Housing Benefit

Clive Efford Excerpts

Wednesday 26th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)]

As the Secretary of State responsible for introducing the regulations in 1996, which interacted in an unforeseen way with the regulations last year, I must seek the House’s indulgence at not having recalled the detail of their text and drawn any possible problem to the attention of my successor. However, I assure the House that there was no intention of granting any long-term relief from a change of policy that I envisaged introducing if we had been re-elected and I had remained Secretary of State.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Lilley]

I will give way not at the moment.

The problem that we face is a huge shortage of housing. We have 1.85 million people on council waiting lists, up 800,000 since 1997. That should be no surprise, given that the previous Government allowed the population to increase by 3 million during that period, with virtually no addition to the housing stock.

The symptom of such a shortage is overcrowding—a word which did not pass the lips of the Opposition spokesman in her speech. During my period as a Member of Parliament, many people have come to my surgery to seek help about a change in social housing. Overwhelmingly, they have been people living in overcrowded accommodation who want a bigger property and seek to move out of a one or two-bedroom property. I have therefore been surprised by the general approach of Opposition Members and by some of the media in saying that no one wants to move out of small properties into big ones and that there are therefore no small properties to be moved into by those affected by the removal of the spare room subsidy.

By chance, I bumped into an old friend who is now the chairman of an organisation called HomeSwapper. Some 80% of local authorities belong to it, and hundreds of thousands of tenants have registered on it that they want to swap.

Oral Answers to Questions

Clive Efford Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Grant]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. We need to remember that gambling is a legal activity and is enjoyed safely by many people right across the country.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

The review of category B machines affects Scotland as much as any other part of the country. In answer to a question about FOBTs from my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition on 8 January, the Prime Minister said:

“We will be reporting in the spring as a result of the review that is under way, and I think it is important that we get to grips with this.”—[Official Report, 8 January 2014; Vol. 573, c. 295.]

Will the Minister confirm that we will get to grips with FOBTs in betting shops in the spring and that, most importantly, that will include a review of the £100 stake and £500 prize money maximums?

[Mrs Grant]

We have been getting to grips with that since we came to power in 2010. For the record, in 1997 there were no FOBTs, yet by 2010, when the Labour party was removed from power, there were more than 30,000. I am afraid that I will not take any lessons from the shadow Minister, as we are the ones who are gathering the evidence, pushing the industry to provide data and taking problem gambling seriously for the first time.

Jobs and Business

Clive Efford Excerpts

Friday 10th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

It is not complacent to acknowledge the extent to which we have serious problems, which is where I started, or to compare the country with economies that are suffering similar problems. For those who are rightly focused on unemployment among young people, the simple truth is that long-term youth unemployment rose by 40% in the boom years when the Labour party was in power. Labour Members are therefore not in a strong position to lecture us on how to deal with it.

We have focused on two policy areas to deal with the problem of youth unemployment. I am most closely involved in the growth of apprenticeships and my colleague, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, will talk about the other. We have all embraced apprenticeships, including, rather belatedly, the Opposition. There is a recognition among employers and young people that it is an excellent model for training. Under this Government, the number of apprenticeship starts has increased by 86%. There were 160,000 last year. There has been a 42% growth in the number of young people starting apprenticeships. We are making reforms that will improve the system further, notably the employer ownership system, under which apprenticeship training will be channelled through employers so that there is the demand for real jobs. We are also introducing a staged approach through traineeships, so that young people have a route into proper training.

A difficult area is that what has kept unemployment down in the UK is the fact that real wages have not risen. Indeed, they have fallen. That was the main focus of attack from the Leader of the Opposition. We need to understand and explain what has happened. The British economy was hit massively by the financial crisis. We are a significantly poorer country than we were before that time, although we are now recovering. The impact of that has been felt predominantly through the reduction of wages in real terms.

We are trying to mitigate that impact in two major ways. The first is by lifting low earners out of tax, which increases their disposal income even though their pre-tax income may have fallen. The effect of that is that people on the minimum wage are paying half the income tax that they paid before we embarked on that reform. We have also taken 2.7 million out of income tax altogether. Secondly, and this is my direct responsibility, we have ignored the advice from some quarters to abandon the minimum wage or to dilute it. I have followed the advice of the Low Pay Commission on the minimum wage.

