Personal Independence Payments

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Wednesday 15th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

My hon. Friend is right that we need continually to look at improvements, and I think they are done better as part of a coherent process rather than as a result of individual court judgments. I am sure that she will agree that the improvements in the benefit system need to go hand in hand with the many improvements we are now beginning to see in the health service’s treatment of people with mental health conditions. All of this must be tackled as a coherent whole across government so that we improve all the services available to people with mental health conditions.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

I have to say that I am finding an increasing discrepancy between the way that the Secretary of State is describing the PIP benefit and the people who are coming to my advice surgeries in tears, having been completely let down by the system. We all want to see a society where we give support to the most vulnerable, and that is who we are talking about here. Will the Secretary of State now undertake to ensure that some of his highest officials come and visit us in our advice surgeries and look at how this system is actually working out on the frontline, because it is not remotely like how he is portraying it today?

Liverpool City Region (Poverty)

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Wednesday 1st March 2017 Westminster Hall

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered poverty in the Liverpool city region.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I welcome right hon. and hon. Friends from across the city region to this important debate; we speak with one voice on poverty in our area.

Poverty is not an ephemeral concept. For far too many people in our city region, it is part of their daily grind. During the debate I will celebrate the fantastic achievements of charities, voluntary organisations and community groups that work tirelessly to tackle poverty in our area; highlight some of the challenges individuals and families face; and identify what we can do collectively to try to tackle the issue across the Liverpool city region.

During her coronation in July last year, the Prime Minister spoke on the steps of Downing Street of

“fighting against the burning injustice that, if you’re born poor, you will die on average 9 years earlier than others.”

However, since her parody of Mrs Thatcher’s 1979 St Francis of Assisi speech, it has been hard to find one policy in which the Prime Minister provides solutions to address the issue.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend accept that the pattern is particularly stark in the Wirral? If a line is drawn down the M53, the difference in life expectancy between the west side and the poorest parts of the east side is 10 years.

[Steve Rotheram]

I absolutely accept that. If lines are drawn right across maps of the city region, there are similar disparities and instances in which life expectancy rates are completely at odds with the attempt to improve everybody’s life chances, as the Prime Minister said she would on the steps of Downing Street.

Will the Minister address the fact that the 55% of working families in poverty—a record high—need hope that things will improve? We need to ensure that there is aspiration for children caught in the cycle of deprivation, and innovation in Government thinking to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping. I think we all remember how things turned out for our area last time there was a Conservative Government. By the time the Tories were ousted from power, our country was far more divided than when Thatcher came to power and promised to heal discord, so Government Members will forgive my cynicism about the veracity of the current Prime Minister’s words and her resolve to tackle poverty.

To get a better understanding of the current situation in the Liverpool city region, it is important to start by charting the economic vicissitudes we have seen in our recent history. Before the financial crash in 2008, the Liverpool city region experienced reasonable levels of economic improvement and was growing faster than the rest of the north-west economy. We benefited from European objective 1 funding and billions of pounds-worth of private sector investment that catalysed our area’s regeneration. The tangible manifestation of our renaissance was the changing cityscape, with projects such as the arena and convention centre and the Liverpool ONE shopping complex generating thousands of full and part-time jobs, helping to boost economic growth and raising visitor numbers. In 2008, we were able to showcase to the rest of the UK what we are capable of when given a fair crack at the whip.

The basic tenet of a decent society, on which I will focus my comments, is fairness. The last Labour Government had taken nearly 1 million children out of poverty by the time we left office in 2010. We helped to alleviate the suffering of many trapped in poverty through the creation of Sure Start centres, which gave our children the best start in life to break the cycle of dispossession. We also introduced tax credits, which helped to make work pay for many low-income families. However, despite improvements, there were still significant problems to tackle in some communities across the six districts.

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve Rotheram]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that in-work poverty is increasing. That can be tackled by giving people a proper living wage. That is something that we have said a future Labour Government will do. According to the Office for National Statistics, 46% of individuals living in households in the lowest total wealth quintile are in financial debt, which is twice as high as households in the highest wealth quintile, on 23%.

At a G8 summit in 2011, David Cameron promised:

“Britain will not balance its books on the backs of the poorest.”

However, a recent report by the Resolution Foundation found that this Government’s tenure will be the worst for living standards for the poorest half of households since comparable records began in the mid-1960s. Compared with other developed countries, the UK now has the worst household income inequality in the world, and it is at its most iniquitous since the early years of Thatcherism.

Local authorities are often the first port of call for families suffering from poverty. Liverpool City Council is facing an enormous funding headache. The Government slashed its grant by 58%, yet somehow still believe that the city council should provide the same vital services it once did. I challenge the Minister, or any hon. Member, to have their income reduced by significantly more than half and to still be able to afford to do the same things they did before. That is what the Government expect councils across the city region to do. How can local authorities in the areas of greatest need be expected to help families suffering the effects of poverty with such scarce resources?

A study by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation estimates that child poverty costs the public sector between £12 billion and £22 billion a year, which evidences the need for a co-ordinated and collaborative approach to tackle the issue. However, there is a wide range of complex contributory factors that can leave people facing severe hardship. Unsurprisingly, despite the last Labour Government’s rhetoric about eradicating child poverty in the UK by 2020 with the Child Poverty Act 2010, the Tories are making life even tougher for families in our areas that have the highest levels of deprivation. Living costs have risen, welfare reductions are exacerbating child and family poverty, and pernicious policies have had devastating consequences.

The Prime Minister has extolled the vision of a “shared society” although, as with the mantra of the “long-term economic plan”, I have not heard her say much about it recently. Bewilderingly, she has tried to claim the crown of social justice for her party, but when was the last time she or her Government spoke about poverty? Under the Tories, life is increasingly difficult for the most vulnerable, and low levels of social mobility are magnified in areas outside London and the south-east.

Policy has included the bedroom tax, which penalises people for living in a property where the Government consider bedrooms are not being utilised. The problem in areas such as ours, however, is that those living in under-occupied homes had nowhere to go, due to the shortage of suitable properties for them to move into. The Government’s one-size-fits-all approach failed to solve the problem it was allegedly designed to tackle and instead forced people out of their family homes, exacerbating the breakdown of social cohesion in many of our communities. In Merseyside and Halton, we do not have the right housing mix to accommodate demand, which is creating problems in the private rented sector in particular. Increasingly, we have instances of rent poverty, with unscrupulous landlords charging rent rates that renters simply cannot afford. Direct payments have hindered and not helped, too.

