Safety of Prison Staff

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for what he says, and for the work that he is carrying out to ensure that black and minority ethnic individuals are treated fairly in our criminal justice system. On the reform programme, I have been delighted by the fact that across this House and throughout the Government there has been strong support for the reform programme that we are undertaking, and I think it will be central to the work of this Government over the next few years. I look forward to working with the right hon. Gentleman and other colleagues to ensure that we make progress.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

It is of paramount importance that the Government do all they can to ensure that prison staff are safe in their place of work. The Secretary of State will know that the recent safety in custody figures were quite shocking. Will he guarantee that when those figures are published in future, there will be fuller scrutiny of those statistics in Parliament, and will he commit to a frequent statement on what the Government are doing to improve the situation?

[Michael Gove]

Yes, I will do everything possible to make sure that Parliament is fully informed. That is entirely in line with the recommendations, which I welcome, from the Select Committee.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Well done.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

6. What assessment he has made of the effectiveness of his Department’s guidelines for officials of his Department who have moved to work in the private sector.

[The Minister for Policing, Fire, Criminal Justice and Victims (Mike Penning)]

The Ministry of Justice and other Government Departments have clear rules and governance in place around the standards of conduct for current and former civil servants. All permanent civil servants are covered by the Cabinet Office guidelines on business appointment rules.

[Andrew Gwynne]

I am grateful to the Minister for his reply, but he will know that in March The Mail on Sunday uncovered evidence of former MOJ civil servants boasting of their links to Government while working for private firms to secure multimillion-pound contracts, both in Britain and abroad. What investigations have been made into those allegations, and will the Minister make a commitment to the House to publish in full any findings by the review?

[Mike Penning]

There was an investigation after those reports in the press, but no impropriety was found. I am more than happy for the hon. Gentleman to meet my officials in the Department. If I can publish the review, I will—I understand that it was an internal inquiry—and if I cannot do so, I will explain why. If not, meetings will take place.

Policing and Crime Bill

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Ann Coffey (Stockport) (Lab)]

New clause 12, which stands in my name, would amend section 1 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009. It would scrap the distressing rules that provide that dementia sufferers who die in care homes while subject to a deprivation of liberty safeguard are classed as being in state detention.

I first took this issue up after being contacted by families who told me of their distress at having to wait to bury their loved ones because inquests are required into the deaths of dementia sufferers who are subject to a DoLS, irrespective of the circumstances of their death.

Councils were inundated with DoLS applications from care homes after a Supreme Court ruling in 2014, which effectively lowered the threshold for what constitutes deprivation of liberty in care. Guidance issued by the Chief Coroner to local coroners following the Supreme Court judgment said that all persons who died subject to a DoLS order must be the subject of a coroner’s investigation, whether or not their death was from natural causes, because such persons are deemed for the purposes of the 2009 Act to be in state detention.

The new clause was suggested by the Chief Coroner himself in response to, and in recognition of, the distress caused to relatives. The Chief Coroner indicated to the Law Commission and the Government that a simple amendment to the 2009 Act might solve the problem of unnecessary cases being reported to the coroner, at least in the short term. The amendment proposed by the Chief Coroner said:

“For the purposes of this Act, a person who dies while subject to an authorisation granted under Schedule A1 to the Mental Capacity Act 2005 depriving that person of his or her liberty and detaining him or her in a hospital or care home does not die while in custody or otherwise in state detention.”

Constituents have contacted me, including one woman who wrote after her mother died in a nursing home. She told me:

“My mum suffered from dementia and other health problems and we sat with her for four days and nights before she passed away. Within one hour of her death, uniformed police arrived and we were asked to leave the room.”

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

I have had a very similar case of a constituent whose mother was in a nursing home and died. Almost immediately, the police came, and for 10 days had hold of her body. Does that not cause great distress to people at a time of mourning, and is it not why we really need to tighten up the rules regarding deprivation of liberty?

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New clause 10 and Government amendment 56 both relate to the licensing of taxis and private hire vehicles. From the experience of child sexual exploitation in Rotherham, I know the importance having a robust taxi licensing scheme for protecting passengers and drivers. Both the Jay and Casey independent reports on the disaster in Rotherham recognised the vulnerability of a weak taxi licensing system and what it means for child protection.

[Andrew Gwynne]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this important issue. On 4 May I held an Adjournment debate on taxi licensing, because we in Greater Manchester have the problem that a neighbouring local authority in Lancashire is effectively handing out taxi licences like sweeties. They are often given to people who have been legitimately refused them by the 10 Greater Manchester authorities, yet they are operating private hire cabs on the streets of Greater Manchester. Not only should that worry the public, but the law needs strengthening to prevent it from happening.

[Sarah Champion]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing up that issue. My deep frustration is that we in Rotherham work really hard to get the legislation right. We have really robust legislation to protect children, but within six weeks of its being implemented, the Government’s Deregulation Act 2015 meant that it was not worth the paper that it was written on. He is right that people from other areas could then be subcontracted and come in and pick up fares, and none of the safeguards that our local authority tried to put in place had any effect whatever. I thank him for raising the issue, which the Government need to look at.

To create the system in Rotherham, there was much consultation not only with taxi drivers but with the survivors of child abuse. Rotherham Borough Council has now implemented a new licensing system, which is one of the points covered in new clause 10. Two years after the horror that we discovered in Rotherham, the Government have failed to take action to make the taxi profession safer across the UK for all vulnerable people in our society. They must learn lessons when such things go catastrophically wrong. In Committee, Labour pushed the Government to place taxi and private vehicle licensing authorities under a statutory obligation to prevent child sexual exploitation.

Taxi drivers are in a position of considerable trust. The overwhelming majority of taxi drivers live up to the responsibility that their role creates for them, but unfortunately a minority do not. Better regulation is needed urgently to improve the training and awareness of drivers, so that they can play a part in keeping vulnerable children safe from harm and so that they know how to report abuse if they see it. All local authorities must ensure that checks are carried out to prevent perpetrators or potential perpetrators from being licensed. Monitoring must be in place, complaints must be investigated and passengers must feel confident.

I am delighted to see that the Government have listened to Labour and have responded to our new clause by tabling one of their own, which would empower the Secretary of State to issue statutory guidance to licensing authorities. However, can the Minister give us an assurance that Government new clause 56 would have the same effect as our new clause 10? I notice that the Government’s new clause will empower but not require the Secretary of State to issue statutory guidance. Can the Minister confirm that the Secretary of State does intend to issue guidance, and to do so without delay? I would appreciate an indication of the timeline involved, both on the roll-out of the consultation and on when the guidance will take effect.

[Andrew Gwynne]

Although I support much of what my hon. Friend says may be included in the Government’s new clause, is not part of the problem that the local authority that issues the licence receives the funding for that licence to be processed, but if the taxi driver is operating in another part of the country, a local authority very distant from the issuing authority might have the cost of enforcing and investigating them? Do we not need parity of funding according to where a taxi driver is operating?

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Tuesday 26th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend strikes at the heart of three of the principal problems that prisoners face. It is very often the case that prisoners have had a very poor educational experience. That is one of the reasons—it does not of course absolve them of moral responsibility—why they can often be drawn into criminal activity. As Dame Sally has made clear, we need to screen every prisoner effectively when they arrive in custody so that we can ascertain the level of skills that they have, and we need to judge prisons on the value that they add. As for removing the taint of drugs or substance abuse, that is a huge problem and one to which we will be returning.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

But in Ofsted’s annual report, Sir Michael Wilshaw highlighted the fact that provision for learning, skills and work in the prison estate was among some of the worst available in the higher education sector. What more is the Secretary of State doing to ensure that that vital part of prisoners’ rehabilitation is brought up to scratch, as it should be?

