Oral Answers to Questions
Charlie Elphicke Excerpts(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Steve Webb
Obviously, the impact of housing benefit policy, which is a matter for the UK Parliament, will be different in different parts of the country. I have been to the Scottish Parliament and talked to the Deputy First Minister about welfare reform and we keep a dialogue open with our colleagues in Scotland.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
Is it not the case that in Scotland and England as a whole getting on for 2 million families are in overcrowded accommodation? Is it not important that we think about their needs?
Steve Webb
My hon. Friend is right to bring forward the voice of those in overcrowded accommodation, which is all too often not heard in this debate. At the same time as we are paying housing benefit for approaching a million spare bedrooms, a quarter of a million households in overcrowded accommodation would love the opportunity to live in a larger house.
Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill
Charlie Elphicke Excerpts(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Stephen Timms
We certainly want it to be more worth while for people to be in work, but forcing down the incomes of those who are out of work is not the way to do it.
Clause 1 affects mainly out-of-work benefits, but people struggling to make ends meet in work are hit as well. Schedule 1(b) means that the personal allowance used in the calculation of housing benefit for people in work will go up by only 1%, irrespective of what happens to rent levels.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
Is it therefore the right hon. Gentleman’s and the Opposition’s policy that uprating should be not by 1%, but by inflation? Is that a commitment?
Stephen Timms
Uprating should indeed be in line with inflation, as it always was in the past.
Stephen Timms
Of course, the background to this policy is the failure of the Government’s policy. If we look at the unemployment forecast set out at last year’s Budget and compare it with the forecast set out at the autumn statement, we will see that it will cost an extra £3 billion in additional benefits. What the Minister and the Chancellor should be doing is putting in place policies that will reduce unemployment, not see it continue to rise.
At a time when the coalition Government are handing the richest people a tax cut of £2,000 a week each, they have decided that people on jobseeker’s allowance can have only 71p each, 72p the year after, and 73p the year after that. To quote the Minister’s 2009 speech, it is “appalling”. I urge the Committee to support our amendment and vote against clause stand part.
Charlie Elphicke
I will speak briefly. I think that it is important that all of us who represent communities with a lot of deprivation, such as my constituency of Dover and Deal, make sure that the Government, or any Government, have policies that make work pay. About 5 million people in this country could work but do not. We need more of an incentive for people to realise their potential and do well in life. Part of that needs to be an economic incentive. Let me pray in aid the words of the Chancellor of the Exchequer:
“We have to acknowledge that over the last five years, those on out-of-work benefits have seen their incomes rise twice as fast as those in work. With pay restraint in businesses and Government, average earnings have risen by about 10% since 2007. Out-of-work benefits have gone up by about 20%. That is not fair to working people who pay the taxes that fund them.”—[Official Report, 5 December 2012; Vol. 554, c. 879.]
Charlie Elphicke
I will in a moment.
It is also unfair on those people who are not in work, because they have no incentive to go and seek work. We need to provide that incentive, not because we want to attack people who are unemployed but because we want to give them every incentive to get work, realise their potential and take the opportunity to do really well in life and be a great success.
Helen Goodman
In that case, why does the Bill apply to statutory maternity and paternity leave, adoption leave and sick pay—all those things that are provided for people exactly when they cannot possibly go to work?
Charlie Elphicke
As the hon. Lady knows, the principal part of clause 1, which we are discussing, deals with out-of-work benefits. As she also knows, the policy of the Opposition—that uprating should continue according to inflation—and their opposition to this Bill would cost £3.5 billion. Money is tight in this country today. The reason for that is that she and her party drove our economy off a cliff, overspending for years and displaying fiscal incontinence that was unparalleled in this country in the last century.
Charlie Elphicke
The hon. Gentleman makes the case better than I could about the extent of the mess left by the previous Government, which was such that recovery has been choppy. As the whole Committee knows, a recovery from a debt crisis is always much tougher, particularly when we also have the eurozone plunging into crisis because of its years of mismanagement. Unless we have sound money and ensure restraint in the public finances and growth in the private sector, we will not be able to turn the corner and get the economy growing and the nation’s finances in place. The economy is now starting to heal, but part of that involves building in an extra incentive to ensure that work pays—universal credit is part of that—and ensuring an extra incentive for those who are out of work and on benefits to go into work. We do that by not continuing with the over-generous benefits or over-uprating of benefits, as compared with what people in work have received, that we have seen in recent years.
Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman is making the point strongly that it is important that we make work pay. On that basis, is he concerned that 60% of those affected by the clauses we are discussing today are in work, and that this Bill is making precisely those hard-working people on low and middle incomes worse off by being in work?
Charlie Elphicke
The hon. Gentleman well knows that this Government have taken many people on low incomes out of tax altogether. That is not something that his party did. Labour froze the personal allowance and, over time, had more people in the tax system relatively speaking. We have taken people out of tax, because we do not see the point in taking money off people in taxes and then handing their own money back to them. It is better not to take it off them in the first place.
The key point is that the Opposition are proposing to impose a cost of £3.5 billion. I ask them: where are they going to find the money? How will they pay for their spending pledge? If they want to pay for it through more borrowing—which always seems to be their policy—all they will do is raise interest rates for hard-pressed mortgage holders, small businesses and borrowers.
