Women’s State Pension Age: Ombudsman Report

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Thursday 16th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

It is a privilege to speak in the debate. When my constituents who have made a complaint come to see me, we quite often get to a stage at which I recommend the ombudsman to them. I regularly say to them, “Have faith: ombudsmen quite often find in favour of the complainant.” Ombudsmen are there for a purpose. We cannot merely support the institution of the ombudsman when it makes a convenient finding for the Government of the day. We have to accept its decisions if we are to have an ombudsman. We all know that trust in politics, politicians and MPs is at something of a low point at the moment, no matter what party we are in. I think that is very unfair, because most people in this House, of all parties, are decent people doing their best for their constituents and working very hard, so that reduction in trust really worries me. The response of the Government and Parliament to the ombudsman’s report is really important, because it touches on the issue of trust in our institutions, which have been through a very difficult time.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I warmly welcome the thrust of my hon. Friend’s argument. For the benefit of the record, I draw his attention and that of the House to paragraph 459 of the report, which states:

“For most sample complainants we consider the primary injustice is that they were denied opportunities to make informed decisions about some things, and to do some things differently, because of maladministration in DWP’s communication about State Pension age. That is a material injustice.”

[Andrew Selous]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. What he says is accurate. He quotes from the report; it was in July 2021 that the ombudsman found maladministration. In the report on 21 March, it said that that had led to an injustice. Like my right hon. Friend, I will quote briefly from the ombudsman. It said of the Department for Work and Pensions that

“in 2005 it failed to take adequate account of the need for targeted and individually tailored information. In 2006, DWP proposed writing directly to women individually to let them know their State Pension age had changed, but it then failed to act promptly. We found that if DWP had made a reasonable decision about next steps in 2005, and then acted promptly, it would have begun writing to affected women by December 2006.”

My right hon. Friend and other Members will have seen that in the back of the report, there is a table showing what should have happened when.

I, too, have constituents who wrote to me to say that they were very close to the age of 60 at the time. Some had worked all their working life, since the age of 15 or so. They had made all their plans on the basis that they could get their pension at 60, and they literally found out about the change from colleagues in the workplace, sometimes very shortly before they thought they were due to retire.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Andrew Selous]

I will, briefly, but it will probably be the last intervention, as I take heed of what Mr Deputy Speaker said.

[Christine Jardine]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. The point he makes rings true for me. The very first constituent who came to me with a problem when I was elected seven years ago was a WASPI woman. She was less than two years away from retirement when she learned by accident of the change. Seven years on, she is no better off; in a lot of ways, she is much worse off. A lot of those who are not WASPI women now wonder if they know the truth about when they will get their pension. Does he agree that although this issue is fundamentally about the WASPI women, it is about trust, and women having trust in this institution?

[Andrew Selous]

I agree. The issue of trust is really important, one that this House should not take lightly.

In my South West Bedfordshire constituency, it is estimated that there are 6,000 women in this situation. The cost of their compensation, at level 4, as recommended by the ombudsman, would be £6 million at the lower level, and at the upper level £17.7 million. If we extrapolate from that to the UK, I think the sum is £3.9 billion at the lower end and £11.5 billion at the upper end. We must be honest; I believe in honesty in politics. These are large sums—very large, when we add the amount that we will have to pay the postmasters and postmistresses, for whom we are also all campaigning, and the sums for the victims of the infected blood scandal, for whom most of us are also campaigning; and then there are other campaigns, such as the one relating to Equitable Life.

[Patricia Gibson]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Andrew Selous]

I will because it is the hon. Lady, but this must be the last intervention.

[Patricia Gibson]

The hon. Gentleman talked about the way in which the bill for all these compensation schemes is mounting. Does that not merely underline the importance of competent government?

[Andrew Selous]

Of course it is best if Governments get these things right, but government is difficult, and Governments of all parties will make mistakes because they are human. However, I am making a different point on honesty about the overall Government finances. When I was taught economics, a long time ago, I was made aware of the notion of opportunity cost. We can only spend the same pound once, and if we are to spend billions on one thing, we must be honest about the other things on which we cannot spend money—things that the WASPI women may very much want—or the services we will have to cut, or the taxes we will have to raise.

