Oral Answers to Questions

Graham Stuart Excerpts

Monday 7th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Western]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s support for the proposed fraud Bill. The level of fraud in the welfare system is absolutely unacceptable; almost £10 billion was lost last year. Increased use of data will be essential to clamping down on both capital fraud and broader fraud. However, we will do that without sharing any information at all with banks and financial institutions.

[Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

I thank the Secretary of State for her personal commitment to transparency. Further to the question asked by the shadow Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride), will she share with the House how many thousands of people will die as a result of Labour’s choice to cut the winter fuel payment?

[Liz Kendall]

I am very happy to share the data: there are 200,000 more pensioners living in poverty after 14 years of Conservative government. I am also very happy to publish information showing a 152% increase in pension credit claims, thanks to the big, bold campaign run by this Labour Government.

Social Security

Graham Stuart Excerpts

Tuesday 10th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

I am left feeling that that intervention was barely worth the wait.

The fact that we even have a debate today is near miraculous given the resistance from the Labour party—we have it thanks to the scrutiny that the Conservative party is providing to the Government. We know that petitions have been railing against the measures: 100,000 people have signed the Silver Voices petition, a third of a million the 38 Degrees petition, and over half a million the Age UK petition. They are calling on the Government to think again. The press, particularly the Express newspaper, is doing a sterling job in bringing these matters to our attention. Even the trade union movement, including Unite, is pointing a finger at the Government and saying that they are picking the pockets of pensioners.

[Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

There is a sense of disappointment. Yesterday, the Health Secretary was dragged in here because a multimillion-pound-making consultant in the health industry is wandering corridors with access to papers, and today pensioners are being betrayed. Does my right hon. Friend agree that when people voted Labour, they thought that they were getting change and transparency? They were promised higher standards; they are getting the opposite.

Oral Answers to Questions

Graham Stuart Excerpts

Monday 13th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)]

12. What steps he is taking to reform the welfare system.

[Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

18. What steps his Department is taking to reform the welfare system.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mel Stride)]

On reforming welfare, we are increasing the incentives to work and increasing the disincentives not to work or to engage with the system, and we are looking to better target help for those who need it most.

[Mel Stride]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question and considerable interest and knowledge in this area, and for the discussions he has held with me on these matters. As he will know, we are currently going through a 12-week consultation on how PIP can be reformed. I certainly subscribe to the view that we want to examine the issue of one size fits all and whether there are better ways of looking after people.

[Graham Stuart]

I welcome the Government’s welfare reforms and celebrate the millions of additional people now in work thanks to this Conservative Government. I note that every Labour Government there has ever been has left more people unemployed and on the dole queue at the end than at the beginning—theirs is a truly disgraceful record. However, can my right hon. Friend assure my constituents who may be chronically ill or vulnerable that, although there will be support in place, they will not be forced back into work if that is not appropriate?

[Mel Stride]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. Work is essential and is at the heart of the reforms we are bringing through. Indeed the Office for Budget Responsibility has assessed the impact of our measures with the work capability assessment reforms, for example, as leading to over 400,000 fewer people on those benefits by the end of the forecast period. I am very proud of that achievement because, as he highlights, that will mean more people have work and the benefits of it.

Personal Independence Payment Applications

Graham Stuart Excerpts

Wednesday 17th June 2015 Westminster Hall

[Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered processing of personal independence payment applications.

It is a novel and pleasant experience to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I welcome to his place the new Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson). As my colleagues know, and as people across the House will find, he will be excellent in this role. He has great ability and compassion, and I am sure that we all wish him well in delivering for disabled people throughout the country.

Over the past several months, I have been contacted by a number of desperate constituents who feel like they have nowhere to turn. They are often severely disabled people who already have to suffer significant physical pain and distress daily. On top of their conditions, they have had to endure months of delays in applying for the personal independence payment. A system designed to help them is instead increasing their hardship and anxiety. I called for this debate to give those vulnerable people a voice.

I begin by saying that I support the underlying principle of the personal independence payment. Under the old system of disability living allowance, half of all claimants never had to undergo an assessment, and 71% of people who received the benefit never had their award reviewed. That meant that people whose conditions worsened were underpaid and those whose conditions improved received more than was necessary. That system was neither effective nor compassionate in supporting disabled people. Clearly, the money was not being well targeted at those who genuinely needed it.

