Oral Answers to Questions

Cathy Jamieson Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. We offer a ring-back service to anybody who is concerned about the cost of the call that they are making. None the less, there is a genuine problem and I have asked the Department to consider it and ascertain whether better options are available, particularly given the number of claimants who use mobile phones.

[Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op)]

17. What recent representations he has received on his policy on the date at which the state pension age for women will start to rise.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)]

Several stakeholder groups, as well as individuals, have expressed concern about the changes we propose, although the majority of commentators agree that we need to increase the state pension age more quickly.

[Cathy Jamieson]

I wonder whether the Minister knows that some 1,200 women in my constituency will lose out. Does he understand that they are angry and feel cheated that pension payments, which they had every reason to believe they had paid for and were due will now not be paid to them? What does he say to those 1,200 women?

[Steve Webb]

Perhaps a generation ago, those very women would have expected to draw a state pension for about six years less—that is a significant change that they have seen in their working life. They will still get the state pension for exactly the same time as someone a generation ago would have expected. We are trying to be fair between the generations and not load all the cost on the next generation.

Post Office Card Account

Cathy Jamieson Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2011 Westminster Hall

[Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton) on securing this important debate. I had intended only to make a couple of points in relation to my constituency, but the hon. Lady has raised a number of matters that I wish to pursue. I shall refer to the inquiry undertaken by the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs on postal services in Scotland. I have no doubt that my hon. Friend, if I may call him that, who is also a member of the Committee—I mean the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr Reid)—will want to say something about that report.

The Post Office card account was put in place by the Labour Government, particularly as a way to deal with financial inclusion. For those of us who are used to conducting our financial business online, either on the internet or by phone, it can be difficult to appreciate exactly what it is like for people who do not have access to a bank account. People on low incomes have to ensure that every penny is spent appropriately. We should not underestimate the difficulties that they face in trying to secure the best prices for electricity, gas and other utilities without access to the financial services that we all take for granted.

The post office is important for many elderly people, because they want to be able to conduct their business with a real person and a face they know. They do not want to have to press umpteen buttons on their keypad telephone to be told to hold on, with perhaps the vague promise that they may get to speak to someone at the end of the day. When we looked at the future of post offices in my area, I was grateful for the input from postmasters and postmistresses not only in Kilmarnock but in the surrounding rural villages of Fenwick, Mauchline and Kilmaurs. Post offices in such areas provide an important service, because their customers do not always have access to face-to-face banking. None the less, the amount of business that comes through those offices does not always make them sustainable. All the postmasters and postmistresses expressed real concern about the loss of business from the Post Office card account. In some instances, they believed that that might well make their local post office unviable in the longer term.

During the course of our inquiry in Scotland and in other debates, we have heard a lot from the Government about diversification and about how they are trying to ensure that post offices can adopt different business models at a local level. However, for a tiny post office, such as the one in Kilmaurs, there is simply no option to expand, to put in other retail outlets or to do anything other than provide a post office service, which is what it was set up to do. There are village shops; the Co-op is next door and there are other shops and independent retailers across the road, but the post office and the service that it provides are vital. I accept that the Government have no wish to undertake a closure programme, but if those small post offices are not protected and do not get enough business, they may end up withering on the vine.

We have heard about the option of linking up with credit unions, which would be a worthwhile path to pursue. Credit unions should not just be about the poorest people or the most financially excluded people in our society. They are a perfectly valid business model that is owned and controlled by the members. As part of our Scottish Affairs Committee inquiry, we visited the Pollok Credit Union in Glasgow, which runs a successful post office. We spoke to the people involved, and saw the post office in action at one of its busiest times. The number of people who came along and the types of transactions that they conducted spoke volumes.