I have tried to find out from the Library how the Treasury reserves work, and how we can account nationally for a contingency fund to deal with issues such as this. We just need a bit of honesty here, as a Parliament. If we are to do the right thing by the WASPI women—as I believe we should; I want us to, and we should do the same for those other groups—we need to consider a fund in the Treasury reserves that is dedicated to contingencies, although it might not be large enough to pay out on every cause in the way we would like; perhaps the nation would not be able to afford that. While I absolutely back the justice of the cause of the WASPI women, and while I think we should honour what the ombudsman said, or at least move towards doing that, we need to be honest about the nation’s finances and the other calls on the Exchequer.

Let me finish where I began—I will be brief, heeding Mr Deputy Speaker’s injunction. This comes back to the question of trust. We agree with the umpire not just when we are in favour of the umpire’s decision. Either we have an ombudsman or we do not, and while the ombudsman’s finding may be uncomfortable or inconvenient, it is neverthe- less the finding, and we should do the right thing.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Monday 18th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

As the hon. Lady will know, there are ongoing discussions on these matters. By virtue of the legislation that underpins those interactions, the discussions are necessarily held in private. I am informed that they have resulted in positive engagement, and that the Department and the EHRC will come forward with a response as soon as possible.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

T8. The world’s biggest Lidl warehouse, in Houghton Regis, is not only half a kilometre long and can deliver 9,400 pallets a day; it is also creating 1,500 jobs. What specific help can Jobcentre Plus give to employers such as Lidl, which has a huge number of vacancies to fill in my constituency?

[Jo Churchill]

It is fantastic to hear of the job opportunities created by Lidl in South West Bedfordshire. I know my hon. Friend will be working hard with Lidl and his local jobcentre to make sure the vacancies are filled with local talent. Jobcentres can work closely with large employers, as I have recently seen at Morrisons, which has a specific neurodiversity pilot to bring people into the job market. The barriers that restrict neurodiverse people are often challenges around confidence and so on. Jobcentres are a brilliant force for good, and I recommend that everybody engages with them on bespoke schemes for neurodiversity or any other focus on tackling long-term unemployment.

Local Housing Allowance and Homelessness

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Wednesday 24th July 2019 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey, in this really important debate. The hon. Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma) is absolutely right: this is a very key issue. Unless we get housing right, it will not be possible to deal with so many of the other issues that concern us, in the context of eradicating poverty, improving life chances, improving education and dealing with poor health. Housing is the absolute foundation of the decent, civilised society that all of us in the Chamber want to see.

What have we seen over the last few years? We are starting to see a rise in home ownership in the younger generation—35 to 44-year-olds; that is starting to inch up. Last year, we managed to build more homes than were built in all but one of the last 31 years. As my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing says, we need to build more and better-quality homes and we need to do that much more quickly than we have managed so far.

We also want to see longer-term tenancies. I am pleased with the moves that the Government are making in that direction. It is absolutely right that we also crack down on rogue landlords, because they should have no place in a decent society.

It is very welcome that the Government accepted the calls from the Local Government Association and others to scrap the housing borrowing cap. The Local Government Association advises that that will lead to the building of up to 10,000 new homes a year. That is a significant contribution towards the estimated 100,000 new social homes a year that are desperately needed.

I support councils in wanting to encourage home ownership, but we must do that without a corresponding decline in the number of social rented homes. That is why it is so important that councils be able to keep 100% of the receipts from right-to-buy sales to invest in new affordable housing.

I am sure that all of us in the Chamber have frustrations about the planning system and the way in which we build houses in this country. I understand that in April the Local Government Association advised that there were 423,000 homes for which permission had been given to build but which still had not been built. The issue of slow build-out rates has gone on far too long. In my own constituency, up to about 13,000 homes in total are being built to the north of Houghton Regis and part of Luton. The end date for that development—for the final houses—will not be until some point in the early 2030s. That is simply too long—and unacceptable, given that there is desperate housing need now.

