situation. They are required to fill in a long form, attend a face-to-face assessment and then wait weeks before the benefits are received.

[Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)]

I commend the hon. Gentleman for his speech. Is he aware of Social Security Scotland’s plans to ensure that all medical evidence is available to decision makers at the application stage, so that a correct decision can be taken without the need for often demeaning, demoralising and horrible assessment processes such as the one he describes? Will he support my call for the UK Government to follow Scotland’s lead?

[Justin Madders]

The hon. Gentleman makes a helpful suggestion. Certainly those who have, by definition, a very short time to get these matters sorted due to terminal illness should have as much of the process done at an early stage to avoid such difficulties.

It is highly insensitive that people who have been diagnosed with what can be a devastating condition that will end their life, possibly within 12 months, have to face this extra hoop-jumping when they should be focusing on spending what time they have left with their loved ones.

The majority of people with motor neurone disease are awarded the enhanced rate of PIP anyway, so we need to make it easier for them to claim through SRTI instead of the standard route, which many are currently going down. There are a number of helpful suggestions that we can discuss with the Minister next week.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) spoke passionately and eloquently about the Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign. She rightly drew attention to the scandal, which will not go away. The WASPI women are there, and they are growing in number. She is right that, while the Tory leadership candidates continue to spaff cash up the wall with spending promises on tax cuts for the most well off in society, for big corporations and for whatever else they decide when they wake up in the morning, it is damning that not one penny has been committed in the leadership hustings to the WASPI women.

Ultimately, it comes down to priorities, and it is clear that WASPI women are not a priority for this Government and will not be a priority for the new Prime Minister, either. The hardship, the injustice and the erosion of the contributory principle that underpins the welfare state are clearly not a priority for this Government, and it is to their shame that they continue to ignore this campaign in the face of overwhelming evidence that a real injustice is being done.

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[Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)]

It is an honour to have the opportunity to talk in this important estimates day debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) on introducing the debate.

Record and rising employment is the central fact of the Government’s economic record. It is sometimes easy to brush over the fact that we now have the highest rate of employment in this country than at any time since the early 1970s. That is not only important on an economic level, although obviously it has wonderful economic benefits for the country, but extremely important on a social level and a personal level, because of the way it benefits families and communities and gives people opportunity and optimism that they otherwise might not have.

For four years before I came to this place, it was very much my privilege to serve as the director of policy at the Centre for Social Justice, which is a think-tank that looks at the root causes of poverty in the UK. That background is what lies behind my exchange with the hon. Member for Wirral South earlier. One can of course say that the root cause of poverty is people not having enough money. It is true that poverty is people not having enough money, but it is unquestionably the case that the reason why some people do not have any money is that they do not have a job in order to earn money, and that the reason why some people—not everybody at all—are unemployed is that something has gone badly wrong in their life, and that thing needs to be corrected with the help of public services, with the support of their family and with their own personal determination. That must always be an absolutely essential part of any welfare policy, which is why it is so important that the significant changes that have been introduced in the Department for Work and Pensions have been coupled to the work of the troubled families programme in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. It is by helping people to overcome some of the root causes of poverty that we can help more people to move into the workplace and so help to support themselves and their families.

There is a group of people who are lucky enough and fortunate enough to come from stable homes, to get a decent education and not to suffer from addiction or any such problems, who still find it difficult to make ends meet, which is why it is extraordinarily important that any Government have an economic policy that generates jobs and drives up wages. The Government have been extraordinarily successful, without parallel, in the creation of jobs. Life has undoubtedly been harder in the generation of higher wages, but it feels like in recent months—over the past 15 months, I think—we have turned a corner on that score and, for the first time since the financial crisis in 2008, we are starting to see wages rise above inflation. Ultimately, that is excellent news for people who are moving into the jobs market and for people who are starting off on low salaries.

It must be remembered that none of that success was predicted by commentators before the 2010 general election. I remember in 2009 listening to a Bank of England economist forecast that the incoming Chancellor of the Exchequer would have to deal with unemployment of more than 5 million. In 2011, he repeated that the policies of the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition would unquestionably lead to record unemployment and a massive social security problem. That simply did not happen, because of the business-friendly policies that the Government adopted, which increased investment and business growth and saw employment rise in very many parts of the country.

It was a pleasure to sit and listen to the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Mr Clarke). I do not believe it can be an accident or a coincidence that his constituency has not traditionally had a Conservative MP, yet after seven years of Conservative employment growth in his area, it elected a Conservative. After seven years, following a major economic meltdown under the previous Labour Government, the Conservatives delivered the job growth in his area that Labour had been incapable of doing for the 13 years that it was in power. We see it not just in Middlesbrough, but in a whole range of seats from Mansfield to Stoke-on-Trent. This new era of Conservative representation in parts of the midlands and the north is a result of this policy, which has helped people to find jobs and improve their lives and the lives of their families. This has been termed the British jobs miracle, because unemployment is now at about 3.8% in the UK, compared with 7.5% in the euro area.

[Neil Gray]

I do not doubt that properly paid work is the best route out of poverty, but when will the hon. Gentleman’s so-called jobs miracle extend to children living in poverty? How can he explain what is currently going on when we see that two thirds of all children living in poverty do so in a working household?

[Alex Burghart]

The hon. Gentleman raises a very good point, but, as I have already said, we had a long period of employment, but with little or no wage increases. We have now started to come out of that period. What he will see is that, if wages and wage growth are maintained in the months and years ahead—as I have no doubt that they will be—we will start to see the number of young people in poverty go down. We will see that their parents have more money because they are in work and their wages are rising above inflation. I am sure that he would accept that point.

[Neil Gray]

Will the hon. Gentleman not accept that, while we wait, children remain in poverty? What are his Government doing? They are continuing to cut universal credit, which is supposed to help move these families away from poverty. Why is this continuing to happen? Why do they have to wait all this time for the never-never of jam tomorrow?

[Alex Burghart]

I do not believe that it is correct to say that the Government are taking money out of universal credit. I am sure the hon. Gentleman remembers the previous Budget when a considerable amount of additional money was put into universal credit. I think that he is, perhaps, slightly out of date on that score.

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[Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman). May I again point him to the Scottish Social Security Agency and the way we in Scotland propose to treat people with a terminal illness? I think he will find that quite illuminating, and it has suggestions for this Government.

It is a pleasure to speak for the SNP in this debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) on securing it. There have been a number of interesting speeches, not least that of the hon. Lady herself. She set out very well a strong defence of the welfare state. She rightly contrasted how pensioners, other than the WASPI women, have rightly been protected, while others have not. I will develop that point later in my speech. She also mentioned the fact that austerity is a choice, and she was right to draw attention to the 1.6 million food parcels handed out by the Trussell Trust as a stark reminder of the impoverishing failure of austerity. Best of all was her stout and clear argument that lack of income is the driving force behind poverty.

The hon. Member for Copeland (Trudy Harrison) was right to welcome the Government’s cancelling the expansion of the two-child limit, but I question why she does not expect that policy to be scrapped.

I always enjoy listening to the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) in these debates. She rightly asked why we do not hold the social security system in the UK in the same high esteem as the NHS. We should all ponder that, as should some in the fourth estate.

The hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton) made a thoughtful speech, but I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) made the best speech today. It was brilliant and rightly contradicted the Tory rhetoric on the two-child limit, highlighting last week’s report by the Child Poverty Action Group, the Church of England and others. I know it gives her no pleasure—it certainly gives me no pleasure—to say that the report proves that the warnings we gave at the time were correct. No mother—no parent—should have to choose between poverty and an abortion, but sadly that is the stark choice that faces some because of the two-child limit.

The hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart) is simply wrong about universal credit. The last Budget made up for just half the cuts that the 2015 Budget inflicted on universal credit.

The hon. Member for High Peak (Ruth George) was right to highlight the non-financial problems with universal credit and other benefits. The hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) was right to point to the DWP’s influence. Policy drives poverty—we should remember that.

Sadly, so much of the debate has been characterised by raking over decade-old ground rather than addressing the issues that we face today, and I wish that some Members had spent more of our time on the latter. The estimate for DWP spending is still driven by the policies of austerity that have ravaged the Department since 2010. The estimate may have risen by 3%, but, as the Library briefing makes clear, that is largely down to the Department’s accepting greater responsibility for spending that was previously made by other Departments—for example, taking tax credits from HMRC.

Most people who rely on social security do not see any rise in their weekly family budgets. The hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) made that point well when he said that 1.9 million people were worse off by £1,000 under universal credit according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. Family incomes have been slashed, thanks to the austerity agenda that the Tory-Liberal coalition led and the Tories continued after 2015.

Even the modest rises in the state pension leave the UK state pension as one of the most miserly in the developed world. Thousands of people in Scotland and across the UK have been hit by the benefits freeze, the two-child cap, and cuts to disability benefit and universal credit, leading to a rise in food bank use and in-work poverty. That is why we want the UK Government to think again about their budget for the DWP. It is also why SNP Members will vote against the estimate. We do not do so to deny the funding to the Department; we are using the vote as the only blunt instrument we have to protest about the way in which the Department is funded and the way in which the estimates process is scrutinised. In Holyrood, Members can amend the Budget, but that is sadly not the case here.

The Budget allocation will not allow the Department to remove the two-child cap or the benefits freeze, to fix universal credit, or to mitigate the hardship suffered by women born in the 1950s because the state pension age increased without adequate notice or lead-in time.

What is the real world result of the Government’s spending cuts to the Department? It is increased poverty and food bank use. The Trussell Trust, the largest food bank network in the UK, has reported steep rises in demand for its services year on year. In this year’s report, it points to increased food bank use among working families. That should be a stark warning to us all.

The Secretary of State was the first in her role to acknowledge the long-stated link between social security cuts and increased food bank use, but the Government have done little to put the money where it is needed and stop the cuts that hurt the most, such as the benefits freeze and the two-child cap. The investment in universal credit at the last Budget did not even cover the cuts that were inflicted by the disgraceful 2015 Budget, which cut universal credit and other social security benefits to ribbons.

Everything in the estimate before us could be moot as we are going to have a new Prime Minister, a new Chancellor and probably a new Secretary of State for the Department for Work and Pensions by the end of the month. My questions for the two remaining candidates for Prime Minister are these. What are their plans for social security? What are they going to do about child poverty? Are they going to follow the model set out last week by the Scottish Government, with the Scottish child payment? That measure alone, which will be delivered earlier than predicted to tackle the increase in child poverty perpetrated by the UK Government, is predicted to lift 30,000 children out of poverty. The Child Poverty Action Group described that as a game changer in the fight to tackle child poverty, which is quite the contrast from CPAG’s comments on the Tories’ two-child cap:

“You could not design a better policy to increase child poverty than this one”.

Whichever candidate wins, we want to know whether they will follow our example in putting money where it is needed, or whether will they continue with the pernicious cuts to social security we have seen them support since 2010.

It is unlikely that the frontrunner, the former Foreign Secretary, will have the ideological or economic space to address the problems with universal credit, as he will be spending Scottish taxpayers’ money on delivering a massive tax cut that the IFS has said would primarily benefit just the top 8% of earners. Quite how the 4.5 million UK children in poverty will benefit is anyone’s guess, but it is all a guessing game with this candidate. Indeed, yesterday I suggested it might be the Secretary of State’s final outing at DWP questions. Little did I know how prophetic that statement was. Today, we found out that the Foreign Secretary apparently wants to get rid of the DWP altogether. What an absolute farce!

I also raised yesterday the issue of child poverty. The Work and Pensions Secretary said that she saw work as the best route out of poverty. I agree, but it has to be properly paid work and the evidence shows that in-work poverty is rising. Incomes matter, which is why the new Scottish child payment is so important. So is addressing the chronic shortage of social and affordable housing, on which Scotland is leading the way. So is getting more employers to pay the real living wage, on which Scotland is leading the way. Those are just some of the reasons why Scotland has a lower child poverty figure than the rest of the UK.

