Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Catherine West Excerpts

Thursday 16th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

I rise to speak in the context of the devastating news that the tax burden is the highest in 75 years. I will make two points: one on families in my constituency and one on the impact on the high street. We have seen zero improvement and the degradation of public services, as emphasised in the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame Morris). Public services have not improved. Local authorities have received a 40% funding cut since 2010, and people are complaining of not being able to see GPs or get basic operations done in the NHS.

Despite a big leg-up for millionaires in yesterday’s Budget, there is precious little for working families. Every day I hear devastating stories from families living in overcrowded council homes, or struggling with a 20% increase in privately rented homes or a major spike in mortgage payments. I welcome the relief on energy bills for another three months and prepayment meter charges being brought in line with direct debit payments. For households experiencing deep poverty, that measure will make a difference.

The plight of local families is being felt on the high street, in the closure of shops, bank branches, pubs, cafes and the post office. We are told in Wood Green that due to the collapse in family budgets, WHSmith is folding, and so is our post office. Lack of money in people’s pockets means devastated high streets. Our high streets needed a rescue package yesterday, but there was precious little on offer for small businesses.

Schools are seeing the impact of energy bills. I was at a meeting recently at Stroud Green Primary School, and many Hornsey schools told me that this year, above any other, they see their budgets collapsing. One big difference to family budgets is the introduction of universal school meals for all primary school children being brought in as a one-off emergency measure this financial year in London. That will have a big impact on food scarcity in the local communities.

The sense of strain has made families feel very isolated and unsupported. I welcome the debate we have had around the mental health of children as a result of some of the announcements in the Budget, yet some of them are coming in far too late; they are being announced now, but are to be introduced only in 2026. That is far too late: we need to see things in this academic year, not be waiting several years.

In a powerful debate in Westminster Hall in the last week we heard the shocking statistic that over 200 school- children are lost to suicide every year. This is the impact of the stress and strain on working families. Even before the pandemic, mental health waiting lists were soaring, and I have heard from many constituents, as we have heard from many Members today, about children waiting months or years for the support they need.

Teachers tell me that they are struggling with the increasing number of children who clearly need specialist support. While my borough is subject to extra help for special educational needs from the Department for Education, this must come in at the same time as improvements to the public sector, because sometimes there are not enough therapists or specialists to assist children with special educational needs. Some families have told me they have had to wait up to 18 months for an assessment of their child’s needs, putting huge strain on schools; they do not have the expertise to provide extra support from their budgets, which of course have not really increased since 2010. The Government’s flagship special educational needs and disabilities review is all words but no action, and while I welcome the announcement on building new schools, when will they open their doors? We need to speed up the delivery of some of the announcements made yesterday.

There is the same problem with the Chancellor’s childcare offer. There is no support for this academic year, and the programme will not come in until 2026. And I think the Chancellor might have stolen an idea from Labour on wraparound care, because I am sure I saw my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) going to breakfast clubs and after-school clubs where they do exist. We know from the Foundation Years Information and Research group that early years funding is needed now, not in two years. I hope the Chancellor understands the desperate urgency of this situation.

Sadly, when it comes to support for families and schools, the Budget is littered with disappointments and delays. I hope the Minister will take back to the Department the urgency of the matter. With the mental health crisis and parents struggling, what we really need is a fresh approach as soon as possible.

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[Jonathan Reynolds]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. He will know that he represents several members of my family, so I have personal knowledge of his constituency, and they think he is a very fine Member of Parliament. Because of my family and my personal heritage of growing up in County Durham and mining communities, I know the issues he talks about, particularly those around profit sharing and the surplus and reserves of the mineworkers’ pension scheme. There is a case to look at there, and I would be more than happy to engage with him on those issues for the benefit of his constituents and those of other Members in the Chamber.

We are seeing people cutting back on all they can, but still being left with too much month at the end of their money. The British public need only ask the following questions. Are they better off after 13 years of this Government? Are they safer? Are the public services they rely on working better than a decade ago? No, no, and no again. At the core of that failure is the hard truth that, over 13 years, the Government have turned the UK into the worst-performing major economy in the world. That failure is at the heart of what is hitting people’s pay packets and public services. As we have heard many times in the debate, the British economy is the only developed economy in the world that has still not recovered to its pre-pandemic size.

