Households Below Average Income Statistics

Neil Gray Excerpts

Thursday 28th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

I would invite my right hon. Friend to come to my Department and find out a bit more about how universal credit works and how the taper rate has changed the benefits system—how people who start a job and earn more receive less from their benefits but only on a very gentle trajectory. The taper ensures there is not the sort of trade-off he is hinting at from the previous system of tax credits.

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

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of her statement. There has long been a debate in this place about whether we should measure absolute or relative poverty—in that regard, I wish she would look at the work of the Social Metrics Commission—but, regardless of the measure, the Government are presiding over a trend of rising impoverishment. The relative child poverty rate, before housing costs, is up 400,000, and the absolute rate is up 300,000 in a year. This takes the rate before housing costs to its highest level in almost 20 years. After housing costs, we see a stagnation in relative terms and a 200,000 rise in absolute terms, while severe poverty and material deprivation are both up 4% to 5% for all children.

The Secretary of State must know the impact that policy, particularly social security policy, has on poverty levels—she spoke about the power of her Department in this regard. When there is investment, poverty levels drop, and when there are cuts to individuals, levels rise. That is why ending the benefit freeze this year would have been the best place to begin to stop—and, in some cases, to reverse—the rising poverty trend. She could also have lifted the two-child cap, which is a cut directed at children that is impoverishing them. Why has she not done the right thing in these areas?

The Secretary of State has taken some welcome steps, and she has moved further than any of her five predecessors I have dealt with, but I know that she understands that she must go further. These figures should put a rocket under the discussions that she is having with the Chancellor ahead of the spending review. Work should be a route out of poverty, but it currently is not. What does the Secretary of State see as her key anti-poverty policy, and what is her anti-poverty target for the next year, given that whatever type of Brexit occurs will harm family budgets and affect living standards?

[Amber Rudd]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his partially constructive comments. We are looking at the Social Metrics Commission’s assessment of poverty. It is an interesting approach, because it puts the measure of poverty back towards what people spend their money on, as well as what they actually get in. It is a fair point for the hon. Gentleman to raise with me, and I will come back to him when we have some further conclusions.

The hon. Gentleman highlighted difficulties for families with moving into full-time work. We have made a commitment to make the process more straightforward by providing more free childcare. We have ensured that more money per year is invested in childcare; that has gone up from £4 billion to £6 billion, providing 30 hours of free childcare for people with three and four-year-olds. That is an important change to ensure that people can go into full-time work. The hon. Gentleman also highlighted the difficulty for people on low incomes in part-time work, and we recognise that. We are trying to make it easier for people to go into full-time work, because there are much lower instances of poverty when two parents are in full-time work, and that must be people’s goal.

Supporting Disabled People to Work

Neil Gray Excerpts

Thursday 28th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Justin Tomlinson]

I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend’s work in supporting what I and my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) have done to introduce disability apprenticeships. He mentions a terrible case, and disability employment advisers can help to provide constructive advice to employers—particularly small employers that do not have HR departments—and give them confidence to ensure that all people, regardless of their disability, can contribute to those employers.

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

Although I have enjoyed our debates on this subject over the years, the Minister knows that it should not be him at the Dispatch Box but a new, dedicated disability Minister. The fact that the Prime Minister has not even bothered to replace the Minister for Disabled People after nearly two weeks is a shameful indictment of a Tory Government who have collapsed into crisis and chaos. They are so consumed by their Brexit folly that they are completely ignoring the day job. That is costing the country dearly, and it adds insult to injury for those disabled people who have been left unrepresented and impoverished by Tory policies.

We should not be surprised by the NAO report. Will the Minister explain why his party dropped its ambitious policy at the last election to halve the disability employment gap? We see in the NAO report that the Government’s new watered-down goal of having 1 million more disabled people in work cannot be used to measure the success of those efforts—even the Department for Work and Pensions acknowledges that. What is the Minister’s assessment of the NAO’s conclusion that his Department has no idea of what works when it comes to disability employment support? Why have all the schemes to support disability employment been underspent?

Finally, the NAO report does not cover the interaction between disabled people and the benefit system. Does the Minister see that cutting disability benefit support—as this Government have done with employment and support allowance and universal credit—while not having a clue about what impact their employment programmes are having, is the height of irresponsibility, and a neglect of the needs of disabled people?

