Women’s Changed State Pension Age: Compensation

Danny Kruger Excerpts

Wednesday 15th January 2025 Westminster Hall

[Danny Kruger (East Wiltshire) (Con)]

Thank you, Dr Murrison; it is a pleasure and an honour to serve under my constituency neighbour on, I think, your first day in the Chair. I congratulate all Members who have spoken powerfully and eloquently on behalf of their constituents. I also pay tribute to the those in the campaign, many of whom are in the Public Gallery, silent witnesses to our debate—I honour them for their long campaign for justice.

In particular, I congratulate the new Minister, who I am glad to welcome to his place. Today is his first outing as a Minister, and he has quite a job to do to answer this debate. He is, of course, familiar to us from the media as an independent expert, offering ostensibly impartial advice helpful to the Labour party over many years; I am glad to see him in his rightful place at last. I exonerate him, as a new Minister, for this decision: he did not make it, but has been thrown into it by his party and his boss, the Secretary of State. Perhaps he can change the policy, now that he is new to the role and not implicated in it. Perhaps it was a condition of his accepting office that the Government revisit this topic. I very much hope that that is what we will hear from him shortly.

Particular congratulations, likewise, to my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes). I honour his long campaign on behalf of women born in the 1950s. It is not only because he loves everything from the 1950s that he is taking this position; he is absolutely right in everything that he said.

The complexity of the matter has been well addressed by the ombudsman and by the Members who spoke today, so I will not revisit the issue in any detail; it reflects the work of a series of Governments over 30 years since the 1995 decision to equalise the retirement age. I was glad to see in the ombudsman’s report that the DWP has co-operated fully with his inquiry and I am glad that Ministers and officials respected the ombudsman process.

I am sure this point was made by the Secretary of State in the main Chamber when the decision was announced, but the suggestion that this matter could have been cleared up by the previous Government in consequence of the ombudsman’s report is, I think, a little unfair, given that the report came out only two months before the general election was called. It has taken five months for this Government to make their decision—these things are complex. I respect the challenge that the Government have had. I wish we had had time to address it ourselves, but the voters would not have it. This, of course, is this Government’s decision.

To address the central issue, the ombudsman found that adequate communications were made throughout the period, but that there was a particular maladministration, as Members have repeatedly mentioned: the delay in sending out letters in 2005 to 2007. It is good that the Secretary of State acknowledged that maladministration in her response to the ombudsman—I appreciate that and accept it—and that she apologised on behalf of the then Labour Government and the DWP. The fact is, however, while no direct financial loss may have been caused by the maladministration of communication, with a direct change to people’s incomes, nevertheless, as we have heard so eloquently from Members, the maladministration—the failure to communicate properly—has caused women to make decisions in ignorance of their true circumstances.

[Robin Swann (South Antrim) (UUP)]

Is the hon. Gentleman surprised that the parliamentary ombudsman issued another report this morning damning the Department for Work and Pensions, which she criticised for

“failing to learn from its mistakes”?

She revealed yet another case, of a pensioner who was not told for eight years about a change to their pension that would leave them £3,000 a year worse off.

[Danny Kruger]

The hon. Gentleman highlights the central point here: although, as Members have said, the change of policy itself was not the subject of the ombudsman’s inquiry, the failure to communicate directly impacted the circumstances of many women. They did not understand the circumstances they would be in, and it changed the decisions they were making.

[Jim Shannon]

Does the shadow Minister share with me, and I believe with many in this Chamber, what the good book refers to as righteous anger? There is righteous anger today for those elderly people and women who looked towards their retirement as the end of pain and exhaustion. They were unable to plan financially to enable them to retire earlier due to the nature of the communication they were given by Government. Righteous anger deserves justice. Does he agree that the ladies who I and others in this Chamber represent deserve justice? Whether the Minister is responsible or not, he has to give a justifiable yes to what they want.

[Danny Kruger]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I have heard it said that anger is love in the presence of injustice. The righteous anger that so many people feel here in this Chamber and beyond reflects the essential injustice we have seen.

