Department for Work and Pensions

David Linden Excerpts

Tuesday 4th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I am very grateful to have been granted today’s debate about DWP spending.

I will focus in particular on universal credit, whose roll-out started 10 years ago in 2013. The DWP is forecast to have, by some considerable margin, the highest expenditure of any Government Department, at £279.3 billion in this financial year, followed by the Department of Health and Social Care, at £201 billion. DWP spending is the largest by a considerable distance.

Of course, the DWP forecast is uncertain. Almost all its funding counts as annually managed expenditure; it is hard to forecast demand-led spending. DWP’s admin spending—departmental expenditure limits—is 27% lower in real terms this year than in 2010-11. Universal credit spending is forecast to be £50.8 billion this financial year, which is £8.8 billion higher than forecast in these estimates last year, reflecting the recent much-needed uprating and a higher case load. In February, 4.5 million households were receiving universal credit payments.

A key argument in the business case for universal credit was the prospect of reducing fraud and error. Nearly a quarter of the £34 billion net present value gain expected over 10 years from introducing universal credit was due to come from lower fraud and error. In fact, fraud and error have been much worse than they were for legacy benefits. The Department’s statistics show that the universal credit overpayment rate decreased, but from an astronomical 14.7% in May 2021 to 12.8% last year. I know that the Department is setting out to address that problem, and that it has obtained resources from the Treasury to do so. Underpayments were at their highest-ever recorded rate last year, at 1.6%. I hope the Minister will be able to tell us about plans for tackling those problems.

An additional reason that it is so important to get decisions right at the moment is that universal credit is a passport to cost of living support payments. There was a strong case for merging the various benefits into universal credit, and the success of the system in getting urgently needed support out effectively during the pandemic was very important and very impressive. However, there are some big problems—above all, the problem of the five-week wait between applying for the benefit and receiving the first payment. With legacy benefits, the first payment would usually arrive a week and a half or so after applying. With universal credit, having spent hundreds of millions of pounds on what we were always assured was agile technology, the same thing now takes five weeks. That is a fundamental and unnecessary flaw; the security is absent from social security.

In January 2021, the Government rejected the Select Committee’s recommendations to eliminate the wait and instead pay all first-time claimants of universal credit a starter payment equivalent to three weeks of the standard allowance, just to tide people over. The Government response pointed out that claimants can access advances, but of course, those are loans. Repayments reduce the already low monthly awards, and repaying advances is a major driver of the explosive growth in food bank demand that we have seen. Our colleagues in the other place, those on the Lords Economic Affairs Committee—with its Conservative Chair—succinctly highlighted the consequences of the five-week wait in July last year:

“the five-week wait for the first payment…drives many people into rent arrears, reliance on foodbanks and debt.”

As such, I ask the Minister once again whether the Government will reconsider our recommendations, or whether we have to wait for a different Government for that fundamental flaw to be addressed.

I am very pleased to say that one area in which the Government have listened to the Committee is reimbursement of childcare costs for people claiming universal credit. I warmly welcome the lifting of the cap and up-front payments for childcare announced in the Budget, and I hope that our future reports will have comparable levels of success. Those changes will support people to be in work in future.

Last week, the Child Poverty Action Group published a fascinating report called “You reap what you code”, highlighting areas where the universal credit computer system does not deliver what it should. It gave the example that legislation and guidance allow some groups to submit a universal credit claim up to a month in advance, but the system does not allow that, nor is there an adequate workaround outside the digital system. As such, some care leavers and prisoners expecting release can miss out on an entitlement that they are due. For all its success in the pandemic—I am unstinting in my recognition of that success—the rigidity of the digital system is a problem. Can the Minister tell us whether a fix is planned for that problem of early claims, which the Child Poverty Action Group highlighted last week?

Does the level of benefits meet need in the way it is supposed to? Do benefits represent value for the taxpayer? The Committee is conducting an important inquiry into benefit levels in the UK, and will report in the first half of next year. Benefit levels are very low. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Trussell Trust told the Committee that

“the basic rate of Universal Credit—its standard allowance (or equivalents in previous systems)—is now at its lowest level in real terms in almost 40 years (CPI-adjusted) and its lowest ever level as a proportion of average earnings.”

They estimate from pretty careful research that a single adult needs £120 per week to cover essentials: food, utilities, vital household items and travel. That is excluding rent and council tax. Universal credit’s standard allowance is £85 per week for a single adult over 25. That is a shortfall of at least £35 per week, and deductions—for advance payments, for example—often pull actual support well below the headline rate.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Trussell Trust call for an essentials guarantee. They make the point—which has been suggested this week in the press—that we might get a below-inflation uprating of benefits next year, making those problems even worse. I would be grateful if the Minister gave an assurance on that front, because that would be very bad news indeed.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

Does the Chair of the Select Committee agree that the Government need to resist the temptation to try to plug the gaps with one-off payments? They should actually look at the wider, more structural problems that they have with the social security system, rather than just try to plug gaps when the system is falling apart at the seams.

[Sir Stephen Timms]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, and I very much value his contribution to the work of the Select Committee. He is quite right, and I hope that we will be able to look at some of those structural issues over the course of the inquiry.

If universal credit did meet basic needs, other demands—including on food banks—would decrease. When the £20 a week uplift to universal credit was introduced, there was a significant drop in food bank use; when that uplift was removed, food bank use went straight back up again. Universal credit was intended to make work pay, but how can it achieve that aim if people do not have the means to pay a bus fare, for example? In evidence to the Committee, the Trussell Trust, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Public Law Project all highlighted not being able to buy public transport tickets as a significant barrier to work. As far as we can tell, the Government have made no assessment at all of whether benefit levels are adequate. If I am wrong about that, I would very much welcome the Minister telling us, but there is certainly no evidence of such an assessment ever having been made. I hope the Department will look very carefully at the findings of our report when they are published in due course.

One other point was highlighted in a briefing for this debate prepared by the charity Barnardo’s. That charity describes the two-child limit as the single biggest policy driver of child poverty in the UK, and says that ending it would be the most cost-effective way of reducing child poverty, lifting a quarter of a million children out of poverty and easing the poverty of a further 850,000 children. The cost of doing so would be £1.3 billion per year. I must say that I am puzzled about the justification for the two-child limit: it presumably reflects a belief that parents should not have more than two children, but as far as I understand it, that is not the Government’s view. Indeed, Government Members are understandably starting to worry about our falling birth rate, so why do we refuse to provide support for children beyond the first two? Is it not time to just scrap that limit, which does not seem to make any sense?

Another reason for higher DWP expenditure this year is the continuation of cost of living support. Expenditure is forecast to increase by just over £2 billion this year, due to higher payments—£900 in this financial year, compared with £650 last year—and higher take-up. Those payments have been crucial, but they do not fully meet need, particularly the £150 disability support payment. Last month, Maddy Rose of Mencap told the Select Committee that the payment is “clearly not commensurate” with the extra costs that those eligible incur, and we have heard other strong evidence to the Committee along those lines. Helen Barnard of the Trussell Trust told us last month that the cost of living payment

“has certainly helped the families that have got it, but of course, it is a flat payment. It is not calibrated for the number of people you are trying to feed, so it has clearly gone less far if you are a family with children than if you are a single person or a couple.”

That is one of the reasons why the Trussell Trust data shows a faster rise in food bank demand among families with children than among families without.

The lump sum nature of the payment is problematic. Citizens Advice, speaking for many, told the Committee that increments to universal credit would be better than one-off payments. Our colleagues on the Treasury Committee called on the Government last December to provide monthly payments over a six-month period to give more households support at the time of their greatest need and reduce the severity of the disincentives to work. The Government rejected that proposal, essentially due to the limitations of the IT system, but as we know from the pandemic, monthly universal credit can be increased overnight.

The need to meet a specific qualifying period for each payment window has led to what evidence to the Committee has described as

“a cliff edge where receiving a nil UC award one month—maybe due to a sanction or a higher salary due to backpay or a bonus—caused recipients to become ineligible for the entire cost of living support payment in that qualification period.”

I am looking forward to discussing cost of living support further with the Minister responsible for social mobility, youth and progression—the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Mims Davies)—at the Committee tomorrow morning.

A very important aim in achieving effective spending is transparency over how the money is being spent and what is being achieved. The Department has had a very poor record in recent years, so I warmly welcome signs of a new commitment to transparency since the appointment of the new Secretary of State. Keeping things hidden, which has been the Department’s practice, has the short-term advantage for Ministers of avoiding having to answer sometimes awkward questions, but over the medium and long term, people depending on the Department form the impression that it is conspiring against them. The result is terrible mistrust, causing the Department very serious problems over time—for example, the very serious lack of confidence in the DWP among disabled people at the moment. It does not have to be like that, but changing things requires deliberate effort on the Department’s behalf.

None of the recently introduced employment support initiatives had regular performance reporting on introduction. I warmly welcome the Minister’s announcement of six-monthly performance reports for the restart scheme. That is one of the signs of welcome change in the Department’s approach, but it should be the norm and part of the arrangements built in at the outset, not something that has to be dragged from the Department kicking and screaming subsequently. Greater openness could deliver a wholly different relationship between the Department and the people depending on its services, with the Department seen to be working with those it serves, rather than conspiring against them.

An interesting suggestion in the Child Poverty Action Group report I mentioned earlier, “You reap what you code”, is that the source code for the universal credit computer system should be published. There would no doubt be some security concerns about doing that, but could not a small team—with experts from disability groups, Citizens Advice and software experts—be charged with reviewing that software and proposing improvements, perhaps in an annual report, a little bit along the lines of what the Social Security Advisory Committee does at the moment?

Let me briefly say a word about a different aspect of the Committee’s work. We have been worried by the cuts to the funding of the Health and Safety Executive, and one result has been drastically fewer inspections of workplace asbestos. We published a report on this last year, and called in particular for two things—a target to remove all workplace asbestos within 40 years together with a plan to deliver it, and a central digital register of all workplace asbestos and of its condition. The Government rejected those recommendations, although I do welcome the agreement of the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Mid Sussex, to meet a group of us, together with three industry groups and the Health and Safety Executive, to discuss further the idea for a register. That meeting will take place later this month.

I very warmly welcome the launch of the campaign by The Sunday Times at the weekend drawing attention to the continuing scale of the tragedy being inflicted by asbestos even now, a quarter of a century after its use was banned. It is still the biggest source of workplace-related deaths. The Sunday Times campaign headlines in particular our two recommendations, and I do hope that Ministers will now recognise the need to act. I welcome the fact that The Sunday Times will be running this campaign on a consistent basis.

I again thank the Backbench Business Committee for recommending today’s debate. I would be very interested to hear from the Minister specifically how Ministers are assessing whether the different cost of living support payments meet needs and whether they are reaching the right people, and also how and when Ministers will decide whether payments along these lines will be needed next year. I look forward to the debate we are about to have.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

May I start, as others have, by sending my thanks to the Chair of our Select Committee, the right hon. Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms), for securing today’s debate and for setting the scene so well? The debate takes place against the backdrop of an ongoing Westminster-made cost of living crisis that affects the livelihoods and lives of people across Scotland and these islands. The harsh, yet inescapable reality is that people in Scotland can no longer afford to pay the price for the economic mismanagement of a Westminster Government they did not elect. Indeed, we have not voted by majority for the Conservatives since 1955.

In May, CPI was still at 8.7%. Prices are still soaring and the cost of living under Westminster control is still far too high for many families who were already struggling to get by after 13 long, brutal years of Tory cuts, Brexit and economic mismanagement. We know that inflation disproportionately impacts lower-income groups such as single parents, who spend a relatively high proportion of their income on food and fuel. Indeed, new Trussell Trust research shows that families are going hungry as a result of the Westminster-made cost of living crisis, with one in seven people in the UK facing hunger in the last year due to a lack of money. Ministers often tell us that the reasons for food bank usage are complex. It is not complex—it is because people do not have enough money.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s latest cost of living tracker found that 5.7 million low-income households are having to cut down or skip meals because they do not have enough money for food, while the number going without items such as food, heating and basic toiletries has remained at about 7 million for more than a year—all of that in the sixth largest economy in the world.

The average interest rate for a two-year fixed-term mortgage has risen to 6%. The Resolution Foundation has said that average annual mortgage repayments are set to rise by £2,900 for those renewing next year. In short, that is the eye-watering Westminster mortgage premium that Scots are paying for the pleasure of a Tory Government they did not elect.