George Freeman
Is not the truth that the Opposition’s opposition to this Bill would cost the average family £5,000 extra in debt? Does my hon. Friend agree that there is no money growing on trees—we pay for that either in debt or in tax—and that the Bill is a sensible measure, as debt simply holds more families back?
Charlie Elphicke
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. The Labour party just thinks that we can sink further into a sea of debt. We have to call time on that. We have to get control of our public finances and our private finances, and restore sound money once again.
Amber Rudd (Hastings and Rye) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend not find it confusing that the Opposition support fixing public sector pay rises at 1%, but not controlling the level by which out-of-work benefits increase?
Charlie Elphicke
That is absolutely right. It is extraordinary that the Opposition say that it is fine to have a 1% cap on public sector pay, but not on benefits. We need parity.
Charlie Elphicke
I have been quite generous in giving way, so I would like to make a bit of progress.
Let me turn to the issue of child poverty. We heard a lot of rhetoric on child poverty from the shadow Minister, in addition to the amazing spending commitment that he delivered to the Committee in response to my intervention. Let us look at the child poverty figures, which the Opposition say are a key reason to oppose clause 1. The figures from the last Parliament show that, after housing costs, there were 3.6 million children in poverty in 2004-05. In 2009-10, there were 3.8 million. In other words, it went up 200,000 under the previous Government. The figures for 2010-11, the latest available, went down 200,000 under the present Government. The achievement of the previous Labour Government was therefore to increase child poverty by 200,000—not a great record, to put it mildly—while the present Government have been in office at a time when child poverty has been falling.
Let us also consider the fact that there were 700,000 children in severe poverty in 2004-05. By the end of the Labour Government, that figure was the same. After one year of this Government, however, the figure had gone down to 600,000. Before the Opposition start talking about child poverty, they ought to take a closer look at their record in office. We also need to have a closer look at the policy of universal credit, which, according to Government statistics and the Red Book, will take about 350,000 children out of poverty.
It is important that we look after children and give them the best possible start in life, and this Government are committed to that. The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions is certainly committed to that, as am I. I am committed to the Bill, and the measures in clause 1 are really important because we need to do all we can to ensure that people who are not in work achieve their potential, get into work, do really well and achieve great success in their lives.
Ian Mearns
The hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) forgot to mention that while those on benefits have had their benefits uprated at twice the rate of those in work in percentage terms over the past five years, the actual increase in financial terms has been on average about £49 for those in work and about £12 for those on benefits. Those figures were put into the public domain by Paul Lewis on “Moneybox” on BBC Radio 4, and I have no reason to disbelieve him. I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman has. It is important to take those figures into consideration. Percentages are meaningless; 50% or 100% of very little is still very little. Making comparisons in the way that he did demeans the debate.
I would like to thank you for calling me to speak, Mr Evans, because this is an important debate on a Bill that, if voted through, will have a detrimental impact on many thousands of my constituents and others across Tyneside and the north-east. I have said this before, but it is important: the way in which this country’s economy works is very different in different parts of the country. It is therefore important to remember that the equation of welfare to work is a two-part equation. Welfare is one part; work is the other. In some parts of the country, there is no work; in others, between a dozen and 20 people—or even more in some places—wait for each vacancy. In such places, where people have no real opportunity to get work anywhere near their own locality, there must be decent welfare so that they can sustain themselves, their families and, most important, their children.
I was fortunate enough to speak in previous debates on this issue earlier this month, so I shall keep this speech as brief as possible, given that many Members will wish to take part in the debate. I shall try not to repeat the points I have already made. Instead, I shall focus on the impact that the Bill will have on families and, particularly, on children. I also do not want to disregard one important set of people—namely, those with mental health difficulties. I believe that the impacts of the Bill on those people has been underplayed to a certain extent.
I visited Tyneside Mind in Gateshead on Friday and spoke to a range of service users there. It is disturbing to see the increased pressure being put on those vulnerable people, who are in a fragile state of mind, to jump through a whole range of hoops, and to see the impact that the new measures are having on them.
Caroline Lucas
I will give way in a moment, but I should like to make a little progress on the other amendments.
The Opposition have supported the public sector pay freeze and the switch from RPI to CPI introduced by the coalition, saying that they did so on a short-term basis to tackle the deficit. The former shadow Pensions Minister, now shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves), said that the Opposition supported the switch to CPI indexation as a temporary measure, and in July 2011 she said:
“Making a permanent change from the use of the retail prices index to the consumer prices index with the impact being felt even after the deficit is long gone is an ideologically driven move that we do not support.”––[Official Report, Pensions Public Bill Committee, 14 July 2011; c. 293.]
My contention is that people are suffering now and that is why the link to prices should be restored now. The Opposition seem to have swallowed the Government line that this measure is necessary despite acknowledging that it is ideologically driven. I repeat my disappointment that apparently they will not support my amendment 7.
