Welfare Reform and Work Bill (Third sitting)

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Tuesday 15th September 2015 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

A quick question from Mr Hinds, and then we will move to Emily Thornberry.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

Q 191 All the panel have talked about low income as a driver of poverty, and that is for obvious reasons. It is almost a truism. First, could you confirm whether it is your understanding that those measures of income will of course still be measured? Secondly and more importantly, when trying to tackle child poverty, should the Government have not just a target but a relentless focus on maximising employment, supporting parents as they increase their hours, particularly through childcare, and making a very significant increase in the legal minimum that people can be paid, ultimately tied perhaps to 40% below median income?

Professor Gordon: The Minister has said that they will still publish the HBAI, and that the Family Resources Survey on which it is based will still go ahead. I do not know whether that will change in the future. Alternative survey data that the UK has to collect as part of the national accounts on expenditure and income have been used in the past. So you will be able to cobble together something, even if the Minister changes his mind about the HBAI, but the UK would become an international joke if it stopped measuring income and low income.

[Damian Hinds]

Q 192 And what else should the Government be doing?

Dr Callan: We have to hit this in every way, not just education and worklessness, terribly important though they are. I have already mentioned addressing family breakdown, addiction, serious personal debt, mental health and poor housing— anything that is driving children’s poor life chances. So, more.

Alison Garnham: It is a no-brainer. As you said, it is a no-brainer; we need to look at low income, because that is everyone’s common understanding of what poverty is. It is also a no-brainer that we need to look at maximising employment, supporting parents and so on. We used to have to write strategies, and that is what we will lose with the Child Poverty Act—

[The Chair]

I am sorry. You’re nodding, you’re happy, I have to conclude this in five minutes’ time under Standing Orders and I must give Emily Thornberry the last couple of questions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Emily Thornberry]

In the way that it is being introduced.

Julia Unwin: The way that the benefit cap is being introduced has huge implications for childcare costs, and we know that reliable childcare is the only way for parents to get back into sustainable work. It also has huge implications for housing costs, which will make some parts of the country uninhabitable for people on benefits.

Dr Niemietz: This links back to what I said earlier. It seems to me that the benefit cap is really just a clumsy way of capping housing benefit. There is actually no way in which someone could substantially exceed that cap unless they are in receipt of housing benefit, and probably in receipt of fairly large sums. This is a roundabout way of capping housing benefit, whereas, as I said before, I would have started at the other end. Build enough houses, and you will not need a cap of that kind any more, because rents will fall automatically and housing benefit rates will fall with them.

[Damian Hinds]

Q 209 I want to ask Julia a quick question for clarification. We were talking earlier about single parents, and we have talked about the importance to tackling poverty of being in work and having access to enough hours. Obviously, a big part of that is ensuring that childcare support is there. You talked about the childcare allowance in tax credits. Can you talk us through your understanding of the full set of childcare changes to come?

Julia Unwin: As I understand it, by introducing a childcare allowance, the Government made big steps to enable people to go back into work. However, by making that part of the cap, we have reduced its value. In some parts of the country, and in London specifically, the costs of childcare have gone way above what can be covered by that allowance.

[Damian Hinds]

Q 210 Sorry, I was asking about the full set of childcare changes to come: the 30 hours offer in universal credit and so on.

Julia Unwin: The 30 hours offer, on its own, does not provide enough time to enable a parent to work full-time, and the evidence is that that is what you are required to do.

[Damian Hinds]

Q 211 I am not trying to put words in your mouth, but it is clearly 15 hours more than 15 hours. The subsidised 70% can therefore come on top of that. Is there also a change coming, to the best of your knowledge, in terms of the proportion of reimbursement under universal credit?

Julia Unwin: I am showing my ignorance on the third part of your question. On the first two bits, yes, absolutely. We see those as steps in the right direction and a serious intent about childcare. I am posing a warning about what it might mean in practice.

[Damian Hinds]

For the record, Chair, under universal credit, the 70% rises to 85%.

[The Chair]

I am sure we will be hearing more about that over the next few weeks. Dr Niemietz, did you want to comment on that?