[Justin Tomlinson]

I reassure the hon. Gentleman that I am happy to be here answering this urgent question, and I am passionate about this role. As I said, my work in this area, both as a former Minister for Disabled People and today, is particularly guided by meeting young disabled people and their families, and there is a passion and determination for them to have the same opportunities as others. In some cases that involves full-time work; other times it can be as little as one hour a month, but for some people that is life changing, and the Government are committed to that. It is right that the Secretary of State reviews our ambitious target of an extra 1 million disabled people in work, and it is the actual number that counts. Every one of those 930,000 disabled people involved with this scheme in the past five years now has the opportunities that so many others take for granted.

The hon. Gentleman spoke about the sign-up rates of various different packages, but I gently remind him that they are voluntary—we do not want to mandate anything. That said, however, through the personalised support package there is the opportunity to look for local initiatives. All our constituencies have examples of best practice, and through the personalised support of the individual work coach, we can unlock access to those initiatives, linking them to local employers and giving people—particularly those who have been away from the jobs market for a long time—the very best chance. As I said, I have seen the joy of individuals who work for as little as one hour a month, and what a difference that makes to their life.

Automatic Enrolment: Lower Earnings Limit

Neil Gray Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2019 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to take part in this debate with you in the Chair, Sir Gary.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mhairi Black) on securing this debate and once again leading the agenda in this place on pensions matters. Frankly, as the youngest Member of the Commons, she is an example and a role model to speak so well with authority and eruditeness on an issue that more young people should embrace and engage with. As I approach my 33rd birthday, I include myself and my peers in that youthful bracket—

[Guy Opperman]

indicated dissent.

[Neil Gray]

We are going for consensus in this debate, Minister, so we should continue on that ground.

The SNP supports and has always supported auto-enrolment but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South highlighted, we remain critical friends. Only last month, I raised the delay in scrapping the lower earnings limit threshold when the Minister brought the relevant statutory instrument to the Floor of the House. My hon. Friend mentioned a number of benefits if only the Government would scrap the threshold, and during the SI debate the Minister said that auto-enrolment was a success story. I agree, but we could make it so much more successful if we only got on with it.

I hope that we can build on what my hon. Friend rightly said in arguing for the lower earnings limit to be scrapped and that, in summing up, the Minister will provide us with a clear and concrete timetable for the UK Government to meet and achieve their policy promise. I would also appreciate him clarifying whether implementation of the commitment to scrap the lower earnings limit will require a submission to the comprehensive spending review and, if so, is that being prepared by his Department?

I am sorry that I do not have more contributions to the debate to sum up. It is obviously an important debate and I am sorry that no one other than the Minister—I look forward to hearing from him—and his Parliamentary Private Secretary, the hon. Member for Gordon (Colin Clark), managed to drag themselves away from the unfolding Brexit mess going on in the main Chamber.

I am grateful to those who have contributed to the debate, including my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Hugh Gaffney), for being present and for his speech. He also spoke in favour of the Government’s policy being implemented, and he rightly reiterated much of the information and statistics that my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South provided to the House in her speech. He was also right to refer to the age restrictions; he mentioned the WASPI women, and I am sure he would agree that no one outside the WASPI campaign has done more to raise the profile of those women, argue their case, or represent them in this place than my hon. Friend.

My hon. Friend the Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) made a powerful, fact-based speech. She was right to say that the delay in implementing the policy in full is preventing people from being able to plan adequately for their future. I know that is not the Minister’s intention, but he must acknowledge that the longer that the delay is allowed to continue, the more that will be the case. She was also right to ask whether a 16-year-old working the same full-time job as a 26-year-old colleague should continue to be discriminated against by not receiving pension contributions when their colleagues do.

In conclusion, I once again congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South. She was right to say that things are moving in the right direction and that that is what we want to see, but we want greater and swifter action. The delay, the problems with making progress on realising the pensions dashboard, the WASPI women issues, and the lack of a concrete pensions policy all highlight, in our view, the need for an independent pensions commission. In summing up, on an otherwise troubling day for the Minister and his colleagues in Government, I hope that he will bring some joy and set out a clear, concrete timetable for scrapping the lower earnings limit. I look forward to hearing from him in that regard.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Guy Opperman)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mhairi Black) on securing the debate. It is a fair and legitimate comment that some hon. Members are a little distracted by other matters taking place in the House of Commons, but I make the point that although we may have our differences on Brexit and all the difficult issues that are being debated in the main Chamber, the House is still debating and considering other matters, such as legislation on female genital mutilation, which was passed on a cross-party basis last night, and auto-enrolment, which is crucial to the long-term retirement future of all our constituents from all different backgrounds.