People are having to make unenviable decisions about whether to heat, eat or pay rent, so it is no wonder that some get into arrears. In a number of cases, they end up being evicted and are forced on to the streets to sleep rough. Ministers have to take action to clamp down on that growing injustice, instead of spouting erroneous statistics to justify failing policies. I would be happy to accompany the Minister on any night he chooses to walk around any part of our wonderful city region to see the desperation of rough sleepers for himself and to speak to them to find out the reasons behind it.

Year after year, rip-off energy suppliers are racking up the cost of consumers’ gas and electricity bills. The latest hike in prices will cause particular concern to the 4 million UK households who live in fuel poverty. The suffering caused by cold-related ill health costs the national health service £1.36 billion a year, and for many the high cost of energy is exacerbated by substandard accommodation. During our time in government, we invested £18 billion into the decent homes standard. Only this week, the UK Green Building Council reported that 25 million homes would need refurbishing to the highest standard by 2050, at a rate of 1.4 homes every minute.

[Ms Angela Eagle]

In the Wirral, before the previous Labour Government took office, 65% of social housing was below the acceptable standard. Owing to the money that was invested under that Labour Government, when we left office less than 5% of the social stock was below the acceptable standard. Does my hon. Friend recognise how that helped to deal with the problems of poverty, and health related ones in particular? What can be done to take that process further if he is elected Mayor of the city region?

[Steve Rotheram]

I will concentrate on the first bit, rather than the second bit, if that is okay. On the progress made under the Labour Government to tackle what has to be described as the scourge of people living in substandard accommodation, we did an awful lot of good, and we were hoping to do even more. People have to understand that when they are heating a home without double glazing, for example, the heat is easily lost. Simple things such as double glazing or cavity wall insulation help to retain heat, and so reduce bills. That is what we did for hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people throughout the country, and certainly our area benefited.

I hope that the Government will do something simple to tackle the problem of 1.4 homes per minute needing to be brought up to standard until 2050. My party has pledged to get to grips properly with the poor quality of homes. We have made that an infrastructure priority, which would allow us to combat the problem effectively and efficiently. Lamentably, the Government would not join us in the voting Lobby to ensure that homes were fit for human habitation.

Regrettably, my constituency has been ranked No. 1 in the whole country for disability and health deprivation. Life expectancy in Liverpool, Walton is many years shorter than for the residents of Walton-on-Thames, for example. As we heard during Prime Minister’s questions today, the Government have encouraged those with minor ailments to visit pharmacies, so as to alleviate the pressure on GP surgeries and on accident and emergency services. It is therefore outrageous that pharmacies in my constituency will not receive a single penny from the pharmacy access scheme, forcing on some the prospect of having to close. Out of the 394 chemists in the whole of Merseyside, only 18 will be funded, while the constituencies of the Prime Minister and of the Secretary of State for Health will each have seven funded. How does that address poverty of health, as the Prime Minister promised she would do? How does that prevent the knock-on effect for our NHS? How can people help themselves out of poverty when the Government do everything they can to make the basics of life even harder for them?

Recent statistics published by anti-poverty charity the Trussell Trust highlighted the worrying rise in the use of food banks in our area. Between April and September 2016 in my constituency, the North Liverpool food bank supplied 2,638 three-day emergency food parcels to families, of which nearly 1,000 were for children. It is a national disgrace that in the fifth richest economy in the world, almost 1.1 million people rely on food banks.

On this Government’s watch, however, things are getting even worse. Only recently I received a letter from the Minister at the Department for Work and Pensions informing me of two proposed jobcentre closures in my constituency. There are similar problems throughout the city region. The Government do not seem to understand that closing a jobcentre and relocating it miles away creates further barriers for local people trying their best to find work. Perhaps the Minister will explain when he sums up why the Government consistently put obstacles in the way of people who are trying their best to find work. As an alternative proposal, will the Minister agree to run a pilot scheme in the Liverpool city region in which we use our libraries, one-stop shops and community centres to provide a neighbourhood service to help people back into employment?

Education provides the essential building blocks to achieve the economic success that we so desperately need, and yet too many children in Merseyside and Halton are going to school hungry. That has a devastating effect on their educational prospects. Teachers and governors are doing all they can to help, such as with the provision of breakfast clubs for children. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) has been a great champion of free breakfast clubs, as research suggests that if children have a decent breakfast, they are more likely to concentrate better, learn more and achieve improved results at school.

The Government are devolving only limited powers to metro Mayors—this is where I should declare an interest—while at the same time fragmenting delivery and centralising accountability in the school system. The Liverpool devolution deal provides the metro Mayor with only limited powers over learning, such as on post-16 skills. Further devolution could present the opportunity for each part of the Liverpool city region to work better together to challenge poor educational performance and spread best practice, rather than for each local authority to operate in splendid isolation. We have the ludicrous circumstance of local education authorities continuing to have statutory responsibility for schools, under legislation such as the Education Act 1996, while being deprived of any levers to pull in order to fulfil those duties and influence outcomes.

When one college reports that 81% of students arrive with English and maths inadequate even to commence studying their courses, we need to address the issues, rather than perpetuate the existing fragmentation. It goes without saying that protecting per-pupil funding rather than proceeding with the Government’s 6.5% real-terms reduction in education spending is a priority for our areas. There is a poverty of aspiration among far too many young people across the city region, so if I am elected in May, I want to be able to convince the next generation that they can be the doctors, nurses or lawyers of the future and start to develop strategies to tackle the root causes of poverty, such as poor educational attainment. I hope that the Minister will explain why the Government are so hesitant about further devolution of education powers.

I also want the Government to give metro Mayors the power to reallocate residual apprenticeship levy funding, which could be ring-fenced for innovative apprenticeship programmes. That would not cost the Government a penny, but would afford areas the opportunity to develop apprenticeship programmes to respond to local need. The Government signed up to local commissioning in the devolution agreement, but can the Minister explain why the Liverpool city region is not allocated its own contract package for the work and health programme? The current deal overlooks our local expertise, which we should harness to support people into employment, and would mean that Manchester could develop innovative approaches unilaterally but we could not. Will he address that? Such levers would enable metro Mayors to make a real difference, so I hope that the Minister will address those issues.

Before concluding, I must pay tribute to the voluntary and community sector and the fantastic charities in our city region that do so much to make the lives of others that much more bearable.

--- Later in debate ---

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

It seems somehow appropriate that we are here under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth, given that you represent a constituency in the Liverpool city region.

Nothing defines poverty more starkly than someone being unable to feed themselves and their family because there is no food in the house and no money to buy it. In my experience, that is not a position that anyone wishes to be in. We still live in one of the richest countries in the world, but that kind of poverty is widespread and increasing. It is a key part of the worst of the poverty that I see increasingly in south Liverpool and Halewood.