Dr Niemietz: That is an issue where I would have started from a different angle by asking why childcare is so expensive in the first place. For a long time the argument has been that we have to raise childcare subsidies to Swedish or Danish levels and the problem will go away but, in terms of total tax spending on childcare subsidies, we are already at Swedish and Danish levels. The difference is in unit costs. Here, it is not just the taxpayer who spends a lot on childcare. It is also the actual user. People pay twice: first in their role as taxpayers and then again in their role as childcare consumers. I would start by looking at the structural drivers of costs in that sector—which those are, I cannot tell in detail, but there has to be something. There has to be a reason that the UK spends more on childcare subsidies than almost all of continental Europe and without having higher usage rates.

Julia Unwin: Part of the reason is that ours is a purchase system, not a provided system. We have a patchwork of childcare benefits and a patchwork of childcare provision. That has turned out to be expensive. To drive high quality will cost in different ways.

Oral Answers to Questions

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

I would be very happy to do that. I am aware of the work that has been done in Northern Ireland, which has been extremely successful, and I should remind the right hon. Gentleman that the Crime and Courts Act 2013 places pre-sentence restorative justice on a statutory footing for the first time, so I very much share his underlying thoughts on this.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

3. What assessment he has made of the contribution that financial inclusion programmes can make towards reducing reoffending rates.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Chris Grayling)]

Alongside our probation reforms, it is important to look at other areas in which we help offenders when they leave prison. It is often the basic things, like having a bank account, that they need help with to avoid slipping back into a life of crime. We recognise the importance of financial inclusion, which is why we grant-fund Unlock, a programme that helps prisoners establish a relationship with a commercial bank. Indeed, the prisons Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright), is doing a lot of work at the moment with the banks to try to ensure we can offer financial services to those who leave prisons, so they can get their lives back together.

[Damian Hinds]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that credit unions can play a unique and valuable role not only in providing the nuts and bolts of banking, but in improving financial capability and promoting savings to increase financial resilience?

[Chris Grayling]

I am a great fan of the credit unions. I have seen their work both in my previous role as employment Minister and now as potential contributors to the process of rehabilitating offenders. I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend that we should support and encourage the work of credit unions. They can make a huge difference for those who cannot access financial services through other means.

Rehabilitation of Offenders

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Thursday 9th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

There are already drug testing services in place for offenders who are on licence and who are believed to have a drug issue. We are simply extending the testing from class A to class B drugs, and taking the power to do that testing through the 12-month period. That will be dealt with within the costing of the package as a whole.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

Financial capability also plays a vital part in rehabilitation. Will the Secretary of State encourage partners in through-the-gate support to look carefully at the pilot programmes undertaken by some banks and in particular by credit unions, to help people to budget, save and participate fully in the legitimate economy?

[Chris Grayling]

That is a fair point. A range of different issues affect reoffending. I expect our providers to provide a glue between the different organisations that can play a role in reducing reoffending, with help on debt advice, housing options, rehab support and so on. Providing that central support, help and encouragement for the individual will be of fundamental importance.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Straw]

Christopher Graham, the distinguished Information Commissioner, made the point that one reason why the penalty for breach of section 55 of the Data Protection Act needs to be increased—as it is by sections 77 and 78 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 to a maximum of two years imprisonment or an unlimited fine—is to send a message to people in those industries that they could end up in prison if they go in for an egregious breach. Of course, other breaches of data protection rules could mean that an organisation loses its licence, but in extremis, we need criminal proceedings for a criminal offence.

My view is that the same must apply in respect of breaches of the law banning referral fees. My amendment (e) would produce exactly the same penalty—it is entirely proportionate—as applies under sections 77 and 78 of the 2008 Act, which I hope the Government bring into force quickly given that they are already on the statute book. With that, and because I know that many others wish to speak, I thank Members on both sides of the House for the support that they have given to my campaign, and commend the amendment to the House.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), who put his case so comprehensively and convincingly.

I should like to speak briefly in support of the Government’s position and to ask a question of clarification. Clearly, referral fees and how they work have contributed enormously to the insurance costs of people in Blackburn, East Hampshire, middle England—wherever that is—and everywhere else, and change is needed. We had a strange mini-debate in the Public Bill Committee evidence-taking session on whether there was a compensation culture in this country. Some Opposition Members suggested that there was not and cited the noble Lord Young of Graffham in defence of their case, which is rather a tricky one to argue. Anyone who has received those annoying automated phone calls and text messages, or who has even a glancing familiarity with daytime television, can say that it is intuitive and self-evident that there is a compensation culture.

