Pension Equality for Women

Bill Wiggin Excerpts

Thursday 14th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Grahame Morris]

The hon. Gentleman makes a completely reasonable point. I am sure there is common cause across the House—I am looking at the Minister and hoping that common sense can prevail—and there must be an acknowledgement that there was poor communication. I am sure that the Minister is aware that a collective action is being taken by the WASPI women through Bindmans solicitors, and there could be a case of maladministration if the matter is found in their favour.

[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

I have been listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman and he seems to know what he is talking about. Can he give an idea of how much this will cost? I suspect that there is a range of amounts, but I am curious to know what he thinks would be the right amount of money that could go some way towards putting this right.

[Grahame Morris]

I think there are things that the Government and the Minister could do immediately, and I will come to those a little later—I have set out my suggestions in a sequential way, and they include immediately extending pensions credit to the group. I do not have the costings for that—[Interruption.] My colleagues on the Front Bench inform me that it is £800 million. We could do things with the winter fuel allowance or bus passes, which would offer immediate help to these women.

I alluded to the fundamental point made by the former Pensions Minister, Steve Webb, who said:

“The 2011 Act, which I was responsible for, did not add any more than 18 months to people’s pension age, typically 12 months. But when we did write to people—and we did write to them to tell them what changes we have made—this was the first time they had heard about the first changes. So instead of me writing to them to tell them there was an extra year on the pension age, we were effectively telling them they had six extra years added to their pension age, which is of course why they were outraged”.

Hopefully, we are having a sensible, constructive and meaningful debate, but we should make no mistake—there is real hardship and outrage out there.

Housing and Social Security

Bill Wiggin Excerpts

Thursday 22nd June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

I will keep my comments brief so that my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) gets a chance to have her voice heard.

I wanted to raise the issue of roads in Herefordshire at the very first opportunity. Herefordshire has the most roads per capita of any county in England, and those roads are deteriorating. The joke is that in England we drive on the left-hand side of the road, and in Herefordshire we drive on what is left of the road. It has now got to the stage where something needs to be done. I am grateful to the Secretary of State, who is coming to visit my constituency tomorrow to see the state of our roads.

The issue is not inextricably linked to our adult social care problem. It is appropriate that we are talking about housing today. People work all their lives in the prosperous cities and then retire to the beautiful countryside in seats such as mine, and they need and deserve proper adult social care. Every penny of council tax raised in North Herefordshire is spent on looking after the elderly and looked-after children. They deserve to be looked after properly, but counties and constituencies such as mine cannot cope with this burden. We need it to be shared across the nation.

The Queen’s Speech is interesting in many ways, and I am pleased that certain bits are missing. I was deeply unhappy with the manifesto proposal to reduce the number of hon. Members to 600. That would be very difficult for the Government to pass. I hope that we will soon ask the Boundary Commission to look again at equalising the size of constituencies without reducing the number of colleagues here because as our MEPs go, the burden of work will fall to us.

I also had grave reservations about the manifesto proposals regarding section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013, which is all about the media being properly regulated. The media who do not like it complain that there is only one approved regulator, but there is nothing to stop them having more than one approved regulator. That would allow for low-cost arbitration for newspapers and complainants. Small local papers ought to have that bargain basement way of solving these problems.

Those are the two things in the manifesto about which I was deeply unhappy. This is a great opportunity for us to think again and continue to press forward for an outstanding and positive Brexit conclusion. Of course, we will never read about that in our newspapers, but the Government are going to do a grand job on it. The Opposition can knock the Queen’s Speech if they will, but let us see them support all the things they say they believe in. I am happy to conclude and allow my hon. Friend to get her words in too.

Oral Answers to Questions

Bill Wiggin Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

That would depend on where the claim is within the system and whether it is with Capita, Atos or DWP. I will look into the individual complaints. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would like to come and see me and I will make sure we get on with it.

[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

3. What assessment he has made of recent trends in the award of discretionary housing payments.

[Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)]

9. What assessment he has made of recent trends in the award of discretionary housing payments.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)]

Figures published in December show that in the first half of the financial year 2013-14 the average committed spend by local authorities was 40% of their allocated budget. Against those who had said that they were overspending, in fact it turns out that the vast majority are not.

[Bill Wiggin]

Will the Secretary of State explain the particular circumstances for people who have been on housing benefit constantly since 1996 in relation to discretionary housing payments?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Yes, this is a narrow but complicated area dating back to 1996 with the introduction of local reference rent rules. They were intended to offer transitional protection at that time for existing claimants, but they were not in any way time limited. There was another opportunity, in 2008, to change the regulations when the previous Government brought in local housing allowance. They were not adjusted then. This protection had been dormant for 17 years and not used. This is a complex area that we are now resolving, but I have to say that in three different Governments it has missed the attention of Ministers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve Webb]

I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman for his consistency on the issue. His view is that he wants his income in retirement to be wholly dependent on a promise that future taxpayers would fund it. I must say that I would prefer to spread my risks by having a decent, simple state pension, such as the single-tier pension that we are introducing, and a stock market-linked investment that will benefit in the long run as the economy grows and, crucially, will benefit from a contribution from the employer, too, which is not the case in the state scheme.

[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

T9. Will the Secretary of State say how many fewer children there are in workless families since 2010?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The total figure for the fall in the number of workless households has been in the order of 17%. The position we inherited was that it had not fallen for 30 years and approximately 2.5 million children were living in such households. That number has fallen by several hundred thousand—a clear change and a clear improvement for the public and those going back to work.