By contrast, the personal independence payment is a more dynamic benefit, capable, at least in theory, of adapting to disabled people’s complex and often changing conditions, and providing them with the appropriate level of support. However, I have dealt with many cases locally of people waiting far longer than the target of 16 weeks to have their PIP claim processed. I have serious concerns that the administration of the new benefit has not functioned as well as it should have done in order properly to support some of the most vulnerable people in our society.

When PIP was introduced in the last Parliament, average delays were as long as 30 weeks. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions rightly acknowledged that those delays were “unacceptable”. Since then, the number of healthcare professionals has doubled, the number of assessment centres has increased and their opening hours have been extended. I understand that that has helped to bring down average waiting times substantially, which is welcome. I commend the Minister, who has been in office for a limited time, and his predecessors on their work in getting to grips with the issue. However, the many letters and emails that I continue to receive from my constituents, including one only yesterday and another as I waited for this debate to start, suggest that there are still unacceptable delays.

To highlight my concerns, I shall describe in detail two cases. After having an accident at work, Mrs Lynn Dodds from Beverley suffers from two chronic pain conditions: chronic regional pain syndrome and fibromyalgia. She has to use crutches to get around her house and needs a wheelchair whenever she goes out. She has a carer for 37 hours a week. She suffers daily seizures, brought on by stress and anxiety.

Mrs Dodds first applied for the personal independence payment in November 2013 and she had to wait eight months before being assessed. In that time, her condition deteriorated. She was then, unbelievably, told by Department for Work and Pensions staff that she had to start the whole application process again. Devastated by that news, she none the less reapplied for PIP in August 2014. She had to wait a further seven months to receive her reassessment. The healthcare professional told her that the decision could have been made on paper, without a face-to-face assessment. That is what she was told after all that time.

Mrs Dodds was then told that she would receive a decision within four weeks. It has been nine weeks and she is still waiting, although I think that something may have happened in the last few days, coincidentally or otherwise. When I raised the case with the DWP, I was told that the delays in her application were due to a heavy workload. When Mrs Dodds inquired herself, she was informed that the reason was that Atos had not yet sent her assessment forms to the DWP. She is frustrated that whenever she phones up to try to register a complaint, she is told that she must wait five working days for a call-back—call-backs that of course do not come within the five days, or at any time. After her initial attempt to lodge a complaint four weeks ago, she is still waiting for the DWP to call back. So much for five days.

Mrs Dodds says that following her experiences over the past two years, she suffers from depression and anxiety. We can easily understand why. She has gone from being a wife and mother looking after her family full time to being completely dependent on the care of others. I understand there are inherent difficulties in introducing a whole new benefit. I also understand that PIP’s more rigorous and improved assessment process will lead to an increase in work for DWP staff, but the length of time it has taken to process Mrs Dodds’ claim is unacceptable and completely wrong.

The second constituent’s case that I want to highlight is that of Mr Terry Read, also from Beverley. He lives with his 16-year-old daughter and is unable to work because of his disability. Following a deterioration in his condition, he applied for a reassessment of his personal independence payment to reflect his change of circumstances in October 2014. It was not until April 2015 that he was given a medical assessment. Every day his condition was deteriorating. Every day he called the DWP to ask why the decision was taking so long. When he contacted me, he said he was at his wits’ end. When DWP eventually awarded him the benefit last week, it did not backdate it to when the decision was made, so even after months of delays, he was given less money than he was entitled to in order to support the costs of his deteriorating condition.

Although I have named only two examples, many others have contacted me in the last few months about delays in receiving the personal independence payment. Mr Davies, you may be aware of a recent verdict in the High Court: the judge ruled that the delays experienced by two PIP claimants were unlawful. In that case, the claimants had to wait more than seven months for their benefit applications to be processed. The benefit should assist with the additional costs of disabilities, but the delays make disabled people reliant on family, friends and carers, when they want to be able to support themselves. In many cases, the delays cause added stress and anxiety, which aggravates claimants’ conditions.

