Oral Answers to Questions
Emma Hardy Excerpts(4 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Will Quince
I would be very happy to meet the hon. Lady to receive more details about that individual case, but first let me apologise, because that should not have happened. In effect, Ministers had to make decisions about the redeployment of staff in order to process the unprecedented number of claims, which went up from 2.2 million to 5.7 million claims. That meant deploying staff away from counter-fraud and into the processing of claims, but I am pleased to say that that has now changed and more staff are going back into fraud. We have to take fraud incredibly seriously, because it is individuals such as the hon. Lady’s constituent who are often the target of serious organised crime.
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mims Davies) [V]
The latest official statistics show the level of employment at 32.6 million. We recognise that there are difficult times ahead, but our ambitious £30 billion plan for jobs will support people during this next phase of our recovery as we push to build back better and greener. We are working with other Government Departments, external organisations and our local partners to support people into work, to react to changes in local labour markets and to work with our local Jobcentre Plus provision to help communities to thrive.
Emma Hardy
When one of my constituents, who was working as a cleaner, was recently furloughed, she was recommended to move to universal credit and away from working tax credit. I wrote to the Department on 7 July and again on 7 August. I have just had a reply, on 12 October, telling me that because my constituent earned £666.21 in a month, she was entitled to nothing whatsoever from universal credit. Not only that, but she had to repay the advance loan that she had had at the beginning. This system is failing her, and she is in a desperate situation. When will the Government look at allowing people to return to working tax credit and move away from this unfair system of universal credit?
Mims Davies
I thank the hon. Lady for raising what sounds like a concerning situation for that family. We recognise that we are currently in an unusual and challenging economic period, and I am sure that the Minister for welfare delivery, the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince), will have taken note of that particular case. I am sure we will be able to look at that once again, and I thank the hon. Lady for raising the matter.
Covid-19: DWP Update
Emma Hardy Excerpts(4 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Dr Coffey
Several of those groups of people who are seeking support may well be able to get support through universal credit. I am conscious that the design of the furlough scheme and the self-employed scheme does not address every single worker or self-employed person in this country. I know that the Treasury worked at pace to establish those schemes, and they do cover the vast majority of people who are now seeking support.
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab) [V]
Last week, I was contacted by a constituent who has a heart condition. He is also immobile because of a problem with his spine, and he has had a liver transplant. He applied for personal independence payments in October 2019 and has still not had a reply. When I contacted the DWP, I was told that, because of covid-19, there would be delays in responding to me, but that application was from October. I am sure the Secretary of State agrees that that is unacceptable, so what is she going to do to ensure that benefits are processed in a reasonable timeframe?
Dr Coffey
In the light of what has been happening, we have tried to streamline the process. I do not know the details of the individual case to which the hon. Lady refers, and I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work would be happy to look into that situation. I do not know whether no assessment had been made at all or whether the outcome was being contested. I want to make sure that we are not ignoring situations and that new claims are still being processed, but I accept that there may be people we need to follow up on, and I would be happy for my hon. Friend to do that on the hon. Lady’s behalf.
Oral Answers to Questions
Emma Hardy Excerpts(4 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Justin Tomlinson
Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service has developed a new digital system, and it is increasing the number of judges. This goes hand in hand with our changes to the mandatory reconsideration stage whereby we are proactively contacting claimants who are seeking to appeal their decision to see whether we can help to identify additional written or oral evidence to correct the decision at that stage, reducing the number of claimants who then need to enter the independent appeal process.
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
As the Minister will be aware, PIP assessments can be incredibly stressful and traumatic for claimants. That is why I am working with Disabled People Against Cuts to provide recording equipment for anyone living in Hull West and Hessle who is going for an assessment. But it should not be down to individual MPs to provide that. So will the Minister look at providing recording equipment for every PIP assessment that takes place right across the country to improve transparency and fairness?
Justin Tomlinson
The hon. Member has raised a very fair point. We have been piloting both audio and video recording of assessments. That pilot will be coming to a close soon. I certainly have a huge amount of sympathy around making sure that there is provision in place for audio recording for claimants.
Endometriosis Workplace Support
Emma Hardy Excerpts(5 years, 1 month ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
I thank the right hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke) for securing the debate. I have campaigned on endometriosis ever since a constituent came to me and explained the long wait she had had, the difficulties she had faced, and the pain she had been suffering. I will take one moment to congratulate her because she has just had a baby, having previously been told that she was possibly infertile, so huge congratulations to her and her family.