[Catherine West]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does he agree that without reforming housing—be it the overly pricey private sector, the lack of social homes or the mortgage crisis created by the last Budget—there can be no real growth?

[Jonathan Reynolds]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising those points, because housing is another area that we heard very little about in the Budget yesterday. Perhaps that was because of the mortgage premium that many people in this country are paying as a result of the last Conservative mini-Budget, if we are still able to call it that—the impact certainly was not mini. My hon. Friend makes some very good points about what that means for her constituents.

We have seen the lowest business investment of any G7 nation, and wages are at the same level as they were in 2008. I spend pretty much all my time talking to businesses, and I often genuinely find myself thinking, “With all the brilliant things in this country, how have this Government managed to do so badly?” The big story of the Budget is the same as ever: low growth, high taxes and poor public services. To truly realise the ambition of this country, we have to change course from that. Half measures on childcare, which will take years to come to fruition and just pile more costs on to providers and parents, will not cut it. Saying we want to be a science superpower or a leader on clean energy is not the same as delivering the measures to actually do it, and spending millions of pounds on a handful of very wealthy people getting even bigger pensions will not drive the kind of dynamic labour market we need. The big, bold and radical ambition for this country will come only from a Labour Government.

Crucially, the Budget comes at a time when we can no longer put off the major decisions on net zero, because our competitors are pulling ahead. The Inflation Reduction Act in the United States and the Net-Zero Industry Act in the EU have radically affected the relative competitiveness of the UK, which is a point that my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) made particularly well. When it comes to climate change and the chance to reindustrialise parts of Britain, we are presented with the fierce urgency of now.

This year, we have already had bad news from Ford, which is cutting jobs in Essex. We have had bad news from British Steel, which is cutting jobs in Scunthorpe. We have had bad news from AstraZeneca, which has chosen Ireland over Cheshire. This is the challenge that I wanted the Budget to rise to, because I want to see the Government put up a fight for Britain. After 13 years, I am sick of austerity, poor public services and stagnation. If, like us, people want hope, optimism and change, it should be clear by now that it will not come from doing more of the same.

We all know that the Government have a poor record on crime, but perhaps even we did not expect them to be so brazen as to commit an act of burglary themselves by taking so many of Labour’s ideas for the Budget. Indeed, we have heard many speeches today extol the benefits of childcare reform, keeping the energy price freeze and ending the injustice of prepayment meters. I say to Ministers that they are very welcome, as we are more than happy to share our ideas with a Government who have seemingly run out of their own. But rather than have the half-fat versions of our plans, why not go the whole way and bring the fundamental change that this country needs with a full Labour Government?

At the top of that list is that Labour believes that this country needs an industrial strategy, one that is not about picking winners; an industrial strategy means having a plan to keep Britain competitive in the global race. This Government have a curious mix of big state, top-down targets and a kind of total libertarianism in how to deliver them. For example, it is Government policy to force residential and commercial property to meet higher standards in just four years’ time or be removed from the market; to decarbonise home heating; and to phase out petrol and diesel vehicle sales in just seven years’ time. But the Government are not on track to meet any of those targets because there is no plan to deliver any of them. Just to retain our existing automotive industry we will need 10 battery gigafactories, but we have one. Germany has 10 times that capacity, and every day we fall further behind, more jobs and industries go elsewhere.

Only private investment and public investment pulling in the same direction can deliver the wall of money we need to renew this country. We accept that we cannot possibly equal the awesome fiscal firepower of the United States, but we can make the UK more competitive, we can target funding where it will make a difference and we can make markets deliver what we need. Let us consider a sector such as steel. We know that we must make the transition to green steel or face the likely end of the UK steel industry. Governments from across the world—Sweden, Austria, Canada, Germany—are partnering with their steel sectors to go green. We know that there is market demand for that here in the UK, but we have not got a Government willing to be the partner that industry needs. So Labour’s industrial strategy will work in partnership with industry to keep Britain competitive, not with random pots of money with no return to the taxpayer or endless changes to the corporation tax and investment regime, but with a long-term plan to make Britain investible again.

