Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Clive Betts and Amber Rudd

Monday 13th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

It is good to hear from my hon. Friend quite how enterprising his county is. I reassure him that work coaches provide additional support to allow those who want to become self-employed to do so via the new enterprise allowance, which provides mentoring support and additional financial support. We announced in the last Budget a one-year grace period from the minimum income floor for claimants joining universal credit with an existing business. All these efforts try to make sure that his constituents, and other people throughout the country, are able to set up their businesses and work self-employed and get access to universal credit.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

I am sure that the Secretary of State has seen the comments made by the Children’s Commissioner based on research carried out by Policy in Practice. The Commissioners said that the number of children in families running a monthly deficit is expected to double in some areas as a result of the introduction of universal credit. Does she accept that this is completely disgraceful, and what is she going to do about it?

[Amber Rudd]

I reassure the hon. Gentleman that we care enormously about ensuring that there are fewer children in poverty than before. There are fewer children in poverty and fewer families in poverty since 2010. As we know, the best way to help people out of poverty is to ensure that families have work. I am ambitious to ensure that people in low-paid work can get into higher-paid work, which is why I made the announcements last week, ensuring that work coaches can give additional support.

Orgreave: Public Inquiry into Policing

Debate between Clive Betts and Amber Rudd

Wednesday 20th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

I know about the concerns that the hon. Gentleman refers to when he says “the top of it” and that is what the IPCC is focused on. It is about looking at the connections between the Hillsborough inquiry that we have already had and Orgreave. I will not shy away from looking carefully at wherever there has been wrongdoing or wherever there are links.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

While Orgreave happened many years ago, problems still exist in South Yorkshire police, as the recent peer review identified. I thank the previous Home Secretary and the previous Policing Minister, the right hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning), for their help in setting up that peer review and their support for the police and crime commissioner in getting in an interim chief constable and then appointing a permanent chief constable—that was welcome. Will the Home Secretary now commit to support the IPCC in addressing the issue identified by the peer review? Will she also have a look at the role of Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary? It has done several reviews of South Yorkshire police in recent years but never identified the issues raised by the peer review.

[Amber Rudd]

The hon. Gentleman asks an important question. He is right; we hope that there will be progress under the new leadership. We will carefully follow progress under Dave Jones. My colleague the Minister for Policing and the Fire Service, my hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis), has already said he will be going to visit over the summer, so we are taking seriously the improvements that the new leadership has said that it will make.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Clive Betts and Amber Rudd

Thursday 4th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

16. What steps he is taking to help households improve their energy efficiency.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Amber Rudd)]

Over 750,000 homes were improved under the green deal and ECO between January 2013 and June 2014, and we are on track to meet our target of improving the energy efficiency of 1 million homes by March 2015. A further 20,000 homes could be improved under the green deal home improvement fund, which has a pipeline of work over the coming months. In the longer term, we are providing certainty for the market through the extension of ECO until 2017 and up to £120 million of funding in each of the next two years for future schemes.

[Mr Betts]

Ministers must be the only people who believe that the green deal has been a great success for either householders or small businesses—small businesses that are suffering cash-flow problems because of the Department’s delays in paying for vouchers; small businesses that lost out because they sold customers green deal assessments that could not be completed before the scheme was cancelled; small businesses being offered vouchers on the black market for up to £1,000 for solid wall insulation. When will the Government sort out the problems that they have created for small businesses?

[Amber Rudd]

The Government are very aware of the efforts that small businesses make and want to support them, as we continue to do in every Department. The answer to the question is that, because of the outstanding success of the green deal home improvement fund, we are making every effort to ensure that every voucher is correct. The hon. Gentleman has described a situation that would not be in accordance with the rules of the green deal home improvement fund, and it is for that reason that we must be absolutely certain that every application is correct, because we are looking after taxpayers’ money.