[Michael Gove]

Michael Wilshaw has been a brilliant chief inspector, and he is absolutely right about the situation in our prisons. There are some outstanding examples of educational provision in prison, but, sadly, too few. One problem has been that a small group of providers has been responsible for providing education in prison, but large and inflexible contracts have meant that those providers have not necessarily been as responsive to the needs of individual prisoners as they should have been. That is changing, thanks to the Coates report. One thing that will not change, however, is the amount that we spend on education, which has been safeguarded and ring-fenced.

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[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is important that there should be progression. Many prisoners secure level 1 or 2 qualifications, but we want to ensure that they can go on to pursue either apprenticeships or, in some cases, even degrees.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

T7. A report by Citizens Advice states that“nine out of 10 people who have gone through the family courts, under new rules that heavily restrict access to legal aid, suffer strain in their mental and physical health, working lives and finances”,which is surely unacceptable. What will the Minister do to put that right?

[Mr Vara]

As was said earlier, much is being done for people who need legal aid, particularly in the family courts. Our judges are aware of the difficulties of the people before them and are trained to help and assist them. The Government have also provided much money and support for litigants in person. People talk about more legal aid, but it is important to remember that it is taxpayers’ money and to recognise that we spend £1.6 billion on legal aid, which is one of the largest such budgets in the world.

Policing and Crime Bill

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 26th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Karen Bradley]

At this stage I will speak to the Government new clauses and amendment, and I will respond later to the points that are made about other amendments.

Chapter 1 of part 3 will enable chief officers to designate police staff with a wider range of police powers. They will also be able to confer police powers, other than the core powers reserved for warranted officers, on volunteers. The intention is that the powers that can be conferred on employed staff and designated volunteers are the same. This includes the power to carry and use defensive sprays, such as CS gas and PAVA spray, where the chief officer considers that there is an operational case for this. It is already the case that chief officers can equip police community support officers with defensive sprays, and to that extent the Bill codifies the existing position.

New clause 31 makes necessary consequential amendments to the Firearms Act 1968 to ensure that police volunteers are civilian officers for the purposes of that Act. The effect is that they do not then need a certificate or authorisation under section 1 or 5 of the 1968 Act in order to carry a defensive spray.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

I understand perfectly what the Minister is trying to do here, but I am not sure that there is a consensus out there for volunteers to be equipped with CS gas, for example. Does she understand the concern that the public have about that?

[Karen Bradley]

If the hon. Gentleman had been part of the Committee, he would have heard the extensive deliberations and debate that we had about that issue. In my response to the amendments later, I will come to the specific point about volunteers. I would like to hear the arguments before I respond, but I am aware that there are concerns, although I may not agree with them.

The new clause puts community support volunteers and policing support volunteers in the same position as police officers and police civilian staff. We are also taking the opportunity to make it explicit on the face of the 1968 Act that special constables are members of a police force for the purpose of that Act and therefore similarly do not require a certificate or authorisation under the 1968 Act when equipped with a defensive spray. This will avoid any doubt being created by the insertion of a specific reference to policing support and community support volunteers within the meaning of “Crown servant” in the Firearms Act.

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[Jack Dromey]

May I start by giving the apologies of the shadow Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), as to why he cannot be here today? He is at the Hillsborough inquest. Twenty-seven years ago a terrible wrong was done. Ninety-six husbands, wives, fiancés, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters died. The fact that today justice was done is due both to the remarkable persistence of the families to ensure justice for those who died, and to the outstanding leadership of my right hon. Friend who, in his courage, persistence and championing of a noble cause, has served the people not just of Liverpool, but of this country well.

We welcome many of the proposals before the House today, which follow our exchanges in Committee. I do not intend to speak to them all in detail. We welcome the move on pre-charge bail to prevent terrorists, such as Dhar, from ever fleeing the country before charge. We welcome the protection of police whistleblowers. We welcome moves to improve the way that the police deal with people suffering a mental health crisis, such as no longer considering a police cell to be a place of safety. We welcome moves to ensure that 17-year-olds detained in police custody are treated as children, which is something my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) has fought very hard for.

We support changes to the Fire Arms Act 1968 that will tighten our gun laws in line with recommendations made by the Law Commission. We support the duty on emergency services to collaborate. We will deal with many of these issues in some detail on the second day on Report. We also welcome moves made by the Government on other issues that emerged during our consideration of the Bill. For example, agreement has been reached following the excellent campaign run by David Jamieson, the police and crime commissioner for the west midlands, on the banning of those hideous zombie knives, whose only purpose can be to kill or maim.

However, given that the Bill purports to complete police reform, I am bound to say that there are a number of issues that should have been in the Bill but are not. The Bill does not help the police to adapt to a world in which crime is changing and moving increasingly online. There is a gaping hole in the Government’s policing policy on the failure to tackle—or even to acknowledge in the Bill—cybercrime, or to help the police deal with the consequences of the Government’s swingeing spending reductions. On child sexual exploitation and abuse, although the one clause is a welcome step, for a Bill that purports to be focused seriously on this grotesque manifestation of all that is worst in our country, one clause alone is not enough. The Bill does not go far enough on some of the issues it seeks to address, such as police accountability, but we will return to some of those on day 2.

Having spelled out those areas of the Bill that we agree with, I am bound to say that there are critical areas with which we fundamentally disagree. We have just had a debate, led by my formidable hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown), opposing the compulsory takeover of fire authorities by PCCs. Our strong view, as she indicated, is this: yes to greater collaboration; no to hostile takeovers that take place regardless of what local elected representatives and local people think.

The other highly controversial proposal that we are debating today is about giving police powers to volunteers. Let me make it absolutely clear that there is a long and honourable tradition going back 150 years of special constables. There is a more recent tradition, but one that is profound within the communities we serve, of volunteer engagement in neighbourhood watch. For example, the admirable Maureen Meehan, chair of the Stockland Green neighbourhood watch in my constituency, does outstanding work to ensure that the community is safe, working with the police. Indeed, in this House we have the police parliamentary scheme. My hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones) has had a fascinating insight into policing in the Met and in south Wales, and subsequently he has waxed lyrical about the work he has seen, for example on mental health, but also working with volunteers.

We are strongly in favour of enhancing citizen engagement and voluntary efforts. As the great Robert Peel said,

“the police are the public and the public are the police”.

Therefore, the role of the citizen in policing is key. But the public demand that police functions are discharged by police offices, which is essential. We are extremely concerned that the proposals contained in the Bill are an attempt by the Home Secretary to provide policing on the cheap.

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend hits the nail on the head. Most people outside Parliament will see through this, because they are seeing the number of police officer and PCSOs in their own neighbourhood policing teams cut, and the Government are proposing to hand those powers to civilians.

[Jack Dromey]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. In all the surveys of public opinion about the visibility of the police over the past couple of years, the public have complained more and more that they no longer see their police officers or PCSOs, that they no longer have contact with them, that the police no longer have roots in the community and that neighbourhood policing is being progressively hollowed out. People want neighbourhood policing—the bedrock of British policing—to be rebuilt, but not using volunteers.

