Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Yvonne Fovargue and Lord Grayling

Tuesday 4th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Chris Grayling)]

I welcome the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) to my Front-Bench team. I also inform the House that Lord Faulks has joined my team in the House of Lords. I pay tribute to Lord McNally, who has left the Front-Bench team, for the excellent work that he did on behalf of the Government.

I will shortly publish final proposals covering the two areas that are subject to consultation in the “Transforming Legal Aid: Next Steps” document: the procurement of criminal litigation services and reform of the advocacy fee scheme. I anticipate that the total saving from the transforming legal aid proposals will be £220 million per year by 2018-19. That is in addition to the £320 million that has been saved as part of the Government’s previous reforms, which were enacted in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012.

[Yvonne Fovargue]

Trafford law centre closed last week, Barnet law centre faces closure in March, and many more advice agencies and citizens advice bureaux face closure or redundancies, which will reduce services for the most vulnerable. What assessment is being made of the impact of those closures, which have been caused by the cumulative effect of cuts to civil legal aid and other cuts, through an increased demand on other public services, such as the health service?

[Chris Grayling]

We will clearly continue to review those matters. The decisions that we are making are of course difficult, but we have to make them because we have to bring down the cost of legal aid to deal with the enormous financial challenges that we face. We would not have wished to take these decisions, but given the inheritance that we received from the last Government, there is no option but to do so.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Yvonne Fovargue and Lord Grayling

Tuesday 21st May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)]

11. What steps he is taking to reduce reoffending.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Chris Grayling)]

We have heard a lot this afternoon about our plans for transforming rehabilitation. It is worth restating to the House what I believe is a crucial part of those reforms: the alignment of the prison service geographically to areas into which people are going to be released, through the creation of a network of resettlement prisons. I think that will make as big a difference to the process as any other part of our reforms.

[Yvonne Fovargue]

A recent report from the Charities Aid Foundation welcomed the opportunities that payment by results will create for the voluntary sector, but it also warned that many organisations will need support to ensure that they can become credible providers of services on a much larger scale. What help is the Minister putting in place to ease this transition?

[Chris Grayling]

We are doing two things. First, through the Cabinet Office, which has responsibility for liaison with the voluntary sector, we are putting in place widespread support to help the voluntary sector prepare for this process. We have also put in place a justice data lab, which is designed to allow smaller voluntary sector organisations that have a track record in working with offenders to quantify the impact of their work on rehabilitation so that they can sell a story about what they can do to partners in the bidding process.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Yvonne Fovargue and Lord Grayling

Tuesday 18th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend’s point about mediation is important and highlights the fact that when dealing with the financial challenges we face, the Government must look for innovative new ways of doing things. Mediation is certainly one of those.

[Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)]

How many people do the Government expect to be able to challenge welfare benefit decisions at the highest level on a point of law in the future if they continue to claim that it is too difficult to find a way to identify cases and provide legal aid, despite the Minister’s reassurances to the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill Committee?

[Chris Grayling]

We are still in discussions about how to respond to the vote in the House of Lords, but we must accept that there are limits to what the Government and the taxpayer can provide in terms of legal support. There will always be limits to what the state can do, and we are trying to find the right balance in exceptionally difficult financial circumstances.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Yvonne Fovargue and Lord Grayling

Monday 23rd April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

Yorkshire and the Humber has indeed proved to be a pathfinder for the scheme. I am aware of how popular it is and am now looking at ways in which we could modify it in order to provide a greater focus on those areas where demand is high and see whether it makes sense to allow people to access it earlier.

[Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)]

19. What assessment he has made of homeless people’s experiences of the work capability assessment.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling)]

In recognition of the specific issues that homeless people encounter, information and advice related to the work capability assessment is provided through their Jobcentre Plus adviser when they collect their benefit payment via the personal issue payment process.

We have also been in touch with the Department for Communities and Local Government about homeless people. Through this, a meeting has been arranged between Professor Harrington, the work capability assessment independent reviewer, and several charities representing homeless people. We will consider fully any recommendations he makes.