I wonder whether we need to be more imaginative about what we do on the big sites for which planning permission has been given, to which houses have been allocated—the houses are going to come—but which are left empty for years and years, even though there is desperate housing need. When I have taken my family away on summer holidays, we have stayed in a luxury-type chalet caravan park on various weeks away. Would it be possible to look at having that type of housing, on a temporary basis, on those huge sites where there are no houses but houses are planned? As the permanent houses were built, we could move those units off to other sites where we were waiting to build. That is not a long-term solution, but this is a really urgent issue—it is an “Action this day” issue. We need new, fresh, more imaginative thinking about how we meet the very urgent housing need that the hon. Member for Ealing, Southall set out very clearly and vividly for all of us in his speech.

If we build zero-energy-bill homes, the people who need these new homes will have more money for food, clothes and the household budget in general. It is possible to build houses that have no net gas and electricity bills; they are no more expensive to build than conventional homes. British architects such as Bill Dunster are building such homes now. I hope to have some in my constituency shortly. We are all asking why all new homes are not zero-energy-bill homes. That would help us to meet our net zero target and help poorer people to live within their means: if they do not have to pay gas and electricity bills, they will have more money for food and clothes, and to take their children on a family holiday.

We can do this; we just need to get on with it. To see how we can do it, hon. Members can visit the Building Research Establishment in Watford. We pay £23.5 billion a year in local housing allowance. The real answer is to build more. If we build more, we can solve a whole range of problems that concern us all.

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[Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship this morning, Mr Bailey.

A stone’s throw from St Philip’s Cathedral, on the steps of the House of Fraser, in the heart of Birmingham’s business district, there is a shrine. It is marked with flowers, photos and expressions of feelings. Here, in the wealthiest quarter of the second city of the fifth richest country on Earth is the latest memorial to a man who died homeless on the streets. “You are unforgettable, Miguel”, reads one dedication. That is right. It is right that we remember this man in our city. It is right that we hear and remember his name in the House of Commons. And it is right that we remember the names of the 90 people, along with him, who have died homeless in our city since 2013, many on the streets of the second city in this country.

Those people are the citizens who we collectively have failed, so I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma). I personally believe that we should be debating every day the deadly doctrine behind this death toll, because be under no illusion: this is now a moral emergency and it requires from the new Prime Minister today an emergency response.

In Birmingham, rough sleeping has now risen by almost 1,000% since 2010, yet that is just the visible crisis that we can see. The invisible crisis is just as bad. In total, 20,000 people—the size of a small town—along with 5,000 children are now lodged in temporary accommodation. They are cursed to move every couple of weeks, when it is time to rebook. Be under no illusion: these are futures that are now being sacrificed, as every single one of us who has had to support children taking their GCSEs from a Travelodge will now know.

[Andrew Selous]

The right hon. Gentleman is making a very powerful and moving speech. Of the 90 people who died, is he aware how many had drug issues at the same time? I absolutely accept that decent housing helps people to get over drug problems, but does he know the proportion that were involved with drugs?

[Liam Byrne]

We do not know, because obviously there is not a safeguarding adult review for everyone who dies. There should be a safeguarding adult review for everyone who dies, because my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Southall made a sensible but crucial point: that local housing allowance is absolutely part of this crisis. He is absolutely right. The average LHA in Birmingham, which is £132 a week, covers only two thirds of the cost of a median home in our city. However, it would be delusional to pretend, as our current Mayor has tried to do, that local housing allowance is somehow the nub of the changes we need to make.

The truth is that to fund tax cuts for the lucky, this Government have reduced social insurance for the unlucky to a clutch of shreds and patches. This Government have now cut back so hard that social insurance in this country is now in systems failure. I know the Minister will say that it was a hard choice, but the truth is that it was the wrong choice. The tax cuts that have been handed out to British corporates now total £110 billion. Overwhelmingly, that money has either gone back to shareholders or is lodged in those corporates’ bank accounts. It was the wrong choice, because rather than strengthen the hand that helps, this Government chose to feather the nests of those who already had plenty.