I genuinely welcome the debate. When I saw it on the Order Paper, I felt pleased to have the opportunity to debate auto-enrolment and to address this particular issue. The hon. Members for Paisley and Renfrewshire South and for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) have raised the issue in a series of parliamentary questions. I answered those questions at reasonable, but clearly not sufficient, length on 20 and 21 February, and I will attempt to address them in more detail today.

It is right to celebrate, as other hon. Members have done, the fact that in the constituency of the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South, 6,000 men and women are benefiting from auto-enrolment. Thanks are due to the 1,130 employers that have genuinely stepped up to the plate and are in the position to make that contribution through their payroll deduction to employees up and down her constituency.

I should also say that it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. Given that I have a little time, I make the point that in your Devon constituency, you have 6,000 employees who are benefiting on an ongoing basis, and 1,350 very good employers that should be thanked.

It is embarrassing how often I agree with the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey), but he is right that this is a cross-party success story that, in my view, all political parties have got behind. I will turn to the points of the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South in a second, but the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington is right to say that the process was started under a Labour Government with the Turner commission. It was then brought forward under the coalition, when my position was held by a Liberal Democrat, Steve Webb, late lamented of this House—although I think we took his seat, so he is not that lamented.

More particularly, I am the latest in a long line of pensions Ministers and Secretaries of State for Work and Pensions—including the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), who is married to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington—who have brought forward these very positive changes. They were developed by the coalition Government, and we have expanded on them.

The key issue in relation to this is the automatic enrolment review of 2017, which, as Members can see, is not a small document. It addresses the issues and was independently commissioned by the Government. A number of experts took a great deal of evidence and addressed what should be done in considerable detail.

In answer to the questions asked by the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South, the issue is not whether we will lower the earnings limit; we will do that. Nor is it whether we will lower the age limit from 22 to 18; we will do that. The question is when. I accept that there is a legitimate and real debate to be had in this House when legislation is brought forward as to when those changes should take place. I do not want anyone to be in any doubt: there is no question but that our policy, as set out in the 2017 review, made clear in the House previously and confirmed today, is to bring the age limit down from 22 to 18, and to bring the threshold down to the first pound earned.

I accept that there will be pressure today, as Members have made clear, to do this much sooner. I take the point that the SNP, individually as Members of Parliament and collectively through their shadow Minister, is urging the Government to act sooner. There is a serious point that the House needs to consider; we all celebrate the successes of auto-enrolment but it would be naive and wrong to say that it is an utterly done deal yet.

[Neil Gray]

We accept and are grateful for the Government’s continued commitment to scrapping the lower earnings limit and reducing the age limit. We welcome that commitment today. It is not just the SNP and the official Opposition who have been putting pressure on the Minister. The Minister has put pressure on himself, because he committed that this would be done by the mid-2020s. Is that still likely? If so, my previous question stands: where is the timetable for that to be achieved?

[Guy Opperman]

I will give a long answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question, but I promise that I will answer it. Some 1.4 million employers have met their duties and are now offering members of staff a pension as a right. That is a significant change for those employers, and a significant burden for them. Raising the threshold, from 2% to start with, up to 5% last year and going up to 8% in April, is a significant burden. We are not talking about just the bigger employers, who can cope with it much better and have advanced payroll systems. Some of them have been paying over the odds from the word go and, to their great credit, some companies up and down the country immediately went to 5% or above. There are two key impacts that need to be assessed. We have only just got the information about the April 2018 increase and the opt-outs that took place then. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that there was just under 1% opt-out out because of the increase to 5%.

