Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Esther McVey and Cathy Jamieson

Monday 3rd November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Esther McVey]

What I will do is tell the House what went right, as that is what people want to know. We have a record number of young people in work. We had a £1 billion Youth Contract, within which was an array of different opportunities—work experience, sector-based work academies and wage incentives. Working with businesses, we found that work experience, sector-based work academies and apprenticeships were the things that they want, and they are the ones offering the jobs. We have seen 40,000 young people—not 10,000 young people—start in that way. We have redeployed the money from the Youth Contract to areas where it will be most effective. The situation is far from what the hon. Gentleman outlined, as what we are doing is working.

[Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op)]

7. What the average waiting time is for an assessment for personal independence payment.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Esther McVey and Cathy Jamieson

Monday 11th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op)]

5. What recent assessment he has made of the likely effects of the under-occupancy penalty on households that include a disabled person.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Esther McVey)]

Let us be clear. The spare room subsidiary is not a penalty and it is not a tax. It is the result of, and a solution to, the inequality of treatment between those in the private rented and the social rented sector. The fact that housing benefit doubled in the past 10 years and the sheer imbalance in the system that we inherited resulted in 1.8 million people on waiting lists, 250,000 in overcrowded houses, and 1 million spare rooms in the system, when 180,000 claimants who are claiming disability living allowance, or whose partners are doing so, have spare rooms.

[Cathy Jamieson]

I thank the Minister for that answer, although I do not think it addresses the question. Disabled people in my constituency are coming to see me terrified about the implications of having to find additional money every week, so what can the Minister say about the disabled people who are contacting the local authority in my area to be told that they may not get a discretionary payment and that, even if they do, it may not last for the full year? Does she have any words of comfort for them?

[Esther McVey]

The hon. Lady, like all of us, has a duty to allay those fears, and it is something that we can all do. We know that so many specific instances could not be regulated clearly in law, hence we have trebled the discretionary payment to take into account all these factors. We know that pensioners are exempt and that we are helping, obviously, severely disabled children, and we have made clear all those who are being assisted. It is our duty to make sure that facts are clearly spelled out, and those who are most in need will be supported.