What is more, analysis by the consumer group Which? shows that the prices of popular family meals have risen by 27% in the last year. The Irish and French Governments have reached agreements with major supermarket retailers to reduce food prices, while the Tory Government are sitting on their hands. It is those low-income families I represent in Parkhead, Shettleston and Baillieston who are paying the price for the sheer intransigence of Conservative Ministers here in London. Even at this late hour in the cost of living crisis, I urge the British Government to use all the powers at their disposal to tackle that crisis on the scale that is required. That does mean that they will have to be bold and radical, and the same is true of the pro-Brexit Labour party.

I turn specifically to universal credit, which is obviously the main focus of the debate. In short, the British Government’s continual refusal to fix the extensive and known-about problems with universal credit is unacceptable, and it is without doubt subjecting some of the most vulnerable people in our communities to additional and unnecessary hardship. With the three main parties in this place now agreeing on the principles of universal credit, there is an opportunity, so we should put our heads together to look at what we can do to fix it.

I will start with the level of universal credit. JRF research shows that support has eroded over decades and that the basic rate of universal credit is now at its lowest level as a proportion of average earnings. Indeed, the JRF’s latest cost of living tracker warns that about nine in 10 low-income households on UC have gone without at least one essential for the third survey in over a year.

For most people referred to food banks in the Trussell Trust network, the design and delivery of the social security system are major contributors to their inability to afford the essentials. The majority of people—indeed, some 89%—referred to food banks in the Trussell Trust network receive a means-tested benefit such as universal credit, but that did not provide them with enough to cover the cost of the essentials. As the right hon. Member for East Ham said, JRF and the Trussell Trust are together calling on Ministers to implement that essentials guarantee to ensure that, at a minimum, the basic rate of universal credit covers life’s essentials and that support can never be pulled below that level.

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

Is not another problem the insane part of the system where people pay back money because of advances and the level of deductions—more than £60 a month is being deducted from my hon. Friend’s constituents’ and my constituents’ universal credit? That envelops that cycle of poverty.

[David Linden]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for putting that point on the record. He was my predecessor on the Select Committee and follows this work well. I will come to debt and deductions, because that is one of the big issues raised in the evidence that the Select Committee receives, certainly by the stakeholders that we meet. He is spot-on to draw attention to the £60 from each of our constituents that is paid back to the Government when it could be spent in our local economies.

New CPAG research finds that the digital aspects of universal credit routinely lead to wrong amounts being awarded to claimants—often those who are most vulnerable—and to breaches of rule of law principles. That is why I have repeatedly called on the Government to reverse their cuts to universal credit and working tax credits. Let us not forget that this was the biggest overnight cut to welfare in 70 years, inflicting hardship on people who were already struggling. To have done that as we came out of the teeth of the pandemic was particularly cruel.

Rather than offering one-off payments to shore up struggling families’ incomes, the DWP should reverse the damaging policies that are impacting on the most vulnerable people. It should reinstate the UC uplift at £25 per week and, of course, extend it to legacy benefits. Let us not forget the 2.5 million disabled people, so ably advocated for by the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), who were cruelly left behind without that uplift during the pandemic. The Government also need to remove the benefit cap and the two-child limit with its associated rape clause. They also need to halt the punitive sanctions regime so that all households are lifted out of poverty now and in future.

I turn to the benefit cap. As the Poverty Alliance points out, the cap’s design means that those who require the highest level of support from the benefit system are the most likely to be affected. That is simply unjust. Based on the latest departmental figures, 114,000 UK households have had their benefit capped and 86% of those are families with children. The benefit cap disproportionately impacts lone-parent families, the majority of whom are women—a point made by the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) —as well as larger and ethnic minority families.

The same is true of the two-child limit. Thousands of families with children will be pushed into poverty because Ministers on the Treasury Bench refuse to scrap the two-child limit on child tax credits and universal credit. A new London School of Economics study found that the policy’s impoverishment of larger low-income households has helped few parents get a job. Instead, its main function has been to push families further into poverty and to damage their mental health.

I wonder why Ministers are so furled to the two-child limit. The vast majority of them are actually quite embarrassed by it, and that is before we get to the associated rape clause, or as the Government like to call it, the “non-consensual sex exemption”. When this Government go around lecturing people about the values of global Britain, I am pretty sure they do not tell folk that the state will only support the first two children in the family, but if someone can prove that their child was born as a result of rape, that is okay.

[James Wild (North West Norfolk) (Con)]

indicated dissent.

[David Linden]

The Parliamentary Private Secretary is shaking his head at that, but probably because he is so embarrassed.

The five-week wait for a first payment is needlessly pushing people into hardship. The issue could easily be fixed by implementing the Scottish National party’s proposal to turn advance payment loans into non-repayable grants after the claimant has been deemed eligible. The Trussell Trust, which I referenced earlier, has consistently shown that the five-week wait for universal credit is a key driver in the need for food banks, both during those five weeks and after the payments have started.

I want to draw attention to the young parent penalty in UC, which Ministers must end. It denies single parents under the age of 25 the same level of social security as those above that age, and it pushes those affected into real poverty. Let us not forget that when under-25s go into Aldi, Lidl, Morrisons or whatever supermarket, they do not get a discount on their shopping because they are under 25. I find that Ministers have an obsession with that.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

The hon. Gentleman has campaigned on this issue, as have I. Does he agree that the response I received from the previous Secretary of State on this point—that under-25s were treated differently because they tended to still be at home with their parents—is a pretty spurious argument and excuse from the Department?

[David Linden]

That is right. It was not unusual for the previous Secretary of State to say things which, after some scrutiny, might not make sense. The hon. Lady is right. For Ministers to hide behind the housing crisis—caused by this Tory Government—as some kind of justification for ensuring that people under 25 get less support does not stand up to scrutiny. That point was hammered home to me on Friday, when I was in Drumchapel visiting the Christians Against Poverty debt centre, to meet staff and volunteers there, to whom I pay enormous tribute for their sterling work.

According to One Parent Families Scotland, as a result of the young parent penalty, young couple parents are around £100 worse off per month than single parents, and around £65 worse off a month than over-25s. That research found that 55% of children with a mum under 25 are in relative poverty, and 49% are in absolute poverty. Let us never forget that those statistics are the result of the structural inequality put in place by intransigent Ministers. Although I certainly welcome the change whereby people on UC will now be able to claim childcare support upfront, I am afraid that does not change the fundamental issue that the amount of UC that people receive is simply not enough. Families will still be required to make up the 15% shortfall in their overall childcare costs under UC rules.

An issue that continues to come up in evidence at the Select Committee is that far too many households face destitution because of DWP rules that push them into debt through sanctions and reductions—a point made eloquently by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens). Aberlour Children’s Charity produced a report that states that half of families with children in Scotland who receive universal credit are having their incomes reduced by the DWP to cover debts to public bodies. I hope the Select Committee will be able to drill into that a bit more. It is increasingly a problem, and I am sure I am not the only MP who sees people raising it regularly at advice surgeries.

It is well established and on record that the SNP completely opposes the widespread use of sanctions, as there is clear evidence that they do not work. Indeed, evidence from the Department’s report admits that sanctions have a minimal effect on moving people into work. Instead, people who are sanctioned end up earning less than those who have not been sanctioned, or simply become economically inactive.

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is making such important remarks. Does he agree that the impact of sanctions is detrimental to people’s mental health? We are facing a mental health crisis. If we want to support people getting into work, we need to make sure that they are not struggling on the breadline.

[David Linden]

The hon. Lady is spot on. Sometimes, Ministers overlook when they take those decisions—yes, they might be driven by focus groups and such things—that the state bears the cost. If somebody hits a period of mental ill health or is made homeless, the health service or the local authority will pick up the pieces. It is not without cost for the state. I would like Ministers to have the wider picture as they pursue sanctions, because the research shows that they do not work.

[Margaret Greenwood]

The hon. Gentleman is being generous. Does he agree that the issue of poverty is so concerning for small children because it impacts on the development of the brain and how well they will be able to learn? If a child has a good five years at the start of their life, that will see them through life. So many children in desperate poverty who do not know whether they will get enough food are also in receipt of the anxiety their parents are in, as they battle those stressful situations.

[David Linden]

I am proud that the Scottish Government invest in things such as the best start grant, the baby box and free school meals, to ensure that young people get the best possible start in life. My local authority in Glasgow is spending millions of pounds on holiday hunger programmes, to ensure that children who receive free school meals during school term time are still being fed. It is a damning indictment on the state that we have to spend money from local authority budgets feeding children because their parents do not have enough money. That is the situation we are in, in the fifth richest economy in the world.

Remarkably, as I am sure we will hear when the Minister responds to the debate, Ministers are still forcing more people into the sanctions regime, which further demonstrates the fundamental issue with the British Government’s attitude to those on low incomes: preventing vulnerable families from receiving the social security they are entitled to and, most importantly, when they need it the most.

Before I draw my remarks to a close, I want to turn to the local housing allowance. The freeze of LHA rates for three consecutive years is placing additional and needless pressure on tenants and housing associations, and is likely to increase poverty and inequality. That is why Ministers should protect household incomes and support renters by restoring LHA rates to the 30th percentile as a minimum. The SNP has long called for the British Government to fix those fundamental flaws in our social security system but, as is so often the case, it falls on deaf ears each and every time, to the extent that every time I take part in one of these debates, it feels like groundhog day.

The blunt truth is that the Scottish Government cannot change those policies while 85% of welfare expenditure and income replacement benefits remain reserved to this institution here in London. That includes universal credit. By all means, I am happy to take part in debates and make suggestions about how we repair the social security system, but it is difficult to conclude anything other than Westminster—whether the Tories or the pro-Brexit Labour party—has zero appetite to genuinely step in and sew up a system that is failing some of the most vulnerable people in society. For that reason, the only way genuinely to bring about that compassionate, fair and dignified social security system in Scotland is with the full powers of independence. Frankly, that cannot come soon enough.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call the shadow Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Employment (Guy Opperman)]

It is an honour once again to present the case on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions in an estimates day debate. I have lost track of the number of times I have done this, but I have certainly done so on numerous occasions during my seven years at the Department.

It is, first of all, my privilege to thank all DWP staff—whom I regard as a massive help and not a hindrance, as some may have suggested—for the fantastic work that they do up and down the country.

[David Linden]

Will the Minister give way?

[Guy Opperman]

No.

The Government have never paid more for the pensions that we support in this country, we have never paid more for the benefit support that we provide in this country, we have never paid more for the housing support that we provide in this country, and we have never paid more for the disabled in this country. As we celebrate the 75th anniversary of the national health service, let me also put on record my thanks to the NHS. I have had my life saved twice by the NHS, once after I collapsed in Central Lobby in 2011. I got into politics because of my attempts to save my local hospital, and I am proud to have visited Hexham General Hospital this week to see the amazing new maternity suite that has recently been opened.

Much has been said today about a variety of issues, but I want to try to put the debate in context. The Government clearly understand the pressures that households are facing. We are all familiar with the root causes of our higher costs, including the global factors: the illegal war in Ukraine brought about by Vladimir Putin, the aftermath and consequences of the pandemic, and the furlough scheme and the other support that we set out in great detail and the country provided at a time of difficulty. We are committed to delivering on our priority of halving inflation, which will help to ease those pressures for everyone and raise living standards.

Alongside that work, we continue to implement a significant package of cost of living measures to support the most vulnerable during 2023-24. We have increased benefits and state pensions by 10.1%, and raised the benefit cap by the same amount so that more people feel the benefit of uprating. For low-paid workers, we have increased the national living wage by 9.7% to £10.42 an hour; that represents an increase of more than £1,600 in the gross annual earnings of a full-time worker on the national living wage. That increase, and the increases that we made in the national minimum wage in April, have given a pay rise to about 2.9 million workers. To help parents, we are delivering a significant expansion of childcare support, including a 47% increase in the maximum amount of universal credit childcare payments. As I said in the House last week, that is a dramatic increase. In addition, where there are gaps in provision, notwithstanding the above cost of living payments, the £842 million extension of our household support fund into 2023-24 means that councils across England can continue to help families with grocery bills and other essentials.

Draft Pensions Dashboards (Amendment) Regulations 2023

David Linden Excerpts

Monday 3rd July 2023 General Committees

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I thank the Minister for her continued collegiate approach to this issue. As others have said, it is disappointing that we have had the delay, but there is no point in crying over spilled milk. What we need to do is ensure that we get it right.

The Work and Pensions Committee has been undertaking an inquiry into the plan for jobs and the thorny issue of why the over-55s have not come back to the workplace, and it strikes me that the pension dashboards will really important when people are making informed decisions about what they do in the latter part of their career. We all want to see it, but we want to see it delivered in such a way as is efficient and not besieged by technical problems.

