British Sign Language Bill
Anna McMorrin Excerpts(2 years, 10 months ago)
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Rosie Cooper
I thank my hon. Friend, and I absolutely agree; this Bill is long overdue, but we are dealing with it today, and we are going to make progress. [Hon. Members: “Yes.”] God is good.
I very much welcome the plans the Minister has to work directly with deaf BSL users on the creation of guidance. Using that guidance, we aim to right the wrongs that happen on a day-to-day basis. Much of that comes down to the need for interpreters. There simply are not enough interpreters in the workforce right now, and there is a clear lack of understanding and forward planning when an interpreter is needed—it is really not that hard.
Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making an incredibly powerful speech, and I thank her for raising this issue and making all these important points. Does she agree that in Wales we have a Welsh Government who have put BSL at the centre of the new curriculum in Wales, putting it on a statutory footing to ensure that the language is there and prominent?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. Can I remind everyone to please face forward when speaking so that the microphones can pick you up and everyone can hear?
Oral Answers to Questions
Anna McMorrin Excerpts(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Mims Davies
I know that my hon. Friend’s local Jobcentre Plus in Stockton has a very important relationship with Lakota and they have been working closely together for a number of years. They are currently offering motivational and employability courses, including “All about you”, which builds on the customer’s skills, confidence and job search techniques and will help us, crucially, to deliver good job outcomes for local people in Stockton.
Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)
The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Justin Tomlinson)
Volumes of new PIP claims awarded have remained stable since the introduction of covid-19 restrictions. Official statistics show that since April 2020 some 225,000 new PIP claimants have had awards. Over this period, we have continued to assess all claims on the basis of paper evidence or telephone assessments, where necessary.
Anna McMorrin
One of my constituents who is severely disabled and vulnerable had her personal independence payments removed and lost vital care as a result—that was because medical advice was ignored by the assessors. Another lost his mobility car at the height of the pandemic, leaving him trapped, isolated and suicidal, unable to access vital services. Another had to turn to food banks to survive. They all had rejected applications overturned many months later at tribunal. Four out of five disabled and vulnerable applicants have faced unnecessary barriers to PIP support during covid. I am proud of my team in Cardiff North, who have been there to support my constituents through this traumatic time, but many are not so fortunate. So what is the Minister doing to make sure that assessments are right first time, to avoid this trauma and delay?
Justin Tomlinson
Although the vast majority of assessments—we have had over 4 million PIP assessments —are right first time, there are serious implications for those involved where they are not. As part of the forthcoming health and disability Green Paper we will be looking at claimants’ ability to get good-quality supportive evidence; the role of advocacy; the role of the assessment itself; and further changes on mandatory reconsideration and appeals, building on the holistic changes we brought in that allowed us to nearly the double the successful changes at the mandatory reconsideration stage, rather than have claimants having to go through the long appeal process. The key bit here is that the vast majority of successful appeals are because of additional written or oral evidence at that stage, and we need to make it is easy as possible to get such evidence into the beginning of the application.
Pension Schemes Bill [Lords]
Anna McMorrin ExcerptsMonday 16th November 2020
(4 years, 1 month ago)
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Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)
Is the hon. Member saying that climate really is not very important because that is what I hear him saying on this? He is giving the trustees no confidence in having to make those decisions. How does he expect us to reach zero carbon by 2050 if that is the case?
Nigel Mills
I was coming on to say that there are better ways we could do this. I accept that we should encourage funds as strongly as we can to use the vast sums at their disposal to support investment in climate goals and other socially positive activities, but that should be done in part through member choice. There should be eco-friendly pension schemes and socially responsible ones, but they should allow their members to choose to opt into those schemes, and not have them as the default, if they are going to have a lower pension at the end of it.
Anna McMorrin
I rise primarily to speak in support of amendments 16 to 24.
The climate crisis remains one of the greatest challenges, if not the greatest challenge, that we face. We are rightly focused at the moment on dealing with the pandemic and the pressures that that entails, but we cannot afford to lose sight of the growing threat of climate breakdown and the risks it continues to pose.
We stand now at the crossroads between complacency and inaction, which locks us potentially into a future of climate chaos, and bold action that combines expertise and resource and can minimise climate risk, help build resilience and jobs for the future, and allow our society to emerge stronger and more equal. We need climate action to be embedded across all sectors of society, but particularly in finance.
No one is immune to the shifting seasons or the increasing severity and frequency of extreme weathers. Droughts or flooding that impact either one community or one continent will inevitably reverberate throughout the rest of the world, presenting issues of food insecurity and water shortages, and conflict or displacement. It is imperative that legislation going through this House is responsive to that climate crisis, and it must meet our international obligations, including those of the Paris climate agreement and our commitment to limit the global temperatures increase to 1.5° C.
It is crucial, therefore, that the £3 trillion locked into UK pensions today is mobilised to build that green recovery and meet that climate challenge, and to protect the future health of our people and planet and the prosperity that we all want to see and pass on to the next generation.