[Yvonne Fovargue]

Upcoming research from Crisis shows that almost half the homeless people questioned felt that the health care professionals at their assessment had a bad or very bad understanding of homelessness and how it impacts on their lives. What steps are being taken to raise awareness among the health care professionals conducting that research and carrying out the work capability assessment?

[Chris Grayling]

I have invited all the charitable groups that have an interest in WCA matters to feel free to offer guidance and training sessions to our decision makers, and to share their views so that any appropriate elements can be included in our training programmes, but of course the best way of helping the homeless is to help them into employment—to use the income to find a home and to sort their lives out properly.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Yvonne Fovargue and Lord Grayling

Monday 18th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)]

T4. In 2010-11 there was an increase in incapacity benefit and employment and support allowance appeals of 167% on 2008-09 figures, and 50% of incapacity benefit appeals were decided in favour of the appellant. What steps is the Minister taking to ensure that independent welfare benefit advice is available equally across the country, so that the figures do not reduce simply because claimants have no access to advice?

[Chris Grayling]

I hope that the figures will reduce because the quality of decision making within Jobcentre Plus improves as a result of the recommendations made to us by Professor Malcolm Harrington. As the hon. Lady will be aware, we have strengthened the reconsideration process and are telephoning rather than writing to claimants, particularly to ensure that we get better medical evidence. I do not want cases going to appeal; I want them resolved properly, satisfactorily and accurately within Jobcentre Plus.

Welfare Reform Bill

Debate between Yvonne Fovargue and Lord Grayling

Monday 13th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

My view is that our partner organisations, such as Citizens Advice, need to be involved and informed of all the changes. We need to continue to be able to offer the valuable advice that they give to individuals. We provide quite substantial blocks of Government funding to Citizens Advice and similar organisations, and it will be for them to decide how best to use that financial support. In what are straitened financial times, I would hope that those organisations would see their priority as sending as much of that money as possible to front-line advice services, and spending as little as possible on central administration, central marketing activities and other head office functions. I would like those organisations to focus on providing every spare bit of cash that they can for front-line advice services—as well as finding ways of generating more spare cash for that purpose—because after all, that is where the money is most effectively and valuably spent.

We will seek to provide guidance, training and advice for advisers on the universal credit and the implications thereof. There is always a willingness on our part to talk to groups of advisers, including at some of the big conferences that Citizens Advice organises. I have not been able to do so yet—I have offered to do so on other matters—but we are always willing to provide such input to those organisations.

[Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)]

Does the Minister accept that the money currently given to Citizens Advice is spent centrally on vital services such as training advisers, the information system and support for those agencies? In fact, none of the money goes to local bureaux, which are extremely concerned about the effects of the cuts in 2013.

[Chris Grayling]

Every organisation has to look at how it operates in tougher times financially, and at how best to spend the money that it has available. I am sure that Citizens Advice will be no different in that respect.

Amendments 23 and 24 deal with the capital limit and propose that for claimants who work, the universal credit assessment should ignore savings that they hold in individual savings accounts up to a prescribed maximum of no less than £50,000. We fully understand the importance of saving. Working families should seek to provide for their future needs and larger purchases. However, families with substantial savings should draw on those reserves when their incomes fall, not look to the taxpayer for support. Our analysis suggests that in 2014-15, there will be up to 100,000 households on tax credits with savings over £16,000 who could be affected by the capital rules in universal credit. However, transitional protection will ensure that there are no cash losers at the point of the transition to universal credit where circumstances remain the same.

However, it is important to be fair to the taxpayer. Although nearly one in three pensioner households have savings in excess of £16,000, only 13% of households with a working-age adult in them have that much in savings. A typical working-age household has only £300 in savings. It cannot be right that people with significantly greater savings than the average family can claim universal credit. A maximum limit of at least £50,000 in ISA savings, as proposed by the right hon. Member for East Ham, is a large sum to be excluded from the capital ceiling. We are striking the right balance between protecting people with modest savings and placing responsibility for their own support on those with substantial resources. Once again, we are talking about an uncosted spending commitment. The right hon. Gentleman said that it would cost £70 million a year to uncap totally, but not that many people on universal credit would have savings of more than £50,000, so the majority of that £70 million would be spent on his measure. The reality is that this is a multi-tens-of-millions-of-pounds spending commitment. Once again, we have not heard from the right hon. Gentleman where the money would come from.

