Benefit Claimants (North-east)

Debate between Emma Lewell-Buck and Ian Lavery

Wednesday 7th January 2015 Westminster Hall

[Ian Lavery]

To highlight one of the difficulties with the staff, who generally do a fantastic job, the press reported on the assessment of a lady who is blind and has a guide dog. The person doing the assessment held three fingers up and asked the blind lady, “How many fingers am I holding up?” The lady said, “I am blind.” The person said, “That has nothing at all to do with it. I have to ask you the questions.” That is the way disabled people—in this case, a blind person—are being treated by some of the staff in jobcentres.

[Mrs Lewell-Buck]

I have noticed that compassion and understanding are being completely removed from the jobcentre. There are no grey areas anymore; it is black or white. When I went to my local jobcentre to discuss some of my constituents’ complaints, I was shocked by how dismissive the local management team were. They explained that they refused to offer a private room because they did not want to set a precedent. In other cases, they simply said that they did not believe what I and my constituents were telling them. The whole attitude was completely negative and showed the confrontational way in which jobcentres now deal with claimants. In fact, the attitude shown to me was so appalling that I complained to the regional manager. It was not that I was particularly fussed by how they spoke to me; my concern was that if they speak to a Member of Parliament in that way, how on earth are they treating our constituents?

Jobcentre staff are ultimately there to provide a service, and to help people find work. If someone has special requirements, staff should be allowed to accommodate them. The Government’s hard-line approach and the pressure on staff to meet targets mean that the focus has changed and the majority of hard-working staff, who I genuinely believe want to do their jobs properly, feel hindered and frustrated about being unable to do so. When I was looking for work, advisers were there to guide jobseekers into work or training that was right for them. It was a process that treated people like human beings. That is important when people are already feeling low or marginalised because of their unemployment. That is not how the system works today. Now the role of the jobcentre is to police the unemployed and punish them for making even the smallest of mistakes. If they are five minutes late for an appointment, there is no mercy or discussion—their benefits are simply cut off. Where once staff were there to advise, they are now told to check up on claimants, to police them and to catch them out.

As far as I am concerned, our jobcentres are no longer providing a good enough service. Staff are under pressure to get people off benefits by any means necessary, and there are perverse incentives to push people on to make-work courses. Constituents have complained that they have been ordered to take the same CV writing courses over and over again as a substitute for genuine support. That is a complete waste of time and does not get them into work. What it does, however, is remove them from the unemployment figures. Like those on the Work programme, they are not employed in any meaningful sense, but they do not show up in the figures. I make it crystal clear to the Minister that being on the Work programme or stuck on make-work training courses does not constitute employment, no matter how much her Government would like us to think so. The only purpose of the schemes is to help a jobcentre meet its targets, because it can use the courses as evidence that it has provided training or work-related activity, or use non-attendance as a reason to sanction benefit claimants.

In any organisation, the attitude of those at the top filters down. That is why the culture change at the DWP fits right in with the ugly attitude that the Government have taken towards people on benefits. They have encouraged and continue to encourage the public to think of claimants as spongers or skivers, so that working people struggling to get by will blame the unemployed man or woman next door, claiming their £70 a week, instead of the tax-dodging companies that cost our economy billions every year. The way claimants are treated is nothing to do with getting people into work; it is about scapegoating the poor and making them a target for the anger and frustration the public feel during a time of serious hardship. It is downright nasty politics, and the Government should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.

Under-Occupancy Penalty

Debate between Emma Lewell-Buck and Ian Lavery

Tuesday 5th November 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Lewell-Buck]

I could not agree more.

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on making a fantastic speech on this important issue. The Government admitted last week that they had wildly exaggerated the cost savings involved in the bedroom tax. Does that not show us what is really behind the policy? It is not about saving money; it is about a vicious attack on vulnerable people—400,000 out of 600,000 of them are disabled—who cannot speak up for themselves.

[Mrs Lewell-Buck]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend, who has stolen some of my closing comments.

I was interested to hear that the Department for Work and Pensions has commissioned an independent review of the bedroom tax to analyse the impact on vulnerable individuals, foster carers and those caring for disabled children. However, why was the impact assessment not completed before the introduction of the tax? That is yet another example of ideology affecting policy and of this Government’s “let’s do away with facts and research” approach.

I also question why the policy’s impact on the housing market was not foreseen. The National Audit Office reported that the Government’s headline savings figure did not take into account the full range of impacts that the bedroom tax would have. Now that we have had time to assess the policy’s impact on rent arrears, we know that the NAO was correct. I hope that the Minister will say what discussions his Department has had with the Department for Work and Pensions about the effect of the policy on housing supply and why he believes the impact assessment falls so far short of reality.

Whatever the Government’s excuses, for my constituents in South Shields and thousands of others across the country, they will be scant consolation. Although an average of £12 a week may not seem like much to this Government, it is a lot of money to the rest of us who are paying the price. My constituents need a Government who listen to their concerns and who commit to overturning this cruel tax and addressing our housing shortage. What they need is a Labour Government.