In conclusion, I should like to mention a couple of points that have been raised by the National Federation of SubPostmasters. Its general secretary, George Thomson, has made it clear that the Post Office card account, or something of that nature, should continue. It has raised concerns that the award of the contract to PayPoint may have been at below-cost price. Obviously, we want to ensure that every aspect of Government offers good value for money, and the benefit system is no different. Personally, I would rather see the money spent on benefits, so that people have a better quality of life, than being spent on administration. However, I want to ensure that everything is done absolutely correctly and that the Government take account of the social value of the post office in the context of providing a service to people generally and to people on low incomes specifically. I hope that the Minister addresses those points in his summing up.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Reid]

My hon. Friend makes an important point that customers who use the green giros must be given the option of using POCA and must be encouraged to do so. I hope that this Government’s attitude towards POCA will be very different from that of the previous Government. Those of us who were MPs in the 2001 Parliament were inundated with complaints from constituents who were badgered and bullied by the Department for Work and Pensions call centre to move away from POCA to the banks. As I say, I hope that this Government will have a completely different attitude to POCA and that its use will be marketed positively rather than actively discouraged, as was the case under the previous Government.

There is a lack of PayPoint outlets in the rural parts of north Argyll, and there are several islands in my constituency that do not have a PayPoint outlet. Every time I mention PayPoint in a debate, I am conscious of the fact that a few days later a letter comes in from PayPoint saying what a wonderful service it provides. I say now to the person from PayPoint who will read the Hansard report of this debate that PayPoint still does not have outlets in rural north Argyll or on several of the islands in my constituency.

As we are discussing green giros, it is important to remember that many people who use them are people who were unable to use POCA for disability reasons. When my hon. Friend the Minister responds to the debate, I hope that he can tell us what facilities will be made available to people with disabilities who were previously deemed unable to use POCA to make it easier for them to access POCA. For example, if they live on a small island without a PayPoint outlet, what are they to do?

One of the lessons to be learned from the green giro contract is the importance of Government consultation before contracts go out to tender. When some of my hon. Friends and I attempted to lobby Ministers to give the green giro contract to the Post Office network, we were told the standard line that all Ministers in any Government use—that once a contract is out to tender and a legal process is under way, Ministers cannot engage in discussions about it. It is therefore important that we consult before contracts are put out to tender rather than, as was the case with the green giro contract, only finding out after the contracts have been put out to tender.

Of course, my hon. Friend the Minister has a responsibility to run his Department as efficiently as possible and to save as much money as possible. However, any savings that are made should not be at the cost of making the problems of financial exclusion worse. I understand that one of his remits is to be the Minister with responsibility for financial inclusion. If the only place in a rural community where people can access cash is a village post office and that post office closes, we will see real financial exclusion. Although pensioners may have bus passes that allow them free bus travel, in a rural community in the highlands there are not that many buses. Even on the days on which the buses run, it is often the case that there is only one bus from a village to a town at 9 am and there is only one bus back at 5 pm. What is a pensioner on a low income to do if they go into a town on the 9 am bus to collect their pension from the post office and they have to wait until 5 pm for the bus back?

[Cathy Jamieson]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that for many people, particularly elderly people, the fact that they are able to conduct their business at a post office gives them some particular comfort? There are circumstances in which they simply do not want people to know their business if they have to conduct transactions in a very public place such as another shop.

[Mr Reid]

Yes. The hon. Lady makes a very important point, because the post office has a certain privacy that, say, a PayPoint outlet—I might as well say “PayPoint”, because I will get a letter about it anyway—in a filling station rarely has. Also, the staff who work at the checkout in a supermarket or filling station do not have the training that the post office staff have. That is another very important point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve Webb]

The reasons for the decline of the post office network are many and varied. When I go to my local village post office, I am told that eBay is keeping it going. The fact that people buy postage for parcels and so on brings a whole range of different customers into the post office network. One of the biggest trends, which was accelerated by the previous Government through direct payments, was people being paid via their bank accounts, rather than by traditional giros at post offices. That was one of the single biggest changes that accelerated the demise of the post office network. Opposition Members ought to take just a tiny bit of responsibility for the trends that we have seen.

On the Post Office card account specifically, the perspective of POCA users has been missing from the debate. The Post Office has recently published some startling research that it undertook on what POCA holders wanted from the account. The Post Office talked to 930 people and asked the following about the POCA:

“is there anything you would change about it, for instance any additional services you would like it to provide?”