Since the global financial crisis hit in 2007-08 and the Lib Dem-Tory coalition Government decided in 2010 that never-ending austerity and public spending cuts were the answer to it, there has been an explosion in the number of our citizens placed in the painful, invidious, unhealthy and humiliating position of having to go to a food bank to feed themselves and their families. Since the election of a Tory Government in 2015, we have also seen a doubling down on cuts in social security support. Scapegoating and a blame culture have become characteristic of the callous and sneering tenure of the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) and his successors in the DWP. It seems that we are to expect more of the same from our new Chancellor of the Exchequer in next week’s Budget as he desperately tries to offset the spiralling pressures and economic uncertainties caused by the extreme way in which his Government are intent on us leaving the EU.

The numbers on food bank use are stark. Some 2,894 people accessed a food bank in 2005-06, but just 10 years later, in 2015-16, 1.11 million people had to access Trussell Trust food banks alone. Figures for the first six months of this financial year up to September 2016 show that that number is on course to increase again. However, we do not know the true number of people affected, because the Government, disgracefully and callously, still refuse to collect the statistics. We know that the available figures understate the extent of the problem, because there are hundreds of food banks not included in the Trussell Trust scheme that do not use the vouchers on which its statistics are based, and many people cannot use food banks because they cannot eat the dried, tinned and processed food that is given out in food parcels, for medical, practical or cultural reasons. They sometimes cannot do so because their financial problems mean that they have no gas or electricity and cannot cook what they are given to eat. In my experience, that is an increasing problem.

In December 2014, the all-party parliamentary inquiry into hunger in the UK, chaired by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field), who is in his place, tried to fill the gap in statistics created by Government indifference. In its report, “Feeding Britain”, it stated that 4 million people were at risk of going hungry, 3.5 million adults could not afford to eat properly and half a million children were affected.

Thanks to the work of the “Share Your Lunch” campaign run by the social business Can Cook, which is based in my constituency, I can say that in Liverpool we calculate that our food bank and other food help outlets have had about 60,000 visits in the last year. Some of those will have been repeat visits, but “Share Your Lunch” thinks that the real number of people without food is double that. Indeed, visits to Bridge Chapel, the Trussell Trust food bank in my constituency, increased by 10% last year to 3,890 after a two-year plateau, with 43.5% of visitors coming from Speke-Garston. Some 10% of the households who access help at Bridge Chapel have at least one person in work. That indicates the extent of very low pay and zero-hours contracts that do not guarantee any minimum income. Under-employment is a real problem in our region.

According to “Share Your Lunch”, 45% of Liverpool families live below the poverty line and risk falling into food crisis. The number of children who start school under- weight has risen by 16% since 2012, up to one in five children in the UK arrive at school hungry, and one in three teachers surveyed by YouGov have brought in food for children in response to finding hunger in their classroom.

Why do we have this problem in Liverpool when we live in the sixth richest country in the world, and what can be done about it? The Trussell Trust says that the most common reasons for referrals are benefit delays, low income and benefit changes, which account for 27%, 25% and 16% of referrals respectively. That means that a full 43% of people who use food banks have to do so because of the DWP’s inadequacies and poor actions. No wonder the Government will not even collect statistics on why people are forced to go to food banks—they would be embarrassed by the findings.

[Ms Angela Eagle]

Does my hon. Friend realise that there is also a similar pattern in the Wirral? I suspect the numbers are not quite as high, but the reasons for the existence, running and use of food banks on the Wirral are similar. There are now seven food banks in Wallasey, and according to the Trussell Trust, benefit sanctions, the inadequacy of benefits and delays in paying benefits are why almost half of the people affected find they have to resort to a food bank to feed their families.

[Maria Eagle]

Indeed. In fact, “Feeding Britain”, the report by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead, had an even higher figure: it said in December 2014 that almost two thirds go to food banks because of benefit issues. That accords with my experience in my advice surgeries in Liverpool and Halewood, where I find that those who most need help have been let down completely by the social security benefit system and that, more often than not, the crisis precipitated by DWP behaviour has left them without money and without food.

Typical scenarios include illness leading to job loss; redundancy leading to an application for jobseeker’s allowance or other benefit, which is then delayed for months while the family has no income; or sudden Kafkaesque checks on entitlement at the behest of Government, like the recent behaviour of Concentrix in cancelling people’s tax credit on the basis of entirely groundless supposition. It was unavailable to be contacted and delayed putting things right for months. That company had been financially incentivised by the Government to cancel claims, and it did so unjustifiably and at random.

I had many constituents coming to my advice surgery who were in work and had suddenly had their tax credits stopped, which meant that they could not afford their childcare, which in turn meant that they could not go to work. All kinds of problems followed, often leading to visits to our local food banks. Even the current Government were forced to act, thanks to the pressure put on them by colleagues across the House, yet a number of my constituents have been left with no money and no food by that behaviour of Concentrix. Fortunately, some of them are now getting compensation —perhaps up to £100, but more usually £50—from the Government for what has been done to them.

Sometimes, benefit changes precipitate food crisis, such as when people move from JSA to employment and support allowance or from disability living allowance to personal independence payment. Believe me, such a change can, and often does, cause a cascade of catastrophe when things go wrong. People have to manage for months with no money before the system is put right and the backdated payments are made. That is how people end up with no money and no food.

I am seeing benefit sanctions happen increasingly—it is an accelerating problem. Sometimes—this is deplorable —the sanction is open-ended, and my constituents are not told about that. It is often unfairly applied to vulnerable people who have done nothing to deserve having all their money stopped indefinitely.

It is clear that the best way of making inroads into the cause of this problem and cutting food poverty is by turning the DWP back into what it should be—a provider of social security for those who need it—and by ending the punishment of poor and disabled citizens just because of the misfortune of their circumstances, which seems to be the DWP’s raison d’être these days. That, however, will require a Labour Government.

I want to say a little about what can be done and is being done about the problem. In my constituency, I have a range of organisations trying to help. They include the Trussell Trust, with its food bank in Bridge Chapel; non-Trussell Trust food banks and more ad hoc arrangements in a number of places in Halewood, Speke and Garston; a FareShare distribution centre in Speke; and Can Cook, a social business that helps run “Share Your Lunch”, an ambitious initiative that aims to eradicate food poverty and provide fresh, nutritious food for those who are hungry rather than food parcels of dried and tinned processed food. There is no shortage of people trying to help. I thank the volunteers and organisers who have been willing to step in to help their fellow citizens when the Government are abrogating their responsibility and are happy to leave people with nothing.