Labour also believes in a fundamentally different approach to our economy and our politics. We know what every good business leader knows: sustained growth comes from working people, and they are our biggest asset. So where is the employment Bill the Government pledged? Where is the promise, 12 months on, that there will be no more P&O Ferries ever tolerated again in the UK? Basic rights, such as sick pay, holiday pay and protection against unfair dismissal, should be for everyone. That is why we in the Labour party will always be the party of good work and good wages, and where this Government have failed to act, we will act, with our new deal for working people to do just that.

I did welcome one part of the Budget: the trailblazer announcements on devolution to my area in Greater Manchester and to the west midlands. We believe that the country is too centralised, and too often that leads to poor public services and the inefficient use of public money. But why should only two parts of England get the chance to shake themselves free from the dead hand of this Conservative Government? Why can the remaining 90% of the country not have that option too? That is why we will give every community the power it needs to shape its own destiny.

For all the talk of going for growth, at the core of this Budget is the same old Conservative malaise: the lack of ambition and vision that has turned us back into the sick man of Europe. I have sat through 13 years of Conservative Budgets, and as the years go on their claims get thinner and thinner. Last year, when inflation was rising, it was all down to global forces, but this year when it has peaked and it is set to fall, all of a sudden that is down to Conservative genius. Frankly, the British people are not fooled.

Listening to Government Members today, it seems they want to congratulate themselves on a job well done because a Conservative Chancellor got to his feet and this time has not crashed the markets, because we narrowly and technically avoided a recession, and because the growth forecasts are bad but not quite as bad in the short term as last time. Is that what the Conservatives have come to? Is that the measure of success? Have we set a bar so low that we will trip over it as we leave the Chamber today? People are paying more than £1,000 more on their mortgages right now because of recent Conservative actions. Investment and jobs are leaving our shores because of those actions. Our constituents are stuck on waiting lists because of those actions. The lack of action on tackling that is unforgivable.

We believe that Labour has the ambition to match Britain’s potential. We will take this country from the bottom of the G7 to the top. We will have the highest sustained growth of our competitor countries and deliver the public services that people can rely on. We will deliver more doctors and nurses to get waiting lists down; police officers back on the streets; higher wages and better jobs in industries that people will be proud to work in; and a plan to reindustrialise Britain, to give back our hope and our future. That is why it is clear that only a Labour Chancellor can deliver the change that our country so desperately needs.

Oral Answers to Questions

Catherine West Excerpts

Monday 6th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)]

5. What assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the delivery of support to low-income households with the cost of living.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

6. What assessment she has made of the adequacy of benefits rates in the context of the rise in the level of inflation.

[Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)]

9. What recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of universal credit payment levels in the context of the rise in the cost of living.

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[Catherine West]

My constituent, who is severely sight impaired and has learning difficulties, lives with his mother, who is basically supplementing his day-to-day living from her own pensioner poverty pot, because of the relentless increase of inflation. What action will the Minister take urgently to address this terrible injustice, with one person who is already in poverty having to try to help her severely disabled son? Will he step in to assist in this terrible cost of living crisis?

[David Rutley]

I do not know the exact details of that case, but there may be opportunities in that household to explore pension credits. Of course, the Chancellor, with support from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, recently announced that the household support fund has also been increased by a further £500 million, until April next year.

Oral Answers to Questions

Catherine West Excerpts

Monday 8th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Will Quince]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. She is a strong advocate for her constituents in Hastings and Rye. Since April 2019, and throughout the covid pandemic, we have provided funding to Citizens Advice and Citizens Advice Scotland to deliver Help to Claim, which gives specific and targeted support for those people needing additional support to successfully make a universal credit claim. I am pleased to say that we will be funding that support for a further 12 months.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

What assessment she has made of the implications for her policies of the financial barriers to people’s compliance with the requirement to self-isolate; and if she will make a statement.