Some 80% of respondents said “nothing.” I will return to that significant point. Some 80% of respondents did not want any changes to the account and they valued POCA for its particular characteristics, which we should think carefully about changing. The next most popular answer to that question had a 4% response rate. I shall read down the list of things people would change about POCA, which have a response rate of between 4% to 2%:

“deposit/cash cheques into it; more cashpoints; use any ATM; comments relating to PO service in general; more flexible like a debit card; interest on account balance; online account access.”

Hon. Members will have noticed that direct debit is not on that list. Some of these issues are counter-intuitive. I will not say that I like nothing better than to go online to use my bank account—which, I should just add, I access at the post office—but the folk who use POCA value it for what it is. As a number of hon. Members have said, we need to ensure that the people who have POCAs can benefit from things such as direct debit. However, that may not imply sticking things on to POCA.

Why might it be a good thing to provide access to those services but not to do so through changing the POCA? It is striking that many hon. Members have said that 30% of people with a POCA do not have another bank account. However, I tend to think of it the other way around. Some 70% of people with a POCA have a bank account or some other sort of account. So why do they have two? If they have a bank account with direct debits and all the rest of it, why do they bother having a POCA? Because people like to budget in different ways and they like a simple account that cannot go overdrawn.

Some of the evidence on charges is startling and worth repeating. I have been known occasionally to go overdrawn without planning to and I am shocked when I see the charges. The evidence of what happens shows that most people do not simply face one charge in a year. Once things have gone wrong, the charge is debited. People are then more overdrawn, they perhaps do not notice it and so another charge goes on. Just to give a feel of the situation, in 2008, out of 12.6 million active bank accounts, about a quarter incurred at least one penalty charge and the average charge was £205. Of that 2008 sample, a quarter of people had one charge, 15% had two charges and 39% had at least six charges.

Hon. Members can start to see why such an overdraft facility—there might also be a situation where someone had a POCA that could not go overdrawn but a direct debit bounced and somebody somewhere had to pay a charge for that—is not necessarily what people are asking for. People do not want to pay more because they are on a low income, so we need to find ways of giving them access to the best prices. However, grafting the ability to use direct debit on to an account that people like because of its simplicity may not necessarily be the best answer.

I absolutely stand by our coalition agreement commitment. The coalition programme for Government includes a pledge to give POCA holders the chance to benefit from direct debit discounts, but that should not necessarily be done by grafting direct debit on to POCA. We have listened to what the account holders are saying to us and our impression is, yes, people want the best prices they can have, but not necessarily by taking a product they value and turning it into something else.

That brings me on to the point my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth made about the fully transactional account. One of the problems with the fully transactional POCA is that it would be so different from the product that was originally tendered, we would have to retender. The postcards will probably go to the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr Davey), but I have a feeling we might be going through it all over again. The comment rightly made by the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Cathy Jamieson) was that there is uncertainty about the future. There always is. If we said that we need a full transactional POCA, so we are going to retender for it, I suspect that there would be riots on the streets of Kilmarnock.

We do not want more disruption and uncertainty. What we want—and as a Government what we are trying to do—is to work in partnership with the Post Office far more. Rather than those involved with running post offices being people to whom we do something, they should be in here as people we do something with. That is a profoundly different approach. The hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) talked about joined-up government and different Departments not damaging the Post Office. The Department that springs to mind is the Department for Transport. I renew my car tax each year at my village post office because, having talked to the sub-postmistress, I know it is one of the biggest transaction charges it gets. The Department for Transport would rather I did not do so. It sends me letters that say, “Do it online—you don’t have to go to your post office.” One year, it had a prize draw—or a raffle or lottery—in which I could win a free car.

The fact that Departments are not working in a co-ordinated way on the Post Office is not new. I work closely with the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton, and the Financial Secretary to the Treasury. The three of us have discussed financial inclusion issues, particularly credit unions. The post office network and credit unions could work together. There are exciting possibilities on that. One of the challenges is that, although credit unions are often very good and strong in a localised way, there are some very small credit unions and, in large parts of the country, if we asked someone on the high street where their nearest credit union is, they would not know what we were talking about. The potential for linking post offices and credit unions and access is very exciting, but it is also very expensive. That is the trade-off and the challenge.