The hon. Member for Reading East made reference to some of the stakeholders that have expressed concern. I will draw the Minister’s attention to the remarks of Dr Yvonne Braun of the Association of British Insurers, who said:

“Our members have indicated they’re willing and able to continue to comply with a voluntary timetable, although it would have been our preference that these remained a regulatory requirement to prevent a last-minute rush of firms connecting to the system. We ask that Government keeps this under review and considers making the staggered dates a regulatory requirement again if it should become clear that the wider industry is not taking the same approach.”

I think the Minister should bear that in mind.

While talking about this subject, it would be remiss of me not to say that pension dashboards work only if more and more people are opted in to pensions. The Minister knows fine well my views on auto-enrolment and how I would like it to go further. It would be churlish of me not to commend the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) on his private Member’s Bill, which goes some way to widening it. I think that we all look forward to a time when pension dashboards are in place, and most importantly people are making informed choices in terms of retirement.

One final plea to the Minister would be, once again, to look at things such as the Stronger Nudge to Pension Wise to ensure that people make decisions about retirement and later-life savings with as broad a picture as possible, and do not take decisions that will be, in the short term, financially disadvantageous.

In-work Poverty

David Linden Excerpts

Wednesday 28th June 2023 Westminster Hall

[Mr Dhesi]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. We may disagree about certain things, but hard-hitting facts are hard to ignore, especially when the truth hits us. I agree that the work of the independent pay review bodies is very important, but even this week we have seen the Government, including the Prime Minister, not accepting their recommendations. The Government are very selective in when they agree to the recommendations of the independent pay review bodies. That must change. They should either comply with them or completely disregard them; they cannot do both to suit their needs as required.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

Can I just confirm that the position of the Labour Front Bench is that Labour would implement the recommendations of the public sector pay review bodies?

[Mr Dhesi]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Today I am not on the Labour Front Bench, but I am sure that the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck), will highlight exactly what the Labour policy is in that regard. As far as I am concerned, I think it is very important that if we have independent pay review bodies, either they and their work are respected or we do not have them. I am sure that that will be teased out in due course.

The Office for Budget Responsibility forecast in March this year that real household disposable income per person—a measure of living standards—will fall by a cumulative 5.7% between 2022 and 2024. That would be the largest two-year fall since records began back in the 1950s.

One of my Slough constituents wrote to tell me that despite their family of five having a full-time worker and the support of universal credit, they still could not afford their children’s school lunches—an issue that my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) alluded to earlier. Imagine being a parent who has to send their children off to school knowing that they are hungry. They know that they have done everything they can to provide for them; they have worked hard, sought support and tried their hardest, but there is nothing more they can do and their children will be going hungry. It is a desperate situation for so many, and one we should not be seeing in the world’s sixth largest economy.

Child poverty in the UK is overwhelmingly related to in-work poverty. Some 67% of children living in relative poverty in our country come from working households. Households in which at least one adult is in work have seen a steep rise in poverty under the Tories. Absolute poverty has not fallen since Labour was in power. It has stagnated while the Conservatives have been in power, but, most concerningly, it has started to rise. Absolute child poverty is set to increase even more by the end of this year, meaning that another 400,000 children could be going hungry and cold day to day, or even homeless. Are the Government not ashamed?

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[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

It is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir George. I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) on securing the debate. It is one of those hour-long debates where I come along and wonder how many people will be in attendance. It would be fair to say that it has been a well-subscribed debate, hence the need for a time limit. I am only sorry that the only two Conservatives present are here because they are mandated to be. I would have thought that in-work poverty might have meant a little more than that.

We can look at a number of issues when we consider in-work poverty. People will say that it is incredibly complex. In reality, it happens because people do not have enough money. That is the brutal reality. We do not have a real living wage in this country; we have a con trick. The Government talk about their national living wage, but it is not a real living wage. It also appears, bizarrely—I pressed the hon. Member for Slough on this point—that the two main parties are not of the view that the national pay review body’s recommendations should be implemented. That is deeply worrying; for many of those same staff we clapped during the pandemic, that talk will seem like hollow words if we do not back those recommendations.

The fact is that staff are struggling. I highlight the plight of members of the Public and Commercial Services Union. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) does a huge amount with them. The reality is that there are Department for Work and Pensions staff who administer the benefits system in the UK who are being fed by a food bank because of poverty pay in their Department. If that does not shame DWP Ministers, I do not know what will.

The Government could do a number of things to tackle in-work poverty. First, they could look at the woeful rates of statutory sick pay. People have to earn a minimum of £123 a week before statutory sick pay kicks in. The Government should also look at fixing some of the known problems with universal credit, which of course is an in-work benefit. We often hear from the Government about the importance of people working their way out of poverty, but the people I represent, many of whom go out and do a decent day’s work, are in a ridiculous situation. When they go to the supermarket, baby formula is behind the tills because people are stealing it, and butter is security-tagged. That is because people are put in a position where, frankly, they do not have enough money. That comes back to the same problem of in-work poverty.

The Government can talk all they like about the importance of working to get out of poverty, but as we have heard during today’s debate, the biggest problem for people who are in poverty is that they are not being paid enough. I will finish by saying that one of the best ways to tackle in-work poverty is to join a trade union, and to use its leverage in the workplace to get a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work.

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[The Minister for Employment (Guy Opperman)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir George, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) on securing this debate. He and others have raised a number of policy issues that are not in my portfolio, but I will try to deal with them briefly if I can.

In respect of housing, I am not the Housing Minister, but the hon. Member will be aware that in 2022-23, the Government are projected to spend £30 billion to support renters. That is 1.4% of GDP. He may criticise that as an insufficient sum, but it is the highest of any country in the OECD in relation to spending on housing rental support—the next highest is 0.9% of GDP. Clearly, the figure is higher than when we came into office.

The hon. Member’s second point about housing related to the production of homes. We have built 2.2 million additional homes since coming into office. Housing starts are double the number we inherited from the Labour Government in 2010. More homes are meeting decent homes standards, and housing supply is up 10% in the last year for which we have figures. The most recent figures show a 20-year high in the number of new buyers.

On education, the hon. Member specifically raised free school meals. I am not aware that that is Labour Front-Bench policy, but he has the joy of the Back-Bench freedom to roam and create new policy. In any event, it is not even SNP policy. The SNP briefly adopted that, but obviously then parked it in a motorhome, and it has been driven off into the distance of some strange new world of new policy.

[David Linden]

Will the Minister give way?

[Guy Opperman]

Of course I will. I look forward to the hon. Gentleman’s defence of all matters motorhomes and policy.

[David Linden]

I am certainly not going to stray into the Contempt of Court Act 1981, as I am sure the Minister would not either as a former solicitor. Given that he seems to know so much about the free school meals position in Scotland, will he outline to hon. Members when free school meals kick in? I am sure he knows.

Cost of Living Support

David Linden Excerpts

Tuesday 20th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

I too thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement, although in reality it is a nine-page press release rehash of previous Government announcements. The only new thing today is the £150 disability payment. Will the Minister reflect on the excellent report from Scope, “Disability Price Tag 2023: the extra cost of disability”, which shows that, on average, disabled households have expenditure that is £975 higher per month? We know that, for example, as a result of specialised diets, higher transport costs, higher energy costs and higher insurance premiums, there is a cost to disabled people.

Unfortunately, the Government do not have a good record when it comes to disabled people, particularly the 2.5 million legacy benefit claimants who were so cruelly overlooked during the pandemic and did not get the equivalent of the £20 uplift. I welcome the £150, but I ask the Minister to reflect on the wise words of Scope, which says that that will not touch the sides. To that end, as the Government are not quite getting this, may I invite the Minister to come to Glasgow to meet me and the Glasgow Disability Alliance, where he will hear the message, loud and clear, that this simply does not go far enough and that far too many people are going to struggle unless the Government up their game?

[Tom Pursglove]

The key point I would make, which I set out in my introductory statement, is that there is a significant alignment; people receiving the disability cost of living payment are also receiving various other parts of the support package. Eight-five per cent of those who qualify for the disability cost of living payment are also receiving a mean-tested or the pensioner cost of living payment. They are receiving various parts of the package of support. We continue to keep those matters under constant review, as Members would expect. I have a meeting later today with a Minister in the Scottish Government and no doubt matters relating to the cost of living will come up. As a Minister in the Department for Work and Pensions, I am committed and determined to visit all parts of the United Kingdom and I will take away the hon. Gentleman’s suggestion about where I might go.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Linden Excerpts

Monday 19th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

The reality is that after 13 long, cold years of Conservative rule, people have never worked harder, but never felt poorer. We know that 2.6 million people on fixed-rate mortgages are about to see their fixed rate expire, which will see their mortgage rates go up. Has the Secretary of State made any assessment as to how many staff in his Department will struggle to make ends meet when their mortgages skyrocket under this Conservative Government?

[Mel Stride]

The Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Mims Davies) has already addressed the approach that we would recommend to those struggling with mortgages and the approach that the Government are taking to that. I would point to the many in my Department, and indeed up and down the country, who may be, for example, among the 8 million low-income households who are receiving £900 cost of living support. There are also the £150 payments to those who are disabled and £300 payable to pensioners along with their winter fuel payments. Those, along with increasing the national living wage and the energy price guarantee, are real things that the Government are doing to help those who are feeling the most financial pressure.

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[Mr Speaker]

We come to the SNP spokesperson.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

Last week, I was in Aberdeen to attend the annual conference of the Scottish Pensioners’ Forum and outline why we think an independent Scotland would be the best place to grow old. In contrast, at the weekend, the former Tory leader William Hague wrote in the papers that his party should abandon the triple lock. Is that why pensioners are now supporting independence more than ever?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Laura Trott)]

I do not think they are. Also, the triple lock is very proudly a Conservative policy.

Cost of Living: Parental Leave and Pay

David Linden Excerpts

Monday 19th June 2023 Westminster Hall

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

It is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr McCabe. I join the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) in paying tribute to the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) for opening the debate. I also welcome Ms Sheridan to the Gallery and thank her for creating the petition.

To pick up where the hon. Member for Strangford left off, I have a great deal of sympathy for the proposal that we introduce some sort of salary sacrifice scheme for mortgages. The reality is that 2.6 million fixed rate mortgages are due to expire before the end of the year. Unfortunately, my fixed rate mortgage expired in October, so my mortgage has doubled in the course of the last year. As a Member of Parliament, I can obviously absorb that cost to a certain extent, but as the hon. Member for Strangford outlined, for far too many families that will simply not be the case. It is perhaps no surprise that mothers are, for example, facing the indignity of having to ask for formula to be taken from behind the counter because there is a fear that it could be shoplifted.

The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North was spot on about the cost of living crisis. It has certainly been my party’s No. 1 priority; we have been doing everything in our power to support our constituents throughout this incredibly difficult time. It is because I have seen the impact of the crisis on my constituents day in and day out that I wanted to take part in today’s debate. I have seen the frankly devastating consequences of my constituents being unable to afford their weekly food shop and struggling to pay their energy bills. That is an irony that is not lost on people who live on an island that is energy-rich.

While the pervasive crisis is clearly impacting everyone, the parents of young families are perhaps feeling the belt tightening the most. I caution colleagues that it is not necessarily a new issue; the Government in Westminster sadly have a long and torrid history of penalising young and single-parent households in particular. The SNP has consistently urged the British Government to improve parental leave and pay. Upon arriving here in 2017, I spent my first few years using just about every parliamentary mechanism possible to push the Government to introduce legislation that would give additional leave and pay to parents such as myself who had premature or sick babies, in addition to the maternity and paternity leave and pay that they are entitled to.

Whenever I leave this place, the proudest moment of my time as an MP will still be when my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) chose to take on that cause for his private Member’s Bill, which I am pleased received Royal Assent last month. In short, it means that parents of premature and sick babies, as we were with Isaac and Jessica, will never again have to go through that terrible time. I pay tribute to all who joined that long and hard-fought campaign. The legislation will change the lives of thousands of families and will undoubtedly make life that little bit easier for parents who are already experiencing a difficult time.

We have come so far, but we have so much further to go. Another colleague and friend of mine, my hon. Friend the Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley), has campaigned tirelessly for paid leave for anyone who has suffered a miscarriage. Alongside those campaigns, my party has continually—as have others, to be fair—called on the British Government to improve parental leave and pay generally. That issue is more important than ever, not just in the face of the ongoing cost of living crisis but in recognition that the world of work is changing.