Sadly, we have so much more to do. The UN special rapporteur on poverty and human rights, Philip Alston, recognised the work that is being done in Scotland to address poverty, but he also pointed to UK social security policies as driving poverty levels in Scotland. The Scottish Government, local authorities and third sector organisations are doing fantastic work to alleviate poverty, but we are pushing against the tide of UK cuts. The problems need to be fixed here.

One of the problems is the five-week wait that is built into universal credit. The waiting period is driving up indebtedness through rent arrears and commercial debt. One way of sorting it could be to use the assessment period for the advance payment of UC proper. If there is an acceptance that people need an advance at the start of universal credit, why say that that money has to be paid back? People cannot be expected to live off fresh air and they should not be expected to prolong indebtedness or financial hardship either. Advance the first payment of universal credit and stop the cycle of hardship. I have already mentioned the two-child cap and the benefit freeze, which, I think we are starting to realise, needs to get sorted. Taken with the five-week wait, fixing them would go a long way to stop the projected rise in poverty.

In terms of treating people with dignity and respect, there is an urgent need to sort out the disability assessment and to ensure there is a “do no harm” approach. Ministers will be aware of the work being done in Scotland to set up the new Scottish social security agency, which is soon to take responsibility for personal independence payments. One of the things we have confirmed we will do is to ensure all medical information about the applicant is available at the application stage, so as to avoid the need for the face-to-face assessments that so many disabled people find demeaning and irrelevant. It is hoped that by doing so we will cut the staggering appeal rights currently seen in the UK system, as we will get the decision right first time. The current Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work, the hon. Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson), once said from the Back Benches that he was sympathetic to that idea. I hope he might be influential in the Department now in looking to follow Scotland’s lead in this area.

The pensions landscape still needs to be properly mapped out. I have repeatedly raised the issues faced by the 1950s-born women. I still believe that UK Ministers have an obligation to act, but we continue to be stonewalled. One issue picked up this morning, in a roundtable that my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford), my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mhairi Black) and I had with pension stakeholders, was lost pension assets. The Association of British Insurers and the Pensions Policy Institute analysed that relatively recently and found that there are 1.6 million lost pension pots, averaging £13,000 each. In total, about £20 billion is unclaimed. Astonishingly, those figures are for defined-contribution schemes alone. Obviously, defined-benefit schemes are harder to analyse, but the total is expected to be far in excess of the £20 billion unclaimed from DC schemes.

What I find most frustrating is that, although the industry has been trying hard to return those assets to their owners, the UK Government have not been terribly helpful in providing the necessary information to allow it to do so. I hope that changes. Phoenix, one of the contributors to our meeting this morning, spent two years researching lost pension pots and managed to reunite people with £13 million from more than 2,300 pots. Clearly, the UK Government need to look at what they can do to help the industry, as we are talking about substantial amounts of money.

We await publication of the pensions Bill. I hope there is serious cross-party work to advance key issues such as the pensions dashboard and our idea for an independent pensions commission.

Sadly, this debate has shown that although there is general consensus on the pensions scene, there is very little in other areas of social security—there are some exceptions—that we agree on across the House. However, the facts speak for themselves. When we invest in families and ensure they receive proper support, poverty drops. Poverty is policy driven, and right now UK policy is impoverishing. That is why we cannot support these estimates this evening.

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[Will Quince]

With respect, I will not give way to Members who have not been present for any of the contributions to the debate.

In terms of supporting victims of domestic abuse, we want staff to be able to better identify, refer and support those in need.

We worked with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government on the commitment to end rough sleeping through the homelessness and rough sleeping strategy and the Ministry of Justice to ensure prison leavers have access to welfare support from day one. Only last week the Secretary of State announced an extension to the UC pilot in HMP Perth and HMP Cornton Vale.

[Neil Gray]

I thank the Minister for giving way and will pass on the intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford). Will he give separate payments to women who have suffered domestic violence?

[Will Quince]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, split payments are available. I know the Scottish Government are looking at split payments by default, and that is an area I am looking at very closely indeed. It comes with huge complexities, as indeed the Scottish Government recognise, and we are working very closely with them. The Secretary of State has done a huge amount of work in this area—we would expect nothing less from a former Home Secretary who has done an awful lot of work around domestic abuse. So this is an area that I am looking at very carefully; I am conscious of it and am very happy to commit to continue to work with the Scottish Government to try to find a solution to what is a very complex issue.

Supporting the most vulnerable in society is at the very heart of our compassionate Conservative Government and my Department does exactly that.

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[Will Quince]

I have taken numerous interventions already, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I stress that the point of a debate is actually being here to take part in it.

These are the reasons that our labour market is outperforming those of many other developed countries. More people have moved into work in the UK since 2010 than in France, Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Austria and Norway combined.

[Neil Gray]

rose—

[Will Quince]

We are at record levels of employment and, once fully rolled out, universal credit will support another 200,000 people into work and help those already in work to increase hours. But we do not want people to have just any job; we want them to have good jobs where they are able to progress, and universal credit will enable this while providing an economic benefit of £8 billion a year to our economy and saving the Exchequer more than £3 billion annually.

But this is not “job done”. I know as well as anyone the importance of supporting people into work, particularly among vulnerable groups. That is why we have worked hard to create a safety net that not only supports people when they fall on hard times but gives them a hand up. That is vital. We are spending more than £55 billion this year to support disabled people and those with health conditions. That is more than any Labour Government did. Disability benefit spending will be higher in every year to 2023 than it was in 2010. Under universal credit, disabled claimants who cannot work will receive an average of £100 more each month than under the legacy system. So we are supporting those who have worked their whole lives and paid into our social security, and who now deserve to enjoy their retirement. We created the triple lock on state pensions, which has increased the amount of the basic state pension to almost £1,600 more than it was in 2010. We are further protecting the poorest pensioners through pension credit. This means that in total we spend more than £120 billion on benefits for pensioners in this country. As a result, pensioner poverty is now close to historic lows, which is where we want to keep it.

Unemployment and Autism

Neil Gray Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Marion Fellows]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. I do agree. In fact, there are many occasions when this Government could follow the excellent example of the Scottish Government, but in this case it could prove especially fruitful.

Not all jobs are suitable for individuals with autism spectrum conditions, as a result of their own individual barriers. These are common symptoms of ASCs. It is accepted that ASCs will result in individuals experiencing strong resistance to change and poor social communication and interpersonal skills. They will struggle in acclimatising to new routines and procedures. However, this should not prevent them from accessing employment: it means that we need to change our approach within the workplace.

[Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate and on the way in which she is presenting her case. As well as the barriers of access to employment that she is speaking about, there are barriers of access for people with autism going about their daily lives in general. Does she agree that Hope for Autism, which is based in Airdrie but serves the entirety of North Lanarkshire, is an example of a specialist local organisation doing fantastic work to help young people with autism, and their families, not just in accessing work but in being able to cope with the barriers that they face?

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[Justin Tomlinson]

The chair of the all-party parliamentary group on disability has highlighted two incredibly important asks of all Parliaments and parliamentarians, and I wholeheartedly agree that they should all have that training, and that they should all sign up to Disability Confident. Many parliamentarians have done so and many enthusiastically support both those campaigns, but it does no harm to remind people that, even with busy diaries, that is incredibly important.

The majority of the speech of the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw focused on employment opportunities, so that is where I will start. In the jobcentres, we are grateful for the work of the Autism Alliance, which helped develop the disability toolkit, providing comprehensive information on autism and hidden impairments. We also now have the bite-sized autism awareness learning that jobcentres are looking at. From that, many examples of good practice have developed locally, which we are sharing across the jobcentre network. They include calm and quiet sessions for claimants.

We also have the disability passport, “About Me”, which encourages disabled claimants to disclose their disability and health conditions at an earlier stage. That improves communication, ensures reasonable adjustments in advance and allows individual challenges to be explained only once. That issue was clearly highlighted in the hon. Lady’s speech. We have done more intense training on autism and hidden impairments for 1,000 of our frontline staff to ensure that there is a high level of understanding in every jobcentre. We will continue to do that, and that was one of the hon. Lady’s asks. I would like to invite her to meet me and my team to look at that particular area so we can have confidence that we are doing everything we reasonably can in all jobcentres.

As part of our support for people who could be classed as being further away from the workplace, we have: universal credit personalised support, which could simply be signposting following the first conversation; moving on to the Work and Health programme; the personalised support package, which now includes 800 disability employment advisers and leaders; or the intensive personalised employment programme, which will be launched at the end of the year. The last is highly personalised and tailored to the individual’s needs. That is important, because every autistic person experiences autism differently and many have complex needs or other conditions, such as a learning disability or a mental health condition, so the programme has to be tailored and personalised.

One of the best levers that we have as a Government is the Access to Work programme. Again, while we celebrate the fact that 33,800 people—a record number, up 13%—benefited from Access to Work last year, as with the labour force statistics, we cannot record autism. However, once that comes in to the labour force statistics, we will also have it within Access to Work. I know that it is not an exact comparison, but last year there was an increase of 22% in claimants with a learning disability where there was a crossover. There was also a 28% increase in young claimants who benefit from the Access to Work scheme. That is important because Access to Work has only recently broadened out from simply supporting people with a physical disability or sensory impairments, and we have now stepped up significantly support for mental health, learning disability and autism.

However, it is a journey and we have a real commitment to go much further. We are working with organisations such as the Autism Alliance and Exceptional Individuals to ensure that our staff have specialist knowledge, so that when they talk to employers and the potential or existing employee about how we can provide support, we have the best knowledge of the available technology and the way in which support workers can help, particularly in the interview process. Probably the most powerful part of the hon. Lady’s speech was about interviews and adapting the interview process. I have employed disabled people. I understand that interviews are a strange old process, because they bear little relation to what happens next and generally everybody just claims to be very active at sport. The real question is how they will fit those roles. We talk to employers who are struggling to fill skills gaps about being a little bit smarter. Also, through the Access to Work programme, we can look at travel, which is important, particularly if people are anxious and would find public transport difficult. We will be doing far more.

We are looking to build evidence in this area. We are working with a supported business alliance—57 supported businesses across the country—to provide a greater level of additional support. In return, we can gather the evidence to see how we can break down the barriers and provide long-term sustainable opportunities with career progression.

[Neil Gray]

As had been said, I appreciate the constructive way in which the Minister is responding to the debate. Alongside the barriers that people with ASCs have to the workplace, they are also, sadly, more likely to be exploited. One of my constituents was affected by unpaid work trials in B&M Stores. In light of this debate, I wonder whether the Minister might reconsider the Government’s opposition to the 10-minute rule Bill from my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald) to ban exploitative unpaid work trials, so that people with autism and Asperger’s, such as my constituent, are not exploited in such a way again.

[Justin Tomlinson]

I am conscious of time, so I will have to look into the details. It is right that we absolutely have to do more to enlighten businesses of all sizes about the opportunities. Small changes and good practice can benefit not just individuals with autism, but the organisations that take them on.

This is my second time as Minister for Disabled People and I am very proud that, in the final few weeks last time, I was able to push through the opening up of disability apprenticeships, removing the need to get a grade C in GCSE maths and English for people who would qualify under the disability apprenticeship. That is an important way that we, as a Government, are trying to remove barriers, but we must look at providing additional support within the workplace to go beyond the interview, so that people have an opportunity to demonstrate their skills.

Through our Disability Confident campaign, which now has more than 12,000 businesses of all sizes signed up, we are looking to share best practice. I think we can go further than that, not just by recruiting more organisations to the Disability Confident campaign, but by looking at organisations such as the Health and Safety Executive. To a certain extent, that will help support the point made by the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Neil Gray). It is very proactive in engaging with businesses on safety, so it is a given that the workplaces will have a safe environment. We are world-leading on this—other countries look to our expertise—but we need to do the same on health. That includes empowering small and medium-sized businesses in particular that do not have personnel or HR departments, so that they can have the skills and the confidence to make small, reasonable adjustments. That would be a win-win for all.