I also thank the public, who make donations. In Liverpool, we are particularly blessed by the solidarity and generosity that people show each other, in particular those less fortunate than themselves. That is true across the city region—it is a defining characteristic of Merseyside and Halton. That generosity is exemplified by the “Share Your Lunch” campaign, run by Can Cook in my constituency but well and ably supported by the Liverpool Echo, which I commend for the work it has done in highlighting this issue and tackling it in practical ways, and by many business supporters and other individual donors. It has raised £51,600, generating a total of 28,800 fresh, nutritious meals that it has supplied to people who need food. More than 19,000 kg of fresh vegetables and 18,000 kg of fresh meat have been provided through its efforts. Indeed, in the campaign’s first week it raised £35,000, all because of the generosity of our fellow citizens in the city region. I hope the Minister accepts that that shows people’s concern about the fact that their fellow citizens are having to suffer the humiliation of not being able to feed themselves and their families.

That huge response has been welcome. It has enabled “Share Your Lunch” to carry out initiatives such as providing everything for Christmas lunch for people who could not afford Christmas and helping families in food poverty get through the school holidays, which are a big problem. When no school dinners are available, it can be almost impossible for certain families to feed their children. The current food bank model is not perfect—it is not the last word—but it does give emergency help to thousands of families when they need it.

There are different ways of tackling this problem. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) set out the long history we have in the city region of charitable assistance and innovative social support, which long predates any of us being Members of this House. He was right to highlight that. That entrepreneurship is continuing in organisations such as Can Cook, with its “Share Your Lunch” campaign in my constituency.

In a typical food bank parcel for a family, there are 22 tins of processed food, all extremely high in salt and sugar. If the food does not go together to make a good meal, some of it may remain difficult for families and recipients to utilise. Food bank parcels do not cater for vegetarians, vegans or those with special dietary needs, so how do those people get help? Perhaps FareShare can help. It has a distribution centre in my constituency and does good work delivering surplus food from supermarkets, which would otherwise go to waste, to third sector organisations. Of course, food banks and other organisations do have to pay to be members and to receive the available food. They also have to take what is available; they cannot order what they would like or what is needed. I know anecdotally that much of what is passed on remains unused or ends up sent to landfill by the third sector organisations rather than by the supermarkets, because it cannot be used for one reason or another. Therefore, while the food bank model operated by the Trussell Trust and the work done by FareShare helps many people—it has been a lifeline for many—there is room for other approaches to be tried as well.

That is where Can Cook and its “Share Your Lunch” comes in. It believes that good fresh food is a human right and that everybody should have access to fresh food by choice, regardless of their circumstances. Given that many people who find themselves with no food and no money are in that positon not because of anything they have done but because of circumstances, I agree completely that those people ought to have choice if that is possible. That is an ideal worth pursuing. Why should those in food poverty have no choice but to eat dried and processed tinned food, full of sugar and fat, which is not healthy or nutritious and may not go together to make balanced meals? Why should they not have a choice of fresh, healthy, nutritious food?

“Share Your Lunch” has developed a good food model with the aim of using some of the profits from its catering operation—it is a social business providing good, fresh to schools and care homes—to generate free, fresh, nutritious meals for those who need them. It has partnerships across the city region—across Liverpool and Knowsley—with councils and with businesses. It aims to develop good food areas where it can feed hungry residents in a designated area with the free meals generated by its commercial activity. That model is interesting and has something to offer. It is a win-win if it works and will give residents an extra choice when they face a food crisis, so that they can access fresh and nutritious food if they prefer or if it suits them, rather than a food bank parcel.

I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say about how the problem is to be tackled across the whole UK. What does he have to say about “Share Your Lunch” and Can Cook’s model? I wish “Share Your Lunch”, the campaign, and Can Cook, the organisation, all the best in their endeavour. If they succeed, even the poorest of my constituents, at the worst time of their lives when they have no food and no money for food, will be able to eat healthily and properly should they choose to do so.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Mr Howarth. It is fantastic to have you in the Chair for this timely debate. I congratulate my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram), on securing this debate.

All of us here today see in our weekly constituency surgeries low pay, precarious work, zero-hours contracts, energy price rises and benefit delays leaving thousands of our constituents living on the edge of poverty, if not submerged by it. In such circumstances it takes only an unexpected bill, a family illness or an accident to leave people without the means to properly house, clothe or feed themselves and their families.

The number of such cases increased dramatically last year when the full impact of the Concentrix tax credits debacle became felt. We heard a moment ago how that impacted on the constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) as well. The most extreme examples of hardship as a result of that fiasco were felt by people such as my constituent, Michelle, who faced repossession as her tax credits were stopped simply because a previous tenant’s mobile phone bill was still registered at her address.

In Liverpool, as in so many places around the country, such personal financial precariousness is compounded by the Government’s long assault on local community services and networks that have traditionally supported people to get back on their feet.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton alluded to in his remarks, we have seen from central Government a cut of 58% to our budget since 2010, and Liverpool City Council is faced with making a further £90 million of cuts over the next three years, bringing the total amount of central Government spending cuts since 2010 to a staggering £420 million. I will say more about the cumulative impact of the cuts in a moment. It is simply not possible—I am sure that no Minister in their heart of hearts really believes it to be possible—to make such deep cuts over such a sustained period of time without damaging the social fabric that protects people in need from the worst effects of poverty.

The all-party group on fuel poverty and energy efficiency has praised Liverpool City Council’s healthy homes programme, which brings together help and advice with practical support on keeping our constituents’ homes warmer to tackle fuel poverty. That is particularly relevant in this debate. According to the Government’s new definition of fuel poverty, my constituency is in the top five in the country to be affected by this issue. Liverpool is one of the few councils around the country that sees the value in this activity and it does its very best to continue funding a team of environmental health officers who can use enforcement powers to make unwilling landlords improve properties if there are health and safety risks to their tenants.

The healthy homes programme has supported about 46,000 initial assessments, resulting in 22,000 referrals for additional support over the past seven years. The programme estimates that it has saved our NHS about £55 million over a 10-year period, while the enforcement work has made private landlords invest an additional £5.5 million in their properties. It is proof that a relatively small investment in long-term support and preventive work, carried out by local councils in partnership with local agencies, can make a huge difference and actually save money in the long term, as well as improve the health and wellbeing of local people. As a local MP, I have referred many of my constituents to the service. They have gone on to see improvements in their homes and can now afford to heat them properly, particularly during the cold winter months.

However, Government cuts threaten our council’s ability to continue to deliver this vital service for our constituents. Of course, our council is doing all it can to protect the most vulnerable. For instance, in children’s services, money has been set aside to maintain our network of children’s centres for the next 12 months, because we see the value in providing that vital service, with the aim of devising a viable option for the future of the services. However, the council still has to find savings of £4.1 million, which it intends to make by reducing the cost of care placements and packages, and increasing the number of in-house foster carers.