Against the backdrop of the cost of living crisis, it is concerning that among OECD countries the UK has the second-lowest payment rates for maternity leave. Less than one third of gross average earnings are replaced by maternity leave and despite lengthy maternity leave entitlements, full-rate equivalent paid maternity leave lasts for only 12 weeks.

As a Scottish National party MP, I obviously disagree with the fact that employment law is reserved to lawmakers here in Westminster. Similarly, I remain bemused, as does the Scottish Trades Union Congress, that the Labour party refuses to support the devolution of employment law. But while such powers still rest here, I must urge the British Government to increase maternity and paternity pay, to review the eligibility for maternity allowance and to give partners an additional 12 weeks’ paid leave on a non- transferable “use it or lose it” basis within shared parental leave.

It is truly appalling that many workers still do not qualify for statutory maternity leave and pay, including those on insecure contracts, such as zero-hours workers. That is why the Conservative Government must act urgently to rectify this injustice by legislating to expand eligibility for statutory maternity leave and pay. However, the reality is that the British social security system is unjust and penalises parents, particularly young families. I am fed up doing so, but I again ask the Government to bring forward the long-awaited employment Bill that could deal with some of these issues.

As the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North outlined on its behalf, the Petitions Committee has highlighted before that there is a real disparity in the treatment of maternity allowance and statutory maternity pay, particularly when it comes to universal credit, which further penalises self-employed mothers and those on low incomes. Under the Universal Credit Regulations 2013, and certainly in contrast to statutory maternity pay, maternity allowance is treated as unearned income by the Department for Work and Pensions, and is deducted in full from UC awards. For any of us who operate within the sphere of the DWP, it is clear that maternity allowance and statutory maternity pay should be equalised. I invite the Minister to address that point in her response to the debate.

In addition, the Government must end the young parent penalty in universal credit that denies single parents under the age of 25 the same level of social security as those above that age, pushing those impacted into poverty. I pay tribute to One Parent Families Scotland, which campaigns relentlessly against the young parent penalty.

It has also been a staple element of my party’s policy to oppose the two-child limit and its associated rape clause, or—to use the Sunday name that the UK Government prefer—the non-consensual sex exemption. This policy has been on the statute book for far too long. I suspect that the Minister will stand up and talk about the importance of families, but it is rather difficult for her to do so when there is a Government policy that has a state cap on the number of children that the Government will support and, more despicably, a rape clause attached.

These individual policies are all part of a larger picture of a social security system that penalises the very poorest and the most vulnerable. You are a committed Member of the Work and Pensions Committee, Mr McCabe, like myself, so I know that you too see this situation every Wednesday morning when the Committee takes evidence—overwhelming evidence that we need to provide greater support. The evidence that we see is the likes of research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation that shows that families with younger children, and particularly lone-parent families, are predominantly headed by women and face a disproportionate risk of poverty.

It is clear that under the Tories, the current social security system is inadequate and is now at the stage where frankly it is falling apart at a time when people need it most. The SNP has long called for the British Government to fix these fundamental flaws. However, the sheer reality is that with 85% of welfare expenditure and income-replacement benefits reserved to this place, our hands in Scotland are tied. Yes, the SNP Government in Holyrood can do what they can, whether that is with the baby box, the best start grant or the limited devolved benefits and powers that we have, but the reality is that the vast majority of welfare decision making remains in the hands of a Tory Government we did not vote for; indeed, we have not voted for a Tory Government since 1955.

I will name just a few policies in Scotland: the fair work first policy promotes fairer work practices across the labour market; the baby box ensures that every child begins life with the essential items it needs; the Scottish child payment, which by the way is not confined to just two children, is now £25 per week and has been described as game-changing by charities; and free childcare is provided to all three and four-year-olds and eligible two-year-olds, saving eligible families £5,000 per child per year. I declare an interest as somebody who is a recipient of that.

The SNP is committed to social security being an investment in people, and it is part of the Scottish Government’s national mission to tackle child poverty, levels of which are still far too high. In April, all Scottish benefits were uprated in line with inflation, by 10.1%, at a cost of around £430 million. In addition to that, £5.2 billion was invested in benefits expenditure in Budget 2023-24, supporting over 1 million people.

I could go on listing the policies that the Scottish Government have put in place to support low-income families and to tackle child poverty, from the £50 million commitment to the tackling child poverty fund—providing £69.7 million for employability support for parents through the no one left behind approach—to providing £50 million for the whole family wellbeing programme and a further £30 million for the keep the promise plan for care-experienced children and young people. But the reality is that we are doing all this from our devolved budget while trying to mitigate poor welfare decisions, such as the bedroom tax, which is mitigated entirely in Scotland through discretionary housing payments. However, I would always remind people back home that what we spend on nullifying the bedroom tax is money that we cannot spend on health or education, for example. That is just the stark reality.

My party is committed to alleviating poverty and ensuring that people live in a fair and just society. On the other hand, the Conservatives here in London are intent on deepening inequalities and on cementing poverty and hardship across communities in Scotland, where they have no democratic mandate. Yes, we can enact all the policies I mentioned just a moment ago with one hand tied behind our back, but every additional pound that we spend on measures to help with rising costs must be funded from reductions elsewhere, given our largely fixed budget and limited fiscal powers. The Scottish Government are using those limited powers and resources to do everything they can, but this must be matched by the Government here in London. With every day that the UK Government fail to use their reserved powers to adequately tackle the rising cost of living, they are demonstrating that independence is the only way for Scotland to boost incomes and build a fairer society—and having social justice at its heart is so important.

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair this afternoon, Mr McCabe, and I thank everyone who has spoken in today’s debate. Despite the attendance, this is a matter of great importance to millions of people up and down the country. I am sorry to Nicola, the organiser of the petition, that more Members were not here to speak. I am sure we are all aware that other business is catching people’s attention today, but I hope that those who have heard the debate will see that there is a lot of interest and well-informed opinion about the challenges that new parents face.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) for her introduction to the debate, which gave a comprehensive overview of the challenges that new parents face. She mentioned—I will discuss this in a little while—the huge costs that new parents face, which have increased in recent times. There is a chasm between those costs and the rates of statutory maternity pay, which have also been discussed. She gave us a whole range of facts and figures to demonstrate that, and the personal testimonies from mothers she has spoken to illustrate the real difficulties that many people are facing. She mentioned the Government line that maternity pay is in line with other out-of-work benefits, which shows how completely out of touch they are and demonstrates the lack of understanding about the huge workload that any new parent will face.

My hon. Friend rightly identified loopholes in relation to self-employment for adopted parents. Obviously that needs to be addressed, because we know that formally adopting a child is a huge financial commitment, and those financial barriers need to be removed. Her wide-ranging speech touched on childcare costs, the impact that maternity leave can have on a woman’s pay for the rest of her life—something that still exists, 50-odd years after the Equal Pay Act 1970 was introduced—and maternal mental health, which is grossly overlooked at times. Her conclusion that having a child is a calculation made on a spreadsheet really hit home. All parents look at that when planning a family, but when we look at the costs households face—huge increases in housing cost, student loan payments, an increased tax burden, pension contributions and childcare costs—we can see how, for many, the sums do not add up, and that brings home what a challenge this is.

It was a pleasure, as always, to hear from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). It would not be a Westminster Hall debate without a contribution from him. Like him, I have three boys. I wonder how similar they are—it would be interesting to compare notes at some point. He made some valuable points about the cost of raising a family, with the cost of the first year being £6,000. It probably feels like more for many because babies grow out of their clothes so quickly and there are all the set-up costs.

We are fortunate in my part of the world that the charity KidsBank, which is based in Chester but operates in Ellesmere Port and Neston, provides new parents with a lot of those essentials. They are all recycled and donated goods, but it is a critical thing for those families who are on the breadline and who need that support. It shows how difficult it is to raise a family.

[David Linden]

The hon. Member makes the powerful point that more often than not it falls to the third sector to step in and support people. Does he agree that it is not a sign of the big society that these groups, however great the work they are doing is, fulfil that need, but a sign of a broken welfare state that is fundamentally beyond repair?

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mims Davies)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe. I thank hon. Members for joining us this afternoon. In particular, I thank the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) for introducing the debate so thoughtfully.

As we have heard, being a parent is an incredibly important and rewarding job. It is one that comes with a unique set of challenges, from recovering from birth with a newborn to balancing employment and care and, in my own life, being a sandwich carer, so I absolutely understand the challenges. While I have the floor, I pay tribute to local firefighters who were battling a fire in Burgess Hill in my constituency just this afternoon, with members of the public being sent home and asked to be vigilant after another one yesterday in Sharpthorne. If you will indulge me, Mr McCabe, I thank them very much.

An 18-year-old will be coming into my house very shortly, and another teen. As a single mum and a woman returner, I really do get it, and I hope that some of my remarks will reflect that. I will be clear that I cannot answer all the issues, because they are not all in my remit, but I will undertake to write and share what I can and bring other Departments to account.

Last week was Loneliness Awareness Week. As parents, I think we have all felt incredibly lonely and isolated. Being a single parent can be overwhelming and incredibly difficult. It can be hard work; the pressures are not new, but they are definitely challenging right now. Overall, it is a wondrous, joyous slog—let us all be honest about that. Just after fathers’ day, we reflect that the boost for gender equality and equal parent support is vital. I thank Nicola for being here today, and all the groups and charities that support parents through this precious and—as we all recall, if ours are a little older—challenging time.

Speaking of baby boxes, on a slightly different point, I remember that my mum and dad gave me a war chest. They had been struggling with long-term illness and not having a huge amount of money, but it was a labour of love and of many trips to Poundland, and it really made a difference. We know that everything makes a difference at the start, when the parent is feeling the pressure and has had a big change in their life, particularly if the child is their first. Of course, added to that are high inflation, the cost of living challenges and global pressures, which make it very difficult to look after that precious little bundle. That is why it is important that in April we increased the rate of all statutory parental payments by 10.1%, in line with CPI, and we will continue to take decisive action to help households. I will outline some more of what we are doing shortly.

It is our firm belief that the best way to help people improve their financial circumstances throughout their life is through work, but, as the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North said, only when the time is right. It is important that people are given a choice, so I strongly agree with the points she made. We need to be ambitious in enabling parents to progress in work; it must not be only people without children who can do that, so we need to get things right. We need to support children by enabling their parents to be there when they want. That is equally valuable, and the flexible parental leave entitlements for new parents support just that.

I recognise that this is a complicated area, as hon. Members have said—I have taken their points on board. It is also vital that adopters get a better deal and more assistance. My wider family has experience of that, and it is really important too.

Parents must have access to the range of support and entitlements they need for their child’s first year. We are giving working families more choice and flexibility about who cares for their child when the parents are at work. Our statutory maternity leave entitlement is rightly generous, but hon. Members have said it is not generous enough—if only I had a magic wand. We offer 52 weeks of maternity leave, of which 39 are paid through statutory maternity pay. For self-employed women, who are not eligible for statutory maternity pay—I was one, so I very much understand the insecurity—maternity allowance is available. Both payments are designed to enable women to stop working towards the end of their pregnancy and in the precious months after childbirth. That is in their and their baby’s best interest; it supports their health, wellbeing and, above all, bonding.

I fully recognise the role that fathers can and must play in that crucial time, their child’s first year. We have a real opportunity to boost gender equality and support parents; I will say more about that later. Statutory paternity leave and pay arrangements enable employed fathers and partners who meet the qualifying conditions to take up to two weeks of paid leave within the first eight weeks following the birth of their child or placement for adoption. Qualifying parents can share up to 50 weeks of leave and up to 37 weeks of pay. The hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) rightly said that shared parental leave gives mothers who wish to return to work the opportunity to do so, and rightly enables the father or partner to be the primary carer if they wish.

We want more men to confidently take the helm. Employers can really help with that by understanding that dads want and need to be there at key moments, not just the nativity or the parents evening. In fact, I am the guilty party who is never there for the parents evening, so it is flipped around in my world these days. If men can confidently be there, perhaps, as Opposition Members said, we can boost the take-up of the scheme, which started in 2015. We forecasted that between 2% and 8% of eligible couples would take part, and the actual take-up is broadly in line with that. It is increasing each year, but not fast enough. That is the challenge for us all: how we make the scheme something that people really feel they can take part in. In order to do that, the shared parental leave online tool is accessible for parents to check their eligibility and plan their leave together. We are currently evaluating the shared parental leave scheme and will publish our findings in due course.