From October this year, those still claiming disability living allowance will be invited to make a claim for the personal independence payment. That is why it is so vital that problems in the system are resolved now, and that average delays continue to decrease. What steps has the Minister taken to reduce delays in processing applications? What lessons can be learned from the roll-out so far, as October will be the beginning of a large and doubtless challenging process? What is his analysis of what has gone wrong?

I am aware that there are particular difficulties in setting up and running assessment centres in sparsely populated rural areas. I chair the Rural Fair Share campaign and the all-party group on rural services. It is easy to design policies in this place that do not work very well for vulnerable disabled people in rural areas, where there might be few, if any, public transport services and there is a real challenge in getting to cities to be assessed. I have spoken on numerous occasions in this place about the need for the Government to ensure that their policies are rural-proofed. A disabled person who happens to live in a rural area should not have to wait longer for an assessment for the financial support on which they rely for their independence.

Is the Minister investigating the feasibility of pop-up assessment centres that have shorter opening hours, but that enable people living in rural areas, such as my constituents, to have their assessments carried out locally? If further work could be done, or if there were guidelines on what such a pop-up centre might require, perhaps communities including those in my area could look at them and identify premises where such provision could be made available.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. He seems to be implying that rural constituencies such as his and mine suffer more delays than urban constituencies. Has he been able to conduct any research into this, because one would assume that it is more difficult to employ assessors in urban areas than in rural areas?

[Graham Stuart]

I cannot claim to have done such research, but perhaps the Minister can cast some light on the matter. Perhaps we could jointly request further work to see what can be done to try to make sure that we have a balanced system that serves everybody as equitably as possible.

I do not know whether it is wise to pick up something from Facebook at the last minute, but in response to a notice about this debate, a constituent posted this a few minutes ago:

“8 weeks to decide if you are eligible. Another 8 weeks to receive the form. You have 2 weeks to complete it. It then takes then another 8 weeks to arrange someone to visit you and a further 8 weeks for them to decide. That was what I got told this morning when I rang up! That's 34 weeks!!!! How on earth can they justify that????? We will back date it to the date I applied. It will be no good by then....!! Idiots and that's being polite”.

I hope the Minister will be able throw light on that and make sure people are not given such messages, because that is not my understanding of what the situation should look like.

I conclude by stressing again that I support in full the principle behind the Government’s reform of disability benefit. It is right that we target financial assistance at those who need it most, in a way that takes into account the changing nature of many people’s disabilities. I commend the Government’s success in bringing down the overall average processing time in recent months, albeit from unacceptable heights. However, my constituents’ cases show that significant further progress is still required in implementing this reform effectively and ensuring that the system is capable of handling the 1.5 million claimants who still need to migrate from DLA to PIP later this year. I look forward to working constructively with the Government to address the remaining delays that compound the despair and anguish felt by many of my disabled constituents.

[Philip Davies (in the Chair)]

I intend to go to the Front Benchers no later than 5.25 pm. Five people are seeking to catch my eye. You can do the maths yourselves, but if everyone is to get a fair crack of the whip, there will be about five minutes each. I am not imposing a time limit, but I hope people will be mindful of that, so that everyone gets a fair chance.

--- Later in debate ---

[Graham Stuart]

I thank Members from all parties for their contributions, and the Minister for his extremely constructive response. My final message to those listening or viewing this debate is that they should contact their Member of Parliament with any problems because we will take them straight to the Minister and ensure that his aspirations are real and delivered on the ground. We must all work together to ensure that that happens so that disabled people everywhere are treated fairly.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered processing of personal independence payment applications.

Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Welfare Reform (Disabled People)

Graham Stuart Excerpts

Tuesday 28th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House notes the comments of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Welfare Reform, Lord Freud, on 30 September 2014 that the work of disabled people is not worth the minimum wage; believes that these comments have further undermined trust among disabled people in this Government’s policies, a trust which had already been damaged by delays in assessments for a personal independence payment, problems with work capability assessments, and the poor performance of policies aimed at helping disabled people into work; further notes that the conduct of Lord Freud had already damaged that trust through his oversight of the housing benefit social sector size criteria which has had a particularly severe impact on disabled people, many of whom have nowhere else to move to and need extra room for medical equipment or carers; and therefore concludes that this House has no confidence in the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Welfare Reform; and calls on the Prime Minister to dismiss him.