I had the pleasure on Friday, as part of Employability Day, of meeting employers and individuals who had overcome those barriers. That was transformational for those individuals who were enjoying the opportunity to contribute, and to the employers who had struggled to fill gaps and were now benefiting as an organisation.

Oral Answers to Questions

Neil Gray Excerpts

Monday 1st July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

With commendable brevity, I feel sure. Neil Gray.

[Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)]

Research released last week from the Child Poverty Action Group and the Church of England shows that women are being forced to choose between poverty and an abortion because of this Government’s two-child cap—that is the reality facing families with three or more children. It appears unlikely that the Secretary of State will face another Work and Pensions Question Time, so will she make it her legacy to scrap the two-child cap and avoid impoverishing half of all children in those families?

[Amber Rudd]

I will try not to be distracted by the hon. Gentleman’s slightly personal remarks. He might know that I visited Scotland last week, and the Scottish Government have taken their own steps on what they feel is the way to address child poverty. Those of us on the Government side of the House feel that the best way to address child poverty is to help more people into work. I am proud of the fact that there are now 1 million more people in work and that over 600,000 children are no longer in houses where no people work.

[Neil Gray]

I note that the Secretary of State did not answer my question. I would like to compare and contrast, because CPAG has said of the two-child cap,

“you could not design a policy better to increase child poverty”,

but last week it described the new Scottish child benefit, to which the Secretary of State referred, as

“an absolute game changer in the fight to end child poverty”.

Therefore, on the 20th anniversary of the reconvened Scottish Parliament, is this not yet another example of where Holyrood empowers, Westminster impoverishes?

[Amber Rudd]

Again, I point to the fact that there are different ways of addressing poverty, both child poverty and family poverty: one is to hand out money, which is what the Scottish Government have chosen to do; and another is to focus, with laser-like attention, on ensuring that we build the economy and create employment and that there are good jobs so that people can support their family.

Local Housing Allowance: Supreme Court Ruling

Neil Gray Excerpts

Thursday 13th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Will Quince]

My hon. Friend is right that we are taking action to build the homes that our country needs. The LHA rate is an issue in so many cases because of supply and demand. Demand massively outstrips supply in certain areas, so I am pleased by the action that Cheltenham is taking with his support.

[Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)]

I pay tribute to Ms Samuels, who brought her case as far as the Supreme Court. Hopefully her struggle will result in change so that others do not have to go through this.

This case should be a wake-up call for many local authorities in how they process homelessness applications, while acknowledging that Scotland has much stronger homelessness legislation. Local authorities have been left in a very difficult situation because of this Government’s policies, which drive cases like that of Ms Samuels. Local housing allowance rates have been frozen at 2015 levels by this Government. Why will that freeze continue into next year? The Minister simply cannot say that this is about not wanting to subsidise the private rented sector, because the Government are actively doing that by not building social housing.

In the four years to 2018, Scotland delivered 50% more affordable housing units per head of population and—this is the important one—five times more social rented properties per head of population, and more in total, than England. The Scottish Government are also spending £12 million on discretionary housing payments to mitigate the Government’s freeze on benefits such as local housing allowance and £50 million to mitigate the bedroom tax.

A perfect storm has led to so many of us having cases like that of Ms Samuels at our surgeries—punitive, arbitrary and punishing cuts to social security, including housing benefit, coupled with rent increases and a devastating under-supply of social housing. When will the Government wake up to the crisis they are causing?

[Will Quince]

Despite the freeze in Scotland, we have seen LHA rates rise. One rate rose in 2017-18, three rates rose in 2018-19 and 16 rates rose in 2019-20. The hon. Gentleman knows me well enough to know that I am looking at various options in this area ahead of potential spending review bids. The freeze comes to an end next year, and I look forward to working with him.

Inequality and Social Mobility

Neil Gray Excerpts

Wednesday 12th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

I want to make some more progress.

We continue to look for ways to help people out of poverty, which is why we have acted to increase the incomes of the poorest in society. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor has injected an extra £10 billion into universal credit since 2016, and that meant we could increase the universal credit work allowance by £1,000 in April, providing extra cash in the pockets of hard-working people in 2.4 million households.

[Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)]

While we all accept that the Government have taken some steps—I pay tribute to the Secretary of State for making some changes to universal credit since she has taken office—does she accept that the interventions from the Chancellor at the last Budget do not even make up for the cuts in the 2015 Budget?

[Amber Rudd]

The hon. Gentleman must acknowledge, as I said earlier, that we took on an economic crisis in 2010 that required some reduction in spending, and those changes allowed us to stabilise and grow the economy. There has now been an acknowledgment that some of that money can be put back, and I am pleased that the Chancellor was able to support us in doing that.

This Government introduced the national living wage, providing the biggest pay rise for workers in 20 years, and increased it this year to £8.21 an hour, and we have also increased the personal tax allowance to £12,500. We are acting to increase female employment and economic empowerment, reaching out to marginalised women and trying to eliminate the gender pay gap. We are spending billions to ensure that opportunity and growth are spread throughout the country through our stronger towns fund and our transport investments, but we will not stop there. We have committed to finding new and better ways to analyse and tackle poverty in this country.

The Social Metrics Commission’s “A new measure of poverty for the UK” report, which the hon. Member for Wirral West mentioned, makes a compelling case for why we should look at poverty more broadly to give a more detailed picture of who is poor, their experience of poverty and their future chances of remaining in poverty or falling into it. We are working with the commission and other experts in the field to develop new experimental statistics to measure poverty, which will be published in 2020 and, in the long run, could help us to target support more effectively. It is vital that we have evidence on the effects of poverty in order to tackle it, and in the run-up to the spending review we will examine what more can be done to address poverty, particularly child poverty, and to support social mobility.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to take part in this important debate, and I thank the Opposition for moving the motion.

The IFS’s recent report, “Inequalities in the twenty-first century”, which partly prompted today’s motion and debate, states:

“Too often the debate takes place in silos, focusing on just one type of inequality, a specific alleged cause or a specific proposed solution.”

Indeed, looking back at debates in this House over the past few years—when we had the time to divert our attention from the Government’s Brexit shambles—there have been many discussions on issues such as changes to housing benefit, scrapping student nurse bursaries, freezing working-age benefits, the impact of the state pension changes on women born in the 1950s, income tax changes that disproportionately benefit those on the highest incomes, and universal credit, which in itself covers a plethora of issues that could be the focus of this debate—the two-child limit, the five-week wait or the cuts to disability premiums. Although Members can argue back and forth, as they have done and will again, about the merits and demerits of these individual policies and others, what connects these disparate issues is a sense that the UK Government’s priorities are not geared to tackling inequality across these isles. The Secretary of State is right to say that we all came into politics to improve the lives of others, but we differ on the route to improving people’s lives. The evidence shows that the Government are not tackling burning injustices; they are fanning the flames with petrol.

This debate was originally scheduled for 22 May, which would have been apt as that was also the day when Philip Alston, the UN rapporteur on extreme poverty, released his final report on the impact of austerity and human rights in the UK. If anything, however, having the debate today makes it even timelier, given that the UK Government’s denial and abnegation of the report’s findings have been almost as concerning as the report itself. We must remember what Mr Alston actually said:

“The bottom line is that much of the glue that has held British society together since the Second World War has been deliberately removed and replaced with a harsh and uncaring ethos.”

It seems clear that, collated together, the issues I mentioned earlier, and others, have contributed to some of the stark reading contained in the rapporteur’s report. I hoped that, given the time that has now passed in which to reflect on Mr Alston’s findings, the Minister or the Government would offer a clearer outline of what the Government intend to do about the concerns raised, today or in the near future. Sadly, that has not been offered.

We contrast what we hear in the report about the UK Government’s issues with Mr Alston’s conclusions about the devolved Administrations. He said:

“Devolved administrations have tried to mitigate the worst impacts of austerity, despite experiencing significant reductions in block grant funding and constitutional limits on their ability to raise revenue. Scotland and Northern Ireland each report spending some £125 million per year to protect people from the worst impacts of austerity and, unlike the United Kingdom Government, the three devolved administrations all provide welfare funds for emergencies and hardships.

But mitigation comes at a price, and is not sustainable. The Scottish Government said it had reached the limit of what it can afford to mitigate, because every pound spent on offsetting cuts means reducing vital services.”

Those are Mr Alston’s conclusions.

So many factors can directly and indirectly determine a person’s life chances, including family income, status and health. Although Governments cannot override or entirely supersede all these factors, they can and must try to put in place measures that at the very least do not widen or exacerbate them. Unfortunately, the UK Government’s record in the areas that can determine this appears to show that many of their measures would appear to do just that. Page 6 of the IFS report shows that there has been a sharp rise in the incomes of the highest earners, with the incomes going to the top 1%—the richest in this country—now being 8% of the total incomes, which represents an increase from 3% in 1970. The average pay for a chief executive officer in a FTSE 100 company is now 145 times higher than that of the average worker in those same companies—increasing from 47 times higher in 1998—while household earnings have stagnated at the bottom end of the income distribution. After adjusting for inflation, the lowest earning households today can earn little more than their counterparts did in the mid-1990s.

No one policy can end inequality or progress social mobility, which is why it is essential that all these areas—taxation, income distribution, social security, education, childcare and other policy areas—are looked at collectively and cognisance is taken of how interconnected and crucial a role they play in ensuring that future generations are more equal.

I wish, therefore, to focus on education, social security and tax changes, and policies directly about or impacting the state pension, as I believe that it is only by ensuring that those starting out have the opportunity to achieve all they can, that those who find themselves falling behind have a safety net that they can rely on and that those who have worked hard and contributed to the system throughout their lives are duly rewarded can we address inequality and stagnant social mobility.

Education is clearly key to tackling poverty, which is why the Scottish National party in government has made closing the attainment gap its absolutely priority. This has led to recent statistics showing a record high for school leavers going to positive destinations. For those who have chosen the destination of higher education, there are free tuition fees, which the Social Mobility Commission “State of the Nation” report acknowledges have

“Contributed to the increased number of disadvantaged people attending university.”

However, for those who have chosen instead to enter the world of work straight from school, the UK Government’s age-discrimination policies in respect of national living wage entitlement make life more difficult, as many find themselves doing the same job as their colleagues but for far less pay.

The Scottish Government’s “Every child, every chance: tackling child poverty delivery plan” contains a detailed and ambitious plan for reducing child poverty rates and places education at the forefront of this effort by addressing some of the issues that directly and indirectly affect a child’s chances of getting the best start in life, through initiatives such as a new minimum school clothing grant payment to help low-income families to have more money for school uniforms and £1 million of new practical support for children who experience food insecurity during the school holidays. The Social Mobility Commission acknowledges that these plans are made more difficult in Scotland due to “UK-wide benefit changes”. It is to some of those changes that I shall now turn.

The 2015 Budget announced some of the most punitive cuts to social security in recent memory. We are now starting to see those cuts actively reverse previous reductions in child poverty. The Budget saw the removal of the ESA work-related activity group and the cuts to universal credit work allowances, and the introduction of the two-child policy and a harsher benefit cap, as well as the benefits freeze. The freezing of benefits has made it almost impossible for those already struggling the most to focus on long-term advancements and improvements in their job prospects, their life chances, or their family’s wellbeing. Instead, they have to focus on month-to-month survival, with no certainty about whether they will have enough for the bare essentials.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend is making a good point. Does he agree with the Church of England analysis that a single parent with three children who works 16 hours at the Government’s pretendy living wage would now need to work 45 hours just to make up the cuts from the two-child cap?