There is a reason why the previous Labour Government invested in creating more than 3,000 children’s centres across our country and invested in the early years of a child’s life. It was to break a cycle that we know still persists in our country and is getting worse: where a child is born determines their life chances and outcomes. That is why children’s centres can and should be making a difference. The council cannot deal with the extent of child poverty in Liverpool with a Government in Westminster that are not interested in contending with this vital issue.

Under this Government, one in three children in my constituency—more than 6,000—are living in relative poverty, and almost half of them are in families where at least one parent is in work. The subject on the Order Paper today is poverty in the Liverpool city region, but of course our children are not alone in experiencing the pain of Tory policies. Across the country, we have seen an increase of 200,000 children living in poverty, up to 3.9 million, in a single year. That is the price children across our country are paying for the Tory Government’s failure to tackle inequality adequately.

In one ward in my constituency, Picton, more than half the children—52%—are living in poverty, after housing costs are taken into account. In Kensington and Fairfield ward it is 43%, in Old Swan it is 34%, and so it goes on, in ward after ward, right across our city region, year after year. Children’s life chances are being stymied because Government policies have created an economy built on casualised, low-paid, temporary and precarious work for their parents, and removed the safety net that previously ensured children were supported.

For comparison, in the constituency of the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), 13% of children are, after housing costs, living in poverty. In the constituency of the right hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond), the figure is 16%. Frankly, whether the percentage is 13%, 16% or, as in my constituency overall, 33%, children, after housing costs, are living in poverty. Those figures bring shame on the Government, and we must all recognise that poverty is not spread evenly around our country. Some parts, such as our Liverpool city region, carry a heavier burden.

I fear that too many Government Members carry with them a view of some places in the north, such as Liverpool city region, as home to people deserving not of a chance, but of contempt. I do not make that point lightly. I ask Members to ponder this single statistic produced by the Children’s Society: more than 3,000 of the children living in poverty in my constituency of Liverpool, Wavertree are from families where at least one adult is in work. Such people are doing the right thing: heading out the door every morning, working hard and returning home, only to see their children still living in poverty.

[Ms Angela Eagle]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. Will she attempt to explain what the Government’s thinking might be, given the disparity in poverty between certain areas that she has just explained? In the Wirral, we have lost 57% of local authority funding, Liverpool has lost 58%, and yet there are some areas, normally represented by Conservative MPs, that have seen nowhere near those levels of cuts, and the average is 37%.

[Luciana Berger]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that important contribution. It is a point that I was going to make later in my speech. The coalition Government decided to remove the weighting for deprivation. Every Member who has contributed or is about to contribute has made that very point to Ministers sitting on the Government Benches. If we had had the average cut in Liverpool, we would have an additional £84 million a year, which would make a significant difference to the life chances and outcomes of the people we are elected to represent.

The Government talk a lot about increasing aspiration, but some people aspire every day to have enough money at the end of the week to put food on the table and clothes on their children’s backs and to secure a roof over their heads, and not to have to choose between those three at any moment.

I echo what my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton said about the Government’s proposed jobcentre closure plans. Liverpool will be hit hardest of all England’s cities by the proposal, which will affect 40% of our jobcentres. I presented a petition last night, on behalf of hundreds of my constituents, against the two proposed jobcentre closures in our area. The issue is very significant, and if the Government are serious about dealing with inequality it does not make sense to treat Liverpool city region in that way.

We should not forget that in 2015, the Tory Government scrapped child poverty targets that were brought in by the previous Labour Government. Ministers no longer have a legal duty to tackle the number of children in poverty. They believe themselves to be essentially unaccountable for their policies, but we will hold them accountable because we meet our constituents and their children in our surgeries every week. We see the faces of people such as my constituent Frank, who, on obtaining custody of his child last year, faced months of delays and administrative errors in trying to have his child benefit and child tax credits paid. That left him financially unable to provide properly for the child placed in his care and plunged his newly reunited family into extreme and abject poverty.

Conservative Members may say, “Well, of course, the poverty target was measuring the wrong thing,” or “Poverty ain’t what it used to be in my day. Children going hungry—now that’s real poverty.” If that is what they say, I would reiterate the significant comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood.

I am conscious that another hon. Member wants to speak, so I shall reflect only briefly on the issue of food poverty, which affects too many people not only in the Liverpool city region but across the country. The Central Liverpool food bank, which unfortunately is one of many in my constituency, has fed a total of more than 43,000 people, including 15,000 children. The number of people having to use the service has increased, because of an increase in the number of people being sanctioned. Many are children. Many people not only are using the food bank in a crisis, but have become chronic users because they cannot put enough food on the table for a sustained period of time.

I have raised the issue of food poverty before. In fact, I obtained the first debate on food banks in this House, in 2012. I also made a film about it called “Breadline Britain”. At that time, only a few hundred thousand people had to obtain emergency food aid. It is worth reiterating the point made earlier: the fact that more than 1 million people have had to get emergency food aid in the past year, in the sixth richest nation in the world. That is a stain on the national consciousness and I am ashamed to live in a country where that is the case. I am frankly appalled and disappointed that the figures are getting larger every year.

My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton mentioned that I have been a long-term supporter of organisations such as Magic Breakfast, which helps schools provide children with breakfast. There are too many reports from teachers—and the number is increasing —of children sitting in school not having had breakfast. If it were not for those breakfast clubs, they would not be able to concentrate and learn properly.

The cuts that have been made are significant. It is not just a question of how much is in the pot; it is also a question of how it is distributed. We have been disproportionately affected because of the removal of the weighting for deprivation. I believe that the Government have washed their hands of the tough choices and passed them on to councils, as in the case of our city region and its people. Our early intervention grant was cut by 44% between 2010-11 and 2015-16. It is worth reminding the House that that grant is intended to support children and those most in need. It is no surprise, given that it has been savaged in that way, that people are struggling to get by.

As I said, it takes only one unforeseen event to push people over the edge into debt. That is why, according to the Children’s Society, nearly 2,500 children in my constituency are living in families that have problem debt. About a third of families with problem debt say that they have cut back on food in the past month. A third have cut back on heating and a third on clothing. Those are the basics of a decent life, and that is what is happening in this country in 2017. The tough choices being made in Britain today are whether to choose food over heating or heating over clothes, or to run deeper into debt. Children in poverty are more likely to fall behind in school, less likely to secure a job and more likely to experience mental and physical illnesses.