Guy Opperman
I am listening to the hon. Lady’s speech with great interest, and I am just wondering whether she is aware that the ESG—environmental, social and governance—regulations came into force only eight weeks ago and clause 124 specifically addresses the matters that she is outlining, and more particularly that we published in August specific action on tackling climate risk and improving the governance of occupational pension schemes. That is exactly what the consultation is all about.
Anna McMorrin
I thank the Minister for his intervention, but, frankly, it does not go far enough, which is why I am speaking to these amendments.
The previous speaker, the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Duncan Baker), is a member of the Environmental Audit Committee. I was a member of that Committee in the last Parliament, and there was an inquiry into greening finance, chaired by Mary Creagh. We found that the UK’s financial investment chain was structurally incentivised to prioritise short-term profits rather than long-term issues including the climate crisis. That needs to change. Long-term sustainability must be factored into financial decision making, and our report recommended mandatory climate risk reporting and a clarification in law that pension trustees have a duty to consider long-term sustainability, not just short-term returns.
We also emphasised in that report that enforcing those recommendations would push climate change further up boardroom agendas, where it is seriously lacking at the moment. We found through our inquiry that less than half of the 25 largest pension providers discussed climate risk at board level. Their pension schemes, including those of Aviva, Lloyds Bank and HBOS, were all considered to be less engaged than peers among the top 25, so I am particularly pleased to see that Aviva has been instrumental in supporting this amendment.
Disclosure is vital in driving awareness that pensions may be invested in fossil fuel projects, fast fashion, deforestation and extraction. Driving that awareness out there about where their money is going means that people can take control of their pension decisions and make informed choices. Pension funds risk seeing assets become worthless unless they wake up to the climate crisis. The former Governor of the Bank of England and current UN special envoy for climate action, Mark Carney, has said that we must
“align finance with society’s values…This will help deliver the world that our citizens demand and that future generations deserve.”
He said it could be
“the greatest commercial opportunity of our time.”
It is critical that the changes come into effect as early as possible, rather than just 2050 or sooner, if they are to correct the catastrophic trajectory of our climate. We must go further. Amendment 16 would make provision for current and future Governments to significantly strengthen the Bill through secondary legislation. We stand at the brink of climate chaos the likes of which we have yet to experience, but which unfortunately may become all too familiar. If we do not take the necessary action now, I am afraid that we will not get the future our children deserve to see.
Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Cardiff North (Anna McMorrin), and it is good to see so many great contributions from hon. and right hon. Members from across the House. Pensions are a life asset—something that we build up over decades—and getting the policies right and working across parties is vital, so it is fantastic to see such unity and cross-party working on many of the issues contained within the Bill.
As my hon. Friend the Minister has said, the Bill makes our pensions safer, better and greener. I will focus my contribution today on that final point: pension policy becoming greener. Tackling climate change and getting to net zero is undoubtedly one of the country’s biggest challenges, and it is a top priority for me. The clock is ticking, and we all need to take action, from big corporates right down to the actions we take as individuals.
In September, I was delighted to welcome the Pensions Minister to Haworth in my constituency to visit Airedale Springs, a fantastic local manufacturing business in the Worth valley. It supplies mechanical springs to UK manufacturers such as Brompton Bikes. Crucially, it is innovative, and a green business, too. The roof of its factory has more than 100 solar panels, helping to supply its energy needs and power the business, and I want to see firms across our country adopting those kinds of innovative practices.
Our pension funds have trillions of pounds invested in assets under management, and that pension power can help us work towards achieving net zero, because when someone saves money into pensions, the pension provider takes the money and invests it in order to secure a long-term return for retirement. When those savings are in sustainable and ethical investments, such as businesses adopting similar practices to Airedale Springs, the pension can play its part by helping not only with retirement but with climate change.
The changes legislated for through the Bill open up a world of possibilities for our pensions to be invested in new and innovative technologies for the future, such as wind power, hydrogen and carbon capture and storage—technologies that help create jobs and aid the transition towards net zero. The Bill means that for the first time, pension schemes will be able to be required to take the Government’s net zero targets into account, as well as the goals of the Paris climate agreement.
I want to take a moment to address some of the amendments before the House. On amendments 16 to 24, the reality is that the Government are already taking powers that will require trustees to set targets for their management of climate risk. So surely an approach whereby we nudge pensions towards investing in a sustainable and ethical way is the right approach, and that is the one that the Government are taking. Mandatory targets would, in my view, undermine the duty that pension trustees have to invest in the best interests of the people whose pensions they are investing.
Access to Pension Credit
Anna McMorrin Excerpts(5 years, 4 months ago)
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Chris Elmore
I completely agree with my hon. Friend. The point that I will make later in my speech is that there seems to be this assumption that increasing publicity does not necessarily work or that trying to get cross-benefits, for example around housing benefit, would not solve the problem. However, his intervention shows that where Members of Parliament are proactive—arguably, the Government could be proactive instead—they can gain more support for their constituents. I pay tribute to him for doing that already; perhaps the Government could follow his lead.