[The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Justin Tomlinson)]

The Government have delivered an unprecedented package of support during the pandemic. Where eligible, financial support for those self-isolating in line with Government guidance includes access to employment and support allowance, universal credit, statutory sick pay and the test and trace support payments scheme, depending on individual circumstances.

[Catherine West]

The scientists on the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies have said that many people are still not self-isolating for financial reasons. What assessment has the Department made of the means-testing involved in the £500 payment? Does the Minister not agree that this should go, and that everybody should be eligible for that £500 payment, because we cannot allow a stop-start recovery as we come out of lockdown? Secondly, does he agree that statutory sick pay is pathetically low for those jobs that are eligible for it, and that there are far too many jobs where people do not even get basic statutory sick pay?

[Justin Tomlinson]

While the £500 test and trace scheme payment is rightly targeted at those most in need, we have also provided local authorities with £35 million for discretionary payments, and we will continue to provide local authorities with a further £20 million per month while this scheme carries on. The rate of statutory sick pay should not be looked at in isolation because, depending on eligibility, people may also be able to claim universal credit or new-style employment and support allowance, and the majority of employers pay more than the statutory minimum.

Oral Answers to Questions

Catherine West Excerpts

Monday 30th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

What steps her Department is taking to encourage businesses to participate in the kickstart scheme.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

What steps her Department is taking to encourage employers to participate in the kickstart scheme.

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

What steps her Department is taking to encourage employers to participate in the Kickstart scheme.

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[Mims Davies]

The Secretary of State and I are determined that the kickstart scheme will provide for young people a vital springboard to gain vital skills and experience in fully subsidised six-month roles, which will help to build their networks and their future opportunities before they move into long-term employment, apprenticeships, traineeships or further training. I was delighted to be in Derbyshire earlier this year to see exactly how the scheme will work on the ground.

[Catherine West]

In the previous Parliament, Members will recall that the apprenticeship levy scheme was a bit of a flop. It let down businesses, young people, local authorities and colleges. With my local area seeing a 182% increase in unemployment, youngsters are having their lives blighted by joblessness now. What urgent action is being taken to work with local authorities, with employers and, of course, with colleges to promote apprenticeships as a viable future option?

[Mims Davies]

I thank the hon. Lady for that question. It is very important that kickstart works with all the opportunities that are available for young people, and my Department is working across Government to achieve that. The Haringey youth team is made up of 10 work coaches focused on 18 to 24-year-olds and, absolutely, they are already working directly on this in her Wood Green jobcentre, and I encourage her to go to see it if she has not already done so.

Oral Answers to Questions

Catherine West Excerpts

Monday 15th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma]

I can—200,000 people over the roll-out period. Not only that, but people will be taking on extra work as well.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

Astronomical numbers of people are applying to food banks during that critical five-week period. Has the Minister—yes or no—read the Trussell Trust report on universal credit roll-out?

[Alok Sharma]

I met the Trussell Trust last week and had a very constructive discussion. [Interruption.] I had a very constructive discussion. What I would say to the hon. Lady is that, when it comes to food banks, as she knows, the all-party group on hunger put out a very good report and said there were complex reasons for the use of food banks. You cannot put it down to any one reason.

The Secretary of State’s Handling of Universal Credit

Catherine West Excerpts

Wednesday 11th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Margaret Greenwood]

The right hon. Gentleman should go back and re-read the report.

On 4 July, the Secretary of State finally admitted that she had “inadvertently” misled Parliament in claiming that the roll-out should be speeded up. This matters not just because she admitted that she had misled Parliament, but, as I will explain later, because the Government have sharply accelerated the roll-out of universal credit since May and because, from next year it, they will start a managed migration of 3.9 million people on legacy benefits across to universal credit.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the evidence on the use of food banks needs to be urgently looked at before the roll-out can continue?

[Margaret Greenwood]

My hon. Friend makes an absolutely pertinent remark. The prevalence of food banks in our society is a source of shame on this Government.

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[Ms McVey]

My hon. Friend is quite right. She is referring to the real people who are going on this benefit who want an opportunity to have a chance. This is not about a politician who is here to oppose—and I understand that—but people who say, “We’d like to go on this new benefit and we’d like to have a simpler system.”

