Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alison Thewliss and Will Quince

Monday 17th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP) [V]]

Govanhill Housing Association has told me that, each time there is a rent increase, some tenants inadvertently go into arrears as they do not realise that they have to notify the DWP. Will Ministers make a common-sense change to this bureaucracy to allow housing providers to report any rent increases directly for all their tenants rather than as a fallback?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Will Quince)]

I have explored this issue, which is a little bit more complicated than the hon. Lady makes out. We have been working with housing associations. I would be very happy to sit down with her and have a briefing on the matter with officials.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alison Thewliss and Will Quince

Monday 29th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

The Minister talks of fairness with regard to the two-child limit, but how can it be fair that the 60,000 families who have made a claim since lockdown began, who could not have anticipated having to claim universal credit, are now struggling to feed their third or subsequent children? They could not have planned for this; how is that fair?

[Will Quince]

We recognise that people face unprecedented financial pressure as a result of covid-19. That is exactly why the Government have invested £6.5 billion in our welfare system, increasing universal credit by £20 per week, increasing tax credits and increasing the local housing allowance.

Universal Credit: Delayed Roll-Out

Debate between Alison Thewliss and Will Quince

Tuesday 4th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Will Quince]

My hon. Friend is quite right. At every single jobcentre that I visit—I visit one every week on average —I get that same feedback, and the one thing that staff would like to change is the reputation. It would be helpful if Opposition Members visited their jobcentres, spoke with work coaches, got that understanding, and desisted with the unhelpful scaremongering.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

My constituent, a mature student with a wife and child, claimed UC and provided all the information that was required. The DWP later announced that it had made an error and asked my constituent to pay back £2,416. He has had to give up his studies, and his family is now in hardship. Does that incompetence not demonstrate why people are so scared to make a UC claim? While the Minister for deep-fried Mars bars is at the Dispatch Box, will he explain why he still has not apologised to me and my colleagues?

[Will Quince]

I hope you recall, Mr Speaker, that I did make a full, frank and unreserved apology in this Chamber. As for the case that the hon. Lady raises, if she would like to write to me with the details, I will happily look into it. There are strict Treasury rules about errors and deductions, but I will be happy to look at them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alison Thewliss and Will Quince

Thursday 11th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Will Quince]

As I say, the Government have already introduced transitional arrangements costing £1.1 billion. We have considered the alternative options and found that there are substantial practical, financial and legal problems with all alternative options offered by stakeholders so far to mitigate the impact on those affected.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

In addition to the Lionesses, will the Minister also congratulate the Scottish women’s football team on their efforts and wish the Scottish Thistles netball team all the best in the netball world cup, which is coming up this week?

The WASPI women have already been cheated out of their pensions by this and previous Governments, but a further issue is emerging, with the Association of British Insurers talking of £20 billion of unclaimed pensions, in 1.6 million pension pots. That will disproportionately affect women, as they are more likely to have changed jobs multiple times during their careers. What is the Minister going to do to make sure that those women do not also lose out on pensions to which they should be entitled, in unclaimed pension pots?

[Will Quince]

I will certainly echo the comments made by the hon. Lady about those sporting teams in Scotland. Her question is better related to the Pensions Minister, so I will ensure that he responds fully to the points she raises. However, I would say, on WASPI women, that any amendment to the current legislation that creates a new inequality between men and women would be unquestionably highly dubious as a matter of law, and the Government’s position on the changes to the state pension age remains clear and consistent.

Department for Work and Pensions

Debate between Alison Thewliss and Will Quince

Tuesday 2nd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Will Quince]

I will turn now to some of the points made in the debate. The hon. Member for Wirral South talked about the WASPI women. This Government have introduced transitional arrangements costing £1.1 billion. This concession reduced the proposed increase in the state pension age for more than 450,000 men and women, and it means that no woman will see her pension age change by more than 18 months relative to the 1995 Pensions Act timetable. As numerous hon. Members have pointed out, if we were to reverse the state pension changes made under the previous Pensions Act, it would cost more than £200 billion up to 2025-26.

Moving on, the two-child policy ensures that parents in receipt of benefits face the same financial choices when deciding to grow their families. As announced in January, we will no longer be extending the policy for new claims for children born before April 2017. Turning to the benefit freeze, I have already made it clear that we will end the freeze in 2020. As for universal credit, the principle is to have a simpler system, with six benefits rolled into one. When it comes to supporting children, I play a role in the early years ministerial group, which was chaired by the former Leader of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom). That group is looking at numerous options around cross-departmental work on supporting children.

[Alison Thewliss]

Will the Minister give way?

[Will Quince]

I will come to the points made by the hon. Lady.

The hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth raised several points. The Government are spending £55 billion a year on benefits to support sick and disabled people. In 2019-20, our spending on main disability benefits is £9 billion higher than in 2010, and main disability benefits are exempt from the benefits freeze. On universal credit, as I have pointed out already, around 1 million disabled households will receive an average of around £100 more a month.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth, who is no longer in her place, and she will know that we are working with employers through our Disability Confident scheme, giving them the tools and advice to support staff with a disability or long-term health condition. Over 12,000 employers have now signed up. The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work, my hon. Friend the hon. Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson), will pick up her suggestions. I thank her for the work she did when she was in the Department.

The hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) made an intervention in relation to the Scottish child payment. I understand that the Scottish Government have laid out their plans to introduce an additional £10 a week for eligible children in Scotland, and I should say that we welcome the overall commitment to tackle poverty, but we note the challenge and look forward to understanding the impact of the payment in detail. We will continue to work with the Scottish Government on the impact and introduction of that payment.

Turning to the remarks from the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Neil Gray), the pensions dashboard is a digital interface that will allow individuals to see their pension savings online in one place to assist with their retirement planning, and I welcome the cross-party collaboration on that. On the pensions Bill, we intend to bring forward legislation when parliamentary time allows.

We are a Government determined to help the most vulnerable, to support them into work, to support them to stay in work, and to support them when they cannot work. We will continue to do that through all the support that the Department offers, and we will continue to assess and adjust that support by listening, learning and improving. I have met and visited several stakeholders, valuing and taking on their expert views, so we are always listening to colleagues, stakeholders and, most importantly, our constituents, whom we are here to serve and support.

Question deferred (Standing Order No. 54).

Food Poverty: Scotland

Debate between Alison Thewliss and Will Quince

Tuesday 7th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Will Quince]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his further intervention. As I said, we have made improvements to the initial UC assessment period, including the removal of waiting days and advances of up to 100% of the indicative first payment. It is important to say that the advances are 100% interest-free, and people have to pay them back over 12 months; as of 2021, it will be over 16 months. However, he makes a fair point. We need to ensure that claimants are working with their coaches and are absolutely clear about what they are taking on. It is not a loan; it is an advance. We have to ensure that work coaches are advising appropriately and ensuring that options are available to the claimant. They do not have to take it all in one go, for example; they can take a small amount as per their needs at the time. I am willing to discuss that with him in further detail.

I mentioned the concerns that were raised and the changes that were made in the last Budget. In particular, we have put an extra £1.7 billion a year into work allowances, increasing the amount that hard-working families can earn before the taper is applied. That is an extra £630 a year for 2.4 million families, many of them in Scotland.

We are also working in partnership with Citizens Advice Scotland to provide a consistent UK-wide service and assist claimants to successfully make their universal credit claim. The Citizens Advice Help to Claim service offers tailored, practical support to help people make their claim and receive their first full payment on time. That service is available online, over the telephone and face to face through local Citizens Advice services. We are also working closely with the Scottish Government to help them achieve their goals on UC flexibilities. For example, UC Scottish choices are now available to all claimants in Scotland on full service who are not in receipt of a DWP alternative arrangement plan.

No one in the Government wants to see poverty increasing or reported increases in food bank use. The recent poverty statistics are, of course, disappointing. However, child poverty in Scotland has remained the same or decreased across all four of the main measures in the three years to 2017-18, compared with the three years to 2009-10. The statistics published in March this year represent a year—2017-18—when some families struggled to keep pace with rising costs, including a higher level of inflation, which the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) referred to, but since then there has been a year of real wage growth. Earnings have outpaced inflation for 13 months in a row, with real wages growing 1.6% on the year. The statistics do not reflect the substantial additional funding for our welfare system announced in the last financial year, which are only just beginning to take effect.

Increasing the rate of employment is not, however, the limit of our ambition. The Government have gone much further than previous Governments to support working people and have set out their ambition in the Chancellor’s spring statement to end low pay across the UK. UC works alongside other policies introduced by this Government to promote full-time employment as a way out of poverty and towards financial independence. In particular, it offers smooth incentives for people to increase their hours, and we are confident that as UC reaches more working families we will see more working full time.

Our national living wage, which is among the highest in the world, is expected to benefit more than 1.7 million people; and the increase to £8.21 from April this year will increase a full-time worker’s annual pay by more than £2,750 since 2016.

[Alison Thewliss]

The Minister makes a point about the living wage, but it is not a real living wage as defined by the Living Wage Foundation. Also, it is not available to people under the age of 25. Why does he think that a 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23 or 24-year-old in the same job as a 25-year-old is not entitled to the same wage?

[Will Quince]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. She has long campaigned on this issue. The national living wage that we have introduced will make a huge difference, but, referring to the wider point of poverty, I want to be clear that it is not just a Department for Work and Pensions issue. As part of my role, I want to work across the Government with my counterparts in other Departments—the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, the Treasury and the Department of Health and Social Care—to tackle poverty in all its forms. We all have a part to play. I hear what she has to say, and I am happy to meet her at a later stage to discuss that issue at more length.