amendment of the law

Graeme Morrice Excerpts

Tuesday 25th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Lindsay Roy (Glenrothes) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Burton (Andrew Griffiths) and to listen to his speech on small beer.

At a time when we hear that we are turning an economic corner—I welcome this immensely—after several challenging years of recession, this year’s Budget should have been one of optimism and hope for all, and in particular for those who have suffered the most under the Government’s austerity programme. Hard-working families have suffered a cost of living crisis and seen their incomes reduced by £1,600. The disabled, the disadvantaged and those with health issues that prevent them from working have all been badly affected financially.

I welcome the reduction in unemployment, but there are still thousands upon thousands of people who desperately want to work. They have not acquired the skills to take up the posts that are available. Despite their best efforts, they cannot find a job, an apprenticeship or training. It is ludicrous that so many people are willing to work but do not have the skills and expertise to do so. In my constituency, and in many others, jobs are advertised overseas and taken up by those from overseas who have an enhanced skill profile. That is primarily because of the lack of investment in high quality training and support here. These barriers must be removed as a matter of priority, with further investment in vocational training, but yet again the Government have missed a golden opportunity to invest in their people and pump-prime a further reduction in unemployment and benefit payments.

There were token increases in the amount of income exempt from tax, but the Government’s slogan “We’re all in this together” has been further discredited by their unjust refusal to increase tax on higher earners to 50% and their failure to clamp down on the many who avoid tax, thereby robbing the Exchequer of millions of pounds. Primarily, this has been a Budget for Tory vested interests in an effort to sustain support. In other words, these are the same old Tories, some of whose policies evoke blue language on the Opposition Benches. So much for the often quoted but meaningless Tory mantra, “Those with the broadest shoulders will bear the heaviest burden.” In effect, this is the politics of mirage and fantasy. The coalition think that if something is said often enough, people will believe it. On the Labour Benches, we emphatically do not. Thankfully, those who live in the real world are not so gullible and do not share the same self-delusion. They are only too aware of the opportunities missed: replacing the failing Work programme with the job guarantee scheme, an energy freeze, expansion of free child care for working parents and help for millions of workers by reducing basic income tax further.

Like all mainstream political parties, hard-working people support a cap on welfare spending and want effective measures to be taken against the small minority who are fit to work, but who have abused the welfare system and want to live permanently on benefits. However, hard-working people are also only too aware of the gross injustices forced on one section of our society in particular. The hallmark of a civilised society is how we treat our poor, disadvantaged and disabled. This Government have continuously presided over massive failures in policy development and implementation.

[Graeme Morrice (Livingston) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern and horror at the escalation in the number of sanctions made by Jobcentre Plus which, on appeal, have been found to be erroneous?

[Lindsay Roy]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. In my office, we deal with 12 such cases every week, concerning Atos and sanctions.

The forcible and inhumane imposition of the bedroom tax is a real concern for us. The Prime Minister should have sent the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions back to do his homework properly, and to plan a course of action on welfare benefits on a fair, consistent and evidence-based manner. The fact that he did not demonstrates a weakness to stand up to a dogmatic Minister who has taken a callous, uncaring and brass-neck approach to implementing hurriedly a range of flawed practices that have impacted unfairly on so many of our citizens.

The Chancellor has been culpable in that he has done us a major disservice, as his Budget did absolutely nothing to address the multiple and shambolic failings of the DWP. Dogmatic intransigence and gross inefficiencies have led thousands to suffer through the application of a target-setting culture, in many cases resulting in unjust sanctions and declarations of fitness to work, despite medical evidence to the contrary. Those injustices have left many honest and upright citizens, for the first time in their lives, being forced to access food banks and payday loans and to get into debt. The numbers have grown massively. From my own constituency, I will highlight three inconsistencies and injustices, but I am sure that they are mirrored many times over in other constituencies throughout the country.

The first involved a man who had a medically certified spinal injury and was therefore unable to lift weights. That was interpreted as job avoidance, despite the fact that he had participated in the required number of job applications. He was sanctioned for 13 weeks and had to resort to the local food bank for sustenance.