I offer the apologies of my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) who is unable to be in the Chamber today.

This afternoon, the eyes of millions of disabled people, their families, friends and carers are on this House. They include people such as Ciara, who has a learning disability. I had the pleasure of meeting her in Parliament a few weeks ago. She works full time for Mencap. When she heard of the noble Lord Freud’s remarks about disabled people, she said:

“People with a disability are often made to feel like second class citizens and face many barriers when trying to receive the same rights as everyone else, especially in employment. Having a politician place further barriers to us being included is incredibly upsetting and frankly quite frightening.”

[Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Kate Green]

Not yet. No, I will not.

Ciara continued:

“I hope politicians realise that people with a disability should be encouraged to become active citizens, and not to be discriminated against for their disability, and I want to call for a full explanation of how these comments are deemed acceptable in this day and age.”

I hope that this debate will give Ciara some answers.

[Mr Stuart]

There are 116,000 more disabled people in work now than there were a year ago. Is it not time that the Labour party stopped using the disabled to smear its opponents, and supported this Government’s and Lord Freud’s efforts to get people mainstream jobs, rather than leave them stuck in joblessness or Potemkin factories?

[Kate Green]

I am astounded by that intervention immediately after I had quoted the concerns of a disabled woman.

For many months under this Government, disabled people have endured hardship, hostility and fear. They have lived with the consequences of Ministers’ decisions, which are causing them and their families real pain. As things have got worse, they have lost all faith that Ministers understand their lives. They do not believe that the Government are on their side. They have become anxious and despairing, desperate and insecure.

The remarks of the noble Lord Freud last month that disabled people were not worth the minimum wage sparked an outpouring of anger and outrage. That has prompted this debate today, for those remarks go to the heart of the collapse in trust in this Government among disabled people, not just because they might be thought a plausible statement of Government policy or of what the Government really think deep down—that is what a Freudian slip is, after all—but because disabled people already know from the effect that the Government’s policies are having on their lives that they are not valued by this Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kate Green]

No, I will make some progress.

We heard again this morning in Westminster Hall that the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), is determined to bring down the waiting times for PIP assessments to 16 weeks. That is welcome, but he should acknowledge that it is a less ambitious timetable than the 12 weeks from application to decision that the Government initially suggested in the PIP toolkit. Meanwhile, disabled people are left high and dry for months. I have constituents who have waited almost a year for an assessment. My constituent, Mr W, has even received compensation for the delay that he has experienced. I was shocked when I asked the Minister how much compensation payments had cost the taxpayer. In a written answer on 20 September, he told me that the Department for Work and Pensions is not bothering to keep a record.

Most pertinently, when the Under-Secretary of State for Welfare Reform says that the way to get more disabled people into employment is to cut their pay, I point to the failure of a raft of Government policies. The work capability assessment, which was introduced by Labour in a staged manner, was then pushed through by this Government in a botched rush. There is now a backlog: 600,000 cases are awaiting a first assessment. Reassessments have been put on ice altogether. People are waiting for weeks, in some cases with no money at all coming in, for mandatory reconsideration. There is a terrible record of poor-quality decision making and a huge number of cases have been appealed successfully. Just last week, The Independent reported that thousands of people with degenerative conditions are being put in the work-related activity group and denied the support element of employment and support allowance. Can Members imagine the anxiety that that must cause, not to mention the waste of resources?

At the same time, the number of people being put into the support group overall is rising rapidly. Far from getting people into work, more people are being cast aside by the coalition Government. People are being abandoned, exactly as happened under Mrs Thatcher, when incapacity benefit was used as a means of massaging down the unemployment figures. Of course disabled people who are not able to work must get the support to which they are entitled, but many disabled people could work and would love to work, and they are being truly failed by the Government.

The hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart) highlighted the number of people who have moved into work, but he should also acknowledge that the gap between the employment rates of working-age disabled and non-disabled adults remains at a stubborn 30%.

[Mr Graham Stuart]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Kate Green]

No, I will not at the moment, if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, because I want to finish my point.

For a while under Labour that gap was closing, but now progress has stalled. The Work programme—the Government’s flagship programme for getting people into work—is totally failing disabled people, getting only around one in 20 into sustained employment. It is worse than if there were no programme at all.

