Oral Answers to Questions

Esther McVey Excerpts

Monday 14th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

1. What recent assessment he has made of the performance of the Work programme.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Esther McVey)]

First, I am pleased to inform the House that the Work programme is working, and that its performance has significantly improved since being launched in June 2011. By the end of June 2012, 24,000 people had found lasting work. By June 2013, there had been a dramatic increase to 168,000. I should like to put on the record that credit must go to my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Mr Hoban), for his rigorous and meticulous work, which brought about that dramatic increase.

[Andy McDonald]

Of the 10 worst constituencies for longer-term unemployment, seven have seen the number of people out of work for more than 12 months increase, and that includes my own town of Middlesbrough. Why are the Minister’s policies failing so badly among the people and in the places that most need help?

[Esther McVey]

I am pleased to inform the hon. Gentleman that, actually, despite the picture he portrays, work is improving. There have been significant job outcomes across the country—they are up 1 million—and the claimant count is down. Inactivity is at record low levels and the number of households where someone is in work is higher now under this Government than it was in any year under the previous Labour Government.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

Can my hon. Friend confirm that tackling youth unemployment is a major priority for the Government, and that young people—18 to 24-year-olds—have benefited from the Work programme, with more than 100,000 finding some sort of work through it? Does she agree that the Work programme is working?

[Esther McVey]

I agree with my hon. Friend that the Work programme is working. In particular, let us look at the figures for youth unemployment. The number of 18 to 24-year-olds on jobseeker’s allowance has fallen for 15 consecutive months. It is now 60,000 less than in May 2010. Youth unemployment is down from the numbers we inherited from Labour, and the number of young people not in education, employment or training is at its lowest for a decade.

[Dame Anne Begg (Aberdeen South) (Lab)]

But for one group of people—those who have health problems or a disability—the numbers are truly dreadful. What will the Government do to change their approach so that that group of people is not left behind?

[Esther McVey]

For the first time in history, we are dealing with the people the hon. Lady—the Chair of the Select Committee on Work and Pensions—is talking about. Labour Members shake their heads, but I am afraid that they abandoned those 1.4 million people; we are supporting them. Of those on the Work programme, more than 380,000 are in work, and 168,000 have found lasting work. Ninety per cent. of those have been in employment for nine months or more. We are working on and dealing with that matter, but Labour abandoned it.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I welcome the Minister to her new brief, and the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning), to his.

The invitation to tender for the Work programme said that, if there was no programme at all, 15% of people on employment and support allowance, to whom my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg) has just referred, would be in a sustained job outcome within two years. With the Work programme, the number has been about one third of that. Surely that underperformance is unacceptable.

[Esther McVey]

That is not true at all. We have reached out and supported people who were never supported under the Labour Government. Equally, I would like to separate those on JSA, who have exceeded targets, and those on ESA who must move closer to the workplace, which is what we are statutorily obliged to do, but not to put them in a job. We are doing that. Because of that, we are looking at the programme as a whole and putting further support in for those people. It is successful and, as I have said, Labour failed to do it.

[Stephen Timms]

The Minister should ask her civil servants about pathways to work.

In his spending review on 26 June, the Chancellor of the Exchequer called on the Secretary of State to make a hard-headed assessment of underperforming programmes in his Department. What progress is there with the hard-headed assessment of the Work programme?

[Esther McVey]

The Work programme is not an underperforming programme: 60% of people are off benefits. We continue to modify and improve it, which is only right. We have set up a best practice committee so that people can get even better. There is no underperformance. We are proud of the record. I will tell the right hon. Gentleman one thing: those people who have got jobs, whom he dismisses so discourteously, are very proud of what we have done.

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[Rosie Cooper (West Lancashire) (Lab)]

10. How many former Remploy workers are now in employment.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Esther McVey)]

At 4 October 2013 1,326 disabled former Remploy workers are engaging with personal case workers to find jobs; 535 are in work, and 390 are on Work Choice and training, which makes a total of 925 in work or training.

[Rosie Cooper]

Notwithstanding that answer, more than 93% of disabled people on the Work programme are simply failing to find work. I put it to the Minister that the Government’s record on disability employment is simply a disgrace and is another example of the Government talking big and tough but failing to deliver.