It does not have to be like that. We have heard from other hon. Members about the incredible charitable and voluntary sector efforts being made in the city region, but on their own, those valiant efforts are not enough. On behalf of all my constituents, young and old, and the people of the Liverpool city region, I urge the Minister to consider the issue of poverty seriously, and to outline exactly what the Government and his Department will do to address it properly.

Personal Independence Payments

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

I do. Indeed, that was the purpose of the original design of PIP. It is better than disability living allowance, which it replaced, precisely because it reflects the reality in individuals’ lives that some will have more difficulty in going about their daily business because of a disability. The PIP benefit is specifically designed in a very careful, and therefore complex, way to achieve that and it does. Ministers have to ensure that the rules are completely clear and that is what we are doing today.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

If everything is working so well, why are my advice surgeries full of people who have been waiting for their PIP assessments for a very long time? Long-term disabled people are being denied them and being caused massive amounts of distress by the process. They feel utter despair at having to have anything to do with it.

[Damian Green]

As I say, an improvement plan is in place, which lets the hon. Lady know that things need to improve. They are being improved, as I explained in answer to the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Kelly Tolhurst). I hope the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) can be reassured by the fact that we are recruiting a team of health professionals to help us to scrutinise the suppliers’ training and assessments. Both suppliers have their own improvement plans in place as well. We will be trialling audio recording of selected assessments from the beginning of next month to understand better how assessments can be improved.

Oral Answers to Questions

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

In addition to the community partners that we are recruiting to ensure that we have local networks plugged into our Jobcentre Plus scheme, we are also looking at opportunities for where that sector can increase the services that it already provides and derive an income from them. One such example is our one-stop-shop hub for employers, which can be a shop window for many of the organisations that already provide support to employers and that want to do more.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Will the Minister say a little more about how ESA and PIP assessments for those with mental illnesses work? I have six cases where mandatory reconsideration letters are identical to the letters providing the original decision. I have four cases—she knows of one of them because she has written to me about it—where the wrong information, about other people, has been cut and pasted into the mandatory reconsideration letter.

[Penny Mordaunt]

Let me point out that only 3% of those decisions are overturned. The vast majority of the assessments are good. The hon. Lady should let me know if she has examples of where that is not the case. One thing I have done to ensure that we get more timely information about where things are going wrong and where standards are not being maintained is to establish a claimant user rep panel, which will go live in the next few weeks. It will be rolled out on a very large scale across the country. In the meantime, she should keep on flagging up the issues that she finds.

Oral Answers to Questions

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Monday 9th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

I am sorry to hear that that is happening in my hon. Friend’s constituency. That is a very unusual length of time to be waiting for an appeal. If he would like to give me the details of those cases, I would be happy to look at them.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

13. Whether his Department plans to publish data on the number of people who have lost their Motability scheme vehicle following their reassessment for personal independence payments.

[The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Penny Mordaunt)]

Motability is an independent charity responsible for its own management information, including what data it publishes. There are 70,000 more people with a Motability car than there were in 2010.

[Ms Eagle]

My constituent Evelyn Campbell had her Motability car removed on 20 December following a PIP assessment, leaving her housebound and distressed over Christmas. It will take months for her appeal to be heard. In the meantime, her car has been sold. Is this not another cruel policy from this Government? Given that 60% of PIP appeals are successful and that the cars have to be reprovided, is it not also a totally false economy?

[Penny Mordaunt]

Those who lose their vehicle receive transitional support through Motability, including the right to buy the vehicle and a £2,000 lump sum. Although only a small proportion of PIP decisions are appealed and overturned—

[Ms Eagle]

It is 60%.

[Penny Mordaunt]

That is of those going to appeal, not the case load. I am exploring a range of options to support claimants pending appeal, and I will be working closely with Motability on this.

Amendment of the Law

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Tuesday 29th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

I am gutted that the Chancellor is not present to listen to the winding-up speeches on his Budget.

In the Budget, the Chancellor had the opportunity to help millions of British people and families who are being hit hard by the biggest squeeze in their living standards for 80 years. He also had the opportunity to admit that ploughing full-steam ahead with cuts at the speed and on the scale that this Government have planned is about to have a devastating impact on people and communities up and down the country. People wanted some hope for the future from this Chancellor and this Government, but what they got was a Chancellor and a Government on autopilot. They got a man who refuses to see that the economic storm clouds are gathering around us once more; they got a man who will not admit that his cynical electoral strategy of scaremongering about a sovereign default has collapsed consumer confidence and weakened our prospects of recovery; and they got a man who has been so boxed in by his own political strategy that his only resort is to glory in the folly of sticking to his plan A, even if all the economic indicators show that it is hurting but it is not working.

Of course we accept that the deficit has to be reduced, but we disagree with the sheer speed and scale of the Government’s cuts plan. In the Chancellor’s self-styled emergency Budget last June, he embarked on a risky and extreme experiment with our nation’s future. He chose to cut the deficit deeper and faster than was economically necessary; he chose to cut it faster than any other major economy; he chose to order the largest spending cuts since the second world war with a nasty ideological relish; and he was cheered to the rafters by Members of both coalition Government parties in a distasteful display of enjoyment that none of us on this side of the House will ever forget.

Some £80 billion is to be sucked out of the economy in the next four years, in cuts to services and the public sector. With tax rises included, £126 billion in all will be withdrawn from the economy by 2015. Only Iceland and Ireland are cutting faster than this Government have decided that we should cut, and now the Chancellor is claiming, with his usual modesty, that he has rescued the British economy, but aside from his own vainglorious rhetoric, what are the facts actually telling us? The truth is revealed by the Office for Budget Responsibility: there has been a significant deterioration in economic performance since the Chancellor’s slash-and-burn Budget last year. As its latest forecast demonstrates, things are getting worse, not better, and that is before most of the cuts have really begun to bite.

After just 10 months of the Chancellor’s fiscal masochism, virtually all the important economic indicators are now moving in the wrong direction. Consumer confidence is at a 20-year low; inflation is at more than twice the Bank of England’s target; the VAT rise has pushed prices up, and the OBR expects them to rise even further this year; unemployment, which was falling last year, is now at a 17-year high—in my constituency, 22 people are now chasing every job; and the growth forecast has been downgraded again and again and again.

Because of this lower growth and higher inflation, the Government have admitted that they will have to borrow £46 billion more than they planned in November. We warned the Chancellor that huge and rapid cuts in public expenditure risk choking off growth, thereby increasing unemployment, and that that might make the deficit worse rather than better. Last March—conveniently before the election—the right hon. Member for Twickenham (Vince Cable), now the Business Secretary, said:

“We must not cut Government spending too soon and risk plunging a fragile recovery back into recession. Cuts without economic growth will not deal with the deficit”.