One year after the last factory closed, 50% of Remploy workers are still without work. The number of people on the Access to Work programme, which helps with adaptations in the workplace to enable disabled people to work, has fallen by 1,800 since 2009-10, and more and more people are reporting difficulty in accessing it. Although last year the DWP claimed that it was expanding Access to Work to cover internships and placements, and that that would benefit hundreds of disabled people, on 9 September the Minister told me in a written answer that he could not provide me with statistics to show how many people had benefited. Meanwhile, the number of specialist disability employment advisers in Jobcentre Plus is down 20% under this Government, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) pointed out, Ministers are cutting the disabled students allowance by upwards of £70 million.

[Mr Stuart]

This is a difficult area in which to get policy right, and criticisms can be made of this Government and indeed the previous Government. What is the point of personalising this issue when Lord Freud was wrestling with exactly the issue the hon. Lady has just identified? How do we get the disabled into work, and how do we support them? If, because of their severe disability their commercial value is not right, how do we supplement that? That is what Lord Freud meant and I think the hon. Lady knows that. Perhaps she will put that on the record.

[Kate Green]

I will put on the record that it was not anybody making those remarks but the Under-Secretary of State for Welfare Reform. He is responsible for making decisions that affect millions of disabled people’s lives, and they took deep offence and were hurt by what they heard him say. Those remarks exemplify Government policies that are failing the objective that the hon. Gentleman describes. That is why we think it important to connect Lord Freud’s remarks with wider Government policy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Graham Stuart]

rose—

[Mr Harper]

I will make a bit more progress because other hon. Members wish to speak.

On Lord Freud’s focus in office, he has been working with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and is one of the driving forces behind the introduction of universal credit. That reform will be important in our welfare system for many years. Most of the gains from universal credit will go to those in the bottom 40% of the income distribution. It means that we will be able to look people in the eye and tell them that work will always pay, and that more work will pay for them. It also increases spending on disabled households and enables disabled people to earn nearly £8,000 a year without affecting their universal credit entitlement.

Opposition Members know that Lord Freud has been at the heart of the Government’s work on understanding how we can provide better employment support to people with mental health problems. Working closely with the Minister with responsibility for care and support, my right hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), he has pioneered the introduction of pilots to test the best ways to support people with mild and moderate mental health problems into work.

In 2012, Lord Freud drove and penned the foreword to “Untapped Talent”, a guide to employing people with autism produced jointly by the Department for Work and Pensions and the National Autistic Society. Lord Freud said:

“We need to be clear to employers that making business environments more ‘autism friendly’ is not about meeting corporate social responsibility objectives, but about tapping into and seeking out the most talented individuals for a role…People with autism can have exceptional talents and by making some straightforward adjustments can prove to be a tremendous asset to business. We need to do more to make use of those talents.”

That sets out his view about disabled people clearly. Any fair and reasonable person would conclude that my noble Friend wants more disabled people in work and has dedicated his time in the Government to ensuring that that can be so.

[Mr Stuart]

My hon. Friend is doing a tremendous job staying calm in responding to the scandalous opening speech by the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green). Compounding the cynicism, she tried to make out that discrimination against disabled people is a function of this Government. Is he aware of the 2007 Leonard Cheshire Disability review, which found that 89% of disabled people at that time felt discriminated against in Britain? Conservatives did not try to pin that on the Labour party. For Labour Members to pin that discrimination on us is below them.

[Mr Harper]

My hon. Friend is right. I see in the Chamber a Member who served as a Minister for disabled people. She will know that, when I shadowed her, my approach was always to work in a consensual and bipartisan manner so that we could do the best for disabled people. I am disappointed that Labour has not reciprocated.