Amendment 30 to clause 10 would mean paying at least as much in the additional elements for disabled children as we did in benefits and child tax credit prior to the introduction of universal credit. As we announced in policy briefing note 1, “Additions for longer durations on Universal Credit”, we will retain two levels of payment for disabled children in universal credit. The higher element will be payable to more severely disabled children receiving the highest rate of the care component of disability living allowance. The lower rate will be payable to children receiving the other rates of the disability living allowance care component. The higher rate will be increased by £52 a year, with eligibility extended to children who are severely visually impaired, who currently receive only the lower entitlement.

The key change is that we propose to align the elements for disabled children and disabled adults. That means that the lower rate would be around £26.75 and the upper rate £74.50 a week in current figures. The lower rate for a less severely disabled child in universal credit would be less than now, but we have pledged that where universal credit entitlement is less, transitional protections will be put in place. Our aim is to simplify and align the additional elements for disabled children with those for adults. We do not think it right that when a young person claims benefits in their own right, the extra amounts payable for disability are different. We also want to focus resources on the most severely disabled children and adults. Savings from abolishing the adult disability premiums and changes in the child rate are not going back to the Exchequer. This is not a cutting exercise; it is about recycling that money into higher payments for more severely disabled people.

Amendments 27, 28 and 29 to schedule 1 relate to the regime for self-employment in universal credit. As I told the right hon. Gentleman many times in Committee, we are committed to ensuring that people in self-employment have the financial support that they need. Amendments 27 and 28 would take a power to allow “accruals accounting” of profits and losses from a trade to be used in the reporting of earnings from self-employment. Strictly speaking, that is unnecessary, as the power taken by paragraph 4(1)(b) of schedule 1 already permits such a regulation. Amendment 29 would limit the application of the power taken at paragraph 4(4), which allows for a minimum level of earned income from self-employment to be set. It proposes that the minimum level would not apply where the claimant’s business was conducted on a commercial basis with a view to the realisation of profits.

We recognise that self-employment is a vital element of the economy and will be an important contributor to the sustained recovery from recession that we all want. It is also an important route into work for many people. We are therefore giving careful consideration to the conditions that we set for people claiming universal credit who seek to make their living from self-employment. The enabling framework provided by the Bill allows the treatment of income from self-employment, including the definition of earnings to be taken into account, to be set in regulations. We therefore do not need to decide this question today; we can work to get it right. However, as I have said to the right hon. Gentleman previously, we have to deal with the issue carefully. It is not the intention to make it impossible for people to get into self-employment, particularly in the first few months, when they have difficulties and money does not come easily. However, in the current system, people can report no or very low income from their business activity and continue to receive the bulk of their benefit or tax credits entitlement. We want people to become progressively less reliant on benefits and universal credit. At the end of the day, we cannot have the taxpayer funding someone who is notionally self-employed—and on whom there is no job search requirement—but who generates little or perhaps no income at all from that self-employment. We have to apply a threshold to determine whether someone is credibly in self-employment or whether they are using self-employment as a reason for not looking for other job alternatives. We have to get this right.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Yvonne Fovargue and Lord Grayling

Monday 14th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)]

T9. Recently, a constituent contacted me regarding his Atos Healthcare assessment. Three specialists had considered him to be unfit for work, yet it was suggested that he could be a bingo caller or a car park attendant. My local citizens advice bureau has identified many such cases which are resolved in favour of the claimant after an expensive review or appeal. Are there any plans to review Atos Healthcare’s delivery of medical assessments?

[Chris Grayling]

As the hon. Lady will know, soon after taking office we commissioned Professor Harrington to conduct a full review of the work capability assessment and the process around it. He has recommended a number of changes, which we are implementing as quickly as possible. I stand by the view that the assessment is the right way of helping people who have got the potential to get back into work. It is much better for those who can be in work to be so, rather than sitting at home on benefits, but we obviously have to make sure that the process is fair, just and proper and that we get the most accurate results possible.