The Government, in their response to the report, made this central defence, which we might hear again from the Minister: they dispute that women were left out of pocket because of the failure of communication made by DWP all those years ago. The Secretary of State argued in the Commons that letters do not have much impact anyway, citing some research suggesting that people ignore letters, do not read them or do not remember receiving them. It begs the question of why Government communicate at all if there is no value to it. It is obviously true that communication of an issue raises awareness of the issue. The failure to communicate meant that awareness of the issue was not possible for these people.

I recognise the challenge faced by the Government here. It is, of course, difficult to assess the precise circumstances of 3.5 million women. I recognise that some of the claims made on behalf of the campaign were exorbitant. Nevertheless, there were many options on the table for the Government to consider, from a hardship fund to smaller packages of support. It was not the only option to give a total no—nothing at all for the WASPI women. That was not the only option.

[Melanie Onn]

Exactly what is the Conservative policy on WASPI women? I have been a long-standing campaigner for WASPI women, voting for the SNP motion in 2016, which the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) failed to attend. It is unclear exactly what the shadow Minister is suggesting. Is he suggesting that there is no plan from the Conservatives for what they would do?

[Danny Kruger]

We do believe there should be justice for the WASPI women. We do believe that an injustice was done and that there should be support offered to them. There needs to be a proper cross-party agreement on this, and I look forward to hearing what the Government have to say on it. We were examining the report ourselves when we were sadly removed from office, when the hon. Lady returned to the House, and I am sure that my party would have come forward with a much better package of support than the Government have—because that would not be difficult, would it?

[Johanna Baxter (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman made an interesting point about individuals having the information to plan for their future. Could he therefore comment on why, under 14 years of his party’s control of the Department for Work and Pensions, one of the major platforms of its work, the pensions dashboard programme, had to be reset? The costs associated with it increased 23% because it basically went off the rails under his Government’s leadership.

[Danny Kruger]

Well, I am afraid to say that often there is maladministration in benefits and welfare, which is the consequence of this vast system that we have. I apologise on behalf of the previous Government if mistakes were made. However, the point is that under the previous Government significant increases were made in both pensions and benefits for pensioners. The state pension rose by nearly £4,000 under the last Government, with an increase of nearly 9% in the last year alone, so I am proud of our record on supporting pensioners.

On behalf of the WASPI women and particularly the campaigners, I would like to reflect their intense disappointment, because the fact is that hope was held out to them by Labour when Labour was in Opposition, including by the now Prime Minister, the now Chancellor and the now Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. Who knows? Maybe even the Minister who is here today held out such hope when he was campaigning. Many people voted Labour at the election last year because they believed that justice would be done for the WASPI women, because that is what Labour candidates said would happen. The broken trust that my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings so eloquently referred to is very real.

I would like the Minister to explain why this decision was made, because there was no specific explanation by the Secretary of State when she announced the decision. Was it because the Government could not afford compensation? Was it because of their newly discovered problems with the economy when they arrived in office? If so, could they not afford anything? Nothing? No package at all could be afforded—not even a small one? Or was it because they thought that it was wrong and unfair to compensate the WASPI women, even if it was affordable? If they did think that the WASPI women are owed some money, there can be no question about paying it. Justice demands it; it must be paid. Something else must give way.

I end by making a political point, I am afraid. The fact is that this Government have made a decision not to compensate the WASPI women because they are making payments in all sorts of other directions. There are a lot of discretionary payments being announced by this Government. They have made huge salary increases to train drivers without any reforms to their productivity, they have created an energy company costing billions of pounds that does not make any energy and, most recently, they are paying a foreign country to take off our hands a UK sovereign territory that is vital to the defence of the UK. There are discretionary payments available and it would be interesting to know why on earth they have not made this one. They did not have to act in that way, and I look forward to the Minister justifying why the decision was made and saying what he will do to bring justice for these women.