I will illustrate the systems failure that we now face. From all my interviews with homeless citizens in Birmingham through the long nights, what has become clear is that three systems are needed: a benefits system, a health system and a housing system. All three are now in crisis. Mental health caseloads in our region are now rising four times faster than funding. Addiction services in our region have been cut back by between 12% and 20%. The University of Birmingham has concluded that the health services provided to homeless people are now so bad that those people are actually being denied access to basic health services. Housing benefit hands cash to the landlords of houses in multiple occupation in a way that is completely unregulated, with no obligation on them to provide much-needed counselling or support. There is no regulation of private landlords worthy of its name, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) said, the conditions that we now contend with are absolutely disgraceful.

We are building affordable homes in our region so slowly that it will take us until the 2050s to clear the council waiting lists across the region, which now number well over 50,000. Just to add insult to injury, although the Government promised £211 million to build new homes, according to parliamentary questions they have handed out only £2 million. That means that £209 million is left in the Treasury when we have people dying on the streets of our city.

--- Later in debate ---

[Will Quince]

The right hon. Gentleman tempts me down a road that is wholly outside my remit. That is a question for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and my counterpart or the Housing Minister in that Department. The right hon. Gentleman knows that he has tools in his arsenal—he can write to that Minister or secure an Adjournment debate, or he could catch the Minister around the Estate later on to ask that question. If I see him, I will raise it, but I think the right hon. Gentleman might be able to find his own salvation by raising it personally with the relevant Minister.

[Andrew Selous]

Can I take the Minister back to the point about mortgage lenders and difficulties in lending to people on benefits? Will his officials have a look at what has happened in France recently? My understanding is that, certainly in previous years, the French Government set up a system for people on benefits and low incomes to get on the housing ladder in association with a number of French banks. We should study that to see if there are any lessons for us in the UK. Would he undertake to ask his officials to have a look at that system?

[Will Quince]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention; I was not aware of that scheme and will certainly look at it—it sounds very interesting. Subject to being in post in 24 or 48 hours, I will certainly commit to looking at that and to coming back to him with my thoughts.

Numerous Members, including the hon. Members for Ealing, Southall, and for Westminster North, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) and the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O'Hara), all raised the issue of housing for social rent. This is also an area that I am hugely passionate about. Local housing allowance rates and debates such as this are only half of the story. We must look at how we can increase the supply of housing that is affordable to people on low incomes to create a more sustainable system over the longer term.

I am keen to continue my work with colleagues in MHCLG to support them in looking at how we can increase the supply of housing for social and affordable rent and what more my Department might be able to do to achieve that. I urge my hon. Friends and hon. Members—not that I am supposed to—to address the issue of housing supply with my counterparts in MHCLG and to lobby accordingly. It is a hugely important issue. I share the thoughts of my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire when he says that at the heart of the route for tackling poverty, improving health outcomes and improving educational attainment and employability is a secure and stable home, and that is something that we should prioritise.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Monday 7th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

I can reassure the hon. Gentleman that there has been no change. We are continuing with the plan to have a pilot of 10,000 people, which we will use to ensure that the managed migration in 2020 happens in the most effective, efficient and compassionate way.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

While some employers do fantastic work to help ex-offenders into work, do Ministers agree that we now need some disclosure, to show up employers that blatantly discriminate against ex-offenders for no good reason to stop them getting jobs?

[Guy Opperman]

I agree with my hon. Friend, and I applaud his campaign to “ban the box”. More companies should be like Timpson, which has been an outstanding employer and has conclusively proved that employing ex-offenders is good policy and that they make great employees.

Universal Credit

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Wednesday 17th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

The right hon. Gentleman has raised the issue, and I can understand and empathise with the enormous frustration, not to say irritation, that he and doubtless his constituent feels. His constituent probably feels genuinely let down in this situation, and I will speak to the Parliamentary Security Director about it. As the right hon. Gentleman says, there is a balance, and he speaks with a very considerable personal knowledge and experience of security matters, both from his past career and from his time serving as a Minister. I will discuss it with the Parliamentary Security Director, and I will come back to the right hon. Gentleman as quickly as I can.

On the big picture issue, nobody should have to wait an hour and a half to get into this place, and if that has happened an apology is due, and it should not continue to happen. As colleagues will know, I do not have operational control in this place. I do my best to promote good policy, but I do not have operational control. If this happens, it should not do so: it is not an acceptable state of affairs. I will try to get a satisfactory response for the right hon. Gentleman. I will come back to him when I have further and better particulars, and that will be soon.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. This is quite a long-standing problem. On Tuesday and Wednesday mornings, visitors regularly wait for an hour or more at the Portcullis House entrance—often elderly visitors, in the heat. My right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning) is absolutely right that need to address the issue. The way we are treating visitors to this place is unacceptable.