Food Banks

Graham Stuart Excerpts

Wednesday 18th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

Support is being provided through the Cabinet Office. I am extremely proud that through our social action fund we have granted £1.7 million to Tearfund, which runs programmes in partnership with the Cinnamon Network that aim to tackle a variety of local issues such as food banks and food poverty. I am proud to say that 81 Trussell Trust-run food bank franchises benefited from that funding. More funding is being made available and more franchises are applying for it. This Government are very proud to place on record our acknowledgement of and congratulations to food banks. We have an active programme to support them

[Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

Will the Minister join me in congratulating those who recently helped set up a food bank in Beverley, those who have run the Holderness food bank from Hornsea—the church groups and others—for the last two years, and the Real Aid children’s charity in Tickton outside Beverley, which does so much to help those in crisis? There will always be people in crisis; we need to make sure we have in place the measures to support them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Graham Stuart Excerpts

Monday 1st July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hoban]

The Work programme providers argued for freedom and flexibility over who to contract with, but we have introduced the Merlin standard to govern the relationship between Work programme contractors and their subcontractors. If organisations have concerns about the way they have been treated by the Work programme providers, they should refer those concerns to the Merlin committee.

[Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

Will the Minister join me in congratulating Jobcentre Plus in the Beverley and Holderness area on working closely with me in organising a jobs fair, which hundreds of local people attended; on the part it has played in ensuring that Beverley and Holderness has one of the highest figures on apprentice starts in the country; and on the fact that unemployment is now 3.5%? There has been a 20% drop in youth unemployment in my constituency in the past year.

[Mr Hoban]

I will join my hon. Friend in congratulating his local Jobcentre Plus on the work it has done. Jobcentre Plus does an excellent job in helping people into work, but of course helped by the private sector, which has created 1.3 million new jobs since May 2010.

Oral Answers to Questions

Graham Stuart Excerpts

Monday 10th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

The right hon. Gentleman will have heard the Chancellor only last Thursday reaffirm our commitment to state pension reform, and to do exactly that—to ensure that people who work hard and save hard are clear of means testing. The White Paper is at an advanced stage.

[Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

Will the Minister reassure the House that the Government will not repeat the measures introduced in 1997 by the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), which undermined the basis of work-based pensions? Does the Minister understand why the right hon. Gentleman is so often absent, which is doubtless due to his embarrassment about that assault on security?

[Steve Webb]

My hon. Friend is right. That was one of several measures that took money out of final salary pension schemes, which, given they were the highest-quality schemes available, was no way to show commitment to quality pension provision.

Universal Credit and Welfare Reform

Graham Stuart Excerpts

Tuesday 11th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

I want to touch on three themes. First, the importance of this debate goes beyond universal credit, because it is the big test of whether an approach to welfare reform that has been increasingly based on means-testing is the correct strategy for us to follow. Secondly, I want to explain why I fear that this will be a disaster despite all the comforting words that we have heard. Thirdly, I want to suggest to my right hon. and hon. Friends that if that is the view that emerges in the country, we will need an alternative to strategies of the kind that we have been deploying for the past 50 or more years.

First, I have nothing but praise for the Secretary of State for how he has engaged with the debate. He has accomplished an extraordinary feat by getting into a new area, mastering it and introducing his own proposals; but the fact that he is so exceptional in that sense does not necessarily mean that his proposals will work or are desirable. Means tests rot the souls of individuals. We have heard lots of talk about how important this is and how people will be better off in work than out of work, but even if someone is a saint, means tests will corrupt them.

Let us assume that someone who wants to work is in the very small group of people whom we are paying more than 90%, which will be reduced to 65%. Under this reform, the number of people who will pay higher marginal tax rates will be higher than that under the previous proposal. What is being clawed back makes people question whether it would be worth taking on overtime, an extra job or getting qualifications. If those on the Treasury Bench think that the rich in this country will not get off their backsides and work harder if we tax them at 50% and that we therefore need to reduce the rate to 45%, why do they think that that stick of making people marginally better off will work for the poor?

There are two groups of people: those who are in work wondering whether they would be better off, and the 1.45 million people—which is the figure that the hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) kept coming up with—who have never worked. If those on the Treasury Bench think that tweaking the marginal rates of tax will get a large number of those who have turned down jobs actually to work, they have another think coming. That is not to say that there are not huge armies of people who wish to work and who would jump at any job, but we delude ourselves and misrepresent our constituents if we believe that the whole body of people who are registered as having never worked since they left school are eager to get a job. They are not and they will certainly not be affected by universal credit.