This is a debate about priorities, not necessarily about affordability. As the right hon. Member for South Shields (David Miliband) made very clear during his strong speech on Second Reading, today, prices are increasing and they have been rising faster than earnings in recent years. We are in the grip of a harsh public sector pay freeze imposed by the Government and supported by the Opposition. If the Opposition really believe in making sure that benefits reflect the increase in the price of a pint of milk or a pair of school shoes, or what it really costs to make sure that people can survive without becoming destitute, I ask them again to reconsider whether they might support my amendment.
Charlie Elphicke
Does the hon. Lady share my puzzlement that she has tabled an amendment—a principled amendment with which I disagree—suggesting that the RPI measure of inflation should be used, and yet the official Opposition will not support it although they gave a commitment at the Dispatch Box that they wanted inflation uprating? Does she not find that strange?
Caroline Lucas
I thank the hon. Gentleman, who has encapsulated what I said in my earlier intervention and what I am saying now. Yes, it is strange, and disappointing.
Let me say a few words about RPI and earnings. The right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Mr Kennedy) and the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) have tabled amendments on earnings that would improve the Bill, and I support them. However, we have a public sector pay freeze, and earnings growth right now is slow; people are experiencing falling living standards as energy bills and food prices rise faster than income. In the longer term, however, earnings are important. Since the second world war, the UK norm has been for earnings to rise faster than prices, with real wages rising in most years, driving living standards higher.
Charlie Elphicke
More than 30,000 people in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency have seen their pay go up in recent years by just 10%. They are in work and striving to get by. How can he justify asking them to pay more taxes and provide more money for people on benefits when the latter have had a 20% increase in the same period? Is that not unfair on working people?
Toby Perkins
One point I have laboured is that hon. Members cannot compare in percentage terms the difference the Bill will make for someone on £70 a week and someone on £35,000 a year. The hon. Gentleman seems to be attempting to make such a comparison, but as my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) related previously—
Kwasi Kwarteng
In my opening remarks, I made a wider point about the eurozone. This is exactly what goes to the heart of the issue. What those countries have done to deal with their fiscal crisis—I am not saying we should follow it, but we have to remember that their deficits are better than ours at the moment—is to make swingeing cuts to public spending in the form of benefits. We have not done that. We have spared our people that measure of severity, but we have to recognise that a large portion of spending goes in this direction and that the savings we are making are in the region of £3.7 billion a year.
Our coalition colleagues, the Liberal Democrats have said that the time frame is arbitrary. Some people have talked about 1912—more than 100 years ago—and some have talked about the last 30 years. I am not interested in the last 30 years. I am interested in what has happened since the financial crisis. I am interested in what has happened since Labour got us into the mess we are in. I accept that it is an international mess and that there is a world crisis, but the fact remains that, at £170 billion, this was a much larger deficit than that of any of our competitor or partner countries in the OECD. In that context, something had to give. We had to make some very tough choices about spending.
Let me consider some of the provisions. There is clearly a measure of disagreement over how we should approach this aspect of welfare spending. I have yet to hear from Opposition Members by how much they think benefits should rise. We have heard one suggestion, although admittedly it came from the only member of the Green party in the House. The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) seemed to be saying that she would have raised the rate in line with the retail prices index. When asked how much that would cost, she blithely replied “£7.4 billion”—I am sorry, it was £7.6 billion—as if that were a snip. It is to her credit that she at least had the honesty to spell out what are, in my view, the disastrous fiscal implications of her policy. Labour members have given no such undertakings. They have made no such statements about what their policies would actually cost. They have simply wailed and moaned about the harshness of the Government, without in any way recognising the severity of the crisis that we face.
Charlie Elphicke
Does my hon. Friend agree that it is a question not just of welfare policies, but of employment or, in the case of the Labour party, unemployment policies? In my constituency youth unemployment rose by 52% under the last Labour Government, and rose by 36% in the constituency of the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Bain). Under the present Government, it has fallen by 11% in Glasgow North East. Does that not show that our war on unemployment is beginning to work, and the economy is beginning to heal?
Kwasi Kwarteng
I could not have put it better myself. My hon. Friend has made an important point about employment, which touches on a wider point about the division between Government and Opposition. The Labour attempt to create a socialist state by means of Government spending led to absolute disaster, as it always does. We will not be able to create jobs simply by expanding the public sector ad infinitum; logic tells us that that is not going to work.
State Pension Reform
Charlie Elphicke Excerpts(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
Order. I always listen intently to what the Minister says, but in a bid to make face-to-face contact with his hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Margot James), he is standing sideways. Facing the Chair is always to be preferred.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that pensions means-testing seriously undermined a culture of savings built up over many decades? Will he assure us that, following this reform, people will not be punished for making proper provision for their old age, as they were under the last Government?
Steve Webb
My hon. Friend is quite right. The nightmare scenario under automatic enrolment would be people opening their newspapers and reading, “Don’t bother to save small amounts of money; the Government will just claw it back.” We are confident that by sorting out the state pension we will not only deal with the position of people at the bottom of the pile, but will make auto-enrolment the success that we all want it to be.
Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill
Charlie Elphicke Excerpts(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Duncan Smith
No. I have dealt with the hon. Gentleman’s point. The truth is that the Labour party is not only against the Bill but against what the Labour Government introduced just before the last election and the work capability assessment. Labour Members have opposed £80 billion of changes and reductions in every single vote and every single motion. I have dealt with his point. They must decide what they are in favour of when it comes to reducing the deficit; otherwise, they will be a laughing stock.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
Is not the bottom line that it is very difficult to justify 20% increases in benefits when earnings for hard-pressed families have gone up by only about 10%?
Mr Duncan Smith
It is worth pointing out to my hon. Friend that, when the Opposition originally heard about the Bill, the shadow Chancellor and my opposite number—the shadow Secretary of State—entertained the idea that what was wrong with the Bill was that it affected too many people who were in some kind of work through working tax credit. The speculation was that, somehow, they would be prepared to support, or not oppose, measures on those not receiving working tax credit. I notice that there is no mention of that position in the amendment, because they have been clobbered by their left and by the trade unions, their paymasters. Instead, there is a rag-bag amendment expressing opposition to a variety of things, which bears no relation to their previous position. There they go again, denying where they are.
The real question for the shadow Secretary of State and the shadow Chancellor, before they intervene again, is this: having opposed every single reduction to the deficit, what exactly would they do to cut it? They have not a single answer.
Mr Byrne
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. He is also right that the Department’s incompetence in proceeding with some of these reforms means that many of the changes risk costing more than they save. That is why Ministers have been forced to delay implementation of the benefit cap, about which they made such a fuss last year. Now we see that it will be implemented in just four London boroughs, because the Government do not know how it will work in practice.
Charlie Elphicke
Does the right hon. Gentleman think it right and fair that benefits should have gone up by 20% at the same time that average earnings have gone up just by 10%?
Mr Byrne
I repeat: there are 6,800 people in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency on tax credits—we have rehearsed these figures before, because he is an assiduous attender of social security debates. I want incomes to go up faster than benefits. That is why it is so important that tax credits are protected. He has to accept that he has voted for a freeze in tax credits for the 6,800 of his constituents who enjoy them. Today he is proposing to vote for a further squeeze, at a time when millionaires are being given a tax cut. I just do not understand how he will justify that to the good residents of Dover.
Oral Answers to Questions
Charlie Elphicke Excerpts(11 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Vaizey
I agree with the hon. Lady that we have a multi-million pound superfast broadband programme, and it is going to deliver superfast broadband to 90% of the country. I cannot make companies compete for these funds, but we do have a robust process in place to ensure value for money, and we are proceeding apace.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
Will Ministers consider prioritising not spots for the roll-out, such as the village of Denton in my constituency, which has shamefully been neglected by BT, as well as areas that have poor mobile reception, such as St Margaret’s and Kingsdown, which get French mobile phone signals?
Maria Miller
I know from personal experience that at the heart of everything the Department does is giving people an opportunity to play a full role in society and looking at people for what they can do, not what they cannot do. That is exactly what we should be doing to support disabled people into work.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
5. What steps she is taking to support more women into work.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities (Jo Swinson)
The Government are taking strong action to support more women into sustainable work. We are delivering the biggest apprenticeships programme our country has ever seen, with more than half going to women. More than 200,000 women started an apprenticeship last year. Our tax cuts for 20 million people on the lowest incomes ensure that work always pays, and our radical reforms to parental leave announced last week will allow more women—and men—to balance their work and caring responsibilities.
Charlie Elphicke
Is it not particularly important that we help partnered mothers with children into the workplace, particularly considering that in 1985 less than 30% of women with children under three were in the workplace but today it is nearly 60%?
Jo Swinson
I agree with my hon. Friend that it is important that we help working mothers who wish to work to play a full role in the labour market. That is also about ensuring that fathers who want to play a full role in parenting can do so. The ability to share parental leave between mums and dads in the way they choose, rather than how the Government dictate, is an important step towards achieving that goal.
Oral Answers to Questions
Charlie Elphicke Excerpts(11 years, 9 months ago)
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Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
Does the Minister welcome Professor Harrington’s comment in his latest assessment that things have noticeably changed for the better? I have heard it said that 40% of appeals are successful. Is that right, or is the proportion lower than that?
Universal Credit and Welfare Reform
Charlie Elphicke Excerpts(11 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr Byrne
But the Secretary of State refuses to admit that the marginal deduction rates will get worse for 2.1 million people. Until he answers the question about what will happen to free school meals and to council tax benefit, he cannot give us the assurance that that number of people will be better off in every single part of this country. He has to come clean about a system that is about to go live in 150 days. He is cutting it too fine, which is why No. 10 is worried, why the Treasury is worried and why his old friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office is worried.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
The fact is that 1.4 million people have been on out-of-work benefits for nine of the past 10 years. Rather than fear-mongering, shroud-waving and trying to frighten people, why is the right hon. Gentleman not working with the Government to get the best result and tell those people, “You’re needed in the workplace. We want you to play a part in building up the economy for future generations”?
Mr Byrne
If the hon. Gentleman was serious about wanting to get unemployed people in his constituency back to work—goodness knows there are enough of them—he would support Labour’s proposal for a tax on bankers’ bonuses that would get 110,000 young people back into work over the course of the next year.
