Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Linden and Will Quince

Monday 28th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Will Quince]

Our expectation is that, as the vaccine is widely rolled out, restrictions will be lifted and our economy will reopen over the next few months. Therefore, the Government’s focus will rightly shift towards supporting people’s incomes by helping them back into work and to increase their earnings through progression as part of our comprehensive plan for jobs. We have consistently shown throughout the crisis that we will continue to assess how best to support individuals and businesses as the situation develops.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

A Joseph Rowntree Foundation report stated that before the pandemic over half of working-age people receiving income-related benefits were already below the poverty line. We are at a critical juncture. This Tory Government can carry out one of the biggest cuts to benefits in decades, bringing the basic level of benefits back to early-1990s levels, or they can provide substantial long-term support to people, so which will it be?

[Will Quince]

As I said, our expectation is that as the vaccine roll-out gathers pace, as restrictions are eased, as our economy opens up and as our labour market starts to grow again over the next few months, it is absolutely right that our focus shifts towards supporting and empowering people back into work, because we know—all the evidence shows us—that work is the best route of poverty. We will do that through our £30 billion comprehensive plan for jobs.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Linden and Will Quince

Monday 17th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Will Quince]

The opposite is in fact the case. Many of those with a disability will be better off on universal credit, and it is important, as the hon. Gentleman suggests, that they go on a benefits calculator—one of the independent benefits calculators on gov.uk—and check their eligibility. Labour Members—and the hon. Gentleman is no exception —regularly come to this House and ask for many billions of pounds more to be spent on benefits after the pandemic. Let us be clear: that is exactly what the hon. Gentleman is asking for when he refers to the universal credit uplift. I have to say that we fundamentally disagree with Labour’s approach. It is an approach that under the last Labour Government left a generation trapped on benefits and in poverty, incentivised not to work, and left children growing up in workless households, and we know what that meant for their life chances. Work is the best route out of poverty, and that is why we have put jobs and supporting people into work at the heart of everything we do. The difference could not be clearer: Labour’s focus is on billions of pounds more on benefits and the Government’s focus is on jobs, jobs, jobs.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

It is not just the SNP, the Work and Pensions Committee and a range of stakeholders who are urging the UK Government to make the £20 uplift permanent, but 100 Conservative MPs in the Tory Reform Group and the one nation caucus. Is the Minister really saying that he disagrees with 100 of his own MPs who say it would be wrong to slash £1,000 a year from household budgets just as we are coming out of the teeth of this pandemic?

[Will Quince]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question and welcome him to his place. Throughout this pandemic, this Government have consistently stepped up to support the lowest-paid, poorest and most vulnerable in our society. During the pandemic, the focus has rightly been on ensuring that people facing the most financial disruption got the support that they needed as quickly as possible, but all evidence suggests that work is the best route out of poverty. We had a jobs miracle before the pandemic, and with the help of our £30 billion plan for jobs, the support of business and creating the right environment, we will do so again. That is exactly why we shift our focus to supporting people back into work and to progress in work. We are doing that with the extra 13,500 work coaches in our jobcentres up and down the country and our £30 billion comprehensive plan for jobs.

Social Security

Debate between David Linden and Will Quince

Tuesday 9th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Will Quince)]

I beg to move,

That the draft Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2021, which was laid before this House on 18 January, be approved.

There is no question but that this has been a challenging time, and the coronavirus outbreak has caused financial hardship and disruption for many across our country. That is why, since the start of the pandemic, we have mobilised our welfare system like never before to provide a comprehensive package of support worth over £7 billion, providing an essential safety net for those who need it.

My Department has risen to the challenge, utilising the speed and agility of the universal credit system to deal with the huge increase in people needing our support. There is little doubt that had we relied on the legacy benefit system, we would have seen queues down the streets outside our jobcentres and long delays, leaving families facing financial disruption without support. Crucially, through our universal credit system, we have managed to pay over 90% of new claimants on time and in full.

That has meant that universal credit and the Government’s investment in the welfare safety net have been there to help catch many of those affected by the pandemic. That has been hugely important for the 3 million more people who have made a benefit claim since March last year. I think it is right once again to publicly thank the thousands of work coaches in jobcentres up and down our country, who have responded at speed and scale to ensure that we have supported people in their hour of need. Now they are working tirelessly to deliver our plan for jobs.

As the House knows, the Chancellor introduced the £20 per week uplift to universal credit and working tax credit as a temporary measure in March 2020 to support those facing the most financial disruption. That additional support increased the universal credit and working tax credit standard allowances by up to £1,040 for a year.

I understand that that subject is the elephant in the room; I know that the House is eager to know about the future of the £20 uplift to universal credit. The uplift sat, and continues to sit, outside today’s annual uprating order and is therefore not directly relevant to today’s proceedings, but I have to say that the Labour party is simply wrong in its use of emotive language that the Government plan to cut universal credit in April. In fact, the only talk of cutting universal credit in April has come from the Opposition parties. I gently say to them that they should be very careful with their use of emotive language and what they say in this House, because scaremongering in this House has real-world consequences, which the Department sees every day in claimant behaviour.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

The Minister will be aware of the cross-party Select Committee on Work and Pensions report published this morning, which speaks of the need to extend and make permanent the universal credit payment. Does he think that his Conservative colleagues on the Committee who authored that report are scaremongering when they talk about the damage that would happen as a result of not continuing that past April?

Social Security Claimant Deaths

Debate between David Linden and Will Quince

Thursday 4th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Will Quince]

In cases of this nature, our inquiries and investigations nearly always go alongside a coroner’s investigation. So it is important to say that there is already that independent investigation, and we do work very closely with coroners and supply information as required by them.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

When we consider the sensitive issue of death by suicide of particular claimants, I want to press the Minister specifically on the issue of assessments being carried out inappropriately. For example, if someone presents for an assessment with a mental health issue, quite often they find that they are being assessed by a physiotherapist. What actions are the Government taking to ensure that assessments are done properly, by those with relevant qualifications?

Parental Bereavement (Leave and Pay) Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between David Linden and Will Quince

Wednesday 7th February 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Will Quince]

I place on record my huge thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton. It is actually a bit of a surprise that the Government support my amendment, which I tabled relatively speculatively because there was a debate to be had. However, the fact that the Government have accepted the argument will be of huge benefit to the parents of the circa 3,000 children who are stillborn every year in this country. I hope that that number will go down year on year; the all-party group on baby loss is certainly working on that. I thank the Minister for his support and the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran for her amendments, which are in a similar vein to mine and would have largely the same effect. We are all on the same page, so I thank all hon. Members for their cross-party support.

Amendment 25 agreed to.

Amendments made: 26, in schedule, page 4, leave out lines 29 to 35 and insert—

“80EE Application in relation to stillbirths

In this Chapter—

(a) references to a child include a child stillborn after twenty-four weeks of pregnancy, and

(b) references to the death of a child are to be read, in relation to a stillborn child, as references to the birth of the child.”

This amendment extends the provisions about parental bereavement leave to bereaved parents of stillborn children.

Amendment 27, in schedule, page 4, line 37, leave out “, 80EE”.—(Will Quince.)

This amendment is consequential on Amendment 26.

[David Linden]

I beg to move amendment 4, in schedule, page 5, leave out lines 10 to 12.

This amendment would remove the condition that an employee needs to be with an employer for a continuous period of 26 weeks in order to receive parental bereavement pay.