My second point is on how the atmosphere has changed. For Third Reading of the Welfare Reform Bill, the Government Benches were full and Government Members were baying at us. Their tails were up and they were confident about the reform, but look at them now—they are going to run out of speakers unless the Whips get more into the Chamber. By contrast, a galaxy of Opposition Members want to contribute. [Interruption.] The seven-minute rule has been applied purely and simply because we will not otherwise fit in all the Opposition Members who wish to speak. The atmosphere is changing. The Secretary of State will not have seen how glum his supporters looked when he was making his contribution. It is a totally different situation from that during Second and Third Readings of the Bill. What some of us forecast is coming home to Government Members.

Let us put to one side all the IT schemes that we failed with and look at when we tinkered with tax credits back in 2005. That scheme was much narrower in scope than this one. The then Prime Minister had to come to the House to apologise for the chaos that we managed to create. Nearly 2 million people were being overpaid and there was little chance of getting the money back from them, and 750,000 people were being underpaid. The lessons for making the proposed changes, even if they are made in stages, are difficult. Although I wish the Government well, I doubt whether they will be that much better than we were when we implemented a reform that was far less ambitious than their scheme.

The disaster will not only come from the IT. Why the secrecy? Why has not the pilot on the operation of the scheme been released to the Department for Work and Pensions? The Secretary of State says that a member of the team is now in the Department, but I can tell him that, even if someone is a Minister in a Department, it is possible for people to make sure that departmental information cannot be accessed, never mind information that is shared by Departments. Why the secrecy over that? Why have the senior civil servants on this project been lost? Why cannot Opposition Members get more information about the real-time working? The crucial point is not whether Sainsbury’s or Marks and Spencer can fit into that—of course they will be able to. The problem is with the vast majority of employers from whom the Revenue already has difficulties getting an annual return, let alone a monthly return or an even more frequent one.

Perhaps understandably, the Government are secretive over their risk register. I hope that the National Audit Office will be more effective than Parliament has been in looking at that, so that we can be more aware of what the risks are and of how the Government have tried, or not tried, to counter them.

I do not have time to get on to my third theme. I will seek another occasion to discuss it. It is all very well for us to criticise what we fear is going to happen. Come the election, I hope that there will be an alternative proposal, based on real wage rates.

[Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Field]

I will give way, because then I can have an extra minute.

[Mr Stuart]

I was intervening to be helpful, because the right hon. Gentleman is making such interesting points, on which I hope he will expand.

Youth Unemployment

Graham Stuart Excerpts

Wednesday 9th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Byrne]

Let me just answer the hon. Gentleman’s question. He will know that the worst global recession since the 1920s was under way, yet despite that, before the election, youth unemployment was coming down. He must answer this question: how is it that this Government are doing so well, when since the beginning of this year long-term youth unemployment has risen by 68%? Hundreds of constituencies around the country have seen long-term youth unemployment double. If he has the right plan, can he explain exactly what is going so well?

[Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

As we know, the scar of unemployment on young people lasts through their lifetime; it has a tremendously negative impact. I do not think the right hon. Gentleman is getting the tone of this debate correct. In truth, in the years of economic boom on his watch, youth unemployment stayed resolutely high before peaking and rising following the crisis. We need to look at what we can do better to understand the youth employment market. He must at least acknowledge the steps that this Government are taking on training and apprenticeships. It may not be enough, but let us not use this as a party political football; let us try to be constructive.

[Mr Byrne]

I am grateful, at last, for a consensual note. [Laughter.] The hon. Gentleman’s hon. Friends might laugh, but the fact that long-term youth unemployment in his constituency is up by 48% this year is not a laughing matter. This debate is an opportunity for us to interrogate this Government on what they are doing to get youth unemployment down and how, ahead of the autumn statement, they should negotiate with the Chancellor for more resources to get our young people back to work.

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[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend is right; I am baffled as well. This is working far better than we expected and provides a significant piece of evidence to show that if we can get a young person into the workplace quickly to get them their initial experience, it can make a real difference. I am proud of what that scheme has achieved, and I would like to pay tribute to members of the Jobcentre Plus team up and down the country who are working with employers to find those work experience opportunities.