We do not want credit union accounts with hefty charges because that would defeat the object of the exercise. We are wrestling with how to bring those two things together, but there are real opportunities for the post office network to build closer links with credit unions. In recent years, credit unions have made great progress in bringing affordable, financial services to people who would not otherwise be able to access them. I want credit unions, in partnership with the Post Office, to provide more services more efficiently to more people. That is what we want to see.

I was asked about the Post Office as the front office for Government. A number of Government Departments are looking at ways to do that, and I want to share briefly with the Chamber some measures that the DWP is taking. The hon. Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) mentioned George Thomson at the National Federation of Sub-Postmasters, who wrote to the Secretary of State. I am delighted to say that, in response to that letter, the Secretary of State had a face-to-face meeting with George Thomson. Several points that she read out, and which were on his list, are now being piloted in Government.

For example, a pilot for document verification started last week. The Pension Service, for which I am responsible, is piloting a check-and-send style service. That is for applicants who claim state pension or pension credit, and who are required to submit additional documents in support of their claims, such as birth or marriage certificates. Many people do not like sending their marriage or birth certificate in the post, so why not go into a post office and let post office staff check the documents, as they do when people renew their car tax? Post office staff could say, “Yes, that is fine; I have seen it. I am authorised to say that.” That would be quicker, and would give the Post Office revenue and footfall—everybody would be happy. That is not a—I do not think the word “piddling” is parliamentary—little pilot. Some 106 post office branches in the north-east of England are involved—a big pilot. It started last week and will run for three months in the Seaham pension centre catchment area. It will include a mix of Crown branches in urban, urban deprived and rural locations.

That is one concrete example; let me give the Chamber another. Later this year, we will be looking at a national insurance number pilot, which will investigate whether applications from what we call low-risk groups—EU citizens in states that are already members of the EU, not including the accession countries—could be directed to the Post Office for the evidence-gathering interview to get a national insurance number. Although the Post Office currently carries out document checking for the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency and the Identity and Passport Service, the DWP requires something qualitatively different. We are working closely with the Post Office to see if we can have an efficient but secure service, and hope to go live with the project later this year.

We want business in post offices, but we do not want dirty great queues. In other words, if I am queuing up to buy a stamp, I do not want someone in front of me trying to verify a national insurance number. We have to try to think of what post offices are good and efficient at, and harness that without disrupting the core business of the post office. That is why we are conducting these pilots.

The hon. Member for Llanelli mentioned signing on. In rural areas, getting to a jobcentre can be quite a trek, so why not sign on at the post office? At the moment, I was surprised to learn that customers in rural areas, intriguingly, sign on by post. The pilot will test whether there are benefits in requiring customers to attend and sign on in a local post office instead. We will evaluate that approach across a wide geographical spread and range of labour markets. We have identified test locations in Essex and in the highlands and islands—a range of areas.

[Cathy Jamieson]

That is very positive. Does the Minister agree that there are potential lessons for local authorities? Will he undertake to ensure that the outcomes of pilots are conveyed directly to local authorities, including in Scotland, as they may wish to look at doing something similar, particularly the check-and-send style service?

[Steve Webb]

I am very happy to undertake to do that. Those are some examples of what the DWP is doing. Other Government Departments are also looking at things, including our friends in the Department for Communities and Local Government and in the devolved Assemblies and Parliament. We want to see everybody working together, alongside and with the Post Office, rather than simply taking bits of business away.

The issue of the green giro was, properly, raised. I was intrigued by the hon. Member for Leeds West. Having quoted Billy Hayes, she then said that, having issued competitive tender for a second time, we should have ripped it up and just given it to the Post Office anyway. I do not think that that was the intention of the previous Government when they issued the tender. It would raise one or two issues about tendering if, every time the Government issued a tender with the Post Office in it, they panicked half way through and then just gave it to the Post Office anyway. That might undermine the concept of tendering, not just with the Post Office but across Government as a whole. Indeed, I have a suspicion that if we kept doing that we would probably end up subject to legal challenges too, which might cost a good deal more than the money we spent on the contract.