I am delighted that endometriosis is now in the education curriculum and part of sex and relationships education. I met the Minister for School Standards and he agreed to include it, so that is great news. In the short time I have available I want to focus on my list of asks for the Minister. One ask is about people with endometriosis having the statutory support that they need and not facing discrimination. Such support includes personal independence payment and other disability allowances. Guidance on endometriosis and its impact on work should be clear so that those assessing an individual’s application understand the debilitating impact that endometriosis can have on a person’s life. I am slightly concerned that when people who have a severe form of endometriosis go for a PIP assessment, they are not taken seriously and the severity of what they suffer is not taken into account.
We must ensure that those with the disease have access to statutory sick pay as well. The current definition and criteria for statutory sick pay fails to recognise long-term conditions such as endometriosis, and statutory sick pay is available only to an employee for a linked period of sickness to a maximum of three years, which penalises people who have chronic long-term conditions such as endometriosis where the symptoms can be felt for life. Those with endometriosis need to be supported through both guidance to employers and statutory sick pay. It must be recognised that chronic conditions may result in intermittent rather than continual symptoms. Again, the guidance does not seem to match the particular circumstances of endometriosis.
I also want to ask the Minister to work with Ministers in the Department of Health and Social Care to ensure that those with endometriosis have access to the right support at the right time, in order to limit the amount of time they need off. I do not feel that the NHS has woken up to the scale of endometriosis, and services do not appear to be planned to support all those who need it. It needs to be taken seriously by commissioning services.
My final ask is that the Department of Health and Social Care looks at supporting the research that has been done at the University of Hull, which has looked at developing biomarkers for endometriosis to reduce the amount of time that it takes to diagnose. They need only £10,000 in seed funding, which would make a huge difference.
I have much more to say, but in the time remaining I will simply echo what many other Members have said: it is time to take women’s health seriously. Will the Department for Education, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department of Health and Social Care work together to deliver a difference for the many women who suffer?
Oral Answers to Questions
Emma Hardy Excerpts(5 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Dr Coffey
The right hon. Gentleman will know that we are still in the middle of a negotiation for how we leave the European Union at the end of the month. It is important to stress that we have decided on a three-year rise unilaterally. We encourage other European Union countries to do exactly the same and we will continue to support those who have relied on UK pensions.
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
People with a terminal illness want the choice of whether to work or not, and they should expect help and support from their employer. Does the Minister support the TUC’s Dying to Work campaign, which asks businesses to sign up and promise not to sack employees who have a terminal illness, and will she encourage more businesses to sign it?
Justin Tomlinson
The TUC has done really good work here. We are working with employers to highlight the importance of making those sorts of changes, and this is an area where I am sure there would be cross-party support.
Oral Answers to Questions
Emma Hardy Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
I am sure the Minister will agree that we want all our pupils to stay in full-time education until they are 18, including those with special needs and disabilities. However, at 16 these pupils face the change of moving from disability living allowance to personal independence payment. That is out of step with changes faced by other children. For example, other children aged 16 in full-time education are able to continue to claim free prescriptions, free eye tests and free dental checks, but children with special needs and disabilities have to face this change in benefits at 16. This is extremely stressful—it is stressful enough for these children to be going on to college, let alone having to change benefits. Will the Minister look at changing that, so that children in full-time education at 16 do not change benefits until they finish?
Justin Tomlinson
I thank the hon. Lady for raising that important point. I recognise the points that she made, but it is a balance. The decision to do this has been in place for a long time, to allow for everything in be in place for when they get to 18, but I am happy to meet her to discuss this further.
Inequality and Social Mobility
Emma Hardy Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
In thinking about the best way to present my argument in this debate, I decided on the idea of doing a “compare and contrast” by talking about someone who matters significantly to me—in fact, one of the people who has had the greatest influence on my life. I would like to take a bit of time to tell you about my grandma—my nan—who on Saturday turned 90 years old. She is an incredible woman who benefited from the radical changes that the 1945 Labour Government brought about. She is a proud Labour supporter. In fact, family legend has it that her father helped to form the Labour party in the very beginning. She used to tell me stories about going around knocking on her neighbours’ doors for, as she put it, “the Labour”, to collect their subs—the money for their membership.
My nan benefited from having a secure house. She was moved into council housing when the new towns were being built. She told me how the family moved in with orange boxes because they did not have any money for furniture, and that is what they used until they were able to buy some. When I was younger, she gave me the best advice ever on how to deal with double-glazing salesman—“If they ring you up or knock on your door, Emma, tell ’em you’re from the council and there’s no point bothering until they go down the council office.” That is great advice if you ever get anyone trying to sell you anything on the phone. She benefited from secure jobs. She believed in education. My mum went off to higher education, which was free and she got a grant to do it. She went on to become a teacher, and met my dad. That is how I have ended up with a southern grandmother and a northern grandmother, and my mum becoming an honorary northerner and moving up to Hull.