The second example involved a lady who had been waiting for months for an Atos appointment. Her employment and support allowance was stopped and she was advised to claim jobseekers’ allowance. She is still waiting for an appointment. It is no wonder that she has been waiting: an informed insider told my office last month that in Scotland and north-east England there are 24,000 Atos reports waiting to be processed. When questioned by me, the director of Atos in charge of quality assurance said he did not recognise that number, but we still await a figure. So much for DWP-Atos quality assurance and standards.

The third example concerns a lady who had suffered a close family bereavement. She explained her situation, but until there was prompt intervention by my office, she was ruthlessly sanctioned. The Government have received regular exhortations to abandon the inhumane and vile imposition of the bedroom tax, and to bring fairness, compassion and dignity to DWP-Atos assessments. They have singularly failed to do so.

The ongoing injustices I have highlighted make it clear that our disadvantaged, poor and disabled are still being treated unfairly. In my main jobcentre, there are only two computer access points. Those people are often dealt with callously, but they too have the right to be treated in a respectful and dignified manner, and the DWP must recognise that. Until this happens consistently, DWP Ministers should hang their heads in shame.

--- Later in debate ---

[Graeme Morrice (Livingston) (Lab)]

No other issue is more likely to define this parliamentary term and this coalition Government than welfare and the cost of living. The past four years have been very tough for a great number of people, as I am sure all hon. Members are aware. The living standards of the majority of our constituents have fallen and the value of real wages has dropped, while the cost of living has gone through the roof. Many have lost their jobs or their businesses, but as a result of the Government’s welfare changes—I will not dignify them by calling them reforms—it is toughest of all for those who rely on others and for those who struggle to support themselves even in the best of times.

Once again, the Budget was a missed opportunity to address that and other issues. Instead of taking a step back and examining what could be done to make a tangible difference to the lives of some of the most vulnerable people in our communities, the Chancellor and the Government have decided to draw electoral dividing lines. They could have announced measures to mitigate the worst excesses of their welfare changes, or to help young casualties of the financial crisis back to work, funded by a tax on bank bonuses that would be paid by the very people who nearly gambled away their future. The Chancellor could even have made good on his promise to raise the minimum wage to £7 an hour. Instead, he chose to court the UK Independence party vote with tougher platitudes on welfare and to pave the way for more cuts, while those on his Christmas card list enjoy a tax cut larger in value than the average worker’s wage.

The Chancellor boasted of new private sector jobs, but ignored the fact that many of those are low-paid, part-time, agency or zero-hours contracts, and that some people are living not month to month or even week to week, but literally day to day. The Government must take action now to end the scandal of employment abuse, by restricting zero-hours contracts and promoting the living wage.

Government Members brag of an increase in the personal allowance, but that will be completely swallowed up by inflation, stagnant wages, rising energy and food bills, and previous changes to VAT and in-work benefits. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the actual worth of the increase to those on low incomes will be as little as £2 per week, with one in six workers earning too little to benefit at all. The Government are for ever lecturing that austerity measures are unavoidable and that the rich are paying more than anyone else—as if progressive taxation were created only in 2010.

While my constituents are saddled with the bedroom tax, the shambles of universal credit, and months of delays waiting for personal independence payments, millionaires get massive tax cuts and bankers continue to pocket their grotesque bonuses, now totalling £1.6 billion. If the Government were really on the side of working people they could have raised additional income to help my constituents, by cutting back pension tax relief for people earning more than £150,000 a year to 20%—the same as for basic rate taxpayers. House of Commons Library estimates state that that would raise between £900 million and £1.3 billion—half the amount that will be lost to the economy through the Government’s welfare changes, snatched from the poorest in society. Even the lower estimates of that revenue would cover the cost of Labour’s compulsory jobs guarantee for young people after its first year of implementation.

The Chancellor could have taken meaningful action to help working people, but the figures behind the Budget neatly illustrate the real legacy of this Government: 350,000 people going to food banks; 400,000 disabled people paying the bedroom tax; and millions of working people worse off by, on average, £1,600 a year. The Government believe that the rich will work harder only if they are made richer, and that the poor will only work at all if they are made poorer. The truth is that, sadly, there is precious little in this Budget for ordinary working people. Once again that shows that the nation is worse off under the Tories, with a Government who are out of touch and do not really care.