Adoptive Parents: Financial Support

Danny Kruger Excerpts

Tuesday 14th January 2025 Westminster Hall

[Danny Kruger (East Wiltshire) (Con)]

This is a very important topic, as hon. Members have acknowledged. I was particularly struck by the specific impact of the financial regime that adopting parents face, as the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Lisa Smart) described in the case of her constituent Kirsty. I was also struck by her general points, which were echoed by the hon. Member for Torbay (Steve Darling), about the challenges faced by adoptive parents, including the challenges that their children continue to endure having joined their family, as well as those of the adoptive family and their birth children.

As hon. Members spoke, I was reflecting on how much more we now know about the early development of children. I compare the experience of 50 years ago, when my parents adopted my sister, with the experience that my sister has had adopting her two young sons, and the difference is pretty stark. My sister simply arrived and that was that; the expectation was that all was now well and no further support was required. Indeed, I am glad to say that things did turn out very well for my sister. The support that has been offered to her as an adoptive parent, however, is far greater and more sympathetic, and shows much greater understanding of the challenges around child development than that of a generation or two ago.

I will briefly pay tribute to the former Government who, over the last 10 or 15 years, introduced some quite significant improvements to the system that adoptive parents face. David Cameron and Michael Gove both made it a priority to ensure that the regime around adoption was improved. I have just read a leader in The Spectator praising the last Government’s performance on adoption—I cannot think that that was anything to do with the editor of that magazine—but Michael Gove does deserve credit for the work that was done, such as the introduction of adoption leave; the pupil premium and the additional pupil premium that are available for adopted children; and the priority in school admissions.

I pay tribute to my former colleague, David Johnston, the Children’s Minister in the last Parliament, who introduced the adoption support fund that the hon. Member for Torbay mentioned. It is fair to ask why additional support is needed for adoptive families and adopted children. One could argue—and I think we should—that all families need support and help bringing up children.

As we have heard from hon. Members, however, a young child almost always reaches the destination of adoption after a long journey of disruption. It is wonderful that a settled life is now available to that child, but the challenge is not over when they arrive in their new family. We all know from experiences in our constituencies how much adoptive families have to work to ensure that their children are properly supported.

It is worth noting something that I am afraid still somewhat applies, despite the reforms I mentioned: while there is an expectation that fostering families will need ongoing support after the placement of the child, in the case of adoption, the expectation remains—as with a new child born into a family—that the child is almost exclusively the responsibility of the adoptive parents and support from the outside is not necessary. However, it is necessary.

I am grateful to be able to add my voice to what we have heard about the enormous benefits that adoptive parents bring to our society as a whole by, frankly, rescuing many children who faced years of potential neglect or abuse if they remained where they were, or simply faced inadequate care and upbringing if they remained in the care system. I think of former colleagues of mine who, 25 years ago, adopted quadruplet boys aged two who had been removed from a disgraceful, appallingly abusive family. Although it was very challenging for the family and the four boys over their childhood, they have all grown up well and are doing well. Their parents are rightly proud of them. I think of the likely trajectory that those children would have been on if that family had not stepped forward to look after them—four boys who experienced extreme abuse in their early years—and the cost that would have been imposed on our society, both financial and social.

A topic that is very much on our minds at the moment is the tragedy of grooming gangs. While it is complex and every case is different, what many of the cases had in common was the fact that the girls who were victims of those crimes had been in care. The clear obligation on us as a society—as the last Government and this one have both asserted—is to have more children leaving the care system and gaining the stability and support of a loving family. That means more fostering—we all need to do more to promote fostering opportunities and help people to become foster parents—and more adopting, as we have been discussing, as well as other ways we can support children to grow up in stable families. I support initiatives such as fostering for adoption, as well as Home for Good, which is a tremendous project.

I acknowledge the work of kinship carers, who are an important part of the economy of care. Thanks largely to David Johnston in the last Parliament, they can get significantly more support, but we need to go further to ensure that they too can access support around statutory pay and parental leave.