It is worth putting the issue in context. I take the point that there are variations between post offices, but the green giro, on average, delivers a fiver a week to the average sub-postmaster, just to give a sense of scale—a fiver a week, and falling. The number of people with these cheques and green giros is falling. It is therefore worth retaining a bit of scale. They are important, and my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr Reid) is right to mention the importance of rural access. I can assure him that, before the contract was awarded, I stood in my office with a map of the United Kingdom with dots on it, marking out the PayPoint network and the Post Office network. I was pleasantly surprised by the rural extent of the PayPoint network, but I take his point about north Argyll and the islands. I hope that PayPoint reads Hansard and does something about that. I can tell his constituents, through him, that my hon. Friend has been a pain in my side on this issue, and properly so. He has represented those concerns very strongly.

My hon. Friend asked specifically about disabled people. I stress that all the outlets that can be counted for the tender have to comply with the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. The new service, the replacement for the cheque, is specifically designed to be simple for that group of clients. There is no need to sign and there is no need for a PIN—it is only necessary to present a card. It is designed to be analogous. In a sense, it is converting a piece of paper to a plastic card. Beyond that, it is essentially the same process designed for the same people. Access was very important to us.

We covered a wide range of issues in the debate. I was interested to hear the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun mention her visit to the Pollok credit union. That is a positive example of a credit union and post office working together.

I was interested in the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester in an intervention. He pointed out the difference we now see with the post office network. The Post Office has had the promise of a subsidy to undertake to maintain the network at the 11,500 level, so when there is a closure of a post office, effort is now going in to replace it. Rather than the gradual attrition that has gone on, frankly, for decades, there is now a Government in place who are committed to protecting the network. That is a sea change in attitude, and one that post offices will very much welcome.

A question was asked about the tender process. Clearly, such processes are done under strict rules. We are required, under the EU, to be specific about what we are tendering for, and to include both cost and qualitative factors. We can take account of access—that was part of the consideration. I have no reason to think that that process was not properly undertaken, but if the hon. Member for Leeds West has further evidence on that she is welcome to send it to me.

My hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute mentioned the issue of what happens when a village or a community does not have PayPoint access. One thing that the Post Office can do—I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth mentioned this—is to see this as an opportunity to offer customers a Post Office card account, or to remind them that there are approximately 30 different sorts of accounts that can be accessed at post offices. Hitherto, when people turned up with a green giro, there was no incentive to say, “Why not have a Post Office card account?” Now that there is, I hope that many of his constituents will do so.

We have heard about the excellent work of post office staff, with their friendly, familiar approach and knowledge of people. An interesting mix of people receive green giros. It is not necessarily overwhelmingly people who struggle with signatures or plastic. Often they are young unemployed people, whose financial situation is a bit chaotic. The mix is diverse. Many community post offices will be able to provide a facility for the people my hon. Friend is rightly concerned about, so that they can access their money at the post office through a POCA, with the help and support that post office staff so often give. I place on the record my appreciation, and the Government’s appreciation, of the sub-postmasters up and down the land, who are very often the heart and soul of our community.

What I want as a Government Minister, instead of warm words while presiding over a halving of the post office network, is to put the money in to ensure that post offices are there, and to give them that breathing space to modernise the network. Ultimately, that has to be the key. Rather than presiding over declining business, and Departments across Government withdrawing a bit here and a bit there to save some money, let us look forward. Let us look at new services of the sort being piloted by the DWP. Let us look at modernising the premises. There are some exciting ideas. I will not go into detail, but there is the idea of a “post office local”, whereby the rather intimidating screens will come down and post offices will be much more friendly and welcoming.

The post office network has huge potential. It is worth remembering that it is still the biggest retail network in the country, notwithstanding everything that has gone on. My commitment, as a member of this Government, is to ensure that we are not passive bystanders watching the network decline, but that we are active participants encouraging and supporting the Post Office, and making sure that it has the bright future that everyone in this House wants to see.

State Pension Age (Women)

Cathy Jamieson Excerpts

Wednesday 11th May 2011 Westminster Hall

[Teresa Pearce]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I agree. As I said, it is the unexpectedness of the change that is the problem. The women affected have worked all their lives and paid into the system, expecting something in return. They feel that they have done their bit, but they are not getting what they agreed to in the first place.

[Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the situation is made more difficult because many of the women have been on low incomes and have not been able to make savings in other ways? Although they may have done the right thing and planned, they are now hit by this double whammy.

[Teresa Pearce]

I agree. These women have been unable to plan for this change. Already, their pension age was further away than that of the previous generation and now it is being pushed further away again. It seems that the nearer they get, the further away it goes.

Amendment of the Law

Cathy Jamieson Excerpts

Tuesday 29th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Presiding Officer. [Interruption.] I am sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker; I knew I would do that one day. I have just left the Scottish Parliament, so I should have been slightly more careful in ensuring that I got the terminology right.

People I have met on the doorstep in my constituency are pretty clear about why they did not vote for either of the parties that make up this Government—it was because they remember what happened the last time there was a Tory Government. In Kilmarnock, people recall the loss of the factories that made the town well known worldwide: BMK carpets; Glenfield and Kennedy; and others. In the Irvine valley, the textile industry was all but destroyed as cheap imports produced in sweatshop conditions flooded the market. And in the former coalfield communities of Auchinleck and Muirkirk people remember how Tory policies deliberately and systematically killed off the mining industry, leaving a generation of people on the dole for the long term.

My constituents resent getting lectures on a big society from people who have never had to worry about whether their weekly income is going to stretch to the extras that others take for granted, be it the school trip for the kids, the birthday present, or the day out to try to give the family some respite from the daily grind. They are angry that their public services are being slashed and that the voluntary sector is being left to pick up the pieces without proper funding. Over the years those former industrial communities have tried hard to stand on their own two feet. They looked to the Government for a hand up, not a handout, and we got people back to work during Labour’s years in government.

Although people in my constituency did not vote for this Government, some of them perhaps had at the back of their mind the vain hope that maybe, just maybe, these Tories would be different, and would deliver a Budget that would bring some hope for hard-pressed families already worried about their jobs and keeping the roof over their heads. What did they get in reality? The facts are simple: unemployment forecasts have risen; inflation forecasts have risen; the growth forecasts have fallen; an increase in the personal allowance threshold was cancelled out by an increase in the cost of living; the cut in fuel duty was swallowed up by the increase in VAT; and the rise for pensioners was wiped out by the small-print cut in the winter fuel allowance.

The people on the Government Benches can have their private conversations, they can laugh and they can sit and smile—they can do what they like—but behind the figures we have heard about today are real people whose real lives are being affected now. The number of unemployed claimants in my constituency in February was more than 3,500, which represents a rate of 8.1%. Those people, who are desperately trying to get a job, feel that the Tories are reverting to type; they do not feel that the revised projections of unemployment rising are a price worth paying, but it is clear that the Tories do.

In Scotland Labour has pledged that there will be a Scottish future jobs fund that will create real jobs and provide training for about 10,000 young people, and for others who have been unemployed for six months or more. It will be supported by up-front and flexible funding for businesses to create those jobs. By contrast, the Tory Government here have announced only an extra 40,000 two-month work experience placements a year, and only 12,500 more apprenticeships a year.

I heard the Chancellor say in his Budget speech that the Government would consult the Scottish Government on how a new set of enterprise zones might operate north of the border. I welcome that. But before he does that, I want him to think about some of the criticisms of the previous incarnation of enterprise zones and ensure that his proposals do not fall into the same traps. The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland has pointed out that although 63,000 jobs were created in the enterprise zones between 1981 and 1986, only 13,000 of those were new, the rest had simply been displaced. That will not do in the future. It will be important for those initiatives to be backed by significant infrastructure investment, and there must also be engagement with local authorities to build on economic regeneration work already under way. I am pleased that my constituency has just received the news that we are to get £2 million in European regional development fund money, but we need more help from the Government to back that.