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I now turn to one of the most extraordinary proposals in the Bill. The other day, a colleague of mine nicknamed it the John McEnroe or the “You cannot be serious” proposal. I was in Brighton with my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Peter Kyle) only yesterday to talk to PCSOs and members of the public. They just could not believe that volunteers will be able to use CS gas and PAVA spray. “What fool came up with that idea?” asked one. That is a good question. Perhaps the Minister can enlighten us. It is our very strong view that CS gas and PAVA spray should be used only by officers who are regularly trained in their use and, importantly, in the law concerning their use.

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend is being generous in giving way. Does he not also suspect that, perhaps as an unintended consequence, this might place volunteers in very risky situations?

[Jack Dromey]

That is absolutely right. I will mention something similar in a moment. If we have volunteers—I again stress that there is a long and honourable tradition of volunteers working in and with our police service—we must, to be frank, go the extra mile to ensure that they are not subject to risk or harm. If they are ill-trained and there is no framework of accountability, issuing them with CS gas and leaving them to get on with it might lead to very serious consequences indeed, not just for members of the public but for the volunteers themselves.

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[Kit Malthouse]

My right hon. and learned Friend makes a valid point. However, these people are somehow financing an alcohol habit, so they are paying for alcohol. I think my right hon. and learned Friend would be surprised at the demographic of offenders. In the US, this was more often used for repeat drink-driving than anything else. In this country, repeat drink-driving is predominantly a crime of white, middle-aged, professional men; it is they who get done most for this offence. One hopes that they would indeed be able to afford to pay the cost.

My right hon. and learned Friend is, however, right that the proposal is that the police “may” charge. They do not have to. If a PCC believes it would be useful, they could apply to the Home Secretary to run a scheme on a charging basis and then decide on the charge. It might be 50p a day, a pound or £3—who knows? It will depend on the area and the level of offences committed.

Having this particular power adds two critical things to the scheme. First, one of the successes in the US is that the scheme gives offenders the notion that they are in control of their destiny. Every time they reach for a drink, they have to think about the consequences. That is why there is such high compliance—because people feel they are in control. At the same time, having to pay provides an even greater sense of ownership of the disposal. Offenders understand that this is a punishment; they understand that they have to take responsibility and finance the scheme themselves. It is essentially “the polluter pays”.

Secondly, although this disposal has been wildly successful in London and has spread to the rest of the capital, it took a lot of up-front Government funding to get the scheme out there. The Ministry of Justice had to put in £500,000 and the Mayor has done the same to get the facilities out and around town. If we want the disposal to spread so that other PCCs take it up, there needs to be a business case. Bluntly, I am a Conservative, and if there is a flow of income coming from this disposal to a PCC in a way no other disposal will allow, I believe PCCs would be more likely to use it and invest the money up front; they would know that the income would come in to finance it.

I realise that offenders paying for their own punishment would be a new departure for the British criminal justice system, but I think it could be useful given that alcohol abstinence monitoring orders are themselves a new departure. There may be some cultural difficulties. When I first proposed the disposal, I went to see my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), who was then Lord Chancellor. His first response was to say, “Good grief, you can’t stop people from having a pint!” I explained that if these people break somebody’s jaw or cause a crash because they have been driving drunk, of course we can. If we put them in prison, we stop them drinking. This was just a way of doing that, I explained, without incarcerating people. It is much cheaper, much quicker and, if the Government are kind enough to think about this new clause—perhaps following it up in the other place—the disposal could be self-financing and help to save a huge amount of money.

[Andrew Gwynne]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse). I start by saying that I have always been supportive of the police; I was brought up to be. I can remember my mum telling me as a very young child that if I ever got lost the police were my friends and that I should always seek out a police officer, who would always try to find where my mum and dad were. That is hopefully an ethic that I have passed on to my own children. That, I think, is where we must start.

In this country, there is a degree of consensus about the nature of policing, because we have developed, over a long period, the concept of policing by consent. I think that Parliament, when passing legislation both here and in the other place, must do everything in its power to ensure that we do not move away from that important concept. A number of measures in the Bill deserve to be scrutinised properly before Parliament decides whether it is appropriate to extend the powers in the way that the Minister proposes.

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[Jake Berry]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about the role that special constables play in our police force. They are vital to policing throughout the United Kingdom. Will he join me in calling on the Government, when the Bill goes to the other place, to consider extending the protection of the Police Federation to special constables, who cannot join the federation unless there is a change in primary legislation? I think that that would be a good way of ensuring that when special constables go out there and take risks, they benefit from the protection of a proper trade union.

[Andrew Gwynne]

I entirely agree. I am very proud that the headquarters of the Greater Manchester Police Federation are in the Reddish part of my constituency, in Stockport. The work that the federation does in supporting police officers is absolutely brilliant, and, as the hon. Gentleman says, it is crucial that we extend that support and protection to special constables. After all, they are doing the job of a police constable. When we talk about the role of volunteers, it is important for us to do so in the context of what we expect volunteers operating in the police service to do.

My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington, who spoke passionately about these issues, was right to draw attention to the important role of the home watch. In all our constituencies there will be home watch schemes led by dedicated members of the public and volunteers, working alongside the police and police community support officers. They provide a vital connectivity between the community and the police service, which, even following the introduction of neighbourhood policing, is still considered by too many of our constituents to be fairly remote from public concerns. So I support volunteers being the eyes and ears of the police on the ground and in schemes such as home watch.

Also, in my constituency, we have some very dedicated volunteers manning the front desks at the few police stations that are still open. They are playing an important role in ensuring that continuity of service is provided to members of the public. We often hear Ministers talking about protecting the police frontline, but to a number of my constituents who have experienced police station closures and front desk closures, that actually was their frontline. That was where they could get face-to-face access to the police service when they needed it. Were it not for police volunteers in Dukinfield in my constituency, for example, that police front desk would have closed in the same way that ones at the Denton and Reddish police stations have done. Those closures are a retrograde step for the communities that I represent.

[Bob Stewart]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, when the public see a police officer, they simply see a police officer? They do not look at them and wonder whether they are volunteer police officers or not. Volunteers who man desks do not wear the uniform, but wearing the uniform immediately tells the public that someone is a police officer. They do not think, “Is that a reserve officer?” They think, “That is a police officer”, and that is great.

[Andrew Gwynne]

It is great, and I think that the hon. Gentleman is inadvertently making my case for me that we should not be giving CS gas to volunteers who are not wearing the police uniform. My point is that we already have volunteer police officers. They are called special constables and they have the full power of a police constable and wear the uniform of a police constable. They wear the uniform with pride and they volunteer with pride, and we should be supporting the extension of the special constable programme rather than extending powers to other volunteers, which I do not think is appropriate. I take the hon. Gentleman’s point that, when people see someone in a police uniform, they do not care whether they are a special constable or a paid member of the police force. They just see them as a police officer. There is an important distinction that we must consider in examining some of the powers that Ministers are proposing. That is why we need clarity from the Minister before we decide whether to support the extension of these powers. I sincerely urge Members to exercise caution before we extend them.

My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington also mentioned the parliamentary police service scheme. I was pleased to be able to take part in that scheme back in 2007, when I was Parliamentary Private Secretary to the then Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith. That seems a long time ago now. Taking part in the scheme provided an invaluable insight into the work of the police. I was posted with my own police force, Greater Manchester police, although I was a bit gutted that I was unable to go out on the beat in my own constituency. I was told that that was in case the police ended up nicking any of my constituents. I was gutted because I had a long list of people I would have liked to call on. Leaving that aside, it really was an invaluable experience. I had not appreciated just how complex the police service in an area such as Greater Manchester is. Indeed, it was not really until the end of my experience on the police service scheme that I began to appreciate not only the complexity of the organisation but how it all fitted together.