[Mr Speaker]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for what he has said. I do not know for certain whether there are capacity constraints, but if there are, to put it in simple terms, insufficient people available to do the screening and a greater resource is required, I am very happy to see a greater resource. I think the track record shows that I have been very happy to see increases in expenditure in the House. We take note of Government spending but are not obliged to mirror Government spending—the House can spend money as the House thinks fit, within its estimate, and seek a revised estimate if necessary. This must not be driven by resources; the priority is to do what is right by the public and to find the resource to ensure that we can do that. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will understand—he is a very reasonable person—that I cannot give a fuller answer than that now, but I will take both points away. I hope that both he and the right hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning) will feel that they have been heard and understood.

Marriage in Government Policy

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Tuesday 30th January 2018 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I apologise in advance that I will not be able to stay for the whole debate; I am a member of the Select Committee on Health, which is sitting at the moment, and I need to attend that, too.

We need to tread gently in this area. Marriage is often an issue of great cultural controversy, but it does not need to be. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (Luke Graham) said, we represent every single one of our constituents, whatever their family situation, but that does not mean that we should not strongly support healthy, respectful and mutually encouraging marriages. We can do both those things without creating unnecessary cultural controversy.

Of course I recognise that some marriages need to end. My parents sadly divorced, and—my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) said something similar—my wife would say that I have often been very much less than a perfect husband. However, I am strongly pro-marriage as a public institution, for three reasons. First, we know that it reduces poverty. I came into the House to reduce poverty. I spoke about it in my maiden speech; for me, it is at the heart of what the Conservative party is about.

Secondly, marriage increases wellbeing across an enormous range of indicators—perhaps a wider range than we realise. On any measure—overall physical and mental health, income, savings, employment, educational success, general life contentment and happiness, sexual satisfaction, and even recovery from serious disease and healthy diet and exercise—married people rate markedly and consistently better. We should want the best possible wellbeing for all our constituents.

Thirdly, I believe that sustainable public finances are the only future for this country, and strong families and marriages are essential to helping the Government live within their means. Given his portfolio in the Department for Work and Pensions, the Minister will be well aware of that.

There are lots of reasons to be positive about marriage. We sometimes approach the subject slightly gloomily, as if it is all going irreversibly downhill and there is nothing we can do about it, but I am grateful to the Marriage Foundation and Paul Coleridge for giving us reasons to be cheerful at the start of 2018. It is a fact that most marriages—around 62%, according to the Marriage Foundation—still last for life. Most parents who marry before having children stay together, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) said. Most marriages are happy, and the divorce rate is at its lowest since 1973. The trend away from marriage has stopped; its popularity is stabilising. Marriage has remained consistently strong among certain income groups. Finally, this is a royal wedding year. Will and Kate’s wedding in 2011 was followed by the biggest increase in marriage since the war—weddings increased by 23% in the first quarter of 2012 and by 11% in the second quarter—so we might well see something similar after May.

I am concerned by the social divide in marriage. The better-off have always married in large numbers, and they continue to do so, but in our poorest communities, which have the most challenging circumstances, the marriage rate is plummeting. It is my strong contention that a respectful, healthy, mutually enabling marriage is a bulwark against poverty and all the difficulties that life throws at us from time to time.

I have four policy requests of the Minister. First, will he ensure that registrars, who conduct about 70% of weddings, signpost people to good-quality marriage preparation in their area? That is not difficult to do, and we are not talking about forcing people to do anything. However, there is generally good feedback from people who do marriage preparation, and they often want to follow it up with marriage MOTs later on to keep the marriage strong, which is also a sensible idea. Can we therefore please do something to spread good-quality marriage preparation, followed by marriage enrichment later on?

Secondly, can we do something in antenatal education for all families? At that time, mums and dads turn up in huge numbers before a child is born, so let us do something to strengthen relationships then.