I could not agree more. It is a pity that he, like the rest of his party, is now supporting an economic policy which is the exact opposite of the one that he campaigned for.

We warned the Chancellor last year that he needed a growth strategy, alongside any deficit reduction plan, if the economy was to be restored to balance without doing untold damage to our social infrastructure. We waited and waited, but meanwhile growth faltered and then stalled. The economy shrank by a shock 0.5% in the last quarter of 2010. The Chancellor crossed his fingers and blamed the snow, and the Government’s spin machine then cranked into action. Just two weeks ago, at the Tory spring conference, the Prime Minister and the Chancellor promised to make this a pro-growth Budget. The Chancellor said that it was going to be “unashamedly pro-growth” and the Prime Minister went further, by declaring that it was going to

“tear down the barriers to enterprise and be the most pro-growth Budget this country has seen for a generation.”

If we look behind all the Government hype and the propaganda, and check out what really happened last week, we see something a bit different. The Chancellor actually came to this House and downgraded the growth forecasts—they are down this year to 1.7% and down next year too. Far from being a pro-growth Budget, this is actually a no-growth Budget which puts Britain into the slow lane. To distract attention from that inconvenient fact, the Government published, alongside the Budget document, “The Plan for Growth”, a self-styled “urgent call for action”. But this much-trailed growth plan achieves nothing in the short term, when growth is in such short supply. It consists of loud invocations of motherhood and apple pie, and it rehashes the familiar laissez-faire mantras shared by the Orange Book Liberals and the Thatcherite Tories. It is nothing more than a mish-mash of reheated, failed 1980s Thatcherite orthodoxy.

The passages on the Government’s growth strategy in the Chancellor’s speech were so riveting that the Justice Secretary actually fell asleep on the Front Bench right in the middle of them. We sympathised with him, but the 50 punters who had put money on at odds of 16:1 that he would sleep during the Budget were richly rewarded. Now I hear that Ladbrokes has slashed the odds that there will be a double kip from him some time in the next year.

The Office for Budget Responsibility was almost as unimpressed as the Justice Secretary, because page 39 of its report on the Budget states:

“we judge there is insufficient evidence at this stage to adjust our trend growth assumptions in light of these measures.”

In other words, despite all the ministerial proclamations, all the Government propaganda and all the cynically pre-arranged third-party endorsements, this is still a no-growth, go-slow Budget.

The Chancellor’s extreme austerity programme will suck demand out of the economy, and if growth continues to falter the plan will be irrelevant. We know that inflation is higher than it should be and unemployment is higher than it should be: there will be 30,000 fewer jobs this year and 80,000 fewer next year, and 200,000 more people will be unemployed by the end of this Parliament. I do not know what the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions finds so amusing about that.

Two weeks ago, at the same Tory conference where the Chancellor promised to make his Budget unashamedly pro-growth, he also promised to listen to public concern about the cost-of-living crisis. It is all very well listening, but it is real help that people need. Instead, we got a Budget in which the Chancellor gave a little with one hand but took away much more with the other. The well-trailed £45 tax cut next year is more than clawed back by the decision to raise national insurance thresholds only by the lower consumer prices index. That is a small-print stealth tax that, funnily enough, was not briefed in advance to the press but will raise more than £1 billion extra in income tax by 2015. The VAT rise is already costing a family with children an extra £450 this year alone. The banks have been given a tax cut while families and children bear the brunt of the spending cuts. Even the Chancellor has almost stopped claiming that we are all in this together and he can hardly keep a straight face when he does.

Pensioners were excluded from the tax cut con, only to discover that their winter fuel payment will be lower, too, by £50 or £100. The Treasury explained that that was not actually a cut but merely allowing a top-up to expire, but it seems that no one had told the Deputy Prime Minister that. He clearly had not even bothered to read the Budget that he had just signed off, because during a radio phone-in last Thursday he was questioned about this and claimed at first that winter fuel payments had been increased. He then resorted to accusing my right hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor of frightening people by

“throwing around a lot of…wild allegations”.

The trouble for him was that those wild allegations were actually part of his Government’s plans and, worse still, he had agreed to them. We all know that he will not accept any paperwork after 3 o’clock in the afternoon, but I really think he ought to have made an exception for the Budget. He should really learn that the pesky details in big documents can sometimes be quite important.

The headline-grabbing centrepiece of the Budget was the 1p off petrol duty announced with a great flourish and much waving of Order Papers on the Government Benches, but that is a paltry reduction when compared with the 3p a litre increase that the VAT rise has already added to fuel bills. I wonder how many Members of the parties opposite would have cheered quite so loudly if they had read the small print and understood that the Chancellor has merely delayed and not cancelled future fuel duty increases. Duty is due to rise by 3p a litre on 1 January and to rise again in August next year. VAT at 20% will only make it worse.

There is also mounting evidence that the fuel duty cut has not been fully passed on to motorists, despite the Chancellor’s pledge to watch “like a hawk” to see that it was.

[Dame Anne Begg (Aberdeen South) (Lab)]

What does my hon. Friend make of today’s announcement that Statoil, a Norwegian company—from a country where tax is not exactly low—is to put on hold its £3 billion-plus North sea development as a result of the Budget increase in oil and gas tax?

[Ms Eagle]

This smash-and-grab raid on the oil companies to pay for the tax cut appears to be unravelling. Certainly, sudden changes to tax regimes without notice have big implications for investment. The Government need to pay particular attention to what the oil companies are saying, especially about their investment intentions. Having a North sea oil regime that can switch and is not set, because of the $75 a barrel oil price, which is going to change the regime again, may be particularly damaging. We will have to take a close look in Committee at how the Government intend to implement this mechanism.

[Dame Anne Begg]

The offshore oil and gas industry, which was a growing industry and could have been the driver that took the country out of recession, tells me that the one thing it needs to invest in this country is stability, but the fuel duty stabiliser will not give it that stability. Indeed, it will do the very opposite and make things even more volatile.

[Ms Eagle]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. We will have to look at precisely how the stabiliser mechanism will work. How long will the oil price have to be at $75 a barrel to trigger it and how will that be measured? What will be the implication for future investment decisions? We know that there is a great deal of competition in the oil and gas industry for the use of very expensive infrastructure. My hon. Friend has made very important points and we will be watching like a hawk—to use a phrase that has already been used—to see about the practicalities of the announcement.

I note that the Government are reportedly urgently considering handing out hundreds of millions of pounds in tax breaks to compensate energy companies that are apparently considering shelving existing plans for further investment in UK gas fields or raising domestic prices still further to make up for profits lost. By

“squeezing the maximum amount of tax revenue from Britain’s oil and gas assets,”

the Chancellor

“is putting further offshore investment at risk…He’s more interested in cash today than investment tomorrow.”