I want to talk about one experience that really changed my view of the police. Before coming to this House as a Member of Parliament, when I was a local councillor in Tameside, and following my election to this place, I took the view that the police were a pretty remote service, because when my constituents needed them, they never seemed to call on them when they were expected to arrive. On one day, I called in at Oldham police station, where I was posted on the parliamentary scheme, and was to go out on response calls with a very dedicated police officer. We looked at the computer screen and 14 jobs were waiting for the police officer. We took the job at the top of the list, but just as we were about to set off, he received a call on the radio to go to the local hospital, because a girl—a teenager of a similar age to my eldest son—had been picked up by the police and it was suspected that she had been raped at a house party.

The police officer had received Nightingale training to deal with such cases, so we did not go to job No. 1 on the computer screen; we went to the hospital. It was inspirational to see the officer’s work. He was able to get the girl to open up and to get the necessary information out of her. The father in me wanted to bash the girl around the head and say, “What on earth were you doing at that house party instead of being at school where you should have been?” That is the paternal instinct, but the police officer was so caring, gentle and professional that he was able to get the information.

That story is relevant because I was back in my constituency that afternoon at a public meeting in Reddish and one of my constituents started complaining about a neighbourhood nuisance issue in the field at the back of her house. She had called the police at the time, but an officer did not come round. Indeed, the police officer did not come round until two days later. I had to gently remind that lady that she might have been job No. 1, No. 2 or No. 3 on the computer screen—it was in a different borough, but it is just an example—and that we might have been going to head out to her when the police officer got called off on Nightingale duty. I asked her, “If that was your granddaughter, what would you think was the most important job for that police officer to go to?” She conceded that it was to go and look after the girl in hospital rather than to come and see her. That is where the public’s perception of the police’s work is out of kilter with the real pressures on the police service, not just in Greater Manchester, but across the country, and that is why we must tread carefully when considering how we move away from the traditional policing models. The development of neighbourhood policing has been invaluable, and a move away from it would be a retrograde step.

I suspect that part of the reason that the Minister has come to the House to try to extend the powers of police volunteers is to fill the gap that the Government have created. I will provide an example from my constituency. Greater Manchester lost the equivalent of five officers every week over the course of 2015 and has lost 1,445 officers since the Government came to office, which has an impact on what the police service can provide. I appreciate that this is where the Government are trying to fill the gap with volunteers, but I ask them to think carefully about how they approach the matter. If their approach—it is not clear in the Bill—is that volunteers will be trained to become special constables, that is different from a member of the public, with good intentions no doubt, being taken on by a police force and trained to a certain level, but not actually becoming a police officer. That is what most people outside Parliament will be concerned about.

I will use another local example. Back in 1998, Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council—a Labour local authority —decided to complement the Labour Government’s neighbourhood policing team policy with a team of council officers called the Tameside patrollers. They were to be trained in a similar way to PCSOs, and were to wear a uniform that, although in Tameside council’s corporate colours, rather than the police colours, looked similar to a police uniform. They were also to work as part of the neighbourhood policing team.

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[Jake Berry]

Will the hon. Gentleman accept that Parliament is not seeking to extend the power to volunteers? It is seeking to extend the power to chief constables to make the decision on whether volunteers should have CS or PAVA spray. How long does he think that a chief constable would be in office if someone—perhaps an accountant—came in to volunteer on a complicated fraud case and he said, “While you’re in here, take this CS gas spray.”? I think the hon. Gentleman is being unduly alarmist.

[Andrew Gwynne]

I would sooner be unduly alarmist than face a situation in the future where somebody may have been approved inappropriately to have this facility. It is the duty of Parliament to legislate well. We need to be much clearer in the Bill about what we intend so that there can be no ambiguity in respect of a chief constable in future. It should be perfectly clear what Ministers intend with regard to the use and the extent of this power.

All it would take is for the Minister slightly to amend and to clarify those points, and we might then have a different view. Unless the legislation that we pass is completely clear, and the intention is completely clear, we run the risk at some stage in the future of somebody who is inappropriate having that power extended to them.

[Jake Berry]

Is the hon. Gentleman seriously suggesting that Parliament should sit until the recess and come up with an exhaustive list of circumstances in which chief constables could use this power? Surely the appropriate thing to do is to trust our chief officers to use the power responsibly, which is exactly what this Bill does.

[Andrew Gwynne]

I hope that we would not have to face a situation in which chief constables inappropriately use the powers that the Government are seeking to extend to them, but it is our duty to legislate for a situation where that might be the case. I do not want, at some stage in the future, a chief constable to be all over the headlines of the national press because they have done something that they should not have done but to get out of that because the intention of the Act was not clear. All I am asking for is some clarity from the Minister. If we have to wait to get this right, the Government have the power to carry over legislation. Bills do not fall at prorogation if the Government want to carry them over. Actually, the Government could easily amend the Bill and clarify the point during the remaining stages.

[Kit Malthouse]

The hon. Gentleman is making a peculiar point. If he is saying that, essentially, we should not give chief constables a particular power because, at some point in the future, they may well fall foul of it or misuse it, then there are lots of other powers that we give chief constables to which he may wish to apply that rule. For instance, a chief constable is able to license a police officer to handle a firearm. If that firearm is used incorrectly, as we have tragically seen in the past, then the chief constable faces the consequences—whether that be legal consequences or otherwise. Does he think therefore that this principle that we cannot trust these highly trained and highly experienced chief constables to use their discretion should be applied to other perhaps more critical areas of their operation?

[Andrew Gwynne]

The hon. Gentleman has, inadvertently, made my case for me. He talks about extending firearms powers to police officers. That is the difference—he is talking about police officers. Chief constables are accountable for police officers. What we are talking about here is extending the use of CS gas to volunteers. We need to be very clear in the Bill what Parliament intends and how Parliament expects that power to be used. If the power is abused or misused, it is Parliament that will be at fault because it has not been clear about the fact that these are volunteers, not police officers.

I appreciate that other Members want to contribute to the debate. I return to the fundamental point about policing by consent. If we extend to volunteers, who are not warranted police officers in the form of special constables, powers that we would expect warranted police officers to be given, Parliament must be very careful and clear about the intention and the use of those powers, so that there are appropriate checks and balances if those powers are misused or abused, which we hope they will not be.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vara]

We have one of the best legal sectors in the world. We are thriving both within and outside the European Union. Whatever the decision on 23 June, I am confident that our legal sector will continue to thrive.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

Given that an assessment of the impact on legal services will have been made by the civil servants in the Department, does the Minister think it fair, right and proper that his colleague, the Justice Secretary, is denied the opportunity to see the paperwork?

[Mr Vara]

As I said earlier, the Government’s position is very clear—that we will be better off in the European Union. As for any potential disagreements, let me gently say to Opposition Members that it is a bit rich for them to be engaging in this sort of conversation in view of the level of unity in their own party. I am prepared to bet a substantial amount with any Labour Member that tomorrow, in 24 hours’ time, when we have Prime Minister’s Questions, the cheer for my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will be a lot louder than the cheer that the leader of the Labour party will receive.

Transitional State Pension Arrangements for Women

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Wednesday 24th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Owen Smith]

The hon. Lady is entirely right. Even if 40% of women were unaware, that is 40% too many. As I said, five or six other surveys were done by academics and those in other institutions that suggested that 80% of women were unaware that they were going to be affected, so the reality is that the number was far greater.