Over the last few weeks, I have been working closely with the older people’s charity Independent Age, which has put forward some sensible recommendations that could help us to improve this situation. Indeed, its “Credit Where It’s Due” campaign has already made waves across the country, and I am proud to support it in its entirety.
Working with sector stakeholders and with all levels of Government, it is essential that the Government act to ensure that everyone who is entitled to pension credit receives it. To achieve this, I impress upon the Minister the need for him to make three clear commitments today. The first is to ensure that at least 75% of eligible people receive pension credit by the end of 2020. The second is to ensure that that figure is at least 95% by the end of 2022. The third is to ensure that it is 100% by 2025.
Independent Age estimates that if measures are put in place to achieve a 75% take-up target by 2020, half a million pensioners could be lifted out of poverty by putting an additional £1.25 billion into the pockets of our poorest pensioners. To reach those targets, the Government must put in place a comprehensive action plan that is ambitious about the full range of improvements that can be—indeed, need to be—made. Simply continuing previous approaches, such as focusing merely on new awareness-raising campaigns, will not allow us to make the progress on this issue that is desperately needed.
Of course, the voluntary sector plays a vital role in supporting older people to access pension credit, but such support cannot be relied upon to improve uptake across the country if used in isolation.
Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech with some excellent points. In Cardiff North, nearly 1,400 older people are missing out on a combined total of £4 million of pension credits. That has a huge impact on my constituency. I am reaching out to those older people. He has secured this important debate to reach out to the Government to do more, and his points are very salient. Does he agree that the Government need to be far more proactive in this area?
Chris Elmore
I completely agree with my hon. Friend. She makes a strong case as to why the Government should do more, because, as I have already said, this issue is clearly affecting every constituency right across the UK.
Previous Government attempts to work with older people’s groups and charities to raise awareness of pension credit have made a positive difference in the short term, but they have not been enough to achieve the longer-term change that we need. For the record, I have no problem at all with the Government engaging with and working with the voluntary sector to support pensioners. There are many reasons why voluntary groups do extraordinary work in supporting pensioners’ groups and older people’s groups to tackle loneliness or offer support. I take nothing away from any of that work, but the Government need to take responsibility for the fact that there are millions of pensioners who are not receiving the pension credit that they should rightly receive.
The four stages of Independent Age’s action plan are a clear and decisive way to turn this around. First, the Government must take responsibility for getting pension credit to older people. Previous research has generally focused on the failure of older people to respond in the way that the system demands. Barriers to claiming pension credit can include confusion about the application process and the stigma associated with claiming benefits. Many people do not apply because they think they are ineligible. At times, there has been more ambitious thinking. In 2012, the Department for Work and Pensions ran a small trial in which pension credit was paid to people without them having to apply. However, that approach has not been fully explored or rolled out. The Government need to use the information and techniques they have at their fingertips to significantly simplify, or even remove altogether, the application process for pension credit.
Secondly, the Government should consider the trigger points affecting pensioners on low incomes and explore cross-referral across agencies. They should look beyond retirement age and explore the role of other services at those trigger points, such as the role of GPs, or ensuring that applicants for disability or carer benefits are notified about pension credit at the point of award. The DWP should explore its role in notifying such individuals about pension credit; for example, Tell Us Once is a service that lets a person report a death to most Government organisations in one go. That could be a route to notifying the bereaved about the support they may be entitled to.
Thirdly, the Government must explore the role of housing benefit. Some 80% of households take up housing benefit, compared with as few as 58% for pension credit. We know that over half of the 330,000 pensioners who have moved into poverty since 2013 are renting. Some of those people will be entitled to, but missing out on, pension credit. Currently, the Department for Work and Pensions passes on the information received for a pension credit assessment to the relevant local authority, so that the applicant is able to claim housing benefit. However, the reverse does not happen. There is therefore an opportunity to ensure that when housing benefit has been awarded, the information used in that assessment is passported from the local authority to the DWP for a pension credit assessment.
Lastly, the Government should explore options for using behavioural insight. The Government should ensure that every element of the action plan is developed in partnership with older people. For example, they should explore co-producing communications with older people to maximise the likelihood of getting a response. This is about focusing less on assumptions and more on actually understanding the needs of older people.
I will briefly highlight some of the fantastic work being done to support pensioners in my constituency of Ogmore, including by the various older people’s groups that I meet with on a regular basis in Cefn Cribwr, Llanharan, Brynna and Maesteg, as well as the men’s sheds in Tondu, Ogmore Vale and the Garw Valley. Those organisations do an extraordinary amount of excellent peer-to-peer work to support older people by trying to tackle issues such as loneliness and secure the support that pensioners are entitled to. Nothing makes me prouder to be the MP for Ogmore than seeing different parts of those communities coming together to support one another. However, it is now time for the Government to step up and support the valiant efforts of those organisations by delivering the changes we need to stop any more pensioners falling into the dangerous cycle of poverty.