One of the points that the Leader of the Opposition made in his speech—

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Vince Cable]

I will finish my point and then take the intervention.

The Leader of the Opposition pointed to the apparently low level of enforcement of the minimum wage and the limited number of prosecutions. That worried me at the time, so I checked the history. I discovered that in the last four years of the Labour Government, the number of prosecutions under this flagship policy was two a year. We have therefore maintained a rather similar practice.

I have asked for an interview with the head of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, who is responsible for prosecutions, to establish why the level is so low, because this is a perfectly legitimate issue. I have discovered that a large number of companies are being pursued under civil proceedings, where the maximum penalty is £5,000 a year. The matter is therefore being enforced assiduously, but not through the criminal system. I will establish why we are not doing that and whether we should be doing more to underpin the rights of some of the lowest-paid people in society.

[Clive Efford]

The right hon. Gentleman has anticipated the point that I was going to make, which was about the alarmingly low level of prosecutions for not paying the national minimum wage. Is most of the enforcement not taking place through trade union activity?

[Vince Cable]

I am sure that the trade unions play a part in bringing this matter to the attention of the authorities. Every complaint is investigated. Some come from the trade unions and I welcome the role that they play.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rushanara Ali]

The hon. Gentleman’s Government should apologise for their failure to reverse the increase. Child poverty in my constituency has gone up consecutively in the past three years. He ought to apologise for that and he ought to act. He should have lobbied his Government to propose measures in this Queen’s Speech to tackle child poverty. He ought to apologise and I give him the opportunity to do so today.

[Clive Efford]

I am reading the conclusion of the Institute for Fiscal Studies report into child poverty, and it states that relative child poverty is projected to be 6% higher, reversing the fall in relative poverty between 2000 and 2010-11.

[Rushanara Ali]

What can I say to my hon. Friend but, “Well said”? I wish the Minister would take these issues more seriously. Instead of tackling the substantive problem of child poverty, his colleagues in the Treasury have decided to redefine it. As with many things the Government are doing, they find it is easier to meddle with the figures and interfere with the statistics—rewrite them, even. The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions is not in his place. He has just had his wrists slapped once again by the Office for National Statistics for meddling with the statistics.

The Government should rebuild trust with the British people by coming clean on these issues. They should not try to rewrite the figures, but actually do something about child poverty, an issue that is of great concern to families and to all people. Doing so would address the point, made by my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North (Mr Reed), that the Conservative party is not just in the business of pretending to change on these substantial issues. We live in hope, although there is not much of that left.

The Government’s approach to child poverty and the response of the Minister highlight how out of touch they are. If he and his colleagues cannot understand the seriousness of falling living standards and rising levels of child poverty—to name but two issues—and what they mean for ordinary people’s lives, I cannot understand how we are to trust them to get us out of the economic mess that they have put us in over the past three years. It is their mess: they need to clean it up and they have categorically failed to do so.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Clive Efford Excerpts

Friday 22nd March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Byrne]

The Secretary of State’s level of delusion is now bettering his previous level. He knows that the policy costings—which he has clearly not read—published by his right hon. Friend the Chancellor show that the housing benefit bill is not going down over the next couple of years, but going up. The Secretary of State’s efforts have been so successful that he is bringing in a policy—the hated bedroom tax—that will cost more than it saves. We saw the proof on Wednesday—housing benefit up by more than £1 billion. That is a mark of his failure.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State cannot rewrite history. This Government inherited the biggest council house building programme for 20 years. One of the first things they did was scrap it. They now have the lowest building starts since the 1920s—lower even than we had, and that is saying something.

[Mr Byrne]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. What we needed in the Budget was determined action to build houses, not another subsidy for Britain’s richest citizens.

Let me start to conclude by reminding the House what most families will now experience. We heard in the Secretary of State’s speech some words about the rise in the personal allowance. The truth is that, even despite the rise in the personal allowance, the cuts buried in the Budget will mean that by April 2014-15 the same family who will see the personal allowance increase to £10,000 will be worse off. They will lose £600 a year in cuts, and my fear is that worse is to come.