The scale of this problem only truly started to dawn on people when the Government decided to double down on their calamity with the Pensions Act 2011.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is about to come on to the injustice of the 2011 Act. Is not the real issue not only that these ladies have been hit not once but twice by an increase in their state pension age, but that no transitional arrangement was put in place? Is that not why it is absolutely right that we support the Labour motion to get the Government off the fence and provide these ladies with the transitional arrangement they deserve?

[Owen Smith]

This House and Government Members would do well to heed the words of my hon. Friend, because, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey), he has been the doughtiest campaigner in this House on behalf of these women. He speaks the truth when he says that Members from across the House should back our motion to provide transitional protections for them.

The 2011 Act not only broke the Government’s promise that the pension age for women was not going to rise until 2020, but broke the promise that no rises would occur without at least 10 years’ notice, because the women who suffered the double blow were given just two years’ notice. The former Pensions Minister, Steve Webb, has described that decision as an ill-informed “mistake”. He tried to make up for it in office, and secured some mitigation for 300,000 of the women who were due to see their state pension age go up by more than 18 months. The Minister on the Front Bench will no doubt mention this shortly, telling us that it cost £1.1 billion, but I bet he will not remind us that his predecessor was looking for £3 billion in order to offer these transitional protections. I suspect he may only say sotto voce that half of that £1 billion went not to women but to men.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

I start by offering you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and the House my apologies, because unfortunately I will not be able to be here for the winding-up speeches—I am on Front-Bench duty in Westminster Hall from 4 o’clock. No discourtesy is intended either to the shadow Minister or the Minister who will be closing the debate.

As always, it is a pleasure to take part in the debate, although I am a little saddened by the Minister’s response to what is a fairly clear motion tabled by the Labour Front-Bench team. We are calling on the Government to set out a process of transitional arrangements for the group of women affected, who have been served a real injustice. I am not concerned about the who, where, how or what. When my kids are squabbling, they get put on the naughty step; I am not bothered about the who, why, where or what. We are where we are, as the WASPI women appreciate. The real injustice is that they have been denied fair transitional arrangements.

When we were discussing the pension scheme for Members of Parliament, we put in place, I accept through an independent system, a 10-year transitional arrangement, so that right hon. and hon. Members who were within 10 years of their normal retirement age were able to remain on the old House of Commons system, and the rest of us were moved on to the new IPSA system. I say to the Minister that if it is good enough for us, it is good enough for those women, and they deserve the freedom to have enough time to make alternative arrangements. Those were the arguments that were made when our pension changes came before us. There should not be one rule for us and one rule for people outside this Chamber. I argue, reasonably, that they should expect the same treatment that we expected when there were changes to our pension system.

I realise that the Minister currently sitting on the Front Bench is not the Pensions Minister; the Pensions Minister is in the other place. I have to say, being kind to the Minister, who seemed tetchy in his response, that the fact that he was not the Pensions Minister probably showed. I will tell him what the WASPI women are calling for—I quote from their petition:

“The Government must make fair transitional arrangements for all women born on or after 6th April 1951 who have unfairly borne the burden of the increase to the State Pension Age”.

They are not asking for changes to legislation; they are asking for fairness. That brings me back to the motion, which will be voted on. We all have the chance in the Division Lobby later today not just to offer platitudes to the women affected but to show that we mean it. In the motion we call on the Government

“to bring forward proposals for transitional arrangements for”

those women, because they deserve fairness. That is why we called for this debate. I commend the shadow Secretary of State for securing it, because it allows us to have a vote and to show these women that we mean what we say.

Police Grant Report (England and Wales)

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Wednesday 10th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

I think that the hon. Gentleman is wrong. Not only have I met South Wales MPs in the last couple of days, but the very vocal PCC—whom I know very well, as, I am sure the hon. Gentleman does—has not raised those figures with me. I suggest that, before South Wales police asks for any more money—which I do not think that it will need to do—they should look very closely at the size of its reserves, which are astronomical.

We need to take account of what the police have already been able to achieve, and the collaboration that has taken place with the help of extra funding from the Department, in order to find ways of providing better day-to-day policing out there. We should not sit in our silos, as we have for many years, allowing money to be spent in a building that is being only half used while another building up the road is just sitting there and could be put to full use.

Hampshire MPs are rightly proud of their emergency services. I am sure that we are all proud of ours as well, but the innovation that has taken place in Hampshire is quite astounding. Money has been saved that can be used in other front-line work, and that has been absolutely brilliant. Winchester has a brand-new fire station. On the first floor are the fire officers and on the next floor are the police, because it is a police station as well as a fire station. More than half the fire stations in England and Wales are within 1 kilometre of an ambulance station or a police station. We are starting to see the same sort of innovation elsewhere in the country, and we should ensure that it continues.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

The Minister is right to commend the hard work of the police in very difficult circumstances, but he has asked for comparisons. In Greater Manchester, violent crime is up by 36%, sexual offences are up by 46%, and overall crime is up by 14%. We have had 20% fewer police officers and 4% fewer police community support officers, and we are looking at an £8.5 million cut in real-terms funding in the next financial year. Those figures do not add up, do they?

[Mike Penning]

I can tell the hon. Gentleman that crime has fallen in Manchester since 2010, as it has in the rest of the country. There is real concern about certain elements of crime, which the hon. Gentleman’s chief constable and PCC will be addressing, as we are at the Home Office. However, I ask him to look closely at the figures that he has given. We must be careful not to scare people away. We want people to report sexual assaults, but historically they have not done so. We want them to report domestic violence, but historically they have not done so.

[Andrew Gwynne]

rose—

[Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Penning]

We are seeing that sort of collaborative work across the country and some of it is being paid for by the innovation fund, for which the different forces, emergency services and local authorities are putting in bids. But this goes much further than just working in the same station; it is also about training together. As you might know, Mr Speaker, I used to be a fireman years ago. I may have mentioned that before and I may have to mention it a few more times. There are only two of us in the House, but we are very proud of what we did.

In those days, it was very rare to train or work with the other emergency services unless you were physically on the same job. If hon. Members go round their constituencies and ask people in the emergency services when they last did a forward exercise with the fire service, the ambulance service or, in some parts of the country, the coastguard service, they will find that it happens very rarely. That is often due to logistical pressures, but those pressures do not exist if two or more services are in the same building and can share the same yard and do the same training.

Going back to Winchester, not only is the fire station in the same building as the police station but the yard is jointly used and at the back of the yard is the armed response unit, along with the armoury and the ranges. All this has been built on what was going to be just a fire station. When we talk to those brilliant professionals who look after us every day and ask them about the training they are doing, we find that firefighters are being trained as paramedics, as is the case in Hampshire. Sadly, in the case of a road traffic collision, the ambulances might not always get their first, even though the incident has been reported and people are trapped. I know how difficult it was when we were at incidents such as those. It is not just a question of how many ambulances there are. When you have a really bad smash on the motorway, it is really difficult to get the emergency services through. You would think that everybody would get out of the way, but I can tell you, Mr Speaker, they do not.

What is happening now is that fire personnel are being trained to keep people alive. I am not just talking about first aid certificates or the use of defibrillators, although that is a really good innovation. By the way, the cashiers at my local Tesco’s know how to use defibrillators, and that is a great asset, which also saves people’s lives. However, when dealing with a major trauma, it is vital to have the skills that I saw the firemen and women in Hampshire using. I was crying out for those skills when I was in the fire service.