As the hon. Member for Hazel Grove said, there is clearly an anomaly for adoptive parents, and particularly for self-employed parents, who cannot get statutory adoption pay. Unlike self-employed birth parents, they do not get the equivalent of maternity pay. As she said, there are opportunities for local authorities to provide discretionary support, but most people are unaware of that, and it is, indeed, discretionary. I am not sure that it should not be discretionary—there is an important debate to be had about the degree to which we ringfence finance and impose obligations on local authorities—but there clearly needs to be far greater awareness among the public of the support available, and greater encouragement for local authorities to fulfil their responsibilities to adoptive parents.

We need a better funding arrangement for local government so that it can take on board and fulfil its social responsibilities. Most of all, we must recognise that families are the essential welfare system in our society. The more we can do to ensure that they can fulfil that responsibility and do that important work for children who desperately need the love of a supportive family, the better. I acknowledge that the Government want to do that, and I look forward to hearing what the Minister will do in the future.

Oral Answers to Questions

Danny Kruger Excerpts

Monday 16th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Danny Kruger (East Wiltshire) (Con)]

It is good to hear Front-Benchers being so positive about their White Paper, much of which we are pretty familiar with. Let us look through some of the measures. The integration of employment and health support—we were doing that when we were in government. It was called WorkWell. My hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately) led on it. What is the youth guarantee that we have been hearing about? According to the White Paper, it

“brings together a range of existing entitlements”.

It is a very familiar set of policies. The fact is that the Government’s White Paper is just a rehash of existing support, and a bit of money with no strings attached. There is, however, one thing that the last Government were doing that this Government are not: strengthening the conditionality for benefits. The Secretary of State says that she will continue the existing sanctions, but what new measures will she introduce to ensure that people who can work will work?

[Liz Kendall]

I am not sure where to start. If the Conservatives’ programmes were so successful, why do we have a record 2.8 million people out of work due to long-term health problems, and 1 million young people not in education, employment or training? I love the 15 WorkWell pilots, but we want to join up health, work and skills support in every corner of the country, not just a few places.

There will be a different approach for young people under our youth guarantee. There will be the opportunities people need, but also a requirement to take them up, not only for those on unemployment benefit, but for those young people who can work but are out of work due to a health condition. That is the difference a Labour Government make: there is work for those who can, and proper opportunities.

[Danny Kruger]

I applaud that soundbite, but we did not hear about any new measures that will be introduced, or any additional sanctions that we need. The right hon. Member talks about what the last Government were doing. We were reforming the work capability assessment. The Office for Budget Responsibility said that our reforms would have seen 400,000 fewer people on long-term sickness benefits, saving £5.4 billion over this Parliament. The Labour Government have paused that work while they hold a review. They have had 14 years. I do not know what they were doing to plan for government—not very much, it looks like. [Interruption.] They had all that time. What were they doing? I do not know where their plans are. The Chancellor is counting the savings to the welfare budget that our party would have delivered. Will the Minister commit to implementing the reforms, and if not, how will she make the savings that she is counting on?

[Liz Kendall]

The hon. Member is laughing at his own chutzpah. I am happy to talk about the past 14 years, but the work capability assessment is not working. It needs to be reformed or replaced. That is what we said in our manifesto, and we will bring forward our proposals in a Green Paper in the spring. That has to be part of a bigger programme to help people with long-term health conditions and disabilities into work. That is what our “Get Britain Working” White Paper does, and I am happy to discuss it with him more in future.

Blind and Partially Sighted People: Employment Support

Danny Kruger Excerpts

Wednesday 20th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Danny Kruger (East Wiltshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Torbay (Steve Darling) for his powerful testimony about the enormous opportunities and barriers in this space, and particularly to the hon. Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) for the work she has done on this topic during her time in Parliament. She serves her constituents and this community very well.

I was struck by the interesting speech by the hon. Member for Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme (Lee Pitcher) about the opportunities of AI, which opened my eyes to the huge barriers that blind and partially sighted people have suffered and how technology is helping to overcome those barriers. I pay tribute to his wife: learning to ski with partial sight is a tremendous achievement, so all credit to her.