We stand at yet another turning point in our politics. Tomorrow we will likely have a radically different Government from the one that is before us today. While he has only been in office a matter of hours, the new Prime Minister’s in-tray must have more issues in it than the number of positions he has had on Europe over the years. However, this issue must not be parked until after we do or do not Brexit. The Government have to start realising that constitutional issues must not trump the real-life impact that their failures are having every day on our communities up and down the UK. Therefore, in all sincerity, I ask the Minister to not come back to us with warm words, but to give pensioners a real action plan that will deliver the poverty reduction that we need.
If austerity really is set to come to an end, it is time that this Government give back to the communities that have felt the brunt of the pain their policies have caused over the past 10 years. The first big but important step towards doing that is to ensure that older people receive the money that they are legally entitled to. Surely that is not too much to ask.
Pension Funds: Financial and Ethical Investments
Anna McMorrin Excerpts(5 years, 7 months ago)
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Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Sir Edward Davey) on securing this important debate.
I commend the climate change protesters who have taken to our streets in recent weeks, including many schoolchildren from my constituency who will be out again on Friday. They have succeeded in putting climate change where it should always have been, at the top of the political agenda. They are right to protest and they are right not to rest until the action that we need is taken and carbon emissions are falling.
It is good that Parliament has declared a climate emergency, but we need action now that is commensurate with an emergency. Divestment is critical to that. One of the essential systemic changes that we need to make is to look at the big flows of investment finance in our economy, divert them away from harmful, polluting and exploitative fossil fuels and reinvest them to scale up sustainable zero-carbon change.
Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. There are hundreds of billions of pounds in UK pension schemes, and asset owners sit on top of the investment scheme without realising the financial power that they wield. Should not it be made mandatory, so that there can be a transition to a low-carbon economy, for them to examine the situation and take action on the climate risks?
Helen Hayes
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. To my mind, divestment is a no-brainer. As far as we can we must keep fossil fuels in the ground. We do not have the luxury of doing anything else. Yet for as long as the fossil fuel giants can draw down big investment finance they will keep extracting and selling their damaging products. As long as the development of sustainable alternatives is starved of investment finance, limiting their availability and keeping their cost high, consumers will remain addicted to fossil fuels. It is that simple.
Divestment is a big, systematic change that we can make now. I pay tribute to both local councils in my constituency, Lambeth and Southwark, which were among the first local authorities to divest their pension funds from fossil fuels. I am proud of their commitment, which shows that divestment is completely possible within the strict fiduciary duties of pension fund trustees. More than that, retaining funds in fossil fuels is increasing the risk of those investments over time. At City Hall Sadiq Khan is also showing great leadership on divestment, divesting the Greater London Authority’s assets, working to support boroughs and encouraging them to divest.
The parliamentary pension scheme remains invested in fossil fuels. Five of the top 20 investments of our pension fund are in fossil fuel companies. The pension fund trustees have been far too slow to react to calls for divestment and are still refusing to do so, despite the fact that more than a third of MPs have written to them about it. The divestment of our pension funds is a straightforward leadership action that Parliament should take. No increased risk is entailed and in fact the opposite is true. The climate change emergency demands it.
Finally, we need the law to drive a further change in divestment. Although arguably the law currently requires pension fund trustees to invest in line with the Paris agreement, new legislation is needed to clarify and strengthen the duty. Reporting of fossil fuel-based investments should be mandatory and there should be a duty on all investors to report on the alignment of their portfolios in relation to the Paris agreement. This cannot be left to chance. We will not tackle climate change by retaining the status quo and fiddling around the edges. We need systemic change and it must start with our own leadership and a legislative framework that drives investment finance nationally and globally away from fossil fuels and towards the sustainable investment we need.
Mike Amesbury
That is a very good point, which I will come on to.
Pension schemes should be required to report on their management of climate risks in line with the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures. Transparency could also be enhanced by mandating scheme member representation—I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel) argued for this—on the governance boards of the new auto-enrolment schemes, as well as by requiring pension schemes to consult their members on key policies.
We need to send clear signals that tackling climate change and other environmental, social and governance risks is not distinct from the core purpose of financial markets, but an integral part of it, as the hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (Luke Graham) argued in his intervention. Of course, as we divest from fossil fuels, we must ramp up investment in clean and green technology. Labour has set out plans to fit 1.75 million homes with electricity-generating solar photovoltaic panels, creating thousands of quality skilled jobs across the UK. That is a Labour green deal that will shift energy generation via renewables to 85% by 2030. It will provide a major boost to an industry that is still recovering from the effects of the coalition Government’s ill thought out slashing of feed-in tariffs, which was such a blow to a growing and vital industry.
