Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Esther McVey and Tony Baldry

Monday 9th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Esther McVey]

The Work programme is the largest programme of its kind, helping people into work on an unparalleled scale. It is superseding all the expected levels and targets; it is better than anything that has gone before it.

[Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

With the Banbury and Bicester job clubs, we seek to help people who are out of work to get back into the world of work, irrespective of age. Am I not right in thinking that 50,000 over-50s who are in work now were not in work last year? So 50,000 over-50s have found work in just the past year, and it is right that we should not write anyone off simply because of their age.

[Esther McVey]

My right hon. Friend is correct about that. We are seeing what extra support we can give to the over-50s, which is why, with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Pensions, we have brought together the “Fuller Working Lives” document. It is also why we are looking at: how we can do extra IT; how we can do extra CVs and résumés; and how we can have older worker champions going into business to really sell the benefits of older employees, because it is key that they should be there to share their experience.

Inherited Social Housing Tenancies

Debate between Esther McVey and Tony Baldry

Monday 24th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Esther McVey]

We are looking through all that at the moment, and anyone who can prove that they are covered by this loophole is of course getting that funding back. That is what we have said people should do, as well as paying towards the administrative charges.

[Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

Is it not a fact that we inherited more than 1,000 pages of regulations on housing benefit and that there would inevitably be some lacunae while we sought to simplify the system? The real question, which still has not been answered, is why Labour wants to treat people on housing benefit in the social rented sector differently from those on housing benefit in the private rented sector. We still have not had an explanation for that.

[Esther McVey]

My right hon. Friend is quite right. At the moment, the Opposition say that they would like there to be a difference between the people in the private sector and those in the social rented sector. Actually, they had had discussions about introducing this policy too, so they were going to align the policies and do exactly the same as we have done. The only question that they have never asked, as they have sought to reverse what is happening in the social rented sector, is this: should there be a legal challenge by those in the private rented sector against whom they were discriminating, would they reverse the rules for those people too, so as to have fairness and equality for everyone?

Remploy

Debate between Esther McVey and Tony Baldry

Thursday 4th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Esther McVey]

I will indeed meet the hon. Gentleman to discuss that. I should add that that is one of the automotive businesses, and it has attracted considerable interest because it is a viable business. KPMG is currently working on that with Remploy, and I will table a written statement shortly about what will happen there. The hon. Gentleman is right, however, that this is about dignity and supporting disabled people, and that is what we are doing.

[Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

Following on from the comments of the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg), many of us are interested in the details of the Government’s national strategy for helping disabled people back into the world of work, whether through Jobcentre Plus, social enterprise, or supporting job clubs. My hon. Friend has talked about work that will be done in the summer, so will she give an undertaking to come back to the House when Parliament returns in September or October to update us on the national strategy, because all of us have disabled people in our constituencies who want to get back into the world of work, and we are keen to understand how we can engage with them and the Government to make sure they do so.

[Esther McVey]

I will indeed come back to the House to speak about our national employment strategy; that is only fair and correct. We have been working on it for some time. We have been analysing the Work Choice and Work programme figures and looking at other social support, such as job clubs, and we have developed for the first time ever this community support fund and opened 32 different sites across the country helping almost 750 disabled people.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Esther McVey and Tony Baldry

Monday 10th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Esther McVey]

That is not the case. An impact assessment has been done and £30 million of discretionary funds have been put in place for exactly the people the right hon. Gentleman is talking about. We have to do this in the round. There are a million spare rooms in the country and millions of people on waiting lists and in overcrowded homes, and we have to find properties for them, too. The case that he mentions, however, is precisely the sort the discretionary fund will be for.

[Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

As co-chair of the all-party group on carers, my understanding is that, where a person requires a full-time carer, local authorities may provide housing benefit for them to have a two-bedroom property. Have I misunderstood the situation, or have I understood it correctly?

[Esther McVey]

My hon. Friend has understood correctly and explained it perfectly.