I echo the points made by other hon. Members about the imperative to overcome and reduce the barriers that blind and partially sighted people face in gaining work and progression in the workplace. Doing so is an absolutely necessary matter of justice to those people themselves; it is entirely wrong that people are discriminated against, directly or indirectly, because of their disability. We therefore have a moral imperative to act. As the hon. Member for Battersea stressed, we also need to reduce barriers to employment for blind and partially sighted people for the sake of the economy; when we exclude blind and partially sighted people from employment and progression in work, the country is denied an enormous wealth of talent.

Finally, addressing remaining barriers to employment and work progression for blind and partially sighted people is necessary for the sake of the taxpayer and the public finances. Our country’s disability benefits bill is simply unsustainable. It has risen sharply in recent years and is projected to rise to unsustainable levels over the course of this Parliament. On the current trajectory, spending on health and disability benefits will rise 56%—an additional £27 billion—over the course of this Parliament if change does not happen. Overall, spending on incapacity and disability benefits will rise from 2.4% of GDP to 3% over the course of this Parliament. If we could ensure that people who are currently excluded from the workforce can gain employment and reduce dependence on benefits, we could spend much of that money better in other spaces. I therefore support what the Government aim to do in this space and their plan to get activity back to pre-pandemic levels—a noble aspiration, which my party will support.

There are two ways to approach this question, as has been touched on in the debate so far. The first is the role of the Government themselves in getting the law, benefits system and incentives right in the fiscal, legal and welfare spaces. I am proud to say that my party led the way in ensuring that we as a country tackle discrimination against people with disabilities. The Disability Discrimination Act 1995, introduced by William Hague, required employers to make reasonable adjustments to facilitate the employment of disabled people, and it remains the great landmark and a vital step in this space. We also introduced Access to Work grants, which have been discussed today. I am pleased to say that last year saw the highest number of Access to Work grant applications awarded for over 15 years—68,000, of which 3,000, I understand, were for blind and partially sighted people. That is encouraging.

Nevertheless, we clearly need to go further with Access to Work, as we have heard today. Some innovations were introduced towards the end of the last Parliament, including health adjustment passports, which aim to reduce the time that it takes people to apply for and receive an Access to Work award, by allowing people to take the statement of their disabilities and necessary adjustments from one employer to another. As I understand it, that helpful and practical innovation is now in force. The last Government was also introducing an enhanced Access to Work package, which gave employees more support than they got under the existing scheme, as well as ensuring that employers received support if they were helping to facilitate access to work. Clearly, the process remains onerous and complex—that is a condition that applies across the benefit system with its complex, difficult application process. It only recently went online and it has just become possible for all people to apply for Access to Work digitally. Improvements clearly need to be made.

I am concerned about the extent of the backlog in the application process, which began in the previous Parliament and continues. In September 2023, 22,000 applications remained outstanding; in May 2024, there were 37,000; and in October 2024, 56,000. There are significant problems in processing these applications. I am interested to hear the Minister’s views on why that is and what can be done to reduce the backlog.

We need to ensure that the conditionality and incentives in the benefit system and employment support are robust and sensitive. I look forward to the forthcoming White Paper to see how that will be achieved. The hon. Member for Battersea recommends a review of the Equality Act and I welcome contributions there. It will be interesting to see what is suggested to improve that legislation.

I am concerned, however, about proposals that rely on tightening laws—strengthening the stick side of the arrangement, as it were. As the hon. Lady said, there have been a lot of laws and programmes introduced to support blind and partially sighted people—people with disabilities—into employment, yet there are still significant problems helping them to access and progress in work. Rules will only take us so far. Indeed, as the hon. Member for Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme talked about the role of technology, it struck me that technology will also only take us so far.