[Neil Gray]

I absolutely agree, and that is clearly impossible. Policies such as the two-child limit, on which my hon. Friend has been a doughty campaigner—she has led the campaign against that pernicious policy—affect the life chances of all members of the family. For the parents, it may mean increased focus only on finding the bare essentials, which for the children means less money and less time for sports, travelling, holidays, extracurricular activities and other factors that play an often unacknowledged or underplayed role in equipping children with the skills and experiences that will prove useful later in life. Often, the focus in these debates is solely on the income side of the equation, and less attention is given to those extracurricular activities and the often-ignored life-chances elements, but it is worth noting that the Child Poverty Action Group’s most recent report said that the removal of the two-child limit or the benefit freeze would be the best way to stop any increased rises in child poverty.

Housing costs have become the biggest worry for many up and down these isles, which is why the Scottish Government have embarked on an ambitious programme of council house building. Since 2007, some 86,000 affordable homes have been built and 59,000 homes have been built for social rent, and they are on course to reach their target of 50,000 in the lifetime of this Holyrood Parliament. The Scottish Government have also ensured that discretionary housing payments are available for those impacted by the bedroom tax and that the housing element of universal credit can be paid direct to the landlord. Although that is beneficial for those who choose that option, one problem I have been made aware of from recent casework is that when the landlord is the local authority, the Department for Work and Pensions takes no cognisance of when the rent is due to the council, meaning that housing payments are often made after the rent was due, leading to constituents being threatened with eviction proceedings by the landlord. I have raised that issue previously and hope that Ministers will look into it.

If we look at those approaching retirement age, or who are already there, we see that the Government’s recent announcement of changes to pension credit entitlement mean that some couples could lose out on up to £7,000 a year, because if one partner is under 65 they will have to claim universal credit instead. The longest running issue in this policy area, and on which the Government have shown little sign of wishing to help, is that of women born in the 1950s and the delays and changes, with little or no notice, to their pension entitlement. The issue has been debated many times in the Chamber already, and I do not wish to go over that ground in any great detail, but such policies mean that inequality is being exacerbated for people at a time of their life when they are least able or likely to be able to rely on work or education to assist them. I hope that we will have a chance to discuss Mr Alston’s report in more detail, but it would have been remiss of me not to highlight some of the aspects I have raised today.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

On the Alston report, the UN special rapporteur spent exactly 11 days in the UK. Is that enough to get a clear picture of our country?

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil Gray]

I think it is; Mr Alston’s report was comprehensive and spoke to the issues that we see in our surgeries daily. I invite the hon. Lady to Glasgow, where Mr Alston spent much of his time, and to which he dedicated much of his report, to see the impact of the problems I mentioned.

[Amber Rudd]

Mr Alston, of course, spent two days in Scotland, to follow up on the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford). I refer the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Neil Gray) to the leader in The Times of 25 May, which said:

“The failings of Mr Alston’s report are legion.”

It referred to his report as “nonsense”, and said:

“The government is vulnerable to many criticisms in economic and welfare policy”—

a point that the hon. Gentleman often throws at me—

“Yet poverty in this sense does not exist in Britain in the 21st century.”

I urge him to get a copy and read it later.

[Neil Gray]

The Secretary of State needs to look at the report and realise why Mr Alston was able to come to his conclusions on the evidence that he found during his visit to this country, rather than doing what she and her colleagues have done up to now: report personal attacks against a UN rapporteur who visited this country to draw conclusions about poverty and human rights.

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

rose—

[Neil Gray]

I will take a last intervention.

[Chris Stephens]

I thank my hon. Friend for being most generous in giving way. Would he be surprised to hear that this morning, in the Select Committee on Work and Pensions, a Minister stated that the Department’s policy is now that it regrets the inflammatory language in its response to the rapporteur’s report and is taking that report seriously?

[Neil Gray]

I would be very interested to see the transcript, because that directly contradicts what the Secretary of State just did to me in her intervention. I would be very interested to see what was said in more detail.

There is no doubt but that the Institute for Fiscal Studies has blown a rather wide hole in the Tory rhetoric around inequality in the United Kingdom. Its report can be complemented by so many others—from the Trussell Trust, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Child Poverty Action Group, to name just a few of the expert charities highlighting how the UK Government’s policies are impoverishing people across the UK. That is why we support the motion. I hope that the Government will finally wake up to the social destruction that they are causing, will act, and will no longer take their path of austerity.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)]

I welcome the opportunity to respond on behalf of the Government. I was sorry to hear the hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) accuse the Government of not responding to the report of the UN rapporteur. That is not true; we have responded. I was also sorry to hear her exploit Allie, an 18-year-old, in an attempt to weaponise this issue, when we have heard really thoughtful contributions from other colleagues. Labour employs the politics of division; it was sad to see that today.

I thank colleagues who have spoken, including the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Neil Gray), my right hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Justine Greening), the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy), my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Gillian Keegan), the hon. Member for Bradford South (Judith Cummins), my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford), and the hon. Members for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill), for Leigh (Jo Platt), for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova), for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), for Glasgow North East (Mr Sweeney), for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh), for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin), for Glasgow East (David Linden), and for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders).

Many of the contributions this afternoon were about the long-term issue of delivering social mobility. As Under-Secretary of State with responsibility for children and families, I will naturally focus in my speech primarily on the work of my Department. You will not be surprised to hear, Madam Deputy Speaker, that I believe that one of the most effective means of reducing inequality is education. As someone who came to these shores unable to speak a word of English, I know at first hand how education can change lives and truly open doors. Everyone has the right to a good education, regardless of their circumstances.

Social mobility, tackling inequality and social justice are rightly critical priorities for my Department and of course my Government as a whole. That is why, for the Social Mobility Commission, we have recruited a fantastic chair in Dame Martina Milburn, along with a board of commissioners each with a unique experience of social mobility. I will say a few words about their vital work.

At the end of April, the commission published a comprehensive “State of the Nation” report which shines a light on where the Government, businesses and employers can continue to raise the bar for everyone living in this country.

[Neil Gray]

Will the Minister give way?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

If I have time at the end, I will happily take an intervention.

We welcome the commission’s thorough analysis and its efforts to promote social mobility and social justice across the United Kingdom, and we have therefore awarded it £2 million to undertake further work on that agenda. Indeed, despite some claims to the contrary, social justice is already an intrinsic part of the commission’s role. It is already concerned to help the most disadvantaged in society and to ensure that someone’s background does not determine future chances in life.

This Government share the view that everyone should have the chance to fulfil their potential. That is why we are taking action across the whole Government in order to make real progress.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I will try to take some interventions at the end. I want to get through my remarks and to address some of the questions asked of me.

In 2014, we extended benefits-related free meals to cover further education—not something that the Labour party had contemplated—and introduced universal infant free school meals, benefiting a further 1.5 million infant pupils. In 2018, we introduced new eligibility under universal credit, and we estimate that by 2022 more children will benefit from free school meals than under the previous benefits system. Such efforts are targeted at the root causes of poverty and disadvantage.

Improving this country’s education system starts in the early years—Martina Milburn focused on that in her report. We have already made progress in closing the gap that emerges between disadvantaged children and their peers: 71.5% of children achieved a “good level of development” in 2018, up from 51.7% in 2013. Despite that very encouraging progress, far too many children still start school behind their peers, in particular in language development, which a number of colleagues mentioned. We have set out an important ambition to halve, by 2028, the proportion of children finishing their reception year without the communication and reading skills that they need.

To tackle that, this year alone the Government will spend about £3.5 billion—yes, Mr Deputy Speaker, you heard me right—on early education entitlements, which is more than any previous Government have spent. Our early years social mobility programme, backed by more than £100 million of investment, includes a professional development programme for early years practitioners, who will shape those little ones to make the most of their lives as they become adults; and work with Public Health England to train 1,000 health visitors to identify speech, language and communication in families who need that additional help. We will soon launch a home learning environment campaign, because what happens in the home in the earliest years has a huge impact, and there are many opportunities to help parents to support their children to learn—to have the confidence to help their children to learn better and faster. I look forward to working with hon. Members across this House to ensure that we make the most of the very significant potential of that campaign to help disadvantaged children.

This Government have focused on raising school standards because we know that what happens in our classrooms is critical to reducing inequality. There is nothing moral or decent about crashing an economy and leaving the most vulnerable people behind. That is why we are targeting extra support at the areas of greatest challenge and least opportunity, to raise standards and attract great teachers to our primary and secondary schools. This has helped to ensure that, as of December of last year, there are 1.9 million more children in good and outstanding schools compared with when we came into office in 2010, representing 85% of children, compared with just 66% in 2010. That is partly down to our reforms.

I am pleased to say that this Government have also made significant progress in closing the opportunity gap with regard to education. The difference in attainment between disadvantaged pupils and their peers has fallen across all stages of education. Commenting on the changes we have made to the system, including the pupil premium, the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which has been mentioned a number of times today, said:

“A system that was substantially skewed…towards the better off is now, if anything, skewed towards the least well off.”

It also said:

“Reforms since 2010 are likely to have increased total funding in favour of pupils from poorer backgrounds.”

Our efforts do not stop there, when school comes to an end. To tackle inequality, everyone must have the right level of ongoing support to help them on a path to a skilled job, whether via university or a more practical, technical path. That is why widening access in higher education to ensure that an academic route is open to all is a priority for this Government, as shown in the recent report by Philip Augar.

[Neil Gray]

Will the Minister give way?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I have said that I will at the end when I have a bit of time.

In 2018, 18-year-olds from disadvantaged backgrounds were proportionally 52% more likely to go to university than they were in 2009. Higher education providers have committed to spend £860 million in 2019-20 on measures to improve access—up significantly from £404 million; in fact, this is more than a doubling since 2009. This Government have also embarked on a long-overdue overhaul of technical education, backed by significant investment. Over 1.7 million people have started an apprenticeship since May 2015. Alongside this, we are introducing T-levels, which will offer a rigorous technical alternative to academic education, available to all.

On children’s social care, this Government take the view that all children, no matter where they live, should have access to the support they need to keep them safe, provide them with a stable and nurturing home, and overcome their challenges to achieve their potential. This Government are committed to improving outcomes for children in need of help and protection. That is why, owing to the work of my Department, my officials and all our teams, and of course all the brilliant social workers on the frontline, our children’s social care reform programme is working to deliver a highly capable, highly skilled social work workforce, with high-performing services everywhere and a national system of excellent and innovative practice.

It is both an economic and moral imperative that we ensure that the skills system works for all—my right hon. Friend the Member for Putney spoke eloquently about why the system really matters—and that it does so up and down the country. That is why we are taking action in every region, at every stage of a young person’s life, to close the opportunity gap. We are targeting extra support at some of the poorest areas of the country through our £72 million opportunity area programme and £24 million for Opportunity North East.

Members made a number of points that I would like to address. The hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden asked how many academies are in debt. I will be happy to respond to her question in writing, but I can say that the reforms of the last eight years show that autonomy and freedom have allowed the best leaders and teachers to make the right decisions for their pupils to reach their full potential.

The hon. Member for Glasgow East rightly held us to account for our own behaviour in this place. There really should not be any unpaid internships. I remind colleagues of the care leaver covenant, which all Departments have signed up to, meaning that we offer 12-month paid internships to those most vulnerable children who, through no fault of their own, have had to be taken into care.

The hon. Members for Mitcham and Morden and for Bradford South attacked the Government about what steps they would be taking to support children who live in food insecurity. I remind them that we are supporting more than 1 million children with free school meals and investing up to £26 million in school breakfast clubs, providing approximately 2.3 million children aged four to six with a portion of fresh fruit or vegetables each day.

Universal Credit and Debt

Neil Gray Excerpts

Wednesday 5th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)]

Thank you, Sir Henry. It is a pleasure to serve under your astute chairmanship, which has allowed a bit of latitude in the debate and for so many voices to be heard. I am very grateful to the hon. Member for High Peak (Ruth George) for securing the debate. She covered a lot of ground in her speech and I will try my best to sum up her contribution and the other important contributions that have been made.