Shortly after my mum had moved out, my nan became a single parent when her husband left her. She ended up living on benefits and raising more than two children—a situation, had it happened right now, she would be penalised for, because she had five children, not only two. But she did not live in poverty at that time, even though she was on benefits, and she still worked. She worked as a school dinner lady and as a cleaner. She worked on assembly lines in a factory, and as a sales assistant as well. All the time, she was able, through the benefits system and the safety net that was there, to bring up her children and not to live in poverty at the same time, despite earning what would now constitute the minimum wage.
All my aunts and uncles—my mum is one of five—have gone on to become successful. They have nine grandchildren, and I think we are on about eight great-grandchildren already—the family is growing. They have all gone on to become successful individuals. They were not rich, but they were not poor either. When my nan suffered from cancer and had to have an operation to recover from it, the operation left her disabled, but she did not face a PIP assessment—a work capability test. The doctor’s note was enough to say that she was not well enough to work and that she therefore had to take early retirement. Again, she did not live in poverty. She was treated with respect; she was not humiliated. She benefited from community education when she found herself—obviously, after having cancer and becoming disabled—on her own a bit. She used to go to the community education centre and did beautiful watercolours. She used to go to see her friends down there and was able to socialise, all for free, all provided by the state. She was a second world war survivor and she is still surviving now. She is still opinionated and she is still brilliant. She will still argue with anyone who knocks on the door if they are not from the Labour party.
The promise that the state gave my nan and her generation—“You work hard, and when you need it we’ll look after you”—was kept. That promise is now broken. Every single one of us in this place underestimates at our peril the way that this is breaking down the fabric of our society and the deep unrest that is out there. We can see it in the rise of populism and the far right across Europe, as people move away from centre parties because we are no longer giving them the answers that we used to.
I ask each and every one of us here to give back that promise to people like my nan who work hard and to whom, then, through no fault of their own, things happen—life happens—and they need help from the state. I want to give back that promise and say, “When you need that, here you go.” In return, my nan has raised five kids, with nine grandchildren, eight great-grandchildren and more on the way. We will all be there to celebrate her 90th birthday.
In my final minute, I would like to thank my nana and every other nana out there who instils in their children, their grandchildren and their great-grandchildren those values and respect for the elderly. I want to promise every nana out there and my nana that, for as long as I am here, I will fight with the Labour party for a Labour Government who give people like my nana the respect and dignity that everybody deserves.
Nadhim Zahawi
If I have time at the end, I will happily take an intervention.
We welcome the commission’s thorough analysis and its efforts to promote social mobility and social justice across the United Kingdom, and we have therefore awarded it £2 million to undertake further work on that agenda. Indeed, despite some claims to the contrary, social justice is already an intrinsic part of the commission’s role. It is already concerned to help the most disadvantaged in society and to ensure that someone’s background does not determine future chances in life.
This Government share the view that everyone should have the chance to fulfil their potential. That is why we are taking action across the whole Government in order to make real progress.
Nadhim Zahawi
I will at the end if I have time. I have a lot to get through. I will try to respond to the hon. Lady and to other contributors to the debate, and I will happily take interventions at the end if possible.
Making progress means building a strong economy, achieving record levels of employment and reforming the welfare system so that it supports people into work. Now, 665,000 fewer children grow up in workless households, the support of an income making them less likely to grow up in poverty. The UK’s national living wage is growing faster than similar or higher minimum wages in other OECD countries, such as Belgium, France or Germany.[Official Report, 17 June 2019, Vol. 662, c. 2MC.]
Oral Answers to Questions
Emma Hardy Excerpts(5 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Amber Rudd
It is indeed interesting to hear of this success: the rate of self-employed people in Cornwall is 5.5 percentage points greater than the UK average. In Cornwall, jobcentres are working in partnership with the local authority and with Big Lottery funding to provide self-employment workshops. In addition, across the UK work coaches are trained to provide additional support to self-employed people. This includes the new enterprise allowance, with which mentors can support claimants to develop their business further.
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
Every week in my surgery I hear from people who have been wrongly assessed as being fit for work when they are so clearly disabled. I welcome the Secretary of State’s offer to sit down with us individually in the Tea Room, but I fear for all those constituents who do not think of going to their MP and the countless numbers of people out there who do not know how to access help. Surely it is now time for the Secretary of State to admit that the whole process of work capability assessments is flawed and in need of an urgent review.