I had occasion a couple of weeks ago to meet a group of young people who are actively looking to try to get work experience opportunities because they believe it is a real route for young people to get into employment. We are now working with that campaign to make sure we help all the young people involved to get work experience opportunities. We are, as I say, a Department providing work experience opportunities to a large number of young people, and I believe this is an important ingredient of the support we provide to those who have just entered the labour market, who are trying to get into work after a short period out of work, to make a difference for that group.

[Mr Graham Stuart]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that a generation of young people were betrayed by vocational qualifications that were inappropriate, as the Wolf report indicated earlier this year? It is ironic to see the shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer among the Front-Bench team, because when he came before the Select Committee, which used to be chaired by the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), he refused to listen when he was told again and again that the diploma was going to be a hugely expensive mistake. He refused to listen, spent millions of pounds of public money and let down young people with a diploma programme that was not fit for purpose.

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend has made a good point. To be honest, I do not know why any of us listens to this lot. They were a disaster in Government, and the country is well rid of them. What we are trying to do now is repair the damage caused by 13 years of mismanagement.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Simmonds (Boston and Skegness) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery), but the only point on which I agreed with him was when he said that this is a very serious issue, and that we need an extremely detailed and fundamental rethink of how we address unemployment.

Every single person who is unemployed, whether young, middle-aged or old, experiences a personal tragedy, and we need to do as much as we possibly can to address the situation, but the fundamental point is that we will not create jobs unless we have macro-economic stability.

To get macro-economic stability, we have to get the deficit under control, and the coalition Government must not change course. They must stick to the course that they have set, otherwise the economy will not grow, because controlling the structural deficit is a pre requisite of economic growth, not a substitute for it.

Of course there is growing unemployment, but youth unemployment grew by 40% between 1997 and 2010, so it is not a new problem or issue. Indeed, the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne), who speaks for the Opposition on this matter, made surreptitious use of statistics, with some of those that he gave painting a wholly inaccurate picture. Interestingly his only solution to the problem was more tax and more spend, the formula that clearly did not work under 13 years of the Labour party in government.

[Mr Graham Stuart]

Is it not true that in Hull and other cities throughout the country, the previous Government ignored youth unemployment, which stayed steady even as the general economy boomed? The truth is that on too many estates the Labour party abandoned people, threw them on welfare and did not provide them with the employment or education that they needed to better themselves?

[Mark Simmonds]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I think I am correct in saying that 97% of current youth unemployment was inherited by this Government from the Labour Administration.

I have three or four suggestions for what the Government might do in addition to the excellent job that they are already doing. The first suggestion is to provide a greater emphasis on lifelong learning through not just traditional learning theatres, but online learning in particular. Secondly, the costs to, and regulations on, businesses must be reduced. For example, businesses are being used for informal tax gathering, which is highly regressive and has a disproportionate impact on small and medium-sized enterprises, thereby inhibiting their ability to create jobs. There needs to be a close look at exempting businesses from a raft of regulations and bureaucracy which has a negative impact on their ability to create jobs. We must also find mechanisms—I hope the Chancellor is looking at this—to incentivise businesses to invest, to create wealth and, therefore, to create jobs for young people and for others.

Owing to the long-term nature of the problem, the education system clearly fails far too many young people. It is clear also from the rise in youth unemployment, which began long before the current economic crisis, that the education system did not meet employers’ needs, but the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning, my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes) is doing an excellent job of trying to make businesses and education link up and perform in that way.

The Government are absolutely right on their key policy areas, such as rolling out broadband to enable people to engage with technological businesses and innovation, and increasing the Work programme. It is absolutely right to involve independent sector providers to deliver personalised help. There is significant evidence in my constituency that the work providers and the Work programme are getting jobs for people whom the state structures had failed for up to 18 months beforehand. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to deliver improved apprenticeships. In my constituency they are up 67% this year, and in the east midlands the figure is 60%. They are significant achievements, and my hon. Friend should rightly be proud of them.

The introduction of university technical colleges is absolutely right, and I hope that there will be many more of them. Then there is the new enterprise allowance and the link between volunteering and work experience. My hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) was right that it is important for people to get something on their CVs. A link with the voluntary sector may enable that to happen. The Government are on exactly the right lines. They need to continue and they must not be deterred from controlling the structural deficit.