The motion on the Order Paper says that “20% of claimants” are

“unable to make a claim online”.

Well, I will break down the figures so that we all know what happened here. The claimants survey shows that 98% of people successfully make a claim online. Here are the figures that underpin that: 54% make their claim on their own; 21% had help from others, including organisations like Citizens Advice and family members; and 20%—I am assuming that this is the 20% the Opposition are talking about—had help from jobcentre staff. That is what this benefit system is about—people need help and support. We know that some of them might not be able to use IT. We have brought in this system because in this modern age where technology is vital, people can only get a job if they can go online. We are now going to provide that universal support to allow people to go online. We have put £200 million into local authorities to help and support people with budgeting and IT. I will offer Opposition Front Benchers the opportunity to apologise for putting out this information. Would they like to take that opportunity now? It seems they are not doing to be doing that now.

I go back to the right hon. Member for Delyn (David Hanson) about fact checks in the Department and what happened there. He is looking for the timeline. I left here having checked what was going on. I then asked the Department to go through the various bits that we did together and said that there were various elements within the letter. That night, I checked it again, and so it was Tuesday when I asked for permission to come to the House. The timeline on which I was allowed to do it—he is quite right—was 48 hours later, but actually it was Tuesday when I asked to come to the House. I then met Amyas Morse on Monday and we discussed the various elements of the report. As I said, I have faith in the organisation—of course I do—but that does not mean that you always have to come to the same conclusion—the same judgments—from a report. I am rather surprised—or maybe not—that so many Opposition Members talk about auditors in another way. People can look at different sets of facts and come to a different result, which is what we did.

I said it was unfortunate that the NAO could not have taken into account all the impacts of those changes; that was not anything against the organisation. Those changes came in in January, February and April, so the NAO could not have taken them into account. I was not casting any aspersions on the organisation. It is interesting to note that paragraph 2.34 of the NAO’s report says:

“It is too early to assess the impact of this change.”

It says that in the report. In that instance, which is what we were talking about, it was too early to have felt the impacts of all those changes, and that is the crunch of it. When I misspoke, I corrected myself, but the impacts of the changes could not have been felt.

[Catherine West]

I thank the right hon. Lady for giving way. What does she make of the evidence about people who have fallen off benefits and are not good on computers, one of whom is sleeping in a tent in a bin chamber on the Vincent Square estate in my constituency but now has to be moved on? These people have no help. They do not have what it takes for this difficult set of benefit rules.

[Ms McVey]

If people have fallen on hard times, we reach out to and support them. If that person is not getting the support, I ask the hon. Lady to work with me. We can go to the local jobcentre to see what has happened, because that is not right, and ensure that he gets his support and that we get him into housing and get him the benefits he needs. Rather than someone standing up and saying those things, let us work together, across the Floor of the House, to help that person who needs it. Is she prepared to work with me to help that person?

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[Catherine West]

This is a matter for the public record. It has been on my Twitter feed in the last 48 hours. This is how people are living day in, day out—in a tent in a bin chamber.

[Ms McVey]

I asked the hon. Lady if she would work with me. All I needed from her—I could not have said it in a more imploring way—was a yes or no, and she felt unable to say yes. She should have said yes.

We have been through what this benefit is about and how it is supporting people. It is about having a work coach. It is about personalised support. It is about having a universal support package. It is about getting more people into work: as I have said so many times, 1,000 more people into work every day since 2010. That is what it is about. The prize will be a cultural shift in welfare. The impact has got to be positive for each and every one of us. It has got to be about getting more people into work. It has got to be about a simpler benefit system. As we proceed with the roll-out, we look, we learn and we change. Even since January, I have listened and learned, whether that was about kinship carers, 18 to 21-year-olds or the latest change for the severe disability premium.

When we brought in the changes at the Budget—£1.5 billion-worth of changes, or thereabouts—to remove the waiting time and offer extra support through a two-week run-over and the advance, the Opposition voted against that. They would have denied vulnerable people £1.5 billion and all those changes. I will ask them now: do they apologise for that? No. Again, we do not have an apology for not wanting those significant changes for disabled people.