There has been a clear message today on rates. The rate of all statutory parental payments is reviewed annually and, as mentioned, generally increases in line with the CPI. The Government will spend around £276 billion in 2023-24 on welfare support in Great Britain. I will come to further support for those who may be listening this afternoon who perhaps have not reached out for additional help. I understand the point made by the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North about the slightly indelicate link between out of work benefits and the support that we give to parents. I note her comments on that, and pretty much agree with her. I will take that away in terms of how we talk about supporting people who are out of work, and how we support pregnant working women when they are in the special position—let us be honest—of coming to the point when they want to do what is right for them next, and new mothers.

The Government spend approximately £3 billion on maternity payments. There is a balance to strike both in language and in any changes to the rate of SMP, taking account of economic circumstances and affordability for taxpayers. We also need to speak to stakeholders, some of whom have been mentioned, and businesses. It needs to be a holistic effort. The hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) gave a list of future plans that he may have, but in reality we want to ensure that we hear the asks both of the petitioners who have challenged us this afternoon and of the sectors and businesses, to ensure that we take people on any change journey. We have talked about planning, saving and spreadsheets where needed. I was—briefly, it feels like—married to an accountant, so I felt as if I was living in a world of spreadsheets. It is what we all have to do, and it is a challenge, particularly when we do not know what we do not know when it comes to parenting, and the impact that it will have on our back pocket.

I think employers can do more. The work of the civil service was mentioned. We have a very tight labour market. Consider a talented, skilled, brilliant woman who is adopting or becoming a mum in whatever way, whether for the first time or growing her family. Employers really need to think forward about job design and making it work for such women to return. I mentioned that I am a single mum; when I came to this place, I was a woman returner. Many of us are, and many mums, for various reasons, have been locked out of the labour market for far too long. They have incredible ability and talent. Employers have a chance to look at job design. In my constituency, Boeing has created a deliberate part-time role—not a role where a person squeezes full time into part time, but an actual role where they add value in a way that works for their circumstances. If we have more people in the labour market doing more, everyone will do better, so let us all challenge ourselves on that.

I have been given an extremely long speech, so I will try not to repeat things that many people will know, and will try to answer some of the questions. Hopefully I have covered the way in which things are calculated and equal access for adoptive parents. I agree with the point on the Healthy Start scheme needing a boost with regard to take-up. I will take that away to work on with colleagues. I think the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North made a fair point on outcomes and monitoring, and I note that.

My friend the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), talked about tax relief, which was reiterated by the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden). I am not in the Treasury, and I am delighted about that every day; until I get the call-up, I will pass on that headache for as long as possible. I say that very gently—did I actually say that out loud? My point is that it is a matter for the Treasury. I am sure it is listening and I will leave it to get on with it.

Regarding the Scotland Act 1998, I am delighted that the hon. Member for Glasgow East is using those powers. I note his point about under-25s; that is not my policy area, but he knows that I have a strong interest in youth policy and single parents. I undertake to understand his point and take it away.

For those listening to this debate who have a concern about mortgages, I said on the Floor of the House this afternoon, and I reiterate here, that if people are worried they should engage with their mortgage lender. There is support for mortgage interest out there. We have abolished the zero-earnings rule to allow claimants on universal credit to receive support while in work and on UC—support is now available after three months. People should engage with their lenders. We paid £25 million to 12,000 households in 2021-22 and we will continue to extend that support for mortgage interest rates. People should use the benefits calculator on gov.uk if they are concerned; there is help for households on that site and links to the household support fund, which I will come on to shortly.

The hon. Member for Glasgow East raised a concern about miscarriage leave. Miscarriages are a deeply challenging, personal and devasting experience for many women, as well as their partners and families. In this place we have got better at talking about such things, but it is still too unspoken and difficult in the workplace, which is something a friend of mine recently spoke to me about. The Government believe that individuals are best placed to know their own specific needs, and that good employers will rightly respond in a sensitive way to requests made by employees.

[David Linden]

I do not intend to make this issue a party political point. Knowing the Minister very well, I think there is a genuine willingness to try and fix the issue. It is not something that should be hard. I caution the Government, however, that simply hoping that employers do the right thing is not something that we can rely on in this place. The Minister is right that the vast majority of employers would agree if an employee went to them and said, “I have had a miscarriage. Can I have some time off?” The reason that we legislate in this place is to ensure that the few are looked after. It is for that reason that it is important the Government look again and do not just leave it to the market. They should step in and do what the state does best.

[Mims Davies]

I understand the point the hon. Gentleman makes. It is not an area that I am in charge of, but I am sure that those who are will be listening. Of course, if a woman unfortunately has a miscarriage, there are protections that extend to two weeks after the end of that pregnancy. That is a protection under the Equality Act 2010. I understand, however, the hon. Gentleman’s point about what happens before 24 weeks. This is a difficult one, which is why Nicola and the other petitioners, by bringing the petition to the House and making us focus on all of the issues, did the right thing. I have nearly got myself in enough trouble this afternoon, without creating any more policy in this Chamber, so I will refrain from saying more on that one.

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s point on the two child policy. We disagree on that point in terms of families on benefits facing the same financial challenges and choices when it comes to growing their family as those who are supported solely through work. It is important that child benefit continues to be paid for all children in eligible families, but it is right that we continue with that policy where appropriate. The hon. Gentleman mentioned those particular exemptions. Again, I note that it is a challenging area.

Opposition Members raised the issue of support for childcare. It is important to provide the right support for parents who are balancing childcare and returning to work. The Government have already put in more than £20 billion in the last five years to support families with the cost of childcare, and thousands of parents have benefited from that support. However, more changes are coming. We announced in the Budget that by 2027-28 we will provide £4.1 billion to expand the current free childcare offer to eligible working parents of children aged between nine and 36 months. I recognise that Government-funded childcare, which is free to the recipient, needs design. That was mentioned to a degree in the Chamber this afternoon. We are expecting to spend more than £8 billion a year on that funding and early education, which represents the biggest ever single investment in childcare in England.

I will quickly cover neonatal pay and pregnancy discrimination and then try to conclude, because I am mindful that I have spoken for some time. We are aware that more needs to be done to support parents whose children are in neonatal care. Many of us in the House know people personally who have been impacted by this issue. Again, the House has come into its own by talking about it and its impact on families.

In March 2020, following a Government consultation, we committed to introducing a new entitlement to neonatal leave and pay. The Neonatal Care (Leave and Pay) Act 2023 will introduce an entitlement of up to 12 weeks of paid leave for parents whose child is admitted to neonatal care. The entitlement will support new parents during the most stressful days of their lives, ensuring that they can be there for their youngster. The Act received Royal Assent on 24 May this year, and we anticipate that the entitlement will become available to parents in April 2025. I hope that that helps hon. Members.

[David Linden]

The Act was originally my Bill, so I am familiar with it. There is a slight issue with His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs dragging its heels. Notwithstanding what the Minister said about not being a Treasury Minister, will she at least write to HMRC following today’s debate, outlining that there is cross-party agreement? Indeed, the hon. Member for Thornbury and Yate (Luke Hall) has been excellent on this issue. There is cross-party agreement that £50 million has been committed in the budget line, but there is no need for us to wait that long because of the lag in HMRC guidance.

[Mims Davies]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point. I know it was a deeply personal Bill for him and he will be strident on this issue. I will take away that ask as he wishes.

I turn to pregnancy and maternity discrimination protections. Ensuring that parents have the leave and flexibility that they need during this period is important, as is ensuring that they are protected against discrimination and do not suffer any detriment for taking that leave. That is why we are rightly extending pregnancy and maternity discrimination protection for those returning from periods of eligible parental leave. The Protection from Redundancy (Pregnancy and Family Leave) Act 2023 will enable redundancy protections to apply from the point at which an employee told their employer that they were pregnant, until six months after returning from maternity, adoption or shared parental leave. The provision will protect individuals from redundancy and help mothers to remain, rightly, in the workforce.

Support needs to go way beyond the first year of a child’s life, so it is important that there are further entitlements for others. Time off for dependants is important as well, and I will update the House further on that.

It is important for me to cover flexible working. We are fully committed to ensuring that parents get the support that is right for them. The Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Bill received its Second Reading in the other place on 19 May. That Bill will increase the number of requests that an employee can make in a 12-month period, reduce the time allowed to administer requests, and support more effective conversations about what flexible working arrangements may work to the benefit of both employer and employee. Alongside the Bill, the Government will introduce regulations, as mentioned, to make the right to request flexible working apply from the first day of employment, bringing an estimated additional 2.2 million employees into the scope of the legislation. My understanding is that as soon as parliamentary time allows, this will be moving forward.

I mentioned cost of living support. Statutory parental pay is only one aspect of Help for Households. There is support worth £94 billion across 2022-23 and 2023-24 to help people with rising bills; the support is worth £3,300 per UK household on average. Included in that are cost of living payments to more than 8 million low-income households, about 6 million disabled people and more than 8 million pensioner households. I would say to anybody, “Please look at the benefits calculator. Please look at Help for Households. Please reach out to your local council or your devolved Administration, because there is extra support out there.”

I will close by reiterating the Government’s commitment to supporting parents as we continue to face high inflation. We understand the added, varied and complex pressures that we have heard about and discussed this afternoon, which parents are experiencing alongside the cost of living and inflation challenges. That is why we have done the right thing with the uprating, in line with CPI, of statutory parental payments—alongside other payments—by 10.1%. We will continue to take decisive action to help all households.

I thank all hon. Members for their contributions this afternoon, and the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North for opening this petition debate. I will continue to support women—as long as I have breath, and a seat in this House—in any role that I have. It is great that we all come together on something that is so important. On some areas there will of course be disagreements, but as long as we continue to work together to support parents, at this most difficult time, in any part of our community—I am seeing some of my great local charities, the local food bank and other supporters on Monday; there is additional support from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, by the way, for local charities—we will really make the difference and ensure that no parent, whatever their situation, and no family ever feel alone.

People with Disabilities: Cost of Living

David Linden Excerpts

Tuesday 16th May 2023 Westminster Hall

[Marion Fellows]

I wish that the hon. Member would take that back. In Scotland, we treat people with dignity, fairness and respect. We help them to fill in their adult disability payment applications, and we make it much easier for them—[Interruption.] The hon. Member is shaking his head, but he is wrong. We make it easier for people with long-term illnesses from which they will not recover. They do not have to go through continuous reassessments.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

Will my hon. Friend point out to the hon. Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) that unlike the UK Government and their pernicious welfare system, the Scottish Government have actually worked with people with experience of the benefits system and those who have disabilities in designing that system? It is rather rich that he lectures us from a Tory Government who have been found to have treated people rather inhumanely.

[Marion Fellows]

I thank my hon. Friend for that. I am appalled at the remarks being made. I shall move forward and I will not take any further interventions in the meantime; I need to make progress.

The insufficient cost of living support, combined with an inadequate system of social security and an economic crisis created by this Government and their predecessors, have created an unwelcome perfect storm for those with disabilities, plunging millions into poverty. Disabled people often face higher costs for their energy, and they are saying that they need more heating—most disabled people need more heating to stay warm. Others say that they must use more electricity simply to plug in their assistive technologies. Those extra costs mean that disabled people have less money in their pockets and, in many cases, go without. The result is that disabled people are more likely to have a lower standard of living, even when they earn the same as a non-disabled person.

According to the British Association of Social Workers, 7 million people—almost half of those living in poverty in the UK—are either disabled or live with someone who has a disability. Families with a disabled loved one are seriously struggling as they have to make difficult decisions and cutbacks. Guide Dogs UK has highlighted how families with a child with visual impairment are being hit incredibly hard, and the mental health of parents is suffering.

The disabled poverty figures are unsurprisingly reflected in food bank usage, with the Trussell Trust advising the Work and Pensions Committee that disabled people are hugely overrepresented in food poverty. More than half of food bank users in the UK are disabled.

The covid pandemic deepened pre-existing inequalities in society for disabled people, and the rise in inflation has disproportionately hurt the most vulnerable in society. Disabled people and their households have, on average, lower incomes than their non-disabled counterparts in spite of incurring higher costs. Poverty and disability are often mutually reinforcing, particularly for working-age adults.

--- Later in debate ---

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

Thank you, Dr Huq—a double thank you for your late substitution this morning, for which we are all very grateful. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows), who clearly demonstrated a real passion for this important subject. I think her constituents would recognise that she is a real champion for those who need a voice in this area, and I pay genuine tribute to her.

I also pay tribute to the Minister, who I know will respond in full. He has immersed himself in the details of his role and has always shown himself willing to engage with stakeholders. I think we would all agree that there is a wealth of knowledge and expertise in local and national organisations, and the Minister is passionate to utilise that wherever possible. That has come through very clearly in his time as a Minister.