Thirdly, the Government are about to launch guidance on relationships and sex education. We need to talk about marriage there, while recognising that families come in many different shapes. It is crucial that marriage is not absent from that document, and those of us on the Government Benches will expect to see it.

Finally, I reiterate the point made eloquently by my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives. We need to measure this issue. We value what we measure, and we measure what we value. We need to get marriage back in the statistics. We need to know what is happening, to track it and to ensure there is an upward trend.

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[Mr Duncan Smith]

Not really. I do not accept that at all. Universal credit operates by looking at the household, which makes it more likely that couples are supported to stay together. The hon. Lady knows that the vast majority of married people—and, by the way, even cohabiting people—have joint accounts. The figure is way over 80%, and I think it is close to 90%. For those in an exceptional position, it is clear that the money will follow the person with the duty of care. Those rules are written into universal credit, so I simply do not agree with the hon. Lady. I think that universal credit will help enormously to get rid of what I and the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field) referred to as the couple penalty.

The cost of weddings is another issue that we need to consider. There is an idea that people cannot get married now unless they have a fantastic celebrity wedding. The average cost of a wedding is now more than £20,000, whereas what people actually need is a marriage licence. There should be pre-wedding education to tell people: “You do not need to make such a big fuss about it. What you want to do is get married.” One big reason for so many marriages breaking up—probably more than anything else—is debt. If people start married life in debt because of making such a big issue of it, that puts enormous pressure on couples.

[Andrew Selous]

A pastor in my constituency told me something that struck me, which was that up to the early 1980s many couples who married were happy to live in rented accommodation, perhaps with other people’s crockery and cutlery. They did not need everything to be perfect, but later on that changed and people felt they needed all new white goods, and so on. That may have been a disincentive to marriage. Does my right hon. Friend recognise that picture?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I think that with the whole Hello! culture around the idea that people have to have a perfect fairy-tale wedding, no one is preparing them for the fact that once they are married, they will make compromises and face huge difficulties and stresses, and it is about how they cope with those. That would be far better than telling them some fantastic fairy tale: “Nothing will ever be a problem, and you’ll live happily ever after.” No relationship I have ever seen has ever been like that. The question is how to manage it, and preparing people properly for that is an enormously important feature of what we do.

The other area I will talk about is counselling. Earlier on, when I was in Government, we drove through more money to help support marriage guidance and counselling. The one thing we know, and some of them will say this, is that with the proper counselling and support probably close to half the families that are heading for break-up can change, re-stabilise and stay together. That is a critical point. We are now investing £30 million in that, yet the price of the after-effects of break-up is numbered at closer to £50 billion.

Even though I have argued for more money to go in, and I thank the Government for putting more money in, it seems like a pretty mealy-mouthed concept that we invest so little money, when that money really reaps a dividend in stabilising families and helping them stay together. If it were anything else in life, we would consider it a major benefit that that amount of money returned such a phenomenal cost saving. That cost of £50 billion would fall quite dramatically. My hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) mentioned the stability on divorce; one of the reasons for that is that we started investing in marriage guidance and counselling. Imagine what we could do if we spent even more money on getting people immediately into counselling. That would have a huge effect, and I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to view that straight away.

The last point is marriage prep. I stand with all those who say that the key thing is to educate people to understand what it really means to start out on arguably the most important agreement they will ever make. People get terribly fussed about being members of things like golf clubs, where there are all sorts of peculiar and stupid rules around what they can and cannot wear, and everyone is very strict about it. If we mention that there are things people can and cannot do in marriage, however, everyone immediately says, “This is not something we need to lecture people about. We should not talk about it.” The answer is that the most important thing we will ever do is to form that relationship and ultimately, if we are lucky, to bring up children, and we want to make it as stable as possible.

If any Government sit there and worry about what people will say when they say they support marriage, because some will break up and there will be problems, we will never get anywhere. We now need to make the case for stability and strength, and help those who are unable to make that process.

State Pension Age: Women

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Wednesday 29th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Guy Opperman]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. I recognise that he has more than 25 years’ experience of working in the pensions industry through his previous journalistic work. The reality is that if the Pensions Acts 1995 and 2011 were to be revoked, it would cost well in excess of £70 billion. If we were to follow the path set out in the Labour party manifesto, which would keep the state pension age at 66, it would cost approximately £250 billion compared with the itinerary set out by the independent review commissioned by the Government and produced by John Cridland.