The hon. Lady spoke about deductions being taken, apparently at random. I totally agree. She also mentioned carer’s allowance. She may not be aware that in Scotland we have looked to do something different on carer’s allowance. We are uprating carer’s allowance to better acknowledge, in some small way, the great work that carers do in our society. I encourage her to look at that.

The hon. Lady was right to say that universal credit has improved. There have been some improvements of late, and I am sure she would agree that the changes appear to acknowledge some of the problems that we have all been campaigning on, but do not go the full distance in terms of resolving the problems that are clearly still there—for instance, the two-child policy, the benefit freeze and the five-week wait. I will come back to some of those. She was also right to highlight the so-called major budget interventions that were made by the Government on universal credit. They do not come close to making up for the cuts that were made to it in the 2015 Budget, which made it almost unrecognisable from what was originally envisaged. I commend the hon. Lady on her speech.

The hon. Members for Waveney (Peter Aldous) and for Midlothian (Danielle Rowley) touched on the issue of separate payments. The Scottish Government and the previous Administration in Northern Ireland have looked to try to resolve that, and I would encourage the UK Government to look at that again and to stop insisting on charging for that.

The hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) is an authoritative voice on the subject, and it was good to see her here. She was right to draw on the evidence put forward by Philip Alston, the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty. The UK Government have chosen to attack him personally, rather than to address the issues that he has quite legitimately raised.

My hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry) has possibly the greatest experience of us all on the impact of universal credit. He was right to raise the issue of the £2.5 million debt that Highland Council now finds itself in, and the £600,000 in administration costs that the UK Government should be paying up for. Of course, it is a triple whammy: UK Government austerity on public finances, UK Government austerity on personal finances and now the local authorities have that added burden on their services.

As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) did, I commend DWP staff, who try to resolve the issues we raise with them. They do their best to deal with those issues within the stringent policies implemented by UK Ministers.

The hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) was absolutely right about advanced childcare costs—I have had many similar cases. I find it incredible that universal credit is paid in arrears, yet the bills that people have to pay on childcare must largely be paid in advance.

The hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) looked to paint a particular picture on universal credit. I encourage him to look at the Citizens Advice Scotland report and briefing that was available ahead of the debate. I think it would contradict and enlighten him greatly.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) pre-empted much of what I have to say on the five-week wait. I appreciate her intervention. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) dissected the DWP’s propaganda regarding universal credit that has been out of late.

I also commend the hon. Members for Easington (Grahame Morris), Bristol South (Karin Smyth), Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue), Leigh (Jo Platt) and Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones). This has been a very broad debate, with many good contributions.

As has already been highlighted, there are a number of issues at play on universal credit and debt. I am grateful to Scope, Shelter, the Child Poverty Action Group, StepChange and Citizens Advice Scotland for their briefings.

The first issue is the five-week wait. I appreciate that the Government have at least partially acknowledged that there is a problem, by looking to extend certain legacy benefits and to expand advance payments. However, much of the run-on for legacy benefits will not happen until next year, and no run-on help is available for those who are in touch with universal credit for the first time. Those fixes are not in themselves going to solve the problem, as the evidence from CPAG and Citizens Advice Scotland confirms. That is why I have asked Ministers to look at making what is now the assessment for an advance the first UC assessment, and making the advance essentially the first payment. If the recipient is shown to need the money at that point, why would the Government deny them that as part of universal credit, rather than financially penalising them for months after? I do not think there would be a major cost implication, other than to shift payments to the front end of the claim instead of further down the line.

Payment of housing costs to landlords is a major issue for both tenants and landlords. My local authority, North Lanarkshire Council, is having serious problems with the inflexibility of the current system on when rent payments are made. That means that I have received loads of cases where council tenants are getting chased for rent arrears, when the delay is in fact caused by the DWP. The DWP has acknowledged that issue, but there is no date for when it will move from a four-weekly to a monthly payment system. I encourage the DWP to work with local authorities and other housing providers to establish a more flexible system that enables them to know for certain when rent is to be paid.

The benefit freeze has already been raised. It is having a major impact on indebtedness as part of universal credit. While most working-age benefits have been frozen for four years, living costs have risen sharply with higher than anticipated levels of inflation. There is not an expectation that the freeze will continue beyond this financial year, but the Treasury is going to more than recoup its estimated savings from the policy this year. Quite frankly, low-income families have paid more than their fair share towards this Government’s policies and the benefit freeze should have ended this year. What estimate have the Government made of the impact that their benefit freeze has had on low-income families and poverty levels? What other detrimental impacts has it had?

Direct deduction rates must be looked at again. The hon. Member for High Peak was right to focus on that issue. If only DWP policy were to match that of the Cabinet Office, as my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West said, which advocates fairness in debt collection and an understanding of the impact that debt collection processes have on people. As the hon. Member for High Peak said, that could start with the DWP understanding what debt repayments are actually for, so as to better understand the circumstances that the DWP Ministers should have a duty of care to support.

[Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)]

Does my hon. Friend not think it absolutely shocking that if a terminal patient accrues debt, that passes on to their family? People should be defined by their medical definition and not the arbitrary six months that exists at the moment.

[Neil Gray]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Of course, she will know that a different system is being created for that in Scotland. I ask the Minister to look at the definition of terminal illness that has been adopted by the Scottish social security agency, which I think would help to deal with some of these problems.

Currently, deductions for indebtedness can be up to 40% of the standard allowance, and the Government are looking to reduce that to 30%. If we accept that the standard allowance is barely enough for anyone to live on in the first place—figures from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation show that adults without children on UC receive only 40% of the minimum income standard, while adults with children get just 60%—reducing that by a third is just going to exacerbate indebtedness. Most people would struggle if their income was reduced by a third without warning or negotiation, but I also acknowledge that there is a debt, so some effort must be made to repay it. There should be an affordability test and discussions in advance of a deduction being applied, and the recipient should be afforded expert advice and advocacy during that process. That surely has to happen if the DWP is going to give people help and breathing space for indebtedness.

As part of the summer pilot, the Government should consult extensively with key stakeholders, the devolved Governments and the expert charities, and those in receipt of universal credit themselves, particularly disabled people, to make sure that the system is got right and that no one is further impoverished as a result of universal credit.

Speakers from across the House have demonstrated in this debate, once again, that universal credit is still not working. It is time for the Government to listen, to restore and expand the funding available to universal credit and to fix the inbuilt technical issues and flaws that have been raised today and previously, which are contributing to a rise in food bank use and the impoverishment of those both in and out of work.

[Sir Henry Bellingham (in the Chair)]

I call Mike Amesbury.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Employment (Alok Sharma)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray, in this very important debate secured by the hon. Member for High Peak (Ruth George). Whatever our political differences, I am happy to acknowledge that she and indeed all the hon. Members who have spoken care very deeply about their constituents. I want to be clear that I want to ensure that every single person who is claiming universal credit gets the support that they absolutely deserve.

Let me start by setting out where we are with universal credit. Last year, universal credit completed its roll-out to all jobcentres across the country. We now have just under 2 million people claiming this benefit, and all new entrants to the benefits system now claim universal credit.

I entirely agree that we must ensure that we provide support through the welfare system to the most vulnerable. I am pleased that colleagues from all parties, including the hon. Member for High Peak, have acknowledged that changes have been made. My hon. Friends the Members for Waveney (Peter Aldous), and for Gloucester (Richard Graham), talked about the fabulous work being done by work coaches in our jobcentres.

As colleagues will know, in the last two Budgets, we announced changes to universal credit worth an additional £6 billion. I do not like to introduce rancour into this type of debate, and I am always open to discussion, but I gently point out that on those occasions, Opposition Members did not vote to support that extra money going into the system.

In the 2017 Budget, we announced a two-week run-on for those on housing benefit, the removal of the seven-day waiting period, and the ability for a claimant to get up to 100% of their estimated first-period payment as an advance, on the same day if needed. In last year’s Budget, among other measures, we announced increases to work allowances worth £1.7 billion a year. Colleagues touched on the additional run-on; from July 2020, there will be a two-week run-on of Department for Work and Pensions out-of-work legacy benefits for existing claimants who are being moved on to universal credit.

[Neil Gray]

The Minister lists the changes that have been made of late; does he acknowledge that none of them make up for the cuts made in the 2015 Budget?

[Alok Sharma]

The hon. Gentleman will know that we inherited dire financial circumstances from the Opposition—I know that colleagues will not be happy at my mentioning that—and that is why we had to make difficult decisions. However, if Labour Members want more money introduced, then when that money is made available in Budgets, they should support those Budgets.

I will go back to the point about payments, including advance payments. I highlight that advances are interest-free.

Invisible Disabilities and Accessibility Challenges

Neil Gray Excerpts

Wednesday 5th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Justin Tomlinson)]

It is a real pleasure to respond to this proactive and constructive debate. Until the last two, the majority of speakers stuck to the spirit of this incredibly important subject, and I know that people worked incredibly hard to get this vital debate secured through the Backbench Business Committee. First, I say to the hon. Member for East Lothian (Martin Whitfield), “Yes, yes and yes.” How about that? There are not many debates in which a Minister can just totally and whole- heartedly agree.

I had a stroke of luck, because on Saturday a Red Box was dispatched to my house. We knew this debate was coming up, so a 3,500-word draft speech was prepared and there was a lot of briefing on what subjects would be covered. I thought that the best thing to do was to pop the kettle on, have a cup of tea and look at something else first. As I did so, I found an invitation to a meeting of the all-party group on this very subject on Tuesday. As a matter of luck, I was therefore able to attend a brilliant meeting to discuss exactly what would be coming forward. I had further luck, as the various areas of priority for us were then connected to three further meetings I had later in the week, prior to this debate, and I will be covering all those in a little more detail.

There is a huge amount of respect for the hon. Gentleman, who has built a brilliant reputation in this area for a long time, both in his role before he came to the House and in the House. He is widely respected and he is right to recognise the progress that has been made since the Equality Act 2010. I pay tribute to the Labour party for its work in that area. Our Government has rightly continued, as I am sure all future Governments will, to work with stakeholders to build on that incredibly important step, which does make a real difference.

The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight that we need to improve awareness. He talked about how 93% of people who challenge feel that they are doing the right thing because they want to stand up for those who are marginalised in society, and I am acutely aware of that point. This was summed up by an incident I saw where someone with a disabled autistic daughter parked in a disabled parking space, with a blue badge, yet received abuse.

It was not a one-off—I am sure it happens all over the place. On that stat—93% of people would challenge someone—they probably feel that they are doing the right thing, but because of the lack of awareness and the additional challenges of hidden disabilities, society is creating awkwardness and putting people off and that is affecting people’s lives.

I shall come shortly to Grace, the inspiration, but first let me whizz through some of the excellent speeches and respond to them directly. My hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) has done brilliant work, both in her constituency with the partnership board and in her former role as everybody’s favourite sports Minister. When I was previously a disability Minister, we worked together carefully to push organisations such as the Premier League, which was, to its credit, very proactive. Richard Scudamore, the departing chief executive, took a personal interest in improving disability access in premier league stadiums. I could not have asked for more support from the sports Minister in that policy area.

My hon. Friend was absolutely right to highlight the importance of the Special Olympics. The point that I really picked up on was just how happy people are—in all the visits in my 19 years as an MP, a Minister and a councillor, nothing has come close to the joy that I saw when I went to a learning disability netball session. I literally thought that the young adults were going to explode with excitement. I am glad that my hon. Friend also took the time to highlight the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris), who has done a huge amount in this policy area.

The hon. Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones) has made a good impression since her recent arrival in the House, from which we are all benefiting. This is the second debate to which she has contributed and I have responded. She brings real-life experience in this area, particularly in respect of strokes, and it was really important to highlight that. She reminds us how important it is that we do this because some people will need extra time and space. That is crucial.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Bill Grant) led a brilliant Westminster Hall debate just a few weeks ago and carried on today in the same form. Not every disability is visible. He was right to highlight that there is not an immense cost to making a real difference in this policy area. That came through in many speeches, and I will cover it in more detail later.