Universal Credit

Catherine West Excerpts

Tuesday 13th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

The hon. Gentleman should know that his Government have introduced transitional arrangements, and we are clear that under the transitional arrangements, those 1 million children would be entitled to free school meals. With the regulations, the Government are pulling the rug from under those hard-working families.

In my own boroughs of Oldham and Tameside, a total of 8,700 children growing up in poverty are set to miss out. In the Secretary of State’s own area, the total is 6,500. So much for the light at the end of the tunnel that the Chancellor mentioned over the weekend on “The Andrew Marr Show”!

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

Is my hon. Friend aware that the Government did an assessment of the impact on childhood obesity prior to taking this statutory instrument through?

[Angela Rayner]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, because childhood obesity is an important issue at the moment. The Children’s Society found that 1 million children growing up in poverty will lose out on free school meals that they would have been entitled to. Incredibly, the Government have the audacity to claim that they are being generous. They want to pretend that no families will lose because the small numbers who are benefiting under universal credit will not lose out now.

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[Ms McVey]

I will carry on for a little bit more before taking more interventions from Opposition Members.

I turn to the Free School Lunches and Milk, and School and Early Years Finance (Amendments Relating to Universal Credit) (England) Regulations 2018. The Government have recently published their responses to two consultations on the earnings thresholds to receive free school meals under universal credit. The scope of these consultations includes entitlement to free school meals, the early years pupil premium and free early education provision for two-year-olds. The intention of these regulations is to replace the transitional criteria introduced in 2013. These transitional measures made all families on universal credit eligible for these entitlements—a move that was necessary so that no household should lose out during the early stages of the universal credit roll-out. Having fully considered all the responses to the consultation, the Department for Education laid these regulations before the House on 7 February to replace the temporary criteria with the new earnings threshold. This is what much of the debate has centred on so far. I hope that we have given clarity and the Opposition now understand why accepting these regulations would be so helpful to their constituents.

[Catherine West]

This change to benefits shows how untrusted the Government are on benefits. If they are trying to sell something good, they cannot, because they are so untrusted on benefits. If the system is so fantastic, why do 80% of people who come to see MPs get their benefits? Why should not the system just work? [Hon. Members: “What?”] Some 80% of appeals for universal credit—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. May I help a little bit? Would hon. Members make short interventions? I want to ensure that all Members get in. The sooner we get this speech over, the sooner we can get to the Back Benchers.

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[Neil Gray]

I absolutely concur with my hon. Friend, who has been an assiduous campaigner to protect and save the jobcentres in his constituency. Even at this late stage and after some of their doors have closed, I hope that the Government may listen and finally provide a reprieve.

It is right that we acknowledge the knock-on effect felt by landlords, whose incomes are in turn being squeezed due to tenants falling into arrears because of successive cuts to universal credit. The SNP has continually called for the roll-out of universal credit to be paused and properly fixed. That is not just about reducing the wait time by a week for those receiving universal credit, but about restoring the original principles of universal credit, which have been cut back so far to their roots that they have been battered.

The UK Government’s woeful ignorance on this is shameful. The evidence of the social destruction caused by universal credit in its current form is clear from report after report by expert charities. Such social destruction is not masked by the line, repeated ad nauseam by the Government, that universal credit is getting people into work. It is not much good for people if this is just a shift from out-of-work poverty to in-work poverty. We know there has been a rise in the rate of in-work poverty, and we also know that 67% of children—I repeat, 67% of children—currently living in poverty do so in a family where at least one person works.

[Catherine West]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that most housing providers have deep concerns about universal credit in general, and in particular about direct payments to tenants who have problems with such a relationship?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

I just warn Members that we will have to have a five-minute limit. I do not want to start off with a four-minute limit, but we are in danger of going that way.

Personal Independence Payment: Regulations

Catherine West Excerpts

Wednesday 29th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. Having spent 14 very happy months as the Minister responsible for these matters, I want to pass on some of the observations that I made during that time.