Amber Rudd
I am aware of this, and a number of Members of Parliament have raised issues with me. As a Member of Parliament myself, I know that we need to do better at making sure that people do not have to wait so long for a tribunal, so I am looking again at what we can do. I am focusing particularly on making sure that the first decision collects more information, and that the mandatory reassessment has more content put into it. We are already looking into this, and I am seeing some extraordinarily good progress being made in making sure that the mandatory reconsideration has more information.
I will come back to the hon. Lady and others with more information in due course. I recognise that we need to do more, and I am on it.
Oral Answers to Questions
Emma Hardy Excerpts(5 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Alok Sharma
The hon. Gentleman is referring to where people have a change in circumstances. That is not anything new under universal credit: changes in circumstances exist within the legacy benefits system. People get a different calculation in terms of the amount of money, and that has not changed under universal credit.
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
The Minister will know that universal credit uses Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs real-time information to determine the amount of money a claimant will receive each month. Late submissions by employers have led to claimants having reduced or cancelled payments because of money they earned a long time ago. Does the Minister not agree that this issue needs to be looked at if universal credit is to be an effective system that does not increase poverty?
Alok Sharma
The hon. Lady raises an important point. We make sure, working with our colleagues in Her Majesty’s Treasury, that employers are made aware of the fact that they need to get the right date into the RTI system.
Department for Education
Emma Hardy Excerpts(5 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham).
Many people have made incredibly important points about the cuts in so many different areas—FE, schools and children’s services—but I would like to focus my contribution on how the cuts are affecting children with special educational needs and disabilities. Among the written evidence given to our Education Committee inquiry on SEND, there is a really useful summary from the Devon SEND Improvement Board, which said:
“The level of funding for SEND provision remains insufficient to meet increasing demand and puts significant pressure on existing budgets. Local authority, NHS and High Needs Block budgets have not grown to reflect the increasing demand for EHCPs and specialist provision. Tension related to funding is directly affecting parental relationships with professionals and organisations. The increase in general costs is affecting schools’ ability to support increasing SEN needs for example increases in national insurance contributions and the rise in living wage, with no additional funding to cover these increases.”
I am not sure about everyone else in the House, but certainly the concern that stands out for me is the tension affecting parental relationships, which is something I am hearing about in my surgeries and in all the evidence given to the Education Committee. Parents relate having to fight the system in order to get the support their child needs. That point was made a number of times.
One of the more worrying pieces of evidence, submitted by Christine Lenehan, is that in some special schools 100% of the children attending are there only because their parents were able to fight through tribunal. She said that is actually a class issue, because it is white, middle-class parents who are able to go to a tribunal and know how to work the system and where to get support. What about all those children whose parents do not have the same cultural capital to go out there and fight for them? They are not in these residential special schools, so where are they and what is happening to them?
Jean Gross mentioned the lack of interventions and support for children with SEND. She talked about the lack of speech and language therapies. I am sorry, but that is also a class issue. I know from parents in my constituency that those who can afford it will of course pay for speech and language provision for their children. They will pay for additional tutoring and support, but that is not universally available to all children. The SEND cuts are not only cruel and unfair, but exacerbating the situation that children are already facing. All this talk of social mobility and equality of opportunity is not played out in the schools system that has been created by this Government.
I have two asks in relation to SEND funding. First, the Government should stop the idea of notional funding of £6,000 for schools and instead make that actual funding. Secondly, they should look at reforming the whole of SEND funding, because so much is based on what local authorities get. We know that there is no correlation between the number of SEND children in an area and the amount of money it gets, because that is based on a historical formula rather than an actual formula for that year. Instead, I would like the Government to consider some kind of SEND pupil premium money, which would follow the child around the country. That way, even if the child moved between local authorities, their parents would still know that they were entitled to the same amount of money to meet their needs. At the moment it is a postcode lottery.
In my last effort to be helpful—I do like to be helpful to the Government—I have identified some departmental savings that the Government might be interested in. One is the 84 interest-free loans that have been given to multi-academy trusts, with no information on how much was given or when it was given. A recent freedom of information request on what the associated conditions were was refused We could also ask the Education and Skills Funding Agency to do an asbestos survey on buildings before schools actually move into them, which could save millions of pounds in decontamination costs.
We could also look into making savings by re-brokering and being a little more open and transparent about how much money has been handed out by regional schools commissioners to encourage academy chains to take on other ones. We could look at the pupil number adjustments, and at academy trusts getting extra money for schools with an estimated roll. How much money has been written off by that rather secret process? Could we have more transparency on that? Finally, could we look at helping schools to save the £200 million they collectively pay on entry fees for exams?