Through the direct experiences of his wife, the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) raised some incredibly important points about access to work and sanctions. He has raised them before in other debates and he always raises them in a constructive manner. I want to try to keep to the spirit of the debate, so I offer him a personal meeting so that we can explore the issues in more detail and do them justice.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle (Mary Robinson) was absolutely right to highlight the challenges in respect of public transport, an area on which she has worked tirelessly. She also raised the issue of assistance dogs, on which British Guide Dogs has been one of the best and most visible campaigning charities, particularly in respect of the misunderstanding of what taxi drivers should or should not do and how we can tighten things up through licensing. My hon. Friend was also right to highlight the brilliance of medical dogs that can smell certain conditions—it is the equivalent of detecting one particle in a swimming pool, which is absolutely amazing. What a difference we can also make in the retail environment, which I will cover a little later.

Perhaps the hon. Members for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) and for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) did not quite follow the spirit of the debate—that is one of the challenges when one arrives with a pre-written speech. I gently say to them that we are spending £55 billion a year on supporting those with long-term health conditions and disabilities. That is a record amount and is up £10 billion. Only 16% of DLA claimants had the highest rate of support, compared with 32% of those on PIP. Disability employment is at a record high: in respect of our target of 1 million by 2027, we are at 440,000 after two years. As I said in an intervention earlier, for the first time we have more disabled people in work than not in work. There is still more to do, though, specifically for people with autism in jobcentres. I am grateful for the work of Autism Alliance UK, which helped to create the autism toolkit. In the spirit of the debate, I am happy to meet both Members to discuss all those issues in detail, but will keep to the theme—

[Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)]

rose—

[Justin Tomlinson]

Let me keep to the spirit of the debate.

This debate has happened because of Grace Warnock, a truly inspirational superstar who had a fantastic teacher, who can take some credit for starting this brilliant journey. She is an amazing young person dealing with the challenges of Crohn’s disease. She was targeted with abuse because of her hidden disability. Understandably, many people, including many of us, would have shied away. I am sure that, day in, day out, people are shying away, but she stood her ground and she has made a difference. We should all celebrate her courage. I am very proud that she was awarded the Prime Minister’s Points of Light award in 2018—the very least that we can collectively do to celebrate her brilliance. It is absolutely right that her energy, enthusiasm and ideas are used to drive us forward.

Sense sent us all a briefing in which it summed up why we should listen carefully to Grace. It said that many public facilities are not currently fully accessible. Many people have multiple complex and/or invisible disabilities and require greater support and accessibility in order to access the local community, but these facilities are often not provided. Change could include the invisible disability sign, greater Changing Places provisions, improved accessible public transport and greater staff awareness for people working in public places. Greater provision of such facilities would lead to better inclusion and help to improve attitudes towards disabled people. Every one of us in this place would agree with every word of that.

That brings me to the all-party group meeting that I attended only yesterday. It was fantastic to see such cross-party support and some really impressive individuals making a difference in an area which, as the hon. Member for East Lothian rightly highlighted, is complex. We all agree that we want Grace’s sign to be a stepping stone to improved signage that is internationally recognised but, as ever, it is not simple. Everything in the political environment takes a little bit longer than perhaps we would like. To get international recognition of a new symbol involves a process with various stages from the initial proposals, through to consensus building, public consultation and publication. It can take a number of years, but that does ensure that, when it is done, it is done properly and is of long standing.

In our country, the British Standards Institution, the UK national standards body, in effect audits and approves something before it is considered by the International Organization for Standardization. The APPG gave an update and a presentation on the work that is being done and I was thrilled that the BSI was fully involved and fully supportive. It is right to highlight those people, beyond the MPs on the APPG, who have done so much work. Lucy Richards, the designer, has taken on Grace’s idea to international stellar levels. I was incredibly impressed by that. Having run a marketing company, it gave me a warm glow to remember the joys of looking at designs. There has been support from Life Changes through Anna Buchan, who provided the funding needed to carry out that extensive work. I should also mention user experts such as Dr Gordon Hayward, Steve Milton and Robert Turpin from the BSI. We had all the movers and shakers making sure that this has been fully road tested, so that when we are ready to take it to the international standards organisation it will tick all of the boxes. I thank the hon. Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones), the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Bill Grant), who were all present and supportive of that vital work. I will do everything that I can to support that going forward.

I did say that I was lucky with the other meetings that came up. This week, I met various sector champions who are helping to represent all of us to challenge those particular areas to do more and to highlight best practice. The first of those was retail sector champion Samantha Sen. Many of the speakers today have talked about the importance of getting it right in retail. That highlights the fact that this is a win, win. This is not just for those with hidden disabilities. If retailers can get it right, they can access the combined spending power of disabled people, which stands at £249 billion—those 13 million disabled people have considerable spending power.

Seventy-five per cent. of disabled people and their families have left a shop because of poor customer service. I do not believe that there is a single retailer who wakes up in the morning and says, “I want to turn away business.” I do not think that, on any of our visits, we have ever had a retailer saying, “I have too much business. Please do less.” I had the pleasure this morning of speaking at and opening the Retail Forum, at which many of the leading retailers and estate owners—including British Land and the Crown Estate—were present. They absolutely buy into this. They have a real appetite for sharing best practice. It is being channelled through the Purple Tuesday campaign, which many MPs support. On 12 November, we will have a genuine focus on this issue. When they set that up, they expected 70 retailers to be involved; it was actually over 700, and this year they expect it to be over 900. That is making a difference in retail and I commend all those retailers for being so engaged.

I also met Stephen Brookes, who is our transport sector champion. Many people will have worked with him on his brilliant work to tackle disability hate crime, which made a real difference to the Government’s way of going forward. He has real expertise; he initially started with the challenges on the Blackpool buses and spread out to rail and buses across the whole country. Part of the way through our conversation—this was amazing—I said I had been to an all-party parliamentary group that was beginning to look at how we can improve signage. I said, “One of the things I would like you to do is to meet the members of the APPG to give your expertise.” He said, “I have got something to show you. I have seen a sign that is amazing,” and he brought out the sign that had been presented at the all-party parliamentary group. He has confirmed that he would be delighted to support the APPG’s work. That will build on the Government’s new inclusive transport strategy to create a transport system that provides equal access for disabled people by 2030. That is a really important area, because disabled people should be able to travel confidently, easily and without extra cost.

Stephen Brookes reassured me that, over the last three years, there has been a complete shift, particularly with the rail companies and providers such as Network Rail. Any of their major improvements now have to go through their built environment access panel, for which there is a pan-disability group, to make sure they get things right for everyone and that they get them right at the beginning—it is a lot easier to do that then than it is to retrospectively fix things. I was encouraged that so many providers have understood the importance of this issue.

I also met Andrew Miller, who is our arts and culture sector champion. He, again, talked about the huge progress that is being made in our cultural venues and our live music venues. I pay tribute to Attitudes is Everything, one of my favourite charities, which makes live music venues accessible. When I was first a disability Minister, and I insisted on having a picture of Attitudes is Everything, my officials airbrushed out the pint glasses some of its members were enjoying as part of their evening entertainment, saying that that probably was not right for a ministerial wall. I got that corrected and the picture was put back in place.

I understand the importance of this issue, given that my first graduate job was as a nightclub manager. Interruption.] There are not many who could say that. [Interruption.] Mr Deputy Speaker has suggested that that was maybe because I liked dancing; actually, I was probably a manager because I was not very good at dancing. Andrew Miller and I talked in detail about what more all these venues, which an individual may visit only once or twice, could do. Many now put a lot of additional information up in advance on their websites so that users can check. What disabled users do not want to do is travel all the way to a venue and be left red faced when the facilities are not accessible.

I had a look at a website, which looked, in theory, like it was following good practice. It talked about free admission for carers or helpers; free loan of a wheelchair or motorised scooter; providing a personalised guiding scheme for unaccompanied disabled people, as long as it was booked in advance; subtitled video and large print being available; low-level counters; the induction loop system; and guide, hearing and assistance dogs being welcome. However, there was not a single point of contact, and probably the most important thing that any retailer or leisure provider can do is make it crystal clear that there is one. Those with disabilities do not fit into a neat box—everybody has their own unique challenges —and being able to talk things through and knowing where to go if there is a problem can make a real difference. It can also benefit facilities, which can then tap those 13 million customers with their £249 billion.

Finally, I met Huw Edwards, who is our physical activity and leisure sector champion. As my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford highlighted the importance of sport, I pay tribute to Sport England for doing lots more to focus on opportunities for those with disabilities, recognising the importance of sport and physical activity for disabled people through the Sporting Future strategy. I welcome the fact that we are seeing increases in activity. Again, there is still lots more to do, but it is right that we promote opportunities and share best practice. So many want to do more but need this information.

As I initially indicated with my triple yes, I am keen to do everything I can, as quickly as possible, to get this. I was blown away yesterday when I saw the designs and the right balance of the imagery, dealing with all the competing demands across the pan-disability spectrum and getting more detail with the words. I think this will make a real difference. As was said, not all things have to cost a huge amount of money. On this issue, everybody will do everything they can to make sure that Grace’s brave stand really does make a difference, not just in the UK but internationally.

It has been a real pleasure to take part in such a constructive and positive debate. Parliament is at its best today.

Oral Answers to Questions

Neil Gray Excerpts

Monday 13th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising such an important issue. It is so important that when people receive such a devastating diagnosis they are treated with care. So where a claimant has been diagnosed with a terminal illness but has a life expectancy of longer than six months, and they have satisfied the conditions of being treated as having either limited capability for work and work-related activity or limited capability for work, they will be submitted for an immediate work capability assessment referral. I hope that that answer satisfies my hon. Friend.

[Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)]

One of the clear vulnerabilities for people accessing UC is indebtedness; the Department’s figures show that 60% of all new UC applicants receive an advance payment. We know that people are in desperate need at that application stage, so will the Government consider making the advance payment assessment the first assessment and any advance payment the first payment of that person’s UC claim?

[Amber Rudd]

I understand where the hon. Gentleman is coming from and his desire to ensure that these people, who are often on very low incomes and in difficult circumstances, are looked after when they first make their application. We believe we have made the right changes to be able to address that, not only with the advance payment, but with the housing benefit run-on that comes after two weeks, which should give them additional funds in order to be able to support themselves. Of course we will also be introducing further run-ons of other benefits from next year. We are improving the ability of people to access money all the time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Amber Rudd]

I can confirm that. We are ambitious to ensure that we continue to take children and families out of poverty, and we acknowledge that there is more to be done. I believe that the best way to do that is to focus on growing a strong economy, with better-paid jobs, and ensuring that those on lower incomes can access those jobs.

[Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)]

Last week, the Secretary of State kept her name in the Tory leadership fray by admitting that social security sanctions can “undermine” the aim to help people into work and reducing the longest sanctions from three years to six months, which we welcome, but will her review of sanctions include the possibility of scrapping them altogether? If not, can she really make a name for herself by explaining how anyone is expected to live on fresh air for six months?

[Amber Rudd]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his cautious welcome of the announcement I made last week about ensuring that there will be no sanctions of more than six months, but, as my hon. Friend the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work has pointed out, sanctions are usually no more than 30 days. I have had many conversations with work coaches, who have personal relationships with individuals, and they reassure me that they use sanctions only as a last resort. The work coaches who provide this tailored support also tell me—I would be interested if the hon. Gentleman has had a different experience—that sanctions are an important part of the tools they have.

Devolution of Welfare

Neil Gray Excerpts

Tuesday 9th April 2019 Westminster Hall

[John Lamont]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. It is quite telling that there are only three SNP Members here, given the number of Scottish Conservatives and Scottish Labour party Members. I sense that on this issue, they feel a deep sense of embarrassment about how their Scottish Government colleagues have delivered. They are not bobbing up to make interventions to challenge the points that are being made; instead, they sit and they laugh. The reality is that it is our constituents, the people of Scotland, who are being let down by this Scottish Government failing to deliver.

[Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[John Lamont]

I just want to make a bit more progress. [Hon. Members: “Oh!”] Fine, on you go.

[Neil Gray]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way and commend him on securing this debate, as it will give us an opportunity to set out the positive things that the Scottish Government are doing on social security, as I will when I make my speech. The hon. Gentleman is laying all the blame at the Scottish Government’s door. Can he advise the Chamber on how many occasions the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has met with the Cabinet Secretary for Social Security and Older People in Scotland, or with the joint ministerial committee, and how often those meetings have been cancelled as a result of the Department for Work and Pensions’ failure to engage?

[John Lamont]

The hon. Gentleman is doing his best to try to justify this, but the Secretary of State for Scotland regularly meets officials from the Scottish Government about the devolution of welfare powers.

[Neil Gray]

Officials.

[John Lamont]

The Secretary of State and other Ministers in this Government have been working hard, because we recognise how important the continuation of welfare support is to our constituents and the people of Scotland, and that the Scottish Government have failed to deliver as they have promised. These delays are of huge concern to our constituents, because they raise doubt about the Scottish Government’s ability to take on functions of the Department for Work and Pensions and to deliver benefits in Scotland. People are looking at those delays and are rightly asking whether the Scottish Government are up to the job.

Although the Department for Work and Pensions has stepped in to ensure that benefits will be paid notwithstanding the delay, how long can that go on for? It is far from satisfactory for the DWP and Scottish Government to be working to a presumption that social security will be devolved by 2021, only for the Scottish Government to suddenly announce a three-year delay. Perhaps in his closing remarks, the Minister could provide some clarity about whether his Department was made aware of the new timetable, and whether any further delays are anticipated.

[Neil Gray]

The hon. Gentleman is being very generous with his time. Does he acknowledge the comments that have been made by Inclusion Scotland and the Scottish Commission for Learning Disability about the timetable for the delivery of Scottish social security powers? Given that those organisations speak for the people who will rely on those powers being delivered effectively, why is the hon. Gentleman so willing to challenge what they have said in welcoming the timetable set out by the Scottish Government?

[John Lamont]

I am grateful for that point, but it is astonishing—it is a Scottish Government timetable that has slipped. The hon. Gentleman’s colleagues in Edinburgh—the Scottish Government, the SNP—said that they would try to put the new welfare system in place by the end of 2020. That deadline then became 2021, and then became 2024. It is an absolute failure by the SNP Scottish Government to deliver and match their promises, and I think supporters of Scotland will judge them when the next election comes.

In the event of any further delays, I am confident that the DWP stands ready to step in, but perhaps the Minister could provide my constituents with some reassurances that that will be the case. There are also questions about the additional cost of these delays. Given that the Scottish Government are meant to be taking on these powers, and are spending considerable money on setting up Social Security Scotland, any extra spending by the DWP is an additional, duplicate cost to the public purse. The welfare system is crucial to the life of many of our constituents, and it is vital that these powers are devolved in an orderly fashion so that nobody falls through the cracks. It is important that a new timetable is developed so that the Scottish Government get ready to take on these powers, and there are no further unexpected delays.

One issue that is unique to my constituency, I think, is about the devolution of cold weather payments. In the Scottish borders, the TD12 and TD15 postcodes include homes on either side of the border. For the purposes of cold weather payments, other postcodes in Northumberland use a weather station in Scotland. Some properties will get their cold weather payment from the Department for Work and Pensions, while others in the same postcode should get theirs from Social Security Scotland. If cold weather payments are eventually to be taken on by the Scottish Government, could the Minister confirm whether there have been any discussions about how those payments will be delivered where postcodes are split across the border?

One final issue concerns other welfare powers devolved to the Scottish Parliament by the Scotland Act 2016. As well as delays to taking on devolved benefits, the Scottish Government seem less than enthusiastic about accepting these powers. The Scotland Act devolves the ability to top up reserved benefits, provide short-term payments and create new non-reserved benefits. UK Ministers have repeatedly made their view clear that these powers allow the Scottish Government to compensate women affected by the equalisation of the state pension age. The Scottish Government do not often accuse the UK Government of giving powers away, so the fact that UK Ministers say that these powers have been devolved is a compelling reason to believe this to be the case.

A more detailed look at the legislation clearly shows that the Scottish Government could act in three ways. First, section 24 provides the Scottish Government with the ability to top up pensions and, therefore, compensate women affected by this change once they reach the new pension age. This may not be an ideal solution; none the less, the Scottish Government accept it as possible.

Secondly, section 26 allows for payments to provide help with short term needs if payment is required “to avoid a risk” to the person’s wellbeing. The Scottish Government claim this requires each case to be individually assessed, but this is simply not true. The legislation allows payment merely to avoid a risk of harm. That is a low threshold. If the Scottish Government’s language about the impact of these changes is accurate, the threshold is clearly met.

Thirdly, section 28 allows the Scottish Government to create new non-reserved benefits, except to provide a pension or provide assistance merely by old age. This does not prevent the Scottish Government from taking action, because compensating Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign women before they reach pension age does not amount to a pension nor to assistance due to old age, which, in the context, clearly means the state pension age.

A letter from the then Minister for Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Richard Harrington), in 2017 made the Scottish Government aware of this point. My hon. Friend wrote about section 28:

“Whilst this power cannot be used to provide pensions to people who qualify by reason of old age, many of those affected by changes to the state pension age will not have reached state pension age. As a result, this broad power does offer the Scottish Government the possibility of introducing financial support to help this group.”

Clearly, this is another way in which the Scottish Government could step in but fail to do so.

I have huge sympathy for the women affected by this change and I have been working with a number of them in my constituency to help them manage the process. However, I have no time for the SNP’s position on this matter, which is completely inconsistent. The SNP might not want to take action to compensate these women; that would be a perfectly legitimate position. The SNP might want to take action but feel it would be too costly; again, that is an entirely legitimate position. It is not legitimate to try and make political capital out of a group of women who clearly feel wronged, and mislead them about the Scottish Government’s ability to help.

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[Ian Murray]

It is a fantastic thing, but it is bad that most of those children are in poverty when they were not before. Social security is a sensitive subject, and we must be careful about the language we use.

I want to reflect on what the Smith commission has done. In response to the 2014 independence referendum, a commission was put in place that allowed all the parties to come together to find consensus about what the next stage of devolution to the Scottish Parliament should be in the devolution journey.

I am glad that Members across the House now extol the virtues of sections 24, 25 and 26 of the Scotland Act 2016, because while the Conservatives and SNP argued about the minutiae of what was not in the Bill, Labour were promoting changes at the Dispatch Box. We proposed amendments to put stuff into the Bill that could have been there, such as my amendment 31. The amendments that went through in the House of Lords gave Scotland the power to create its own social security system. The Scottish Government can top up any reserved benefit and create a new benefit in any devolved area; that is incredibly important. That is why it is so frustrating that the devolved powers have been delayed. I am delighted that the hon. Member for Berwickshire mentioned the WASPI issue, because it is a key aspect of the way the whole issue has been dealt with.

[Neil Gray]

The hon. Gentleman will understand the difficulty and complexity of delivering a combined social security system—one that has to interact with a Department that is putting roadblocks in the way of some of the flexibilities and changes that the Scottish Government are looking to achieve. Can he outline an area where the Scottish Government could have gone more quickly, such as the passage of the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018? Could that have been quicker? Is there any area where he thinks things could have moved more quickly than they have?

[Ian Murray]

That is an interesting intervention. I admit I am not an expert on social security, and I would not claim to be. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to the intervention. However, is it not interesting that, whereas the Scottish National party social security spokesperson was telling everyone in 2014 that an entirely new state could be set up in 18 months, the matters we are discussing have been delayed not twice but three times, in 2016, 2018 and 2019? That was with respect to benefits that the SNP claimed had to be in the Bill and had to be devolved immediately, and that it would be able to deal with.

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[Bill Grant (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this morning, Mr Betts. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) for securing this important debate.

We have already heard about the foundation Acts of 2016 and 2018, enacted by the UK and Scottish Governments respectively to devolve various welfare powers to the Scottish Parliament and facilitate delivery of the new social security benefit scheme in Scotland. The Scottish Government’s website states that

“the benefits we will deliver may be different in nature but there is one common thread which binds them—an investment in the people of Scotland”.

I am afraid that that common thread is fraying. Delivery is delayed. The Scottish Government’s investment to date is not timeously delivering the promised benefits for the people of Scotland. The Scottish Government will, over time, take on only 10 of the original 11 devolved benefits. The severe disablement allowance remains with the UK’s DWP. The transfer of responsibility for a number of other devolved benefits, such as personal independence payments, is on hold—not until tomorrow or next week but until 2024.

[Neil Gray]

The hon. Gentleman mentioned severe disablement allowance and he will be aware that no new recipient has been admitted to that benefit for 19 years. Can he describe what changes, and what difference, the Scottish Government could make to that area of benefits?

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[Stephen Kerr]

My hon. Friend is correct; there is no issue that it is beyond the SNP’s powers to politicise and use for its own nationalist agenda. Clearly, these things are more complex than they seem, and I accept that. I do not really want the SNP taking these powers and using them if it cannot handle them, because we are talking about the lives of the most vulnerable people in Scotland, who deserve to be protected from any possible incompetence on the part of the SNP. The SNP’s track record on IT systems alone is a horror story, and the farm payments fiasco is a warning.

[Neil Gray]

The hon. Gentleman warns of the problems that his constituents could face if this system is not delivered effectively. To his credit, he has been a critic of this Government on universal credit, so does he not think it a tad ironic to be speaking about the potential incompetence of the Scottish Government who are delivering a safe system when his Government have presided over the shambles of universal credit and personal independence payments?

[Stephen Kerr]

The hon. Gentleman is someone I respect, but we are talking about the Scottish Government’s willingness to accept powers that have been devolved to them, and their unwillingness to touch those powers speaks volumes about them. They will now take until 2024 instead of 2020. That is more than 3,000 days’ notice—six times the number of days the SNP told us it would need to set up the new Scotland that it promised the Scottish people in 2014. This is the sad state of affairs of the SNP.

The fact is that the SNP does not want to have to handle these powers, because they are difficult powers to handle. Welfare and benefits are expensive and complex; they need politicians to be grown up, to make difficult decisions and to show leadership. Let us be clear: the next time we hear SNP politicians in this place or elsewhere deriding welfare reform or bemoaning a decision that they view as disadvantageous to their constituents, they will be complicit. The SNP Government could have set up a social security system; they could have grasped the nettle and dealt with this, but, through either political cowardice or sheer incompetence, they have failed the challenge.

The people of Scotland are sick and tired of the SNP and its excuses. Devolution works. The powers are there. It is simply the nationalists who, through their wilful negligence, are leaving Scotland to stagnate.

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[Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)]

Thank you very much, Mr Betts. It is a pleasure to speak in this debate with you, my Finance Committee colleague, in the Chair. I congratulate the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) on securing the debate, as it gives us an opportunity to talk about the great work being done by the SNP Scottish Government—

[Stephen Kerr]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Neil Gray]

At least let me get started.

With support from other parties and brilliant stakeholders in Scotland, we are working to build our new social security system. I welcome the fact that the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk has a newfound interest in this area. Until now, he does not appear to have had much of an interest in the work and pensions brief since arriving in this House. A quick look at his speaking record shows that he has never mentioned universal credit or employment support allowance, and has raised personal independence payments—[Interruption.] I will not be shouted down, Mr Betts. The hon. Gentleman has raised personal independence payments just once, which, given the case that I and other colleagues have in this area, I find surprising.

