Women’s State Pension Age
Chris Law Excerpts(8 months ago)
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Mel Stride
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that there is a very specific purpose for an ombudsman, as indeed there is for this ombudsman. What I think is unreasonable is to take the step in logic from that to saying that one should just simply, within a matter of hours, stand up and accept everything the ombudsman has put forward. What we have quite rightly said, and what I am saying at the Dispatch Box today, is that we will consider these matters, the findings, the circumstances and so on in very great detail, in order to come to the appropriate decision.
Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)
WASPI women in my constituency simply cannot wait. In fact, as we have heard across the House, there is not a single constituency where WASPI women can wait. There is a simple reason for that: 40,000 of them are dying every year. Over a quarter of a million have died over the 10-year campaign. Not once have they had an apology or received any justice —and they have certainly received no compensation. When the PHSO report was published, both the UK Government and the Labour party deliberately failed to answer and fully guarantee that full justice and full compensation would be delivered to the WASPI women. The simple question, which the Secretary of State has failed to answer so far, is this: can he give us a timeframe by which he will deliver an apology, justice and compensation, and can it be before the next general election?
Mel Stride
The hon. Gentleman has been in the Chamber, I think, since the beginning of the statement—I am sure he has; he heard the statement, hence he is asking a question—and he will know that the question he asked has been asked now probably a couple of dozen times. The answer is the same. [Interruption.] He chunters from a sedentary position, but the answer is just the same, which is that the responsible thing to do is to look at this highly complex matter. The report was published on Thursday. It is now Monday, early evening. It is not unreasonable to expect the Government—and indeed Parliament, because of the way the report has been laid before Parliament—to look at the detail of the report. As a Department, we gave around 1,000 pages of evidence that informed the report. There are some very important findings within it and to do it justice, we need to look at it carefully.
Oral Answers to Questions
Chris Law Excerpts(6 years, 9 months ago)
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Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)
Later, we will debate benefit uprating, which will maintain a freeze on many key working-age benefits even while the consumer price index sits at 3%. We all know that the freeze is pushing people into crisis, so will the Minister take this opportunity to lift the freeze to ease claimants’ suffering—yes or no?
Kit Malthouse
As the hon. Gentleman knows, the freeze was enacted in primary legislation, and we would need a vote of the whole House to change it. I am afraid that it forms part of a general suite of welfare reforms that have driven an enormous number of people into work and out of poverty.
Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill
Chris Law ExcerptsFriday 2nd December 2016
(7 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill 2016-17 View all Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill 2016-17 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mhairi Black) on securing the debate, on the tone that she adopted and on the powerful way in which she spoke.
In my speech, I will identify three things: the general principle that working is important—the value of work—the existing sanctions regime and the importance of limiting sanctions wherever possible. Before I do so, I would like to make a general point. I think that the hon. Lady accepted that the system worked in some places, that there are hardship payments and that there is guidance. Implicit in her speech and in the Bill was the recognition that she seeks to change the implementation of the system, not the system itself, but I am not clear that legislation is necessarily the right way to do that.
First, I want to identify the principle of work. We need to encourage, empower and inform everybody about the opportunities of work, because work has a number of benefits. It gives people self-fulfilment and financial responsibility for themselves, and it enables them to be a role model for their children. Work also helps the country as a whole. If we have high employment and high productivity, we remain competitive as a nation and we ensure that those who might suffer, physically or mentally, from being out of work can help themselves. It is our job, as a Government, to ensure that those opportunities remain available and that people have the skills and the confidence to go to work.
Secondly, I said that I would identify the sanctions regime. The idea that people should go to work—that it pays to work, that people should get off benefits to go into work and that we should encourage them to do so—is neither new nor controversial. Likewise, the benefit system and the sanctions system are not new. The sanctions system has been around for four decades, and there is some evidence that sanctioning works; 70% of claimants say that they are more likely to follow the rules if they know that they are at risk of having their benefits stopped if they do not.