One of my main jobs in this position, which, contrary to popular belief, I actually asked to do and enjoy doing, is to take the 1.4 million employers and the 10 million employees in this country up to 8% with the minimum number of opt-outs, and the minimum impact on the economic outlook of the country. The harsh reality is that there will be a significant change to the deductions made from individuals’ pay packets, but also to the burden on businesses, whether they are large FTSE 100 businesses or coffee shops or corner shops in our local communities. Dealing with how things go this April is one of the most important, if not the most important, job I have, given the massive impact of this on all our communities. We have only just raised the threshold to 5%. We have the most important rise—a double jump—this April. It would be wrong if the Secretary the State and I, and the wider Government, talked about changing the basis for auto-enrolment before assessing how the 8% rise had gone.

This is quite a complicated process; it will genuinely take the best part of 9 months to go through all the data and get a definitive understanding of where we are on the 8%. At best, I will not know the degree of opt-outs until Christmas. It seems utterly wrong for me to seek to change the nature of the legal basis until I have a real understanding of the impact of the 8% increase.

Social Security

Neil Gray Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Justin Tomlinson]

I will make some more progress.

These increases will cover disability living allowance, attendance allowance, carer’s allowance, incapacity benefit and personal independence payment. They will all rise by 2.4%, in line with prices, from April 2019.

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

I thank the Minister for giving way. I appreciate some of the uprating, but we have to note, as key stakeholders in this sector have, that the biggest driver of child poverty that this Government are enforcing is the benefit freeze. With £4.5 billion due to be saved this coming year, why have the Government not brought forward the necessary legislation to scrap the final year of the freeze?

[Justin Tomlinson]

As I have set out before, as the economy has continued to grow, we have been able to share the proceeds of growth to support some of the most vulnerable in society. That has seen increases to the income tax threshold, which will reach £12,500 this year, taking 4 million of the lowest earners out of paying any income tax at all. We are also seeing significant additional support for those with children. Whereas spending on childcare was £4 billion in 2010, it will be £6 billion by 2020—a 50% increase as part of our doubling of free childcare support, particularly helping lone parents who seek to take advantage of the record employment in all regions.

Department for Education

Neil Gray Excerpts

Tuesday 26th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Ind)]

There has been a huge change in the debates that we have about poverty in this country. When I first came into the House, there were these rather distant debates in which we talked about what the poverty line should be and whether the Government’s benefits were adequate. We now face a situation—certainly in my seat and in the constituencies of others—that is a matter not simply of poverty and people being hard-pressed but of destitution. We cannot be surprised by that, because although the Government have rightly increased the national living wage and personal allowances, most of the cuts in public expenditure to rid us of the deficit have fallen on families and poor families on benefits. If one message goes out from this debate to the Chancellor, I hope that it is that enough is enough. The Prime Minister has talked about our now being through the austerity period; if we are, the first groups who should feel the relaxation of the whip of austerity should be the families who have been so badly hit by the cuts imposed on them to try to balance the books.

There have been seven main cuts, and I wish to remind the House of how extensive they are. They are not cuts that affect pensioners: all affect those who are of family age—families with children. The first is the freeze, which my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Ruth George) talked about. I congratulate her on securing the debate and on her contribution. Such a freeze is almost unheard of in our terms. In 1953, Harold Macmillan made the decision on behalf of the whole country that, as living standards rose, poorer people would benefit from those rises. Ever since then, Governments have tried to hold to that commitment. They have had varying degrees of success, but their intent has been that the poor should share in rising living standards.

Since 2011, we have had a freeze on benefits that means that the least advantaged—if I can put it in a sarcastic way—have suffered. For example, a single parent who is out of work and has one child has lost £888 of what their income today would be had the freeze not taken place. A single earner couple with two children have suffered the amazing cut in their living standard of £1,845. That alone, I hope, will get the alarm bells ringing in the Treasury, so that when the Chancellor makes his statement come the spring, we will see some change on banning the freeze for the final year.

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

I am glad that the Chair of the Select Committee has raised the benefits freeze. Our research through the Library shows that this final year of the benefits freeze is due to raise an extra £1.2 billion in savings for the Treasury, because of increased inflation. Does he not agree that, as a result, this Government should scrap the final year of the freeze?

[Frank Field]

I hope that long before the Chancellor rises at the Dispatch Box—the position that the Minister will be in when he replies to this debate—he will have made the decision that there will be no more freeze. He will say, I hope, that the freeze will be lifted, and I hope that, from this debate, we will build a movement in the country that convinces him and his Cabinet colleagues that that is the one overriding priority.