The Cridland review is very clear on that point. It says:

“In 1917 King George V sent the first telegrams to those celebrating their 100th birthday. 24 were sent that year. In 2016 around 6,000 people will have received a card from Her Majesty the Queen. In 2050, we expect over 56,000 people to reach this milestone.

Three factors are at play here: a growing population; an ageing population as the Baby Boomers retire; and an unprecedented increase in life expectancy. A baby girl born in 2017 can expect to live to be 94 years and a boy to be 91. By 2047 it could well be 98 and 95 respectively…The world of the Third Age is now a very different one, in which those lucky enough to get the State Pension will on average spend almost a third of their adult life in retirement, a proportion never before reached.”

It was clear that the Government had to act.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

Can the Minister tell us what specific help Jobcentre Plus is able to give older women to help them to retrain or to reskill to find age-appropriate work? That is a question that a number of older women often ask. What specific help is out there for them?

[Guy Opperman]

Having visited his local jobcentre, my hon. Friend will be aware that a great deal of assistance is provided by the job coaches. However, help comes not just from job coaches and jobcentres but from local job clubs, which I am sure exist in his constituency, as they do in mine; from individual flexible working arrangements; and from jobs fairs, which a number of colleagues have mentioned. I have done three myself, culminating in the last one in September, which was highly successful. There is also all manner of private sector support on an ongoing basis.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Monday 9th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

Universal credit is adding to what the Government have already been doing—ensuring that work is at the heart of welfare. That is why we have 3 million more jobs than we did in 2010. Welfare reform is part of the reason for that, and it is part of the reason why we will continue to press on with reforming the welfare state to encourage work and help people to progress in work.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

May I warmly welcome advance payments within five days and immediate needs payments the same day as a definite step forward? Given the reasonably high levels of adult illiteracy and poor computer skills in some areas, can the Secretary of State say something about how volunteers might be able to work alongside personal advisers to help people fill in the application form in the first place?

[Mr Gauke]

It is important that people filling in forms receive the necessary support, but jobcentre staff provide that support. Voluntary organisations may be able to assist, but Jobcentre Plus staff are already giving the intensive support necessary to help people to complete the applications.

Marriage Week

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Wednesday 1st February 2017 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) for his tremendous speech, which I strongly support.

The most powerful statistic in this whole area is that, of all the parents who are still together when their children reach the age of 15, 93% are married. That says so much about why marriage matters. As MPs, we are here for all our constituents—we are here for the single mums who do an amazing job, and we are here for people who are not married—but it is right to celebrate marriage as a massively important social institution that builds resilience and is clearly really good for our children.

Three quarters of 20 to 24-year-olds say that they want to marry, so the aspiration for our younger people is very much there. Likewise, three quarters of lone parents and almost nine in 10 step-parents agree that it is appropriate and necessary for the Government to send the message that having two parents is important. That is all worth putting on record.

The Austrian political economist Joseph Schumpeter said that in a modern consumer economy, people might end up living for the present rather than having projects for the future. That involves things like saving less and borrowing more. Critically, he said that there would be less willingness for people to make long-term commitments to one another. Of course, the greatest long-term commitment that we can make is a marriage in which we bring up children.

There is so much more that we can do, including really good marriage preparation and really good marriage MOTs. We all get our cars serviced once a year; we spend time and money on it because we think it is important. But how much more important it is to have a look under the bonnet of our marriages, to make sure that what started off romantically, but might now feel a bit like running a small business with an ex-girlfriend, stays on track.

[Mr Burrowes]

My hon. Friend has been a great champion of marriage for many years. He also has experience in Bedfordshire with voluntary organisations that try to help couples, particularly those who have just had a child. Some Government funding was coming through for such projects; does he know whether any progress has been made?

[Andrew Selous]

I am very pleased that the last Prime Minister doubled the amount of spending on relationship support across Government, as my hon. Friend already mentioned, but there are real pressures on the sector and on the Relationships Alliance. I will meet the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions next week to discuss those issues.

[Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)]

Was my hon. Friend as surprised as I was to learn that last year the Government spent more money on repairing cathedrals than on supporting marriage and family relationships? Will he join me in calling on the Government to put more resources into supporting marriage?

[Andrew Selous]

I am a great supporter of cathedrals, as I am sure my hon. Friend is, but it should not be either/or. We need to take care of the living as well as the buildings in which people celebrate great events.

I will end my short contribution by stating the importance not only of marriage preparation but of really good ongoing marriage support. I am afraid that many churches often provide some of the worst after-sales service of any organisation I know. We all get into bad habits—I put my hand up to that, and my wife would be the first to draw attention to it—but just one evening a year can make a huge difference. We do it for our cars, so why not for our marriages?

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Nokes]

I am sure that is also a matter for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, and recently it has been a subject that my own constituents have raised with me, following some publicity about take-up of the marriage tax allowance.

This debate is an opportunity for us to celebrate the diversity and vibrancy of marriage as the basis for family life across the United Kingdom, and we recognise that supportive families can come in many different shapes and sizes.

When it comes to the critical issue of improving children’s outcomes, the evidence shows that it is not the structure of a family that is important but the quality of the relationship between the parents. Recent research by the Early Intervention Foundation has shown that children exposed to frequent, intense and poorly resolved inter-parental conflict have poorer outcomes in later life. We also know that an improvement in parenting skills does not mitigate the worst effects if relationship issues are not addressed.

It is an unfortunate fact of life that marriages can and do break down, but the Government have been clear that, even when a family has separated, both parents still have a positive role to play in the lives of their children. Evidence shows that parental collaboration has a direct and positive impact on child outcomes. As we have heard, children tend to have better health, emotional wellbeing and higher academic attainment if they grow up with parents who have a good relationship and who are able to manage conflict well. That is why we are committed to supporting healthy relationships between parents—whether married or cohabiting, together or separated—in the best interests of children.

[Andrew Selous]

I just wonder whether the Minister could reflect on the statistic that 93% of couples who are still together when their children reach the age of 15 are married. Does that not speak very powerfully, notwithstanding what she said about the recent research by the Early Intervention Foundation?

[Caroline Nokes]

I thank my hon. Friend for that comment and I will shortly make some very specific points about marriage that I know will make everybody very happy.

Over 48,000 couples have participated in counselling and more than 17,000 practitioners have been trained to help families in difficulty in the last four years, during which we have invested more than £30 million in services offering support to couples, to reduce parental conflict. In total, 160,000 people have been given access to support, to reduce that conflict. Alongside that, our ongoing child maintenance reforms are delivering a new programme designed to increase collaboration and reduce conflict between separated parents.

Our current programme was designed without the benefit of the latest evidence about the importance of good inter-parental relationships, while a focus on national commissioning of services makes it hard to establish effective referral mechanisms from local services. This means that, in some areas, take-up remains low, despite the prevalence of relationship distress. The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) made an important intervention earlier and we will soon announce plans to procure new services to help disadvantaged parents, and others, to address parental conflict.

Improving Lives: Work, Health and Disability Green Paper

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

It would be premature of me to try to set targets on either of those. The sensible thing is to take practical steps. For example, we are more than doubling the number of disability employment advisers to help with specialist and local expertise for disabled people. Along with everything else I have announced, that will be a significant step forward in halving the disability employment gap. Of course, doing so depends on both ends of it, as the halving of the gap will depend on what the total employment level is, and we are in good shape on that, as 80% of working-age people who do not have a disability are in work. But as the right hon. Gentleman knows, only 48% of those with a disability are in work. I want to make steady progress towards halving the gap, but it may take some time.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

What discussions has the Secretary of State had with business to help people who can only work flexibly and at variable times but do not want to let their employers down?

[Damian Green]

Very many—I have spoken to a number of private sector employers who are leading the way in providing the equipment needed. But what happens in the public sector is to some extent more under the Government’s control, so I hope that by the end of this year every Whitehall Department will be signed up as a Disability Confident employer and that in the course of 2017 the rest of the public sector will have followed. The public sector is a very large-scale employer so that will be very helpful.