Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Grayling and Steve McCabe

Tuesday 6th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

Has the Secretary of State looked at the damages awarded to triple killer Kevan Thakrar? Does he have any plans to change the rules so that serious offenders cannot profit from such compensation claims?

[Chris Grayling]

I regarded that as wholly unacceptable. It is a case that we defended in court, but, unfortunately, the judge reached a different view. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that I have made sure that there is no possibility of somebody in that position receiving legal aid to pursue such a case. I have also asked my officials to look at any other ways we have to make it more difficult for prisoners to pursue such a case.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Grayling and Steve McCabe

Tuesday 17th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I very much agree with my hon. Friend. I feel strongly that we must take a tough approach to someone’s causing death and serious injury while disqualified from driving. Too often, it turns out that the people who commit such an offence have been disqualified again and again and do not have a licence when it happens. That is an area that I am keen to address.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State’s colleague at the Home Office, the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker), announced in Cambridge on 28 August that he had asked the Sentencing Council to review this very offence. Is this another request today? When exactly will the Sentencing Council review the offence and make a decision?

[Chris Grayling]

I put in the original request to the Sentencing Council some months ago. It intends to put this into its work stream for next year and will make recommendations. Separately, I am also looking at the current law. I feel that there is still scope for tightening and I will bring forward my thoughts in due course.

Transforming Legal Aid

Debate between Lord Grayling and Steve McCabe

Thursday 5th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I entirely understand the concerns my hon. Friend raises. I obviously cannot comment on the specific case, but what I can say is that within our legal aid system both now and in the future discretionary funding will be available for the unexpected and unusual case that might not conform to the central rules of the scheme but where there is a clear need for support to be provided.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

Can the Justice Secretary assure us that there is no connection between the original opposition to his proposals from Churches, charities and advocacy groups and the Government’s subsequent efforts to muzzle those organisations through the lobbying Bill?

[Chris Grayling]

That is a pretty absurd question, to which the answer is that that is complete nonsense.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Grayling and Steve McCabe

Tuesday 18th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

Very agog, Sir. Will the Secretary of State say when he plans to end the scandal of making welfare benefit payments to prisoners serving a sentence?

[Chris Grayling]

That is a matter for the Department for Work and Pensions but I am absolutely of the view that benefit payments should not be made to serving prisoners. I hope and expect that the DWP will deal with that issue. I believe that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has already taken steps to ensure that the system we inherited, in which that kind of thing could happen, comes to an end.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Grayling and Steve McCabe

Tuesday 13th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I can assure my hon. Friend that we have made no changes to the plans. We always listen carefully to outside bodies, but no changes have been made and we are not considering making any.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

In view of the Qatada decision, has the Secretary of State considered requiring courts to take into account the likely cost to the public purse of their bail decisions, particularly in serious and high-risk cases?

[Chris Grayling]

I am happy to consider that matter further and write to the hon. Gentleman.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Grayling and Steve McCabe

Monday 23rd April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I am very pleased to tell the House that since May 2010, the total number of people in this country on out-of-work benefits has fallen by 45,000.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

Is the Minister familiar with the recent freedom of information request that revealed that 1,100 employment support allowance claimants died between January and August last year after being assessed as fit for work? What steps is he taking to investigate this rather large number of deaths, and how come so many of those people were assessed as fit for work?

[Chris Grayling]

I am afraid that we cannot simply extrapolate one of those facts from the other. Sadly, we are all mortal, and circumstances arise that we do not expect. As I said to the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), we always look very carefully at individual cases, but the Government are doing the right thing in trying to provide support to help people to get back into work. The worst thing for their health and well-being is for them to be on benefits for the rest of their lives if they do not need to be.

Youth Unemployment

Debate between Lord Grayling and Steve McCabe

Wednesday 22nd June 2011 Westminster Hall

[Steve McCabe]

I feel quite strongly that, so far, what we have seen from the Government is the cancellation of initiatives. I hope that during this debate we might hear something about a fresh initiative. However, I personally think that the wrong time to withdraw support is when we are in the depths of a recession and youth unemployment is rising. That is patently wrong.

I am not alone in expressing my concern about youth unemployment. The CBI has recently voiced its concerns about the rising trend of youth unemployment, a trend that it fears. There are about 31,000 more young people chasing work now than there were last summer. Youth unemployment is hovering around the 1 million mark. That means that one in five of our young people are without work, which is an awful lot of talent and potential for any country to write off.

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

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I hope he will forgive me for intervening so early in the debate, but I want to ask him to place on the record something that I think is material to the overall headlines, if not to the issue of youth unemployment itself, which we all agree is very serious. Will he accept that of the number of young people who are unemployed—a number that went close to 1 million and then came back down again—277,000 are full-time students who are looking for a part-time job alongside their studies? Those students are not “unemployed” as we would understand that word in its conventional sense.

[Steve McCabe]

I have acknowledged that students are part of the figures that we are discussing, and I am happy to accept that point. I will say a little more about both students and those who are not in education, employment or training later. However, I am happy to accept the Minister’s point that there are some students in the youth unemployment figures. Of course that is true.

In Birmingham, the youth unemployment figure is now about 13,000, which is quite a high figure for that city. OECD data show that Britain compares poorly with its competitors in terms of youth unemployment initiatives. NEETs are also part of that problem. That predicament not only has an effect on young people themselves, but is bad for the country, adding to the Government’s borrowing at the very time when they are concerned to reduce it. Over time, we will pay the price of this lack of activity. It has been estimated that the young people themselves suffer a long-term wage scar, earning between 8% and 15% less during their working lives than they might have done. The CBI tells us that youth unemployment costs the country about £3.6 billion per year, which is not a sum of money to be trifled with. A failure to provide initiatives or opportunities can lead to some young people disengaging completely, which clearly has a long-term impact on their employability. Persistently high unemployment, especially among younger and less skilled workers, leads to the problem that the Minister is now trying to grapple with. That problem involves people who are out of the labour market for so long that their potential to rejoin it reduces with each passing month, which explains, at least in part, some of the long-term benefit problems that he is attempting to deal with.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Grayling]

I have issues generally with the way some of the ILO’s data are collected. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman or some of his colleagues would like to request another debate, and we can consider the question at length. What pleased me most fundamentally about the last set of figures was that the drop occurred not in the group of those in full-time education, looking for a part-time job, but in the group of those not in full-time education or employment. That is a welcome development.

There is a big challenge for us.

[Steve McCabe]

I do not want the debate to get bogged down in the question of figures, but I am not quite sure I understood that last point. I thought that the Office for National Statistics said that 61,000 of the 88,000 drop was accounted for by students becoming economically inactive because they are in full-time study. It is not true in that case to say that the bulk of the drop could be attributed to non-students. The reverse would be true.