Anna McMorrin
Does my hon. Friend agree that to really address this issue, we need legislation like that in Wales, the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015, which is transforming how the public sector takes decisions? Legislation like that could and would address this very issue if we had it in the UK.
Mike Amesbury
I do agree with that point, which was powerfully made.
Labour will transform corporate environmental responsibility by making compliance with key environmental criteria a condition of firms listing on the stock exchange, so we will be applying that more broadly. Of course, to deliver the change needed to respond to this emergency, all parties need to show leadership.
Does the Minister agree that we are in a crisis, an emergency, and that nothing less than transformational, revolutionary change is needed? If that is the case, does the Minister believe that rolling out the red carpet for the current President of the United States, who is perhaps the most high-profile and influential denier of climate science in the world today, sends the right message? Will the Minister look at giving further strength to the ESG regulations? They are a welcome step forward, as we have already said, but we could go considerably further. Will the Minister offer Government support for the parliamentary schemes divesting from not only fossil fuels but environmentally damaging investments more broadly and doing so as quickly as possible? Finally, if the Government support the move away from fossil fuels, why do they continue to support the fracking revolution, as highlighted in their party’s 2017 manifesto? We need more than warm words. We need emergency action now.
UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
Anna McMorrin Excerpts(6 years, 6 months ago)
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Fiona Onasanya
Let me be clear. It is good that disabled people want to get into work, and this is a start. I agree with the hon. Gentleman on that. Where we differ is on disabled people who are not able to work who have to fight to prove that. I do not agree with that. It is not correct; it is against their human rights.
I am not saying that those who can work should not work but that we should listen to what those who cannot work are saying. They are going through assessments. I have a constituent who had four strokes and is physically disabled, yet because she touched her face she is told she can work. Something is wrong there. Something is wrong with a double amputee being told they can climb the stairs with their hands. That is what needs to be addressed.
Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making an incredibly passionate speech with which I am completely in agreement. The assessments really need reviewing. My constituent wanted a home visit because he struggles even to leave his house. On the first appointment, he fell outside his door, so he could not get there. For the second appointment, which the assessors agreed to give, he struggled to get the buses—transport was slow and delayed—but he got there. They refused to see him because he was three minutes late. He did not get his assessment. The system urgently needs changing.
Fiona Onasanya
I agree that the system needs changing. My concern is that if there are recommendations that could make a process better or even more streamlined, why would they not be adopted? I do not have the details of the situation of my hon. Friend’s constituents, but I do not understand why his assessment would be refused for being three minutes late.
We are all in agreement on seeking to help those who need assistance, but why are recommendations that would make the process easier and more streamlined not being taken on board? Why are we not looking at people’s rights? We are all one race—the human race—so why are we not looking at people and saying, “You need assistance.”? It is a bit like a body: if in a big society—to coin a phrase from the Government—something is not functioning correctly, why do we not stop and rectify it? Why do we just say, “Actually, don’t worry about that,” and carry on? That is how it comes across to our constituents.
DWP Offices Closures: Merthyr Tydfil
Anna McMorrin Excerpts(6 years, 7 months ago)
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Gerald Jones
Again, my hon. Friend makes an interesting point. I will come on to some of the travel pressures that I have recently experienced myself.
As I said, the closure would have an impact on the surrounding communities across the heads of the valleys —an area trying its best to regenerate itself amid ongoing austerity pressures, which have created a difficult financial situation for our area.
Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. In my constituency, in Gabalfa, the DWP office is set to close. Does he agree that such job losses take away something very valuable from our local communities? There is a lack of understanding from the Government of the transport challenges that will be faced by my constituents and many other people across the south Wales valleys.
Gerald Jones
The geography of south Wales is quite unique and people have to navigate the transport difficulties to which my hon. Friends have alluded on a daily basis. There are huge difficulties in access across valleys and from parts of south Wales to others and the transport links need to be addressed.
If the closures go ahead, they will decimate the economies of town centres across south-east Wales—town centres that are already struggling to cope. The DWP is planning to relocate staff to a site that, until last week, was known only as “north of Cardiff”. Last week, we had confirmation that it has signed a lease for a site on Treforest industrial estate. It was probably the worst-kept secret, but anyway it has now been confirmed.
In January, I and my Welsh Assembly colleague, Dawn Bowden AM, along with members of the PCS union, undertook an early morning journey on public transport to the proposed new site. It proved that to get to the new location by public transport will, for some existing employees, involve travel by train and bus, and walking a distance through a poorly lit industrial estate, which will undoubtedly be a major challenge in the winter months. The journey took all of two hours.
The site has poor access from the nearest train station along a narrow road with no pavement and my understanding is that it will have 1,700 full-time equivalent roles, but initial observations show that the car parking provision would be limited. There is a clear expectation that members of staff will travel by public transport, but it is also clear that many would find it extremely difficult to make that daily journey by public transport. Some members of staff already commute long distances to get to their workplace in Merthyr Tydfil as a result of previous DWP workforce reorganisations. Having to travel even further would, in many cases, cause hardship.