In conclusion, Madam Deputy Speaker—I got it right that time—when I was elected I pledged that I would work with anyone who had the best interests of my constituents at heart, even if that meant putting aside political differences. That is exactly what I have done in my support for the “Make it Kilmarnock” initiative, because East Ayrshire council, which set it up, is of a different political persuasion from me. But sadly, what will define this Budget in history will be the economic mindset of a political class that is walking in Margaret Thatcher’s footsteps but has failed to learn the lessons of taking the wrong path on the economy.

Oral Answers to Questions

Cathy Jamieson Excerpts

Monday 22nd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

What I said originally was that we believe that from the position we inherited, the implementation of the universal credit will have a net beneficial effect for the poorest people in this country who are trying to achieve work. So it is not just a case of people not being worse off; we believe that people will be far better off than they were when the hon. Lady’s Government left us.

[Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op)]

14. Whether his Department plans to publish a gender impact assessment of the changes to be made to the benefits regime as a result of the comprehensive spending review.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling)]

The Department for Work and Pensions assesses the equality impacts of any new policies or changes to existing policies and practice. In line with that commitment to transparency, equality impact assessments are published when they are available, and gender impacts are included as part of those documents.

[Cathy Jamieson]

I thank the Minister for that answer. What assessment are the Government making of the needs of vulnerable women, particularly those who receive housing benefit and are aged between 25 and 35? How will the Government ensure that their needs are met and, in particular, that if they have disabilities, they do not end up inappropriately in shared accommodation?

[Chris Grayling]

As the hon. Lady will know, exemptions are already in place for the most vulnerable people, and those will continue. The package of reforms set out in the spending review, particularly the introduction of the universal credit, will make a huge difference to women on some of the lowest incomes, particularly lone parents seeking to get back into work. The credit will make that journey much easier and mean that they are better off going back to work than they would otherwise have been.

Welfare Reform

Cathy Jamieson Excerpts

Thursday 11th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that one of the best ways to make work pay is to ensure that it pays not simply a minimum wage, but a living wage? What does he intend to do about that? Can he also give me an assurance that there will be some joined-up thinking and that those who are genuinely seeking work, even if they are out of work for more than a year, will not have their housing benefit cut?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The policies on housing benefit stand as they are. On the hon. Lady’s point about a living wage, I genuinely believe that the reality is that what we are doing is the best way to ensure that households end up with a living wage. In the past, because the system was so difficult and complicated, the first person into work in a household would often not be able to earn enough money to support the household. Because it will pay more to be in work, the process that we are introducing will give the first person in a household who goes into work a greater opportunity to earn enough money to support the household, allowing the option for the second earner to be just that: an option, rather than an absolute must.

Oral Answers to Questions

Cathy Jamieson Excerpts

Monday 19th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I have no intention of taking any lessons from the previous Government on child poverty—[Hon. Members: “Answer the question.”] The Labour party promised to halve child poverty by 2010, but missed that target by 1 million children. Its failure on child poverty was lamentable. By contrast, this Government will take steps over the next few years to reduce child poverty and to ensure that we do the right thing by the people in this country who are at the bottom end of the income scale.

[Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op)]

8. What estimate he has made of the number of jobs in Kilmarnock and Loudoun constituency supported by the future jobs fund.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling)]

We do not collect data on a constituency-only basis, so I cannot help the hon. Lady with a detailed response to her question.

[Cathy Jamieson]

As the Minister seems to have no idea about the number of young people on future jobs fund projects at the moment, perhaps he will consider coming to my constituency and speaking face to face to those young people who feel that those jobs have been downgraded by this Government’s attitude to them as unsustainable. Will he ensure that each one of those young people is in a sustainable job within the next 24 months?

[Chris Grayling]

I just do not think that Labour Members understand. If someone is given a six-month job under the tag of the future jobs fund, the word “future” does not apply. It is things like apprenticeships that are genuinely about the future and about creating sustainable employment. That is why this Government announced 50,000 extra apprenticeships. That is why the work programme will focus on long-term opportunities. The tragedy of the future jobs fund is that it is precisely not a future jobs fund: it is a six-month work placement, at substantial cost to the taxpayer, at the end of which—in almost all cases—there is no job. That is a tragedy, but the fund was all about the engineering of figures under the previous Government—unlike the long-term strategy under this Government.