Let me make it absolutely clear that stakeholders and charities recognise that PIP is a better benefit than DLA. It is not perfect—much more work is still to be done to deliver further improvements—but the statistics show why it is better. Under DLA, only 16.5% of all claimants access the highest rate of benefit; under PIP, the figure is over 25%. PIP is better, in particular, at identifying those with hidden impairments, including mental health conditions. Under DLA, only 22% of claimants with mental health conditions access the higher rate of benefit, whereas the figure is about 66% under PIP. Improvements under this benefit mean that the Government have spent an additional £3 billion a year—about 6% of such spending—supporting those with long-term health conditions and disabilities.

In all the debates about this matter that I have attended, people have understandably said that a 65% success rate on appeal must mean that the quality of the assessments is not good enough. We must establish what is going wrong. Most successful appeals succeed because of additional evidence that has been submitted late, and that is one of the things that we need to improve.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

If the system is so good, why do people need to come and see us? In my office, we have almost a 100% success rate when it comes to securing what people are entitled to without any intervention from any of us.

[Justin Tomlinson]

When a claimant comes to speak to any of us, as their Member of Parliament, presumably we talk to them about the respects in which they feel the decision was not right. When claimants receive a letter that says that they will not receive the benefit for which they were hoping, that letter spells out why that is, which normally triggers an assumption by claimants that their particular challenge has not been considered. A claimant will then submit additional late evidence, the claim will be looked at again and a different decision may be reached, but that does not mean that the original decision was wrong on the basis of the facts that were originally presented.

I am keen to find a way in which assessors can automatically access claimants’ medical records, with their consent. Many people have to fill in a 50-page form in which they must specify their challenges, and they sometimes under-egg those challenges.

Intergenerational Fairness

Catherine West Excerpts

1st reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 28th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field) on introducing this important debate on intergenerational fairness—or social mobility, as it may also be called.

We are, of course, not the only country dealing with longevity, which is a positive thing. I am the shadow Minister for the far east. China is, of course, the most populated country in the world, and its large, ageing population has created a massive question mark over how to proceed. We are therefore not the only ones questioning how the best policies and ideas might be brought forward.

Let us not forget that pension credit is one benefit that is under-claimed. When I meet older folk in my advice surgery, I am always surprised by just how many pensioners are living in poverty. One part of my constituency is one of the most well-to-do areas while the other part is one of the poorest. People in Wood Green live 10 years longer than my constituents in Muswell Hill—I think I have that the right way around. The important thing is that in just one constituency there can be a 10-year difference between the ages at which people pass away.

Members will have seen headlines today saying that people will have to work until they are 71. We know that a feature of older age is the scourge of loneliness. Many people might be quite well off but, in the end, it is the loneliness that is fatal for them. As we think about these intergenerational issues, we should consider the wonderful, cross-party memorial project for our former colleague, Jo Cox, which is all about dealing with loneliness.

Let me turn now to younger people. This dovetails nicely with our previous debate on productivity, because we know that if we had more effective childcare, many more working-age parents would be able to earn and make those steps in the workplace that the hon. Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) mentioned in his speech. Many women missed out on career opportunities because the childcare was simply not there when they needed it. That in turn meant that they were not able to get the pay increases that would have enabled them to have a better pension, and so it goes on.

The former Prime Minister Tony Blair said, “Education, education, education,” because he knew that better jobs would bring in more tax receipts. That is why it is so important that education is central to what we do in this place. It is a great pity that we are seeing the first real-terms cut to schools in 30 years. As the places that educate more than 90% of our children, state schools have to be at the forefront of what we do. The latest cut is very regressive indeed.

A cut of 50% to further education can only lead to a lowering of educational attainment and reduced opportunity within the general population. My right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) is now calling for something similar to working men’s colleges because of the lack of an opportunity to learn. When I go to my advice surgeries in Wood Green library, I am always delighted to see how many adults there are learning English, maths or another subject to give them that golden bit of education that will get them into a good job.

Let me turn briefly to the matter of university fees. The other day, a lecturer at London Metropolitan University, which educates nurses, told me that the average nurse now comes out of university with a debt of £54,000. If a nurse has a starting salary of £24,000, it is quite obvious that it will take them a very long time to pay off that debt, and they will end up as a victim of these intergenerational issues that we are debating.