If other search terms are entered, however, the number of mentions made by the hon. Gentleman rockets up. “The Scottish Government” gets 242 mentions, “the Scottish National party” gets 37, “the SNP” gets 116 and “independence” gets 43. That is quite the contrast. Those speaking records perhaps speak not just to his intentions today, but more to what he regards as his purpose in this place: not so much being part of a bloc of Scottish Tories holding this shambles of a British Government to account, but trying to do the job that he left as an Opposition Member of the Scottish Parliament.

I will tackle some of what the hon. Gentleman said and highlight some of what he conveniently forgot to say. I note that he did not once mention how the Scottish Government could safely deliver the new system any faster. I think we were right, having learned from the unsafe and disastrous delivery of universal credit and the personal independence payment, to take our time, do this properly and deliver it safely for our constituents who depend on it.

[Douglas Ross]

The hon. Gentleman speaks about delivering functions in Scotland. Could he perhaps advise Westminster Hall how the SNP has done when it has tried to deliver things in Scotland—for example, paying our Scottish farmers, delivering i6, the IT system for Police Scotland, or delivering a social security system? Is it not the fact that it is failure, failure, failure under the SNP?

[Neil Gray]

I wish to put on record my congratulations to the hon. Gentleman and his wife on the safe delivery of their new born—I think this is the first chance I have had to put that on record. He has a bit of cheek when he talks about farmers, given the way that the Tory Government robbed Scottish farmers of their convergence uplift money. I do not think that is a safe area of ground for him to be campaigning on.

The hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk described the timetable that the Scottish Government have come forward with as a failure, despite it being welcomed by Inclusion Scotland and the Scottish Commission for Learning Disability. I challenge him to point out the areas of contradiction with those organisations, which speak for those who depend on the safe delivery of this system.

The hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) was right that the Scottish Government can do something different, and we are. We are creating a system that is based on dignity and respect, which I think is something that the Scottish Government and the Labour party agree on. We are looking to do something different in Scotland, which is why we have been working together in Holyrood on so many areas, in order to deliver that system. However, the hon. Gentleman did not answer how the system could have been delivered more quickly and fairly, so I am happy to allow him to intervene and describe that.

[Ian Murray]

The narrative from the SNP Scottish Government has always been, rightly, about generating a new system that is more respectful of its claimants. Can the hon. Gentleman lay out why the Scottish Government are completely refusing to do anything about the WASPI women?

[Neil Gray]

That is not actually true, and the hon. Gentleman knows it. We have been campaigning very hard in Westminster for the problem faced by the WASPI women to be sorted across the United Kingdom. He constantly talks about not having any differences between people in Livingston and people in Liverpool; we are in agreement on that. This issue should be sorted out for those women across the United Kingdom, and his ire should be directed at the Minister to resolve the situation.

The hon. Member for East Lothian (Martin Whitfield) asked why there was a delay. Again, we have been working hard to deliver the system as quickly and safely as possible, but sadly there has intransigence on the part of DWP Ministers. There has been good engagement—[Interruption.] No, it is not nonsense. There has been a good level of engagement at official level, but successive Secretaries of State have missed joint ministerial working group meetings and refused to allow the Scottish Government to utilise some of their powers, such as separate payments, which the hon. Gentleman mentioned. There are areas where we are looking to make changes and develop new policy, but sadly the DWP is putting roadblocks in the way of that progress.

The hon. Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr), who to his credit has been critical of this Government on the roll-out of universal credit, has not quite taken his concerns in that area to their logical conclusion when it comes to the safe delivery of a new devolved system. We have learned from the shambles of the poverty-inducing roll-out of universal credit and the problems with personal independence payments, and we are determined to deliver the new system safely. It benefits and supports the people of Scotland.

[John Lamont]

Last year, my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Bill Grant) secured a debate on the delivery of welfare. In criticising that debate, the hon. Gentleman said:

“Of course, the Scottish Government are proceeding quite nicely as they build the new Scottish social security agency.”—[Official Report, 20 March 2018; Vol. 638, c. 119WH.]

Does he stand by his comments in last year’s debate?

[Neil Gray]

Yes, I do. The hon. Gentleman is a former Member of the Holyrood Parliament, so he knows how quickly legislation can progress through Parliament, and he knows the steps that need to go through in order—[Interruption.] I will not be shouted down. The hon. Gentleman knows how legislation goes through Holyrood, and knows that these things take time. Sadly, we are now, thanks to the intransigence of DWP Ministers, in a position whereby certain things are being delayed. I go back to the point that the hon. Gentleman had never mentioned universal credit and had mentioned PIP once before today’s debate. I am very surprised at that. He does not seem to have a problem with the delay—

[Stephen Kerr]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil Gray]

No, I am answering the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk first. He does not appear to have a problem with the delay or the problems in the roll-out of universal credit or the roll-out of PIP. He has never mentioned those before, despite the constituency case load that I imagine he has in those two areas, yet he uses this place as a battering ram to criticise the Scottish Government. That says more—[Interruption.] That says more about the hon. Gentleman’s intentions than it does about the Scottish Government’s.

[Chris Stephens]

I have listened to this gang of Trumpists shout and bawl and try to shout people down. Does my hon. Friend agree that the main issue, the real issue, is that the DWP and Social Security Scotland will truly share clients? Not once have we heard from a Conservative in this debate about clients—about people, about the poor—and what that means. The Conservatives have completely ignored the fact that universal credit is being delayed to 2023, which will have a real impact on all claimants.

[Neil Gray]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. He serves on the Select Committee on Work and Pensions, so he knows these issues well. Of course, what the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk and some others in the debate forgot to talk about was the fine work that the SNP Scottish Government, as a minority Government, have achieved by gaining cross-party consensus to protect the people of Scotland from the worst damage being inflicted by this poverty-inducing Tory Government. The hon. Gentleman’s constituents do not need to pay the bedroom tax and can still receive council tax benefit. If they are in receipt of carer’s allowance, they will have had a significant uplift in their payments. They can still get access to education maintenance allowance. Some 316,000 low-income households in crisis in Scotland have been helped to buy essential items, such as nappies, food and cookers, through the Scottish welfare fund—a local crisis grant system almost completely abolished elsewhere by the Tories. And we have set a clear path to deliver a new—sadly, it is limited to just 15% of spend—social security system based on dignity and respect. That is all with 55% of taxpayers in Scotland paying less than they would elsewhere in the UK. It is a more progressive tax system that sees those at the top paying a little more and those on the lowest incomes paying a little less.

[Ian Murray]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Neil Gray]

I am concluding.

The hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk also forgot to mention the catastrophic introduction of universal credit and PIP, which has literally ruined lives. He calls a debate to attack a responsible Government making responsible progress to deliver a fairer social security system, but ignores the tragedy of his own party’s disgusting attack on low-income families. He ignores disabled people having their Motability cars removed. He ignores people on universal credit left in poverty. He ignores a freeze on benefits that is predicted to plunge 400,000 more children into poverty. So forgive me, Mr Betts, but the Scottish Government, the Scottish Parliament and the people of Scotland will take no lessons from the hon. Gentleman or any other Tory party member preaching about how to deliver a social security system.

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

I call Mike Amesbury for the Opposition. [Interruption.] Order. Calm down a bit, please.

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[Mike Amesbury]

Yes; it is another failing of fine and warm words but nothing happening in reality.

While those agency arrangements are in place, SNP Ministers are blocked from making changes to any of the benefits the DWP delivers. They are not able to intervene in aggressive debt recovery or even to change the inflation measure to uprate benefits. While the SNP dithers and sits on its hands, as my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian (Martin Whitfield) has pointed out, thousands of families are falling into poverty every year. Both parties are concentrating on avoiding responsibility, rather than using what levers of power are available to change the failing policy.

[Neil Gray]

The hon. Gentleman rightly talks about the high poverty levels that we have throughout the United Kingdom. However, will he reflect on the fact that the poverty rate in Scotland—although far too high—is significantly lower than elsewhere in the United Kingdom, and that that might have something to do with the different policies that are being pursued in Scotland to ensure that we eradicate poverty as quickly as possible?

[Mike Amesbury]

I know the hon. Gentleman will agree that a million people in poverty in Scotland is still shameful—

[Neil Gray]

I just said that.

[Mike Amesbury]

If I may continue, when we have seen SNP and Tory politicians working together, they have done so in an alliance, preventing any significant improvements to social security in Scotland.

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[The Minister for Employment (Alok Sharma)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) on securing this important and timely debate. He spoke with great passion. He cares deeply about his constituents and he wants an effective welfare system in Scotland that leaves no one behind, which is something that we all want to see. We have heard passionate speeches. If I have time I will refer to some of the points raised. I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Bill Grant) and for Stirling (Stephen Kerr) for their contributions today.

To reiterate the context of where we are—colleagues have set this out—the Scotland Act 2016 provided a significant shift in the way that welfare would be delivered. As has been said, we are transferring responsibility for an estimated £2.8 billion of welfare powers to the Scottish Parliament, which currently support around 1.4 million people in Scotland. That will of course have a major impact on people living in Scotland as we move into a shared welfare space for the first time.

We should not underestimate the significance of the task. We recognise that responsibility for many vulnerable claimants will be transferred to the Scottish Government, and it is vital that both Governments get it right. The DWP has been instrumental in the Scottish Government’s delivery to date of certain benefits, and we will continue to support them to achieve their plans. We must ensure that the transfer of the welfare powers proceeds in a safe and secure manner with the claimant at the heart of what we do. That is why we have established strong Government structures, including a joint ministerial working group on welfare and joint working practices to oversee the transfer of powers and to ensure that we work together to identify and mitigate any issues that arise.

The hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Neil Gray) raised points about the ministerial working group. As he knows, there was a recent meeting that was both cordial and constructive. In terms of the support from DWP, we have approximately 80 DWP staff working exclusively on the Scottish devolution programme. Between 2015 and October 2018, DWP managed more than 2,297 requests for information from the Scottish Government. I gently point out to him that I do not think there is any intransigence on our part. He knows that I am happy to take up cases, and we are meeting later today to discuss a constituency case that he has.

Following Royal Assent to the Scotland Act 2016, the DWP has worked hard to support the Scottish Government in the transfer of powers. We have given them access to DWP payment and customer information systems to support their delivery, as well as providing training and knowledge transfer as they build up their capability. We have provided support to enable them to deliver their new employment support programme, Fair Start Scotland, with DWP work coaches making the majority of referrals.

As we approach the first anniversary of the programme, the Scottish Minister for Business, Fair Work and Skills has recently written to me to praise our staff in Jobcentre Plus for the work that they have done to date. It is important that politicians talk not only about the challenges. Of course we should challenge each other to get things right, but we should also praise and acknowledge good joint working when it takes place.

Since 2017, we have also delivered Universal Credit Scottish Choices, giving people in Scotland a choice over the frequency of their payment and whether their housing element is paid directly to their landlord. We supported the Scottish Government to deliver their first new benefit, the best start grant, and we are on track to support delivery of their replacement for funeral expenses payments later this year. Critically, since September 2018, we have been paying carer’s allowance on behalf of the Scottish Government, enabling them to pay a six-monthly supplementary payment to carers in Scotland.

[Neil Gray]

The Minister is setting out well some of the areas where there has been good working between the Scottish and UK Governments, particularly at ministerial level, as I said in my speech. I should put on the record that there have previously been problems at ministerial level between the two Governments, but in the most recent exchange of letters the Secretary of State appears to make a more conciliatory and helpful suggestion for work going forward. So I hope that the two Governments will be able to work together constructively, whereas previously that has not happened.

[Alok Sharma]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Over the past few years we have been working constructively, and we want that to continue. My hon. Friends definitely want that. They come in to see me and the Secretary of State regularly to raise issues, and it is right that we continue in that spirit.

Many lessons have been learned in the first wave of devolution, such as in the transfer of accountability of carer’s allowance, where the DWP continues to pay carer’s allowance on behalf of the Scottish Government but under the same rules and rates as for people in England and Wales. It is vital that we consider these lessons as we move forward with the next wave of delivery.