Cost of Living

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Tuesday 5th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Wendy Chamberlain]

Yes, I entirely agree. I recommend to anybody who has not read it last Sunday’s article in The Sunday Times about food banks. The journalist took the time to eat a diet of what is provided in the emergency packages. It is not particularly healthy, but it is food, and I am hugely grateful that it is there. I co-chair the all-party parliamentary group on ending the need for food banks, and I am hugely grateful for the work that food banks do, but trying to meet specialist needs and requirements is very difficult for a charity run by volunteers. We should ensure that people have what they need to meet their medical requirements.

I am sure that many Members will refer to this, but the refusal to keep the universal credit uplift has taken away £20 a week from people who were already struggling. No taper, and no additional grants, will make up for that. When the Chancellor introduced the uplift, he said it was to reinforce the safety net. To some extent, that worked. In research by the Trussell Trust, the secretariat for the APPG, 70% of people said the increase in universal credit made it easier for them to afford essentials. Very quickly—this is my last point on the APPG—our call for evidence on the different responses to the need for food closes on 8 July, so if anybody would like to contribute evidence, we would love to hear from them.

The decision to remove the universal credit uplift at the end of lockdown restrictions, when the economy reopened and there was an expectation that people could take on more work, revealed the Government’s true thinking. It was an implicit acknowledgement that it is impossible to live on the current rate of universal credit, and that that would become abundantly clear to voters who started claiming benefits for the first time during the pandemic. The Government’s taking away the uplift clearly shows that they think that poverty payments are acceptable for those who rely on universal credit in the long term, either because they do low-paid but vital work such as caring, or because they cannot work full time for any other reason—there are many other reasons, as we all know from our case loads. I would like to know why the Government think that a reinforced safety net is needed for some people in our society, but not others.

I want to mention, as others have, unpaid carers, who are another left-behind group. Carer’s allowance is £69.70 per week. We do not accept jobs that pay less than £2 per hour, so why do we think it is acceptable to ask unpaid carers to accept that? Earlier, when my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) spoke in support of her ten-minute rule Bill on kinship care, she talked about the instinct to want to help a family member in need. No matter how much we love our family, anyone who has ever been a carer will tell you that it is work. As a society, we rely on that good will, so we must support our unpaid carers. They are the backbone of our society. Where people can and want to work, they should be supported to do so. Members have mentioned no recourse to public funds, but the other side of the coin is that we do not allow people claiming asylum to work and contribute. We give them neither support nor the opportunity to support themselves.

With its earnings cap of £132, the carer’s allowance policy seems designed to keep carers in poverty. We have been waiting for two years for a report from the Government on the effect that carer’s allowance has on people’s ability to work. I hope the Minister can update the House on when we will receive that report, and will explain how Members are supposed to scrutinise Government policy properly when we do not receive the reports that would enable us to scrutinise them. I am pleased that while we are waiting for the report, there are practical steps we can take to support our unpaid carers with work and into work, and with managing their caring responsibilities. I am delighted to be bringing forward a private Member’s Bill this Session to give unpaid carers the right to take additional leave, which would help them to balance their caring and working commitments. It does not go as far as I would like, but I believe it would be the first stand-alone piece of legislation giving employment rights to carers. It would help millions of people. One thing that the Government have been trumpeting is the current low rates of unemployment, but they are not talking about the increasing numbers of economically inactive people. I argue that some of those will be carers who are unable to combine work with caring responsibilities. I hope that my Bill will give them the opportunity to do that, but—this is a big but—it is only part of the picture of supporting unpaid carers into work. I hope that the DWP will do other things to play its part.

I will briefly turn to two pensions issues, the first of which is a specific constituency matter. My constituent is being denied her full state pension because of a gap in her national insurance record. The gap exists because she worked in intelligence for the armed forces a number of years ago. When she became pregnant, she was immediately discharged from the Army, but she could not return home to Scotland because of the sensitive nature of her work. The gap is purely caused by the pregnancy discrimination that she experienced at the hands of the state. She is being told that, rather than paying her the small extra amount that she would be entitled to each year, the Government would arguably rather give it to lawyers and have us go to court. I really hope that the Government can recognise that she has experienced an injustice. I urge the Minister to meet me so that we can find a way forward for my constituent, who was serving her country.

On a much broader injustice, the WASPI—Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign—women are still waiting to receive the money that has been denied them. As time ticks by, many will die before they receive what they deserve. Do the Government want that legacy—3.8 million women left to die, with far too many of them in poverty exacerbated by the cost of living? The ombudsman might still be reaching its conclusions on compensation, but it would be a huge comfort for the WASPI women to know that the Government plan to follow its recommendations. Will the Minister join me today in pledging to follow the ombudsman’s recommendations, when they are made, and to provide compensation to women who missed out because of Government error?

We could talk about lots in this estimates debate and Members have referred to other issues that I would want to raise. In conclusion, however, we are feeling the impact of the cost of living crisis more acutely in the UK. It is incumbent on the Government to stand up and help constituents, including those claiming benefits or who interact with the DWP, however they do so.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the Scottish National party spokesperson, Kirsty Blackman.