There is a danger in looking to technical solutions, whether in the law or technology, that let us off the hook for what really needs to be done. I gently point out the phenomenon of crowding out: the danger that statutory action can diminish the voluntary action that needs to be taken, in this case by employers, to do the right thing. That is the second approach that is crucial to this space; I am pleased that that was the focus of the hon. Member for Battersea’s report and today’s debate. We need to look at the attitude and culture of employers, more than the obligations and systemic responses that Government can make. Of course, Government can significantly influence the attitude of employers but, to quote the Royal National Institute of Blind People:

“There are no hard and fast rules”

when supporting disabled people at work. We should avoid making assumptions about what blind and partially sighted people can do. That is why we need a flexible approach, in which employers use their imagination and intelligence, in consultation with employees, to develop access for blind and partially sighted people in the workplace.

The way to do that is to stress the opportunity, the benefits that employers will reap and, frankly, how easy it is. I was struck by the hon. Lady’s story of what good looks like in the workplace. It sounds like human beings being human towards each other, being genuinely inclusive, ensuring that people help their colleagues literally to navigate the workplace. One can imagine the enormous benefit to that workplace and all employees when there is a culture of inclusivity and generosity, as the hon. Lady described.

The key is awareness. Many of the changes needed to make workplaces accessible are not difficult; they just need to be done deliberately as part of the policy of the Government. I welcome the practical recommendations in the hon. Lady’s report, and I look forward to seeing what the White Paper will do to implement them. I respect the Minister and his colleagues, who are genuinely dedicated to improving employment and employability. I am pleased to see what has been trailed for the White Paper, with a focus on skills, devolution, empowering local communities and opportunities for young people.

I very much hope that the White Paper will work with employers in the spirit of the report we are debating, rather than against them, but I am concerned by the policies that the Government have announced so far with respect to employers. The national insurance rise will result in thousands of pounds of taxation on every job, and new burdens on employers are being created through the Employment Rights Bill. Those are not good portents of an employer-friendly approach. Nevertheless, on this issue we agree about the direction of travel that needs to be taken, and I very much hope that my party works with the Government to progress the very helpful recommendations that the hon. Member for Battersea has made.

Food Banks

Danny Kruger Excerpts

Tuesday 19th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Danny Kruger (East Wiltshire) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East (Seamus Logan) on bringing this debate forward. I am grateful for hon. Members’ helpful contributions, and I am happy to take interventions from hon. Members who were not able to speak if there is time.

Let me first acknowledge that I agree with hon. Members who have pointed out that the existence and extent of poverty in our country is shameful. It is a source of deep shame to our country that so many people are reliant on the charity of others for essentials. Briefly, I pay tribute to the food banks in my constituency and in my former constituency of Devizes, which do such good work. I also previously worked with the Hammersmith and Fulham food bank. I echo the points made by hon. Members about the valuable work of such organisations.

[Lee Pitcher (Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme) (Lab)]

I have seen extraordinary work and inspiring volunteers at the DN7 food bank, the Isle of Axholme Foodshare Project, Hatfield’s Pre-loved Uniform Bank and the Hygiene Bank Doncaster. Does the hon. Member agree that although their work is amazing, we do not want to see those banks grow on our high streets or even exist in the first place?

[Danny Kruger]

I am grateful for the intervention. I recognise those points and pay tribute to the hon. Member’s food banks too.

Hon. Members have cited some of the facts. It is a fact that the number of parcels handed out by the Trussell Trust doubled in the last Parliament in the light of the covid crisis and the cost of living crisis, but I emphasise that we should not take food bank use as a perfect proxy for poverty, because that data is patchy and affected by the supply of food banks. There is also an important displacement effect. It is not necessarily the case that all the need identified by food banks is new need; that need might formerly have been met by other sources, such as family and friends or other community organisations.

Nevertheless, the profile of food bank use tracks the state of the economy and the level of poverty in our country. We saw it spike during lockdowns, then decline and then spike again with the cost of living crisis. I am afraid that it has not really declined since: 1.4% of households have used a food bank in the last month and 3% in the last year, which are significant numbers.

So what is going on? I echo the point of my right hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen) about the complexity of the causes of food bank use, but we recognise the obvious point that it is ultimately down to household income. The “Hunger in the UK” report points out that the main reasons for people having problems with their household income are difficulties with benefits, as many hon. Members have mentioned; the existence of in-work poverty; and the difficulty of gaining well-paid work, particularly for disabled people and carers.