The Chancellor gave away a lot of things in the first year of the next Parliament. Although we saw a little of how he will pay for it—he is going to fast-track the flat-rate pension—this is one of the great mysteries of this Budget, and we have not heard much about it yet. When the Minister winds up, I hope he will confirm at what rate the flat-rate pension will be introduced. The original White Paper set the figure at £144, which I notice is lower than £145, which is the combined total of pension credit and the state pension set out in the Budget book on Wednesday. As we know, the advance of the flat-rate pension offers the Treasury a huge national insurance windfall of about £5.5 billion in 2016-17 and 2017-18. What is interesting—we heard nothing about this—is that half of that windfall comes from public sector employers. The Library was able to tell me earlier in the week that the national health service, schools and the police will face a bill for £1.6 billion in higher national insurance contributions. We heard nothing about precisely where that money will come from. I hope the Minister will be able to set our minds at rest and say why this will not be another cut to the NHS in the next Parliament.

The second mystery surrounds the unspecified cuts of £11.5 billion in the first years of the next Parliament. We know that things such as the strivers tax and other cuts to working tax credits will deliver up to £6 billion, but where will the other £5 billion come from? Can DWP Ministers tell us how they will resist another huge great cut to welfare in the June spending review?

We got more of the same from the Chancellor on Wednesday and more of the same from the Secretary of State today. Once upon a time he liked to say that he cared about poverty. No more. One million children on his watch will be pushed into poverty. Tens of thousands of disabled people will follow. Families get less, while millionaires get more, all because this Chancellor has flatlined the economy and because the Secretary of State has asked for nothing, got nothing and delivered nothing to bring down unemployment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

I want to talk about housing, particularly in London, but before I do let me refer to the millionaires’ tax cut that will come in in April. It will benefit 13,000 individuals who earn more than £1 million and have a combined income of £27.4 billion, and I am grateful to the trade union Unison for providing me with that figure. Those 13,000 people earn £27.4 billion, and the Government somehow think that in these times that cut should be a priority for public expenditure. It is outrageous. The Government are freezing child benefit for the third year running, and the money could have been used to benefit 12 million children if child benefit had been increased in line with the consumer prices index. I wonder what the cash injection to the economy would have been if that money had been given to families who would have spent it rather than on providing a bonanza to 13,000 people. Imagine the letter from the Chancellor of the Exchequer saying, “You’ve been selected as one of 13,000 people to share in a £1.2725 billion payout from Her Majesty’s Exchequer and all you have to do to qualify is confirm in writing that you earned more than £1 million this year.” What an absolute disgrace.

I look back on the criticisms of our benefit changes when we were in government, and on the fact that the Liberal Democrats were constantly carping, saying how mean we were, and attacking us about benefit changes and rules for people with disabilities—but now they sit there, and that tax cut is their priority. At a time like this, when the bedroom tax is being introduced, when wages are being frozen and when unemployment is going up, as we have heard, this Government’s priority is a tax cut for millionaires. I find that absolutely shocking.

Some elements of the Budget are welcome: any assistance for people who want to buy their homes, particularly those who might have to wait many years to save a deposit, is always welcome. However, I am concerned about the impact of the Government’s planned assistance in the absence of a significant improvement in the supply of housing. I know they will say that they are planning to supply housing and that they have a house building programme, but we have been hearing those honeyed words since they came into office in 2010. In London we have seen a slump in house building and we now have the lowest level of starts since the 1920s. The Secretary of State has attacked the Labour Government and made a great deal of saying that they built too few homes—they did, and they certainly built too few socially rented homes—but this Government are going even further.

For instance, in London most of the homes built under the current Mayor were started under Ken Livingstone. The current Mayor is claiming credit for homes although the plans were started under Ken Livingstone. According to the Evening Standard—I think we can rely on the Evening Standard because, as we all know, it was heavily briefed on the Budget on Wednesday—there have been only 3,332 starts for affordable homes in the past year, and only 1,357 have been completed. That is fuelling enormous problems in London, not just for people who need rented homes but for people who want to save to buy homes.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Is my hon. Friend aware that “affordable”, as used by the Mayor’s office, is a complete misnomer? In many places where so-called affordable homes are being built, they are affordable only for people earning well over £50,000 a year and are of no help whatsoever to the average Londoner.