There are, however, six other cuts of which I wish to remind the House. The first of those six is the cut in council tax benefit. A total of 4.4 million families have been affected by this cut—of not paying council tax in full—with an average weekly loss of £3.

Let me turn now to sanctions, on which the Select Committee, the House and the Government quite properly indulge in debates. Three million people have been sanctioned since 2012. We know now that a person can be in work and sanctioned. I challenge the Minister to answer this when he replies to the debate: as a person can be sanctioned for not getting a higher income, even though they are in work, will he tell me how many work coaches in DWP have been sent for interviews by their colleagues because, given the amount of benefit that they draw as a result of the wages that they gain from DWP, they will now be sanctioned if they do not improve their income? Sanctions, therefore, form the second cut.

Another cut has come in the form of the lowering of the local housing allowance. Since 2013, 1.4 million of our fellow citizens have suffered an average loss of £50 a week. We are not talking about our salaries; we are talking about people who are earning very, very modest incomes from the benefits system.

On the bedroom tax, 704,000 of our constituents have suffered, on average, a weekly loss of £15 a week. A total of 197,000 households are affected by a benefit cut of between £63 and £73. Then there is the two-child limit, which affects 70,000 households, but which is likely to increase to 600,000, with an average weekly loss of £53. Any one of those cuts causes mayhem to the budgets of poorer people who have no savings—whether they are in work or not in work. I have witnessed in my constituency, as other Members have witnessed in their constituencies, an issue now not of poverty, but of people who struggle with all their might to maintain a roof over their heads.

--- Later in debate ---

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

It is a pleasure to follow the impassioned, articulate and erudite speech by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) and to speak from the Front Bench for the SNP. It has been a good debate, and I commend the speeches from the hon. Members for High Peak (Ruth George), for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine), for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and for Blaydon (Liz Twist), the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) and the many others who made fantastic speeches. I agree with the Chair of the Finance Committee, the hon. Member for Rhondda, that this debate is far too short and that it is no way for us to scrutinise the spending of the largest-spending Department.

While I agreed wholeheartedly with all that was said by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field), the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, he listed a number of problems and areas that require improvements, and the Scottish Government are already acting on two of them. I hope that he will reflect on the fact that the Scottish Government have maintained council tax benefit and fully mitigated the bedroom tax, and we can see the difference in the child poverty in Scotland as a result.

The hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart), who is not in his place, was right to say that work is the best route out of poverty, but while the nations of the UK have record employment levels, child poverty rates are still rising. We know that the Government are about to publish some very damning child poverty statistics, so Conservative Members cannot ignore the need for greater state intervention in this area. It cannot just be about work.

In the limited time available to me, I will raise a number of topics that expand on some of the things that have already been said by others. First, I want UK Ministers to look in greater detail at the benefits freeze, which was introduced in the 2015 Budget—a Budget, of course, that attempted to obliterate the social security system in these isles. The freeze has seen the value of the benefits affected drop by 6.1% over a four-year period, which has hit households hard and is seen by many groups as the key driver of rising child poverty. The Resolution Foundation said this month that child poverty is projected to rise by a further 6% by 2023-24, which would mark a record high.

Billions of pounds of savings have been made through the benefits freeze on the backs of the lowest-income families. In the final year of the freeze, the Exchequer is set to achieve even greater savings than anticipated. The higher than anticipated inflation rate means that the freeze will save over £1.2 billion more next year than the £3.5 billion that had been targeted.

When we know that the freeze is contributing to higher rates of poverty and that the Treasury is about to save more money than even it had targeted, surely the final year of the freeze needs to go. The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has already said that she does not want to see the freeze continue any longer. She is acknowledging the difficulties it has caused, so why do she and others not go one step further and stop the final year? The spring statement would be the ideal opportunity for that to happen.

I turn now to an area that the Government do not want to be debated. I have called for a debate and a vote on this issue on three occasions, and other Members across the House have, too, but we are being ignored by this Government. UK Ministers want to enact a piece of legislation that is seven years old—it was brought in two Governments and two Parliaments ago—to cut pension credit entitlement. It will mean that mixed-aged couples will no longer be entitled to pension credit and will have to claim universal credit if one member of the couple is under state pension age. It has been estimated that this will cut £7,000 from the incomes of affected households.