[Andrew Gwynne]

I want to take the Minister back to the answer he gave me some moments ago. Of course it is not my intention to scare people, but the statistics show that crime numbers are going up in Greater Manchester. Of course this might be due in part to people now reporting crimes that they would previously not have reported, but does the Minister accept that people also need to have confidence that there are adequate numbers of police officers to investigate those crimes? Surely the 20% reduction in the number of police officers in Greater Manchester will not help to create public confidence.

[Mike Penning]

That really depends on where those officers were in the first place. Were they working in the communities and on the beat, or were they doing desk jobs? The truth of the matter is that, while we have had a decrease in the number of officers around the country, there are more in front-line duties now than there were in 2010. The other thing the hon. Gentleman might want to ask his local police and crime commissioner, if he is really worried about the funding—even though there would have been a 10% cut under a Labour Government—is why his police force is holding £71 million in reserves.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jack Dromey]

We will oppose this settlement today. The Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Minister for Policing, Crime and Criminal Justice said from the Dispatch Box that police funding is being protected. That is simply not true, and I will lay out my case in due course.

We are still learning some painful lessons from the past. There are still wrongs to be righted; the police are not perfect. We need to raise standards, and we should always hold the police to the highest standards in the public interest. The first thing I wish to say to the Policing Minister and the Home Secretary is that the British model of neighbourhood policing is celebrated across the world. The model was responsible for a generation of progress on crime, but the Home Secretary’s remorselessly negative tone about the police, taken with ever fewer police officers doing ever more work, has demoralised the service, and we are now seeing soaring levels of sickness and stress.

[Andrew Gwynne]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. He is absolutely right to go back to the Labour success of neighbourhood policing. Is he as dismayed as I am about what is happening now? In my own constituency, neighbourhood policing is withering away, and officers are now being put on response duties. I accept that such duties are necessary, but so too is neighbourhood policing. This is undermining public confidence in the ability of the police to listen to the needs of communities.

[Jack Dromey]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Typically, what we see all over the country is a neighbourhood sergeant responsible for perhaps one or two teams and a number of PCSOs. Those who were previously part of the neighbourhood teams are now being put on response duties. Following a Home Office decision in 2012 there was a reclassification whereby some people on response were given local neighbourhood policing duties, even if they spent all their time on response, so the earlier assertions about our having more officers on the frontline are simply not right.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jack Dromey]

There has been an £8.5 million cut in real terms, contrary to what was said at the Dispatch Box. After a generation of progress, and despite the heroic efforts of the police and crime commissioner, Tony Lloyd, and the Greater Manchester police service, we are seeing profoundly worrying signs of crime starting to rise once again.

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend is right to point out the sleight of hand by the Government. The real unfairness to areas such as the west midlands and Greater Manchester is this: we have a relatively low council tax base, so the precept brings in relatively small amounts of funding—nothing like the amounts of funding that are being cut by the central Government grant. Added to that, those are the areas that tend to have higher crime rates, so need is not matched by resources. It is a double whammy for the urban areas and it penalises places such as Greater Manchester.

[Jack Dromey]

My hon. Friend sets out the case powerfully. There is no question but that need does not determine the way this Government allocate funds, whether to the police service or to local government. I will return to that point.

There was another broken promise. The Prime Minister said in 2010 that he would protect the frontline. Not true—12,000 front-line officers have since been lost. It was a broken promise and, to add insult to injury, not only are the Tories continuing to slash police funding, but they are expecting the public to pay more for it. The Tory sums rely upon local people being charged an extra £369 million in council tax. Our citizens and the communities we serve are being asked to pay more for less.

Social Security

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Monday 8th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)]

This is the first time I have debated with the Minister at the Dispatch Box, so I welcome him to his place and thank him for his—very brief—explanation of the draft proposals.

I want to use this opportunity to debate, clarify and scrutinise aspects of these important measures. As the Minister has outlined previously, the coalition Government legislated in the Pensions Act 2014 to introduce a new single-tier state pension for persons reaching state pension age on or after 6 April 2016.

A central principle of this legislation has been to maintain the earnings link, which was restored in the Pensions Act 2007, passed by a Labour Government. The coalition Government committed to increasing the basic state pension through the triple guarantee of earnings, prices or 2.5%, whichever is highest, from April 2011. The triple lock is a policy approach that Labour Members support—a position that was confirmed in our manifesto at last year’s general election.

Today, we are considering statutory instruments to implement and update key features of that settlement. For existing pensioners on the current state pension age scheme, the proposed 2.9% increase, which matches earnings as the highest rise of the three measures for this year, is a step in the right direction. A full basic state pension will therefore rise to £119.30 a week—an increase of £3.35.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

I welcome my hon. Friend to her Front-Bench position. The triple lock is all fine and well if one is in receipt of the state pension, but she will know that there is a group of women who have been deprived of their state pension, the WASPI—Women Against State Pension Inequality—women who were born in the 1950s. Does she agree that a triple lock on nothing is still nothing and that we need from this Government fair transitional arrangements for those women?

[Angela Rayner]

I thank my hon. Friend; I hope to touch on that later. I commend him and my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) for their campaigning on this issue for those women who feel that they have been let down by this Government.

The increased starting rate of £155.65 for the new flat-rate pension, to be introduced in April this year, is also broadly welcomed by Labour Members, although it is of course an increase of only 5p on the previous minimum guarantee of £155.60. Less welcome are the lack of communication, escalated timescales, poor management and utter confusion caused by what the former Pensions Minister, Steve Webb, said was meant to be “a simplified system”. Several aspects of the new legislation will have significant implications for current and future pensioners.

Under the new single-tier state pension, the Government intend that individuals qualifying for the new state pension will receive it on the basis of their own contributory record. The qualifying period to receive the full flat-rate pension goes up from the former 30 years of national insurance contributions to 35 years. There is therefore some concern about reports over the weekend suggesting that up to 4 million people retiring under the new scheme from April could receive an incorrect amount because their incomes are being calculated using data riddled with errors.

The Government are quick to jump on individuals or families who make errors in relation to tax credit or benefit claims, so it is, equally, incumbent on them to ensure that their own calculations are correct. The Minister has been prepared to set debt collectors on families who have received extra tax credit income because of the Department’s errors, so there will be understandable fear of the consequences where pensioners are overpaid due to any errors. Of course, if they are underpaid, the injustice will be obvious. It would therefore be helpful if the Minister gave us his assessment of the scale of these problems and said whether he believes that the press reports over the weekend are accurate. If the Government are encountering such problems, how does he plan to deal with them? What reassurances can he give to the millions of taxpayers potentially affected that they will get the correct amount that they were promised and are entitled to?

On a matter of equal importance, unlike the current state pension, under the new single-tier state pension an individual will no longer derive entitlement based on the national insurance record of their former spouse or civil partner. Though some transitional protection has been provided, the details are not at all clear. I am sure that Members in all parts of the House have constituents in rather desperate circumstances, trying to knit through the fog. A constituent recently contacted me. Her husband is terminally ill and on his deathbed, and he has expressed fears about what would happen to her under these transitional arrangements when he dies. They have no children, and his wife had stayed at home for many years while her husband provided for them both. She called the pensions helpline, but it was unable to offer any clarity or reassurance.