[Clive Efford]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right.

I want to discuss the impact of the purchasing power of overseas money on house prices in London. That not only has an impact on house prices but has a knock-on impact on land values that makes it virtually impossible to build affordable housing, particularly in large parts of central London.

The Smith Institute published a report last year called “London for Sale”, which stated:

“Anyone doubting the scale and potential impact of overseas investment in London should note that at £5.2 billion in 2011 it was a larger sum than the whole Government investment in the Affordable Housing Programme for England for four years…Two years of overseas housing investment in London would total more than the public sector funding package (£9.3 billion) for the 2012 Olympic Games.”

That is the scale of the money coming from overseas into our housing market. Savills, one of the property market agents, says that London is a prime property market that

“will rise 22.7% during the period 2012-16.”

Its comparable forecast for the mainstream market across the UK is 6%, less than the rate of inflation. What we are seeing is the huge impact of overseas money on the price of housing in London. The Government intend to compete with that money by providing assistance with mortgages. I have no objection at all to anyone being given such assistance, but if—and this argument was made on the “Today” programme the other day—12 people go for 10 houses, that is likely to drive up prices. If the Government’s incentive to provide additional help to people to put down deposits means that 15 people go for houses, but there are still only 10 houses being supplied, prices will be driven up.

The Social Market Foundation has commented on what the Government plan to do, and it says that it helps only older home buyers:

“Overall, the scheme will entice young people to load themselves up with debt to finance overpriced houses”.

The SMF goes on to say that if prices fall those people will be in a trap, and they will pay twice: they will pay for the overpriced house, but they will also have to pay increased taxes to pay back the money that the Government have put into the scheme.

I have only a minute left, but I want to tell the Government that they must make it clear that they are going to build affordable houses. I return to the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) made. When we talk about affordable houses, we must make them affordable for people on the median income for London. It must not be affordable rent calculated according to a percentage that takes into account land values in places such as Kensington and Chelsea. We must remove those land values and make sure that we build houses that are affordable, not just so that people can live in those parts of London and fill the essential jobs in the economy at the lower end of the pay scale but so that they can become savers for the future. Unless we create that capacity in the rental market so that people can live in houses that they can afford to rent and, at the same time, afford to save, we will not have a sustainable private housing market or houses for sale in future.

Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill

Clive Efford Excerpts

Tuesday 8th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Byrne]

I shall give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford), but then I will make some progress.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

The argument coming from the Government Benches is wholly founded on misinformation, particularly in respect of the claim that the Government have created 1 million jobs in the private sector. Is my right hon. Friend aware that, according to the Office for National Statistics, 196,000 of those jobs are due solely to the reclassification of sixth-form colleges and further education colleges?

[Mr Byrne]

My hon. Friend is right: sometimes things are not all that they seem to be.

Oral Answers to Questions

Clive Efford Excerpts

Thursday 22nd November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

The right hon. Gentleman raises an issue with which many people in the Chamber will identify. Urban areas by no means always receive the sort of connectivity that our constituents want. That is why it is important that we have put in place not only the rural broadband programme to deliver better connectivity in rural areas but the urban broadband fund for our urban areas, which will ensure that London has some £25 million to achieve the improvements that he talks about.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

The “Chance to Shine” survey published this week shows that the majority of parents who were surveyed—54%—said that since the Olympics their children have played less than two hours of sport and PE per week. Participation in sport in school is on the way down. The PE and sports survey published in 2010 told us that over 90% of schoolchildren were doing sport in schools. If we are to have any chance of instilling a sporting habit for life in our young children, we will have to start in schools. Will the Minister tell us what the Government intend to do to monitor what is going on in our schools?

[Maria Miller]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right; we have to instil that habit of sport at the earliest age. As I have said before, I share his concern about participation levels among young people. We will be looking carefully at the findings from the “Chance to Shine” survey. I have already talked to him and to other Members about the school games, in which 50% of schools have participated, and through our youth sport strategy £1 billion is going towards supporting further participation. I hope that he will welcome those facts.