Working-age families face increasing travel costs when commuting to work, as well as higher energy and telecoms bills. If three or four children in a family each have a mobile phone, things are much more expensive than when each house had just one landline, but phones are not considered to be a luxury anymore—they are just something that we need for our work. Many working-age families are therefore treading water, and some are even going backwards.

On the psychology of universal goods and services. I want briefly to relay an experience that I had as a council leader. As a council, we wanted to do something for older folk, so we introduced a £100-back scheme. I received the most interesting thank you letters—not that council leaders receive many of those; the letters are usually the opposite. People said, “Thank you. I am just over the benefit level. I have worked all my life, and it feels wonderful to have this recognition from the council. This £100 will help me to have a holiday or a day out.”

We know that the freedom pass, the concessionary travel scheme for older Londoners, is greatly cherished. I would like many more travel concessions for the regions. The fact that people cannot get on a bus in their village so that they can go shopping in the local town holds back our high streets and the economy enormously. A Labour Government would almost certainly address that issue. The NHS is, of course, a very popular universal service. If we followed the reasoning we have heard in several Members’ speeches, we would assume that targeting everything is the right way to go, but we know that universalism works.

Housing is the big divide between the higher and lower value areas of the country. People who want to take up a job in a high-value area such as London, Oxford or Bristol face difficulties because of the astronomical cost of renting. The best investment the state can make is in bricks and mortar—as we know, because every other wealthy investor is doing that. The average local authority home costs £100,000 in capital to build. If that cost is paid back at a rate of about £150 a week for a family, it is soon made up over a 10-year period. Social housing is a wonderful investment. In fact, housing in general is a wonderful investment, and the wonderful thing about housing stock is that it is there forever to use and let out again.

In conclusion, Madam Deputy Speaker—[Interruption.] Oh, Mr Speaker, you have slipped in unannounced; it is so unlike you to be so quiet.

My first point on social mobility was simply to reiterate that pension credit and benefits for pensioners are often under-claimed. We should not assume that everybody over the age of 65 is doing very well. My second point was about the increasing pressures on working families. There is a desperate need for affordable childcare, and people face increasing costs of commuting to work alongside flatlining wages or household debt, which is creeping up again, so we need to watch the situation carefully. Government investment in education and housing is the way forward. I hope that we will learn much more from the report of the Work and Pensions Committee, which is chaired by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead, but we must not forget the complexities of the situation.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Universal Credit Work Allowance

Catherine West Excerpts

Wednesday 6th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justin Tomlinson]

I gently remind the right hon. Gentleman that I shall be going into those details later, so he needs to have just a little more patience.

Crucially and uniquely, universal credit stays with claimants when they enter work until their earnings reach a certain level or until they can support themselves. That gives them the confidence to start a job without having to go through the bureaucracy of changing their benefit claim. Universal credit is not just about IT or streamlining bureaucracy, as it is often portrayed. It is about people having a single point of contact with a work coach who provides personalised support, advice and guidance. This is where universal credit comes into its own, and this is the bit that I am really passionate about.

In life, we are all confident individuals and when we are faced with challenges it is a given that we can normally take them on, but that is not the case for everybody. We are now giving people a named personal contact to help them to deal with their individual case when they are navigating complicated benefit systems. That work coach will be by their side helping them to develop their role when they first get their foot in the door. They will not simply say, “We wish you all the best now you’ve got a job”. They will help them to make progress and develop their role. They will help them to seek and secure more hours, and to develop the skills and confidence to progress through the grades. In other words, universal credit will not only support people to move into a job; it will also help them to build a career. It will break the cycle of dependency and create opportunities.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

Does the Minister not accept that we are really talking about people who are doing the hours but whose rate of pay is very low? Is not this really about productivity? The fact is that the Government are not creating higher level jobs. We are far too dependent on the service sector, which essentially involves low-paid jobs rather than jobs that offer a higher rate of pay for the hours worked.

[Justin Tomlinson]

Three quarters of new jobs being created are at managerial level, and the majority are full-time jobs. I shall go into more detail about what we are doing in terms of money.