[Steve Witherden (Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr) (Lab)]

A number of constituents have written to me expressing their struggle to afford food, despite being in work, and that is not an isolated issue. In mid-2022, almost 90% of those referred to food banks in Wales were in work and had such low incomes that they were living in destitution. Does the hon. Member agree that the working poor, created by the last Government, are disgracefully reminiscent of Victorian times?

[Danny Kruger]

I do recognise the extent of the problem of in-work poverty and of people reliant on benefits to sustain their incomes and on additional support from the outside. I do not accept that that was a new phenomenon; in fact, I will come to the last Government’s record in a moment.

[Antonia Bance (Tipton and Wednesbury) (Lab)]

One of the last Government’s best policies was the introduction of a £20 additional uplift to universal credit during the pandemic. It stopped poverty growing in its tracks and showed the impact of increasing access to money—not to be facile—on poverty. Does the hon. Member share my hope that the Government will bring forward their review of universal credit, as promised in the Labour manifesto?

[Danny Kruger]

Yes, indeed; I very much look forward to that review coming along soon.

Many hon. Members have mentioned the record of the last Government. I recognise the extent of low wage growth and in-work poverty that we have seen. If we look at absolute poverty, however, which is the measure that we should ultimately be looking at if we are thinking about the extent of destitution and food poverty, 1 million fewer people are in absolute poverty after housing costs in 2024 than in 2010. That includes 100,000 fewer children, 200,000 fewer pensioners, and 700,000 fewer working-age people, so the last Government made a real impact on absolute poverty. Overall, there are 1 million fewer workless households than in 2010.

Much of that impact was driven by the introduction of universal credit. Those of us who worked in the social sector before 2010 might remember the labyrinthine complexity and the perverse incentives that were created by the mess of the benefit system that we inherited in 2010, which we rationalised and improved. It is also worth mentioning the enormous £100 billion cost of living package that the last Government put together in the light of the energy shock.

Let us turn to what this Government are doing. The most significant policy that they have announced so far on poverty is the withdrawal of the winter fuel payment. Some 10 million pensioners will be denied that essential benefit, including 70% of disabled pensioners. That is surely not a record that hon. Members are proud of.

[Sam Carling]

The shadow Minister has made a point about the Government’s difficult decision to withdraw the winter fuel payment. If he feels so strongly about it, why did his party pledge to do it in 2017?

[Danny Kruger]

We did not pledge to do it and we did not do it. I think it is important to have universal entitlement to essential benefits, but if there does need to be some means testing, surely it should penalise, or withdraw the payment from, only the wealthiest pensioners, not 90% as is happening under this policy.

The other thing that the Government have done is impose a significant tax on employment through the national insurance rise, which they promised not to do in their manifesto. The cost of that will fall disproportionately on low-paid workers, who will see the impact of that tax in their wage packet.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which is no friend to my party, has pointed out that poverty is due to rise because of the Budget that the Chancellor has introduced. Every household type, except pensioners, will be poorer. Single-parent families will be £1,000 poorer. An average couple with children will be £1,760 poorer. Inequality will be higher. That is all the testament of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

The Office for Budget Responsibility points out that real wages will fall and indeed, the Budget has caused the OBR to lower its real wage growth forecast by 0.5%. As the OBR says, the Budget shifts

“real resources out of private households’ incomes in order to devote more resources to public service provision.”

That might indeed be the policy that the Government want to pursue, but the effect will to be to reduce household income, as the OBR acknowledges.

[Alex McIntyre]

Will the shadow Minister acknowledge that the OBR actually said that 90% of households will be better off under this Budget, and it is only the wealthiest 10% of households that will feel the cost, making sure that we are spreading the cost on to those shoulders that can bear it most?

[Danny Kruger]

As I said, I do not think that withdrawing the winter fuel payment from 10 million pensioners reflects a transfer of the burden on to those who can bear it most—nor does imposing a taxation on low-paid jobs.