Charlie Elphicke
Does my right hon. Friend share my concern that much of the Opposition case is based on the idea that people are basically thick—too thick to use the internet, too thick to budget monthly and too thick to pay the rent? A cornerstone of universal credit is that we trust people and believe in them. We want to encourage people to work and to manage their own affairs.
Mr Duncan Smith
I understand what my hon. Friend says. He refers to the fact that people need to be helped—that they are often more intelligent than we give them credit for, but that they lack local knowledge and instruction. A legitimate concern of Members on both sides of the House is to protect those who are the most vulnerable. I will always assume their best intents. It is our job to ensure that we meet those concerns—that is my purpose and I intend to meet it. He is right that we should assume that people are intelligent enough, but that we have to get them to the point at which they use the system.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
For me, universal credit is important first of all because of the message it sends. It sends a very clear message that everyone of working age in this country is needed and has the potential to do really well in the workplace—that they are needed to help to build up our economy and put the “Great” back into Britain. Too often in the past there has been a tone of pessimism which accepts that it is okay for people just to sit at home all day on benefits and do no work. We can see that in the figures. This Government inherited a situation in which some 5 million people were on out-of-work benefits, and 2 million children were growing up in homes where no one worked. Furthermore, 1.4 million of those 5 million people had been receiving out-of-work benefits for nine of the last 10 years.
Andrew Bingham (High Peak) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the previous benefit system acted as a disincentive to people to explore work possibilities and their own potential, and that the purpose of universal credit is to allow people to get back into work and develop their potential, and thereby to liberate them from the welfare state?
Charlie Elphicke
I thank my hon. Friend for making that important point. That is, indeed, the kernel of what universal credit is about: it gives a clear message that it pays to work and it is good to work. The Opposition call themselves the Labour party, yet too often when in office they gave the impression of being the non-labour party. This coalition is on the side of the working person—those who are working in a job in order to earn money and bring cash back to their families, and thereby to lift their children out of poverty.
It was often said in past times that the best cure for deprivation is a job. Many people in my constituency live in deprivation. It is important to get people back into work, to incentivise and encourage people to be in work and to make work pay; that is an important message to send. That is why I see universal credit as a message of optimism saying that we want everyone to play their role, and that everyone is expected to play their role and to be active in the workplace.
I support universal credit because it is a simpler system. It makes the situation easier to understand. There are not five different types of payments; there is just one simple payment. It is a fairer system, too. Rather than people losing 90p in the pound—thereby entirely disincentivising them from working harder to get a pay rise or from working longer hours—only 65p in the pound will be withdrawn, which incentivises them to work harder and for longer, and to bring more prosperity back to their families.
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
Is the hon. Gentleman worried, as I am, about the proposals of some local authorities to add a 40p in the pound taper on council tax benefit on top of the 65p taper he has just talked about? Under that approach, people who earn more would get less because they would lose more benefit than they would gain in income.
Charlie Elphicke
The right hon. Gentleman knows, as I do, that the fine tuning of council tax is still under discussion and still under way, and I hope that that will come out in the wash. I represent a coastal constituency, so I watch that situation carefully, as I know my coastal MP colleagues have been doing. They, too, want to ensure that the low paid in our constituencies are not adversely hit. That is an important point, but it is a fine part of the detailing of the implementation of the policy rather than the overall purpose of the policy, which is to encourage work and to give people more money if they work harder, do better, skill up and get a better job. That is a really important thing.
Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)
The hon. Gentleman is talking a lot about how universal credit will make entering the workplace available to everybody. Is he concerned about the absence of the second earning disregard, which means that the second person in a relationship would not really have that work incentive? Is he concerned that perhaps behind some of this there is an assumption of a model where the man goes out to work and the woman stays behind at home?
Charlie Elphicke
The hon. Gentleman lives a bit more in the past than I do; I am the second earner in my household, as many men are in theirs. We Conservatives, as the more progressive party, understand that. He should know—[Interruption.] He has had his go. He should know that second earners in households will not lose out under the universal credit.
One thing that I particularly welcome is that universal credit is progressive; the poorest will gain most, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. It says that the bottom six tenths on income distribution will gain on average, while the richest four tenths will lose out slightly in the long run. This is therefore a progressive policy, benefiting the poorest most.
Kate Green
I wish to take the hon. Gentleman up on this point about second earners. The logic of the system is that for the second earner in a couple it will not be worth working more than a very few hours a week. The problem with that is that it will, in the longer run, inhibit that person’s labour market prospects and have an impact on that family’s future prosperity.
Charlie Elphicke
Six million second earners will be better off. Importantly, 2.5 million working families will gain in the long run from the introduction of universal credit—again, that is according to IFS figures, not the Government’s figures. The Opposition are normally so keen to use the IFS figures, so it is worth quoting those figures to them and underlining how many people will be better off. That contrasts sharply with the scaremongering that we have heard from the Opposition today.
The other really important thing is that universal credit will help to lift children out of poverty. Universal credit is a transformational change which will affect some 8 million households, and we hope that 900,000 individuals, including more than 350,000 children and more than half a million working-age adults, will be lifted out of poverty as a result. The real question is: why did the previous Government not do it? Why do the Opposition not embrace it and work constructively with the Government on the fine tuning and detailing of this policy to get the best for all our electors, in whichever constituency we represent.