When the measure was passed in 2012, we were in a very different political and economic landscape. Pensioner poverty was decreasing, but now we know from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation that pensioner poverty could be on the rise again. It is clear that this Government need to seek a new mandate for the cuts. They need to test the will of the House on what it has inherited and see whether it is still the right thing to do.

Staying with pensions, we know that a number of those who will be affected by the cuts to pension credit will be some of the 1950s women who have been ripped off on their state pension entitlement by this and previous Governments. The UK Government must do more to help the WASPI women, and they must listen to some of the suffering that cutting their state pension entitlement has caused. Despite the rises we have seen via the triple lock, it is worth pointing out that the UK state pension remains one of the most miserly in Europe.

An area where the new Secretary of State has shifted ground is on the two-child policy. She has accepted that rolling out the two-child policy to children born at any time, not just those born after the policy was introduced, would be unfair. We appreciate the small steps the Government have taken in some areas of universal credit, including the two-child policy, but they are clearly not enough. Given that the Secretary of State has accepted the injustice of one aspect of the two-child policy, surely she does not have far to travel to accept that limiting social security payments to two children is morally and socially wrong in its entirety. I urge her to rethink this disastrous policy, which is already forcing more children into poverty.

There is also a growing campaign, as we have heard again today, for the Government to do more on the five-week wait for universal credit. They have taken some steps to assist people moving from the legacy system to universal credit, but they have not gone far enough. A good place to start would be to use the assessment period for the advance payment of UC proper. If there is an acceptance that people need an advance, why say that the money needs 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.

The pressures of UC do not stop at those who are receiving it. We heard yesterday that the Public and Commercial Services Union members who are working at service centres in Walsall and Wolverhampton have balloted to strike over changes to workload, recruitment and staff consultations. On top of the problems in UC, ongoing scandals are facing the personal independence payment, employment and support allowance, which was debated yesterday, and the withdrawal of disability premiums—even with some transitional provisions from this Government, this is letting disabled people down.

Meanwhile, the Scottish Government are building a social security system based on dignity and respect, one that garners the confidence of those who need it and the buy-in of taxpayers who pay for it. We have created a carers allowance supplement, to uplift payments by £442 a year, better to reward carers for the incredible job they do. We have introduced the best start grant and baby payment in Scotland, which expands on the UK’s maternity grant by providing eligible families with £600 on the birth of a first child and £300 for subsequent children, without a cap on the number of payments made. What the Scottish Government have done already, and plan to do with new announcements soon, shows this Government what is possible.

In conclusion, while the problems I have listed with the UK system persist, we cannot be expected to agree with the Department for Work and Pensions estimate. The Government need to do more and come back having built a system based on dignity and respect, as we see starting in Scotland. This Secretary of State, the sixth I have faced, is taking steps in the right direction. She has admitted that there are problems with the two-child policy and finally admitted that there is a link between this Government’s social security policies and the rise in food bank use, but they must go further. I know she is pleading with the Treasury for the resources to go further, and we hope we can hear of that at the spring statement.

Employment and Support Allowance: Underpayments

Neil Gray Excerpts

Monday 25th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Newton]

Let me reassure the hon. Gentleman and other Members that if anyone makes an assertion to the DWP that in some way the treatment of someone’s benefits contributed to them taking their own life, that matter is taken extremely seriously and a full investigation is undertaken into the circumstances.

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

Some 20,000 people have died since failing their work capability assessment in one way or another. Regardless of the circumstances of their deaths—we have to remember that six Secretaries of State and various junior Ministers have stood at that Dispatch Box and denied any link between social security failure and food bank use—surely it highlights the failure of the veracity of the work capability assessments, which require fundamental review. Will the Minister advise from which work streams the additional members of staff will be moved in order to deal with this problem?

[Sarah Newton]

Let me provide some clarification to the hon. Gentleman. What we are talking about today is people who were underpaid benefits. As they came across from IB on to ESA, they were put on to a contribution ESA when they could have been entitled to an income-related ESA. It is nothing to do with the work capability assessment, so the basic premise of his question is inaccurate.

On previous points, the morbidity surveys that the NHS undertakes looking at suicides are a matter of record. They are a very serious matter and are reported by the NHS.

