Women’s State Pension Age: Financial Redress
Ellie Chowns Excerpts(2 days, 9 hours ago)
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Rebecca Long Bailey
The hon. Lady has been a fantastic campaigner for her constituents during her time in this House. I say in response that this issue unites the House; we are all angry about the injustice that these women have faced, and we want the Government to take action. Spanning various Governments and various Administrations, these women have had to fight relentlessly just for what they are owed, and that is not acceptable. I have no doubt that there are numerous colleagues at Cabinet level who agree with the women’s cause. They may be struggling to find options and answers, and that is what we are here today to provide. I hope that they are listened to and acted on, because injustice is injustice. If we are saying that victims of one injustice can be compensated by the Government, but that victims of another are not so deserving, we are travelling down a very dangerous path. There are options to cover the cost and ensure that there is no heavy administrative burden, and I will give a few of them.
The ombudsman’s guidance on financial remedy sets out its suggestion at level four on the severity of injustice scale, and it estimates that such remedy would involve public spending of between £3.5 billion and £10.5 billion. Campaigners have suggested that an earlier stage—level five—was under consideration, and that would cost between £10 billion and £31 billion. In both cases, as Lord Bryn Davies of Brixton has highlighted, that recommendation and, indeed, any other scheme would not preclude tapering the amount paid, which would bring down costs considerably.
WASPI and its sister campaigns suggest a bell curve model. They have highlighted the fact that other large compensation schemes for DWP maladministration have been viable, and proposed that any financial remedy could allocate the most compensation to those who have had the shortest notice of the longest delay to their state pension age—in other words, supporting those most heavily impacted in a bell curve model. They state that redress must be speedy, simple and sensitive, and they want to avoid legal action. They have asked the Government to enter into talks to address this very issue.
The WASPI group proposes that this remedy could take the form of a one-off payment that fairly takes that into account, but that level four should not be a ceiling, given that not all circumstances are identical to the six sample claimants. WASPI Scotland has also highlighted how a scheme could be operated relatively easily, using DWP records of dates of birth or national insurance prefixes, on either an opt-in or an opt-out basis. That information is readily available and would not require complex application systems or the processing of such applications.
Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)
The hon. Lady is making an extremely powerful case about this long-standing injustice. As she has pointed out, the WASPI campaigners are making really constructive suggestions to resolve the matter, offering to reach out and sit around the table with the Government. Does she share my frustration that the Government are refusing to do so, effectively forcing a court process, which is just leading to longer and longer delays, when there is such a clear injustice and an unprecedented rejection of the PHSO’s recommendation.
Rebecca Long Bailey
The hon. Lady is right. She, too, is a fantastic advocate for the women in her constituency. These women should not be forced to go through lengthy court battles, and the Government must recognise the cost of having to undertake those court battles versus the amount that they would actually pay through a redress scheme. Ultimately, the court is likely to find in favour of these women based on the facts that we have been presented with as parliamentarians. Indeed, CEDAWinLAW and 1950s Women of Wales both strongly support a mediation route towards redress, via an early neutral evaluation of groups’ asks towards mediation with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions via mediators. More broadly, they raise concerns that discrimination needs to be factored into any redress mechanism, stating that the roll-out of state pension ages potentially conflicts with the UN convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women—CEDAW—treaty, which the UK signed in 1981. As such, the Government should implement a temporary special measure to guarantee an adequate, non-discriminatory pension.
Disabled People in Poverty
Ellie Chowns Excerpts(2 weeks, 4 days ago)
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Oliver Ryan (Burnley) (Ind)
Let us say it straight: disabled people have been let down by 14 years of Tory Government. The number of disabled people in working households living in poverty doubled under the Tories’ watch, to 1.3 million people last year and the pay gap for disabled people is higher now at 13% than it was a decade ago.
I will touch briefly on the upcoming PIP reforms—I did have a bigger speech planned, but we are short on time. An unsustainable welfare system, one that does not enjoy public support or give disabled people enough good support, does disabled people no favours. What does do them a favour is scrapping the work capability assessment and providing extra funding to get people into to work. To have no answer to the additional 1,000 people a day who are currently going into the PIP system is to keep one’s head in the sand and to provide no real answers to the failure of the current system, which is not flexible or supportive enough.
Oliver Ryan
I will not give way. The principle of the social contract of the welfare state is at stake, and this Government are defending it.
The Minister for Employment (Alison McGovern)
It is a pleasure, as ever, to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Neil Duncan-Jordan) for securing this important debate. It has been a good debate. I would normally run through all the people who have spoken, but there have been so many—I will try to cover some of the points that have been raised. However, I begin by saying that the level of poverty among disabled people demands our attention and action, and it is right that we discuss it today.
Disabled people, like everybody else, have the right to dignity, the right to work and the right to have power, choice and control over their lives. When someone is in poverty, regardless of whether they are disabled, they are robbed of the opportunity to choose how to live their own life, which is why the situation we face today is so very shameful. When the Tories left office, 14 million people were in poverty, including 6.3 million people living in households in which someone is disabled—enough to fill Wembley stadium 70 times over, and more than the population of Scotland. That is a moral, social and economic failure on a colossal scale, and this Government have already taken urgent action to tackle it by delivering our plan for change, putting more money in people’s pockets and raising living standards.