I have asked this question before, but I have yet to receive a satisfactory answer: can the Minister confirm that, in an extreme scenario, a woman with no entitlement in her own right who is widowed could end up with no state pension at all, as compared with the expected £119.95 she would have received under the current system? What are the Government doing to ensure that pensioners do not unfairly lose out and that people are given the correct information, so that they know the position they will be in? When asked how the Department was planning to communicate with those affected, the Minister for Welfare Reform, who of course sits in the other place and so is not here today, said, “You can’t foresee who is going to become widowed in future.” I think it is fair to say that that was not exactly a helpful reply. So perhaps the Minister who is with us today could provide some clarity on what action the Government are taking to communicate these changes, particularly to those with gaps in their record who are likely to be directly impacted.

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend is making an important point about the need to communicate any changes to social security and particularly to the state pension rules. She will know that one of the complaints of the WASPI women is that they have not been adequately notified or given proper transitional arrangements. Does she think that the Government ought to be doing a lot more to communicate the changes to the new state pension arrangements because some people will not benefit from this scheme?

[Angela Rayner]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: the Government do need to get their act together on communicating these changes. The general population out there expect nothing less than honesty and the frank information that the Government should be providing for them, so that they can make informed decisions about their future.

Will the Minister give a more specific estimate of who will be covered by transitional protection and how many people will lose out from these changes in future years? Once again, the Government’s track record on communicating pension changes falls well short of the standard that the public would hope and expect. When I met members of the National Pensioners Convention last week, they pointed out that many pensioners are now waking up to the fact that only a minority of those who reach the state pension age under the new system will receive the full flat rate of £155.65 proposed today, as confirmed by recent analysis published by the Minister’s Department. It estimates that only 37% of people reaching state pension age in 2016-17 will receive the full amount of the new state pension directly from the state. Millions of people will receive a significantly lower state pension in future, and some of them will be more than £500 a year worse off. The gloss from spinning the top-line full flat rate without the detail is rapidly starting to fade. Indeed, the Minister for Pensions herself has now admitted that the new state pension has been “oversold”.

It is clear that the Government should be doing far more to inform those affected, especially those who are nearing retirement and therefore have the least notice or time to consider the impact. In its interim report on the new state pension published in January, the Work and Pensions Committee reported:

“We heard evidence of a widespread lack of awareness among individuals about what they will receive and when. We were concerned to be told that the statements intended to rectify this were confusing and lacked necessary information.”

Age UK, among others, has called on the Government to do far more to contact people who are likely to be affected. It says:

“There are DWP materials highlighting credits and ways to increase the State Pension, but people need to know they may be affected. We believe the DWP should contact people with gaps in their record individually to highlight the changes and explain options.”

What are the Government doing to properly communicate the impact of the changes?

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend is being generous in giving way. We also need to have confidence that the information being communicated by the DWP is correct. She will remember from last week’s Westminster Hall debate that, as recently as last week—I have not checked whether this has been changed yet—the DWP was still communicating that the state pension age for women is 60.

[Angela Rayner]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point, which is central to what the WASPI campaigners have been arguing for some time and with which I have sympathy. The Government are failing to give adequate information and it is not readily available when people require it.

The DWP has produced analysis showing that the majority of people will be better off over the next 15 years, but what about after that? A close look at the figures reveals that, for those aged under 43 now—like me and many others in the House—the probability is that they will receive thousands of pounds less in state pension by the time they retire.

We do not hear much about the impact of the new state pension on the retirement income of future generations, and it is becoming increasingly clear why the Government are keen to keep quiet about it. Analysis that the shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith), has commissioned from the Library shows that those in their 40s now are likely to be £13,000 worse off over their retirement. Men in their 30s now are likely to be nearly £17,000 worse off, while women will lose more than £18,000. For the generation in their 20s now, the loss is likely to be more than £19,000 for men and £20,500 for women. Future generations will clearly be worse off.

By 2060, when today’s 20-year-olds are nearing retirement, the Government will be spending £28 billion a year less on state pension provision. That is a huge cut, and one that has not been given proper acknowledgement by the Government or, consequently, been properly scrutinised and debated in the House or more widely.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)]

May I start by welcoming the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) to the Front Bench? I was surprised that the Minister chose to move the regulations formally and that there is so little interest in debating them, not because there are deep-seated, fundamental disagreements about them, but because, given the significant changes that are about to take effect with the introduction and implementation of a brand new pension system in just a few weeks’ time, I would have thought there would be an appetite in the House to debate the issues and, indeed, to raise awareness among the public, who are still very much in the dark about the changes and their significance to their lives.

I will confine my remarks to a few of the key issues, some of which have already been touched on. I will start by addressing the State Pension (Amending) Regulations 2016. Although the new state pension will be set at £155.65 a week, very few people will actually get that amount. Indeed, even though the single-tier pension will be higher than the basic state pension, the net amount that some people will receive may be less than they would have got under the old system, because of the loss of means-tested benefits. Only 22% of women and 50% of men who reach state pension age in 2016-17 will get the new state pension in full. According to the National Pensioners Convention, almost six out of 10 new women pensioners and nearly half of new male pensioners—around 1 million people—will get less than the full amount.

[Andrew Gwynne]

The hon. Lady is making an important point, which is rather pertinent to some of my earlier interventions. Is it not incumbent on the Government and on Ministers to communicate those changes properly? Do we not run the risk of repeating some of the mistakes that have impacted on the WASPI women, because those people will be bitterly disappointed when they realise that they are not entitled to what they expected?

[Dr Whiteford]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. It is worth saying that successive Governments have failed to communicate adequately with pensioners about a system that is, undoubtedly, very complex. The hon. Gentleman alluded to the WASPI women, and they are the best example of the problem at the moment. They have seen the goalposts shifted several times. Many of them are still not entirely sure what they are going to get and when, and they have had contradictory information, even in very recent times, from the Government.

I come back to the new state pension. We are calling it a single-tier pension and making much of that flat rate, but, in reality, there will be many different rates depending on an individual’s personal circumstances. In other words, it is not going to be so simple. Inevitably, the introduction of the new system means that two systems will operate concurrently for several decades. The danger is that the state pension could be seen as a two-tier system, because some existing pensioners would be better off if they were included in the new state pension. I am fairly confident that all MPs will be inundated with approaches from constituents after April once those people work out that they have been short-changed in comparison with their friends, relatives and spouses who are on the new state pension.

We all understand that there will, inevitably, be a cliff-edge with the introduction of a new system, and that it is impossible to predict accurately whether someone will lose or gain from the new pension without a crystal ball to tell us how long they will live in retirement. Given all the inevitable anomalies, which will cause a huge sense of injustice, it is incumbent on the Government to introduce some flexibility in the system by letting people take a bit more responsibility for whether they are in the old or new system, so that at least it is their choice to take that gamble with their own life expectancy.

We need to acknowledge that, over time, the new system will be less generous for most people. Those born from 1970 onwards will mostly be worse off under the new arrangements. Those who have contributed to the system for longer—for example, those who moved into work at an early age and worked continuously—will also lose out significantly. On the other hand, there will be benefits for the self-employed and for those who, under universal credit, start to receive credits to the state pension for the first time. There will be winners and losers, but there will be more losers over time.

The new state pension is being introduced on a cost-neutral basis, but the reforms are eventually expected to reduce expenditure compared with cost projections for the existing system. We must also note that the different indexation arrangements for the two systems have the potential to lead to accusations that the Government are building inequality into the system. After April 2016, the new state pension will be uprated annually at least in line with earnings, as per the triple lock, and we all support that. However, my understanding is that an existing pensioner will have a triple lock on only the first £119.30 of their basic state pension, with a consumer prices index link on any state second pension above that level. If CPI inflation is lower than earnings growth, as it is now, the value of the state second pension will fall in real terms. That gap is likely to widen.

