Coronavirus Outbreak: DWP Response

David Johnston Excerpts

Thursday 26th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[David Johnston (Wantage) (Con)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) on securing this debate. I think it fair to say that he is well regarded on both sides of the House for his approach to these issues and for his expertise on them, which was reflected in his opening remarks and in his Committee’s report.

I want to speak in this debate because I think the performance of the Department for Work and Pensions during the pandemic has been one of the unsung successes of this period. It saw an increase in claimant numbers between February and August from 2.9 million to 5.6 million. There are few services that saw that level of increase. A lot of services saw a decrease. Some saw an increase, and obviously the biggest pressure was on the health service, but few saw such an increase in this period, and the fact that 93% of people were paid on time is a huge achievement.

I accept that for those among the 7% those delays are very distressing, although I know from my own constituents that the delays are sometimes caused if the Department does not have all the information it needs. I am not saying that that accounts for all the delays—I am sure there have been some things that have gone wrong for that 7%—but I wonder how many services, public or private, could claim a 93% success rate in the past decade or, indeed, the past two or three decades.

I want to pay tribute to the DWP staff. I was at the jobcentre in Didcot just last week, and their commitment and dedication to ensuring that every jobseeker gets the right support hit me in the face the moment I walked in.

[Stephen Timms]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind remarks. Does he think the staff should get a pay rise?

[David Johnston]

We could make the case for all public servants to be given a pay rise at all times, but of course we have to keep a good control over the expenditure that the Government make on behalf of taxpayers. Considerable support has been given, in one of the most generous packages in the world, through the covid period, and I think that has to be taken into consideration when we talk about a pay rise. And of course some public sector workers are getting a pay rise; in fact, I think the majority still are.

I also want to give credit to the ministerial team and the way in which they have worked flexibly, whether in bringing forward the use of Government Gateway identification by six months or in suspending the conditionality on job-seeking for this period. All those things mattered and played an important role. Some of the criticism that has been made of the DWP involves things that I think are reasonable. For example, I think it reasonable still to require evidence of health conditions if someone wants to claim health-related benefits.

I accept the point about not everyone having the right level of digital literacy, but on the other hand, we wanted a system that was quick and easy to access, and we were keeping everybody inside, and I think that probably affected a small but not insignificant minority of people. Some of the other criticisms are about problems that people have with the system as a whole, such as the benefit cap or no recourse to public funds. I am not saying that those issues have not been exacerbated, but they are broader questions than just about the performance of the DWP during this period. I agree with some of the criticisms, however. The delays to mandatory reconsiderations, for example, are a problem. I have seen this for myself, and we have to sort it out. I know that the Department is committed to doing so, and the faster it can do so, the better.

After the Health and Education Departments, the DWP has had tremendous pressure placed on it, and the reason we have heard a lot less about it is that things have gone so well. That is not the case with everything, but it is a service that has gone a lot better than could have potentially been expected at the outset of this crisis, given the increase in the number of claimants. That is backed up by the statistics. The bottom 10% saw no reduction in the income level that they received, and the Government’s package overall reduced the scale of losses by up to two thirds, in the majority of cases, for working people.

The Department should be commended for this. It has some big things on its plate, like the kickstart programme—which I take a particular interest in, given my previous work with young people—and the new Restart programme. It is right to target those people who have been unemployed for at least a year. I think that what we have seen so far bodes well for how it will deliver these programmes.