[Esther McVey]

The hon. Lady has bounced across various subjects there, but may I just put on the record the fact that the Remploy factories had faced an uncertain future since 2008 and that her Government closed 29? We have sought to support the people involved in the best way possible, and so 925 out of the 1,325 are in work or training. We are talking about significant support and significant movement into work; the rate is higher than the one relating to regular redundancies. As I said before, the Work programme is working. It has significantly improved under my predecessor and we will continue that.

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

I welcome the information that the Minister has given about the role that Work Choice has played in helping former Remploy employees. Will she confirm that we have no plans, despite rumours I am hearing, to roll Work Choice up into the Work programme? Such an approach would lose the specialisation that has made Work Choice the success it has been so far.

[Esther McVey]

My hon. Friend is right. Work Choice has been a success. We are looking at the disability employment strategy. For the first time ever we are considering greater segmentation and greater differentiation, and the greater support that is needed. We have also engaged with business as never before. We have started a two-year disability confident programme, engaging with 430 businesses and 35 of the FTSE 100. We need employers to work with us to give these people jobs.

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

19. In the same way that the miners’ buy-out of Tower colliery succeeded in sustaining well-paid jobs and exposed the lie that every pit was uneconomic, does the reopening this week of the former Forestfach Remploy site in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) with workers’ redundancy money give the lie to the need to shut so many viable Remploy factories, such as that in Bridgend, where the workers and management had both the business case and the burning desire to keep the factory open?

[Esther McVey]

I think that the hon. Gentleman does not really understand what happened with the whole set of Remploy factories. In 2008, the Labour party put in £555 million for a modernisation plan that failed. Those factories that can exist as viable businesses are doing so. We have helped them in that. We have supported them, and more than nine have reopened. Of those that could not, we have got some of the employees into work and others are opening up as social enterprises. The Opposition tried and failed. We are doing something about this and supporting those people.

[Mr Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)]

11. What steps he is taking to get the long-term unemployed into work.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Esther McVey)]

From next April, those hardest to help jobseekers returning from the Work programme will get the intensive support they need to get a job. A third will sign on every day; a third will go on community work placements for six months; and a third will receive intensive support from Jobcentre Plus.

[Mr Raab]

Research for the Institute for Fiscal Studies shows that since 2010, the Government’s welfare reforms have already increased tax incentives to work and cut welfare disincentives by 6%. Does my hon. Friend agree that we must continue this recalibration of the system to end the dependency culture that the last Government left behind and ensure that hard work pays?

[Esther McVey]

My hon. Friend is spot-on. That is exactly what we said we would do—a recalibration; a rebalancing of the economy—to get more people into private enterprise and to make fewer people state dependent. We have done that with 1.4 million jobs in the private sector. Opposition Members said that it was not possible. This is down to an environment that we have set and the great British businesses that have provided this employment.

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is good to be back. The Minister will be aware that a key barrier to many long-term unemployed women returning to work is the prohibitively high cost of child care. What is she doing to ensure that work will always pay once universal credit is implemented, given the concerning findings of the Resolution Foundation published yesterday showing the opposite to be the case?

[Esther McVey]

I am very proud of our Government’s policies, which have got a record number of women into work and supported them into businesses and in setting up their own businesses. Of those in part-time work, 80% have chosen that work, some of which fits in with their life balance. We are supporting women with child care. That is a difficult job, especially as the price of child care went through the roof under Labour. We are particularly supporting them under universal credit, and, as I said, all credit to this Government.

[Miss Chloe Smith (Norwich North) (Con)]

I welcome the Minister to her place and encourage her to come to Norwich to see the steps that I and a really great team of volunteers are taking to get Norwich’s youth unemployment down. We call it Norwich for Jobs and we have already got literally hundreds of young people into work. Her predecessor had kindly agreed to visit the team; would she like to do the same?

[Esther McVey]

If it was good enough for my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Mr Hoban), it is good enough for me, and I will be there.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

Is it not the case that the Secretary of State has been rebuked not once but twice by the chair of the UK Statistics Authority for the misleading, if not false, claims that he is making about the welfare reform programme? Will he take the opportunity to apologise to the House and to the public at large, not least to those on social security, whom the Government continue to denigrate?