Around 7 million pensioners get some kind of state second pension payment, and the average payment is around £28 a week. Applying the same indexation arrangements to old and new state pensions to the same level would cost a modest sum relative to pension spending, but it would mean that both the basic and state second pension were linked to the triple lock. That would help the Government to avoid some of the disparities that are likely to develop in the coming years, and it would help to create a system that is more likely to be perceived to be fair.

I want to express disappointment about the fact that the Government are not uprating savings credit. Instead, it will fall in April from £14.82 to £13.07 for a single person, and from £17.43 to £14.75 for a couple, and it will no longer be available to new pensioners. The Government announced in November last year that savings credit would be further reduced for current recipients, but that reduction is not included in the order. I would be interested to hear whether Ministers have decided not to reduce the amount of savings credit, or when they intend to introduce regulations for that measure.

Savings credit supports pensioners on low incomes who have managed to save a small amount towards their retirement. The vast majority—around 80%—of those who receive it are women, many of whom will have spent their working lives in very low-paid jobs. They have had limited opportunity to save, but they have done so nevertheless. It seems to me that reducing savings credit, and abolishing it for new pensioners, sends exactly the wrong signal to people in low-paid jobs who feel as though they should be trying to save but who have little incentive to do so.

Before I conclude, I want to devote some attention to the part of the statutory instruments relating to the uprating—or rather, the non-uprating—of state pensions paid to those living overseas; this is the issue of so-called frozen pensions. Such state pensions are paid to people who have spent their working lives in the UK paying contributions towards the state pension, but who, for whatever reason, spend their retirement domiciled in countries that do not have a reciprocal arrangement with the UK for the uprating of state pensions. Those UK pensioners find that every year, while UK-domiciled pensioners and those living in other parts of the EU or countries with reciprocal arrangements receive an uprating, their pension remains frozen in cash terms at the amount it was when they retired. The value of their pension therefore falls every year in real terms, causing real hardship to those affected.

According to the explanatory memorandum attached to the order, more than 500,000 people are in that position. Most—more than 90%—live in Commonwealth countries such Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa, and also in India, Pakistan, parts of the Caribbean and Africa. In other words, they live in countries that have deep cultural and familial ties to the UK. Some have dual citizenship and others are UK citizens who have retired overseas to be close to family, but they all paid their contributions in good faith. The International Consortium of British Pensioners points out that a pensioner aged 90 who has lived in, say, Canada or Australia throughout their retirement will get a basic state pension of just £43.60 a week. If they had stayed in the UK, they would be receiving £115.95, which is due to go up as per this uprating. I just do not think that that is right. We are doing very badly by those people.

Those who are affected by frozen pensions had no choice about whether to pay national insurance contributions —doing so was mandatory. We must remember that many of them lived and worked in a rapidly changing and globalising world in the post-war era, when few would have paid much attention to the small-print of their state pension arrangements. It seems to me wholly unfair that a pensioner who retires to the USA will get their full uprated pension, whereas a pensioner in Canada will continue to receive their pension at its original level. Clearly, there would be a cost attached to uprating, but the Government must offset that against the costs that would have been incurred if those individuals had chosen to remain in the UK. The Government estimate that every pensioner who lives abroad saves the public purse on average around £3,800 each year in health and social care costs alone.

It is hard to measure the deterrent effect of frozen pensions. Pensioners who would like to retire close to their children and grandchildren in other parts of the Commonwealth are prevented from doing so by the knowledge that a key component of their retirement income would not keep pace with the cost of living. A partial uprating such as that advocated by the all-party parliamentary group on frozen British pensions would cost around £30 million and represent a tiny 0.03% of pension spending, but it would signal that those pensioners were not forgotten.

We all want fair and sustainable pensions that provide enough support for our elderly population to enjoy a dignified and comfortable old age, but the arrangements must be fair, and must be seen to be fair, if we are to maintain confidence in the system for future generations. I hope that the Minister will consider and respond fully to the points that I have raised.

Transitional State Pension Arrangements for Women

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2016 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) for the eloquent way that she opened this debate. May I also say what a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer? I welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) to her Front-Bench position. Mainly, however, I pay tribute to the WASPI women—Women Against State Pension Inequality. I have stood with them for quite some time because there is a real injustice here and it is about time that Parliament served these women as well as it ought to.

Mr Stringer, in future we will probably need a bigger venue and more time for a debate on these issues, and the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) has proved that someone does not need 23 minutes to make a good speech but they certainly need 23 minutes to make a bad one.

Hon. Members will know that my interest in this issue is a long-standing one, and for good reason. They will also know that when constituents come to an MP in numbers and tell them that the Government are doing them an injustice, the MP’s ears perk up and they just know that something big is coming. Well, 140,000 signatures on an e-petition is something pretty big and that is why I pay tribute to those women who have secured those signatures.

The problem is not a new one. When these women realised what had been done to them, they found it difficult to get their voices heard. What I knew was that often women of that age have not had the best luck in life. Women in their 60s still earn 14% less than men and many do not have private pensions. Until 1995, women who worked part time were not even allowed to join company pension schemes, and others did not qualify because they took time away from work because of ill health or to fulfil a caring role.

I do not want to repeat what other Members have said or predict what others will say, but I will make a few brief points, to which I hope the Minister listens carefully. First, when the Pensions Act 2011 was debated on the Floor of the House in June 2011, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions said:

“We will consider transitional arrangements.”—[Official Report, 20 June 2011; Vol. 530, c. 52.]

These ladies are still waiting for those “transitional arrangements” and time is quickly running out. I hope that when the Minister comes to respond, he will finally set out what these “transitional arrangements”, which these women were promised, are.

I am sure that the Secretary of State, wherever he is, knows that we will not stop asking questions about this issue; we have raised it many times before and we will raise it again, In the previous debate on the issue, I said that the WASPI ladies were, like wasps, not easy to bash away; when someone tries to bash a wasp, they get angry and they come back and sting. I fear that the Minister is in for multiple stings unless he changes his ways.

I will very briefly mention the Second Reading debate in 1995. In opposition, the Labour party, under Tony Blair, tabled an amendment to point out that the Pensions Act 1995

“does not fully reflect the importance of pensions as a form of deferred pay, takes too rigid an approach to the equal treatment of men and women under the State pension scheme, and includes a range of proposals designed to undermine the State Earnings-Related Pension Scheme and disadvantage occupational as against private pension provision.”

The Conservative Government at that time ignored that amendment, which fell by 267 votes to 228. The amendment summed up our concerns about the 2011 Act, and we made much the same point in the debates about that Act.

Who else shared our concerns in 2011? Well, the current Minister for Pensions, Baroness Altmann, did. Back in 2011, in the same month when the 2011 Act had its Second Reading, she said:

“Ministers must listen to reason on this issue. The current plans are unfair and may, indeed, be illegal in public law terms”.

It is amazing what a subsequent ministerial salary can do. That is the biggest conversion since St Paul on the road to Damascus.

A number of constituents have come to me, including one who worked for the Department for Work and Pensions who said that even she was not aware of many of the changes. Indeed, the WASPI women have today been tweeting that the DWP website still says that the state pension age is 60. What a farce! I hope that the Minister will do the decent thing, listen to these women and give them the justice they deserve and the transition they want.