The construction of a brand-new building with a view to lowering costs seems a little confused. In many communities across south-east Wales, there is an opportunity to look at existing buildings, which would undoubtedly have a competitive financial case and retain jobs and viable office space in town centres. Alternatively, if a large employer such as the DWP pulls out of town centres, buildings such as the former tax office in Merthyr Tydfil, which closed nearly a decade ago, will remain empty and become dilapidated over time, often becoming a blight on the local community and impacting heavily on the wider public purse in the medium to long term.
UK Government offices are currently based in a number of towns in south Wales, supporting local jobs and economies. I am bound to highlight the opportunities that exist in Merthyr Tydfil. The option of retaining current jobs and having an enhanced presence is more than worthy of consideration. The current DWP office in Merthyr Tydfil is well-established and the staff turnover rate is low. Many employees have worked in that location for a long time and are committed to providing a good service to the public, and the local jobs market means that vacancies in Merthyr Tydfil are filled quickly and applicants remain in jobs. The DWP office is modern and has space for additional staff. Traffic congestion coming into Merthyr Tydfil at peak times is minimal in comparison with larger towns and cities and would mean that staff and customers would gain easy access, whether for employment or accessing the service.
I hope the Minister will comment on the concerns I have raised. Has the DWP yet undertaken an equality impact assessment regarding members of staff? DWP announced the proposed closure of Merthyr Tydfil benefit centre along with others in the south Wales area, yet, to date, local, district and senior managers state that equality impact assessments have not been completed or even commissioned. I received a letter in July last year from the then Minister for Employment, stating that an equality analysis was due to take place, so I would be extremely disappointed and annoyed if, after nearly 12 months, that had not happened. I cannot understand how the decision to close a site that provides quality jobs in such a deprived area of south Wales can be made without an equality impact assessment being carried out and its findings being considered. Surely carrying out an impact assessment on such a move is an essential first step.
An announcement was recently made that staff on fixed-term appointments in Merthyr Tydfil benefits centre will not have their contracts renewed, meaning that there will be at least 40 fewer staff by the end of the year. Yet the work will still need to be processed. Staff at the centre are concerned that current workloads will be exported to other sites, some possibly outside of Wales. They are concerned that something is being kept from them. Does the DWP have plans to close the site earlier than originally announced?
The Minister for Employment (Alok Sharma)
It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe. I congratulate the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones) on securing this important debate.
The level of employment in the United Kingdom is at a record high. In the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, the employment rate is 70.1%—an increase of 7 percentage points since 2010. That trend has been replicated across Wales as a whole, where the employment rate has increased by 5.8 percentage points since 2010, and now stands at 73%. I know that all hon. Members will welcome those jobs figures.
It may be helpful if I explain the background to the changes in the DWP estate, which have led to this issue. In March 2018, the 20-year contract covering the majority of the DWP’s current estate of more than 900 sites came to an end, which gave us a significant opportunity to re-evaluate what we need from our estate, taking into account the impact of universal credit, the increased use of online services and the improving employment rates. It is therefore right that we reconfigure our Jobcentre estate and make jobcentres fit for the 21st century. This is not about reducing services; it is about taking the opportunity to stop spending money on empty space, so we can spend more on supporting those in need.
In July 2017, we announced our plans for the majority of sites in the DWP estate. As part of that, we announced that five sites in south Wales, all with a focus on back-of-house activities, including Merthyr Tydfil, would be moving to a new single strategic processing site from 2021. As the hon. Gentleman outlined, the current office in Merthyr Tydfil is a mixed site, with a customer-facing jobcentre and a back-of-house processing function. I can confirm our intention is to keep the current site in Merthyr Tydfil for the next three years. Thereafter we will transfer the back-of-house staff to our new consolidated site for back-of-house operations, which, as the hon. Gentleman noted, we recently formally confirmed will be in Treforest.
Anna McMorrin
Will the Minister confirm what conversations he has had with the Welsh Government about the closure of those centres and the moving of the office to another site?
Alok Sharma
I will talk about the Welsh Government in a moment.
By choosing Treforest, we will be securing quality jobs for the next generation in an area that still lags in terms of employment rates. The hon. Lady talked about the Welsh Government, and the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney talked about following the Welsh Government. The Welsh Government recently set out their “Our Valleys, Our Future” strategy. Their ambition is to see more public sector jobs relocated to the south Wales valleys, and we believe our investment in Treforest demonstrates our commitment to that. The announcement of the move to Treforest was welcomed by Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council.
Alok Sharma
Of course, the Welsh Government’s Welsh Revenue Authority has also chosen to base itself in Treforest. The DWP’s site is able to house 1,700 jobs, which is more than the number of people who are moving, so there is the potential to locate more new jobs at that site in the future. I know hon. Members are keen on that, and of course I support it.