According to the National Audit Office report, international evidence suggests that sanctioning increases the number of people who go from benefits into employment. We have sanctions because we have conditions, and conditions are useful. Through the conditions system, people can get the training and the skills that they need, and conditions force people to get the skills that they need. As has been said during the debate, the evidence suggests that 90% of people do not have any sanctions at all.
Chris Law
To go back to the evidence from the National Audit Office, we must be reading two different reports. I have also looked at the report, and according to the official analysis of the benefit sanction system, there is absolutely no evidence that the sanctions regime imposed by the DWP has a positive effect on job outcomes. I would just like to get that on the record, because it is in complete contradiction to what the hon. Lady has just said.
Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mhairi Black) on introducing the Bill, on the enormous amount of work and research she has clearly done in preparing it and on the great sincerity with which she put her case to the House.
I am sure the hon. Lady will not be surprised to hear that I disagree with her Bill, but it is a good thing for us to talk about those in the greatest difficulty and about which parts of the welfare system do not always work. All Members, in their day-to-day work and casework, will have come across the examples we have heard today of parts of the system that do not work as intended and are not helping people as well as they should, and we all do our bit to make sure those mistakes and oversights—letters going to the wrong address, for instance—are corrected. In my experience, they are very often corrected. I am sure we have all had mistakes corrected for our constituents. The fact that there are mistakes—even though they might be awful mistakes—is not necessarily a reason to rip the system up and start again.
Chris Law
We all in the Chamber agree on the need to do our bit, but according to Trussell Trust figures more than 1 million food parcels a year—the highest number since the war—are going out across every constituency in the country. Is that not clear evidence that the system is not working. After the second world war came the post-war social contract, and this shows the worst parts of the breakdown of that consensus, which was once shared in the House.
Helen Whately
From visiting food banks in my constituency and looking into the issue, I know that there are many reasons why people are using them. I am sure we would all prefer it if people did not have to go to food banks, but there are many reasons why they do, so we should not point the finger entirely at the sanctions regime.
Chris Law
In that case, let us look at the Trussell Trust’s own statistics, showing that 44% of all food bank use is due to the two key areas of benefit delays and benefit sanctions. I believe it is our responsibility to resolve that matter. Does the hon. Lady not agree that when we are talking about nearly 50% of people using food banks because of a failure of the benefit system, it means that there is a fundamental and direct link between the two and that the Bill amounts, frankly, only to a modest gesture to help improve those circumstances?
Helen Whately
As I said a few moments ago, I do not agree with the proposed Bill. I do, however, think it right to work, as the Government rightly are, on ways to improve the system. Substantial steps have been taken already.
Helen Whately
Let me make a little progress, because I am coming on to the steps that have already been taken to make sure that the system works better. The hon. Member for Dundee West (Chris Law) knows, and we all know, that the Government have been working very hard and are listening. They responded, for example, to the Oakley review and acted on its recommendations to make the whole system work better.
Helen Whately
I must make a little bit of progress. Otherwise I shall be speaking until 2.30 pm, and I know that other Members wish to speak.
Claimants in that position are more likely to turn up for appointments with their work coaches, more likely to search for jobs online, and more likely to engage in Work programme activities that will help them to make their way towards finding a job. I recently visited Faversham creek, where Work programme activities include building boats. That is a fantastic activity, and I could see—and heard stories about—the enormous difference that it can make to participants. They gain real skills and meaningful involvement, which can take them closer to the workplace. The structure of turning up and doing the work is very good for their self-esteem, and the benefits are clear.
Chris Law
I thank the hon. Lady for letting me intervene again. She has spoken about how positive work is, and how it gives us all self-esteem and great benefit. No one disagrees with that point, which has been made many times in the House, but let us be clear about the suggestion that sanctions somehow encourage or motivate claimants. The hon. and learned Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Lucy Frazer) said earlier that, according to the National Audit Office, analysis showed that sanctions work internationally, and I do not dispute that. My point is that, in the United Kingdom, analysis of the benefit sanctions system suggests that there is no evidence that sanctions imposed by the Department for Work and Pensions have a positive effect on job outcomes. Does the hon. Lady accept that?