What shall we do about all this? I am sorry to say that I have not heard enough in the debate about what could and should be done, although I acknowledge that the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East made some suggestions—many of which I agree with, particularly around the importance of having an adequate safety net. I, too, look forward to the universal credit review that the Government are bringing forward, and I strongly agree with the focus on nutrition and empowering communities.

I do not agree with the need for the essentials guarantee, although I respect that campaign. I do not think that transferring responsibility for setting benefit levels to an independent body—essentially, to an unaccountable quango—is the right way to go. The Government should be responsible for that policy, and accountable to Parliament, rather than an independent body.

If we look at the drivers of food bank use as reported in “Hunger in the UK”, we need to improve the benefits system and make it quicker and easier to use. I look forward to seeing how the Government are going to improve pension credit applications to improve winter fuel payment access. We need to drive up wages again; I deprecate the introduction of taxation on wages. We need to grow our jobs market and ensure that it is easier and better for employers to take workers on and promote them—which, I am afraid to say, the Employment Rights Bill that we are anticipating will not do, given that it imposes punitive obligations on employers from day one.

I am conscious that my time is almost up, so let me finish with this point. I praise the flexibility of food banks, and the human relationship that they imply: the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East talked about the powerful sense of community. A quiet revolution happened during the covid pandemic that momentarily offered a better social and economic model in which remarkable innovations, particularly around food and provision to the poorest among our neighbours, were enabled to flourish.

I agree that we want food banks to be redundant, but while we have hardship they can be an important part of the mix. I pay tribute to other innovations such as social supermarkets as well. Lastly, I do not agree with the hon. Member that we need a more central strategy and direction for the household support fund. Its great value is in the innovation that it enables, and the way that it empowers local communities, which he said that he believes in, to ensure that local authorities can take responsibility for supporting their communities. That is an important innovation that was brought in by the last Government, which I supported, and I hope that it will continue.

Oral Answers to Questions

Danny Kruger Excerpts

Monday 11th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We come to the shadow Minister.

[Danny Kruger (East Wiltshire) (Con)]

The withdrawal of the winter fuel payment from 10 million households, including 70% of disabled pensioners, is a huge change, as is using pension credit to distribute the benefit to the minority of people who will still get it, yet the Government have rushed this change through without giving their own statutory advisory committee the chance to properly scrutinise it. Ministers have not even responded to the chair of the committee, who wrote to them several weeks ago with suggestions on how to mitigate the effect of the policy. On top of that, they have failed to provide a full impact assessment to show what the effect on poverty would be. Will they finally produce a full impact assessment of this policy, and when will the Minister respond to the chair of the advisory committee?

[Emma Reynolds]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman to his place. In answer to his questions, we have published an equality analysis, which he can find on the Government’s website. Owing to the legislation, we do not have to produce an impact assessment, but there is an equality analysis. I urge him to have a look at that. All I would say to him is that the new Leader of the Opposition argued in 2022 that winter fuel payments should be means-tested. I wonder how the hon. Gentleman might means-test the winter fuel payment, if he had the chance.

[Danny Kruger]

The Minister mentions the equality assessment. That was a high-level equality assessment that was only dragged out of the Government in response to a freedom of information request. The fact is that they are avoiding accountability for this policy and avoiding scrutiny by the House. The Government are saying that the impact of the cut on the poorest pensioners will be mitigated by pension credit, and we have heard from the Minister about the very small numbers who are taking up pension credit in response to this announcement. Their own figures predict that fully a third of eligible pensioners—that is 750,000 of the poorest people in the country—will not get pension credit and will not get the winter fuel payment.

That is what the Government are banking on. That is how they are making the savings that they predict from this policy: by cutting benefits to some of the poorest people in our country—[Interruption.] The Minister shakes her head, so she might want to put me right. Does she want all eligible pensioners to claim pension credit? [Interruption.] The Secretary of State says yes. If she does want that, does she then accept that the Government’s savings from this policy will be completely wiped out?