Anna McMorrin
Will the Minister answer my initial question? What conversations has he had with Welsh Government Ministers about this move?
Alok Sharma
I have been in post for a number of months, and I personally have not had a direct conversation with my Welsh counterparts, but I am happy to write to the hon. Lady after this debate to set out the conversations that have been had with the Welsh Government. As I say, with this move we are supporting the strategy that the Welsh Government have set out for additional jobs in the valleys.
Alok Sharma
When we make changes to the estate, of course we have to take into account the impact on jobs, but new jobs in other areas will be created as a result, and it must be balanced with the savings we will get as a result of the reconfiguration of the DWP estate. That money will be ploughed back into helping those most in need.
Alok Sharma
Let me continue for a little while.
In arriving at Treforest as the new site, we conducted a comprehensive postcode mapping exercise of the home locations of all potentially affected DWP colleagues. I have a set of figures for how long it will take individuals located in the five sites to reach Treforest by public transport. The latest personal travel report published by the Welsh Government—I think it is from 2013—set out that eight out of 10 journeys to work are by car. The proportion has remained broadly unchanged for 10 years. The timings I have been given suggest that the journey times will be about 20 to 25 minutes in most cases—perhaps less.
Anna McMorrin
The Minister is being very generous in giving way. Has he actually been to the south Wales valleys?
Alok Sharma
Certainly not during my time as a Minister in this role.
There is a train station at the edge of the estate, where the new site will be. We understand that the Welsh Government have ambitious plans to enhance the transport links throughout south Wales, and that they will further improve access to Treforest, which is one of their key priority areas for the south Wales metro. We will work closely with colleagues in the Welsh Government and the local council on those transport solutions.
The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney said that there is insufficient parking space at Treforest. The DWP has made provision for substantial car parking on site to complement the park-and-ride development led by the Welsh Government.
Based on current estimates, moving our back-of-house functions to Treforest will impact about 239 DWP staff in Merthyr Tydfil. As part of the move, we want to maximise the retention of DWP colleagues, along with their valuable skills and experience. To do that, we will consult fully with colleagues and trade unions and have one-to-one conversations with staff to understand the personal impact of any changes on them.
Personal Independence Payments
Anna McMorrin Excerpts(6 years, 10 months ago)
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Laura Pidcock
The balance is that thousands of people are locked out of the system and never even get an award because they are so ground down by the process. The Government need to realise what a cruel and callous system they are putting people through and the knock-on effect that has on our constituents. I am a bit shocked by the disbelief on the Conservative side—they look stunned that this is taking place. That is the reality for disabled people in this country. People are falling further into depression and self-harm, having suicidal thoughts and becoming reliant on food banks. All of those things are harmful for our society. Losing Motability cars was a consistent theme, along with falling into debt. The NHS is also being put under much strain.
Laura Pidcock
I will make a bit more progress.
In the past seven years of this Government, the Department for Work and Pensions has become a harsher and colder organisation. A culture has grown through successive Secretaries of State that sees claimants as numbers and fraudsters instead of people with needs, and a burden on the state rather than citizens with potential. The Government’s own figures put the rate of fraud for PIP at 1.4%—not even worth talking about—yet the system is built on the presumption that people are lying and need to be found out.
Here is a symbol of that callousness: a few weeks ago in my surgery, one of my constituents showed me a decision letter telling her that she was no longer entitled to PIP—her lifeline. The letter was dated 25 December—merry Christmas from the DWP. That is far from the most shocking story. Over the past week, I have read several hundred testimonies from people who have suffered under the system.
A whole community out there has been frightened, mistreated and intimidated by the Government, the media and the DWP. I will read a few of those testimonies—they put things much better than me—before drawing my speech to a conclusion. One says:
“I hope change can be made as presently the PIP system is too brutal, rigid and unfair to people like me who want to live an able life despite disability”.
Another says:
“Why are they treating disabled citizens as though we are undeserving of welfare support?”
Another says:
“I do not want to be in this situation. I am not choosing this life or lifestyle. I am a human being with feelings and emotions. I need help, support and understanding, not being ridiculed or made to feel like a criminal and waste of space and a burden on society or that I am going to be caught out at any opportunity for my disability.”
This one was the most striking:
“being on benefits is like being in an abusive relationship with the state. We cannot escape our abusers, we need them, we are financially dependent on them”.
This is what I ask of the Government: remove the contracts from Atos and Capita with immediate effect and bring the assessments back in-house; remove the assessors’ bonuses; abolish the mandatory reconsideration step of the process, because it is utterly pointless; make it compulsory to take medical documentation into account at the initial assessment, because it is traumatic for people to have to go through their medical conditions in detail, and the evidence from professionals is already there. There must be consequences for inaccurate assessment reports about people’s health conditions, and we should redesign the assessment process alongside disabled people so that it accepts a social model of disability, not a medical model.