Oral Answers to Questions

Clive Efford Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

Let me start by paying tribute to my hon. Friend for his work in establishing a national network of work clubs. Several hundred are now up and running around the country, some with a degree of help from Jobcentre Plus and others with none at all. I hope that this strong network of organisations will make a real difference to people looking for jobs, and that their number will continue to grow.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

I opposed changes to Remploy made by my own party in government which resulted in the closure of my local factory in Woolwich. Before the Government implement any further changes under the Sayce report that may result in more closures of Remploy factories, will the Secretary of State contact the former employees of that Woolwich factory, and write to me telling me how many found jobs and are currently employed?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Maria Miller)]

I should like to reassure the hon. Gentleman that this Government’s policy is to continue with the modernisation plan, and there have not been further closures of Remploy factories. We will, however, look carefully at the recommendations of the report issued last week, which included recommendations on the future of Remploy. We will fully consult on that before going forward, and I am sure that that could well include what the hon. Gentleman suggested.

Welfare Reform Bill

Clive Efford Excerpts

Wednesday 9th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

No, I am not going to give way.

Before I conclude, let me briefly touch on a couple of points raised by hon. Members. The Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg), raised the issue of contributory ESA. I want to make two points to her. The first is that all those who move off incapacity benefit who fit into the contributory bracket will be given access to the Work programme regardless of their status. That is important in ensuring that they receive back-to-work support. However, I would also remind her that the changes to ESA simply bring it into line with JSA. It is a simple principle that, if someone has financial means in their household, the state will not support them. The state will be there to provide a safety net for those who do not have the means to support themselves. That is a sensible principle. We have extended the period beyond six months, so that we can deliver support to people with health problems, but it is sensible to have an aligned system. I will be happy to talk further with the hon. Lady in Committee or in the Select Committee.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Chris Grayling]

No.

This is an important set of reforms and I commend the Bill to the House.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

Oral Answers to Questions

Clive Efford Excerpts

Monday 22nd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

The hon. Lady is right to be concerned that constituents of hers should be able to get to work, and that is why we have support in place for those not in residential care through DLA and also through access to work. That is an important programme that helps many thousands of people get into employment, and we will be supporting more people into employment through access to work this year than last year.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

The Government have stated their intention to reduce the number of people on incapacity benefit in order to reduce the welfare bill, but some of us were concerned that the tests the previous Government applied for incapacity benefit were already very strict. What checks and balances will the Minister put in place to ensure that people with severe disability are not impoverished by stricter guidelines for staff conducting assessments of those on incapacity benefit?

[Maria Miller]

Obviously, this is a situation that we inherited, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will soon bring forward proposals to address just the sort of issue the hon. Gentleman raises. I am very aware of the fact that we need to make sure we have an assessment process that identifies people’s real needs for support, and I know that my right hon. Friend is committed to that too.

Welfare Reform

Clive Efford Excerpts

Thursday 11th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I agree that all jobs have a value, and that we want people to get jobs, to move on and to be assisted in getting better and better pay and circumstances. Carers will benefit from this system because it allows them to balance their work and caring responsibilities by picking the hours that suit them. Carers organisations have told us that the critical point is that often carers are locked into one set of hours that do not suit them. This system will allow them to take the relevant hours while fulfilling their caring responsibilities.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State will be aware that jobcentre staff already have sanctions they can take out against people who they believe are avoiding going back to work. This morning, on the “Today” programme, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mr Alexander) pointed out, the Secretary of State suggested that, where people are working with jobcentre staff and searching for work in earnest, the Government’s duty is to work with those people to find them jobs. Does that mean that, where someone has been unemployed for a year, jobcentre staff will have some discretion in deciding whether they should continue to receive benefits, if they have been earnestly searching for work?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The hon. Gentleman makes a legitimate point, which is that jobcentre staff still retain some discretion when they believe that somebody is making every effort. As he knows, the key is to deal with people who are simply making no effort to find work. The previous sanctions regime existed on that simple basis—in other words, if somebody is not trying, they will be sanctioned, but if they are trying, they will not be.