I pay tribute to local and national organisations up and down the country that provide people with advice and support in accessing the often complex and daunting layers of support that are potentially available. For example Tim Saint, of the Swindon Carers Centre, does a huge amount of work in our community to help people access support. During my time as a Minister, I was surprised to see how many people miss out on the various forms of support that we have all voted to give them, often because they are faced with a complex and daunting system.

We have made progress. Under PIP, including the legacy benefits of DLA, and attendance allowance, we are now spending £12.5 billion more in real terms on help for those with disabilities or long-term health conditions. Under the old legacy system of DLA, only 16% of claimants would access the highest rate of support. A few years ago, that figure had reached 33%, and for some health conditions, in particular mental health conditions, people are now six times more likely to access the higher rates of benefits. So we are very much heading in the right direction, and there are further opportunities to turbo-speed improvements with the forthcoming White Paper.

There are two key lessons the Government can focus on: speed and specialisation. First, on speed, there are lessons that can be learned from the welcome changes to the special rules for terminal illness. We were able to apply a policy change that was co-designed by stakeholders, their policy teams and end users—people with real-life experience. Using the same principles, we can widen the severe conditions criteria in the PIP system, removing up to 300,000 unnecessary assessments or reassessments each year.

The principle behind that is that we would look at specific conditions. We could then be fairly confident about the trajectory of that condition and set in place a timetable of support. For those people whose condition has perhaps changed more quickly than expected, there would still always be the option to have a light-touch assessment to speed up their access to the increased rate of support.

There is a sort of principle around this, which already exists with universal credit and the industrial injuries disablement benefit. An independent panel could look at these conditions, and one example would be motor neurone disease—I cannot understand what the point would be of putting somebody with MND through an assessment. Where we can be fairly confident of the deterioration of health conditions, we could put in place an automatic right to support, with the backstop that, if somebody’s condition, sadly, deteriorates more quickly, a light-touch assessment could then move them to the higher level of support much more quickly. Removing 300,000 people a year would mean we have more resources available to speed up the process for those who would go through the more standard, traditional route.

During covid, we made sure we kept the gateway open for new entrants, and it is a tribute to staff up and down the country that disability benefits continued. We used video and telephone assessment, a further benefit of which is that it allows for greater specialisation in terms of the assessors. Rather than relying on a fixed number of staff in each geographical location, we can assign someone with a particular health condition via telephone or video to other locations in the country. That also helps with the point about making sure that the assessments are right first time, so that people do not have to go through an appeals process further down the line.

I know that these broad themes are being considered as part of the White Paper, but they are a real win-win and they are probably things that people could rally around, regardless of which political background they are from. I certainly know from my time working with our very knowledgeable stakeholders and policymakers that there would be huge support for them.

A broader point is that not everything is black and white. As much as I admire the passion and drive of the speech by the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw, there was a presumption that everything the Government do is terrible and that everything the Scottish Government do is good. I say that because I have a brother who is a proud Labour party supporter, another brother who is an SNP supporter, a sister who is a sort of Lib Dem/ Conservative and a cousin who is a Green, so we cover all the bases, and I was very much brought in the belief that things are not black and white.

To their credit, the Scottish Government identified that we could and should have made changes to the special rules for terminal illness and to PIP, which is the main disability benefit. The Scottish Government have had challenges; they had hoped to complete both those tasks many years ago, but that has proved a lot more complex, particularly when we start to unravel the complicated machinery behind those benefits.

In my former life, I attended inter-ministerial meetings with Scottish officials and Scottish Ministers, who were always a great pleasure to work with, and I absolutely admired their end goal. However, they also had that presumption that the system was completely broken and had to be completely changed. Therefore, they sometimes would not listen to stakeholders and policy experts in disability and health charities who wanted changes but not necessarily the changes the Scottish Government had settled on.

For example, there is a principle that the Scottish Government do not like assessors. I understand that, given a lot of the media coverage of the earlier years of PIP, in particular. However, there is a reason why, under DLA, only 16% of claimants got the highest rate of support, compared with 33% under PIP. Many of the people who navigate the system are the least well equipped to do so. Therefore, we are relying on a system where, in effect, their evidence—self-supplied—is the only basis for them to get DLA. However, assessors tease out additional things and fill in the gaps, which is why we have gone from 16% to 33%.

[David Linden]

The hon. Gentleman is giving an incredibly thoughtful speech, but I have a fundamental objection to assessments. However, even if I was to follow the former Minister down the assessment route, we would find ourselves in a ridiculous situation where the people carrying out the assessments have no professional qualifications to enable them to adjudicate on the condition. For example, in one recent constituency case, someone was actually asked, “Does your son still have autism?”. That is the level of expertise we are dealing with and that, I am afraid, shows that the system is broken.

[Justin Tomlinson]

That shows the slight misunderstanding here—and I say that in a good spirit. All the health practitioners who carry out assessments have at least two years’ experience and come from health professional backgrounds. However, the point where the hon. Gentleman is right is that they are not necessarily specialists in certain areas. If someone goes to a GP, the fact that they are the initial gatekeeper to the NHS does not mean they are an expert in everything—they refer people on to specialists. There would generally be five or six assessors in each location, so we cannot expect the collective knowledge of those assessors to cover every single health issue. Through the introduction of telephone and video assessments, however, we can refer people, and that is what I am pushing for. The point is: the role of the assessors was not broken, but it needed improving. That is what both the UK and Scottish Governments were looking to do.

I am urging the Scottish Government to be cautious about relying too much on the claimant, because not all claimants are in a position to argue their case and understand the conditions. It is not even just a case of that; it is also about people being unaware of additional health conditions. I made a point earlier about those with mental health conditions now being six times more likely to get access to the highest rate of PIP. Many people do not realise that their mental wellbeing is being impacted by their physical health condition. They would enter the PIP system thinking, “My physical health condition is impacting on me. I’ll fill in all the bits on that and answer the questions.” However, the assessor’s questions on how that impacts mental wellbeing then begin to identify additional challenges that the claimant was either unaware of or had got used to and took for granted. That then gives them the additional points that allow them to enter the higher rate.

It is same around the special rules for terminal illness. We extended that from six months to 12 months, working with hospices, the health and disability charities and GPs. The Scottish Government, with very good intentions, tried to create a system where it was automatic. They then realised that not everyone can be dealt with automatically, because we are all terminally ill in the sense that nobody lives forever. Conditions then have to be put in, but that inadvertently creates a more complex system. It would have just been easier to say, as Northern Ireland did, “Actually, on this occasion, the UK Government—having listened to the stakeholders and health and disability charities—might be on to something. In this case, we ought to do the same.”

--- Later in debate ---

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq. I pay tribute to you for getting here in double-quick time as a late substitution. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows) on securing this debate on a very important topic.

The cost of living crisis has permeated so many different aspects of our communities. The topic is brought up continually in my weekly advice surgeries, where sadly constituents have repeatedly told me that they are struggling to afford their weekly food shops and monthly energy bills. It is very much either/or. I am sure that other MPs in Westminster Hall today can relate to that—how helpless it feels to be sat across the surgery table from people who are clearly struggling and who desperately need support.

In far too many cases, people fall between the cracks and end up without the help that they not only deserve, but are entitled to. That is far too often the case for disabled people, who incur hidden costs through no fault of their own. As we have heard repeatedly this morning, disabled people and their families spend a greater share of their income on food and energy, the commodities that face the steepest rises in inflation. Again, as we have heard, people with special dietary requirements are being hit particularly hard by food inflation, with statistics from January showing that households with specific dietary requirements are paying up to 73% more for their food than those who do not need to buy “free from” products.

Disabled people face many additional costs related to the treatment and mitigation of their disability, such as equipment or therapies. In some utterly awful cases, disabled people face the impossible choice between powering essential medical equipment such as wheelchairs and ventilators and putting food on the table. All those extra costs hit harder because disabled individuals and their households have, on average, lower incomes than their non-disabled counterparts, with 27% of disabled people living in poverty compared with 21% of non-disabled people. The result is that disabled people are more likely to have a lower standard of living, even when they earn the same.

According to research from Scope, on average, disabled households need an additional £975 a month to have the same standard of living as non-disabled households, and if that figure is updated to account for inflation over 2022-23, those extra costs rise to £1,122 a month. The price tag on disability feels incredibly dystopian. What kind of Orwellian society are we living in when having a disability incurs a price tag?

We have only to reflect on the words of Nye Bevan to understand the absurdity of the situation. Bevan said:

“Illness is neither an indulgence for which people have to pay, nor an offence for which they should be penalised, but a misfortune the cost of which should be shared by the community.”

Let me make it clear: illness is not an indulgence or an offence. People should not have to pay or be penalised. If Nye Bevan could understand that in the 1940s, I am puzzled as to why the current British Government are having so much difficulty with the concept.

The Government must do more—so much more—to use all the powers at their disposal to tackle the cost of living crisis on the scale that is required. While the uprating of benefits in line with inflation was welcome, for far too many it sadly came too late. The additional payment of £150 to disabled people, while welcome, will not provide the same long-term assistance as a sustainable benefit uplift. Indeed, Disability Rights UK is on record as saying that the “lack of meaningful increases” in disability benefits over recent years means that the extra £150 “doesn’t touch the sides”, and it is right.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell and Wishaw said, the Scottish Government are taking action within their devolved powers and within their fixed budget to try to help disabled people with the combined effects of higher energy bills, the general rise in inflation and the impact of Westminster policies. Yes, there are things that we can do—for example, the winter heating payment; the Scottish Welfare Fund; spending money on discretionary housing payments, such as the £84.1 million being made available this year; the council tax reduction scheme; and the most generous concessionary bus scheme—but the reality is that devolution was not, and in my view never has been, set up to be a sticking plaster for bad welfare policies made here in London.

Yes, the Scottish Government are doing all that, but they are doing it with one hand tied behind their back. The brutal reality is that every additional pound that we spend on those measures to help with rising costs has to be funded by budgetary reductions elsewhere, given our largely fixed budget and our limited fiscal powers. Scotland has already suffered a decade of British Government-imposed austerity since the financial crisis, which has disproportionately hurt the most vulnerable people in society and has resulted in under-investment in our crucial public services. The SNP Government in Holyrood are using their limited powers and resources to do everything they can, but that has to be matched by the British Government. With every day that Westminster fails to use its reserved powers to adequately tackle the cost of living crisis, it is demonstrating that independence is the only way for people in Scotland to boost their income and build a truly fairer society.

In closing, I emphasise what is at stake for my constituents, whether they are in Barrowfield or Baillieston. We find ourselves in a dire situation in which it literally costs to be disabled—there is a price tag on being diagnosed with a disability. The additional monetary costs associated with being disabled are compounded by the myriad ways in which society is set up to penalise disabled people.

The social model of disability tells us that people are disabled by barriers in society, not by their impairment or by indifference. The barriers can be physical, such as in buildings that do not have accessible toilets or libraries that do not have Braille versions of books; attitudinal, such as the assumption that disabled people cannot do certain things; or systemic, as in this case, when the cost of simply living as a disabled person is higher and Government support has systemically failed. It is only by removing those barriers that we can achieve equality and offer disabled people more independence, choice and control. That is why I believe that the Government must do so much more to protect the most vulnerable in society.

[Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)]

I call shadow Minister Vicky Foxcroft for the official Opposition.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Pursglove]

I will certainly and gladly take that point back to the Department. I am sure it is something I can pick up on during the many engagement sessions that I have, particularly with disability charities and disabled people’s organisations. I would be keen to hear their views on how the issue is best approached and what more we can do in the advice space.

I want to touch on the cost of living support in place for 2023-24. Members will recall the commitments that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer made in the autumn statement, including a firm commitment to support the most vulnerable people in our society. That will be delivered through 8 million low-income households getting £900 cost of living payments. I am delighted to say that my Department has already delivered 99% of the first cost of living payment of £301 to the 7.3 million households in receipt of a means-tested benefit such as universal credit. That in itself represents a £2.2 billion injection of help for households.

I am also pleased to confirm that we will shortly lay in Parliament regulations that will allow us to pay the additional £150 disability cost of living payment to 6.5 million people throughout the UK who receive an extra-costs disability benefit. Those payments will land in people’s bank accounts in the summer. We will also shortly lay regulations that mean that this winter pensioner households will again get an additional £300 on top of their annual winter fuel payment, as they did last year.