The judgment against the Government towards the end of last year when, as was mentioned, a High Court judge said the changes were “blatantly discriminatory,” should give the Minister pause for thought. It is an opportunity for reflection. What has become of not just this Government but our society when we treat people as criminals and fraudsters for being disabled? Do they really know what fear is experienced across this nation at the clatter of the letterbox? People are scared that there might be a brown envelope from the DWP. It is time for the Government to admit that the system is a disaster and that a review of PIP and the whole benefit system is urgently needed.
Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Laura Pidcock) on securing this important debate. I will reinforce the points made by a number of Members this morning. To put it quite bluntly, I believe that the emotional trauma caused by PIP and the Government’s approach to its administration has led to suffering on what can only be described as an enormous scale.
I will give one example of a constituent, as her case illustrates the fundamental problems with PIP, and then make two other brief points. My constituent suffers from chronic long-term and debilitating back pain, which was made worse in the aftermath of an operation, during which she suffered terribly. However, after her disability living allowance was terminated, she was awarded much less support through PIP and her mobility car was taken away from her because she had not scored enough points in the arbitrary assessment. Ironically, it can be said that, in this and many other cases, personal independence payments reduce people’s personal independence and mobility. That is one of the fundamental problems with this system that we need to consider today.
I will briefly address two other points; I realise other colleagues would like to speak. First, the length of time that people suffer because of the trauma caused by the system is a problem. It is important to note that, all too often, the ordeal does not stop with the assessment, which is just the beginning of a very lengthy process. My constituent lives in flat so small that there is not even room for her husband to stay. She has to contend with living alone in cramped conditions and in pain. As if that were not bad enough, she is having to find the strength to challenge her initial assessment report formally, because it does not reflect her condition or what she said to the so-called health professional.
There is a wider issue, which was mentioned earlier, about whether due weight is given to medical evidence. In certain cases, the written evidence of GPs and consultants has been discounted or not given proper consideration because, according to the DWP, they are regarded as the applicant’s advocate and are therefore, in the warped world of PIP assessments, somehow biased. The irony is that the Government give total credence to the advice given by their own so-called health professionals, who, as we have heard, are not necessarily trained in the area of medicine that they are due to assess. Reconsideration of that issue in particular should be a top priority for the Government.
Anna McMorrin
I want to set out the case of a constituent who came to me. A medical professional, he was terminally ill and had weeks to live, but he was advised that he would be eligible for PIP only from December of that year. His partner was distraught, as was he. He wanted to use that money for the last few weeks of his life. It turned out that there had been an administrative error, but they had to come to me to sort that out. That is a disgrace.
Matt Rodda
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I would like to make a suggestion to the Government. How about going back to the drawing board and designing a system that listens to people and allows them to express their issues in their own words. Above all, how about developing a system that demonstrates real compassion and decency, which we had for many decades in our welfare state? The Government can and must do better. It is so obvious that the current system is designed and contrived to cut public spending. I ask the Government to think again.
Universal Credit Roll-out
Anna McMorrin Excerpts(7 years, 2 months ago)
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Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)
It is obvious once again that this Government care more about saving face than serving the people of this country. This Conservative Government say that they are improving the lives of working people and getting people back into work, yet they are ignoring pleas from across this Chamber and the country to halt the roll-out of this shambolic universal credit system. We are being told that people should “get up, work hard and get on in life”, but these are hard-working people—families and their children—bearing the brunt of many years of Tory economic failure and austerity cuts.
Anna McMorrin
No, I will not give way.
The reality is that this accelerated and aggressive roll-out will see an increase in debt, rental arrears, food bank usage, and homelessness—people struggling to make ends meet, with real-life consequences. I know of one family who have had their two children taken into care because they were forced to move into a tent in a park after being evicted when their housing benefit was not paid on time. These children were taken away from their parents not because they were not loved, not because they were not cared for, but because this Government failed them.
It is clear that the current universal credit process is not fit for purpose. It is due to be rolled out in my constituency early in the new year, and I am already getting many people coming to me truly scared about how this is going to affect them. We are seeing an increase in homelessness in Cardiff, especially among young people, with an 18% increase in the past year.
Mr Simon Clarke (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Con)
Will the hon. Lady give way?
Anna McMorrin
No, I will not give way.
We are also seeing 475 needless deaths every year across Wales alone because vulnerable people are unable to afford to heat their homes. Homelessness and fuel poverty are set to get worse under this system. We have a Welsh Labour Government tackling it, but their arms are tied behind their backs with this roll-out of universal credit.
I am deeply concerned about the effect that this will have on single-parent families, who make up one in eight households, with significant hardship through delays, errors, fluctuating payments, and payments in arrears. At a time when child poverty in single- parent families is forecast to sharply increase, this system must be fixed. Do not let homeless, evictions, debts and misery pile up. Do not allow destitution to get worse in the 21st century. The Secretary of State says that he wants to test and improve the system; he should listen to the overwhelming evidence and halt this.