We are also investing an additional £300 million in child care support under universal credit, on top of £2 billion already being spent under the current system. That is worth pointing out, given a lot of the scaremongering we have heard about child care, as it shows the Government’s seriousness about helping out with child care. That will mean that more families than ever before will receive child care support, including 80,000 prevented from doing so by the current hours rule.
Universal credit is the right policy and this is the right time for it. We know that government and IT systems do not make good bedfellows—they do not make happy couples—and that there have been difficulties in the past. However, the previous Government should not judge this Government by their standards, and we should look at the implementation of employment and support allowance, as that was not an IT disaster. The Department for Work and Pensions has a good record, so we should give it the benefit of the doubt. Nevertheless, we should watch carefully to make sure that all goes well and all continues to be moving on time. Universal credit is important because it is very much for the many, with 2.5 million households that will gain. That is an important part of the reform.
Finally, we should trust people. There is too much of a tendency in the House to think that no one can manage, that we have to spoon-feed everyone and that no one can take responsibility. It is assumed that if they find it difficult to take responsibility, they should be spoon-fed rather than encouraged, helped and enabled to take more responsibility for their lives.
Naomi Long (Belfast East) (Alliance)
I agree that we want to encourage people to take care of their own affairs, but there is a conflict in that many people do not have the financial capability to do so. The funding for many of the organisations that provide them with advice and support is also under pressure, with the result that they do not have the capacity to support those people through that process. Does not the hon. Gentleman think that this is perhaps not the right time for such an approach and that we need to invest in services to give people financial capability?
Charlie Elphicke
Just because they do not have that capability today does not mean that we should write them off for all time. It does not mean that we should be pessimistic or defeatist, as the previous Government too often were.
Let us look at the facts. Some 75% of people in work today are paid monthly and if someone is going to go back into the workplace, they need to get used to monthly payments. When the previous Government moved from weekly to fortnightly payments, all the usual customers, suspects and groups popped up and said that it would be a disaster, but what actually happened? People managed. If we trust people, they often step up to the plate. We need to accept that people are able and responsible and have the ability to be successful in taking responsibility for their lives.
Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con)
I agree with my hon. Friend’s point about the need to trust people as well as the need to move towards monthly payments and increase people’s capacity to go back into the workplace. I understand that the DWP is considering which individuals might need exemptions and support for certain aspects of universal credit, and does he agree that there are certain circumstances in which exemptions and support might be necessary? I am thinking in particular of joint payments in circumstances where individuals might be at risk of domestic abuse, in which case joint payments might present a barrier to a safe exit.
Charlie Elphicke
I am sure that the Minister will deal with that point when he winds up the debate, but I heard my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State say from a sedentary position that the Government are dealing with that. It is important.
Of course, there will always be cases where people are unable to use computers at all, because they have severe dyslexia or other such conditions, and we need to be understanding of that. I draw a lot of comfort from the fact that we are hearing from the DWP that jobcentres will help to lead people through the process to ensure that they can access modern technology and be up for using it. Surely that is right, because we want people in the workplace to be able to access and use the most modern technology. That is why we should not write people off.
Surely the more that people are using the internet, the more that they are used to monthly payments and monthly budgeting and the more they are used to paying their rent like everyone else who is not on benefits, the better. I urge the Opposition to consider a change of heart about trusting people, to think that people can take responsibility for their lives and to take a more optimistic viewpoint. We will then be able to send a clear message to people that we believe in them, that they have a role to play in the future success of the country and that more of them should be able to be in work and play their part in making this country great again.
Oral Answers to Questions
Charlie Elphicke Excerpts(11 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Duncan Smith
I do, yes. We want to pay people directly, and we already pay local housing allowance to such tenants directly, which the hon. Gentleman and all hon. Members should remember. The vast majority cope with that payment—they are very similar. The point is this: we do not intend to cause problems, but the more we continue to treat people in receipt of benefits like children, the less likely they will be able to cope when they go to work. Those who can absolutely must get on to that payment schedule, but we will obviously talk to all the bodies to which he referred to ensure that we identify those who cannot. If people cannot get on to that schedule, we want to surround them with help and support to find out why they cannot manage their payments, and to rectify that rather than just throw money at them.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
I thank the Minister for his assurances that the implementation of universal credit is on time. Will he confirm that it is on track to reduce child poverty by 350,000? As hon. Members will recall, child poverty rose sharply in the previous Parliament.
Oral Answers to Questions
Charlie Elphicke Excerpts(12 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Maria Miller
I have to applaud my hon. Friend for saying things that Labour Members sometimes do not agree with. He is very courageous in that. The Government have set out their commitment to equality. It would not be right for us to see an increase in the amount of money being spent on segregated employment if we have equality at the centre of our thoughts—and we do.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
9. What steps he is taking to help separated parents resolve maintenance and contact problems.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Maria Miller)
It is unacceptable that only 50% of children in separated families benefit from an effective child maintenance arrangement. That is why we are fundamentally reforming the child maintenance system, and it is also why we recently launched our consultation on shared parenting.