Work and Pensions

Neil Gray Excerpts

Thursday 14th February 2019 Ministerial Corrections

The following is an extract from questions to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on 11 February 2019.

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

We know from a series of academic and stakeholder reports that the rise in food insecurity can, at least in part, be put down not just to the implementation but to the value of social security benefits. The Secretary of State has acknowledged that, I think for the first time, this afternoon. We also know from Library figures that higher than expected inflation means that the benefits freeze will save an extra £1.2 billion in the coming year. Does the Secretary of State agree that those low-income families who are being driven into food poverty deserve a break and that the benefits freeze should stop this year?

[Amber Rudd]

May I just point out to the hon. Gentleman that, by 2020, payments made under universal credit are expected to reach £62 billion, compared with £60 billion under the previous system? [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman raised the issue of the amounts, and I am merely pointing out to him that, with the changes in place, the amounts are larger under universal credit than they would have been under the previous system.

[Official Report, 11 February 2019, Vol. 654, c. 595.]

Letter of correction from the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions:

Errors have been identified in the response I gave to the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Neil Gray).

The correct response should have been:

Oral Answers to Questions

Neil Gray Excerpts

Monday 11th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

Of course I will take a look at any particular cases that the hon. Gentleman brings to me. I have addressed the issue of direct payments of rent to landlords being made more frequently by saying that alternative payment arrangements should generally be more available. The fact is that universal credit is a more effective, more transparent system than what it replaces. One of the best ways to ensure that that is actually delivered on the ground is for MPs to engage with their jobcentres to make sure all that information is available.

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

We know from a series of academic and stakeholder reports that the rise in food insecurity can, at least in part, be put down not just to the implementation but to the value of social security benefits. The Secretary of State has acknowledged that, I think for the first time, this afternoon. We also know from Library figures that higher than expected inflation means that the benefits freeze will save an extra £1.2 billion in the coming year. Does the Secretary of State agree that those low-income families who are being driven into food poverty deserve a break and that the benefits freeze should stop this year?

[Amber Rudd]

May I just point out to the hon. Gentleman that, by 2020, payments made under universal credit are expected to reach £62 billion, compared with £60 billion under the previous system? [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman raised the issue of the amounts, and I am merely pointing out to him that, with the changes in place, the amounts are larger under universal credit than they would have been under the previous system.[Official Report, 14 February 2019, Vol. 654, c. 10MC.]

--- Later in debate ---

[Amber Rudd]

I am happy to say that that is exactly the aim of universal credit: to ensure that it helps people while they are in work, gives them the additional funds they may need, and ensures that the taper rate, the amount of tax they pay as they move into more employment or a higher level of pay, does not adversely affect their ambitions and their ability to earn more.

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

The Government are about to enact an element of policy passed seven years, two Parliaments and two Governments ago without a debate or a vote. Mixed-age pensioner couples are set to lose £7,000 from their household income if the changes to pension credit go ahead. Surely, with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation saying that 300,000 more pensioners are in poverty now compared to 2012, the Secretary of State must seek a new mandate from this House for these cuts and have a debate and a vote?

Social Security

Neil Gray Excerpts

Monday 4th February 2019 Commons Chamber

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

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak briefly in this debate. I concur with the hon. Members for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) and for East Renfrewshire (Paul Masterton), as well as the Minister, in what I am sure will be a largely consensual debate. The SNP will not oppose these statutory instruments this evening, but it is right that I outline some areas where we still have concerns.

First, with regard to the guaranteed minimum pensions increase order, we should acknowledge the context. The UK state pension is one of the most miserly in Europe. We lag far behind other European countries in the cash amount paid and the pension to earnings ratio. When we consider that alongside the proposed cuts to pension credit, the scandal of the state pension age increase for 1950s women, and the public sector workers who have been ripped off to the tune of £4 billion, we can see that the UK Government have been letting our pensioners down.

The GMP was supposed to provide a minimum weekly pension roughly equivalent to the amount of additional state pension that would have accrued if they had not been contracted out. The scheme operated until 1997, and although rights do not continue to accrue, they continue to be protected either by the general level of prices or 3%, whichever is less. However, the changes to the state pension mean that the rights accrued between 1978 and 1988 are not protected or subject to this statutory instrument. That is worth bearing in mind. Many pensioners will be getting much less than was anticipated when the scheme was operational. People who were contracted out were not made aware or did not understand what the implications could be long term, and were given the impression that their retirement income was protected at comparable levels. I would be interested to hear what the Minister is doing to ensure that people are properly advised of potential pension changes and that the pension entitlements accrued by workers are better protected in future, with particular regard to the Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign—the WASPI women—I am sure.