Helen Whately
I shall come to the point about the evidence in a moment, but before I do so I want to say something about conditionality. I know that Opposition Members think there should be no sanctions at all. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South has said that she opposes sanctions in their entirety, although I appreciate that the Bill is not intended to achieve that.
The problem is that if there are no sanctions, that brings conditionality into question. As other Members have said, conditionality has been a long-standing feature of welfare benefit entitlements since they were introduced at the beginning of the last century, and in the United Kingdom access to employment benefit specifically has always been conditional on recipients’ being involuntarily unemployed and available for work. Sanctions have been a feature of the JSA since it was introduced in 1996 and they were continued under Labour as well as the coalition Government.
Nor is the UK alone in imposing sanctions; it is the norm in most countries to have conditions placed on receiving benefits. France, for instance, imposes sanctions if a jobseeker refuses two reasonable offers of work. Germany also imposes sanctions, as do the Netherlands, Switzerland, Denmark and Norway. A recent study covering international evidence from Germany showed sanctions increase the probability of leaving the welfare system for employment by over 50%. Another study in the Netherlands showed they increased the probability of going into employment by between 36% and 98%.
Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mhairi Black) for bringing this important Bill to Parliament. It is detailed and compelling and it is crystal clear about the need for a code of conduct and consistency of application. Let me be clear from the outset, because I have heard this questioned too often in the Chamber today: while the SNP would like a complete review of the UK Government’s sanctions system, this small Bill is about making the system fairer with cross-party support. It seeks to build on the good practice that is already happening in some jobcentres, where advisers look at the circumstances of an individual when imposing a sanction. The Bill will ensure that that happens across the board, protecting the most vulnerable in society from being pushed into absolute poverty.
Make no mistake: the UK Government’s current benefit sanctions regime is brutally draconian and undignified. An individual can be sanctioned so heavily that they have nothing left to feed themselves or their family, in effect becoming destitute through state-sponsored starvation. At a St Andrew’s Day dinner last night, I was reminded that, less than 200 years ago, Dickens was a journalist up in the Press Gallery. He got sick and fed up of debates in here about whether or not they needed to legislate for the poor, and I am shocked today to hear that we again do not need legislation for the most vulnerable in our society. Dickens quit his job and went on to write some of the most seminal works of the terrible and draconian Victorian period. For those who have not seen Ken Loach’s “I, Daniel Blake”, it is deeply compelling and reminds me of the spirit of Dickens. While some think it to be a work of fiction, it will go on to teach future students and others who look back at history about this appalling time in this country.
Chris Law
No, I will not, owing to the short amount of time left. I do apologise.
Only a couple of years ago, my constituency of Dundee was named sanctions city. Today, we might as well call it bloody marvellous sanctions city, because I have been hearing so much appeasement about sanctions and about how great they are—until someone is on the receiving end. Common outcomes include eviction threats, increased debt, anxiety and ill health, resulting in some constituents having to turn to petty theft. There is clear evidence of a link between the use of food banks and benefit sanctions, and I am saddened to say that Dundee also has Scotland’s busiest food bank. The Trussell Trust estimates that benefits issues account for 44% of all referrals—nearly half. Everyone in the House should hang their head in shame and do something about that. We should protect the Bill and ensure that it progresses.
There is a story behind every statistic. In Dundee, a woman with learning difficulties ended up with two concurrent 13-week sanctions after DWP staff declared she that she was not filling in her “work commitment booklet” properly. I recently chaired a Trussell Trust event at which I met a single mother whose benefits would be cut if she failed to send her husband’s death certificate to DWP every six weeks. Imagine the grief that that woman was feeling and how it must feel to be hounded for that kind of documentation on a regular basis.