[Esther McVey]

I will not be taking this moment to apologise, but I hope that those on the Labour Benches will apologise for the mess they left us, which we have corrected. Employment is up by 1 million since the election and unemployment is down by 400,000. Inactivity records are at an all-time low and the number of people not in employment, education or training is at the lowest rate for a decade. That is what we are doing, and the statistics we are putting out are correct. I am really disappointed that we cannot all celebrate the great work this Government have done.

[Katy Clark (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)]

12. What assessment he has made of the effect of the Government’s housing benefit changes in Scotland; and if he will make a statement.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Esther McVey)]

All the Government’s housing benefit changes have been subject to full impact and equality impact assessments. We have closely monitored the implementation of the measures and commissioned independent evaluations of the local housing allowance reforms and the removal of the spare room subsidy.

[Katy Clark]

Alex Salmond is coming down from Edinburgh on Wednesday to ask the Prime Minister to scrap the bedroom tax, and the Scottish Labour party is putting a Bill before the Scottish Parliament to stop evictions and provide funding to councils and housing associations for discretionary housing payments. Does the Minister accept that in the meantime, councils and housing associations are under huge pressure to raise rents because of the massive rent arrears resulting from the introduction of the bedroom tax?

[Esther McVey]

What I will say is that we are putting in place support for those housing associations and local authorities that are finding that they cannot come to terms with the issue, although they have had three years to do something and have failed to do so. I would like to talk about the 1.8 million people on housing waiting lists and the 250,000 people in overcrowded accommodation, whom nobody had looked after. We are looking after everybody and supporting them as best we can with discretionary housing payments.

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

Tenants who are not on housing benefits and pensioners are now being affected by the bedroom tax, because councils such as mine are being forced to look at either rent rises or cutting their modernisation programmes because of the impact of the bedroom tax. Will the Minister now look at that again and stop this nonsense, which is not even saving money overall?

[Esther McVey]

There is one point to clarify: pensioners are exempt. If people could get the facts right, it would work better.

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

14. What steps the Government are taking on pension charges.

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[Mr David Amess (Southend West) (Con)]

T10. Is my right hon. Friend aware that the number of jobseeker’s allowance claimants in Southend West has fallen by 12% in the past year? Will he join me in congratulating everyone on this very encouraging trend?

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Esther McVey)]

I will indeed do that. Although my hon. Friend talks about an average of 14% fewer people claiming in his constituency, across the country the average is 11%, and 400,000 fewer people are claiming since 2010, so it is success all round for this Government.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

T2. With well over 1 million unemployment benefit claimants being sanctioned since 2010, rumours abounding that targets are in place for sanctioning, and all of us facing many desperate people in our surgeries, will the Secretary of State tell us when we will see the results of his investigation into sanctioning?

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[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

T4. Housing associations in Ogmore are carrying a rising level of debt on their balance sheets as a result of rent arrears. They have a desperate scarcity of one and two-bedroom properties to rent, and yet they have three-bedroom properties lying empty. Is this just a necessary but painful adjustment to the Secretary of State’s benefit and bedroom tax changes?

[Esther McVey]

This is something we have to do. I have answered this before: how many people we have to look at who are on waiting lists, how many are in overcrowded housing, and how the bill doubled under Labour. The hon. Gentleman is quite right—we have to get the stock right: the fact that there are three-bedroom houses and why in the last three years they have not been modified into one and two-bedroom houses. Those questions have to be asked. That is what we have to do: get the stock right and support people as best we can.

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

The pensions Minister mentioned earlier that the Office of Fair Trading report highlighted some of the abusive practices in the private pensions industry, such as active member discount and charges of up to 3% on many schemes. I welcome his consultation, but does he agree that it will be important to put a cap in place before auto-enrolment is rolled out at volume?

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[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

T8. Given the woeful performance of the Work programme in Hull and local job losses, does the Secretary of State agree with The Economist that Hull’s long-term jobseekers should give up looking for jobs in Hull and travel elsewhere in the country?

[Esther McVey]

I would never put out a message that people should not look for work, because work is vital to self-esteem, motivation and supporting one’s family, so I totally disagree with that statement.

[Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)]

The roll-out of universal credit will be complete by 2017, yet the contract for the Post Office card account will be up for renewal in 18 months. What assurance can the Secretary of State give that people will still be able to access their benefits through their post offices?