[David Linden]

There has been a bit of a problem whereby some of the cost of living payments have excluded those who have previously been sanctioned by the UK Government. In essence, that means that people are doubly penalised. Will the Minister confirm that any regulations he introduces will not include any provision such that people will be doubly punished, if they have been sanctioned, by not receiving the cost of living payment?

[Tom Pursglove]

I will gladly take that point back and speak to ministerial colleagues in the Department about that aspect. The hon. Gentleman will recognise that the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Mims Davies), has generally led on the legislative efforts to put this package in place, but I would be happy to raise that with her and to get him a proper, full, considered answer to that point.

Let me deal directly with one key issue that has come up in the debate: the structure of the cost of living payment and the argument that the payment is itself too low. I stress that the rationale is different for each of the cost of living payments. The Government’s view is that it is right that the highest amount goes to those on means-tested benefits, given that those on the lowest incomes are most vulnerable to rises in the cost of living. Having said that, we estimate that nearly 60% of individuals who receive an extra-costs disability benefit will receive additional support through the means-tested benefit payment. More than 85% will receive either or both of the means-tested and pensioner payments.

I assure colleagues that we are absolutely committed to ensuring that disabled people and people with health conditions receive the support that they need, which is why in 2022-23 we spent nearly £69 billion in real terms on benefits to support disabled people and those with health conditions. We will continue that throughout 2023-24 by uprating disability benefits in line with last September’s consumer prices index inflation figures. That means we expect to spend around £78 billion in 2023-24, which is 3.1% of GDP. That is a stark statistic. I recognise that Trident is a significant issue for the Scottish National party, and the figure of £3 billion was raised, but I and the UK Government would argue that there are strong reasons why we have a nuclear deterrent, which is a debate for another day.

The scale of support that we provide—to the tune of £78 billion in 2023-24—to people with disabilities and health conditions is significant. By 2027-28, total disability benefit spending is forecast to be more than £41 billion higher in real terms compared with 2010-11. Spending on extra-costs disability benefits alone will amount to £35 billion this year, all paid tax free, and in addition to any other financial or practical support that disabled individuals may receive.

The hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Sarah Green) asked about the adequacy of the disability cost of living payment and its evaluation. We are committed to an evaluation of the cost of living payments later this year. The disability unit is also working to build an evidence base to better understand and evidence the full impact of cost of living challenges for disabled people, across a range of sectors. It is trying to do that collaboratively and is drawing on the expertise, views and experiences out there to help us to shape that work.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Linden Excerpts

Monday 24th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call the SNP spokesman.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

I can certainly assure the House that SNP Members will not be trumpeting ideas advocated by right-wing think-tanks such as the Centre for Social Justice.

The health and disability White Paper introduces a new universal credit health element, with eligibility through PIP that could be far more restrictive than work capability assessments. Indeed, the Tories’ new in-work progression offer will inevitably mean exposure to sanctions for disabled people. Given that the Department’s own published report, which it tried to keep under wraps for many years, shows what we knew all along—that sanctions do not work—why will the Minister not finally do the right thing and just scrap them?

[Tom Pursglove]

May I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his marathon time yesterday? He put in an impressive effort. I know the training, commitment and dedication that go into running a marathon, so I congratulate him on it.

I do not accept the hon. Gentleman’s characterisation of the Centre for Social Justice. I think that these are genuinely common-sense reforms that reflect the feedback that we received from disabled people and from their representative bodies. We will work with them to make sure that we get this right. Replacing the work capability assessment is the right thing to do, recognising that we want to concentrate more on what people can do than on what they cannot do, and doing so on a tailored, individual basis.

Of course we know that more than 20% of disabled people could start work within the next two years, and that they want to do so and, with the right support, would. We think that the right way of dealing with that, and supporting that employment, is to work constructively with them on plans which work, meeting their circumstances and needs. That is what the Budget announcements were all about. There is good practice out there, and we want to extend it.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mims Davies)]

Local charities play an important role in providing support in our communities. I look forward to visiting my hon. Friend’s constituency later this month to see what Combat2Coffee can do to support veterans and their families, and I hope to take a keen interest in Tools with a Mission too, if possible.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

When he appeared before the Select Committee in November, the Secretary of State said that,

“the more transparency there is, the better. It informs public debate and allows a feedback loop for the Department. It is all part of holding us to account and that is extremely important”.

In light of that and in the spirit of the Department’s new approach to transparency, can the Minister provide me with figures on how many DWP staff are themselves reliant on universal credit?

[Mims Davies]

I know the hon. Gentleman takes a particular interest in transparency. I work strongly on the Department’s behalf, with the Minister in the Lords, and I will write to the hon. Gentleman with a response.

Local Housing Allowance

David Linden Excerpts

Wednesday 15th March 2023 Westminster Hall

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair for this afternoon’s proceedings, Ms Elliott.

As others have done, I commend the hon. Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams) for securing the debate, which is short but none the less important. We have had an interesting discussion, with thoughtful contributions from the right hon. Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms) and the hon. Members for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and for Neath (Christina Rees).

The debate of the hon. Member for Arfon allows my party to place on the record our asks on local housing allowance rates. For example, we want to see LHA increased in line with average rents. Likewise, we have called on the British Government to support renters by suspending the shared accommodation rate for under-35s and care leavers, which I believe remains a massive social injustice.

As we know, in November the Secretary of State confirmed that LHA rents for the 2023-24 financial year

“will be maintained in cash terms at the elevated rates agreed for 2020-21.”—[Official Report, 17 November 2022; Vol. 722, c. 24WS.]

My party has pushed the British Government to ensure that the approach to LHA rates does not go back to that taken by the pre-pandemic cuts, which made the private sector totally unaffordable for people in receipt of benefits in some areas, especially when we take cognisance of the long-term shortage of social housing that blights many of my constituents. We cannot have a conversation such as this without recognising the enormous damage done to social housing by the right-to-buy policy and the failure to build more social housing after that.

Ministers’ decision to maintain LHA rates at cash terms in 2023-24 means a further freeze for private renters and places additional and needless pressure on tenants, which in turn adds to pressure on the discretionary housing payment funding pot. Through discretionary housing payments, my colleagues in the Scottish Government are supporting tenants who are under severe financial pressure. In reality, the Scottish Government are plugging some of the gaps caused by the crumbling of the UK social security system here in Westminster.

To highlight one particular example, since the introduction of the punitive bedroom tax, the SNP Government in Scotland have spent £350 million on mitigating it. That has been done by way of discretionary housing payments, which in effect means that the bedroom tax is not in operation north of the border. The hon. Member for Arfon will correct me if I am wrong, but the situation in Labour-run Wales means that the bedroom tax is not necessarily mitigated—something their colleagues in Scottish Labour often forget to mention in Holyrood.

Obviously it is great that SNP Ministers have chosen to act to protect people from the bedroom tax in Scotland, but it is just one of the many areas where the devolution framework comes under strain, as spending decisions in Scotland are frankly taken to paper over the cracks of poor welfare policy made here in London. The inescapable reality is that every penny we spend on the discretionary housing payment to deal with Westminster’s heartless social security agenda is a penny less spent on devolved competences such as education, transport and health.

In summary, Ministers must do better and this Government must act urgently to improve some of the problems with local housing allowance that I and others have outlined today. Failure to do so, I am afraid, only highlights the need for Scottish independence, and for decisions about Scotland to be taken in Scotland—not to languish in the Whitehall in-trays of Tory Ministers the people of Scotland did not vote for.

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to respond for the Opposition under your chairmanship, Ms Elliott. I congratulate the hon. Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams) on securing this important debate. This is a niche issue for many people, yet it is so incredibly important. Rents are the single largest item in most families’ budgets. Not being able to pay the rent has the consequence of forcing families into poverty and also risks homelessness, as we have heard—I will return to that point in a minute.

I wish that, just occasionally, we could have a debate such as this with more than one Department present—it would be a good experiment and brilliant to have that opportunity. It is absolutely impossible to consider local housing allowances in isolation from housing policy. The fact that the housing market is so fundamentally broken is driving the crisis in rents and unaffordability, and therefore the pressure on the local housing allowance. The attempt to bear down on the local housing allowance drives up homelessness and has consequences for other Government Departments. It would be good to be able to hold two Ministers to account for the policies they pursue and their two different agendas, which usually—and in this case—involve a toxic pass-the-parcel game of responsibility and blame, with consequences for both.

As we have heard, the Government have accepted the need to uprate benefits in line with inflation this year—indeed, they have been proud of that fact. I do not think that should be a cause for congratulation. It should be the most absolutely fundamental principle of social security policy, yet they completely fail to accept that that same principle should apply to the local housing allowance. I would like the Minister to explain exactly why in this one area of policy, which affects the largest item of a family’s budget, the Government do not seem to believe that inflation exists. Of course, inflation does exist and, as we particularly heard from the Chair of the Select Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms), rents are soaring across the country, but probably most severely in London.

There are two consequences. First, over 800,000 households in the private rented sector face a shortfall between their rent and their local housing allowance. Some 57% of all universal credit households in the private rented sector have that shortfall. Secondly, dipping back into the issue of housing policy, it forces households into the absolute worst end of the private rented market. In this place, we discuss what has happened to households stuck in the poorest quality housing and the conditions that people are forced into if they are concentrated at the bottom end of the market, even if they can get it, have been a big media theme over the course of this winter.

Although we are discussing the freeze that has happened, in particular since 2020, this is also not a new phenomenon. Since the Government reduced the LHA from the 50th percentile to the 30th, there has been a continuing series of freezes, of which this is only the most recent. It was all based on the belief that the setting of the LHA levels would be bound in itself to influence rents, because it was understood or believed that such a large proportion of the private rented sector was funded by it. That was only ever partially true, or only true in some places, and always failed to recognise that even in a broad market rental area, there are different housing markets, and what applies to one part of the private rented market will not apply to others.

We know that the blind spot over the local housing allowance uprating can be seen in the homelessness statistics, as well as being felt by tenants in the shortfall between actual rents and the support available. There is an average monthly shortfall between rent and local housing allowance of £100 a month. It is indisputably true that the shortfalls are driving tenants to lose their homes. The end of a private rented tenancy is the single largest contributor to homelessness almost everywhere in the country.

[David Linden]

Does the hon. Member agree that the Government have to look at the picture in the round? When someone is evicted from their home, it is ultimately the state that picks up the cost. We should consider local housing allowance a preventive spending measure and the Government are short-sighted on the issue.

[Ms Buck]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman that homelessness is a cost on the central Government budget and on local authority budgets as well.

We have seen homelessness soar. Rough sleeping is up by 74% since 2010 and by 26% in the last year; there has been an 83% rise in the number of children who are now living in temporary accommodation as a result of homelessness. One in 23 children in London is now homeless. The squeeze on local housing allowances is undoubtedly a major factor driving that situation.

I have no doubt that the Minister will refer to discretionary housing payments, but, as my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham has made clear, they make only a tiny contribution towards the total cost of budget shortfalls. Those payments have been cut by one fifth in 2021-22, and again this year. In any event, they are restricted in various ways, including by the fact that they are only ever meant to be temporary, so they are not, and never can be, the answer to the fall in local housing allowance.

The poorest, the most vulnerable and those with the least bargaining power in a toughly competitive private rented market, among them families with hundreds of thousands of children between them, are forced to deal with evictions, with frequent moves, and with all the disruption that homelessness causes to education, employment and caring allowances.

As Policy in Practice demonstrated in an important research report yesterday, the broken housing market also drags a substantial number of higher earners and higher-rate taxpayers into means-tested benefits such as universal credit via the housing allowances system, which is a completely unintended consequence of the freeze.

Investment in social housing—a way of ensuring that those with the lowest incomes can enjoy secure and affordable homes—is by far the best solution to this crisis. A better managed private rented sector would also be good for tenants. We have been promised action on that for years but we are yet to see it. All of these things would be better for the public purse, too. In the meantime, freezes in the local housing allowance make no sense whatsoever and only serve to make a bad situation worse.

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[Mims Davies]

I hope to come that before I conclude my remarks. On the “no impact assessment” point made by the hon. Member for Arfon, we will publish an equalities analysis to the House of Commons Library, and I know the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) will keenly watch for that. On the recent question regarding shared rooms, there is an issue with the quality of data on room entitlements, so, if the hon. Member for Arfon writes to me, I will share with him further what I can best do to provide that.

[David Linden]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. I spent a bit of the afternoon reading the Government’s White Paper on health and disability, and have actually been very encouraged by one part of it that talks about the importance of transparency in decision-making processes in the DWP. Will the Minister confirm that there will be a change of culture now in the transparency and publication of some of these things, which, recently, some of us felt to be a bit murky?