It is no exaggeration to say that the UK Government are treating people like criminals, but if they were criminals, they would be treated more fairly. When a court imposes a fine on an individual for a driving offence, for example, their basic rights are protected by court proceedings. There is no expectation that the fine will lead to them being unable to heat their home or feed their children. We do not hear about people committing suicide as a result of a conviction for a driving offence. There is a direct correlation between driving too fast or using a mobile phone when driving and fatal road accidents, but those who commit such offences are penalised less than someone who misses an appointment at the jobcentre because their child was ill. The sanctions system is severe and cruel and so clearly needs to change, and today’s Bill represents positive steps towards that.
As I said earlier, the National Audit Office analysis showed that there was absolutely no evidence that the sanction regime imposed by the DWP has a positive effect on job outcomes, but judging by some of the information coming out today, we are experiencing post-truth politics. It is abundantly clear from the NAO evidence that vulnerable people are more likely to be sanctioned—I am talking about homeless people, those with mental health problems and immigrants with a limited understanding of English. Those are the people who need most help to find jobs, but, rather than being helped, they receive a sanction, and their already fragile living situation is sent into crisis. They need to concentrate on how to live from one day to the next; they need to go to a food bank; their confidence is eroded, and they worry. Rather than stepping up their job-search activities, the main effect of imposing sanctions is to distance such claimants from the world of work, contrary to the whole purpose of sanctions in the first place.
The Bill is made up of 11 clauses, which are small administrative changes to the current legislation, and they seek to establish a long overdue code of conduct and official procedures for the current sanctions system. The aim is to end the postcode lottery of sanction regimes operated at different centres, therefore ensuing a fairer system of sanctions for everyone who uses the social security system, no matter what area of the country they live in.
The Bill will mean that a person in receipt of benefits cannot have them reduced unless two requirements have been met. Let me make this crystal clear in plain simple English for those who have not yet read the Bill. First, the claimant’s circumstances have to be assessed. Secondly, a number of conditions set out in the Bill have to be met. These focus on the individual’s situation, in particular the claimant’s caring commitments, whether they are at risk of homelessness, and whether they suffer from a mental or physical health condition. Such difficulties can be intensified—and are intensified—by these cruel sanctions. What this means in practice is that an individual’s circumstances would be taken into account before—and I underline the word “before”—cutting off their financial support.
In essence, this Bill proposes minor administrative changes, which do no more than humanise a fundamentally unjust and inappropriate system, and formally establish adequate protections for the most vulnerable. Although my SNP colleagues and I would like to see an entire review of the system, this Bill goes some small way towards putting dignity and respect into people’s lives. It is for that reason that I wholeheartedly support every aspect of this Bill.
Oral Answers to Questions
Chris Law Excerpts(9 years, 5 months ago)
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Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)
14. If he will make an assessment of the effects of the benefits sanctions and conditionality regime on use of food banks.
The Minister for Employment (Priti Patel)
We have looked at the issue extensively, and we agree with the conclusion reached by the all-party parliamentary inquiry into hunger that the reasons for food bank use are complex and overlapping. There is no robust evidence that directly links sanctions and food bank use.
Priti Patel
Well, we are devolving welfare, and we can have this debate next week on the Floor of the House. It is also important to emphasise that the purpose of sanctions is to encourage claimants to comply with reasonable requirements to help them develop and move into the world of work. That is vital.
Chris Law
I thank the Minister for her response, but in the year following the introduction of benefits sanctions, approximately 2,500 people were sanctioned in my city of Dundee, leading to a 51% increase in referrals to Dundee’s Trussell Trust food bank, including many parents with young children. The number is rising year on year, despite what she just said about falling figures. Does she not accept that there is an intrinsic link between the two, and that it is an absolute disgrace to have rising food poverty in the 21st century?
Priti Patel
Sanctions were in place for a significant amount of time before this Government and the previous Government. Let me reiterate the point, made in the recent Oakley review of benefits sanctions, that sanctions are a
“key element of the mutual obligation that underpins both the effectiveness and fairness of the social security system.”
For the benefit of the hon. Gentleman, let me say that we have accepted all the recommendations made by Oakley. This brings us back to the fact that sanctions play an important role in encouraging and supporting people to go back to work.