I understand that one of the original reasons for introducing referral fees was to allow an online market to develop—it was said that that would be a good thing because it might increase competition and access to justice. I shall come back to the online market element in a moment, but the claim that referral fees improve access to justice is at best grossly exaggerated. It might well be that approaching a solicitor with such a case was foreboding 20 years ago, but it is not now, following the development of no win, no fee cases and so on.

It is difficult to say exactly how big the claims management company sector is, but it might be of the order of £0.5 billion, which is enormous. There is nothing wrong with making money, but from a public policy perspective, we must draw a distinction between activities that add value to the individual and those that just take a share of the value chain and ultimately push up costs for everybody else. That is combined with the natural distaste that we have for selling people’s cases as some kind of commodity. The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) referred to the ability of industry players to shape-shift. I think that the new clause would effectively prohibit subcontracting, but not, of course, mergers and acquisitions, which would simply create a new form.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

There can be no doubt that change is needed in this area. We spend record amounts on the criminal justice system and incarcerate record numbers of people, and yet the conveyor belt to crime and the cycle of reoffending remain intact. My hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) listed some of the disturbing reoffending statistics. The cost of offending by ex-prisoners now stands at £11 billion per annum. My hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) reminded us of the purposes of imprisonment—retribution, restoration and rehabilitation. We should of course add to those prevention and deterrence. We need to be bold and adventurous in the way that we go about those things because, in the words of the old saying, “If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got.”

This is a Second Reading debate, so we are voting on the principles of the Bill, and I shall certainly vote in favour. On legal aid, there are clearly considerable concerns about several aspects that will have to be carefully considered. It is also undeniable, however, that we need to deal with the much-increased bill for legal aid. The hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) thought that the shadow Secretary of State had listed how he and his party would go about doing that, because the right hon. Gentleman said on several occasions that he was about to do so, but I am afraid that we never quite got that list.

Prison, at its heart, is about punishment, but it is also, vitally, about rehabilitation. Several hon. Members have talked about the importance of getting prisoners off drugs, and of course alcohol as well, but there are other important aspects of helping offenders to prepare for life on the outside and improving their ability to live a full, positive and constructive life. I want to touch on one of those, work, and the related matter of financial capability. A lot of good work is done on work in prisons by the likes of DHL, Travis Perkins, Cisco Systems and Timpson; I am delighted that the eponymous Member, my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr Timpson), is with us for this debate. In spite of that good work, less than a third of the prison population is in work in prison at any one time and, on average, prisoners do only 12 hours of work a week. That tends to suggest that we are still not nearly sufficiently far enough advanced from the situation in 2005, when the Home Affairs Committee described prison industries as being largely “peripheral” to the way in which the Prison Service went about its business.

I strongly welcome, in the Bill and in the Government’s approach, the commitment that prisons should be places of hard work and industry. Two aspects are particularly welcome: first, the ability to make deductions from work wages to go to support victims; and secondly, the ability to make deductions to create a savings account for the prisoner for when they eventually leave prison. If we are to realise those two ambitions to a significant degree, we will have to find ways to ensure that work in prison is of higher value so those deductions that can be afforded.

Debt and lack of financial capability is an acknowledged central factor in ex-offenders being unable to adjust properly to life outside prison and eventually in reoffending. Work by Paul Jones at Liverpool John Moore’s university identifies a clear statistical link in that prisoners who leave and are then able to open a bank account, with all the things that that leads to, including work, are much less likely to reoffend. In some prisons, there are already very encouraging pilots involving financial capability. The probation service, including in my own county of Hampshire, helps prisoners to deal with things such as budgeting and the advantages of opening a bank account.

Classes, and so on, are one thing, but there is no substitute for the practice of actually using financial services. That is why the ability to build up a small savings account is important, not so much for the amount of money involved, which would always be small, but in trying to encourage the development of a savings habit. I acknowledge the role already played by credit unions such as Leeds City Credit Union in working with prisons in this respect. More broadly, I hope that the Bill can facilitate an expansion and extension of payment by results, which I fully accept has a cross-party provenance, and rightly so. I hope that that will help to integrate work within prison and on release as a specialist and intensive branch of the Work programme.

I welcome the Bill because it has at its heart proper sentences that the public can have confidence in, but combines that very plainly with the rehabilitation of offenders by improving their ability to deal with life on the outside, while being innovative and bold in its approach to encouraging incentives and giving rewards for success.