Charlie Elphicke
To turn to the issue of contact, does the Minister agree that it is a fundamental right of every child to know and have a relationship with both parents, and that parents who stand in the way of that right are abusing the rights of their children?
Maria Miller
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the work he has done in this area and for his private Member’s Bill. He is absolutely right that all the evidence shows that children who maintain contact with both parents have a much better outlook on life. We are considering not only shared parenting in our consultation, but how we can help more families to work together on child maintenance outside the statutory system in a way that will help them work together on all the issues around a child’s life.
Chris Grayling
If the Work programme providers do not deliver the right support, they will not be successful and they will not be paid. That is the joy of the system that we have put in place. The previous Government put hundreds and hundreds of millions of pounds up front into the pockets of providers. We make the providers put their own money up front in a commitment to deliver support to the long-term unemployed, get them into work and help them stay there.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
T9. Does the Minister agree that pensions tax and pensions means-testing help destroy our pensions system? What are the Government doing to ensure that it always pays to save for a pension?
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)
My hon. Friend is right that at the moment there is a concern that if people save small amounts of money, all they do is deprive themselves of means-tested benefits. That is why our state pension reform is absolutely essential to ensure that when people do save they are better off as a result, and we look forward to that being a firm foundation for auto-enrolment when it starts later this year.
Welfare Reform Bill
Charlie Elphicke Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Chris Grayling
I give my hon. Friend that assurance and pay tribute to him. I know that he has a deep knowledge of the sector. It is very important, but the approach that we have sought to take is that there should not be a one-size-fits-all solution. Where we can, we should localise and give discretion. There may be circumstances in which somebody is still a foster carer and has a property that is much too large even for those needs, but we want to make sure that we provide proper protection for those who carry out such a vital role in our society. We are making substantial amounts of money available to local authorities so that they have the discretion to protect the people who are performing that important role.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
One concern that I have in my constituency is that many people live in overcrowded accommodation and have been waiting to get accommodation with the space that they need. Across the country there are 250,000 people in that position. Meanwhile there are empty-nesters rattling round in houses with spare rooms. Surely we should have an incentive for people with excess housing space to move out and enable overcrowded families to have the space that they need.
Stephen Timms
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right, and that is why the Lords propose in their amendment an exemption for people in receipt of disability living allowance, thereby addressing exactly that point.
Our original amendment would have penalised under-occupation in a workable way. If a tenant refused a suitable offer of a smaller home, they would suffer the penalty. If, however, no smaller home were available, they would not suffer that penalty. Unfortunately, that amendment was defeated in our previous debate, but I pay tribute to the 12 Liberal Democrat Members and two Conservative Members who supported it. I am glad to see some of them in their places this afternoon.
Legal challenge to the Government’s policy seems inevitable, because it penalises people for a situation that it is impossible for them to change. The amendment could not be reintroduced in the other place because the Government claimed financial privilege, so this afternoon we have in amendments 3B and 26B a much weaker proposal. It does, however, at least protect those, like the people to whom my right hon. Friend has just drawn attention, who will be hardest hit if the Government’s policy goes through.
The proposal would safeguard four tightly defined groups: first, people in the employment and support allowance support group—those who are too ill to be expected to return to work in the near future; secondly, adults and children who receive disability living allowance or its successor, the personal independence payment; thirdly, war widows; and fourthly, foster carers, because for the purposes of housing benefit calculations foster children do not count towards a bedroom need.
Let me underline how modest the proposal now is. Many Members will take the view, for example, that war widows should not be penalised for having a spare bedroom. The proposal, however, would not protect war widows in that way. It simply says that no war widow should be fined for under-occupying her home unless she has been offered appropriate smaller accommodation. If such an offer has been made to her and she has refused it, under the Lords amendments she would be penalised. The amendments would protect her position until such an offer was made. Only tenants in one of the four specific groups would have even that safeguard. Everybody else who was under-occupying their social tenancy would, under the amendments, be penalised even if it was impossible for them to move to somewhere smaller.
The Child Poverty Action Group has highlighted an example of how similar rules currently apply in the private rented sector, which highlights the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr Clarke). Let us consider a claimant who has two daughters, one of whom has severe and uncontrollable epilepsy with frequent fits during the night. Her social worker and occupational therapist agree that the two girls need separate bedrooms. The claimant currently rents a three-bedroom house, but housing benefit covers the cost of only a two-bedroom house. The Lords amendments would fix that situation for social housing because the daughter is in receipt of disability living allowance.
I will now consider the hypothetical example of a couple in which one person has terminal cancer, which puts them in the employment and support allowance support group for people who are not expected to work again. That is one of the four specific groups that the Lords amendments would protect. The couple have a spare bedroom in their two-bedroom council house because their child moved out recently. They would be happy to move to a one-bedroom council or housing association flat but none is available. Under the Minister’s policy, that couple will be penalised, on average by £12 a week. Under the amendments, because of the exceptional circumstances, they would not be penalised. That would be the modest and reasonable effect of the amendments that the Lords agreed.