That was the current Chancellor speaking in 2007, but now he is in Downing street he seems to be ignoring his own advice. The truth is that this policy was cobbled together at the last minute, the OBR did not have sight of it and now it is descending into chaos. I must issue a warning to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, because I read over the weekend that he is being blamed for this incompetent piece of policy making on the hoof—apparently it was all his idea. I would be watching my back if I were him. We now see the reality that the fuel duty cut was a classic Tory con that really will not help anyone at all.

Meanwhile, the small print of the Tory-Lib Dem Budget shows that the NHS will be hit with a £1 billion cut in real terms, breaking the Prime Minister’s pre-election poster pledge that he would not cut it. The OBR’s new inflation forecasts reveal that spending on the NHS will fall for the next two years for the first time since records began—that is before the Government waste billions more on a reorganisation that nobody wants. The Tories drained the life out of the NHS in the 1980s and now they are back and are trying to do it all over again.

We were told that the Budget was all about growth and the Government promised to help Britain’s hard-pressed families with the cost-of-living crisis, but they have failed dismally on both counts and today the Bullingdon boys have sent along a Lib Dem whipping boy to defend it. If the Chancellor has “Je ne regrette rien” playing on his iPod, then the Chief Secretary has “Puppet on a String” playing on his. Just last year he promised his party’s Scottish conference:

“In our first year in government, we will invest to create new jobs and boost the recovery.”

Well, 10 months later and two Budgets in he has done precisely the opposite. The fact is that this Government’s extreme experiment with the British economy is failing and British people are suffering.

This Budget was a dodgy Conservative con that was signed off by the ever-compliant Liberal Democrats—the human shields of British politics. Far from making life easier for people, the Budget will make life tougher. The Government’s agenda of cuts, cuts, cuts is ruining lives and dividing the nation. It seeks to pit the private sector against the public sector, the young against the old, the north against the south, the weak against the strong, and the rich against the poor. We reject the politics of division. This is the wrong Budget in tough times. The Government should come back and have a second attempt which does not cut too far, too fast. That is why we will vote to reject the Budget tonight.

--- Later in debate ---

[Danny Alexander]

I am not going to give way to the right hon. Gentleman. I must press on. I have answered his point.

Small businesses, in particular, have been the innocent victims of the credit crunch. They have seen the flow of affordable credit dry up, which is why we have agreed with the banks a £10 billion increase in the availability of—

[Ms Angela Eagle]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Danny Alexander]

I will give way to the hon. Lady.

[Ms Eagle]

Will the Chief Secretary turn his attention to page 44 of the Red Book, and the “Measures announced at Spending Review 2010”? Measure d states:

“Disability Living Allowance: remove mobility component for claimants in residential care.”

It is scored to save £155 million in 2013-14, £160 million in 2014-15 and £160 million in 2015-16, so how could the Prime Minister say that it was not happening when it is still scored in the Red Book?

[Danny Alexander]

As I said in answer to the right hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr Clarke), that question is a subject of the review that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has announced and we are carrying out. We have made it very clear that we are looking at that question, and we will provide the mobility component at a level that is necessary in care homes when we have removed the overlaps and the issues quite rightly identified.

The Government’s third ambition for growth is to encourage investment in exports as a route to a more balanced economy. In “The Plan for Growth”, which we published last week, we set out specific measures to help out a range of businesses. In life sciences, which the hon. Member for Macclesfield (David Rutley) mentioned, we will radically reduce the time it takes to get approval for clinical trials; in our digital and creative industries, we will improve the intellectual property regime; and in manufacturing, which the hon. Members for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) and for Warrington South (David Mowat) addressed, we are launching Britain’s first technology and innovation centre for high-value manufacturing, creating new export credits to help smaller businesses, doubling the limit on the capital allowances for short-life assets from four years to eight years and investing in infrastructure, which my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr Leech) referred to. These are some of the measures that we are taking to ensure that growth is more balanced and more sustainable, and supports employment across a wide range of sectors.

On green growth, first, we have announced that we will become the first country in the world to introduce a carbon price floor for the power sector. The price will start at around £16 per tonne of carbon dioxide in 2013 and move to a target price of £30 per tonne in 2020. That will provide the incentive for billions of pounds-worth of new investment in our dated energy infrastructure.

[Ms Angela Eagle]

rose—

[Danny Alexander]

I will not give way.

The second step that we are taking is to create the green investment bank, as the hon. Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael) mentioned. As part of the spending review we committed £1 billion to this new facility. Last week, we announced £2 billion more, funded from asset sales and underwritten by the Treasury. This is another step to ensure that we are the greenest Government ever.

[Ms Eagle]

rose—

[Danny Alexander]

I will not give way.

That leads me to our fourth ambition for growth—a better educated work force who are the most flexible in Europe.

Oral Answers to Questions

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Monday 19th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman is aware that the Office for Budget Responsibility estimates that the country’s structural deficit is now more than £12 billion larger than it was thought to be at the election. I do not know where he would have got that £12 billion from. As for pensioners, not only will we ensure that we restore the earnings link, but in April 2011 the full value of the cash increase in the state pension will go through to the poorest pensioners on pension credit.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Does the Minister agree that if the pensions in payment today had been linked to the consumer prices index rather than to the retail prices index for the past 20 years, pensions would be 14% lower than they are now? Does not the proposed shift in the definition of price indexation represent a huge raid on pension benefits, which gets worse and worse as time goes on and makes all current and future pensioners poorer?

[Steve Webb]

It pains me to suggest that the hon. Lady is being selective in her use of statistics, but if she looks at the increase in pensions as a whole—the basic state pension and additional pensions—she will see that we have linked the basic state pension to earnings, which over the course of 20 years, for a typical person retiring this year, will add £15,000 in extra state pension compared with price indexation, which was the policy of her Government.

Oral Answers to Questions

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Monday 14th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. That group will be exempt under the scheme, and it is important to note that the work capability assessment will be reviewed annually for the first five years of its operation.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

I should like to welcome all Ministers to their positions on the Government Front Bench. Does the Minister agree with me and her colleague the pensions Minister that it is important to ensure that those who cannot work for reasons of disability or age receive all the benefits to which they are entitled, and that the 13,000 home visits a week that the DWP local service currently makes to vulnerable households play a vital role in ensuring that that is the case? Does she agree also that, if the local service is cut in the spending review, the most vulnerable households will be the hardest hit?

[Maria Miller]

Looking after the most vulnerable groups in society is absolutely at the heart of the work that we do in the Department. I reassure the hon. Lady that when we are reviewing services, whether at a local or national level, we keep that very much in mind.