Some of the specific anti-poverty measures in last week’s spending review are really important. For the first time, we have taken a long-term approach to the household support fund so that local authorities can properly plan, and we are turning the fund into a crisis and resilience fund so that we can properly deal with the issues that come up from time to time when a crisis tips somebody into long-term poverty.
Last autumn, we introduced a fair repayment rate for universal credit by reducing the maximum amount that can be taken from people’s benefits to pay for what they owe from 25% to 15%, meaning that 1.2 million of the poorest households will keep an average of £420 more in universal credit. As my dad used to say, “Out of debt, out of danger.”
Ellie Chowns
Today the Minister has heard many MPs, representing their constituents, express their huge concern about the effects of the PIP cuts on disabled members of our communities. She says that she cares about disabled people in poverty and about dignity. Why are her Government refusing to raise funds through a wealth tax so that our disabled constituents can have the support they need to live full and supported lives?
Alison McGovern
I thank the hon. Lady for her comment. I do not just say that I care about poverty; I have spent nearly a year working on a child poverty strategy to repair the damage the Tory Government did to this country. We will bring forward proposals as soon as we can to deal with the poverty crisis—I have mentioned several of them already.
The hon. Lady asks about a wealth tax. We have put VAT on private schools and private jets. We have removed exemptions from inheritance tax, which is a wealth tax. We have doubled stamp duty, which is a wealth tax. We are increasing capital gains tax and abolishing non-dom status, which meant that wealthy people could escape the taxes they owe. I do not accept that we have not taken steps to raise money through taxes so that we can pay for the public services this country needs so that working-class people can escape poverty. That is what this Government have done. [Interruption.] I will continue before I lose my temper.
We are expanding free school meals in England to all children with a parent receiving universal credit, lifting 100,000 children out of poverty by the end of the Parliament, and that is on top of our roll-out of free breakfast clubs. As I just mentioned, our child poverty strategy, on which Ministers right across Government have been working extremely hard, will reduce costs, support families with better local services and increase incomes, because we know that is the best way to tackle poverty.
As I mentioned, the extra money we are collecting through taxation will help to rebuild our NHS, with an extra £29 billion a year for the day-to-day running of our health service, so that disabled people can get the healthcare they need. We are also extending the £3 national bus fare cap, helping people to maintain their independence.
I want to respond to some of the points that Members have raised, particularly on the PIP review, which is already under way. I know that Members will be involved in that work but, just to be clear, it is already happening.
Winter Fuel Payment
Ellie Chowns Excerpts(3 weeks, 5 days ago)
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Torsten Bell
I thank my hon. Friend for her question, and we always have interesting conversations. The Minister for Social Security and Disability will have heard the point she made. I gently say that the number of people receiving personal independence payments is forecast to continue to grow in every single one of the years ahead. That is after changes were set out by this Government. That important point sometimes gets lost in this debate.
Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)
I welcome the fact that the Government are finally listening to the public and doing a U-turn on winter fuel payments, which is long overdue. However, in a truly strategic approach to tackling fuel poverty, we would make sure that every home could be heated affordably and was well insulated. Will the Government commit to investing in the national asset that is our housing stock, and to properly funding the warm homes programme, so that no pensioner, no child—nobody—is condemned to fuel poverty in a cold home?
Torsten Bell
Yes, that is exactly what we are doing, and we are funding that, because this Government know that we need to make difficult decisions, and will make them, so that we can deliver priorities such as investment in better housing stock.
Oral Answers to Questions
Ellie Chowns Excerpts(6 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Alison McGovern
The statistics my hon. Friend has read out are, I am sorry to say, consistent with those of the Trussell Trust, which distributed 61,000 emergency food parcels in 2010. Last year, the figure was 3.1 million. That is not acceptable, which is why we have committed to tripling investment in breakfast clubs to over £30 million and—as I have said—introduce our fair repayment rate for deductions from universal credit, because if a person is out of debt, they are out of danger. We are increasing the national living wage to £12.21 an hour from next April, which will boost the pay of 3 million workers. That is also why the child poverty taskforce is working very hard.
Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)
Benefits such as pension credit and disability living allowance are important in assisting people to stay out of poverty, but delays in processing applications push people into poverty. One constituent of mine is an 82-year-old gentleman who has spent more than 16 weeks waiting for his application to be processed, and another is the mother of a disabled child who has waited more than 18 weeks and is now being told that it will take an extra 25 weeks for a mandatory reconsideration. What steps is the Minister taking to reduce delays in processing applications for pension credit and other state support, in order to help lift households out of poverty?
Alison McGovern
I thank the hon. Lady for the question that she rightly puts to this House. We have increased the number of staff working on pension credit by over 500, and are working very quickly to deal with those backlogs and delays. As she says, we need to get through those backlogs.