[Mims Davies]

The hon. Gentleman points out the many questions he is asking about transparency, and I welcome that. Where policy is in development, we need to protect it, but, ultimately, if it needs to be transparent, I am very happy, where suitable, to share it.

On the point made by the right hon. Member for East Ham and others about temporary accommodation, it is, of course, an important way of ensuring that no family is without a roof over their heads. We are committed to reduce that need for temporary accommodation by preventing homelessness. We are investing £366 million into the homelessness prevention grant to support local authorities to prevent homelessness. The key point, and our main duty, is how best to support people so that they are not in that situation. I very much understand that, and I am keen to respond about how we are trying to do a little more about that.

It is important for Members to understand that the local housing allowance is not intended to cover all rents in all areas. In April 2020, in direct response to the covid-19 pandemic and the influx of new claimants because of the pandemic, we increased local housing rates to the 30th percentile of local market rates, costing nearly £1 billion and giving claimants on average an extra £600 in 2020-21. We have maintained that increase since then, ensuring that all those who benefited from the increase continue to do so.

I recognise that there are circumstances where extra help is needed, which is where we distribute the discretionary housing payments according to local need. Those payments play a critical role in providing support to the most vulnerable households in meeting their housing costs. Since 2010, we have provided nearly £1.6 billion in DHP funding to local authorities.

Of course, the competitive nature of the private rented market is driving up prices, alongside the annual review of LHA rates. I say to the hon. Member for Westminster North and the Chair of the Select Committee, the right hon. Member for East Ham, we are absolutely determined to work around the quality and supply challenges that are ultimately driving that. Overall, the DWP Budget measures today represent £3.5 billion over the next five years to boost workforce participation.

In conclusion—

Pensions (Extension of Automatic Enrolment) (No.2) Bill

David Linden Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 15th March 2023 Public Bill Committees

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

I beg to move amendment 1, in clause 1, page 1, line 3, leave out subsections (2) and (3) and insert—

“(2) In section 3(1)(a), for “22”, substitute “16”.

(3) In section 5(1A)(a), for “22”, substitute “16”.”

This amendment would reduce the age at which automatic enrolment begins to apply from 22 to 16.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 2, in clause 1, page 2, line 8, leave out “3(1A), 5(1C),”

This amendment is consequential on Amendment 1.

Amendment 3, in clause 1, page 2, line 10, leave out “3(1A), 5(1C) or”

This amendment is consequential on Amendment 1.

Amendment 4, in clause 1, page 2, line 14, leave out “3(1A), 5(1C) or”

This amendment is consequential on Amendment 1.

[David Linden]

It is, as always, a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I congratulate the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North on getting his Bill through Second Reading, and I certainly commit my party to supporting the principles of what he is seeking to achieve.

Automatic enrolment of pensions is not an issue on which I disagree with the hon. Gentleman. It is probably the only issue on which he and I agree these days—that says more about our political differences than anything else. In a similar vein, it would be remiss of me not to pay tribute to the hon. Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden), who initially introduced the Bill before he moved on to the dizzy heights of ministerial office at the Department for Transport.

It would be fair to say that the finer details of pensions policy do not generally get people’s excitement levels rising, although Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for Sevenoaks, the hon. Member for Reading East and I find this stuff quite fascinating and exciting, so we rub along quite nicely. Although there is not excitement around pensions policy, there is scope for more political consensus. I believe that is true of automatic enrolment, which has generally been a success for our society. My only real criticism of AE is that there has not been a big enough attempt to include low earners and those of all ages. The Bill certainly makes great strides towards tackling that inequity, and it should help with some of the structural problems, such as the gender pensions gap, which does not get as much political attention as the gender pay gap.

I have no great desire to detain the Committee for any length of time today. I appreciate that the action is very much elsewhere—of course, I am referring to the local housing allowance debate in Westminster Hall this afternoon. The Minister knows and, I believe, understands my long-standing interest in extending automatic enrolment to everyone over the age of 16, not 22 or even 18, and for it to kick in from the first pound earned. The latter is particularly important for women, especially those who work part time and have not previously hit the threshold.

These are probing amendments. I am sure the Committee will be glad to know that I do not intend to press them to a vote. If Members want to be elsewhere, fear not; I will not press them to a Division. Amendments 1 to 4 seek to amend clause 1 to ensure automatic enrolment in a pension kicks in at the earliest stage—the age at which tax kicks in. They would put on the face of the Bill that automatic enrolment begins to apply from the age of 16, not 18, as the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North proposes. Amendments 2, 3 and 4 are merely technical amendments and are consequential in nature, so I will focus on the thinking behind amendment 1.

We all recognise that there are changes to the labour market, and that people’s employment journeys are changing. Many of us left the Chamber during the Chancellor’s speech when he was just getting on to that section of the Budget. He recognises that there are changes to the labour market. Likewise, the Work and Pensions Committee, on which I sit, is currently undertaking an inquiry into the plan for jobs and is trying to better understand some of the changes behind working practices and economic inactivity.

None of us—not even the Chancellor—has a silver bullet suggestion for how we fix the issues relating to under-25s and over-55s not participating in the labour market at the level they were before the pandemic. Following our recent cross-party trip to the USA, I know that I and others on that Committee certainly see apprenticeships as just one example of how we can offer a different path into the labour market.

That brings me very much to my own experience. When exam results are sent out, we politicians rightly talk about there being no wrong path for people’s employment journeys. Some, after school, move straight into further and higher education. Increasingly—this is my personal belief—they do so sometimes disproportionately for our economy. I use this analogy to explain it to folk: if I have a leaking roof or a leaking pipe, I do not want a doctor or a lawyer—I want a plumber. Perhaps, as an economy, we need to pivot a bit more towards some of the trades.

For others, and I am an example, the path on leaving school is a vocational qualification at first, such as an apprenticeship. It is with that in mind that I have tabled the amendments. We know from House of Commons Library research that, at any one time in the UK, approximately 572,000 people are undertaking an apprenticeship, sometimes for up to four years with the same employer, and from age 16. The Bill before us would exclude those apprentices from inclusion in automatic enrolment. I do not know why that is, especially when they are likely to have four years of contributions.

In responding to these probing amendments, will the Minister outline why the Government’s preference is for age 18 and not 16? Have they undertaken a specific impact assessment to age 16? If so, will they publish it? I know that the Government have published an impact assessment for age 18. It came through within the last hour, and I have looked at it, but it seems to extend only to age 18, not 16.

We all agree that automatic enrolment has been a success and extending it further to younger cohorts is clearly a good thing. On that, we will not disagree, but I do not understand why the proposal is to stop at age 18, not extending it all the way to 16, bringing it in line with the point when income tax kicks in, and including all workers. I very much look forward to the Minister outlining the Government’s rationale, and explaining why they would have any difficulty accepting amendment 1 to what is an otherwise excellent Bill.

[Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I am grateful to you and to fellow Committee members for joining me today to scrutinise this important legislation, especially on Budget day.

The Bill before us contains two clauses. I am grateful to hon. Members for their support for the expansion of automatic enrolment into workplace pensions, a long-standing public policy objective that enjoys widespread support in this House and the other place, and therefore allowing this Bill to proceed to Committee, despite the lack of opportunity for a debate on Second Reading.

The Bill has a clear and straightforward purpose: to allow the Government to lower the age at which qualifying workers are automatically enrolled into a workplace pension scheme from 22 to 18, and to allow the Government to increase the overall amounts being saved by abolishing the lower earnings limit of the qualifying earnings band for workplace pension contributions.

I acknowledge the work of the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden)—my office buddy in this place—who championed a previous Bill in this Session with the same objectives and has handed the baton on to me, to carry forward improvements to retirement provisions for millions of our fellow citizens. He is a doughty champion for people up and down our country, as well as those of North West Durham. We are very lucky to have such a Member in the House.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Laura Trott)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher.

I have respect for the hon. Member for Glasgow East, as he knows. I listened carefully to what he said. He set out his personal story beforehand, and it is very powerful. I reiterate the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North and by the hon. Member for Reading East. This was looked at as part of the 2017 review, and there will be a statutory consultation to follow it up.

[David Linden]

I must say that in moving the amendment, I had rather hoped that more consideration and debate would be given to it. With the greatest respect to the hon. Member for Reading East, I am baffled that the Labour party has nothing to say. Perhaps that is consistent with its policy positions these days. It was not that long ago that hordes of young people at Glastonbury were chanting the name of the former Leader of the Opposition, the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn). This rather strikes me as a bit odd. I understand that the Government have not always been the kind of folk who tend to have lots of lovely things to say about the labour movement or young people, but I am particularly baffled that this Labour party has nothing to say, nor any explanation as to why it has arrived at this policy position, other than to say, “We agree with that lot.”

With that in mind, I have sought to stimulate debate—rather unsuccessfully—but I look forward to the Bill making progress, I hope. I do not disagree with the Bill itself, as I said, but when we come to later stages I hope that we can agree to improve automatic enrolment further and to give this a little more consideration than it has been given today. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[Jonathan Gullis]

Thank you for educating me on Committee procedure, Sir Christopher. I clearly need to read up a lot more in “Erskine May”. I look forward to learning it at a later date.

I put clearly on the record my thanks to the Pensions Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks. This gives me the opportunity to thank her for securing Government support for the Bill, which she has worked tirelessly behind the scenes to do since entering her office. She has been working to get it into Parliament and, I hope, implemented as quickly as possible to ensure this for young people, apprentices, in particular, two of whom I have in my constituency office. Jessica and Mya are 18, paid well and will now be able to start building up their pension, which is totally brilliant for them. I look forward to having ensured that they provide for themselves in future.

The automatic enrolment framework was introduced by the Pensions Act 2008 and was gradually brought in for all employers across the UK, starting in 2012. By January 2023, 10.8 million people had been automatically enrolled into a workplace pension and 2.2 million employers were complying with their duties, with about an additional £33 billion in real terms saved in 2021, compared with 2012.

In 2017, the Government carried out a year-long review of automatic enrolment, with a panel of independent, expert advisers, resulting in a report, “Maintaining the momentum”, which set out recommendations to expand the workplace pensions framework. The proposed measures were widely supported by parliamentarians, stakeholders—including those representing employers and workers—and of course the pensions industry. The Bill is the first crucial step in implementing those recommendations, in that it will provide the necessary legislative powers. Helping people to save for later life should be one of the Government’s key priorities, particularly as the Bill will have a significant impact on the delivery of long-term investment to areas outside metropolitan London where there are fewer young people in part-time jobs.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jonathan Gullis]

May I put on record my thanks to you, Sir Christopher, and to everyone who has contributed to this short, constructive debate? I thank all Members who agreed to serve on the Committee, in particular the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West, who has become a good friend in the House and a done a lot on pensions. Also, he may not want to admit it, but the hon. Member for Glasgow East and I are good friends, but I am sure that he will not put that on any endorsement leaflets any time soon.

[David Linden]

On a point of order, I am sure that the hon. Gentleman does not wish to mislead the Committee inadvertently. We cannot have that on the record; my constituents will deselect me.

[Jonathan Gullis]

I look forward to doing a podcast with the hon. Gentleman very soon to discuss all the great work that he does in the House as a SNP Member.

The Bill makes certain that people in areas such as Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke, where nearly one in four people are not auto-enrolled in a pension, will have more financial security in the long term. It will simplify the process to mean that for just a few pounds a week, and through the power of compound interest, people could be £30,000 better off in retirement. That is absolutely transformative, which is why the Bill is critical.

I also thank the hon. Member for Reading East, whom I hugely admire in the House. I assure him that I too will keep the Government’s feet to the fire from the Government Benches so that we get an actual implementation date, because I do not like references to wishy-washy mid-2020s. I want to see a date firmly in writing. I am delighted that the consultation will take place in the autumn and I look forward then to hearing about a firm date.

I want to finish by again thanking my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham—he deserves another shout-out—for his support throughout the passage of the Bill and for putting the case forward with Onward, a fantastic think-tank, which has done a lot of work with him to put the argument. I am delighted and proud that he was very kind in asking me to carry on his great work as he ascended to higher office and as I descended at the same time. I thank the Minister for getting the Bill supported by the Government, and for how she has worked with me, officials and obviously the Treasury, twisting arms wherever necessary to get the Bill over the line and, I hope, on the statute book.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Question proposed, That the Chair do report the Bill to the House.

[David Linden]

On a point of order, Sir Christopher. I thank you for chairing the proceedings in Committee and pay tribute to the Clerk, Chris Wilson, for his help in drafting amendments. I look forward to the Bill proceeding to the other House.