Department for Work and Pensions

Debate between Guy Opperman and Margaret Greenwood

Tuesday 4th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Guy Opperman]

No.

The Government have never paid more for the pensions that we support in this country, we have never paid more for the benefit support that we provide in this country, we have never paid more for the housing support that we provide in this country, and we have never paid more for the disabled in this country. As we celebrate the 75th anniversary of the national health service, let me also put on record my thanks to the NHS. I have had my life saved twice by the NHS, once after I collapsed in Central Lobby in 2011. I got into politics because of my attempts to save my local hospital, and I am proud to have visited Hexham General Hospital this week to see the amazing new maternity suite that has recently been opened.

Much has been said today about a variety of issues, but I want to try to put the debate in context. The Government clearly understand the pressures that households are facing. We are all familiar with the root causes of our higher costs, including the global factors: the illegal war in Ukraine brought about by Vladimir Putin, the aftermath and consequences of the pandemic, and the furlough scheme and the other support that we set out in great detail and the country provided at a time of difficulty. We are committed to delivering on our priority of halving inflation, which will help to ease those pressures for everyone and raise living standards.

Alongside that work, we continue to implement a significant package of cost of living measures to support the most vulnerable during 2023-24. We have increased benefits and state pensions by 10.1%, and raised the benefit cap by the same amount so that more people feel the benefit of uprating. For low-paid workers, we have increased the national living wage by 9.7% to £10.42 an hour; that represents an increase of more than £1,600 in the gross annual earnings of a full-time worker on the national living wage. That increase, and the increases that we made in the national minimum wage in April, have given a pay rise to about 2.9 million workers. To help parents, we are delivering a significant expansion of childcare support, including a 47% increase in the maximum amount of universal credit childcare payments. As I said in the House last week, that is a dramatic increase. In addition, where there are gaps in provision, notwithstanding the above cost of living payments, the £842 million extension of our household support fund into 2023-24 means that councils across England can continue to help families with grocery bills and other essentials.

[Margaret Greenwood]

Some universal credit claimants can apply to have the housing elements of their universal credit paid directly to the landlord. However, a report by the Child Poverty Action Group on the discovery phase of managed migration identified delays or errors in the setting up of direct payments and poor communication between the DWP, landlords and claimants, leading to people falling into arrears. That is clearly a serious state of affairs for anyone to find themselves in. Will the Minister tell us what the Government are going to do about it?

[Guy Opperman]

I will ask the Minister who is responsible for that to write to the hon. Lady. However, her intervention brings me to the issue of housing, which was raised by several Members.

In 2022-23, the Government are projected to have spent £30 billion to support renters. That is 1.4% of GDP. Members may have criticised that sum, but they should be aware that it represents the highest spending on household rental support in any country in the OECD. The next highest is 0.9% of GDP. That figure is clearly higher than the figure that obtained when we came to office. Moreover, there are 2 million more homes than there were then, and more homes are meeting decent homes standards. I could go on.

Employment now stands at 30 million. It is up 23,000 on the month and 73,000 on the quarter, and vacancies are down again—35,000 down on the month in May and 79,000 down on the quarter. Today I met representatives of UKHospitality and a host of hospitality providers at the Department to discuss some of the long-term vacancy issues that they wished to raise. I believe we can continue to work with jobcentres throughout the country to try and address that, and to increase the overall employment rate, which was up by 0.1% on the month and 0.2% on the quarter, with unemployment down by 0.1 percentage points on the month as of May. Economic inactivity is down by 0.4 percentage points on the quarter and down by 781,000 since the 2010 general election. It is clear that the pandemic had impacts, and the progress in certain areas is not as quick as one would like, but we have made huge efforts to turn that around, and all the indications from all the labour market statistics released by the Office for National Statistics in May are that the trends are in the right direction.

[Margaret Greenwood]

Will the Minister give way?

[Guy Opperman]

No, I will not. I have already given way to the hon. Lady.

Let me say something about cost of living payments. We are building on, and extending, the one-off cash payments that we provided in 2022-23, when we made more than £30 million worth of cost of living payments, including the £150 disability payment to 6 million people, £650 for more than 8 million households on means-tested benefits, and an additional £300 on top of the winter fuel payment for more than 8 million pensioner households. That put hundreds of pounds directly and quickly into the pockets of millions of people.

Criticism was made of universal credit as a principle. The first—and simple—point that I would make, which I think was acknowledged by the Chair of the Select Committee, is that the legacy system would in no way have been able to provide the degree of support that universal credit provided during covid, and it would in no way be able to provide an ongoing degree of cost of living support. Universal credit, as we see, provides a massive amount of support on an ongoing basis, which is targeted to help those most impacted by rising prices throughout this financial year.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Guy Opperman and Margaret Greenwood

Monday 9th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Guy Opperman)]

As my hon. Friend will be aware, this was introduced in 2012 and has been a cross-party success story. It is fantastically good news for her constituents in Kensington, where 39,000 residents are signed up to an 8% automatic enrolment. Due thanks need to be given to the 5,300 local businesses who are supporting individual constituents, who are receiving 8% per annum workplace savings.

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

The Government tried to justify introducing the new bereavement support payment in April 2017 on the grounds that it modernises support, but couples who are not married or not in a civil partnership are not eligible. Last month, the High Court in England found that that is incompatible with human rights legislation and discriminates against children of unmarried parents. The Prime Minister has admitted that that is an injustice, so when will the Government put it right?