Oral Answers to Questions

David Ward Excerpts

Monday 14th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

I can absolutely assure the hon. Lady that we are looking in great detail at the impact of all our DLA measures. I have been to talk to residents in care homes and their family members, and what I found was an array of ways in which disability living allowance is used. All hon. Members will want to ensure that the most vulnerable members of our society are left not with a benefits system that was designed for people living in family home settings, but with one designed for how people are living now and for their mobility needs.

[Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD)]

Many disabled people in residential care use the mobility component of DLA to ensure that they remain part of their local and wider communities. It was quite disappointing to hear a comparison drawn recently between those in residential care and those in hospital, many of whom are totally immobile, albeit for only a short period. Does the Minister agree that that was an unrealistic comparison, and can she say what assessment has been made of the mobility requirements of disabled people in residential care as compared with the requirements of those in hospital?

[Maria Miller]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: people living in care homes have distinct mobility needs, and having gone out and spoken to residents, I have seen that at first hand. We need to ensure that we have a system that really meets those needs, and is not simply a sticking plaster for lots of other issues that may be forthcoming in the care homes sector. As with so many aspects of DLA, we are dealing with a benefit that is rooted in the past, not in the way people think about disability issues today. I hope that I can work with him on any examples from his constituency of how we can make it work better.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Ward Excerpts

Monday 22nd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I see volunteering as extremely important, particularly in helping those who have been on sickness benefits or incapacity benefit in the long term to make the step into work. I can assure my hon. Friend that we will give Work programme providers maximum flexibility to use volunteering as one of many vehicles to help people get into employment.

[Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD)]

18. What assessment he has made of the likely effects of his proposed reductions in housing benefit entitlement on jobseeker’s allowance claimants who have been unable to find work for more than 12 months.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)]

The detailed design of the measure is still being developed and we are carefully considering its impact. We will publish a full impact assessment to accompany the relevant legislation when it is introduced in Parliament.

[Mr Ward]

The proposal is obviously designed as a work incentive measure, but it could be argued that any claimant affected will represent a failure of the measure to get people back into work. What steps is the Minister taking to ensure that anyone who is affected is genuinely unwilling to find work?

[Steve Webb]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. The key is to try to stop people being unemployed for 12 months. He will be aware that 90% of those who come on to JSA flow off before the end of 12 months. My right hon. Friend the Minister of State is bringing forward the Work programme, which will help the most hard-to-help groups before the end of the 12-month period to give them the maximum chance of not being in that position in the first place, which is our priority.

Capital Gains Tax (Rates)

David Ward Excerpts

Monday 28th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I am happy to consider a race impact assessment—that is reasonable—and if the right hon. Gentleman wants to come and talk to me, my door is open.

We believe that there is enough housing in London. Of course, I did not say that this was going to be easy. The point is that far too many people in houses in central London are paid significant sums—over £100,000 in some cases. That is unsustainable. As much as I like the right hon. Gentleman—he is a fellow Tottenham supporter—I have to say to him that he knows as well as I do that these are tough choices, but they are ones that we believe that we can manage. We have tripled the discretionary fund to allow for difficult cases, and I suspect that a significant amount of that will be used in London because the nature of London means that there will be issues. We will get through this, and I guarantee that we will keep the situation under review. My offer to the right hon. Gentleman still stands.

[Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD)]

The Chancellor ended his Budget speech by saying that it

“laid the foundations for a more prosperous future. The richest paying the most and the vulnerable protected: that is our approach.”—[Official Report, 22 June 2010; Vol. 512, c. 180.]

If the actuality falls out of line with the intention, will measures be brought forward to bring it back into line?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

My hon. Friend has to recognise that one needs to see the Budget in the round, over the lifetime of this Parliament and in terms of reform. What I want to do is introduce reforms that focus benefit money—the money that we spend—hugely on the poorest in society. That must be our priority. Right now, the benefit system that we inherited is out of kilter, and has sucked in too many people on higher incomes, and has left too many people on low incomes desperately looking for work, but unable to find it. The answer to my hon. Friend’s question is that we are absolutely—and I am, too—determined to reform the system, so that the poorest benefit the most, and we make sure that they receive assistance to change their lives and become more profitable in all that they do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Glenda Jackson]

It is neither progressive nor fair. What is depressing about the path that the coalition Government have gone down is that they have learned absolutely nothing from the lessons of history. This is always the case: it is always the poorest who pay the most; their health suffers, they live in the worst possible housing, and their job opportunities are nil. I love the Secretary of State’s wonderful idea that they can move out of their social housing to another part of the country and find a job. This is coming from a Government who have already destroyed the regional development agencies. Sheffield Forgemasters has also been mentioned. There is absolutely nothing in the Budget that will help to create employment. One of the worst aspects of the Budget is that it will slash the confidence of those people who need it the most in order to get out there and compete in an ever-shrinking jobs market.

[Mr Ward]

Does the hon. Lady believe that it was a question of 30 pieces of silver when Clem Attlee, Herbert Morrison, Hugh Dalton and Ernest Bevin joined a coalition Government at a time of national disaster?

[Glenda Jackson]

This is a kind of psychobabble. When we get to the age of 18 and become adults, we really cannot blame everything on our parents, and, at his age, the hon. Gentleman really should not be blaming all those grandparents and great-grandparents for anything. The Liberal Democrats made their choices: they campaigned and they spent money on posters that warned of the VAT bombshell, but they have now signed up for it.

I want to go back to my point that it is always the poorest who pay the most. It will not be the richest who will feel the pain of the VAT increase; it will be the poorest. We have only to go round the supermarkets to see the kind of changes that are being brought into play. The special purchases of particular products that are cheaper than the branded product—or even, in some instances, than the supermarket’s own product—will be the products that the poorest people will have to buy.