The SI also highlights why it is so important that the UK Government speed up the pension dashboard process. Having one simple dashboard would make it much easier for people to know exactly what their anticipated retirement income should be. Right now, about 47% of UK adults do not know what is in their pension pot. A dashboard would provide that knowledge. One person in five has said they would be more likely to save if they had more information about their pension savings. When people are better able to plan for retirement, that saves the Exchequer. Once again, I suggest that an independent pensions commission would help to ensure that the complexity and vastness of pensions policy could be effectively studied and improved. I hope the Government will finally consider such a commission.

I turn briefly to auto-enrolment. We welcomed auto-enrolment and the Minister described it as a success story. I will explain briefly how he could make it even more so. What we are talking about this evening is the earnings trigger at which auto-enrolment comes into effect. This band sets a minimum contribution level for money purchasing pension schemes. The minimum of the band is also relevant for defining who can opt in if they earn under the earnings trigger. We had hoped the UK Government might have looked at expanding the workforce who would be eligible under auto-enrolment. Considering historical gender pay gaps in lower-paying industries and the fact that women are more likely to take career breaks to care for children, women have always had lower pension savings even though they need bigger pots due to longer life expectancy.

We also know that a large number of those falling below the income threshold will be women. It is therefore disappointing that the Government have not brought forward their welcome proposal to lower the threshold to £6,136, which under current plans will not come into force for some years. It is also disappointing that inclusion of 18-year-olds under auto-enrolment is also not expected for many years.

Finally, I would appreciate the Minister’s guidance on why these two SIs were not consulted on ahead of being presented this evening.

Universal Credit: Managed Migration

Neil Gray Excerpts

Tuesday 8th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is the experience of colleagues on the Government Benches when we talk to people—[Interruption.] Well, I would just say to the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) that she ought to go out there and talk to work coaches. I would say that to all colleagues, because in my experience they are telling me that for the first time they are doing what they came into the Department for Work and Pensions to do, which is to provide one-to-one support rather than having to explain an incredibly complicated legacy benefit system where people have not been able to claim all the money due to them.

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

Thank you for granting this urgent question, Mr Speaker. I commend Labour for securing it. It is important because at the weekend, reading any of the papers, it would have seemed that everything had changed in the minds of Ministers on universal credit, with the Work and Pension Secretary’s apparent U-turn. In actual fact, however, nothing had changed. I am sorry that the Secretary of State is not here to respond, given that the misleading headlines were in her name.

The Government were of course quite happy to ride that wave of publicity, but yesterday at DWP questions the scale of that so-called U-turn became clear. We now know that at present there are no plans to make any changes to universal credit, which is what everyone is really interested in.

Delaying the vote on the managed migration of people from legacy benefits to universal credit is a small acceptance from the Government that things may not be well with universal credit. We have six years of evidence and lobbying to show the Secretary of State that. She knows she cannot get away with kicking the can down the road. She knows that changes need to be made and that what is on the line is not just her credibility but the lives of recipients who desperately rely on that support. After all, we never know when it might be us relying on that safety net.

My question to the Minister is clear and unambiguous, and I hope he will be, too. Will he commit, with the Secretary of State, to putting pressure on the Chancellor to release the money to repair universal credit, starting with ending the two-child policy, stopping the benefits freeze and overhauling the punitive sanctions regime?

[Alok Sharma]

The hon. Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) asked earlier why the Secretary of State is not here. The reason is that she is in Cabinet. Her commitment is absolutely clear. She has visited jobcentres and talked to stakeholders and organisations that care about getting universal credit right, so there should be no indication in the House that she is not taking her duties incredibly seriously. She is hugely committed to this.

As I said, earlier this year, we brought forward £1.5 billion of funding to help people by allowing advances of up to 100% on day one if individuals require that and having a two-week run-on for housing benefit, and another £4.5 billion was announced in the Budget. This is all about making a difference and helping the most vulnerable in our society—something the Opposition should welcome.