The National Housing Federation tells us that 180,000 social tenants in England are under-occupying two-bedroom homes, but that only 68,000 one-bedroom social homes became available to let in the year 2009-10. The impact assessment from the Department for Work and Pensions, which is well worth reading, states:
“According to estimates from DCLG there is a surplus of 3 bedroom properties, based on the profile of existing working-age tenants in receipt of Housing Benefit, and a lack of 1 bedroom accommodation in the social sector. In many areas this mismatch”—
I am quoting the Department here—
“could mean that there are insufficient properties to enable tenants to move to accommodation of an appropriate size even if tenants wished to move and landlords were able to facilitate this movement.”
That is the reality in many places. There simply will not be a one-bedroom home to move to. That will be the case in the constituency of the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes), who intervened earlier, and in my constituency. Of course, the policy will not release a single one-bedroom home, because one cannot under-occupy a home with one bedroom.
The couple in the example, in which one person has terminal cancer, would see a cut of £12 a week or nearly £60 a month in their income. That is the average across the country. They would somehow have to make that up to their landlord from other income. The Department, no doubt trying to be helpful, gives some suggestions in the impact assessment of how they might do that:
“In these circumstances individuals may have to look further afield for appropriately sized accommodation or move to the private sector, otherwise they shall need to meet the shortfall through other means such as employment, using savings or by taking in a lodger or sub-tenant.”
I ask the House to reflect on each of those three suggestions in the case of somebody with terminal cancer. People in the ESA support group are, by definition, not in a position to work. That is why the Government have placed them in the support group. That suggestion therefore does not help. The DWP suggests instead that our terminally ill tenant in a two-bedroom flat should take in a lodger to help pay the rent. One has to ask whether the people promoting these policies have ever met anyone who will be affected by them. Of course, in many cases, the social landlord would not permit somebody to take in a lodger under the terms of their tenancy. The Department’s other suggestion is that they can use their savings. People in receipt of income-related ESA do not have very much saved—if they did, they would not receive income-related ESA.
Another alternative, as the impact assessment suggests, is that the tenant will have to move out of their council home into the private sector. In that case, their housing benefit will rise sharply. Where is the gain in forcing that to happen? The National Housing Federation, whose members are very worried about the change that the Government insist on making, makes the point that
“a couple with one child moving into the private sector from a three bed social flat in Crawley would be entitled to around £66 per week more in benefit to cover their additional housing costs.”
The key point is that it will be impossible for many of those affected to avoid the penalty. If suitable alternative accommodation can be offered to them, then fine, they can move and will no longer be under-occupying, and their benefit will continue to cover their full rent. The Lords amendments specifically allow for that. However, if there is no smaller flat available, our cancer patient will just have to take the £60 a month hit. How can that be justified?
The Minister will tell us, as he has before, that £30 million has been made available to councils in discretionary housing payments to avoid penalising a limited number of households. However, the Minister in the other place made it clear that, as the Minister of State hinted today, that money is to help foster carers and disabled people with adapted homes—so no help there for our terminally ill tenant.
Even for foster carers and disabled people in adapted homes, contrary to the impression that the Minister of State gave to the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr Timpson) and the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark, there will be no certainty. People wanting help will have to go to their local council and ask for it, because it will be discretionary—that is what the word means. It will up to each local council to decide what it does with the money. It could use it for that purpose, or it could use it for a different one. If other people have already taken all the discretionary funding that has been provided, that will be it. No further help will be available.
Charlie Elphicke
I understand that the policy in the Lords amendments would cost the Exchequer £150 million. How would it be funded?
Stephen Timms
The hon. Gentleman should reflect on the fact that, as I have described, the costs will be greater in a number of ways with the Government’s provisions in place than they would be if the Lords amendments were retained.
Before I leave the topic of discretionary housing payments, it is worth my noting how the extra £30 million has been found. Initially, the average penalty for under-occupying by one bedroom was going to be £11 a week, and now the Government have increased it to £12 a week. They have increased the penalty for everybody affected in order to scrape together the extra cash to increase discretionary payments.
The last time this policy was debated, we offered an effective alternative whereby a tenant would have their benefit cut as a penalty if they refused a suitable move. Unfortunately, Government Members threw it out. The Lords amendments would limit that safeguard to the four groups that I have mentioned—the sick, the disabled, war widows and foster carers.
Ministers have said that their policy will be a work incentive, but the support group comprises people who are not in a position to work. A work incentive will do them no good at all. Let us call a spade a spade: this is a spiteful cut in people’s income. Foster carers provide a service that saves the Exchequer billions. The Fostering Network has warned that people will be forced by the penalty to give up fostering, which will increase costs to the Exchequer. War widows and widowers have seen their loved ones die for their country. Their grieving barely over, they will be fined under the Government’s policy because they have one bedroom too many. I ask whether that is really what Government Members came into the House to do to their constituents. The Government’s policy, without the Lords amendments, will penalise everybody regardless of whether they could move.
Fourteen Government Members joined us in voting for the relevant Lords amendment last time. I thank them for that, and their constituents will do so as well, even if their Whips will not. As we were not successful, social landlords will have to take on extra staff to chase the resulting arrears that will start to accrue in every social landlord’s stock across the country. The current Lords amendments are much more modest than the previous ones, but they would at least protect those who stand to lose the most from what the Government want to do. I hope that hon. Members will support the Lords amendments and oppose the Minister’s motion.