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[Kirsty Blackman]

It is, and it is ironic that the DWP is asking staff to step up and deal with its creaking, unfortunate, flawed computer system. It is asking them to do all this additional work to make that happen while failing to make the investment where it should be making it, in the computer system and in the people. I am also seeing a reduction in DWP office staff in Aberdeen. I very much hope that the Government change their mind about the direction in which they are going.

We have heard from Members across these Benches about the issues affecting people’s quality of life as a result of the DWP’s failures and the failures of the Government’s policies. Loads of people have mentioned the safety net. The whole point of a safety net is that it catches people. The point is not to make the holes as big as possible so that as many people as possible fall through. I would rather have a social security system like the one that we are building in Scotland; a social security system that ensures that everybody is caught by the safety net, so that everybody gets what they are entitled to and people do not accidentally fall through. This Government’s policy seems to be to give social security payments to as few people as they possibly can and to try very hard to set the bar as high as possible so that people cannot meet the requirements.

We have heard about the Scottish social security system and its openness compared with the DWP’s system, where the report on food banks and the equalities impact assessment were buried. Audit Scotland recently audited the Scottish social security system. It said:

“The Scottish Government has continued to successfully deliver new and complex social security benefits in challenging circumstances. This is a significant achievement. There is a conscious focus on the needs of service users, building on the principles of dignity, fairness, and respect. People are positive about their experiences of engaging with Social Security Scotland.”

How different that is from the views that we are hearing down here, from what is in our inboxes, from the absolute intransigence and the issues that people face every day when simply trying to get what they are entitled to.

The social security uprating fails to get anything close to inflationary levels this year. We have seen an increase, but it is nothing close to the level of inflation. In fact, the £650 payment that the Chancellor announced does not even cover the £1,000 that was taken off people last year—never mind going any way to cover the increase in the cost of living. The Chancellor, the Minister and the Secretary of State have repeatedly said, “But people are getting more, with the £650, than they would have if we had uprated benefits”. We are asking them to do both. We are asking them to adequately uprate the benefits and backdate that to April as well as to make the additional payments. Only then can we get to a situation that is close to helping with the cost of living.

This is a tale of two Governments. We can see that another country is possible. We can see the failings, with the bedroom tax, the benefit cap and the two-child policy being carried on with. We have heard a lot about no recourse to public funds. When we discussed the Social Security (Additional Payments) Bill last week, I mentioned that children were literally starving and I was scoffed at by Government Members. If we look at reports, we see that junior doctors talk about children presenting with rickets because of the level of malnutrition, because they have no recourse to public funds, because they have been sanctioned, or because they otherwise cannot afford to eat a healthy diet. Comments have been made about the lack of variety and the lack of healthiness in the diets provided by food banks, which try incredibly hard but just cannot meet the requirements. In addition, they cannot provide food for people who cannot afford electricity. If people cannot afford electricity to boil something in a pan, it is difficult for them to cook adequately.

In the main estimates book, the Government talk about providing £5.6 billion—that is the initial spend—under the Social Security (Additional Payments) Bill. However, they mention providing £37 billion for increases in the cost of living. That £37 billion is made up of additional payments, as the Chancellor has stated, but can the Minister confirm that he is including things in it like the freeze on alcohol duty? It cannot be said that the freeze on alcohol duty relates to improving the cost of living for people who cannot afford to eat.

I am pleased to have been able to talk about the DWP estimates today. What is happening is woefully, woefully inadequate. Our constituents are coming to us and we just cannot provide them with the hope that they need and want, because the Conservatives are digging their heels in and refusing to offer adequate support.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the shadow Minister.

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[David Rutley]

I have set out our approach, which is to ensure that advances are made available to help people in those difficult circumstances to get the money that they need.

Another point that has been raised is about deductions. We have systematically reduced the amount that can be deducted from benefits from 40% to 30% and now to 25%. If claimants have issues, they can go to the debt management service for further advice and support. Others have mentioned the carers allowance. I want to highlight, as I did in the recent Second Reading debate on the Social Security (Additional Payments) Bill, that the carers allowance is not a means-tested benefit. Nearly 60% of working-age people who are carers will get the cost of living payments, as they are means-tested benefits, or disability benefits. Carers allowance is paid on an individual basis to people in households across the income scale, so they may live in a household that is able to receive the £650 payment or the disability payment as well, which will help them to pay the bills in their own households. We also talked about how larger families will be getting the same payment as individuals. This is because we needed to get the payment out fast to as many people as possible. We will be making the means-tested benefit-related cost of living payment from 14 July, and that is absolutely critical. We were not able to develop a system that would account for every single eventuality.

I conclude by saying that this Government have worked incredibly hard over recent years to ensure that we help people to get into work, that we make work pay and that we support people with the cost of essentials. The latest cost of living payments that have been made and the additions to the household support fund demonstrate that we are absolutely committed to providing this help for households. I would like once again to thank hon. and right hon. Members for their contributions to this important debate.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

With the leave of the House, I call Sir Stephen Timms to wind up briefly.